The next two weeks passed by swiftly, and soon it was time for Nasty's appointment with Doctor Steiner. The brave little girl hoped that she would meet Heidi again, but she was nowhere to be seen. As it turned out, the visit was eventful for other reasons.

As she crutched into the waiting room she spotted a handsome brown-haired guy in his mid-twenties, with both of his arms in short blue fiberglass casts. He smiled and started to wave with his left arm whilst his right arm rested in a sling. Nasty returned the gesture with a wave of her crutch, and then she noticed the boy was not alone. There was also a woman (obviously his girlfriend), slightly overweight but very cute with long dark hair, deep blue eyes and a cheerful wide smile full of perfect pearly white teeth. She wore a silk sarong in various shades of blue and a grey tank top…and a short leg cast on her right leg, of course.

The couple seemed familiar to Nasty instantly, but she just couldn't remember who they were. She sat on the bench next to them, leaned her crutches against it and placed her casted leg across the crutches: "Hi there!"

"Hi," replied the guy, "Aren't you Nasty, Simon's girlfriend?"

Yeah that's it. Nasty finally remembered Lothar, Simon's former schoolmate, and she's Pauli. Simon and Nasty met them occasionally in the pubs and supermarkets of Bad Reichenhall.

"Yup, that's me. What the hell happened to you two?" wondered Nasty.

"Two weeks ago I went rollerblading," started Lothar.

"...And he immediately fell and broke his right wrist," continued Pauli. "I picked him up in the car, but as we were rushing to the hospital some van had missed the ‘STOP’ sign and we crashed. Lothar broke his left wrist too, as well as his right collarbone, and I broke my ankle. And what happened to you?"

Nasty just couldn’t help laughing a little at her friends’ misfortune, then she traded her tale of the platform-staircase accident. Bad Reichenhall was a small town and she didn't know them well enough to tell the truth. As it turned out Lothar had just had his next x-ray, where everything was healing fine. Now they were sitting and waiting for Pauli's pictures, and the three of them were soon joined in the waiting room by the x-ray nurse, who called Nasty in.

Half an hour later Doctor Steiner called both babes into the castroom: "Well, I have good news for both of you, young ladies. Your ankles are doing well, the bones are knitting fine. Pauli, you'll get a walking heel attached to your cast. Nasty, you'll get your cast shortened below the knee."

"Will I get the heel, too?" asked Nasty swiftly.

"Easy Nasty, let things take their time," smiled the doctor. "Pauli's break was much simpler, she had suffered a hairline fracture and there was no dislocation."

"Don't worry, I'm just asking," shrugged Nasty. "I like those heels, you know."

Nasty sat up on the empty stretcher nearby, stretched out her good leg and wiggled her toes. She was used to crutches enough to wear an 8-centimetre wedge platform sandal on her good foot. "You really want to break another leg, Nasty," Pauli teased her.

"Would you like to join me on the uneven bars next week, Pauli? Guess who'd be better!" Nasty retorted.

"I know you are stupid enough to do that, Nasty," intervened the doctor, "please, leave the normal people alone. I have enough patients already."

Pauli was treated first, so Nasty just sat on her stretcher, swinging her good foot and babbling about her gymnastics adventures. Meanwhile, Doctor Steiner placed a rubber heel in the middle of Pauli's cast sole and fastened it to the cast with several rolls of plaster. The additional layers of plaster made Paula's ankle even thicker and the new, bright parts distinguished sharply from older parts of her cast that were worn already. The signatures and sketches were suddenly interrupted by bright new whiteness.

"Can I walk on it now, doc?" she asked.

"Not yet Pauli, your ankle's still broken, don't forget that. Until the end of next week you can touch the ground with that walking heel, rest your foot and not much more. Then you'll start to add more and more weight on your injured leg, but be very careful at first," the doctor explained. "The pain will remind you anyway. And don't try to walk without crutches, not at first. You can practice walking movements with your leg, touch the ground, but you must lean the majority of your weight on the crutches, not on the leg. We'll book an appointment after two weeks and then you'll start to put the weight on that leg as well. If everything's alright, we'll remove your cast at the end of the month."

"Hey cheer up, Pauli," blurted out Nasty. "You look great in that cast. Soon you'll find how funny it is to hobble around in. And your friends are gonna replace those lost autographs, too."

Pauli caught some Nasty's enthusiasm and smiled: "Hey, you're right Nasty, it's not that bad at all. I have to go now, we'll see each other somewhere... By the way, you and Simon should come to visit us one day. I'll give you our phone number."

"We’ll make it a date," nodded Nasty. "I have plenty of time now and Hillbilly will take some time off. I'll call you!"

"Bye, Nasty, get well soon!"

"You too, Pauli," replied Nasty as she turned to the doctor: "Now it should be my turn? Please cut my cast neatly, I'd like to keep it."

"Do you still keep all the casts you get?" asked the doctor. Nasty answered with a wide, innocent and knowing smile. "That's what I thought... And what are you doing with them? Putting them on yourself when you don't have anything broken?"

No doubt Doctor Steiner had learned something about cast enthusiasts, Nasty noticed, but she didn't want to reveal herself: "Why the hell should I?" she thought. If the truth be told, Nasty never faked the casted feeling. As it turned out she always had enough reasons for wearing a real medical cast.

"Doc, you probably think I'm some mad self-mutilator, but I'm not. I guess I'm too optimistic sometimes, that's all. All the fucking jerks around speak about 'positive thinking', 'looking on the brighter side of life' and everything, but I only break bones from displaying such optimistic behavior."

"Now I really am confused," shrugged the doctor as he started to cut Nasty's cast with vibrating cast saw.

