Chapter 22: Emergency

The next day I walked into the kitchen while Ms. Clare was finishing making breakfast. "Good morning, Ms. Clare." I said. "Morning, Ferral," She responded, "I have something for you." I looked at her confused, "You do?" "Yep, it's special." She reached into her pocket and brought out a small black rectangle. She gave it to me and I was unsure what it was, "Thank you….but what is it?" "It's your own phone." I looked at her with shock, "My own phone?! ALRIGHT!" I shouted. "It's a flip phone, thought I'd start you off small before you tried to use what I have." I grabbed the top part of the phone with my fingertips and made it flip open. "Oh wow, this is soooo cool." "I'll teach you the basics later, but here watch this…" she grabbed the phone from me and started pressing the buttons, then a ringing began and she handed it back to me. *Hello?* A voice said through the phone. It was Belle, I remember her voice. "Hi, Belle!" *Oh! Hey Ferral. I see Ms. Clare gave you your phone.* "Yep. Did she give you yours?" *Yeah, yesterday she came over to my and Leona's place to give them to us, Ezekiel too. You wanna talk to him?" "Yeah!" It went silent for a minute, then I heard a noise coming from the phone. *Ferral?* "Hi Ezekiel!" *Oh ho, hey buddy. See Ms. Clare gave ya your phone. Yeah, I was pretty bummed out yesterday too. Ol' cheapy McCheapskate over there couldn't bother giving up the good stuff.* Ms. Clare grabbed my phone with an annoyed expression, "You know you're on speaker, right? I didn't HAVE to give you anything." *Oh….uh, hi Ms. Clare. Hehe, you heard that huh? OH LOOK AT THE TIME, GOTTA GO BYE!* The noise from the phone stopped, and Ms. Clare closed it and handed it back to me. "Hmph, I'm not cheap. Nerve of that little punk." She muttered, "Well I'm off to work, I'll see you later." "Okay, bye!" She left and so the usual cycle of my day begins….

My day went on as usual; sit on the couch and either watch TV or read the Animal Encyclopedias. I did do some training, but just the basic stuff. I was kinda sore from yesterday. Then at twelve o'clock, I heard a knocking on the window behind me. I turned around to see Leona, Ezekiel, and Belle standing outside. I opened the window, "Hey guys, what're you doing here?" They didn't answer, but their faces looked concerned. "What?" "Come on, Ferral," Belle said, "We need to go to the hospital. Ms. Clare's been hurt." As soon as she said that, my body felt heavy and my chest tightened.

We rushed to the hospital, and I was the first one at the front counter. "I'M LOOKING FOR MS. CLARE. HER LAST NAME IS MONA AND…AND…" The lady at the counter put up her hand to silence me, "Calm down, sir. Now please tell me who you're looking for." The hospital lady asked. "We're looking for a woman named Clare," Leona said, "Her last name is Mona, right Ferral?" I nodded my head, still panicked. "Ah. Well, she came in about an hour ago, I'll take you to her." She started walking and we followed her until she stopped at the room at the very end of the hall. She opened the door and there was Ms. Clare….scratches on her face covered in blood. Belle gasped and I ran over to Ms. Clare. "Ms. Clare?" I tried to shake her, but no response. "Ms. Clare!" I shook harder, but still nothing. "What happened to her?" Ezekiel asked. "She was in a bad car crash. Hit and run." The lady responded, "Honestly a miracle she survived." I quickly turned around, "She's okay?" "Well yes and no. She may have survived the crash, but her injuries were severe. Not to mention she was carried over here so she hasn't had much proper care." Just then, a man walked in with a small cup of water. "Oh uhh, good day." He said, his voice sounding similar to that of Mr. Crikey. "This is Mr. Clarence. He's the gentleman that carried Ms. Mona here." "Hello. I would've called 911, but I did have my phone with me. And I didn't want to waste time waiting for someone else to do it." None of us said a word, we were more focused on Ms. Clare. "Who are these kids?" The man asked. "I don't know. What's your relation to Ms. Mona?" Leona turned around, "She's our guardian." I've never heard the term "guardian" before, but I have to assume it means she takes care of us. "I see," The lady responds, "Well no need to worry kids, she'll be okay, I'll promise you that." I continued to stare at Ms. Clare's injuried face, reminding me of the day I lost Mother. I started pacing back and forth, clenching my fists and gritting my teeth. Someone hurt Ms. Clare….AND THEY JUST LEFT HER?! I was so mad. Really REALLY mad, and the others could see it. "Ferral? Belle said with concern. "Hey buddy, just calm down." Ezekiel added. But I kept pacing, getting more and more angry. They all stared at me, their faces filled with confusion and concern. I finally snapped and tried to bolt out of the window, but Leona grabbed me and held me back. "NO FERRAL!" She yelled as I struggled. "Nnngh! Let me go! I started to break free until Ezekiel came and helped Leona restrain me. "Ferral! Buddy, you gotta calm down!" He said. "NO! I'M GOING TO FIND THE PERSON WHO DID THIS AND…" "And what?" Leona interrupted, "Kill them? Would Ms. Clare or your mother want you to do that?" I didn't answer and continued to struggle. "Please Ferral, stop this!" I heard Belle plead. "We understand what you're feeling buddy, so calm down and we'll talk this out!" "NO! You don't know what I'm feeling!" Tears began to stream down my face, "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M FEELING!" They stopped trying to restrain me, but my feelings of anger turned into sadness. So quickly. I looked at them, my eyes flooded with tears and I ran out the door, pushing past the hospital lady and the man.

