Tell Me, Darling Read online

  “Hi guys,” said Sadie, putting down her plate of pasta and tomato sauce.

  “Hi Nursie!” they chorused. They all liked her – she was by far the friendliest of the more senior staff. They were all scared of Joe, Jonesy was a little intimidating with her thick Northern accent that was hard for them to understand, and Ingrid was already notoriously strict. Sadie was approachable and fun, laughed a lot, and really listened to them when they had something to say.

  “Good dinner?” she asked. They all nodded enthusiastically as they shovelled lasagne into their mouths.

  “This is good,” said Alexei. “My mother can cook good food, but this is better.”

  “What kind of food do you eat at home?” asked Sadie. “I read a book once about Russia and all they seemed to eat was cabbage and beet soup.”

  Alexei laughed. “We eat that, but also … we like ham bourgers!” The Italians laughed at the way he said it. He didn’t seem to mind much. “You eat this food in South Africa?”

  “Not me,” said Sadie. “I don’t like meat.”

  The conversation continued until Joe came up to the table. She didn’t notice him approach until he was standing right there. “Sadie,” he said, interrupting one of the boys. She looked up, her mouth full of spaghetti. “Office, after dinner.”

  “Okay,” she said, swallowing quickly. He was gone before she had even finished her reply.

  The boys looked at her, eyes wide. “That Joe,” said Fernando, one of the oldest Italian boys, calling Joe a string of awful English swearwords. He was a tall, good-looking boy with a swagger and a mean streak, who sat now with his arm around Natalya, a pretty Russian girl with beautiful long blonde hair. He had already butted heads with Sam, and Sadie wished Alexei would find someone else to hang out with.

  “Hey,” said Sadie. “That is not okay, Fernando.”

  “Sorry Nursie,” he said, looking anything but repentant. He took his phone out of his pocket, leant back and started scrolling. Sadie noticed that he had the same phone as she did.

  “I have that same phone,” she said.

  Fernando grunted. “Stupid phone. My father will buy me a new one when I finish camp. This is piece of rubbish.” He threw it onto the table contemptuously.

  “Works fine for me,” said Sadie, liking him even less.

  “Joe is not a happy man,” said one of the others, a shorter, rounder, much nicer boy called Francesco. “He look like this.” Francesco proceeded to do a very good impression of Joe’s grumpy face. The boys were laughing before he even started speaking. “You kids listen up!” he said, shaking his finger and trying to imitate Joe’s English accent. “Rules are for reason! Rules are good for you! Now SLEEP!”

  The boys collapsed with laughter, especially Fernando, pointing and whistling as Francesco basked in his sudden glory. They got up and called some of their friends over and made him do it all over again. Francesco happily obliged, and soon he had a little crowd around him, some of them taking photos and videos on their phones. Alexei looked at Sadie and shook his head. “Joe is how do you say … strik? Struk?

  “Strict?”

  “Yes,” said Alexei. “But he is boss. He must be strict.”

  “I think I agree with you,” said Sadie, finishing off her dinner and looking around, glad that Joe wasn’t there to see this. “See you later, Alexei.”

  Joe was waiting in the office when Sadie got there. Jonesy, Ingrid and Leon, the head sport coach, were there too.

  “Just to let you know,” said Joe. “I’m going to have to do a fire drill this evening. I was thinking at eight, then hopefully we can get everyone back to bed before nine. The SGL’s were briefed in training on what to do and where to get their group to, so let’s hope they keep their heads and manage to get that done. Will you guys help check the buildings for stragglers after everyone’s lined up on the grass outside?”

  “Sure,” said Leon. “It’s going to be a beast getting them calmed down afterwards.”

  “It’s necessary,” said Ingrid. “Good plan, Joe.” She smiled at him and Sadie noticed. Did Ingrid like Joe? It would be an interesting match – so far, they were probably the least liked of all the staff. But Joe didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m dreading it. But it has to be done. Rules.”

