You fell in beside Dr. Cushing as she led you back to the patient rooms. “So Katie’s OK?” you asked, then gave yourself a mental slap. She had just said Katie was fine.
“Perfectly OK,” Dr. Cushing said. “Getting a little antsy sitting in the clinic, and upset about missing the rest of her tour, but perfectly healthy. Or so the nurses assure me.”
You raised an eyebrow at that. “Don’t you know?”
“Oh, I’m not a medical doctor,” Cushing said hastily. “I’m a horticulturalist. My specialty is molecular plant science. It was my lab where your daughter got my fertilizer all over herself. I’ve been brought in to consult.”
“Oh…” you said, a little sheepishly. “Sorry about that. For my tone. And, also, you know, for my daughter, uh, disrupting your research.”
Dr. Cushing blew out a breath. “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t her fault. She got into an altercation with some other students with her group. She tried to disengage, but they didn’t let up, and ended up pushing her into some containers that hadn’t been properly sealed by one of my grad students.” Her eyes widened. “Uh, I properly shouldn’t have told you that. The school legal counsel is going to kill me.”
You waved the comment aside. “Don’t worry about it. We’re not litigious types.” Though the part about the fight concerned you. Katie had had problems with bullies throughout middle school and her first year of high school, but you thought those were past. You’d have to talk to your wife about it. You refocused the conversation on your main concern. “So this stuff is harmless to people?”
Dr. Cushing looked uncomfortable. “Well…we’re not sure yet. Probably?” At your incredulous expression she held up her hands. “The research is early! It hasn’t been tested for safety yet! That’s why we’ve been monitoring her!”
You frowned. “OK, well, what can you tell me about this stuff and its effects on Katie?”
“Well, as you’ve been told, it’s an experimental fertilizer,” Dr. Cushing said. “Early tests for effectiveness are promising— it’ll grow a tomato bigger than a soccer ball, or an ear of corn as long as your arm. Since we don’t have any toxicity data for the compound, when Katie was exposed we took all the normal precautions: emergency shower, emetic, a real shower once she had some privacy, and now monitoring. No changes to respiration, her skin color’s fine, no hair’s falling out, and her blood screening came back clear.”
“Ooookay,” you said slowing, then cocked your head. “Emetic?”
“Makes you throw up,” Dr. Cushing clarified. “Katie ingested some of the fertilizer.” They were slowing now, as they approached the door to Katie’s examination room. “Now, the fertilizer is based on existing research on a biologic growth hormone that’s shown some promise in some other testing on cattle and goats, so if Katie shows any symptoms at all at this point—and frankly, I’d be surprised if she did—then it will probably just be an increase in appetite over the next day or so as her metabolism gets a bit out of whack.” They finally stopped in front of a closed door labeled “Room 1524M.” Dr. Cushing grunted when she saw the closed door.
You faced her. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. I had just left the door open when I went up front,” Cushing said, as she turned the doorknob.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author