The pavement is flying underneath my feet, trees are a blur to my right and left, my breath is heavy but I keep going. "Can't be late. Can't be late" was what keep playing in my head. I look behind me and they are there. I run faster "If I can just get to home room they can't get me!" I thought, "You're gunna die dweeb!" I don't turn too see which one had made the comment, I don't want to know.
I could see it, the school building. A smile crosses my face, but then I turn to look and they were right on my tail. I try running faster but I can't go faster. Then I feel it, I had stepped in a pot hole and my ankle twists into a strange angle. I cry out in pain, and fall to the side and onto my shoulder. I slide for maybe two feet on the blacktop, tearing my dress shirt, and scrapping the top layer of skin off my shoulder and upper arm.
I have blood in my hair, all the way down to my elbow from my shoulder scrape. My arm feels warm and sticky and I can feel the bits of gravel throbbing in the cut. I roll off my side and look up at the sky.
I don't get a good look at it though as three girls all about two years older than me block it out. "Hi Becky. Hi Carry. Hi Ashley." They look at me, oblivious to my pain. They are smiling. The oldest girl, Ashley says, "Well, hello Jill. How are you?" The looks on their faces are enough to tell me that they think my situation is really funny. I close my eyes trying not to cry or yell back and reply in a shaky voice "I'm OK Ashley, how are you?"
I know how this conversation will go. She asks how I am when I am in major pain and then I have to say "fine" and then ask her how she is. I have been told how this goes since the first day of school and every day since. I don't know if I will survive to Christmas break. The other two, Becky and Carry, go and pick up my book bag. They start going through it, like always and then throw it back at me. I go to sit up but Ashley puts her sneaker on my chest to get up, "No, no no I think we will have a little fun today." She takes her shoe off my chest and stands next to where I am bleeding, or where I'm bleeding the most that is. She kicks dust, from the gravely pothole, into it. I yell and then start crying, because I can't stand it. She stands over me smiling and says "What, the little baby doesn't want to play?" She laughs and so do Becky and Carry.
The get back onto their scooters and take off, blowing more dust and gravel at me, while zooming onward too school. I sit up, grab my bag. I take stock of what was hurt today. I look at my shoulder best as I can, it is still bleeding and the gravel and dust in the open scrape isn't helping the burning sensation. I look at my knees, finding no jeans are still covering them. But I can see a bloody mess where my knees used to be. My elbows are the same, as far as I can see, though they feel worse. My left arm, which is what I slid on the most, is still bleeding, not just bloody. My left leg is doing the same, and I can't move my right ankle without feeling like something is going to explode, so I decide to just wait. My friend Alana knows if I am not in first period by the time the first bell rings to get the nurse and go outside the building to find me.
The first bell rings, and I smile. I am happy because though I can't get my shoulder to stop bleeding, that means help is on the way soon. I look at the building, two figures are coming out and I hear Alana call "Jill?! Where are you?!" I yell back "Down Abraham St. near the Jordan's house!" They come running. The nurse was behind Alana. When they get to me Alana groans "What did they do to you today?" I shake my head and the nurse says "Someone did this to you! Who? I'm gunna call your mother!" I shake my head more vigorously, "No! Don't call my mom! I'm fine really." I put on a brave face and stand up. Unfortunately I immediately fall back over.
The nurse shakes her head. She looks at my shoulder, my elbows and then my knees. "You know you really couldn't have gotten hurt much more badly while walking to school if you tried." She looks at my ankle a second time, "Congratulations, you look to have one broken ankle, two deep cuts on your knees, one arm too covered in blood for me to tell what's exactly wrong and you won't tell me what happened!" She shakes her head again and says "We are gunna have to get you to a hospital. At least for that ankle. But who knows!" She sounds exasperated but final. I know not to argue, "Alana tell Mr. Burgess I won't be in class, please." Alana nods and gives me a hug. I winced but I hope she will not notice. If she did she doesn't let on. I look at the nurse again but she is on her phone calling an ambulance. I look at the area around me: Mountains, trees, blue skies, no clouds and a large amount of blood on the gravel around me. I look at my hair. Usually light blond, bouncy and with a slight curl to it it. It's now dark red with some blond due to the blood. But the gray specks of gravel are sort of pretty in the light. I let it go and it fall back onto the road. I close my eyes and tried not to think of my left elbow or shoulder, my knees or right ankle or worse yet, what my mother will say.
The ambulance arrives quickly and soon I am being picked up and put onto a stretcher. How embarrassing. I keep saying "I'm fine!" but I they won't listen to me. So I just sit on the stretcher in the ambulance and wait while we zoom to the hospital. I get wheeled out and I look at the nurse arguing with someone on the phone, "Probably the school" I think. I looked up at the people around me as we roll into the hospital and they're not looking at me. It makes me feel sad, but then I guess I black out, from lack of blood or something.
