Mary Anne + 2 Many Babies

  “It’s just not working out, that’s all,” she said.

  A couple of kids snickered. Shawna sounded as if she were speaking lines from a soap opera. Logan and I looked at each other. We weren’t snickering. We hadn’t laughed much since the night at the movie theater. If something was wrong between Shawna and Miles, I could understand that. Things happened.

  Mrs. Boyden didn’t laugh, of course. She gazed solemnly at Shawna. “Tell me what’s happening,” she said.

  “I have to take complete charge of the e — of our baby.” (Apparently, Shawna and Miles had not named their child.) “Miles hardly ever takes care of it. I lug it around school. I do everything.”

  Mrs. Boyden didn’t so much as glance at Miles. She never turned her attention away from Shawna. “Have you asked him to help?” she wanted to know. “Or do you just expect him to?”

  “She just expects me to!” Miles burst out. “She never talks to me. She acts like I’m a mind reader. Like I’m supposed to know everything she thinks or everything she wants.”

  “Hold on, Miles,” Mrs. Boyden interrupted. “Let Shawna finish speaking. Then you can have a turn. Shawna?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t have to ask him to do everything.”

  “Has he ever taken care of a baby before?” asked Mrs. Boyden.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, I haven’t!” exclaimed Miles.

  “But the point is, I have this egg all the time,” said Shawna. “Yesterday I missed half my gym class moving the — the baby around, trying to keep it out of the sun. And I was late to school this morning because I left the egg at home and had to go back for it.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Boyden. “Miles?”

  While Miles spoke, I thought. Shawna and Miles had not named their egg. They didn’t want to be bothered with it. As far as Shawna was concerned, having a baby was a pain in the neck. Yet Shawna did treat the egg as her baby. If she’d been totally disinterested, she could have left her baby at home that morning when she realized what she’d done. But she went back for it. I was amazed by how real our children had become to us. On some level, my classmates and I felt as if we were actually married and as if we were actually parents. Mrs. Boyden was pretty clever. Maybe she was somewhat offbeat, but she was becoming one of my favorite teachers.

  “I don’t really have time for the egg or for this experiment,” Miles was saying, “but I wouldn’t, you know, abandon a kid. I’d take care of the egg, if Shawna would ever give it to me.”

  “Why haven’t you ever asked for it?” exploded Shawna. Her eyes had filled with tears. By then, the room was absolutely silent. No one was snickering. No one was even smiling.

  Miles looked at his hands, which were folded on his desk. His mumbled answer to Shawna was, “I don’t know.”

  Shawna didn’t reply. She turned her head in disgust.

  That was when Logan poked me. I leaned toward him, thinking he was going to whisper something about Shawna. Instead, he pointed across the room to two kids I didn’t know very well, Angela and Kevin. They were holding hands and Angela was crying. In the emptiness that seemed to follow Miles’s statement, Angela raised her hand (the one that wasn’t clinging to Kevin).

  “Yes, Angela?” said Mrs. Boyden. She handed Angela a box of Kleenex but didn’t tell her to stop crying or anything.

  I was completely unprepared for what Angela said. I’d thought she was crying because of what went on between Shawna and Miles. Like maybe they reminded her of her own parents. But when Angela said, “Um, Kevin and I lost our baby,” I nearly died.

  “What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Boyden.

  “We lost her.”

  “We lost the egg,” Kevin spoke up. “It happened yesterday afternoon. We were at the park. Cathy was with us. She’s our egg. I mean, she was our egg. And she was in the box we always kept her in.”

  “The yellow cookie tin,” Angela added.

  “Right,” said Kevin. “Cathy was with us when we left school, and she was with us when we reached the park. We checked. But when we were leaving the park, we checked again, and the box was empty.”

  “We tried to retrace our steps,” said Angela. “We walked around everywhere. But we couldn’t find her.”

  “We don’t know how she got out of the box.”

  “I feel terrible,” said Angela. “Honestly. I mean, if she were really our kid … How could we have been so irresponsible?” Angela was crying again.

