Trip to the Candy Shop - Part 3

 Happy Friday!

I bring you the final part of this month's story. I hope you enjoy it. Life has been busy. Not with large word counts, but with editing and figuring out things for my stories. I also got older this week, reached 50 miles for the Spring 100, worked on blog posts, and did other things. Life is never dull and slow. At least not enough to make  me bored.

 

Trip to the Candy Shop

Part 3

    Biddy nodded and let him pick her up.
    “Hannah, here’s your pocketbook,’ Bobby said, picking up the red item. “Your hands are bleeding, want me to carry it for you?”
    “Please, Bobby.” She limped a little as she and Bobby followed Rob and Biddy across the street to a white colonial style house. Once inside, Rob set Biddy down on a chair in the kitchen and grabbed a first-aid box from a cabinet.
    “We’ll get you cleaned up and band-aids on those scrapes in no time, Rob promised the little girl with a grin. “Did you know that when I was your age I was always getting scrapes and bumps and bruises? I did it so much that my mom made me learn all about first-aid so I could bandage myself up.”
    “Do you still get banged up?” Bobby asked.
    “Yep. I play football, and sometimes we aren’t too careful.”
    Biddy whimpered as her scraped hands and knees were washed and bandaged, but she didn’t cry. Hannah was proud of her.
    “There you are. You’ll be good as new in a few days.” He grinned. “And we’ll get you a new lollipop because I’m afraid the other one won’t taste very good with dirt on it.”
    “It would be yucky,” Biddy said, smiling through her tears.
    “Sure would. Next patient?” Rob set another chair and motioned for Hannah to sit.
    “I’ll be okay,” she said. “It’s just scrapes.”
    “Yep, and you might as well let me take care of them now. It’s harder to get any dirt out if you wait. Believe me, I know.”
    “He doesn’t hurt you much, Hannah,” Biddy said. “And see how nice he put the band-aids on?”
    Seeing there was nothing to do but accept, Hannah limped to the chair and sat down.
    “Scrape your knee too?” Rob asked, turning over one of her hands and preparing to wash the scrape.
    “No.” She flinched a little. “The string caught my ankle.”
    “Ouch.”
    Hannah looked away from her scrapes and found Bobby feeding his sister another gumdrop. It was sweet and reminded her of the ants working together. Bobby was doing his part to make his sister smile again. But it also reminded Hannah that they would have to walk all the way back to the candy store and get another lollipop for Biddy. Only– And here she gave a start.
    “Sorry.” Rob looked up in sympathy. “This scrape is a little deeper and you have some dirt in it.”
    “Hannah,” Bobby said, before Hannah could reply, “Can Biddy and me go look out the window? I want to see if the boys who tied the string are there looking for it.”
    “Sure,” Rob answered for her. “But if you see them, don’t go out. They aren’t always very kind.”
    “We won’t. Come on, Biddy.”
    Hannah watched the two of them walk slowly from the kitchen and into the living room.
    “Siblings?” Rob asked.
    She shook her head. “Cousins. Spending a few weeks with us.”
    “Sounds fun. Other hand.”
    With a sigh, Hannah surrendered her other scraped hand to be cleaned and bandaged. “It’s supposed to be fun, but these weren’t exactly the birthday memories I was hoping for when we went to the candy shop.”
    “They share a birthday? Twins?”
    “A year apart.”
    “I don’t have any cousins younger than me. I’m the caboose of the family, as my grandpa likes to call me.” Rob didn’t seem to mind being the youngest. “All my brothers and sisters are older and in college or married. There, this hand is done. It wasn’t scraped badly. Now let’s see what the string did to your ankle.”
    “You don’t have to, Rob.”
    “Oh, I know, but I rather like pretending to be a doctor. I haven’t decided if that’s what I want to be yet, or if I’d rather play football in college.” He looked up and winked before gently folding down her sock. “Well, that string certainly left its mark on you! You’ll have a nice bruise and it’s probably going to be painful to walk for a few hours at least. Here, I’ll put something on it and wrap a light bandage over that.” As he talked, he worked, and soon a snug bandage covered the red mark left by the string. Sitting back on his heels he looked up at her. “Feel any better?”
    She nodded. “Thank you. We should be going now.”
    “Why don’t I drive you home in the car?”
    “Oh, I don’t want to be more of a bother. We can walk.”
    “Not very well you can’t.” Rob stood up and shut the first-aid box before going to the sink to wash his hands. “You should rest that ankle, and Biddy–isn’t that her name?–isn’t going to feel like walking much with her scraped knees.”
    What he said was true, Hannah realized when she stood and tried to walk. Her ankle throbbed and her hands still smarted. “All right.”
    Everyone was soon in the car and Rob was heading toward Main Street. When he pulled to a stop before the candy store, he said, “I’ll be right back with that new lollipop, Biddy.”
    Hannah opened her mouth to say something, but he was gone before she could.
    Soon he returned with not one, but two giant lollipops. One yellow, which he handed back to Biddy, and the other red, which he handed to Hannah. “I thought you should have one too. And this one matched your dress.” He smiled as he handed it over.
    “Thank you,” Hannah whispered, an echoing smile on her own face.
    Rob whistled the rest of the drive, but when he stopped before Hannah’s house and the younger two had climbed out, he shook his head over the quarter Hannah tried to give him. “Your lollipop was a gift, and the Janas boys will pay me for the other one since they are the ones responsible for the demise of the first one.”
    Clutching her pocketbook and her red lollipop, Hannah slid from the car. “Thanks, Rob. For everything.”
    “Any time.” With a grin and a wave, Rob drove off, and Hannah walked to the house not noticing her limp or her smarting hands. 

 

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