Jimmy... Ji_IMMMMM_mee... Time to wake UH-up!" he heard, suddenly. And just as suddenly, he was back in his hospital room, in his stiff-pressed gown, on stiff-pressed sheets, in a stiff pressed mood! If he'd been any angrier, he might have taken a swing at the nurse! It was time to take another bunch of vitamin pills, with a little cup of Ephedrine with Attarax! He despised the taste with every tastebud he had(and others he was glad he didn't have.), but it helped him breathe better and the nurses wouldn't hassle him with it until dinner time. He had learned a trick to make it less icky-tasting. He'd open his mouth as wide as he could and stick his tongue out as far as he could and tip his head back as he popped the stuff into his mouth so that it ran down the roof of his mouth instead of his tongue. Then he would have a big glass of water right behind it, without wasting any time to let it touch his tongue! It was tricky, but it worked.
When he was done with his medicine, he ate his breakfast as fast as he could. Then he went out into the corridor to race wheelchairs until somebody caught him and told him to stop. Then he went to the playroom and looked out the window and saw the pigeons flying and he wished he could fly too. This time was different because he remembered flying last night. He closed his eyes and remembered it until he was almost there again... but not really. He tried to close his eyes tighter to remember harder, to make it more real, but it didn't work... he was still stuck in the play room, in the hospital... and he still couldn't fly.
He played with the blocks but they were too dumb to have fun with. He played with the plastic army men and blew them up with an "air-to-ground-anti-personnel" alphabet block. He read the comic books, but they were old and he'd already read them before. He went out into the corridor and snuck into the elevator, but there was a doctor in there and he made Jimmy go back to his room and told the head nurse on him! "DOCTORS ARE RATFINKS!!!" he yelled, meaning every bit of it! The nurse made Jimmy go to his room and stay in bed until lunch (and there was nothing good on TV!). Jimmy watched about 20 minutes of some soap opera. Sandra was angry at Trent for running away with Suzanne, who killed Sandra's sister, Naomi, in order to marry Doug for his money, that he lost to loan sharks... Then Jimmy switched the channel and watched Sesame Street for about half an hour, but he already knew the alphabet and could count way past 20 in Spanish and English. After Sesame Street, there was some boring stuff about dead presidents and how they did some REALLY boring stuff with other countries' kings. Jimmy watched for a little while, because of the funny looking men they showed, wearing big moustaches and weird spiked helmets. It was really funny, how everybody walked really fast and jerky, more like windup toy soldiers than real ones.
After what seemed like forever, Lunch came. It was: A dry ham sandwich on white bread with mustard, A glass of orange juice, with a paper straw that got mushy in about 20 seconds after the first sip, Some dry french fries without any salt at all, A tiny bowl of alphabet soup that wasn't bad for dipping his sandwich and french fries in. He did so and after all the broth was soaked up, he scooped up the letters and vegetable bits with his spoon. A little carton of milk that he gulped down in 7 seconds (The hospital record was 6, by Miss Eubanks, his favorite nurse.)! A cup of ice cream, that he ate first, because everyone knows that's the best part, and besides it would melt if he saved it for last. Jimmy ate everything because he was hungry and they wouldn't let him have any snacks!
After lunch, he got up and went out into the corridor and raced wheelchairs with Roland (who needed one, until his leg healed.). The nurse told Jimmy to get out of the wheelchair and stop making so much trouble. So Jimmy got out and went to the play room after he rode the wheelchair back to where it belonged. In the play room, Hody, the hospital social worker was making cornhusk dolls with a bunch of girls! (Jimmy didn't like girls very much, because he had three big sisters. Hody and Miss Eubanks were ok, though.) He went in and sat down with the girls (in a wide space, so he didn't have to get too close to one.), because he liked to hear Hody's stories about when she went to Africa with the Peace Corps. Before long, Jimmy accidentally bumped the girl on his left and she started crying because the paintbrush slipped when she was painting the face on her doll. It was an accident, but she said it was on purpose and the rest of the girls lied, saying they saw him shove her. Jimmy got sent out and didn't get to hear anything about Africa!
Jimmy was so bored, that he almost felt like crying. As a matter of fact, when he thought about the unfairness of being stuck in this place, where people got in trouble for things they hadn't done and almost everyone was sick or hurt and you couldn't go where you wanted, he couldn't stand it any more and he cried. It was so embarrassing... crying like a baby, out in the corridor where everybody could see you crying... "Big boys don't cry!" he kept telling himself. "Only babies, sissies and girls cry!" Just then, Miss Eubanks was kneeling down in front of him saying "Hey Jim, ya ok?" She was Jimmy's favorite person in the whole hospital. "Yeah, I'm ok...", he lied. He wasn't ok and she knew it! Jimmy knew it too, and he also knew he couldn't lie to her. Miss Eubanks could read him like a book. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a choked, squeaky, little croaking noise.
