Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake

  “Yes, I am putting on that beekeeper outfit,” I replied testily. “You know I have to. Unless you want me to blow up like a balloon from all the bites I’ll get. And all the stings.”

  Nicky pretended to think this over. “Let’s see,” he said. “Beekeeper or balloon. Which do I want my sister to look like?”

  “Nicky —” I began.

  “Oh, I guess I’ll take the beekeeper. We’ll wait outside for you.” We meant the three boys. They refused to play with girls or with anyone younger than they were, which eliminated everyone except Sam and Charlie who were interested only in girls. (Well, and in waterskiing.)

  I ran into the girls’ bedroom. I was already wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, socks, and sneakers. Now I added the hat, the towel, the mosquito netting, and gardening gloves, after a good dose of bug spray. To be on the safe side, I tied a large kerchief around my neck. I wished for a way to protect my face better, but couldn’t think of anything. Besides, the boys were growing impatient. I could hear them arguing on the porch.

  “Settle down!” I yelled to them. “I’ll be right there.”

  The boys spent most of the morning swimming in the lake and diving off the dock, despite the fact that the water really was freezing, as far as I was concerned. (Kristy’s stepfather said it probably wouldn’t feel warm until August.) I spent the morning trying to find the least bug-ridden spot from which to supervise the boys. I went back and forth between a lawn chair on the shore, and a towel spread on the end of the dock. In the chair I was bothered by gnats and flies. On the dock I was bothered by mosquitos.

  I couldn’t win.

  Plus, no one (and I mean no one) would come near me.

  “You smell,” said my brother.

  “You’re an embarrassment,” added Kristy.

  Jessi was somewhat more sympathetic. “I’d sit near you,” she said, “but I’m in charge of Emily and Andrew today, and I promised them a walk to the lodge to buy some candy.”

  I tried not to mind. Anyway, the boys kept me busy breaking up their many arguments. They were trying to impress and outdo one another.

  “I can hold my breath underwater longer than you guys can!” Linny would shout. Then he’d call out, “Time me!” and duck beneath the surface of the lake. When he’d come up for air, he’d say, “How long was that?” and look expectantly at David Michael who was wearing a waterproof stopwatch on one wrist.

  “Twelve seconds!” David Michael would reply.

  “No way! That was twenty seconds easy!”

  “Was not!”

  “Was too!”

  “Who cares?” spoke up Nicky. “I can hold my breath for twenty-five seconds. Time me, you guys!” Then Nicky would duck underwater, David Michael would time him, and (when he heard the results) my brother would accuse David Michael of not being able to read his own watch. “Cheater!” he would add.

  “Listen, you guys,” I said to the boys after their fifth or sixth argument, “can’t you just play? Why does everything have to be a contest? You aren’t here to challenge each other. You’re here to have fun.”

  For a full four minutes, the boys didn’t argue. (They didn’t talk, either, but I was glad for the peace and quiet.) Then Nicky cannonballed off the dock, landing inches from where Linny was on his back, practicing floating. The cannonball not only splashed Linny, it startled him out of his floating position.

  “Cut it out, jerk!” Linny shouted at Nicky.

  “Cut what out?” Nicky climbed onto the dock again and cannonballed back into the lake. “You mean that?” he asked. “Is that what you want me to cut out?”

  “Yes!”

  “Just checking,” said my brother.

  “Nicky,” I said warningly.

  “Yeah, Nicky,” mimicked Linny.

  I sighed. Why couldn’t the boys get along? I had hoped the trip to the lake would be good for my brother. Sometimes he has trouble fitting in with our family. At home he also won’t play with the “girls” (our sisters), and the triplets usually don’t want to play with Nicky because he’s younger. So he’s often on his own. But on this vacation he had built-in friends. Only the boys spent more time fighting than playing.

  Maybe they needed to try a different activity. What could I suggest that would be different and fun?

  “Hey, guys?” I called. “How would you like to go fishing?”

  “Fishing? Really?” replied Linny.

  “Sure,” cried David Michael and Nicky.

