There was a picture of Ruthie. He then became very angry at himself and picked up his shoe and threw it at the door.
"Simon! Come out!" Eric exclaimed.
"No! You wanted me in here, so I'm not gonna come out until Ruthie's better!" Simon replied.
"Simon! Ruthie quit breathing!" Eric exclaimed. Simon opened the door.
"What?" He asked, lowering his voice.
"There's not very good odds," Eric replied.
"No. She has to live. No," Simon said. Tears poured out of his eyes and he wrapped himself around Eric. Eric returned the embrace with his own tears.
"It's ok, Simon. It's ok," Eric coaxed.
"No it's not," Simon replied, crying, "No it's not."
Eric and Simon arrived at the hospital after dropping the twins off with a neighbor. They waited with Annie.
"Where are the girls?" Eric asked.
"They're in the hospital room," Annie replied.
"Visitors are allowed?" Eric asked.
"No. I believe that they snuck in," Annie replied.
"How?" Simon asked.
"They followed the stretcher. They're under an empty hospital bed. They've still got Ruthie in the stretcher," Annie explained.
"How is Ruthie?" Eric asked.
"I got word that they lost her, but brought her back. She has to breathe with a machine," Annie replied.
"I still don't understand. What happened to Ruthie?" Simon asked.
"Jennifer did a horrible thing, Simon. She wanted something and Ruthie was onto her plan of getting it. She put pills in your sister's food and wine her drink. When mixed, this could be deadly. I saw her. Ruthie has bruises. Big, ugly bruises on my poor little seven year old daughter. How dare she do that to my baby, our baby," Annie replied. She hugged Eric, who tried to console her.
Simon felt horrible. He wanted to kill Jennifer, but knew he couldn't. He wondered what would happened to her, they all did.
The doctors walked out of the room. They had done all that they could do. Ruthie was sleeping. Lucy annd Mary got out from under the bed, which they had put Ruthie in. She was hooked up to a machine. They looked at her.
"She's alive," Lucy said.
"Yeah, I know. I don't know anything about this stuff, but she looks ok," Mary replied.
"You're right, you don't know anything," Lucy said.
"I just wish that she'd wake up," Mary replied.
"She'll wake up soon," Lucy said.
"I hope," Mary said.
"She will. Now I'm the one with the faith," Lucy replied.
"I'm glad I rubbed off on you," Mary said.
"I'm sorry I rubbed off on you," Lucy replied.
"It's ok. Everybody feels this way sometimes," Mary explained.
"You're right. I think we should go now," Lucy said.
"I guess you're right," Mary replied. They tried to open the door. It was locked.
"They locked it," Lucy said.
"What? Why? This isn't good!" Mary replied. She went up to Lucy and turned the knob. It opened.
"Stupid. You turned it the wrong way!" Mary said. They walked out, just as a nurse came out of the room across the hall.
Mary and Lucy walked into the waiting room.
"Have fun in the room?" Annie asked.
"We had to know how she was," Mary replied. Lucy looked at her.
"We?" Lucy asked.
"You went, too," Mary replied.
"You practically dragged me!" Lucy exclaimed, "Because of you we had to go through that. Because of you we had to be cramped under that bed for an hour. And because of you we were harassed by a nurse!" Lucy said. Mary smiled and looked at her parents.
"A nurse?" Eric asked.
"We were caught coming out of the room. Luckily, the nurse decided to let us go after lecturing us for about ten minutes," Mary replied.
"That was only ten minutes?" Lucy asked.
"I was looking at the clock," Mary replied. They sat down.