She had placed a few ducks and swamps in the ponds around the agriculture research base and those around the castle. From the few pictures circulating around on star net, many people were itching to visit this place but it was strictly out of bounds to visitors. She knew that she would definitely find Justin here at one of the ponds and she did. He was bent over and trying to catch one of the small baby ducks that was floating with others behind a mother duck.
"Justin!!" She called out sternly.
His little head looked up, but he must have been startled when she called him because he lost his balance and fell into the pond.
She scread, out of shock and Esong jumped inside the pond as well, and hurried to fetch him out.
The ducks were scared and they flew out of the pond quickly while making loud and panicked noises. So of the guards at the base ca by to take a look but stepped away to give the family so room to breathe.
Justin was coughing fitfully as she rushed to cover his small body with a blanket.
"What were you thinking?" She questioned him angrily.
"You too." She turned to Esong and asked.
He should have been watching their son like a prison guard with a prisoner who could escape at any mont, Justin was a restless child who never stayed still for too long. If he had the opportunity to wander off, he took it.
"I looked away for ten seconds to make a call." Esong explained.
"You should.." she found herself shouting and she stopped to reel her emotions in. Justin was already scared and her raised voice was not alleviating the anxiety he felt but heightening it. Then in a softer voice, she said, "You should have been keeping an eye on him, next ti don’t let him play so close to the water because he doesn’t know how to swim."
"It was my bad, you are right." Esong apologized imdiately. "I will be more attentive when I am watching him and I will start teaching him how to swim as soon as possible."
They had swimming pools in the castle and all cha warriors were expert swimrs, it was part of their combat training, training to fight underwater with or without a cha.
She carried Justin who was sniveling and rubbed his back gently. He was scared by the ordeal which seed to be so ordinary and yet not really because it was really dangerous.
"Let’s go to the hospital." Esong suggested. "I think he swallowed one or two mouthfuls of this water and I think I was too rough when I pulled him out."
She would not argue with that, Justin’s health mattered. So, she got up imdiately and refused to relinquish his custody, insisting on carrying him herself. They hurried to Esong’s cha and flew off to the hospital.
While they were leaving, the guards at the research base were turning away the fire fighters who had been called by soone because a child almost drowned.
Inside the base, Oak was cursing and hitting one of the young male scientists with a plain paper as he berated the man.
"How could you allow a whole section of nuts to go missing? Theft in the agriculture research base!!!! Do you know what your careless actions have cost us? Wait here for governor Esong to return and deal with you. You must tell us where those nuts went. If you ate or sold them, I will use you as fertilizer to grow new nuts."
A farr who worked on the base whispered sothing to Oak and his eyes widened.
"Is the boy okay?"
The farr nodded.
Oak looked at the young male scientist and then he said, "I am calling the RGB, they should handle this."
In the hospital, professor Sham personally attended to Justin.
"There is no water in his lungs and other than the bruising on his arms, he is fine"
The worried parents were relieved to hear these words from the doctor.
"We won’t admit him for treatnt so I will just spray so of this on his hands to get rid of the bruises.."
Justin who had been returned to Scarlet by the good doctor after his abdon was scanned hid his head in Scarlet’s chest and started crying.
Worriedly, Scarlet looked down at him and then at Esong, very confused by their son’s manner of behavior suddenly.
"Baby," she rubbed his back gently. "Why are you crying? Does sothing hurt? Tell mommy where it hurts."
Esong squatted down and gently asked, "Are you scared of the spray?"
Justin nodded his head and said in a small teary voice, "I don’t want it."
Professor Sham laughed and looked at Scarlet who was still worried and very much confused, "The spray has an effect of causing pain and heat inside the skin before getting rid of the bruise, while many adults can handle this, children find it excruciatingly uncomfortable."
"Not just uncomfortable, a child almost scratched his own skin off last year because of this spray. Why don’t we just put him in the d bed?" Esong asked.
He was reluctant to have that spray used on his son and it looked like Justin had a negative experience with it before. He had been traumatized enough for a day.
"Using a d bed for simple bruises such as these is a waste of energy governor. The case of that child last year was an isolated incident and a lot of research has gone into improving the quality of the spray. The pain effect on children has gone down significantly." Professor Sham explained.
"How significant?" Scarlet asked him.
"Five percent." He mumbled.
Scarlet embraced her son and shook her head, "Uh-uh," she said. "Not good enough. Bruises don’t kill, so I would rather not expose my son to another form of torture in the form of experintal dicine. Thank you doctor, for everything."
Professor Sham knew that this battle had been lost by the look on Scarlet’s face which projected determination.
Esong was not any better than his wife, because he concurred with her brief ill inford assessnt of five percent not being good enough.
He watched them leave the treatnt room unwillingly because so treatnt had to be better than no treatnt.
Professor Sham looked at the spray bottle in his hands and sprayed so on his own skin. Within three seconds, he was sweating like a man who had eaten a bunch of hot peppers and his hand was on fire.
"Dammit!!" He cursed.
Even though he could endure it, experiencing it was still uncomfortable and maddening.
He went to the sink in the corner and placed his hand under the cold water section for relief. He had forgotten why children hated this spray, it was no different than a syringe to them. Were the companies which manufactured it really trying to improve on the formula? It seed to be no different from the old one.
A nurse ca into the treatnt room, pushing a cart. "Doctor, I brought the dical patches to numb the effect of the spray." Then she looked around curiously. "Where is the patient?"
"Gone." Professor Sham answered, and that was all he would say about it.
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