by Helen Wells
Suddenly Cherry had an inspiration. Miss Sally Chase. She would borrow Miss Sally Chase.
CHAPTER V
Alias Mona
“BUT YOU CAN’T DO SUCH A THING!” ANN PROTESTED. “You’ll be expelled! Cherry Ames, listen to reason!”
“You listen to me!” Cherry said. She pulled Ann to a deserted corner of the big lounge. She was still out of breath.
Gwen whirled in at that moment, her freckled face smudged but her grin undaunted. “Why all the mystery?” she whispered loudly, as she came over to their corner.
Ann’s calm blue eyes were troubled. “This idiot wants to kidnap Sally Chase.”
Gwen looked at Cherry with interest. “Sounds like fun. Want an assistant?”
Ann moaned. “Not so fast. Think of what you’re doing. Think of—–”
“Think of this,” Cherry said tersely. And she told them about the little English girl. After she had finished, they looked at one another in silence.
Finally Ann said, “Certainly the little girl should have her doll! But can’t we wait until tomorrow and buy a doll?”
“That little girl is pitifully lonely,” Cherry said. “She’s been crying her heart out, all alone in there. How long do you think she can stand it?”
“That poor baby!” Gwen exclaimed. “Come on!”
“But if we take Sally Chase,” Ann interrupted, “and get expelled for it, we can’t be nurses. Now, please, please, be sensible, you two.”
Gwen’s red hair seemed to bristle. “I’ll be sensible some other time. Right now I want to get that lonely little girl her doll.”
“I knew you would,” Cherry said delightedly.
Ann resigned herself with a sigh. “All right, count me in.”
“I knew you would too,” Cherry teased her. The three of them smiled at one another in perfect understanding. “Anyhow, it’ll be cozy getting expelled together. And now let’s work out a plan. We haven’t much time before dinner, and that child is waiting for us.”
The three girls retired deeper into the corner and whispered earnestly. Then Ann hastily disappeared toward the Nurses’ Residence while Cherry and Gwen waited. Soon Ann reappeared with a flowered silk housecoat and matching slippers and a big pink chiffon scarf, and handed them over. Then she slipped up the stairs toward the private pavilion. Cherry and Gwen melted away down the stairs to the basement. The halls were empty at this hour; the ward shifts had changed over an hour before. The nurses who were not on ward duty were in their rooms resting and changing before dinner. Staff doctors—except for emergencies—were in offices or laboratories finishing up for the day, and night doctors had not yet come on. Most important of all, Cherry had learned from the bulletin board that morning that the private duty nurses—which would include the little girl’s nurse—would be attending a lecture by a visiting psychologist at this time. Only a few relief nurses would be left on the private pavilion for a while. The coast was clear, and Cherry prayed it would stay that way.
In the shadowy basement, Cherry, with Gwen on her heels, eased open the door of Miss Mac’s classroom. The blue light of evening fell eerily on their empty one-armed chairs and on the empty demonstration beds. The only sound was the slow deliberate drip of water from a faucet somewhere. It had a warning sound. Cherry and Gwen held their breaths. Up on the dim platform, Miss Sally Chase slept on unsuspectingly.
Cherry and Gwen did not stop to talk. Gwen carefully folded back the covers, while Cherry lifted out the big rubber doll. It swayed a little in her grasp, for it was unmanageably light and bulky.
“Miss Chase seems to have a mind of her own,” Cherry panted. “She prefers to stay.”
Gwen was hunching up the covers to hide the doll’s absence. Cherry, her hands shaking a little, managed to force the floating creature into Ann’s housecoat. Her feet, size eleven, had to be folded over to fit into the slippers. Meanwhile Gwen noiselessly rolled over a wheel chair. The two girls worked fast. They sat Sally Chase up in the chair and draped her head and face in the filmy disguising scarf. Then they stood back to admire her.
“Isn’t she sweet?” Gwen giggled.
“She’s fat but quite good looking,” Cherry said, “and fairly convincing.”
They walked as if on eggs down the length of the classroom, pushing gently, for the doll wobbled as it sat up in the chair. They eased the wheel chair into the nurses’ self-service car. They dared not use the regular elevators, and they could only trust to luck that no one would ring for the self-service car on the main floor.
