At the Santiago household, the sunlight infiltrated the windows-and without asking for permission first, how rude!-as Ronnie Anne Santiago, the younger daughter of the family, slowly woke up and stretched, though the sunlight was quick to annoy her.
"Okay, sun, I get it, it's time to wake up!" the girl growled, giving the sun a dismissive wave. "For crying out loud, you act like my mom sometimes!"
So the Hispanic tomboy got up, got dressed and went downstairs... Only to see a horrifying sight: Carol Pingrey, dressed as a nurse, getting ready to inject Bobby with a needle. This made her shiver and brush her ponytail right as Carol noticed her.
"Oh hi!" the young woman greeted as she gave Bobby the injection. "I didn't knew there were other people in this house."
"Bobby, why is the woman putting the long stick in your vein?" the girl asked in a voice surprisingly girly and high-pitched, specially for her.
"Why are you talking like you had taken a big glass of helium?" Carol retorted, rolling her eyes.
"That's how she sounds when she's nervous or scared," Bobby explained as Carol finished with the injection and gave him some cotton to cover the injection spot. "Listen, Ronnie, today we were supposed to get our tetanus shot, or something like that, and in order to not go to the hospital, I called Carol Pingrey, an old friend and competent doctor, so she could give us the injection."
"And by complete coincidence," Carol refilled the syringe and turned to the tomboy. "It's your turn now."
However, she had already escaped, leaving behind a terrified-looking smoke cloud based on her that soon dissipated into nothing. "I always wondered how people could do that," Carol remarked, scratching her hair.
Without looking back, Ronnie ran as fast as she could until she reached the house phone. Once she took it, she marked the police number while looking around everywhere in worry.
"Police! Help me! My brother's ex-girlfriend's trying to convince me to let him shove this pointy stick in me!" Ronnie shouted at the phone, only to blush when the other line answered with some gibberish. "No, not that pointy stick! Another type of pointy stick, which is so awful, I'd rather have the other pointy stick shoved in me!"
A record scratch was heard, and soon enough, Ronnie got second thoughts. "Actually, scrap that! I don't want either of those things inside me! I just don't want his ex-girlfriend to put a syringe on me!"
"Just to let you know, we only went out on one date!" Carol clarified as she barged in the room. "And we never even decided to date after that, we decided to remain friends! Now get your butt over here for your injection!"
Carol grabbed Ronnie by the neck of her clothes and pulled her back to the living room as the tomboy tried everything she could to escape her grasp. To the point she did the inconceivable:
She pleaded.
"Please! Anything but an injection! Pills! Vitamins! Anything that's not sharp and long! I don't wanna die!"
Seeing that the girl was legitimately scared, Carol glanced at the syringe, then asked:
"Ronnie Anne... Are you afraid of needles?"
The tomboyish girl flinched and shed a couple tears as the woman crouched down to her size, sporting a sympathetic look. However, she simply looked away, for she didn't want her to see her cry. "Carol, please, just leave me alone."
"Ronnie, there's nothing to feel ashamed of," Carol replied. "It's okay if you're scared of injections-"
"No! It isn't! Because I'm not just a normal tough-looking girl, I'm Ronnie Anne San-Flipping-Tiago!" the Hispanic tomboy shouted, shedding a pair of tears as the young lady brushed her hair. "I'm the toughest girl in all of the school! To fear something as mundane and stupid as an injection... I'd be the biggest joke around the playground!"
"Okay, so I see how you're afraid of this, but everything that happens here won't known by anybody else," the nurse answered as she prepared the syringe. "Besides, I really doubt one of your friends would just pop up here to see you being afraid of an injection."
The trio waited... And nothing happened.
"See? Nothing to worry about," and then she finished with the preparations... "Now, try to stay calm. This'll be done before you even know it."
The tomboy closed her eyes, waited for the agonizing pain... And after a couple seconds passed, Carol said "It's done."
Naturally, Ronnie opened her eyes and looked around in confusion, only to notice that the part of her arm the injection was done on was bleeding, so Bobby handed her a cotton ball. "Wait, that was it?" the girl asked as she covered the bleeding spot with the cotton ball.
"Yeah," Bobby answered, brushing his sister's hair. "See? You didn't have anything to worry about."
However, the tomboy was skeptical. "I was probably just lucky this time," she argued. "I bet next time I get an injection, it's going to be terrible."
"And I'll probably be there to help you relax," Carol retorted before brushing Ronnie's hair. "You'll get over your fear of needles one day, Ronnie, but you have to be willing to try."
And just as the nurse got ready to leave, Ronnie caught her attention with a simple sentence:
"Thanks, I guess..."
The young woman gave Ronnie a smile, and promptly left, leaving Ronnie and Bobby to... Discuss something:
"So, be honest, how long did you two date?"
"Please don't start, Ronnie."