Due to the recent epidemic of the cold/flu I was reminded of the worst cold I ever had, and it just so happens that it was on the final day of my three week odyssey.
I’d been on my own for three weeks and despite the parties and nightly gatherings, the majority of which lasted into the early hours, I never missed one day of school. I was a good boy, such a good boy in fact that on the final day of parents holiday when I was feeling the effects of a cold I still went to school.
My condition gradually worsened as the day went on. My head got fuzzier, my nose got runnier, my sweat gave my face a sheen and my bones ached.
My last class that day was a two hour art class, and when I got there I discovered that my art teacher was replaced by a substitute - We later found out that our art teacher would not be coming back and had apparently hit the jackpot and sold off a range of his painting to some gallery. I don’t have to tell you what happens in a class room when you have a substitute teacher, but I will say for the benefit of anyone who was a good student that it’s not a hell of a lot of work.
I sat beside Lisa Reynolds and, as this was the design portion of our Higher, she was diligently working away on whatever she had been making with glue, paper, glitter, and all kinds of other stuff which I wasn’t remotely interested in at the time. At the time I was too busy taking my illness like a man, that is to say I was bitching and moaning in a pathetic kind of way. Lisa kept telling me to shut up and kept messing about with her stuff so that she would stop working and keep me company in my weakened state. This back and forth went on for quite a while and by the time I gave up and put my head down on the desk Lisa was looking for revenge for my constant disruptions. I have to say, she did manage to brighten me up a bit, but I was none too applicative for it given that my brightening was less to do with light-hearted jovial conversation and sympathy and more to do with the glitter she sprinkled over me.
GLITTER FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I held my own for as long as I could, but my exhausted and sick body could only hold out for so long and I was over whelmed in glinting defeat. My sweat glazed face proved to be the perfect pallet for the glitter and was not helped any by my usual black ensemble. By the time I left the class people who walked past me had to shield their eyes from my radiant gleam.
I got home trailing twinkle like Tinkerbelle’s bastard son and I was ill. A lot of people say their ill a lot of the time, but they don’t know what ill is. Ill is wincing with every movement, ill is sweat making the clothes your wearing damp, ill is passing out while you try to take you school shirt off.
I woke up some time later with Johnny standing over me. I had said to all my friends just to come in while my parents were away, and I’m glad I did otherwise who knows how long I would have lay there.
The rest had done me good however and I felt a little healthier as Johnny and I were going down stairs. What I saw when I opened the living room door I wondered if I were maybe still asleep or perhaps hallucinating. It was the same feeling I had when I stepped into the kitchen. Did I do it before I passed out? No, I was sure I hadn’t but yet it was true; the house was clean!
I later found out that Sparkie’s dad had come over during my unconscious slumber and had cleaned the house from top to bottom, completely unaware that I was out cold in my room thanks to his respect for my privacy.
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