Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor is In! (Judy Moody)

by Megan McDonald

  Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor is in!

  Megan Mcdonald

  M.D.- A Moody Day

  PLIP! Judy Moody woke up. Drip, drip, drip went rain on the roof. Blip, blip, blip went drops on the window. Not again! It had been raining for seven days straight. Boring!

  She, Judy Moody, was sick and tired of rain.

  Judy put her head under the pillow. If only she was sick. Being sick was the greatest. You got to stay home and drink pop for

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  breakfast and eat toast cut in special strips and watch TV in your room. You got to read Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, mysteries all day. And you got to eat yummy cherry cough drops. Hey! Maybe Cherry Ames was named after a cough drop!

  Judy took out her mom's old Cherry Ames book and popped a cough drop in her mouth anyway.

  "Get up, Lazybones!" said Stink, knocking on her door.

  "Can't," said Judy. "Too much rain."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Just go to school without me."

  "Mom, Judy's skipping school!" Stink yelled.

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  Mom came into Judy's room. "Judy, honey. What's wrong?"

  "I'm sick. Of rain," she whispered to Mouse.

  "Sick? What's wrong? What hurts?"

  asked Mom.

  "My head, for one thing. From all that

  noisy rain."

  "You have a headache?"

  "Yes. And a sore throat. And a fever. And a stiff neck."

  "That's from sleeping with the dictionary under your pillow," said Stink. "To ace your spelling test."

  "Is not."

  "Is too!"

  "See, look. My tongue's all red." Judy

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  stuck out her Cherry-Ames-cough-drop tongue at Stink.

  Mom felt Judy's head. "You don't seem to have a fever."

  "Faker," said Stink.

  "Come back in five minutes," said Judy. "I'll have a fever by then."

  "Faker, faker, faker," said Stink.

  If only she had measles. Or chicken pox. Or ... MUMPS! Mumps gave you a headache. Mumps gave you a stiff neck and a sore throat. Mumps made your cheeks stick out like Humpty Dumpty. Judy pushed the cough drop into her cheek and made it stick out, Humpty-Dumpty style.

  "Mumps!" said Dr. Judy. "I think I have the mumps! For real!"

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  "Mumps!" said Stink. "No way. You got a shot for that. A no-mumps shot. We both did. Didn't we, Mom?"

  "Yes," said Mom. "Stink's right."

  "Maybe one mump got through."

  "Sounds like somebody doesn't want to go to school today," said Mom.

  "Can I? Can I stay home, Mom? I promise I'll be sick. All day."

  "Let's take your temperature," said Mom. She took the thermometer out of the case.

  "Cat hair?" said Mom. "Is this cat hair on the thermometer?"

  "She's always making Mouse stick out her tongue and taking the cat's temperature," said Stink.

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  Mom shook her head and went to wash off the thermometer. When she came back, she took Judy's temperature. "It's 98.6," said Mom. "Normal!"

  "Faker, faker, not-sick, big fat faker," said Stink.

  "At least my temperature's normal," said Judy. "Even if my brother isn't."

  "Better get dressed," said Mom. "Don't want to be late."

  "Stink? You're a rat fink. Stink Rat-Fink Moody. That's what I'll call you from now

  on."

  "Well, you'll have to call me it at school 'cause you don't get to stay home."

  Judy stuck out her cherry-red, no- mumps tongue at Stink.

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  She was down in the dumps. She had a bad case of the grumps. The no-mumps Moody Monday blues. She, Judy Moody, felt like Mumpty Dumpty! Mumpty Dumpty without a temperature, that is.

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  When Judy walked into Class 3T (seven minutes late!) on the un-mumpsy day of Monday, Class 3T was dry as a bone. Or bones! There were bones everywhere.

  Mr. Todd had made a new bulletin board: Our Amazing Body: From Head to Toe. It had a tall poster of bones with long scientific names. On the front board he taped a chart that showed rodent bones. It looked like the insides of Peanut, the dwarf guinea

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  pig in Class 3T. And ... sitting behind Mr. Todd's desk in Mr. Todd's chair, using Mr. Todd's pencil, was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton!

