Two and a half hours after they'd arrived in the hospital's waiting room Chas still hadn't been looked at. He and Nics sat in silence for the most part, him still clutching his bag of frozen mixed veg (freshly removed from the freezer before heading off to the hospital). She was flicking through the ancient copies of "New Diseases Monthly" and "Homes and Patios" in an attempt to find something interesting.
"Why did you give that woman collecting for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Hypochondriacs money?" she asked.
Chas just grinned. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
The waiting room was painted a particularly vomitous shade of pale green. Plastic chairs lined the walls with a totally insufficient layer of foam as cushioning on the seat. The foam was covered in that particular type of plastic that made your backside sweat copiously within instants of sitting down, and then managed to use the sweat to glue you firmly to the chair.
The air smelt heavily of antiseptic with the faintest tinge of boiled cabbage.
It caught in the back of Nics throat, and she sneezed. The stack of magazines piled up on the waiting room table fell over with a crash. Rooting through her bag, she produced a tissue and blew her nose loudly into it.
"Sorry," she said to the other people in the waiting room, most of who had looked around to see where on earth the foghorn had come from. "Think I've got a bit of a cold."
Their attention was diverted away from her by the door to the waiting room opening. Instead of the hoped for nurse with news that someone there didn't have to wait any longer, it was a woman, dragging a five year old boy along by one hand.
Chas poked Nics as the two took a seat against the far wall.
"Hey," he whispered. "Isn't that the kid we saw throwing bread at the ducks yesterday?"
Nics looked, and nodded. The child looked particularly miserable, held tight as he was by his mother, who did not look happy at all. She glared around the room as if daring anyone to make any comment about the half an inch of bright blue crayon that protruded obviously from the child's distended left nostril.
The boy started snivelling, only to have his mother's glare move like a lighthouse beam from the other people in the room to him.
"Be quiet!" she hissed.
"But it hurts!" he whinged, the other nostril leaking copious quantities of green snot.
"You should have thought of that before you shoved the crayon up there," she said, pulling a grubby hanky out from her sleeve.
"But I didn't! It was the-"
His protestations were shut off abruptly by his mother shoving his nose into the hanky and wiping away the snot with a distinct lack of tenderness.
Nics sneezed again, explosively. In the row of seats behind her a bored-looking teenager dropped her mobile phone onto the tiles floor. It broke.
"Oh," Nics said, "excuse me."
Chas leant over to her, the better to whisper in her ear.
"You reckon the ducks got their revenge then?"
She nodded, snuffling into her own tissue.
"They better call me soon," he continued. "Otherwise they're going to end up with a pile of mushy mixed veg in a puddle on their floor."
He picked up a newspaper that lay amongst the old magazines. It was dated October 13th, four years ago.
One headline caught his eye, and he sniggered. He handed it over to Nics. She had just time to read the tiny article he indicated:
"Headline: Police Given Extra Powers to Search and Confiscate
Police today have been awarded extra powers to search minors and confiscate any eggs and/or flour, or other household items that could potentially be used to vandalise property, the Home Office has said. Many police stations across the country are now planning bake sales to be held in the first week of November."
"Chastelaine Smith?" called the nurse from the door.
Chas rolled his eyes. He hated his full name.
"At last!" he breathed. Louder he said to Nics. "Come on, before they decide to make us wait another hour."
Blithely oblivious of the dirty looks the other people in the waiting room shot him, he walked out the door, followed closely by Nics.
They were both shown to a curtained off alcove with a single hospital moveable bed in it. The nurse was all brisk efficiently. From somewhere she produced a tie up the back hospital gown and laid it on the bed.
"Now, if you'd just like to change into that, the doctor will be with you shortly."
"But, it's just my hand!" protested Chas.
The nurse's only reply was the ripping sound as she pulled the main curtain violently closed.
"And you can stop sniggering too," he snapped at Nics who was unsuccessfully trying to hide her laughter behind her tissue.
She jumped as the curtain ripped open again and the doctor walked in. He was tired looking and young, and spoke in a very proper English accent, which was totally at odd with his shaved head.
"Now, what seems to be the problem?"
"It's my hand, doctor," said Chas, holding out the offending appendage towards him.
"Thank you. Now if you'd be so good as to put down the frozen peas, then I can have a good luck."
