NOTE! I am not a medical professional of any kind, I do not know what profession merits what responsibilities, please feel free to notify me when I'm wrong. And if I've made a mistake -which is highly likely- bear in mind I am but a lowly high school student, don't mind me.
And please enjoy!
Chapter 8
Rose POV
Something incredible happened.
I was cooking with Celeste in the kitchen. We were making burgers and fries. The burgers had sauteed onions and peppers, and I had to cut up tomatoes and other things like it for people to add to their lunches.
As it turned out only Mason was still cooking in Survival class. Most had either moved on to sewing or had moved entirely out of the class. Mason was still cooking though and I held onto that because I wasn't the last one cooking yet. If I worked hard enough I could get out of this class. Wade had said as much and he didn't lie. I could do it.
Anyway back to making burgers. I had everything out, and I was working mechanically. I'd made burgers before with Christian, they turned out both burnt and raw but these ones were looking good. The meat was juicy and the vegetables looked amazing. I started setting everything out for people to serve them selves with, since my class was one class away from lunch I stored them in the heating trays. As it turned out the guardians that had missed breakfast due to their guarding duties came over to grab their brunch. They all tried to hide their looks of horror when they saw me putting out the food.
They'd had my meals before since on day 1's I cooked everyone lunch and everyone dinner. They knew I wasn't the best but they were so hungry that they still ate in anyways.
So they filed through and made their burgers, tentative glances at the yummy looking food as if they were wondering if it was disguising something. I watched miserably as they went and sat down at the tables. I waited for their cries of disgust or worse the sour lemon look that Wade must have taught them. They all sat and I watched as they stared at their food for a moment before Renee finally picked up her burger and took a bite. We all watched as she chewed on her bite of the burger. She swallowed and stared at it for a moment.
Before lunging for another bite.
''This is good!'' She exclaimed around her mouthful. The others around her started picking up their own burgers and trying them out. Appreciative sounds filled the air as they chewed happily on their food.
For the first time ever they came back for seconds.
Celeste was just as shocked as I was, she even let me make one for the two of us. And I was shocked
This tasted like something Christian would make. The rest of the class consisted of cleaning up the kitchen in somewhat of a daze. The bell rang and woke me from my wandering. As I was getting ready to leave Celeste came over and smiled.
''If you can cook a meal of that caliber for our next five classes, we'll move on to sewing.''
It must have been a miracle but I did make five more meals that the others liked.
And I finally moved on to sewing. Which was granted not any fun but better then cooking.
The next miracle that happened sometime after that was in Health. We'd been looking at the biology of the human body and along with those scary ass dummies Dr. Olendski had scattered about the room I was practicing stitches and how to treat wounds that were deep enough for stitches but not so deep as to merit a doctors attention, by that I mean a nurse could handle it. It was that day that I realized what Olendski had planed for me. Not simple first response but nurse, because I would certainly never have the time to become a doctor around the Strigoi hunting future that lay ahead of me, but out in the field many dhampirs died of not so bad injuries because they don't get looked after soon enough. I guess I was to be the go to girl for injuries in our group.
So she was teaching me the way to do it. Rubber gloves, anti infection stuff, the full meal deal. I was trying it out on yet another dummy she'd set out. They all had cuts and varying degree's stitching when the door burst open. Arthur and Alberta were carrying Mason in. He was unconscious and looked like he fell off a cliff. His arms and legs were cut everywhere a gash on his chest looked bad though not fatal. Dr. Olendski cleared of the operating table with a swoop of her arm and got them to set him down on it. We both removed our old gloves for new ones, putting on masks. We'd been over this, if anyone came in looking like Mason I would be pulled out of which ever class I was in to help her and if I were in her class we'd start with the ABC's. And before I even came into the infirmary I was to put scrubs a mask and gloves on. Ready for anything. Now the ABC's
Airway? Clear
Breathing? A bit shallow but okay
Circulation? Good, okay we can move on.
A branch was buried under his skin, too deep for ma to deal with. I let her deal with that as I moved on to his IV. And set up the heart beat monitor. I kept myself steady as I began to quickly clean out the gash on his chest. Cutting his shirt off I made sure I had full access to the wound. Cleaned it out as best as I could. I kept one hand on the table as I plucked pieces of bark out. Even I could tell he was hardly in critical condition but I still felt uneasy. Though I found it easy to put to the side well cleaning the injury, something I'd done many times.
Something warm was coating my hand. A liquid warmth. I glanced at my gloved hand.
It was covered in blood. I followed the trail quickly up to the back of his head.
''Doctor we've got a bleeding head wound.'' She quickly stopped stitching up the wound where the branch had been and motioned for me to continue what she'd been doing. We switched places and I forced myself to forget that I was stitching up my friend, this injury was just on another dummy. A living dummy that looked a lot like Mason, but not him. I could do this.
I finished up that wound before going back to the one on his chest. Cleaning out the bark and the rock and continuing on, I wanted Olendski to look over a wound so deep.
