• “Alright, I’ll be there soon… -kay, bye.” Madeline put her cell phone back in her pocket and threw some journals in a bag bigger than the one she normally carried around. Today she was going to see a friend of her’s to hopefully work on a project they’d started together. The idea was a scifi sort of comic based around stupid random ideas with no real purpose. She hoped they’d think of a way to string it together well so it at least made sense.
    Out fitted in a dark tee-shirt displaying a cute red cat and a pair of heavily ‘loved’ jeans with a skirt on top, she set out on her journey; topped with a plaid golfer hat. With one foot on the board and the other pounding the pavement, Madeline flew by on the razor scooter she’d gotten for her fourteenth birthday not five months before. It was deep into July at this point and she had nothing but time.
    Coming down a hill, turning just so as the sidewalk did, she saw time slow down. For a brief moment it almost seemed to stop. A small tuft of grass protruding on to the pavement reared it’s ugly head and stopped the scooter dead in it’s tracks.
    Right next to a busy three way intersection, Madeline was almost worried she’d fly into the road.
    Falling hands first into the hard, unforgiving cement, her hat flew off and landed a good five feet or so down the way. She examined her hands and began cursing to herself as she inspected the two cuts on either hand. One was wide and deep with skin hanging off and the other was heavily grass cut but only had one small significant opening. That, at least, was comforting.
    Still on her knees, she looked up at the cars going by hopelessly wishing that one might stop and help an injured girl who was clearly bleeding and in need of a band-aid.
    No.
    No one stopped, no one rolled down their window and asked if she needed help.
    No.
    Not in this town, that’s not how people treat each other.
    Madeline slowly got to her feet and examined herself for any other cuts. She was lucky not to have skinned knees considering the state of her jeans. Thankfully the only wounds were on her hands so the body count was low.
    Utilizing the adrenalin rush, she picked up her scooter and hat then made her way to the doctor’s office not too far down the road, having to cross four lanes of traffic on the way. The bag she’d brought some how managed to stay on the scooter’s handle bars all through the crash and it was some kind of fake leather so none of her stuff got scuffed up. That was nice.

    As she parked her scooter outside the doctor’s office, who was she to see but her dentist!
    He said, “Hi stranger.” And she laughed in a way that said something like ‘wow, yeah, this is strange.’
    “Hey, yeah it’s been a while.” She agreed, opening the door which turned out to be a pull door. Odd for a hospital, she though.
    “How are you?”
    “Oh, uh.” She held up her hands, “All right I guess.” She opened the second door to the inside and wondered again why they would do that sort of thing for a hospital. “I was hoping to get some band-aids here.”
    “Ah, getting band-aids at your doctor’s, makes sense.” He said, nodding and going on his way.
    Madeline stood before the front desk and tried to get the attention of one of the nurses behind it.
    “Someone will be with you in just a moment.” One of them said so she stood there and tapped her fingers, careful not to put her palms down.
    “How can I help you?” Asked a woman with a hair cut from the eighties but who looked to be in her mid twenties.
    “Uh, could I get some band-aids?” She asked, holding up her hands again.
    “Oh, sure, yes. Hold on a second.” The nurse disappeared for a bit and came back with three band-aids. One was a nice brown/tan one that you thought of when you think ‘band-aid’ which she put over the worse of the tow wounds which happened to be on Madeline’s right hand. The other, smaller cut got a crappy sparkly band-aid, the kind you give kids after they’ve had a shot. Madeline was tempted to ask, “Could you just give me two good one?” but held her tongue. They’re giving you free band-aids, be polite.
    The nurse gave her the third band-aid to put in her pocket ‘just in case.’
    She slipped it in her back pocket behind her alien driver’s license and left the office.
    As she was leaving, who else happened to be leaving but her dentist. She greeted him again as she picked up her scooter again. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her friend’s number, the friend she was on her way to see.
    “You see, that’s what got you in the accident, scooting while talking on your cell phone.” The man said as he walked by.
    “No I was just scooting normally!” Madeline laughed, not realizing Jessica had picked up on the other end.
    “What?” the phone called up from her hand.
    “Oh, sorry. I was talking to my dentist.” She laughed into the phone, bringing it up to her ear. “I just fell off my scooter and I got some band-aids and I’ll tell you all about it when I get there but I just wanted to tell you I’d be later than expected.”
    “Okay! Yeah, don’t bleed to death.” Answered her friend’s sweet voice.
    “’Aright, so see you soon. Bye.” Madeline replaced the phone in her pocket and scooted off again.
    Shortly following her dentist drove up to the side walk and asked if she needed a ride anywhere. She refused politely and went on her way thinking that if it had been about forty years ago she would have jumped at the chance. She didn’t like to think of herself as paranoid like all those crazy people who never let their children see the light of day. But at that moment she did. She felt like one of those morons who are so scared of bad things that ‘could happen’ that they never let anything good happen to them. It would take her another twenty minutes at least for her to scoot all the way to Jessica’s. By car it couldn’t be more than seven. And this was no stranger, it was a man she’d let poke around in her mouth with mirrors and pointy little scraper things, not to mention the tickly swirl bits, ever since she’d had teeth!
    But that was not to be dwelled on. She had to use the handlebars to keep her band-aids on because she was sweating so much. What with July being in full swing and all the kicking she was doing, it was crazy not to be sweaty.
    Now she was on more of a bike path following a high way. On the way was the town center with plenty of nice little shops and things.
    She went in star bucks.
    She asked for water.
    The sparkly band-aid on her left hand got stuck to the cup.
    And she was back on the road! Good times, good times.
    It would be another fifteen minutes or so before she’d encounter an air-conditioned area. More often then before she had to stop and a just her band-aids, before she’d gotten to Jessica’s she’d lost all three, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
    After pushing her scooter up a hill and almost driving into oncoming traffic down another, Madeline came to a gas station. She went in with her only five dollar bill having left her scooter in the shade of a tree. Inside she took a cup, intending to make her favorite kind of smoothie; strawberry, dreamsicle and banana. She’d filled it up and was about to put the lid on when she realized- THIS IS NOT BANANA.
    THIS IS LEMONADE!
    She damn near threw the thing clear across the store. But instead she took a deep breath, looked this way and that, then put the drink on the counter, hidden between two smoothie machines and walked away.
    She bought a red bull and left, convinced that the cashiers were talking about the smoothie as she left.
    She called her friend one last time and caught her mom on the phone who told her that Jessica was coming up to meet her.
    After walking her scooter up another hill with traffic coming her way, Madeline finally got to the top of Jessica’s neighborhood and let out a sigh of relief. Just as she came up behind Jessica, her last band-aid flew off to live out the rest of it’s days in some one’s lawn.