Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake

by Ann M. Martin

  When breakfast was over on Friday morning, I expected Karen, Nancy, and Hannie to run out of the cabin, yelling, “We’re going to work on our playhouse!” as they had done the past few mornings. Instead, they wandered onto the front porch, Karen flopped onto a lounge chair, and Hannie and Nancy climbed into the wicker swing.

  “What’s up, you guys?” I asked. I was standing in the entryway to the porch. A copy of The Wind in the Willows was in my hand, one finger marking my place. (I’d read the book before, and I’m sure I’ll read it again.) I was preparing to read on the back porch while the girls played in the woods — without a sitter, as they had been requesting. But apparently today would be different.

  “We are a teensy bit bored,” said Karen.

  “Yeah, we’re tired of our secret house,” said Nancy.

  “And our secret garden,” added Hannie.

  “You are?” I asked.

  “I guess just for today,” said Karen. “We want to do other stuff.”

  “We have not been swimming very much,” pointed out Hannie, who loves to swim. She says she wants to be an Olympic swimmer one day. “We have hardly been to the lake at all.”

  “Well, let’s take care of that,” I said. And (for whatever reason) that was when my brainstorm came along. “I have an idea!” I exclaimed. “Today, how about if you three be the baby-sitters, and I’ll be little Mary Anne, and you can take care of me?”

  “You mean boss you around?” said Hannie, her eyes gleaming.

  “Sort of,” I said. “You will be in charge of me.”

  “All right!” cried Nancy. “I always wanted to be in charge of someone. At home, someone is always in charge of me…. I am an only child, you know. I don’t have a little brother or sister to boss around.”

  “I do,” said Karen, “but that is not as much fun as being a sitter.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Hannie. “Okay. When do we start?”

  “Right now,” I answered. “And you guys are my sitters until nine tonight. Or until you get tired of being my sitters.”

  The girls stared at me. Hannie said, “Wait. We can’t be your sitters yet. You are too big. You should crawl around like a baby.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said, “but I don’t think I can crawl all day.”

  “Babies do,” Nancy pointed out.

  “I know, but I’m thirteen. My knees are weak. Can’t I just be a very tall baby who can already walk and talk — a little? You can still be my sitters. And boss me around.”

  “Okay,” agreed Hannie.

  “What are we going to do today?” I asked in a high, little-girl voice.

  “We are going to do very many activities,” replied Karen, speaking for the group, and sounding like a grown woman. “First we are going to … um, I better check with my — with my helpers.” The Three Musketeers huddled in a corner for a moment. Then they turned to me, and Karen announced, “First we are going to take a hike in the woods.”

  “Okay, I’m ready!” I cried. “Yeah! A hike!” I started to leave the porch.

  A hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. “Just a second!” said Nancy. “Young lady, you are not going hiking in bare feet. Go back in the cabin and put on shoes and socks. I don’t want any lymey old ticks to get on you. And wear a sun hat!”

  “And bring a sweat shirt,” said Hannie. “The woods might be cool.”

  “And be sure to go to the bathroom,” added Nancy. “There are no bathrooms in the woods, no matter how hard you look.”

  “But we do not have to bring sweat shirts or go to the bathroom first,” said Karen to her friends. “That is because we are adults.”

  “Right,” agreed Hannie and Nancy.

  Obediently, I left the porch and ran into the girls’ dorm where I put on socks and running shoes, and found my sun visor and a sweat shirt. Then I went to the bathroom. I had not needed to go. And I knew I would not need the sweat shirt, but I had tied the sleeves around my waist anyway. Is this how little kids feel all the time? Doing things just because some adult tells them to? How do kids ever become independent? I wondered, miraculously forgetting that until not long ago my father had treated me just the way the Three Musketeers were treating me.

  I emerged from the cabin and announced, “Okay, I went to the bathroom. And I have a sweat shirt and a visor, and I put on socks and sneakers.”

  Karen eyed me critically. “All right. You’re ready,” she declared. “Let’s go!”

