Back in Business
Chapter 3
Author's Note: And here it is! Chapter 3! I had to do a lot of research for this one. And in recent news, I stepped inside the back of a local fire engine! Whoo!
Penny stood near the window, watching Nurse Helen Flood and Station Officer Steele talking enthusiastically while taking stuff out of Helen's smart-car to set up everything they need for today's training exercise. Steele had made the firefighters take Jupiter and Venus out of the garage and then go upstairs, claiming it to be a surprise. Sam and Elvis were at the table having tea that Elvis just made, while Penny just held her cup in her hands without even drinking.
"Still thinking about Firefighter Luca then, Penny?" Sam asked tactfully. Penny turned and nodded with a smile, "Yes, I was just remembering how we used to be paired together for training exercises in England. We were the only Welsh women there, so we were naturally expected to stick together."
"Wow! You've been to England? What's it like there?" Elvis said with wide-eyed wonder. Penny laughed, "It was lovely back then. Just like a postcard. But nothing compared to Pontypandy, of course. I'm glad I made the decision to move here."
"I'm glad too, Penny!" Elvis replied, before hastily correcting himself, "I mean we are glad, that is..."
"So Penny," Sam said, throwing Elvis a wry, amused look, "Please tell us more about your friend. If you want to, of course."
"Oh, why not?" Penny took a sip of tea at last, to Elvis' relief (He didn't slave over the kettle for nothing!) and joined them at the table. "She's a year younger than me, very hardworking and clever. And, of course, she loves children. She told me that the reason she joined the Fire Service was to set a good example to children. And between you and me..." Her voice slipped to a theatrical whisper "...She had hair as short as mine and all the boys still thought she was pretty!"
"Well, I can only imagine how many fires she had to put out of boys' hearts!" Sam exclaimed and they all started laughing.
"Ooh, I get it! Hearts on fire!" Elvis giggled.
"Now that I think about it," Penny remembered with a grin, "Many of the boys there treated us like ladies instead of fellow firefighters and she wasn't having any of it. They learnt that the hard way."
"It's too bad though," Elvis added, looking at Penny's blonde hair and remembering, "You cut your hair short after you joined our fire station..."
"I had to, Elvis, it was...distracting," Penny ran a hand gently through her hair. If only he knew how distracting, she thought.
"All right, chaps!...And chapesses..." Station Officer Steele came in and announced, "You may all now proceed to the garage! This training exercise is officially in session!"
The firefighters put their cups down and slid down the pole, one at a time, Sam first, then Elvis, followed by Penny. They came to the garage and what a sight met their eyes!
Helen Flood stood over different kinds of equipment and three dummies with neither arms nor lower body. She welcomed them in enthusiastically, "Hello, firefighters! Station Officer Steele has kindly asked me to help with today's training session, which will be a refresher course in CPR!"
"Ah, cardiopulmonary resuscitation!" Penny exclaimed, "I learnt that in England a long time ago!"
"Card-ee-yi-pulver-what?" asked a confused Elvis. "They call it CPR for short," Sam explained, "It's a very important part of First Aid. Almost everyone in Emergency Services knows how to do it. Nurse Flood taught it to us some time back, remember? She called it 'the kiss of life.'"
"Ooh! The kiss of life! I remember now!" Elvis said excitedly, "When a person has passed out, you must help them breathe again!" Then his shoulders slumped with disappointment, "But I've forgotten how to do it."
"That's why it's called a refresher, Cridlington," Steele replied, shaking his head exasperatedly, "It helps to clean out your memory, to make you remember."
This perked Elvis up, "Wow, OK! I can't wait to learn again!"
Helen spoke up again, "All right everyone, listen up! As you must know, CPR is used on people who stopped breathing and people whose hearts stopped beating. This may happen because of many reasons like drowning, heart attacks or even because of smoke inhalation."
