I felt a strange mixture of embarrassment and joy. Embarrassment for having held hands with Finny, passed out, and having an ambulance come to take me to the hospital. Joy for having Finny near me, worrying about me and trying his best to make me laugh.

I didn't care if we ever got to the hospital. All I could care about was Finny...and the fact that I felt like I had been hit by an eighteen-wheel truck.

Suddenly, a thought struck me. "Finny!" I exclaimed.

"Please remain calm," one of the EMTs said, sounding a little nervous. "We're here to help you."

"My mom!" I nearly yelled at him. "She'll be so worried!"

"I already called your mom," Finny told me. "She's on her way to the hospital."

"Did she sound mad?" I choked out. She would probably be angry and upset that I was being irresponsible.

"No," Finny shook his head. "Like you said, she sounded worried. Maybe a little angry," he added, with a grin.

I sighed, and just let everything go.

Before long, at least before I could have driven us there, we arrived at the hospital. The driver of the ambulance told Finny where he could wait for me.

"See you in a few," he said, with a wink. Then, he was gone.

The two EMTs wheeled me through the emergency entrance. A member of the hospital staff jogged up to the stretcher. "What happened?" she asked.

"Kid passed out in the skating rink," the first EMT answered. "Got real pale. He was out for about fifteen minutes."

"Get me a blood sample," the lady ordered a perfusionist. "Get the temperature, and the blood pressure, and let's send him home."

I was wheeled into a room where they lifted me onto a cold, stiff hospital bed. I looked around and rolled my eyes. I would get the only room that didn't have a TV in it.

The people who had wheeled me into the room left, reassuring me that someone would be with me soon.

I didn't believe that for a minute.

Before I had the chance to get too bored, Finny somehow found his way to my room. The first thing he said was, "No TV? Bummer..."

"Isn't it, though?" I replied, dryly.

Finny plopped onto my bed, and took the chance to look around the room. It looked more like a storage room than a hospital room. There were boxes of supplies and a rack of scrubs. In fact, the room had just about everything, but a TV.

I rolled over to say something to Finny, when he hopped off the bed. He pulled some scrubs from the rack and tried them on.

He looked pretty convincing. If I hadn't known it was him, I'd have thought him to be a real doctor.

"Paging Dr. Finny," he said, muffling his voice to sound like an intercom. I chuckled lightly. "Dr. Finny, please report to surgery-oh no! I'm not ready for surgery!" he cried, feigning distress.

I laughed a bit more and mentioned, "You really look and act like a real doctor."

"Yeah," he added in a sarcastic voice. "And when you poke me with a needle, I really bleed." He found a surgical mask in a box. "Nurse! Prep me for surgery! I have to take out the patient's BRAIN! MUAHAHAHA!"

I laughed outright at this. I caught the attention of a doctor, who peeked into the room, saw Finny, and kept going.

I looked at Finny, and he looked back at me. We suddenly burst into laughter.

"Did you see the look he gave me?" Finny cried, between laughing.

"I know!" I replied. "He thought you were really a doctor!"

My mom came running into the room. "Gene! What happened? Are you oh-kay?" she demanded, stopping beside the bed.

"I'm fine," I reassured her.

She turned to Finny, who was still wearing the surgical mask. "Doctor, will he be all right?" she asked.

Finny looked at me and we laughed again.

"What is so funny?" my mom asked, sounding sincere and worried.

"I can't believe that after all the time that I've spent at your house," Finny said, "you still can't recognize me." He pulled off the mask.

Mom stared at him for a while. "Finny..."

"That's me," he mentioned, with a big grin.

Then, she began to laugh as well. "You just looked so much like a real doctor!" she exclaimed. "You should really think of going into it. It's a great field, really."

"He really does look like a med student, at least," I added.

"Thank-you, thank-you," Finny said, taking a bow. "I never thought I looked that old, but thank-you just the same."

At that point, a young male nurse came in. "Oh," he said, sounding surprised. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I didn't know you were already covering-"

"I have deceived you all long enough!" Finny broke in. "I am no doctor. I'm a fraud. I never went to medical school. I didn't even graduate from high school!" he wailed, pretending to sob into my shoulder.

The nurse was seemingly appalled. "You-what?"

Finny, my mom and I were all laughing by this time. The nurse didn't seem to like being left out of the joke.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

Finny took off the scrubs and hung them back up. "I told the truth, didn't I?"

"Why were you wearing that outfit?" the nurse asked.

"Just trying to make my pal feel a little better," he answered. "It took you long enough, didn't it? What if it was a real emergency?"

"We have to tend to immediate traumas before we can get to the lesser emergencies," the nurse explained.

"So, you're saying it's not serious enough?" Phineas asked. He had fooled the nurse and probably my mom with his serious tone, but I knew it was all an act. "What if I had accidentally pushed him out the window? Or he had slipped on an ice cube?"

"Well, I'm sure we'd send someone down to-"

"No! That's unacceptable!" Finny exclaimed in fake rage. "I demand for my friend to be seen this instant!"

"Yes, of course!" the nurse answered, nodding furiously.