Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake

  My friends and I had worked on our fort almost every day. It was looking good. We had built two walls and nailed them to trees. (The Three Musketeers saw one of the walls. They called it a raft. What do girls know about building stuff?) Now Linny was building a third wall while Nicky and I tried to figure out how to make windows and a door. If we just put up four walls our fort would be a dark box with no way in or out. Nicky was supposed to be helping Linny with the walls since they were a bigger job, but he and Linny could not work on the same thing without fighting most of the time.

  Nicky and Linny and I had started working on our fort very early on Wednesday morning. We had eaten breakfast by ourselves. I was proud of us. We had remembered to eat Pop-Tarts and orange Popsicles. That was almost as good as having fruit and orange juice. Plus, we had eaten toast, cereal, and bagels. That was a very balanced meal. And we had only left a small mess in the kitchen. I did not think anyone would notice the milk that had dripped off the table. Anyway, Boo-Boo would probably come along and lap it up.

  As soon as we had scooped most of the spilled Froot Loops back into the box, Linny and Nicky and I found our tools. Then I called for Shannon. Since everyone else was asleep I had to call her very softly. “Shannon, Shannon. Here, girl.” I was just whispering, but Shannon heard me. She ran to me. Her toenails clicked on the kitchen floor, but she did not bark or whine. “Good girl,” I said. “Okay, let’s go.”

  When we were in the woods we could talk in our regular voices.

  “Only three more days to work on the fort, you guys,” I said. I could hardly believe our vacation was almost over.

  Linny was thinking the same thing. “I have never been away with someone else’s family for such a long time,” he said. “Two whole weeks. Before, that seemed like forever. Now Saturday is almost here.”

  “The boat show is over,” I said. “My sister’s campout is over. She spent the night on that island — and saw a ghost.”

  “No, she didn’t!” cried Linny.

  “Well, she might have,” said Nicky.

  “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” Linny asked Nicky. He was walking on one side of me. Nicky was walking on the other side. Linny had to lean around me in order to see Nicky.

  “I have seen a ghost,” replied Nicky.

  “Oh, you have not.”

  “Have so.”

  “Was it Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

  “Cut it out, you guys!” I exclaimed. Then I realized I could not see Shannon, so I whistled for her. From up ahead she barked. And when we reached the clearing, guess who we found. Shannon. She was sitting in our fort. Well, she was sitting in the corner where the two walls met.

  “Good girl! Good girl, Shannon!” I cried. “Okay. You can play while Linny and Nicky and I build.” Shannon stood up. She shook herself. Then she frisked into the trees.

  “Hey, David Michael,” said Linny, “I’m tired of working on the walls. Can’t I help you with the windows?”

  “I’m helping him with the windows,” Nicky answered.

  “We don’t need three people working on windows,” I said. “We don’t even need two. But two people could work on the walls.”

  “Okay, let’s switch. You and Nicky work on the walls, and I will work on the windows,” said Linny.

  “Why don’t you and Nicky work on the walls?”

  “NO!” exclaimed Linny and Nicky.

  “Geez. All right,” I said. “I’ll help you with the walls, Linny.”

  “No fair!” said Nicky.

  I looked at my watch. “We are wasting time. If we want to win our bet with the girls we better start working.”

  We went to work. But nobody was talking. All I could hear was pound, pound, pound. Once, when no one was hammering, I heard voices. Karen and Nancy and Hannie were playing in their playhouse.

  “Where is Shannon?” asked Nicky suddenly.

  I looked up. I listened. No Shannon. I had not seen her for awhile. “Hey, Shannon!” I yelled. “Shannon! Here, girl!” I waited for the sound of Shannon crashing through the bushes. (She is not usually very quiet. I do not think she could sneak up on anything.) But I did not hear any crashing. I did not even hear any rustling. “Shannon!” I called again.

  “She’s probably visiting the girls,” said Nicky. “I’ll go check.”

  When Nicky came back, he was not with Shannon. “The girls have not seen her all morning,” he reported.

  “Then I’ll check out the cabin,” I said. “Maybe she got confused and went home. Or maybe she was hungry. Hey, did we feed Shannon her breakfast?”