  The room was silent. I suppose everyone was thinking similar thoughts. That in the blink of an eye, anything can happen to a child. You turn around and she’s gone — lost or maybe even kidnapped. Or she’s eaten something poisonous. Or she’s fallen, or been struck by a car. Those things happen every day to all kinds of families.

  Angela and Kevin were the first kids in our Modern Living class to lose their baby, and it wasn’t funny.

  “Are you worried about the grade you’ll receive on your project now?” asked Mrs. Boyden, which seemed a little insensitive.

  “No!” cried Angela. (She shouted it, actually.)

  At the same time, Kevin said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  Angela gave him a hard look, then softened. “All right, I guess I am a little worried, but that was not the first thing I thought about when I looked in the box and discovered it empty.”

  Mrs. Boyden nodded. “I understand. Listen, don’t worry about your grade. You still owe me a paper, and you can complete it despite what has happened, but some aspects of your project will now change. See me after class, okay?”

  “Okay,” answered Kevin and Angela.

  Mrs. Boyden turned her attention to the rest of the class. “What else?” she asked. She propped her feet on an empty chair. “Anyone? No one? … So things are just fine for the rest of you?”

  At that point, I nearly raised my hand. No, things were not just fine between Logan and me. We had nearly lost our own child. We had discovered we didn’t quite trust one another as parents.

  “Mrs. Boyden?” said a quiet voice.

  I turned around. The voice belonged to a guy who was new at school. He’d been paired up with this girl named Zoe.

  “Yes, Tarik?” said Mrs. Boyden.

  Tarik couldn’t look at our teacher. He couldn’t look at Zoe or anyone else, either. He stared straight ahead and spoke sort of to the blackboard. “Maybe I should talk to you about this after class, but I — I can’t complete the project. I’ve never had to say that to a teacher before, but it’s the truth. I can’t do this.”

  “Why not?” asked Mrs. Boyden gently.

  “It’s just … too much. I mean, Zoe — she’s doing her part. But, see, I play two sports and I’m in the choir and I have an after-school job, and my parents are getting divorced and my mom needs a lot of help and I can’t do this egg thing, too.”

  “You mean, caring for a child is more than you can handle at this point in your life? You’re overwhelmed?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s okay. Put that in your paper. There is no expected outcome for this project, nothing right or wrong that can be said in your papers. But I’d like to talk to you after class, too. Zoe as well. We’ll work something out. Okay. Anyone else?”

  * * *

  Whew. What a class. When it ended, Logan and I just sat in our chairs. Logan doodled. I looked at Sammie, safe in her basket on Logan’s desk, protected by more padding than ever.

  “I guess that we aren’t the only ones having problems,” I said.

  “I guess not,” replied Logan. “In fact, I think we’re doing pretty well.”

  “I bet most parents argue about how to raise their kids.”

  “Not to mention other things. Like money. My parents had a big loud talk about money last night. That’s what they call arguments — loud talks. And they had the loud talk at about two A.M.”

  “Scary,” I commented.

  “Yeah.” Logan got to his feet. He picked up Sammie’s basket.

  “I thought
you had baseball practice for gym today,” I said.

  “I do.”

  “So let me take Sammie.”

  “Well —”

  “You still don’t trust me, do you? Just because I lost her for five seconds. Logan, accidents happen. Look at Kevin and Angela.”

  “I know.” Logan didn’t let go of Sammie, though.

  My eyes filled with tears. “I’ll see you later,” I whispered, and ran out of the room without Sammie.

  “Mary Anne!” called Logan.

  I didn’t answer.

  Logan and I had a long way to go before we reconciled our differences.

  Not many days after that memorable Modern Living class, I found myself baby-sitting for Ricky and Rose again. For some reason, I wasn’t looking forward to the job. I wasn’t dreading it; I just wasn’t approaching it with great glee. I wasn’t jumping up and down, singing, “Oh, boy, babies! I get to take care of babies again!”

  Luckily, Sammie did not come along on the job with me. Logan had taken her home with him.

