The night nurse

Achuum! Achuum! So went my horrible cold. Days and days of coughing, sneezing, miserable fevers and, after all this, my nose seemed to have the need to bleed, because I could not help blowing.

In class, I was scorned because of all these symptoms. Then finally, one day, My father found a solution, and said, “Keisha, you need a Night Nurse.”

Why would I need a night nurse? The day before, my mother bought a bottle of medicine and it broke, and now I need a night nurse?! How awful!

I had images that she would be a rough, witchlike woman. I worried about this, and pretended to feel better to avoid getting one. But, of course, my Father knew my tricks, and it didn’t work.

I did not see a night nurse arrive, when, one night, my father said, “Keisha, it’s time for your night nurse.” I was horrified, how could this be?

When my father tucked me in, because my illness was getting worse, he gave me a green liquid medicine. It wasn’t very tasty at all. Yuck! Then I looked at the bottle, and on the front I saw, ‘Night Nurse’. What? Night nurse!’ I thought to myself. I felt a little stupefied, as a matter of fact, and also extremely dumb. Of course, this must have been my ‘Night Nurse’, how silly of me.

I told my father what I had thought, and peals of laughter echoed throughout the house that night, and every time from that day on, when I was sick, I never forgot my ‘Night Nurse.’

A short story by Lisa Gaye Taylor