Cherry Ames 02 Senior Nurse (17 page)

“It
is
too nice to stay in and study,” Mildred justified herself.

“Anyone who studies in this spring weather is plumb crazy—no, I shouldn’t say that,” Cherry laughed. “If you get stuck on today’s lesson, we’ll cram on it—by flashlight, if necessary.”

Mildred looked amused and began to be more at ease.

“Let’s blow ourselves,” Cherry said suddenly. “Let’s buy ourselves flowers, to start with.” Mildred looked incredulous, but she tagged along eagerly with Cherry to the florist’s. Cherry chose one huge flat red and white camellia to go with her suit, and Mildred had a lovely time trying to decide between some tiny roses and spicy carnations. The florist wearily suggested that she toss a coin, but it was Cherry who came to the rescue.

“Look, here’s a favorite French way.” She picked up three pink carnations and three white ones, and massed the heads together into a solid round ball, pink on one side and white on the other. Mildred looked on, fascinated. The florist cut off the stems. “No ribbons,” Cherry said. “There, my love,” and she pinned the nose-gay on Mildred’s blue coat. Mildred stood on tiptoe to
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admire herself in the florist’s high mirror. She was pleased and amazed.

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked Cherry as they went out onto the street.

“Ah, I am Madame ZaZa, sees all, knows all.” Mildred giggled. “What else can you see?”

“Madame ZaZa she see a taxi. Come weeth ZaZa, my leetle carnation!” And they sprang into a taxi. They giggled and talked nonsense all the beautiful ride downtown along the river.

They splurged on sodas, window shopped till their eyes bugged out, then enjoyed a leisurely luscious Italian dinner. Both girls were enjoying themselves, and the old tension dropped away as if by magic. They talked of everything under the sun. For a while they talked about Mom; Cherry had been writing her encouraging letters at the convalescent farm. Then Mildred mentioned the new penicillin drug and repeated some of the gossip that was going on around the hospital.

“You know Dr. Fortune, don’t you?” Mildred suddenly asked.

“Yes, all my life. Sometimes I help him in his laboratory.”

“Cherry,” Mildred said awkwardly and fell silent.

Cherry wondered what was coming. “Maybe this will sound silly. And maybe all this gossip is making my imagination run away with me. But strange things seem to be going on in Dr. Fortune’s lab late at night. Last night,
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from my window, I saw lights going on and off, almost as if someone were sending signals with a flashlight.” Cherry instantly became alert, but she remembered that she must guard her tongue.

“Oh, Dr. Joe likes to work at night,” she said casually and a little indifferently.

Noting Cherry’s seeming lack of interest, Mildred said, “Well, maybe it
was
imagination. But I thought you’d be interested.”

“I am interested,” Cherry said quietly. “If you see anything strange up there, please tell me
immediately.
” She made a mental note to see Dr. Joe early the next morning. And with that mental reservation made, she proceeded to enjoy the evening’s fun.

They were so heavy with good food after leaving the restaurant that they simply needed a walk. They strolled along the river’s edge, watching the water and boats and the opposite shore grow deeper and deeper blue in the dusk.

Out of the romantic leafy shadows, Mildred announced, “I’m hungry.”

“You can’t be!”

“Well, I am.”

“Let’s have another soda,” Cherry suggested. “What’s one mere soda on a spree?”

The sodas turned into large and substantial sundaes.

The two girls sauntered out of the shop and found a
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movie theater next door, showing a picture about Army nurses.

“What could be more perfect!” Cherry sighed. “But we’d better sit in the balcony—our funds are melting away.”

The seats which they found in the darkened house were at least a block away from the screen. But they had a fine time. When they came out, Cherry looked at her wrist watch and gasped.

“It’s almost ten! Oh, my gosh! Do you think we’ll get back to sign in on time—even with a taxi?”

“Can we afford a taxi?” Mildred asked desperately.

They opened their purses and hastily compared re-sources. They could just afford it.

