This is an illustrated story that comes with a set of cards, depicting the green medicine bottles with the letters of the alphabet.

Mrs Bloomfield was a crusty old hypochondriac. She loved being ill and if she did not have a real illness, she invented one to get attention.

“Help! Help!” Mrs Bloomfield called from her bed. “I am hearing trumpets. Loud trumpets!”

“You are not ill,” the doctor said, peering over his clipboard. “In fact, you should take the bus into town and treat yourself at a restaurant. See a movie.”

Mrs Bloomfield flopped back on her pillow. “If only I could, Doctor. If only I could. But my knees are—”

The doctor had heard too many of Mrs Bloomfield’s symptoms, so he stopped listening.

In the lunch room the doctor met a nurse with bright eyes. “I think I know how to help Mrs Bloomfield” she said, and told the doctor her plan.

“I don’t see how it can do any harm,” he said.

Her name was Amy Melaney and she was new at the Aged Care Home. She was young and clever and had a wicked sense of humour.

That weekend, she lined up a set of green bottles on her bench. Into each she put a dash of this and a pinch of that from her pantry. Then she filled them two thirds with raspberry cordial and topped them off with water. On each bottle she painted a letter of the alphabet.

*  *  *

On Monday morning, Amy Melaney wheeled a trolley into Mrs Bloomfield’s room. “Good morning,” she sang as she opened the curtains. “And how are we today, Mrs Bloomfield?”

“We are awful!” Mrs Bloomfield croaked. “Didn’t sleep a wink.” This was not true. She had snored like a chainsaw.

Amy Melaney bustled about. She straightened the room and fussed with the blankets and Mrs Bloomfield’s eyes found the green bottles on the trolley. She peered at them suspiciously. Curiously. Hopefully. The only thing a hypochondriac loves more than being ill is taking medicine.

‘Now,” Amy Melaney said as she sat beside Mrs Bloomfield and folded her hands. “I want you to tell me all about your symptoms. You hear trumpets?”

Mrs Bloomfield nearly swallowed her false teeth. Nobody ever wanted to listen to Mrs Bloomfield.

“Trumpets!” she said, lifting her hands like a conductor. “Trumpets in the morning. Trumpets in the night. I hear trumpets! A dreadful sound.”

Amy Melaney scribbled in a small book. Mrs Bloomfield arched an eyebrow, but Amy cleverly held the notebook out of view. “And what else? Your knees?”

“Trembling. Always trembling,” Mrs Bloomfield said sorrowfully.

Amy Melaney’s pen squiggled. “And?”

Mrs Bloomfield leaned forward to whisper in horror. “And my movements are like treacle. Black and sticky.”

Amy Melaney grimaced, which made Mrs Bloomfield smile a satisfied smile and lean back on her pillows.

Amy Melaney stood abruptly.

“What are you doing?” Mrs Bloomfield asked.

“I’m blending you a medicine,” Amy Melaney said. “Your symptoms are trumpets, trembling and treacle.” She repeated the words again, slowly, making the first two sounds very clear. “TRumpets. TRembling. TReacle.”

Then she selected two bottles from her cart and sat them side-by-side.

Can you guess which ones?

[This is where the child reader can sort through a deck of cards and put those depicting the  T and R bottle on the right part of the illustration on the page.]

Mrs Bloomfield watched as Amy Melaney carefully measured out medicine from the T bottle and then the R bottle and then she reached out eagerly. “You know I don’t like medicine. It always tastes bad.”

“Well, it has a job to do, Mrs Bloomfield.” Amy Melaney said.

*  *  *

That afternoon, Mrs Bloomfield called from her bed. “Nurse, Nurse?”

Amy Melaney entered, eyes bright. “What’s the matter?”

Mrs Bloomfield pretended she couldn’t see Amy and let her eyes wander about the room. “Are you there, dear? My vision is cloudy.” 

Yes?” Amy Melaney said, and sat beside her. “What else?”

“My teeth are clenched and my hands are clawed,” Mrs Bloomfield showed off her bent fingers.

Amy wheeled the trolley in. “Cloudy. Clawed. Clenched,” she repeated, looking at the bottles, and Mrs Bloomfield supervised with a very sharp, very unclouded eye.

“Perfect,” Amy said, blending some medicine from the C and the L bottle. Mrs Bloomfield took it with a distinctly unclawed hand and drank it happily, “What a dreadful taste,” she said.

*  *  *

On Tuesday morning, Mrs Bloomfield had a new disease.

“I swallowed a fly. Now my ears are all floppy and I have flatulence.”

Fly. Floppy. Flatulence. Amy said, and blended the medicine.

“Does that feel better?” Amy asked. 

“When one cheats death daily as I do, nothing feels better!” Mrs Bloomfield answered. “But maybe I could have a little more–?”

*  *  *

On Tuesday afternoon, there was heavy silence from Mrs Bloomfield’s room and just a few minutes before the shift ended, Amy Melaney heard a voice.

“Nurse! Nurse!”

When Amy saw Mrs Bloomfield, she nearly laughed out loud. Mrs Bloomfield’s face looked like a toddler’s fingerpainting. Red lipstick smudged her face. Her eyes were dark.  “What’s wrong with me?” she moaned. “I can’t stop blinking, I have a black eye, and a blood nose.”

Sure enough, her eyelids were pumping up and down like roller shutters, and her makeup was kind of like blood and a black eye.