  Class 3T had turned into a bone museum!

  Bones were not drippy. Bones were not noisy. Bones were not boring. Bones were dry and quiet and very, very interesting!

  Things were sure looking up for a no- mumps Monday. Judy handed Mr. Todd her late slip. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "I almost had the mumps."

  "Well, I'm glad you're healthy, and here now. We're starting a new unit on the Human Body from head to toe."

  "We're going to get to jump rope," said

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  Jessica Finch. "And measure our heart rates."

  "And play Twister," said Rocky. "To learn about muscles."

  "And sing a song about bones," said Alison S.

  "I can't believe you started the human

  body without me!" said Judy. "A person

  can miss a lot in seven minutes."

  "Don't worry. I think you'll catch up," said Mr. Todd.

  Mr. Todd taught them a funny song

  that went, "Da foot bone's connected to da ankle bone. ..." He read them a book called Frozen Man, the incredible, real-life story of a five-thousand-year-old mummy.

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  And Class 3T got to turn out the lights and use the glow-in-the-dark skeleton named Bonita to count how many bones were in a human. Two hundred and six!

  "We'll be learning a lot of new words in this unit. The scientific names for bones and body parts come from Latin. So they may sound a little funny."

  "Like maxilla is your jaw?" asked Judy, looking at the bulletin board.

  "And so is mandible," said Jessica.

  Jessica Finch had already learned to spell microbes (a fancy word for germs, as in cooties!) and medulla (a fancy word for brain stuff). "Can you spell headache?" Judy asked. Frank Pearl cracked up at that one.

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  Then Mr. Todd passed out owl pellets. They got to poke them with a pencil to find bones. Rodent bones. Judy and Frank stared at their fuzzy gray lump.

  "Double bluck! Just think. This is owl spit-up!" said Frank.

  "It's still interesting," said Judy. "Real bones are in there. Skulls and stuff."

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  "You poke it," said Frank. So Judy poked it with her Grouchy pencil. They found a jawbone, a rib, and a bone Mr. Todd called a femur. They glued each bone onto paper and drew in all the missing bones to make a rodent skeleton that matched the one on the board.

  "Do any rodent bones have the same names as human bones?" asked Mr. Todd.

  Judy raised her hand.

  "Tibia," called out Jessica Finch.

  "Very good," said Mr. Todd.

  "That's what I was going to say," said Judy. Jessica Finch was a rat fink (like Stink!) for not raising her hand. A rodent fink.

  "Now let's talk about your Human Body projects," said Mr. Todd. "Projects will be

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  due in two weeks. You can do your project on bones, muscles, joints, the brain --"

  "Even toenails?" asked Bradley.

  "As long as it teaches us something about the human body. Let's start by writing down ideas in your notebooks. I want to see brainstorming."

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  Judy had a storm in her brain already.

  Rocky wanted to do three-thousand-yearold human body stuff. Mummies!

  "What are you thinking
of doing?" Judy asked Frank.

  "Cloning. I'll be a fiction scientist or a science fictiontist. Somebody who clones stuff. Like in Jurassic Park. They used a drop of mosquito blood and made a whole dinosaur. They do it in real life, too. Start with one cell, like from your DNA, and make a whole new you."

  " Double cool!" Judy said.

  "I'm going to write a dictionary," Jessica told Judy. "With human body words like appendix and patella. That's

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  your knee." Jessica Finch had cooties on the medulla if she thought she could rewrite the dictionary.

  Judy looked back at her own paper. She chewed her eraser. She chewed her fingernail. She chewed her hair. Judy had a brain wave! A real-body-parts idea. She would call Grandma Lou to see if she had any good body parts for Showing and Telling. Something better than scabs. This was the brainiest of all storms! She wrote down Call Grandma Lou so she wouldn't forget.

