For the Sake of the Children

“I—I can’t.” Tears streaked down the girl’s face. “I’m scared. What if they sting me?”

“Uh, they will if we stay up here much longer. C’mon. What’s your name?”

“Jakayla.”

“Jakayla. That’s a pretty name. C’mon. I’ll bet you’ve climbed down lots of—”

The girl shook her head violently and tightened her grip on the bar. The movement kick-started the yellow jackets into even more activity.

“Okay, okay.” As she pondered the problem of how to get the girl down, Dana seemed mindless of the two yellow jackets that had landed on her scrubs.

Patrick swung up. “Jakayla?” He was now face-to-face with her. “I’ll help. Ms. Wilson and I’ve got you. You just close your eyes.”

“But then I can’t see ’em!” she protested.

That’s the point . “Trust us. We won’t let you get stung, but we do need to get you down. I’m holding you.” He wrapped his hands around the girl’s chunky waist. “Close your eyes.”

Jakayla sucked in a labored breath and squeezed shut terrified eyes. Patrick tugged, but the girl’s grip hadn’t lessened. Dana made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smothered chuckle and began peeling the girl’s sweaty fingers, one by one, off the metal bar.

Patrick took a step down, and with one hand still on Jakayla’s waist, he used the other to steady himself. But he’d miscalculated and not looked where he’d placed his hand. The sting of a yellow jacket needled through his palm.

Dana could tell he was attempting to stifle the groan the sting evoked. “Patrick?”

He shook his head, unwilling to alarm Jakayla any more than she already was. Tears still oozed from the girl’s eyes. At least the shrieking had stopped, though.

Together, he with his sore hand and Dana with her good hands lowered the little girl to the ground. Then, Dana at once began inspecting Jakayla for stings. Finding none, she gave the girl a quick hug and turned her attention to Patrick.

“Let’s have a look at that palm.”

Now Jakayla barreled from between them to her teacher, who waited with comforting arms.

Patrick refused. “It’s okay.”

“It’s swelling. You’re not allergic, are you?”

He inspected his hand, which had indeed swollen to a princely size. “Well, this will be a pain.”

“I need to check if the stinger’s still in there.”

“Wait. Harrison?” Patrick found the principal among the crowd of onlookers. “Do you have any wasp or hornet spray? There must be a nest in one of those pipes.”

Harrison shuddered. “Oh, dear, yes, I expect that is what happened. I’ll get the janitor to spray it.”

“Got any of that foam aerosol insulation? The stuff to fill cracks?”

“I’m not sure.” Harrison seemed befuddled by the question and amazed that Patrick expected him to instantly recall what maintenance supplies the school had on hand.

“If you do, we should spray those pipes.” He gestured at the open ends. “That way, no yellow jackets or wasps can nest there.”

Patrick’s hand throbbed now. He shook it. Dana jerked her head toward the school door. “C’mon. Ice and a dose of Benadryl—how about it?”

This time he didn’t have to be asked twice. He followed her in.

“Thanks,” Dana told him.

“For what?”

“Helping. You saw how tight a grip that girl had. She wasn’t going anywhere. I would have had to hit her over the head to get her down without your help.”

“Natch. Well, except for the hand.” He stared at the puffy hand in disgust. “Why hasn’t Harrison inspected that playground equipment? We have kids with severe allergies to bee stings.”

They were back at her clinic. She pulled out the chair and pushed him lightly into it. With nimble fingers, she ran a hands-free magnifying glass over his palm and surveyed the damage. “Yep. A stinger, still in there.” One tug with some tweezers, and she was done.

She wheeled her stool around to the fridge and drew out an ice pack. “That will help the swelling. If we could have gotten bleach on the sting before it began swelling, you wouldn’t have had such a reaction.”

“Bleach?”

“Yeah. Bleach. No matter. Open up.” Dana flicked on a penlight and wielded a tongue depressor.

“Huh?”

“Your airway. I need to be sure it’s not swelling.”

“I’m not—oh, okay.” He complied, feeling silly. The click off of the penlight told him she was satisfied with her exam.

“A dose of Benadryl and you’re good.” Dana presented him with several petal-pink tablets. “Sorry. Only have the chewables. They’re berry-flavored, but they’ll do the job.”

He chomped on the sugary-tart tablets. “You’re terrific at this.”

Dana laughed and began cleaning up. “I’d hope so. Why? You have doubts about my ability?”

“No, but you said it yourself. That first day we met.”

Her face colored. “Great way to inspire confidence in your boss, huh?”

“It’s okay. From what I saw out in the school yard there, I have no doubts we hired the right nurse. Nell wouldn’t have climbed up there after a kid, and if we’d waited on Harrison, Miss Jakayla would have been stung about a dozen times by now.”

“All part of a day’s work.” Dana rose and crossed to the sink, where she began scrubbing the tweezers.

“Well, it shouldn’t have been. Harrison has to keep a closer eye on the playground equipment. If that child had fallen and broken an arm or her leg or—God forbid—her neck, her parents could have sent our liability rates through the roof.”

Dana’s back stiffened. “Ah. More lawsuit paranoia. And I thought you actually cared about Jakayla. But it’s like the mold, isn’t it? Some parent might sue.”

Patrick rose to his feet, his hand hurting like crazy. “You make it sound as though we’re heartless. But we’ve done all we can, I assure you. Once we found the mold—and God knows how long it had been there undetected—we moved rapidly to get it abated. We called in crews to do the work—hell, I got in there myself. I wanted the job done this summer, before school opened.”

“But you’re still worried. Or else you wouldn’t be insisting on this neurotic testing slate.” She shook water droplets off the tweezers and faced him. “Your whole testing regime is positively phobic, especially when these tests, without a good baseline from the children’s doctors, are practically useless.”

“Of course I’m still worried. Only an idiot wouldn’t be. I had three choices, Dana. I could hire a professional mold abatement company. Now, that’s a racket—the cheapest one wanted a half-million dollars! Or I could put in mobile units—figure two hundred grand there. Or we could do the best job we could ourselves for about sixty thousand dollars.” He blew out a long breath. “We’re a small, rural school in one of the poorest counties in Georgia. So I didn’t have much choice at all.”