CHAPTER FIVE
My alarm woke me an hour earlier than usual. I slapped it off groggily and stumbled out of bed. Seth opened his eyes sleepily. “Why is the alarm going off so early?”
“Field trip,” I said.
He turned over, suddenly awake. “Where’s the puppy?”
I bent to look under the bed. No puppy. I imagined explaining to Dr. Stubbs that I’d lost the puppy after one night. That would make for a very bad interview.
Then I heard Anna’s laugh coming from the living room.
I straightened. “I think we’ve raised a pair of puppynappers.”
Seth smiled and headed for the shower. “I forgot that about dogs. They’re even more insistent than alarm clocks.”
Surprisingly, I found the kids wide awake downstairs, puppy safely in their care. Normally, they protested having to wake up any earlier because of a field trip.
Unsurprisingly, they hadn’t dressed, eaten breakfast, or in any way made themselves ready for the school day ahead. No, they’d focused on the puppy. It sounded like they were arguing about the name, although they were laughing at her antics at the same time as they argued.
“Jasmine,” Anna proclaimed, for probably the third or fourth time.
“Champ,” Ryan countered, just as forcefully, his voice slightly louder than his sister’s, as if that would settle things.
“We’ll do a family vote tonight, after dinner, okay? Now go get ready for school, or Dad and I will pick the name ourselves.”
They tried to go, but neither one wanted to leave the puppy behind. I wondered when the new puppy spell would wear off. Probably as soon as the reality of the chores set in. Maybe.
I sighed, taking the squirming bundle in my arms. I could feel my robe absorbing dog hair that would never wash off. “Go. Now. Or the dog goes to the pound.”
Anna dragged her feet. “Maybe we should take her on the field trip with us, Mom. Or maybe I should stay home with her. Just until she’s used to us. I bet she’ll be scared to be alone.”
“Daddy’s going to take the puppy to work,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers that Seth was still willing. No way would a puppy be a good carry-along on a field trip.
If Seth didn’t take the puppy to work, I would have to find someone to dog-sit. I just hoped that dog-sitters didn’t charge as much as baby sitters. I was pretty sure, from what the young woman at the pet shop had said, that doggie schools were different from people schools — you didn’t drop dogs off a doggie school. You had to stay with them. The training sounded like it was more for the owners than the dogs, when it came right down to it.
Seth came downstairs at that precise moment. Not about to let him squirm out of his duties, I deposited the puppy in his arms and said, “Daddy is taking the unnamed-as-yet puppy to work with him today. So if you don’t get upstairs and get dressed for school right now, we’ll let his students name the puppy.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ryan challenged.
I tilted my head, quizzically. “Why not? Might be interesting to have a Quark or a Charm in the house.”
“No,” they protested together.
“Then go.”
They shot up the stairs without further argument. I turned to Seth, “I have to pack lunches and get breakfast. You’re on puppy duty.”
I waited for Seth to protest, or worse, to back out of his commitment to take the puppy to work. He had to be crazy to take a puppy to his office. But he just kissed the puppy’s head, carried it out to the backyard, and watched it run around for a while while he drank his coffee. I had a flashback to the colicky baby years. He’d done his share of walking the floors when they kids were little. Maybe this puppy thing would work out.
Anna came down the stairs in record time dressed and singing, “We’re going on a field trip, we’re going on a field trip.”
As Ryan followed her down, he put his hands over his ears and groaned. “It’s too early to sing.”
She made a face at him, and kept singing.
I patted his shoulder — the equivalent of a hug for a seventh grader. “You loved the space museum, as I recall.”
“Field trips are for kids,” he said scornfully. “Seventh graders get math tests.”
I’d forgotten that today was his big math test. My stomach clenched. “Remember, if you need help reading a problem—”
“—ask my teacher.” He held up his hands. “I know, Mom, I’m not stupid, I’m just dyslexic.”
I smiled. “Exactly.” I patted his shoulder again. I wish he had more conviction, though. His after-school tutor was helping him make amazing strides in his reading. He had gone from reading at a first-grade level to a third-grade level in seven months. Of course, Ryan had wanted to go from first-grade to seventh-grade in an hour, so he didn’t look at it the way I did.
“I don’t have a math test, I don’t have a math test,” Anna sang, changing her lyrics as she fixed her own bowl of cereal and reached for the milk jug.
“Hey, concentrate on what you’re doing and sing later,” I said, as the jug of milk she held threatened to upend and spill milk all over the table.
Ryan looked so miserable that I said, “Hey, Dad is going to stay home until it’s time for you to go to school, since Anna and I have to leave early. Why don’t you go walk the puppy with him?”
Glad for the reprieve from Anna’s singing, he nodded and headed out to the yard where Seth and the puppy were playing.
