For starters, she couldn’t sing, but that didn’t stop her from singing all the time. Mostly songs about love. She’d make kissing sounds. And flutter her arms. And have real tears running down her cheeks.
“Someday, you’ll see me there,” she would say in a dramatic voice and point to the television set.
“Or there,” she’d spin around and pat the radio, then the computer.
“Or in the zoo,” I would say under my breath.
But, the worst thing about Cindy was that she stuck to us like crazy glue. She followed us everywhere. Finally, we tried to ditch her.
It was Tag’s idea. “Whenever you hear me yell DITCH, take-off,” he told me and Jag. So we did. Then we told our friends Abby and Sid to do the same thing. Sometimes Tag yelled DITCH when we were playing basketball. Or video games. Or sitting around watching Cindy sing. Sad to say, it never worked. Like a cheetah, Cindy took off too. Right after us.
Finally on Friday, Tag yelled DITCH when we were all eating pizza. Cindy was busy getting milk out of the refrigerator. “To the roof,” Tag whispered to me and Jag and Abby and Sid as we jumped up from the table. Grabbing our pizza, we raced outside to the back of the house.
Quickly we scrambled up the part of the house roof that slants down almost to the ground. Then we walked along the flat part of the roof to the place where the house was connected to the garage. From there it was easy to climb on the garage roof. The house roof was too high and scary to climb but the garage roof was just right, not too high or too steep.
“Finally,” Tag said as he looked back. “We ditched her.’
Just then, Cindy shouted, “Gotcha!” as she climbed up the roof.
“Oh, no!” I groaned.
“Your Mom will kill you, if she sees you up here,” Cindy said. “Wait until I tell her. You going to get into soooooo much trouble!”
“No, we won’t. Mom doesn’t care if we’re up here,” I said, despite the fact that I knew Cindy was right.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, it is true. Mom wouldn’t be mad,” Tag insisted.
Suddenly a great idea popped up in my head: “Hey, look Cindy, this is a great stage. Think how great your voice would sound from up here.”
Cindy cocked her head and looked around at the fluttering leaves on the trees and the bright blue sky polka dotted with clouds shaped like popcorn.
“We’ll be the audience. We’ll sit on the grass and listen to you sing,” I said
“Well . . . . ” Cindy said with a smile starting to twitch at the ends of her lips.
“Come on, Cindy. Do it,” Jag and Abby and Sid chimed in.
“Well . . . . ” Cindy said, “Well, okay.”
As Cindy smoothed her hair and cleared her throat - - la, la, la, la, la. laaaaaaaaaaaaa - - we all hustled off the roof.
“Let her sing a little then we’ll ditch her again,” Tag said quietly as we sprawled out on the grass and looked up at Cindy.
Tag never got to yell DITCH because just when he was about to, Mom appeared in the backyard. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes popped wide.
“I come home from work early and this is what I find,” she said as she looked up at Cindy. “Cindy Singer, WHAT are you doing up there?”
“She’s singing,” I explained.
“Come down this instant!” Mom said in a madder than mad voice.
“You,” she said, pointing to Abby and Sid. “Go home!”
“You,” she said, pointing to Jag and Tag and me. “Go to your rooms.”
“As for you,” she said after Cindy climbed down and shuffled up to stand in front of her, “you’re through. Here’s your money for today. I’ll find another babysitter.”
When she said that, I almost turned around to say, “But we’re too old for a babysitter.” But somehow I knew I shouldn’t.
Chapter Four
Billy and Upside Out and Down
“Everybody I’ve called is busy,” Mom said. “I’m going to use some of my vacation days to stay with you until I find another sitter.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “We’re old enough to stay alone, Mom.”
“Jig! Don’t start with that,” Mom snapped back.
“Well, if I’m in charge . . . . ” Tag began to say, but didn’t finished because I shouted - - “YOU! YOU! YOU in charge! You’ve go to be kidding.”
Tag jumped up; so did I. Scrunching up our faces, we glowered at each other.
“Stop it, you two!” Mom said. “I said that we weren’t going to discuss this anymore, and I mean it. Besides how do you expect me to think you’re old enough to stay alone when you can’t get along while I’m sitting here?”