  Nicky and Linny paused to think. “You know what? We forgot,” said Linny.

  “Did not!” said Nicky.

  “Did too!”

  “See you guys later. I am going back to the house,” I announced.

  I looked in every room in our cabin. I even looked in the bathrooms. No Shannon. I ran out the front door to the dock. Kristy was wading in the lake with Andrew and Emily. Claudia and Stacey were diving off the dock. But Shannon was not there.

  I was starting to feel nervous.

  I ran back through the woods to our fort. By the time I got there, I was panting. “You —” (pant) “— guys!” I exclaimed. “Did Shannon —” (pant) “— come back?”

  Linny and Nicky glanced at each other.

  “No,” said Nicky. “We thought you would find her at the cabin.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not there. I looked really carefully. I looked down on our dock, too. Why doesn’t she come when I call?”

  “Let’s all look,” said Linny, jumping to his feet.

  Linny and Nicky and I called and whistled. We ran through the woods.

  No Shannon.

  “Oh, no!” I cried. “She’s gone.”

  “No, she is not,” said Nicky and Linny together.

  “Then she’s hurt and she can’t move.”

  “If she is hurt, we will find her,” said Nicky.

  “Yeah,” agreed Linny.

  “How?” I asked.

  Silence. Then Linny said, “Well, we will organize —”

  “— a search party!” Nicky finished his sentence.

  “Right!” said Linny. “Let’s go get the girls.”

  “No, you get the girls,” said Nicky. “I will find Kristy and her friends. David Michael, you find your mom and everyone else.”

  “Then we will spread out, and look for Shannon,” added Linny. “And we will not stop looking until we find her.” He dashed through the trees. “Hey, you girls!” he shouted. “Hannie! Karen! Nancy!”

  Nicky and I took off for the cabin. “Kristy is at the dock,” I told Nicky. “So are Claudia and Stacey. I bet they know where Mom is.” We ran to the cabin. We ran in the back door and out the front door. We ran onto the dock. We were running so fast we had trouble stopping. We almost clobbered Stacey.

  “Hey, you two, what’s going on?” she said.

  “Shannon’s missing!” I exclaimed. “Kristy, where’s Mom?”

  “Down by the boats with Watson and Nannie.”

  “Thanks!”

  In half an hour everybody was standing by our fort. Even Emily Michelle. Even Nannie. And even some new friends of Jessi’s named Daniel and Bridget. Now that everyone was there, I was not sure what to do. That didn’t matter. Nicky and Linny took over.

  “One big person has to go with each kid,” said Nicky.

  “Half of us should look in the woods,” added Linny, “and some should look by the lake, and the rest should look by the stores.”

  I was beginning to feel an awful lump in my throat. I was afraid we would never see Shannon again. I tramped through the woods with Watson. “Shannon! Shannon!” we called.

  “Yip! Yip-yip-yip!”

  “I hear her! I hear her, Watson!” I cried.

  And soon Shannon trotted over to us. She was not hurt.

  “I guess she was just having a good time,” I said.

  Nicky and Linny and I called off the
search. Then we went back to work on the fort. This time, I sawed boards for the door, and Nicky and Linny finished that third wall. “Good work!” they told each other.

  And I added, “You guys are heroes.”

  Hee, hee, hee. You will never guess what happened on Friday. I saw it myself and I still do not believe it.

  “Today,” I said to Hannie and Nancy, “the boys have to finish their fort. And we get to see if it is better than our playhouse.”

  “It won’t be,” said Hannie.

  “How come?” asked Nancy.

  “Because Linny is working on it.”

  My friends and I giggled.

  “Well, I cannot wait,” I said. “I will not have to do a single chore for the rest of the summer. And when David Michael goes back to school in September he will write a composition that starts, ‘On my summer vacation I just did chores. All my chores and all Karen’s chores.’”

  “Let’s go to the fort now!” cried Nancy.

  The Three Musketeers had been sitting by the secret garden. Now we jumped to our feet. We ran through the woods.

  “Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo, boys!” I called. I began to laugh.

