Chapter 4

"Claudia? Honey, are you awake?"

I opened my eyes and squinted against the bright sunlight streaming in through my window. I glanced blearily at my clock as I pulled myself into a sitting position. Seven-thirteen A.M.

"What is it?" I asked, when my door opened. My mother poked her head in, saw that I was sitting up, and closed the door behind her. She took a seat at the end of my bed in silence.

"Honey, where were you last night? We called your phone and you didn't answer. And you didn't look at us or speak when you came home, almost an hour past curfew. Are you in trouble?"

What counts as 'trouble,' Mom? Sneaking onto private property? Peering into other people's windows? Assuming a teenager working her ass off for the sake of a little girl barely old enough to talk is abusive?

"I was with Emily, and then I had a baby-sitting job at the Battista house," I told her honestly. I left out the details. It wasn't like Mom would understand, anyway. And unless Janine had told Mom the details I'd told her were confidential, Mom was just being parental and I had nothing to worry about. Even so, I kept my fingers crossed under my blanket.

Even I was surprised at how we'd managed to escape the previous night. I'd brought a granola bar with me (I was actually getting tired of eating Oreo cookies with Kerry!) and thrown it as hard as I could. With the dog (a giant, muscular breed with sharp teeth and a spiked collar) distracted, Emily and I had run as fast as we could.

I'd arrived back to the Battista house later only to find that our footprints had disappeared and the dog was nowhere in sight. Kerry had been a perfect angel, and Bobbi hadn't mentioned it. I thought it was a little weird, since I'd supposedly been caught on camera going through their things, and then footprints appeared outside the one ground-floor window with light coming from it. But I didn't know how my footprints had disappeared, and I wasn't about to mention that I'd gone through their things and why I hadn't been confronted yet since it was all on tape. That would be stupid. Mom seemed to accept my pathetic little explanation and left with only a nod in my direction.

I expected Janine or my father to mention it, but neither did. Eventually I decided to put it out of my mind and pretend Mom had been paying more attention than usual to us and had noticed that I spent a lot more time away from home than I used to.

I fell asleep again and stayed that way for a while. When I woke up next, I took a shower, ate breakfast, and remembered just as I was rushing for the phone that I'd forgotten to call Mrs. Marshall back the night before, and that she needed a sitter for that night.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Claudia? This is Bobbi Battista," the person on the other end of the phone call said. "I just wanted to let you know that I may not need you today or tonight. The officers on the case think the majority of the questions have been answered, so I shouldn't need to spend so much time away from home. But I still have final exams coming up, so if I may, I need someone to watch Kerry tomorrow afternoon while I'm in school."

"You'll be in school on the day before Christmas Eve?" I repeated, remembering the way Emily and I had read that abusive people sometimes made up stories to cover their tracks.

Bobbi laughed. "Yes. I have two sets of tests left until I graduate, and after tomorrow, just one. So…are you available?"

"Yes, I am," I said, figuring Bobbi's tests were part of a graduation program I didn't understand. If the tests were real at all.

Bobbi gave me the details and hung up. Then I called Mrs. Marshall back and told her I could sit for her daughters that night. She didn't seem to notice it had taken me thirteen hours to figure out whether or not I could do so. And when I hung up, I frowned. Something didn't seem right, and I couldn't figure out right away what it was. When I'd cleaned up my cereal bowl and was brushing my teeth, it hit me. For one thing, if Bobbi's friend had really died, why was Bobbi so calm about it? Why wasn't she crying? She'd spent the previous evening reading to her little sister, not crying her eyes out. That's what I'd done when Stacey died. I spent the first month miserable and almost entirely alone. For another, how convenient was it for Bobbi to call and tell me she wouldn't need me today just as I remembered I didn't know if I could watch Kerry or not because of Mrs. Marshall? It seemed like she knew exactly what I was thinking.

