Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse (21 page)
Read Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse Online
Authors: Helen Wells
Cherry quickly explained. “We’re going to set it up in Timmy’s room for tonight. He was so disappointed in the big blue-and-silver tree.”
198
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
“I’ll help,” Jan offered. “Be
careful,
Waidy,” she added as the steward reached for the green-and-red stand.
“You almost tipped it over. Here, let
me
carry it.” Waidler grumbled, “Been toting Christmas trees for forty years and never tipped one over yet.” While Cherry watched amusedly they argued and fi nally arrived at a compromise. Waidy would carry the tree, but he would have to walk slowly so that Jan could keep a sharp eye on the ornaments.
So it was some time before the tree was fi nally placed to the satisfaction of all beside Timmy’s bed.
Cherry noticed worriedly out of the corner of one eye that it was ten minutes past Timmy’s bedtime when they returned to the library. The charming paneled room was fi lled with the after-dinner crowd now. Card tables had been set up in cozy corners; stewards were serving after-dinner coffee on low tables in front of the pale-yellow and green sofas.
But there was no sign of Timmy and his mother. Or of Timmy’s “llama.”
“They’ve gone on to the living room,” Cherry guessed.
“To hang up Timmy’s stocking.”
Jan led the way now, her full ballerina skirt billowing behind her. “Oh, Cherry,” she breathed, “we weren’t going to lose sight of Henry Landgraf for one minute.
Remember?”
Cherry remembered all too well. She also remembered that punctual Ziggy retired on the dot of nine.
And it was now nine-fi fteen!
A TREE FOR TIMMY
199
The living room was so crowded Cherry felt sure that all two hundred and twenty-fi ve of the passengers had congregated there at once. They were grouped around the piano, singing carols. They milled in front of the fi replace, exchanging small gifts and strewing the hearth with colorful paper and tinsel ribbon. They blocked both the entrances, laughing and shouting greetings.
At last Cherry caught a glimpse of two little red stockings hanging from the mantel. Their tiny silver bells winked at her in the refl ection of the light from the electric logs. Timmy had already hung up his stocking and Fuzzy’s.
She had to raise her voice to make Jan hear her above the din and confusion. “They’ve gone back to the suite.
Come on.
Hurry!”
Breathlessly they pushed their way out into the corridor. Down the stairs they ran, side by side, Cherry momentarily forgetting that she was in uniform. Then they could hear Tim’s laughter and crows of delight from the open door of his bedroom.
With a sigh of relief, Cherry saw that Henry Landgraf was still among those present. Mrs.
Crane was in the other room chatting with guests she had invited down for after-dinner coffee. But Mr. Landgraf was sitting on Timmy’s bed with Timmy on his lap. His bright blue eyes swept over the flushed faces of the girls in the doorway. He said to Cherry coolly:
200
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
“It was nice of you to donate a little red tree to such a good cause. We were reading the tag just now. A surprise from your mother?”
And then another cool voice, this time from the corridor behind Cherry, said:
“Nurse, please go to the refrigerator for penicillin.” Dazedly, Cherry whirled around. Dr. Monroe was just coming out of the dispensary. He said with worried abstraction:
“A petty offi cer cut himself rather badly yesterday and did not report the injury. I’ve already dressed the wound, but I’d like to give him a penicillin injection at once. The patient is in my offi ce.”
He disappeared into the door beyond the dispensary.
Cherry started off again for A deck. Jan followed her to the foot of the stairs:
“I’ll keep an eye on our pirate until you get back. He won’t get out of my sight for one minute.” Cherry unlocked the door to the purser’s offi ce and reached in to turn on the overhead lights. Some sixth sense made her go straight to the deep bottom drawer of the desk. She tugged it gently and it slid out as easily as though she had said, “Open, Sesame.”
The lock had already been picked—or, a master key had been used to open it.
There were no telltale scratches on the wood or metal of the drawer. Cherry took one swift glance at the neat fi le of labeled envelopes and sealed packages.
One of them stood out like a sore thumb. The label read:
A TREE FOR TIMMY
201
“Paulding, Benedict, deceased. Cabin 141.” And the date was the Tuesday when the
Julita
had last stopped at the port of Willemstad.
