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It Takes a Took  by Dreamflower

CHAPTER 21

They gave Diamond a guest room in Reggie’s apartment. It was quite nice, though it had no window, being on the inner side of the Smials, but that was actually an advantage, as her eyes were already becoming sensitive to the light. She was already coughing and sneezing by the time she clambered in between the cool sheets. Opal came to sit with her.

“Opal,” she said “you don’t know how much I appreciate this.” Diamond had never been ill away from her family before. She was usually very healthy.

Opal took her friend’s hand. “I just knew I had to, Diamond. You are my first real friend; I never tried to be friends with anyone before, and after the accident, people were friendly to me out of pity, for it surely was not any liking for me.”

“I know that you say you used to be different, but I can’t imagine that you were so awful as you say.”

“No, I was worse. And so were Ammy and Garnet--we were spoiled and selfish and rude. I didn’t realize how bad we were until I saw how nice all the people I had been mean to were being. Has anyone ever told you just what happened with my accident?” Opal asked this last, quietly, and looking away from her friend.

“No, not really. I know that it was somehow the fault of the Banks brothers, who were banished for it, and that you were trampled by one of the Big Folks’ horses that they let loose. But I don’t really know any details.”

“I want to tell you; then you can decide if you will still be friends with me.” She moved her hand away, and looked down at her lap.

Diamond started to protest that of course she would still be her friend, but Opal stopped her with a gesture.

“I would not have been out that night when they let the horses loose if I had not been running away. And I was running away because I had been a thief and got caught.” She paused for a moment, and dashed a tear from her cheek.

“Do you know Samwise Gamgee’s wife? She used to be Rose Cotton?”

Diamond shook her head. “I have never met her, though I have heard her spoken highly of by several people.”

“Well, when she was here last spring before her wedding, she had a beautiful gold necklace that had been sent her by the King as a wedding gift. I was jealous of it, and I tried to steal it. I came away instead with only the empty box it came in, but I was caught. I was supposed to be locked in my room until they decided what to do with me, and I went out the window and ran away.” Her voice shook. “I don’t remember the accident at all, thank goodness.”

“Oh, Opal,” Diamond said sadly. “It must have been horrid.”

“So you see why no one wanted to be friends with me before; I’ll understand if you don’t want to either, now you know I’m a thief.”

“Of course you’re not!” said Diamond stoutly. “You are not the same person you were. I never knew that Opal, but I know *this* one, and you are not at all ’selfish, spoiled and rude’. Not since I’ve known you.”

Opal turned a smile on her. “Thank you, Diamond.” She reached a hand to her friend’s brow. “I think you have begun to run a fever.” Opal maneuvered herself up on her crutches and went to prepare the elderberry and comfrey tea that Mistress Lavender had left for that purpose.

_____________________________________________

Pippin was worried. Merry had brought him the news that Diamond had succumbed to the spotted fever and was going to be staying with Opal and her family during the illness. That wasn’t so bad--he had envisioned her left all alone in the healer’s cottage while her mistress had to go out and tend her other patients. But he had hoped she might not take the illness at all, or perhaps take only a light form of it.

He could tell from Merry’s grave face that was not so.

“How bad off is she, Merry?” he asked. “Don’t try to hide it from me.”

Merry shook his head. At one time, he might have tried to protect Pippin from the bad news, but he had learned better. Pip would only fret more if he were not given the truth.

“Her fever’s been very high; in the last few days they’ve been having to give her cool baths to bring it down. And Mistress Lavender is afraid the fever is going to settle in her lungs.”

Pippin went pale: as a child he’d suffered from weak lungs. He remembered only too well how every cold seemed to settle in his chest; how he struggled to suppress the urge to cough because coughing was so painful it made his stomach hurt and his ribs ache; how the healers would beat him to make him cough up the phlegm; how every breath was a wheezing gasp for air.

The Ent-draughts had changed all that for him. The healers told him his lungs were as sound as anyone’s now. But he would never forget what it had been like.

“Have you seen her, Merry?” Pippin asked somberly.

