The Girl of Colours (Book TWO)

Wish Upon A Star

The examiners didn't see the spores until it was already too late for them, all inhaling great lungfuls, but I held my breath, for as long as I could, trying to open the door, but it was locked with a stupid deadbolt that was far too fiddly. The room kept filling with them through the aircon, and eventually I had to take a breath, and I felt them go down my windpipe, down to my lungs and diaphragm. But they just went straight back out when I let go of the air, and I felt fine.

Not that I could say the same for my examiners, who were unconscious on the floor, rashes all over their skin. "Thank you Time Lord biology." I muttered, giving up on the deadbolt that I really didn't know how to work, and just shattered the door with a blast of a sonic sound wave, and ran out.

There were the spores every where, and I could see rakweed was the cause, taking up everywhere there was a little bit of earth it could grow through, and put as many people into the recovery position as possible, knowing there was nothing that I could do to help them now. "Clyde! Rani!" I shouted, going into their class, finding rakweed in the back corner, and Miss Jerome lying unconscious, before running back out. "Clyde, Rani!"

"Callie, over here!" Clyde called back, and I ran over to where they were putting a girl into the recovery position. "She's alive. It's just knocking everyone out."

"Yeah, I know. The air con in the music hall is full of them, flooded the room." I told them, looking around to make sure there were none coming towards us. "How are you guys, nothing wrong right?"

They both stared at me. "We're fine, but the deadbolt on that doors been playing up for months, how did you get out without being infected?"

Surely they'd have worked that out? "I didn't. I breathed in a lungful, but they didn't like what they found." I replied carefully as Rani rolled the girl over. "My body is a lot more complex, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems are out of whack with the two hearts."

Rani hugged me when she stood back up, and I hugged her back. "Doesn't mean it wasn't scary." That was true, and I wasn't all that happy with the idea of regenerating again. Would make life here very complicated. "How did the Rakweed get from Sarah Jane's house to here?"

"You saw those seed things."

And this was why Clyde was failing biology. "Spore's, Cly. But yeah, it must be spreading itself through those. It's obviously not a good idea to breathe them in for you lot." Then it hit me. "Maybe that's what made Luke ill this morning."

Fumbling quickly, I dug my phone out of my bag, and dialled him as the 3rd speed dial. "Callie?"

Oh, he sounded so bad... "Luke, baby, the Rakweed, it got you, didn't it? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm all right."

You knew you couldn't lie to me, and I was wondering why there was so much dread in my stomach. "You sound terrible. Where's Sarah Jane? Is she looking after you?"

"She's gone. Find Blathereen."

And then the dread turned to complete terror as I heard the phone thud to the ground, and he must have passed out. "Luke?" I cried, my eyes filling with tears. "Luke? Baby, wake up, please..." The phone cut out and I looked at my best friends. "He's ill. Really ill. And Sarah Jane's with the Blathereen. No idea where."

"Then we've got to sort this by ourselves." Clyde replied simply. "Just the three of us."

"Correction, Master Clyde. Four of us."

I stared at the fact that K9 was out of the attic and in school, on the day that Clyde was going to fail his biology exam. "Clyde..."

He gave me a sheepish smile. "And you called me insane for bringing K9 to school."