Then again, how could she? When my friend died, I was devastated. I didn't talk to anyone, and I couldn't eat. I barely slept. And I doubt I could have tolerated children when I was grieving. Maybe being in Bobbi's situation makes a person strong enough to cope for the kid's sake, especially when you've basically lost both parents already. But maybe that's what Kristy's problem was, too. She wasn't particularly close to Stacey, but I doubt the death and the divorce made her life easy. Maybe that was why she broke up the BSC.

But something still didn't make sense. Maybe I'd solved Kristy's mystery, but I still hadn't found out what was really going on with the Battista family, or why Bobbi seemed psychic.

Now, it seemed, I had even more to figure out than before.

* * *

"Thank you for coming, Claudia," Mrs. Marshall said. "The girls have had supper and they can have ice-cream for dessert. Bedtime is at nine-thirty, and Nina has some math homework she might need help with. I'll be home by ten at the latest."

I nodded. I scooped out three bowls of ice cream and we sat at the table, Eleanor practicing writing the alphabet with her crayons and Nina working with her addition homework. When the girls had brushed their teeth, they each put up a fuss about going to bed. And as weird as it was, it felt good to hear them whine. Constantly being around a kid who never whined, protested or argued was nice, but creepy. In any case, Nina and Eleanor were both asleep when their mother returned. She paid me and I walked home, thinking.

Kerry was a little angel. It was nice, but weird. And Nina and Eleanor were angelic, but not perfect. Kerry kind of gave me the creeps, and the Marshall girls didn't. Kerry always did what she was told, and sometimes even before she was told to do it. I'd never had to stop her from bouncing on a bed or leaping off the couch. Eleanor had drawn on the walls and Nina threw a tantrum over dessert when I refused to give her a second bowl. It wasn't so bad, considering what we used to go through with Jennifer Prezzioso all the time. And yet, I almost wondered what they'd be like if they knew Kerry. Would they be wilder because they didn't want to be perfect, or would they want to be equal or better than Kerry seemed? I didn't know for sure.

"Claudia, Emily called twice for you," Mom called, as soon as I walked in.

"Okay!" I ran upstairs, stopping only to fill my athletic bottle (a very cool pink and purple streaked jug that fit perfectly into the water bottle holder on a bike) and headed for my phone, curious about why Emily had called twice.

"Claudia, I saw Bobbi and Kerry again!" Emily didn't even wait for me to say 'hello.' "And guess what!"

"What?"

"Well, Bobbi was holding Kerry, and when Bobbi slipped on the ice outside of the mall, she threw Kerry!"

"She might have lost her grip," I pointed out. "And anyway, landing on the ice isn't much better than being thrown to safety. Did it look like an accident?" Despite being skeptical, I had to know.

"Yes. But she threw Kerry," Emily repeated.

I felt a little like I was having déjà vu. Talking about this like everything that happened in Bobbi's personal life was our business and a case of abuse wasn't helping anything. It wasn't helping Kerry, for sure. Accidents happened. I'd once broken my leg while baby-sitting, and Jackie Rodowski, the epitome of 'accident,' had thousands, while we watched him. Getting his hand stuck in a drain, knocking things over, locking himself or someone else, usually the family dog or his little brother, into a shed or bathroom, were all things that happened while one of us (BSC members, back when there was a BSC) was baby-sitting. But that didn't make the baby-sitter a child abuser. I pointed this out to Emily.

"Maybe we should go back to the Battista house," Emily suddenly said, surprising me. "Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, so they should be home."

"And risk being eaten alive by Cujo?" I asked incredulously.

"Why didn't you see the dog before, Claudia? Was Bobbi hiding him? Was he a secret? If she didn't want you to know about the dog, maybe she is hiding something. Maybe she's suspicious of everyone and likes to set traps like that. Maybe she knew you'd get suspicious and wanted you to meet the dog. Or get mauled."

"Maybe, but I doubt it. He's a guard dog, and with dogs trained specifically to lead a blind person or guard a fortress, too much affection like you'd give a normal dog can break the training and I don't doubt retraining a dog would be more difficult and expensive."

