Karen's Baby-Sitter Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  1 The Carpenter

  2 Offices

  3 Bart

  4 Ruth’s Emergency

  5 Karen’s Baby-sitter

  6 The Winter Olympics

  7 Bermuda

  8 The Incredible Journey

  9 Karen’s Dream Date

  10 The Mess

  11 Bart’s Lie

  12 Mean Bart

  13 Getting Even

  14 The Bad Baby-sitter

  15 You’re Fired

  16 Trouble

  17 The Honest Truth

  18 Boys and Boyfriends

  19 Bart’s Present

  20 The Date

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  The Carpenter

  “Uh-oh,” said Seth. “I left some papers at my workshop. I will have to go get them. I need them tonight.”

  Seth Engle is my stepfather. He is a carpenter. I did not know why he needed those papers so badly, but I wanted to go with him to get them. I just love his workshop.

  I am Karen Brewer. I am seven years old. This is what I look like: freckles, blue eyes, long blonde hair. Also, I wear glasses. I have two pairs. The blue pair is for reading. The pink pair is for the rest of the time. (Except for when I am asleep. Or in the bathtub.)

  “Seth, can I come with you? Puh-lease?” I begged.

  “Me too?” said Andrew. “Can I come, too?”

  Andrew is my little brother. He is four going on five. I do not know why he always wants to do what I want to do.

  It was already after dinner. Seth looked at his watch. “Karen?” he said. “Do you have any homework?”

  “I already finished it,” I replied.

  “Andrew, do you need a bath?”

  “I took one last night,” Andrew replied.

  “Okay, then you may come with me.”

  “Thank you!” Andrew and I cried.

  We said good-bye to Mommy. We piled into the car. Seth drove through the cold, dark night. Our teeth chattered until the heater warmed up the car.

  Soon Seth parked in back of his workshop. The workshop is downtown in Stoneybrook. (Stoneybrook is the town we live in. It is in Connecticut.) Seth’s workshop sits next to a parking lot behind a row of stores. It is divided into two rooms. The little room is the office. The big room is where Seth makes furniture and kitchen cabinets.

  Andrew and I hurried into the workshop behind Seth. For a moment we just stood and looked at everything. We saw hammers and saws and lots of other tools. We saw jars full of nails and screws in all sizes. We saw big pieces of equipment we are not allowed to touch. We saw the floor. The floor is always a mess. That night it was covered with curly wood shavings. And, of course, everywhere Andrew and I looked we saw wood — boards and planks and long strips of molding, balsa wood as light as a feather, and pieces of cherry and mahogany I could hardly lift.

  “Seth, could I collect some stuff for my collage?” I asked. (I am working on a collage. I need all different kinds of materials to glue to it. Those wood shavings looked very interesting.)

  “Sure,” Seth answered. “Just be careful.” When Seth says that, he means do not go near anything sharp.

  I wandered around the workshop. I collected shavings and little sawed-off ends of molding. Andrew helped me. Seth searched through the desk in his office. He was looking for the papers. After awhile he looked in the files near Ruth’s desk. Ruth is the woman who runs the office for Seth. I like her. She has worked with Seth for a long time.

  Andrew and I finished collecting stuff. We looked at the things Seth was building — beds and tables and cabinets and bookcases. Finally Seth found the papers he wanted.

  “Time to go, kids!” he called.

  We rode home through the quiet streets. My brother and I fell asleep before we reached our house.

  Offices

  I like seeing where my parents work. I especially like offices. I like copier machines and pencils and markers. At Elizabeth’s office, I know how to operate the fax machine. (Elizabeth is my stepmother.) In fact, I know how to operate a lot of things. That is because I can go to three different offices — Seth’s office, Daddy’s office, and Elizabeth’s office. (Mommy does not go to an office, except sometimes to Seth’s.)

  See, I have two families. A long time ago, when I was just a little kid, I had only one family — Mommy, Daddy, Andrew, and me. We lived together in a very big house, the house Daddy grew up in. I thought we were happy, but I guess we were not. Mommy and Daddy began to fight. A lot. Loudly. Finally they said they were going to get a divorce. They said they loved Andrew and me very much, but they did not love each other anymore. And they did not want to live together.