  As Sadie left the office, she looked at her watch, feeling disappointed that now she wouldn’t have more than half an hour to close her eyes on her bed before her night duty shift began. She had slept very little over the past few days and she was starting to feel it. She made her way to her room, drew the curtains and lay on her top bunk, sighing as she closed her eyes.

  It felt like a minute later that the door opened. “Just having a little snooze, Caitlin,” said Sadie, expecting it to be her roommate.

  “It’s me,” said a deep voice in her ear, and she jumped. It was Gabriel, standing beside the bed, leaning his arms on the mattress and grinning.

  “Gabriel!” she said, sitting up quickly, and reaching for her glasses, her heart pounding. “You gave me such a fright! What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to see you,” he said. “I didn’t see you all day. Then at dinner you sit with little boys. I was missing you.”

  Wow, thought Sadie, looking into his face. He really was rather beautiful. “You shouldn’t be here, Gabriel! What if Joe catches you?”

  “Then I will be sacked,” he said, dramatically. Sadie wondered if he was putting it on or being genuine.

  “Probably not,” said Sadie, “But maybe you should leave.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” he said, picking up her hand and kissing it. Sadie just wanted to giggle. He looked almost comical, leaning over her bed with his big mournful eyes, sounding like Zorro or Don Juan. She was enjoying the attention, but she knew it was almost time for the fire alarm. She got down from the bed and faced him.

  “You are sweet, Gabriel,” she said. “But don’t you think I’m a little old for you?”

  He answered her by putting his arms around her waist and leaning in to kiss her.

  “Gabriel!” Sadie stepped back. She hadn’t expected that quite yet. “Not here, not now!”

  Luckily, she was saved from further explanation by the fire alarm, shockingly loud and shrill. Gabriel let go of her and put his hands over his ears. “What is that?” She could barely her him.

  “Just the fire alarm,” she shouted. “You’d better go and find your group and line them up on the grass outside!”

  Gabriel backed out of the room, his hands still over his ears. Sadie straightened her clothes and locked up her room, wishing the horrible noise would just stop and she could fall into bed.

  Chapter 8

  Fifteen minutes later the kids were lined up on the grass, some in their pyjamas already. Joe and Jonesy stood at the front with clipboards.

  “SGL’s, come and let me know who’s missing!” called Joe over the din of the chattering kids. “QUIET!” he shouted at the group. “QUIET!”

  The kids were quiet. Not bad, thought Sadie. He might not be liked but he had somehow managed to assert his authority.

  “Now SIT DOWN!” Joe ordered. He was obeyed, some of the girls squealing and giggling a little as they all found a space to sit.

  “I’m missing two,” said Raj. “Sofia and Leonora.”

  “Three missing,” said Sam. “That stinker Fernando, Natalya and Dmitry.”

  There were three other kids missing, and Sadie, Leon and Ingrid went off to the dorms to look for them. Sadie found Sofia and Leonora quickly pulling on clothes – they had been in the shower. Ingrid found some boys in the dining hall playing cards, and Leon busted Fernando and Natalya taking the opportunity to snog each other in the empty dorm. After a few minutes all the stragglers had been rounded up and everyone accounted for. Joe had more to say.

  “Right,” he shouted out to the kids, who were fed up with sitting on the damp grass. “That wasn’t bad. There will be another fire drill at some point.
and you had all better be out here much faster than that. Understand? Much faster!”

  “Yes sir!” shouted someone, probably Francesco or Fernando. There was a wave of laughter from the children. Joe’s going to be mad, Sadie thought. She didn’t think he was going to react well to being laughed at. But he surprised her – he turned to the culprit and gave a mock salute, and the slightest hint of a smile.

  “Now get to bed, all of you,” he said. “Lights out at nine!”

  The kids got up and swarmed back into the dorms, talking and laughing, energy pulsing. Sadie rubbed her tired eyes. Leon was right. Getting them to sleep tonight was going to be madness. But not quite as exhausting, she thought, as hospital night shifts.

