Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

  “In all the rooms? This one, and your father’s study, and your mother’s?”

  Melissa nodded solemnly. “And the door to the basement, after Jeremy broke his arm falling off the back swing.”

  Wonderful, I thought sourly. Why hadn’t the housekeeper locked those rooms for my benefit? I lifted Shana down from the stool and headed for the bathroom, then changed my mind about using that bathroom. Better to use the one the girls shared.

  Melissa trotted beside me. “She unlocks the doors before Mama gets home,” she offered.

  Oh-ho. Mrs./Dr. Foster didn’t know some of the rooms were kept tidy because the children weren’t allowed to get into them. I wasn’t sure if this was fair or not. Sensible, probably; but if it was all above-board, why keep it a secret from the lady of the house? I figured it was a secret, or the housekeeper wouldn’t unlock the doors before Mrs./Dr. Foster came home.

  “Does Mrs. Murphy live here, in this house?” I asked as I chose a brown washcloth to get the goop off Shana’s face. She felt soft to my touch, and she didn’t object to being washed.

  “She has a room downstairs,” Melissa said, nodding. “Sometimes she goes to see her son Kenneth, but she doesn’t like Kenneth’s wife, so it’s not very often.”

  I finished with Shana and looked around. “Where’s Jeremy?”

  This time we found the missing one easily. He was in his father’s study, talking on the telephone. He looked up and smiled at us, speaking into the phone. “All right. Good-bye, Uncle Rick.” He hung up and informed me, “I was talking to my uncle. He lives in Hawaii.”

  I hadn’t heard the phone ring. “Did you call him, or did he call you?”

  “I called him,” Jeremy said importantly. “This number, right here.” He leaned forward over an open directory, holding a finger near the numbers written after the last name. “It’s easy, you just punch the button for each number, and if it’s a long one like this, you have to punch one first.”

  What did it cost to call Hawaii? Day rates? I swallowed. “I don’t think you’d better call any more, unless Mrs. Murphy says you can.”

  “She won’t let me call,” Jeremy said, smiling. “Where’s Melissa?”

  That was the way it went. I only had two arms; I couldn’t keep hold of all three of them at once, and if I knew where two of them were, the third disappeared. Nothing else horrible happened, but I was sure glad when Mrs. Murphy came home.

  “Did it hurt?” I asked sympathetically. I never had a root canal, and Mom says if I go every six months for checkups and brush and floss between times, I probably never will. But it made me feel peculiar, thinking about it.

  “Oh, Dr. Hughes is a very good dentist,” the housekeeper said. “I was nervous and tense. But it wasn’t too terrible. How did things go here?”

  I hesitated. “Well, Shana got into her mother’s makeup, but it all washed off. And a platter melted in the microwave. I had to throw it in the garbage can. A yellow plastic platter.” I held my breath, waiting to hear that it was somebody’s favorite one.

  “Jeremy cooking in the microwave again? Last time he heated rolls without wrapping them in a napkin first, and they came out hard enough to be bullets.” She sighed. “You’ll have to be careful, or they’ll talk you into things.”

  I wanted to ask what things; how was I supposed to know what they were allowed, or not allowed, to do? She didn’t give me a chance, though. She was heading for the kitchen.

  “Time to put the roast on, they’re having company tonight. Then I think I’ll rest a bit, in my room.”

  “Do you dare lie down when they’re playing?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, they’ll stay outside,” she said, and I wondered if she locked them outdoors as well as out of some of the rooms.

  “There was a gas man here,” I said hesitantly, standing in the kitchen doorway. “He wanted in, but I couldn’t see his ID, so I told him I couldn’t open the door.”

  She was tying on an apron. “Oh? Well, if it’s important, he’ll be back, no doubt. My next appointment is day after tomorrow, same time. You’ll be here at one again then?”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Good-bye until then.”

  Melissa hung onto my hand, walking me to the front door. “I like you for a sitter,” she told me, and I squeezed back on her hand.

  “Oh. I forgot to tell Mrs. Murphy that Jeremy called his uncle in Hawaii.” I wondered if I should go back.