"It's not like the Battista family can't afford those things," Emily replied.

I sighed. Emily can be a hard person to convince wrong when she thinks she's right. And maybe she was. It didn't matter.

"Yeah. I want to go see the Battista house again. I doubt she'll call so late at night, so maybe tonight would be the best time to go. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, so I doubt we'll be able to sneak out tomorrow night. Anyway, we should go again," I replied, nodding although Emily couldn't see me over the phone. As I spoke, I was remembering that it had only been a year since the many members of the BSC had been 'snowbound' in Stoneybrook and we faced a lifetime of making it through other obstacles together. That hadn't worked out. I was also remembering my own words, convincing Emily to go with me to look into the Battista house and see how Bobbi and Kerry acted when alone together.

"Okay. Tonight?"

"Yeah. Tonight."

"Is this stupid?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Great. As long as we agree on that," Emily said, with a resigned giggle as she hung up.

* * *

"What did you distract the dog with last time?"

"Granola bar. But this time, I brought dog treats. I borrowed them from Kristy."

"It was lucky you brought that…wait, you spoke to Kristy?"

We edged along through the forest, keeping our back to the houses on the left, only the lights visible through the trees. I hoped nobody saw us and reported us as robbers.

"Yeah. She looked like she didn't even recognize me."

"How did she look?"

"Awful. Exhausted," I replied. "She almost didn't look like Kristy Thomas anymore. She looked so old, so different. Can grief do that to a person?" I asked. "I don't remember looking older when my aunt's first baby died, or when Mimi did, even though I felt much older."

"Maybe it's different with divorce," Emily suggested. "Better get those dog treats ready."

"Do you see something?" I asked, peering into the darkness. "I don't…"

"No, but if I know Bobbi, she has more than one dog. And since I don't know Bobbi, I don't want to take any chances."

"Good idea."

With my free hand (the other clutched the brown paper bag I'd put the treats into) I reached down and into the bag, pulling out several brown bone-shaped treats.

"I tasted these things once," I confessed. "When Kristy still had Louie, her first dog. Her brother Sam dared me to eat dog food, and as a reward, a dog treat. It all kind of tasted the same to me. Just like old cardboard. I don't really see why dogs like this stuff."

"They have different tongues, so probably different tastes," Emily replied absently, and I wondered if she was okay. In the past, Emily might have gone on about the way a dog's mind processes the signals it receives from the senses, sounding just like Janine while I stood there, feeling stupid. I didn't have time to ask, though, and I was out of time for wondering whether or not the dog treats would be as much a treat to the guard dogs as the granola bar had been. Luckily, we managed to get all the way to the house with only five of thirty treats hurled into the trees. Again, Emily and I were clothed in black, wearing last year's boots (to avoid being caught if our footprints were found) and headed for the only ground-floor window with light coming from it.

"What do you see?" I asked. We had nestled as close as we could to the house, crouched down in the bushes. Emily was crouched but exerting herself, legs locked into a standing-squat position to peer into the massive window.

"The same library as the other night," Emily replied, her voice barely audible and not much more than a tiny whisper almost silenced by the wind. "Bobbi's got Kerry in her arms, and Kerry looks like she's sleeping. I can't tell. In any case, it's just like it was the other night. Hot chocolate, blanket, rocking chair, fireplace, and lots of books."

When it was my turn to look about five minutes later (shockingly, the dogs were ignoring us now) I reported that Bobbi had returned without Kerry (presumably, the little girl was safe and asleep in her bed, but we didn't know for sure since Kerry's bedroom was on the third floor) and had cuddled into her chair with a book.

"She must reserve all of her studying for when she needs a baby-sitter," Emily whispered, ducking back down moments later. "It looks like she's reading a comic book."