  My friends called, “Yoo-hoo!” with me. They laughed, too.

  I heard my brother groan. Then I heard Nicky say, “Here they come.” I know he meant us girls.

  “Okay, you guys,” I said. Nancy and Hannie and I were facing Nicky and Linny and David Michael. “This is it. Last day. Time for our bet. Is your fort better than our playhouse?” I peered around the boys at their fort. I started to laugh again. “I do not think so!” I went on. “Our playhouse is much better.”

  “Prove it!” said Linny.

  “Easy,” I replied. “Your fort only has three walls. Where is the fourth one?”

  “It does not need a fourth one,” said Nicky.

  “Yeah, that space is a big window,” added my brother.

  “Okay, where’s the door?”

  “Next to the window?” suggested Linny.

  “Yeah, right. Okay, the girls win. I call it!” I cried.

  “No way. We need a judge,” said Nicky.

  “How about me?” asked Linny. The boys laughed.

  “Someone who won’t take sides,” said Nancy. “Maybe a grown-up.”

  “Which grown-up?” I asked. “I bet Daddy would take the boys’ side and Elizabeth and Nannie would take our side.”

  “Then let’s ask Elizabeth,” said Hannie.

  “No way!” cried her brother.

  I stepped forward. I stepped all the way into the fort.

  “What are you doing?” David Michael asked me.

  I sighed. “Just thinking.” I leaned against one of the walls.

  Crrrreeeeeak.

  “Karen!” screamed Hannie and Nancy and David Michael and Linny and Nicky. “Look out!”

  Well, for heaven’s sake. Do you know what happened then? The fort collapsed. It smashed onto the ground.

  “Uh-oh,” said Nancy.

  But I said, “Hey! I think the girls won the bet!”

  The boys looked at each other. “Yeah, I guess you did,” said Linny.

  “Wait a minute!” exclaimed David Michael. “What do you mean? Karen just wrecked our fort. That does not count!”

  I looked at the mess I was standing in — broken boards and bent nails and dust rising around my ankles. The boys had said they were such good builders. They had spent more than a week building this? I smiled. Then I snickered. I covered my mouth with my hand. I tried not to laugh at the broken fort, but I could not help myself. I stared down at my feet. I could not look at Nancy and Hannie. I knew that if I did, they would laugh and then I would laugh and …

  Too late. We were laughing anyway.

  “What is so funny?” Nicky demanded.

  “Nothing,” I said. I ran back to my friends.

  “Yeah, what is so funny?” said David Michael.

  “Well … your busted-up old fort is. It’s —” I stopped speaking when I saw David Michael’s face. He looked awful. Like he wanted to cry but he was trying very hard not to. Linny and Nicky did not look much better.

  I glanced at Nancy and Hannie. Now nobody was laughing.

  It was my turn to feel awful. I pulled my friends away. We needed to have a conference. We had one in whispers. When we were finished I said to the boys, “Do you agree that our playhouse is better than your fort?”

  David Michael stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess. Okay, it is better.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Okay, the Three Musketeers have decided to call off the bet. You do not have to do our chores all summer.”

  “Karen?” interrupted Hannie. “How about it if they do our chores until tomorrow? Just overnight?”

  David Michael looked at Nicky and Linny. They nodded.

  “One more thing,” I went on. “We are a little bit tired of our playhouse, so you can use it until we leave tomorrow.”

  “Honest?” asked Nicky.

  “Honest,” I said.

  “As long as you guys leave our garden alone,” added Nancy. “And don’t take down the curtains or anything.”

  “We won’t!” cried David Michael. “Hey, thanks!” The boys ran off into the woods. “And tonight we will do anything you want!” called David Michael.

  “That’s a good thing,” I said to my friends, “because tonight is the dance.”

  “Oh, my gosh! I almost forgot!” exclaimed Nancy.

  “Luckily, I remembered to pack a dress,” added Hannie.

  “Maybe we should start getting ready right now,” I said. “We want to look gigundoly beautiful. This will be a grown-up dance.”