  “Oh, Daddy will know when the bill comes,” Melissa said. “He always says, ‘That kid’s been calling long distance again,’ and Mama tells Jeremy not to do it anymore. Next time,” she said, quite complacently, “he’s going to call Grandma Foster. She lives in Texas. She has a dog. Mama won’t let us have a dog. Our other grandma lives in Seattle. She has three cats. We called her last week.”

  “How do you know the numbers?” I asked. Jeremy surely couldn’t read very well, at six years old.

  “Oh, Jeremy has them marked in Daddy’s book. He watched when Daddy called each of them, and then he made a secret code sign by the name, so he knows which number belongs to which person. Uncle Rick’s sign is like this.” She marked an invisible X in the air.

  Well, if they couldn’t keep Jeremy from calling people all over the world, I didn’t see how they’d expect me to do it. “I’ll see you again day after tomorrow,” I told her, and let myself out the front door.

  I rode home, not sure how well it had gone. At least nobody’d gotten hurt. I couldn’t judge how serious the Fosters would consider the damage of the platter or the eye shadow. But though it was a relief to have the first day over, I wasn’t too apprehensive about the next time I would stay with the kids.

  Irene was sitting in our kitchen when I got home, watching my mom stuff a pair of chickens for roasting. I helped myself to a banana to match the one Irene was eating, and said, “The little one says ‘shicken’ and you have to figure out if she means chicken or kitchen.”

  Mom started to truss up the first bird with dental floss, the way she usually did, giving me a smile. “How was it?”

  I sank into a chair beside Irene. “Okay, I guess. Those kids have everything to play with you ever heard of. Including a neat dollhouse, Irene. Remember how we used to play with that old one of mine? Of course we’re too big for that stuff now, but I still kind of like to look at them. Maybe they wouldn’t care if I took you in and showed you the place.”

  Mom gave me a look. “No visitors while you’re on the job unless you have permission, Darcy.”

  “Yeah, I know. Come on, Irene, let’s go jog around the park or something. I need some exercise.”

  I didn’t ask her why she was here before I got home, when she knew I’d be at the Fosters until four o’clock. Tim and a couple of buddies were working on the Volks in the driveway, and she’d needed an excuse to walk past them and say, “Hi, Tim.” I knew how he’d answered: a grunted “Hi” without even pulling his head out from under the hood. Irene never gave up, though.

  “When he’s twenty-one,” she said once, “I’ll be seventeen. Then I’ll be old enough for him, don’t you think?”

  “When he’s twenty-one, he’ll probably be gone, at the police academy,” I told her. “That’s all he thinks about, becoming a cop. It’ll take a couple of years at the junior college, and then the academy, and he might go away somewhere to get a job.”

  “I’ll bet he’ll look darling in a police uniform,” Irene said. Trust her to see the positive side of everything.

  We went past the boys, who had paused for cold drinks. Irene said “Hi, Tim,” and he lifted a lazy hand to wave without speaking. As long as we were where they could see us, Irene walked in that special way she saves for such times. After that, she broke into a trot beside me, heading toward the park.

  There were a few mothers with small children there, near the wading pool and the playground equipment. We cut off in the opposite direction—I’d had enough of small children for one day. The park is a nice one, with lots of open space
plus some woods and little ravines.

  We ran across the grass to get onto a path, where I took the lead and kept going until I got tired. Puffing, I flopped down on the grassy hillside, and Irene stretched out flat beside me.

  It didn’t take her long to get her wind back, though, and she sat up, staring down into the ravine to where a small waterwheel turned on the stream.

  “What’s that?”

  “What?” I asked, following her gaze.

  “It looks like a tent. You can’t camp in the park, can you?”

  I squinted to see better. “I think it’s just a sheet of plastic. It probably blew down there.”

  “It looks more like somebody fastened it over those bushes to make a shelter.”

  I shrugged. “Kids playing. We used to make tents out of blankets over card tables or clotheslines, or tied between trees.”

  Irene shoved herself to her feet. “I’m going down and look.”