  “This will make the afternoon much easier,” I said to Kristy, as we left school that day. “Just two babies.”

  “Yeah. Piece of cake. Sitting for the Rodowsky boys could be much harder. The Walking Disaster and his two brothers. Think what could happen at the Rodowskys’ in an afternoon.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mayhem,” I said. “Chaos. Anarchy.”

  Kristy smiled. “Oh, there’s my bus!” she cried. “I have to go. Have fun this afternoon, Mary Anne.”

  “Thanks!” I said. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”

  I walked to the Salems’ house, dawdling a little. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, warmer than usual, with a wonderful smell of damp earth and new leaves in the air. Perfect baby-walking weather.

  I rang the Salems’ bell and was greeted by Mrs. Salem, who looked sort of worn out. Her eyes were red, and she seemed saggy.

  “Hi, Mary Anne,” she said. “Whew. I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do is go to this meeting, but I’m on the board of the Small Animal Rescue League, so I have to attend.”

  I hesitated. I wanted to ask Mrs. Salem if everything was okay, but I wasn’t sure I should. I mean, adults always ask kids that question, but should a kid ask an adult? I didn’t want Mrs. Salem to think I was being nosy. However, she had said she was exhausted, so I went ahead and asked.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Mrs. Salem replied. “Just tired. The babies seem to be changing their schedule. I never know what to expect. They were sleeping through the night just fine, and now, well, they’re not. And they didn’t go down for their naps this afternoon until later than usual. So they should sleep longer. You’ll probably have a chance to get some homework done this afternoon.”

  “Great. I was going to take Rose and Ricky for a walk, but I do have a lot of work.”

  Mrs. Salem wrote down the number of the Small Animal Rescue League and reminded me where the emergency numbers were located. Then she left. I watched her back her car down the drive. She was yawning.

  I settled myself at the kitchen table with a glass of juice and a bran muffin. I opened the book of short stories we were reading for English class.

  “ ‘The Telltale Heart,’ by Edgar Allan Poe,” I murmured.

  The story was scary. I don’t know why I was surprised. Poe’s stories are all scary. I was reading along, and my heart was beginning to pound, when something squeaked.

  I yelped and knocked over the glass of juice.

  “Darn it!” I cried, as juice spread across the Salems’ table and dripped down one of the legs and onto the floor.

  I mopped it up with paper towels and forgot about the squeak until …

  “WAHH!!”

  I jumped, jerking my hands up and tossing the book across the kitchen to a counter, where it landed on this bowl of fruit.

  “WAHH!” I heard again. It was Ricky. I could tell his cry from Rose’s. I could also tell that his cry was going to become a scream.

  I ran upstairs and into the twins’ room. Ricky was sitting in his crib. His face was red and tearstained.

  “Hey, Ricky. What’s the matter?” I said soothingly as I lifted him into my arms. “Your mom said you just went to sleep. Why are you up so soon? Are you wet? Or hungry?”

  Ricky’s answer was a shriek, so I hurried him out of the room before he could wake his sister.

  I carried Ricky to the kitchen.

  I felt his diaper. Dry.

  I offered him a bottle. He fussed and turned his head away.

  “What is it? What can I do for you?” I asked.

  Ricky drooled and cried.

  From upstairs, I thought I heard a whimper, although it was hard to hear over the noise Ricky was making.

  “Come on,” I said to him. ”We’d better check on Rose.”

  I carried Ricky back upstairs. With every step, his wails seemed to grow louder. “Shh, shh,” I said soothingly. “Quiet down.”

  But he didn’t. By the time we had reached the bedroom, he was throwing his head back and screaming so hard I thought he would choke.

  Rose stirred in her crib. Her eyelids fluttered. She was waking up.

  I fled downstairs. “Ricky, Rose needs her sleep. Can’t you quiet down?” I said. I walked him around the first floor of the house, making a circle from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room, through the hall, and back into the kitchen. As long as I kept moving, Ricky confined his crying to loud whimpers. If I slowed down, the screaming started. I knew what he needed. He needed a walk in the stroller. I was pretty sure that (and only that) would calm him down. But what about Rose? I couldn’t wake her up just because her brother needed a walk. I also couldn’t check on her while her brother was crying. If I brought him with me, he’d disturb her. If I left him strapped into his high chair or his infant seat, he would begin the awful ear-shattering, choking screaming.