  It was not even lunchtime, but Hannie and Nancy and I ran back to the cabin. We pawed through our suitcases and the bureau drawers. We took out our loveliest clothes. They were not quite as lovely as the clothes we would wear to church or temple, but they were nicer than what we were wearing. (The three of us were dressed in T-shirts, shorts, flop socks, and grubby running shoes. Also, our faces were dirty and our hair was hanging in our eyes.)

  “We better shower first,” I said. “And wash our hair.”

  So we did. “Are you girls feeling all right?” asked Jessi. (She was our baby-sitter that day.) “You are taking showers in the middle of the morning.”

  “We’re fine,” I told her.

  After our showers we curled our hair. Then we spread our lovely dresses on one of the bottom bunk beds. We found clean underwear and clean party socks. I lent Nancy a yellow hair ribbon to match her dress, and I lent Hannie a blue hair ribbon to match her dress. My hair ribbon was made from red and purple shoelaces.

  “Okay, let’s get dressed,” said Nancy.

  “No, we should wait until after lunch,” I said. “In case we spill. Plus, we can ask the boys to shine our shoes later.”

  When lunch was over, Hannie and Nancy and I got as dressed up as we could. Do you know what? I have a special bag that closes with a zipper. I keep makeup in it. Grown-up makeup. When Mommy or Elizabeth or Nannie is almost done with something like lipstick, they give the end to me and I keep it in that bag. I even have some perfume.

  I waited until my friends and I were dressed. I waited until the boys had shined our shoes. Then I closed the door to the girls’ dorm. I took out my makeup bag. I unfastened the zipper.

  “Oooh,” said Hannie and Nancy when they peeked inside. And Nancy asked me, “Do you know how to put on makeup?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve seen Mommy do it hundreds of times.”

  I put lipstick and blusher and eye shadow and mascara on Hannie and Nancy and of course on me.

  “Time for perfume!” I announced. “Look. This bottle is almost empty. We might as well use it up.” Nancy and Hannie held out their hands. I poured perfume into them. Then I poured the rest into my hands. “Pat it all over your body,” I said. “Especially on your neck and behind your ears. Oh, and on your feet, in case they smell.”


  When the Three Musketeers came out of the girls’ dorm, Kristy was sitting on the porch. The boys were with her.

  “Pee-yew! What stinks?” exclaimed David Michael.

  “Girls?” Kristy raised her eyebrows at us.

  It turned out we had put on a little too much perfume. We had to take showers again. Also, the dance was not formal. Kristy said it was casual. She said we did not even need makeup. Oh, well. Dressing up had been fun.

  As you may have guessed, this was not all I had to say, but it was all I was going to put in Kristy’s trip diary. I didn’t want Watson reading about what else went on that night. He didn’t need to know. I figured thanking him for the trip would be more comfortable for both of us. And for anyone else who might read this NOT private diary.

  I am usually a little nervous before any dance. I guess most people are. After all, you don’t know what might happen or who you might meet. Also, you want to look good, but I’ve discovered that the list of things that could go wrong with your appearance is endless. Particularly when makeup is involved.

  The dance was going to begin after dinner, at eight o’clock. Around four that afternoon, Claudia nudged me. We were lying on the dock on towels, drying out after a long swim.

  “Yeah?” I said. I shaded my eyes with my arm, and I rolled over to look at her. She was glistening with suntan lotion. (So was I.) And her hair was wet with lake water. (So was mine.)

  “It’s four o’clock,” said Claudia.

  “So?”

  “The dance begins at eight.”

  “Yikes!” I cried. I sat up fast. “Boy, do we have a lot to do. Thank goodness we don’t have to get too dressed up,” I said.

  “Really.”

  “Should we find Kristy and everybody?” I wondered.

  “Oh, they’ll come in when they’re ready. Kristy’ll probably come later. She’s always saying she could get dressed up in five minutes flat. Not just dressed, dressed up,” Claud said pointedly.

  “Okay.” We gathered up our towels and lotion and returned to the cabin. When we reached the girls’ bedroom we found two surprises. One, everybody else was already there, even the little kids (little girls, that is). Two, the room reeked of … I wasn’t sure what.

  “What’s that smell?” I couldn’t help asking.