gone.â âAre you sure youâll be back in time?â âYes. I wonât be more than two hours.â I tried to meet her eyes but she had her head down and was digging around in her purse. âOkay,â I said. âGood. Maybe Elizabeth will help if you ask her.â Mom gave me a quick smile before passing me on the steps. Elizabeth would help me when weâd solved world hunger. I kept the thought from finding my mouth. No point making Mom crazy. I watched her back out of the driveway and then went inside. My first babysitting job and all I wanted to do was go over to visit Candy and find out more about her exciting past. Being stuck in the store was a frustration piled on top of a lot of others. I walked toward the kitchen to get something to eat. Elizabeth was sitting at the table lifting a spoonful of Cheerios to her mouth while reading the paper. She was wearing a square of cherry red scarf knotted loosely at the nape of her neck and a choker of blue and silver beads, the same colours in her tie-dyed tank top. She looked up at me. âWell, if it isnât the missing in action Darlene Findley. I hear you got a babysitting job today.â âDo you want to go, to make some money?â I asked. âWell, I would, but I meant to tell you yesterday that your friend came by.â âWhich friend?â âThe Chinese girl ⦠Michelle.â âI thought Michelle wasnât coming to the lake until later today.â âNo, she had yesterday off and wanted you to go with her to Kingston this morning to pick up her boyfriend Danny. He lent her his car. Anyhow, she invited me and I said Iâd love to go along for the ride and some shopping.â Elizabeth bit her bottom lip. She looked uncertain. âIf youâd rather go with Michelle, I can stay behind and babysit.â I looked at Elizabethâs bowed head. I weighed what would happen if I went and she didnât. âNo, you go,â I said. âBesides, I have to look after the store this morning while Mom goes into town.â Elizabethâs smile was a light turned on. âThanks, Cuz. Iâll take the next babysitting job, I promise.â âNo problem.â I took a bowl out of the cupboard and a spoon from the drawer and sat across from Elizabeth. I reached for the box of Cheerios. âAnything exciting in the news?â I asked. âThe Vietnam War is still going on. Big yawn. Looks like theyâre another step closer to giving eighteen-year-old Americans the vote. Carole Kingâs record Tapestry got a good review.â âDid you follow that big anti-war demonstration in Washington in April?â Elizabeth shook her head. âThe Americans should just get out of Vietnam. Especially after the My Lai massacre. I canât understand how those American soldiers could live with themselves after slaughtering an entire village.â I was starting to sound like Gideon. âCall back all those good-looking soldiers,â said Elizabeth. âMaybe they should only send over soldiers older than thirty. I wonder if theyâve thought the draft through. You know, if the politicians who decided to go to war actually had to go there to fight, they might decide differently.â Her last sentence made some kind of weird sense. Maybe she wasnât so clueless. âWhat do you think of Richard Nixon?â âHe looks like a gnome, not somebody who should be president of the United States. He has a funny nose. I miss John F. Kennedy.â âYeah, although I donât remember much about Kennedy except when he was assassinated. It was sort of the first time I started thinking about politics. I was in grade three when he was shot and I remember going home and crying because my mom was so sad. I hadnât even known there was a president before that or that the United States wasnât part of our country.â âI find politics