‘Bobby!’ I called out into the dark. ‘Bobby, come inside for dinner!’
‘Coming!’ his reply echoed back to me from… somewhere. I sighed, dusting my flour-caked hands together and squinting into the woods.
‘Blasted child,’ I muttered to myself, ‘always running off into the trees, never giving a second thought to—’
‘Ouch!’
‘Bobby?’ I cried out, my eyes widening at the sudden rustling and cry from the dark. ‘Bobby, what is it?’
No reply immediately came, so I hiked up my skirt and immediately took off in the direction I’d last heard him.
‘I’m coming Bobby!’ I huffed. ‘Where are you, son?!’
‘Here, ma!’ his voice echoed to me weakly from somewhere to my left. I quickly re-tacked, pushing off from a tree to help my new trajectory. After a few more minutes of frantic stumbling, I found him, lying against a tree and cradling his ankle.
‘There ya are!’ I sighed, relief and annoyance intermingling somewhere in my chest. ‘What’re you doing out here, Bobby?’
‘I was playin’,’ he sniffed, looking up at me with his soft, stupid little eyes.
‘Alright, alright,’ I sighed. ‘Let me have a look, then.’
I gingerly rolled up the end of his pants and looked at his ankle, already quite swollen and red.
‘Well, son,’ I sighed, ‘looks like dinner’s going in the oven.’
‘Is it that bad?’ he whimpered, presumably at the prospect of missing out on dinner.
‘We should try and find the best foot specialist in Cheltenham to have a look,’ I nodded slowly. ‘Just in case it falls off.’
‘Falls off!?’
‘Aye,’ I kept nodding. ‘It’s a coin toss whether they can save it now, but if we find the right expert, maybe if they can help me figure the right treatment out – like which circulation socks should I buy?’
‘I want me foot, Ma,’ Bobby sniffed, tears overflowing down his cheeks. ‘Please, let’s get me to the foot doctor.’
‘Podiatrist,’ I corrected him. ‘And foot doctors only treat good boys who come in for dinner when their mother tells them to!’
‘What?’ he frowned, realisation dawning.
‘It’s a sprain, idjit,’ I chuckled. ‘Now get up and hobble inside with me. I’m hungry.’