"I shouldn't have made you chase me," he said.

"You couldn't have known that the trapdoor was broken," Brent said. "Could have happened anytime. Don't worry about it."

"I wish you hadn't come to paint your stupid picture," John shouted and ran from the milking room.

"I couldn't agree with you more, kid," Brent muttered.

He thought he remembered the ambulance coming but he wasn't sure. He felt cold all over and the pain continued to rush up and down his body. The ambulance attendants moved him carefully to a stretcher and he sensed the trees rushing past on the way to the hospital.

His parents were at the hospital when he arrived.

"Hi, Mom," Brent tried to say but it came out garbled and fuzzy. He couldn't seem to keep his tongue in line. "Hi, Dad. I'll be okay, huh?"

"Sure you will," his father said.

They moved him onto a rolling bed, and all of a sudden Dr.Matthias was beside him.

"We're going to send you down for a quick X ray, Brent. Don't try to move. Here's something for the pain."

Brent felt the sharp jab of the needle and waited for the rush of numbness. His back still throbbed constantly but it seemed as if the pain belonged to someone else.

He remembered the ceiling going by over his head and the nurse in the X-ray room gently turning his body to various positions. The X-ray machine lowered in, whirring, and rose again. It lowered and rose several times.

Soon he was moving through the halls again. The ceiling was just a blur now.

"Can you listen, Brent?" Dr.Matthias was saying. "Try to listen, and then you can just sleep it all away."

Brent heard his mother crying beside him as he moved on the rolling bed through the hallways.

"Brent, listen," the doctor was saying again. "You've a fracture of one of your vertebrae. It's a broken back, but you're very lucky. There should be no problems at all. You'll be fine."