Ice Cream Adrenaline

11

Paul and Bob's discussion with Nick's parents went surprisingly well. They had decided to keep Nick out of school for a while and try to pinpoint exactly how to help him. Bob suggested to just take him to a bunch of doctors, but Paul knew that Nick would be super uncomfortable. Nick's parents seemed to want to do it, though, so Paul didn't say anything.

After Paul and Bob left that night, Nick spent a few hours just staring at his star chart, trying to remember everything that Alex had taught him about space. Eventually, his parents had come in to discuss their plans to try to help him, but he didn't listen. He was too busy thinking about Alex, and if he would ever come back. California seemed so far away to Nick, almost as far away as space, the only place Alex had ever really wanted to go.

Nick fell asleep an hour later. He slept until 10 the next day, when Paul and Bob came over to check on him.

"I'm just so worried, Bob..." Paul sighed as he silently closed the door. Nick pretended to be asleep.

"He'll be fine, Paul."

"But what if he's not fine?"

"He will be."

Nick slowly opened his eyes.

"Good! You're up!" Paul dashed over, obviously faking a smile.

Nick blinked a few times and tried to sit up. Paul looked at Bob, blatantly concerned.

"You look so dehydrated. Here, drink this." Paul handed Nick an unopened water bottle with the wrapper replaced by a cute sticker that had puppies on it.

Nick smiled awkwardly and tried to open the bottle. It didn't work.

"Oh, uh, right." Paul grabbed the bottle from Nick's shaky, weak hands and opened it, admiring the puppy sticker on the cap.

"Did you really put puppy stickers on that?" Bob giggled, looking up at Paul from where he was sitting on the ground.

"Yeah, why?" Paul handed the bottle to Nick again, "please drink this. You need to stay hydrated. Maybe drink the entire thing before we leave?"

"Can't believe we have to go back to school tomorrow." Bob mumbled, glaring at the floor.

Paul sighed. He was sure that he and Bob would be interrogated about what could have possibly happened while they were out of school for almost a month.

Alex, on the other hand, was still out in California and didn't care about what would happen when he got back home. He had decided to leave LA for Carlsbad. Klav didn't know this and had to track Alex down using only Nicki's bear senses.

"He's gotta be in there." Klav whispered as he and Nicki walked past a dusty record store.

And surely enough, Alex was inside, checking out old music from the 1970s.

"Wait here, Nicki. I'll be right back." Klav placed a cardboard sign in front of Nicki that said "I AM A NICE BEAR!"

Klav dashed into the record store and slammed into Alex, almost knocking him and an entire shelf over.

"Alex. You have to go home." Klav whispered.

"I'm not going home, Klavidiy."

"We don't know if Nick's gonna make it, and... You should apologize before it's too late."

Alex looked up at Klav.

"I want to stay here for a few more days, but I'll promise I'll go home soon. Go back to Russia."

"I'm not leaving until you're leaving."

•••

Paul and Bob were obviously bombarded with questions the next day. Most of them were from Alex's popular friends, who had maybe 10 second attention spans and almost forgot about him. A few of them still made jokes about Alex's sick burn on Nick, apparently. Paul wished that he could just tell the kids that Nick could die at any moment, but he was supposed to keep that confidential.