Read Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse Online
Authors: Helen Wells
Cherry scrambled to her feet. “You didn’t wake me up. I had to get up, anyway. I’ve got to check on two patients at noon.” Hurriedly she whitened her shoes, showered and changed into a fresh uniform and cap.
Brownie, idly examining the snapshots Cherry had tucked around her mirror, asked:
“Who’s the handsome lad in the pilot’s uniform? I could go for him.”
“That’s my twin brother,” Cherry told her. “Charlie.” 96
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AMES,
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NURSE
“Oh, boy,” Brownie said enthusiastically. “I hope he comes aboard sometime when I’m around. Will he meet you when we dock after the cruise?”
“I’m afraid not.” Cherry smiled. “We live in Illinois, you see.”
Brownie cheerfully shrugged away her disappointed hopes. “Speaking of handsome lads,” she said, as they hurried to lunch, “that boss of yours makes my heart go pitapat every time I pass him in the corridor. Of course, he doesn’t even know I exist. Awfully dignifi ed, isn’t he?”
Cherry didn’t know what to reply. Anything she said would come under the head of gossiping. At last she compromised with “He’s a fi ne surgeon.”
“Oh,
you!”
Brownie squeezed Cherry’s arm impatiently. “Don’t you ever break down and stop being a stiffl y starched, registered nurse?”
Cherry, remembering all of the scrapes she had been involved in since her student days, couldn’t help laughing.
“You don’t
look
stiffl y starched,” Brownie went on in her friendly way. “Everybody keeps saying how pretty you are, and the girls are all jealous of your red cheeks and that naturally curly hair.”
“Those same red cheeks,” Cherry laughed, “almost got me expelled from Nurses’ Training School. The chief surgeon kept ordering me to wipe off the rouge.
And I couldn’t.”
Brownie giggled. “I guess you’re human after all.”
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Lunch was creamed mushrooms on toast with
pu-réed
spinach and a crisp salad. “One thing I’ll say about this line,” Brownie whispered. “They feed us the same things they give the passengers.” She helped herself to two large pieces of French pastry. “I always gain about fi ve pounds every cruise.”
After lunch, Cherry did her routine check on Bill, interrupting the game of checkers he was playing with one of his buddies who was off duty until four o’clock.
He made faces at her all the time the thermometer was in his mouth, twitching his nose and wriggling his eyebrows.
Cherry, her fi ngers on his pulse, pursed her lips with mock severity. She felt rested and strong again, and wondered how she could have delivered such a tirade of impertinence to the ship’s surgeon only two hours ago.
After charting her bedside notes she hurried up to Timmy. Proudly he waved to an array of bottles on a table within easy reach.
“Mine,” he announced loftily. “Every one of ’em. Kirk gave ‘em to me and this shiny new opener so I can pry off the tops myself. Soon as I have ‘nuff bottle tops he’s going to teach me how to play checkers with ’em.” Kirk! Timmy certainly believed in the use of fi rst names. Kirk—what a nice name! And how it fi tted this serious-minded, soft-spoken man.
“Also,” Timmy went on while she took his temperature, “there’s something dif-frunt in every one of those 98
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AMES,
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bottles. Orange, lemon, lime, apple, pineapple, prune, apricot, even one named after you, Cherry.” Dr. Monroe, Cherry decided, had a way with little boys.
He understood their desire to “do” for themselves. She took the thermometer to the French doors leading out on deck and read the verdict. Temperature unchanged.
Well, you couldn’t expect a miracle right away.
“Also,” Timmy said again, trying to regain her attention. “Also” was a new word Timmy had picked up somewhere and he intended to work it to death. “Also, Kirk said I was to tell you the story of the man and the duck. Kirk thought it was a very funny story. You’ll laugh like anything, Cherry.”
Cherry, busy with mortar and pestle, said vaguely,
“All right, tell me the story.”
“Well,” Timmy began, enjoying the reversed role of teller of tales instead of listener, “fi rst that girl couldn’t fi nd my duck. Then she sat down on my train and ‘most cried when she saw that man staring at her.” Cherry pricked up her ears.
“And
the man was ‘most as silly as the girl, Cherry. Do you know what he asked the girl? He said, sort of smiling, ‘Looking for something?’
Wasn’t that silly? ’Course she was looking for something. She was looking for my duck!
