Shannon's Story

  The kids were going to wear Krushers’ shirts.

  And we decided to use Krusher rules. Krusher rules are pretty loose. For instance, we use a Wiffle ball for the littlest kids. And they get more strikes. Things like that.

  “Take me out to the ball game,” sang Jessi.

  “Play ball,” answered Kristy.

  For once, we were all sitting at the breakfast table together. It was the morning that my mother was leaving town to go on my vacation to Paris.

  It was your choice, I told myself, staring down into my glass of orange juice. Paris will still be there. And you’ll be there someday soon.

  “Did I write down your flight number?” my mother was saying to my father.

  “Yes, and I wrote yours down, too. In two different places.”

  Not only was my mother going to Paris, but my father was going away on business the week after that. He and Mom would see each other in the airport as Dad was leaving and Mom was returning, so Dad was going to give Mom his parking ticket when he met her and she was going to drive the car home from the airport. That meeting in the airport was the only time they were going to see each other for two whole weeks.

  I wondered if that was the longest they’d been apart since they’d been married.

  “The bus is picking us all up at Stoneybrook Day School and taking us to the airport,” my mother said for about the thousandth time, (and pulling the ticket out of her purse and checking it for the thousandth time, too).

  “Relax,” my dad told her. “They won’t leave without you. You’re a chaperone! You have one of the most important jobs on the trip.”

  My mother smiled. “It is a job, isn’t it? But it doesn’t feel like one. I’m so excited.”

  My dad smiled back. “Well, part of your job on this trip, anyway, is to have a great time.” He reached out and patted my mom’s hand and they smiled at each other.

  After breakfast, we helped load Mom’s luggage into the car.

  “Aren’t you coming, Shannon?” asked my mother as I closed the car door and stepped back.

  I shook my head. I’d planned on going to see my mom off at school, and my friends, too. But now, at the last minute, I just couldn’t do it. I’d managed to stay pretty neutral about not going to Paris, but I didn’t know how I’d feel standing there waving as they all drove away and left me.

  “Well, don’t forget to get fresh milk, one percent for your father, whole milk for you kids. And Astrid’s due for her weekly bath. Her shampoo is in the bathroom cabinet on the left. No, no, it’s on the right. You’ll see it. And don’t use the good towels. I use the dark towels at the bottom of the linen closet for Astrid. Oh, yes, the latch on the dish-washer needs adjusting. The repair service is supposed to call to set up an appointment, but the dishwasher works if you jiggle the latch. And make sure Maria and Tiffany take their vitamins, and you, too … and your father knows …”

  “Mom, it’s only a week,” I said. “Dad’ll be home every night. I have his office number, and he’s got a beeper, okay? And Mrs. Bryar will be coming in extra days for the house-keeping and cooking, so we’ll be fine. Okay?”

  “But, Shanny!”

  “See you in a little while, kiddo,” said my dad, winking and putting the car in reverse.

  “Have fun!” I called as the car backed out of the drive.

  “Be careful!” my mom called back.

  Be careful? What did that mean?

  For a moment I contemplated the possibility that my mom had rigged booby traps in the house. I imagined opening the linen closet door and being conked on the head by a falling ironing board.

  But that was impossible. I knew perfectly well that the ironing board stayed in the laundry room, all set up and ready for ironing.

  What did my mother think was going to happen?

  Be careful. Hmmm.

  I knew, I thought, why my parents had put me in charge rather than keeping the sitter they had hired. They were teaching me a lesson: about maturity, about responsibility, about how difficult running a house is, and, by extension how difficult being a parent and being in charge are.

  They were teaching me a lesson. And they expected me to fail.

  Well, I might have failed French. But that was on purpose. I wasn’t about to fail at this.

  I walked back in the house and looked around. Everything neat and tidy. The dishes in the sink caught my eye and I whisked them into the dishwasher. Mrs. Bryar was coming in the afternoon to do some laundry and straightening up, and to cook dinner. She was coming three full days this week and two half days.

  I went upstairs and got my notebook and my calendar and sat down to polish my house-keeping list.