I glared at Tag. Stupid Tag. It was his fault for making us look bad in front of Mom. With a thud I sat down. With an even louder thud, so did Tag. He hissed at me like a mad cat. So, I hissed back.
“That’s enough,” Mom said in a tired voice. “Don’t you see that so far you haven’t shown me that you’re old enough to stay alone?”
At first, Mom’s words hurt my feelings, but then I realized something - -something important. Very important. That was the first time Mom hadn’t just said, “No, you’re not old enough.” It was the first time she hadn’t just said, “I’m not leaving you alone.”
This time she had said something different - - so far you haven’t shown me that you’re old enough - - that’s what Mom had said. So far . . . . Hum, I wondered, how could we show Mom that we were old enough?
“What do you think,” I asked Jag and Tag while we climbed the tree in the backyard. “How do you think we could show Mom that we’re old enough to stay alone?”
“I think I could show her easy, if you and Jag weren’t around,” Tag said.
‘Sure, Tag,” Jag replied. “Mom, is really going to like that attitude.”
“Okay, okay,” Tag mumbled and sat down on the fat branch that curved up and down and up.
“Look we have time while Mom is home this week,” I said and stretched out like a snake on a branch above Tag. “Let’s do everything we can think of to show her.”
We tried. We really did. Hard.
By Wednesday, I was feeling pretty confident that we had won her over.
After dinner (a dinner that I cooked), Mom relaxed in her chair and said, “Jig, dinner was delicious My hot dog was cooked just the way I like it, the salad was lovely, and the brownies were yummy. Then she looked at us with a happy smile. “You kids have been wonderful. What a treat - - no teasing, no fighting, no messes. Why, I haven’t even had to ask you to do your chores or got to bed or anything!”
“Does that mean we’re old enough to stay alone?” I excitedly asked.
“So, that’s what all this good behavior is all about,” Mom replied with a laugh.
“Not totally,” I said, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.
“Well, we’ll see. We’ll see,” Mom said. “I’m still trying to get a sitter, but we’ll see.”
I still don’t think what went wrong was totally our fault. Of course, that doesn’t matter because Mom thought it was. But, it wasn’t. It was mostly Billy’s fault. Billy, the little kid who lived next door.
Billy was always going off on stupid kicks like having to prove he could go without sleep longer than anyone else. Or that he could sit longer. Or stand on his head longer. Or eat more potato chips. Or wait to go to the bathroom longer than anyone else. Now, Billy was taunting us by saying “There’s nothing you can do to scare me. Absolutely nothing!” He had been carrying on like that for days.
“Who cares,” I kept telling him. “I mean who really cares.”
“I care,” Billy answered. “I really care. Come on, Jig. I bet you can’t do anything to scare me. Really scare me. Ah, come on, Jig. Do something!”
“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! How is that? Scary enough?”
“That’s nothing! Come on. Do something!”
“Get lost, Billy,” I said. Of course, he didn’t. He just kep
t bugging us. By Saturday, we had had it. Billy had come over in the morning to play basketball with us.
“Come on,” he started. “Try to scare me. Come on.”
“Knock it off,” Tag said. “Shoot the ball.”
“Come on. Come on,” Billy said as he threw the ball toward the basket and missed by a mile.
“Good shot, Billy. Really good shot,” I said in a voice that sounded like I meant it as much as I liked eating moldy cheese.
“Ah, come on, Jig. Try to scare me.”
“I’ll scare you,” Tag said.
“No, you won’t, “ Billy said. “Absolutely nothing can scare me.”
“Come in the house,” Tag said as he swished the basketball through the hoop. “Come on Jig and Jag.”
Tag led the way upstairs to his room on the third floor of our house.
“Okay, Billy, this is it,” Tag said as he opened the window in his room. “We’re going to hang you upside down out the window. How does that sound?”
“Not at all scary. Besides you can’t, there’s a screen.”
“That’s no problem,” Tag replied and pressed two buttons on the side of the screen. “See, up it goes and out of the way.”
“Tag,” Jag said sticking her head out the window and looking down at the ground. Way down. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Of course, I am. Unless Billy is too scared.”
