One Moment Can Change It All
The blond followed Mrs. Garrett into a medium sized building. Outside a sign had read 'Jona's Shelter'. Many men and women stood out there blowing on their hands. They wore old coats, scarves and gloves. There were children out there with T-shirts and shorts. Blair felt a little guilty about what she was wearing, which was a nice cassimere sweater and a wool scarf.
The place was filled with chairs, tables, cots, and old couches. The walls were dull with old cracked paint and some flyers describing missing people. One had a little girl with light brown hair that said "Missing, please help find. Loving family waiting." The flyers brought all sorts of mixed up feelings into the social light.
The pair walked towards a women, she was around forty and had small wisps of silver hair in her long black hair. Her hair was ragged and pulled unkemptly into a pony tail. The women wore a T-shirt and jeans, not seeming to care what she looked like..
"Hi, we're here to volunteer." Mrs. Garrett's warm smile seemed to fill the room with warmth.
The lady frowned and nodded. "Your Edna and Blair. Go to the kitchen to get an assignment. Wash up, there are aprons in the back. We don't want anybody who wont do their job, so if you don't want to, please leave."
Mrs. Garrett's smile weakened but stayed as she nodded and headed towards the kitchen. The blond stayed right behind her. Inside the kitchen, there were pots and pans on the stove cooking up soups and bread heating up in the oven. Three people already started their jobs of cutting the food up, stirring the soup, and switching the pots.
"Ah, you must be volunteering." A man smiled as her quickly and skillfully cut up carrots into mouth sized morsels. He had brown hair and his bangs fell into his eyes. The hair cut was foreign to her and seemed odd but cute. He was in his early twenties and was normal size in height and weight. He had a goatee which she hadn't seen except for in movies and drawings. "You two can bring out the pots to the serving tables and then when people come in, you can serve."
"Alright, where do I get cleaned up?" Mrs. Garrett asked as her eyes sparkled in delight. The man pointed to a sink in the back
After cleaning her hands she went back to the front and waited for further instructions. Watching carefully, she noticed that the man seemed to do things in a certain beat, as if he were cutting with the rhythm of some music she didn't hear. Blair waited patiently as she watched him pour the ingredients into the chicken broth.
"Oh and my name is Nick. I volunteer here all the time. I'm the chief, I even bring my own ingredients to liven up the soups." He grinned.
"I'm Blair and the lady over there is Mrs. Garrett." Blair responded slowly fascinated with his gorgeous blue eyes.
"Nice to meet you. Ok, can you take these pots outside please? It's almost time for the lunch madness. It gets crazy here during the Christmas season." He turned back to his cutting board and Blair started taking the pots out.
* * * * * *
Sitting in the small train station was enough to drive her crazy. Natalie started biting her nails. She looked at her best friend. She was now a junior, how did time go so fast? What happened to all that time? Soon they both would be in college getting ready for the real world.
"You think we should have stayed home? I mean Jo looked pretty sick this morning." Tootie said
"Jo can take care of her self." Natalie said shivering. The snow had stopped falling and everything froze over the night before. The two were stuck at the train station until Blair and Mrs. Garrett came back.
Tootie nodded agreeing and then started rubbing her hands together. She looked at her watch and then looked at the sign hoping it had changed from the two seconds she last saw it. It hadn't, still showing the large red letters 'CLOSED UNTIL TRACK IS FIXED'.
"Hey, you two have been here for a while. Are you stuck here?" a deep voice echoed against the walls. Natalie turned to see a tall scruffy mid aged man walk towards them. Tootie nodded slowly. "You need a lift? I'm about to go home, no selling of tickets today."
Natalie examined the man. He looked silly with his work clothes on, which consisted of a blue one-piece suit with a logo of a train. He had graying hair that had been a rich brown. His eyes danced as he smiled. "Yeah, thank you. That would be so nice of you."
"No problem. Where do you live?"