Cherry and Gwen pressed the “Go” button frantically and the automatic door closed—with such a bang that Sally Chase’s head fell forward on her knees. They hastily picked her up and barely had set her to rights when the automatic door slid open on the second floor. Trying to look nonchalant, they wheeled Miss Chase out. They were at the corridor of the private pavilion. Here they paused again, breathing hard.
Gwen looked at Cherry goggle-eyed. “You’ve turned pale for once,” she whispered.
Cherry smiled weakly. “In that case, Dr. Wylie should see me now—or should he?”
From the shadow of a doorway, she looked around for Ann, who was posted as guard, spy, and general lookout. She spotted Ann’s probationer’s gray at the far end of the corridor, near Room One, and had to laugh. Ann looked so dignified and virtuous and busy.
“Hssssst!” Cherry let go cautiously.
Ann turned and instantly her poise vanished. She peered quickly in all directions and with a face full of panic, waved them to come ahead. Cherry and Gwen, stumbling and clutching their huge unwieldy patient, made a wild dash for it. Finally they reached the fatal end door. Ann flung it open, they rounded the wheel chair in, and Ann closed the door noiselessly, remaining outside.
“Whew!” Gwen exclaimed. Her red hair had fallen into her eyes and her hands gripped the chair handle as if welded to it. Cherry was beyond speech. She had one awful thought: “We got it in here all right, but how are we going to get it out again?”
“Hello!” said the child in the bed. Her voice was delighted. “Is that—that big lady in the pretty dress—is she a doll?”
“She is,” Cherry said, warming to the reason for this whole escapade. “A big doll, bigger than you are. She’s come to pay you a visit. She can’t stay long, but you can play with her for a while. And on Wednesday I’ll get you another doll—one you can keep forever. This one will cheer you up for now. But remember, it’s a secret.”
“Secret,” the child agreed. Her small face was radiant. “I never did see such a wonderful, beautiful doll! So big! Like a real grown-up princess.” She beamed ecstatically on the rubber figure. “Is she going to a ball in that lovely dress?”
Gwen advanced to the edge of the bed, pushing the wheel chair into a corner. Her expression was a mixture of sympathy and panic. “Where she’s going is a great secret. You mustn’t tell anyone she’s been here. This is a Mystery Doll.”
Cherry swallowed her comment on that.
The little girl nodded. “Is she sick?” she asked gravely. “Like me?”
“She has a rare case of buttonitis,” Gwen explained. “She has an awful sweet tooth for buttons and she overate.”
The child giggled and turned a fascinated small face to watch Cherry lift the doll out of the wheel chair.
Picking up Sally Chase was like grappling with a zeppelin. A large rubber hand flopped in Cherry’s face, to the little girl’s amusement. A round shapeless arm bounced across Cherry’s shoulder. “She’s dancing with you!” the child cried.
“Yes, we’re dancing,” Cherry gasped, galloping through a kind of waltz with the doll. “Isn’t she graceful?” Cherry panted.
“Isn’t she lovely and exquisite! Such clothes! I say, she’s awfully big. Do tell me her name!”
“Her name—uh—” Gwen gulped. “That’s where the mystery comes in.”
Cherry lifted the bouncing, grinning figure onto the bed. The child laid her cheek against its ludicrous fac
e. “But such a beautiful doll must have a name. Nurse, you know what? I’m going to call her Sally.”
“No, don’t!” both girls exclaimed in horror. Cherry suggested quickly, “Call her Minnie. That suits her personality much better.”
The small patient tried to cuddle the enormous doll. She seemed to have many confidential things to whisper to Miss Sally Chase, alias Minnie, now alias Mona. Some of them, from her excited happy whispers, seemed to concern Mummy and London and impossible plans for going home.
For several minutes, Cherry and Gwen listened with their hearts as well as their ears. Cherry had known there was a war raging on the other side of the world, but she had not thought much about it. Now it occurred to her that it was very much her business—her personal business and her business as a nurse-to-be.
She murmured to Gwen, “You know, if we weren’t nurses, we’d never have happened to find this little girl.”
