Lettie’s voice cracked. “Please tell me she’s still alive.”

“She’s talkin’ and breathin’ and there’s no blood, but I’m not letting her move. She’s fightin’ with me about an ambulance,” she answered.

“I’m on my way over there. Turnin’ onto Main Street, I heard the sirens blowin’. We’ll follow them to the hospital. I’ve told her a million times not to climb up in that pear tree to trim it. I swear to God, if she’s broken a hip, I’m going to make her go to a nursing home,” Lettie yelled into the phone.

The phone went dark and Jennie Sue heard the squeal of tires on the driveway and the sirens coming down the street at the same time. Lettie came around the side of the house, her chubby little legs churning as fast as they would go. She had her right hand over her heart and the forefinger on her left hand wagging before she even plopped down on the grass beside her sister.

Nadine cut her eyes around at Lettie. “Don’t start on me. I’m already mad because y’all are makin’ me go in the ambulance. You was yellin’ so loud on Jennie Sue’s phone that I heard what you said. I’m not goin’ to no damned nursing home. If my hip was broke, I’d know it. Only thing that hurts is my shoulder. I know how to tuck and roll when I fall. I’m not like you and Cricket. Y’all just sprawl out when you go down.”

“What have we got?” Two paramedics jogged around the house with a body board and a neck brace.

“Ninety years old and fell out of a pear tree,” Lettie said. “She hates doctors and hospitals, so make her stay for a week to teach her a lesson. And give her shots every day even if she don’t need them.”

“Don’t be a bitch.” Nadine shot daggers toward her sister.

“We’ll give her a good checkin’ out. You want to follow us?”

“Of course I do,” Lettie said. “She’ll lie out her teeth so you’ll let her come home, otherwise.”

“Jennie Sue, make her stay here, and when I’m ready to come home in an hour or so, you can come get me.” Nadine winced when they put her on the board. “She’ll drive the doctors and nurses crazy with all her questions and carryin’ on.”

“This time Lettie wins,” Jennie Sue said.

“Okay, ladies, we’ll see you there.” The paramedics each took an end of the board and carried Nadine to the driveway.

“We’ll take her van so if they do let her come home, we can bring her,” Lettie told Jennie Sue. “She keeps an extra set of keys in the front passenger fender well.”

“Dammit!” Nadine huffed. “I was hopin’ you’d forget.”

“I’ve got the memory of an elephant.”

“And the butt of one,” Nadine said as they lifted her into the ambulance.

“At least I’m not crazy enough to climb up in a pear tree like a monkey,” Lettie said, and then laid a hand on one paramedic’s shoulder. “You take good care of her and don’t hit any bumps, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded with gravity.

Jennie Sue found the key in a little magnetic container with no problem but had to rush back inside the house for her purse. When she returned, Lettie was sitting in the passenger seat. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she kept pulling tissues from the interior of her big black purse. Jennie Sue took the time to lean across the console and hug her tightly. “It’s going to be all right. She might have a busted shoulder. Know what she told me? That the aliens pushed her out of the tree.”

“If them sorry bastards ever do find a way to Earth, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later. I thought for sure she’d be dead,” Lettie whimpered. “Next week I’m hiring someone to cut every tree on her place down to the ground.”

Jennie Sue started up the engine and backed the van out, drove a couple of blocks to Main Street, and then headed south to Sweetwater. “How did you find out so fast? It hadn’t been three minutes since I called 911.”

“Someone must’ve heard it on the scanner and called Amos and he called me. I dropped what I was doin’ and pushed the gas pedal to the floor on my old truck. She’s so skinny, and she’s been clumsy her whole life. If they’ll keep her, I can have these trees gone by the time she gets home,” Lettie declared.

“Folks are going to say that I’m bad luck. They may tar and feather me and run me out of town,” Jennie Sue said.

“Why?” Lettie stopped sniffling and whipped her head around to stare at Jennie Sue. “Did she land on you when she fell? Are you hurt?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t have let her climb up in that tree if I’d known what she was up to. She said she was doing yard work, so I figured she was pullin’ weeds out of her flower bed. But think about it, Lettie. First Cricket sprains her ankle, and then Nadine has a bad fall. Am I bad luck?”

Lettie shook her head hard enough that all her chins wiggled. “Stop that kind of nonsense talk. You weren’t anywhere near either of them when they fell. Cricket slipped on a wet sidewalk. Besides, she was wearin’ them spike heels, and they don’t make her look a bit skinnier. Them things is just askin’ for trouble. And you sure didn’t tell Nadine to climb a tree.” She pointed toward the sign that said to turn for the emergency room. “You park right there. If they got a problem with it, I’ll straighten them out. And I’ll hear no more about you bein’ bad luck.”

“I hate seeing my friends get hurt.” She parked near the emergency doors.

“Everyone does, but that burden ain’t yours to carry, child.” Lettie undid her seat belt and was out of the vehicle so fast that Jennie Sue had to rush to catch up to her.

Lettie didn’t even slow down at the admissions desk, but told the lady to open the doors or she’d kick them in. The doors were already swinging open when Lettie and Jennie Sue reached them.

“Nadine, where are you?” She raised her voice as soon as they entered.

“Lettie, I’m in here,” Nadine called out from the first room on the left. “They’re takin’ me to X-ray, and I’m not goin’ without you.”

Jennie Sue followed her as she breezed into the room like a class 5 tornado. No one even bothered to ask if she was related to these two like they had with Cricket.

Lettie went straight to the bedside where Nadine was still on the body board and nodded at the lady waiting to push the bed down the hallway. “You can go now. I’m here and I’m going with her.”

“You’ll have to sit outside the room,” she said.

“Leave it cracked so I can hear her,” Lettie informed the woman.

“They can’t, sister,” Nadine said. “But I’ll yell loud enough they’ll hear me all the way in Bloom if they hurt me. I don’t trust those machines.”

“Aliens,” Lettie whispered to Jennie Sue. “I swear to God and all the angels that they are workin’ their way to Earth through all this damned technology crap.”

“Don’t be givin’ away our information. That’s classified,” Nadine whispered.

The lady rolled her eyes and pushed Nadine out of the room. Jennie Sue sank down in an uncomfortable chair and tried to remember if she’d locked the door on her way out of the house. And if she had, did either of the sisters have a key to get back in? While she was pondering on that and sending up prayers that Nadine hadn’t broken her neck or her back, her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the caller ID, but she answered it anyway.

“What’s happened to Nadine? Did she die? Please tell me she didn’t die. I’m not sure Lettie would live a month without Nadine,” Cricket said at Jennie Sue’s greeting.

“She’s in X-ray, but they don’t think anything is broken right now,” Jennie Sue said. “She fell out of that big pear tree in her backyard.”

“Holy cow. I’ll call back later for more news. I’ve got to make half a dozen calls right now so folks will know that she’s not dead. The ladies at the church are already tryin’ to decide whether to start thinkin’ about a funeral lunch for the family and friends. And Elaine said that the flower shop has had a dozen calls wantin’ to know if she’ll be at the local funeral home or the one in Sweetwater,” Cricket said. “You’ve got my number, so if you hear anything, call me and I’ll pass it on.”