Stunned and relieved, Cherry slammed the drawer shut. Then she heard the click of the automatic lock.
Was the answer simply that Ziggy had neglected to shut it tightly enough when he closed up his desk at nine? All she could do was hope.
Snatching up the small bottle of penicillin, she turned off the lights and locked the door behind her.
As she hurried down to the doctor’s offi ce, she couldn’t help thinking of Henry Landgraf’s strong, deft fi ngers, his cocksure, swaggering gait, his cold, blue eyes.
Had he had time while she and Jan were arranging Timmy’s tree to unseal that package, remove the milk-of- magnesia bottle, and reseal it?
Dr. Monroe, more relaxed now, said: “Thanks, Miss Ames. I’ll give the injection myself. Tim Crane’s been calling for you. Won’t go to sleep until he’s told you good night.”
Cherry swiftly slipped into Timmy’s bedroom which was only dimly lighted now. There was no sign of Henry or Jan, but she could hear Mrs. Crane’s happy laughter fl oating through the half-open door to the living room of the suite.
Timmy, exhausted by too much excitement and the agony of anticipating what Santa would bring him, cried fretfully:
“I won’t go to sleep till I open just one present. Just one present, Cherry.
Please!”
202
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
“I’ll have to ask your mother,” Cherry said. Oh, where were Jan and Henry? Was impulsive Jan in trouble?
She opened the door to the living room a crack wider and then let out a long sigh. Sitting on the sofa, talking animatedly to an apparently completely captivated Henry Landgraf, was Jan Paulding! Sitting on his left, vying for the attractive “pirate’s” attention, was Timmy’s mother.
Mrs. Crane arose when Cherry caught her eye, and came to the door.
“Is it all right if Timmy opens one present tonight?” Cherry asked. “And hadn’t you better lock the door to the corridor when I leave? I found it wide open.” Mrs. Crane fl ushed. “I did lock it once. He must have gotten out of bed and opened it himself. He wanted to be sure of catching you when you passed on your way to the doctor’s offi ce. And, of course, he may open one present.”
Timmy, who had been listening, bounced up and down with joy. “Open your mouth and shut your eyes, Cherry,” he ordered. “Then reach under the bed and pick out a present.”
Cherry did as she was told and produced a small package. It was wrapped in thin, white tissue paper, held together in two places with Santa Claus stickers.
But it was not tied with string and there was no card on it. Cherry said tiredly:
“I don’t know who gave you this, but let’s open it anyway.”
A TREE FOR TIMMY
203
Timmy peered at the package in the dim light. “It
has
to have a tag, Cherry.
All
Christmas presents have tags.”
Cherry, thinking that the donor perhaps had written his name on the white tissue wrapping itself, held the package close to the bulb in Timmy’s bedside lamp.
Magically, the white paper took on a bluish tinge, and three large, printed words leaped into sight: MILK OF MAGNESIA!
too late, timmy yelled:
“Oh, I forgot, Cherry. We can’t open
that
present.
I
can’t even open it tomorrow. That’s our secret. Henry’s and mine. It’s Henry’s very own Christmas present, but it got lonely in his cabin, so after we hung up my stocking we put it under the bed with all my presents. Henry’s going to come in early as anything tomorrow morning and open it when I open mine.”
“I bet he’ll come in
early,”
Cherry thought grimly.
“And with quick sleight of hand he’ll substitute another similarly wrapped package for this one.” Cherry herself did a swift juggling act then. With one hand she pushed the gift-wrapped milk-of- magnesia bottle down the fl oor to the very end of Timmy’s bed.
At the same time she snatched up another present and handed it to Timmy.
204
CHRISTMAS
JUGGLERY
205
“Let’s see what’s in this one,” she said, trying to sound calm and collected.
While Timmy yanked the red ribbon into hopeless knots, and tore the colorful paper into shreds, she said:
“Wait a minute. I’ve got some lonely presents in my cabin too. I’d like to open one of them with you right now.”
“Okey-dokey.” Tim grinned. “But
hurry.”
Cherry hurried—so much so that she stumbled at the foot of Timmy’s bed. When she lurched to her feet she was clutching in the folds of her uniform skirt “Henry’s lonely gift.”
