by Nancy Rue
“Lily, wait!” It was Suzy, and when Lily turned around, she was waving frantically.
“Come on!” Lily said. “Kresha’s brothers are at it again and we’re—”
“No!” Suzy cried. Her voice threatened to break like a china teacup. “Zooey fell down. She’s hurt!”
Kresha’s brothers ran right out of Lily’s mind.
“Go get Reni,” she told Kresha, and then she raced back around the corner after Suzy.
Zooey was sprawled out on the ground half on and half off the sidewalk, one leg going one way and one the other. The pages of Lily’s first aid books danced in Lily’s head, and her heart pounded out her calling: It’s time! It’s time to use what I know!
She was so excited that she forgot to be careful on the ice and slid toward Zooey on one heel. Her entrance into her first real emergency situation wasn’t graceful, but she could work on that. Right now, she put on her concerned face and squatted down beside Zooey.
“What happened?” she said briskly to Suzy as she unlaced Zooey’s boot.
“That hurts!” Zooey wailed.
“I don’t know,” Suzy said. She was shaking her head so hard, her swingy black hair was going everywhere. “She was trying to run, and then all of a sudden she was on the ground!”
“Uh-huh,” Lily said. She gave the boot a final, gentle tug, and it came off with a howl from Zooey that was sure to bring every dog in the neighborhood.
“I’m going to hike up your sweatpants leg so I can see what I’m doing,” Lily said.
“What are you doing?” Reni said. Huffing and puffing, she knelt down next to Lily.
“I’m checking her ankle,” Lily said. “Just as I thought. It looks like a sprain.”
She tried not to sound too excited, but it was, after all, one of the things she’d just been studying about.
“How can you tell?” Reni said.
“See the way her foot is bent inward?” Lily said. “How bad is the pain, Zooey?”
“It hurts!” Zooey wailed.
“That’s the other symptom,” Lily said. “Intense pain, especially when you try to move it. Can you move it, Zooey?”
“No-oo-oo!”
“What if I touch it here?”
Lily put her finger lightly on Zooey’s ankle, setting up a scream from Zooey that made Kresha cover her ears.
“Do you want me to go get your mom, Zooey?” Suzy said. She was beyond nervous giggling by this time. Lily was sure that nervous crying was coming next.
“No, I can handle this,” Lily said. “I just need to put a splint on it, and then we can get her to Reni’s and put ice on it. She’ll need an ice pack for forty-eight hours—” “I don’t want ice!” Zooey cried.
“I want hot chocolate. I’m cold! And it hurts!”
“This’ll just take a minute, Zooey,” Lily said. “I’ll need something. . .” Lily looked around, heart still beating out the excited rhythm: It’s time! It’s time! “Kresha, grab me that big stick. Suzy, Reni—let me have your scarves.”
Suzy obediently took hers off. Reni said, “What for?”
“I’ll show you,” Lily said.
Kresha brought her the stick, and Lily measured it against Zooey’s leg. It was plenty long enough: it would do nicely. She slid it under Zooey’s leg and then wrapped Suzy’s scarf around both it and the leg to tie it in place.
“See,” she said, “I need yours for down here.”
Reni reluctantly took off her scarf. Lily reminded herself to talk to Reni later about how, if she were going to be her assistant—and of course she would be because she was her best friend—she was going to have to follow orders first and ask questions later. Nurses on TV never asked the doctor why he needed the scalpel he asked for. She finished tying Reni’s scarf around the splint and said, “How does that feel now, Zooey?”
Zooey just went on wailing about it hurting and about her being cold and wanting hot chocolate—with marshmallows.
“Now what?” Reni said.
Lily looked at her quickly. She wasn’t sounding all impatient and cold now. She really seemed to want to know what Lily had in mind next. Lily stood up and straightened her shoulders.
“If you guys do exactly as I say, we can get her to
your house.”
“Why don’t we just go get her mom?” Suzy said.
“Because we don’t need to,” Lily said as she pulled Zooey’s sweatpants back down over the splint. “I know just how to do this.”
