I will fetch my equipment, and be back in a few minutes."Gretchen got the catering slaves to bring the backboard over. It was basically a solid wooden... plank with arm and leg extensions, so it looked a little like an X; there were slots cut into it for restraining belts. The plank attached at the top and bottom of the frame, and laid along Nina's back from her head to her rear, with the extensions matching the placement of her arms and legs. Gretchen went to work strapping her down; when she was. Shall I fetch yer anovver pot?”“Please,” smiled Mary, “actually, I really am hungry and I think my appetite is coming back.”“There, maybe you’ll want one of our famous cream teas when you’re done with the sarnies. I mean, wot wiv the war’an’all the cream teas ain’t what they used ter be, but they’re still grand enough.”“In that case,” Mary laughed, “we need cheering up, so bring us your cream teas as soon as you like!”“I will,” beamed the Nippy, “ahhh, you know, you two lovely people make such. No one else had ever come close, even if he never understood all the reasons why. But she called him once, a few years later, to tell him her daughter, his ex-wife, was now in rehab and wanted to see him. He was a resident then, in oncology at a clinic near San Diego, and though he’d forgotten all the glitz and glamour of those years, he’d never forgotten the swirling leaves on Holyoke Street — and it all came back in a rush, memories of her smile leaving him breathless, and alone. He drove up. Rehab failures are always discharged, and that makes you a civilian." That will make me a veteran, once it happens," said Bob tersely. "Which it hasn't yet, I might add. And it won't until I clear the ortho clinic." So, you give me the walking leg and running leg, I'll give you a state of the art wheelchair, and then I can sign your clearing papers," said the nurse."Not acceptable," said Bob. "Take me to your next higher in the chain."What Bob was referring to was the nurse's supervisor in the.