They urged the driver on to an unlawful speed and kept peering at Cherry’s watch. “Madame ZaZa,” said Mildred with a straight face, “if you know all, why didn’t you know it was getting late?” That set them off into a fit of laughter. They were still laughing when they raced out of the taxi, and signed in on the perilous dot of ten.

“Good night,” Mildred said in the dark hospital yard.

“I liked it. Let’s do it again soon.”

“As soon as we have a few cents in our jeans again,” Cherry promised. “Good night, Carnation.” She went off to Crowley feeling warmly satisfied. This was the best time, the first really successful time, she had ever
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had with her adoptee. She was beginning to like Mildred now. And apparently Mildred liked her.

Cherry tumbled into bed and fell asleep before she could say “Mildred Burnham.” She was full of fresh air and spaghetti and chocolate pecan sundae, and she slept like a baby.

She was deep in dreams when an insistent knocking at her door awakened her. Cherry blinked. It was still deep night, soundless except for the rustle of trees in the yard, and the knocking.

“Go away!” Cherry called.

“Telephone!” came a nurse’s muffled voice.

Cherry crawled out of bed and groped for her slippers and robe. “Didn’t hear a thing,” she said to the sleepy nurse, who had the room at the end of the hall where the phone was located. “I’m sorry you were wakened on my account,” Cherry managed to say sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Ten minutes after four,” the nurse yawned and went back into her room.

Four o’clock . . . ten minutes after . . . what was wrong? Cherry picked up the dangling receiver.

“Cherry! this is Dr. Joe! My new drug—my penicillin synthesis—it’s gone!”

c h a p t e r x i i i

Lex Is Proven

two extraordinary things happened to cherry in June. She was questioned by detectives, Army Intelli-gence and F.B.I. men. She was made a student head nurse and put in charge of a ward.

The investigators did not get very far in discovering who had stolen Dr. Joe’s drug. The thief had taken not only the drug but part of the highly complicated formula. Fortunately the second page of it had been in Dr.

Joe’s pocket that night. Cherry wondered if the thief might sometime return for that second page. The F.B.I.

posted a guard, day and night, around Lincoln Hall. But the thief made no further effort to obtain the rest of the formula. Cherry grew used to seeing the plainclothesmen around Lincoln Hall, though few others knew who they were. The questioning was over, the talk about the
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crime died down. Even Dr. Joe kept a resigned unhappy silence. Everything was peaceful again, on the surface.

The affair had one heartbreaking aftermath, at least half of the hospital suspected Lex. Several facts pointed to Lex’s possible guilt: he and Dr. Joe possessed the only two keys to the laboratory, and he was evasive and kept sullenly to himself. Dr. Joe ignored the gossip and kept Lex on at his laboratory. But Lex still avoided meeting Cherry there.

The bright June morning when Cherry went in as student head nurse on Men’s Surgical convalescent ward, the supervisor said, with obvious distaste:

“I want you to meet the doctor who will work with you these three months on this ward.” The door opened and the supervisor said ironically, “Dr. Upham.” Lex and Cherry stared at each other. They would have to work together daily, whether or not they wanted to see each other!

Lex said stiffly, “I congratulate you, Miss Ames, on being one of the few in the senior class to merit the post of student head nurse.”

It was painful making the rounds of the patients, walking side by side with Lex daily, talking only when it was necessary. Lex looked thin and worried these days.

In her heart Cherry knew that he was too decent to have had even the smallest part in such sordid business. But all around her people were shunning Lex, whispering
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about him and surrounding him in such an ugly atmosphere of suspicion that Cherry did not know what to think!

Little doubtful thoughts began to bother her. Why was Lex being so evasive and aloof? Also nagging away at the back of her mind was that scene in the laboratory when Lex told her he needed money but emphatically refused to tell her why. There was gossip, too, about how Cherry and Lex had quarreled because of the theft and it was said that Cherry had dropped Lex because she thought he was guilty. Nothing of the sort was true. But Lex heard this talk, and believed it. Cherry would have been glad to try to straighten out these lies. But Lex, taking the gossip seriously, kept her at arm’s length with the professional formality of a doctor to a nurse.

