Ann Martin - Jessi's Babysitter

"Yes," said several of us, laughing.

"So then I asked Margo what people on the moon would eat, and she said, 'Well, I guess they couldn't grow any food in moon dust. They'd have to bring food with them like the astronauts did.' So she put Tang and little plastic pastries and eggs and things from her dollhouse into the shadow box. To be honest," Mal finished up, "the shadow box looks like a Barbie scene with a picture of the earth in the background."

"Why don't you correct her?" I asked. "Help her start over. Give her some books to read. Make her do it right."

"Nope. That's not what I'm there for," said Mal. "As her sister or her baby-sitter. This is her project. She's got to learn for herself."

"Well, she won't win/' spoke up Kristy. She paused. "But then, David Michael isn't going to win, either. He's making a model of the planets in the solar system, remember? I told you guys about that."

We nodded.

"He happened to choose a very tough project. It's difficult to set up the planets so that they're at different distances from the sun. Right now, he's got them all going around the sun in one big circle — Mercury followed by Venus followed by Earth, and so on. I tried to show him a way to get the distances right, but he doesn't understand what I mean and he won't let me do it for him. I don't blame him. I'm the most competitive person here — I think — "

(Claudia snorted.)

"But I'm not going to do his project for him. That's his job and we both know it. This is like the Little Miss Stoneybrook Pageant, in a way." (The pageant Kristy was referring to had been held in Stoneybrook awhile back. A whole bunch of the kids we sit for wanted to enter. We could train them and coach them

and rehearse them all we wanted, but when it got down to the big day, the kids were on their own.) "David Michael has to work his project out himself."

"How come?" I asked. "We rehearsed the girls for the pageant."

"That was different," said Mal. "We rehearsed them, but we couldn't get up on stage for them."

That was when I began to see that my friends and I weren't going to be as competitive as I'd first thought.

"Stacey," I said, after we'd taken a couple of job calls, "aren't you giving Charlotte a lot of help with her project?"

"Not really. I suggested that she needed some — what do you call it? — some data, to show the results of her experiment. I didn't say much more than that and Charlotte was off and running, making graphs, keeping charts."

Hmm, I thought.

"How's Jackie's volcano coming along?" Dawn asked me.

"Terrific!" I said. "I hate to say this, but I think Jackie's project is going to be the best one at the fair." (I couldn't help bragging.) "I think it'll win first place. His volcano isn't just

going to explode, it's going to show the makeup of a volcano. You know, the kinds of rocks a volcano sits on, all that stuff."

"And Jackie did this research by himself?" asked Mal incredulously.

"Well, no. I found the books for him. And I told him about igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. And I'm helping him build the volcano around a tin can."

There was a silence in club headquarters.

Finally, Mary Anne said, "Jessi, it sounds like you're doing Jackie's project for him. . . . Not to be rude or anything."

"No, I'm not!" I exclaimed. "I'm not doing it for him. He's right there when I read about volcanoes or when I work on his project. He knows what's going on." I stopped talking. I listened to what I'd just said. Was I doing Jackie's project for him? Nah. I just wanted to give him a lot of help so he could win for once in his life.

"You're sure you're not taking over?" asked Mal. "Maybe by accident?"

"No way! Of course not. But I'll tell you who is taking over. Aunt Cecelia. She won't let Becca or me do anything on our own. It's rules, rules, rules. Plus, she lays out our clothes for us each night. She practically cuts

our meat for us. Becca and I know she doesn't trust us. I mean, not like she thinks we'd steal or anything. It's just that she doesn't believe we're capable of doing things that an eleven-year-old and an eight-year-old are capable of.

"If she were a good baby-sitter, she'd trust us. Our parents trust us. I mean, they set limits, but they do trust us. They let me use the stove and cook. They let us choose our own clothes. Not necessarily in stores, but once we have the clothes they let us decide what to wear to school or to a restaurant or wherever we're going. Aunt Cecelia doesn't trust us to do anything right."

"Jessi, have you and Becca spoken to your parents about Aunt Cecelia?" asked Mary Anne. "Do they know how you feel?"

I sighed. "No. I mean, no, we haven't spoken to them, and no, they don't know how we feel."

"Why not?" asked Kristy sensibly.

"Because Mama and Daddy are so pleased to have Aunt Cecelia here. It solves all sorts of problems for them now that Mama's working. Plus, they think they're making Aunt Cecelia happy. She's been so lonely since her husband died."

"But, Jessi," said Stacey, "Becca told me

what you and she are doing to your aunt. Don't you think that talking to your parents would be a little nicer than playing tricks on her?"

I could feel my face flush, especially as I explained to the other club members about the tricks. Then I added, "And that's another thing. Becca and I feel like we can't talk to Mama and Daddy because of the tricks. For some reason Aunt Dictator hasn't mentioned the tricks to our parents. It's like they never happened. Becca and I are afraid that if we confront Mama and Daddy, Aunt Cecelia will tell on us. I'm completely stuck. I don't know what to do. And I want to talk to my parents, particularly because Aunt Cecelia really isn't a very good baby-sitter. She's not too playful with Squirt. She does things for him that he should be learning to do for himself, and, I don't know, it's a big mess."

I felt miserable. I know I looked miserable. This was because Dawn said, "You look miserable, Jessi."

"Boy," I replied. "If I have kids of my own, I'm never going to treat them the way Aunt Dictator treats Becca and Squirt and me."

"Famous last words," said Kristy, laughing.

There was a pause, then we took some

phone calls, and then, out of the blue, Mal said, "You know the five hundred-pound pancake? I wonder how they ever mixed the batter for it. In a cement-mixer?" We left the meeting laughing.

Chapter 11.

"Phoo! Phoo! Phee-ew! Jessi, when this volcano erupts, it is going to be the biggest mess." Jackie looked thrilled at the prospect.

There were just two days left until the science fair. The volcano had been built. The can inside it was filled with the chemicals, which we had been able to find, although Jackie and his mom had had to go to four different places before they found them.

"Jessi?" asked Jackie. I was sitting for him on another afternoon.

"Yeah?"

"Shouldn't we try the volcano just once? I mean, what if it doesn't work when the judges come around at the science fair?"

Although Jackie had a point, I had to tell him, "No. We can only let the volcano erupt once. Otherwise, you'll take a messy, gooey project to the fair. It won't be as impressive as if it erupts for the first time. Maybe we

should test the chemicals, though. We could put them in another can, light them — I have to light the match, by the way — and make sure they really form the ash that's supposed to pour out of the crater. We'll test it on your driveway and then wash the mess away with the garden hose."

"All right!" cried Jackie. "Oh, boy. A mess!"

Jackie and I carried the chemicals, an empty coffee can, and a packet of matches out to his driveway. We followed the instructions for putting the chemicals in the can.

Then I said, "Okay, I'm going to toss a match in the can. By the way, Jackie, an adult will have to do that for you at the science fair, too. Me, your mom or dad, or one of the judges. Okay?"