And finally it was over. I set his broken leg and his broken arm, made sure all the other minor injuries were clean and if need be stitched closed or bandaged.
I finally stepped away from the table with a sigh. Glancing up at I saw she was tying the last stitch on the chest wound. I watched as she stepped back and removed her gloves. Exchanging them again for a new pair, I copied her before grabbing the broom and sweeping, while
''Is his head okay?'' She glanced up from her work with a smile
''Yes, he'll be fine. You've done a very nice job cleaning this wound. The stitches aren't perfect but they are still very good.'' I almost sighed in relief but kept my eyes on Mason. Was their anything I missed? Did I skip a step? I took everything out of the wounds right? Everything was sterilized right?
A thousand questions ran through my mind. I had to get it all right. If I missed a piece or used the wrong tweezers or...
A hand landed on my shoulder. I glanced away from Mason an up into 's kind brown eyes.
''You've all that you can. I'll be doing x-rays to make sure we didn't miss anything and he'll be on antibiotics, he'll be fine. You deserve a break, I'll see you again on Thursday.''
I nodded with a hard smile. At least I was able to help. Unlike last time.
Just three days later he was allowed to go to school. Though no physical activity was allowed- he had casts on. He was showing off his scars when I saw him. I had asked those who knew I had helped with the operation to keep it to themselves. I wasn't sure how to feel about having helped Olendski in emerge.
So I just smiled at him and listened to the others as they told stories of their successes. Apparently Mia was successfully coming along as a hacker. Eddie was going to our group chauffeur having driven every motor vehicle boat and construction equipment here. Lissa was the go to girl for knowing anything, Christian was the cook... Me and Mason were the muscle.
Feels so nice being useful don't you think?
Our teachers were pleased none the less. They wore smiles most of the time thought Dimitri and Alberta must have been the happiest ones around. Though it wasn't obvious you could see it in the way they interacted. They were just... happier.
One night after a day of training and cooking and being generally exhausted we all were slowly eating our meal of some bland tasting ravioli -Christian hadn't had time to help out in the kitchen today- Alberta stood.
''I just wanted to warn you all that we will be having some visitors soon. One a guardian who is coming to teach us some of her expertise and another a recruiter who will evaluate what kind of people he should be looking for when he's recruiting.'' We all nodded not really paying attention. After all we'd already had quite a few guest teachers come to the camp. They taught us what they were good at and got out as soon as possible. These two would be no different.
'' I thought I would warn you that a couple of things are coming up.'' she said sternly. '' The outdoor survival component will be taking place after the departure of our guests however long that may be. Our gracious queen has also allowed us to participate in the six month guarding sessions the normal schools have. We have yet to contact one of these schools but we have decided that when you leave to join them we will start teaching the next group of recruits that our guest will be out looking for. Their will be a while between now and then of course but we just wanted to make sure you knew of this well in advance.'' She took a deep breath and said
''Also tomorrow you will be receiving books on plant anatomy, uses and animal behaviors I suggest you study them since this is what will be keeping you alive soon.'' the seven of us groaned. The teachers might have been happy with how we were ding but instead of giving us slack they've been piling on more and more homework, harder and harder and harder concepts. Some of us enjoyed the challenge -Lissa, Eddie and Christian- others just did what they had to to stay afloat and not fall to far behind -Mia, Mason, ME-.
We she said sounded like a nice diversion. With how quickly our other guests had left we'd be doing our woodland adventure soon. Meaning of course that we will be having another huge study session.
I really hate that word. Studying. It fools you you know? It starts with 'stud' like you know a hot person right, so either your doing studs or your being a stud. But no! Studying is were you sit down and stare at words until you remember them. Clearly the inventor of this word was a little lady many many years ago who was talking away with her friends about the studying -wink wink- that she'd done. Someone interrupted and asked what it meant and she replied that she was merely memorizing the dictionary and found the word appropriate.
That's my conclusion anyway. If it weren't such an odd topic I'd probably had asked Oksana, but... no.
After dinner we were heading back to our cabins when Alberta stopped me and Christian.
''Since you guys cook all the time after school maybe you could cook the dinners for us?'' Christian readily agreed which resulted in another alteration of our after school patterns. Now we stayed back and cooked and put together a quick meal and let the others watch it cook. Then we met up with our friends at which ever cabin they were at and started our homework before running back to eat then running back to the cabins to finish the homework and sleep. Sometimes when we were too tiered we'd stay in the cafeteria and started our homework before slowly making our way home to finish it all off. I was never really good in school, so the basics in almost all my normal school classes were almost non existent. I was having to relearn a lot of things but at least it was faster then in a normal classes with a bunch of people around to slow down the process. Me and Christian shared our English class, and according to Oksana we would soon be able to take the final exam and move on with our lives. We shared a dramatic high five moment before elephants started stomping around in my stomach and my skin especially that on my right hand felt warm and my face turned red.