  “Um, Karen? I have to go to the bathroom,” said Hannie sheepishly.

  “Me, too,” said Nancy.

  “Actually, I do, too,” admitted Karen.

  Ten minutes later the girls and I were walking through the woods. We had taken a direction away from the secret house and secret garden. We were in unexplored territory. (I made sure I could see the lake glistening through the trees to our left at all times. That way I knew we couldn’t get lost.) I felt like a pioneer.

  In the spirit of the game, though, I whined, “Are we almost there yet? I’m tired. My feet hurt. And I think I might have to go to the bathroom again.”

  The Three Musketeers giggled. And Karen said, “You know what? I don’t know if we are almost there yet because I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “You don’t?” I replied. I tried to sound shocked. “Well, that doesn’t matter, because I know where we’re going. We have almost reached the boat dock. Can we buy candy at the lodge? Please? Pretty please?”

  “Candy! My heavens, you’ll get cavities!” exclaimed Nancy.

  Sure enough, the girls would not set foot in the lodge, even though they were all carrying pocket money and I knew they were dying for Neccos and root-beer barrels. Instead, we walked home by way of the docks (I was not allowed within ten feet of the edge for fear I’d fall in the lake) and the path by the water. Along the way, Nancy told me to calm down, Hannie told me to behave, and Karen reminded me to brush my teeth after lunch and floss them.

  Later, when lunch was over and my teeth sparkled, I said to the Three Musketeers, “Okay. I did everything you said. Now will you take me swimming again?” (We had gone once after our walk.)

  “Well,” said Karen, “it is a little too soon after lunch. You will get cramps if you go in the water now. Besides —” (she glanced at Hannie and Nancy) “— we are tired of being the baby-sitters. We want to be the kids again.”

  I smiled. That was fine with me. “All right. So what do you want to do? I could read to you until you can go back in the lake.”

  “Well,” Nancy said, “you know what we’d really like to do? What we’d really like to do is take a look at the boys’ fort.”

  “Yeah, we have not seen it yet,” said Hannie.

  “Do you know where it is?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” said Karen. “We can find it. I don’t think it is too far from our playhouse. Yesterday we could hear the boys hammering.”

  “Do the boys want you to look at their fort?”

  The girls considered the question. Then Karen said, “They didn’t say not to look at the fort. Anyway, we do not have to stay long.”

  “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. I was pretty sure the boys would not welcome their visitors. But as Karen had said, we didn’t have to stay long.

  I tramped through the woods to the secret garden with Nancy, Karen, and Hannie. From there, we listened for hammering and followed the sound until we came to … the fort.

  “Is that it?” Karen whispered to me, agog.

  The girls and I were standing at the edge of a clearing. Before us were David Michael, Nicky, and Linny. They were surrounded by scraps of lumber they’d found in a heap behind our cabin, a few branches and sticks of firewood, a box of nails, and several old tools. They were busily hammering some boards together. So far, the fort consisted of three boards and a tree limb hammered into a square, and something that looked like a raft.

  “Hey!” shouted Hannie.

  The boys looked around. “What are you doing here?” demanded D
avid Michael.

  “The girls wanted to see how your fort was coming along,” I said.

  “It’s fine!” Nicky said crossly.

  “But it isn’t a fort,” said Nancy. “You built a raft.”

  “That’s a wall,” David Michael informed her. “And it was hard to make. It took a long time.”

  “Is this all you’ve done?” asked Karen incredulously.

  “First we made blueprints,” Linny said.

  No one believed him for a second. But no one said a word. Not until David Michael said, “Just wait. Our fort is going to be unbelievable.”

  I’ll bet, I thought, as I led the girls out of the woods.

  On Friday while Stacey was escaping from Sam, and Sam was pining after Stacey; and while Mary Anne was being baby-sat for by the Three Musketeers; and while David Michael, Linny, and Nicky were trying to piece together their fort, I was watching Emily Michelle and Andrew. And as usual, I was also thinking about the mystery that no doubt surrounded the lake.

