My MC is in highschool, and she needs a way to get out of school halfway through the day. Is there a way to make your temperature go up so the thermometer says you have a fever? I was thinking about having her drink something really hot, so her mouth is hot when the school nurse sticks the thermometer in, but would that even work? Does the old trick of holding the thermometer up to a lightbulb work?
Otherwise, what's a good way for her to get out of school without sneaking out? Her mother won't sign a note for her or anything, so she needs the nurse to send her home.
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Michelle
ML for Chicago, IL
ml-michelle@chiwrimo.org
0 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 19
Take a mega dose of zinc and you get a real fever. Depeding on the weight, you can do the job in well under a gram. My guess is for a teenage girl, we are talking perhaps 250 mg. Mild enough to cause apperent problems, but not permenent damage.
0 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 16
If she's a good enough actress couldn't she just go and say she feels very ill and act ill. If it doesn't seem to be working fake passing out.
50,011 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 18
I've heard putting toothpaste in your mouth works, or she could forge a note and say it's from someone other than her mother, like a babysitter or aunt, that's what I've done for homework and stuff, it could probably get her out of school.
5,700 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 24
Whatever she does don't run the thermometer under hot running water. It makes your temp go up way to high. I tried that once and my mom kind of looked at me like "Yeah... so your temperature is 115" or something crazy like that!
I heard if you eat potatoes and milk it makes you throw up.
Also if its winter time she could always fake a slip on the ice and smack her head. My school actually sent me home for that one.
50,086 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 36
My highschool only let you go home if you had a fever, so that's why I went with that.
But she's not exactly a 'good' kid, so the school will be suspicious if she just "feels" sick and doesn't have any obvious symptons, I think.
----------Michelle
ML for Chicago, IL
ml-michelle@chiwrimo.org
50,029 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 40
I don't know how well it would work but maybe if she had a lighter she could heat the thermometer with that. If she kept an eye on it, and take the heat off when it got up to decent fever temperature.
I say grab a lighter and a thermometer and try it.
50,420 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 14 52
Does it have to be a fever? She could say she has really bad cramps. My high-school nurse would always someone home for really bad cramps, although that was 20 years ago and we were allowed to carry Midol around in our purses, too. Now that you can't take Midol into a high school, I suppose the nurse would have to send her home! :P
58,790 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 15 03
She could cup the end in her hands and the heat would probably make the temperature a little higher (although I'm thinking of the mercery-type, if that's what you're using).
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50,025 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 15 04
OH goodness, my area of expertise.
Diarrhea. No one asks questions. No one wants to ask questions.
Cramps were mentioned. These are classic. Especially if you mention that your doctor has tried to put you on birth control to reign them in, since you have them extra bad each month.
Inducing vomiting was mentioned. Supposedly if you mix warm water with mustard, it's an instant route to tossing your cookies. Source? Brave New World. Tested? Hell no.
IN short, almost anything.
0 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 15 10
She could say she's really dizzy (and maybe nauseous), and then walk slowly in a not-straight line, dragging her feet, and occasionally slightly bumping into walls. If she can act really confused, that helps.
If you want her to induce vomiting, warm water mixed with salt works, unfortunately I know from personal experience (I wasn't trying to get out of school, I just accidentally drank salt water).
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Oct 9, 2008 - 15 18
Diarrhea. No one asks questions. No one wants to ask questions.
You can't do tests for it, is why noone asks questions. I have a friend who used to use it when she needed an extension on her university assignments and needed a doctor's certificate.
50,566 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 16 11
I heard if you eat potatoes and milk it makes you throw up.
Considering that there are both potatoes AND milk in clam chowder, and I eat that all the time, I'm going to have to say that this doesn't work.
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6,679 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 16 43
My friends and I used to forge hall passes to get out early. This involved saving a legitimate one and a trip to Kinkos. Then, the first person asks to go to the bathroom, or something like that, takes the pass to the next person's class. The teacher doesn't expect her back (off to the principal's office, yes indeedy) and obviously the girl isn't expected on the other end. Then, after the original girl goes back to class, the second girl springs her. We used to do this one go get a longer lunch hour.
50,052 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 16 46
The Dhiarria one is good.
The cramp one as well.
Also, I've found that if you truly want to be sick, you actually can get a bit paler and sickly looking. Paleness always works for me, because I usually have a pinkish color.
A really bad cough, disrupting classes works. The teacher will want you out of the classroom so you don't get him/her sick.
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50,029 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 17 25
Ooh I just had a thought! I've got this freind who can't eat spinach. Even if he doesn't know it's in something, as soon he eats it, he pukes. Everytime. If your character had a food she knew made her sick, maybe establish it in an earlier scene, have her eating at a freind's house and have to explain how she can't eat that food. Then when it comes time to ditch class, she aquires some (if she knew that morning she had to leave she could bring it with her or if it's spontaneous she could swipe it out of a freind's lunch or something). Then it's as easy as devouring it in the nurse's office and hurling it back on her floor.
51,141 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 17 59
I hated school and used about every trick in the book. I used to always rub my face really hard for a few minutes and the friction would make it warm and flushed looking. The best thermometer trick i had was to put it between my knees and rub the top of it between my hands really quickly - the friction of it rubbing against my jeans made it heat up and it was easy to control how hot it got.
I did try putting the thermometer on a heater a couple of times but I was sort of busted when it sort of exploded mercury everywhere...
I also tried on occasion to make myself puke but no amount of forcing my fingers down my throat made me sick :P
33,167 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 18 17
At my school, if it was flu season and you went in saying you were feeling sick, they sent you home no questions asked - they didn't want you spreading it around. So maybe if there's a bug of some sort going around they might just send her straight home if she claims to have the symptoms. If she could find some way to induce vomiting, that might help.
