Page 46 of The Baby Dragon Bakery
“You can do it,” Lavinia said, giving him a little push forward. She didn’t get what he was so scared of. He took a deep breath, then started to climb. “Woo! Go Theo!”
She cheered him on until he got to the branch with ripe red apples hanging. “See! That wasn’t so hard!”
Theo’s eyes were wide as he looked around, as if he couldn’t quite believe where he was. She thought for a moment he’d be upset she had made him go up there, but then he smiled. He closed his eyes, tilting his face to a patch of sunlight between the branches, and his brown skin glowed. He looked so happy that she smiled, feeling happy, too.
He opened his eyes, then reached for an apple. He picked one and threw it down. She lifted the end of her dress and caught the apple; it bounced on the fabric, and she laughed. He smiled, grabbing another apple, and the both of them made a little game out of it—they could make a game out of anything.
He kept throwing and she kept catching. Lavinia’s dress was getting stretched out, apples falling; they had more than enough, but they kept going, laughing, giddy. He climbed onto a higher branch, reaching, and it all happened so fast—
The branch snapped, and he fell. She heard his high-pitched scream, and then saw his crumpled body. There was so much blood.
“Theo!” she shrieked, running to his side. She saw that he had split his knee open against a sharp rock. There was a flash of white amongst the red, which must have been his bone. He was crying, and she started crying, too.
They were both sobbing: him in pain, and her because shewas scared. She had never seen so much blood before and she worried that he was dying or something; she didn’t know! She took off her cardigan and tried to wrap it around his leg, ruining her favorite sweater in the process.
Theo continued to cry, his face wet with tears and sweat, and her cardigan changed from a soft pink to a bloody, bloody red. Lavinia searched Theo’s pockets for his phone, her hands shaking. He had gotten a cell phone early—which she had been jealous of—because his parents often left him home alone.
Lavinia swiped open his phone, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll call your parents.”
“No!” he cried out. His expression was panicked, and he grabbed her hand, squeezing it so tight it hurt. “No, you can’t tell them, Lavinia, you can’t.” And he started crying harder, which only made her chest hurt.
“I won’t,” she said. “Theo, I won’t.”
She squeezed his hand back, then called her parents. Her father’s number was the only one she had memorized; he had made her memorize it in case of emergencies.
Garrett picked up after the first ring. “Hello?”
Hearing her father’s voice made her start crying all over again.
“Daddy,” she sobbed.
“Pumpkin!” he said, his voice frightened. “What is it? What happened?”
“It’s Theo,” she said, hardly able to get the words out. “He fell.”
“Hey, don’t worry, okay?” He was trying to sound calm, but she could feel that he was freaked out. She heard a commotionin the background, as if he was running. “I’m coming. I’m coming right now.”
“Okay.” She sniffled, unable to say anything else, and hung up. She turned to Theo. “My daddy is coming, okay? Don’t worry.”
That seemed to calm Theo down a little, and he nodded. Lavinia bit her bottom lip, unsure what to do. She pressed on the wound with her sweater, since that was what her mom always did when she got a cut, she would press down—but this wasn’t doing much, her sweater was already wet and it made a squishing sound when she pushed on it, which made her feel sick.
Luckily, her parents arrived shortly thereafter, and she didn’t have to think about anything. Garrett gathered Lavinia into his arms, inspecting her to make sure she wasn’t hurt while Beena went to Theo.
“He fell,” Lavinia said, holding onto her dad. Now that her parents were here, she knew everything would be okay, and she stopped crying. “Theo, don’t worry, okay? They’re going to take care of you. My mom’s a nurse, remember?”
Theo nodded, but his eyes were wet with tears. Beena turned back to Garrett, and Lavinia didn’t hear them say anything, but they seemed to understand each other perfectly. Her parents always did that, talked without really saying anything.
Garrett left Lavinia’s side and, in the same moment, Beena came next to her, the two switching. Garrett scooped Theo up, and he shrieked with pain as they moved him.
“Mama!” Lavinia cried, admonishing.
“It’s okay,” Beena said. “We’re going to take him to the hospital, okay?”
Lavinia nodded, and Beena went to hold Theo’s leg, keeping it wrapped in Lavinia’s sweater. Lavinia ran to her father’s other side, reaching for Theo’s hand. He held onto her hand as they made it to the car, and she held on the whole car ride to the hospital.
She felt so horrible—it was all her fault. She had told him to get the apples!
When they arrived at the emergency room, everything was so busy, people running around, the white lights of the hospital blinding.
