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 CHAPTER FOUR: PRE-THIRD GRADE 

 D A T E : June 2004 

 ✖ the rebel babysitter ✖

 Actually, a lot of stuff happened between second and third grade. That summer I spent a lot of time with Bluebell because the Walton's took a month-long trip to England to visit their family on Mrs. Walton's side. Parker was so excited for it that he started packing over a week before the trip, and taught himself how to use Mr. Walton's fancy camera so he could take pictures and send them to his friends.

Bluebell's babysitter was pretty lenient about everything we did, so I learned how to bake a lot since she made cookies and cupcakes when her parents were gone. "Hey, remember that lemonade stand you and Fynn had?"

"Yeah, that was fun."

"Yeah, it was," she said as she opened up the oven with a mitt on her hand. "You know what would be fun? If we sell cupcakes, cookies, and lemonade."

In the other room we heard her babysitter laughing on the phone, and the dull background noise of the television on playing a Full House marathon. I looked over at Bluebell and smiled. "Let's do it."

So we made another two batches of bakery goods and started the makings of a sign ten times better than the one Fynn and I made all those years ago. It had glitter and puffy glue on it, and smelly markers saying Bluebell & Skyes LEMONADE STAND. It was so perfect Bluebell went to fetch the digital camera her parents got her for her birthday and took a picture of it.

"This way I can print it out and put it on my wall, and it won't take up so much room," she told me. I'd already seen her room. Since she'd gotten her camera, one of her walls had a collage of pictures of her and her friends from school. I recognized every one of them. There was Heather and Julie, and Victoria. I knew Victoria pretty well, because every now and then my family would get together for Halloween or Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, and as it turned out, she was always there because she was my cousin. Most of the time, though, I saw her on the Fourth of July, because her parents had the wildest party with the craziest fireworks.

We dragged out a fancy wooden counter-slash-table from the garage, and since it was on wheels it cruised down the driveway fairly nicely, and stuck into the grass just as well. We attached the sign to the front and went back inside to make the lemonade.

"You know, when I was in Hawaii, they had this really awesome drink--it was like Kool-Aid and they put orange slices on the glasses."

"What if we made Kool-Aid?"

She gasped and said it was the best idea I'd ever come up with. We went inside and made a batch of Kool-Aid in a big glass jug, and lemonade in another. They were so heavy, I almost dropped the Kool-Aid on my way back down the driveway. We set the jugs onto one of the shelves underneath the counter. After making signs and wheeling out the bakery products in a red wagon, we were ready for business. Bluebell's babysitter pulled out a lawn chair and sat next to the stand with a magazine in her hand.

As it turned out, there weren't as many runners this year, and while it was warm out, the lake breeze cooled down most of the heat. I was about ready to quit after two costumers came and went before Bluebell groaned and marched over to her babysitter.

"Nobody's out today," she told the teenager, who rolled her eyes and flipped a page in the magazine.

"What'd you want me to do about it?"

"Ask some of your friends to come over and buy our cookies."

"No one wants your crusty cookies, Belly."

She spun back around with a huff, scowling at me with a set look on her round cheeks and deep brown eyes. She marched over to the plate of cookies and took one up. They weren't crusty at all, in fact, they were moist and had just a hint of ginger in them. After a second she whirled back around and whined to the babysitter, "If you don't tell your friends to come and buy our cookies, I'll tell Mommy you were mean to me!"

The girl looked blankly at Bluebell to see if she was serious, and after discovering that she was incredibly serious, she sighed and called up a few of her friends to swing by and "Buy some damn cookies from the brat."

We didn't expect the kids to come by within five minutes, and we ended up waiting an entire half hour for them to show up in a van I half-imagined to have a sign selling candy. The babysitter stood up and tossed her magazine into the grass.

The door swung open and a guy wearing a hat in the middle of the summer jumped out alongside a girl who had legs so long and so skinny, they might as well have been made out of rods.

"Hey Rose," Bluebell perked up. "Are you gonna buy some cookies?"

The girl stepped up to the stand and leaned in to take a look at them. "What kind are they?"

"Chocolate chip with a special ingredient," she beamed, and the girl named Rose glanced back at the babysitter, who had her arm around the guy and was complaining about something her parents said to her last night. Around that time I hoped I wouldn't end up like Bluebell's babysitter, watching over brats and wallowing in self-pity.

