Why Call Her a Babysitter If I’m Not a Baby?

When my parents leave for their Thursday-night date, I offer my babysitter, Amy, a truce. Usually I torture her by locking myself in the bathroom, running the water, and overflowing the bathtub, or taking my old bike from the basement and riding it down the front hall stairs. Last time I did, I skidded into my father’s worktable and his markers ended up all over the house.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” I say. “If you help me do some research, I’ll go to bed on time with no fuss. I swear.”

She stops texting her friends and looks at me suspiciously. “Is this for a school project?”

“Kind of.” Since my mother grabbed the newspaper article away from me the other day, I searched every wastebasket in the house with no luck. All I can remember about the news story is the date.

When Amy goes back to texting, I stick my face between her and the phone and ask if she can find more information on the computer. She jumps at the chance to use my father’s superfast laptop and types in MARTHA’S VINEYARD DROWNING, as well as the year. Several articles pop up, but I finally spot the short piece I found in the attic. The girl’s name is Susan James. I ask Amy if there’s anything else.

“Why are you asking me?”

I tell Amy I’ve cornered Mom twice, but she gets angrier each time I ask. I even heard her talking to Dad about it in the den with the door shut.

“’You can always write to the newspaper if you’re that desperate to know.”

“But then I’d have to WRITE.” I decide I don’t like Amy’s attitude, so I break our truce, grab my dog, Bodi, and lock us in my mother’s car. After a few minutes of trying to coax me out, Amy gives up and goes inside.

I scrunch down in the backseat and think about a girl Amy’s age who died. I bury my head into Bodi’s chocolate fur and wonder what that must’ve been like for her parents, her brothers and sisters, if she had any, or even her dog. As if he knows what I’m thinking, Bodi moves in closer and puts his head on my leg. I imagine waves crashing on an island I’ve never been to but then am startled by bright lights behind me. Mom and Dad, home early.

When I jump out of the car, Bodi does too. “We were just cleaning it. What a mess!”

Amy meets us in the driveway and holds out her hand to get paid. “He locked them in again. Plus, he was obsessed with an article about some girl who drowned. Mrs. Fallon, I tried my best, I really did.”

My mother gives her a twenty, and Amy is back on her cell before my father can offer to walk her home. I yell across the street for Bodi to stop eating the food Mr. Jennings leaves out for his cat.

My mother holds open the back door. “I have no idea why I saved that article,” she says. “I must’ve been interested in something on the back.”

“There was an ad for a furniture store.”

“See? I was probably looking at couches.”

“On Martha’s Vineyard?”

Mom tries hard not to get annoyed. “I know you have a curious mind, but maybe you can focus on something else. Tomorrow’s the last day of school—let’s have a great summer, okay?” She shoots me that smile she wears when she’d give everything she owns to get me to behave for more than just a few minutes.

I tell her we won’t be doing anything in school tomorrow besides watching a DVD so it’s fine if I stay home. But she’s not buying it and sends me up to brush my teeth.

Later (I didn’t brush my teeth) I trace the letters S–U–S–A–N J–A–M–E–S on the wall. Bodi looks up from his spot at the foot of my bed and watches as if he can read. Maybe if he could, the summer reading list wouldn’t be such a chore. I tell myself to stop thinking about bad stuff; after all, tomorrow is the start of vacation, the start of sleeping late, the end of being prodded every day by teachers with their mental Tasers to LEARN, LEARN, LEARN.

Tomorrow is also the day I start to investigate what my mother is trying to hide.