“Can you stay in here and not destroy everything? I have to go downstairs for a little bit to spend time with Bailey. I’m not abandoning you. I’ll come back upstairs soon, okay?”
The cat sauntered in front of the door, daring her to open it.
“No, I need you to stay in here.”
Bree felt very exasperated. She wondered what Taylor Swift would do in this situation. She carried her cats around in the airport and stuff, and they seemed so nice.
Bree had no choice but to resort to bribery. She opened a package of fish-flavored cat treats and threw one across the room. Veronica bounded after it, his bonnet sparkling all the way. Bree slipped out the door, closing it behind her.
Downstairs, she opened the fridge to find the ingredients she needed for taco night. Tortillas and all sorts of toppings—including her favorite: fish covered with her mom’s signature marinade—sat in foil-covered dishes. Bree took each dish out of the fridge and lined them up on the counter. Bree loved taco night. She felt thankful that it would be a happy ending to what was turning out to be a very stressful day.
Once everything was set up, Bree headed to the family room, where Bailey sat on the couch, watching cartoons, eating popcorn, and having no idea how good his life was. He didn’t have a psycho cat. He didn’t have to hold down a job or even help out around the house. He just got to be nine years old, which seemed like a pretty good deal.
“What are you watching?” Bree asked.
“Danger Duck Detective Agency,” Bailey said, never taking his eyes from the screen.
“Should you really be watching this right now? Mom said you needed help with your project.”
“Yeah, but I’m almost done,” Bailey countered. “It’s a papier-mâché model of the Eiffel Tower. Mom already helped me make the base level and I just have to put another layer of paper on top.”
“Okay, well, then maybe we should finish it together now, quickly, so we don’t have to worry about it,” Bree suggested. “You’ll feel good once it’s done.” She purposefully left out the part where she wanted to get it over with as fast as possible so she could run back to check on her . . . challenging cat.
“Okay. It’s in Marc’s study,” Bailey said with a shrug.
They headed into Bree’s stepdad’s office, where the lopsided, half-finished Eiffel Tower was on top of the desk, surrounded by decidedly less artistic things, like stacks of Marc’s legal papers. Bree spread out the supplies, and they got to work. They were just getting into a good rhythm of layering on the paper strips, when Bailey suddenly looked surprised.
“What’s that noise?” Bailey asked.
“I don’t hear anything,” Bree said.
“It sounds like a goose. Being strangled.”
At that moment, something truly horrible-smelling made its way into Bree’s nostrils.
“What is that?” said Bree, gagging. It was the worst thing Bree had ever smelled. It was even worse than diapers.
“Ewww! That is sick!” Bailey added, covering his nose and mouth with his hands.
They followed the smell out of the study, through the foyer and into the formal living room—the fanciest room in the house, where Bree and her siblings were usually not allowed to go. The scent grew stronger and stronger.
And then, she saw it.
Veronica—sparkly bonnet still on his head—was inside the grand piano. There he stood, perched on the strings of the enormous instrument, where he proceeded to puke directly into it.
“GAK! GAK! GAK!”
“Whoa,” said Bailey. “Mom is going to kill you.”
“VERONICAAAAA!” screamed Bree, sprinting to the piano and trying to grab the cat. But Veronica was too fast. He leaped out of the way and scurried out of the room, flying through the house until he was nowhere to be found.
Bree exited the living room in a stupor, following Veronica’s path of destruction. In the short amount of time she had been with Bailey, Veronica had attacked a dining room chair and consumed all of the ingredients that were laid out for the family’s fish taco night. Now the thrown-up fish tacos were marinating inside the piano.
“How did he even get out of my room?” Bree wondered aloud.
“Meow!” Bree turned around, hoping to see Veronica. Instead, she saw Chocolate Pudding, the family’s furry orange cat. Chocolate Pudding used to annoy her, the way she was always licking her hind legs and minding her own business. Now Chocolate Pudding seemed so sane. Why, oh, why hadn’t Bree realized how good things were before?
Bree missed her old life from three days ago. She missed doing crafts and seeing her friends and eating snacks and listening to the soundtrack from Cats the Musical on endless repeat in the comfort of her own bedroom. That is, her old bedroom—before a disturbed cat had taken over and turned it from a sanctuary to a stress factory. Bree loved animals; she even loved this animal. But that didn’t change the fact that this whole cat adoption was the hardest thing she had ever done.
After doing her best to clean out the piano (which took more paper towels and more self-control than Bree had wielded before), she searched the house from top to bottom. Veronica was nowhere to be found. With a resigned sigh, she reasoned she might as well return to her other responsibility and go check on Bailey.
She entered Marc’s office to see the tower had grown impressively in size.
“That looks great!” she exclaimed. At least something was going right.
Unfortunately, as she took a closer look, Bree saw the tower had something very, very wrong with it. There were a bunch of handwritten notes and little typed words all over it. Damages . . . compensation . . . loss . . .
Bree gasped as she fully accepted the sinking realization: The topmost layer of the papier-mâché tower was constructed from Marc’s legal papers.
“Bailey! What kind of paper did you use for that?”
“I just took some of the pages from one of those big piles,” he said, motioning to one of Marc’s shelves.
“But that looks like one of Marc’s briefs! It has lawyer words all over it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to paint over it,” Bailey said. “No one will see them.”
“That’s not the point. The point is what if he needed that? Marc is going to be super mad!”
“Oh. Do you think that paper was, like, important?” Bailey asked.
Bree covered her face with her hands.
“Can’t he just print a new one?”
“No, it had his notes all over it!”
“Oops?” said Bailey.
Bailey seemed remarkably unfazed by this exchange. Of course, Bree thought, because he could just go back to eating popcorn and being nine and not having to take responsibility for stuff. This was all Bree’s fault, because she was supposed to be watching him. This entire day was a disaster. Before Veronica, babysitting had been the one thing she had under control. Now she suddenly felt like she was failing at everything.
Never one to hide from her problems, Bree sat in the front hallway, waiting for her mom to get home. As soon as she got back, Bree would tell her what happened. Her mom was going to be super mad. But Bree also needed her to tell her what to do.
“Why, hello there, Mom!” Bree said the moment the key turned in the lock.
Emma and Olivia ran past her, flaunting the joyful freedom of being children.
“What’s wrong?” asked her mom, making a suspicious face.
“Who says that anything’s wrong?”
“You. You’re acting very odd right now. Why are you sitting on the floor like that? What happened?”
Bree started to cry. “Veronica-ate-the-tacos-and-puked-in-the-piano-and-Bailey-used-Marc’s-brief-to-make-the-Eiffel-Tower-and-I’m-sorry!”
“Bree.” Her mom looked tired. “Remember what we talked about. Bree, I know you love Veronica, but I need you to get this cat under control! Our agreement was that the cat couldn’t interfere with your ability to help out around the house. Your job is to watch Bailey at l
east three days a week, and you promised this wouldn’t interfere. This is exactly the kind of situation . . .”
Bree wailed with grief.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” her mom said. “I mean, it’s not okay, but no one is hurt and that’s what’s important.”
“I’m sorry,” Bree said. “Please don’t make me give up the cat.”
She thought of the terrible things he was probably doing to her bedroom at that very moment.
“All right, but consider this a warning,” her mom told her. “We need to get this under control, otherwise the cat can’t stay.”
Bree hoped that she and Veronica could come to an understanding. She wasn’t sure exactly how, but for now, she was willing to be hopeful.
Chapter Six
Malia
“WHERE is the THING?” yelled Ramona, her voice echoing from the other room.
“What thing?” hissed Malia under her breath.
“Thing finding is totally your job,” Chelsea said with an unhelpful shrug.
“How am I supposed to know what the thing is? I’ve been working here for, like, an hour.”
“I was once in your place, and I survived. I believe in you. You’ll figure it out.” And with that, Chelsea went back to typing whatever document she was working on.
“I’M WAAAAAAAITING!” trilled Ramona.
It hadn’t even been an hour, and already Malia deeply regretted giving in to the pressure to join Abernathy Inc. Ramona was bossy, demanding, and confusing. Predictably, Chelsea was no help. Who was her mother kidding with this? Malia was a middle-schooler. She was meant to be outside, hanging with her friends, or inside, babysitting minors and earning money for things like concerts, or else roaming the mall in search of nothing in particular. She wasn’t meant to be in this office, searching for utterly unidentified objects.
But for now, she needed to find the thing. Malia scooted very quickly into the adjacent room, Ramona’s private office. Ramona was a grandmother’s age, but she wasn’t like any grandma Malia had ever seen. For starters, she had the energy of a twenty-two-year-old.
“Hi, Ramona, what can I help you find?” asked Malia.
“The THING!” yelled Ramona. “I simply cannot find it.” She banged her hands on her enormous lacquered desk, before jumping out of her seat and pacing out of the office. Malia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, so she followed close behind.
“Thing, thing, where can you be?” chanted Ramona, marching down the hallway. “Thing, thing, come back to me!”
Ramona Abernathy was, in a word, fancy. Today she wore a two-piece matching red pantsuit, with a patterned silk scarf wrapped around her neck. Her light brown hair was sprayed into a neat bob, with not one hair out of place. Her low-heeled shoes click-clacked on the marble floors all throughout her home, as a trail of heavy perfume hung in the air behind her.
“I just had the thing earlier, and now it has gone missing. Are you sure you haven’t seen it?”
“Uh, no . . .” Malia said.
Ramona clickety-clacked into the library, another cavernous room that was lined floor to ceiling with fancy, impressive-looking leather-bound books.
“Oh, THERE it is,” Ramona said, picking up what appeared to be a magnifying lens from a small side table. Malia, of course, had never laid eyes on it before. Ramona stared at her, expressionless. “Well, why are you just standing there? I’m sure there’s plenty to do in the office.”
“Oh, right, yes,” said Malia, still stunned.
Ramona’s face was something to behold, as it did not particularly move. Her eyebrows were always slightly raised, her lips drawn into a thin red line. At any given moment, it was impossible to tell if she was happy or sad or upset or angry or really experiencing any emotion at all. Right now, she looked as happy to have found the thing as she had looked unhappy to be missing it.
Malia flashed back to the time when her class had gone on a field trip to the natural history museum, and she had seen a mummy. It looked so creepy and frozen, preserved in its unnatural pose for all of time. Ramona’s face reminded her a little of that.
With that beautiful thought in her mind, Malia turned and made her way back to the office. She plopped into her desk chair, exhausted.
“Did you find the thing?” Chelsea asked, never taking her eyes from her screen.
“Yes, it was in the library,” said Malia.
“Great. Since that’s done, I need you to replace the cartridge in the printer.” Chelsea motioned to an enormous machine. It looked less like a printer and more like the commercial copy machines Malia had seen at their parents’ offices.
“That’s not a printer; that’s, like, a house.”
“Whatever. It’s printing weird stripes like a zebra, and I need you to change the cartridge.”
Malia sighed. She was finally used to changing diapers. She was not used to changing cartridges. However, she supposed it couldn’t be any worse.
“Okay, how do I do this?” she asked.
Chelsea let out an exasperated grunt. “How am I supposed to know? Your generation is so entitled. Google it or something.”
Malia grunted. How hard could this actually be? She located a door on the side of the machine, and after some pushing, a little bit of sliding, and a lot of grumbling, she got it open. The old printer cartridge was nestled safely inside. Malia grabbed it with both hands, pulling it free. Unfortunately, the cartridge had already been a bit loose, so it came out without a hitch, sending Malia flying backward.
“Arrrrrrgh!” Malia shouted as the printer cartridge exploded. A cloud of black powder landed all over her face. The more she tried to wipe it off, the more it got absolutely everywhere.
“Does this office have any paper towels?” Malia asked.
“Um, I don’t know. What do you need them for?” Chelsea didn’t look up.
“Chelsea.”
Now Chelsea looked up. “Whoa,” she said. “What happened to you?”
“The printer cartridge exploded. On my face.”
“I can see that. Malia, do you have to ruin everything already? This is your first day.” Chelsea opened her desk drawer and pulled out a roll of paper towels.
“Seriously? They were in your drawer this whole time?”
Malia brought the towels into the bathroom, where she tried her best to clean the ink off her face. When she was done (or rather, when she had removed enough ink to look like she was only slightly dirty rather than like she had just escaped from a chimney), she returned to her desk, where she spent the rest of the afternoon completing a very riveting task that involved punching holes in hundreds of pages and then putting them into binders.
“My fingers are going to fall off soon,” Malia said.
“Stop being dramatic,” said Chelsea. “But you can probably go home now. It’s almost four, and that’s all we needed you to do.”
This was the best news Malia had heard all day. She was expected to babysit at the Gregorys’ house at five, and this would give her just enough time to run home and wash the ink off her face before heading there. (What if Connor Kelly saw her looking like a juvenile chimney sweep? The horror.) Malia gathered up her things and was just making a beeline for the exit, when a voice interrupted her.
“Where do you think you’re going? I need you to do dictation.”
Malia froze in her tracks. What on earth was that? “Dictation?” she asked.
“I need you to sit at my desk and write emails for me. I’ll say them aloud, and you type them. It helps me to think.”
Malia sat at the giant desk, surrounded by plaques and awards and trophies for all of Ramona’s lifetime achievements. Malia glanced at the clock. This was not good. She should be on her way to the Gregory house by now.
“Dear Francine,” Ramona slowly enunciated as Malia typed. Ramona cleared her throat and squinted into the air, thinking of what to say next. “I’ve given some thought to the endowment, and I am pleased to inform you my answer is yes.”
Had Chelsea asked her to join the team so Malia could take on all the grunt work? What had she gotten herself into? And more importantly, how would she get herself out of it?
Malia looked at her watch. Not only would she not have time to change, but now she was also officially running late for her job at the Gregorys’. By the time she pressed send on the final email, she felt like her brain was spinning. It didn’t matter that she had only been an intern for one day: Malia already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt—this job was a horrible mistake.
Malia sprinted out of Ramona’s impressive property down to the sidewalk. She kept right on running all the way to the Gregory house. As she approached the Gregorys’ block, she didn’t slow down to scan the nearby yards for Connor. For the first time ever, she didn’t even care if Connor saw her racing by, looking frazzled and exhausted.
At long last, Malia arrived. But she didn’t need to ring the bell, as Mrs. Gregory was already standing in the driveway, car keys in hand. All four Gregory children sat on the front steps, looking nervous.
Malia had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“I’m here! I’m so sorry!” she called.
Mrs. Gregory looked at her phone. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” she said. “And now I’m running late for my appointment.”
Malia had never seen a client look so angry before the babysitting had even begun. She hated to let a client down, but even more, she hoped it wouldn’t hurt Best Babysitters’ reputation.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gregory. I won’t let it happen again,” Malia promised.
There was a very uncomfortable pause.
“Don’t,” Mrs. Gregory said. With that, she got in her car and drove away.
Chapter Seven
Dot
“It can’t just be any project. It has to be THE project. The project to end all projects.”
The Good, the Bad, and the Bossy Page 4
