After lunch her boss left to go pinch some lambs.
“Down, Dain’y.”
“I will in a minute.”
She used a measuring tape to check the size of a piece of plywood she had cut, then carried the plywood sheet up the ladder. If the ibuprofen didn’t kick in soon, she would have to take a break and go find a hot water bottle.
Inwardly, she swore. Her period wasn’t usually like this. Not since she was eleven or twelve.
She screwed the sheet of plywood in place. The nail gun felt heavier than usual, which was strange.
She climbed down the ladder.
A rubbery whirling noise in the bush grew louder before a tight clump of orange-footed scrub fowl materialized out of the underbrush and ran across the clearing. They ran in a line, in unison, heads up, necks extended, before disappearing back into the rainforest.
She found what she was looking for, the roll of weather-proof plastic paper, then carried it up the ladder. On top of the roof, she unrolled it and laid it out flat. She cut it with a Stanley knife from her toolbelt.
She carried the rest of the heavy roll under her arm down the ladder.
Lightheaded, she found the staple gun and plugged it into the same generator as the nail gun with a matching extension cord. The generator hummed.
She climbed up the ladder again, slowly this time, favoring her middle, then ignored the pain while she leaned on the roof with her left hand, stapling weatherproof paper in place with the staple gun in her right.
These period cramps were truly miserable. A bad one gripped her and twisted. The ladder wobbled, or maybe she did. She leaned closer to the roof.
A flash of pain doubled her over, pushing her chest into the waterproof paper. For a moment she thought she had stapled herself. Her right hand still clutched the staple gun. The other gripped the ladder.
She tried a deep breath. The pain pressed back.
Don’t move.
She groped in her back pocket for her phone, almost dropping it. She stared down at her shaking hand. That was a bad sign. She didn’t usually shake like that.
She weighed her options and decided to drop the staple gun, which hit the ground with a bang.
One bar of reception.
Lightheaded, she called Reg.
No phone service.
Below, the generator roared. She brushed the phone along her thigh, but couldn’t find a pocket. Shivering, she started down the ladder.
She came to on the ground, looking up at the sky through tree branches. The sky was one of those tricky colors between indigo and white. Something bit into the middle of her back, behind her belly button, like a sharp stick. She explored with her left hand. No stick there. Nothing poked into her back. She must have pulled a muscle when she fell. She flexed both hands and both feet, relieved that she still could.
Not paralyzed, then.
The pain in her back and stomach grew.
Panic wouldn’t solve this problem. She scanned the clearing, had to get to her truck.
Pain vacillated. When she moved it moved. It had a velocity, a direction. She groaned.
Waves of hot and cold, like food poisoning. She cradled her stomach and pressed her other hand to the ground. There was no way she could crawl to the truck.
Trees around the clearing danced. She waited for her eyes to focus, for her vision to clear. She turned her head. The truck was uphill. Dropping her phone had been a mistake.
Maybe her appendix had burst.
