Debbie the Doll Manager arrived today, Debbie dragging the doll manger behind her up to my door. But I heard those paranormal puppets sniffling and sneezing and snorting up their haunted doll snot and knew immediately there was no way I could let them near my bats. Bats have such trouble as it is with Pseudogymnoascus destructans, I have an obligation to minimize the risk of reverse zoonosis no matter what the possibility. And who knows what it's called when there's dolls involved.

So I'm afraid I sent Debbie the Doll Manager on her way, perhaps to stay at a Super 8.

Who let the dolls in? I was up all night listening to them hack and cough. They set up camp in the common room on my floor in Lemniscate Hall. They must be @Becky Wren's friends, and somebody let them in because you need the esoteric 64 character code to open the dorm doors. I mean, we all let our friends in, but you should at least keep them in your room. And now the whole hall is full of doll germs. Somebody should tell the RA but I'm late for class!

ACHOO!

Oh god all of Lemniscate Hall is in lockdown because of the quarantine. Head Nurse says nobody in or out till the Doll Flu has run its course, but I have a presentation for Preformative Alchemy that I can’t miss. The halls are full of students in those little doll beds—their eyes shut automatically when you lay them on their backs—but I think I can make my way through them and get to the subliminal exit. If I don’t have any symptoms now I think I should be fine. I’ll just slip out for my presentation and get back before anybody notices. My grade is at stake!!!

Shouldn’t there be an inoculation for Doll Flu? Even if it’s not for this year’s Doll Flu I’d totally take it. I went to ask and they turned me away. Head Nurse and her team were all wearing facemasks and the clinic was full of stricken students, sitting up in their little doll beds saying “Mama.” They’re having trouble collecting enough doll furniture to keep them occupied. Head Nurse was on the phone yelling “It’s out of control! We don’t have the resources! We need @Dr Krimsborg, DPM, stat!” Then she saw me staring at her and walked back into her office.

I hope I didn’t catch it just from being there. How stupid for me to go to the most infected place on campus! I think I’ll skip class today and just lock myself in my dorm room. Probably spend all day staring at my hands, waiting for them to turn into hard little doll hands. I heard drinking Pennyroyal tea can keep you from catching it. All I need is a tiny china tea set, with little saucers and cups and a tiny pot. I’ll invite all my friends, like Mr. Spider, and Old Grandma Marsh, and Fluffles the elephant. Oooo that sounds fun!

...

...

...

...

It has been weeks, nay, months, since I last returned to Psychic High. I had been travelling, you see, gathering data and information on the year's most likely psychic ailments. I made a grave error in assuming that last year's outbreak of Skipping Rope Syndrome had made the general population immune to toy-based viruses, and so discarded the possibility of Doll Flu. What an arrogant fool I was.

The doll furniture crisis is but one part of the necessary treatment of Doll Flu. The other parts are much more, how do I put this... dangerous.

Future Psychic Physicians pay attention. In order to reverse Doll Flu, for each patient a cup of fairy dust is required. No, not *fairy*, *Fahree*. The Fahree are an extraordinarily reclusive anthropomorphic bat species. Their world is highly advanced and their wariness of human contact not entirely unwarranted. Many psychics have taken advantage of the once trusting creatures to steal the dust that they naturally secrete from their wings.

I meet with the head nurse, Elphaba Abalone, who is trying to help one poor student who’s eyes will not open when she is sat up. Loosening the eyes is a complex procedure, and so I wait for it to be completed in one eye before I clear my throat. "Hello Elphie."

She looks up. "Oh thank heavens, I was wondering if you were ever going to return! I’ve been Psychically calling for days!"

I blush slightly. "Yes, well I was a little, ah, preoccupied. You see, the Antrogometri species allowed me into their colony-”

"I hope you can shed some light on the Doll Flu cases," Nurse Abalone interrupts. "Patient Zero is still being identified."

I scratch at my beard - when did that grow? - before telling her everything I recall about it. "...which is why I think we need to call in @Becky Wren. She’s the only one who might be able to persuade the Fahree chiefs to share their dust. It could be the only chance for some of these students. How many are in Bone China phase?"

"Eleven. There’s four more showing signs of moving into it, and two who I fear might succumb to the Dead Stare."

"Then this is serious," I say.

I sigh heavily. "Why is it that everything goes horrifically wrong the moment I go and take some time off?"

Darn it! That ding dong Debbie the Doll Manager dribbles trouble wherever she goes. Turns out she drug her contagious crew of demented dolls right into a dorm and spread their dirty disease directly into the heart of Psyhigh! I can’t help but feel partly responsible.

But it turns out I may be able to mitigate this madness, at least a smidgen. Apparently, the cure lies with the Batfolk--the Fâhrèé as they are officially called. Every bat handler has heard of them, but they don't open their wings to just any crazy kook that comes calling. They're a very private people, especially with the demand for their dust so high.

There's a map to their land in the back of every bat handler's bat manual, and the complicated catacombs underneath Psyhigh provide a path to get there. I've packed my provisions and am heading out tonight.

ACHOO! And ACHOO and ACHOO!

I've still got these darn sniffles, and they wouldn't be so bad if I could just reach my face with my stiff little arms. I can't even cover my sneeze in my elbow. ACHOO!

So I have to rub my face in my pillow a lot. Otherwise, the biggest problem (aside from typing) is finding clothes that fit! The nurses raided all the Goodwills in town, and they came back with some ok stuff but there was a big doll fight and the good stuff all got grabbed right away. Boy clothes are way harder.

Luckily I've got my parent's visa, so I'm waiting on a bunch of vintage stuff I bought on ebay.

I’m not the first to find my way through these cavernous catacombs beneath the school. There’s junk in the tunnels from journeys dating way way back: cavelights and compasses, carabiners and climbing cord, old tin cans and fossils. It’d be easy for a soul to get lost—if it weren’t for my flock of bats to lead the way. Guide bats! Just give them a sonic signature and they won’t stop searching till they find it.

In this case, that sonic signature is of the Fâhrèé, the bat people of bat lore. Yes, it’s true their distinct self defense techniques have been stolen by certain superheroes, but there’s plenty more to respect about this ancient race. It’s a pilgrimage every bat handler longs to take—I only hope I can leave with the medicine I require to fix the flu problem back on campus.

I hope I shall arrive soon.

I suppose they’re running out of room in the emergency mobile doll house classrooms, because they’re letting the infected students wander everywhere now. The halls are super eerie—you have to watch where you walk because the dolls are so short, and mostly silent, shuffling from class to class. We (the students who haven’t caught it yet) have to help them up into the desks and get the little paper and pencils out for them.

I’m especially bummed because I got paired with one as a lab partner for Preformative Alchemy, and I’m sure I’ll have to do all the work because she can’t reach the table and she’ll drop the test tubes if she tries to grab one, since her fingers don’t really move. If this affects my grade I’m totally going to complain.