Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse (10 page)
Read Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse Online
Authors: Helen Wells
You look as though you were going to fall asleep on your feet any minute. Want me to send a stewardess in here to relieve you while you catch a little shut-eye?” Timmy arched his back in rage. “Don’t want anybody ’cept Cherry.”
Cherry smiled her thanks at the purser. “I won’t be through with this little patient for another half hour anyway. By that time his mother should be back from breakfast. But thanks for thinking about me.” Ziggy produced a toothpick and chewed on it while Cherry, using the dispensary mortar and pestle he had thoughtfully brought in, pounded four of the sulfa tablets into a powder. She mixed this powder with the strained prunes on Timmy’s ignored breakfast tray.
“Have a compliment for you, Miss Cherry,” Ziggy said gruffl y. “When I was telling Doc that you were among those present when I discovered the, er—shall we say accident, in my offi ce yesterday, he seemed right pleased that you had neglected to report same to him. Says he to me, ‘Miss Cherry is one of those rare combinations of beauty and the beast.’ Or was it 86
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
beauty and brains?” Ziggy fl ed, embarrassed at the slip of his tongue.
Cherry laughed, thankful that she had resisted the temptation to gossip. Timmy promptly sat up. “Tell me the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ Cherry. I have a bear, too. Only he’s not a ’chanted prince. He’s a fuzzy-wuzzy bear. But I losted him, so p’raps he’s not fuzzy-wuzzy any more.”
Cherry could not suppress a weary yawn. “That’s too bad, Timmy,” she got out in the middle of the yawn.
“Now if you eat up every speck of your prunes I’ll tell you the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ” Patiently she spooned the fruit and sulfa mixture into him and started the vaporizer going. From inside his tent, Timmy said excitedly:
“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. Waidy says we’re going to have a big tree in the
liberry.
I’m going to get all well quick so I can see it. ’N’ I’m going to hang up my stocking by the fi replace in the great big living room. It’s a fake fi replace,” he confi ded with ill-disguised disgust,
“but Waidy says Santa Claus knows about ships so he’s going to come down the smokestack.”
Cherry jerked herself out of a half doze. Tomorrow was not only Christmas Eve. It was her birthday, and Charlie’s too! A lump swelled in her throat as she thought of her family. Thank goodness they couldn’t know what a hectic day and night she had just lived through! How Dr. Joe would scold if he knew she had been on duty almost constantly for the past twenty hours!
A STORMY NIGHT
87
Cherry unplugged the vaporizer and removed the tent. Now that Timmy was on sulfa his fl uid intake per hour must not be less than eight ounces. They must not risk the effect of the powerful drug on the little boy’s system if he refused to absorb a suffi cient amount of liquid. How could she depend upon his mother to force even four ounces of fl uid while Cherry had her long-anticipated nap?
She couldn’t. She herself must somehow spoon a full eight ounces into him before she went off duty. By now Cherry was indeed almost “asleep on her feet.” She hated to leave the little boy alone while she raced up to the purser’s offi ce on A deck for a can of ice-cold juice.
But neither did she feel right about again calling on Waidler for help. She wasn’t quite sure how Dr. Monroe felt about that. He hadn’t seemed annoyed, but he had dismissed the steward rather quickly. Perhaps she had unknowingly violated some shipboard regulation.
And there was no telling when Mrs. Crane would come back. The sunbathed decks, swept by warm, salty breezes, would be a great temptation. So would the happy crowd that must have gathered by now around the green tiled pool.
Cherry made up her mind; she would have to risk it.
To Timmy she said, coaxingly, “You’re a big boy, going on seven. So I’m sure I can leave you alone for a few minutes, can’t I?”
Timmy nodded soberly.
“You won’t get out of bed, no matter what happens?
Promise?”
88
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
Timmy hesitated. “No. Won’t promise. Not ’less you leave the door open. ’Pose my mummy comes back and can’t get in? She
never
’members to bring her key.” Leaving the door to the corridor open, Cherry decided quickly, might be the wisest thing to do. If she were delayed for some reason and Timmy wanted something, he could call out to a passing steward.
She propped the door open and then remembered what had happened to the purser’s safe yesterday. Mrs.
