Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse Read Online Free Page A

nurse? Ames, you fi end! You’ve been holding out on us!”
    Cherry backed away from them, stumbled, and sat down hard on the sofa, minus one scuff. They crowded around her excitedly, Mai Lee curling up on the worn carpet at her feet.

    20 CHERRY
    AMES,
    CRUISE
    NURSE
    Bertha came to the rescue. “Girls, girls! Let her get her breath. Gwen, build a fi re while I put the perish-ables in the icebox. They’ll freeze in here if I don’t.” She bustled out to the kitchenette.
    Gwen grumbled but went to work with crushed paper and kindling. Soon the log was blazing cheer-ily. Bertha came back with six cups of steaming hot tomato juice on a tray.
    “Now,” she said, settling her plump body in a chair.
    “Begin at the beginning, Cherry.”
    Cherry told them the whole thrilling story, apologizing, “I didn’t know myself until I got Dr. Davis’s letter yesterday morning. I didn’t even give Mother a hint. I honestly didn’t think I had a chance.”
    “Oh, Cherry, it’s too good to be true!” Vivian’s soft hazel eyes were wide with enthusiasm.
    Cherry felt a twinge of remorse. Vivian needed a rest and change as much as Cherry did, but there was not a trace of envy in her warm smile.
    “It’s just what the doctor ordered, Cherry,” Josie laughed.
    “You lucky, lucky girl,” Gwen shouted excitedly.
    “I’m so glad for you, Cherry.” Mai Lee quietly clapped her small ivory hands in approval. “You deserve it.”
    “I should say she does,” Bertha Larsen cried emphatically. “I only hope they don’t work you to death.
    Oh, my aching feet. At least you won’t have to climb umpteen fl ights of stairs every day.”
    Cherry’s black eyes twinkled. “You wouldn’t swap jobs with me for anything, Bertha, and you know it.

    “BON
    VOYAGE!”
    21
    You’re in love with your district. All of you are. I miss my own patients so, sometimes I ache all over.”
    “A different kind of ache from mine,” Gwen sniffed, rubbing her ankles as she toasted her stockinged feet in front of the fi re. “Me, I’m so jealous I’m green. A Caribbean cruise! Moonlit decks! Soft tropical breezes!
    While the rest of us plod our weary way through knee-deep snowdrifts.” She grinned affectionately at Cherry.
    “I don’t envy you the hot sun though. I freckle and peel like anything.”
    It had started to snow again so instead of going out they voted to have supper on low tables around the fi re. Bertha produced a delicious warmed-over lamb stew. “It always tastes better the second day,” she said, ladling out generous portions.
    Gwen, complaining good-naturedly, donned overshoes and went out for vanilla ice cream. Cherry insisted upon making hot fudge sauce to go with it.
    “Stop treating me like a guest. I’m not a visiting nurse.
    And I know you’re all ten times as tired as I am.” But Cherry was tired, she discovered an hour later.
    She fell asleep, as she said afterward, a split second before her head touched the pillow.
    She breakfasted with the girls the next morning and shooed them out of the kitchen as she stacked the dishes.
    “I’ll clean up; you haven’t time. The stores won’t be open for more than an hour and my appointment with the medical secretary isn’t until this afternoon.” She added: “I’m kind of excited about that. I believe 22 CHERRY
    AMES,
    CRUISE
    NURSE
    I’m going to meet the doctor who’ll be my boss on the cruise.”
    “And he’ll be young and handsome, if I know the Ames luck.” Gwen chuckled. “Watch out for that tropical moon. You’ll come back engaged sure as anything.”
    Cherry’s red cheeks fl ushed even redder. “Go ‘long with you, Jones.” She gave Gwen a little push. “He’ll probably be ancient and decrepit with a long gray beard. And a very nasty disposition.” But Gwen’s prediction, not Cherry’s, came true.
    Dr. Kirk Monroe was not only young and handsome, but he had very pleasant manners. Miss Henry, the secretary of the medical department, introduced