A New Kind of Fruit Rough Draft

A New Kind of Fruit.

Christen crossed her arms as Shelby coutuined her story. “I am serious. The doctors gave me this medicine and it cured me.”

“Ya right.” Christen laughed as she rubbed at her blue arm, checking for any reamaning blueberry juice and a possibly berry releaspe. “Those quacks couldn’t possibly find a cure so quickly.”

“I am serious.” Shelby twirled around. “I am cured aren’t I?”

Christen sighed. “It will take more than a few hours to convince me Shelby. But I am glad you are finnaly out of the hosibal.” Christen put her hand on her friends shoulder. “I heard what kind of condition you were in.”

She nodded her head. “Ya. More blueberry than human for a while. There was a reason why those doctors were studying me in looking for a cure in what is going on in this town.” She sighed. “Well at least I made a recovery and the town can put all of this nonsense behind us right?” She put her hands into her pockets. “I can talk to the people who prescribed me the medication. Maybe they can send some of it your way Christen.”

Christen laughed. “I think I am fine.”

“Oh come now. From what I have heard you have been though quite a bit. I think you more than anyone can benefit from this treatment.”

“I knew sitting in your room and venting my troubles was a bad idea.”

Shelby laughed. “Hey now. If it wasn’t for you coming over on the weekends I would have gone mad and possibly sprouted vines out of my blueberry body. But you helped keep me and the other people here sane. I don’t know how you put up with turning into a blueberry so often.”

Christen put her hands into her pockets. “I just did it. Nothing to much to write home about. But I am not the first one in line that would need this treatment.”

Shelby grabbed Christen’s arm. “Nonsense.”

“Hey!”

“Come on. I know where they are hording some of the prescritpions before they send them out to everyone.”

“What? Why not just admisiter them to everyone else in the hosbital?”

Shelby shrugged her shoulders. “Some nonsense about wanting to see how it affected me first for any potential side affects mumble jumble.” She shrubbed her tan arms. “But look at me. I am fine right? Nothing wrong with me? So why should we wait helping you? And then after you helping the others?”

Shelby pulled Christen into a broom closet of the hosbital. “Umm. . .” Christen looked at the wet mob in the corner of the room. “What are we doing in here? I thought you knew where you were going?”

“Trust me ok.” She took a deep breath. “The people who made my medicine are a bit parriod about the wrong people finding it.”

“Then how did you find out where they stashed it?” Christen crossed her arms. “You stop being a blueberry for a few hours and you think you own the world Shelby.”

Shelby narrowed her eyes. “Hey stop teasing me ok. I am serious about this.” She pushed a box of cleaning supplies to the side and pulled out a strange red box marked, Berry Restoration Kit. “Here it is.” She turned around and handed it to Christen. “I told you it was here. Now who is laughing?”

Christin examined the box. “This just looks like some project a little kid would make for school. Are you sure you didn’t plant this here for me to find?”

“Open up the box and look.” Christen sighed and did as she was told. “You are one tough customer to convince.”

Christen narrowed her eyes as two small pills fell into her blue palm. “Well there is some medicine in here.”

“See I told you.” Shelby smiled. “Now do you finnaly believe me?”

Christen tightened her grip around the pills. “Well why would the doctors go though the trouble of hiding these here? Explain that to me.”

“Because it wasn’t a doctor who gave it to me. It was some strange man.” Shelby twisted her red curly hair. “I don’t remember who it was I just remember the staff telling me some strange person in a hoodie came in to give me what he called candy. But when it actually worked he explained he was testing a new drug on me. The staff would have been furious if it well hadn’t worked so well.”

“Then why did you tell me that the doctors cured you before.”

Shelby looked around and lowered her voice. “Because the hosbital has me under their oath to say they cured me until they can get the legal rights to this medicane. It’s why it’s tucked away in here.” She smiled and tapped Christen on the shoulder. “But I couldn’t let that get in the way of helping you.”

Christen smiled. “I am touched. But I don’t. . .”

“Ah, ah. You don’t need to thank me.” Shelby smiled and walked towards the door. “Just remember that I helped bring an end to your blueberry nightmare.”

“I wouldn’t call it a blueberry nightmare.” She looked down at the pills in her hands. “Just an inconvenience. Huh. But I thank you anyways.” Christen looked back up. “Shelby?” Christen blinked her turned her head back and forth upon noticing that she was gone. “Where did you go?” Christen looked down at the pills in her hands. “Hmm. I guess these couldn’t hurt.”

She tossed the pills into her mouth and swollowd. “I wonder how long it will take for it to go into effect.” She looked down at her arm as her skin turned from a bright blue to her usual pale. “Wow that was fast.” She smiled. “I guess these suckers really do work. Maybe for the first time in weeks I can go home and enjoy myself.”

***

Later that evening Christen opend the door to her house. “It is so good to be home.” She set the shopping bags onto the table. “I feel so good now that I have that blueberry stuff out of my system I am going to do something I have wanted to do for a while. Get on video chat and game with my friends.” She pulled out a camra from her bag. “Should be ready for tonight as long as they get on and meet with me.”

She walked into the other room and fired up her desktop. “I just hope the remember I am coming on.” Christen tapped her fingers as she waited for her computer to fire up. “It has been so long seince I have been online they thought I was dead.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t want to tell them what really happpend to me. I don’t think they would have belived me anyways.” She set the new camra up on top of her monitor. “Ok I hope this works.”

Once the computer was up and running she entered her friends chat room. “Ok. Let’s see here.” Christen activated her camra and saw herself on screen. “Hey it works.” She waved at herself. “Hello?” She giggled. “I can’t believe I finnaly have one of these. And with how much money I had to fork over this thing better last.”