* * * * * *
The ride in the ambulance was very bumpy and painful. When she got in the hospital, she could really remember what happened. A lot of people rushed around her checking her pulse, her temperature, her blood pressure, and asking questions. Everything was so foggy.
Then she got to ride somewhere and they stuck something down her throat making her almost puke. Off she went again and they helped her change into hospital garb. She could hardly move her muscles ached so much. After that, well she didn't remember. Now she was just in a black hole, she could hear people, but she couldn't see. There was no point in hearing people because they were so far away and incomprehensible.
Nothing really mattered, not even where she was or what was happening around here. She was just in a black whole.
* * * * * *
Blair looked at all the faces of the people she served. Most were happy to get some food, the rest were just annoyed and mumbled. All seemed to like being in a place where there was warmth. Mrs. Garrett had said this was right near Jo's neighborhood. She wondered if any of them knew Jo. Suddenly she felt like she understood where Jo had come from. Had the girl ever been this desperate?
"Look Blair, it's you." Jo pointed to picture of a cheap hooker. Blair stuck her chin out and turned the page. There was a girl sitting in an empty street. She had rags on and her bones showed through her skin. She whispered with a light tone "Poor girl."
Jo left the room slowly.
"Hey Jo?" Blair called.
"What?" Jo responded.
"That must be you when you were little, eh?" Blair said slyly without haste. Jo bite her lower lip in anger and was about to explode, but she just left the room.
Blair now regretted saying that. She had a feeling Jo did know how it felt to be with out food and shelter. When Blair was little, she had taken for granted that her family was rich, she would beg for dolls and dresses. She would cry if she didn't get what she wanted.
Now everything was put in perspective. There were so many people with out food and homes. "None of them want your pity."
She turned to see Nick behind her. Nodding, she understood that. Jo never wanted pity. "Yeah, I figured that out a few years ago."
"So you've worked in a shelter before? By looking at your face, I would have never guessed." He grinned and nodded to some teenagers walking in. There were three of them. One was a girl. She had long black dirty hair that went down her back. She wore half finger gloves and an old trench coat. The other two had the same look except the were guys and had shaved heads. They wore toboggans to keep their heads warm.
"No, not a shelter. Just have a friend that use to live around this neighborhood." Blair said as the three people came over.
"Ah, who may that be? Why would any of your kind be living out here?" Nick asked.
Blair gave him the official Blair Warner annoyed look. "My kind? What do you mean my kind? Anyway, she's not like me at all. Her name is Jo Polniaczek."
"Sup Bucky, Jen, and George?" Nick asked. The three smiled.
The girl talked first. "Dude, like a cop almost arrested me, but he had notin against me. He patted me down and couldn't find notin. So he just glared at me and went off on his stupid shitty marry way. How fucked up is that?"
"I was there. It's all true. Anyway, what we got for lunch today, you special?" the guy named George looked into the pot. "Who is this fine volunteer?"
Blair just glared at the boy and started to serve the three.
"Yo, you just gunna dis me because you rich bitch? Man, I can't believe you rich mother fuckers, always thinkin your better then us poor folks. You ain't bettah because you got lucky and was born to some fuckin rich pricks." George spat.
"George, it's hard enough to get volunteers as it is. Don't." Nick responded quickly. "So you know Jo eh?"
Blair's forehead knotted in anger and she nodded. Why, does he know her?
"Yo, Jo was the dawg dude. Man she was a legend! She beat every baller out here even if her moms boyfriend beat her or she hadn't eatin in days, yo. That's how she collected money man. Shit yo, now she's at some preppy school and she ditched us." Bucky shook his head.
"Don't even talk dude. You told her that she should go." Jen stared up at the boy.
"True man, true." George agreed taking his attention off of Blair.
"Man, better to go to school then run away with us." Bucky sighed in defeat and then looked at Blair. "You gunna stair at us or ya gunna feed us?"
Blair grabbed three Styrofoam bowls and started pouring the soup into them.
