A Token

Ketseh, the senior bun-bun of the family, wasn’t feeling too great. Carrie-Bri and Mom were already on their way to the vet to see about his abscess by nine o’clock that morning while Puck and I took a walk to the school down the road to wait for their return.

Puck had a hankering to run down a steep green hill backed up to the school property. Like a fat green sponge bursting with rain water, mud, and more slippery green things. He went flying down the hill, losing his flip-flops on the first round, tumbling over his shoulder on the second, and slicing his heel open on the third. Still not sure how. Bright red all over the place.

“MOM! I’M BLEEDING!”

I walked down to him, casually I might add. Alarm usually isn’t the best emotion to display, even to a tough eight year-old boy.

“What happened, bud?”

“IT’S BLEEDING TOO MUCH, MOM!”

I couldn’t immediately tell how deep it was, but given my history with blood and tunnel vision, I gave Linnea-Irish a ring back at the house to see if she could bring the car. No answer.

“Well, bud, how about a piggy-back ride?”

“Okay!”

I couldn’t budge him. Not an inch. 63.5 pounds plus clothes and breakfast; couldn’t do it.

“Well…”

I hoisted him up in both arms like a baby. Maybe my arms are just stronger than my back. But I could only make it back up the one hill, albeit a paved road running parallel to the hill. Go figure, after I put him back down he took off in a full-out run all the way back to the Big House to somehow avoid profuse bleeding.

Linnea supplied the bandages and gauze; I called Carrie about the iodine. As I dropped a small drip of brown liquid on the cut, which fortunately turned out to be not quite as deep as I thought, you’d think he was being murdered.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT BUUUUUURNS!!!!”

Once he was wrapped up and recuperating on the couch with a couple of Franklin Richards as if nothing had happened, Linnea considered recommending him as a CERT actor for upcoming disaster response classes. Apparently there was a shortage of kids who could scream bloody murder during staged rescue scenarios.

Anyway, Puck cleaned up fine, ultimately unbothered by the incident. I heard him calling me from the kitchen after the bandaging, “Hey, Mom! I have a token! Come look!”

When I walked in, he held up the flap of skin removed from his heel, big grin plastered all over his face.