Gwen replied sturdily, “Well, who else but a nurse happens to be around when people need help?”
Voices outside the door froze them to the spot—the questioning voice of a woman, and Ann’s voice, stalling for time. The little girl seemed to notice nothing—surely she would have recognized the voice of her own nurse, if that’s who it was. Cherry and Gwen could not hear the words. But they could hear, to their vast relief, Ann sounding as cool and firm as the Superintendent of Nurses herself. Then there was silence.
Presently the door opened a crack. Ann’s face, very scared, peeked though. “Floor su—pervisor! Told her doctor—in consultation—in here—she wanted to—know—why—no consultation sign on—door.” She wet her lips and added hastily, “You kids better get out of there. Quick.”
Cherry and Gwen ran for the cardboard “Do Not Disturb” sign and shoved it through toward Ann. But she backed off from the placard as if it might bite her.
“Suppose,” she wailed, “suppose the doctor or the nurse on this case comes along and sees that sign!” Footsteps sounded in the corridor and the door closed abruptly.
“Doctor,” the little girl chirped. “I have a doctor. His name is Dr. Wylie.”
“What!” Cherry jumped, while Gwen gave a low groan.
“He’s terribly nice,” the child said. “I like him. He’s what my mummy calls a sweet old thing.”
“Childhood innocence,” Cherry said under her breath. “Gwen, I don’t think I care to meet Dr. Wylie in here. Not today. We’ve got to pack up and start on our travels.”
Cherry went over to the bed and gently disengaged Sally Chase from the little English girl’s arms, explaining that the doll had to keep an appointment with another doll who was expecting her for supper. Gwen was rapidly readjusting the wheel chair and Cherry was reeling across the room with the doll, when the door flew open. Over Ann’s suppressed shriek, a doctor walked in.
Cherry buried her face in Sally’s rubber bosom and closed her eyes. There was a loud thump. “That’s Gwen fainting,” she thought out of the blankness.
“What are you idiots doing?” demanded a horrified masculine voice.
Cherry knew that voice. And it was not Dr. Wylie’s. Painfully she opened her eyes. Around Sally Chase’s billowing curves, she saw young Dr. James Clayton. He looked positively flabbergasted. Finally he poked Sally with one disbelieving finger.
“She wanted a doll,” Cherry whispered weakly. She looked around for Gwen. There was a faint creak from the floor but no Gwen. “There’s two of us,” Cherry managed to get out at last.
“Two what?”
“Two nice nurses,” the little girl said enthusiastically. “They brought me Mona.”
“Mona? Who’s Mona?”
At that moment Gwen’s head rose inch by inch from behind the back of the wheel chair.
“I suppose you’re Mona,” Dr. Clayton said.
“You don’t know anything, do you?” the little girl said pityingly from the bed. Dr. Clayton started. “Mona is the doll. It’s a Mystery Doll,” the child explained.
Dr. Clayton’s humorous young mouth tightened at the corners. “I see no mystery about this. It’s only too clear. Would it interest you to know, young ladies, that this child is here on Private Pavilion, instead of Children’s Ward or Orthopedic, because she is very nervous and is not supposed to have visitors? Fortunately her wealthy American aunt can afford this. Unfortunately, the aunt had to go away on business and entrusted poor little Pamela here to her private secretary. The secretary apparently isn’t too understanding about children.” He glanced critically at the toys, then continued hurriedly, “Would it also interest you to know that you could be expelled for this prank and that Dr. Wylie is due here in less than five minutes?”
A faint warning thump on the door corroborated his words. Ann was still sticking to her post.
Dr. Clayton was worried, but he was also trying hard not to laugh. “Tell your guard to get off this pavilion. And you, Miss Ames, stop hugging that absurd doll.” Gwen ran to the door, and Ann fled. The door closed again.
“Now then,” he said in a low rapid voice. “How did you get that enormous thing in here?”
They told him. “It’s a wonderful new kind of p’rambulator,” the little girl contributed.
“Well, we’re going to use something safer to get it back to the classroom,” Dr. Jim Clayton said. “If Dr. Wylie should see you with that—er—curious-looking creature, you’d never fool him. Or anybody.”