  So Mommy moved out of the big house. She took Andrew and me with her. We moved into a little house. The houses are not too far away from each other. Now Andrew and I live at Daddy’s big house every other weekend and on some vacations and holidays. We live at Mommy’s little house the rest of the time. And we belong to two families, since Mommy and Daddy have each gotten married again. Mommy married Seth, our stepfather. Daddy married Elizabeth, our stepmother. These are the people in our two families:

  At the little house are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, and me. Oh, and Rocky, Midgie, and Emily Junior. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my rat.

  At the big house are (get ready) Daddy, Elizabeth, Andrew, me, Kristy, Sam, Charlie, David Michael, Emily Michelle, and Nannie. And our pets — Shannon, Boo-Boo, Goldfishie, and Crystal Light the Second. I better explain who everybody is. Kristy, Sam, Charlie, and David Michael are Elizabeth’s kids. (She was married once before she married Daddy.) So they are my stepsister and stepbrothers. Kristy is thirteen. She is an excellent baby-sitter. She is also one of my favorite people. Sam and Charlie are old. They go to high school. David Michael is seven like me, but he is not in my class. That is because he does not go to my school. I go to Stoneybrook Academy. He goes to Stoneybrook Elementary. Emily Michelle is my adopted sister. She is two and a half years old. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from the faraway country of Vietnam. (I named my rat after her.) Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother, so she is my stepgrandmother. She helps take care of us and the house and the pets. Shannon is David Michael’s puppy. Boo-Boo is Daddy’s cross old cat. Guess what Goldfishie and Crystal Light are.

  I made up special nicknames for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. (I thought up those names after my teacher read aloud a book called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.) We are two-twos because we have two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and two dogs. Plus we have clothes and books and toys at the little house, and other clothes and books and toys at the big house. That is so we do not have to pack much when we go back and forth. I even have two best friends. And of course I have those two pairs of glasses.

  Being a two-two is not bad. Except that I wish I could spend more time with Daddy and my big-house family.

  Bart

  Mostly I only get to see Daddy and my big-house family every other weekend. That is not enough. I love the big house. It is noisy and busy and bursting with people. Just the way I like things. Plus, one of my best friends lives across the street. My best friends are Hannie Papadakis and Nancy Dawes. Hannie is the one who lives across from the big house. Nancy lives next door to the little house. Hannie and Nancy and I are all in Ms. Colman’s second-grade class. We call ourselves the Three Musketeers.

  One snowy Saturday, Andrew and I were at the big house. So far, it had been a great day. Six inches of new snow were on the ground when we woke up that morning. Daddy made pancakes for breakfast. Charlie let us help him shovel the driveway. Sam
let us turn on the snowblower. (My two big brothers have a snow shoveling business. Once, I tried to help them run it. But mostly I just got us all in trouble.) When we had finished shoveling our driveway, Nannie had made us hot chocolate. Now it was after lunch. Andrew and I were playing outside again. David Michael was with us.

  “Hi! Hi, you guys!” someone called. It was Hannie. She was pulling her sled across the street.

  “Hi!” I called back. “Come help us. We are going to build a snow fort!”

  Hannie and my brothers and I began digging around in the snow. We had plenty of snow to dig in. A lot of snow had already been on the ground before the new snow fell. We made tunnels. We made rooms. We packed the snow tightly.

  After awhile, I stood back. “You know,” I said, looking at our work, “the fort is … not great.”

  “Yikes!” shrieked David Michael. “You are not kidding. Half of it just fell on me!”

  “Need some help?”

  I turned around. There was Kristy. She was coming out the door with Bart Taylor. Bart is Kristy’s friend. And he is a boy. But I am not sure if he is her boyfriend.

  “Yes!” I called. “We do need help.”

  “Our fort is collapsing,” said David Michael. He brushed some snow off of his hat and sleeves.

