“Doug, I don’t care what you or Mark Baker has to say,” my mother snapped as she hoisted her body up out of the hole. “I’m going to look for Georgie!”
“Mom,” I called elated, but my voice wouldn’t come out above a whisper.
My mother faced me, narrowing her eyes. “Oh God! Georgina!” she gasped and rushed over to where I laid. “Sweetheart, your head!” She pulled me off the ground and held me. “What happened to you? Thank God, you’re okay! We were so worried!” She kissed my forehead repeatedly and rocked me back and forth like an infant.
“I don’t know what happened to me, Mom.”
“We’ll worry about that later. I’m just so thankful you’re safe,” she said, with tears brimming in her eyes. “I was coming to look for you. I didn’t care what any of the council members said.”
“They wouldn’t have let you back in.”
“I don’t care,” she cried. “You’re my child. You’re more important than some ridiculous council rule.”
“What about Frankie? Huh, Mom? She’s your child too.”
She squeezed me tighter and smoothed my hair back. “Never you mind about Frankie. What’s most important now is that you’re okay.” She placed both of her hands on my cheeks and gazed at me directly in the eyes. My body slumped as she released me from the embrace. “What’s wrong with your arms and legs?” she asked, concerned.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “When I woke up, my head was split open and I couldn’t move any of my limbs.”
Her voice raised a level. “You can’t move your arms and legs? Who did this? Huh? I will kill them! If they think cannibals are scary they haven’t seen anything yet!”
“Mom, I’ve tried, but I can’t remember anything about what happened to me or how I got here. There is a huge chunk of my memory that’s missing.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. Then she got distracted and noticed the paper on the ground. “What’s this?” she asked as she snatched it.
“It was in my bag when I woke up.”
She scanned the paper slowly. “And you don’t know who wrote it?”
“I already told you, Mom. I don’t remember anything.”
She folded up the paper and shoved it into her back pocket. Then she massaged my scalp, trying to get a better look at the gash on my head. Her fingers intertwined with my hair and she began pulling it. And it was really starting to hurt. The incessant stinging throbbed. “Stop it!” I said, “You’re hurting me!” At one point I tried to lift my arm to slap her hand away, but I still couldn’t move it fully.
Unwinding her fingers from my hair, she located the cut and spread it open. “The cut is really deep. You’re going to need stitches.”
She pulled the wound taught and I yelped. “Ow, Mom! Easy! You’re being too rough!”
Then my mother removed her hands from my head, picked up my knapsack, and flung it over her shoulder. “Alright, honey. I’m going pick you up now, okay.”
“Okay.”
She slid her arms underneath my butt and back. “On three… One… two… three.”
At first my body folded and I heard every bone in my spine crack. Then my mother adjusted her arms and carried me over to the opening. Now I understood what people meant when they said mother’s had super-human strength when it came to their children.
We hovered over the top of the hole and my father peered up at us from the bottom. He let out a sigh of relief. Oh, Georgina. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, Daddy. I’m glad Mom found me.”
“Me too,” he said. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not her fault,” my mother growled as she descended down the ladder.
My father ignored her comment. Everyone knew my mother would hold Mr. Baker responsible for this. I thought she had a valid point. I still couldn’t understand why the men in the council weren’t doing the gathering. They were strongest people here. They could fight off the cannibals and other wild things. Aside from Colin and maybe Dylan Edwards, the rest of the teens here wouldn’t make it out there.
When we finally reached the bottom of the ladder, my mother handed me off to my father. “Can you please take her to the infirmary? I’m pretty sure May’s working.”
May Vickers was Grace’s and Monica’s mother. Before the Great Famine, she was the head of surgery at a hospital in Omaha. Shortly after the colony was built, the council decided that we had to have our own hospital, and May offered to run it. After all, she was really the only one who knew what she was doing.
My father raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you take her?”
“Because I’m going to climb back up the ladder and close off the entrance. Unless you’d rather do that.”
“No,” my father groaned. “I’ll take her to the infirmary.” He turned his back to my mother and we started walking down the hall.
“We’ll talk later!” my mother shouted.
“Yeah,” my father said. “Later.”
For some reason, my father didn’t like anything that had to do with hospitals, doctors, or sick and wounded people. His father died when my Dad was young, andsomething that happened with that changed the way he felt about the medical world. The reason was never explained to me and I never tried to pry it out of him. I just figured someday, he’d eventually tell me.
May Vickers greeted me with a smile as my father strolled through the door with me. “What happened here?” May asked. Her voice was always so soft and sweet. Her smile was pleasant, and she always looked pretty. She had a round face and ivory skin. Despite everything She had went through with her daughter Monica disappearing, she always tried to be kind to everyone most of the time. Grace was like her in that way.
My father laid me down on the cot and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll let her tell you about it. I have to go talk with Marcy.”
May smiled. “Okay.”
My father gripped my hand, squeezed it, then went off to find my mother.
May walked over to her counter, a small kitchen countertop that someone had salvaged from a building, and studied her row of supplies. There were all kinds of instruments, ointments, and band aids. She picked up a jar of salve, and removed a cotton swab from her pocket. She dipped the swab into the jar and set the jar back down. “So, Georgie. What happened?”
At my side, she plastered the ointment across my cut. First, the ointment on my cut felt like little bubbles were popping across the wound and it kind of tickled. Then that tickling feeling turned into a full on burning feeling. It felt like my entire head was on fire. “Ouch! Ouch!” I cried. “I’m not sure.”
“It’s only numbing ointment,” May said calmly. “Give it a second and it won’t burn so much.”
Soon, the burning sensation died down. In fact I couldn’t feel anything at all. “That’s better,” I sighed. With the pain gone from my head, I felt like a whole new person.
“You might want to close your eyes for the next part,” she stated as she removed a long sewing needle and surgical thread from the table next to me. That sounded like a great suggestion to me. May sterilized the needle, and looped the thread through it. “Lower your head, please,” she instructed.” I put my head down and closed my eyes tightly. I felt the needle pierce my skin, but other than that, I felt nothing else. “You know,” May began, “you’re a pretty brave kid.”
“You think so?” So far, I thought I was acting pretty wimpy.
“I do.” There was a warmness to May’s tone. “You have a minor concussion and you need eighteen stitches. You’re taking it like a champ. When Colin Martin came back he was in…”