"So how is she anyway? She be just as bitchy as you now?" George smiled.
"No, she acts like you." Blair said giving the bowls to the teens.
"Good, she hasn't lost her touch. See ya Nicky, thanks again, oh and Johnny said hi to ya." The three left to a table.
"Sorry about that. They're my buds, use to hang out with them all the time until I got my big break. They're still waiting, I don't think they'll get one in their life time. They're to stuck on loving the streets. Me and Jo knew better I guess. So really, how is she? She doing alright? She hasn't sent me a letter in a year." Nick started whipping off the serving tables.
"She's doing good although right now she's sick." Blair said carefully.
"Yeah, well tell her I said hi and that she needs to write me soon." Nick took an empty pot into the kitchen.
* * * * * *
"Jo? We're back, the train station is closed." Natalie opened the door, everything was so quiet. "Jo? Where are ya?"
Tootie came in and took off her coat. The junior went towards the kitchen while Natalie went upstairs. Natalie opened the bedroom door only to find the room empty. Jo's bed wasn't made and there was no sign of the New Yorker anywhere. "Tootie?"
"What?" Tootie's voice rang up the stairwell.
"Jo's not here." Natalie said walking to the night stand to look for a note or something. There was nothing.
"Natalie?" Tootie called.
"What?" Natalie turned towards the door.
"You better come down her and listen to the answering machine." Tootie panicked.
* * * * * *
He was had been out of Med School for nine years, and he had never dealt with anything like this before. Annoyingly that was why he had to get a doctor from California who was old enough to have experience, Dr. Michael Stevens. Test came back saying that this girl has Paralytic Poliomyelitis. There hadn't been a case like this in this hospital for five years, nobody knew how to deal with it.
The girl went in and out of consciousness. Whenever she was awake, she didn't say a word, she just stared at the wall as if her mind wasn't there. Dr. Stevens had told them to ice her arms and legs to help stop nerve damage although most cases like this, there wasn't much they could do. Before the girl had gone into her first coma, she had said she was sick for two days which meant that this case was going to be very progressive.
Dr. Michaels' went toward his patient's bed and saw that the girl was conscious. Her hazel eyes stared at the ceiling barely noticing anything around her. "Hello, Ms. Polniaczek?"
Her eyes slowly drifted towards him and her eyebrows went up as if to say 'what?'
"Hi, I'm doctor James Michaels. We think that you have Paralytic Poliomyelitis, it's a form of polio. Do you have anyone you would like to contact?" he asked looking carefully at her pale face.
"No." she said quietly and then her eyes went back to the ceiling
He nodded. He left to the nurses station where twelve nurses scurried in and out of the files trying both to update them. Others went into the curtains to check monitors and to make sure the patient was comfortable. This was the ICU, the intensive care unit. The sad thing about working here was that a lot of the patients died here, in this large area of the hospital. The person who had planed this hospital, predicted that and put the room right next to the morgue.
"Dr. Michaels? Patient 1-4-7 seems to be doing worse, his BP is down to 120. We need you over there stat."
"I'm coming." he said heading over to curtain 5.
* * * * * *
"I never really realized how bad off some people are." Blair said playing with her food. Seeing so many people who had no food for days ripped her of her appetite. "It's scary about how there are so many people with out shelter or food who will have a terrible Christmas."
"I know, that's why I try and get all of you out here. It's hard, many had parents that neglected them or they lost jobs." Mrs. Garrett said as she cut her chicken. Blair looked outside at the sky wondering why this happened to so many people. It was nearly Christmas.
"How do you live like that?"
"Oh, just knowing that it could be worse. It always could be worse. That's what I tell myself if I'm having a crummy day. If it rains, I just say it could have been snow, or if it snows, i could say that it could be hail."
"What if it hails?"
"Then I say I could be in a undeveloped country that has no place to go like this."