We all watched Ferral run out of the room crying. We were all in shock; shocked to see Ms. Clare was almost killed, to see Ferral go into a fit of rage, and to scream that he didn't even know what he was feeling. I didn't understand why he would say that but then again, who knows what was going through his mind? I looked at Ezekiel and Belle who were staring at me with the same looks of concern I had. Then the man who had brought Ms. Clare walked up to us, "Um, I'm not sure what happened here, nor do I think I have a place to say anything. But if you want, I could go and talk to your friend." "What? Why?" I asked. "As I said, I don't wanna interfere for the sake of interfering, but something tells me that he may need an adult to sorta get his emotions in check." I didn't respond at first, but what he said did make sense. Even though I and the twins are more mentally advanced than Ferral, we still don't fully understand how emotions work or really how to talk to someone in a crisis. This guy might be a stranger….but if he's willing to help Ferral, then I'll give him a chance. "Alright, you can talk to him." I responded, "We'll continue to look after Ms. Clare while we wait." He nodded and walked out the door to go look for Ferral.

I sniffled and wiped my eyes, but like before they wouldn't stop getting watery. I sat outside the hospital on a bench, watching the cars go by. I heard the main door of the hospital open and the man who took Ms. Clare here walked over to me and sat beside me. "Hey, there mate." He said, placing his head on my left shoulder. I sniffled, "Hello." "That was quite the scene you put on back there, wanna talk about it?" I shook my head. "Yeah, I didn't think so either. You must be feeling a lot of emotions after seeing your foster mom be hurt like that." Foster mom? I have never heard that before. "My mother is asleep forever. Ms. Clare won't become the same, right?" He looked at me confused but shook it off, "No, she'll be alright. You said your mother is "asleep forever," right? You mean she's dead, don't you?" I wiped my eyes, "I don't like that word, but yes, that's what happened." I told him. "I see." We both sat on the bench in science for a while until the man continued the conversation. "I know you must be feeling so many things right now. Anger, fear, sadness. Old wounds opening back up and all the gushing with the negative emotions you've felt before. But I'm going to tell you right now, that you have nothing to worry about. Ms. Clare will be okay, and I promise you you'll never see her hurt again." My crying had stopped and I looked at him, "Really?" He nodded, "I promise you, everything will be okay. After all mate, I'm just a random joe who's trying to make you feel better. How can I be wrong?" "Thank you, Mr….uh Clarence, right?" "Ah, that's my formal name, but you can call me Buck." "Um, okay Mr. Buck. My name is Ferral." "Ferral? Wow, that's a pretty unique name." He stuck out his hand and I remember what that means. So I stuck out my hand and we did a handshake. "It's nice to meet ya, Ferral." "It's nice to meet you too, Mr. Buck." Once our handshake was over, he patted me on the back and got up. "Come on then mate, let's go back to the room." "Okay," I got up and followed him, "Hey Mr. Buck, you sound a lot like Mr. Steve Irwin on TV." "Yeah? That's because, like him, I'm from Australia. Lithgow, Australia to be exact. Oh, you'd love it." We continued to talk, and I got an odd feeling; the same feeling I got from when I first met Ms. Clare. I don't know, there was just something about him. This man was kind like her, he lifted my mood, and barely knew anything about him. Much like how I hardly knew anything about Ms. Clare from the start. I like this man, Mr. Buck.