Dot was sure it wasn’t what her mom would classify as good karma, but she was pretty excited about spying. Playa del Mar was the kind of town where nothing interesting happened—like once there was an unusually large raccoon running around eating people’s trash, and that made it onto the front page of the paper. So until Dot was closer to realizing her dreams of moving to a real city, she would have to settle for excitement wherever she could find it. And this was the most exciting thing they had come up with, well, ever.
The plan was to gather at Malia’s house, wearing all-black clothing. Like a ninja, Malia’s text read. Dot wasn’t sure if the spy wear was absolutely necessary, but she supposed it couldn’t hurt. Plus, she really only wore black, anyway.
When the three of them actually convened, though, they looked like they were on their way to a séance or a funeral, or in Bree’s case, a black-tie affair. She was wearing a glittery black cocktail dress, which Dot recognized as part of the previous year’s Halloween costume, paired with black socks and black combat boots. Rounding out the look was a GoPro camera strapped to her forehead.
“That’s your spy outfit?” Malia said.
“It’s black. You said to wear black, did you not?”
“Bree! Glitter is highly visible,” Malia said. “Even when it’s black.”
“Well, this is the only black outfit I own.”
“You could have borrowed something,” Dot offered.
She just shrugged. “Still works.”
“Where’d you get a GoPro?” Dot asked.
“It’s Marc’s. He uses it to make videos of himself surfing or something.”
Naturally.
“Okay, so, like, how do you spy?” asked Bree.
“The better question is: What are our objectives?” Dot said. “What are the things we’re hoping to get out of this?”
“I want to uncover every horrible thing they do on the job,” said Malia. “Do they sneak boyfriends into the house during babysitting jobs? Steal things? Ignore the kids? They don’t speak Dutch, but somehow they’re teaching it! Something is amiss, and we’re going to find out exactly what it is.”
Dot had to hand it to Malia—she had really thought this one through. She was shaping up to be a pretty impressive CEO, in more ways than one. Malia thrust papers into each of their hands.
“Here are copies of all three sitters’ schedules for today, along with any relevant addresses, names, and important things to watch out for. Our task is to divide and conquer. Each of us will follow one sitter through her entire job. I want footage at every stage of the babysitting gig, from beginning to end. Do whatever you need to do in order to get it. I repeat: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES. Just don’t get caught.”
They nodded confidently. Dot resisted the urge to salute. And then they were off.
Malia was spying on Chelsea, of course. Bree was following Camilla. This meant Dot was tasked with following Sidney, who was babysitting for the Woo girls. Luckily, Dot was already familiar with the Woos’ house, which made her job easier. She knew exactly where all the prime windows were, including which were located near bushes for her to hide in. The living room window was already open a crack, so she could record audio footage in addition to visual.
As soon as Mrs. Woo left the house, Sidney settled onto the floor with the kids. Ruby carried a puzzle box into the room, and they dumped the pieces onto the ground. Then the three of them—Ruby, Jemima, and Sidney—sat on the floor, silently working on the jigsaw puzzle. It was so peaceful and bizarrely picturesque, it looked like something right off the Seaside Sitters website. Dot had spent time with these girls before, and she didn’t know they were capable of silence. What was Seaside’s secret?
Dot watched this scene unfold for another few minutes. At one point, Jemima toddled off toward the kitchen, and Dot was hopeful that meant some disaster was about to ensue. Instead, she came back with three sticks of string cheese. The trio quietly ate the cheese while working on the puzzle. This was officially shaping up to be the worst spy mission ever.
“I wanna play beauty parlor!” said Ruby.
“Yes, yes! Pahh-lahh,” parroted Jemima.
“Um, okay. You guys can do whatever you want. Just do it quietly and don’t make a mess, okay?” said Sidney. She pulled a small bag out of her purse and started doing her makeup. A very angsty Ruby climbed to her feet and stood beside her.
“Hey! Why are YOU playing beauty parlor on yourself?” asked Ruby, grabbing one of Sidney’s compacts off the floor.
“Hey, put that down. That’s not for you,” Sidney snapped.
“LADY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!” Ruby yelled.