  At first I thought I’d just sit there and watch her, but then I decided, what the heck, I might as well tag along. I didn’t expect to find anything, though.

  She was right about somebody making a shelter, though I still thought it was just kids. The sheet of dark plastic was almost the same color as the shrubs, so it didn’t show up from very far away, and the grass was beaten down beneath it, as if someone had been sitting or lying there.

  “Look,” Irene said. She was down on her hands and knees, groping around, coming up with an old sweatshirt and an empty box that had held crackers.

  “Playing house is always more fun if you have something real to eat,” I said, remembering. “This is fairly cozy, isn’t it? Bushes on three sides so it’s almost like walls. Bobby and Jimmy would like it.”

  Irene sat down, holding up the sweatshirt. “This isn’t kid size. I think someone’s hiding here, Darce.”

  Sometimes a grunt like Tim makes is as good a way as any to answer Irene. You can’t talk her out of ideas, so you just wait until they wear off.

  “Hey, look! There’s a book!”

  It was a paperback, well-worn and dogeared. I remembered it from school; it was one our class got from a book club for free reading time. “I read this. It’s about a girl who’s abused by her mother. Isn’t it one of the ones Miss Stanton said was missing from our homeroom bookshelf?”

  We were sitting there staring at each other, thinking it out and not saying anything, when we heard rustling in the bushes outside. And then a head popped through the opening at the end of the plastic tarp shelter.

  Chapter Five

  For a few seconds Diana Hazen’s surprised face stared at us, and then she yelped and scrambled backward on her hands and knees. She wasn’t fast enough, though. Irene reached out and grabbed her wrist, and they struggled silently, until Diana suddenly collapsed on the ground and started to cry.

  “Hey! Diana, don’t cry! We won’t tell anybody where you are, will we, Darce?”

  I hadn’t decided on my answer to that when Diana lifted a wet face and studied us.

  Diana would have been pretty if she hadn’t been so skinny, and if somebody’d told her what to do with her hair. She had red hair, too, but it was the frizzy kind, and she let it grow too long, so it stuck out sort of like a brush pile around her face.

  She had very fair skin with more freckles than I have and eyes that were pale blue. She pushed herself into a sitting position and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “How’d you find me?”

  “We saw the plastic and figured some kids built a shelter. We were just checking it out. How long have you been here?” Irene asked.

  Diana inhaled deeply. “Two days.”

  “We met a cop yesterday,” I told her. “He was asking about you, if we’d seen you.”

  “What did you tell him?” There was a stubborn defiance in the delicate face.

  “Told him we didn’t know where you were, of course,” Irene said, and I added, “And that you’d probably run away again because you weren’t treated very well at home. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  It was crowded in the little hiding place. Diana looked around and reached for the paperback book and the sweatshirt, then held them as if she didn’t know what to do next. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “We said we wouldn’t rat on you,” Irene said. “We told the cop it wasn’t your fault you ran away, that you had to because your dad hits you. Why don’t you talk to him? I’ll bet he’d investigate.”

  Diana didn’t have a handkerchief, so she sniffed. “It wouldn’t do any good. The police talked to me before, and they called the protective services, but my dad told them I lied, that I was incorrigible, and he only hit me when I sassed him back.”

  “He leaves bruises on you,” I said, imagining what that would be like, glad my dad never touched me except to give me a hug once in a while. “If they saw the bruises—”

  “He says I get hurt by being clumsy, running into things, falling down.”

  Irene’s mouth was slightly open. “You mean they believe him, even when you tell them he hits you?”

  Diana spoke very softly. “I don’t tell them. It doesn’t do any good. He used to hit my sister Ellen, too; and when she tried to tell anybody, he just beat her up after they left. I’m not old enough to get married, the way Ellen did; but my brother George is getting out of boot camp in three weeks. He says when he does, he’ll pay my bus fare out to where he is, in San Diego. My aunt lives there, and she’ll take me in if George can help pay my bus fare. Until then, I have to hide out.”

