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  Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

  “Electrifying suspense.”

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  Chapter One

  I knew the minute I saw the Foster kids that I wasn’t going to like being their baby-sitter.

  There were three of them. Shana was the little one, about two and a half, and she was cute. I thought maybe she’d be all right. She had soft blonde hair and big blue eyes, and she said my name, plain as anything, right after me when her mother asked me what it was. “Darcy Ann Stevens,” Shana echoed, and leaned against my leg.

  “And do they call you Darcy Ann, or just Darcy?” Mrs. Foster asked, smiling. Only she wasn’t just Mrs., she was a psychiatrist, and my friend Irene said everybody called her doctor. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to address her, so I hadn’t called her anything at all.

  “Just Darcy,” I said.

  I looked at the middle one, whose name was Melissa. She was four, and she was cute, too; her brown hair curled, but she stuck out her lower lip and looked at me with those big dark eyes and said, “I don’t want you for a sitter.”

  Mrs./Dr. Foster smiled again. “Don’t be rude, dear. Of course you’re going to like Darcy as a sitter. And this, Darcy, is Jeremy. He’s six.”

  Jeremy, too, had dark hair and the same dark eyes. When his mother looked away from him, he stuck his tongue out at me. He didn’t say anything.

  “I understand you’ve had quite a bit of experience baby-sitting, Darcy,” Mrs./Dr. Foster said. She turned directly toward me on the big oatmeal-colored couch, and Jeremy, behind her back, stuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggled his fingers at me. “You’re how old? Fourteen?”

  “Well, nearly,” I said. “I’m thirteen and a half.” I was only stretching it by three months. “Yes, I’ve been babysitting since I was eleven.”

  “Eleven,” she echoed. “That’s very young to start. You must be quite mature for your age.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Everybody says so. It probably comes from having two little brothers. I helped take care of them, too.”

  Now Jeremy had a finger in each corner of his mouth, stretching it to make a grotesque face. Melissa looked at him and copied his actions. I was already having second thoughts about this.

  In the first place, I’d never taken on three kids before. And none of the children I’d baby-sat had ever lived in a place like this, either.

  “Well,” Mrs./Dr. Foster said. “Your references are certainly good ones.” She handed the letters back to me, and I rested them on my knees. “Shall we see you tomorrow afternoon, then, Darcy? Say at one o’clock? I can’t tell you how happy we are to have found someone reliable to see to the children while Mrs. Murphy is having her root canals done. I’m sure they’re going to love you.”

  Jeremy had his tongue out again, wiggling it like a serpent’s tongue; I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been a little steam with it, or a blast of fire. Melissa watched him to see what he did and imitated it a moment later.

  Mrs./Dr. Foster stood up, so I did, too.

  “We didn’t discuss pay, did we?” Mrs./Dr. Foster said, hesitating as we reached the front door. She named an hourly rate that was twice what anybody else paid me, and I swallowed the words I’d almost been ready to say. Maybe you’d better find someone older, more experienced with three kids. “Will that be satisfactory?” she asked. “Of course, we always pay a bonus for a job well done.”

  A bonus. On top of twice my normal hourly rates. I ignored Jeremy’s wicked little face and forced myself to smile. “I’ll be here tomorrow at one,” I agreed.

  My brother Tim was waiting for me at the curb in his beat-up old Volkswagen. He leaned across and opened the door for me—because it sticks, not because he was polite—and I slid in.

  “Well, get the job?” he asked.

  “Yes. I start tomorrow afternoon.”

  He put the car in gear and turned the key, but didn’t drive away. He was looking at the Foster house. “Pretty ritzy place. What’s it like inside?”

  “Fancy,” I said. “There’s a swimming pool out back. I saw it through the patio doors.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. Tim looks like the rest of us in the Stevens family. We all, except Mom, have red hair and freckles. Her hair is auburn, and I keep hoping mine will get darker when I get older, so it will look like hers. “They going to let you swim in it?”

  “I guess while I’m baby-sitting I can swim if I want to,” I said. “Nobody mentioned it.”

  “How’d you like the kids?”

  I made a face. “Little brats, I think. Still it’s only for a couple of hours a day on the afternoons when the housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy, goes to the dentist for root canal work. I should be able to stand it for a few hours a day. And she said there’d be a bonus if I did a good job.”

  “Sounds good. Maybe you’ll make enough to get your own stereo on this one job instead of taking all summer,” Tim said.

  “I hope so. I think I’m going to earn it.” I told him about the two older ones making faces at me, and how Melissa had said she didn’t want me for a sitter.

  Tim laughed and eased the car away from the curb. “I can’t bring you over every day and pick you up. You’ll have to ride your bike.”

  “Okay,” I said. I swiveled around in the seat to look back at the big Spanish-style house I’d just come out of. We don’t live in the part of the country where Spanish-style houses are plentiful; it really stood out in this neighborhood of huge, expensive houses.

  And because I turned to look, I saw the car that pulled out behind us. It was black, almost as beat-up as Tim’s Volkswagen, not the kind of car you’d expect in this part of town. The sun reflected off the windshield, so I couldn’t see who was driving, or how many people were in it.