I texted Seth, Math test today.
Before Anna and I drove off, we transferred the car seat and other puppy-related items to his car. Seth and Ryan had not come back from their walk, so I texted him again: Put car seat in your car. You are now properly armed with newspaper, puppy chow, toys, and the dog bed.
He texted back: Thanks. Math test handled.
I crossed my fingers and toes that I was not going to get a call in an hour to come pick the puppy up. I texted one final warning: You’re on your own with puppy. Field trip all day.
He texted back: Glad the museum is only a half hour away.
I sighed. It would not be out of the realm of possibility that he would offer to come pick me up if he had a puppy-related catastrophe.
At least the cell phone had Caller ID, so I’d know if it was Seth calling me and I could avoid the call. Since I only heard my phone half the time, and it was on low battery almost as often, he wouldn’t know — for sure — that I’d been dodging him.
Anna, blissfully unaware of the puppy drama, was still singing when we got to the school an hour before the school day officially began and saw sleepy parents dropping off sleepy kids next to the three big school buses that would take us to the space museum.
The kids, all third, fourth, and fifth graders, know the drill for field trips. Line up by your teacher, get checked off for signed permission slips, don’t wander off even if the empty playground is calling to you. Anyone who didn’t follow these rules didn’t go on the field trip. By third grade, all the kids knew better than to disobey even one of these rules. No one wanted to miss the field trip. Especially not to the space museum.
Field trips to the space museum have their own special torments. So many things to touch. Big, open spaces where excited little voices multiply, shatter, and echo. If the teacher is wise, like Anna’s teacher Mrs. Glenn, she carries a big bottle of aspirin for the chaperones.
Since I had gone with Ryan’s third grade class, I knew that there would be more study of how far parents and teachers could be pushed than there would be of the wonders of space itself.
If every parent were required to watch their child on a field trip, schools themselves might be abolished. There is nothing that speaks so eloquently of the strictures of prison than the ecstasy of freedom on a child’s face when he or she spills from the bus and races pell mell for the joys of exploring by touching and doing.
As long as we were lucky, though, and no one knocked over the fake rocket ship, or tried to liberate a moon rock, we’d all come home with happy smiles. Field trips were a day out of the classroom for the kids, and they appreciated it as only prisoners can appreciate being let out of prison when their sentence was served—with as much disregard for the rules as possible. Which may speak to why the recidivism rate in prisons is so high. “The devil made me do it” is probably a popular excuse for both sets of inmates.
Anna saw her best friend Sarah, and ran to greet her. The two girls ran off to join the rapidly growing permission-check line at the front of the third grade bus. I caught sight of my best friend Deb, Sarah’s mom. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and was not dressed in her police uniform.
“Are you going to be a chaperone? I thought you had to work?”
“Mrs. Glenn called this morning to ask me to step in for Sarah Lawson. Her morning sickness is so terrible, she was afraid she’d be puking the whole trip.”
“Hard to puke and keep an eye on the kids,” I murmured sympathetically. “I’m glad you’re coming.”
“Me too. The Chief wasn’t thrilled, but all his kids had had Mrs. Glenn for third grade, so he didn’t want to answer to her for not giving me the day off.” She grinned. Sometimes there is an advantage to living in a small town where even the Chief of Police has to bow to the wishes of the local third-grade teacher.
“Gotta love Mrs. Glenn. She keeps us all in line.”
“That she does,” Deb agreed. “When she called, I thought I would be subbing in for you. You didn’t leave the puppy home alone, did you?”
“Seth took her to work.”
“Good for him.” She laughed. “I remember the first time I left Devil home alone. He was six months, and he chewed up my carpet near the door.”
“The carpet?” I tried to picture our puppy chewing up the carpet, but then I stopped. I didn’t want to picture it.
We watched Bianca, the PTA president, stroll in with her children. She had a girl in third grade with Anna and Sarah, and a boy in fifth grade. I groaned when I saw her backpack. “Uh oh, Bianca is a chaperone, too. We’ll have to behave.”
“I’m not the one who promised to deliver her mother to the ladies of the decoration committee,” Deb said piously.
“Oh crap,” I muttered. “I better call her right now, before I forget.”
Keeping one eye on the line of children waiting for the teacher to double check permission slips, I called my mother to warn her about the addition to our family, and ask her if she’d talk to the PTA sub-committee, like I’d promised Bianca.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. I just wanted to touch base with you about your visit.”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me.”
Right. I wasn’t going to fall for that one again. “I’m not,” I lied. “But the president of our PTA heard about your talk at the library and she was hoping you could speak to our PTA decorations subcommittee. I told her I’d ask.”
Her question was automatic. “What do they pay?”
“Ummm. Compliments.”
