The First And Last Time

• Riley Inslay, Grade 6, Capricornia School of Distance Education -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Write Along 2018' competition

“What! What!!!! What was going on?” I muttered as the blinding lights smashed on my eyes like a hammer. I blinked, I went to put my head up but as I did an old wrinkled lady pushed it back down furiously. She was wearing a light blue coat with a stethoscope around her neck.
“Hey, my name is Lisa and you are Riley, right?”
“Yes, that is right. Ummm where am I?” I babbled like a baby.
“You are in the Hospital mate.”
“What happened?”
“You had a bike accident at your place. Your mum and dad brought you here and you have a stick in your leg and I am taking you to the operating theatre to get it taken out, okay?”
“Okay,” I said in a scared voice.
“Right, here we are!” She put a mask on my face and said, “Breathe normal and relax.”
So, I tried but nothing happened.
“Um, we’re out of gas,” Lisa whispered trying to use her normal voice as she spoke to the nurse.
“What” I yelled, trying to get up.
“Okay, okay calm down Riley, all is well we will just have to do this the old way champ, is that okay with you?”
“Um, okay, yes. As long as it doesn’t hurt.”
At that moment a nurse brought in a tray of needles and a set of pliers. I squeezed my leg almost breaking it as the Doctor slowly and painfully began poking needles into my leg.
“Arrrr!” I screamed in pain, it was awful. It was the first time I had needles and it’s definitely the last time.
“A few more to go,” the Doctor laughed.
He poked twelve more into my leg, it looked like he was having fun or like he was having a game of piñata or darts on my leg. When the Doctor had finished with my leg, well, I could not feel it. I could see it, but I could not feel it, so I touched it.
“NO! Don’t touch it! Are you trying to get it infected or something?” the Doctor shouted at me in a loud voice.
“No, I’m not” I shouted back at them. And then came the pliers, a shiver ran down my back and at once I got Goosebumps all over me.
“Are you ready?” grinned the Doctor.
“Okay” I muttered. He opened the plier’s up and put them around the stick punched into my leg and I squeezed hard and tensed my body. The Doctor started to pull but I could not feel anything except a shiver down my leg like fingernails on glass. It slowly came out, I could see that it was hard work because the Doctor was also tensing his body as he pulled. It was finally over, and they wheeled me back to my room and I fell asleep in seconds. The next morning the Doctor marched in and said: “There’s a problem…”