Read Online Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job by Willo Davis Roberts - Free Book Online

I had a horrible vision of him opening the garage door and then closing it on Shana, though if anything like that happened, I’d surely have heard genuine screams instead of playful shrieks. Right now I wasn’t hearing anything at all, and it made me uneasy.
    â€œJeremy? Melissa?” I called.
    There was no response. Were they hiding, holding their hands over their mouths to restrain the giggles, waiting for me to walk by so they could jump out and pounce on me?
    If I screamed when they did it, it could start another noisy game. If I didn’t, they’d be disappointed. I walked back toward the kitchen, expecting to be startled any minute, trying to decide how to react.
    Nothing sounded in the house except the grandfather clock in the corner of the dining room, which played a twelve-note tune and then chimed the hour. Three o’clock. At leastan hour earlier than the housekeeper usually came home. I must have been mistaken about the noises.
    I walked into the kitchen and stood in the middle of it, listening again. I could see through sliding glass doors out into the backyard, and there was no sign of the kids there.
    And then I heard Shana’s cry of distress, and perhaps anger. “I told you, I hafta go potty !”
    Maybe that was it. Sometimes the older kids did look out for Shana, and they were probably all in the back bathroom. I started in that direction, about to call out again just as Shana cried, “I don’t like you!”
    Nobody’d given me permission to touch any of these kids for disciplinary purposes. Surely, though, if the older ones were tormenting Shana I’d be allowed to separate them, forcibly if I had to.
    After the bright sunshine of the kitchen, the hallway seemed dim and shadowy. Shana was crying now, sobbing, and I quickened my steps. If they were hurting her, I was going to be tempted to—
    I didn’t see anybody in the short hallwaythat ran off to the side of the main one, leading to Melissa’s room. That door was closed, and it was almost dark in there; I didn’t even glance that way in the urgency of reaching Shana and stopping whatever was being done to her. I’d forgotten I expected the kids to jump out and scare me.
    When the hand closed over my mouth, from someone standing behind me, I made a smothered protest and tried to say, “Jeremy, cut it out!”
    And then I realized it couldn’t be Jeremy. The hand was too large, too strong, and there was an odor of tobacco that certainly didn’t come from a six-year-old boy. And whoever held me against him was tall, a lot taller than I was.
    Fear exploded in me. I tried to yelp and I struggled, until a harsh male voice said, “Knock it off, unless you want to get hurt!”
    The burglar, I thought, he had gotten inside after all, and somehow the police didn’t find him!
    â€œHurry up, what’s going on?” another man’s voice demanded, and I was trying to cope withthe idea that there were two strange men here who had broken in when I heard the third voice.
    â€œShe had to go to the bathroom, so I thought I’d better take her. I didn’t want to drag a kid around in wet pants,” it said, and then the speaker appeared in front of me, in the bathroom door.
    He was tall and skinny, with frizzled reddish brown hair and light blue eyes, and he was carrying Shana, whose small face was streaked with tears.
    The second speaker appeared from behind me, so that my captor swiveled to face him. Number two was tall and thin, like the man carrying Shana, wearing worn jeans and a blue work shirt; they looked enough alike so I guessed they might be father and son, for this one was older than my dad. He scowled at me. “Who’s this?”
    â€œBaby-sitter,” said my captor. “You didn’t think the old lady went off and left the kids alone, did you? I told you, we watched this one before. We didn’t want to come breaking in without