She looked back down at her plate. Her food steamed as she poked holes in the meat. She felt weird to have nice clothing and to have such a good home. How would she enjoy Christmas knowing about all these people?
"Blair, you can't put all that pressure on you just because these people wont have a perfect Christmas. You can't help everyone, but you can do what you just did which was to help out in the shelters." Mrs. Garrett said practically reading her mind.
"I know that, it just... I always take things for granted and who knew people could have such a bad life." Blair sighed in frustration.
"Sometimes Blair, it's not all about money. Some people have good lives even if they don't have a lot of money. Some don't want a lot of money. How about we go home and just veg out for a while, I think we deserve it." Mrs. Garrett smiled and collected her coat and purse.
* * * * * *
Tootie rubbed her hands together looking at the clock. Shouldn't the two be back by now? They were suppose to finish two hours ago, what's taking them so long? She looked at Natalie, the senior paced the floor looking out the window every few seconds. Her eyes lit up as Tootie heard a car drive into their drive way.
Tootie jumped up and ran to the door. She slammed open the door almost pulling Mrs. Garrett to the ground. She caught her just as she started falling forward.
"Tootie, what's wrong? You almost knocked me to the ground."
"It's Jo... She's in the hospital... don't know why... we need to go!" Tootie said as she ran to the car. She closed the door waiting impatient for Mrs. Garrett to get into the car. Blair didn't even have a chance to get out, which was good since it took the girl fifty billion hours to get in. Natalie jumped in the car while Mrs. Garrett fumbled with her keys.
"What's wrong?" Blair forehead knotted.
"I don't know. There was a message from the hospital saying Jo was in the hospital.
The ride over seemed to take hours, though it only took thirty minutes. Tootie stared out the window thinking of all the things that could have happened. Blair was more calm and patient then she had ever seen the girl while Natalie bounced up and down in the car.
Tootie jumped out the car as soon as the car parked at the hospital. She didn't see anything coming, she just felt the impact as a car hit her side. Natalie screamed as darkness surrounded the girl.
The blond followed Mrs. Garrett into a medium sized building. Outside a sign had read 'Jona's Shelter'. Many men and women stood out there blowing on their hands. They wore old coats, scarves and gloves. There were children out there with T-shirts and shorts. Blair felt a little guilty about what she was wearing, which was a nice cassimere sweater and a wool scarf.
The place was filled with chairs, tables, cots, and old couches. The walls were dull with old cracked paint and some flyers describing missing people. One had a little girl with light brown hair that said "Missing, please help find. Loving family waiting." The flyers brought all sorts of mixed up feelings into the social light.
The pair walked towards a women, she was around forty and had small wisps of silver hair in her long black hair. Her hair was ragged and pulled unkemptly into a pony tail. The women wore a T-shirt and jeans, not seeming to care what she looked like..
"Hi, we're here to volunteer." Mrs. Garrett's warm smile seemed to fill the room with warmth.
The lady frowned and nodded. "Your Edna and Blair. Go to the kitchen to get an assignment. Wash up, there are aprons in the back. We don't want anybody who wont do their job, so if you don't want to, please leave."
Mrs. Garrett's smile weakened but stayed as she nodded and headed towards the kitchen. The blond stayed right behind her. Inside the kitchen, there were pots and pans on the stove cooking up soups and bread heating up in the oven. Three people already started their jobs of cutting the food up, stirring the soup, and switching the pots.
"Ah, you must be volunteering." A man smiled as her quickly and skillfully cut up carrots into mouth sized morsels. He had brown hair and his bangs fell into his eyes. The hair cut was foreign to her and seemed odd but cute. He was in his early twenties and was normal size in height and weight. He had a goatee which she hadn't seen except for in movies and drawings. "You two can bring out the pots to the serving tables and then when people come in, you can serve."
