by Mari Mancusi
He looked up at me. “Sorry, sweetie,” he said. “I’ve got to get to my morning meeting. Can I call you over the weekend?”
I sighed, feeling the lump rise back to my throat again. I usually did better at controlling my emotions during these calls. But right now I just felt tired. Frustrated. Lonely. Seeing my dad looking so close, yet knowing he was so far away, just kind of got to me sometimes. Like, I could see his face, hear his voice. But that was nothing compared to having him wrap his arms around me in one of his famous bear hugs.
“When are you coming home?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I knew he hated my asking this question. Mostly because the answer was never one I wanted to hear.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m hoping in a couple weeks—at least for a short visit.”
I forced a smile at the screen, willing my eyes not to leak. A short visit. Well, that was better than nothing, right? “Sounds great,” I managed to squeak out. “You’d better bring me a good present.”
“Oh, I’ve got the best present. Just you wait and see.” He smiled fondly at me. “Love you, sweetie. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Love you, Dad.”
And with that, the screen went blank. I stared at it for a moment, then sighed. I hopped off the bed and headed back over to my computer. I needed to start my homework before it got too late.
Instead I found myself opening up the Collin Prince story again. Starting a brand-new chapter. Where Collin has been called away on a world tour and can’t be with his friends for the foreseeable future. He calls them all together one last time, to say good-bye, and they all cry and hug and promise one another they’ll stay in touch—even if they’re miles apart.
The words poured out of me, practically spilling onto the page, my hands barely able to keep up with the ideas in my head, washing away the writer’s block in the process. I didn’t stop until I’d done ten new pages—which was almost unheard of for one night. Sarah was going to be very pleased.
My teacher, on the other hand, was not.
I glanced at the clock, my mouth stretching into a yawn. My eyes dropped down to my history book, and I wondered if I should try to stay up just a little longer. Get the assignment done. But all the energy had drained out of me at this point, and I just wanted to crawl in bed and go to sleep.
The homework would have to wait until morning.
15
“AGAIN! AGAIN! LET’S DO IT again!”
I groaned, tossing Sarah a helpless look as our two charges—four-year-old Nina and two-year-old Nora—jumped and danced around the parachute we’d been playing with. Sarah had come up with the game from her old princess babysitter—and we’d been playing “make the teddy bears fly” for the last half hour, much to their screaming and squealing delight.
“Okay, princesses,” Sarah said. “But this is the last time.” She grinned at me. She’d been saying “last time” the last five times we’d done the game. But then the kids would squeal and scream and beg, and she’d laugh and give in and start all over again. This was the first time we’d babysat for this family—and I was guessing, from the girls’ reactions, it wouldn’t be the last.
I had to admit, at times it was fun to be a princess. And even though most of the time we left our jobs exhausted and drained, we always looked forward to the next one. Just seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces as we entered the rooms. Their wide eyes, fully buying into the magic. It made us feel magical ourselves.
Not that every job was a 100 percent win. Some kids were bratty. Some were grabby. Some would not stop asking questions all night long. Of course, all that was par for the course of any babysitting job. But as princess and pirate babysitters we had to navigate through these messy waters while staying completely in character. No matter what happened, we didn’t want to destroy the magic.
Speaking of magic—we’d soon learned it was going to take some serious magic to keep our costumes from getting ripped and stained. Not to mention simply clean. When we started out, I had never considered the fact that these costumes would be dry-clean only and that they would need to be cleaned after every use, which we didn’t always have time for. Since we couldn’t afford the dry-cleaning bills, we would end up handwashing them and hanging them up to dry. But as the gigs started multiplying and getting closer together, sometimes we had to make a choice about whether to be a slightly damp princess—or a slightly smelly one.
Thankfully, no one had complained as of yet, and in fact our business was growing by leaps and bounds every day. At this point there was barely a day of the week where at least one of us wasn’t out on a job. And while we did try to keep doubling up, there were times when we were forced to go solo, which was a lot harder and a lot less fun.
But through it all we kept our eyes on the prize. The weeks were passing quickly, and Comicpalooza was getting closer. And the way our money was rolling in, we knew we would soon have enough to start booking our tickets and hotel. When things got hard and we were tired and the last thing we wanted to do was go on another babysitting job, we’d pull up Collin Prince’s photo and remind ourselves that the hard work would be worth it in the end.
“Again, again!” Nina and Nora cried. “One more time!”
This time, before Sarah could answer, we heard the door open. I let out a breath of relief. The parents were back at last. I glanced at my phone to check the time. If I left right now, I could still get home to my room to study for an hour before dinner. Something that, between all these jobs, was getting tougher and tougher to fit into my schedule. Not to mention I still needed to work on my short story. Brody kept asking me about it, and I couldn’t put him off much longer.
“So how did my little princesses do?” asked Mrs. Peterson as she walked into the room, kicking off her shoes. The little girls took one look at her and burst into tears. She raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We don’t want the princesses to leave!” cried Nina. “Please don’t make them leave!”