"Terrible," Elvis muttered. "Exactly. And dangerous," Helen nodded and continued, "Paramedics, firefighters, policemen, even nurses like me, have been taught CPR. Even Tom, Moose and Ben know how to perform CPR, but they have already had their refresher. Now, CPR is usually performed using your hands. But professionals also have equipment to make things easier, such as special masks and even defibrillators for really life-threatening situations. Today, I have brought along some dummies from Newtown Hospital to make it easier to practice your CPR skills. Sam, you go to that dummy. Elvis takes this one and Penny, over here."
The firefighters knelt down in their assigned positions. Elvis took one look at his dummy and raised a hand. "Yes, Elvis?" Helen asked. "Um, Helen...Why aren't we using Dolly for practice instead?"
Helen smiled, "We won't need Dolly today. She doesn't have an open mouth and her hands and feet might get in the way of practice, you know. This is why you can work with..." She paused to think of a name, "...Millie."
"Uh..." Elvis thought for a moment, then smiled, "Hello Millie, I'm Elvis." Steele facepalmed. This was going to be a long day.
As soon as Ella walked out of the Cut Price Store with the stepladder, her new smoke alarm and batteries, she realized that her lunch break was over and got back to work again. She wasn't one to slack off that easily, considering that she was the descendant of one of many hardworking Italian families. The smoke alarm would have to wait a little while. As she came up to her new cafe, she saw a green van pull up near it.
A man in a blue cap stepped out with a dark-skinned little girl. Ella watched as he opened the doors at the back of the van and pulled out her new long seats, one by one. She went up to them and said hello.
"Mike Flood, at your service!" the man shook her hand with gusto, "And this is my daughter, Mandy!"
"Ella L-Lasagne, nice to meet you! I'll give you a hand as soon as I put this stepladder away inside..." She came out empty-handed and together, she and Mike brought the new seats inside and positioned them close to the shop windows.
"Wow! You're really strong!" exclaimed Mandy, earning an embarrassed reply from Ella, "Not really! A girl just...knows! Now, who'd like a bite to eat before leaving?"
Mike and Mandy took a sundae each to go and Ella waved them off, before cleaning up the tables in her now-empty cafe. Just as she finished and stepped back to admire the result, she heard a cry of horror from across the road. And is that smoke in the air?
Beepbeepbeepbeep! Whirrrr...
Helen stopped talking and Steele rushed into his office. The firefighters stopped taking notes and stood up as Steele's voice announced the following over the speaker:
"An electric fire at Dilys' shop! Sam and Elvis take Jupiter, quick as you can!"
Penny sat back down and Sam and Elvis grabbed their helmets and found Jupiter outside. They got in and drove off, siren blaring. They arrived at the scene of the fire, where Dilys and Norman were waiting. The woman wailed, "It's in the kitchen, Sam! My oven caught fire!" "Don't worry, Dil, we'll have it out in no time," Sam replied calmly. He took out the breathing apparatus and wore it, then took an electronic name tag from it and gave it to Elvis, who gave him an extinguisher and now wore the black-and-yellow-checkered vest of an entry control officer over his uniform. Elvis slid the name tag into the electronic control board, which announced in a female voice, "Fireman Sam, oxygen level 100%."
Sam rushed into the smoking building. He found the kitchen with no trouble, but what he found in there surprised him. "Great Fires of London! There's no fire!" All the signs that someone else had beaten him to it were there. There was foam all over the smoking oven and it clearly had come from a fire extinguisher. He took out the burnt cake that was in the oven and checked the electricity. It had been switched off.
He left the kitchen and found the fire exit door swinging itself shut. Whoever came in and put out the fire left the shop through it as well. And they must have been in a hurry too, if they didn't want themselves to be seen. "But how did they get through all that smoke without breathing equipment?" Sam wondered out loud. All the same, they had done a pretty good job of putting the fire out.
Sam went outside to meet the Prices and Elvis. He gave his extinguisher back to Elvis and offered Dilys the cake, "Well, the fire's out now. But this cake has seen better days." Dilys took it from him and said, "But I always manage to bake cakes properly! How could it have..." Then she confronted her guilty-looking son, "NOR-MAN PRICE! You didn't turn up the heat while I was downstairs!"
