DAWN WILL RISE

By Tessa Harvey

    It was taking too long. Their other two babies had slipped relatively easily into the world. His parents had taken them away yesterday with promises of a trip to the local zoo and a new brother or sister soon.
    in the small homely, the doctor told Jan "I have called for the ambulance. They won't be long. Could you stay and give directions, please, Jan."     
    He quickly swallowed a few sips of his tepid coffee and hastened to the bedroom upstairs.
    Ella was murmuring something about a platypus, happy because some frogs had stirred up breakfast for him in the pool. 
    Dr Bailey, puzzled, felt her forehead. No fever. "It's the bathroom soap," explained Jan. "It looks like pictures in the patterns."
    "Yes," whispered Ella faintly. "On the other side a tired mummy sheep with a new baby lamb: only the pain is coming back for there are twins...."
    "Twins!" Archibald Bailey berated himself for never considering that possibility.
    As the paramedics came, he told them.

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