"Alright, where do I get cleaned up?" Mrs. Garrett asked as her eyes sparkled in delight. The man pointed to a sink in the back
After cleaning her hands she went back to the front and waited for further instructions. Watching carefully, she noticed that the man seemed to do things in a certain beat, as if he were cutting with the rhythm of some music she didn't hear. Blair waited patiently as she watched him pour the ingredients into the chicken broth.
"Oh and my name is Nick. I volunteer here all the time. I'm the chief, I even bring my own ingredients to liven up the soups." He grinned.
"I'm Blair and the lady over there is Mrs. Garrett." Blair responded slowly fascinated with his gorgeous blue eyes.
"Nice to meet you. Ok, can you take these pots outside please? It's almost time for the lunch madness. It gets crazy here during the Christmas season." He turned back to his cutting board and Blair started taking the pots out.
* * * * * *
Sitting in the small train station was enough to drive her crazy. Natalie started biting her nails. She looked at her best friend. She was now a junior, how did time go so fast? What happened to all that time? Soon they both would be in college getting ready for the real world.
"You think we should have stayed home? I mean Jo looked pretty sick this morning." Tootie said
"Jo can take care of her self." Natalie said shivering. The snow had stopped falling and everything froze over the night before. The two were stuck at the train station until Blair and Mrs. Garrett came back.
Tootie nodded agreeing and then started rubbing her hands together. She looked at her watch and then looked at the sign hoping it had changed from the two seconds she last saw it. It hadn't, still showing the large red letters 'CLOSED UNTIL TRACK IS FIXED'.
"Hey, you two have been here for a while. Are you stuck here?" a deep voice echoed against the walls. Natalie turned to see a tall scruffy mid aged man walk towards them. Tootie nodded slowly. "You need a lift? I'm about to go home, no selling of tickets today."
Natalie examined the man. He looked silly with his work clothes on, which consisted of a blue one-piece suit with a logo of a train. He had graying hair that had been a rich brown. His eyes danced as he smiled. "Yeah, thank you. That would be so nice of you."
"No problem. Where do you live?"
* * * * * *
The ride in the ambulance was very bumpy and painful. When she got in the hospital, she could really remember what happened. A lot of people rushed around her checking her pulse, her temperature, her blood pressure, and asking questions. Everything was so foggy.
Then she got to ride somewhere and they stuck something down her throat making her almost puke. Off she went again and they helped her change into hospital garb. She could hardly move her muscles ached so much. After that, well she didn't remember. Now she was just in a black hole, she could hear people, but she couldn't see. There was no point in hearing people because they were so far away and incomprehensible.
Nothing really mattered, not even where she was or what was happening around here. She was just in a black whole.
* * * * * *
Blair looked at all the faces of the people she served. Most were happy to get some food, the rest were just annoyed and mumbled. All seemed to like being in a place where there was warmth. Mrs. Garrett had said this was right near Jo's neighborhood. She wondered if any of them knew Jo. Suddenly she felt like she understood where Jo had come from. Had the girl ever been this desperate?
"Look Blair, it's you." Jo pointed to picture of a cheap hooker. Blair stuck her chin out and turned the page. There was a girl sitting in an empty street. She had rags on and her bones showed through her skin. She whispered with a light tone "Poor girl."
Jo left the room slowly.
"Hey Jo?" Blair called.
"What?" Jo responded.
"That must be you when you were little, eh?" Blair said slyly without haste. Jo bite her lower lip in anger and was about to explode, but she just left the room.
Blair now regretted saying that. She had a feeling Jo did know how it felt to be with out food and shelter. When Blair was little, she had taken for granted that her family was rich, she would beg for dolls and dresses. She would cry if she didn't get what she wanted.
Now everything was put in perspective. There were so many people with out food and homes. "None of them want your pity."
She turned to see Nick behind her. Nodding, she understood that. Jo never wanted pity. "Yeah, I figured that out a few years ago."