“Well, I’m not. Not at all scared.”
“But what if you drop him?” I asked.
“Yes, what if you drop him?” Jag repeated.
“I won’t because you two are going to help me.”
“No, we’re not!” we shouted.
“Then I probably will drop him,” Tag said. “It’s up to you. I’m going to hang him out the window with or without your help.”
“Come on, Jig and Jag, don’t be scaredy-cats,” Billy said as he ran over to the window and leaned out.
Tag grabbed Billy by the legs and started to ease him out the window.
“Whoa!” Billy shouted. “Whoa, I’m sliding out of my pants, Tag. Hang on tighter!”
Tag’s face turned red. The veins in his neck popped out.
“Jig! Jag! Help! He’s heavier than I thought,” Tag said gasping as Billy’s legs disappeared below the window sill.
Jag and I leaped forward and grabbed an ankle, which must have made Billy feel confident because he stopped yelling about sliding out of his pants and started swinging his body back and forth.
“Hey, this is great!” he said.
“Cut it out, Billy,” Tag shouted. “You’re too heavy. We’re hauling you back inside.”
Just then I hear a terrifying scream EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWW! It was Mom’s voice.
“GET THAT CHILD BACK IN THE HOUSE THIS MINUTE!” she screamed from the front yard where she was standing looking up in horror at Billy swinging above her garden of pink, red, and white hollyhocks, blue delphiniums, and yellow and orange marigolds.
Needless to say, we pulled Billy up fast. Also, needless to say, that was the end of any idea Mom might have had about letting us stay alone. But I wasn’t going to quit trying. No, I wasn’t. No matter what happened I was determined to convince Mom that we were too old for a babysitter, even if we did do dumb things sometimes. I just didn’t know how.
Chapter Five
Mrs. Rizzoli and Milk on the Grass
Mom was so mad after seeing Billy upside down out the window that she did something she really didn’t want to do.
“I called Mrs. Rizzoli,” she announced.
“NOT Mrs. Rizzoli,” we yelled.
“You’ve left me with no choice,” Mom said. “I have to go back to work. And it’s obvious that I can’t leave you alone.
“But, Mom,” I said. “We’re too old for a babysitter. Especially a babysitter like Mrs. Rizzoli.
“Jig, you had a chance to prove you were old enough. But you blew it.”
“It wasn’t our fault. It was Billy’s!”
“Being old enough,” Mom said, “means not blaming other people when you do something wrong. It means thinking for yourself. It means doing safe and smart things, not dangerous and stupid things. It means being responsible. It means . . . .”
“I know. I know. I know,” I interrupted.
“Well, you don’t act like you know.”
“Please give us another chance!”
“No, and that’s final!”
Maybe Mrs. Rizzoli wouldn’t be so bad if she came to our house. But she couldn’t. We had to go to her house. Her nasty house; nasty because she had twenty -three cats, which is why we had to go to her house.
“I can’t leave my babies. No, I can’t,” Mrs. Rizzoli always told Mom. “But, if you bring your babies here. I’ll be glad to baby-sit them.”
It’s not that I don’t like cats. I do, just not twenty - three of them. Especially since they stay in the house all the time. And twenty - three cats in the house all the time means it smells. Awful. Of course, Mrs. Rizzoli keeps pans of kitty litter here and there and everywhere, but she doesn’t change it very often.
The first few days at Rizzoli’s weren’t too bad. One of her cats had cute kittens. And Wednesday and Thursday weren’t too bad either. It was sunny and Rizzoli let us play outside in the crab apple trees that were great for climbing.
But just when I thought maybe I could survive Rizzoli’s house until Dad came home, everything changed. And all because Jag forgot Mrs. Rizzoli’s number 1 rule: “SHUT THE BACK DOOR TIGHT! And, don’t forget,” Mrs. Rizzoli always said shaking her finger, “because if you forget, all my babies will escape.”