Crane was just the type to leave money and jewelry carelessly lying around. Cherry’s dark eyes swiftly swept the bedroom and the adjoining living room. Nothing of value was in sight.
With a parting admonition to Timmy that he must not get out of bed, she sped down the corridor. Halfway to the staircase she passed the same spot where she had fi rst bumped into slim, blonde Jan. The door she had popped out of yesterday was slightly ajar, Cherry noticed incuriously. The number on the door was 125, the bedroom of Suite 125-127.
Then she suddenly became curious. As she hurried by, someone standing just inside the bedroom swiftly closed the door. Someone in a colorful dirndl skirt.
A dirndl skirt, Cherry felt sure, was exactly what tiny waisted young Jan Paulding would be wearing on this bright, almost tropical day!
But Cherry was too tired to wonder much about that then. Up on A deck she saw some of her patients of the night before. Only a few of them smiled in recognition, and none of them looked really robust. One passenger,
A STORMY NIGHT
89
however, in the crowd that was milling toward the swimming pool, looked extremely healthy. She could only see his broad back in a tannish gabardine suit, but she would have known that almost swaggering gait anywhere.
He turned as though feeling her eyes upon him, and she caught a glimpse of his tanned face as she whisked into the purser’s offi ce. Mr. Rough Diamond was not feeling any ill effects of the stormy night; Mr. Rough Diamond felt fi ne and very sure of himself.
fate, it seemed, always conspired to delay cherry whenever she was in a hurry. This time, Fate took the simple form of a common garden-variety can opener.
The refrigerator was, as Ziggy had reported, crammed with all kinds of canned juices. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to open them with.
“If this were only an old-fashioned icebox,” Cherry wailed. “An old-fashioned ice pick is all I ask for at this moment.”
At last she discovered, far back in the refrigerator, a small bottle of apple juice. She had seen a wall at-tachment for opening bottles in Timmy’s bathroom.
Prayerfully she hoped that he liked apple juice. One consolation was that, while poking around on the shelves, she had discovered a box of bright colored straws. Perhaps Timmy would enjoy sucking the juice straight from the bottle. Cherry remembered 90
TIMMY’S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
91
that she had spurned glasses when she was his age.
Midge still did.
Cherry carefully locked the door to the purser’s offi ce behind her and raced back to her patient. She skidded to a stop as she crossed the threshold to Timmy’s room.
She gasped in chagrin. Toys of all sizes and descrip-tions were heaped helter-skelter on his bed. The closet door stood open and the bottom drawers had been yanked out. Toys and shoes spilled out of them: stuffed animals, rubber animals, plastic animals, books, trains, boats—Nanny or somebody must have packed a trunk-ful of everything in Timmy’s nursery at home.
And there could be only one answer to the topsy-turvy room. Timmy had disobeyed orders. Cherry should never have left him alone. She should have known that she couldn’t rely on a six-year-old’s promise.
She blinked back tears and, shutting the door, marched to his bedside. “Timmy Crane,” she began sternly. “You got out of bed. You broke your promise.” Timmy, brown eyes wide with innocence, stared at her. “I
never
break my promise,” he said with convincing dignity.
Cherry confronted him with a grinning stuffed ele-phant. “Then how did Mr. Elephant get from your toy box to your bed. And don’t you dare tell me he walked!” Timmy laughed as only a mischievous small boy can laugh. “ ’Course, Elly didn’t walk,” he fi nally got out.
“Elly can’t walk, silly. He’s too fat to walk. You’re just as silly as that girl who threw him to me when I asked her for my duck.”
92
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
Cherry sat down hard on the foot of his bed. “What girl?” she asked weakly.
Timmy squirmed with delight. He knew something Cherry didn’t know.
“That
girl,” he shouted. “The one with long yellow pigtails on top of her head.” He grinned impishly. “ ’Cept they didn’t
stay
on top of her head when she was trying to fi nd my duck. They came tumbling down and she looked just like the girl in the storybook. The one who hung her pigtails out of the window so somebody could climb up.”
Jan Paulding!
Cherry’s numb mind couldn’t take in anything more.
“She’s kind of nice, Cherry,” Timmy went on gleefully, “but awful silly. She threw me ‘most everything in those drawers ‘cept my duck. And there it was, plain as could be.” He pointed to the strewn fl oor around the closet. Sure enough, the fl uffy little yellow duck
was
in plain view.