"So you've worked in a shelter before? By looking at your face, I would have never guessed." He grinned and nodded to some teenagers walking in. There were three of them. One was a girl. She had long black dirty hair that went down her back. She wore half finger gloves and an old trench coat. The other two had the same look except the were guys and had shaved heads. They wore toboggans to keep their heads warm.
"No, not a shelter. Just have a friend that use to live around this neighborhood." Blair said as the three people came over.
"Ah, who may that be? Why would any of your kind be living out here?" Nick asked.
Blair gave him the official Blair Warner annoyed look. "My kind? What do you mean my kind? Anyway, she's not like me at all. Her name is Jo Polniaczek."
"Sup Bucky, Jen, and George?" Nick asked. The three smiled.
The girl talked first. "Dude, like a cop almost arrested me, but he had notin against me. He patted me down and couldn't find notin. So he just glared at me and went off on his stupid shitty marry way. How fucked up is that?"
"I was there. It's all true. Anyway, what we got for lunch today, you special?" the guy named George looked into the pot. "Who is this fine volunteer?"
Blair just glared at the boy and started to serve the three.
"Yo, you just gunna dis me because you rich bitch? Man, I can't believe you rich mother fuckers, always thinkin your better then us poor folks. You ain't bettah because you got lucky and was born to some fuckin rich pricks." George spat.
"George, it's hard enough to get volunteers as it is. Don't." Nick responded quickly. "So you know Jo eh?"
Blair's forehead knotted in anger and she nodded. Why, does he know her?
"Yo, Jo was the dawg dude. Man she was a legend! She beat every baller out here even if her moms boyfriend beat her or she hadn't eatin in days, yo. That's how she collected money man. Shit yo, now she's at some preppy school and she ditched us." Bucky shook his head.
"Don't even talk dude. You told her that she should go." Jen stared up at the boy.
"True man, true." George agreed taking his attention off of Blair.
"Man, better to go to school then run away with us." Bucky sighed in defeat and then looked at Blair. "You gunna stair at us or ya gunna feed us?"
Blair grabbed three Styrofoam bowls and started pouring the soup into them.
"So how is she anyway? She be just as bitchy as you now?" George smiled.
"No, she acts like you." Blair said giving the bowls to the teens.
"Good, she hasn't lost her touch. See ya Nicky, thanks again, oh and Johnny said hi to ya." The three left to a table.
"Sorry about that. They're my buds, use to hang out with them all the time until I got my big break. They're still waiting, I don't think they'll get one in their life time. They're to stuck on loving the streets. Me and Jo knew better I guess. So really, how is she? She doing alright? She hasn't sent me a letter in a year." Nick started whipping off the serving tables.
"She's doing good although right now she's sick." Blair said carefully.
"Yeah, well tell her I said hi and that she needs to write me soon." Nick took an empty pot into the kitchen.
* * * * * *
"Jo? We're back, the train station is closed." Natalie opened the door, everything was so quiet. "Jo? Where are ya?"
Tootie came in and took off her coat. The junior went towards the kitchen while Natalie went upstairs. Natalie opened the bedroom door only to find the room empty. Jo's bed wasn't made and there was no sign of the New Yorker anywhere. "Tootie?"
"What?" Tootie's voice rang up the stairwell.
"Jo's not here." Natalie said walking to the night stand to look for a note or something. There was nothing.
"Natalie?" Tootie called.
"What?" Natalie turned towards the door.
"You better come down her and listen to the answering machine." Tootie panicked.
* * * * * *
He was had been out of Med School for nine years, and he had never dealt with anything like this before. Annoyingly that was why he had to get a doctor from California who was old enough to have experience, Dr. Michael Stevens. Test came back saying that this girl has Paralytic Poliomyelitis. There hadn't been a case like this in this hospital for five years, nobody knew how to deal with it.
The girl went in and out of consciousness. Whenever she was awake, she didn't say a word, she just stared at the wall as if her mind wasn't there. Dr. Stevens had told them to ice her arms and legs to help stop nerve damage although most cases like this, there wasn't much they could do. Before the girl had gone into her first coma, she had said she was sick for two days which meant that this case was going to be very progressive.
