Innocent by Cathy Glass

Author:Cathy Glass
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-15T16:41:45+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

A Breakthrough?

I left Paula and Adrian looking after Kit and Molly downstairs and hurried upstairs to Lucy’s room. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sick. She never was. Despite working with children, she didn’t pick up the illnesses that seemed to go around the nursery, even in winter when many of them had coughs, colds and runny noses.

Lucy’s bedroom door was ajar and I knocked and went in. She was lying on her bed, fully clothed, awake but very pale. A plastic bucket was beside her bed.

‘You poor dear,’ I said, going over and sitting on her bed. ‘I wonder what brought that on. How do you feel now?’ I stroked a loose strand of hair away from her forehead. She didn’t feel hot, as though she had a temperature.

‘I’m a bit better now,’ she said. ‘But it was horrible. I hate being sick.’

‘I know, love. How many times were you sick?’ The bucket was empty.

‘Once, but it was very violent. I felt fine this morning. I had breakfast and then just after Adrian left to collect you and Kit I had a drink. About fifteen minutes later I felt very sick. I just made it to the loo in time.’

‘What did you have for breakfast?’ I asked, wondering if that was the cause.

‘Scrambled eggs on toast.’

‘Did Molly have them?’

‘No. She had porridge. The eggs tasted fine, but I can’t think what else it could be. Unless I’ve picked up something at work. One of the children was sick yesterday.’

‘That’ll be it, I’m sure. You’d have smelt it if the eggs were off. You can’t miss it.’

‘How’s Kit?’ she asked, propping herself up on the pillow.

‘Back to normal. The doctor is making a referral to the allergy clinic. I’ll discuss it with Tess. Do you want anything?’

‘Just a glass of water, please. I’ll be down soon, and can you take the bucket? I don’t need it now. Paula put it there in case I was sick again.’

I kissed Lucy’s cheek and, taking the bucket, I went downstairs and poured her a glass of water. Half an hour later she was up and about, the colour having returned to her cheeks, and feeling more or less back to normal, although she was worried in case she was sick again. Molly was worried too and kept watching her. ‘You were sick like me,’ she said.

‘Everyone is sick sometimes,’ Lucy said. ‘Thankfully I’m not ill often.’

‘I am,’ Molly said.

‘Yes, and I am trying to find out what is causing it so we can stop it happening,’ I reassured her again.

It had crossed my mind for one horrible moment that possibly Molly and Kit had passed on a communicable disease to Lucy, but I couldn’t think what it could be with these symptoms. Like all foster carers, we practised safer caring, as Lucy did at the nursery. So if a child was sick or soiled themselves, we put on rubber gloves to clear it up, thoroughly cleaned the area with hot water and disinfectant, and hot washed any clothes or bed linen.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.