Now Jessica had the bad luck to be born during the passing of the
Drago Squalus asteroid that had passed far too close to Earth and spewed forth all kinds of weird
space radiation
on babies like Jessica.
Naturally
Elliot,Alex Chrissie and Wendy had the good luck to be born
a few months before or after
Drago Squalus did its thing.
What this meant was that Jessica and a few dozen million other kids
had been afflicted
with new
molecular,atomic and subatomic diseases
medical science hadn't yet found a cure for
on that day when Chrissie pushed her younger sisters
wheelchair into the auditorium for a demonstration of
the new gizmos scientists were
coming up with to try to counteract the harmful radiation
from Drago Squalus.
In the case of Jessica she had
Squalus Neural Disease
that painful molecular decomposition of nerve tissue
around joints such as
ankles,wrists,elbows,knees
and finger joints.
What that meant was without warning the nerves around a finger joint might suddenly go bad
and just the effort of holding a can of Coca Cola was a torture on the rack for
Jessica.
Then a week later the nerve would heal itself
and the SND would pop
up elsewhere in Jessica's body.
Hence Jessica's need for a wheelchair.
Now Chrissie and Wendy were
cheerleaders in the school
and Ellit and Alex were big beefy football jocks.
What had happened is that Alex,Elliot ,Wendy had needed
some Community Credits
to pass the final year
and since Chrissie was a friend of Wendy,the two jocks and the two
cheerleaders had
taken a interest in Jessica's
Disease of the Week
and took turns pushing
slumped over Jessica's wheelchair
around,in order to get their
Community Service credit.
So when some scientists had announced they had
a gizmo called
a Intermoleculr Decomposing
Micro Scanner,even
though Jessica and the other afflicted
students in the school hadn't
a clue what such a device was
they had all lobbyed Principal Smithers
to arrange for a demonstration of a device
Jessica and the other Council of 33
hoped would offer
them hope of a cure for
SND and other horrible medical conditions.
And so it was that chatty giggling Wendy
pushed Jessica's wheelchair into
the auditorium,where
the team of nervous research scientists had set up their three
storey tall machine.