by Ged Maybury
Girl Germs
Ged Maybury
Published by Ged Maybury, 2019.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
GIRL GERMS
First edition. July 15, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Ged Maybury.
ISBN: 978-1393817208
Written by Ged Maybury.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE | What Happened on the Bus
CHAPTER TWO | Bush Walk
CHAPTER THREE | It Came From the Sky
CHAPTER FOUR | The Torrent
CHAPTER FIVE | Camp Cut-Off
CHAPTER SIX | Pool Party!
CHAPTER SEVEN | Horror Dream
CHAPTER EIGHT | Hoo-Whoop!
CHAPTER NINE | Our Empty World
CHAPTER TEN | Lucy Re-Made (Sort-of)
Further Reading: Dinosaur Apples
Also By Ged Maybury
About the Author
Dedicated to the most wonderful Girl I have ever met. Shelley (that's her on the cover) perfectly embodies the spirit of my book "Girll Germs".
Shelley has a beautiful soul and radiates joy towards everyone she meets; which is a precious gift in this needy world.
To know her is to understand that: "Every Day is the Most Enjoyable Day."
Speaking of enjoyment, Space Dudes, I hope you enjoy the following story.
CHAPTER ONE
What Happened on the Bus
It’s Wednesday night and it’s still raining and I think the world is about to end. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe that’s why They came. Maybe it’s their way of saving us from ourselves. Even so I feel a bit cheated. We didn’t exactly get the chance to prove we could save ourselves.
Anyway they haven’t got me! They’ll never think to look in here, which should give me time to write it all down. Except I hope there will be someone left to read it, otherwise I’m wasting my time.
Hey! Maybe some Star Trek types from another planet will eventually find it. They'll figure out what happened!
THE TEACHER LOOKED over the boy’s shoulder in the otherwise deserted school library. “It’s all rather vague, Nathan,” she said, “you’re not really getting on with the story.”
“I know,” said the boy, “but I just don’t know where to begin!”
“What about on the bus?” suggested the teacher, “And put your name near the beginning so your readers know who you are.”
“No-one’s ever going to read this,” he said dejectedly, pushing away from the computer.
“Someone will,” she said, gripping his shoulders gently and rolling his chair back to the keyboard, “one day.” It was not a particularly teacherly thing to do, but it was not a particularly normal day. After all, school was over. For ever.
The boy paused at the keyboard, then began typing again.
HI. MY NAME IS NATHAN Kennigan and the world started to go weird on me just a few days ago. It was the beginning of our three-day school camp. We were on a bus heading out of Brisbane, and we had only been on the road for twenty minutes when Amelia started calling out to our teacher, “Ms Loti, Lucy’s got a headache.”
As well as being my teacher, Ms Loti was going to be Camp Coordinator, and she was a really cool teacher, I can tell you! She could cope with anything! (And I’m not just saying that because she’s standing behind me right now reading everything I write down.) So anyway Ms Loti goes striding down the aisle, her mobile phone and her medical kit hooked to her belt like one of those action heroes in the movies.
Us boys were all hanging over the backs of our seats, being nosy as always.
Ms Loti reached Lucy and felt her forehead. “Where does it hurt?”
Lucy pointed silently to the back of her head, just behind her ears.
“How does your neck feel?”
“Okay.” whispered Lucy.
“No pain? Not stiff or anything?”
“No.”
“Well there’s no fever, so that’s a good thing. But I think you’d better take a couple of these for the pain.” Ms Loti opened her kit and took out a huge packet of painkillers. I saw the name, ZANODOL, on the label. I knew they’d been advertising the stuff like crazy all weekend.
“They’re on special.” I blurted out, “a pack of a hundred for just $9.99!”
“We know,” said Marcus in that particularly nasty voice of his, “We’ve all got a TV, you know.” A few of the guys laughed.
Ms Loti had the packet open. “Have you got water, Lucy?”
She shook her head.
“She can use mine,” said Taylah, passing over a water bottle. We could all see it was half-empty. It had that slightly blurry look of water that someone has already been drinking.
“Ooh yuk,” I called out, “Girl germs!”
A few of the guys laughed, which was just what I’d been hoping for. Otherwise I was one point down on Marcus.
Before Ms Loti could say anything, Lucy drank from the bottle.
“We shouldn’t share bottles,” warned Ms Loti too late as Taylah took back her bottle. Taylah just shrugged and put it away.
Anyway, Lucy settled down and that was that, for a while.
THE BUS TOOK TWO HOURS to reach the camp, which was up in the rainforest of the Gold Coast Hinterland near the NSW border. I didn’t know the place existed until that day. All that rainforest and stuff. Just beautiful! Not that us boys cared that much. We were all goofing around, singing made-up songs and making comments about everything we saw out the window. All very disrespectful of sheep farmers and foreign tourists on mountain bikes and, for that matter, anything else we saw.
At one point we had to go past the top of a cliff and a few of the girls freaked out. I was pretty scared of going over the side too, but only because I was trapped inside a bus and couldn’t grab onto a tree or anything. I didn’t let on that I was scared though, because I was a boy.
