Sweet Sick Teen 3

 “Of course not! What kind of idiot do you take me for??”, she shouted with an air of indignation, and then left in a huff before they could say anything more, leaving the unanswered question lingering in the air along with a waffling stench of soapy seafood.

As she thought about it later, she probably should’ve stayed behind longer, forcing herself to listen to their banal conversation until she looked sufficiently bored enough to leave.

Oh well. Hindsight is always 50-50. Either you do something, or you don’t.

Through no fault of her own, rumours started to circulate that she’d had unnatural relations with one of... THEM. Even though they were spot on, the actual incident had hardly lasted more than five seconds, but stories continued to follow her everywhere she went.

In the hallways, particularly cruel kids would sing out the chorus to a perverted song:

Ain’t She Cheap.
See her walking down the Street,
Ain’t She Cheap.

If it were just the relentless teasing, she could’ve handled it. But paying attention in class was more difficult than usual. The lessons were normally mind-numbing, but that was before her new body odor made the already tedious classes more unbearable than before. She tried to compensate by holding her breath. After all, the human body could survive without oxygen for an indeterminate amount of time, couldn’t it? After five minutes of failed attempts to live without breathing, she realized the futility of this exercise, and asked to go to the bathroom.

Once there, she relieved herself while holding her nose, and took the opportunity to stuff some rudimentary noseplugs up her nose. They’d be unobtrusive as long as no one called her to answer any inane questions. Normally, she’d compensate by knowing the answers ahead of time, but under these circumstances, she wasn’t entirely 100% confident she’d be able to cope with this new hurdle.

She didn’t see much point in attending school in the first place. Emphasis was made on the quality of education, but as far as she could see, the smartest kids always wound up leaving, never to be seen again. Just where they went was constantly quashed down, so questions gave way to rumours, which were also further condemned. This constant dwindling of the talent pool played havoc on the school’s rating records, because the geniuses kept disappearing. Leaving her always bereft of copying their answers and notes.

There were always rumblings of finding new and innovative ways of keeping these grade inflaters up, but since they didn’t impact her much, she never paid much attention. What mattered was not understanding the material, but getting the right answers to the questions by memorizing stuff that’d been common knowledge for years. As long as she could find ways to implement well-worn answers while appearing knowledgeable, she could afford to be lenient.

Her only saving grace was that the Teachers were just as absently clueless about the source of the smell. For being so supposedly smart, they were surprisingly ignorant about the classroom politics taking place right in front of them. They paid no attention to such things, preferring to mingle with their own kind in the staffroom. The Teachers dressed up in strange outdated garbs, and acted like they came from another time and place where their bizarre behavior was once accepted, which made them further social pariahs even if they weren’t forced to give lessons to unwilling participants.

The clueless ones always seemed to stay on forever. And those were the ones who knew what they were talking about.

The only times the Teachers ever interfered with Students was when they started disrupting lessons. All too often, it was the unpopular kids who caused the most trouble, by making themselves obvious targets. If only they could stop being mercilessly picked on, then they could be accepted into society. All they needed to do was become fantastically rich, have good hormones, the latest fancy tool, wear attractive clothing, or be astoundingly smart. Nothing could be easier!

But in the Girl’s case, she had none of the above (her intellect was useless in class, since it couldn’t be properly graded), so she just had to cope and not fight back. Fighting back was considered even worse than sticking up for your rights. You either earned them, or you didn’t.

Ain’t She Cheap.
See her walking down the Street,
Ain’t - *Cough, cough, Gag, Gack*

She took some smug satisfaction in their pained expressions doing improvised breathing exercises around her. This wasn’t exactly fighting back, per se, since all she was doing was normally walking and sitting around. And it’d be considered impolite to point out how badly she smelled. No one wanted to be the first to point out she was smelly, otherwise, they’d be scorned at for causing trouble where none existed before.

Everything would be fine as long as everybody minded their own business.

After a week of this, they could stand it no longer, and started dropping unsubtle hints around.

“Who’s been farting for an hour straight?”
“It smells like someone died.”
“Are the toilets blocked?”
“How can anyone live like this?!”
“Did somebody hide garlic squid with mango and banana in the ceiling again?”

Surprisingly enough, the Teachers hadn’t noticed until it was pointed out to them.

“I thought it was just me.”
“I didn’t want to say anything.”
“It would’ve been rude.”

Coincidentally enough, the question of someone dying prompted a random Teacher with a particularly twitchy eye to respond with, “I didn’t do it! You can’t prove anything!”

Finally, the number of constant complaints and lack of visible scapegoats grew too numerous to ignore. By this time, even the Principal had begun to notice, and prompted an investigation. After studying the data, it was verified that the smell was localized to at least three classes at certain time venues. This didn’t narrow down the search much, since each class contained upwards of a few thousand students at a time. Finding a seat was always a challenge.

After labouring over the student timetables and getting nowhere, they decided to use Trackers who utilized Odor-Sniffers locate the origin of the smell. But it was so overwhelming that they all wanted to get away from the source. So they opted by dragging them backwards on their leashes towards the target. This was more difficult than it sounds, since the animals would thrash around at all costs to get away from the pungent odor. Still, they managed to narrow it down to just a mere 500 students.

They could’ve easily found the culprit during the brief five-minute recess interval. But they were told that any interference in disrupting racing students in a mad rush to get to the next class (which were sometimes at the far end of the building, the length of several city blocks away), would be counterproductive, so, instead, they were regulated to disrupting an entire classroom session instead.