“No, but Estella has.” Merry pursed his lips in thought, trying to decide how much to tell. “She said that Diamond is very sick indeed.”

Just then, Pippin’s parents came in to the sitting room, and they dropped the conversation. But Merry knew that it wasn’t over yet.

Eglantine told the lads that Lavender thought the spotted fever had run its course in the Smials. “We had a total of three adults and ten children take it, but there have been no more new cases in a couple of days.”

“That’s good,” said Pippin absently. He was still thinking about Diamond, and wondering just how sick she was going to be.

__________________________________________________

Amethyst wrung out the cloth in cool water, and replaced it on Diamond’s feverish brow. She looked over at Opal. “She is almost completely covered in the spots--she looks almost as though she’s been sunburned.”

“I know,” said Opal, “I hope this solution that Mistress Lavender gave us will help.”

Diamond was moving restlessly in her sleep, trying to throw off the light covers. “Don’t let her throw off the blankets,” Opal said, “or feverish as she is, she will take a chill.”

Amethyst nodded, and turned her attention to Diamond once more.

__________________________________________

“Easy does it, Pip,” said Merry, “the healer said to take it slowly.”

Pippin moved the crutches forward, and then carefully swung himself up a step. “I couldn’t possibly go any more slowly than this, Merry.” He winced, and then grinned, as he moved another step.

Merry shook his head. “You’ve come halfway across the room already. I think you need to turn around and go back. Rest a bit, then try it again in a little while.”

Pippin looked for a second as though he wanted to argue, then nodded. He turned awkwardly on the crutches. “Looks like I’m going to need to practice that some,” and headed back to the settee. He dropped down onto the cushions with a plop, pale and perspiring a bit. Merry went over and took the crutches, and gave him a cup of tea.

Pippin made a face. “Willow-bark?”

Merry nodded.

Pippin drank it.

____________________________________________

Diamond was listening to the pitch of the wheeze in her chest, a high raspy whine like the buzz of an insect. She felt a cough building, and tried to suppress it--it would hurt and the sound of the wheeze would change if she coughed. She felt hands drawing her forward, and then one hand began to rub her back and pat it--no! She couldn’t hold it any longer, and the cough burst forth painfully, and then again and again. She heard a voice saying “There now, that’s a good lass, let’s get it out of you, dear,” and she felt a handkerchief held to her mouth to receive what she had coughed up.

Another harsh bout of coughing, hard enough to make her see stars behind her closed eyelids. A cup of something warm, tangy, but sweet with honey, was held to her lips and she took a swallow. Then she was allowed to lay back down. There was a welcome minty smell, and she felt something cool and soothing being rubbed across her chest. The sound of her wheeze had changed again.

________________________________________________

Lavender let herself back into her cottage, and wearily dropped into the nearest chair. The outbreak in the Smials was nearly over. The only ones still suffering from the spotted fever were Diamond and one of the adults. All told there had been three adults, twelve children and one tweenager--Diamond--to fall ill. Diamond’s was the worst case by far, partly because she was older than was usual, and also because she had been so tired when it took her.

Her apprentice was actually over the spotted fever itself. It was the infection in her lungs that was worrisome now.

______________________________________________

Diamond had lost all sense of time, but somehow she thought it must be night. She had the dizzying sensation that her bed was floating in the air, and spinning around. Looking up near the ceiling she thought she saw a parade of figures moving around the perimeter of the room--creatures made of light, that seemed to vanish if she looked at them directly.

She coughed weakly, and then felt a movement next to the bed. Someone sitting there--there was always someone sitting there. A hand was placed on her brow, and her hair was smoothed back--it wasn’t her mama or Auntie Jewel; no, she was at Great Smials. That wasn’t Mistress Lavender’s hand either. It was a cool and calloused hand, but very gentle.

She opened her eyes, to see a pair of green eyes leaning close, a worried expression in them; there was a sharp nose and a bow of a mouth and a cleft chin.

“Hullo, Diamond,” said Pippin. “Are you with us again?”

 





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