THE CAMP WAS FANTASTIC. Okay, the buildings were just a bunch of concrete boxes like a big motel, but there was bush all around, and rocky mountaintops beyond that, and a deep valley with a little river in it. It all looked so pretty. I looked at the footbridge and wondered what lay on the other side. It was all bush.
And the camp had a swimming pool, which everyone else thought was fantastic. Naturally they all wanted to swim straight away but the adults made us all put our stuff in the bunkrooms first, then gave us a talk about rubbish and safety and sunhats and behaviour and respect and all that. Then they let us into the pool.
Ms Loti unlocked the gate and everyone swarmed into the enclosure like flies on a picnic. All except me. I kind of hung back. Had my towel, but I didn’t want to go in. No way!
It was really hot, mind. Stinking hot. Even the teachers and parents went swimming. I guess they had to, to keep watch on all the trouble-makers (and not all of them were boys, either, by the way).
Then I noticed that Ms Loti was hanging back just like I was. She didn’t even have a towel. She sort of looked at me, and I sort of looked at her. One of those weird moments; like she wasn’t a teacher anymore, just a person. Spooky! Embarrassing! I thought I’d better say something.
“Do you mind, like, if I go read a book or something?”
“No,” she said, “Not at all. But don’t you want to have a swim first?”
“Not really. I, ah, I just don’t feel like it.”
She and I edged back as the splashes from the pool got bigger.
“Come on, Ms Loti!” some of the girls called, “The water’s fabulous!”
She jus
t smiled and shook her head.
“Aww, go on!” they pleaded.
Ms Loti glanced away towards the bunkrooms. “I ah, I think I’ll go check on Lucy,” she said, “She’s probably lonely.” She patted her first-aid kit and headed away, almost with relief, I thought. I went with her a little way, saying nothing, then turned away towards the boys’ end of the camp.
What a relief!
I MIGHT AS WELL ADMIT it now. I hate water. Anything bigger than a bathtub just freaks me right out. If you want the big fancy word for it, it’s ‘hydrophobia’. Fear of water. Don’t ask me why. Something must have happened when I was a baby, but I don’t remember. Anyway, thanks to my hydrophobia, I’ve managed to survive this whole terrible thing, so it’s served a purpose at last.
What terrible thing am I talking about? Sorry. I’ll get on with it.
CHAPTER TWO
Bush Walk
CAMP WENT ON LIKE NORMAL. We did rock-climbing that afternoon. Easy peasy! You see I’ve got no fear of heights. And I’ve got to hand it to Ms Loti, she was one cool lady. When Brian got stuck halfway down she roped up at once and went straight down to him. Apparently he’d just locked up with fear and couldn’t bring himself to let the rope out. She saved him.
And later when Annabel sliced her thumb on a can-opener (Not on a can, but the opener! No-one could figure out how she did it.) Ms Loti was right there, bandaging her up on the spot.
I’d been right there as well, being nosy as usual. Ms Loti laid out her kit. It seemed to have everything in there, bandages and scissors and tubes of stuff, and an information card on snake bite, and another one on electrocution. She had her mobile phone with her all the time and a list of numbers for everything imaginable: ambulance, fire, poison line, emergency helicopter service. Man, I was glad she was so together!
“Okay citizens,” she said as she was finishing, “nothing to see here. Move along now. Back to your jobs.”
We’d all been peeling carrots and washing lettuces and setting tables. Only the best kids got the plum jobs like opening the tins of pineapple. I went back to the carrots, feeling the safest I’d felt in years. Nothing could go wrong with someone like Ms Loti in charge. Nothing. Or so I thought.
THAT NIGHT SHE ANNOUNCED that she’d checked the weather forecast and it was going to be good for the bushwalk the next day. Nobody exactly cheered.
“Where’re we going?” I asked.
“Up to the top of Thunderhead Hill.”
“Cool!” said some of the boys. There was an outbreak of thunder noises, of course, and general goofing around.
We all stayed up late, talking and annoying each other in our bunkroom, and telling sick jokes. I went to the loo pretty late, and heard voices down at the girls’ end. “Ms Loti, Amelia’s got a headache.”
“I’ll be right there!” Ms Loti went bustling past, pulling out her big packet of painkillers. I went off to bed.
THE NEXT MORNING WAS hell. We all wanted to sleep in. But the adults all wanted to get up and get ready for the bush walk. It took ages to get everyone organised. Finally, at ten o’clock, we set off across the footbridge and into the dense bush on the other side. It was moist and cool and rich and green, with a lot of different types of trees that I’d never seen before.
Now and then, Ms Loti reminded us to check ourselves for leeches. Gross!
Soon we were all strung out along the trail, the goers out in front and the plodders at the rear. I stuck close to Ms Loti. Now and again she’d pull out her mobile phone and check she was still connected. Not that we had anything to worry about, but I was still glad we could call for help any time we needed to.
One of the parent-helpers, Mr Prior, also kept checking his phone. He was on a different network and it wasn’t doing so well. I heard them talking about his problem.
“...oh well, whatever happens, we’ve still got it covered,’ Ms Loti was saying.