She got Kresha and Reni and Suzy to help Zooey stand up on one foot, and then she told Zooey to lean on Kresha and Reni on the hurt side while all three of them helped her hop her way to Reni’s.
“I’m going to run ahead and get things ready,” Lily said, and she took off down the sidewalk. This time she remembered to get off the ice and into the slush so she wouldn’t fall down. It wouldn’t be good for the doctor to become the patient.
Well, kind of like the doctor, she told herself. I don’t know everything yet. Good thing it wasn’t a nosebleed. I haven’t gotten to that section.
Still, she had to admit that splint was pretty good. It looked just like the one in the first aid book.
At Reni’s she burst into the kitchen, nearly startling Mrs. Johnson right off the stool she was standing on to reach a top shelf. Lily reminded herself to remain calm and went at a more sedate pace toward the refrigerator.
“Zooey has a sprained ankle,” Lily said. “We’re going to need some ice. Do you have a bag of frozen peas? That works best.”
“Where is she?” Mrs. Johnson said. She was already grabbing for her jacket from the back of a kitchen chair.
But before she could get one arm in a sleeve, the door opened again. Kresha, Suzy, and Reni struggled in with Zooey, all their faces looking as pained and red as Zooey’s did.
“Good heavens!” Mrs. Johnson said.
“Put her on the couch, guys,” Lily said. “I’ll get the ice. Keep it elevated.”
“Hot chocolate!” Zooey wailed.
“Get her some hot chocolate,” Lily barked in Mrs. Johnson’s direction.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Johnson said.
“Um . . . Could you please get her some hot chocolate?” Lily said. “Sorry. I just get so involved.”
“Yes, you do,” Mrs. Johnson said. “First thing I’m going to do is call that child’s mother,” and she picked up her cell phone.
“I’m so cold!” Zooey was saying as Lily hurried to the living room. Her voice had dropped from a wail to a whimper, and there were tears trailing down her cheeks.
“You’ll get warm in a minute,” Lily said. “Or maybe I should check you for hypo—hypo—for frostbite.”
“I’m cold because my sweatpants are all wet from being on the ground!” Zooey said.
“Oh,” Lily said. She was glad it wasn’t hypo-whatever, because she couldn’t even pronounce it yet.
“Can we take her pants off her, Lily?” Reni said.
Lily stopped thinking about hypo-something and felt her chest expanding. “Sure,” she said, “if you’re careful with that splint. Maybe we should cut them off—”
“No! These are my favorite!” Zooey said.
Lily gave in and inched Zooey’s soaking wet sweatpants down her legs. When she got them to her ankles, Zooey started to cry all over again. Mrs. Johnson picked that moment to come into the living room.
“I couldn’t reach her mom,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Lily said. “As soon as we get these wet pants off, she’ll be fine.”
“I’m not fine!” Zooey wailed.
“We’ll get you some hot chocolate,” Suzy said.
“No! It hurts!”
“Let me take a look at that,” Mrs. Johnson said, and then she cocked an eyebrow at Lily. “If you don’t mind.”
Lily felt a pang inside and moved aside so Mrs. Johnson could get closer to Zooey’s ankle. She knew her face was going to go blotchy any minute.
She acts like I was j
ust being a show-off or something, Lily thought. But I know about this stuff!
“You’re really swelling,” Mrs. Johnson said.
“That’s what the ice is for,” Lily said.
“What’s your daddy’s number at work, Zooey?” Mrs. Johnson said. “I think if we can’t get your mama, we’d better get him. You need to go to the hospital and have that x-rayed.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital! No! Lily, don’t let them take me to the hospital! You fix it!”
“Lily has done enough fixing for today,” Mrs. Johnson said. “What’s your daddy’s number, Zooey?”
Lily’s face did go blotchy then. Mrs. Johnson might as well have punched her in the stomach, she felt so deflated. By the time Mrs. Johnson hurried off to make the call, Lily was blinking back hot tears.
“Vhat this for?” Kresha said. She was holding up the bag of peas.
