"Any farther and my girdle will snap. Now cut it out, lover. I like it, but this isn't the time or the place."
"I can't get my hand out."
"Oh! Stop! You're tickling me! I can't stand it! Ha-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HO-HO-HO-HEE-HEE-HEE!" Hannah was seized by a spasm of laughter.
"What's so funny, Hannah?" the doctor called.
"HEH-HEH-HEH!" Hannah thought desperately and quickly. "I just thought of a joke someone told me today. Do you know how porcupines make love? Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"No. How?"
"Very carefully. Hee-hee-hee-HO-HO!"
"That's very funny." The doctor laughed politely.
"Ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-ho-ho-HAW-HAW-HAW!"
"That funny it isn't," the doctor opined.
"Ha-ha-ha. Sorry. When I get on a laughing jag, I just can't stop. Heh-heh-heh." Hannah clawed frantically at Sammy's wrist. "Will you please stop it!" she pleaded.
"I'm trying. If I can just get my hand loose."
"Ow! Now you're on my other foot! Llona blurted out.
"Hannah? Are you quite well?" The doctor sounded concerned.
"I'm fine, Doctor. Just fine."
"Then why do you keep talking to yourself? And in different voices, too? I think tomorrow I'm going to have the staff give you a check-up. Stay in a place like this too long, and pretty soon you're unconsciously picking up the patients' behavior," he mused.
"I'm all right," Hannah assured him.
"I'd better help you," the doctor said. There was the sound of his footsteps approaching the closet.
Desperate, Hannah gave a mighty shove. Sammy and Llona went crashing loudly to the floor of the closet in a tangle of arms and legs. Hannah grabbed the vials she'd been seeking and dived out of the closet, slamming the door on the scene behind her. Her momentum practically knocked the approaching doctor over.
"Whoa!" He grabbed onto a couple of fat flesh bulges for support. "What happened, Hannah?"
"I knocked over one of the shelves," she told him breathlessly. "Don't worry about it. I'll straighten it out after you've gone."
"Oh." The doctor shrugged off her explanation and took the vials from her. "I wish I could just take off right now," he griped, looking at his watch. "It's that damned Ogilvie again. I've got to go all the way back up to 'Isolation' to give him a sedative. But if he doesn't get a shot, he'll be raising Cain all night."
"Couldn't Dr. Slocum give it to him? He's got the duty up there tonight."
"I suppose he could. But I'd have to bring him this stuff, anyway. So I might as well jab Ogilvie myself."
Hannah had a sudden inspiration. "I could bring it up to him for you," she suggested.
"That's an idea. Would you do that, Hannah? I'd really appreciate it. I'm holding up a bridge game at home right now."
"I'll be glad to do it. You just go on along, Doctor."
Hannah waited until she was sure he was gone before she chanced opening the door to the medical supply closet again. When she did, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness within. Even when they had, she couldn't see Llona and Sammy. Another few seconds passed before she thought to peer downward into the blackness.
The first thing she saw was Sammy's bulging rear end. Then she managed to make out the vague outline of the rest of his body. She couldn't see Llona anywhere. Finally she surmised correctly that the girl must be underneath Sammy.
"What do you think you're doing?" she exploded indignantly. "The minute my back is turned and already another woman. You shamuses are all alike!" She booted Sammy none too gently.
"Oof! I couldn't help it!" he protested. "We didn't dare move. We didn't want to be heard."
"That's no excuse!" Hannah kicked him again. "If you aren't doing anything, why don't you get off that hussy now?"
"How can I when you keep kicking me?"
Hannah backed off and Sammy managed to pull himself to his feet. Llona didn't budge. She just lay there.
"Mrs. Rutherford?" Sammy got his breath and peered down at her anxiously. "Mrs. Rutherford, get up."
"You've worn her out." Hannah's voice was heavy with innuendo.
"Mrs. Rutherford?"
Finally Llona stirred. "Phew," she groaned. "I feel as if every bone in my body had been crushed."
"And don't pretend you didn't like it," Hannah wheezed accusingly. "You don't have to tell me how great Sammy is. The louse!"
"I was a perfect gentleman." Sammy defended himself.
"Ha!"
"He was." Llona struggled to get up. "A perfect gentleman. But very fat. Very fat indeed."
"I'm not that fat," Sammy objected.
"You don't look that fat," Llona granted. "But then I've never known anybody who felt as heavy as you felt."
"You don't appreciate obesity." Hannah reversed herself and sprang to Sammy's defense. "You've been brainwashed like everybody else. What's beautiful about bones sticking through thin skin, I ask you? Round, healthy flesh-that's what Sammy's got. And I think it's just great."
"Unless it happens to be on top of you pushing you through the floor," Llona retorted. "But let's forget it," she quickly added. "We're here for a reason."
"That's right," Sammy agreed. "What happens now, Hannah? How are you going to be able to get us in to see Ogilvie?"
"It should be even a little easier than I expected," Hannah told them. "Doctor wants me to bring a sedative up for Dr. Slocum, the physician who's on duty there tonight, to give to Ogilvie. So I can get up there legitimately. All you have to do is follow behind while I make sure the coast is clear."
"Then let's go," Sammy said.
He and Llona waited as Hannah stuck her head into the hall to make sure they wouldn't be spotted. Then, at her signal, they darted through a stairway entrance. Hannah went up the stairs ahead of them and then motioned to them to join her. It was on the second floor landing that they ran into their first snag. Just as the three of them paused there, the sound of footsteps coming rapidly down the stairs from above reached their ears.
"Quick!" Hannah pushed them through the door to the second floor hallway. They waited there, out of sight, listening to the encounter which ensued. "Hi, George."
Hannah greeted someone. "Where you going in such a hurry?"
"Oh, hi, Hannah. Just bringing the manic regressive his security blanket. You know the old codger won't go to sleep without it. He whines, and it bothers the other nuts." There was a long pause. "Something I can do for you, Hannah?" The voice was puzzled.
"No, George. Why do you ask?"
"You're blocking the doorway."
"Oh? Am I?" Hannah stalled. She didn't move.
"Yes, you are."
"Tell me, George," she made conversation desperately, "whatever decided you to become a male nurse in a nuthouse in the first place?"
"I was a dropout from this school run by the Sanitation Department. What I really wanted to be was a garbage man," George confided. "I guess this was the next best thing." Another pause. "Uhh, you're still blocking my way," he said mildly.
"I'm interested. Tell me more about how you happened to come to work here."
"She can't stall him forever," Sammy whispered urgently to Llona. "We'd better get out of here. If he comes through that door and sees us, the jig is up."
"But where can we go?"
"I don't know. But let's move fast." Sammy led the way down the corridor. Halfway to the end he paused and looked anxiously over his shoulder. "The door from the stairs is opening!" he exclaimed. "Quick! In here!" They'd just come abreast of a door, and now he pushed Llona through it, followed, and shut it silently behind them.
The room they found themselves in was pitch-black- but not for long. The lamp on the night table between the two beds was switched on and a very old man sat bolt upright in one of the beds and stared for a moment at the in-traders. When his eyes had adjusted to the lights his parchment-skinned face crumpled with disappointment and, without a word, he slid down in the bed and turned over on his side so that he was facing the wall. Llona looked at Sammy questioningly, but he could only spread his hands in a gesture that said he didn't understand the old man's reaction, either. Then a voice from the second bed made them turn their heads in that direction.