Dr. Michaels' went toward his patient's bed and saw that the girl was conscious. Her hazel eyes stared at the ceiling barely noticing anything around her. "Hello, Ms. Polniaczek?"
Her eyes slowly drifted towards him and her eyebrows went up as if to say 'what?'
"Hi, I'm doctor James Michaels. We think that you have Paralytic Poliomyelitis, it's a form of polio. Do you have anyone you would like to contact?" he asked looking carefully at her pale face.
"No." she said quietly and then her eyes went back to the ceiling
He nodded. He left to the nurses station where twelve nurses scurried in and out of the files trying both to update them. Others went into the curtains to check monitors and to make sure the patient was comfortable. This was the ICU, the intensive care unit. The sad thing about working here was that a lot of the patients died here, in this large area of the hospital. The person who had planed this hospital, predicted that and put the room right next to the morgue.
"Dr. Michaels? Patient 1-4-7 seems to be doing worse, his BP is down to 120. We need you over there stat."
"I'm coming." he said heading over to curtain 5.
* * * * * *
"I never really realized how bad off some people are." Blair said playing with her food. Seeing so many people who had no food for days ripped her of her appetite. "It's scary about how there are so many people with out shelter or food who will have a terrible Christmas."
"I know, that's why I try and get all of you out here. It's hard, many had parents that neglected them or they lost jobs." Mrs. Garrett said as she cut her chicken. Blair looked outside at the sky wondering why this happened to so many people. It was nearly Christmas.
"How do you live like that?"
"Oh, just knowing that it could be worse. It always could be worse. That's what I tell myself if I'm having a crummy day. If it rains, I just say it could have been snow, or if it snows, i could say that it could be hail."
"What if it hails?"
"Then I say I could be in a undeveloped country that has no place to go like this."
She looked back down at her plate. Her food steamed as she poked holes in the meat. She felt weird to have nice clothing and to have such a good home. How would she enjoy Christmas knowing about all these people?
"Blair, you can't put all that pressure on you just because these people wont have a perfect Christmas. You can't help everyone, but you can do what you just did which was to help out in the shelters." Mrs. Garrett said practically reading her mind.
"I know that, it just... I always take things for granted and who knew people could have such a bad life." Blair sighed in frustration.
"Sometimes Blair, it's not all about money. Some people have good lives even if they don't have a lot of money. Some don't want a lot of money. How about we go home and just veg out for a while, I think we deserve it." Mrs. Garrett smiled and collected her coat and purse.
* * * * * *
Tootie rubbed her hands together looking at the clock. Shouldn't the two be back by now? They were suppose to finish two hours ago, what's taking them so long? She looked at Natalie, the senior paced the floor looking out the window every few seconds. Her eyes lit up as Tootie heard a car drive into their drive way.
Tootie jumped up and ran to the door. She slammed open the door almost pulling Mrs. Garrett to the ground. She caught her just as she started falling forward.
"Tootie, what's wrong? You almost knocked me to the ground."
"It's Jo... She's in the hospital... don't know why... we need to go!" Tootie said as she ran to the car. She closed the door waiting impatient for Mrs. Garrett to get into the car. Blair didn't even have a chance to get out, which was good since it took the girl fifty billion hours to get in. Natalie jumped in the car while Mrs. Garrett fumbled with her keys.
"What's wrong?" Blair forehead knotted.
"I don't know. There was a message from the hospital saying Jo was in the hospital.
The ride over seemed to take hours, though it only took thirty minutes. Tootie stared out the window thinking of all the things that could have happened. Blair was more calm and patient then she had ever seen the girl while Natalie bounced up and down in the car.
Tootie jumped out the car as soon as the car parked at the hospital. She didn't see anything coming, she just felt the impact as a car hit her side. Natalie screamed as darkness surrounded the girl.