"Think you can roll to one side?" she asked. "It's all right with the Doc, so long as you keep your back stiff. It's called a log roll. You put your right arm out from your side and cross your left leg and arm over and you'll find you turn nice and stifflike right on over to your side. How about giving it a try?"

Brent kept his body rigid and rolled to his right side. He expected sharp needles of pain, but only the dull heavy aching continued.

Jewel began at his neck and washed his back, scrubbing surely and finely down his spine with a firm, tender hand.

"You're a good kid," she said. "Now we got to get these sheets changed."

Brent considered the practicalities for the first time. How do you change a sheet when someone's lying on it? He pictured Jewel whisking the sheet from under him as magicians do tablecloths from under full dinner settings.

As if she read his mind, Jewel said, "Now don't you worry about this either. You just follow my directions and we'll have you fixed up in no time flat. You stay lying on your right side just the way you are."

She began on the left side of the bed, and Brent could hear the pulling and rumpling of cloth as Jewel stripped the sheet off the mattress. The bunching of the material created a light pressure against his back.

"Now roll on your other side," she said, and Brent thrust against the lumped material ridging the middle of the bed and rolled over it onto his left side. He did it just as Jewel had told him to and his body stayed rigid. The motions continued on the side behind him. Brent was amazed to realize, when the fluttering and moving stopped, that the bed was tight and freshly made without his having left it.

Jewel bundled the dirty sheets into a ball and tossed them towards the door. Next she took a small basin and filled it with clear, cold water. From the bedside cabinet she took his tooth brush and toothpaste and handed them all to Brent.