  My housekeeping notebook. Mary Anne’s devotion to the BSC record book and the BSC’s perfect record in keeping sitting jobs organized had not escaped me. In my housekeeping notebook, I’d written down all the emergency numbers — doctor, vet, fire department, police department, poison control center, and plumber. I’d written in the days Mrs. Bryar was coming to do housekeeping. I’d written in her phone number. I wrote in now, on Thursday, Bathe Astrid. I wrote at the top of each day, Vitamins. On Tuesday and Friday, I wrote, Water Plants.

  I was going to go over my list with Mrs. Bryar and try to plan menus for the week. Mrs. Bryar was cooking dinners during the week, but there was still the weekend. And lunch. And breakfast.

  But I was prepared. And organized. Nothing was going to go wrong.

  I was home alone when I heard the rustling in the bushes. The dishwasher was loaded, the house was clean, and I was on the couch in the den reading a murder mystery and waiting for Mrs. Bryar to show up.

  Rustle, rustle.

  Why hadn’t Astrid barked? She was supposed to be a good watch dog!

  Then I remembered that Maria had taken Astrid with her to the park. She was going to try to teach Astrid to pull her on roller skates. Cross-training apparently could involve dogs.

  Cautiously I got up. The sound was coming from underneath the window. I pulled the curtain back and tried to see into the bushes below.

  I saw a faint movement, a hand…. Someone was hiding in the bushes by the house!

  Dial 911! I thought. But I couldn’t move.

  Suddenly whoever was crouching in the bushes straightened up and I found myself face-to-face with —

  The meter reader from the power company.

  I stifled a shriek just in time. The meter reader looked sort of startled herself. Then she smiled. “Hi,” she called through the glass.

  “Uh, hi,” I said weakly. Boy was I glad I hadn’t screamed.

  “Everything seems to be in order,” she said.

  “Great,” I managed to say.

  She waved and stepped out of the bushes and disappeared around the house.

  I fell back onto the sofa. I had just gotten relaxed when the sound of Mrs. Bryar’s key in the lock caused me to jump a mile.

  “Mrs. Bryar?”

  “Who else would it be?” said Mrs. Bryar, a laugh in her voice.

  “Right,” I said. I got up and went to meet her and see about planning menus for the week (and a grocery list).

  On my calendar, under Monday, I wrote, Meter Reader.

  Grocery shopping Tuesday morning took a little longer than I expected. For one thing, I had Maria and Tiffany with me. I was surprised, when I suggested they come with me, that they both agreed readily. Enthusiastically, even. I thought perhaps the idea of riding the town bus to and from the grocery store appealed to them.

  I quickly found out otherwise.

  “Oooh,” said Maria as we entered the supermarket. “Can we just buy frozen dinners, Shannon? I love frozen dinners. Especially the steak ones.”

  “Oh, no. Mom expects us to eat normal food. You know she doesn’t feed us frozen dinners, and I’m not going to either.”

  “Just one,” wheedled Maria.

  “Just none,” I answered.

  Pouting, Maria trailed after me down the aisles.


  Tiffany wanted to buy a different kind of breakfast cereal — the kind where sugar is the first and second ingredient listed on the label.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want Mom coming home and asking me what we’re doing with a box of Sugar Krunchies on the shelf.”

  “We’ll throw away what we don’t eat before she gets back.”

  “No, Tiffany.”

  Tiffany didn’t pout. She just moved on to the next goal.

  Maria stopped pouting when we reached the bread section, with the economy sized jelly rolls. She spent fifteen minutes trying to convince me that as an athlete, she needed jelly rolls more than any other food on earth.

  By the time we left the grocery store I had said no not only to frozen dinners and Sugar Krunchies, but to the giant economy sized can of candied popcorn, live lobsters, three kinds of cookies, and every bag of candy on a discount candy table.

  And I’d forgotten the furniture polish that Mrs. Bryar had specifically requested. I’d arranged to have the groceries delivered, but when I called and asked them to add the furniture polish to the list, someone with a bored voice told me the morning deliveries had gone out.