“Hey!” I cried, dropping down to my knees. I pulled Nora to me, and Sarah followed suit with Nina. We gave them hugs and then pulled away, meeting their eyes with our own. “Don’t cry,” I said, tapping Nora’s nose. “We can come back and play another day.”
Nina sniffed, looking at Sarah suspiciously. “You promise?” she asked.
“I promise,” Sarah said, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “Princess promise!” She held out her pinkie finger and showed the little girl how to lock fingers in a promise. Soon Nina was giggling.
“Princess promise!” she cried, running to her sister, trying to show her the new trick.
“Pwincess pwomise!” her sister parroted back.
Sarah and I rose to our feet and turned to Mrs. Peterson. She shook her head, looking impressed. “I have to say,” she said, “usually they’re begging me not to go. Now they’re disappointed I’m back.” She laughed. “I guess I found myself a new pair of sitters.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “Here you go,” she said. “Your full fee plus a little something extra for getting them to make those giggles.”
We grinned. Sarah took the money and stuffed it into her purse. “Thank you, Mrs. Peterson,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure we had as much fun as they did.”
We said our good-byes to the girls and headed out of the house, closing the door behind us. Sarah looked over at me, her shoulders slumping. “I just want to go sleep for a week,” she confessed.
I laughed. “Me too. Who would have thought babysitting was so tiring?”
“I know, right? At least at this rate we’ll have no problems reaching our goal,” Sarah said. “We just need to keep it up a little longer.”
“Keep what up? Stealing other people’s jobs?”
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Ginny stepped in our path. Her eyes were narrow, her brows furrowed. And her arms were crossed over her chest.
Uh-oh.
“Did you just come
out of the Petersons’ house?” she demanded.
I took a hesitant step backward. I’d never seen my stepsister look so furious. In fact, if looks could kill, I was pretty sure Sarah and I would have been reduced to a sloppy puddle on the sidewalk.
“What if we did?” Sarah demanded. “What business is it of yours?”
“Are you kidding me?” she cried. “I’ve been babysitting Nora and Nina since they were babies. They’re my customers, not yours!”
I stared at her in shock. I’d known Ginny had done some babysitting for the family in the past, but I’d just figured she must have been busy that afternoon and had told them she couldn’t make it. I had no idea they hadn’t asked her in the first place.
“They were your customers,” Sarah shot back. “Now they’re ours.”
“Their mother called us,” I added with a shrug, trying to be diplomatic. I didn’t need her to go home and tattle on me to Nancy. “Asked us if we were free. What were we supposed to say?”
“You could have said no, for a start.”
“Why would we say no?”
“Geez. I don’t know. Out of loyalty to your sister?”
“Oh please,” Sarah interjected. “As if you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing to Hailey if you had the chance. You just can’t take the fact that there are newer, cooler babysitters in town now. And all the kids want us—not you.”
Ginny looked as if she wanted to punch her. Instead she scowled. “Whatever,” she spit out. “You’re just a novelty now. Kids will be bored of your stupid costumes soon enough. Then they’ll be running back to the real babysitters.”
“If you say so,” Sarah said, giving her a bright, saccharine-sweet smile. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to go count all this fake babysitting money we’ve been earning.”
And with that, she grabbed my hand and dragged me down the street. As we walked away, I stole a quick look back at Ginny, who was glaring after us with something that looked like a mixture of anger and hurt.
Sarah followed my gaze, then rolled her eyes. “It’s her own fault,” she declared. “If she was a good babysitter, the Petersons would never have made the switch.”
I nodded slowly, though something about that didn’t sit quite right. I mean, yeah, we were definitely in demand—but I wasn’t sure that it was because we were actually better babysitters than the Ginnys and Jordans of the neighborhood—or that we just had cooler outfits. Did Ginny really deserve to lose out on her longtime job simply because she didn’t wear a fancy dress?
“Maybe I should let her have the Peterson job back,” I mused. “She has been doing the job for a really long time.”
“Are you kidding?” Sarah cried. “Do you think she would have hesitated to steal the job from you if the situation was reversed? Besides, it’s not like you stole the job from her on purpose. The mom can pick whoever she wants to babysit her kid. She’s not under some kind of contract.”
“I know. But . . .”
Sarah stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to look into her eyes. “It’s called capitalism,” she said. “We learned all about it in American history, remember? The fact is we’re offering a superior product for a better price. And it’s up to the market to decide which businesses to support. And in this case? That market is the neighborhood parents, and they have chosen us.”
I nodded. I knew she was right. And feeling guilty wasn’t going to help matters. And yet I still couldn’t quite shake the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. . . .
“Come on, Hailey,” Sarah pleaded. “This is why you came up with this idea in the first place, right? To give us a competitive edge. Don’t wimp out now that we actually have one! Now that we’re so close to seeing this beautiful face in real life.”
She reached into her pocket, pulled out her beloved Collin Prince cutout, unfolded it, and pushed it in my direction. I reluctantly took it, looking down at the photo. Collin seemed to smile up at me, as if to assure me everything was going to be okay.
