Naga Chronicles: Jeremy and the Staff of Reckoning

Chapters 11-15

Chapter 11

Never alone

I didn't wake up from my long-needed nap until nine that night, but when I did I woke up starving. I moved around a little to see if I could sit up without pain shooting through my body. Amazingly, the pain was still gone. The magic had worked permanently. I stood up, balancing myself. I had never walked with a cast on before. It was not as easy as it might seem. Even without the pain, the cast was bulky and awkward. I took a few steps forward. I felt like I was walking like a zombie. My leg was stiff and unable to bend, and I had to put my arms out to balance myself. I felt completely ridiculous. Getting over myself, I walked to my bedroom door and opened it. I could hear the tv downstairs, my parents are still up. Good, I think to myself, I need food.

I approach the stairs and just stare at them for a moment. How am I supposed to get down these things? If I walk down them as I have been I will fall down them and break more bones or worse. Suddenly, I had a wonderful idea. I sat down on the top stair, stuck out my casted leg and used my free leg to scoot myself down each step. It was a great idea until I realized that the bouncing from one step to the other made my hip hit something as well. I got down five stairs before I had to quit because of the ache in my hip. I had a landing and ten more steps to go.

"Ok, I can do this," I said to myself. "It won't kill me, it's just a little discomfort."

I made it over the landing, no bouncing there and down two more steps before I could stop myself from calling out, "Mom! Dad! I need help." They came rushing out of the living room and around the banister.

"Jeremy, what are you doing?" my mom exclaimed. "You're going to hurt yourself even more."

"Why didn't you call us son?" my dad asked "One of us would have come and got you from your room or brought you whatever you needed" he finished.

I'm starving, and I wasn't in pain anymore and I could walk so I thought I would try, but when I got to the stairs, I didn't know what to do so I decided to try to scoot down them, but the bouncing hurt my hip" I told them.

"Well since you have come this far, I will carry you the rest of the way down and then you can use your crutches to get into the kitchen," my dad tells me.

So, he gets me to the end of the stairs and my mom starts to hand me the crutches but then stops herself. I look at her wondering what is going on.

"I'm going to show you how to use them," she tells me.

"Oh ok. I was wondering what you were doing" I say back to her.

For the next five minutes, she shows me how to use the crutches. Honestly, I am starving and don't care, but I try to pay attention anyway. They can't be that hard to figure out.

Finally, she hands them to me and I copy what I saw her do. I was wrong. They are very difficult to use. The first time I tried I used the wrong leg to start walking and it hit the crutch, almost making me fall down. The second time I did better I got the right foot to go first, but I was laying on the under-arm pieces and it was hurting me. My mom corrected me and showed me that I wasn't actually supposed to lay on them, they were there for support for my arm and that I had to use the handle piece to hold myself up and move them.

Having been corrected and almost falling, I did what I was told and was finally moving my way into the kitchen. I was very happy I made it to the kitchen. I felt like I could eat an entire horse. "Why do people say that" I wondered to myself. "Do people really eat horses? That just sounds gross." Not paying attention as I am thinking about eating horses, my mom puts a box of pizza in front of me. I had completely forgotten that dad was getting pizza from Toni's for dinner tonight. I flipped open the lid and my mouth began to water. He got my favorite pizza! A large pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeño. I looked at each slice to see which one had the most toppings. I moved a few pieces of each of the toppings around so the slices would be even, well as even as I could get them. Grabbing my first mouth-watering slice my mom brought me a glass of root beer. I was pretty sure I was in heaven.