  We returned to the cabin for fishing gear, then headed for a spot on the lake that Mitch assured us would guarantee bites. For twenty minutes or so, the boys were busy getting settled, baiting their hooks, and peering into the lake, trying to see where the fish were. Twenty minutes after that, David Michael caught the first fish.

  “All right!” I cheered from my spot on the shore. (I wasn’t fishing. I was too involved with my calamine lotion, bug spray, safari hat, and mosquito netting.)

  David Michael was still untangling his prize from the hook when Nicky caught a fish. I cheered for him, too. “All right!” But Linny scowled at him over his shoulder. “Show-off,” he muttered.

  And that was the beginning of yet another argument. Four arguments later I had had enough — of both the boys and the bugs. “Attention!” I shouted. “Nicky! Linny! David Michael! Time to pack up your gear. We’re going back to the cabin!”

  “Already?” whined my brother.

  “Yes, and don’t whine,” I said.

  “Baby,” added Linny.

  I led the trio of dejected boys away from Shadow Lake and back to their dorm in the cabin. “I want you to stay here for fifteen minutes,” I told them. “Try to be civil with each other. You’re supposed to be friends.”

  “I’m —” Linny began, but I cut him off.

  I headed for the girls’ bedroom, intending to collapse on my bed and enjoy a few moments of peace. Hopefully, bug-free peace.

  No such luck. The room was not empty. Claud, Stacey, and Jessi were in it. They were reading magazines and giggling.

  “Nice outfit,” Claud said as I entered the room. “I like the gardening gloves. They’re a lovely touch.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Ooh, testy.” (That was Stacey.)

  “You shut up, too!” I exclaimed.

  “Mal!” cried Jessi. “What is the matter?”

  “What’s the matter? Everyone is fighting and I look like the poster child for Bug-Off spray. That’s what’s the matter.”

  Jessi pulled me out of the room. “You and I are taking a walk,” she announced.

  As Jessi and I ambled along the edge of the lake, I told her about the boys.

  “Well, just because they’re cranky doesn’t mean you have to be cranky,” she pointed out. “And your bug bites are going to go away,” she added before I could say anything further about them.

  “I know, I know…. Jessi? Do you mind if we go back now? I’m getting bitten again. Maybe by dragonflies. Do they bite? Or maybe by chiggers or mosquitos or … ”

  Linny and Nicky just argued and fought almost all the time. I did not understand this. Linny is one of my best friends. So is Nicky. If they are both my good friends, why did they fight so much? Maybe because they didn’t know each other very well. They knew me, but not each other. I decided we needed a project. We needed something we could do together, something all of us liked doing. Also, something we couldn’t argue about. Something that wouldn’t make us say, “I can do that better than you!” Or, “I can do that faster than you!”

  I thought for awhile. I got an idea.

  “Let’s take Shannon on a walk,” I said to Linny and Nicky.

  It was Thursday. We had been at the lake for five whole days. We let Shannon outside several times each day, but someone always went with her. Since she did not know her way around Shadow Lake we were afraid she would get lost. I decided she might want a nice long walk in the woods, though. Shannon had not spent much time in real woods.

  ?
??On a walk?” repeated Nicky. “A walk to where?”

  “Who cares?” said Linny.

  “Shannon might care.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “A walk in the woods, you guys,” I said. “And cut it out!”

  “Shannon would like the woods,” said Nicky thoughtfully.

  “I’ll ask Kristy if we can go without her,” I said. “I mean, without Kristy.” I did not understand why my sister had to baby-sit us. Or why any of her friends had to baby-sit us. We don’t need sitters. Karen does, Andrew does, Emily Michelle does. But not us. I hoped Kristy would let us take just one single walk without her.

  “We’ll stay near the cabin,” I said to her. “We won’t go too far.”

  “But I’m in charge of you.”

  “Can’t you be in charge of us from the cabin? You could even sit out on the back porch. Then you would hear us if we yelled for help from the woods. We’d yell ‘S-O-S!’ and you could come after us. Anyway, we’re taking Shannon on a walk, so we’ll have her for protection.”