And, that’s exactly what happened when Jag forgot to shut the door tight. All of the cats got out, including the mother who carried her kittens out, one by one, by the scruff of their necks. Mrs. Rizzoli was beside herself as she chased after the cats.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Come to Mama. Here Pumpkin. Here Tigger. Here Snowball. Here Woody. Here Captain Midnight. Here Scuba. Here Calypso. Here Pink Nose. Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Come to Mama.”
But the cats ignored Mrs. Rizzoli. Black and white polka dotted cats. Orange and yellow striped cats. Brown cats. Grey cats. Cats with white feet. Cats with crooked tails. Big, little, fat and skinny cats. Not one of them listened to Mrs. Rizzoli. Instead they climbed to the tops of the crab apple trees. Crawled under bushes. Raced around and around in the grass. Finally Mrs. Rizzoli sat down and cried.
“Oh, my babies. My babies,” she wailed over and over again.
“I feel terrible,” Jag said.
“Me, too,” said Tag.
“I know. I know. But feeling terrible isn’t going to help. Let’s think of something,” I said.
“Like what?” Jag asked.
“Like running after them and grabbing them,” Tag suggested rubbing his hands together and smacking his lips.
“Right, Tag, like scaring them so that they’ll run away even farther!” I said in my that’s – a – really – dumb – idea - voice. “No, we’ve got to come up with a better idea than that!”
“What about tricking them?” Jag said.
“How?” replied Tag.
“Well, well . . . .”
“Jag,” I interrupted her, “that’s a great idea. We’ll trick them back into the house. Wait a minute, I’ll be right back.”
In a flash I ran into the house, opened the refrigerator and got out a carton of milk.
“What are you doing with that?” Mrs. Rizzoli shrieked when she saw me holding the milk.
“Watch,” I said and started pouring the milk on the grass. I kept pouring it as I slowly walked back to the house. One by one the cats stopped climbing, crawling, and racing around, and walked over to the river of milk I was making. The cool, white delicious milk that they loved flowing along green banks of grass. Lapping and lapping, the cats licked the milk following me all the way to the back steps, up the steps, through the back door and into the kitchen. I kept pouring milk on the kit
chen floor until all the cats were in the house.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Mrs. Rizzoli said as she stood in a puddle of milk on her kitchen floor.
“What is going on?” I jumped at the sound of Mom’s voice.
“Oh, Mom, you’re here early,” Tag said.
“Yes, my meeting ended sooner than I thought,” she answered as she stared at the horde of cats drinking milk off the kitchen floor. Quickly she paid Mrs. Rizzoli and herded us out the door. She didn’t say anything until we got into the car. Then, after taking a deep breath, she said, “I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why you were standing in the kitchen with hundreds of cats drinking milk off the floor . . . . ”
“Not hundreds, Mom, just . . . . ” I started to explain.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” she interrupted me. “But I don’t think Mrs. Rizzoli’s house is the right place for you to be. Not with hundreds of cats drinking milk off the kitchen floor. I’ll have to find another babysitter.”
“Or else let us stay alone,” I said. “Remember it’s our birthday in only four more days. Then we’ll be 11, and that’s old enough to stay by ourselves and take care of Tag.”
“Well, I’ll be ten soon and I can take care of myself,” Tag said in a huff.
Chapter Six
The BIG Birthday Surprise
But being almost twelve wasn’t old enough. Mom got us another babysitter anyhow. Our fourth one since Dad left.
“And, I certainly hope that this is the last one!” Mom said. “Her name is Gayle Swanson and she starts tomorrow.
“Gayle Swanson! Who’s that?” I asked.
“She’s a student at Drew University. She just finished taking a Spanish course during the summer session and she’s free until school starts in September. I think you’ll like her,” Mom said.
“Luckily Dad’s coming home soon,” Tag muttered, ‘so it doesn’t matter whether or not we like her.”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to try to like her,” Mom snapped.
Actually Gayle Swanson wasn’t bad, even though she kept trying to teach us Spanish. Good morning wasn’t just good morning, it was Buenos Dias. And lunch wasn’t just lunch, it was almuerzo.
Then Mom came home with bad news; Dad had called to say he had had a great opportunity to stay a week longer. He knew that meant he’d miss our birthday, but he had arranged for a “BIG birthday surprise.”