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“Dear, God,” I said.

“It itches!” she wailed.

“Don’t scratch.”

“IT ITCHES!”

I moved over to her and grabbed her hands, but she struggled to get away.

“What are you doing? Let go of me!”

“Doctor!” I called. “Please come in!”

He moved quickly through the door, and Mindie yelped. “Oh, dear God, doesn’t anybody hide their uglies in this vile little town?”

“She rolled in some bushes,” I said. “It must be Poison Oak, or Poison Ivy, or poison…Oak,” I repeated, not able to think of another poisonous plant.

“Wow. That’s what Poison Ivy does?” Morgan asked, opening Mindie’s chocolates. “No wonder she’s evil.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant Mindie or Batman’s arch villainess. Evil could aptly apply to either.

“Oh, my heavens,” the doctor said with profound concern upon seeing his blistered patient. “I have some calamine lotion. But the best thing is a hot shower. As hot as she can manage. It releases the histamines.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I am a doctor.”

True. He even had a bag to prove it.

He moved to the other side of Mindie, her eyes following his loose penis everywhere it went, and we began to lift her from the bed. As he raised her, she leaned away from him and into me, whimpering and wailing.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God, don’t let it touch me. DON’T LET IT TOUCH ME!”

We restrained her as best we could and dragged her toward the bathroom. As we stumbled and struggled, Mindie noticed Waboombas and Morgan in the doorway, eating her chocolates while he read a comic.

“Oh, my GOD!

HIS thingie is out, TOO!” Morgan quickly covered up. “What is WRONG with you people?”

Inside the bathroom, the doctor pointed to the shower.

“Turn it on. As hot as she can handle, then a little hotter.” Mindie’s struggling had subsided. She was weak and tired, probably from her endless scratching and whining. So I could operate the faucets, we set her on the toilet where she sat still and calm, though continuing to scrape away with her nails.

“Stop itching,” the doctor warned. “You’re making it worse.”

He then began to undo her pajama buttons, and she slapped his hand away. He tried again, and she slapped again.

“Miss. You have to…”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

I had the water running—just the hot until it could warm up— and moved over to where Mindie sat, once again scratching madly. I reached for a pajama button. She stopped scratching and swatted me.

Reach. Swat. Itch. Reach Swat. Itch. Reach Swat. Itch.

I sighed and turned to the doctor. “Can she just shower like this?”

“The water needs to touch the skin, so it can open the pores and wash away the histamines.”

“What happens if we leave her alone?”

“She’ll continue to open her skin with all that scratching. This looks like a very serious case. It might even be in her lungs. Perhaps I should hospitalize her.”

“NO!” she said, horrified, then softened and looked at me pitifully. “They’re probably all naked there too.”

I sighed heavily and became angry.

“Whatever. It’s your skin, Mindie.”

“Which could scar, terribly,” the doctor said, trying a different tack, “if you damage the skin with all that itching.”

She looked at him with concern, still slowly scratching her stomach. She looked sad and defeated for a pomegranate. “I don’t want to be scarred,” she whined.

“No, you don’t,” I said.

“I’m young and pretty.”

I hesitated. “You’re young…” I said.

The doctor, apparently seeing an urgent need for the powers of his Hippocratic oath, dove in to salvage things. “… And very pretty. And you should stay that way.”

She looked at him, then at me. “He is a doctor.”

“As far as I know.”

Reluctantly, she acquiesced and moved her arms away.

“All right,” she said bravely. “Take them off. I’ll try the shower.”

We both reached for the pajama buttons, but Mindie pulled back from the doctor.

“Let Corky.” I felt momentarily touched. “He has pants on.” And I shouldn’t have been.

I slowly unbuttoned her shirt, and found the skin hidden behind the clothing to be far worse than anything we had seen so far. Her breasts