St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday by Kate Hardy Read Free Book Online Page A

Loveday, nurse. Plus looking at Rachel’s foot might take Jenny’s mind off the fact that she was accompanying Tom and Joey. She glanced at Tom and Joey. ‘Would you mind if I took a look? I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’
    ‘No, that’s fine—isn’t it, Jojo?’ Tom said.
    Joey nodded solemnly.
    ‘Thanks.’ Flora smiled at them. ‘Jenny, would you and Rachel like to come and sit down on that bench over there? Then, if you don’t mind taking your shoe off, Rachel, I’ll have a swift look at your foot.’
    ‘It looks like grains of pepper on the bottom of her foot,’ Jenny said. ‘I thought it was maybe a splinter but she hasn’t been running around barefoot in the garden, not at this time of year. I’ve tried putting mag sulph paste on it with a plaster on top, just in case it was a splinter, but nothing happened.’
    From the description, Flora had a pretty good idea what it was, but she needed to see it for herself, just to be sure. ‘Wow, that’s a nice sock, Rachel,’ she said as the little girl took her shoe off to reveal a bright pink sock with black pawprints. ‘Those are pawprints just like my Banjo makes.’
    ‘I like dogs,’ Rachel said. ‘What sort is yours?’
    ‘He’s a springer spaniel, and he lives up to his name because he bounces about everywhere,’ Flora said with a grin. ‘Guess what colour he is?’
    ‘Black and white?’
    ‘Half-right. Guess again.’ Flora kept the little girl distracted by chatting while she inspected her foot.
    ‘Brown and white?’
    ‘Absolutely. Hey, do you know a song about a farmer’s dog that almost sounds like Banjo?’ she asked.
    Just as she’d hoped, Rachel began singing, ‘There was a farmer had a dog…’
    And, to her surprise, when Rachel got to the bit where a letter in the dog’s name was replaced by a clap, Joey joined in.
    Tom looked transfixed. And, even though she’d seen enough to have her suspicions confirmed, Flora let Rachel and Joey finish the song before she asked her next question.
    ‘That was brilliant singing, Rachel—and brilliant clapping, Joey.’
    Both children looked pleased.
    ‘You can sing us another clapping song, if you like,’ Flora said. ‘But first—Rachel, does it hurt when you walk?’
    ‘A bit,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s prickly.’
    ‘OK. Well, the good news is, we can do something about that. Sing me another song, and I’ll have a quick word with Mummy.’ She smiled at the little boy. ‘Joey, can you help Rachel with the clapping bits?’
    Rachel was clearly delighted to have a younger child join in and, while she explained to Joey what they needed to do, Flora explained to Jenny what the problem was.
    ‘It’s a verruca,’ she said.
    ‘But I thought that was like a single big black spot?’
    ‘Sometimes you get a cluster together, like this one,’ Flora said. ‘It’s actually a wart on the bottom of the foot, so you might hear it called a plantar wart. Because of where it is, it gets trodden into the foot, so that’s why it looks like spots rather than a growth. It’s really common and nothing to worry about; my guess is, she picked it up at swimming.’
    ‘I had a verruca when I was a kid,’ Jenny said. ‘I remember my mum taking me to the hospital, and this woman put a thing on my foot that burned and really hurt—and she told me off for making a fuss.’
    Flora curled her lip in disgust. ‘That’s awful! You can still do the freezing treatment, but you can get something at the pharmacy so you can do it at home, and it’s a special liquid so it shouldn’t hurt. Or you can try duct tape.’
    ‘Duct tape?’ Jenny looked surprised.
    ‘It works fairly well, but it’s a little bit more long-winded. What you need to do is cut the tape just to the size of the verruca and put it on—it stops air getting to the skin and so it dies off and lets you get to the verruca,’ Flora explained. ‘Keep it on for six days, then take the tape off, soak Rachel’s foot in a bowl of warm