MARGO'S STORY

A/N: This takes place between BSC 10 Years Later and You Needed Me. Also, see how many Rescue 911 references you can spot.

CHAPTER 1

"Ya got-ta do what-cha can...an' let Mo-ther Na-ture do the rest!...There ain't no doubt about it; we were doubly blessed...'cuz we were bare-ly se-ven-teen an' we were bare-ly dressed..."

That was the song blaring from my iPod as I got off the bus. And even though I'm probably the world's worst singer, I couldn't help singing right along with Meat Loaf, but I also made sure to sing softly enough so the other passengers wouldn't hear me and tell me how much my voice sounds like shit. Let me put it this way: if you combined the sound of a chicken bone in a garbage disposal with a car alarm, that'd be my singing voice.

I arrived at the fire station that Tuesday morning to see Brad Evans, my partner, restocking our unit. He has shaggy dark brown hair, a graying bushy moustache and goatee, and black-rimmed John Lennon-looking glasses. "Hi, Brad," I said as I put on my jacket and got out my walkie-talkie, flashlight, and mini-toolbelt.

"Margo," he answered, in his heavy Midwestern accent, as he closed the bench seat where we store some of our gear.

"Any calls yet?" I asked.

"Uh-uh," he answered, handing me a pair of gloves. "It's still early. We may be getting one soon, though."

Okay, introduction time. I'm Margo Pike, and I'm twenty-two years old. As you may have guessed, I'm an EMT. I've been on the job for about three years now—most of which has been in Chicago, where I live—and I enjoy every moment of it, especially when I can make a difference in the outcome of someone's life.

I still can't believe I'm able to do this, considering the fact that when I was growing up, I was the Queen of Motion Sickness. In fact, I once threw up on the merry-go-round, and I wasn't even sitting on one of the horses. Go figure!

You're probably wondering why I'm mentioning this. Well, you see, Sudsy's Carnival was in town when I was seven, and Kristy Thomas, one of my former baby-sitters, got this idea to take several of us kids to the carnival over Mother's Day weekend to give our moms a break. (She called it a "Mother's Day Surprise", but the real surprise in her family was when they adopted Emily, her youngest sister.) The way that worked was, our dads dropped us off at Claudia Kishi's house with our sack lunches, the age group of the kids at the time—between two and a half and nine years old—was divided among each sitter, and our dads were either going to watch the babies or do something with the older kids. (Since Mr. Barrett had long since left, Dad took care of little Marnie.) After we got done at the carnival, our baby-sitters took us to Carle Playground for lunch, then after we ate and had a chance to play, we went back to Claudia's for crafts and stories until time to pick us up.

I was born in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where I lived until I finished my EMT training the summer I turned nineteen, then I found that there was no position for me, so I moved to Chicago. I did a few more months of training, and last summer, I was paired up with Brad after being a fill-in for a couple of years, and working alongside several different people. He's a nice guy, even though he's in his early forties. I'd actually met him soon after I'd finished my extra training, because his previous partner was killed in a fire. The guy was helping lift some kids through the broken window of a house when a big antique lamp, followed by the stand it was on, fell on him and broke. Both of the kids he was rescuing escaped with only minor injuries, but the guy died of not only his injuries, but also smoke inhalation. Brad told me that he not only sprained his ankle and had to spend six weeks in a cast, but also got some cinders in his left eye, which is why he switched to glasses after wearing contacts for so many years. He also says he saw the whole thing, and still refuses to talk about it.

But other than that, our partnership works out so well. The best part is, I don't have some prized collection that I'm always yapping in his ear about, and he doesn't bore me with stories about his wife and kids, all of whom are younger than me.

I climbed into the ambulance, and got the clipboard and some forms out of one of the overhead compartments. The purpose of the forms is for someone to sign when we arrive on the scene and they decide transportation is not necessary. I've had at least a dozen people sign those in my career, but I've never been on an accident scene where someone died. (Yeah, I can't believe it, either.) Personally, I am not looking forward to that.

I put a form under the clip on the clipboard and put the others between the front seats, then climbed over to the passenger seat as Brad climbed into the driver's seat. He pulled out of the garage, and after I picked up the radio and reported in to the dispatcher, Keely Morse, that we were available to respond to any calls, we sat parked outside while we waited for our first call.

"So, how was the movie the other night?" I asked as I threw my empty V8 Fusion bottle in the trash sack.

"Great," Brad answered. He and his family, along with his pastor and some friends from their church, had seen Heaven Is For Real at the mall's new cineplex. You know, the story of little Colton Burpo's near-death experience during an emergency appendectomy. I'm in the middle of reading the book on my Kindle, which my older sisters recommended to me, but I haven't seen the movie yet. "Kellie—you know, my youngest—couldn't take her eyes off the screen for a second. Allie and I thought she was just as moved by the movie as we were, but when we got home, Charlene, my other daughter, told us it was because Kellie had a crush on the kid who played Colton."

I couldn't help laughing when he said that. "She's only six!" I managed to gasp.

"Exactly. I'm used to Charlene's boy-craziness—well, she is fourteen—but Allie and I were so sure that we had at least four or five more years before we had to worry about Kellie acting that way."

"At least they didn't start singing 'We Will Rock You' during the movie, right?"

"No, they saved it for the ride home."

"And I'm guessing that nobody started singing 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing' and howled like dogs, either," I laughed.

"Right," Brad agreed.

Just then, the dispatcher's voice came over the radio, telling us that there was a young child in status epilepticus—a condition in which the person has either a prolong-ed seizure or two in a row without regaining consciousness in between—and where it was happening. "Time to rock'n'roll," I said.

Brad nodded as he put on his gloves, then sped out of the driveway and turned on the siren.

Another day had begun.