  I was desperate.

  I phoned my sister.

  “Dawn, can you come over to the Salems’ right away?” I asked shakily.

  “Sure. What’s wrong?”

  I explained as quickly as I could. “So the thing is,” I finished up, “I can’t be in two places at the same time. Someone has to take Ricky outside. I’ve never heard such screaming. Or seen such drooling.”

  “I bet he’s teething,” said Dawn. “Give him one of those hard crackers. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you. You saved my life,” I said seriously.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dawn arrived at the Salems’, sweaty from having ridden her bicycle in such a hurry. I was still walking Ricky in circles around the first floor. He was gumming madly on a teething biscuit I’d found in the kitchen cupboard. The biscuit had quieted him slightly — as long as we kept moving.

  “Do you mind taking Ricky?” I asked Dawn. I circled from the dining room into the living room, Dawn at my heels. “I’d take him, but I think I better stay here in case Mrs. Salem comes home. It would probably be better if she found the same baby-sitter who was here when she left the house.”

  “I don’t mind taking him,” Dawn replied. “It’s so nice out. Where’s the stroller? We’ll leave right away.”

  “It’s in the garage. Can you wheel it to the front door? I don’t want to stop moving until I can put Ricky right in the stroller.”

  Dawn retrieved the stroller while I circled with Ricky. As soon as she was waiting outside, I made one last circle, but when I reached the hallway, I turned right instead of left, walked through the front door, which Dawn was holding open, and plopped Ricky in the stroller. Dawn was pushing him down the walk before he knew what was happening. Right away, his cries began to fade.

  I went back inside and checked on Rose, who was (miraculously) still sleeping. Then I collapsed in an armchair in the living room.

  I was just reclining there, enjoying the peace when …

  “WAHH!”

  Oh, no. Not again.

  I ran upstairs.

  N
ow Rose was awake, sitting in her crib, screaming and drooling.

  “I guess you’re teething, too,” I said wearily, understanding why Mrs. Salem looked so haggard. “At least I know what to do now. You need a biscuit and a walk.”

  I found a teething biscuit for Rose — and then realized that in order to take her for a walk, I needed the stroller, of course. I ran to the front stoop and looked up and down the street. Dawn and Ricky had already disappeared. Double darn. So I picked up Crying Baby Number Two and began making the circle. Kitchen to dining room to living room to hall and back to kitchen.

  I was still walking Rose when Dawn returned, and Dawn and I were still walking both babies when Mrs. Salem returned.

  “Do I have to write about that job in the notebook?” I asked Dawn that evening. “I would really rather forget the entire incident.”

  Ordinarily, when the phone rings at our house, everyone runs for it as if we were going to win a prize for being the one to answer. On the evening after my latest disaster with Ricky and Rose, the phone rang, and no one dove for it.

  We were all tired.

  I was tired from my taxing afternoon. Dawn was tired for the same reason. And Dad and Sharon were tired because they each had had a difficult day at work. Every member of my family was sacked out in a different room.

  Ring … ring … ring.

  The phone rang three times before I realized what was happening.

  “Dawn, can you get that?” I called from my bedroom.

  “Why?” she called from her bedroom.

  “Because it’s ringing.”

  “Mom’ll get it.”

  “No she won’t!” Sharon yelled from downstairs. “She’s too tired.”

  Ring … ring.

  “Will someone please answer the phone?” said Dad.

  “Mary Anne will!” shouted Dawn.

  “I will not! I can’t move!”

  The phone stopped ringing.

  “Did someone answer that?” called Sharon.

  “No!” replied Dad and Dawn and I.

  “You know, that could have been an important call,” said Dawn. ”Maybe someone died and left us an island or something.”

  “A tropical island?” I asked.