More Unexpected Events
Thursday, January 25, 2007
During the night, Collette (after falling asleep at 11:30), had woken up at 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30, all three times in a sweat from bad dreams.
She was greatly surprised minutes later after getting out of bed at 5:30, that OLeif was also up… as well as he could be. He could barely walk, and winced in some pretty awful pain from his knee. Collette started thinking about crutches and x-rays, not knowing exactly what it felt like to have one’s knee pop in and out of place.
So OLeif talked to Denae over the phone about arnica and bandages while Collette waited around and tried not to eat any more from OLeif’s bag of M’nMs which he had also picked up from Walgreen’s the night before.
But Collette did end up driving OLeif to work after renting him a pair of crutches at Schnucks and after Theodore had dropped off a bottle of arnica for him to use during the day.
“The guys are going to laugh at me,” OLeif said, lying on his back on the couch with his PSP. “I injure myself two days before we’re supposed to move everything at work.”
For the next two and a half hours, Collette drove OLeif all over town, looking for crutches. Every place was out. Finally, Denae called ahead for them (as OLeif’s cell phone battery was running out of juice) and found a Walgreens that still had a pair of crutches for someone six feet tall. This was also after they had driven over to the West’s house, where Mrs. West had checked OLeif’s knee, which was now swelling.
She was on the phone at the time they arrived.
“Ignore the mess,” she said to them, then back on the phone, “Yeah, OLeif. Gotta look at his knee… Trampoline injury…. Because he thinks he’s still eighteen. Or twelve!”
Her diagnosis was that he had a second-degree sprain, although there was always the possibility of internal tears that she would not completely be able to tell if present, at the time.
Work followed, which seemed like the blink of any eye for some reason.
Come evening, Collette heard word that Carrie-Bri had strep again. The third round had just begun. Although Carrie was happy that her appeal to the university had worked and she was permitted to take eighteen credit hours at a time.
On the way home, Collette ran into Aldi for a few items. And as she pulled her cart up to the cashier, she saw walking directly past her – Mr. Goose. She couldn’t believe it at first, and looked up again to be sure. Yes, it was Mr. Goose. The Seal had returned. The Navy Seal, the stuff of legend back at Kirk of the Hills. The man who had detached his retina when a hand-grenade exploded. The man who had been impacted by a hummingbird at 30,000 feet. The Snicketts still talked about him to that day. And he had been missing for so long.