Day 1
It was a Sunday at the stump where Craig Williams was waiting for his friends Kelsey and J.P. to show up. While he waited, he noticed that the tree leaves were starting to change color as they usually did in the autumn. It may not be his favorite season, but he had to admit that multi-colored trees were a nice sight. His admiration was interrupted when he heard his phone ring. He answered it in video chat mode and saw his friends in their beds with green in their faces.
"Are you guys sick again?" Craig asked.
"Uh-huh." J.P. moaned.
"I too have been plagued." Kelsey said.
"Aw man. I guess I'll see you when you're all better." Craig said.
"Until we meet again." Kelsey coughed.
"I'll let you know if I make it or not." J.P. replied.
And after that short chat, they all hung up. Craig pondered for a moment what to do for the day. Fortunately he already had a backup idea.
"Looks like today is gonna be an Ice-pop Trio day."
A short while later, Craig arrived at Ramp City and found Cannonball sitting next to his bike instead of riding it for some reason.
"Hey Cannonball." Craig said.
"What's up Craig?" Cannonball asked.
"Kelsey and J.P. got sick and I thought the Ice-pop Trio could team up again." Craig explained. "How about it?"
"Well the rest of the Ten-speeds are sick too, so I had the same idea." Cannonball said. "But when I called Sparkle Cadet, it turned even she is
sick today."
Hearing that made Craig start thinking. Then he said "We better see who else is sick."
Craig and Cannonball searched the creek via bike riding and couldn't find anyone. That is until they arrived at the Trading Tree. There they found not only Kit trading with paintball Mike, but also Jason, Yustice, Bobby, the Sewer Queen, and the Junklord all sitting on logs while each having their
own snacks.
"Finally, other kids who aren't sick." Craig said. "So how bad is it Kit?"
"Well counting you two, I've only seen eight kids here so far." Kit answered as she gestured to the other six present children.
"It's true." the Sewer Queen said. "All of my subjects have fallen ill. So I came here so I could have some company."
"The same happened to Tony and Boris." Jason said.
"My brother and both our teams too." Paintball Mike said.
"Same for my fellow ninjas." Yustice said.
"Hey look, someone else is here." Bobby said, pointing at an open path.
Coming from that path was Eliza of the Tea-timers and she looked quite grumpy.
"Let me guess. Your friends got sick just like almost everyone else." the Junk lord said.
"Yes, Trash-boy. They did." Eliza rudely replied.
She pulled out some kind of fancy little cloth, placed it on a log, and sat on it with her arms crossed.
"I'm starting to think almost all of Herkleton got sick." Cannonball said.
"You're not too far off." a familiar voice said.
The kids all turned in the direction of the voice and saw Wren from the Alliance of Science.
"I've checked as much of the creek as I could." she continued. "And it appears that the flu season has struck early and contaminated all the children of the creek except for the eleven of us. And the worst part is according to my calculations, it could be this way FOR UP TO TWO WEEKS!"
"Two weeks!?" the other kids cried out.
"Well my business won't do well for a while." Kit said.
Yustice then noticed something and started counting.
"Ichi, nii, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu. Hey! Most of the Creek Council avoided the flu!"
The others were a little surprised by this coincidence.
"You're right Yustice. We're just one short." Craig pulled out a dog whistle. "Let's see if I can fix that."
He blew the whistle and waited. Soon enough, all of the kids could hear loud running. All of a sudden, a great big bear-like dog stopped before them with a girl on top.
"Wildernessa! Happy to see you didn't get sick." Craig greeted.
"Likewise Craig." Wildernessa replied. "Are we the only ones at the creek?"
"Indeed we are." the Sewer Queen said.
"It almost feels like a wasteland." Paintball Mike said.
"Maybe we should just go home." Bobby moped.
But just as some of the kids were about to leave...
"Wait! Don't you see the opportunity we have right now?" Craig asked.
"What are you talking about?" Eliza asked.
"The only times all twelve of us have been together were during emergencies." Craig explained. "But now we can do it just for fun. Play games, have adventures, maybe even help each other with something. I say we take this opportunity and go all out. Who's with me?"
"I'm down with that." Cannonball replied.
"I'm in." the Sewer Queen agreed.
"BRILLIANT!" Wren shouted.
"I like it." Jason responded.
"I'll do it." Bobby said.
"Cheesesticks and I are in too." Wildernessa declared.
"Well at least I won't be bored." Kit decided.
"I'm game." Paintball Mike accepted.
"Hai! That means yes." Yustice confirmed.
"What the heck." the Junklord conceded.
The group then looked at Eliza, the only one who hasn't said yes or no yet.
"If you don't want to Eliza, you don't have to." Craig said.
"And normally, I wouldn't." Eliza said. "But as Kit said, it would be too boring by myself. So for now, I'll play along. But only until the Tea-timers
reunite."
"Cool. So now that we're all agreed, what are we gonna do?" Kit asked.
"I'm more concerned about how we'll avoid conflict." Wren said. "Some of us don't see eye to eye most of the time."
"I didn't always get along with Jason or Wildernessa." Craig pointed out. "Look at us now."
"Have you forgotten that we all like different things?" the Junklord asked. "It could take forever to agree on something."
"He's right. We need to think this through." the Sewer Queen said.
So the kids thought about it for a while. Eventually, Bobby suggested something.
"Why don't we just do everything?"
"That just sounds like us doing our own things." Jason commented.
"Wait. Maybe Bobby's on to something." Craig said. "If the flu does last as long as Wren says, then we'll just use the simplest solution. Taking
turns so we can all do what we want. Each day, one of us could decide what we all do."
"Hmm. If we're gonna do that, then we should probably go home early today to prepare for our turns." Jason suggested.
"Do you really expect me to do anything gross." Eliza whispered to no one.
"I heard that! Your tea parties aren't any better!" Paintball Mike said.
Yustice stood between the two complainers and held her hands up to keep them from arguing, then asked "Are you sure that'll work?"
"Yes I'm sure." Craig answered. "Even if it's cut short, at least we'll have something to do. What do you say?"
After a moment to think about it, the whole group agreed to the idea, some of them reluctantly.
"So how do we decide the turn order?" Wildernessa asked.
"I think I have something." Kit said.
She checked the toy section of her locker and pulled out a hand-sized disc with an arrow like you'd find in some board games.
"How about each day we spin this and whoever it points to gets their turn?"
Once again, everybody agreed.
"Now that all that's out of the way, let's see who goes first." Craig said.
All twelve kids gathered into a circle with the disc in the middle. Kit flicked the arrow and away it spun. Some of them really wanted to go first.
Others were more curious than anything. The arrow stopped and pointed at...
Cannonball.
"Sweet." he said. "I'll get as many bikes as I can for tomorrow. See you at Ramp City."
Some of the kids were nervous about riding bikes, but said nothing in respect of the agreement. All of them left the creek shortly after the turn
selection to either decide what they want to do, get ready for their turns, or prepare themselves for tomorrow. Craig in particular was looking
forward to all the things they were all going to do together.
Author's note: As you can tell, I like the episode "Council of the Creek" and seeing arguably the best and brightest kids put aside their differences
to solve a problem concerning the whole creek. I later on knew I wanted a fanfic about them, but I had a little trouble deciding how to make it work. Then I thought about how they're only all together during emergencies and eventually came up with this. I already have some chapters planned out, but it'll take a while to write all of them. Also if you find my use of flu season unrealistic or something, it was the best excuse I could think of to make the story happen. And I'm never going to use "THAT" in any of my fanfics.
Fun fact: I've been using some dice and a coin to decide the turn order while writing each chapter to actually make it random.