We stayed there, huddled in a bush and under a window for at least an hour, shivering and taking turns reporting on what we saw. Bobbi spent most of her time curled up and reading, moving only twice: once to sip at the steaming cup of cocoa, and once more to gesture to a butler or servant (whoever the snobby-looking man in the suit was) to poke at the fire, which he seemed to do wordlessly. She looked up from her book only once, and it was only when her kitten entered the room. (The cat leapt into Bobbi's lap, and Bobbi didn't even seem to notice. She kept reading.)

When we were a safe distance away (though shivering like crazy!) Emily ended up with the giggles. "I can't believe we did it! We didn't learn anything new, but at least we did it. I can't believe the dogs didn't bug us!"

"And I still have almost a full bag of dog treats left," I added, shaking the bag and reaching in. I held one up in my gloved hand. "Want to try one?"

We laughed until we ended up at what we'd come to call 'The Fork,' which was where her street and mine split into two and where we always separated if we were walking home from school or the mall together. She and I made plans to call each other the next morning, and I felt a little giddy as I walked home. Despite my aching feet (they must have grown since the previous winter) I was happy. I had a steady job, and Bobbi didn't seem to be abusive. Could things get better?

* * *

I read somewhere once that 'optimism and pessimism work like yin and yang.' I didn't really understand it then, but now I think I get it. When things seem to be great, things will inevitably worsen. Most people (the optimistic ones, I assume) probably think it the other way around—when things are bad, they will eventually be good. But understanding that only helped to confuse me in the new situation I had, which I didn't even know about Bobbi called me the next afternoon and asked me to come over.

I was certain she'd finally found my footprints (though she wouldn't know who the other set belonged to, and wouldn't be able to identify me since I was now, thankfully, wearing this year's winter boots and they didn't match the prints of my old ones) and wanted to ask me about it, and had I been right, I'd have wished I was wrong. However, that situation might have seemed pleasant compared to the one Bobbi wanted to discuss.

"What's with the guards?" I asked, when Bobbi let me in and led me through the house and into the den. (She'd never given me a tour of the house, and had never shown me any other room than the den.) We seated ourselves on the pristine white couch (pristine was becoming one of my new favorite words to describe the Battista den) and Kerry, oblivious to us and watching TV in the kitchen (where a uniformed woman was standing as if at attention) was having lunch.

"As our regular sitter, we have a situation to discuss," Bobbi replied, her voice curt. "Last night, intruders on our property poisoned several of our dogs. Five of them."

"What?" I asked, feeling as shocked as I looked. Bobbi studied my face closely. I wasn't surprised when one of the guards was looking carefully at my boots. But inside, I felt my guts twisting. What if the dog treats I used to distract the dogs were poisoned?

But why would Kristy do that? And what if it wasn't me? But why would they check my boots if they hadn't found the prints? Not many adults had feet about my size, so of course they had to make sure. I kept my gaze shocked but neutral. I kept my fingers crossed.

"No match," the guard said, and I saw Bobbi relax in relief.

When the guard had taken up his place at the door to the den, Bobbi leaned in again. "We're checking everyone we know with a possible foot size match," she told me. "If this person gets past the guard dogs so easily, and can get so close to our windows—the windows to rooms we were in, though maybe not at the same time—who knows what they could do once inside? I'm keeping Kerry in the dark about this; she doesn't need to know. I've told her it's a training exercise for when we have our summer party here. But I wanted to make sure you were innocent, and make sure you know baby-sitting jobs here from now on wouldn't be quite so relaxing. If you decide to continue your job with us, I'll raise the pay and provide whatever else you feel is necessary for your jobs here. But I have to add now that each of our guards is trained and armed, and that I trust each but you never know. And it's possible that there could be trouble while you sit here, so I knew you should know this beforehand. It's up to you."


Author's Note: The thing with the dog food actually happened to me, though I didn't eat a dog treat afterwards. Just the kibble. And none of my chapters so far have had less than three thousand words! I'm doing better and better! (And I still have motivation for this, though I'm feeling a little less enthusiastic. Criticism and feedback and very much appreciated!)