“You’re right,” I said, handing back the photo. “All’s fair in love and babysitting. Now. Let’s get moving. I would like to at least get in a little studying tonight.”
“What? No! You promised!”
I scrunched up my face, racking my brain as to what she was talking about. What did I promise? “What?” I asked at last, giving up.
“To go to the library with me and work on the Collin Prince story!” she cried, looking indignant. “Do not even tell me you forgot.”
I bit my lower lip. I had forgotten. Sarah had talked me into it a couple days ago, after I’d failed—yet again—to produce the chapter she was waiting for. From now on she wanted to work on the chapters together. Which, in my opinion, was kind of dumb. I mean, how did two people write the same story at the same time? Still, she had been so insistent, I had said yes, just to get her off my back. But now . . .
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Can I get a rain check for this weekend? I’ve got to get my homework done.”
“Are you serious? Hailey, do you know how hard it was to talk my mom into driving us? And now you’re just going to bail on me?” She looked like she was going to cry. Or punch me. Or maybe both.
“Sarah . . .”
“Look, if you don’t want to write this story with me anymore, just tell me, okay? I’ll understand. But you can’t keep blowing me off. It’s not fair. I know it was your project to begin with, but I’ve put a lot of work into this story too. And it’s not like I don’t have homework to do as well.”
“I know. I know,” I assured her. “And I love writing with you, I swear. I just . . . need to get caught up first. Then I’ll get back to it—I promise.”
She gave me a skeptical look. I could tell she wanted desperately to believe me but wasn’t so sure if she should. At last she sighed. “Okay. This weekend?” she asked. “You promise?”
“I swear on the life of Collin Prince’s YouTube channel,” I said, holding up my hand, as if in an oath.
She gave a small laugh at this, relieving some of the tension between us. “Okay,” she said. “But you’d better show up. And you’d better have a chapter. And it better be really good. Like—Collin-pledges-his-eternal-devotion-and-offers-marriage-to-me good.”
I grinned. “I think I can manage that.”
16
“OH YEAH! TAKE THAT!”
I raised my hands in the air, one still clutching my controller. Then I scrambled to my feet and did a little victory dance around Brody, whose game character was lying on the ground, utterly annihilated, thanks to me.
He groaned, tossing his own controller on the table. “I have to admit,” he said, “you are quite the gamer girl.”
“I am quite the gamer,” I corrected. “The girl part is irrelevant, seeing how I just kicked your boy butt.”
He grinned. “Good point.” He grabbed his controller again. “Of course that’s not going to happen a second time.”
“Oh, you think so? Well, bring it, Gamer Guy. Just bring it.” I dropped back down to a sitting position as he loaded up the first-person shooter we’d been playing for another go. It was Sunday afternoon, and Brody had come over this morning after I’d finished writing the Collin Prince chapter for Sarah, and we’d been playing games in the living room for the last two hours. It felt good, after all the recent stress, to just relax and have fun. Even if it was only temporary.
“This is the last time, though,” I added. “After this round, I gotta get ready for my babysitting gig.”
He groaned, leaning against the couch and staring up at the ceiling. “Seriously?” he said. “Another one?”
“I can’t help it if we’re that popular.”
He shook his head, turning back to the TV, where the game was starting again. “If this business keeps growing, we’re going to run out of time to play video games.”
I snorted, maneuvering my character up onto a bridge, where I could hopefully ca
tch him coming through the canyon. He wasn’t wrong; I barely had time for anything anymore. It seemed like every time I had a free afternoon, someone would call or text, asking us to come over and watch their kids. And while the money was great, the lack of free time was starting to really stink.
Like now, for example, when I wanted nothing more than to hang out with Brody and play video games and eat snacks all afternoon. Instead I’d have to head upstairs, put on a fancy dress, and do my hair. Spend an hour getting ready before heading over to actually do the job. Basically ruining the rest of the afternoon.
“It’s just temporary,” I reminded him (as well as myself). “Just until we have enough money saved for the convention. Then we can quit for good.”
“I suppose it is for a good cause,” Brody agreed, his eyes glued to the screen as he attempted to track my character down. “You can talk all about it someday when you win your first Pulitzer Prize. Hailey Smith—New York Times bestselling author—started out from humble roots of princess babysitting.”
I laughed, and it turned into a yawn. I hadn’t gotten very good sleep last night. Or for the past few nights, actually. I had set my alarm early this morning to make sure I got that chapter done for Sarah—before she decided to hunt me down in real life. And I planned to spend tonight—after the kids went to bed—studying for tomorrow’s big test. What was it they said? No rest for the wicked?
Or the wicked awesome, as the case might be.
“Are you going to take a pen name when you’re rich and famous?” Brody added, glancing over at me for a moment before his eyes returned to the screen.
“Sure. I’ll call myself H. K. Rowling. Then, if I’m lucky, someone will get confused and buy my books instead of Harry Potter. I’ll make millions of dollars from their mistake.”
“Yeah, but what if someone buys Harry Potter instead of your book by mistake?” Brody asked. “After all, you have no idea how popular you’re going to be. J. K. could be trying to steal sales from you.”