“Is she supposed to eat those?” Reni said.
“We better wait till her dad comes,” Suzy said.
Lily swallowed hard. “She was supposed to put them on her ankle to keep the swelling down.” She glanced toward the kitchen, where Mrs. Johnson was talking on the phone.
“I think you better get her to the emergency room right quick,” she was saying. “She’s in some serious pain.”
All the Girlz looked doubtfully first at the bag of peas and then at Lily.
“Maybe we better go,” Suzy said.
Kresha nodded and planted a kiss on Zooey’s forehead.
Lily looked at Reni.
“Maybe you better,” Reni said. “My mama’s squeezing her lips together. When she does that, she’s about to yell at somebody.”
Lily sighed, and this time it came straight from her heart.
“Okay,” she said. “Bye, Zooey. Keep the splint on until you get to the hospital—if Mrs. Johnson will let you.”
But Zooey’s face crumpled again. “Don’t go, Lily!” she said. “They’re gonna do weird stuff to me, and you won’t! Don’t go!”
“It’s all right, Zooey,” Mrs. Johnson said from the doorway. “Your daddy’s on his way, and everything is going to be all right. Lily can go home.”
It was a direct order if Lily had ever heard one, and she left.
Nine
All the way home Lily felt the pang go through her over and over again.
I did everything the book said, she thought as she ducked her head out of the biting-cold wind. So how come Mrs. Johnson was treating me like that? She made me feel like I’d been playing around with something serious. I wasn’t!
The whole experience had put Lily in the kind of mood where she just wanted to go to her room by herself, pull all the books out of her bookcases, and reorganize them while she thought about it and thought about it and thought about it until the pangs went away.
But when she walked in the house and smelled the corn dogs, she remembered it was Family Night.
They’d started a new thing since Christmas: every Monday night the Robbinses would have corn dogs and milk shakes and Rice Krispies Treats and Caesar salad and potato skins as a family and play a board game together. The menu was a combination of each person’s favorite food, and they took turns choosing the board game. Last Monday had been Dad’s turn, and they’d played some dusty old thing from his childhood called Authors that only he was good at. Tonight was Joe’s turn to pick, so it was sure to be some kind of war game or something.
Lily groaned. Maybe if she said she didn’t feel well, they’d let her off.
But then she also remembered that she was the one who had suggested the whole thing when they were all making their New Year’s resolutions. If she begged off, Joe and Art would think they could too, and that would leave Mom playing “Authors” with Dad by herself.
Lily wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
She dragged herself into the kitchen, where Mom was just pulling the potato skins out of the microwave and Art was pouring milk shakes from the blender.
“Where have you been?” Joe said. “You were supposed to make Rice Krispies Treats!”
“I was saving someone’s life,” Lily said as she marched to the cabinet where they kept the cereal.
“Nuh-uh,” Joe said.
“Exaggerating just a little, Lil?” Mom said. “Don’t bother looking. I picked up some at the grocery store.”
“The packaged kind?” Art said. “Gross.”
“Okay, so I wasn’t saving her life exactly.”
“Duh,” Art said. “So where are they, Mom?”
“While you’re looking, see if you can find the croutons for my salad,” Dad said from the doorway to the laundry room/mudroom. He was holding a large bowl of Caesar salad. There was so much going on in the kitchen, he’d probably had to make his contribution to the dinner out there.
“But she sprained her ankle,” Lily said, “and I put a splint on it and we got her back to Reni’s house.”
“Who?” said all four of the Robbinses at the same time. “Zooey,” Lily said.
She looked back at them, and suddenly the pangs went away. They had all stopped what they were doing, and they were all looking at her, and for just a second nobody was making a comment like “Nuh-uh!” or “Duh!”
“Are you serious?” Mom said finally.
“Yeah,” Lily said.
“No way,” Art said. “How’d you know how to make a splint?”
“I studied it in first aid books,” she said. “And I practiced it on some of my old stuffed animals.”
Art seemed to think about it for a second. He had to content himself with, “So, you’re the next new resident on House,” and then went back to pouring milk shakes.
