Hurricane Nurse Read Online Free Page A

own quick judgment.
    "The Stamey girl Mr. Cassius mentioned," she began after a long silence. "What is she charged with?"
    His light eyes—she still hadn't decided exactly what shade they were—were on her face for a brief second before they returned to the street. "She's a shoplifter. Why?"
    "You think she's guilty, then?" she asked, frowning a little at the thought.
    "I know she's guilty. She admitted it to me."
    "And yet you are going to defend her?" The edge was back in her voice. "Will you get her off?"
    "Oh, I think so," he answered with easy assurance as he came to a halt at the front of the school. "Suppose you go report. I'll find somebody to help me with these supplies and find a garage where I can park the car. But I'll be back. You can tell Fincher the Red Cross sent me. Or maybe they've already phoned him."
    Donna took out her overnight bag. "Thank you for bringing me out," she said in a frosty voice. Probably that boy Julio had done something horrible and would show up in his true colors any day now. Cliff would turn the Stamey girl loose on unsuspecting merchants, too. She had been right about him in the beginning, and now she had let him buy food for her for the duration of the hurricane. She was disgusted with him— almost as disgusted as she was with herself.
     

Chapter III
    Donna thrust her head into Hank's office and told him, quite unnecessarily, that she was back on duty. "Unless there is something else pressing, I thought I would check first-aid supplies to make sure that everything's in its place."
    "Fine," he agreed. "The public won't be arriving yet awhile, I guess. The men faculty members are due at three o'clock. I'll get the janitor to set up two registration desks in the hall at the main entrance. The Wards will be here right after lunch. About twelve-thirty."
    "The Wards?" she asked.
    He nodded. "They're nearly ninety. They've been married more than sixty years. He was a college professor and they live on social security from back when it was a lot less than it is today, but they don't owe anybody a penny. They live in a spotless little shack down by the railroad tracks, and they're always the first to arrive when we are expecting a hurricane. The weather bureau is announcing that the schools will be open until seven-thirty."
    She laughed. "I never thought about our having regulars."
    "Lots of them," he told her.
    Tom Carter, the physical ed teacher, appeared in the doorway behind her. "I'm over at the gym until you need me, Fincher. Three or so, huh?"
    The principal nodded. "Three or so. We shouldn't have any troublemakers here before that time. Usually that sort don't arrive until nearly night."
    Donna smiled at Hank. "I'll be in the first-aid room if you need me," she varied the physical ed teacher's words to suit her case and went out with him, addressing her next remark to that young man. "What did Hank mean, troublemakers?"
    "We have them," he assured her. "A crowd of young squirts who come in to chase girls, or drink the time away. Others looking for something to steal. I hope all the teachers locked everything and put things away."
    "I think that's simply horrible," Donna protested. "We offer them shelter and they plunder. That's inexcusable."
    He chuckled at her indignation. "You've got to deal with people, Donna. The people who live around Flamingo aren't angels. Maybe you noticed that when you were checking the little dears. Just maybe."
    She laughed. "I have—once or twice—suspected as much," she admitted. "Are we sleeping them in the gym?"
    It was Tom's time to show indignation. "All those people walking on my newly finished floor? I wouldn't let one of them into the building. Not if it were a matter of life and death. Well, maybe then, but only maybe."
    "I never thought of a gym floor as being anything sacred," she teased. "I'm checking supplies in my office, bandages and the like. Goodbye."
    She had hardly spread out her list and opened the supply cabinet when Cliff