Almond Boy

Almond Boy - 10

Elliot has a whole diagram on Cystic Fibrosis that he drew while he was supposed to be paying attention in Government. It's a doodle, an attempt to try to get himself to understand the disease that's plagued Emma so quickly.  

She isn't like most cases nowadays that he's read, and Elliot's pretty sure that's because the symptoms showed up so late. A long time ago people barely made it to Elementary School if they were diagnosed as children. Nowadays they have pancreas tests for babies to see if they carry the gene so now they can catch it early and do treatments. Now most with Cystic Fibrosis make it to mid-thirties. 

Most victims of the disease, though, don't have oxygen tanks like Emma has. In fact, that's for very serious cases. That fact tends to worry Elliot more than it should.  

Elliot sits down and stares at the sketches he's made, writing down notes here and there to try to connect ideas, but at the same time it doesn't make any sense to him. Even though he's the one who made the diagram off a description, for once looking at the image still doesn't help him understand.

Why and how does the pancreas have the ability to screw everything up so badly? Not only lungs, but the digestive track, so she needs to eat twice the normal amount of calorie intake to even have a shot at staying a normal, healthy weight. 

Elliot can hear the whirring of Emma's oxygen tank, and the squeaky wheels as she tugs it along behind her. 

"Whatcha doin?" she asks, turning around the bench and sitting down. She smiles at Elliot and looks over to watch as the people are picked for teams for Soccer.

She never liked when kids picked the teams, because if you're picked last, that means you're an undesirable, and she always found that a little sickening. 

In the distance Emma can see a girl walking over towards the bench, and Emma grimaces. Her name is Sarah Stykes, and she is one of the whiners of the gym class. That type of girl who never wears her gym clothes, who whines whenever they're tasked to do anything and then doesn't do it anyways. The type of person who walks during the jog part of warm ups and stops when you're supposed to sprint. 

Elliot's eyebrow quirks up and he sighs, shutting his sketchbook. He hadn't had to deal with one of these kids for a while, but last time it was the same girl along with her friend with the blue hair. 

"Hey, Sarah," Emma says with a smile on her face, wanting to be polite and welcoming.

"Hey," Sarah says flatly and walks by her to sit on the bench. "What's got you on the bench?"

"I rolled my ankle. Can't play. It hurts so much, Goddamn it," Sarah says. She makes this hissing noise and grabs her perfectly good looking ankle like it's in pain. She has an ice pack, but she set it on the ground, and it now has a hole in it, leaking all over the ground under their feet. 

Emma raises her eyebrow and she can hear Elliot mutter under his breath, "says the girl who walked here without even a hesitation in her walk."

Emma gives Elliot a look and sighs, knowing he is right, but is still rather startled by how quickly repulsed he is by her. 

Emma looks over at Sarah and says "how'd you manage that?"

"I tripped on my heels and rolled my ankles." 

Emma's eyebrows quirk up as she looks at what Sarah is wearing, and can't help but chuckle. She's terrible at pretending to be hurt, how she managed to get past Ms. Shipman is beyond her. Sarah looks like she's going to a sort of slash-fifties club; her platinum blonde hair is crimped and teased and tucked into a pink headband with a large bow on it, she's got a pink and black plaid mini skirt on and torn white tights, and finally knee-high black tie up boots that have a platform heel on them.