Baby-Sitters' European Vacation

As we turned the corridor toward the gym, I heard some classical piano music. It was coming from a small room at the end of the hallway.

  The door was ajar. Ms. Schwartz waited for the tune to end, then pushed the door open farther.

  “Susan,” she said, “this is Dawn Schafer.”

  Susan was sitting at the piano, her hands resting in her lap.

  She didn’t even look at me.

  Ms. Schwartz filled me in on Susan’s eating schedule, some of her habits. “Susan can be left here while she’s playing. I need you to help in the gym, but do keep an eye on this room,” she said. “If you see Susan leave, please make sure someone goes with her. Chances are she’ll head for Room Two Hundred, the coach’s room. We’ve set up her machine there, but the door’s locked, so you have to get the key from Heather, our head counselor.”

  “Machine?”

  “It has made a world of difference. Susan can’t take close human contact. A hug, to her, feels like being swallowed up by a swarm of bees. But when the comfort comes from a machine, somehow it’s more calming. The system was developed by an autistic woman who became a college professor.”

  “Cool,” I said cheerfully.

  The moment Ms. Schwartz left, Susan stood up. I figured she might want to leave, so I stuck around. But all she did was pace across the room, wringing her hands and making clicking noises with her mouth.

  “Am I making you nervous?” I asked.

  Flap, flap, click.

  “I really loved your playing,” I went on. “You can keep going, if you want.”

  Flap, click, click.

  “Of course, you don’t have to …”

  Susan turned suddenly and left the room.

  I followed her into the hallway. She walked straight to Room 200 and stood there, facing the door.

  “Do you want to go in?” I asked.

  It was as if no one had said a word.

  I knew I needed to be patient. I’ve always been patient with Whitney whenever she’s done unexpected things.

  But Susan wasn’t at all like Whitney. Whitney at least had a smile for you. She answered you when you spoke to her. She joked around.

  I sighed. “Okay, okay I’ll be right back.”

  I ran into the gym, found Heather, and introduced myself. Then I got the key from her and ran back into the hallway. Susan was standing in exactly the same place.

  I opened the door. Inside, the coach’s desk had been pushed against the wall, along with lots of sports equipment.

  In the center of the room was a big, padded apparatus that looked like some weird weight machine.

  Susan walked inside it. She wedged herself between thick pads that went from her shoulders to her ankles.

  Then she pressed a button, and the pads began to close around her. Like a giant hand.

  “Susan?”

  I was scared. I thought she was going to be hurt.

  “Ms. Schwartz!” I called down the hallway, hoping she’d hear. “Ms. Schwartz!”

  Ms. Schwartz came running into the room. “What happened?”

  “Is this — okay?” I gestured toward the room.

  All I could see of Susan was her head, poking out from the top of the machine.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you understood,” Ms. Schwartz said softly. “It’s a hug machine, Dawn.”

  Soon the machine let go. Susan backed out, then turned and walked toward us.

  She still didn’t say anything. She still didn’t look into our eyes. She walked by us and continued to the piano room.

  But her hands weren’t flapping. And her tongue wasn’t clicking. She seemed very peaceful.

  Ms. Schwartz sighed. “Yesterday she looked at me. Just for a second. It made my whole day.”

  The piano playing started again. Ms. Schwartz put an arm around my shoulder as we walked toward the gym.

  “Are a lot of the kids here like Susan?” I asked.

  A sudden angry cry rang out from the basketball court.

  I looked in to see four boys piling onto a ball under the hoop. And a couple of counselors trying to help.

  “For some,” Ms. Schwartz said with a smile, “physical contact is not a problem.”

  “Sammy, no biting!” one of the counselors yelled.

  Ms. Schwartz ran inside, blowing her whistle.

  I followed.

  I had work to do.

  “I thought you were having a heart attack,” Jessi said. “Pass the crumpets, please.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scream.” I handed the pastry plate to Jessi across the breakfast table. “The dream was just so weird.”

