Chapter 3

When Binky got to Brain's house, he saw the Brain standing in the front yard. The two waved at each other. "Hello, Binky," the Brain said. "Come inside, and I shall begin to devise a remedy for your high blood pressure."

Binky followed the Brain inside and sat down at the kitchen table. "Okay, what do we do first?" Binky asked.

"First, I'll take your blood pressure right now with my dad's home kit," Brain said. He took a manually-inflating cuff and strapped it around Binky. He then turned a few knobs here and there and began squeezing the bulb to inflate the cuff. However, for some reason, the cuff was not inflating at all. "Drat, the monitor's not working," the Brain said, unstrapping it from Binky. "I guess we'll have to skip that step. Now, for one thing, I would suggest that you try not to get angry or worked up so much. That is a key ingredient for high blood pressure."

"Check," Binky said.

"One thing that lowers blood pressure is lots of exercise. Let's go ride bikes for a while," the Brain suggested.

Outside, Binky and Brain got on some of Brain's bikes, and they began to ride. Brain rode as fast as he could. "This sure is fun, isn't it, Binky?" He didn't hear Binky respond. "Binky?" He turned his head around, only to see that Binky was barely managing to keep up with the Brain. He was panting and out of breath. Suddenly, his bike fell over, and Binky crashed on the ground. Brain got off his bike and rushed to assist Binky.

Later, Binky was bandaged all over, and he was back in the Brain's kitchen. "Okay, so exercise isn't a quick cure for you yet." Brain paused for a moment. "I know! You can cut back on your sodium intake!"

"What's sodium?" Binky asked as he grabbed a bag of potato chips and devouring them all at once.

"Binky!" cried the Brain as he snatched the bag away. "Those are full of sodium! You can't eat those if you want to lower your blood pressure!"

"Oh yeah, well I don't care!" Binky snapped. "Even if it does make my blood pressure high, I want to eat them no matter what!"

Brain sighed. "Okay, fine…I guess the last thing I can think of is for you to lose a bit of that weight. I'll bet you anything that's what's causing your high blood pressure."

"Are you calling me fat?" roared Binky.

"N-n-no…" stuttered the Brain, "but I do think you're a bit on the chubby side."

Binky shoved his fist into Brain's face. "If you say one more thing about my weight, I'll pound you!"

"Okay, okay!" Brain said. "Fine, you can deal with your blood pressure on your own. I quit!" He stormed out of the kitchen.

Binky sighed. He lost all the help that he had. Now he was all alone, and he had to suffer with his condition. Sadly and with great despair, he trudged home. Binky then plopped on his bed. "Well, this is it, Binky. You're going to die, now. You've only got a short time left before you bite the dust." He sighed again. "Might as well go back to the pharmacy and check my blood pressure one more time just to remind myself of how dangerously high it is."

Binky then left his house and slowly walked to the Elwood Drug Store with his head bent down the entire time. Binky entered the pharmacy and went to the part of the store where the blood pressure machine was. He was a bit surprised to see a man on his knees with tools, performing some sort of maintenance on the machine. Binky tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked at Binky. "Excuse me, sir, but I have extremely high blood pressure. I learned that when I got blood pressure readings on that machine yesterday. I need to check it again, just to remind myself of how dangerously high it is," Binky said to the man.

The man laughed and then said, "You checked it here yesterday? Are you sure your blood pressure's high? Did you have it checked anywhere else?"

"Yeah, I checked it here yesterday. It's the only place I've ever checked it," said Binky, rubbing the back of his neck.

The man laughed again. "Don't worry, kid, you're probably okay."

Binky gasped, "Huh?"

"Relax, this machine's been broken for months. We got many complaints from people who have tested their blood pressure on this machine saying that their blood pressure was substantially higher than normal. The funny thing is, most of them stayed around the 200/100 area. But I'm in the process of fixing it right now, and it looks like it just needs some recalibration. Won't take me but a few more minutes. When I'm done, you can test it to see if it's fixed."

"Sounds great!" exclaimed Binky. With that, he felt a huge wave of relief. Perhaps he really didn't have high blood pressure after all. It was only the fault of the machine. What a relief for Binky!

A few minutes passed, and the man was finished fixing the machine. Binky sat on the stool and pressed the start button. Again, the cuff squeezed all the life out of Binky's upper arm for about half a minute. Binky was suddenly worried again. What if his blood pressure was still high? What if he really did have high blood pressure? What could he do? Binky had to know. Finally, when the cuff released all the air, the screens on the machine displayed Binky's blood pressure. Binky's eyes widened.

"All right, kid, 110/70 – your blood pressure is completely normal," the man said.

"Yes!" exclaimed Binky. "Woo hoo!" He danced out of the store and ran up and down the street as fast as he could. He went to the park, where he saw Arthur, Buster, Francine, and Brain playing soccer. Binky eagerly joined in the fun.

"So, Binky, what made you so happy?" Brain asked.

"Turns out my blood pressure wasn't high after all – it was just a faulty machine," said Binky.

"That's good to hear," said the Brain. Binky and the others continued to play soccer for the rest of the day until the kids had to return home. It was indeed a very good day for Binky.

The End