On Earning My Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge

I started well. I asked, ‘‘Are you OK?’’ I listened
at its mouth for breath—there was none. I tilted

back its head to clear its airways. I took its pulse;
again, nothing. I held closed its nose and breathed twice

in its mouth. I crouched above its chest and marked my place
on its spring-loaded sternum with three fingers, two of which

I took away so I could cradle the heel of my hand where
my last finger had been. I pressed down. I counted,

‘‘and one and two and three and four,’’ but I didn’t
finish in time. The volunteer fireman said to me, ‘‘He’d be dead

by now. So what do you think? Should I certify you?’’
I knew if I did what I’d done as slowly as I’d done it,

to someone who really was in trouble, I wouldn’t save her.
I knew that if she seemed to be in trouble, I wouldn’t even

get up and offer that I knew CPR. I knew that, were there others
in the room, especially grown-ups, I would act like I didn’t know

what CPR was. But he gave me my card, as if to say, to know emergency,
you must know tardiness, you must know shame.

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