TIMMY GREETED CHERRY WITH A GARBLED VERSION OF the ship’s itinerary. Either his mother had foolishly misinformed him of the ports they would visit or he was deliberately making up a route of his own.
“We’re going to Peru,” he announced with an impish grin. “I know all about Peru.” He began to chant:
“ ‘There was a young man from Peru,
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
With a terrible fright
To find it was perfectly true!’ ”
Cherry laughed and went into the bathroom to wash the glass straw in hot, soapy water. Then she flushed it with alcohol and rinsed away the bitter taste. She taught Timmy how to drink his juice lying down. He thought it was great fun but preferred blowing bubbles.
At last Mrs. Crane took over. “I’ll see that he drinks every drop of it,” she promised Cherry. “We’ve taken up far too much of your time already.”
“I’ve enjoyed it,” Cherry said. “Just keep at the fluids, will you? He should have at least four ounces every half-hour, if possible.” She sighed. She didn’t envy helpless little Mrs. Crane the job of forcing fluids into mischievous young Timmy.
As she wearily left the room Timmy was pretending he was a whale and was spouting pineapple juice through the glass straw.
Back in her own little cabin she had hardly started to unpack when there was a tap at the door.
A young woman in a crisp, stewardess’s uniform smiled at her in the dim light of the narrow passageway.
“I’m your neighbor in the next cabin,” she told Cherry. “Helenita Browning is my name, but everybody calls me Brownie.”
“I’m Cherry Ames, Brownie.” They shook hands briefly. “Come in for a minute, won’t you?” Cherry invited.
Brownie took one step across the threshold and then gave a gasp as she saw Cherry’s Christmas presents spread out on the bed.
“Oh, how lovely,” she cried, snatching up the red-rose taffeta bathing suit. “Yummy-yum, will you ever look lovely in this on the beach at Piscadera Bay.”
“Piscadera Bay?”
Brownie nodded and draped the soft terry-cloth robe Cherry’s mother had given her over her shoulders. “That’s at Curaçao. It’s only a few minutes’ bus drive from the port of Willemstad. If we can wangle shore leave at the same time, I’ll show you the ropes.”
As Cherry hung things in the closet, Brownie curled up on her bed, rambling on:
“Willemstad is a fascinating Dutch city; as picturesque as though a bit of Holland had been lifted out of Europe and set down smack in the Caribbean Sea. There’s a fabulous pontoon bridge which swings back as ships come into the harbor. You’ll get a big thrill when we sail right down the canal so close to the Hotel Americano you can almost touch the people sitting out on the veranda.”
“Sounds like something out of a movie,” Cherry said. “Tell me more, please.”
“Well,” Brownie went on willingly, “when people on the bridge see us coming they run like anything to get to shore because sometimes it stays open for more than half an hour. They can, of course, cross in Verboot which means ferryboat; it runs while the bridge is open. The buildings in Willemstad are fascinating; you’ll love the eighteenth-century governor’s palace and all the churches and the little bright-colored, gabled houses, pink and yellow stucco mostly. We’ll visit the market where Venezuelan natives keep shop in boats along the shore.”
Brownie scrambled to her feet. “We’d better get going. It must be time for dinner. You’ll meet the other girls in this section then. They’re all swell. We were wondering why you didn’t show up for lunch.”
As they left Cherry’s stateroom, Brownie said in a carefully lowered voice, “Scuttlebutt says the purser’s safe was broken into. Have you heard?”
“What do you mean, scuttlebutt?” Cherry asked.
“Oh, it’s just a seagoing expression. Means the same as saying, ‘Gossip hath.’ The Old Man doesn’t like gossip, so I’m not saying anything more. In fact,” she admitted ruefully, “I don’t know anything more. I’ll bet it’s just one of those yarns, anyway.”
She tucked her arm through Cherry’s as they strolled up to the promenade deck. Every now and then they lurched with the roll of the ship and almost tripped each other up.
“We’re going to catch it tonight,” Brownie said. “I pity you. Seasick passengers are a pain in the neck.”
In the grill Cherry met three other stewardesses. They all sat at one big table and, ignoring the Captain’s orders, gossiped throughout the meal. Cherry felt like a prig, but she could not violate her professional ethics and discuss Bill’s accident. Nor did she divulge that she had been in the purser’s office when Ziggy discovered the safe had been broken into.
“I wonder what was stolen,” Miranda, a pretty young stewardess, kept asking. “That safe must be crammed full of jewelry. There are signs in every stateroom advising the passengers to check all valuables with the purser.”
“If this little bit of scuttlebutt ever reaches the passengers’ ears, the Old Man will have a fit,” Brownie said. “Some of the women on this ship came aboard so laden down with platinum and diamonds under their mink coats I don’t see how they managed to stagger up the gangplank.”
Cherry saw Dr. Monroe dining at a near-by table with two ship’s officers. He smiled at her swiftly with his eyes and then did not look in her direction again. Cherry knew that he must have heard the scuttlebutt by now and wondered if he suspected her of gossiping with the other girls.