“Don’t be a brat,” said Sidney.
“I WANNA PLAY BEAUTY PARLOR!” Ruby shrieked.
“PLAY PAHHHH-LAHHHH!” yelled Jemima.
“Just watch TV, okay?”
“NO! I’m the haircutter and I want to trim your bangs!” Ruby crossed her small arms angrily across her chest.
“Do you really have to talk so loud?” Sidney rolled her eyes.
“I’M GONNA DYE YOUR HAIR BLUE BECAUSE I HATE YOU!”
It went on this way for far too long. Dot dutifully recorded the entire episode, but it took every ounce of self-control for her to not intervene. The Woo girls could be kind of high-strung, even a little insane, but still. Seeing the kids this upset kind of broke her heart.
“JACKSON! HOW’S IT GOING OUT THERE?” Sidney screamed. Was she yelling out for a boyfriend? Dot looked across the front lawn toward the open garage door, where a scrawny little kid poked his head out from behind the Woos’ Jeep. She recognized him as one of the weird kindergarten boys who liked to play near the gazebo.
Something about this scenario seemed very weird. Jackpot.
“I’m going as fast as I can, Sidney!” he called out. He seemed like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. From her spot in the bushes, Dot only had a partial view of the garage. But she needed to find out more. Was this situation possibly what it looked like? Had the Seaside Sitters actually hired this small child to clean for them?
Dot crawled out from behind the bush and brushed the random twigs and leaves off her clothing. She headed toward the Woos’ garage, trying to assume the posture of a random kid taking a stroll through the neighborhood. She had to get the whole story from Jackson.
“Hi there!” Dot waved at him. “Whatcha doing?”
“Um, cleaning this garage,” he said. “And raking leaves. And doing yard work.”
“Cool! That’s so nice of you,” Dot said. “Do you live here? Are they paying you to do that?”
“Some lady found me at the playground this morning and said if I helped her out, she would buy me candy.”
“I hope it’s a lot of candy,” said Dot.
“A Take 5,” said Jackson matter-of-factly.
“Just one candy bar? You must really like them,” Dot said.
“Yeah. They’re pretty good,” he said with a shrug. “Well, I better get back to work or she’s going to be mad.” He pointed back at the house.
Wow. So the Seaside Sitters weren’t magical garage organizers, after all. They were con artists. Dot couldn’t wait to share her findings with Bree and Malia. But her work here wasn’t done. She crept back to a nearby bush to record some video footage of poor Jackson performing manual labor.
She had only been there for a few minutes when she heard a disturbing sound. It was like someone had turned on a giant faucet. Dot realized exactly what was happening a moment too late. The automatic sprinkler system had turned on, with her in the middle of it. She slipped her phone into her backpack before it could get drenched, but her clothes were not as fortunate.
Dot was so keyed up that she ran all the way back to Malia’s. By the time she got there, she was almost dry.
As soon as they saw one another, all three of the girls broke out into some semblance of, “OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, LOOK WHAT I GOT!”
“I can’t wait for you both to see this!” Dot said, brandishing her phone.
“No, seriously, you’re not going to believe this,” said Bree.
“You guys, I was so scared at one point that I almost peed,” said Malia. Bree and Dot regarded her with disgusted looks. “Don’t look at me like that, I said almost. I didn’t actually pee. It’s, like, a figure of speech or whatever.”
Bree and Dot continued to regard her curiously.
“Whatever. Look what I got!” She proceeded to show them video footage of Chelsea “minding” the Larsson triplets in a very terrible way. Camilla’s boyfriend Danny had, in fact, paid her a visit at her babysitting job. And of course, Dot shared her footage of Sidney yelling at the cute little Woo girls. Collectively, they had compiled hours of evidence to make their case. Now it was just a matter of editing it down and sharing it with the world.
They were so engrossed in the footage that they didn’t notice Chelsea poke her head through the door.
“What are you weirdos doing?” she asked just as Malia shoved her phone under a pillow.
“Nothing, big sister.” Malia smiled sweetly. As soon as Chelsea was gone, she added, “Just ruining your life.”