Silence.
“Mom? You still there?”
Sighing.
She was going to refuse. I tried to think of a persuasive argument. “I know, I know. But any money we pay you comes from our operating budget and means less for the kids.”
Silence.
I caved. “Fine. I’ll tell Bianca you can’t do it.”
More sighing. “No need. My grandchildren’s welfare is worth a free talk. But please, let’s keep it to thirty minutes and no longer.”
“Not a problem.” For me. Maybe for Bianca, but I had no intention of telling my mother that. Let her hash that out with Bianca. I had a feeling they talked the same language, one that I could never interpret quite right.
“Molly, I don’t like to be difficult, you know.”
“I know.” Well, I knew she didn’t like to be difficult, even though she always was difficult. “The kids are looking forward to seeing you.” This wasn’t really true, as I had forgotten to tell them the news in light of the puppy news. But some things you simply never tell a grandmother, not even a grandmother who wasn’t difficult.
“My plane gets in at 3:00 p.m. Is that a convenient time?”
“Yes. I can swing by and get you after I pick the kids up at school.”
“I could just take a taxi.”
“Nonsense, Mom. We have plenty of room for you and your suitcase.” I added a mental note to clean out the car.
“Wonderful. Those taxis charge too much for short distances.”
“They do.” I had put it off long enough. “Mom, one more thing.”
“What? Is someone sick? I have some of those disposable surgical masks. Should I bring a few?”
“If you want. But no one is sick in our house. It’s good news, not bad news.” I made my voice sound happy. “We got a puppy yesterday.”
Silence.
“What breed?”
“Mutt surprise.”
“Oh dear. I hope it isn’t a biter. Or a barker. Remember that neighbor we had with the dog that barked at every squirrel in the yard?”
“She doesn’t bark at all.” I didn’t add, “As far as I know.” We’d had the puppy less than twenty-four hours. Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe.
“Can’t wait to see you, sweetheart,” she sang out.
I saw Bianca swooping down on me. “Same here,” I answered dutifully.
Bianca reached me just as I put my phone away. “Have you spoken to your mother yet, Molly?”
“She said she’d love to address the decorations committee,” I said, embellishing the truth a bit, and pretending as if I hadn’t just secured my mother’s consent two seconds before Bianca asked about it.
“Perfect.” A tiny frown creased her forehead. “You know. Maybe I should ask all the PTA moms to show up. The decorations group is only six people. Your mom deserves a bigger crowd.”
Deb stepped in to rescue me. She said, “We have a big Girl Scouts meeting that day, Bianca, remember?”
Bianca shook her head, as if that shouldn’t be a problem. “We’ll combine the events. Give your mom the audience she deserves. I’ll make it happen.”
She walked off, obviously not needing my permission. Or my mother’s.
Deb just laughed and gave me a what-can-you-do-about-Bianca shrug.
I shrugged back. But it burned me a little that my mother would probably approve. She liked a big audience.
If you want to know how many ways there are to say, “Stop that right now,” just go on a field trip with a bunch of third-graders.
On the plus side, if you want to see true wonder, watch the faces of third-graders when they get to see what its like to wear a space helmet. All the moms had cell phones out taking pictures to torment their kids for years with.
They hadn’t had this exhibit when I chaperoned Ryan’s trip four years ago, so I dutifully let Anna and Sarah persuade me to try it. I was a little dubious when the attendant handed me a sanitary wipe and instructed me to wipe off the inside of the helmet and toss the wipe in the big garbage can before I lowered it over my head. But then I shrugged. How can you call it an adventure if there’s no risk of catching cold, flu, or pink eye?
From a mystery shopper’s perspective, I would have given the exhibit a perfect 10 score. The exhibit was set up to cleverly allow everyone to experience wearing the helmet, while still allowing the line to move along at a good pace. The helmet was suspended over a wide set of shallow stairs. Depending on your height, you climbed up to where you could stick your head into the helmet, and then pulled it down to settle on your shoulders.
It was spooky. I could hear my breath, and I could see everyone milling about, including Anna, who was wildly waving at me. Somehow, though, instead of seeing everyone in the museum, they were all floating in a field of stars.
I absolutely felt like I was in space. I resolved to have Seth bring Ryan and his friend Elliot to the museum as soon as I could. All three of them were geeks, who would want to try out this exhibit.
I liked feeling protected from the noise and drama going on around me by the big helmet, and I was almost sad when a chime sounded and I heard a gentle reminder to, “Please let the next person in line experience this exhibit.”
When I rejoined the girls, they were all trying to persuade Deb to try it. I joined in, and we all cheered when she reluctantly got into line. I was delighted that I’d remembered to charge the cell phone, so I got a great picture of her look of wonder. I could use that for babysitting blackmail in the future, I was sure.