And
’stead of telling him that, she just jumped up and ran away. So then I told the man to please give me my duck. I said
p
lease
‘cause he’s so big and strong looking. He ‘minded me of the pirates in Dr. Kirk’s book. Not the bad ones. The nice ones, Cherry.”
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He rambled on between spoonfuls of the strained fruit and sulfa mixture, hardly knowing that Cherry was feeding him. Cherry listened attentively. The man with the nice pirate face, she began to suspect, was Mr. Rough Diamond. Perhaps she was on the verge of discovering why he and Jan were so interested in Stateroom 141.
Mrs. Crane, who had been resting in the adjoining living room, called out:
“Don’t let the child bore you to death, Miss Ames.
He’s apt to let his imagination run away with him.” Bored! Cherry couldn’t have been more interested.
She was delighted that her boss had “ordered” her to listen to Timmy’s tale.
“So,
after I said
p
lease
two more times, he laughed and came inside the room, and then
he
began to look.
But he couldn’t fi nd the duck either. Course he looked in all the wrong places. Like where Waidy put our empty suitcases, ‘way back on top of the closet.
And
just everywhere ’cept the right place. While he was looking, Cherry, he told me all about the place where we’re going to stop fi rst. So I didn’t mind so much not having my duck.”
Timmy sat up in bed wide-eyed. “Do you know what, Cherry? We’re going to sail right down the middle of a city. Right down a canal—that’s a water street,” he explained painstakingly. “The man said we’d pass so close to people on shore I can spit on ‘em. Won’t that be fun?”
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CHERRY
AMES,
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NURSE
“That will be fun,” Cherry agreed. She added shrewdly: “So he left without
fi nding
anything?” Timmy shook his head vigorously up and down. “But he promised to come back and tell me about the man with the wooden leg.”
“Another pirate?” Cherry asked.
“No, he was a Dutchman. Peter Stuy-Stuy—anyway, his
fi rst
name was Peter. He got hurt fi ghting the Indians. So they had to chop off his leg.
And
it’s buried right there where we’re going to stop fi rst. Cura-something or other.”
“Curaçao,” Cherry fi nished. “And I imagine the man with the wooden leg was Peter Stuyvesant, wasn’t he?” Timmy stared at her incredulously. “Do
you
know about him, too?”
“Not very much,” Cherry admitted with a laugh. It was obvious that Timmy preferred people who related the bloodthirsty events of history. “Do you want me to read you some of the pirate stories in the book Dr.
Monroe loaned you?”
Timmy whooped with joy. Mrs. Crane came into the bedroom. “If you’re going to read for a while, I think I’ll take a swim. Mind?”
“No, indeed.” Cherry smiled. “I’m as interested in hearing about the pirates who roamed the Caribbean as Timmy is.”
Timmy would listen to nothing but tales of the wicked Henry Morgan. Cherry found out that this wily pirate had succeeded in getting himself knighted and at one time was deputy governor of Jamaica.
TIMMY’S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
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They were in the midst of an exciting description of Morgan’s brilliant and daring capture of Maracaibo from the Spaniards, when someone tapped on the door.
Cherry was surprised to see that it was Jan Paulding.
Cherry frowned. Had the young girl been listening outside the door again? If so, such snooping certainly deserved a scolding. Cherry made up her mind to have a talk with Jan Paulding before the day was over.
jan paulding, in tailored sharkskin slacks and a fuchsia sweater, was tautly poised. To Cherry she looked as nervous as a little girl about to give her fi rst public recital.
“Oh, Miss Ames,” she said, in a clear, cool voice.
“I thought I would fi nd you here. Would you mind stepping down the hall a minute to our suite? Mother has a ghastly headache.” She waved with forced airi-ness to Timmy. “I’ll be glad to stay with your little patient.”
Cherry shook her head, smiling. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s against the rules. I’m not allowed to give nursing care except by order of the ship’s surgeon.” A fl ash of something akin to anger fl ickered in Jan’s huge hazel eyes. She said coldly, “But that’s perfectly ridiculous. Dr. Monroe stopped in shortly after lunch and said he would send you immediately with aspirin 102
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BEN
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and an ice bag. When you didn’t show up, I decided to come after you.” She frowned. “Mother is really ill.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave my patient,” Cherry repeated. “Why don’t you send for a steward and have the doctor paged on the loud-speaker? He’ll go to your suite at once, unless he’s tied up with a more serious case.”