“Yes. After all, I’m only losing it in the valleys.” Mr Prior held his phone higher, “There, got it again!”
It was all very reassuring, and the weather was perfect. What could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, as it turned out.
“MS LOTI, TAYLAH’S GOT a headache!”
We came upon Taylah, crumpled on the ground, clutching at her head just behind her ears.
Ms Loti opened her medicine kit, “Take two of these, dear.”
Taylah looked up, miserably, “I forgot my water bottle.”
“I’ve got plenty!” called a voice. It was Lucy. She threw off her huge pack and pulled out several plastic bottles of water. Taylah drank and drank.
“Oo yuk,” called Marcus from the distance, “Girl Germs!”
Damn him! That was my line!
“Can I have some too?” asked Michaela, “I forgot my bottle too.”
Lucy handed over a spare bottle. I didn’t think the water looked totally pure and clean, but then again the camp water was a bit funny.
Everyone coming up the trail was stopping to have a drink. Lucy passed out yet another one of her spare bottles, this time to Wyatt who had also managed to leave his behind. Mind you, he’d leave his head behind if it wasn’t screwed on!
Marcus sneered and said it again, “Watch out for the girl germs!”
Wyatt just shrugged the comment off and drank Lucy’s water.
“Come on, everyone,” called Ms Loti once she realised what was starting to happen, “this is not a lunch stop! We’re only about half an hour from the top. Plenty of time for lunch at the top! Keep it moving now.”
I rejoined the boys’ bunch, leaving Ms Loti with Taylah. It looked like they were going to be last up.
BUT IT WASN’T HALF an hour to the top. More like an hour. We all finally plodded out of the bush and found ourselves on a high rocky knob. I looked around. Impressive. Thunderhead Hill was the highest bump out of five great rocky warts jutting out of the surrounding bush. On the next bump along, we all noticed immediately, was one of those communications towers.
“What’s that?” someone asked.
“Mobile phone tower.”
“Won’t it get hit by lightning?”
Mrs Vintner was right there. She taught science. “Probably happens all the time,” she said, “See that big pole sticking up at the top? That’s a lightning rod. If you look closely you’ll see heavy copper wires...”
I drifted away about then. I hadn’t come on camp to get a science lesson!
WE WERE ALL EATING lunch when Taylah and Lucy and Ms Loti finally arrived. I noticed Lucy as she climbed to the very highest point and gazed away to the west. I looked the same way. There were some big puffy clouds piling up.
But in spite of that, the view was great. Just great.
I saw a glint of light off something. Probably a plane heading down to Sydney. I watched it. It turned sharply and disappeared into the clouds. Not like a plane would, but from that distance I couldn’t really be sure what size it was. I could actually see the clouds boiling, like you do in those sped-up films.
It was a really fantastic view.
CHAPTER THREE
It Came From the Sky
SOME OF THE BOYS WENT across to look at the telecommunications tower. They soon came back, disappointed. “It’s all fenced off with barbed wire.”
“To stop idiots like you from climbing it,” commented Mrs Vintner, “If you damaged those panels it would wreck the whole mobile phone network. And besides, the power is so strong up there you’d get cooked like a poodle in a microwave.”
That really set the boys going. “I heard that it exploded!”
“Oh. Poor wee doggy, I’ll just pop him in here to dry off. Brr-vvvvvv, BOOM!”
“Imagine if it blew the door open!”
“Aww, gross! ...”
And so it went.
The clouds out west were getting bigger.
Suddenly Marcus turned, looked, and pointed. “Hey! Flying saucer!”
We all looked, of course. There was nothing, of course.
“Aww, Marcus!” said the boys, “Very funny.”
“But there was! I really saw one!”
“Aw, come on!”
No-one believed him, and he shut up about it after a while. But quite a few of us were now watching the sky closely.
I watched too. I know a bit about clouds. “You know, that’s a thunderstorm coming.” I said to the nearest teacher.
“Aww, Nathan!” said the boys, groaning and rolling their eyes like I was a moron or something.
But Mrs Vintner backed me up. “I think he’s right,” she said seriously, “We’d better start back soon.”
Then I noticed Lucy, still standing on that rock. She had that same far-away look in her eyes, gazing out at those clouds, and her lips were moving silently. I don’t even think she had taken her pack off since she’d arrived.
And even then I thought her hair looked a bit funny. Sort of puffed out at the sides, just behind her ears.
Suddenly the approaching storm seemed to pick up steam.
“Alright, everyone! Pack up!” called Ms Loti, “No rubbish on the ground! Get into your bunkroom groups for a head-count. Quickly!”
We all muddled around as the storm came towards us. Each time I glanced at it, I thought I saw something flashing through the clouds. It looked like lightning to me.
Then Marcus cried out again, “There! Flying saucer! Sure of it!”
We all stood around, peering westward, seeing nothing and giving Marcus stick for trying to have us on again. I looked around, wondering why we weren’t getting a move on. The teachers were huddled around another kid with a headache. This time it was Wyatt. I could see the adults clumped together, talking over his head, looking just a little bit worried for the first time.