  “You have Shakespeare on the brain,” Stacey remarked.

  “I would too if I found out he was one of my ancestors,” Abby said.

  Kristy swallowed a bite of scrambled egg and nodded. “I know how she feels. I’m distantly descended from Wally Pipp.”

  “Who?” we all said at once.

  “The great Yankee hitter who led the American League in home runs and RBIs in 1916,” she said.

  Stacey slapped her forehead. “Oh, that Wally Pipp.”

  Kristy threw a crumpet at her.

  My friends’ good moods were rubbing off on me. Abby was even more up than usual, because she was going to visit the Queen with Victoria. Stacey was thrilled because (a) she finally had her suitcase, (b) she and Kristy were about to take a tour that included shopping, and (c) she had realized that having her mom and Robert along on the trip wasn’t so bad after all.

  I was feeling pretty happy too. I’d convinced Mr. D to take a group of us to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. I’d also called Gillian, and she had agreed to meet us there.

  “Take that family-tree book with you today, Mal,” Kristy suggested. “If you present it, they might give you free admission.”

  Abby nodded. “Just say, ‘Member of the family.’”

  “Guys, don’t go overboard,” I said. “We’re not that closely related. Shakespeare lived over four hundred years ago.”

  Stacey took a pencil from her pack and began scribbling on a napkin. “Let’s see … figure twenty-five years per generation, that makes approximately seventeen generations. Now, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents … it’s exponential, see? So going back as far as Shakespeare, who is your great-times-seventeen grandparent, we figure two to the seventeenth power …”

  Stacey’s fingers were flying.

  “Did you get that?” Abby asked.

  Kristy shook her head. “I’m descended from jocks, not geniuses.”

  “How many great-times-seventeen grandparents did I have?” I asked.

  “One hundred thirty-one thousand seventy-two,” Stacey replied.

  “So I have one one-hundred-thirty-one-thousandths of Shakespeare’s genes?” I asked.

  “More or less,” Stacey said.

  I shrugged. “I guess that’s why I’m having trouble writing stories these days. Not enough Will in my blood.”

  “Maybe you need to immerse yourself in him,” Abby said, suddenly standing up. “We can help. Ahem. Mayest I fetcheth thou some juice from yonder machine?”

  As Abby turned, her smile faded. Michel was heading for our table, carrying his breakfast tray.

  “Zounds, methinks I sighteth the enemy,” she murmured.

  Kristy grimaced.

  “Mind if I join you?” Michel asked.

  “Yes,” said Kristy.

  Michel sat down next to her. “And good morning to you too.”

  “This seat’s saved,” Kristy said.

  “For whom?” Michel asked.

  “Anyone but you.”

  “Fine. I’ll switch seats with your boyfriend. OH, ALAAAANNN …”

  “Don’t you even think of it, Michel!” Kristy shot back.

  “Ah, now you don’t mind.” Michel grinned and pulled a harmonica out of his back pocket. “You know what I learned last night?”

  “Put that away before I make you eat it!”
Kristy said.

  Jessi and I exchanged a time-to-go Look. We stood up, said good-bye, and returned our trays.

  Then, back up to our room, where I made sure to pack a paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet I’d bought. (That’s what was playing at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Mr. D had said he’d try to get us tickets.)

  Our group was waiting for us in the lobby — six more students, half from SMS and half from Berger. As usual, the two groups were sticking to themselves.

  “Friends, Canadians, and countrymen!” Mr. D announced. “We’re all here, so … tallyho!”

  “Is he like this all the time?” asked one of the Berger students, a girl named Frances.

  “Only in England,” I replied.

  Mr. D led us into the tube and we promptly went in the wrong direction. We just barely made our connection to the rail train at Paddington Station.

  The ride itself took a good two hours. On the way, Mr. D suggested that we read aloud from Romeo and Juliet. Which turned out to be fun.

  The Berger kids were pretty cool. For the first time, we were all talking together, getting to know each other. I did not, however, tell them about my ancestry. I didn’t want them to treat me like a celebrity or anything.

