"Driver!" Dad shouted toward the front of the bus. "Pull over!" When nothing happened, he shouted even louder. "Pull this bus to the side of the road. Now!"

Dad turned to me, dropping his voice to a more normal tone. "James, get my medical bag and follow me."

I scurried to obey as he scooped Jessica into his arms and carried her to the front of the bus calling out to Miss Devonshire to phone 999 and ask for an ambulance to be sent immediately. I found his black doctor's bag on one of the front seats. When I lifted it, it was heavier than I'd expected and I held the case carefully in both hands so as not to let it drop.

The instant the bus stopped, Dad ordered the driver to open the door. Behind us, the other kids pressed forward, anxious to see what would happen next.

As Dad carried Jess down the steps of the bus, I was only a step behind him. He moved a short distance away from the road before laying her flat on the grass, then quickly stripped off his jacket and placed it under her head. I set his medical bag on the ground next to him, feeling incredibly proud that I was allowed to join him and my teacher outside and also incredibly scared for Jessica, who lay unmoving with her eyes closed.

A glance back at the bus showed my friends huddled around the doorway, clearly eager to join us outside.

"Back in your seats," Miss Devonshire ordered. She shooed everyone away from the door and told the driver not to let anyone else get off the bus.

I turned back to my dad who was . . . well, not exactly worried, but as focused as I'd ever seen him.

Dad reached for his medical case and hurriedly opened it, grabbing a couple of instruments that I'd never seen before. He crawled around on the grass until he was kneeling behind Jessica's head and then tilted it back really far. I knew my dad and knew from his actions that, whatever had happened to Jess, it was pretty bad. And that made me feel really scared for her.

"What are you doing?" Miss Devonshire asked, hovering over him.

"There's a foreign object – probably a piece of that apple – lodged in her trachea." Dad kept his eyes on Jess as he spoke. "I'm going to put a laryngoscope down her throat and try to remove the obstruction with forceps. If that doesn't work, I'll need to perform a tracheostomy."

I wasn't sure what any of that meant, only saw that Miss Devonshire gasped at his words which must mean it was quite serious.

Dad handed me a metal instrument that looked like a pair of scissors bent in the middle, except the ends were little loops instead of being pointed or sharp. I stared at it, wondering what Dad would use it for.

"James, hold this by the handles until I ask for it," he said. I took the instrument from him being careful to hold it exacctly as he'd instructed. I was actually going to help him save Jessica and I didn't want to mess up my part for either of their sakes.

I stole another quick look at the bus. Every window was filled with the face of one of my classmates staring down at us. Their eyes were riveted on my Dad and Jess and their mouths gaped open – obviously as terrified as I was by this turn of events.

Dad leaned down and started to slide something into Jessica's wide open mouth. It was a metal tube with a long blade-like thing attached at the top. The thing was huge and, as it continued to slide down her throat, I wondered why she wasn't choking. One glance at Dad's face – totally concentrated on what he was doing – told me this wasn't the time to ask.

"Yeah," Dad said to himself as he peered down into the instrument. "There it is."

Holding the metal thing in Jessica's mouth with his left hand and not taking his eyes away from her, he reached out his right hand toward me. "James, hand me the forceps by the handles."

Forceps? So that's what this strange thing was called. I carefully placed the instrument in his hand exactly as he'd instructed, making sure not to drop it. Dad took the the instrument from me and immediately adjusted his grip. As I watched, he slid it right into the middle of whatever was already in Jessica's throat. I couldn't imagine anything worse than having all that stuff in your mouth and, when I briefly glanced up again at the bus windows, was pretty sure everyone else had the same thought.

It was all I could do not to gag as Dad continued to fiddle with the instruments in Jessica's throat. It seemed like forever as he twisted and turned the forceps, as I now knew they were called.

"Almost there," he said and I held my breath. Dad's entire focus was on Jessica's throat which was good because, as far as I could tell, she wasn't even breathing. I could only hope that whatever he was doing would work because I didn't even want to think about what might happen if he failed.

Cars drove by. Miss Devonshire continued to stand over us, breathing heavily. The kids stared down at us from the bus windows. And the world seemed to stand still.

Dad gave the instrument in her mouth yet another small twist. "Got it," he said to no one in particular. "Easy now."

I couldn't take my eyes away as he started to pull back on his right hand, slowly and carefully, as he kept his gaze on the thing in her throat. A few seconds later, he pulled the forceps out of her mouth, and I stared with a combination of awe and horror at the chunk of something held tightly between the prongs.

Dad leaned back on his heels and sighed heavily. "It's that piece of apple alright," he said, holding it up briefly for all to see. Miss Devonshire put her hand to her mouth and looked away. In the bus, some kids obviously couldn't take their eyes away from the scene and the others clearly couldn't bear to watch. It didn't look all that bad to me – mostly like a piece of apple. Still, the thought that it had been stuck in Jessica's throat made me swallow hard a couple of times.