“Oh, dear,” Amy Melaney said. “I have just the thing!” And she drew out two bottles and blended them to make a cure.

Amy Melaney had to hand it to her. Mrs Bloomfield was really putting the effort in.

*  *  *

On Wednesday morning Mrs Bloomfield was swimming in her bed. “I dreamed of the Channel and when I woke early, my legs were doing frog kids and my arms were doing freestyle. I just can’t help it. I’m freezing and frightened.” She clutched at Amy Melaney’s arm. “How long can a body survive in the open ocean?”

Amy Melaney smiled and blended up two bottles, and Mrs Bloomfield did a good job of swimming in her bed and drinking the medicine at the same time.

Amy Melaney sat and held Mrs Bloomfield’s hand until the symptoms faded. Then she got Mrs Bloomfield a nice hot cup of tea and a biscuit.

*  *  *

On Wednesday afternoon, Amy came into the room to find Mrs Bloomfield peering at her hands.“These spots weren’t here this morning.”

Amy Melaney examined the freckles and clucked her tongue in worry. “Ooh, they don’t look good, Mrs Bloomfield. Not. At. All.”

Mrs Bloomfield’s arm shot out stiff. “Oh, oh!” she said.

“A spasm in your elbow?” Amy Melaney asked.

“Yes, exactly. A spasm,” Mrs Bloomfield said.

“How about I order you a massage–” Amy Melaney began, but Mrs Bloomfield clutched at her arm.

“It’s much too serious for alternative therapies, Nurse. What we need here is some good, hard medicine.”

So Amy Melaney ran her finger along the bottles and selected the right ones for spasms and spots. She blended the miracle cure right there in front of Mrs Bloomfield and made her drink it.

*  *  *

On Thursday morning Mrs Bloomfield was worried about her stomach. “I can feel it go glug glug glug, like everything inside has turned to glue. And my mucus is globby. Look. I kept some in a tissue to show you.”

Amy Melaney looked in the tissue and nodded without making a face. Nurses are good like that. “It’s certainly not brown or green, so that’s good news. It just means we have to act quickly, before the illness halts your glycogen production.

“What would happen then?” Mrs Bloomfield asked.

“I suspect you’d drop dead on the floor within seconds,” Amy Melaney said.

“Oh dear,” Mrs Bloomfield said in happy horror.

Amy Melaney blended the medicine for glug, glue and globby.

*  *  *

On Thursday afternoon, the only thing Mrs Bloomfield could come up with was a dripping nose and a drummy tummy. Her eyes were far away and she took the blended medicine without complaint or comment. Amy Melaney was a little disappointed, to be honest. She was enjoying Mrs Bloomfield’s creativity.

*  *  *

On Friday morning, there was no illness. Not a peep. Not a word from Mrs Bloomfield’s room.

“What’s wrong with her?” the nurses at the station whispered to each other, and to Amy Melaney they said, “What did you do?”

Amy Melaney said she didn’t know, and she was beginning to worry.

Then, on Friday afternoon, at two o’clock, the nurses heard Mrs Bloomfield’s call bell ring three times and her pillow flew into the corridor. This means someone is coding. The nurses rolled their eyes.

Amy Melaney wheeled in her trolley. “This sounds like an emergency,” she said breezily.

“It is,” Mrs Bloomfield said. “A most terrible emergency!”

What is it?

“My heart is going badoomp badoomp and my feet are numb and tingling.”

“Oh dear,” Amy Melaney said, looking at her bottles, and then “Oh dear!” when she realised none of them would help.

“And the worst part,” Mrs Bloomfield said, “Is that my face is stuck. Look.”

Amy Melaney tore her eyes away from her bottles and looked.

Mrs Bloomfield was staring. Her wrinkled face was flat and hard. “I can’t even move my mouth.”

Amy Melaney’s heart began to thud. This wasn’t funny anymore. She reached for the buzzer to call the doctor–and paused.

Mrs Bloomfield’s lip was twitching. Then she made a sound deep in her throat. There was the smallest twinkle in her eye.

Mrs Bloomfield was laughing!

Amy Melaney tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it.

Mrs Bloomfield tried to not smile, but she couldn’t help it either.

“All those silly bottles,” Mrs Bloomfield said, and guffawed.

“All those silly illnesses,” Amy Melaney said. “Your eyes were cloudy!”

“I swam to France!” And Mrs Bloomfield threw back her head and laughed out loud.

Amy laughed too, and they laughed together until they were both wiping tears from their eyes.

“Tell me,” Mrs Bloomfield said, “What is in that medicine?”

“Lemon juice, fish sauce, salt, curry powder, marmalade–and raspberry cordial.”

This set Mrs Bloomfield off again, until she was stuffing the bedsheets into her mouth.

When they could both breathe again, Amy held up a finger. “I do have something for you that’s not imaginary.” She took a large, square package from the bottom of the trolley and passed it to Mrs Bloomfield.

“What’s this?” Mrs Bloomfield asked as she tore away the paper.

Inside were the prettiest pair of white walking shoes Mrs Bloomfield had ever seen. “Oh,” she said in wonder, and she held them up to look them over.

“I finish work early this afternoon. How about the two of us go into town, find a nice restaurant and eat something tasty?”

“That sounds wonderful!” Mrs Bloomfield said.

So that is exactly what they did.