2

As they ate their lunch of macaroni and tuna salad, Julius’s mother kept using her hopeful-sounding, overly enthusiastic tone of voice. “And this afternoon you start your first job! Mrs. Blue told me on the phone that she knows you’re going to be wonderful with little Edison. She thinks he’ll do better with a male babysitter.”

The comment suggested that Edison hadn’t done particularly well with his last, female babysitter.

“And you’ll be able to do all those fun boy things with him.”

As if Julius weren’t a total klutz at most “boy things.”

“I’ll try,” he said lamely.

Apparently it was the right response. His mother’s face brightened. “I know you will, honey. That’s what it’s all about in life: trying. Doing your best, whatever else happens.”

Julius had met Edison and his parents briefly at his job interview two weeks ago. Edison had been pretty quiet and mopey from his nap, dragging a dingy blanket along behind him. Edison was three. In the mornings, he went to the Little Wonders preschool, where Ethan’s mother was his teacher; in the afternoons, his mom stayed home with him. But this summer Mrs. Blue needed to work some extra hours and had decided to hire a babysitter to fill the gap. Mrs. Blue had called Mrs. Winfield, and Mrs. Winfield had called Mrs. Zimmerman. And the rest was history, as Custer had no doubt remarked when he looked up and saw the Indians.

*   *   *

At one o’clock on the dot, Julius rang the bell at the Blues’ small brick split-level, about a mile’s bike ride from home.

Mrs. Blue opened the door right away. She was short, considerably shorter than Julius. Her hair was pulled back in an untidy ponytail. “Oh, Julius, I’m so glad to see you. Come on in! Edison has been very…” She lowered her voice. “He thinks he doesn’t want a babysitter. I’m afraid he’s quite adamant about it. But I’m sure you’ll be able to win him over.” Julius had never heard anybody sound less sure of anything.

“Edison!” Mrs. Blue called in the same falsely cheerful tone Julius had heard his own mother use an hour ago. Did all moms go to some special intensive summer course on gushing? Didn’t they know kids figured out right away that the more cheerful their mothers sounded, the worse the fate that lay in store for them?

A small boy appeared in the doorway. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that said: “I Virginia Beach.” But from the scowl that darkened his grubby little face, it looked as if Edison didn’t anything.

“I don’t think there’s anything else I need to tell you before I go,” Mrs. Blue said uncertainly. “Eat anything you want in the fridge. Be sure to put sunblock on Edison if you go out in the yard. I’m a little low on wipes, so use them sparingly. I’ll be back at four. I’ve left his dad’s and my work numbers on the bulletin board, in case there’re any emergencies.”

The mention of “emergencies” made Mrs. Blue look more uncertain than ever. She lowered her voice. “I’ve read that it’s better for the mother not to prolong the goodbyes. The book said that even if the child cries, it’s usually only for a minute or so, and it’s worse if the mother lingers. But you’ll tell me if he cries longer than that, won’t you?”

Julius nodded numbly. He hoped Edison wouldn’t cry. He hated it when people cried.

“Bye, angel!” His mother blew an obviously guilty kiss to Edison, who promptly burst into stormy sobs. Then she was gone. Julius’s first afternoon of babysitting had begun.

Edison hurled himself at the front door, through which his mother had disappeared, beating his small fists against it.

“Hey, buddy,” Julius said awkwardly. “She’s coming back.”

In three more hours.

Edison stood on his tiptoes and tried to turn the doorknob. To Julius’s horror, the door began to open.

“Whoa!” Julius leaped forward to push it shut.

For the next few minutes, Edison strained to pull the door open, while Julius leaned against it to keep it closed. At least Julius had size and strength on his side. But Edison had willpower on his.

Something Mrs. Blue had said in parting was beginning to occupy the part of Julius’s mind not taken up by his struggle with Edison. Put sunblock on him. That sounded bad enough: was Julius supposed to hold the door with one hand while he applied sunblock with the other? Use wipes sparingly. What kind of wipes? Did Edison howl so much that his parents bought special wipes for his chapped little nose? Or did she mean …

Julius looked down at Edison, still pulling at the door with all his might. Maybe his shorts did seem a little bulgy.

But the kid was three! He was a toddler, not a baby! Toddlers didn’t wear diapers anymore—did they?

No. Julius’s mother wouldn’t have done this to him. She wouldn’t have signed him up for a job where he would have to change diapers. He had never changed a diaper. He was never going to change a diaper. He didn’t know how to change a diaper. Diapers had … stuff in them. Stuff Julius didn’t even want to think about, let alone look at, let alone wipe.

“Come on, buddy,” Julius said. “This is getting boring. Let’s go do—” What? What did three-year-olds like to do? Besides have tantrums.

