Silent Night by Cooper Baltis & Patrick Kennedy & Jill Prior

Author:Cooper Baltis & Patrick Kennedy & Jill Prior
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: reading, improve, study, learn words, English as a second language, English verbs, English grammar, learning to read, conversation, intermediate, easy, interesting book, graded reader, Toefl, toeic, Cambridge, sat, esl, efl, improve English, esl reading, readers, cool book for kids, fun, book for teen preteen kid, advanced, British English, American English, method, step into reading, help, comprehension
Publisher: Hippo Books
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Graveyard Shift

By Jill Prior

The First Night

The numbers on the clock across from the nurses’ desk glowed bright red in the dark hallway. Claire glanced at the time again, then quickly looked away and ran her fingers distractedly through her hair. 1:27am. The night was just beginning.

She hated working the midnight shift; the one the other nurses called the ‘graveyard shift’. She had asked around the hospital, hoping that someone would be willing to trade shifts with her, but everyone she spoke to suddenly had something important to do. She even asked her best friend, Jacqueline, who she shared everything with, but Jacqueline apologized and said she needed to be home with her sons. Claire understood...she knew that no one would ever choose to be here at night.

Her paperwork, already finished, sat in a neat pile on one side of her desk. Claire stared at it, tapping her fingers on the desk, and regretted not leaving enough work to fill the long night hours. Without thinking, her eyes moved to the blackness at the end of the long dark hallway in front of her. She needed something, anything, to distract her from... ‘Don’t!’ she told herself. ‘Stop thinking about it or you’ll go crazy.’ She checked her watch. 2:12am. Long way to go.

She suddenly stood up and took a file from the desk. Keeping her eyes on the dark hallway in front of her, but pretending she wasn’t, Claire quickly moved around her desk and turned down the second hallway to the right. She walked along the hall until she reached the room of the only patient at that end of the hospital: Monsieur Lamarque, the elderly gentleman from a village in the south. Claire quietly opened the door.

In the dim electric glow of the medical instruments surrounding his bed, Claire could see the silhouette of the sleeping figure. She entered the room and switched on a small desk lamp. The man woke up.

‘Hello?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry monsieur, it’s me, Claire. I need to record your data every six hours, but I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Ah, it’s good to see you again, Claire.’ he smiled. ‘It’s fine, I was awake. When you get as old as me, you’ll see that sleep often escapes you at night.’ He was eighty years old and his face filled with wrinkles when he smiled, but the blue eyes that shone out from between the creases were kind and clear.

Claire smiled back. ‘Well I’m glad to hear I didn’t disturb you. How are you feeling tonight?’

Monsieur Lamarque’s smile faded a little. ‘My shoulder feels much better,’ he said, placing his opposite hand over the fresh bandages, ‘but I’ve had a terrible headache today.’

‘Hmm, OK, I’ll take a look.’

Claire first examined his shoulder, gently feeling along the bone where the fracture had been. Doctor Thoreau had certainly done a fine job of fixing it. She lifted Monsieur Lamarque’s arm to see if he could move it all right. ‘Any pain?’ she asked.

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Excellent. You should be able to go home soon, but make sure to be careful.

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