Feverishly hot - part 2

[Otto's POV]

"Alex!" Otto screamed as Alex lost consciousness. She would have been too late to catch him, but luckily Jasper had been paying attention all along and had managed to grab Alex by the back of his shirt, preventing him from smacking his head into his desk. He slowly lowered Alex's heavy, limp body onto the ground. Otto scrambled next to him, held a hand to his forehead and then checked his breathing.

Both were easy to verify; Alex wasn't just breathing, he was panting hot puffs of air, and his forehead was freaking hot!

"He's burning up!" Otto gasped as the rest of the class and teacher came gathering around.

"That doesn't look good," the teacher said. "I'm calling an ambulance."

"No, wait! He asked to call his dad," Otto interjected.

"No, he looks really sick. Who knows when that man will be able to be here," the teacher said and stepped outside to make the call. It felt like an awfully bitter reaction to Otto. She could only guess that Mar had skipped a few parent-teacher meetings.

"This is bad," Otto thought. She knew enough about Alex to realise that they wouldn't be able to help him at a hospital. Not without Mar at least!

"Where is his phone?" Otto asked as she started patting the pockets of Alex's pants in search of his phone.

"I'll search his backpack," Jasper said and instantly went to work.

"Here it is!" Jasper yelled as he handed Otto Alex's phone as if she knew what to do with it. Of course, she didn't. Not really anyway. She hoped she would be able to unlock the damn thing, and then she'd have to find a way to call Mar.

Huh? Wait... The phone was already unlocked, and the screen said "Calling Dad…" complete with a picture and everything.

"Hello?" a voice called from the other side of the line. "Alex? Are you there?"

"Mr. Black?" Otto asked, surprised to already hear his voice.

"Yes, that's me. Who is this speaking?" he answered in a very businesslike voice.

"It's Otto. Alex is in trouble. He collapsed from a high fever just now, and the teacher called an ambulance," Otto said hurriedly. She felt like time was of the essence.

"Ugh, trouble indeed," Mar sighed grimly. "At least now I know why his energy-levels suddenly skyrocketed. He must have been keeping the measurements systematically low. Ok, I'll be right there. Thank you for calling me. Please stall the ambulance until I get there."

And with that, he ended the call. Otto was left with the questioning eyes of her classmates.

"He said he's coming," she reported dutifully. This caused a lot of murmur among her classmates. If she weren't mistaken, she'd heard Jessy squeak enthusiastically. Right that moment, the teacher reentered the room.

"The ambulance will be right here," she said.

"Teacher, his dad is coming too," Otto reported once more.

"Really?" the teacher asked, a note of surprise to her voice. "I'm curious to see if he'll arrive before the ambulance leaves."

Again such a crude reaction from the teacher. It made her wonder what Mar had done to get on her bad side.

"I'm going to receive the ambulance. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone!" the teacher said. All that was left for the others to do was wait until they arrived. Which wouldn't be long if the sound of the sirens was something to go by. She noticed Jasper hovering around her nervously, but it looked like he didn't dare to come closer.

"Come on Alex. Wake up," she mumbled worriedly as she gently stroked his hair. "We're all worried about you."

Of course, he didn't wake up. Otto wasn't sure if he could.

"What do you think is wrong with him?" Jessy asked as she kneeled besides Alex opposite of where Otto was sitting and casually touched his skin.

"Ouch!" she cried surprised as she had barely touched Alex's skin. "As expected of Alex, he's damn hot!"

"Oh, please. Don't you start," Otto said with an indignant eye roll, making Jessy chuckle. The teacher was back, followed by two male nurses with a stretcher between them. She pointed towards them, even though it wasn't really necessary because the nurses immediately beelined their way towards them.

"Ok, girls. Please move away. Give us some room," one of them said. "We'll be taking it from here."

"Um, sir? His dad is coming. He asked not to leave without him," Otto said urgently, refusing to move until she got an answer. The first man looked questioningly at the second.

"Is he going to take long?" the second man asked.

"No, he'll be here any minute."

"Ok, I guess we can wait a minute," he concluded. "Now move aside please."

Otto obediently took a few steps back but stayed close. Jessy had already gone back to her desk.

"Wow, his fever must be sky-high," the first nurse said as they picked Alex's limp body from the floor and placed him on the stretcher. "I can feel the heat radiating from him."

"We'll check his temperature first," the second said. One started strapping Alex to the stretcher and gently placed a supportive collar around his neck. The other took Alex's temperature. Otto watched as the device beeped and the nurse looked to see the result. His eyes went wide as saucers, and he nudged the second nurse to take a look. If Otto hadn't been so worried, she might have laughed.

"That can't be!" the second said astonished. "The device must be faulty."

"Normally, I'd agree. But you can feel the heat radiating from him too, can't you?" the other said. A silence governed the room as the two frowned at each other for a second. The one who'd promised Otto they'd wait for Mar to arrive glanced over in her direction nervously. "We need to get him to the hospital. Fast."

"No! You can't! His dad will be here-" Otto interjected as the bling of Alex's phone caught her attention. The standby screen lit up and said; Approximately 3 minutes until Dad arrives. "His dad will be here any minute now!"