  Before I turned around in disgust to make a mad dash back to the store, I wrote, Groc Shop on my calendar in the Tuesday morning section.

  It was a good thing I did go back and get the polish. Because the grocery delivery person hadn’t arrived by the time Mrs. Bryar left.

  He didn’t arrive until half an hour later. I threw open the door. “It’s about time,” I said. “We could’ve starved! It’s a good thing there was enough meat in the freezer for meatloaf!”

  The guy gave me a funny look. “Uh, could you sign here, please?”

  Impatiently, I signed my name. “Just put it on the counter in the kitchen.”

  “The counter?”

  What was wrong with him? “Yes, please.” I turned and walked toward the kitchen. A few moments later, I heard him following me.

  “Over here.” I gestured toward the kitchen counter and stepped aside.

  The delivery man staggered in under the weight of his delivery — and dropped fifty pounds of Astrid’s dog food on the kitchen counter.

  “Have a nice day,” he said, and walked out.

  I stood and stared at the bag for a long time. Where were our groceries? Did Mom have a regular order of dog food delivered? How could she have forgotten to tell me that?

  The kitchen door opened and Astrid came sailing in, pulling Maria on her roller skates. “I’m home,” Maria said.

  “Take your skates off in the house,” I said.

  “Tiff? Tiffannny!” called Maria, skating around and around the table.

  “Maria, I mean it,” I said, watching in dismay as little lines began to appear on Mrs. Bryar’s newly mopped floor.

  “Okay, okay.” Maria went back outside and I heard her talking to Astrid as she pulled her skates off. Then I heard her say, “Hey, Tiff, there you are!”

  That took care of them, at least for the time being. She ran to join Tiffany in her garden.

  I grabbed some towels and tried to get up the marks from the roller skates. That worked pretty well. (I wrote in my calendar: Groc: Paper Towels.)

  But when I tried to lift the dog food off the counter, I couldn’t hold it. It fell to the floor and broke open. Dog food went everywhere.

  I was still chasing dog food nuggets around the kitchen when Maria and Tiffany came in. Astrid came with them. She was wearing baby clothes!

  “Don’t do that to Astrid,” I said. “It makes her look undignified.”

  Just then Astrid gave an undignifed woof and a jump and knocked the bag of dog food (now sitting on the floor) over again.

  I barely cleaned it up before Dad came home.

  My experience wasn’t Paris, but it certainly was interesting. And overall, things were going smoothly. I was handling it.

  And even managing to make funny stories out of it when we all sat down to dinner that night.

  In my calendar that night, before I went to bed, I wrote: Dog Food Delivered.

  And underneath it, in smaller letters: Groc Delivered Late.

  “A great day for softball,” said Kristy, as if she’d ordered up the weather herself.

  Stacey adjusted Marnie Barrett’s sun hat and moved her stroller a little further back into the shade of the tree at the edge of the bleachers. It was a great day for softball, but a little hot for toddlers.

  Even though the game wasn’t due to begin for another half hour, the bleachers were already filling up. So was the field of Stoneybrook Elementary School, where we were having the game.

  Out on the field, under Kristy’s watchful eye, the two teams were warming up, although they hadn’t exactly divided into teams yet. It was odd to see parents you were accustomed to seeing in work clothes suddenly transformed into athletes. Mrs. Barrett, for example, who is always immaculately dressed, just like an executive, had on a pair of baggy gray sweat pants, her BSC Mother’s Day game T-shirt, and an old St. Louis Cardinals hat pulled down over her forehead. She was thumping her fist in her glove and saying, “Put it here, Buddy. Come on, throw that ball!”

  In the outfield, Mrs. Papadakis and Dr. Johanssen were practicing throwing grounders to each other. Mrs. Pike was racing around the bases, laughing.

  Some of the kids were warming up, too. But others were standing there with their mouths open.

  The motion of something large and pink caught Stacey’s eye in the parking lot and she realized that Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, had arrived in her old car, which she has painted pink and which everyone calls the Pink Clinker. Pink is Nannie’s favorite color, so it wasn’t surprising that she was wearing a pink windbreaker.