  But before morning she would be reminded of the exhaustion of hospital night shifts. It took ages and a lot of shouting and threatening to get the kids to settle down that night. It was so frustrating – there was really nothing the staff could do to the kids if they misbehaved, and the kids knew it. They could threaten to call their parents, but most of the kids weren’t bothered by that at all. The best they could do was to say they would call Joe, and surprisingly that worked better than anything else. By ten, Sadie and Ingrid were sitting on the floor in the passage outside the noisiest girls’ room, leaning their heads on the wall and waiting for the time to pass so they could go to bed themselves. Leon and Richard had more trouble with the boys – someone had put toothpaste on someone else’s pillow and that started a run of booby-trapping beds. When ten thirty finally came and Sadie and Ingrid met Leon and Richard at the end of the passage, they almost laughed at the expressions on the guys’ faces.

  “You guys look shattered,” said Ingrid.

  Sadie smiled to herself. It always sounded a little off when Ingrid made an effort to use English slang expressions, even though her Swedish accent was barely noticeable.

  “Those boys are in a mood,” said Leon, shaking his head. “Fernando is out of control. I doubt he’s asleep right now. More likely plotting to take over the world.”

  “He’s dishonest and devious,” said Richard. “He’s got most of the Italian guys wrapped around his little finger. We need to watch him.”

  “Right now, all we need to do is sleep,” said Leon, yawning. “Thank goodness, here’s Joe and Jonesy.”

  “How’s it been?” asked Jonesy, as she and Joe approached. Since camp had begun, they had patrolled the corridors themselves for an extra hour every night. Sadie thought Joe looked way more exhausted than she felt. Did he ever sleep? She guessed he was glad to have got the fire drill over with successfully.

  “Rough,” said Ingrid. “I hope they’re settled now, though.” She smiled at Joe in a way that made Sadie wonder again what was going on there.

  “Thanks guys,” said Joe. “Get some sleep.”

  As Sadie and Ingrid headed back to their rooms, Sadie thought she would find out if she was right.

  “Joe looks tired, doesn’t he?” she said.

  “He does,” said Ingrid. “He has an incredible sense of duty.”

  “You like him, don’t you?”

  Ingrid blushed. “I think he is an admirable person,” she said, carefully. “And he is handsome, and very intelligent. He is a graduate student at Birmingham University – did you know that? I like him a lot, but I don’t think he has noticed me at all.”

  “You never know,” said Sadie. “But yeah – he seems completely absorbed in running the camp at the moment.”

  Ingrid shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t come here to meet a man anyway. But I do like him.”

  They parted at the door to Ingrid’s room and Sadie went on to hers. It seemed to take seconds to fall asleep, and it felt like seconds later when she was ripped out of deep unconsciousness. Caitlin was shaking her, and there was an awful noise.

  “Fire alarm is going off,” said Caitlin, rubbing her eyes. “Come on.”

  Sadie got up, felt for her glasses, pulled on a hoodie over her pyjamas, then made her way down the passage in a confused fog. A fire alarm? Hadn’t they just done the drill? Was it morning yet? She only really woke up when she got outside and saw the strange sight – kids drifting onto the lawn in their pyjamas, girls with their arms around each other, boys huddling together in groups, sleepy leaders trying to find all their group members and counting to see if everyone was there. Once again Joe was in the front with his clipboard, in his red T-shirt, and Sadie noticed though her still-blurry eyes, a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. She saw Sam, in a short white robe and white slippers, her long blonde hair a wild mess, manhandling her girls into a line and making them sit on the grass, and Raj in his Union Jack boxer shorts and a Donald Duck T-shirt shouting out for the boys in his group and then pulling them into line in front of him. “What’s the time?” she asked no one in particular.

  “Its 3:15,” said Ingrid, appearing behind her. “What is going on? Is this a drill?”

  “I don’t see a fire,” said Sadie. She saw Jonesy and Leon come up to Joe and say something to him, and Joe’s whole body tensing up as he listened. He took out his phone and turned his back to them as he made a call. Soon the kids were all seated on the grass, two or three stragglers who had slept through the noise were dragged out of the dorm, and Joe stood in front of the silent group, his arms folded.