Mom and Dad looked at each other and had one of those conversations where neither one of them said anything. When Dad looked at Lily, his eyes lost their vague am-I-still-reading-C. S.-Lewis-or-am-I-talking-to-you? look.
“Well, how about that?” he said. “What did you make the splint out of?”
“A big stick and two of those wool scarves the Girlz were wearing.”
“All right, Lil!” Mom said. “Next time Joe gets banged up in a ball game, we’ll know who to call.”
“No, thanks,” Joe said.
“Mom, he’s doing it,” Lily said.
“Joe, back off, babe,” Mom said.
He did, but the minute Mom turned her back to get the sour cream out of the refrigerator, Joe picked up a corn dog and pelted it toward Lily’s head.
“Hey!” Lily cried. “Joe just threw a whole corn dog at me!”
Joe was saved by the ringing of the phone. Mom waved her hand to get everybody to hush up. They were all quiet as they finished loading up the table with what Dad said was going to be a “gastronomical disaster,” but Mom took her phone into the dining room to talk. When she came back, her lips were definitely not twitching.
“Whoa,” Art said. “Who died?”
Mom ignored him. “Lil, that was Zooey’s mother.”
Art nudged Joe. “Here comes the malpractice suit.”
“Art,” Mom said sternly. “That’s enough. Lil, Mrs. Hoffman said they took Zooey to the emergency room, and her ankle is broken in two places.”
“Broken?” Lily said.
“Yeah, you know,” Joe said and snapped the offending corn dog in two. Dad glared at him, and he shut up.
“She’s more than a little upset,” Mom said. “She thinks you might have made it worse by having Zooey hobble back to Reni’s. Which is . . . Well, the point is—”
“The point is, there goes your license to practice medicine,” Art said.
“Shut up!” Lily cried. The pangs were piling on top of one another, and she couldn’t stand to be here with the corn dogs and the smirks and the rude comments another minute. She fled from the kitchen and down the hall to her room. The slamming of her door rattled the house.
Her face was buried in her pillow, and she was clinging to China, splints and all, when her mother came in and sat on the edge of her bed
. She never did that unless she had bad news, like Lily was being grounded until college or something.
“Your brother has the tact of a Mack truck,” Mom said. “He’s going to apologize to you.”
“I don’t care!” Lily cried. “I hurt Zooey!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mom said.
Lily rolled over to look at her. “But her mom said—”
“Zooey’s mom says her eating too many Snickers bars when she was pregnant with Zooey is why Zooey is still ‘fluffy’ to this day, so I don’t entirely rely on everything Zooey’s mother says. However—”
Lily closed her eyes. Here it comes, she thought miserably.
“In first aid, you always treat for the worst possible injury just in case. You did the right thing with the splint, but then you should have kept her off of her ankle until someone could come pick her up.”
“Oh,” Lily said. She turned on her side and stared miserably at China’s splints.
“Even better than that,” Mom said, “would have been to go and get an adult instead of trying to handle it yourself.”
“But I knew what to do!” Lily said.
“You knew just enough to be dangerous, Lil,” Mom said. She tugged gently at one of Lily’s red curls. “I know how you like to go at everything like it’s life-and-death and have it be real. When you were little, I could never get you to play store with empty cans and boxes. You had to have the real thing. I’d go to cook dinner and couldn’t find a potato or an onion in the place.”
“But I’m not a little kid anymore! I almost knew what to do, and if I could take a real first aid class, I wouldn’t make mistakes like that.”
“So now you’re a big kid and I’m the big kid’s mom, and I’m telling her that until that time comes, she doesn’t handle any more medical emergencies on her own. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Lily said.
“Okay. So come help me beat these guys.”
“Do I have to tonight?” Lily said.
Mom looked at her for a minute, tan face serious, brown doe-eyes searching Lily’s face. Finally she said, “Okay, you can skip it tonight. I’ll eat your corn dog for you.”
After she left, Lily rolled back over on her stomach and folded her hands.