“I wish I’d never been made a student head nurse!” Cherry said miserably to Gwen one day after Lex had walked out, coldly aloof as ever.

“Never mind, Lex will be cleared yet,” Gwen said stoutly. Gwen had not been assigned to a head nurse post, but she said she did not mind, for she had had so much experience of this kind helping her doctor father.

“I hate executive work, anyway,” she had told Cherry and Ann.

Cherry had no dislike for the work, but no particular liking for it either. It meant being ward planner and policeman over Gwen, another senior whom she barely
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knew, and two anxious first-year students. Cherry’s four subordinates worked under her willingly and pleasantly.

It was quite a responsibility, seeing that twenty-three men in varying stages of health after operations received efficient care. There were smaller, nagging responsibilities, too, like seeing that the laundry went out and got back on time; that the first-year nurses’ mistakes were prevented or caught in time; that Dr. Upham’s orders were carried out; that special foods and drugs needed on the ward were requisitioned; that the endless reports and records were kept accurately. There were dozens of things which Cherry had to supervise, coordinate and organize, so that the ward would run smoothly. Besides this, Cherry was having classes in public health nursing and in ethics. It was a heavy program.

Cherry was quite a good manager, but she had two difficulties. One was her own lateness, which two or three times tangled up the ward schedule. Another was her unwillingness to discipline her nurses, especially when she could see that they were tired. She remembered only too vividly how she had felt when she was a ward nurse. However, when Cherry made an effort to be on time and forced herself to become a little stricter with her nurses, her detailed reports to the supervisor showed an improvement in how the ward was being managed.

Also on her mind these summer days was where she was going to nurse—here at home or on the war front.

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The term was nearly over, graduation loomed very close.

She
must
decide, and soon.

In July the heat became oppressive and Cherry’s whole ward was moved out to canvas pavilions in the yard. It was pleasant working outdoors, especially in the fragrant summer evenings. But even summertime did not soften Lex’s attitude. His and Cherry’s tense, painful daily routine continued. The accusing gossip about Lex continued. The detectives had neither found the drug thief nor had they uncovered any clues. Dr. Joe was struggling to work out again the first, stolen page of the formula. Cherry received an anxious letter from Midge, asking her to keep an eye on her father.

“I wish I could do something for Dr. Joe and for Lex, both,” Cherry told Ann and Gwen. “They’re close to the breaking point.”

“I keep thinking of what the loss means to all those sick and wounded soldiers,” Ann said. “Oh, what’s the use of talking about it?”

“It doesn’t look,” Gwen said, “as if Dr. Joe is going to get it back.”

Cherry was forced to agree. She had thought and thought, until her mind ached, about how she could help. There were so many people working in this huge hospital, so many patients, so many visitors, delivery men—out of several thousand people, and no clues, it was nearly hopeless to sift out the criminal. Government
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authorities ordered the story kept out of the newspapers, but it was common knowledge around the hospital that the thief had made a successful getaway. It was enough to embolden him to a second attempt. Cherry was furious, depressed, and hopeless. She felt it was only a question of time before gossip would drive Lex from the hospital and Dr. Joe would be dismissed.

It was with affairs in this state that Mom returned to Spencer, and her new job. Cherry went down to the train to meet her. The old lady was in good health now and elated about her job. She was to be in charge of the cleaning women at Lincoln Hall. She even had a key to Lincoln Hall.

“But there’s one thing I ought to tell you,” Cherry said as they rode back to the hospital. “There are F.B.I. men in and around Lincoln all the time.”

“F.B.I. men! G-men!” Mom exclaimed. “Oh, I see They’re there to make sure no one steals the drug.”

“To tell you the truth,” Cherry said reluctantly, “the drug has been stolen.” She told Mom the details of what had happened.

Tears stood in Mom’s eyes. “It’s my fault! I—talked!

Don’t say otherwise, Cherry. If it hadn’t been for me, blabbing—–”

Cherry did her best to assure Mom that this was not so. But Mom could not be convinced. She felt horribly
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