  Judy's just-sharpened Grouchy pencil was still flying when Mr. Todd said, "Class, that's enough brainstorming for today."

  "Good. My brain hurts," said Frank.

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  "I'm passing out permission slips for our

  field trip."

  Field trip! "Is it to Screamin' Mimi's?"

  asked Judy. "Please, please, pretty please with chocolate mud ice cream on top?"

  "Max and Kelsey's dad, from Class 3M, b'

  works at the hospital. So we're invited to go with their class to the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital emergency room. We'll learn all about the human body and get to see people who make a difference in action."

  Emergen cy room! That was even better than Screamin' Mimi's! Judy Moody dropped her mandiblel And her Grouchy pencil.

  "I was there when I broke my finger,"

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  said Frank, waving his crooked pinkie. "They have a nurse named Ron."

  "I went when my brother stuck a Lego up his nose," said Bradley.

  "Can we go see all the new babies?" asked Frank. "They're so wrinkly."

  "Well, I'm glad the whole class is enthusiastic," said Mr. Todd.

  "When do we go? When? When?" everybody asked.

  "Monday. One week from today. Dr. Nosier will be giving us a tour."

  "Dr. Nosehair!" said Rocky, and everybody cracked up.

  She, Judy Moody, and Class 3T were going to the ER. For real and absolute

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  positive. The blood-and-guts, real-body- parts emergency room.

  Judy reached down to pick up her Grouchy pencil. The tip was broken. "Mr. Todd," she asked, "may I please sharpen my pencil?"

  "Remember what we said about sharpening pencils ten times a day?"

  "But Mr. Todd," said Judy, "it's an emergency."

  "What?"

  "A pencil emergency! My pencil just broke its spinal cord!" said Judy.

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  The next Monday was a better-than-best-

  ever third grade day. At lunch, Judy ate her

  PBJ sandwich in seven bites, then walked

  not-ran to the playground. Class 3T had a ten-minute recess before their field trip to the hospital.

  Judy's mom was a driver and parent volunteer, so Rocky and Frank rode in their car. Mom made Judy ask Jessica Finch, too.

  "Did you know muscle comes from a

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  word that means mouse?" asked Jessica. "If you move a muscle, it looks like a mouse." She flexed her arm.

  Judy used all forty-three muscles it took to frown at Jessica Finch.

  At the hospital, Dr. Nosier led Class 3T down a long hall.

  "Why does that doctor lady have a rabbit?" asked Frank.

  "Animals aren't allowed in the hospital!" said Jessica.

  "It's a new program called Paws for

  Healing," Dr. Nosier told them. "People

  bring animals to patients in the hospital to help them feel better. Holding an animal and petting it can actually lower a person's

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  blood pressure, and help a patient forget about being sick."

  "RARE!" said Judy.

  Dr. N. took them into a room in back of the ER, where Class 3M was already waiting. There were lots of machines. And important-looking stuff.

  "What's the first thing you would do in an emergency?" quizzed Dr. Nosier.

  "Call 911!" everybody said.

  "Would you call 911 to find out how long to cook a turkey?"

  "Only if you're a turkey," Frank said. Judy and Frank cracked up.

  "Is a crossword puzzle an emergency?"

  "Only for my dad, who tries to beat the clock," said Judy.

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  "Believe it or not, we do get people who call 911 for such things. But let's say we have a real emergency, like a car accident or a heart attack. Everything around here

  happens super fast. As soon as the ambulance arrives, the E M Ts, people trained to handle medical emergencies, start 'giving the bulletin telling us what happened.

  Train wreck means the patient has lots of things wrong with them. Who knows what

  code blue means?"

  "Lots of blood?"

  "All the people in blue shirts have to help?"

  "It means somebody's heart stopped," said Dr. Nosier.

  "You fix hearts that stop?" asked Alison S.

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  "You must help a lot of people!" said Erica.