  We sat for a minute in silence, appalled, knowing she wasn’t being dramatic. She didn’t have to say what her dad would do if he found her; we’d seen the black-and-blue marks before. There was a bruise on her cheek now, turning greenish yellow.

  “You can’t stay here,” Irene said after a while, sounding strangled. “They’ll find you when they cut the grass, even if they don’t notice you before that.”

  “They mowed it day before yesterday,” Diana said. “They won’t cut it again until next week. I’ll go somewhere else while they do it.”

  “Where?” I asked, sounding hollow, the way I felt.

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

  Irene cleared her throat. “Have you got any money? To buy food with?”

  “Three dollars and six cents,” Diana said.

  To last three weeks? I thought, I remembered the chickens my mom was roasting, and all the other stuff that would go with it.

  “I had some crackers,” she told us, indicating the empty box. “I ate the last of them last night, though.”

  “And you haven’t had anything to eat today?” There was horror in Irene’s tone.

  No wonder Diana was skinny. My mind was racing. I knew my folks would expect me to cooperate with the police, but I also knew I couldn’t turn Diana in, even if Irene hadn’t promised for both of us.

  “Darcy, you have any money?” Irene demanded, digging into her jeans’ pocket. “I’ve got eighty-two cents. Here.”

  Diana just looked at the coins. “I can’t take your money.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll get my allowance again on Friday night, and I don’t have to depend on it to eat. We’ll get you some food, won’t we, Darcy?” She reached over and dropped the money into the pocket of the sweatshirt.

  “I don’t have any cash, not until Mrs. Foster pays me for baby-sitting,” I had to admit. “I can get some food, though.”

  A touch of interest showed in Diana’s face. “You baby-sitting for the Fosters? The ones on Oakwood Drive?”

  “Yes. You know them?”

  “My sister Ellen used to sit for them once in a while.” A little of the tension went out of her, talking about something other than her own predicament. “She said they were horrid. The boy painted the baby bright blue one day. It was water-base paint, but even so she had an awful time getting it off. Ellen thought they shouldn’t have left the paint where the kids could get it, but Mr. Foster was more upset about c
leaning up the garage than getting the color out of the baby’s hair.”

  “Neat kids,” Irene said, and giggled.

  A small smile curled the ends of Diana’s mouth, and I realized how seldom I’d seen her smile. She was pretty. “Ellen was only there a couple of times, then she got a full-time job at Burger King, but she’d tell me the things those kids did.”

  I told them the things that had happened while I was there, and they laughed. I could tell they were glad they hadn’t been the baby-sitters, though.

  “The worst thing,” Diana said, “was the last day Ellen was there. Jeremy built a bonfire and scorched the side of the house. She wasn’t watching him because Melissa had tried to shampoo Shana’s hair and got soap in her eyes, and they were both screaming bloody murder. Shana’s eyes hurt, and Melissa was afraid she’d blinded her.”

  “You can’t watch all three of them at the same time,” I admitted uneasily. “I’ve never been fired from a sitting job, but maybe this will be the first time.”

  “I went there once, while Ellen was working there,” Diana said. “It sure is a nice house. All those soft carpets and big comfortable chairs and things. My dad wouldn’t hardly believe me when I told him about two big freezers full of food. And seven televisions, all color!” There was wonder in her voice.

  I moved uncomfortably. “I’m getting a cramp from crouching here this way. And I think it’s time I went home for supper. I’ll bring you back something to eat, Diana. And maybe a blanket. I think there’s an old one in the hall closet that nobody will miss—”

  “Me, too,” Irene added. “We’ll see you later, Diana.”

  We left her there, clutching the old sweatshirt that must have served as blanket or pillow, whichever she needed the most, and that tattered book about an abused child.

  My throat ached, thinking about her. Irene was babbling along for a minute or so before I realized what she was saying. “—your garage?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I said, isn’t there a room over your garage? Where she could hide and be safer than where she is?”

  “With Tim and all those guys in and out every few minutes, getting tools? He’s making his spending money this summer cutting grass, with our mower, so he’s in and out for that, too.”