My math Tasha said would be done before the trip to the school for the six month training program, if we picked up the pace a bit. I agreed though the thought of more work made me cringe the faster it was behind me the better. Science, Eve said would take a while longer unless I decided to pick an area of choice. The choice was picked for me though by , She decided that I would be taking Biology and Chemistry to help with the doctoring aspect. In reply to my moans of to much work she replied that she would help me with what she could, I accepted the offer quickly. Now in health she would help me with some of my work before showing me how it applied to what we were doing if it did. We even got to make a bacterial colony which I thought was kind of cool, especially when it turned bright blue though Eve turned green when I proudly showed it to her.
''That's Necrotizing Fasciitis.'' I glanced at her
''And what does that mean?'' She smiled
''You don't open it.''
Turns out that the bright blue bacteria was actually a flesh eating disease. I'd found it in the cafeteria which made me wonder just how dirty such a new place could be, and worse who had brought it in? She assured me that if we didn't have a reaction to it before now with it probably in our food it wouldn't be affecting us at all.
Though we still didn't open it.
I was almost done with History and Spanish. Oksana was already getting my Italian work sheets together. Thankfully in survival knitting and sewing was done -finally!- now I got to use that class to study the plants and workloads from other classes.
When this was brought up around the table -most everyone else was in the same boat, having finished off or were finishing up classes left, right and center. Dimitri came over to reassure us.
''You'll be having test every two months on subjects you've passed just to ensure you remember them. And we'll start teaching your classes in the new languages you've learned.'' I choked on my food and glared up at him.
''Now that's just cruel comrade!'' He was walking away but paused and said
''Ooh yes I forgot to add for the week before the test you will get all day to study for them and you only need to come to school for the first half of the day.'' That encouraged some cheering. He smiled and added.
''You've got a test coming up in two weeks!''
I think that was the only time I have ever been excited for a test... Ever.
But true to his words my Endurance class was now in French. As well as survival... and science.
NOT FUN.
I was so happy no one here spoke Turkish, though for the next week I could here German and Russian exclamations from all over the school.
We were all sitting around the night after Dimitri's announcement. We were all bumming around working on our respective homework before Mia sat up from her spot on the floor.
''What languages are you guys learning? Oksana has me learning Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Danish and Icelandic.'' I raised an eyebrow. She blushed ''My family is from all over their and she added Icelandic.'' I shrugged.
''I have French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and Turkish.'' I said rolling my shoulders back and leaning over my work as the others responded. Christian replied next.
''I'm learning German, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish.'' Eddie replied after him he was learning Ukrainian, German, Russian, Estonian and Czech. Mason was learning French, Spanish, Italian, Croatian and Japenese. Viktoria was learning Bulgarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and Romanian. Lissa was learning German, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian.
''Holy shit!'' I exclaimed. They glanced at me ''Just how many different languages does she know? This isn't natural that's more then 25 different languages!'' We gaped at each other.
''I guess we shouldn't be complaining about how hard it is then'' Lissa said drily. We all laughed a bit at that.
We weren't laughing after that however. Everywhere I went I was having French and Spanish being thrown at me. The others were too. Christian and I were making dinner when Celeste started talking a rapid stream of German before Switching over to French. She laughed at our confused expressions before repeating more slowly.
''Tu devrais finir le soupper aussi vite que possible, vous avez tant de devoir non? J'ai mis le beurre dans le micro onde, et j'ai mis le sel dans le contenant de sucre et le sucre dans le contenant de sel, a plus tard!'' She left with a wave closing the door behind her. I glanced at Christian.
''What did she say to you?'' He was still looking at where she'd been a moment before and replied
''Something about the dishwasher soap being in a different drawer and the flour being in the... fridge I think. You?''
''That we should finish cooking as soon as possible, a lot of homework, butter being in the microwave and... salt in the sugar and sugar in the salt?''
We soon found out what she meant. She had put the salt in the sugar container and the sugar in the salt container. The butter was a melted mess and the flour was freezing cold on our hands and the dishwasher soap was switched for dish soap so the dishwasher bubbled over.
Thank you Celeste.
Though I don't think we were the only ones on the but end of the adults jokes. The others all looked battered and warn when they joined us for dinner. Revenge for all our practical jokes on them earlier throughout the year.
Lissa and I ranted when we got home. Apparently half the adults here could speak German. So unfortunately for her she was being yelled at in German, Dimitri's class had been completely in German, and since she was just starting it she had no idea what he was saying, though she figured out run, go, stop and how many laps she had to do. The poor girl. Only a couple people were fluent enough to harass me in either Spanish or French so my day wasn't so bad, apart from the kitchen incident. She laughed when I told her what happened. We ranted a while longer before exhaustion hit and we made our way upstairs for some much needed shut eye, still feeling put out by the rather odd day full of foreign shouts.
But when I crawled into bed that night I was laughing. This place...
This place, was the best home I've ever had.
Did you like it? I know it was shorter then most but I will update more often then I have. Now that French is less loaded I'll have more time for writing and updating.
And please review!
Do you want to see more of the others? Some more action? LET ME KNOW!... please?
I hope you enjoyed it! (and could someone please tell me how to spell Olendski..?)
