Page 67 of Now or Never

“It says they’re chocolate-on-chocolate sandwich cookies.”

Emmy took the bag to the couch and sat next to her brother.

“You aren’t supposed to eat those,” Ian said. “They’re only for Grandpa Zach.”

“I don’t care,” Emmy said. “I’m hungry and she gave them to me.”

Ian looked over at me. “She isn’t supposed to eat them.”

“Okay,” I said to Emmy. “Give me the cookies and I’ll get something else for you.”

“No,” she said. “I want these cookies. If you don’t let me keep them, I’ll scream.”

Lula cut her eyes to me. “You want me to sit on her?”

“No! I’ll get something else from the kitchen.” I handed baby Sue over to Lula. “Don’t sit on this one either.”

I ran into the kitchen and found a box of Ritz crackers. I returned to the living room and Emmy had shoved half a bag of cookies into her mouth. There was chocolate everywhere.

“I’ll swap you the cookies for these Ritz crackers,” I said.

Emmy crammed more cookies into her mouth and hugged the almost-empty bag to her chest. “No.”

I reached for the bag, and she started screaming.

“She’s turning red,” Lula said. “And she’s looking all swelled up.”

“That’s because she’s not supposed to eat those cookies,” Ian said. “She’s allergic to chocolate. She’s probably going to die now.”

“What?”Now I was at shriek level.

Jonathan hopped down the stairs, and Zach ambled after him.

“Okay, where were we? Something about my court date?” Zach asked me.

“Emmy ate your cookies,” Ian said. “And now she’s going to die.”

Zach took a close look at Emmy. “How many cookies did she eat?”

“She ate almost the whole bag,” Ian said. “You should call Mom.”

Zach hauled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Sorry to bother you again, honey, but Emmy ate a whole bag of those chocolate cookies. She’s red and blotchy and her face is swollen.” There was a pause. “Yep,” Zach said. “Yep. Got it.”

He hung up and slipped his phone back into his pocket. “We’re going to the ER. Everybody to the van.”

Lula and I helped buckle the kids into their car seats.

“I’m going to ride with Zach,” I said to Lula. “Find Jonathan’s sneakers, lock up here, and meet me at the medical center ER.”

“Then what? Do you have a plan?”

“The immediate plan is to help with the kids and make sure Emmy is going to be okay.”

I was used to kids. My sister, Valerie, had a pack of them. One of them thought she was a horse, but to my knowledge none of them ate poop. I took that as a good sign that my gene pool might be more aligned to cake eaters.

It was a short drive to the medical center. Zach stopped at the ER entrance and went inside with Emmy. I got behind the wheel and parked the van in the adjacent lot. By the time I had all the kids unbuckled, Lula was parked next to the van. We got Jonathan into his shoes, and we trundled the kids into the ER reception room.

Zach was at the desk, filling out a form. “Emmy’s in the back with her mom,” Zach said. “She’ll be okay. One time she ate a giant Hershey bar, and her face looked like it had been inflated by an air pump. They emptied her stomach and filled her full of antihistamines, and she was good as ever. Then there was the time she ate half a chocolate birthday cake when no one was looking. She didn’t get as swollen from that one because she barfed it all up.”

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