Cleo is taking care of an elderly 79-year-old African-American woman.  Her name is Mrs. Howard and she has been brought in by her nursing home, because she has not been eating.  Cleo hands the woman over to Peter, who did surgery on her a month ago.   Carter chases after a little boy while screaming out his name, Simon.  Simon is running away from him and bumps into Abby.  He is running from Carter because he does not want his blood taken.  Abby and Carter are trying to calm Simon down, when Yosh comes in asking for their help.  He has been attacked by a patient and needs some assistance.  The man that attacked Yosh is going crazy.  He has a pillow case over his head and almost knocks Abby down.  Luka sees what is happening and he runs up to the patient and jabs his leg with an injection of haldol to calm him down.  Yosh tells Luka that he shouldn't have done that, because it was just an "April Fools" joke.  The man removes the pillow case off of his head to reveal that it is just Malucci.  Kerry gets on to them for playing jokes and tells them that it had better stop.  By this time, Malucci is already feeling the effects of the haldol.  As Kerry walks away, we see that they have tied some cans around her cane.  Carter returns to find that Simon has some company.  It is Rena from pediatrics.  She and Simon are blowing bubbles to calm him down.  Carter tells her that he will need to be held tight as he draws Simon's blood, but Rena disagrees.  She is able to get Simon's mind off of the needle and Carter is able to get the young boy's blood.  Abby watches on as Carter and Rena flirt around.  A school bus full of kids pulls up to the ER.  A boy is having an asthma attack and the other kids are complaining of fumes on the bus making them sick.  Elizabeth will need to operate on a gun shot victim who needs his liver repaired.  The man had been involved in a shoot out with two other officers.  She seems to be very happy being back in full swing.  As the asthmatic boy is being checked out, three other kids yell out insults and tease him from the bus windows.  The boy is overweight and has to have his shirt pulled off.  This does not make the teasing any better.  Elizabeth scrubs in for her surgery and Romano walks in.  They exchange insults about her being big and pregnant and him being short.  The police officer who was involved in the shoot out with Elizabeth's patient is being checked out by Peter.  The police officer's partner is with him.  As Peter is checking the officer out, Mrs. Howard begins talking to herself about something that is making her mad.  She speaks about her purse being stolen.  She walks over and grabs the police officer's gun and begins to wave it around.  The other officer sees the woman and fears for the safety of the other patients that are around.  The elderly woman will not drop the gun, so the officer shoots her and brings her to the ground.  Peter and Kerry try to save the woman.  She has been shot in the chest and seems to be critical.  The two officers try to get their story straight, before they are questioned about the incident.  This disturbs Peter.  All of the kids on the bus get examined.  Luka takes care of one of them.  She is a young lady who is concerned about the fumes she has inhaled.  She tells Luka that she thinks that she is pregnant.  Peter is unable to save his elderly patient.  Carter takes care of the asthmatic boy.  He is still startled about the incident with the woman and the gun.  He noticed that Carter had protected him and seems to be grateful that he did.  Carter tells him that he was scared also.  Elizabeth is working on her patient in surgery, when Romano comes in.  He sees that Shirley is rubbing Elizabeth's back.  Romano asks her if she needs anything else, and Elizabeth tells him that she would love to have some pizza and ice cream.  Romano wants to scrub in.  He shows her that there is more work to be done, she has overlooked an area that was damaged by the bullet.  The surgery will last longer than anticipated.  She tells him that she needs to go to the restroom, and he tells her that he can get someone else to take over for her.  She tells him that she can handle it.  She tells Shirley to put a Foley catheter in her and she will continue.  Romano excuses her to go take a break and then return.  Carter wants the boy to tell him about the fumes on the bus. The boy seems reluctant to tell, fearing that the boys will retaliate. Carter tells him that he knew a boy similar to him and he grew up to be a doctor and was able to get revenge.  Carter talks the boy into telling him where the fumes came from.  The three boys that were teasing him have been sniffing the fumes.  Mark tries to get the boys to tell him what they were inhaling, but the boys will not tell him.  