"Honestly Eleanor, how many times am I going to have to drive you to the ER before you learn not to mess with fire?!" Her dad scolded from the driver's seat of his red SUV. Eleanor sat in the back behind the passenger seat. Which was empty, its usual occupant laying under a tree in the local cemetery. "None of your older brothers did this, so why are you?"
"I swear I slipped and fell on some ice and my hand hit the stove, I wasn't messing with matches like last time," She said sorrowfully. Her waist length, orangey red hair rippled softly in the wind, that was let through by the cracked open front car window. Also letting through the smell of car exhaust and road kill.
"Why was the stove on in the first place?". Eleanor didn't respond, she just kept starring out the window. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do Eleanor,". They rode in silence after that.
~8*8~
"Eleanor just sit on that bench and stay there while I go get the paperwork,". Eleanor sat on the bench as she was told. A young boy, not too much younger than her, wearing a cute bear hat with a little bit of longish blonde hair sticking out from the bottom.
"What's up?" he said a little too cheerful for a boy in the ER. "Not in too much pain are you?".
"I burnt my hand, what landed you here?" She said.
"Fell off a tree, I think I dislocated my shoulder or something," He said, as if he hurt himself on accident on a regular basis. "No biggie, just got to take every bruise like it's a gift from the universe. My name's Finn, by the way. What's your's Flame Princess?"
"Eleanor," She said. The red headed girl couldn't figure out how this boy could have such a positive and caring attitude when in a room full of hurt, sick and crying children. "Flame Princess I think suits me well though,". Her dad came back with a clipboard, a blue form, and a pen. He sat down and started filling out information on the sheet, barely glancing at his daughter.
"Finn Mertens," said a female doctor standing in the hallway entrance
"See you at school or something FP," he said getting up from the bench, the lady she assumed was his Mom put the magazine she was reading down, and Finn followed her as she walked to the room where the doctor would treat his arm. Eleanor smiled, did she really just meet somebody that could possibly become her friend at a hospital? Judging by the pain in her hand, she wasn't dreaming.
