CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: I DON’T WANT TO BE A PATIENT
We were all gathered in the field today and shouted some weird words. Those words sounded funny but I couldn’t laugh, ‘coz we were in the middle of scouts’ class.
Hermione Granger was in the same group as mine and she was the team leader. The scoutmaster told her to look after me, and so she did. Every time she would stand beside me and would help me out with a lot of things.
The scoutmaster told us to cut a piece of flag from some coloured paper and stick it on our exercise book. Hermione quickly stuck hers, took my coloured paper and said, “I’ll help you draw the flag and you cut it.”
She used a triangle ruler to draw the shape of the flag and then gave it to me. I took up my scissors and was ready to cut it.
“Be careful, Ronald. Don’t cut it all crooked. Follow the pencil lines,” Hermione kept yelling as she watched. I wanted to be careful, but I just couldn’t. Almost immediately, I cut out of the line.
“Stop, stop, stop. Here, let me cut it for you,” Hermione took the paper away from me. After cutting, it really looked like a nice little flag. I thought she was very smart. She said, “Now you glue it onto your book.”
So I poured the glue and put it on the flag. But she exclaimed, “No, silly! You should be putting the glue at the back!” Then she took the flag and said, “Never mind, I’ll do it for you.”
She then helped me stick my flag onto my book. I looked the flag on my book and thought that it would be great if I could stick it on my own. But then again, I’m a retard, so maybe retards can’t cut flags.
The scoutmaster then taught us how to bandage wounds. She said, “If you get hurt, you must use a clean bandage and wrap it around the wound nicely.”
So we all started practicing. The scoutmaster said everyone must give it a try because it is very useful in life.
Hermione told me to hold up my hand and be a patient for everyone to practice on. I held out my hand and pretended to be hurt. Hermione used a really long bandage and wrapped it around my hand. I felt ticklish and laughed.
“Don’t move,” Hermione scolded.
So I stopped moving and held my hand out very straight.
Then it was someone else’s turn to practice. My hand was getting tired. I told them to hurry up, but Hermione said, “Take it easy. You must get it right.”
It was then Parvati Patil’s turn. She was very slow when she wound the bandage round and round my hand. The scoutmaster said, “You can go a little faster, or your patient is going to bleed to death.”
Everyone had their chance. I said, “My turn.”
Hermione asked, “Can you do it? It’s quite tough, you know.”
I took the bandage and started wrapping Parvati Patil’s hand. Parvati said, “You got it wrong. You have to wrap it clockwise.”
I didn’t know what ‘clockwise’ meant, but I wrapped real hard. I wanted to wrap the bandage round and round just like everyone else, and then tie a nice big bow at the end.
But Parvati Patil let out a yell and pulled her hand away, saying, “That hurts, you know! Why did you pinch my hand for?”
Hermione took the bandage away from me and said, “It’s alright, Ronald, you don’t have to do it. I’ll report it to the scoutmaster so you don’t need to be tested.”
I didn’t want to be tested. I just want to learn how to bandage. Last time, Ginny’s knee was bleeding when she fell down. If I could learn how bandage, I can do it for her, and I can even tie a nice big pretty bow at the end. But Hermione told me to hold up my leg so that they could practice bandaging it. So I raised my leg and let them have their way with my leg.
After that it was my head.
Then my shoulders.
I became the patient the whole day and let them bandage me here and there.
But I never said a word. I watched real hard and tried to learn. Later I could use my own handkerchief to wrap my own leg.
But what does it mean by ‘clockwise’? The scoutmaster said sometime about ‘bandage clockwise’, so I was wondering if they sell that kind of bandage in the mall.
After scout class, Hermione patted my shoulder and asked, “It’s great being in the same group as me now, isn’t it, Ronald? Don’t worry, I’ll help you do everything. See? You get to be the patient the entire period. Isn’t it easy?”
I said it was easy, but I didn’t tell her that I didn’t want to be a patient.
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