  Gillian was waiting for us at the Stratford-upon-Avon station. “Welcome home, O daughter of the Bard!” she called out.

  Thank you, Gillian.

  Oh, well, no one seemed to know what she meant.

  How was Stratford-upon-Avon? Fantastic. Like taking a time trip. The houses look exactly the way they did in the fifteen hundreds — low, Tudor-style buildings with thatched roofs on narrow, cobbled streets.

  As we walked, I imagined living there, dressed in frilly Elizabethan clothes, going home to …

  The Shakespeare birthplace! It still exists.

  Well, that’s not totally true. It’s been rebuilt, and it’s now called the Shakespeare Centre. But some of the original beams are still standing. I touched one of them while no one was looking.

  Great-times-seventeen-grandpa Will’s grave is still there too. (That was not rebuilt.) I stood there for awhile after everyone had left. I tried to contact Will’s spirit. I asked it to help me finish my story.

  I felt ridiculous.

  That evening we almost missed seeing Romeo and Juliet. Mr. D had forgotten to call for tickets in advance. He assumed we’d just pick some up at the box office, but the show was sold out. (Luckily Gillian knew how to stick around to get last-minute cancellations. Our group’s seats were scattered throughout the theater, but I managed to sit with Gillian and Jessi.)

  The performance blew me away. Coming from the mouths of the English actors, the words don’t sound old-fashioned at all. They make everything as clear and natural as today. I was weeping by the end, and so were Gillian and Jessi.

  All the way back to London, I thought about scenes from the play.

  I also thought about something else. An incident that had happened earlier, at a place we’d visited right after seeing Shakespeare’s grave.

  The house was called Hall’s Croft. Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, had lived there.

  As we walked through one of the smaller rooms, Jessi let out a gasp. “Oh my lord … look at that painting.”

  My cousin and I stopped to look.

  The small oil portrait of Susanna desperately needed a cleaning. But the face peering through the grime was familiar.

  It wasn’t an exact likeness. The hair color was off, and the face was a little too round.

  But something about the expression was unmistakable.

  “Do you see it too?” Jessi asked.

  We nodded. None of us had to say a word.

  Susanna looked a lot like Gillian.

  * * *

  A funny thing happened that night. My mind was racing around, long after Jessi fell asleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about that painting.

  The resemblance haunted me. It had to be a coincidence. A hundred-thirty-one-thousandth of a gene couldn’t possibly show in a person’s face.

  Or could it?

  I tried to take my mind off it. I thought about our trip to France, which was scheduled for the next day. I thought about my family and friends back home, about the story I couldn’t finish …

  Zing. Wide-awake again.

  Have I described my story? It already had a title: “If Life Is a Barrel of Monkeys, I Must Be a Banana.” It was about a girl going totally nuts because her parents expect too much of her, her brothers and sisters tease her, and her best friend moves to New York City.

  Mr. D always says, “Write what you know.” I figured I’d take a familiar situation and make a funny, realistic story out of it. Like Judy Blume or Judith Viorst. But I was stuck. The story was just too close to my life, and I sure didn’t find it funny. Whenever I tried to write, I saw a big, blank wall.

  But now, for some reason, the answer seemed clear.

  Forget about realism.

  What if the girl has gone to sleep and wakes up in another time? Even better, what if she’s switched places with someone famous — like Shakespeare’s daughter — and no one knows the difference?

  The blank wall was dissolving. I could visualize characters. And they were moving. Interacting. Reacting to one another.

  I wondered if Grandpa Will saw his plays like this.

  I climbed out of bed. Quietly I turned on the desk lamp and pulled my story from a drawer.

  First of all, I’d have to change the title, but that could wait. I could think of a better one later.

  I grabbed a pen and started writing.

  “McGill … Thomas … Smith …”

  As Ms. McGill read off the names of the students going on our trip, kids shouted out “Here.”