  “Shannon is not a watch dog,” said my sister. “She adores everyone, even strangers. If she saw any kind of danger, she’d probably run up to it and cover it with puppy kisses.”

  “Okay. Then we’d yell S-O-S, like I said.”

  “Let me check with Mom or Watson.” Kristy ran out the front door and down to the lake where Mom was swimming near the dock. They yelled back and forth to each other. Then Kristy returned to the cabin. “Mom said you guys can go by yourselves —”

  “Yes!” I cried.

  “— if I really do sit out on the porch and if you promise not to go very far and if you also promise to come back in half an hour.”

  “I promise. I mean, we promise!”

  “All right. I’ll be timing you.”

  “Let’s symbolize our watches.”

  “Synchronize,” Kristy corrected me. “That’s a good idea.”

  So we set our watches. Then I snapped Shannon’s leash to her collar. Linny, Nicky, Shannon, and I stood at the edge of the yard.

  “Go!” yelled my sister.

  We disappeared into the woods. I unclipped Shannon’s leash so she could run free. “Have fun!” I yelled as she scampered off.

  I think Shannon really did have fun. Nicky and Linny and I could hear her sniffing and whuffling around. Soon I could hear another kind of sound, too. Voices? Maybe. I hoped I would not have to shout S-O-S. I hoped Shannon would turn out to be a watch dog.

  I elbowed Linny and Nicky. “Shhh!” I hissed.

  “What?” asked Nicky.

  “Just be quiet for a sec. Listen.”

  Linny and Nicky and I stood very still. We listened hard.

  Linny’s eyes grew wide. “Voices!” he whispered.

  “They’re coming from over there.” Nicky pointed through the trees.

  We crept toward the voices. Soon we could see a … fort! “Cool!” I said under my breath. “Excellent!”

  “Yeah, but someone’s in it,” Linny reminded me.

  While we stood looking at the wooden shack someone ran out of it.

  It was Karen, my sister.

  “What’s she doing there?” whispered Linny.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t know. But let’s find out…. Oh, and sneak up on her. We can scare her while we’re at it.”

  Karen had sat down on the ground near the shack. She looked like she might be weeding. But who weeds woods?

  Shannon came bounding back to us, so I picked her up (even though Shannon is absolutely enormous for a puppy) and Nicky and Linny and I tiptoed up behind Karen. When we were just a couple of feet away I looked at my friends. I nodded. Then the three of us screamed, “Boo!”

  Karen was weeding. And when we shouted, she jumped and threw a handful of dirty roots and leaves in the air.

  “Aughh!” shrieked Karen.

  “What’s the matter?” called another voice.

  “Yeah, what happened?”

  Hannie and Nancy ran out of the fort.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?” demanded Hannie. (She was mostly looking at Linny, her brother.)

  “What are you guys doing?” Linny asked the girls.

  “Working on our playhouse. And fixing up our garden,” Karen replied. “They used to be a secret playground and a secret garden, but I guess they aren’t anymore.” She scowled.

  “Playhouse!” I repeated. “That isn’t any playhouse. It’s a fort.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Linny and Nicky.

  The girls shook their heads. “No way. It’s a playhouse.”

  “And it’s ours,” added Nancy.

  “Who says?” I wanted to know.

  “Finders keepers. We got here first.”

  “But you’re just using it for a dumb playhouse,” I went on. “We could make it into a cool fort — for boys only.”

  “It’s already for girls only,” said Karen. “Why should we give it up? Why should we let you have it? Huh?”

  “Well, why should you have it? It doesn’t really belong to you. You just found it here in the woods. And,” I went on, before Nancy could say, “Finders keepers,” again, “you probably don’t know anything about it. Maybe it belongs to someone else. Maybe you are … trespassing.”

  Karen paused. Then she said, “Oh, we are not. You can’t scare me.”

  “I just did. Remember? Boo?”

  “Well, anyway, Daddy and Elizabeth said we could play in the shack.”

  “If we’d asked first, they would have said the boys could have the shack.”