  Early on Friday morning, I stood by our dock with Emily and Andrew. They were already dressed in bathing suits. (Andrew’s was made of a jungle-print fabric and showed a parade of animals. Emily’s, a tank suit, featured a large fish blowing bubbles, and the bubbles were actually holes in the suit. Pretty cute.)

  “Do you want to go swimming?” I asked the kids. “We can’t go this second, but we can go in about an hour.”

  Andrew frowned. “Could we look at the boats again?” he wanted to know. “Claudia took us there yesterday. It was really fun. Some of the boats are decorated for the parade. I like the cowboy boat.”

  “You mean you want to walk to the big dock? Where the stores are?”

  Andrew nodded. And Emily said clearly, “Boat.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Good idea.” Secretly, I felt relieved. I knew I was being silly, but I couldn’t help thinking about the Lake Monster every time I waded into the water. And when I sat for Andrew and Emily I had to be in the water with them, since Andrew is only learning to swim, and Emily cannot swim at all. Just being near the lake was bad enough, considering I had actually seen the monster several times. Well, I was pretty sure I had seen him. Anyway, I liked the idea of walking to the boats.

  I found T-shirts, hats, and sneakers for the kids and myself, and grabbed a little money just in case, since we would be near the stores, and we set off. We walked along the path by the lake. At first I walked between the kids, holding their hands. But they kept squirming away to examine pebbles or leaves or bugs, or to peer at the edge of the water. Finally I let them run ahead of me, as long as they stayed within view.

  I listened to the water lapping at the shore. For the nine millionth time I wondered what Shadow Lake’s mystery was. Everyone talked about it, but no one seemed to know details. There was the question of the shadowy monster, but there was something else, too. Something had happened a long time ago.

  Suddenly an idea flashed into my brain from … I’m not sure where. If the mystery was old, then old people would probably know about it. I mean, old people who had lived at Shadow Lake for most of their lives. All I needed to do was find some of them and talk to them. Ask them the questions I had asked Watson.

  My heart began to pound and I walked more quickly. Soon I had caught up with Andrew and Emily. Together we ran the rest of the way to the boats. Andrew stopped short when we reached the wooden dock.

  “Wait till you see the dressed-up boats,” he said.

  “Boot!” added Emily.

  “Not boot,” I corrected her gently. “Boat. Say ‘boat,’ Emily.”

  “Boot.”

  “No. Boat.”

  “Boot.”

  Well, I thought Emily had that one wrong for the time being. But the dock was probably a great place to teach her some new vocabulary words. While Andrew examined the “dressed-up boats” again, and watched one being decorated like Disneyland, I led Emily around and pointed out objects I thought would interest her.

  “Fish,” I said. “Rope. Soda. Puddle. Boat.”

  “Boot.”

  I sighed. Emily could be so frustrating. She repeated all the other words properly. And anyway she had said “boat” just fine back at our cabin. Why wouldn’t she say it now?

  I gave up on “boat” for awhile.

  Also, I remembered the mystery. I looked around. Not far away was the Disneyland boat. Andrew was watching two men put up a cardboard castle. One man looked like he was Watson’s age. The other man was much older. At least seventy, I decided.

  Taking Emily by the hand, I approached the boat. I shaded my eyes with my other hand. “Hello!” I called.

  “Hello there!” the older man shouted back. “How do you like Snow White’s castle? Could you tell it’s a castle?”

  “Oh, yes! It’s beautiful…. Excuse me, sir? Could I ask you a question?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Could I ask you a question?”

  The man was cupping his hand to his ear. “Just a sec!” Slowly he climbed off the boat, found his legs (not for real; you know what I mean, don’t you?) and stood in front of Emily and me. “My hearing isn’t too good,” he explained. “What were you saying?”

  “Um, well, I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you a question. Actually, a few questions. Do you live here at Shadow Lake?”

  “In the summertime.”

  “Have you been coming here long?”

  “Every summer since I was eight. That’s over sixty years.”

  “Wow,” I said. This was a good start. “I was wondering then. Do you know anything about the Shadow Lake mystery?”

