Saving Professor (Part 17)

Collier pushed the glass doors open and rushed into the building.
“Where is she?” he asked Professor, who was trying to catch up.
“She’s still in the doctor’s room. She fell asleep, and hasn’t woken up since.”
Collier started into the hall.
“She isn’t in a coma, is she?”
Professor ran a hand through his hair.
“No,” he finally responded. “I don’t think so.” Then, after a pause, he turned to a door and said, “It’s this room.”
Collier turned around and ran to the door. He knocked Professor’s hand off the knob and twisted it open.
The room was small, and looked just like a doctor’s office. There was a sink with a light teal cabinet. On the wall hung a photograph of a herd of elephants, and the air trailed a light scent of rubber gloves.
Almost immediately after he walked in, Collier stopped in front of the bed. It had a leather covering, the same shade of teal as the cabinet. Over the leather was a sheet of what looked like wax paper, something for the doctor to change every time a new patient came in.
On the bed was Petra, propped up on pillows. Her hand was up near her mouth, and she seemed to be sucking on her forefinger. On her forehead was a band-aid. Other than that, she looked perfectly fine, like she was just in a comfortable sleep.
Collier dropped down next to the bed, and whispered, “Petra.”
Professor rolled his eyes; Collier was taking this way too seriously.
Petra blinked and opened her eyes. Her eyes glanced across the ceiling, confused, before looking down and spotting Collier.
“Hey, Collier. How was Alexander?” she asked.
“How was Alexander? How are you?”
“I’m fine. My forehead doesn’t even hurt that much anymore.” She sat up even higher. “Did I sleep through the night or is it still today?”
“It’s still today,” Professor answered. “Speaking of today, it was Collier’s turn. Tomorrow’s supposed to be your turn. Can you go or do you think you need Collier to go for you?”
Petra looked over at Collier.
“I’ll go for her,” Collier offered.
“Are you sure?” Petra asked thankfully.
“Yeah. I’m sure. It’s fine, really.” Then, with a spreading grin, Collier joked, “But whenever you get better, you’re going twice in a row for me!”
“Sure,” Petra answered, shrugging. “That seems fair enough.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m hungry. Is it dinnertime?”
With that, Petra jumped off the doctor bed and walked out the door.

As the three sat down for dinner last night, Collier asked Petra what exactly had happened.
“Collier, I already told you what happened,” Professor scolded. “She probably doesn’t even know.”
Collier threw a hopeful glance at Petra.
“Well, actually,” Petra started slowly, “Professor’s right—I don’t even really know what happened.”
Then, after watching Collier’s face fall, she offered, “But I can tell you what I do remember!
“So I got done with my studies with Mr. Murphy—“
“How’d that go?”
“Um… good, I guess. But, anyways, I asked Mrs. Sheralton where Professor was, and she told me he was out back loading stuff away. Then she asked if I was a snack, so she got some lime sorbet—“
“We have lime sorbet?”
“Well… yeah… So anyways she got some for me and put it in a glass cup, and I went out the back door to find him. I watched him for awhile then he asked if I wanted to help, so I said yes. I finished my lime sorbet—“
“I can’t even believe you didn’t tell me we had that!”
“Okay, okay, well now you now! As I was saying, I helped load cardboard into the recycle bin, then when that was done, I was throwing away those long light bulbs when they hit the side and exploded everywhere. One piece landed on my forehead, so that’s how I got a cut.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s all. And I had a heat stroke, but I’m over that now.”
“I thought there was more.”
“No. Who told you that?”
Petra’s gaze slid over to Professor, who put his hands up and said, “Hey, I told you, Collier, I told you all that happened.”
Collier, looking disappointed, raised his eyebrows, nodded, and shoved another forkful of green bean casserole into his mouth.
The rest of the table conversation was just small talk. They didn’t mention the ‘accident’ anymore that night.