He went to the door and called, “Orderly!” Cherry and Gwen could not hear the brief orders he gave to the attendant. He turned back into the room. “One of you probationers is all I’ll need. The other one might as well escape alive.”
“I’ll stick it out,” Cherry said bravely. “After all, it was my idea.”
“Are you sure?” Gwen said sadly. “Well, good-by, Cherry. Good-by.” It sounded like a final farewell. She swept up Ann’s robe and slippers and scarf, slipped through the half-open door and sprinted out of sight.
Young Dr. Clayton glowered at Cherry. “I came in here on a social visit—don’t know why I’m fool enough to take a risk like this—but then I got myself in some messes, too, when I was a student.” He smiled suddenly and Cherry recognized a kindred soft heart.
The orderly brought in a wheeled table, the sort Cherry had seen on its way back and forth from the operating rooms.
“Thanks, George, and take the wheel chair with you,” Dr. Clayton said formally. “I’ll handle the table myself.” The orderly withdrew, pushing the empty wheel chair.
Cherry and the little girl watched, fascinated. Dr. Clayton lifted the rubber figure onto the table top and covered it with a sheet. “We now have,” he said, “a corpse.”
“What’s a corpse?” asked the child drowsily.
“Tell you tomorrow,” Dr. Clayton promised, “if you keep all this a secret. Remember, now.”
Dr. Clayton pushed the table out into the hall, Cherry meekly trotting after him. From the third door down issued Dr. Wylie’s commanding voice. They did not look up, nor even look at each other. The only other sounds were the swish of their rubber-soled shoes and the wagon’s rubber wheels on the linoleum. A nurse approached them, nodded to Dr. Clayton, and passed on. They got onto the elevator safely enough. The operator, and a student nurse on the elevator, looked puzzled when Dr. Clayton said, “Basement, please.” But nothing happened.
The basement was deserted. They gained the classroom and groped about in the dark, not daring to turn on the lights. In double-quick time Cherry had restored Sally Chase to her own familiar bed.
She returned to find Dr. Jim Clayton very serious. She saw, in the half-light from the basement, that his face had lost its engaging grin.
“Look here, Cherry Ames,” he said. She looked up obediently. “Don’t you ever do such a thing again.” Cherry dropped her eyes. He went on soberly. “A hospital is an arena where there’s a life and death fight going on every minute of the twenty-four hours in a day. A hospital demands the most and the best you have in you to give.
It’s a place where impossible dreams are made to come true—where every mistake might be fatal and no second chances given—where people’s lives are stripped down to the essentials—” He lifted his head and he seemed to be gazing at a vision. Cherry was moved and a little surprised that he should reveal to her how deeply he felt about medicine. Self-doubts stirred uneasily within her.
“And this hospital in particular,” he went on. “Well, it’s our hospital and I love it,” he said simply. “Its traditions are a lot to live up to. Dr. Wylie, whom everybody thinks so harsh, has given forty years of his life to make this a fine hospital. So you see—” He broke off, a little embarrassed.
“Yes, I see,” Cherry said, very low. She felt so ashamed of herself she was almost in tears.
After a long minute, Dr. Clayton said, “I think you’ll make a fine responsible nurse. A few high jinks never hurt anyone. Just work hard and you’ll get there. But don’t break any more rules—at least not until you’re off probation.” There was the merest shadow of a smile on his face.
Cherry looked up at him gratefully. “Thank you for believing in me. I—I’m not sure yet whether I believe in my ability to be a nurse. And thank you for getting us out of a scrape.”
“Sure thing. Good night.” He turned up the stairs and Cherry was left alone. She stood for a moment in the basement, thinking. She had gotten off easily—more easily than she deserved. What a way for a nurse to behave, even a beginner! From now on, she vowed, she would be less impetuous.
As she crossed the dark lawn to the Nurses’ Residence, she mused about Dr. Jim Clayton. “He must like me to take such a chance,” she thought, and then instantly reminded herself, “You’re here to study, not to daydream. But just the same, he is a darling.” In a daze she rode the creaky elevator up to her room, went in and switched on the light.
Stretched out flat in the center of the floor was Gwen. Curled up on the bed was Ann. They were both fast asleep.
