Oi oi, kids! This is the story of how I found out my friend from the big country of the lake-dwelling dinosaur (the Loch Ness Monster according to Mr Devon) caught a nasty bug.
No, it's not those gentle bugs that I often find in the park, like butterflies or worms (even though I find them very slimy) or caterpillars or even ladybirds. It was something that affected her entirely. Without realising, my friend had caught not just a painful mouth ulcer, but a very sore throat. A few days passed without me noticing when she is sick, but suddenly, it happened.
No, she didn't catch something horrible, what I did find out was she was feeling terrible. Her head ached, her throat was as dry as a desert and her tummy kept screaming for more food, even though I don't want people to get fat from eating too much. By too much, I meant cakes and biscuits and crisps and ice cream and sweets. I thought she had drunk too much wine like how someone fed me too much wine during the wedding I thought was a fairy tea party - and I know how crazy weddings could be.
You wear a bow and you are forced to speak in a very squeaky little girl's voice. Then you are forced to attend a boring wedding ceremony where the vicar (mostly, Reverend Brighteyes) talks about boring things uniting the happy couple together like love and friendship and happiness. Then once they kiss (disgusting!), the wedding photos are taken, and you have to stand at the very back while everyone else goes front and centre. And then, the wedding party. It's like attending what grown ups call an 'All Nighter'. Their dancing and stamping black shoes on the wooden floor is too much. The lights may be colourful, but they flash on and off very fast. When the married couple fools around cutting the wedding cake, which I find very delicious, they fool around with it so much everyone starts throwing cake around and you get very sticky and grubby! Yuck! And then, the worst part is, when you're a car and you put on a really high voice to pretend to be a bridesmaid, some wild family member of either the bride or groom pours wine into your petrol tank, and you come out with kiss marks all over you, spouting the most nonsensical gibberish anyone's ever heard in the history of the world ever.
Well, she also felt as tired and dizzy as I was when the bride's brother, aptly named Uncle Hardpart, poured wine into my petrol tank. I thought it was vertigo, and to me it's when you turn purple from that bug that's spreading - but according to dear old Miss Lollipop, it's when someone feels dizzy from being high up.
So, I wanted to trundle along to the support neighbourhood to see what to matter was, but on the way there, I was stopped by a kid I knew from the big school, Stephanie, who told me that something horrible was going around Key, and it's affecting one of the people who is her older sister, and they need a lot of caring for.
I trundled into town to consult the chemist about what my friend is going through. But what could've caused it? Perhaps He Who Made Everything Good was trying hard to spread his butter on his breakfast toast and he threw the carton out of Heaven, spreading his butter all over the neighbourhood and making everything smell of beef and mustard sandwiches - the ones Mr Red has on his lunch break. Or maybe it was an outbreak of chicken pox, just like Mrs Sweetheart the stationary shop owner told me when it was Valentine's Day. Or maybe, just like I thought on that day, aliens have taken over everyone's bodies! OH NO!
But when I reached the chemist and told her what happened, she sighed, shook her head and told me this:
"I think there is a nasty bug going around at Key."
A bug? But bugs don't go around selling pies or cakes or jewelry or even handmade doll's house furniture, their job is to crawl around the grass and get spotted on a nature walk. And a bee's job is to be screamed at by people when they want to have all your food for their lunch break during a nice picnic in the country - well, what I meant to say was, bees work hard as far as I'm told. They work so hard their little legs fall off until they become thorns in roses. Ouch! That must hurt.
But what the chemist told me that it's not a life size bug, it's a bug that's like a harmless cold or flu virus that spreads around one neighbourhood. She told me that you can have that bug and then feel totally fine about it - but you can spread it to someone who is really sick, like my friend's very bossy support worker whose son had to go to hospital because of a terrible patch of dry skin on his arm, or one of her fun support worker's children who had a terrible allergy from eating something horrible and had to go and get surgery, which is terrifying when you think about it. And a dry patch on your skin is just as worse as the itchy, scaly skin you have when you are an alligator - you scratch and scratch and scratch all day long.
She told me that the nights may be sleepless and she may be constantly kept awake by a rumbling tummy, a dry throat, tired eyes and an achy head, but the good thing to do is to quarantine yourself in your own house and never go back to support trips until the bug is sprayed on by good care. Mums and dads, especially my friend's own Mummy, must learn to understand four needs, based on what Noddy taught me when he found out Big Ears was sick and needed his shopping done, the lazy oaf:
- "I'm thirsty!"
- "I'm hungry!"
- "My head hurts."
- "I'm tired."
And I also told one of the kindly old women visiting the chemist, Mrs Marmalade, who always carries her ginger cat Peach with her, about what my friend should do should no one know the answers to any of her questions about what she should do next. She told me this: "To find the answer, you must ask and answer the question to yourself. If you ask someone else, they won't be able to know. The answer can come from you - your mind is foggy when you have a bug, but that's okay. You have to look through it to find the answer."
So, from what I learnt, here's one of my wise little rhymes to help you when you're suffering the same disease as my friend:
"When you're thirsty, drink something cool.
When you're hungry, a filling meal rules.
When your head hurts, take little white pills.
When you feel tired, snuggle under the quilts."
What Brum is trying to say is, you need to drink, eat, take paracetamol and rest when you have a bug.
Thanks, mate! Remember:
Stop the spread and stay at home!
