Sammy knelt, too, and patted David’s shoulder. Charles stared at them. He felt as if he’d been frozen in a block of ice, like he couldn’t move his hands or feet. Wasn’t there something he could do? David moaned. “Charles! Go upstairs and call nine-one-one,” said David’s mother. Of course. He should have thought of that before. He forgot about being frozen and dashed to the stairs. He started up, taking them two at a time. “Take it slow, Charles!” called David’s mother. “We don’t need another accident.” Charles slowed down a teensy bit. Upstairs, he ran to the kitchen phone. Way back when he was the Bean’s age, his dad had taught Charles about calling 911. Dad had always told him that for real, true emergencies when you needed help fast, dialing 911 was the best way to call the police, or firefighters, or an ambulance. He knew that you should never call 911 just for fun or as an experiment to see what would happen. But this was definitely an emergency. So for the very first time, Charles was about to punch those numbers into a telephone.