“I have an idea!” Julius said in an excited voice, as if he had reached into his pocket and found two free tickets to Disney World. “Why don’t you show me your room? I bet you have a cool room!” Ten minutes into the job, Julius was already starting to sound like somebody’s mother.

“No!” Edison said. But at least he let go of the doorknob. Julius grabbed the spare house key from the hook next to the door and quickly locked the deadbolt.

“Why don’t you show me your toys?”

“No!”

“Why don’t you show me your backyard?”

“No!”

Julius had an inspiration. “Why don’t you show me nothing?”

“No!”

“You don’t want to show me nothing? Okay, don’t show me nothing. Show me something. What do you want to show me?”

Edison had to think that one over. “Nothing,” he finally said, but Julius could tell Edison knew he had lost the first round.

“Ooh, I like your nothing!” Julius said. “Wow, Edison, that nothing is so cool!”

Edison giggled. Julius felt a small stir of satisfaction. So far, on the first day of summer, he had accomplished one thing. He hadn’t been able to say his name in French, but he had made Edison Blue laugh.

Edison was still in a good mood when he finally led Julius upstairs to his room. “Edison’s bed!” he shouted, leaping into the middle of a smaller-than-regular-size bed covered with a Winnie-the-Pooh bedspread.

He ran to the bureau. “Edison’s clothes!”

He ran to what was unmistakably a changing table. A diaper-changing table.

“Edison’s diapers!” The word caused him to burst into gales of laughter. Sure enough, there was a stack of disposable diapers in one of the bins beneath the changing table.

Julius’s blood ran cold.

There was no way that he, Julius Zimmerman, was going to change anybody’s diaper. That was final. Edison was going to have to wait until four o’clock on weekday afternoons to put anything in his diapers. If he did pee or poop before then, Julius was going to pretend that it had happened as Mrs. Blue was walking in the door. Three hours wasn’t that long. A kid could wait three little hours to have his diaper changed. Pioneer kids crossing the prairie in covered wagons had probably waited a lot longer than that.

Still, Julius wanted to get as far away from the changing table as possible. “Hey, buddy, show me Edison’s yard.”

He managed to get sunblock smeared on Edison’s chubby arms and legs. His face was harder. Or rather, his face was impossible. On little kids’ faces, everything was so close together that their cheeks and noses were right next to their eyes. Sunblock in your eyes could really sting. And the harder someone pulled away from you, the harder it was even to dab on sunblock, let alone rub it in. Julius got one little dot of sunblock on Edison’s left cheek before he gave up, hoping that you couldn’t get skin cancer in an afternoon.

Finally, they were ready to go outside. But as soon as they reached the large, square sandbox that stood next to the redwood play set, Edison turned difficult again. Instead of digging sand, he began throwing it. Julius could tell that he wasn’t throwing sand because he wanted to throw sand; he was throwing sand to see if Julius would stop him.

Julius said his line: “Hey, buddy, no throwing sand.”

Edison threw another handful of sand, a bigger handful this time.

Julius had tried being his mother; now he’d try being his father. He put on a sterner voice: “I said, no throwing sand.”

Edison threw his sand toward Julius.

Maybe with Edison you had to explain the reason for a rule. “Look, buddy, if you throw sand, it can get in somebody’s eye. In Edison’s eye. Edison no like sand in eye. Edison have to go to doctor. Doctor dig sand out of Edison’s eye. Ooh, that hurts Edison’s eye.”

Edison held his next handful of sand. Was he considering this line of argument, or wondering if his babysitter had suddenly lost the power to speak coherent English? Then he threw it.

Julius was getting angry now. He knew he wasn’t allowed to spank Edison, but he could give him a time-out. Mrs. Blue had discussed “guidelines for discipline” with him at the interview. She had told him he could place Edison in a time-out chair for a couple of minutes. She had also told him that the only problem with this was that Edison wouldn’t stay in a time-out chair for even a couple of seconds.

“That does it, buddy! You’re in time-out!”

Julius swooped down and gathered up a kicking, screaming Edison and set him down on the picnic bench.

“No!” Edison ran back to the sandbox.

Again, Julius carried him to the picnic bench.

Edison ran back to the sandbox.

Was Julius supposed to hold him in the time-out chair? He could, if he had to.

He carried Edison to the picnic bench once more. This time he held Edison, squirming and struggling, in place. Julius might be a spindly version of a twelve-year-old, but compared to a three-year-old’s, his physique was magnificent. He had Edison this time.

Until Edison bit him. On the hand. Hard.

“Owwww! You little—”

Edison burst free and ran back to the sandbox, to the exact same spot where he had been standing before Julius first carried him away.

Julius heard merry laughter. He looked up. Watching them from over the neighbors’ fence was a girl. Apparently she had been watching the whole time.