It started out as an ordinary day. I may have told Mom I didn't feel good and wanted to stay home, but that's pretty much what I said every day, so she didn't pay any attention. Mom's rule was we had to have a temperature of at least100 degrees to be sick enough to stay home. Mom must have liked that number. It also had to be at least 100 degrees outside before we were allowed to go swimming.
Anyway, I went to school that morning but didn't really feel very perky. I went up to Mrs. Bowers, my fourth grade teacher, about 9:00 and told her I didn't feel good. She was kind of sharp with me. I have a feeling there were lots of kids goofing off that morning, and no one was paying attention and doing their work.
"Go back to your desk and lay your head down for a few minutes," she told me without much sympathy. She was in the middle of explaining a math problem to some of the boys who were not trying very hard to understand.
I sat back down and lay my head on my cool desk. It actually felt better for a few minutes, but gradually the pain behind my forehead grew stronger and stronger, until I realized I had a really bad headache and I didn't feel good at all.
This time when I raised my hand, Mrs. Bowers came over to my desk and looked into my eyes. I guess she could tell there was actually something wrong, because told me I should go see the nurse. Then, with a look of worry in her eyes, she turned to the boy sitting next to me and asked him walk with me up to the office.
I would have been embarrassed if I hadn't felt so bad. First of all, I'd never gone to the nurse before. I'd never even gone to the office except maybe to take the roll up once in awhile or something. But to have to be escorted by a boy, too? How mortifying! Only, my head was pounding so hard I didn't even care.
When I got to the nurse's office she was busy with some other kids, so she showed me a cot in the back room and told me to lie down on it for a minute. That helped a lot. My head still ached, but it didn't pound as hard when I lay down. After a few minutes the nurse came in, holding a thermometer so she could take my temperature. "Sit up, Gale," she said kindly, "and we'll take a look at you."
As I sat up I was wondering if I might actually have a fever, over 100 degrees, and get to go home, when all of a sudden, without any warning at all, everything inside my stomach rushed to my mouth and I threw up all over my lap, the floor, and the poor nurse's shoes. Gross! And how embarrassing! And Yuck, what an awful taste! And ewwwwwwww! I couldn't believe I had done that!
The poor nurse was a sweetheart. She didn't get sick, she didn't exclaim in disgust, she didn't even give me a cross look. Kindly, she helped me lay back down on the cot, then she cleaned up my mess and called Mom to come take me home. As I lay there in the dim light, sick and aching and miserable, I heard two boys in the room next to me laughing and discussing the little girl who had just thrown up all over the nurse. It was embarrassing, but I was so sick I didn't even care.
Mom came soon and got me into the car and home before I threw up again. I had never been so sick in my life. Between the pounding headache and the nauseated stomach I just wanted to die. Mom made me a bed on the couch in our living room so I could lie down and still watch TV. Perhaps that was the biggest proof that I was really sick. Normally, if one of us kids stayed home from school we had to stay back in our bedroom, in bed, doing nothing, I suppose so we would decide being sick wasn't that much fun and we would want to go back to school the next day. Mom could tell this time, though, that I wasn't putting on any kind of show, so she tried to make me as comfortable as she could. The sad part was, I was so sick I didn't even want to watch TV, or eat any of the nice things mom fixed for me, or do anything at all. I just wanted my headache to go away and to fall asleep. I had no fun at all!
My flue lasted all week, and I wasn't feeling up to watching TV until the weekend, when we could watch it anyway. It was sure a bummer, getting to stay home from school and not being able to take advantage of it. By next Monday Mom assured me that enough time had passed for everyone at school to have forgotten about the little girl who threw up in the nurses office, and sure enough, no one even mentioned it. I guess more exciting things happened in the mean time and everyone had forgotten about my disgusting behavior. But I never forgot. That pounding headache seared itself into my memory, and I can still remember the achy feeling and sick stomach I got when I sat up.
