Sky Babies

by Judy Delton

  Just then Sonny came into the room. He leaned over the playpen and reached out his finger for Lee to grab. Lee began to laugh again.

  “Here we are!” said Mrs. Stone.

  She handed Molly the bottle of warm milk. Then she picked Lee up and put him in Molly’s arms.

  Sonny leaned over Molly’s shoulder. Her muscles tightened up again. She felt Lee’s muscles tighten up too.

  He opened his mouth. But not for the nipple. He opened his mouth to scream.

  “There, there,” said Mrs. Stone, patting Lee on the back.

  “There, there,” said Sonny, jiggling Lee’s foot.

  “I know he’s hungry,” said Mrs. Stone, looking puzzled.

  Molly wanted to yell, Why don’t you all go away and let me alone? But she didn’t. After all, Lee was only a borrowed baby.

  Mrs. Stone picked up the baby and he stopped crying. He drank the whole bottle of milk.

  “It takes time,” said Lee’s mother. “Maybe you could talk to him while I clean up the kitchen. He’s happy now that he is fed.”

  Lee was happy. Until Mrs. Stone left the room.

  “Hi, Lee!” said Molly brightly, leaning over the playpen the way Sonny had. “Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man,” she went on.

  Lee began to cry.

  Sonny sat on the couch and smiled a wicked smile.

  Now was the time to give Lee her teddy bear.

  She picked Bosco up off the table and leaned down over the baby.

  “Look!” she said, waving the bear’s paw at him. “This is Bosco. He wants to play with you.”

  Lee stopped crying for a second and looked at the bear.

  Then he began to cry all over again, only louder.

  “Ha, ha, Bosco!” said Sonny. “What a dumb name for a bear!”

  Molly held the bear closer to Lee. Lee grabbed the bear and threw it. He threw it over his head.

  “How are we doing?” said Mrs. Stone, putting her head through the doorway. “Is he being a good boy?”

  “Molly’s making him cry with her old bear,” said Sonny.

  When Molly walked away from the playpen, Lee stopped crying.

  When she got close, he began again.

  Molly began to feel as if she were wearing poison underwear.

  “We can’t rush these things,” said Mrs. Stone. “Why don’t we dress the twins and take a little walk?”

  Mrs. Stone dressed them. When Molly tried to help, Lee bit her.

  Their mother put them into the double stroller. She tied their caps under their chins. They were ready to go.

  When Mrs. Stone pushed the stroller, the twins cooed.

  When Sonny pushed it, they gurgled.

  And when Molly pushed it, they screamed.

  “Here,” said Mrs. Stone. “Just slide your hand over and we’ll push it together.”

  The twins didn’t cry.

  “That’s because they can’t see you,” said Sonny. “If they don’t turn around, they don’t know it’s you that’s pushing them.”

  They went around one block and returned to the house. Molly helped carry the stroller inside. She said she had to leave. No one argued with her.

  “Come again tomorrow, dear,” said Sonny’s mother.

  But her voice didn’t sound sincere. No mother would want a baby-tender who made her babies cry, thought Molly.

  “Good-bye,” said Molly, relieved to be going out the door.

  When she got to the bottom of the steps, the door opened.

  “And take this,” said Sonny, throwing her teddy bear through the air toward her.

  It landed on the snowy ground.

  Molly picked it up. One leg was missing! And she knew the babies had not done it.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Back to the Stones’

  When Molly got home, her dad was already home from work.

  “How did it go today, babe?” he asked.

  “Were the twins in a better mood today?” asked her mom.

  “They were until they saw me,” said Molly.

  Molly didn’t want any supper.

  She didn’t want to talk about babies.

  She didn’t want to think about badges.

  She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be a Pee Wee Scout!

  Now she was sure the babies hated her. More time wouldn’t help any.

  Molly went to her room and curled up on her bed. After a while her mother tapped on her door.

  “Here’s some dinner for you, Molly,” she said. Molly didn’t answer.