"It's ginger. God, it's not a secret. I've had enough of 'em to tell," she said, rolling her eyes so far back, I thought she might pass out.

Rose stuffed her hand into her back pocket and pulled out a dollar. "Gimme two of those cookies ya have."

I wrapped them up in napkins and handed them to her. She took a bite and moaned in appreciation. "Good God these are fantastic. You gotta try 'em, Jack."

"Give me one'a yours."

"No way, get your own."

Jack, the babysitter's boyfriend, bought two for himself and gave us an extra dollar. Rose and Jack parked their van in Bluebell's driveway and relaxed with us in her front yard while we waited for Jack's friends to show up. A while later some kids came cruising down the road on skateboards. They swerved right and left and up onto the sidewalks, their oversized sweatshirts billowing behind them.

One of them came screeching to a halt next to our stand, scaring the crap out of me with how close he came to ramming into it. He kicked his board up and tucked it under his arm as he reached over and fist bumped Jack's knuckles. "'Sup bro. What's goin' on?"

"Not much. You gonna buy some cookies or what?" Jack said, coming in between Bluebell and I like he was about ready to take over the stand.

"Fuck yeah--excuse my language ladies. Lemme just find my wallet real quick." He reached into his back pocket and fished out a tattered leather wallet. "Gimme some of that lemonade. Here's five dollars."

"Awesome! Thank you!" Bluebell exclaimed, bounding over to the jug of lemonade while I pulled out a plastic red cup. She filled it up to the rim and before I could pass it over, Jack snatched it up and took a big gulp from it.

"Hey man, that's mine."

"Like hell it is. Get some'ore, you paid five fucking dollars for this." Jack took the cup and we ended up having to serve another to the stranger guy.

"Quit swearing around 'em. They're in, like, third grade," Bluebell's babysitter scolded them. As it turned out, I'd never known what a swear word was until they started popping up everywhere. The babysitter's friends said the 's' word, the 'f' word, the 'd' word, and everything in between.

"Sorry, sometimes I can't censor myself," Jack said, patting his hand on Bluebell's head. She giggled and whacked it away.

We ended up serving a few more kids and rounding up twenty-some dollars off of our sales. We were sitting on our stools behind the stand with all of the babysitter's friends relaxing in the yard and skateboarding in the road when the kid from earlier cruised up to a sudden stop by our stand.

"You girls ever skateboard before?" he asked us, and we shook our heads.

"Don't teach 'em, Marc, they'll just fall and scrape their knees or something like that," the babysitter spoke up, but that didn't hinder him. Bluebell, having heard her babysitter's warning, shook her head.

"No thank you. I don't wanna get hurt," she told the guy.

I wasn't afraid of getting a scratch or a scrape, and it sounded like fun. I'd seen movies of surfers and skateboarding seemed just like that, except on land. I scooted off my stool and came around and onto the road. "Alright! Cool, cool. Here, take this and set it on the ground like that, yeah."

I took his skateboard and set it on the ground parallel to the curb. At that point Rose stepped up, her long blonde hair flowing behind her, and set her foot on the board to keep it from rolling away.

"Nuh-uh. No standing. She's gotta sit on it first."

"All or nothin', run before you walk, caution to the wind," Marc told her, causing Jack to laugh back over by the yard. Bluebell was perched on her stool with her arms folded over her chest, that pursed look on her face like she wasn't pleased with my eagerness.

Rose looked down at me and just shrugged and told me to take her hands. I grabbed on and stepped up onto the board, feeling it quiver beneath me once she removed her foot. I swayed my hips back and forth to keep from falling, but Rose held on tight and Marc stood behind me with a hand on my shoulder.

"Balance your weight--move your feet apart more," he said, nudging his foot against mine until they were spread apart. "Good, good, now keep it like that. Steady, steady."

The board started to coast, and Rose walked with me, slowly spreading my arms out at my sides so I could catch the wind and keep moving on.

My feet were shaking and causing the board to quake, and as soon as Rose let go of my hands, I made it a foot before the board kicked out from under me and I rolled out onto the road, my palms skidding on the concrete.

"Give her some gloves, Jesus."

"No, I'm good," I said, heaving myself off the ground. I ran to catch up with the board and fetched it back. "What'd I do wrong?"

