The Judy Moody Double-Rare Collection - Megan Mcdonald [24]
Her patient was special. Her patient had green skin and did not talk back. Her patient would not hog the TV and drink all the ginger ale and spit out healthy prunes.
Her patient was perfect. She could hardly wait.
First she took one more bath.
Stink knocked on the bathroom door. “Knock-knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Stink, minus one bellybutton.”
No answer.
“Mom! Judy’s hogging the bathroom and she already took a million baths yesterday.” Stink banged on the door. “Hurry up! I need to get in there!”
Judy came out with a towel on her head, and all-wrinkly hands and feet. “I liked it better when you were sick,” said Judy.
“I liked it better when you didn’t look like a spit-up prune,” said Stink.
“Doctors have to be really, really clean, Stink. Elizabeth Blackwell took three cold showers a day!”
“Elizabeth Blackwell didn’t leave a lake on the floor.”
“Hardee-har-har.”
“Hip bone’s connected to da leg bone,” Judy sang as she got dressed. Today was going to be the amazing-est human body day ever, from head to toe.
At school, Judy had ants in her pants all through Spelling, bees in her patella-knees all through Math. At last it was Science. Mr. Todd said the magic words. “Time for our Human Body projects. Rocky, why don’t you go first?”
Rocky wrapped himself in toilet paper like a mummy, and told how eating a mummy can help your tummy! No lie. Doctors in the old-old-olden days thought mummies could cure stuff like stomachaches. So they ground up mummies, bones and all, and used them for medicine.
“Creepy!” said most of the class.
“Fascinating,” said Judy.
Jessica Finch wrote medi-words on the board. Words like intelligirl (really smart girl), brainiac (has super-Einstein, not-kidney-bean brain), and brain case (sick in the brain), which she added to the dictionary. Then she passed out a word search. Judy found all the medi-words at brainiac speed.
Finally, Mr. Todd called on her. Dr. Judy Elizabeth Blackwell. She put on her doctor shirt, a stethoscope, and a left-eye patch. She taped plastic bags over her shoes. She colored between her eyebrows with a black marker and stuck fake bugs on her head with tape. “Today I am Elizabeth Blackwell, First Woman Doctor,” said Judy. “I’ll start with a poem.” She took a deep breath, so she wouldn’t get a terrible case of nerves. Or a bad case of sweat.
Elizabeth Blackwell
Lived in an attic
Nothing was automatic
First in her class
What more could you ask?
Became first woman doctor
Even though boys mocked her
Opened a clinic
Helped poor people in it
Delivered Babies
Gave shots for rabies (maybe)
Opened her own school
It was way cool
Wrote a book
Wonder how long it took.
Born, I don’t know when
Died, 1910
Take after the example
Of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.
Everybody clapped. “Any questions before I begin the operation?” Judy asked.
“Why are you wearing pajamas?” asked Hailey.
“Scrubs,” said Judy. “It’s a doctor shirt. Doctors have to be really, really clean and take tons of baths a day.”
“Why do you only have one eyebrow?” asked Frank.
“It’s a uni-brow. Like Elizabeth Blackwell had. Plus it makes me look smart. Like an intelligirl who is not a brain case.”
“Why do you have that pirate patch on your eye?” asked Brad.
“Elizabeth Blackwell got an eye infection and they took out her eye, so she wore an eye patch.”
“Ooh. Gross!”
“Why do you have fake bugs on your head?” asked Jessica Finch.
“They didn’t really know how to fix her eye, so they put bloodsucking leeches on her head. They thought it would help.”
“EEE-yew!” said a bunch of kids in the class.
“Did you write that poem?”
“Well, it wasn’t a gnome!”
“Why do you have plastic bags on your feet?”
“In case of blood,” said Judy.
“Class, let’s let Judy show us her project,” said Mr. Todd.
“Time for a real live operation!” said Judy.
“Do it on me!” said Frank.
“Not me!