  “But you did not ask,” said Hannie.

  “We didn’t know about the shack,” retorted Linny.

  “Look, how about if we share the shack?” I suggested.

  “No! You boys will turn it into a fort!”

  “Will not!”

  “So you’ll help us decorate it like a tiny, pretty cottage in the woods?”

  “We-ell … We want to build stuff, not decorate.”

  “If you guys want to build so much, then go build your own fort. I dare you,” said Karen. She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

  “Okay, we will,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Nicky and Linny. (Finally they had agreed on something.)

  “And you know what else? Our fort will be better than your playhouse, better than this old shack.”

  “How much?” said Hannie.

  “How much better?” asked her brother.

  “No! How much do you want to bet that your fort will be better than our playhouse? The Three Musketeers are betting you.”

  “Wait — I don’t have any money,” said Nicky. “Well, not much.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Okay, gentleman’s bet.”

  “No way!” cried Karen. “A gentleman’s bet is no fun. How about … if we win, the girls get to sleep in both the big bedrooms, so we can each have a whole bunk of our own. You boys will have to sleep on the couches in the living room.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And if the boys win, you girls will have to do all our chores for a month.”

  “A month!” exclaimed Nancy. “Wait a sec. Then us girls change our part of the bet. If we win, you have to do our chores for a month.”

  “We’ll do them for the rest of the summer,” I said boldly.

  “We will?” said Nicky.

  “You will?” said Hannie. “How come?”

  “Because the boys are going to win. This is a sure bet.”

  “Shake on it,” commanded Nancy.

  Nicky and Linny and I shook hands with Hannie, Nancy, and Karen. “Now the bet is legal,” I announced.

  “Where are you going to build your fort?” asked Karen.

  “Somewhere in the woods. That’s all we will tell you. We want to build it in privacy. No girls allowed.”

  “Well, no help allowed for you,” said Karen. “You can’t ask Watson or Kristy or Mitch or anyone to help you.”

  “We don’t need help,” Linny replied haughtily
.

  I looked at my watch then. “Hey, we have to take Shannon back to the cabin. Our time is almost up.” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Shannon! Shannon! Here, girl!” I heard a yip. Then Shannon bounded out of the underbrush. I fastened her leash onto her collar again.

  “’Bye!” called Karen. “Good riddance!”

  Linny and Nicky and Shannon and I started to walk away, but I turned around long enough to shout, “So long, suckers!” Then I ran back to the cabin with my friends. (We got there just in time.) I could not wait for us to begin our project together.

  I wasn’t kidding about Shadow Lake. I really do think it’s a wonderful place. It’s beautiful, the air smells good, there’s lots to do, the cabin is nice and so is the lodge, and Faith Pierson is really fun. Mitch taught Kristy how to drive the boat. Now he’s teaching Sam, and next he might teach me.

  Thursday was my day to be in charge of Emily and Andrew. I had thought they would want to go swimming (well, wading), but Andrew said no. “Let’s do something different today.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “What do you guys feel like doing?” We had just finished breakfast and were sitting on a big swing on the porch.

  Emily Michelle looked at me and grinned. “Fim?” she suggested.

  “No, Andrew is tired of fimming. I mean, swimming.”

  “Can we go see the boats?” Andrew asked.

  “The boats?”

  “You know, the parked ones.”

  “Oh, the boats at the boat dock,” I said. “Sure. We can walk to the dock. That’s a good idea. Emily, do you want to look at some boats?”

  “Boats!” she cried. (That must have meant yes.)

  I decided to bring my sketch pad with me. Who knew what I might see.

  “Are you going to draw?” asked Andrew as he watched me put the pad and some pencils and charcoals into a tote bag.

  “Yup.”

  “Can I draw, too?”

  Not a bad idea. “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll put some of your paper and crayons and markers in here with my stuff. Then you and Emily can draw boats and the lake and anything else you feel like. We can pretend we’re artists.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Andrew. “Do you have easels for us?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, no easels. No berets for our heads, either. We can pretend we are starving artists.”