  “Let’s take a look,” said Bart.

  He and Kristy crawled around our fort.

  “We wanted it to have a roof,” I said.

  “And windows,” added Andrew.

  Bart and Kristy began to pile up the snow. “You have to start with a big mountain,” said Bart. “A mountain of snow. And then tunnel inside it, like this.”

  Soon my friends and I were digging and tunneling and packing the snow. Bart and Kristy helped us make an igloo fort. It had three rooms and two windows and a doorway.

  “Cool,” said Hannie as we stood back to look at the fort.

  “This is our best fort ever,” I added.

  “I’ll say,” said David Michael.

  “You know what you can do to the fort?” said Bart. “Later today, when you are ready to stop playing, pour cold water — very carefully — on the fort. Then it will freeze. Tomorrow the fort will be ice-covered. It will last longer.”

  “It will be glittery, too,” I said. “A fairy princess castle.”

  David Michael made a face, but I did not care. Anyway, I could tell he thought Bart was as wonderful as I did. So did Andrew and Hannie. Bart had made our day in the snow perfect.

  Ruth’s Emergency

  Late on Sunday afternoon, just before dinnertime, Daddy drove Andrew and me back to the little house.

  “Good-bye!” I called. “I wish we could stay longer.”

  “So do I, pumpkin,” said Daddy. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

  “See you in two weeks,” echoed Andrew sadly.

  My brother and I ran inside. “Mommy!” we shouted. “Seth!”

  Mommy dashed into the hallway to meet us. “Shhh! Hi, you two,” she whispered loudly. “Seth is on the telephone. Keep your voices down,” she added.

  “Why? What is wrong?” I asked.

  “Who is Seth talking to?” asked Andrew.

  “He’s talking to Ruth,” Mommy replied. “From the office. She is very upset. I am not sure what happened.”

  We had to wait until Seth got off the phone to find out.

  “Hi, kids,” said Seth tiredly when he had hung up. Then he turned to Mommy. “Well, that was Ruth,” he said. “I guess you could tell. She just found out that her mother needs to have an operation. It is not an emergency — the surgery is scheduled for next week — but it is serious. Ruth wants to fly to Canada to stay with her parents for two weeks. She wants to leave next Saturday. Of course she is worried about her mother. She is also worried about the office. And so am I. We are very busy right now. I need help. I have to fill a lot of orders.”

  “Could you hire a temporary secretary?” asked Mommy. “Just for two weeks?”

  “I suppose so,” replied Seth. “But I really need someone who knows the business.”

  “Well,” said Mommy, grinning, “what about me? I have worked in the office before. I know the business pretty well.”

  Seth grinned, too. “That would be terrific, honey. But what about the kids? Who would watch them when they are not in school?”

  Mommy frowned. “That is a problem.”

  I did not think so. “I know!” I said. “Call Kristy! She can baby-sit for us. Please? We love Kristy.”

  “I am not sure if she can come every day for two weeks,” said Mommy. “That is a big job.” Even so, the next day, Mommy called Kristy at her meeting of the Babysitters Club. She asked if Kristy or one of her friends could baby-sit for Andrew and me. Guess what. They wanted to take the job, but they could not. They were very busy. Nobody was free for two whole weeks. But Kristy had an idea.

  “What about calling my friend Bart Taylor?” she suggested. “He has not done much baby-sitting. But he is great with children. He even coaches a softball team for little kids in his neighborhood. Plus, he lives near you. Right in between our house and yours. He could walk to your house and back.”

  When Mommy asked Andrew and me about Bart, we shrieked, “Call him! Call him! Call him! We love Bart!”

  “As much as you love Kristy?” asked Mommy. She was smiling.

  “Almost as much,” I said.

  Mommy called Bart. He took the job. He said he would be happy to baby-sit for my brother and me. So this is what Mommy and Seth and Bart worked out: Every day while Ruth was away, Mommy would take Andrew and me to school in the morning. Then she would go to Seth’s office to work. At lunchtime, she would pick up Andrew at his preschool, bring him home, and wait for me to come home from school later. After Bart came over, she would go back to Seth’s office and work there until dinnertime. I thought this sounded exciting. I was sorry Ruth’s mother was sick. But I could not wait for my new baby-sitter.

