The Judy Moody Double-Rare Collection - Megan Mcdonald [17]
Emergency room! That was even better than Screamin’ Mimi’s! Judy Moody dropped her mandible! And her Grouchy pencil.
“I was there when I broke my finger,” said Frank, waving his crooked pinkie. “They have a nurse named Ron.”
“I went when my brother stuck a Lego up his nose,” said Bradley.
“Can we go see all the new babies?” asked Frank. “They’re so wrinkly.”
“Well, I’m glad the whole class is enthusiastic,” said Mr. Todd.
“When do we go? When? When?” everybody asked.
“Monday. One week from today. Dr. Nosier will be giving us a tour.”
“Dr. Nosehair!” said Rocky, and everybody cracked up.
She, Judy Moody, and Class 3T were going to the ER. For real and absolute positive. The blood-and-guts, real-body-parts emergency room.
Judy reached down to pick up her Grouchy pencil. The tip was broken. “Mr. Todd,” she asked, “may I please sharpen my pencil?”
“Remember what we said about sharpening pencils ten times a day?”
“But Mr. Todd,” said Judy, “it’s an emergency.”
“What?”
“A pencil emergency! My pencil just broke its spinal cord!” said Judy.
The next Monday was a better-than-best-ever third grade day. At lunch, Judy ate her PBJ sandwich in seven bites, then walked-not-ran to the playground. Class 3T had a ten-minute recess before their field trip to the hospital.
Judy’s mom was a driver and parent volunteer, so Rocky and Frank rode in their car. Mom made Judy ask Jessica Finch, too.
“Did you know muscle comes from a word that means mouse?” asked Jessica. “If you move a muscle, it looks like a mouse.” She flexed her arm.
Judy used all forty-three muscles it took to frown at Jessica Finch.
At the hospital, Dr. Nosehair led Class 3T down a long hall.
“Why does that doctor lady have a rabbit?” asked Frank.
“Animals aren’t allowed in the hospital!” said Jessica.
“It’s a new program called Paws for Healing,” Dr. Nosier told them. “People bring animals to patients in the hospital to help them feel better. Holding an animal and petting it can actually lower a person’s blood pressure, and help a patient forget about being sick.”
“RARE!” said Judy.
Dr. N. took them into a room in back of the ER, where Class 3M was already waiting. There were lots of machines. And important-looking stuff.
“What’s the first thing you would do in an emergency?” quizzed Dr. Nosier.
“Call 911!” everybody said.
“Would you call 911 to find out how long to cook a turkey?”
“Only if you’re a turkey,” Frank said. Judy and Frank cracked up.
“Is a crossword puzzle an emergency?”
“Only for my dad, who tries to beat the clock,” said Judy.
“Believe it or not, we do get people who call 911 for such things. But let’s say we have a real emergency, like a car accident or a heart attack. Everything around here happens super fast. As soon as the ambulance arrives, the EMTs, people trained to handle medical emergencies, start ‘giving the bullet,’ — telling us what happened. Train wreck means the patient has lots of things wrong with them. Who knows what code blue means?”
“Lots of blood?”
“All the people in blue shirts have to help?”
“It means somebody’s heart stopped,” said Dr. Nosier.
“You fix hearts that stop?” asked Alison S.
“You must help a lot of people!” said Erica.
“All doctors make a promise to help people. It’s called the Hippocratic oath. Hippocrates was the Father of Medicine. In the old days, you had to swear by Apollo and Hygeia to help people the best you could. If you didn’t know what was wrong with a patient, you had to say ‘I know not.’ The old oath sounds funny to us now, so a doctor named Louis Lasagna rewrote it.”
“Louis Lasagna? Did he invent pizza, too?” asked Frank. Dr. N. laughed.
“But how do you always know what to do?” asked Rocky.
“Being a doctor is like being a detective. You look at all the clues and try to solve the mystery. In the ER we just do it in a hurry. Think of it like each one of us is a human jigsaw puzzle. My job is to figure out the missing pieces and put the puzzle back together.”
“RARE!” whispered