Marc smirked and gave Rose a haughty look. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, but instructed I set the board back down anyway. We practiced some more until the fifth time I tumbled and got pebbles caught under a flap of skin on my knee. It was a better run, though--I'd ridden in nearly a complete circle before falling.

At that point all the kids on the road were sitting on the curb watching me learn and shouting encouragement. I picked myself back up and pulled my knee up to look at it, but it hurt to bend it, and since bending my knees was important in boarding, Rose called it quits for the day and I handed Marc his board back.

"Nah, keep it. I'm getting a new one at the end of the week anyway," he told me. "Don't board without a spotter, 'ight?"

"A spotter?"

"Yeah, someone to catch you when you fall."

I figured Fynn would be pretty good at that, so I agreed to the conditions that came with keeping the board.

Afterwards I returned to the lemonade stand where we'd run clean out of cookies and half of the cupcakes due to the high school students coming and going. I beamed at Bluebell and held up the board, which I couldn't hold very high to begin with. She huffed and picked at a chip in the wood. "There's blood running down your leg," she told me.

I knew, because I could feel the heat of it turning cold in the wind. "Doesn't hurt," I lied.

"I didn't ask if it hurt," she said and stood up from her stood as if she was about to leave, but something stopped her. I followed her attention to the car coming this way and scattering the kids on the street. I recognized that car because it was Mom's.

She didn't even pull into the driveway before parking in front of my lemonade stand and stepping out. At that point I saw who was in the passenger's seat, and went flushed red at the thought of Bluebell knowing about Mr. Santos and my mom.

"Skye! What're you doing over here?" Mom demanded, the look on her face beyond recognition to me. I'd never seen her so angry before, especially over something I thought was perfectly okay.

"We were-"

"Where are your parents, Bluebell?" she demanded of my friend, who floundered for a second before the high school babysitter stepped up.

"I'm watching over them, I hope that isn't a problem," she told my mom, sounding just as casual as she always did, but the look in her face told me she was pale with fear.

Mom's face went red, looking at all the kids in Bluebell's yard and wondering where they all came from. Almost instantly they were running in opposite directions, scattering this way and that down the road on skateboards and bikes, or simply running to the backyard where a staircase would bring them down the bluff to the lake.

"I-I thought it was all right with you if Skye came over," Bluebell's babysitter stammered.

"Well, it wasn't. Call me next time you think it's all right." Her tone was so harsh I actually flinched. "Come on, Skye, we're going home."

I didn't even hesitate and as fast as a rocket I popped up from my seat and ran across the road back home, my knees aching and skateboard clutched to my chest. I beat them to the garage where I propped my skateboard up against the back wall and dashed inside, heart racing inside my chest.

It took a long while for Mom and Mr. Santos to come inside, so I sat in one of the stools in the kitchen and waited for them to come inside and yell at me. When the garage door finally opened, I felt my heart catch in my throat and I didn't even have the strength to cry because I felt so sick to my stomach.

Mom was quiet until she reached the kitchen where I sat, and she just stood there and looked at me until I burst into tears and wailed, "I'm sorry, Mommy! I-I didn't kn-know that-"

She shushed me at once and gave me a woeful smile that broke my spirit in half. "Sh, it's alright. You know you can't go over there without asking me first, right?"

I sniffled and nodded, completely aware of Mr. Santos's presence in the doorway.

"Skye, sweetie, we aren't friends with Bluebell's family like we are with Fynn's, you understand that don't you? I don't know how her parents would react to finding you there," Mom told me, shaking her head and taking a look at my hands that she had been holding. Now both of our palms were stained with blood. "Goodness sakes, what happened?"

"M-Marc and Rose w-were teaching me how to skateboard, a-and-"

"Sh, I don't want to hear it. Just... go to the bathroom and we'll get you cleaned up," Mom said, and I immediately jumped off the stool and rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs to get to my bathroom.

As I disappeared up the stairs, I heard Mr. Santos say to Mom, "Do you want me to call Bluebell's parents?"

"No, I can take care of that," she told him, and that was probably the worst part. I didn't care that I'd gotten in trouble, but I'd taken Bluebell and her babysitter down with me.

After that day, Bluebell didn't talk to me much at all for the rest of the summer, mainly because the next time I saw her and her babysitter, it was a different girl who was strict about Bluebell and I hanging out ever since she heard about what happened to the last girl.

Apparently, I was bad news to new babysitters on the block.