  Karen’s Baby-sitter

  Ding-dong!

  “I’ll get it!” I shrieked. It was Monday afternoon. Nancy’s mother had just driven me home from school. Now our doorbell was ringing.

  “Indoor voice, Karen,” said Mommy. “Please calm down.”

  “But it is Bart!” I cried. “Bart is here! I know he is.”

  Sure enough, Bart was standing at our front door.

  “Hi! Come on inside!” I told him.

  I was ready to play with Bart, but Mommy wanted to talk to him first. “The important phone numbers are posted here by the phone,” said Mommy. She led Bart into the kitchen. “Here is the number of the office where you can reach Mr. Engle and me. Here is the number of the children’s doctor. And here are other emergency numbers. Now don’t let the kids eat too much, okay? Mr. Engle and I will be home by six, and we will give the kids dinner then.”

  “Okay,” said Bart.

  I could not wait for Mommy to leave. Even though the weather was yucky and we would have to stay inside, I knew we would have fun.

  I was right. Bart let us do anything we wanted to do.

  “Can we make a cave?” asked Andrew.

  “Sure,” replied Bart. He paused. “Um, how do you make a cave?”

  “With a card table and blankets and the couch,” replied Andrew.

  We lugged a card table into the living room. We set it up next to the couch. Then we spread blankets over the back of the couch and across the top of the table. We let them hang down the sides. We had made a two-room cave. We fit inside it nicely.

  “Let’s be bears,” said Andrew.

  We growled around for awhile. Then we pretended we were hibernating, but that was boring.

  “Okay, we will be tickle bears!” said Bart.

  Bart tickled Andrew and me. We laughed and squirmed so much we knocked the table over.

  “Uh-oh,” said Andrew.

  But Bart did not seem to care about the table. He leaped up and cried, “Tickle bear tag!” He chased Andrew and me out of the living room and th
rough the hallway. As he passed by a plant stand, he almost knocked it over. But he caught it in time. That was lucky. Mommy’s favorite plant sits on that stand. It’s a fern named Miss Fern, in a very beautiful china pot. If the stand had fallen over, the pot would have smashed, and Miss Fern would not have been a happy plant. Mommy would not have been happy either.

  “Whew,” said Bart. “That was close.”

  “Hey, can we bake brownies?” I wanted to know.

  “Do you have brownie mix?” asked Bart.

  “I think so.”

  We looked in the kitchen and found the mix. And we had everything else we needed to bake brownies. “Goody!” I exclaimed.

  “Can I stir up the ingrediments?” asked Andrew.

  “Ingredients,” I corrected him.

  “Sure,” said Bart.

  Bart did not care when Andrew dropped the goopy spoon on the floor. He did not care when I got chocolate in my hair, either. By the time Mommy and Seth came home, the kitchen was a big mess. (So was the living room.) But the brownies were ready and waiting.

  Mommy and Seth and Andrew and I ate them for dessert that night.

  The Winter Olympics

  On Tuesday, Bart came over again. This time the weather was nice. (Well, nice for the middle of winter.) It was sunny and cold, but not too cold. And three inches of new snow lay on the ground.

  “Puh-lease can we play outside?” Andrew asked Bart.

  “Gigundo please?” I added.

  Not all baby-sitters like to take kids outside to play in the snow. We need a long time to bundle up. Then sometimes, as soon as we are bundled up, we have to take everything off so we can go to the bathroom. But Bart did not mind bundling us up. Even Andrew, who has to put his clothes on in a certain order, or else he throws a tantrum.

  Andrew and I put on extra socks. We slipped plastic bags over the socks (to keep our feet dry in case any snow got in our boots). Then we put on sweaters, jackets, snow pants, boots, hats, scarves, and two pairs of mittens each. When we were ready, I looked at Andrew. “Do you have to go to the bathroom?” I asked him.