Carter goes to see Rena.  He tells her that he may have jumped the gun too early in telling her that they should not see each other.  He would like to have lunch with her, but she tells him that she will have to think about it.  Mark and Malik scare one of the boys into telling him what they have been inhaling.  It was carpet spotter, so Mark decides to run some tests on them.  Mark and Cleo take care of a woman named Laura, who was in a car accident.  She tells him that she has to leave.  She was on her way to her gynecologist to have her eggs harvested.  She is ovulating and needs to leave right away.  Mark tells her that she can not leave and Cleo tells her that they will call her doctor, Dr. Alexander, to have her come there.  Luka learns that his young patient is pregnant.  He speaks with her about her options.  Peter takes care of the cop who had his gun taken from the elderly woman.  The cop tells Peter that the other cop who shot the woman is raising her two kids on her own.  She is a good cop and if the investigation goes the wrong way, it could ruin her life.  Luka tells Abby about his pregnant patient.  The girl's mother does not know about it and Abby tells Luka that they can not tell her.  Luka ends up giving out enough hints for the mother to figure it out.  The mother tells her daughter that she will have an abortion before she leaves the hospital.  The girl tells her mother that she will not and that she will be a better mother than she has been to her.  Mark has to tell one of the boys who has been inhaling the spotter, that he is in liver failure and will need a transplant.  The boy's parents will need to be called and they will learn that their son has been inhaling for a long time now.  Mark's patient, Laura, who was in the car accident has a stroke.  Peter speaks with the investigator regarding his elderly patient who was shot by the officer.  Peter thinks that it should be investigated more than what they are doing.  Abby walks up as Carter and Rena are making plans for later.  Carter hushes up, so that Abby will not hear.  Rena inquires why, and Carter tells her that Abby may get upset, because she use to have a "thing" for him.  Laura's husband, Greg, comes to see her.  Mark tells him about her having a stroke.  He is confused about how a young woman like that could have a stroke.  Mark tells him that it was probably caused from the fertility drugs she was taking.  He is even more confused.  Mark tells him that his wife was having her eggs harvested and was selling them.  The husband had no idea.  He tells Mark that they have been having financial problems and that he was about to lose his hardware store.  She was doing this for him, and now she is unconscious.  Peter tells Cleo that the reason their elderly patient was acting the way she was, is because she was severely dehydrated.  This made her delusional.  That is the reason the woman took the gun.  This makes Cleo feel guilty.  She did not take the time to evaluate her properly and then she just turned her over to Peter.  Peter tells her that he had done the same.  Rena comes down to find Carter, but runs into Abby instead.  She introduces herself to Abby and tells her that she hope that there are no hard feelings.  She knows how difficult it must be to know that Carter is seeing someone else.  Abby seems to be surprised.  Dr. Alexander comes to harvest Laura's eggs, but meets disapproval by her husband.  He does not want her touched.  Mark speaks with Dr. Alexander and she explains to him that they will probably need the money even more now that she will have to have a long stay in the hospital.  Mark goes to explain the situation to Greg.  Carter bumps into Abby and sees that she is agitated.  He wants to know what is bothering her and she tells him that it is because they are not together anymore.  He realizes that she has spoken with Rena.  Abby wants to make it clear to him that she dumped him and not that he dumped her.  Carter tells her that if they were truly together, that she would never dump him.  Mark watches as Dr. Alexander harvests his patient's eggs.  Luka has decided to payback Malucci for the "April Fools" joke.  He has put derma-bond on Malucci's hand and stuck it to his head.  Abby watches on and snickers.  Elizabeth has finally finished her all day surgery.  She comes down and Mark sees how exhausted she is.  She gets up on a gurney and lies down.  She has decided to stay the night on the gurney, because she is too tired to go home.  Romano has sent her some pepperoni pizza and ice cream.  She finally feels that he has accepted her being pregnant and able to perform surgery.  She now has decided that it is officially time for her to go on maternity leave.                                     

Reviewed by Tony Conner on 03-30-2001