Chapter 5
Galaxy-Man sorta made a fool of himself back there. He was as nervous around Cutty as a cat in a house of rocking chairs. He couldn't stop thinking about her. Galaxy-Man had been in and out of relationships for as long as he could remember, but no good ever came of any of them. This time was different though because Galaxy-Man didn't want to enter a relationship with Cutty right away. He wanted to take things slow and get to know her. A relationship hadn't even crossed his mind. For the most part, he just wanted to be friends with her. Who knows why he was so interested in her. Maybe it was her style, her mannerisms; there's no way to know for sure, but for whatever reason, he adored Cutty.
For today, however, Galaxy-Man put aside his thoughts of Cutty and took Cherry to the doctors to make sure she was okay from what happened on Earth. She seemed fine, but she was overdue for a checkup anyway.
Galaxy-Man and Cherry sat in a dull dim waiting room full of people who clearly didn't want to be there. The room was cold and smelled of sickness and disease, but Galaxy-Man looked surprisingly well. He was even smiling a bit. It was weird because he despised waiting rooms. They were the bane of his existence. Galaxy-Man was looking very dad-ly that day. He wore his least holey khakis with a semi-nice pink Looney Tunes T-shirt. He sat with his legs neatly crossed, reading the newspaper, which must've been tough wearing shades. He had a very pleasant expression on his face, like he was listening to jazz, sitting warm by the fireplace on a chilly winter's night. If he'd brought his corncob pipe he'd have looked like just walked out of a 1950s Sears catalog.
“I don't wanna be here, Dad,” moaned Cherry. “I told you I'm totally fine. I just need a couple more shots of whiskey and I'll be straight.”
“Come on, man,” said Galaxy-Man comfortingly, “It's not that bad. Look, they got a bowl of candy, and last month's Golf Digest.” Galaxy-Man loved golf, but he'd never ever read a golf magazine. Something was up with him today.
“I don't want candy,” said Cherry, “it hurts the hole where my tooth used to be. And Golf Digest can kiss my black ass.” Cherry looked up at the ceiling and sighed. It was dreadfully boring in there. There was a TV, but the only thing on was a court show about people getting divorced. “Ugh, this is so boring, Dad.”
Galaxy-Man just kept smiling. He looked as happy as a witch in a broom factory. However, just then, Cherry noticed a single tear rolling down Galaxy-Man's cheek from behind his shades. His smile began to quiver and he could no longer hide his true feelings. “I know!” he bawled, the weight of his predicament finally coming down on him full force. “I've never been so bored in all my life!! And I lived in Delaware for a year!” He started loudly sobbing and cupping his eyes as everyone in the room began to stare.
Cherry patted him on the back. “Aw, don't cry, Dad.”
“I thought I was strong enough to make it through this, but I'm not. I'm not even reading this paper, man. I've been sitting here for the past 20 minutes just imagining what it'd be like to be a squirrel. I can't take it anymore! Sitting in this waiting room is about as fun as walking up an escalator that's been turned off. Now they're just stairs!” He started shaking Cherry vigorously. “They're just stairs, Cherry!!”
Everyone was now looking and whispering to each other.
“Dad, cool your grits. I don't even know what you're talking about anymore.”
“I'm sorry. I'm not so good with waiting rooms. Let's just say I had a bad experience when I first found you. So much waiting, so much paperwork.”
Cherry softly patted her father on the back. “Relax, Dad. Hey, maybe it doesn't have to be boring!”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, you said you wanted to know what it was like to be a squirrel, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And what do squirrels do?”
They both paused and pondered. “Build nests,” they both said in unison. They both stood up out of their chairs.
“Right,” said Cherry, “so we just gotta build a nest out of all these empty rinky-dink chairs.”
“Let's do it, man,” said Galaxy-Man.
Before long, they had built quite the chair fortress. They had used almost all the chairs in the room, forcing new walk-ins to either stand or sit on the floor. No one said anything surprisingly. Most people won't take the time to associate with the weird. They sit back, hoping someone else does something. Everyone in the room just sorta shook their heads and made disapproved onomatopoeias.
They formed large arches by stacking the chairs. Their fort resembled an airplane hangar and was actually pretty roomy inside. The two sat inside giggling.
“This is one hell of a squirrel's nest,” said Cherry with a big grin, her missing tooth clearly visible.
“Yep yep,” said Galaxy-Man, “Squirrel Girl would be proud.”
“Who?”
“Good question.”
Cherry stood up and stretched. “I'm a freakin' hungry little squirrel.”
“I just had an idea, man!”
“Well spit it out, Squirrely Dan.”
“What do squirrels do after building their nests?”
Cherry thought and pondered. “Hmm,” she muttered.
“Forage for apricots!!” they both yelled in unison.
