With unanticipated guests in the house, some time was spent working on shifting sleeping arraignments.
“We can just warm up the training building. That would be the easiest.” Was Garen’s first recommendation.
“That still has us split up over two locations not within stumbling distance. It could be a problem if we serve to much of your homemade eggnog.” Bekka replied.
“Well for this evening, the easiest solution would be I shift over to your bedroom, Allyson and Angelique on the futon in the spare room over the garage. This would let Heidi and Emilia have the bed and Doug on the day bed in the spare room.” Kara paused a moment.
'Garage'. Hmm, her gears were spinning. “Garen, if we move a car or two around, we could fit your trailer into the last bay in the garage. That would give the space for Zed and Jesse up here instead of the training building.”
Garen’s gears were spinning as well.
“Great idea. While I move things around to get it up here, you guys can rummage in the connex for some Christmas gifts for the kids down the hill. I figure we can do a late night or early morning Santa Drop down there.”
“Well, that’s fine but we need some people free and close by if Zed and Jesse run into any trouble getting here. Besides, if we are doing a drop down there, I need to blow the dust off of some cook books and do some baking.” Bekka chimed in since she already had a few ideas of her own for the Santa bundles.
“But tomorrow is another project let’s get the sleeping arrangements done for tonight and some dinner. I bet people are hungry and tired. It had been a busy day. There will be plenty to do and talk about in the coming days”
The next hour or so was spent getting things, people, and sleeping spots shuffled around. It didn’t take long for the small heater in the studio apartment above the garage to get warm and cozy.
At dinner, everyone was making small talk. Bekka was right most things could wait. It became some sort of unspoken agreement, many of the larger topics were left for tomorrow so they would only have to be covered once. Instead, the topics swung into a different direction.
“So, with Heidi taking one of the Backcountry Ranger positions, I was going to get your recommendation for an EMT or Paramedic school to send her to if you guys weren’t doing initial training.” Doug said around fork loads of food.
Garen started to say something when suddenly Angelique jumped up. “I got it, be right back.”
And she took off down the hall. Everyone at the table was watching her run down the hall, wondering what she was up to. Moments later, she reappeared with a stack of at least six textbooks.
“Right! Here’s the starting one, then to this one and then…”She was handing them to Heidi as she spoke.
Allyson was laughing now, and soon everyone else joined in, all for different reasons.
“Doug, we can train her, especially since I don’t think the rules apply for now. We did in a couple of months what normally takes over a year when we put Angelique through the ringer. Do you remember the final exercise we did in your refresher?”
Doug nodded at Garen’s question.
“Well her scenario was much harder and she had two casualties, worked them solo for over nine hours.”
At such praise and accomplishment, Doug was truly impressed and Angelique was embarrassed, turning bright red.
“Depending on how much time she wants to spend here, we can line up stuff to learn, Heidi can study back at your cabin, and then we get together either here or there, review, and apply the next lessons. You would be there to help answer her questions if she has any. You guys think on it a bit.”
Doug made a mental note to ask Angelique more later and ask Heidi if she was still up for it. They needed to know what way she would learn best.
Heidi looked at her new friends, and determining so far from what she learned about them it was better to have them as friends, but could not help wondering to herself again and again ‘who are these people?’