Then she realized with relief that he couldn’t do that, for she hadn’t even mentioned it to him. And Ziggy must have told the ship’s surgeon that Cherry was with him when he found the safe had been rifled.
“I was tempted to discuss the mystery with him,” Cherry remembered. “But I’m glad I didn’t.”
Dinner over, the stewardesses hurried away to resume their duties. Cherry went down to the Crane suite, planning to stay with Timmy while his mother had her dinner in the big, al fresco dining room.
“It’ll do you good to have a little change from these four walls,” Cherry insisted when Mrs. Crane protested that she could eat on a tray with Timmy. “And don’t hurry back. Timmy’s due for another inhalation and more aspirin at eight anyway. I’ll take his temperature then, too.”
The word temperature decided Mrs. Crane. That was one thing she wasn’t even going to attempt to cope with. She looked rather worn and harried after a long afternoon with a fretful little boy, and gratefully thanked Cherry for relieving her.
Cherry noticed with amusement that in spite of her exhaustion, pretty Mrs. Crane took the time to shower and change into a lovely, clinging evening gown of pale sea-green chiffon. When she was ready to go she leaned over the bed to kiss Timmy good-bye. But he pushed her away crossly:
“I don’t like all that red stuff on your mouth. It gets all over me and my pajamas and the sheets. Then somebody might think I was a sissy.”
Cherry quickly took in the fact that Timmy felt nowhere near as well as he had earlier. She laid her hand on his forehead and took his pulse. Yes, his temperature had undoubtedly gone up, but that was to be expected at this time of the evening. She called after Mrs. Crane:
“About what was his fluid intake? Did you manage to get a pint into him?”
“Oh, nothing like that,” Mrs. Crane admitted. “He wouldn’t take a thing after that one glass of pineapple juice. And he blew most of that all over the bed. I had to get a maid to change the sheets. They were soaked.”
“Oh, dear,” Cherry moaned inwardly. “Not enough fluid, and to make matters worse, Timmy probably was allowed out of bed while it was being changed.”
Timmy, reading the despair on Cherry’s face and correctly guessing the reason for it, began to sob. “Now, don’t you scold me. I feel awful sick. I hurt all over.”
He flipped around like a fish to bury his face in the pillows. “I want my Nanny,” he kept wailing. “She never scolds me. Don’t you try to make me drink water. I hate water. When I have to have it, Nanny feeds it to me with a spoon and tells me stories all the time.”
Cherry tried to comfort him, deciding that she would not wait until eight to take his temperature. She would take it just as soon as he quieted down.
“Don’t cry, Timmy,” she said soothingly. “I’ll feed you water with a spoon and tell you stories too.”
Immediately, he flipped back to grin up at her. “Okey-dokey. Go get the nasty old water and a spoon. But your stories better be good or I won’t swallow a drop.”
Rain was splattering against the windows that opened out on the deck. Cherry hoped that Timmy wasn’t going to be seasick along with his cold. The deck heaved beneath her feet and she almost spilled the water she brought from the bathroom. But Timmy didn’t seem to mind the Julita’s jerky progress at all.
Cherry told him stories until she was almost as hoarse as he was, but in the end she managed to spoon four ounces of water into him and six ounces of prune juice.
When she finally took his temperature she found it had risen to 103°. She must consult Dr. Monroe at once. He would probably want to start Timmy on sulfa at eight instead of the aspirin. It was almost eight now, and she was due in sick bay for Bill’s regular check. When would Mrs. Crane come back?
In desperation she rang the steward’s bell. “I hope it doesn’t bring Waidler,” she mumbled. But it did.
“Well?” he scowled from the doorway. “What does your highness want now?”
Cherry blinked back tears of exhaustion and anxiety. “Please, Waidler,” she begged, “will you go and get Mrs. Crane? I imagine she’s still at dinner. I have to go down to sick bay for a few minutes.”
“What’s stopping you?” he demanded sourly. “Don’t tell me this little bit of motion has thrown you off your feet. Wait until tonight. If you can’t walk now you’ll be a big help when the passengers start sending for you.”
Cherry sucked in a deep breath. “It’s not the rough seas,” she said quietly. “I can’t leave this little boy alone. He’s running quite a bit of temperature. Please, get his mother.”
Waidler merely glared at her. And then, miraculously, Timmy came to the rescue. “Tell me a story, please, Mr. Waidler,” he said. “Tell me a story about pirates.”
Cherry felt sorry for innocent little Timmy who took it for granted that everyone was his friend. “That old sea dog, Waidler, probably does know some swell yarns,” she thought. “But he wouldn’t waste a minute of his precious time amusing a sick little boy.”
“Oh, all right, all right,” Waidler was mumbling gruffly. “Go long, Nurse. But don’t get it into your head that sitting with your patients is one of my duties. If the Captain ever heard about this—” He shook his head darkly. “No good will come of it. Mark my words!”
But Timmy merely wriggled ecstatically, and patted a spot beside him on the bed. “Sit down here, Mr. Waidler. I have to know all about pirates.”
Cherry fled, thinking, “If anyone can get under Waidler’s barnacled shell it will be Timmy. No one could resist that lovable little imp!”