  The man frowned into the sun. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Hmm. I guess you mean that story about the Bayard family. They lived here for awhile and then disappeared, or something like that. I’m not too sure.”

  “The Bayard family,” I repeated. “Okay. Thanks a lot. Sorry I bothered you,” I added. I wished I could ask him about the Lake Monster, too, but he probably wanted to get back to decorating his boat. “Good luck in the parade tomorrow!” I called as he climbed aboard.

  I tore Andrew away from watching the progress on the NYC boat. “Let’s look in the store,” I said to him and Emily. “Maybe we can each get a treat.”

  “Yeah!” cried Andrew.

  “Treat,” Emily repeated clearly.

  I tried her on “boat” again.

  “Boot,” she said. “Boot.”

  “No. Boat. Oh. Make the ohhhh sound. Boa-oa-oa-oa-oat.”

  “Boot.”

  We bought ice pops at the little grocery store. (Frozfruit, actually.) The man behind the counter smiled at Emily and Andrew, then at me. Since he looked about a hundred and ten years old I boldly asked him whether he knew anything about the mystery or about the Bayards.

  “Are you kidding?” said the man. “Annie Bayard was my fiancée years ago. We were going to get married. But then disaster struck.”

  “It did?” I leaned forward. “What happened? Can you tell me about the Bayards?” I whispered. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if it’s too painful or something. But I’m d —” (I almost said I was dying to know, but decided that might be an unfortunate choice of words.) “I’m really curious,” I said instead. “I don’t want to spend two weeks here without at least trying to solve the mystery. I just love mysteries.”

  “Well, this is a good one.”

  The man, whose name turned out to be Stephan Weeks, said that decades and decades ago, when he was only nineteen years old, he was engaged to a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl named Annie Bayard. The Bayards were wealthy, the wealthiest family in the area, and they lived on the island out in the lake. Actually, they owned the little island. Their mansion was the only building on it, and they lived there year in and year out with their servants. The Bayards were a strange family. They consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Bayard, who were old, as parents go, and their children — Annie and her younger brother Ethan. That wasn’t strange, but wha
t was strange was that the Bayards rarely left the island. They sent the servants ashore for food and supplies. Annie and Ethan studied at home with a governess. Very few people knew the Bayards well. One who did was Stephan. He went to the island regularly to help the gardener and to make repairs in the house. That was how he had met Annie, and soon they had fallen in love. One day, not long after Stephan had proposed to Annie, he realized that he had not seen any of the servants onshore recently, so he took a boat to the island (the Bayards had no telephone) to make sure everything was all right. And what he found was … nothing. Every single person who had been living on the island — the Bayards, the gardener, the servants — had vanished. The house was still there and nothing in it had been stolen or damaged. But the people were gone. And no one had any idea what happened to them. Stephan guessed that somehow they had disappeared the night before when a raging storm blew in. But how? And if they had died, where were their bodies?

  “No one,” Stephen said, “knows the answers to those questions. But I’ll tell you something eerie. Ever since that happened, whenever a storm stirs up the lake, people around here can hear moaning and wailing, and they say they see shadows in the water. They think the lake is haunted by the spirits of Annie and her family. The island, too.”

  “Do you believe that?” I whispered. Stephan nodded. “What about the Lake Monster?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Stephan looked thoughtful. “Don’t know about that,” he said after a moment. “Just heard talk of it this summer. I guess stranger things have happened. But I haven’t seen the monster for myself.”

  The kids and I had listened to Stephan for so long that by the time we left the store, we had finished our treats. I thanked Stephan and waved to him as I held the door open for Andrew and Emily. Then we began the walk home. As we passed the cowboy boat, Emily called out, “Boot!” again — and that was when I saw it. A giant cowboy boot stood at the prow of the boat.

  “Oh, that’s what you were trying to tell me!” I cried. I hugged Emily. “I see now. You’re right. That is a boot.”

  “Boot,” Emily repeated happily. Then she added, “Boot on boat.”