Joan waddled through the rest of day in a haze. Her teachers cut her some slack, given her condition, but she wasn't even really in any shape to notice that. Karyn tried to talk to her at lunch, but her responses were still monosyllabic.
At 2:50, she was literally kicked out of her torpor as she went into labor.
"Oh, no," she said, standing up. "I need to get back to the home ec room."
"No," said a tall, skinny girl a couple of seats over. "You need to go to the nurse's office." Turning to the teacher, she said, "I'll take her over and help her out."
With a bit of a panicked look in his eyes, the math teacher said, "Go, please. I don't want to know about it."
Oh, thank goodness, Joan thought to herself. Mrs Miller wouldn't remember anything, so I'm glad she doesn't need to.
So as they walked over, Joan asked Missy about what was going to happen, and what to expect (pausing every minute or two for a contraction). It seems she'd lucked out, though, as Missy wanted to be an obstetrician when she grew up, and had not only been through this, but helped a couple of other girls through it as well. And the nurse, of course, had been through this hundreds of times.
So it was unpleasant and painful, but fairly uneventful when they got there. And at 3:15, they delivered a bouncing, baby... ummm... pregnancy suit.
When it was over, Mrs Miller (who had shown up a couple of minutes late) said, "After going through that, we can talk about your detention tomorrow, Joan." So saying, she walked out, taking the pregnancy suit with her.
Joan turned to Missy, and said, "God, can you believe she's still going to give me detention? How could it be worse than going through this?"
Missy giggled, and said, "I know, what did you do to make her so mad?"
"I wish I knew," Joan said. Almost reflexively, she tensed her body up and closed her eyes when she realized what she'd said, but then remembered that the stone was safely in her room. Somewhere. "Thank you so much for helping me with this. I'd have been in no end of trouble without you being here. I don't feel like doing anything tonight, but maybe we can do something tomorrow after school?"
Missy giggled once more, and said, "Sure, if your detention isn't too bad. I'll see you tomorrow," she said while waving and walking out the door.
