Emerging Compassions
Chapter 21: Slowly Establishing a Cure
(Jimmy's POV)
Technically speaking, it was Sheen's fault he got into my hazardous chemicals, but it was indirectly my fault because I, only half-listening to him, told him he could do whatever he wanted, and that meant messing with my volatile chemicals, to him, at least. In order to cure him of H1N1, or the dreaded swine flu, I needed at least 3 rare ingredients to form an antidote that would cure him instantly. The only problem was that each of them were on separate islands, and we were on Celebes, while the ingredients were on Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, not to mention my rocket is only fixed enough to go 200 miles at the most in spurts. This may take a while...
Once I'd determined that Sheen was carrying the dreaded swine flu, I unlatched him and woke him up with a splash of water from Goddard. When I told the others what Sheen had contracted, Carl overreacted and thought he was turning into a pig, but I explained to him that this was much more serious than that.
With that, we all clambered into my partially-fixed rocket and, with a bit of struggling, I got it up in the air.
We'd been gone for a few weeks, and I'd already knew by then we'd probably failed that science project from a few weeks ago. But, knowing Miss Fowl, she'll probably be a sucker for anything spectacular I might create, and will probably will give me an "A+" for creating such a thing, not to mention a bonus from before to make up for my missing that science project. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
Within about an hour, which was how long it took due to how damaged my rocket still was, we made it to Borneo, and we touched down in the central, mountainous part of the region where there was a clearing big enough for my rocket.
Once we got out, Sheen took one look around at our surroundings, then said with a couple coughs, "Wow, fascinating. *coughs sporadically* Okay, I'm bored."
"Sheen, do you need a cough drop?" I asked of him, reaching into a compartment near the driver's seat of my rocket.
"*coughs* Yeah," he replied, accepting one I handed to him and putting it in his mouth to suck on.
I couldn't help but notice that, while I was digging around in that compartment, Cindy was giggling to herself. So I stopped what I was doing, turned around to face her, and asked, "What's so funny, Cindy?"
"Oh, nothing...," she replied, trying to stifle her giggling by covering her mouth.
"Oh, okay," I said, and returned to what I'd been doing. That was when I heard her giggling even more, louder that time. So I turned around again and questioned suspiciously, "What IS it, Cindy?"
"When you bend over like that, I can see-! *laughs hysterically*" she began to respond, then laughed hysterically, pointing.
I didn't need to hear any more of what she had to say about that; I knew what she was talking about. With my face bright red, I reached down and gave my cover-ups a tug downward to keep them from riding up. Then I turned to Cindy and informed her, "Try to be more subtle about it next time, okay, Cin?"
Her giggling slowing down to a stop, she replied, "Okay, Jimmy, hee-hee, hee-hee..."
Then I announced, "Guys, we have to focus on what we came here for: finding the first rare ingredient to the antidote in order to cure Sheen."
"Okay," they agreed, and followed me and Goddard into the forest. It wasn't long before Goddard spotted something and pointed to it, acting like a pointer hound when it'd found something.
"Good work, boy!" I congratulated him with a pat on his head, then picked the rare plant and placed it in my hypercube for storage.
Then we headed back to my rocket, clambered inside it, and with just a bit of struggling, got it up in the air again and headed towards coastal Sumatra.
It took us about another hour to reach our destination, then I gently landed it and got out with everyone in order to explore the coastal landscape.
It wasn't long before we heard a yelp from Carl, so we ran over to him and I wanted to know, "Carl, what is it this time?"
"A crab pinched me!" he complained, holding up his foot.
I had Goddard kill the crab and remove it, then I realized aloud, "This species of crab is one of the rarest in the world! It's only found here in Sumatra. This crab has the next ingredient for the antidote that'll cure Sheen." I then picked up the dead crab and slipped it into my hypercube for later access.
Then we retreated to my rocket, got in, and with several failed attempts, got it running again and we were soon on our way to coastal Java.
When we got there an hour later, I discovered that all we needed was some rare Indonesian rice, so we all headed towards the city of Semerang. We walked up to one of the rice paddies there and saw someone working them. I then had Goddard translate our English into Bahasa Indonesia so the native could understand us. "Excuse me, ma'am, but could we take some of your rice plants from this paddy?" I asked her, and Goddard translated. Then she replied in Bahasa Indonesia, which Goddard translated back into, "Why are you asking to have some of my rice plants? This paddy has been in my family for generations."
Additionally, with Goddard's help, we carried on this conversation:
"My friend here is sick, and I'm making him an antidote that needs some of the rice plants that you have here in order to cure him."
"He doesn't look that sick."
"The infection hasn't completely started to affect him yet, but you can never be too careful! He desperately needs this antidote in order to live, and this disease he's harboring is the recently discovered dreaded swine flu, H1N1."
"Oh! That changes everything! Sure, you can pick some!"
"Thank you so much!" I concluded, and gratefully picked some of the rice crop from the paddy. Then we returned to the rocket, but not without hearing her say something in her native language, which Goddard translated to, "Good luck on curing your friend!"
"Thank you, kind person! Good-bye!" I hollered back, which Goddard translated again back to her.
We all climbed back into my rocket and, after some failed attempts to start it up, blasted off again, this time headed back to Celebes where our camp was located so I could start making Sheen's antidote.