  She set a tray down on Molly’s dresser.

  “You can eat here in your room,” she added.

  “I’m not sick,” said Molly.

  When she was sick, her mother brought a tray to her room.

  After her mother left, Molly ate a little of her meat loaf.

  And she ate a little of her apple pie.

  The world wasn’t going to end just because a baby didn’t like her.

  * * *

  The next day was Tuesday. Pee Wee meeting day.

  Everyone there had tended a baby.

  “I took my little brother for a long walk,” said Kenny.

  “I protected my baby from a big dog,” said Lisa.

  “Rhonda’s teething and I bought her a teething ring,” said Rachel. “She liked it.”

  Even Roger had fed his little cousin some rice cereal. Roger! How could a baby like Roger?

  “You are all doing very well,” said Mrs. Peters, smiling.

  Sonny’s hand was waving.

  “Molly isn’t,” he cried. “My babies don’t like Molly.”

  “I’m sure that is not true,” said Mrs. Peters.

  “Yes it is!” shouted Sonny. “They hate her!”

  “It takes time,” said their leader. “You can’t learn to tend a baby in one day.”

  “I did,” said Kevin. “I did it all in one day.”

  “So did I,” said Rachel.

  “Well, Molly can take her time, there is no rush,” said Mrs. Peters. “And now we will talk about all the good deeds we have done the last two weeks.”

  Molly was glad that Mrs. Peters had changed the subject.

  But when the Scouts told about their good deeds, they all seemed to have to do with babies!

  “I pushed the cart at the market. When our baby grabbed stuff off the shelves, I put it back,” said Tracy.

  Mrs. Peters nodded. “Very good,” she said.

  Hands were waving.

  “Mrs. Peters, I picked up baby toys that were all over the floor,” said Tim.

  “I taught my baby to say ‘bye-bye,’ ” said Patty. “He can say four words now.”

  When was this going to end? thought Molly. Didn’t anyone ever do good deeds for grown-ups? Babies weren’t the only ones in the world.

  “Molly?” said Mrs. Peters. “What good deed did you do this week?”

  “I matched up all the socks when they came out of the dryer,” she said.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “They were all stuck together,” she added. “It took a long time.”

  “Your mom should use Jump,” said Kevin. “My mom does. You put these little sheets in the dryer and then there’s no static. Even the diapers don’t stick to things.”

  They were back to babies.

  The Pee Wees played games and ate cupcakes.

  Mrs. Peters showed them pictures in a baby-tending book.

  Then they said their pledge and sang their song.

  “One more week to hand in the things you did to tend a baby,” Mrs. Peters said. “And then we have to get ready for the holidays.”

  “Do you want to feed Jennifer?” asked Mary Beth on the way home.

  “No!” shouted Molly. Jennifer was sure to hate Molly too. And besides, she had already told Mary Beth she would get her own baby. She didn’t want to come crawling back and beg for Jennifer now.

  “What are you going to do?” demanded Roger. “You won’t get your badg
e.”

  “So what?” said Molly, turning in at her own house.

  At dinner her mother said, “I don’t think you should give up, Molly. You know Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  What did giving up have to do with Rome?

  “No one likes a quitter,” said her dad, passing Molly the potatoes.

  Molly had never thought of herself as a quitter. She had always worked at something until she got it right. She couldn’t give up now.

  “Try once more,” said her mother. “Give Lani and Lee another chance.”

  After school on Wednesday, Molly stopped at the Stones’.

  She didn’t call first.

  She didn’t bring a teddy bear.

  And she didn’t feel nervous.

  She felt mad.

  No baby was going to get the best of her.

  When she knocked on the door, Larry answered.

  “Come in,” he said. “Can you hold Lani while I answer the phone in the kitchen?”

  Sonny was not home.

  Mrs. Stone was not home.

  Molly took Lani.

  She did not worry about dropping her. Or at least, not a lot.