"Yes, Mam," Norman replied sullenly, "I know you told me it'll take an hour, but I only wanted the cake to be baked faster. Sorry, Mam. Sorry, Sam. It won't happen again."
"It won't!" yelled Dilys, "In fact, you will not have cake for three weeks!"
"Oh, MAM!" groaned Norman. This was a fate worse than grounding, that's for sure.
"And I'm going to tell Ella and Bronwen not to sell you any cake either!"
"WHAT! That's not fair!" yelled Norman.
"It is now, Norman," Sam said gently, but sternly, "You have burnt the Floods' oven before. You should know that every time you make a cake, you must go by the book. If you did, then there wouldn't be any fires."
"Sorry," Norman repeated genuinely. Dilys then added, "Thank you so much for saving my kitchen, Sam."
"It's alright, Dil," Sam replied, "But the funny thing is...I didn't put out the fire."
"What?! Then who did?" Dilys gasped.
"What's going *huff* on?" a voice asked.
Everyone turned around. It was Ella. She was holding an empty fire extinguisher and looking as though she had run a marathon.
"There was a fire in my kitchen," Dilys explained, "And Sam put the fire out. Only...he didn't."
"Um...you don't happen to know who did it, did you Ella?" Sam asked her, noticing that she was puffing and panting. He also noticed how much effort she needed to put her right foot forward.
"That *huff* that's what *puff* I wanna *huff* know! I heard the siren *pant* and ran out of my *puff* kitchen and found this *puff* used and dropped inside my cafe! My fire extinguisher!" She handed it to Sam, adding, "Who would take *puff* it without my *huff* permission?"
"Hmmm..." Sam examined the fire extinguisher, noting its lightness now that it was emptied, "Even if our Invisible Hero did take it without asking you, they used it for a good reason."
"We've got our job cut out for us!" Elvis laughed, "Hello, you must be Ella. Sam has been talking about you. I'm Fireman Cridlington, but you can call me Elvis."
"All right, Elvis, nice to meet you!" Ella shook hands with him, her breathing now back to normal, "Good things, I hope?" She raised an eyebrow at Sam, who chuckled, "As good as can be. I enjoyed the sandwiches you made, they were really good! I know I'll be coming to Bel, I mean, your cafe more often!"
"It's alright, you don't have to put it that way. It's still my aunt's cafe, after all," Ella sighed. She shrugged her shoulders. "I will need my extinguisher refilled though. And now that I've seen how fiery Pontypandy can be, I should probably start installing my smoke alarm now."
"I'll help," replied Sam, but Ella firmly said, "No, Sam, I can do it myself. I've...I know what to do."
"Er...alright then," Sam replied, slightly flabbergasted, but accepting. No one usually refuses his help.
Elvis refilled the extinguisher and returned it to Ella, then she and the Prices waved to the firefighters as they drove off back to the station for their CPR refresher.
"See you later, Dilys," Ella said, "I'll return your stepladder soon." She ran back inside.
"Mam...I have an idea," Norman brightened up, "If I find the Invisible Hero, can I be able to eat cake again?"
"Not in a hurry you won't, poppet," Dilys replied firmly, then thought for a while, before adding, "Oh, why not? I don't think you'll find him anyway. Or her."
"I will!" yelled Norman with conviction, "You wait and see! By the end of this week, you'll be feeding me nothing but cake for three weeks!" And he ran away to look for his friends.
"Oh, that boy," Dilys sighed.
Ella had heard everything from inside her cafe while putting up the fire extinguisher. After all, with a voice like Norman's, anything he said could be heard from as far as France. She laughed, then winced as she felt the pain shoot up her leg again. "Oh my giddy aunt," muttered she, "I already had a pill ten minutes ago...I don't believe this..." She went upstairs to find more pills.
This story will have at least 6 chapters. I have it all planned out...for those who are actually reading this. Sorry for the wait! And who do YOU think this mysterious Good Samaritan was?