Chas flushed, and put the veg down on the bed, where it made a nice little wet patch. He glared at Nics, just in case she decided to say something, but she was very studiously looking out into the corridor, past the violently orange and yellow cubicle curtain.
A shiver ran down her spine, like someone had dropped an ice cube down it. It pooled at the base of her spine until she recognised the sound she was hearing.
It was the sound of dog nails on tiled floors. And sure enough, who should trot past the cubicle curtain than a golden Labrador.
"Back in a minute," she said, as she rushed quickly out to the corridor. She looked down the hall to see one of the two swing doors at the end just swinging shut.
She walked quickly down the corridor, ignoring all the other traffic, the nurses and doctors talking in incomprehensible medical gibberish, the patients in wheelchairs and walking very slowly with the aid of IV stands.
She pushed open the door at the end of the corridor to find an identical one on the other side. Identical, that it, except for the paint scheme. Where the emergency rooms were a particularly nasty shade of green, these walls were an even worse shade of yellow. Just looking at it made her feel ill.
But, sure enough, trotting calmly down the length of the corridor was a golden Labrador.
On impulse she called out to it:
"Sam!"
He slowed, and stopped and turned around to look. When he saw her he wagged his tail and nodded, as if to say:
"Hello, sorry, would love to chat, but I'm late!"
And he turned and pushed open one of the doors on the corridor with his nose and went inside.
She had just put her hand on the door handle to open the door when one of the passing nurses stopped her.
"I'm sorry miss, but you can't go in there."
"But... but..." Nics said. "I just saw Sam go in there."
"I don't think so miss, that room's private."
"Didn't you see him? You must have - a golden Labrador. He went in here."
The nurse looked at Nics as if Nics had lost her marbles completely.
"No animals are allowed in the hospital miss."
Nics swallowed, and beat a hasty retreat. The nurse was looking like Nics could possibly be a patient who'd escaped the nutcase ward.
"Oh, sorry. I'll be going now."
She could feel the nurse glaring at her as she walked down the corridor, back to the emergency rooms.
Behind her, in the room that she had very nearly gotten into lay an old man on a bed. He was asleep, or in a coma, and hooked up to a wide range of drips, tubes and monitors. Stuck to his temples were two objects that might have been brain wave sensors. They were shiny, and gold, and had a small red gem in the centre of each.
When Nics got back, Chas was the only one in the cubicle, but he was looking miserable and cold, dressed in the thin hospital gown that barely did up at the back.
"Broken knuckle, probably. Got to go for x-ray to make sure nothing else is busted."
He was not happy at the prospect of staying any longer.
"Where'd you hare off to?"
"Thought I saw someone I know from choir."
"Oh," he said. Then, as the thought struck him. "Can you get me some chocolate or something from the vending machine in the waiting room? I'm starving."
He shuffled around on the bed uncomfortably.
"There's something digging into my arse."
"Well, stand up and look to see what it is," she said, hunting through her pockets for any loose change.
"Um, no."
"I have..." she mused, looking at the assortment of coins, fluff and other pocket debris that lay in her hand, "...twenty six pence, a button and a squashed jelly bean covered in fluff in change. Do you think that'll be enough? 'Cause otherwise I'll have to find someone who can change the tenner I've got."
Chas squirmed again, more vigorously.
"Nics..." he said pleadingly.
"Oh, for God's sake, just stand up and look!"
"Sodding hospital gown doesn't cover my arse!" he hissed.
Nics tried not to laugh. The snigger was worse.
"Alright, shuffle forward."
He did, and she reached down behind him rooting around his backside. There was much shuffling, and squirming and finally Nics managed to find what had been bothering him.
"Got it!" she exclaimed triumphantly, holding a long brown feather up in the air. And she turned around to look straight in the astounded face of the nurse who had not so long ago told her off for seeing dogs where none could be.
Nics flushed a bright shade of red and hid the feather behind her back.
"Time for your x-ray," said the nurse to Chas brightly, obviously trying her best to ignore the signs of what she obviously viewed as rampant perversity happening in the ER.
"I'll get you some chocolate," said Nics, and fled.
Chas looked after her beseechingly, then submitted to the wheelchair trip down the hall to the x-ray room.
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