When I wake up I'm in a hospital room, hospital gown and my mother is speaking to a doctor outside the glass walls of the room. I have needles in my arms and my ankle is in a cast up in one of those bed slings. A man is sitting at my right next to an empty bed. He has curly golden hair, blue eyes, and is well-built. I look at him and say "No one is in that bed sir" I feel kinda stupid for he probable already knew that. He turns to look at me. His face broke into a smile, which weirdly didn't creep me out. I mean he looked nice, he has smile wrinkles around his eyes but he looks to be in his early thirties at most. He looks concerned all of a sudden as if he just noticed the sling and bandages, and said "What happened to you?" I replied "I fell while running from three older girls," I told him what happened, which was strange because when asked about my cuts and bruises I make up stupid stories but I can feel like I can talk to him for some reason. When I told my story he looked to become more and more angry as if I was his daughter, which wasn't possible because my father had died before I was born. He then stands up when I am finished with my story and says, "Well I hope they get what is coming to them, and I hope that you feel better." He pats my hair and leaves. My wounds fell much better as if his touch had realigned the bones in my ankle and had told my skin to repair itself more quickly.
My mother and the doctor came in just after the curly blond man left. I smile at them and say "Before you ask, I feel great!" Which is true I don't feel bad at all anymore. I sit up in the bed and look at them. My mother has tear streaks down her face and she looks like she hasn't slept in a week. I look at the doctor as he is quickly writing things on his clipboard. He then looks at me and says "Well, thats a good sign that means the drugs are working." I look at him and say "So when can I go?" He looks at me with an evil grin. The grin makes me want to kill him. But before I can he says "Well when ever you can walk on that ankle again we will dismiss you." I pick my ankle out of the sling and swing my legs off the bed, I notice that my knees are fine now. I then stand up and walk around the room. "Well I can do it! Now can I go?!" My mother smiles and says "Well, lets just let the doctors exam you OK sweety?"
"But I feel fine!"
"Well, little girl we don't know if you are 'OK' yet. We found some strange things when you were on the operating table, and" I cut him off and yell "I WENT INTO SERGERY!" He nods and I look at my mom, she won't meet my eyes. I look at the doctor and say "I'm fine. I'm leaving, and you can't stop me!" He looks at me and says "Oh yesss I can!" I back up from him, he has a snake tongue. His eyes became slits for a moment and I can swear that he looked like a snake at least for a moment. I back towards the bathroom door and say "I have to, um go to the bathroom now. Sorry." I turn and run the rest of the way to the end of the group room and slam the rest room door behind me. "I have only seen one other person do that, Ashley!" I say to myself thinking of the doctor. I lock the door and sit down on the bench that is beside the toilet. It is a small room, a sink beside the door then next to that a toilet and then two windows on the other two walls, and a bench beside the toilet. I open the shades and look down I was on the second floor. "Great!" I whispered to myself bitterly. I looked again, the window had a ledge and I thought of something crazy. I could climb along that and get into the room beside mine and then get out of here from there. Without another thought I unlatch the window it swings out. I then climb out the window. I look down, wasn't a good idea. I gulped and kept going.
When I reach the next door window I bang on it. A little girl comes up and answers it. She looks taken aback by girl in a hospital gown and cast at the window. The little girl is in the same hospital dress as me but looks about three. She has long mouse brown hair and bright green eyes. She is missing her two front teeth and when she opens the window she asks a brilliant question "Why are you outside in a hospital gown?" I laugh and think of the weirdness of it all and then looked down at myself and I laugh so hard that I almost fall of the side of the building. She grabs at my hospital gown and says "How about you come in." I nod and climb in. She then asks "Who are you?" I look at her and say "I am the uhh official window checker! Yeah, official window checker that works doesn't it?" She looks at me and says "Why are you in a hospital gown then?"
"Because miss noisy I got spaghetti sauce on my scrubs!"
She turns with her arms in the air saying "I didn't see anything." Once she was gone I walk over to the bench look in it, scrubs! I changed into a blue and yellow pair and look in the mirror above the sink. My hair had been washed since I had been here and it had re-curled since no one had straightened it, so it was in big ringlets around my face. I got a surgery mask and put it over my noise and mouth so all you could see were my blue eyes.
I walk out of the bathroom and I look to see the little girl. She is sitting in one of the beds and the doctor, from what I can tell is explaining how kimo worked. I realize then that the girl has cancer. I go and fluff some pillows and fix beds around the room till the doctor leaves with the girls parents. I go over to the girl and say "I hope you get better." I brush her hair out of her face and and fix her blankets so that she can stay warm. She smiles and says "Thank you official window checker." I smile under my mask, pat her on the shoulder and leave the room. When in the hallway I feel a tear run down my cheek.
When I get out of the hospital a boy about two years older than me is leaning against the wall. I look at him. He has the shadow of a goatee, a baseball cap for the Atlanta Braves on, baggy jeans , and a t-shirt for the Braves also. He sees me and stands up straight. I keep walking trying not to draw attention to myself, but he calls after "Hey, you need to come with me." I look at him and say "Hell no, I am not going back into that hospital or anywhere your gunna take me!" He looks at me and says "You see things. Monsters even now when your thirteen. You are labeled as a troubled kid, you have ADHD and ADD?" I nod and say "Yeah whats it to ya'"
He says "You need to come with me," he holds out his hand. I look up at the hospital. I see the doctor pointing at me with red eyes out the bathroom window I had crawled out of. I look at the boy again and say "You swear you won't kill me?" He nods and I say "OK, I am trusting you and get me out of hear!" He looks at the window and yelps. We run to a van that is parked and get in. He pulls out of the parking lot and turns to look at me he says "Its gunna be fine, and by the way my name is George!" I look at him and say "My name is Jill and thanks." George turns back to the road and says "To camp!" The van hurtles off and I don't look back.