ER at night

Over half of my career i have been working at ER , first as a nurses aid stocking the storage room and OR's with things needed and then finally after years i was promoted as Head nurse of ER.

I had 6 nurses working under me in each sift , i was pleased at my job , rare thing for someone to say these days but it was the truth .

Things started to go south however when i hired new nurse to cover the opening in staff when one of my regular nurses left job to stay at home with her new born.

Being strange is not crime nor weakness so i payed no attention to certain ...odd habits of the new nurse ; lets just call her Stella .

I always though it was part of some kind of superstition that has been thought to her and who am i to judge really .

She requested that she could work at nights , i was pleased getting nurses to work at grave yard sift was not easy, but when she requested specially to be signed in for work duty during full moon nights i was highly surprised .

Now, you can ask anyone who has ever worked at ER how ....weird things can get during full moon nights at ER. Patients tend to act .....irrationally to say at least and many who do work at those nights rarely wishes it again.

I was more than happy to tell her the dates of these nights that where near by and she smiled little and turned to leave my office , when her hand reached the door handle she paused and asked

"can i ask you something ?"

I looked at her taken by surprise again, after arriving she never had asked for any advice , it was like , she just knew how things where done around here .

" sure" i said .

Stella talked her eyes facing the door

" I would prefer if in future i would not have to work at children's ward "

I looked at her . Suddenly the dim light of my office desk lamp revealed the only thing that had bothered me in her .

She refused to use our standard uniforms always wearing her own. By far this is no crime nor against the rules of the hospital, but in that light she looked like faded old photograph , kinda gray and ....i dont know what i was thinking but i snapped back from my thoughts and looked at her still facing the door .

" we do not have children's ward in this hospital, nobody told you that ?"

Stella turned around with her face so pale that it fit the image of old photograph along her long gray uniform that looked like she just jumped from 1800's to work at my ward .

" but how then..." - she went silent.

" hmm "- i asked

" nothing ma'am it's nothing ". she nodded her head and excused herself from my office .