  She did not worry about Lani’s head falling off.

  She just held the baby firmly and gave her a big hug.

  Molly even walked around the house with Lani. She showed her the snowman from the front window. She told her she was a pretty baby.

  And Lani smiled.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Molly Saves the Day

  By the time Larry came back, Lani was laughing.

  “Can I give her a bottle?” asked Molly.

  “You bet,” said Larry. “I’ll go heat it. I can use all the help I can get today. Louise and Sonny have gone Christmas shopping.”

  Larry heated the milk. Lee began to cry and Molly carefully put Lani down in her crib and picked up Lee. She rocked him back and forth in her arms and walked to the window. She showed him the snowman too. He stopped crying.

  “Here we are,” said Larry. “You can feed Lee and I’ll feed Lani.”

  Molly sat down and gently put the bottle nipple in Lee’s mouth.

  He did not spit it out.

  He did not start to cry.

  He looked up at Molly and smiled, and drank his milk.

  When both babies had finished their milk, Molly helped Larry change their diapers. Feeding babies was definitely a better job than diapering them, thought Molly.

  Then Molly played with the babies while Larry washed dishes and swept the kitchen. He put a load of diapers into the washing machine. Molly was glad he did not ask her to help with that. By the time he was through, both babies were asleep in their cribs.

  “You are a good baby-tender,” said Larry. “You should get two badges. One for each baby. And maybe one more for saving the day for a new dad.”

  “At first the babies didn’t like me,” said Molly. “They both cried when I held them.”

  “I think you were nervous,” said Larry. “Babies can sense when you are afraid to pick them up. That happened to me when they first arrived. I was afraid I’d drop them and I was afraid their heads would fall off. They screamed when they saw me.”

  “Really?” said Molly.

  Larry nodded.

  Why didn’t Mrs. Stone tell her that this had happened?

  Why hadn’t she told her their own father made them cry too?

  Molly knew that Sonny made her nervous too. And today Sonny wasn’t here. She wouldn’t tell Larry about Sonny. He might feel bad that he had such a mean person for a son. But she knew it was true. Baby-tending was better when Sonny and Mrs. Stone were gone.

  Larry got out some cookies and milk for Molly.

  When she was ready to leave, she gave the babies each a little kiss.

  “Thank you, Molly,” said Larry. “You did a great job helping out.”

  What wonderful words! She was a help to Larry! She’d get her badge after all! And wonder of wonders, the babies did like her.

  Molly skipped through the snow all the way home.

  She burst in the back door of her house with red cheeks.

  “They like me!” she called to her mother. “The babies like me!”

  “Of course they do,” said her mother. “I told you so.”

  Molly ran up to her room. She called Mary Beth and told her the good news.

  “That old Sonny,” said Mary Beth. “It was all his fault. He’s the one who made you nervous. The babies liked you all along.”

  “He was jealous,” said Molly. “After all, they are his babies.”

  Molly was feeling kinder toward Sonny now that she knew she’d get her badge. Maybe if she had a baby of her own, she wouldn’t want to share it either.

  But I wouldn’t be so mean, she thought.

  The next Pee Wee meeting was the last one before the holidays.

  Everyone had tended a baby. Everyone had handed their list in to Mrs. Peters.

  “Today is the day we make gifts,” said their leader. “Isn’t it nice that we all have something to give?”

  Mrs. Peters looked at Molly when she said that. Mrs. Peters had been worried, thought Molly. Worried that Molly would be the only one who couldn’t tend a baby. The only one who wouldn’t have that gift to give. But she did.

  The table in Mrs. Peters’s basement was covered with bright-colored paper. Red and green and white and blue. There were scissors and paste at each place.

  The Pee Wees sat down. Mrs. Peters showed them how to cut and fold a big card.