“But Dad,” said Cherry, “There are no apricots.”
“Sure there are,” replied Galaxy-Man. “I'm sure I saw some in the candy bowl,” he winked.
“Oh,” smiled Cherry. She started crawling out of the nest.
“And bring me back a Hustler from the magazine rack,” said Galaxy-Man as she was on her way out.
“I'm pretty sure they don't have nudie mags, Dad. You know you can just look up porn on the internet, right?”
“What!? You mean I can just bring up naked people on my phone anytime I want!?”
“Yeah, dude, I do it all the time. I've been really into redheads lately.”
“Cool.”
Cherry crawled out from the nest. Being in the dark nest for so long, the florescent light made her wince. Her foot was also asleep so she hobbled over to the candy bowl like some kind of crazed zombie. Everyone stared, but no one said anything to her. She reached the candy bowl but there was a little Chinese boy reaching in. Cherry popped his hand hard and hissed at him ferociously, making sure to show all her teeth. The boy began to cry and he ran away. Cherry nabbed the entire candy bowl and staggered back to her squirrely lair.
Inside, Galaxy-Man was hunched over swiping through his phone looking at who knows what. He looked back sharply at Cherry. “Nothing!” he said loudly.
“I brought the apricots,” said Cherry in an eerily low voice.
“Well let's have a look-see then, shall we?”
It was a fairly good hall: Hershey's Kisses, little Nerds boxes, Jolly Ranchers, Sour Patch Kids, Sweet Tarts; a fine selection indeed.
“Gimme somethin' smooth, Mac,” said Cherry. “I wanna go easy on my tooth hole.”
Galaxy-Man reached in and pulled out some chocolate. “It don't get no smoother than a Hershey's Kiss, darlin'.”
Cherry gave a big toothy grin. “I love you, Dad.”
“Me, too,” said Galaxy-Man as he hugged Cherry, “and you're not so bad yourself,” he chuckled.
Cherry opened up a Kiss and put it in her mouth. “That's too good,” she smiled. She coughed a little.
“Uh-oh, you okay, bud?” asked Galaxy-Man.
She coughed again, this time much louder. “I don't know,” she said between coughs.
“Don't die,” Galaxy-Man said jokingly.
Cherry laughed, but her coughing began to get more and more serious. She spit out the chocolate. Galaxy-Man could tell that something was really wrong. Cherry was now struggling to breathe and her eyes were as wide as they could be.
He grabbed Cherry and ran out of the fort. “Someone call an ambulance!!” he yelled, even though they were already inside a hospital.
This was certainly a scary ordeal, both for Cherry and for Galaxy-Man, but to think just how lucky they were for this to happen in a hospital of all places. It's amazing. Imagine if she were someplace out in space with no one around for trillions of miles. There's good chance that she would have died.
Doctors came rushing to her aid. They took her back and gave her epinephrine which seemed to do the trick. She was stable. She was lying in a hospital bed and Galaxy-Man was right by her side.
A doctor entered the room holding a chart. “Hello there, I'm Dr. Jone.”
Galaxy-Man snickered at his name. “Just one Jone?” he asked. Cherry laughed a little, too.
“It looks like Cherry here went into anaphylaxis brought on by the cocoa in the candy she ate. I guess you could say it was the Kiss of death.”
“Dude,” said an upset Cherry, “that's not funny, man. I almost died.”
“Seriously, bro,” added Galaxy-Man.
Doctor Jone cleared his throat in embarrassment. “All the same,” he said, “you should stay far away from anything with chocolate in it from now on.”
“I'm allergic to chocolate!? Ugh, I might as well kill myself now.”
“That can't be right,” said Galaxy-Man. “We eat chocolate all the time and this has never happened before. What the F, man?”
“Well, it's not uncommon to develop an allergy. You can suddenly become allergic to all sorts of foods you used to eat with no problem. It's most common in children Cherry's age.”
Cherry looked very sad.
There was a knock at the door and in walked Hamilton. “Sorry I'm late, guys,” he said. “Someone stole my wallet and I couldn't afford to get into the parking deck.”
“Yo,” said Galaxy-Man as he held up Hamilton's wallet. “We needed money to buy yard sticks this morning. By the way, we emptied your bank account.”
Hamilton smiled and shook his head. “You guys.”
“Hey, Cherry,” said Galaxy-Man, “guess what Hamilton's allergic to.”
“What?” asked Cherry who was starting to smile.
“Peanuts!”
Galaxy-Man and Cherry both started laughing and pointing.
“Ha ha, what a loser!” laughed Cherry.
Hamilton just smiled and sighed. It was all in good fun. Hamilton was always a good sport. Problems like allergies are only as serious as you make them after all, and if you can't laugh at yourself or take a joke then you're only gonna get hurt.