Part One
Part Two
And Happy Holidays!
“She’s
back!” A man’s voice, not George’s.
Helen
blinked rapidly and stared at the man leaning over her. He was a young
whippersnapper wearing an EMT outfit. What had he done? Had he brought her
back? The damn fool!
“Mrs.
Bakerson, you gave us quite a scare. Can you hear me?”
Helen
tried to move her head, but it was hard. She felt so weak and strange.
“I
think you can, Mrs. Bakerson. You’re very lucky. Mindy and Lucy found you. If
it wasn’t Christmas day…”
What
the heck was the man nattering about? Helen groaned and reached weakly for him,
but found her arms wouldn’t cooperate.
“We’re
taking you to the hospital. Hang tight, okay,” the EMT just kept chattering.
Helen
was lifted very gently by two medics and carried slowly out her front door.
From the corner of her eye, she saw two frightened looking girls—the same girls
she’d yelled at earlier for being in her yard. Both girls were sniffling and
rubbing their eyes with their mittened hands. What was wrong with them?
Suddenly,
the blue-eyed one stepped forward and held out a card to one of the EMTs. “Will
you give this to her when she gets there and is better? It’s a Christmas card
we made for her in school. We’ll save the cookies until she comes back.”
“That’s
a good idea.” The EMT reached for the card and tucked it into his vest pocket.
Helen saw there was a childishly drawn snowman on the front of it. She felt a
tear slide down her cheek, but she couldn’t will her limbs to move to wipe it
off. They were still as frozen as the ice she had just skated on. Or had that
been real? Her body felt so heavy. Everything was strange. “And yes, keep those
cookies until Mrs. Bakerson is better. She’ll be eating hospital food for a
while.”
Drat!
“And
you girls did the right thing,” the other EMT added. “Calling 911 like you did
when you found Mrs. Bakerson was smart.”
The
little girls merely nodded, their eyes wide.
“Poor
old lady shouldn’t have been digging around in her attic,” the first technician
continued talking to his partner as they loaded Helen—unceremoniously in
Helen’s opinion—into the back of a waiting ambulance.
I wasn’t digging around in my
attic, you whippersnappers!
“I
know. What was she planning to do? Take them old ice skates to the lake? She
wouldn’t have lasted five minutes out there.”
Old
ice skates? They must have been George’s, because hers were long gone. Helen smile,
closed her eyes, and rested.
Don't worry, readers, she's not dead! Come back tomorrow to find out what Helen does in the new year.
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