  "All doctors make a promise to help people. It's called the Hippocratic oath. Hippocrates was the Father of Medicine. In the old days, you had to swear by Apollo and Hygeia to help people the best you could. If you didn't know what was wrong with a patient, you had to say 'I know not.' The old oath sounds funny to us now, so a doctor named Louis Lasagnal rewrote it."

  "Louis Lasagnal Did he invent pizza, too?" asked Frank. Dr. N. laughed.

  "But how do you always know what to do?" asked Rocky.

  "Being a doctor is like being a detective. You look at all the clues and try to solve the

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  mystery. In the E R we just do it in a hurry.

  Think of it like each one of us is a human

  jigsaw puzzle. My job is to figure out the missing pieces and put the puzzle back

  together."

  "RARE!" whispered Judy.

  "I'm the best at jigsaw puzzles," bragged Jessica Finch. "I did a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle of Big Ben all by myself!" Sometimes Judy wished Jessica Finch would shut her mandible.

  "Now I'll show you what some of this stuff is for," said Dr. Nosier. Dr. Judy got to use a stethoscope to listen to her own heartbeat! Ba-boom, ba-boom! Then she took Frank's blood pressure (for real!), looked for Jessica Finch's tonsils, and saw

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  eye insides with a special kind of scope. They took turns riding on a bed called a gurney, walking with crutches, and sitting in a wheelchair.

  Dr. N. turned out all the lights and showed them x-rays. There was a brain (it looked all ghosty), a dog that got hit by a car (it looked all sideways), even a violin (it looked all dead!). "X-rays help solve the mystery," he said.

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  They even got to see a real live, ooeygooey heart on a TV. "This is better than the Operation Channel at home!" Judy said.

  And they got to practice on life-size dummies called Hurt-Head Harry and Trauma Tammy. "I have a practice doll, too," said Judy. "With three heads. HeddaGetBetta. I practice being a doctor, like Elizabeth Blackwell."

  "How would you like to practice being a patient with a broken arm?" asked Dr. N. "And I'll show everybody how we put on a cast."

  Judy Moody could not believe her inner, middle, or outer ears. "Can I, Mom?"

  "Sure, if you want to."

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  "Hold out your arm, Judy Moody, First Girl Doctor."

  Judy grinned with all seventeen muscles it takes to make a smile. She held her arm out straight as a snowman's stick-arm. Dr. N. wrapped it around and around with soft cotton stuff.

  "I'll use a special plaster bandage that turns hard when it
dries so Judy won't be able to move that arm. That way her bone will stay in place and heal back together."

  "My radius or my ulna?" asked Judy.

  "I see you know your bones! Can you still wiggle your phalanges?"

  Judy wiggled her fingers. Everybody laughed.

  "A not-broken arm is even better than a

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  broken arm! I wish I never had to take it off!

  "Tell you what," said Dr. Nosier. "If your mom says it's okay, you can wear it home. I'll show her how to take it off."

  "Can I, Mom? Can I? I can fool Stink! Please, pretty please with Band-Aids on top?"

  "I don't see why not," said Mom. "Sure!"

  "RARE!" said Judy. She, Judy Moody, was a mystery. A human jigsaw puzzle with a broken arm... NOT!

  Judy was so happy from Hospital Day that even her eyebrows were smiling. She stared at all the autographs on her cast. Even Dr. Nosier had signed it. His autograph looked like a messy blob, but still!

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  She could hardly wait to get home and show Dad her cast. Maybe she could even get out of setting the table, on account of her broken arm (not!). Wait till she told Stink!

  When she got home, Stink was waiting at the front door. Judy held up her cast.

  "You broke your arm?" asked Stink. "Sweet!"

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  She, Judy Moody, was in an operating mood! As soon as she got her cast off, Judy asked Stink to play Operation, a game where you remove body parts with tweezers and try NOT to make the buzzer go off. Dr. Judy performed a delicate operation and removed butterflies from the patient's stomach. Next she removed his broken heart. Stink went for the charley horse. Buzz! "Hey, his nose lights up red," he said.