Tyrone reached down into the tub and grabbed the girl’s arm. “Whoa, she’s burning up. This girl needs a doctor.” He flinched from the temperature when he put his hand on her forehead. “Hot dam! Could cook eggs off her dome. Hey Travis, you got any more of them healing potions?”
“Yea, one sec.” Travis dropped his bag, unzipped, and pulled out a red condom while Tyrone lifted the girl out of the tub.
The curious kids lifted their heads up from their coffins and snickered while they watched. Travis and Tyrone could hear the kids gossiping: “Haha, looks like big sis finally got a boyfriend… two even, Ewww, look! He has a condom in his hand. Gross, get a room pervs.”
Travis wheeled around and blurted, “you kids get your heads out of the sewer right now! This is not what it looks like, see here, this is a healing potion.” He shook the condom full of liquid in front of him for all the kids to see. The only response he got were squeals of laughter and more crude jokes.
Defeated by the children’s laughter, Tyrone said, “just ignore them, we need to help this girl first.”
Travis’ face turned as red as the potion in his hand but his friend was right. He undid the knot on the condom and dumped the life saving liquid into the girl’s mouth.
Geppetto jumped down and checked her temperature. It was no longer burning hot but was still high. “I think we should take her to the new Rat Hospital, the fever has broken but she still needs fluids and observation.” He chittered.
Seeing an opportunity to exit the gaze and laughter of so many cruel children, Tyrone and Travis took Geppetto’s advice and set off for the Rat Hospital.
It only took a few minutes to get to the hospital. On the way there, concerned ratizens called for them a ratbulance. Within minutes two ROUS wearing harnesses adorned with flashing red bicycle blinkers arrived hauling a bike trailer behind them. They loaded the girl into the trailer and galloped away.
Only Travis and Geppetto could keep up with the pace of the ratbulance ROUS with the aid of Gep’s humanquesterian riding skills. Out of breath, Tyrone lagged far behind. The trip was uneventful with rats moving to the side of the road to allow the emergency vehicle and humans through.
The hospital was a marvel of rat engineering. It had one giant door big enough for pony sized ROUS but it was so well counterbalanced that even the smallest mouse could open it with a touch. The grand door opened into a grand lobby full of injured rodents of all shapes, species, and sizes. The patients were organized and admitted by Rat Nurses (“RNs”) wearing masks, tiny paper cups as hats, and napkins as uniforms. They guided and directed patients to wings and wards from large to small built to accommodate each patient’s needs.
The boys were surprised and pleased to learn that the Rat Hospital even had a ward specializing in human medicine. The RN led them into the human ward and knocked on a door at the end of the hall and out came an elderly rat wearing a mask and a white doll sized lab coat, “Greetings! I am doctor Anthony Ratuci. Please put the patient on the examination table and tell me what you know.”
Tyrone put her on the table and noticed that it was very well made. The wheeled exam table was cushioned and trimmed in soft crocodile leather. The accompanying RN put a blanket over the girl and tucked her in after he put her down.
Dr. Ratuci took her pulse and temperature, then listened attentively and scribbled down indecipherable notes from a scratch pad he took out of his pouch. The boys told him the story of how they traveled down the sewers from the orphanage to their meeting with Karen.
“Stop right there, you said Karen spit in her face?” asked Dr. Ratuci. Then he moved to sniff the sleeping girl’s head. He recoiled in horror. “Good lord, getting whiffs of covid, rabies, ebola, dengue, botulism, and a terrible terrible case of halitosis.”
Nurse, get me a can of soda, 500cc drip, the red, green, blue, white, and black medicines. The nurse returned with a big gulp cup with everything else inside.
The boys looked at each other. Travis then asked the rat doctor, “hey sorry to bother you doc, but those meds you are using look familiar. Are they the same drugs from the sewer river? Because I have baggies just like those in my backpack.”
“Young man, do not question my competence nor my professionalism. I’ll have you know that I come from a long line of heroic pouched rats who have saved the lives of countless humans. I graduated magna cum ratde at the top of my class from APOPO college.
So don’t even ask. You would not understand my answers to the mysteries of medicine.” Dr. Ratuci then angrily dumped the entire red condom into the big gulp, then used a tea spoon to measure out microdoses of the other colors to add into the mixture. Finally he pulled the tab on the soda, took a sip, then dumped the rest into the big gulp cup.
After Dr. Ratuci finished adding ingredients, he used some chopsticks to stir the brew. The big gulp bubbled and frothed and changed colors several times. The strange solution finally settled into a half blue and half yellow concoction.
“This is called an intubation,” said the rat doc. His paw blurred in motion and rammed the straw down the girl’s throat. She gagged and reflexively tried to remove the long straw. The RN was ready, the nurse easily overpowered and held down the sick and underweight girl.
Before the humans could object, the procedure was already done. The big gulp drip was taking effect and the girl struggled less and less until she fell into a deep drug induced sugar coma.
The girl who called herself Ishmael dreamed. She was back in Ukraine and the Russians had invaded again. Everyone was hiding underground from the bombs. Their offensive had stalled and the soldiers had been ordered to forage while they waited for a resupply convoy that would never come.
She hugged her mom and little brother tight while they listened to the soldiers above loot their home. The sounds of dishes shattering and furniture being overturned echoed down into their hiding place. She felt the bodies of her mom and brother tremble with every loud noise.
There was nowhere to run, they were cornered like rats in a fishtank. When the soldiers eventually found them, she was surprised to see that they looked as scared as she felt. The soldiers were young, maybe only a few years older than her. She could imagine passing them in a hallway at school. After breaking down the cellar door, the soldiers did not know what to do. They just stood and looked at her family with their guns pointed at the floor.
That brief moment of peace was broken when their commanding officer began barking orders. Fearing the worst, mother screamed when we were torn out of her arms by the soldiers. Our hands were zip tied behind our backs and we were gagged. Then they used pillow cases taken from our own beds to use as hoods to cover our heads.
They took everything when they finally left. Our stockpiles of food, water, and medicine that we had carefully collected and rationed were all taken.
When we could no longer hold in our hunger or thirst, mother hugs us before going upstairs and outside to scavenge for supplies. Every few days people in even worse condition than us would break in again and again to look for food. Sometimes it's Russian deserters and other times they were our neighbors too hungry to care about other people. Me and my brother have become experts at hiding, moving from room to room without being seen.
Life was hard. One day, our mother did not come back home. I never found out what happened to her. I would like to think she escaped. For the rest of us, living became harder. It became my duty to find food and water for me and my brother.
Water was easy, we melted snow over a campfire burning wood that used to be furniture. Food on the other hand was becoming more and more difficult to find in the ruins of our city. They say people can live for 2 months without food. I pray that me and my brother will not have to find out if that is true.
“See? I bet she is already having wonderful dreams.” said Dr. Ratuci. “So I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the good news, almost all of her diseases are curable. She should make a full recovery in a day or two with fluids and bed rest. The bad news is that we can’t cure her halitosis. She will have crippling bad breath for life.”
Before the boys could respond, a terrible and familiar scream echoed down the halls. “Hey that sounds like Qi, are you treating another human here Doc?” asked Tyrone.
“Yes! A most interesting case. I had to call in a specialist for the surgery. You boys want to come watch? Oh and go wash your hands first, that girl is very contagious.”