  I was itching to leave. Breakfast had been such a pain. I had indigestion because Michel was sitting next to me. And he actually tried to play his harmonica. Can you believe it?

  “Faure … DuMoulin?” shouted the Berger chaperone, Mr. Brown.

  My jaw went thunk as it hit the Persian rug.

  “Here I am!” cried a voice from behind me. It sounded like fingernails on a blackboard.

  “Forget about cricket, I’m going with Mal’s group!” I blurted out.

  “They left already,” Stacey said. “So did the other group.”

  “But — but I can’t go with him!”

  “Oh, behave,” Michel shot back. “I knew you’d be in this group too, but I expressed my disgust privately.”

  “That’s easy for you to do,” I replied. “You have to look in the mirror every morning.”

  “Kristyyyyy,” Ms. McGill warned.

  Okay. Time to flip into emergency survival mode.

  I walked straight to Stacey, who was close to the hotel entrance. “Keep your body between mine and his at all times.”

  “Kristy, please,” Stacey said wearily. “Just kiss him and put both of you out of your misery.”

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer,” I answered.

  I did not find her comment amusing.

  Lord’s Cricket Ground was close to our hotel, so we walked. I was careful to keep Stacey between me and Michel. Like a shield.

  Whenever he came near me, he pulled out his harmonica and started playing songs. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” The Canadian national anthem. Plus a song I only vaguely recognized.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “ ‘Michelle,’ ” he replied. “The girl’s name. It’s an old Beatles song.”

  Is that weird or what?

  When we reached the stadium, I sat between Stacey and her mom.

  Michel sat right behind me.

  “Why is he doing this?” I hissed to Stacey.

  “Just enjoy the game,” she replied. “We’re sacrificing prime shopping time for this.”

  But I couldn’t concentrate. One, because Michel kept shouting, “Go, Blue Jays.”

  And two, because cricket wasn’t at all what I’d expected.

  It’s li
ke baseball designed by a golfer. Some of the same rules, but seventeen times as boring. No diving catches, no stolen bases, no power pitchers. Plus, the players keep changing sides all the time for no reason.

  “Are you following this?” Stacey asked at one point.

  “Whose idea was this anyway?” Michel piped up.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I made a mistake.”

  Michel shrugged. “I was going to thank you. I’m enjoying this.”

  Figures.

  “If you stay for a whole match,” said a white-haired man sitting near Michel, “you can become quite addicted.”

  “How long does a match last?” Ms. McGill asked.

  “Until sundown,” the man replied. “With a break for tea, of course.”

  Sundown?

  My addiction would just have to start another year.

  We snuck out quickly.

  Our next stop: Soho, Stacey’s idea of heaven. Basically, it’s wall-to-wall shops and restaurants.

  Ms. McGill and Mr. Brown divided us into two groups: Boutique and non-boutique. Guess which one Michel chose?

  Which meant I was stuck boutique-hopping with Stacey and her mom.

  To me, this is a fate worse than cricket. I have an allergy to boutiques. I become like Dorothy in the poppy field: zzzzzzz.

  I couldn’t take it for very long. When I spotted the other group ducking into a place called the London Kite and Juggling Company, I had to follow them.

  Michel didn’t notice me until I was at the cashier, paying for a beginning juggler’s set.

  “You know how to juggle?” he asked.

  “I’ll learn,” I said, walking out to the sidewalk.

  “Let me show you.” He took the package out of my hand and started ripping it open. “It’s all in the rhythm….”

  “Give that to me!” I grabbed it back.

  The four balls spilled out onto the sidewalk and bounced away.

  I ran after them. So did Michel.

  We ran patterns around the pedestrians. Michel nearly knocked over an old lady. I made a lightning-quick save to keep a ball from rolling into the sewer.

  By the time we reached the end of the block, I had one juggling ball and Michel had two.

  We were out of breath. People were staring at us. I felt like an idiot.

  “Excuse me?” A very proper woman was walking toward us, pulling a golden retriever behind her. “Is this yours?”