Ruby's Broken Bone

Ruby's Broken Bone Part 1

"Thanks, Roger," Ruby said after she gulped it down. "Now to take my operations up to the fort, starting with... Max."

"I'm staying safe up here!" said Max from the highest platform in the playground fort.

"Not for long!" said Ruby, making her way to the latter in the rear. "You're coming down one way or another!" She began to climb up. Once she reached the top, she encountered her brother. "End of the line, Max!" Ruby said with a devious smile on her face. "Surrender now!"

"Never!" retorted Max. He was determined to outsmart his sister and not be tagged. He was standing on the edge of the opening for the entryway from the rock wall on the other side of the fort.

"I've got you now, Max!" Ruby said. With that, she ran straight towards her little brother in an attempt to ram him and tag him. Just in time to avoid being tagged, Max dove to the side, directly down the slide on the side of the platform. Unfortunately, Ruby put too much momentum in her ramming, and she went over the edge of the rock wall and fell down the height of the platform, screaming on the way down. What followed was a hard thud.

"Ruby!" everyone shouted at different instances, responding to the thud they just heard. Max reached the bottom of the slide and ran towards his sister as everyone else ran to her, halting the game. Even Antonio and Louise, who were already tagged, ran to her as well. Everyone crowded around Ruby, who was sitting on the ground at the base of the rock wall grasping her leg tightly while wincing and having trouble breathing. The pain was so intense that Ruby started crying.

"What happened, Ruby?!" Louise said, kneeling down next to her.

"I... I landed really hard on my leg," Ruby whimpered with tears streaming down her face. Mr. and Mrs. Bunny ran over with Grace and Oliver in the stroller to see what the commotion was about.

"Ruby, what happened, sweetheart?" Mr. Bunny said as he and his wife knelt down in front of their daughter.

"Show me where it hurts, Ruby," Mrs. Bunny said with concern. "Right here?" She pressed her paw into the fur of Ruby's leg.

"OOWW!!!" Ruby yowled, crying louder.

"Alright," said Mrs. Bunny. "Everyone, we're gonna take Ruby to the hospital so they can look at her leg. Try to keep the game safe while we're gone." Mr. Bunny picked his daughter up off the ground and carried her to the car as Mrs. Bunny followed.

"We will, Mr. and Mrs. B," said Roger. As soon as they left, Roger blew his whistle again. "Okay, guys, since it was 'it' that got hurt, we now need a new 'it,' so we're gonna have to start over."

"I don't know, Roger," said Louise. "It just isn't the same without Ruby. I say we just call this whole thing off before someone else gets hurt." Roger sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah, I guess we outta," he said. "Actually, you know what? Let's just postpone the tournament."

"Postpone?" Max replied. "What's that?"

"It's when you put off something until later than you were originally gonna have it. By postponing the Freeze Tag tournament, it simply means we're gonna play it some other day."

"Aww," said Max and his friends.

"You guys can still play Freeze Tag, Max," said Roger. "It's just not the big tournament. We big kids are out, cuz we are not playing without your sister." Max sighed upon hearing this.

"Okay," Max said. "Morris, Lily, Winston, and Priya, let's choose who's 'it,' for our own little Freeze Tag tournament!

"Okay," said Priya. "Wait, how does that bullfrog chant go again?"

Meanwhile, later in the hospital, Ruby sat humbly in a wheelchair next to her parents in the waiting room of the ER. She was nervous to be in the hospital as she always had a slight fear of them and did not know what to expect. She just kept looking down at the floor with a nervous expression, which her mother noticed.

"It'll be alright, sweetheart," Mrs. Bunny said in a soothing voice to her daughter. Just then, a large tan-furred doctor with glasses emerged from a door.

"Ruby Bunny?" the doctor said.

"That's you, sugarbun," said Mr. Bunny. "It'll be fine. We'll be with you the whole time."

In the back, the doctor led Ruby and her parents to the x-ray machine. Ruby felt slightly intimidated looking at such a large machine.

"Alright, Ruby, are you ready for your x-ray?" asked he doctor.

"My x-ray?" Ruby repeated nervously.

"It's okay to be shy around this thing," said the doctor. "What this does is take a picture of your bones so we can see whether you've broken anything or not."

"B-b-broken?" Ruby stuttered.

"You'll do just fine, sugarbun," said Mr. Bunny. "Bunnies break bones all the time, but they always heal back up."

"Now first, we need to get you in a hospital gown. Mrs. Bunny, you can help your daughter get into it so we can lay her in this machine." Ruby felt more scared as she still did not know what was about to happen.

A few minutes later after struggling to change Ruby out of her clothes and into a hospital gown without her standing up, the doctor and Mr. and Mrs. Bunny helped her onto the bed below the machine. He then placed a lead blanket over her legs where the x ray would be taken.

"Now when we start it up, the machine will position itself right over you and your legs and take pictures," said the doctor. "It's important that you try not to move a muscle."

"I'll try," Ruby said humbly as she laid down. The doctor and Ruby's parents left the room, shutting the door. The machine started up and Ruby laid in her hospital gown on the bed, watching the machine position itself over her legs. To her, it felt like a something of science fiction.

The images printed out and the doctor placed them up in the light box: some of Ruby's entire body, then the rest of closeups of her legs. He took a close look and realized Ruby's injury. Ruby sat in her wheelchair while her parents sat on either side of her and they all faced the doctor at his desk as he kept inspecting the images.

"That's a small break," said the doctor. "We're gonna have to put your leg in a cast."

"W-what break?" said Ruby, trying to get a closer look. "I don't see anything." The doctor pulled the slide out of the light and laid it flat in front of Ruby.

"You see this bone right here, Ruby?" he said, pointing to it on her leg in the image.

"Mm hm," Ruby said as she nodded.

"This right here is called the tibia, one of two bones within your lower leg. And you see that little crack right there towards the bottom."

"Oh my," Ruby said when she saw what the doctor was pointing at.

"This right here is what needs to heal. And in order to do that, we need to put your leg in a cast to hold it in place."

The scene cut to the doctor wrapping the bandages around her lower leg below her knee.

"How long am I going to have to wear this thing?" Ruby asked.

"With a crack like that? Five weeks."

"Five weeks in this wheelchair?!" Ruby said with a worried look on her face. "What if I forget how to walk?!"

"Don't worry, Ruby," said the doctor with a smile. "Your fracture is not so serious that you need a wheelchair. Instead, you'll be getting around using these." He showed her a pair of crutches.

"Crutches?" said Ruby.

"They provide support so you can walk around without putting pressure on your broken bone. Let me show you how to use them."