Trust And Hope

Chapter 24

I was sitting in the living room, playing Scrabble with Gabby when Mom walked in.

"Hey Sadie," Mom had her purse slung over her shoulder, keys jingling on her index finger. "I need to go get Richelle's meds. Make sure Richelle has everything she needs while I'm gone and keep Shasta out of her room. Her blood won't clot. It took an hour to stop her bleeding last time Shasta jumped on her."

"Uh, got it," I stammered.

"Great," Mom said, planting a kiss on my forehead. "Check on Richelle every five or ten minutes. Love you, Princess."

"Love you Mom," Gabby and I echoed.

I looked at the board. "Man, I can't believe I'm getting beat by a ten year old."

Gabby smirked. "I can."

I rolled my eyes. "You're so annoying."
Gabby beamed. "I know I am. I pride myself on that. Hey, pass me the popcorn."

I sighed and handed her the bowl of popcorn.

She took it eagerly and started munching happily.

"What about the game?" I asked.

She shrugged. "We all knew I was going to win. Plus I'm bored." She got up with her bowl of popcorn and walked off.

I swear, ten year-olds are weirdos. So I put away the Scrabble stuff and went to go check on Richelle.

"Hey," I said, poking my head into her room. "How are you doing? Do you need anything?"

"Sadie, I feel really bad," Richelle said, her voice weak. "Can you go get Mom?"

"Mom went to the store," I said. "What do you need?"

"Can you get the thermometer?"

I left and returned with the thermometer, running it along her forehead. When it beeped I took it off, and the number displayed was seriously not good.

"What is it?" Richelle asked.

"Uh..." I stammered. "It's, ah, one hundred and eight." I looked up at her. "That's not good."

She shook her head. "That's not good."

Richelle started coughing and gasping in air like she was sucking in air from a plugged straw. She coughed and a spurt of blood came out.

"Richelle?" I asked, panicked. "What's wrong? Do I need to call Mom?"

Richelle shook her head. "Nine-one-one," she choked out.

"Gabby!" I screamed and my little sister came running. "Call nine-one-one," I ordered. I hadn't even finished my sentence before Gabby was running to find a phone.

"Can you sit up?" I asked, touching my sister's shoulder.

"It hurts," she managed to get out between breaths.

"Where?" I asked.
"Chest," she wheezed.

"They're coming," Gabby said, appearing back in.

I glanced behind me. "Good, now call Mom."

Gabby nodded, dialed, and clicked my phone's speaker.

"What do I do?" I asked, bending down next to my older sister.

Richelle shook her head. I could by now, she was in a considerable amount of pain, and having a considerable amount of trouble breathing. But I didn't know what to do.

The next twenty minutes were crazy hectic. The ambulance showed up, I held Gabby the entire way there while they put Richelle on oxygen and stuck her with a bunch of needles. Mom and Dad both dropped everything to get to the hospital and I had to just do what everyone told me to and take care of my little sister.