Something about sucking in too much carbon monoxide and needing oxygen.

This is Janet’s fantasy, and Janet is not an important player in this story.Īnyway, the girls will have to go to the E.R., but it’ll be more of a formality than because of any real concern.

And then he’ll give the passed-out girl resuscitation (yes! yes! the mouth-to-mouth variety) and she’s breathing! She’s going to make it! Isn’t it wonderful to be alive!īut this isn’t going to happen. He’ll look as if he stepped right off a Chippendales calendar (except his fireman’s getup is done up) to carry them into the midnight air to safety. She’ll faint away just as the cute fireman throws open the door and tosses all three girls over his muscle-rippled shoulders. Although when Janet, the substitute teacher who lives in the apartment upstairs, tells the story, she’ll kind of wish something slightly more significant will have happened, like maybe the girls get trapped in the bathroom while the flames lick the closed door, and they stand sweating and shivering under the running shower, and they see smoke creeping in from the hallway, and just as they’re about to pass out…No, wait! Maybe one of them will pass out. music in the background, no one in white yelling Stat!, no George Clooney look-a-like climbing aboard a gurney to thump life back into someone’s heart, and no artificial respiration of any kind, including the mouth-to-mouth variety.Īnd we’re all thankful for that, of course. There will be no heart-stopping da-da-da E.R. What kind of lunatics do you think they are? No, they’re not going to do it on purpose. Allison, Jodine and Emma are going to set their apartment on fire.

Fishbowl by Sarah Mlynowski