“Excuse me,” the Girl’s Teacher said, “I’m giving a lesson here.”

“Take it up with your boss,” the Head Tracker said. “This is the only time he’ll let us work.”

“I’d think teaching these irrepressible young minds is more important than finding an otherwise insignificant smell.”

“We won’t disturb you much. You can continue your lesson as usual. We’re going to be teaching someone a lesson, anyways.”

“You’re not qualified for that.”

“Not THAT kind of lesson, the Other kind.”

Slowly but surely, the Trackers made their way around the tight confines of the classroom, ignoring the students’ helpful visible hand signals towards the most obvious source - a young teenage Girl breathing out of her mouth who was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and failing.

They inched their way closer towards ground zero - an anthropomorphic representation of an offal garbage pile dumped in a condemned perfume factory, holding their hands in front of their already dense facial masks. The head of the Trackers breathing in shallow gasps asked the Girl in front of him,

“Are you aware that you smell?”

“What smell?”, she said, still feigning ignorance.

The lead investigator brought out four miniature cages, each holding a tiny Odor-Sniffer inside. He placed them at opposite sides around the Girl, who all tried to flee, restrained only by the mesh pattern preventing their escape.

“I think we’ve found our source. When was the last time you took a bath??”

“This morning,” she said with a pained expression.

The head Tracker took an apprehensive sniff. “It’s not coming from your clothes. It must be a Medical Condition. You’d better get that looked at.”

“Can’t. Attendance record not broken yet.”

“Look, if you don’t leave, they’re going to get larger versions of these animals, tie one to each of your limbs, and let them loose.”

Getting the Message, the Girl started to pack up her stuff and leave, when the Teacher decided to intervene.  “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?”

“...going to see the Nurse?”

“You need to ask permission first.”

“She’s already got permission from us.”

“You don’t get to tell my students what to do. You don’t have the authority. She needs to do it herself.”

She started off with saying “Can I - ”, before she was abruptly cut off.

“It seems your very presence is creating a disturbance. I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Haughtily, the Girl responded, “FINE!! It's not as if I wanted to stay here anyways!”

She was just about to leave through the front door, when it was blocked by some figures in the way. For some reason, even though she should’ve been elsewhere, the snobby School Queen with her entourage decided to show up at that very moment.

“Well, if it isn't the - UGH!” she said, self-interrupting her intended indignanted speech, covering her nose with two hands. “It's even worse than I thought! I-I can't - ” And then, she threw up.

Her little gang didn’t fare much better either.

“My eyes are watering!”

“Get her away from me!”

The third just ran off, because her heavy makeup was melting off her face.

The Girl looked impassively at this display of intimidation.  “Was there something you wanted to say to me? If not, get outta the way.”

“Wait”, the Teacher said, apparently not content to leave the matter resolved. “Before you leave, apologize to the person in front of you.”

“For what?? I did nothing wrong!”

“You were disrespectful towards her. You should at least make amends.”

The Queen looked with a pained smug look on her face that quickly turned to horror once she saw the Girl move upon her, and quietly hugged her.

“I’m going to miss you SO much”, she said through gritted teeth, insincerity dripping through her skull.

“There! Wasn’t that nice? She overcame her prejudices, and accepted her rival. Why can’t you do the same?” The class reluctantly agreed, wanting to get the lecture over and done with.

The Girl wouldn’t have enjoyed her retaliation against The School Queen as much if she’d known that the outfit she’d ruined would’ve been replaced with another expensive replacement later. Which would’ve been her favorite for another two days.

“It’s always a good idea to apologize to those above you, even if you don’t feel like it.”

“Speaking of which”, the Head Tracker said, “it’d be nice to have an apology for us as well.”

“What for? You’re not a student here.”

The Girl moved out of earshot as their debate over whether the Trackers had made any significant contributions faded as she made her way towards the Medical wing of the school. At the Nurse’s station, she didn’t have to wait too long for her turn, since the large lineup was drastically reduced after the patients suddenly decided that their life-threatening injuries weren’t so life-threatening after all.

“I was wondering whether you were going to show up”, the Nurse said, easily suppressing her gag reflex, her professionalism shining through. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I seem to be... making more B.O. than usual.”

“The smell doesn’t seem concentrated in your usual concentrated spots, but in your private parts. Have you engaged in any unusual activity lately?”

The Girl casually pushed her pants down, so the Nurse could get a better look, even if it meant releasing more of the unkempt smell.   She looked away and talked in a haltingly manner that was in no way influenced by the current situation she was in.

“I might’ve... let myself... get touched... by a ONE? On purpose?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve seen this before. It’s one of the most commonly spread diseases out there. Fortunately, it’s short-lived, and can be cured in just under a year. Never had one that smelled this bad, though.”

“Well then, it shouldn’t be that difficult. Just give me a prescription, and I’ll be on my merry way.”

“No need. It’ll go away on its own.”

“Wonderful! How long do I have to wait?”

“Just nine more months.”

The Girl slumped back in rueful despair. She’d been in denial, hoping that it was just a minor disease that would’ve blown over if she’d just toughed it out. Especially since she’d been anxiously waiting for her period to come, which was later than usual. But now it was confirmed, and there was no getting away from it.

She was pregnant.