"Simple," grinned Nasty. "I'm always too optimistic, as I said. When I'm on the urban warfare drill ground I see two windows and three meters of empty space between them. 'Could I jump across or not?' I ask myself and I'm optimistic. Two months in the cast is the result of my positive thinking. I ask myself could I ski over that icy flank without slowing down, and I believe in my abilities again. I end up in a cast again. Would it be possible to go down some stairs on my mountain bike? Another optimistic, self-confident decision and another broken bone. So don't tell me that positive philosophy means healthy life."

"Well, I can't really help you there," laughed doctor. "I'm only an orthopaedic surgeon, not a shrink... Sorry, I didn't mean..."

"I know Doc," Nasty didn't resent that, "but I don't need a shrink, my antics are fine. A good orthopaedist is all I need, and I already have one... Damn, I'm being too optimistic again!"

Doctor Steiner carefully lifted off the upper half of Nasty's cast, before he dug her leg out of the padding and stockinette. Nasty's optimism was gone immediately when she saw her leg.

"Son of a bitch, that's awful! Disgusting! Do something, Doc!"

"Hey, calm down." The doctor soothed, "there isn't much dead skin... Shhh, I'll clean that."

Really there wasn't much of that grayish film that forms under the cast, as Nasty's leg wasn't casted long. Besides, it seemed her body settled into casts quickly so she never had many problems. Doctor Steiner took a few paper towels, soaked them in some antiseptic solution and slowly and gently rubbed all traces of dead skin off Nasty's perfectly shaped leg.

Despite that Nasty groaned again: "It's still there! I knew it would happen, it always happens!"

"The hair," whimpered the brave little girl after the doctor's questioning look.

"Now you are exaggerating," laughed the doctor. Indeed, there was only a little fair hair over Nasty's lower leg, but it upset her very much.

"From the neck down, there should be no hair on woman's body," she seriously stated. "That's the basis of our civilization and of our culture, as my clever sister said."

"No hair from the neck down, huh?" grinned the doctor mischievously.

"Exactly, I can show you if you don't believe me," chuckled Nasty. Then she looked down her leg again and groaned again: "Damn fuckin' leg hair, it should be forbidden by the law... As I can't prevent them from growing under the cast, at least I can be prepared for them. Hand me my backpack, please."

Doctor Steiner shook his head, but passed her the backpack without question. Nasty impatiently took out her cordless Braun Silkepil epilator and removed the hair from her leg with sigh of relief: "Thank God, now I'm a human being again...you can do your stuff now, doc. By the way, could I get a colorful fibreglass cast now?"

"Sure you can," laughed the doctor. "Let me guess the colour. Pink?"

"It's one of my favorite colours," she hesitated a while, "but no, I have pink crutches already. Do you have pale blue maybe? To match my eyes?"

"Or your hair?"

"Whatever," shrugged brave little babe. "Not too dark, most people would like to autograph it with a black felt tip pen."

The doctor brought a few different rolls of fiberglass and Nasty chose the light blue one - the colour of summer sky or tropical sea. Full of expectation she propped herself up on her elbows and admired doctor's work, although her ankle had started to throb a little after all that manipulation. She willingly lifted her leg and the doctor pulled on the stockinette, then continued to wrap it gently with thick cotton padding.

"Your bones are healing fine, maybe just a little slowly. Do you eat enough dairy products, proteins and so on, Nasty?"

"I do, but I wondered, maybe..." she grinned mysteriously, "C'mon, doc, lean down here..."

The girl whispered something into the doctor's ear and his eyes widened suddenly: "Are you sure?!"

"Pretty sure," smiled Nasty. "C'mon let's finish that cast, I have plenty of things to do. Not least calling my mother and telling her about my recent break."

"You haven't told your parents about the accident yet?" exclaimed the doctor.

"Of course I haven't, my Mum is a living panic. She would insist on coming here and taking care of me or something," explained Nasty.

"Your choice," grinned the doctor.

"Honestly, I waited till now, when I got the short cast... What a pity, I'll miss my full leg cast," sighed Nasty. "She's always so upset when I get injured, although I don't give a shit about that. I didn't have the heart to tell her yet."

"Maybe you're right, why bother her if it’s not necessary." replied the doctor, whilst carefully modelling sticky layers of fiberglass around Nasty's arch. He paid great attention in following the shape of the girl's leg and foot without any wrinkles. He liked to make just a perfect cast, like Nasty, and not some bulky piece of crap that looked like a fisherman's boot.

He turned the excess stockinette back and secured it with short strip of fiberglass around the ball of Nasty's casted foot. She wiggled her revealed toes and she bended her leg to see the cast from all sides: "What a perfect job, Doc! Well, my knee's still a bit rigid, but I'll wake it up."

"It's normal after three weeks in the cast," the doctor soothed, "it will even swell a little through the day but that will be gone in few days."

Nasty wiggled her toes again. Her toenails were polished metallic silver to match the sandal on her good foot and the polish fitted cutely to her pale blue cast that went right up to just under her knee: "Congratulations, you always made a beautiful, 'just right' cast. Not too thick, not too thin, even and smooth as it would be part of my body. Had I already told you, that your casts never itch me at all?"

"I'm glad to hear that, Nasty, especially from such casting expert...experienced cast-wearer, I mean.” The doctor blushed a little.

"Damn right, I do have experience." Nasty laughed, "and you are definitely applying the best casts I've ever worn." She climbed off the stretcher, reached for her crutches and after another admiring glance to her casted leg she gave the doctor a quick peck on his cheek: "Thanks again, Doc! See you in three weeks, right?"

"Be careful not to return earlier, you little..." laughed the doctor as he opened her the door.