Jan clenched her slim fi ngers into tight fi sts. “I tell you it
is
serious. When Mother gets those blinding headaches she almost goes crazy. She threatens to—to—well, hurt herself if she doesn’t get prompt relief. And I did tell that crosspatch steward to get Dr. Monroe. Half an hour ago.”
Cherry was torn now between duty to a patient and the rules and regulations. Dr. Monroe might well be tied up with a really serious case. If so, he would certainly expect her to take over the minor cases until he was free. What harm could there be in leaving Timmy with this lovely young girl while she slipped down the corridor for a minute or two?
No harm at all, Cherry decided. She turned to the little boy. “Timmy, this is Miss Jan Paulding. She’s got a sick mother who needs me. Is it all right if I leave you with Jan for a few minutes?”
“Hello, silly,” Timmy greeted Jan impolitely. “Catch!” With a friendly grin he tossed the soft yellow duck to Jan’s outstretched hands.
“That’s
what I wanted you to fi nd this morning.”
Cherry left them laughing together and sped down to the Paulding suite. Jan had left the bedroom door 104
CHERRY
AMES,
CRUISE
NURSE
ajar. Her mother, a fat, pasty-faced woman, was clasp-ing a wet towel to her forehead.
“Nurse, Nurse,” she moaned. “Do something.” Cherry said quietly, “Haven’t you a prescription from your own physician that relieves these headaches?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Paulding groaned. “A sedative and painkiller in a liquid form. But I dropped the bottle on the bathroom fl oor last night during the storm.” She writhed under the sheet. “Codein and aspirin, please. I can’t stand the pain another minute.”
“I’m sorry,” Cherry said, with genuine sympathy. “I’m not allowed to give any medication without an order from Dr. Monroe. He’ll be along any minute, I’m sure.
Let me fi x you an ice bag in the meantime.” Without waiting for a reply she raced up to the purser’s offi ce for ice cubes, then back down to the dispensary for an ice bag. Then down the corridor to Suite 125-127. Both times, as she passed Timmy’s door, she noticed that it was closed, although she had left it open.
Dr. Monroe was sitting beside Mrs. Paulding’s bed when Cherry hurried into the room. He glanced briefl y at Cherry and took the ice bag from her. “That will be all, Nurse. I’m going to give Mrs. Paulding a sixth of morphine.”
She was glad to leave it at that. Mrs. Paulding would soon be free from pain and certainly Cherry had done nothing wrong.
She had to knock twice on Timmy’s door before Jan opened it. Cherry took one look and froze in her
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tracks. Everywhere were signs that the room had been searched again. The furniture had been moved slightly from against the walls. A chair stood beside the open closet. The rug had been rolled away and hastily but not smoothly rolled back.
Timmy said happily, “She’s looking for Fuzzy-Wuzzy now. But she’ll never fi nd him. Not in
here!”
Cherry took two swift strides across the room and grabbed Jan’s wrist. “Jan Paulding,” she said sternly,
“I’m ashamed of you. Using your mother’s illness as an excuse to illegally search another passenger’s room.” Jan burst into tears and crumpled down on the empty twin bed. “I wouldn’t take anything that didn’t belong to me,” she wailed. “I only want what’s mine.
My very own.”
Cherry refused to weaken. “Talk sense,” she said crisply. “Why should anything that belonged to you be in Timmy’s bedroom?”
Jan raised her tearstained face. “Plenty, that’s what,” she cried. “And it’s none of your business, Miss Ames.” Cherry felt like spanking the girl—hard. “Now, you listen to me, Jan Paulding,” she said fi rmly. “It is so much my business that unless you explain yourself I shall report you to the ship’s surgeon. He, in turn, will report you to the captain. And then you will be in trouble.” Jan sat up abruptly and crossed her long, slender legs. “All right, I’ll explain. But you’ve got to promise not to tell anybody else.”
Cherry shook her head. “I won’t promise anything of the kind. I shall certainly report you at once unless you 106
CHERRY
AMES,
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give me good and suffi cient reason for what amounts to your breaking and entering.”
At that moment Mrs. Crane came back from her swim. She nodded vaguely to Jan. It turned out that Mrs. Crane and the Pauldings were seated at the same table in the dining room.