Free The Nanny by Evelyn Piper Page A

it, isn’t it?” The kid just stood there with that dropped head, clutching at his leg. “Make you brush your teeth? Wash behind the ears?” Joey clamped onto his leg. “Not any of those? Come on, Joey, I’m a reasonable kind of guy.… If you can give me a reasonable reason …” The boy was one solid negative. Dr. Meducca felt a hundred years old and a hundred thousand miles away from comprehension. “Come on, come on, Joey!” He took another look at the old woman. Spare the rod, spoil the child; that was it, was it? That was why they went and hired a new one? Discipline? These modern parents scared to death of any discipline. “Will she spank you if you don’t mind, is that it, Joey? Will she spank you?” He put his finger under the small pointed chin and drew the face up. “Tell me, will she spank you, Joey?”
    â€œShe’ll kill me,” Joey said simply.
    Dr. Meducca pulled his supporting finger away because the kid meant it. Kill . “Now, that’s enough of that,” he said, and at his tone felt the clamping fingers loose their hold on his leg as if the nerves had been severed. “Shame on you! Shame on you!” He turned back helplessly to the old woman, but apparently she was taking even this in her stride; she didn’t bat an eyelash.
    She said, “Master Joey, you remember my talking about my Miss Penelope, don’t you? Mrs. Gore-Green, Doctor. I was her nanny when she was Master Joey’s age, and I came to the States to take care of her little girl. Master Joey, while you were gone, Mrs. Gore-Green rang up and I took the liberty of asking her to stay here with us tonight.”
    â€œSee, young man?” the doctor said. “You’re going to have two nice ladies to look after you! A harem!” But the kid who had been so full of life was lifeless. He had to do something. “Joey, if you don’t buck up, I’m going to have to throw up my hands and take you back to the hospital, and if I do that, either your father or your mother is going to have to worry about you, and that means that one of them isn’t going to be able to give all his attention to getting well. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you, Joey?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt Mommy or Daddy?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay. So be a good boy.” His smile shriveled before the boy’s eyes. “Remember, you can always parachute down to my place, son!”
    â€œNot out the window, Doctor!”
    This kid was no dope. Christ’s sake! “Joey knows better than that. Parachute down the elevator, right?” Joey did not answer, but as he walked by to go into the apartment he gave such a look that Dr. Meducca shuddered. Never had seen such a look in a kid’s face. On patients’ faces when they found out they had an incurable carcinoma—hopeless, trapped; but not a kid’s face. He was very glad when, stepping out of the elevator, he saw a woman and heard her asking for the Fane apartment. Because of that trapped look, he went up to her and introduced himself and asked if she was Mrs. Green.
    â€œGore-Green, yes, Doctor.”
    Mrs. G.G. was one of those women who felt that any doctor they met, under any circumstance, wanted to be told their case history, and so, standing there with the elevator waiting, she told him about her rheumatic heart and how it had started with a childhood rheumatic fever and what her present medication was and how difficult everything was for her. He listened patiently, for the kid’s sake, since it was obvious that she needed reassurance about herself before she could give anything to the kid. He hadn’t been in practice for twenty years without learning how to tell this type of woman that he’d see her in office hours if she wanted to consult him. Finally she went up to the kid.
    Now he could get Joey off his mind. He