  “I think we’re being followed,” I joked.

  “It’s because we look like we’re rich,” Tim said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I mean, that’s who they’d follow to rob, right? Somebody with a classy car.”

  “Right,” I said, and settled back for the ride home. The funny thing was, when we turned off onto our own street, that black car was still behind us. I saw it when we went around the corner.

  “Tim,” I began, but he wasn’t listening. He was looking toward our house, a big old-fashioned place with a veranda across the front of it, where three teenaged boys were sitting on the steps drinking pop out of cans.

  “Hey, the gang’s here. We’re supposed to be going out to the river to swim. It’s lucky your interview didn’t take any longer, because if I’d missed going, I’d have disowned you.”

  Since he disowned me about twice a day, that wasn’t too upsetting. I did wonder about the car, though. When we bumped into the driveway, I craned my neck to see where the other car went.

  It didn’t stop, but kept on right past our house. There were two men in it; I couldn’t make out any more than that.

  I had to wait for Tim to open the door before I could get out. The guys on the steps waved and yelled, and Tim got out and trotted toward them.

  I stood for a minute, looking after the mysterious black car
. It traveled slowly along to the next corner and turned as if to go back toward State Street, which is the main street in Marysville, the one we’d just turned off.

  Just somebody driving around, maybe lost, I decided. After all, why would anybody follow us?

  I went past the boys and into the house. Inside I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and forgot about the car. It didn’t have anything to do with me. How could it?

  Chapter Two

  “What’s she like?” my friend Irene asked. She sprawled across my bed, eating an apple. (If we’d been at her house, the snacks would have been Milky Ways or Hershey Big Block bars; my mom thinks even the stuff kids eat between meals should be nutritious, so we usually get fruit or raw carrots or something like that.) “I mean, I know what she looks like, she’s pretty elegant, and I’ve seen her driving that gorgeous big Lincoln, but what’s she really like?”

  “I only saw her for a few minutes,” I said. “And I kept looking at her house—I never was in a place like that before—and the kids kept making faces at me behind her back. Come on, walk to the store with me. I’m supposed to cook supper tonight, and we’re out of onions for the stew.”

  Irene dragged herself reluctantly off the bed. She likes coming to my house where we can talk privately in my bedroom; she shares her room with two sisters, and there’s no privacy at all. At least in a family where you’re the only girl, you get a room to yourself.

  Mine was quite nice, all done in green and white, because Mom said green would be prettiest with my red hair and make my eyes look greener. Irene’s hair’s black, and her eyes are dark brown, but she’s so pretty she looks great against any background.

  As usual, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt—a yellow one with a splashy red rose on it. She thought the rose kept people from noticing that she was still pretty flat in that area, but I thought it called attention to it. Still, with her face, it didn’t seem to matter too much that she was developing more slowly than I was. Once the boys saw her face, they kept looking.

  We clattered down the stairs, past the room where my brothers Bobby and Jimmy were doing the cleaning up Mom had insisted they do today if they were going camping over next weekend. Jimmy was cramming stuff under his bed, and Bobby was complaining that he couldn’t get the closet door closed if he put the balls and bats in there on top of the tennis rackets and Tim’s bowling bag. “Why can’t Tim keep his junk in his own room?” Bobby wanted to know.

  We were gone before I heard what Jimmy answered. We dropped our apple cores in the garbage before we went out into the sunny afternoon. Tim and his buddies were gone, in someone else’s car; Tim’s old Volks had been left behind.

  Irene ran a hand over one of the battered fenders as we walked past it. She’s had a crush on Tim as long as I can remember, and even his car evoked a long sigh from her, but anybody only thirteen is a baby to Tim.

  “I wish I could get a summer job,” she said, taking her hand off Tim’s car, and we walked across the street.

  “I may give you this one, if those kids are as bratty as I think they’re going to be,” I told her, half-seriously. “I’ve taken care of one bratty kid, remember Freddie Cyphers? And I’ve taken care of two reasonably good kids at a time, the Martino girls. But I’ve never tried it with three brats at once.” I reconsidered that and amended, “Well, two brats and one cutie. Though I didn’t see enough of Shana to be sure what she’s like. She may be as spoiled as the other two.”

  Irene shrugged. It seemed to me that she shrugged more than she used to. “I’ll pass, if they’re brats. I heard Dr. Foster doesn’t believe in spanking kids. You’re supposed to use psychology on them, instead.”

  I laughed. “I suppose being raised in a family of six redheads might pass for a course in psychology.” Underneath, though, I felt a little bit uneasy. My folks used psychology on us, when they thought about it, but when that didn’t work they reverted to old-fashioned methods of discipline, which had included paddling when we were smaller.

  We got the onions at the store, and I got enough extra milk to make pudding for supper, and we were on our way home when Irene said, “Don’t look now, Darcy, but I think we have a couple of admirers.”

