I almost burst into tears, thinking that I was glad I was an
only child. As I stood, mutely staring
at the baby, Celeste walked in.
"Joy! What are you
doing there?" Celeste dragged Joy out,
set her in the tub. "Now, you stay
there until I can get some clean clothes for you." And she trotted off, adding,
"Stacey, please undress her."
I just stared at her retreating back, then shook
myself. Celeste came back in about two
minutes, and helped me change Joy's clothes. Then she disappeared back into her messy room. What other baby-sitting training had I missed by living in such a
small family?
I picked up the baby and carried her to the room full of
computers, then shut the door firmly behind me.
With the comforting background sounds of boys arguing over
whether or not they should jump off the cliff, (Star Wars game again) I sat in a chair and began reading an interesting
looking book.
About halfway into the first chapter, Kaye came back down,
holding a pile of purple rags at arms length. She kicked a door at the end of the hall open, and tossed the towels
in.
After washing her hands, she skipped into the computer room,
and began reading just as
intently. But she was reading on that
weird website, FanFiction or whatever it was. She read fast. Her favorite
section seemed to be something called 'Young Wizards'.
Suddenly realizing that my eyes hurt from trying to read on
the computer from across the room, I glanced down at the book I held in my
hands. Silver On the Tree, by
Susan Cooper.
When Kaye went to get a drink of water, she idly read the
title.
"Oh, you shouldn't start with that one. The first is The Dark is Rising. I'll go get it."
A couple seconds after she went into the room, she
yelled, "Which one of you took this library
cassette and pulled the tape out? Which
one?!" She emerged with a tape in her
hand, a look of fury on her face. "This
is on my card, and it's due in two days. Who did it?"
Needless to say, no one answered.
Kaye just glared at them, (even Kristy can't glare like that) then deliberately walked over
to the computer that they were working on and punched a button. When a little tray popped out, she took a CD
from off it, and took the CD into her room.
"No Star Wars 'till I know who did this." She added over her shoulder.
I fell back into my chair, and wondered if I ever should
have taken this job.