  “This was not a drill,” he said. No one said a word. “Someone did this. Someone actually BROKE THE GLASS and set off the alarm.”

  Still silence. Then someone giggled.

  “This is NOT A JOKE!” yelled Joe. “Do you realise that the FIRE DEPARTMENT was called? I don’t know what happens in your countries but in England it is a CRIME to PRANK THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!”

  There was silence again.

  “If anyone knows who did this, you need to come and tell me,” he said, each word measured and forced as if he was holding back his rage. “I want to know who did this. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

  “Yes, Joe!” said a few brave kids, and soon others joined in. Sadie tried to scan their faces for a possible culprit, but it was too dark to see properly.

  “Now go back to bed. If there is any trouble, I will hear about it. GO!”

  The kids got up, mostly subdued, and trickled back to their dorms. The SGL’s followed wearily. Sadie and Caitlin linked arms back to their room.

  “Poor us,” said Caitlin, as she kicked off her slops and climbed into the bottom bunk. “This job never ends.”

  “Poor Joe,” thought Sadie, as she closed her eyes and let sleep wash over her again. “Poor, poor Joe.”

  Chapter 9

  The next day was a slow day – the campers were sleepy after their late night and the fire alarm wake-up, and the staff were all feeling exhausted as the first full week of camp came to end. It was Friday, there was only half a morning of English lessons and a few fun sport activities in the afternoon, and then there was free time and a movie night in the big hall to look forward to. Only a few of the kids were going home on the weekend – most were staying, and more were expected on Sunday. As Sadie sat in the dining hall eating the vegetable and bean casserole that the kitchen had come up with for lunch, she wondered how they were going to manage more kids. The fire alarm prankster had not owned up or been betrayed, and the incident had mostly blown over although Sadie knew that Joe had not forgotten it.

  She looked around for Joe, but she couldn’t see him. He didn’t often eat in the dining room – usually Jonesy brought him something in the office. But Jonesy was at a table today, laughing and talking with Sam and Raj. Sadie sat with Caitlin, Richard and Gabriel, who had sought her out and come to sit with them, giving her a big smile and a knowing look as he did.

  “How is your lunch?” he asked, politely.

  “It’s all right,” she said, smiling at him. “Doesn’t taste like much but it’s okay.”

  “Do you have some time off later? Maybe we can go for a walk.”

  “That would be nice,” she said. Except for the few minutes in her bedroom before the
fire drill, she hadn’t actually been alone with him yet. “But only between 3 and 4. Then I have an admin shift, and night duty after supper.”

  “Oh no,” said Gabriel. “I have to take my group up to the pool then.”

  He looked so disappointed that Sadie laughed. “It’s okay,” she said. “What about tomorrow? Do you have the day off?”

  “No,” he said. “Only Sunday morning. What about you?”

  “I’m off on Saturday afternoon,” said Sadie. “Maybe we can find some time tomorrow afternoon – you can’t have duties all day.”

  “I hope so,” said Gabriel. He picked up a piece of her hair and twirled it around his finger. Sadie looked him in the eyes and smiled. He liked her funny blue hair. He liked her the way she was.

  Just then, Joe sat down at their table. Sadie had guessed he would be tired after the alarm prank – they all were – but she was almost shocked to see how bad he looked. His eyes were bloodshot, and the rings underneath were almost black. His face was pale. Too pale, thought Sadie, her nurse’s mind kicking in. He’s running himself into the ground.

  “Is that all you’re having?” she asked, looking at his plate which held an orange and a mug of tea.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “In fact, I don’t even want this,” he said, taking the orange off his plate. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers and took a sip of his tea.

  “Joe,” she said. “How much have you slept this week?” Gabriel was still twirling her hair around, and she moved her head away so he would stop.

  Joe looked at Sadie, and then at Gabriel, who was reaching across for Caitlin’s lunch plate so he could eat her leftovers. “A fairly negligible amount, if you must know.”

  “Are you struggling to fall asleep? Too much on your mind?”

  ‘Yes,” he said, blankly.