On Tuesday, I rode my bike to the Hills' through the frigidity. It was pretty cold, so I wore my purple rubber rain coat (the cool kind, not the bulky kind) with matching yellow boots (and paint-splattered jeans and an embellished man's shirt I'd decorated myself underneath), even though it wasn't raining. It was mid-February, but it looked like it would snow any time. I hoped so. There's nothing like curling up on the couch after a snowball fight, sipping on hot chocolate…
Stop, I told myself as chained my bike and in front of the house and roamed to the Hills' porch. Why did I keep thinking about food? I rang the doorbell and leaned back against the door, trying to keep it off my mind. I checked my watch to make sure I wasn't too late. Nope. Five minutes early, just like I'd planned. (A good baby-sitter always tries to be on time or a little early.) Within the next few moments, Mr. Hill, who is tall and very muscly, had answered the door.
"Claudia, huh?" he said, as I walked inside the house.
"That's me." I flashed a quick smile.
Mr. Hill leaned against the door, grinning as I hung up my coat. "I'll be at the gym. My contact details and my wife's are posted on the fridge. The emergency numbers should be too."
"Do I need to know anything else?" I asked eagerly.
"Nah… just the usual." Mr. Hill turned to leave. "Don't let Norman overeat."
"'Bye, Mr. Hill!" I waved as he climbed into his Land Rover.
"Harry."
The car pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. I watched until it was out of sight. I shut the door then and leaned back against it, in awe.
"Claudia!"
Oops. I hadn't noticed Sarah Hill, a slender, pretty girl, come to the front hall. She looked excited to see me. I hope this doesn't sound conceited, but I'm one of her favorite baby-sitters.
"Hi, Sarah." I greeted her. "Where's your brother?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "He's in his room. Probably stuffing his face. He's such a pig."
I tried to change the subject. "Why don't you show me your room for now?"
"Sure." Sarah motioned for me to follow her up the stairs. "I just redecorated it again." she told me when she had reached the top of the staircase. "It looks so pretty." She let me into her room.
"How do you like it?" she asked me, hands on her hips.
"It's beautiful." I told her. It really was, for a nine-year-old. Sarah had replaced the rainbow motif with a unicorn one. Pink and white unicorns pranced and floated in clouds on Sarah's lily-white bedspread. The curtains matched, and I could see little unicorn sculptures and pictures that Sarah had clearly made herself on the walls and bedside table.
"You must really like unicorns, huh?" I asked her.
"I do. They're so pretty. Have you seen the movie The Last Unicorn?"
"Oh my lord, Sarah, I adore that movie!" I squealed. Instantly, we delved into conversation, discussing every detail of the movie.
"Washoo guy towki bow?" came a voice.
I turned swiftly. Norman was at the doorway, apparently speaking through a mouthful of Doritos.
"Uh, could you swallow?" I asked pleasantly. Norman did so.
"What are you guys talking about?" he repeated.
"Norman!" groaned Sarah. "You're eating again! No wonder you're so fat!"
Norman ignored her comment, though blushing furiously. "Claudia, guess what? I lost five whole pounds."
"That's impressive." I told him. (I couldn't see much of a difference.) I hoped it was. I'm not familiar with those units.
"He's lying. He didn't lose them." Sarah told me. "Look at him!"
"I did too!" Norman said indignantly. "Dr. Reese told me so!"
"Look." I cut in. "Have you both done your homework?"
"Yes." Sarah said haughtily.
"Norman?"
He looked at his feet. "Not exactly. Do you think you could give me a hand with it?"
Now it was my turn to blush. I can barely do a second-grade math equation myself. Now I was supposed to help Norman with it? "Of course I can," I told him uncertainly. "Sarah, how about if you invite over a friend while I help Norman with his homework?"
"I…I don't have a lot of friends." Sarah squirmed.
Now, I happened to know perfectly well that Sarah was good friends with a little girl called Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth has been awfully cruel to Norman over his weight. So I decided not to bring her up.
"You know Karen Brewer, don't you?" I asked her, referring to Kristy's stepsister. (Kristy was baby-sitting for her siblings.) "She's only two years younger than you. How about if she came over to play?"
"Yeah…sure." Sarah shrugged.
"I'll be a minute or so." I told her. "Don't bother your brother, Sarah. Norman, get out your homework."
I trotted down the stairs, reached the kitchen and dialed Kristy's house number.
"Hello, Thomas Residence?" came her voice.
"Kristy? It's me, Claud." I said. "I'm sitting for the Hills, and…I thought it might be nice if Sarah had someone to play with, do you think you could bring Karen and the others over?"
"Well…" Kristy pondered. "Nannie's at the doctor's with Emily and Andrew, and David Michael's at the movies with Sam. Charlie's upstairs studying, so it's just us and Karen, and she has Hannie Papadakis over. I could ask Charlie for a ride. Do you think he'd mind?"
"No." I said quickly.
"We'll be right over."
"Thanks."
"'Bye."
