I finally gave in to Mom’s nagging and decided I would babysit for her friend. My real motive was knowing it would take more than my stingy allowance to get back to Calgary.
On my first visit to meet the kids, they looked sweet, sitting at the table.
“This is Emmy,” said Ms. Clarkson. The girl’s hair was red and curly. “And this is Caden.” His mom ruffled his straight hair. “Sit down, please. Can I get you a snack?”
“I’m fine, thanks, Ms. Clarkson.”
“Call me Cynthia.”
“Do you got LEGO?” Caden asked me.
“That’s all he thinks about,” Emmy said.
“I still have mine from when I was little,” I told Caden.
He grinned at me. “Do you want to see my space station?” He slid down from his chair and darted from the room.
“He will make you look at it, even if you don’t want to.” Emmy rolled her eyes. “It is his pride and joy, that’s what Mommy says. I don’t have a pride and joy.”
“Is Emmy short for Emily?” I asked.
“It’s Emerson.” The little girl got down from the table. “Not all Emmys are called Emily, you know.” She stood with her hands on her hips. “We have a Ping-Pong table downstairs. Can you play?”
“Daria is going to visit with me for a while,” said her mother.
“After, then?” asked Emerson.
“I don’t expect she can stay long this time.”
My hand itched to wrap itself around the phone. At least five calls had come in since I got to the house. Mostly from Selena, who had only placed bronze in jazz dance and was having a major pity party.
But I did want this job. “I can play for a little while,” I told Emmy. “But I’m not very good.”
“I am,” said Emmy as she danced out of the room.
“So.” Ms. Clarkson drank the dregs of Caden’s milk. “I need you Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. From two forty-five until about six. Three hours a day, three days a week.”
You didn’t have to be in honors math to figure out that was more than three hours a day. “That’s fine,” I answered. I could bring it up later. “Do I have to pick them up at school?”
“There’s a car pool,” said Cynthia. “But you must be here when they get dropped off.”
“Sure.”
“I am looking for someone reliable,” she continued. “Basically, you give them a snack, let them watch no more than an hour of TV. They play well on their own. And together.”
“Sounds good.”
“Emmy is pretty steady,” Cynthia told me. “But keep an eye on Caden. He gets into mischief. But nothing too serious. So Tuesday, Thursday and Friday? How is eight dollars an hour?”
Twenty-four bucks a day. Seventy-two a week. How much would that be a month?
Not as much as retail, maybe, but enough to start saving for a trip home. “That’s fine.”
I was hardly out the door before I was on my phone to Selena. There’s always next time. Kno wot? I got a job!! Babysitting 2kids. WDYT?
I had babysitting figured out by my third time. Paper and crayons and scissors kept Emerson happy for hours. Caden was more work. He was always bugging me to “Watch this,” “See what I can do?” or “Come and play.”
Today he kept leaning over to stick his head between mine and my phone while I tried to talk to Josie.
Cs cute. But his sister is way easier. Any tips? Josie has a rash of small cousins.
“Daria.”
R all boyz a pain? I hit Send and watched the screen for Josie’s reply.
“Daria!”
“What?” I nearly caught Caden with my elbow as I turned toward him.
He shoved his juice box at me. “I hate apple juice. It smells like sick. Doesn’t it smell like sick, Emmy?”
“It’s called vomit, if you must know,” she told him. “I like apple better than orange.” She dropped her empty juice box into the recycling bin.
“Vomit. Vomit. Vomit,” crowed Caden. He crammed the last cracker in his mouth. “Vomitvomitvomitvomit,” he chanted as he dashed out of the room and up the stairs.
Emmy rolled her eyes and opened her coloring book.
U talkg all boyz? Josie texted.
Just the 1s I kno!! I havnt met any here, thats 4 sure.
“You’ve had a visitor.” Mom told me when I got home. She shifted the laundry hamper against her hip. “We had a nice chat. She knits!”
“Who knits?”
“Chloe.”
“It’s Cleo,” I told her. “How do you know she knits?”
“I asked about her hat.”
In the past week, I’d not yet seen Cleo bareheaded. Perhaps she was bald.
“I gave her your number,” said Mom. “But she said she would drop by after supper.”
I glanced at my phone, but the only message was from Selena. “I do have homework, you know,” I said.
“Isn’t it about time you made some friends?” said Mom.
“Cleo has piercings, Mother. In case you didn’t notice. Probably tats. You know? Tattoos? Anyway, I have friends.”
Though right now I had no patience for more of Selena’s dance postmortem.
Mom dropped two piles of clothes on the bed. “Friends here, Daria. Not ones that you spend hours with on your phone.”
“First you drag me away from Calgary. Now you won’t let me talk to my friends?”
“You do exaggerate.” Mom sat on the bed. “I simply said that you might make an effort to make friends here.”
“And you think Cleo is a likely candidate?”
“Well, I will admit, she is a little…”
“Weird?”
“Don’t be so judgmental,” said Mom. “She certainly has her own style.”
“She’s in honors math, for Pete’s sake. We have nothing in common.”
“She seemed nice.” Mom picked up the laundry basket. “But far be it from me to suggest who you should have for friends.”
Far be it from you to run my life, I thought as she left the room. I stuffed the clean clothes in the nearest drawer.
All evening, I was alert for every passing car or knock at the front door. I half imagined taking Cleo upstairs, showing her the dresser my grandfather had made. The pictures of the trip Josie and I took with the youth group last summer while Selena was at nature camp.
She didn’t show up. By the time I went to bed, I was as annoyed as if I had been stood up. It was ridiculous. If I did make new friends here—not that I planned to—it would not be with a girl who wore homemade hats.
The next morning when I saw Cleo in the hallway, I expected her to stop. But she sailed by, waving at someone outside the cafeteria. Today her hat was pink with orange flowers around the brim.
I hugged my books to my chest, my phone in one hand and a can of apple juice in the other. I got a whiff of the juice. Caden was right. I ditched the can on the windowsill next to a wad of gum and a bus transfer.
Cleo flapped one hand in a feeble wave as I passed. But she kept talking to Drew Galling. Honors math student meets chess freak, I thought. A match made in heaven. Maybe she’d get off my back now.