“What are you talking about?” The screen was cut in half as a you red headed man appeared. “Oh hey. Is that you Christen? Not only do you come back from the dead but I get to see you for the first time. Wow!”

“Patrick. Hey there.”

He waved. “Hi. Like my new hair color?”

“Where are the others?” She crossed her arms as she sat down in her swivel chair. “I thought they were thrilled to know I was back to hang out with them.”

The screen shrank again but this time a new face didn’t appear, only the words Henry. “Hey. Sorry I had a bit of an issue. Turns out going through with your plan to free yourself from school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He laughed. “So I see Christen is back. How are you doing these days? Avoiding school still? Are you the lucky one of the group?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What? I plan on going back to the unvieisity soon. My hiatus is going to be over soon.”

Henry gasped. “What? What in the world is wrong with you?” The was a loud crash on his end. “Oh fuck. You know what. I will catch up with you later. I think the little miss crazy from before found me. Bye.” He cut out of the group.

Christen scratched at her chin. “Is it me or did Henry become even more insane than usual.”

Patrick nodded. “Ya seince you were last on he has kind of gone off the deep end. He was talking about shrinking his teacher.”

Christen gasped. “Yikes. And I thought what I went through was crazy.”

“What did you go through Christen?”

“Oh nothing.” She laughed. “Just some stuff. Nothing important.”

The last screen flared to life and Karen adjusted her suit. “Ok Patrik I am on.” She noticed Christen.  “Heyyyy! How is it going Christen?”

Christen waved. “Hi Karen. Still stuck at your crappy job?”

She nodded her head. “I am stuck at work right now. They don’t know it but I locked myself in my bosses office.”

Patrick gasped. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for that?”

Karen scoffed. “I get in trouble for anything I do lately. But one, I am not missing our gaming night. And two the company seems to be overly preocpied with something else. It’s funny. I lock myself in my bosses office and they don’t give a crap.” She sighed and laid back in the big black lounge chair. “Normally I would be thrown into some experminal dump and see if some surem would cause me to change in size. This place is stupid.”

Christen wiced. “Did you say change in size.”

Karen held her hands over her mouth. “Did I? Well you two didn’t hear it from me.” She laughed. “Fredricks Fancy does not endorcse real size changing products nor am I leagaly aloud to talk about it.” She lowered her voice. “But between us my boss is crazy about that shit.” Karen laughed.

Patrick slowly nodded his head. “Sounds lovely.”

Karen smiled. “So where is Henry. He should have been here by now.”

Christen sighed. “Something came up on his end. Sounded like some kind of bomb went off.”

Karen shrugged. “He has been acting odd as of late.” She clasped her hands together. “So what are we going to be doing tonight?”

Patrick sighed. “That new Call of Fortune shooter game came out recently. We could play that.”

Christen rolled her eyes. “You know how I am at shooters.” She groaned. “Ughh.” She scratched at her chest as she felt a growing pressure starting to build inside her. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

Karen shrugged. “We have been enjoying shooters so much in your absnse it is kind of hard to try another genra. Right Patrick.” Karen narrowed her eyes. “Paatrik!”

He blinked his eyes. “Huh? Oh sorry I was watching the news on the other screen. Something crazy is going on.”

Christen coutuined to scratch at her torso. “Watch the news on your own time Patrick. We are trying to figure out what to do.”

He held up his hands defensively. “But this is insane. It is from a town that they are calling the blueberry town.” He laughed. “I wonder where they get that name.”

Christen’s eyes went wide. Oh crap. My home town is on the news again. Fuck.

“So pretty much they found the first non blueberry lady in the town.”

Karen crossed her arms. “I am sure there are plenty of humans in the town genious.”

“No no, I mean a giant human pear.” Christen slammed her hands on the table and noticed the back of her palms slowly turn green. “Like the size of a semi truck big.”

Karen chucked. “I doubt that would happen. I have seen and been forced into some crazy stuff but someone turning into a pear or a town full of blueberries. That is crazy. Right Christen?”

Christen looked up from her green hands. “Oh right, right.” She took a deep breath and tried to ignore what felt like a ballon growing inside her body. “That is just crazy talk and I am sure someone is making that up.  There is no way someone could turn into a blueberry five times in a row. To have all of that juice swimming inside of them. That just isn’t possible.” She laughed.

“Christen.”

“I mean you would have to be pretty crazy to believe such a story.”

“Christen.”

“Even that false news story from a few months ago. . .”

Christen!”

“What?”

Patrick sighed. “What is wrong with your neck?”

Christen looked down to see her skin turn light green. “I umm have a bit of a rash. It’s nothing.” She tapped her fingers on the edge of the table. “So can we get back to talking about what we are going to do tonight?”

Karen’s blue eyes widded as she watched Christen’s face turn light green. “That isn’t any rash I have ever seen. Are you sure you are ok?”

“Look is this an interrogation? I am fine ok.” She winced as her shirt tightend around her waist. “Now can we get to the game?”

Patrick blinked his eyes. “Is it just me or is Chirsten’s ass growing?”

Karen shook her head. “Screw her ass Patrick. Her entire waist is swelling up like a ballon.”

Christen looked down at her waistline as it started to fill up her gaming area. “Holy crap.” She stood up but her enlaraged ass knocked over her glass of water behind her and caused Patrick to laugh. “Shit. Why is this happeining? I thought I put an end to this bullshit.”

“What are you talking about?” Karen asked. “What did you put an end to?”

Christen laughed as her round hips pressed against the wall and her desk. “I umm. . . had some blueberry issues.” She sighed as she pushed her desk away to make room for her swelling body. “I am smack dab in the middle of the blueberry town Patrick saw on the news.”