"If he's here, he can join the ambulance to the hospital. Otherwise, he'll have to drive to the hospital himself," he said sternly, not leaving any room for discussion, picked up the stretcher and carried it outside.

"Otto, no! Stay he-" the teacher said as Otto followed them outside, ignoring the teachers command and heard her say; "Ugh! Stay here, all of you! I'm going to check if she's alright."

The nurses had parked the ambulance on the courtyard and were loading the stretcher with Alex on it into the back of the ambulance.

"Come on, Mr Black… Where are you?!" Otto mumbled as she hovered nervously around the vehicle.

"No! Wait!" she yelled as one of the nurses stepped into the driver's seat. He gave her an apologetic look but started the engine anyway.

"No!" Otto yelled as he manoeuvred to drive off the courtyard again. She hurriedly jumped in front of it, successfully blocking its path to the road. The nurse stared at her in astonishment. It looked like nobody had tried to prevent him from leaving with a patient before.

"What do you think you're doing?! Have you completely lost your mind? Get out of there!" the teacher yelled, close to hysterics as she grabbed Otto unkindly by the shoulder and tried to pull her away. Otto tried her best to fight her off, but it was clear the teacher was stronger than her.

Finally, an almost animalistic roar of an engine scared them all from what they were doing.

A shiny black, obviously very high-priced, sports car arrived. The driver of the car parked it on the opposite side of the road in front of the entrance to the school's courtyard. The door flew open, revealing a young man with black, shoulder-length hair, glasses on his nose and a white lab coat hanging half opened over his clothes. He closed his door and went to the trunk to retrieve a large leather bag from it, sparing none of them a glance. Only when he closed the trunk again, did he look up to assess the situation.

Otto didn't know Mar very well. The only times she'd seen him, he had been relaxed and had been wearing leisure time clothing. Now, he was nothing like the man she'd met back then. This was a man with a lot of authority and it was clear he was used to being obeyed.

And he was not amused right now.

His grey eyes, sharp behind the glasses, shot from the ambulance to the teacher, to Otto herself.

"I see," he said as he walked over to Otto, his expression softening considerably as he gently patted her head and cleared the teacher's hand from her shoulder. "You've done well, Otto."

Then his gaze shifted to the teacher and his expression turned angry.

"You," he said with all the necessary unspoken insults poured into the word. "If you had kept track of your student's record, you would have known that you were NOT to call an ambulance under any circumstances. You were to contact ME directly. I remember mentioning this to you before, yet you chose to ignore me. You've made a big mistake today."

Otto was listening rooted to the spot. His words had been overwhelming, even though they hadn't been directed to her. She glanced towards the teacher and saw she was close to tears. Mar didn't spare her a second glance. He turned his attention towards the nurse who had appeared from the back of the ambulance.

"I have two options for you," he said in a strict voice. "One; you hand me the boy right now and act as if this never happened. Sadly, I've realised I came here in the wrong type of vehicle because of the urgency of the matter. So that brings us to the second option; take me with you and deliver him to this address."

Both male nurses shared a glance with each other. The one who'd appeared from the back accepted the paper Mar held out to him.

"I haven't been there before, but we can," he said. "It will cost you, though."

"Money is not an objective," Mar said and disappeared in the back of the ambulance while the other nurse handed the address to the driver. Otto walked to the back of the ambulance and watched as Mar pulled out a few cooling elements and covered Alex's body with it. Then the doors closed and the ambulance started driving.

When the ambulance had vanished from view, the black sports car became visible again. Otto looked at it with a mixture of feelings. The whole object was a statement of wealth. Not only that, but it was parked in a place were you weren't allowed to park. And on top of that, it had been left behind as if it was nothing.

Otto was feeling overwhelmed by the mental calculation this view automatically triggered. And she had known Alex and his dad had been well off. She could only imagine how the others would feel. Certainly if you kept in mind that Alex always acted low-key. But his father clearly didn't share that mindset.

"Are you ok?" Jasper asked as he wrapped a steadying arm around Otto's shoulder.

"Hmm?" she asked as she looked up to find Jasper look at her worriedly. Behind him, she spotted the others of the class. "I'm fine. Why are you guys here?"

"It seems the teacher had a mental breakdown," Jasper explained. "The principal came to tell us her lessons have been cancelled for today and to wait like good kids until he found another teacher to keep an eye on us. But he said nothing about waiting inside the classroom, so we decided to come and take a look."

"I see," Otto laughed at his mischievous grin.

"Oh! My! God! That was AMAZING~!" Jessy singsonged as she walked over and noticed Mar's sports car. "Is THAT the car he came in?! Otto, you've been holding out on me."

Neither Jasper nor Otto replied. It looked like Alex's secret was out.

"Wait! Both of you knew?!" Jessy complained incredulously. "You really have been holding out on me."

"That's the first thing you say?" Otto asked with a trembling voice. "Alex collapsed and you're blaming me?"

Jessy immediately trapped her in a smothering hug.

"No sweety," she said kindly near her ear. "I'm trying to move your thoughts. I know how you get when you're worried. And I don't want you to lose sleep over this. It's probably just a cold. He'll be back in a few days. Maximum a week, you'll see!"

Otto looked over at Jasper and knew that they were thinking the same thing: This was really bad.