"I can't do this!" I wailed as we parked at Pacini's, my favourite restaurant.

"Don't be a chicken!" Harry said.

"You didn't have a spooky old lady tell you that you'd die at Pacini's! Or friends who egged you to go there because she did! You wouldn't be laughing in my place."

Gabby squeezed my knee. "Order spaghetti. Eat one noodle at a time."

I wiped the sweat from my brow and nodded. "That's a good plan."

Inside, all I noticed were ways to die. Trip on a butter knife. Impaled on a chair leg. Fluorescent light falling on me. Squashed in a door.

I nearly jumped out of my seat when my meal was served.

Harry leaned towards me. "Chill! Hey, I've got some new jokes to make you feel better."

"Hmmm...I don't see how a joke can kill me. Alright, hit me."

Harry ate a monster mouthful of spaghetti, then said, "What's the difference between a guitar and a fish?" I shrugged. "You can't tuna fish. Get it? Tuna - tuner."

I grinned and spoke around the lone noodle I was carefully sucking in one careful inch at a time. "That's a good one."

"Okay, what did one toilet say to the other toilet? You look flushed."

I chuckled a bit more. Harry was right, laughing was helping ease my nerves.

By joke nine I'd successfully gotten through four noodles and was laughing outright.

I speared one of the meatballs I'd earlier moved to the side of my plate for safe keeping.

Harry slapped his knee. "This one is great. Why did the Clydesdale give the pony a glass of water? Because he was a little horse."

I guffawed and the meatball fell to the floor. "Darn," I said, then breathed a sigh of relief. Better on the floor than stuck in my throat.

I picked up my glass of perfectly harmless water - no ice - and took a swig.

"Why shouldn't you write with a broken pencil? Because it's pointless!"

I inhale-laughed, which meant the gulp of water I was in the midst of swallowing went into my lungs instead of my stomach.

I began coughing to expel the water burning my bronchioles. I gasped, trying to suck in air, but ended up coughing more. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed as the broncus spasmed.

Black spots swam before my eyes. Desperate for a breath, I fell to the ground.

As I lay on the floor, staring up at the horrified faces above me, their mouths moving but hearing no sound, my last thought was surprise that it was possible to choke on water.

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