  As she walked by, Stacey saw that she had written the word “Umpire” in adhesive on her back.

  Bart saw her coming, too, and trotted over to shake hands. A moment later, Nannie reached in her pocket and produced a roll of adhesive tape and began to write “umpire” on the back of Bart’s black T-shirt.

  More people arrived. I had gotten there on time with Maria and Tiffany. I’d been hoping Dad would come, but I sort of knew better. I was playing on the moms’ team and Maria was playing on the kids’ team. For a moment, I thought about asking Tiffany if she wanted to join the Krushers cheerleaders. But I knew better about that, too.

  Claudia was doing a brisk business at the refreshment stand, with Mal’s help. “Come on,” I said. I took Tiffany over to the stand. “Tiffany, you remember Claudia and Mallory,” I said. Tiffany nodded.

  “It looks like they need some help here,” I began.

  “We sure do,” said Mallory. “Could you give us a hand, Tiffany?”

  Tiffany nodded again. I gave Mallory a “thank-you” look and Maria and I headed for the field.

  At least half a dozen proud fathers/husbands were walking around with video cameras, getting all the action live. I wondered what Dad was doing at the office. Too bad he was missing out on the fun.

  The Krushers cheerleaders, Vanessa Pike, Haley Braddock, and Charlotte Johanssen, were already leading the crowd in cheers such as: “Hey, hey, take it away/Let’s win one for Mother’s Day!”

  Kristy, who was coaching the kids’ team, looked at her watch and blew the whistle loudly. “Kids’ team, over here!” she called. She pointed. “Mothers’ team, you have the benches over there.”

  The two teams separated and went to their respective “dugouts.”

  “Cold drinks, cold drinks,” shouted Claudia, walking through the stands holding a small cooler.

  The umpires walked to the center of the field. Then Nannie whipped out her whistle and said, “Team captains, please come to the center of the field so we can explain the rules and toss the coin to see who goes first.”

  The moms conferred furiously for a moment, then Kristy’s mom walked out onto the field to face Kristy! The four of them, the two umpires and the two captains, talked for a few minutes, then Bart pulled a quarter out of his p
ocket and tossed it in the air.

  The moms won the toss. Kristy and her mother went back to their respective dugouts and Bart turned to face the stands. “Quiet, please!” he shouted. “I will now explain the rules. They are different from regular softball rules, so please listen carefully — or you won’t know when to boo the umpire.”

  A ripple of laughter went through the stands. Bart said, “This will be a five-inning game. We’ll have a third inning stretch …” Bart went on, explaining the rest of the rules.

  Then Nannie blew her whistle again. “PLAAAAAY BALL!” she shouted.

  The moms came out swinging. Mrs. Barrett led off with a single. Kristy’s mom followed with another single. Then Dr. Johanssen grounded one to third and Mrs. Barrett got caught in a rundown between second and third base before Matthew Braddock, who was playing third, finally tagged her.

  “You’rreeeee out!” cried Nannie, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. Mrs. Barrett trotted off the field to cheers and applause (with especially loud cheering coming from her fiancé, Franklin DeWitt, and his kids) and tipped her hat as she left.

  Two runners on base, with one out. Linny Papadakis, who was pitching, wound up and threw a wild pitch. Byron Pike just barely caught it.

  “Don’t let your mom psych you out!” someone called from the stands.

  Mrs. Papadakis tapped her bat against the plate and hunched over again.

  Linny threw again. This time the ball was high, but Mrs. Papadakis hit it anyway.

  It made a long looping curve toward the outfield — and Claire Pike.

  “Claiiiiiiire,” bellowed Kristy.

  Claire’s head jerked up. Her eyes got round. She threw her hand up over her head. Fortunately, it was the hand with the glove on it.

  And a miracle occurred. The ball dropped into Claire’s glove.

  She was so surprised she just stood there with her mouth open.

  Kristy’s mom tagged up at second and made a run for third.

  “Throw to third, throw to third!” Claire’s team pleaded.

  Suddenly Claire woke up. She grabbed the ball and threw it to Jackie at second. Jackie caught it, spun around, and started to fall down.