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2,117 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 19 25
When I always faked it I said I had migraines or extreme dizziness and nausea. ;)
23,323 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 21 50
Whenever I skipped school I always just told the nurse I felt sick to my stomach (how can they really check that?) when they asked if I wanted to call anyone I said that no one was home to pick me up and that I didn't live too far away so I could just walk. Either that or I would call my house and pretend I was talking to my grandma and ask her to pick me up. Then the nurse would sign the note and I would leave and just walk home. ^_^ I know I was a bad kid. LOL
If I didn't want to put that much effort into ditching then I would just leave. ;)
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Oct 9, 2008 - 22 09
My high school nurse's solution to EVERYTHING was to go home, even if I just wanted to call my dad so she could have permission to administer me some benadryl *rolls eyes*
Some things my nurse has tried to send me home for:
Hurt arm *was faking XD, very well, too*
Stomach ache *faked*
Hives *not faking, was recovering from allergic reaction to bug spray. They were bothersome*
And since I drove and the guard was about as bright as a sack of potatoes ('Are you out of class?' '...yes...' 'Okay.'), I could get out with about anything XD
EDIT:: I also used to hear if you came hobbling into the office holding your bum, she'd send you home without asking. Good old diarrhea trick :3
----------Maria, plagued with retinitis pigmentosa, is an artist under the iron fist of her money hungry father. Raver, plagued with the death of the people he loved, is a guardian hellbent on protecting those he loves. When Raver takes Maria's disease and family s
50,052 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 22 23
In middle school I gave my friend my chocolate milk at lunch because she wasn't really hungry and I felt like being nice. 10 minutes later she projectile-vomited chocolate milk all over me and her. It was mostly undigested so it still looked like chocolate milk but since it was warm it had that faintly sour smell when it mixed with the smell of my sweatshirt and was just plain unpleasant. ~I~ wasn't sick but since I didn't have a change of clothes and had just been through 'a traumatic experience', I got to go home early. Sooooo, if your MC is particularly brave/not a fashion-freak, she could hold chocolate milk in her mouth 'til it got warm, spit up on her clothes, and look like she was really sick without being sick at all.
:D Just a suggestion.
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Totally worth it!
14,707 / 50,000
Oct 9, 2008 - 22 58
I'm surprised no one has suggested exercise!
Five to eight minutes of cardio (jogging, jumping jacks, whatever) is enough to start raising your body temperature. It won't raise it to extreme levels (say, 103 degrees or higher), because the human body is designed to not get too hot, but it'll boost it a few degrees (perhaps to 100 or 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit). If your MC did a little bouncing around in the hall before she hit the nurse's office, that might be enough to fool them. She'd naturally get flushed and sweat a little at the same time, too.
She would need to rest for a couple minutes before hitting the office, though, to return her pulse and breathing to normal or near-normal rates. Because if the nurse notices a really fast respiration rate, she may either guess the exercise or get really alarmed and call an ambulance (a fast pulse or quick, shallow breathing in a RESTING person is a danger signal that warrants closer inspection).
Unless the nurse is exceptionally busy, your MC is unlikely to be able to artificially heat the thermometer when the nurse isn't looking. If the nurse is in the same room with her, as is fairly likely, she will have no choice but to sit there with it under her tongue.
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53,461 / 50,000
Oct 10, 2008 - 04 40
Definitely go for diarrhea. Not a single question asked! Never used it, but it'd be foolproof XD
Cramps are good. I actually have had to go home from genuine cramps before, so a lot of being doubled over, clutching abdominal area and looking nauseous will get it. ...Come to think of it, that's the same set of symptoms for the above XD
How good is her coughing / sneezing? The sneezing might be hard, but if you get a good, wracking cough, they'll usually send you home.
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40,442 / 50,000
Oct 10, 2008 - 05 27
Kind of linked to ArgentumHawkers' idea:
----------I'm allergic to penicillin, so whenever I want to get out of school I'll steal a couple of penicillin tablets from my mothers' medicine cabinet in the morning, take one when I get to school, and within ten minutes I've come out in a rash. It goes down within about an hour.
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6,563 / 50,000
Oct 10, 2008 - 07 02
Pretty much all of the above, but it helps if your MC tries to convince herself that she's sick in the first place. Like imagining something really bad happening, something that would really affect her would make her feel dread, and then automatically her throat would feel tigher, her stomach might hurt, etc. If she 'thinks' she's sick, most of the acting will come by itself, like hazy eyes, imbalance and so on.
----------Nano 2007-19k (Lost)
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50,945 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2008 - 01 09
Rub the end of the thermometer. A little friction will bring up the temperature. You can actually do this with the thermometer under your tongue, using your tongue, if you have to. It's easier to fake a low temperature though.
25,700 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2008 - 10 24
Rub your cheeks to look flushed and as you start to discribe your symptoms to the nurse start to cry a little. It takes some delicate acting but usually you can have the nurse in the palm of your hand.
50,035 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2008 - 11 00
Fevers are hard to fake imo. A Stomachache in general works fine. Have her go to the nurse and say she has a stomache ache. If the nurse tells her to go to the bathroom, she could just go into the bathroom, groan a little, and then come out and say she has diarrhea. That usually works. Not that I'd know ;)
6,835 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2008 - 16 38
I agree with LifeofaSpark. Stomahaches do normal work. It's not like I used that excuse from time to time....
50,816 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2008 - 17 15
Migraines work well providing you tell the nurse your symptoms.
As for faking a fever... the only way I could think would be to go there immediately after physical education, work hard and up your temperature.