As the girls ran off to get into another line, this one to try seeing what it felt like to be weightless, via a trampoline and a harness, Deb asked me, “How’s the job hunt going?”
“I have the second interview tomorrow.”
“I’ll miss having you as backup,” she said mournfully.
“You may still have me as backup. After all, I have Anna and Ryan to worry about. My personal days may coincide with school days off. If so, Sarah will always be welcome over at our house.”
“You know I’ll take you up on it.”
“Of course, the price of that offer is that you share the sick-day babysitter names and numbers with me.”
She laughed. “Maybe.” Then she said, “Are you thinking of getting Anna into the afterschool program? Sarah would love that.”
I nodded. “It seems like the most convenient for me, plus she’ll be much less anxious if she knows Sarah is there.”
“Have you put your application in?”
“No. I don’t even have a job yet.”
“There are only so many slots. You need to put your application in ASAP.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
I wondered what else I needed to know that I didn’t know yet, but I couldn’t think how to ask Deb in a way she could actually answer me. Working moms are so used to being working moms, they don’t really know what needs to be done since they’ve already been there, done that.
As expected, the field trip was a blast. But after a day herding third-graders through the wonders of space, I was tired by the time we reached the part of the day I dreaded: the space museum gift shop.
Bianca’s daughter, Sabrina, led the souvenir charge, as usual, with the cry, “I want a rocket ship, and a key chain, and a moon rock!”
The rest of us chaperone moms glanced at each other and sighed. Bianca’s husband was president of the local bank, which I guess meant he made a lot of money. Bianca’s only job seemed to be to spend as much of it as she could. Or maybe it seemed that way to me.
I saw Anna looking at me, a worried frown on her face. “Don’t worry, Mom,” she whispered. “I know we can’t afford anything until you find out if you have the job.”
Ah, the joys of having a worrywart child. “One thing, under five dollars, isn’t going to bankrupt us,” I said, hoping that was true.
Her face lit up and she went off to check out the five dollars and under possibilities.
“That’s impossible,” Bianca’s voice cut through the hubbub in the tiny museum shop.
I looked up and saw that she stood there, four credit cards fanned out in her hand. “None of these are good? Your machine must be broken.”
The sales clerk glanced over to the other clerk, who was successfully ringing up credit card sales at her station, and looked apologetic. “I can call your bank if you like.”
“Yes. Immediately.” Bianca nodded. “Speak to my husband,” she added sharply, “The president.”
The sales clerk looked at her for a moment, as if she thought she might be joking. And then she saw she wasn’t.
Bianca snapped into the phone, “John, all my credit cards are being denied. What’s going on?”
A mother behind me murmured, “Maybe he decided to divorce her, and he sent her the message by turning off the cards?”
Another mom snickered softly. As much as Bianca annoyed me, I hoped that wasn’t true.
“What? That’s impossible. When?” Bianca turned white and wordlessly handed the phone back to the clerk, and I wondered if her husband really had cut her off in preparation for a nasty divorce.
Taking a shaky breath, Bianca pulled out her wallet and peeled off four twenty dollar bills to pay for her daughter’s souveniers.
She waited silently as the clerk bagged the gifts, thanked her, handed the bag to her daughter, and then turned and headed straight toward Deb.
“I have been robbed.”
“Souvenirs are always expensive,” I joked lamely.
“Someone has not only run my credit cards up to the limit, but they’ve opened ten new cards at other banks.” She was shaking with fury. “As if I’d have a credit card at any bank but ours.”
Deb said, “That’s terrible. I assume your husband is reporting the identity theft?”
“Yes, he is. I want you to arrest someone immediately.”
“Identity theft is usually handled by the FBI, not the local police,” Deb said. “But if you come down to the station tomorrow, I’ll take a report. If the person turns out to be local, we can probably arrest him or her for something.”
“Never mind. I’ll call the FBI directly.” Bianca took out her phone, “Do you have the number?”
Deb blinked.
Before she could answer, I said, “I do.” I took out my phone, hoping it would still have enough charge for me to retrieve James Connery’s number.
“You have the number of the FBI?” Bianca sounded incredulous.
“Well, the number of an agent I know. He could tell you who to contact.”
“And how did you get this number?” Bianca clearly thought I was being investigated by the FBI.
I couldn’t tell her the truth — that I’d helped the FBI catch the serial killer who’d been operating at our local mall. So I told her the safe part of the truth. “I met him at the university job fair. He was recruiting at the FBI booth.”
“Oh.” She looked skeptical, but desperate. “What’s the number?”
I read it off, and she called him as Deb and I stood there, looking on.
Deb gave me a look that very clearly said I’d probably regret giving Bianca James Connery’s number.