“And she’s an awful fraidy-cat too,” Timmy told Cherry. “When she looked up and saw that man watching her, she sat right down on top of my ’lectric train and sort of breathed funny like Mummy does when she’s going to cry.”
“A man, Timmy? What man?” Cherry asked Timmy in a faint voice.
“The
nice
man, Cherry,” Timmy shouted hoarsely.
Cherry realized then that she should not let him talk so much. His face was fl ushed and he punctuated his story with sharp little coughs.
TIMMY’S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
93
“Never mind, Timmy,” she said soothingly. “You can tell me all about it later. I’ve got some juice for you.
You can drink it right out of the bottle with this long, red straw.”
Whatever had happened in Room 141 during her absence, it had at least made Timmy thirsty. He sucked up the last drops of apple juice with loud “glurping” noises of satisfaction. Then he insisted upon continu-ing the conversation. Cherry offered to read instead, but he stuck his fi ngers in his ears. She tried to tell him what she knew about Morgan, the bloodthirsty pirate. Instead of listening he thrashed around in bed and pulled the pillow down over his face.
Unfortunately, the ship’s surgeon, refreshed from a short nap, chose that moment to tap on the door.
Dr. Monroe was in whites now and he looked very handsome, but Cherry wished with all her heart that he had slept a little longer.
His gray eyes swept the topsy-turvy room. They took in Cherry’s rumpled, prune-stained uniform and came to rest on the red-faced boy in the topsy-turvy, toy-heaped bed.
“What
is
going on here?” His voice was husky with annoyance and surprise.
Timmy wailed at the top of his lungs: “She won’t listen to me. She wants to do all the talking. She talks and talks and
talks!
Make her listen to
me!”
Dr. Monroe frowned. “It seems to me, Miss Ames,” he said, “that you mentioned once you were pretty 94
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
good with sick little boys. If this is an example—” He spread his hands expressively.
Cherry’s taut nerves snapped under the sting of sar-casm in his voice. She stood in front of him, hands clinched tightly at her sides. “Your criticism, Dr. Monroe, is entirely unfair. I apologize for my impertinence; you force me to defend myself, and I shall. The patient has done far too much talking already. He has been coughing almost incessantly, is very hoarse, and extremely overstimulated. If you ask my opinion, and I know you won’t, I would tell you—”
Afterward, Cherry realized that nervous exhaustion had goaded her into making such an unprofessional scene. But she did not regret a word she said. And sur-prisingly, instead of resenting her insubordination, Dr.
Monroe threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“Cherry Ames!” he exploded. “I admire your spunk.
And,” he added more soberly, “I shouldn’t have listened to the patient’s complaint. You
don’t
talk too much. I found that out yesterday.”
Cherry bit her lip to keep from bursting into tears.
First a scolding and now a compliment! It was too much of a rightabout-face for her!
“You run along to bed, Nur—Cherry,” he said kindly.
“I’ll give the boy some Cheracol myself and get a maid to clean up this mess.”
Cherry fl ed. He had called her by her fi rst name!
Had he done it simply because he felt sorry for her? Or had he called her Cherry because he thought of her as a human being, not just his nurse? It was nice to think
TIMMY’S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
95
that the latter premise was true. And thinking about it, she fell into an exhausted sleep.
When her alarm clock jangled an hour later she sat up dazedly. At fi rst she didn’t know where she was, had forgotten she was aboard an ocean liner. The tiny cabin, which she had hardly glimpsed since coming aboard, was coldly impersonal. The throbbing of the engines blended with the dull ache in her head.
Then it all came fl ooding back—Timmy’s wild tale that she had deliberately interrupted. How much of it was fact; how much fantasy? His description of the girl with the long blond braids fi tted Jan Paulding exactly.
Had she been watching from her stateroom door, waiting for a moment when Timmy would be alone in his suite?
And who was the man—the
nice
man?
Someone tapped on her door. It was Brownie, the plump young stewardess. “Lunch in ten minutes,” she said. Taking in Cherry’s disheveled appearance, she added, “Oh, ’scuse it, please. I didn’t know you were sleeping.”