Dad dropped the forceps still holding the apple on a piece of gauze then again leaned over Jessica's face and stared through the instrument in her throat. After what seemed like forever, he looked up. "Yeah, that's all. Trachea's clear."

He pulled the big thing out of her mouth and set it aside, then turned Jessica onto her right side. She still hadn't moved, and I wondered if she was still alive.

Dad again reached into his bag and this time pulled out out his stethoscope. He opened the top of Jessica's blouse and pressed the stethoscope against her chest, first listening to the right side and then to the left. In the distance, I could hear the sound of an approaching siren and silently prayed that it was the ambulance.

As I continued to watch, I thought I saw Jess's chest starting to rise and fall. Even I knew that meant she was breathing, which meant she was alive. It was now my turn to let out a long breath of relief.

"Is she all right?" Miss Devonshire asked.

Dad glanced up at her. "She's ventilating adequately. We'll get her on oxygen when the ambulance arrives, which should help her breathing."

"Thank goodness." I could hear my teacher sigh with relief. "Thank goodness you were here or she might have died."

"Yes, she might have," Dad responded. "But she didn't. She'll be alright."

"Thanks to you."

In that moment, I was suddenly incredibly proud of my dad and equally proud to be his son. From what Miss Devonshire had said and from what I'd seen with my own eyes, if Dad hadn't been here, if he hadn't come along on this stupid field trip, Jess could well be dead. He'd saved her. It was something that I doubted any of the other mums or dads could have done. He might be weird, he might embarrass me more often than I'd like, but he had saved the life of one of my friends – and in front of all my classmates to boot.

And, even better, Dad had asked me to help him. Sure, my role had been small – I'd done nothing more than hand him those forceps. But he could just have easily asked Miss Devonshire to assist, and instead he'd asked me. He'd trusted me not to drop the instrument, not to hand it to him the wrong way, not to screw up. He'd trusted me to help save Jessica. I couldn't help smiling to myself.

Within a minute, the ambulance had pulled up on the road next to us and a lady attendant came running up. Dad rattled off a lot of medical stuff to her. While I didn't understand much of what he was saying, the woman kept nodding her head and saying "Yes, Doctor," every so often.

I stayed as quiet as I could. No one had yet asked me to leave, to get back on the bus. And I wanted to stay to see what happened.

I watched as they put an oxygen mask on Jessica's face. That seemed to wake her up and she started to struggle.

The ambulance lady tried to calm her down. "It's all right, dear. You got a little something stuck in your throat. It's out now, and you're going to be fine, but we're taking you to hospital to be on the safe side."

"Get a line of saline in her," Dad said to the attendant. "In case we need it later. Run it to keep open."

Part of my wanted to look away when the ambulance lady stuck a needle into Jess's arm and attached it to a bag of fluid. But I made sure to keep my eyes on her, if for no other reason than I wanted Jessica to see a friendly face if she did wake up enough to look around.

A few minutes later, the other attendant brought out a stretcher and the two ambulance people lifted Jess onto it.

Dad repacked his medical bag and pulled back on his jacket as they worked. Finally, he turned to me. "James, I'm going to go with her in the ambulance to hospital. Go ahead and ride back with the others but tell your mother I may be a bit late getting home tonight."

I stole another look at Jessica, now with what seemed like a bunch of tubes attached to her. "She's going to be alright, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's going to be fine," he assured me in the confident voice I'm come to know so well. "I expect she'll be back in school tomorrow." He nodded toward the bus. "Now you get back on the bus and behave yourself on the way home."

"Yes, Dad." I dropped my shoulders and started to make my way across the grass.

"And James."

I turned back, flinching slightly as I wondered what other prohibitions my dad had in store for me. "Yes, Dad?"

"Thank you for assisting me today. What you did was very important. You stayed calm and did an excellent job." With that, he gave me a curt nod, the absolute tiniest smile I'd ever seen, then turned away and started walking toward the ambulance.

Oh my goodness! I could hardly believe my ears. I wanted to clap my hands. I wanted to scream with delight. I wanted to jump up and down and run all around.

I didn't do any of that, of course, because I would have looked stupid in front of my friends.

"Yes, James," Miss Devonshire was saying as we walked toward the bus. "You were very brave today. I'm proud of you, just like your Dad is."

"Thank you, Miss Devonshire."

I had a great big smile on my face as I climbed back aboard the bus, Miss Devonshire right behind me. All of the other kids immediately clustered around, asking for details about what had happened to Jess, what my dad had done to save her, and my role in the rescue. I'd never felt more important or more proud in all my life.

As the bus started to pull away, I reflected on my day. Dad hadn't allowed me to pet or feed that cute little lamb. What he had done was trust me to help him save my friend's life. And that, I decided, was something very special. Very special indeed.

~The End~

Author's Notes:

A big thank-you to jd517 for helping me understand what young children think and do.

As always, my sincerest thanks to those of you who take the time to jot down a few words of encouragement (aka, a "review"). It's the only feedback we FF writers get and it's always much appreciated.

And a huge thank-you to BP for creating DM and giving us so much fun writing about his world!