I quickly hung up the phone and waited in front of the door anxiously with Sarah for the next fifteen minutes or so. I desperately hoped Sarah and Karen would get along well. If you have to like one person, it's Karen. She's incredibly smart, creative, outgoing and imaginative. What a great kid. I let out a dibbly huge sigh of relief when I heard the doorbell ring.
"Hey, you guys," I answered the door, letting them in.
"You mean your majesties." Karen corrected me. "We are not guys."
I hid a smile. That girl has the biggest imagination you have ever seen. In fact, she was dressed in a ruffly gold dress-up gown, a plastic tiara over a black witch's hat, her stepmother's (way too big) high heels and three oversized plastic necklaces. Hannie was dressed in a long pink negligee, probably her mother's, a black feather boa, plastic heels and a cardboard crown.
"You do look very majestic indeed," I played along.
"They were playing Let's All Come In," Kristy whispered to me. "They refused to change." Let's All Come In is a dress-up game Karen made up herself. (I told you she's smart.)
"I am the gigundoly beautiful Queen Carlotta Hyacinth Titania of Transylvania," Karen informed me.
"And I'm the princess." Hannie added.
"She is my daughter, Princess Ruby Melissa Camilla." Karen elaborated.
"You mean Princess Jennifer." Hannie shot back.
I looked at Sarah. She looked a little bewildered.
"Ignore Ruby." sniffed Karen. (Kristy gave her a Look.) "Claudia, who's that?" She pointed at Sarah.
I cringed. "That's Sarah Hill. Sarah, this is Karen and her friend Hannie. They want to play with you." I managed.
"She cannot," Karen said. "She has to be crowned."
Sarah winced. I darted up the stairs, leaving the bickering girls to Kristy. Norman looked relieved to see me.
He was also grazing on a plate of chocolate chip cookies, washing it down with a glass of milk.
"What are you eating, Norman?" I demanded, folding my arms.
Norman gulped down his cookies. I felt sorry for him. Looking down, I could see that he had already completed a lot of his homework. I felt bad for taking so long to come up.
"Cookies." Norman pushed the cookies aside, guiltily.
"That's okay." I reassured him. "What are you writing? It looks interesting."
"It's a three-page story we have to do for English. I'm writing one about this boy called Dave. He's really good at science and he's doing a project to win the science fair. Only he makes a tiny mistake, and it grows into a monster." said Norman.
"Really? Cool." I tried to look intrigued.
"Thanks."
I was starting to realize that Norman wouldn't be needing much of my help at all.
"Good day at school, Norman?"
"Depends what you mean."
I froze. "Norman, are you being bullied again?"
"Not really." he shrugged.
"What's that?"
"I've got great friends." said Norman. "There's more of us than the bullies. I guess it's the fact of life. The fat kid always gets picked on."
"Bullying should never be accepted as a fact of life." I gasped.
"It's okay, really." Norman forced a glum smile.
"What about school? As in, grades?"
"Fine."
"Still getting straight As, huh?" I, myself have seen as many A-grades in my life as most people have seen purple cows.
"And Bs."
"That's pretty good."
"Yeah... want to do the math questions now?" He grabbed a cookie.
"What about your story?"
"I've done most of it. I want to get the tough stuff over with before I finish it."
In a way, I did too, so I let Norman take out his math worksheets. My heart just about broke as I watched him slave over his math questions. Norman is usually such a happy, talkative boy. He seemed truly troubled, and not because of the homework.
"Twenty-five times three. Can you help me with that one, Claudia?" he asked me half-heartedly.
"I don't know. Use a calculator."
"That's cheating."
Strange. I used calculators all the time. "How about… eighty-three?"
Norman frowned. "I don't know. There's a five at the end." He seemed to be working it out in his head. "Seventy-five." He wrote it down.
"You're pretty smart, huh?" I observed.
Norman beamed. "Thanks. Can I get more cookies?"
"You know, eating and eating isn't going to help your weight at all." I said honestly.
Norman looked slightly hurt. "I know." he observed. "But I can't help it. I've done all those diet things. They're not me. Anyway, I just lost all that weight. Shouldn't I be allowed to have some good stuff?"
I thought about it for a while. "Fine. Get more."
"Thanks!" Norman exclaimed, leaping up.
"-But." I continued. "You have to share with me."
"No problem!" Norman was out the door, plate in hand. I sighed, shaking my head. And then it came over me, just as Norman reentered the room, stuffed plate in hand. Who was I to tell Norman Hill not to eat?
"Cookies, Claudia?" Norman asked, pushing the plate towards me.
I smiled meekly and took a cookie, broke it in half and ate the smaller piece before I helplessly downed the other half. As I watched Norman nonchalantly finish his homework, a sinking feeling came over me. I'd always been a hopeless junk food addict. But it was never a serious problem. It had always been a quirk, part of who I was, just like Kristy's bossiness or Mallory and Jessi's complaining about their parents. People had always thought of it as cute. For someone like Norman, it was a destructive addiction. For someone like me, it was an amusing trait.
But that was before the effects came along. And a terrible perception kept nagging at me; I was awaited by the same fate as Norman Hill.