You've Got a Friend by Judi Curtin

Author:Judi Curtin [Judi Curtin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788490757
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Published: 2018-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

Luckily the hospital was really close – quite near Eddie’s house on Castle Street. When we got there, the woman insisted on getting a wheelchair and wheeling Beth into the emergency room. As I watched, I couldn’t make up my mind if it was very funny or very scary.

When we got inside, the woman handed me some funny-looking coins and pointed to a payphone.

‘Please call your parents and Beth’s parents and let them know what happened.’

I took the coins and went over to the payphone. I’d seen one when we were time-travelling before, and I was fairly sure I could remember how to work it, but that didn’t really matter anyway.

Who was I supposed to call?

So I put the coins into the phone and pressed a few random numbers, and then pretended to be waiting for someone to answer. After a minute or two I pressed another button and got the coins back. Then I did the same thing with a few more random numbers. When I got the coins back for a second time, I went back to where Beth and the woman were waiting.

‘No one’s home in my place or in Beth’s,’ I said, glad for once that mobile phones weren’t invented yet. ‘I guess our parents are shopping or working or something. I’ll try again in a little while.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said the woman. ‘I’d better talk to the staff and see what they’ve got to say.’

After that there was a big row, because the receptionist wasn’t very happy about a woman landing in with two kids she didn’t even know.

‘Where are the parents or guardians?’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t accept responsibility for unaccompanied children.’

So we sat and waited for another while and every twenty minutes or so I went to the payphone and pretended to call our imaginary grown-up parents, and pretended to be surprised when no one answered.

After a while the woman stood up. ‘I’m very sorry, but I need to leave,’ she said. ‘My mother is ill, and I have to bring her some medication and prepare her dinner.’

So she got two pieces of paper and wrote her name and address and phone number on each. She gave one to the receptionist and handed the other one to Beth.

‘Please ask your parents to contact me,’ she said. ‘And tell them that I deeply regret what happened.’

Beth and I smiled at her. I felt sorry for the woman. She was nice, and it wasn’t her fault that Beth had stepped right out in front of her car, was it?

Soon after the woman left, a nice nurse came over and sat next to us.

‘It’s strange that you haven’t managed to contact your parents, Beth. Can you give me your phone number, so the receptionist can try again?’

‘Oh,’ said Beth. ‘I’ve actually forgotten my own phone number. How weird is that?’

‘That might be the shock of the accident,’ said the nurse. ‘Can you tell me please, Molly?’

Didn’t she know that the accident was just as shocking for

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.