Then, as though on wings, she fl ew down the corridor to her own cabin. She remembered that one of her
“stocking” presents had looked like a pint-size bottle of perfume. It was undoubtedly something with an impossible odor—a joke from Charlie.
But it was even better than that. It was a bottle of cheap, powdered bath salts! “Carrying coals to Newcastle,” the card read. Cherry snatched a tiny enamel funnel from her nurse’s kit. It took but a minute to transfer the exotic-smelling ambergris to her hot water bag and fi ll the milk-of-magnesia bottle with gardenia bath salts.
Henry, thank goodness, had licked his Santa Claus stickers so hastily there was still plenty of glue left. When Cherry had fi nished rewrapping the blue pint bottle no one would ever have known it had been tampered with.
“Two can play at this game,” she said, chuckling inwardly. “Maybe I can’t pick locks as expertly as he can, but I can unseal and reseal packages even better!” 206
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
She could see it all now: Mrs. Crane caught up by a group of her friends as she and Henry, with Timmy on his back, pushed their way into the crowded living room; Timmy hanging up the two red stockings but refusing to go to bed on the dot of nine; Henry saying indulgently:
“All right, Tim. You wait here in front of the fi replace while I go get my lonely present.”
But instead of going to his cabin he had strolled diagonally across the corridor to the purser’s offi ce.
Nobody in that milling Christmas crowd would have noticed that he was inserting his master key into the door of the offi ce, not his stateroom.
Then those strong, deft fi ngers had worked swiftly but surely on the desk lock and the sealed package.
Before coming to Timmy’s cabin earlier he had, of course, tucked tissue paper and stickers in one pocket of his gabardine suit, and a bottle of real milk of magnesia in the other. Tomorrow one of the passengers would discover his or her loss. But there would be no hue and cry about that—a clumsy maid had, of course, broken it while dusting.
Henry, with his master key— or
keys
—had indeed been master of the situation. He had made but one error and Cherry had played right into his hands. In his haste to get back to Timmy before the little boy made a scene, he had not slammed the desk drawer quite hard enough.
But it didn’t matter now. Because
Cherry
was now mistress of the situation.
CHRISTMAS
JUGGLERY
207
Timmy, busy with a box of cardboard pirates, did not notice when Cherry slipped a package under his bed.
He said without much enthusiasm:
“Open your present, Cherry. I’ll bet
you
didn’t get pirates.”
Cherry had brought along Dr. Joe’s “stocking” gift too. It was a child’s doctor’s kit, complete with stethoscope, wooden thermometer, and tiny forceps.
Timmy immediately pounced upon it. Expertly he hung the toy stethoscope around his neck and shook down the thermometer.
Cherry laughed. “It’s my Christmas Eve present to you, Timmy. And now you must go to sleep.” Obediently, he nestled under the covers, pirates, stethoscope, and all. Cherry tucked him in and laid her cheek against his for a minute as he sleepily mumbled his prayers:
“God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy, God bless Henry, God bless Cherry—” He was sound asleep.
“God bless
you,
‘Tiny Tim,’ ” Cherry whispered as she tiptoed out of the room. “If it hadn’t been for you, we never would have found Jan’s ambergris.” Cherry slept with her hot-water bottle under her pillow.
She dreamed happily of ferocious pirates who, decked in
leis
of gardenias, danced around the tall blue and silver Christmas tree. Sometimes they wore Santa Claus masks and sometimes they twirled long, black mustachios, but they were, each and every one, Henry Landgraf.
She awoke to the sound of loud knocking and shouts of “Merry Christmas, Sleepyhead. Merry Christmas!” 208
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
It was Brownie, proudly displaying a wrist watch from her parents and a lovely little friendship ring from, as she said, “My very best boy friend.” Cherry opened her other “stocking” presents then: A tiny celluloid octopus from Midge—Timmy would enjoy that in the pool. A miniature plum pudding from her mother, and a cardboard stocking full of candied cherries from Dad. “Sweets to the Sweet,” he had written.
Cherry promptly succumbed to another wave of homesickness. Tears welled up into her dark-brown eyes. Cherry blinked them back, laughing at herself.
Brownie, scraping one index fi nger across the other, hooted:
