The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

  “Listen, kid,” he said, “I know you weren’t in top form yesterday, so that’s why I’m letting it slide this once, but no more skipping class.”

  I swallowed. “They called you?” He nodded. “What’d you tell them?”

  “The truth,” he said, then smiled. “That you had a doctor’s appointment, and I’d forgotten to call in to excuse you.”

  Dad was a dweeb, but he really did come through sometimes, so I smiled and gave him a very genuine, sincere thanks. Then I took a deep breath and braced myself for what surely awaited me inside hell’s hallowed halls. Dad flashed me a thumbs-up as he drove away.

  I turned and made my way up the sidewalk, and sure enough, I’d barely made it through the door into the school when I caught people looking at me and snickering. No one bothered to pretend they weren’t talking about me. Quite the opposite, in fact—their voices got louder as they saw me coming.

  “I heard she got arrested because Mr. Dekalb forgot to fill out the paperwork, so she was driving without a permit!”

  I pretended to text someone.

  “I heard she already had to get a job to pay for all the damages and she’s probably going to drop out. My sister saw her cleaning the bathroom at Chuck E. Cheese.”

  I pretended that my pretend text was really funny.

  “I heard one of the guys got whiplash and is considering suing because he can’t even play in this week’s game. Anyway, the whole thing happened because she farted.”

  I pretended I was deaf.

  When I finally saw Janis, it was like I had been shipwrecked and she was an island. My relief was short-lived.

  “I have lunch detention,” she said.

  “Again?”

  “Ugh, yes, again.”

  “Janis, you’re kidding me, right? Who am I supposed to sit with at lunch now?”

  “You can’t be mad at me for getting lunch detention, Esme, because you’re the whole reason I have it. I was texting you when I got caught. We can meet up as soon as I’m out, I promise.”

  It was NBD, really, but for some reason, as I watched Janis walk away, I felt like I was going to cry. The brave face I’d put on just minutes before was already gone. I’d spent most of my life carefully constructing an I-don’t-care buffer between me and the rest of the world, but that had disappeared. It wasn’t just that I was upset about the car or the dodgeball, or even Kaitlyn. There was something bigger, something darker, blooming and unfolding in my chest, that made me feel like I was going to lose control any second.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted it to go away ASAP.

  I decided to skip the cafeteria at lunch altogether and just eat a bag of pretzels alone like the sad pile of human that I was. I headed out to the lawn and was so absorbed in trying to figure out where to sit so I could have the least contact possible with my schoolmates that I almost tripped over Cassandra Heaven, who I hadn’t even noticed was sitting on the steps. I mumbled an apology, kept walking, and got almost to the end of the sidewalk before I realized that she was following me.

  At least, that was what it seemed like, even though we were probably just going in the same direction. Then she spoke to me. Specifically, she said, “Hey.” I turned around, startled, expecting her to ask some benign question about off-campus lunch policy or something, but instead she just stood there. She was at least half a head taller than me, and even more glowy up close, like one of those girls who’s not lying when she says “I don’t really wear makeup.”

  “So,” she said finally, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans and shifting back and forth from foot to foot. There was something in her body language that made it seem like she was working up to something, though I hadn’t the foggiest idea what that could be.

  “I hear you have a babysitters club?” she finished, and I was so surprised, I LOL’d. No one in the history of high school had ever asked me about the babysitting club before, and I preferred it that way. Was this the beginning of a very elaborate way to make fun of me? Was this a joke and I was the punch line? But Cassandra Heaven had been at our school for two days—certainly she had no reason to pick on me. Besides, the look on her face was 100 percent serious. Earnest, even. Almost, if I dared to say it, excited?

  “I guess,” I said finally. “It’s not so much a club as it is…” She crossed her arms, and I could see that there was a rip in the sleeve of her flannel. I stared at her elbow as I tried to think of a way to explain the club that wouldn’t sound totally lame.

  Except, that’s the thing. It was lame. Janis and I were two high school juniors with a babysitting club, for freak’s sake. “It’s kind of a joke,” I finally said. “It’s really just my friend Janis and me hanging out.”

  “Well,” she said, “can I join?”

  what do u mean u told cassandra heaven she could join tbsc?

  exactly that. idk, i panicked.

  it’s not even a club.

  i know, j

  no one has ever asked before, so i didn’t know what to say

  oooooooo-k, but i think she’s gonna be disappointed.

  of course she’s gonna be disappointed

  i’m disappointed.

  is that how people describe us to new kids?

  like oh, there go the babysitters.

  ?????

  there are worse things to be known for, right?

  sure. like lice.

  anyway, CH is coming over tomorrow after school

  …

  …

  j?

  i’ll be there. i just have to decide what to wear.

  * * *

  —

  I got through the whole next day of classes by keeping my head down, not crashing any cars, and volunteering to man the scoreboard in gym. After school, Janis gave me a ride home. As soon as we got to my house, I planned to clean my room, because that seemed like the thing to do when you have someone new coming over, but after ten minutes of standing in the middle of it, debating where to start, I just kicked some stuff under the bed and called that good enough. I also thought that maybe I should put out some snacks, but it had been a while since Dad had gone to the store, and all we had was some stale Smartfood and a few cans of Squirt, the soda with the grossest name ever. I put the popcorn in a bowl anyway and arranged the sodas in a clear spot on my desk.

  “It’s like you’re trying to impress this new girl or something,” Janis said, “shoving clothes under the bed and being all fancy.” I threw a handful of popcorn at her, and when it scattered onto the floor, Pig gobbled it up.

  I had told Cassandra to come at four-thirty, and there was a part of me—okay, more like all of me—that was hoping she wouldn’t show.

  But at 4:29, the doorbell rang. I went out and opened the front door and there she was, standing on my porch in a variation of what she’d been wearing every other time I’d seen her—clothes that would have been too tattered for Kurt Cobain.

  “Hey,” she said, stepping into the foyer. “Nice house.”

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding and knowing that this was a lie, as the best thing that could be said about our house was that it had walls.

  “We usually meet in my room,” I explained, leading her down the hall.

  “What do you guys do during meetings?” she asked.

  The real answer was “Try on clothes and lurk on people on the internet,” but that didn’t seem professional.

  “Talk about babysitting safety and strategize about how to get new clients,” I answered. I was glad Cassandra was behind me so that I couldn’t see her face, because even I didn’t believe my own BS.

  When we got to my room, it hit me that I really hadn’t thought this through. Janis had taken my only chair, and Pig w
as sprawled across my bed, eyeing Cassandra with just as much wariness as Janis. Cassandra stood in the middle of the room as I balanced the bowl of popcorn on a pillow and tried to shove Pig to the floor. It was like moving a sandbag, but eventually she groaned and lumbered down, and I motioned for Cassandra to take her place.

  “Sorry it’s so messy,” I started, looking around like I would find some excuse in a corner, hiding. “I was gonna clean up, but then I remembered that I really hate cleaning.”

  “No worries,” she said, flopping down onto the bed in the warm spot that Pig had just vacated. There was something about Cassandra’s presence in my bedroom that I couldn’t put my finger on. It wasn’t like she made me nervous. It was just that there was something expectant about her, in the way she looked around the room and at me and Janis. I wasn’t used to people expecting something from me, and I didn’t quite know how to handle it. For one thing, I was about 110 percent sure that whatever she expected was not going to be happening, and that she was going to be pretty dang disappointed when she realized that this babysitting club was just a couple of babysitters, and barely a club at all.

  I passed her the bowl. She picked up a kernel and squeezed it between her fingers, then dropped it back into the bowl and passed the bowl to Janis. Janis didn’t even pretend she was going to eat anything, and just set the bowl on my desk. Still, none of us had said a word since Cassandra sat down.

  Finally I cleared my throat. “I, uh, guess I’ll call this meeting to order.”

  Janis guffawed, and Squirt squirted out of her nose.

  I shot her a look, my eyebrows raised. “Janis, if you want to run this meeting, you’re more than welcome to.”

  She shook her head, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. “Oh please, do go on,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I can’t wait to see where you’re going with this.”

  I looked at Cassandra, and decided to be straight with her. “Look, it’s true that we have a babysitting club, but it’s not like we have a president or a secretary, or dues, or even meetings….” I was rambling. “Janis and I just hang out. And yeah, we babysit, but that’s kind of just like, I don’t know…our jobs?”

  Cassandra nodded, slightly biting her lower lip. “I know. That’s why I want to join.”

  Janis arched an eyebrow at her. “So, you babysit?” she asked. “You don’t look like a babysitter.”

  “Of course,” Cassandra said. “I love kids.” She flashed Janis a thousand-watt smile. “And you don’t look like a babysitter either.” Janis was wearing leopard-print paper-bag pants, a black cropped turtleneck, and a lipstick-red blazer, with oversized tortoiseshell glasses that didn’t have lenses. It was her eighties art-gallerist look. Cassandra had a point.

  “So, Esme, have you ever had another job?” Cassandra turned her smile on me, like I was there for an interview or something.

  I shook my head.

  “I worked at Jammin Juice for like a week,” Janis offered. “And before that, this big cookie place in a strip mall. Both were awful, but there’s a rumor that we’re going to get an Urban Outfitters over by the university, and…”

  Janis stopped talking when she realized that Cassandra wasn’t listening and was still just staring at me. “How old were you when you started sitting?”

  “Like, twelve?” I answered. It kind of made me uncomfortable, how much Cassandra was focused on me and ignoring Janis, which was not the way I had hoped this would go. I wondered if Janis was picking up on it as much as I was. I wanted to steer the conversation back to Cassandra, but she kept at me with the rapid-fire questions.

  “And what made you want to do it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Money?”

  “Did anyone ever teach you how to babysit?”

  “I took a child CPR class, if that’s what you mean?”

  “It’s not,” she said, but didn’t clarify. “How do people find you for jobs?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Word of mouth? Mom gossip? People just know that we’re the babysitters, so they call us.”

  “How do they call you?”

  Janis jumped in. “There’s a big light in the center of town,” she said. “And so when someone needs a babysitter, they flip it on, and it projects a giant pacifier into the sky.”

  Cassandra’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “No,” Janis said. “They use a phone. Or sometimes they send what is called a ‘text message.’ ”

  She pulled the burner phone out of her backpack and waved it back and forth in front of Cassandra’s face. All three of us sat there looking at it, and everyone jumped when it started to ring. It felt, weirdly, like we’d willed the sound into being. After five rings, Janis finally answered it.

  “Hello?” Her voice was hesitant, like the ringing phone was some sort of haunting trick on Cassandra’s part, but whatever she heard on the other end made her relax, and her gaze flicked up and met mine.

  “Oh, hi, Carolyn! It’s Janis. Great to hear from you. It’s been a while!” Then she nodded and mm-hmmd. “I can’t tomorrow, but let me check with Esme.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “It’s Carolyn Harrison,” she said. “Steve’s out of town and she has to work late, so she needs someone to babysit tomorrow night.”

  This was good news, as the Harrisons were some of our favorite people to babysit for. Their son was perfectly behaved, and their fridge had every beverage imaginable. I’d babysat for them almost a month before, but they hadn’t called since, and I’d been slightly paranoid that it was because I’d gone overboard on the snack raid and had drunk three blood orange San Pellegrinos in one night. I’d put two of the empty bottles in my backpack to take home, but they still might have noticed.

  Now it pained me to say no—since it would be a chance to demonstrate my restraint and drink nothing but tap water and maybe a diet ginger ale—but I shook my head. “I have to go visit my mom,” I said.

  Janis nodded and put the phone back to her ear. “I’m sorry, Carolyn,” she said. “It looks like she’s boo…” Cassandra cleared her throat, but Janis kept talking, making apologies into the phone and pretending like she didn’t hear Cassandra, who was clearing her throat just two feet away.

  “I can do it,” Cassandra finally said, loudly enough that Janis couldn’t ignore her. “I can babysit tomorrow.”

  Janis stopped talking, and a beat passed in silence. Then she let out a sigh that sounded like air slowly escaping from a balloon. “Actually, we have a new babysitter we’re working with. Her name’s Cassandra, and she said she can be there tomorrow, if that works….Mm-hmmm….I’ll give her your info. Okay, great….No problem.”

  Janis clicked the phone off and looked at Cassandra with a concrete expression on her face.

  “They’re some of our best clients,” Janis said. “And they haven’t called us in forever. You’d better not mess this up.”

  “I won’t.” Cassandra smiled. “Like I said, I love kids.”

  After that, I wasn’t really sure what to do with the rest of the meeting. If we’d been a real babysitters club, I’m sure we’d have reviewed payment protocol and disciplinary philosophies or something like that, but since we weren’t, we just sat in silence, looking at each other awkwardly. Janis was waiting for Cassandra to speak, and Cassandra was waiting for me to speak.

  “Um, this meeting is adjourned, I guess?” I said finally. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the shred of authority that had fallen on me, so maybe I really did deserve the Mary Anne title.

  I wanted to talk to Janis and ask her what she’d thought of Cassandra, but they left at the same time and I didn’t get a chance. For the rest of the night, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, not even an Alexander McQueen documentary that I’d been dying to watch. I painted my nails a shade of metallic pistachio but immediatel
y messed them up trying to find a pack of gum at the bottom of my backpack. When Dad came home late from work, as usual, I was almost excited to have someone to talk to, and when he asked if I wanted to go out for Thai, I jumped at the chance.

  My distracted feeling continued all through school the next day too. I kept looking for Cassandra, but I didn’t see her once, not even in gym, where there was no need for someone to keep score, so I spent the whole hour trying to stay out of Stacey Wasser’s way by standing about ten feet behind her, since I wasn’t sure her neck turned enough for her to look over her shoulder.

  I wanted to talk to Cassandra. About what, exactly, I wasn’t sure, but I felt like talking to her would be reassuring. Because I had to admit—I was second-guessing myself about letting her join the club. Now that I’d had time to think about it, like a whole-night-of-lying-in-bed-not-being-able-to-sleep amount of time, something seemed off. Like, a new girl—a new, hot girl—shows up at school, and the first thing she does is try to get in with a couple of babysitters? And babysit?

  I wanted to talk to Janis, so when she slid into her seat late in Earth Sciences, I snuck my phone out of my backpack and risked getting us both detention to send her a furtive text. From the back of the classroom, I could see her drop a pencil to the floor, then palm her phone into her lap and respond without even appearing to look down. Janis was good.

  U seen Cassandra?

  nope

  i’m worried maybe we shouldn’t have let her join the club

  ha, you’re just now thinking that?

  you already thought that?

  ya.

  y?

  because it’s weird. we don’t know anything about her.