Horrible homework

For the first time in like, ever! Robbie had been enjoying his homework. In an inspired attempt to teach his class history, Miss Knowles had introduced them to the concept of 'Horrible history' from around the World and had set them the homework of finding the most gruesome things possible.

Some had gone better that others. Robbie's small poxed make-up had frightened music teacher Miss Jarvis so much, that she had dropped a trumbone onto her left big toe.

 Another boy on the class had come to school with a fake axe through his head but had got it jammed in the door and had given himself a nosebleed. Unfortunately, the nose bleed had seeped through to Miss Knowles's packed lunch and she had become quite grumpy.

There had been putrid pirates and evil Queen's galore and one boy had even come in with a papier mache horses head that ended up being the classroom mascot for the rest of the year.

All the class had learnt loads about terrible diseases, evil tyrants and unpleasant methods of punishing people.

Then one morning, just after the project had ended, Robbie's friend Nick seemed to go a funny shade of light green and apparently lost the ability to talk. He pushed his chair away from Robbie so fast that he actually toppled over and ended up crushing Katie Dunn's new school satchel.

Robbie was confused but couldn't get a coherent sentence out of Nick.

 Nick just said "Orrrrrlaminkkle' or 'Plagggguespoooootik'

Robbie put it down to Nick's team suffering a bad loss the night before and got on with his simple arithmetic problems.

But suddenly, as the day went on, Nick started doing the strangest things .

He got a blanket from lost property and put it on Nick in the middle of recorder practice in music. He sneaked out of school and bought Robbie an iced bun at lunchtime. He kept bringing cups of water and at one point offered Robbie a warm, wet towel.

At the end of the day, Nick went rushing to Miss Knowles and whispered in her ear.

Miss Knowles wasn't known for her hysterical laughter but this particular bout went on for about 5 minutes. At last, she regained her composure and called Robbie over.

"No Nick" she said. "Robbie is not dying and does not have the plague. Those freckle-like spots and rashes are not symptoms of the bubonic plague. They're specks of paint from earlier today when Robbie was helping us finish off our Horrible history display for assembly" "He obviously missed a bit when he washed his ha......AH-hahahahaha..."

Miss Knowles collapsed again in uncontrollable mirth.  Nick went a bright shade of crimson and crestfallen, skulked out of the classroom feeling a bit of a twit.

Robbie, although he could see the funny side, was kind of touched that his friend Nick had cared so much.

That night, Nick asked mum to knock up a batch of homemade iced buns. He took them round to Nick's house and they happily munched them whilst watching not horrible histories, but a replay of Nick's favourite team winning away from home. 

 Story based on the two suggested words - Dying & World.