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The three of us looked from one to the other. Was that when Meaty had lost his/her/its virginity? Or the last time he/she/it had had sex? I shuddered. There were some things about your charge nurse that you didn’t want to know.
After an awkward silence, Gina cleared her throat. “Anyhow, move along, there’s nothing to see here. I’ve got scheduling to do. ”
I went and sat back at the station for the rest of my break, eating dinner there like we’re not supposed to, and reviewing the charts of the patients that might be mine if they stuck around till I got back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I returned to pediatrics, the German was rising to a fever pitch.
“Did you turn that on?” I asked the Hello Kitty nurse who’d relieved me.
She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d put it on?”
I waved my hands. There was an effing dragon on Y4. Who cared about a broken CD player now? “I probably did and forgot. Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing, really. I charted your vitals and kept an eye on the fort. ” She packed up her things. “Oh, a diaper change on the little one. Weighed seventy-five grams. ”
Score! Only five more hours to avoid a diaper change for the rest of the night. It was hard to resist pumping my fist in the air in triumph.
“Thanks so much!” I said, and she waved through the glass door as she left.
I set up shop on the desk again, stethoscope, charts, pen, and notes just the way I liked, and then paced around the table to see where the CD player was set. I turned it off, flipped it over, and popped out the four double A’s.
“There,” I said, and set it back down.
I’d only taken three steps away when the German began again. I looked down at the batteries in my hand, and back at the CD player. The CD player’s on light was shining a defiant green.
“You have got to be kidding me. ”
The only other thing on the table with the CD player was the telephone. And then it occurred to me—what the hell was he saying?
I picked up the phone and dialed the hospital translation hotline. I got their night message and waited on hold for an operator.
“Hello—I need a German translator, please. ”
“One moment!”
There was hold music while the German continued. Would they be able to hear it to
o? It wasn’t just in my head, though, Hello Kitty had heard it—so had the P. M. shift nurse.
“Hello?”
“Hello—I have a German patient here, and I need to translate their questions. Can I put you on speaker phone?”
“Certainly. ”
The translator on the phone sounded much more perky than I felt. Maybe she was in a time zone where it was daylight outside. I hit the speaker button and set the headset down.
The German continued. It rose and fell in inflection, always with the same serious tone, but now that I listened to it, it sounded like a Bible story, preachy and full of hidden meaning.
“Is this some sort of prank?” the translator asked. “Or a test?”
“What are they saying?” I pressed.
“I think they’re telling a story about Wayland the Smith. ”
“Really? What kind of story is that?”
“You’re wasting my time—”
“Who else needs German translators this time of night?”
“I also speak Tagalog,” she huffed, then hung up.
I looked down at the little CD player that could. Well, well, Wayland the Smith. At least that was a start.
* * *
I made sure to catch up on all of my charting before hopping online for my current goose chase. I sat down behind the desk, double-checked that the charge nurse couldn’t possibly see me again, and did a search on Mr. Smith, Wayland the.
Through the County’s loose firewall, I found a few pages. It was an olden-times story, mostly myths, about a smith capable of producing great jewelry and weapons. An evil king wanted Wayland to work for him alone, so he captured the smith, then hamstrung him to trap him on an island. In retaliation, Wayland took the king’s sons, who’d come privately to him for their own work, and killed them and made their skulls into goblets and brooches from their teeth, sending these back to the king. In the end, he’d escaped captivity on wings he’d forged himself.
I could get the parallel between a mythical hamstrung Wayland and a quadriplegic Shawn; it was just a bit morbid, was all. I looked back at Shawn, the player’s green light illuminating his face. Maybe the CD was full of charming German folktales to tell kids at hospitals. Kids love being threatened with ovens for liking candy. But if it provided him solace, who was I to question? After Mr. November’s apartment, I was willing to believe in ghosts. I pulled the batteries from my pocket and set them back inside the machine. “Sorry about that, Grandfather. ”
