AMOS TROTTER 12; SAMMY'S VISIT

Part 5

 Adopting his most serious face Patrick said, "Our best chance to succeed is to belly crawl up and around the corner past the nurse's station. And we have to be very quiet about it."

I wanted to hurt him! Was he kidding? He had seen the effort it took for me to stand up ungainly from a chair and now the little twerp is talking BELLY CRAWL! "Uh, General," I said barely containing the urge to snap his scrawny neck, "not all of us... troops.. are still certified for the belly crawl. Maybe we could consider putting our backs to the wall and side-stepping around the corner. How about it?"

"What's a belly crawl?" Sammy asked not having been around long enough to be exposed to the finer techniques of clandestine troop movement.

"There's the spirit!" Patrick said cheerily as he dropped the entire six inches it took to get his diminutive frame horizontal on the floor. "Don't be a wimp Trotter, buck up!"

"Buck up!?" I asked. "Have you been watching old John Wayne war movies? And you do realize the flooring is not plush carpeting, don't you? But, I guess if you can't make the needle on a weight scale move, you might not care."

"Who is John Wayne?" Sammy asked as he dropped to the floor behind Patrick.

"John Wayne was a famous movie actor, one of my favorites." I told him as I was preparing to attempt getting my carcass on the floor. "Crap on toast - don't tell you Dad - I may not survive this." This last said to the air in general just to voice my concern.

I knew this would be a process but I was determined not to let the pipsqueak outdo me. My left knee was still semi-functional so I put my weight on my left leg, brought my right leg back bending down low enough to get the right knee on the floor. So far so good, nothing broke. Now, however, I had to shift my weight to the right knee enough that I could slide my left foot back while easing my left knee to the floor. I was already wanting to remind Patrick that I had mentioned the hard flooring, a few crackles and pops were occurring.

With my weight now firmly on both knees, I had several choices. I could bend at the waist and kind of roll to the side to get the rest of me to the floor or I could lean forward placing both hands on the floor and walk my hands forward until I lay stretched out on my stomach. Neither method would look graceful I realized, but calculating the least likely method to cause injury, I chose the tried and true hand walk forward method. And, bless me, it worked with only a small amount of quivering in my arms before I got stretched out. A reminder that I really should diet. It was less than helpful when I looked up to see Patrick about to choke to keep from laughing. At some point, I was determined that I was seriously going to hurt the little shrimp.