  Irene is always thinking we have admirers. All a boy has to do is glance in our direction, and she thinks he’s stricken with us. None of them has ever asked us for a date, so it’s hard to tell. Neither Mom nor Mrs. Pappagoras would allow us to go out with boys yet, anyway. Irene’s mother says when she’s fifteen, and my mom isn’t committing herself yet; it depends on how mature I am, she says, and she doesn’t mean how well my figure is coming along. I didn’t get excited when she said we had admirers, figuring it was just her wishful thinking again.

  “Look. That car parked there when we went in the store, and it’s still there. They haven’t gotten out or anything. Just be casual, look across the street, under that big tree.”

  I looked, of course. Slowly, casually, the way she suggested. And stubbed my toe on the curb, so the sack split when I nearly fell, and an onion rolled out into the street.

  “Oh, classy, Darce,” Irene told me. “I’m sure they’re impressed with our grace and beauty now.”

  I went back for the onion, absent-mindedly. “It’s the same car,” I said, thinking aloud.

  “Same car as what?” She shot a surreptitious glance toward the black car, squared her shoulders to make the best of the yellow T-shirt, and pretended not to be interested in the car under the oak tree.

  “The same one I saw earlier today when we left the Foster place. It followed us home and drove back out onto State Street.”

  I’ll say one thing for Irene, she’s not the type to let petty jealousy ruin a friendship. “Darcy, maybe you really do have an admirer! Did he follow you, for sure?”

  “I don’t know. It looks like the same car. I didn’t notice the license number, though.” I stopped and turned around, pretending to be looking past the car at some kids on the sidewalk. I didn’t even know them, but I waved, not caring if they thought I was crazy. I wanted to get the number off that license plate.

  “Who is it?” Irene asked, turning around too.

  “I don’t know. Have you got a pencil? The license number is 823 7AV.”

  She didn’t have anything to write with, and neither did I, but Irene repeated the number as we turned and kept on walking. “Eight-two-three, seven A V. It almost rhymes, we should be able to remember it. Eight-two-three, seven A V.”

  “There are two guys in it,” I said, when I’d repeated the number too. “I couldn’t see them very well, it was too shady there. Young though, weren’t they?”

  I shifted the sack, hugging it against my chest so the onions wouldn’t fall out again. “Come on, I need to get home and start supper so it’ll be done when Mom gets home from work. It’s Dad’s bowling night, so they’ll want to eat on time.”

  We were to be delayed once more, however. As we approached our corner—I wanted to turn and look to see if the black car was still there, but I didn’t quite dare, for some reason—a familiar black-and-white police cruiser eased along the curb and stopped just ahead of us.

  “Clancy,” I said, thinking it was a friend of my brother Tim’s, but it wasn’t Clancy. This was a new officer, one we’d never seen.

  I felt Irene going into her terrific posture act beside me, and heard her murmur. “Ummm, is he ever cute!”

  Mom says Irene is boy crazy, but I had to agree with her. The new cop didn’t look much older than Tim, and he had brown curly hair and a nice face.

  “Hi,” he said.

  We’ve been taught not to talk to strangers, but cops didn’t count as strangers. At least I didn’t think they did.

  “Hi,” we both answered, and stopped to look through the open window of the patrol car.

  “Either one of you happen to be named Diana? Diana Hazen, maybe?”

  I realized then he was looking at the gold-colored barrette in my hair, in the shape of a D. I shook my h
ead. “No. I’m Darcy Stevens, and this is my friend, Irene Pappagoras.”

  “If you’re looking for Diana Hazen,” Irene said, before I could continue, “that must mean she’s run away again.”

  The young officer consulted a paper on a clipboard. “Diana Hazen, age thirteen. You know her?”

  “We’re all in the same grade, but she’s in a different homeroom,” Irene offered. “She runs away all the time.”

  “She does?” he looked at his paper as if expecting to find evidence of that there. “Do you know where she usually goes?”

  Irene shrugged, and this time she wasn’t doing it for effect. “She never goes very far. They always find her. Maybe the next time you find her, you shouldn’t take her home. Maybe you should find out why she runs away so often.”

  His face was friendly, interested, intelligent. “You know why she runs away?”

  “Because her dad’s mean to her,” I said, at the same time as Irene said, “She hates it at home. They hit her.”

  The officer, who wore an identification badge that said “Chris Roberts,” had keen hazel eyes. “You sure of that?” he asked.

  “That’s what she said, when we asked why she had the bruises,” I told him. We didn’t know Diana very well, because she was never allowed to attend school parties or games or anything. But Irene and I had both been there when someone had asked her about the black-and-blue marks.

  “I saw finger marks on her arm, once,” Irene said. “Where her dad grabbed her. She doesn’t talk about it, much, but I’m pretty sure it’s true, they hit her.”

  “Do you know if she ever talked to anybody at school about it, being mistreated? Teachers, or the school nurse?”

  “Not that we know of,” Irene answered. “If anybody asked Mr. Hazen about it, he’d probably just hurt her worse as soon as they were gone. So why would she tell? Especially since the police always take her home.”

  He took a pen out of his shirt pocket and held it poised over the paper on the clipboard. “In case I want to talk to you young ladies again about this, could I have your names, addresses, and phone numbers?”