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Learning to Fall: crossed line.
Momma and Dad spent the next five evenings with me eating dinner in my room and tryin' to take my mind off the twice daily nurse visits with those evil little tweezers and scratchy gauze. It was fun except for the whole stayin' in a hospital thing which pretty much sucked 'cause of being burned and all. Other than that it was like real civilized camping only with crappy food and no mosquitos.
The good news is that my burn now looks like a picture Alex showed me of these tribesmen in New Guinea who've intentionally scarred their chests with burning bungee sticks in patterns like the sun and fishes and trees and bugs. My scar is either gonna' look like a sun or one of those atolls in the bikini islands where they used to test early nuclear bombs and now everyone is born with weird limbs like we saw in history class when we studied world war II. There's a ridge of little island scars in a ring-some of 'em big and thick like rope, some of 'em small like a baby slug crawlin' under my skin-and then there's a big open space with a perfect little golf ball sized pile of healing skin in the center of the big ring. They're this angry color of pink that the nurse says will turn purple then eventually smooth and skin colored.
The bad news is that when Terry did whatever he did he crossed a line with me. He took my dog. I found this out after askin' a hundred times the last two weeks about how Tribble was doin' and nobody ever answered. They just changed the subject or a nurse came in or something. Finally I asked last night and Dad told me they thought maybe Terry took him.
"What?" I almost came out of my bed and would've, probably, except for my butt isn't covered with this gown and there's just no rush to leave out of here without just one more visit from the nurse with the more feen.
It turns out that the cops are now sure Terry didn't die in the explosion or fire 'cause they couldn't find but one body in the fire and that was for sure Gill's. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson around the corner from where Terry lives said they saw Terry and his dad leave and get in a car with a dog just a half hour after the sirens wailed.
"N.B.," Momma held my hand for like the millionth time that day even, "Terry's momma says she'll get you a new dog if they don't find Tribble."
Then the nurse came in and gave me some of that pain killer and started plucking at me again. I'd been pretty tough up 'til then, but my dog! He took my dog! I cried while she stacked up little flakes of skin from my chest. The nurse looked like she was gonna' cry, too.
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