  “You can draw a picture of anything you like on it,” she said. “It can be a Christmas picture or a Hanukkah picture or a baby-tending picture. Inside we will write these words,” she said, writing them on the blackboard. “ ‘I will help take care of your baby during vacation. Happy holidays! Love, —–.’ ”

  “The whole vacation?” called Roger in alarm. “I have to take care of screaming kids during my vacation?”

  “It sounds like Roger’s baby didn’t like him either,” said Rachel to Molly.

  What did Rachel mean, “either”? Molly’s babies had liked her.

  “Not all of vacation, Roger. Just as often as you want to,” said their leader.

  “One minute,” said Roger. “I’m going to write ‘I’ll tend your baby for one minute.’ ”

  Soon everyone was hard at work. There were babies on the cards. And Santas and menorahs. There were holly leaves and holly berries and fat snowmen. There were Christmas trees and candles.

  “Look,” said Tracy. “Look at Tim’s card.”

  Tim had drawn a racing car on his card.

  “That’s not a holiday picture,” scoffed Rachel.

  “It is too,” said Tim. “It’s a picture of what I want for Christmas.”

  No one could argue with that.

  “Mrs. Peters,” called Rachel. “I am going to give this gift to my aunt. But what will I give to my parents?”

  Molly had wondered that too. If she gave her card to the Stones, she would still need a gift for her parents.

  “That’s a good question, Rachel,” said Mrs. Peters. “Those who tended someone else’s baby can make two cards. One for the baby’s parents, and one for your own parents. Perhaps you can think of some other good deed you can do for your own parents, if there is no baby. Maybe you can help get Christmas dinner, or help wash and dry the dishes afterward.”

  “We have a dishwasher,” said Rachel.

  “We’re going out for dinner,” said Kevin.

  “Well, there are many things you can do that your parents would like,” she added. “Just think awhile.”

  Molly decided she would peel apples for their Christmas pie. That could be for her mother and father and even her grandma. They all liked apple pie.

  She drew a picture of herself peeling the apples. Inside, she drew a picture of the pie with steam coming out of the top of it.

  “Ho,” said Roger. “You should peel pumpkins. Pumpkin pie is wh
at you have for the holidays.”

  “You don’t peel pumpkins,” said Lisa.

  “What do you do, then, eat them with the skin on?” asked Roger.

  “You get them out of a can,” said Tim.

  While Molly was working on her cards, Sonny came up behind her.

  He slipped a little red piece of paper in front of her.

  It was a little card. On the front it had a picture of a teddy bear with one leg missing. Inside, it said I’ll buy you a new bear. Sonny.

  It didn’t say I’m sorry, but it meant the same thing, thought Molly.

  “That’s okay,” said Molly to Sonny. “My mom can fix it.”

  Molly was glad Sonny had given her the card. She didn’t like to lose friends. She didn’t like to think of Sonny as mean. She hoped he had saved Bosco’s leg.

  The Scouts made envelopes out of white paper for their cards. It wasn’t easy. No one’s flaps folded the right way. But Mrs. Peters helped. And Mrs. Stone came over and helped too.

  When they had finished, they told about good deeds. Then they had cupcakes with red frosting. And then Mrs. Peters said, “And now we will give out the new badges!”

  The Pee Wees shivered with excitement. Molly got goose bumps every time new badges were given out.

  Mrs. Stone called out the names and Mrs. Peters pinned on the badges. They were in the shape of a diaper pin. Everyone got one.

  When all the Scouts had their badges, everyone clapped. Then they said their pledge and sang their song.

  “Happy holidays!” everyone called as they got their coats on.

  “Happy baby-tending!” said Mrs. Peters as they went out the door.

  And it would be, thought Molly. When a baby smiled, and his head didn’t roll off, baby-tending was as happy as happy could be!

  Pee Wee Scout Song

  (to the tune of

  “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”)

  Scouts are helpers, Scouts are fun,

  Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!

  We sing and play when work is done,

  Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!

  With a good deed here,

  And an errand there,

  Here a hand, there a hand,

  Everywhere a good hand.

  Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun,

  Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!