Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures Read Online Free PDF Page B

minutes to ten. “I have to hustle.”
    As we walked onto the boardwalk to cross and go down the steps to the street I noticed the police officer who often seemed to be around just before curfew. He never spoke to us, but I knew he noticed us.
    “Do you know that cop?” I asked . “He’s here almost every night.”
    “I think his name’s Tortino.”
    “He your neighbor or something?” I asked.
    Scoobie gave a short laugh . “Nope. He’s uh, a friend of my dad’s.”
    “Wonder why he never talks to us?”
    Scoobie stopped at the bottom of the stairs we had just walked down. “You want to talk to cops?”
    I stopped, too . “Not especially. It just seems funny he doesn’t say hello if he’s a friend of your dad’s.”
    Scoobie started walking again . “I guess I should have said they know each other pretty well. They don’t hang out.” He grinned. “Do your parents hang out with cops?”
    “Hard to say,” I grumbled.
    He said nothing as we approached the corner where we usually separated.
    “Hey,” I said . “I have a babysitting job this weekend.”
    “That’s good?” he asked.
    “It’s money. And they aren’t babies, so I don’t have to change diapers.”
    “Can I come?” he asked.
    I shook my head. “No friends when I babysit. That’s probably the only rule my parents had that I’ll make sure I keep.”
    “Make sure to give me a list of the ones you’ll break.”
     
    MARGO HAD REFERRED me for the babysitting job . It took about ten minutes to figure out why.
    “My mother always lets me watch Star Trek Voyager.”
    The ten-year old boy had been a pain in the backside all evening . Even if I wasn’t positive about his television shows, I wouldn’t have let him spend the extra hour with me. “Maybe when she’s home. Tonight both of your parents said you were supposed to be in bed by nine o’clock.”
    “I’ll tell them you spanked me.”
    “They’ll thank me,” I said. “Now get back up the steps.”
    “I’ll wake up my sister,” he said, triumph on his face . The six-year old was a bigger pain than he was.
    “I’ll tell your parents you hit her.”
    “They won’t believe you,” he said, but there was slight hesitation in his voice.
    I jumped on this . “Oh, they’ll believe me. I can make sure they do.” I hate to tell a kid I’ll lie, but Thomas Edward Finch, Junior was an exception.
    He turned and stomped up the first three steps.
    “They’ll definitely believe me,” I said.
    He climbed the rest of the stairs at a more normal pace . I had already walked him up once and talked to him as he got into bed. I decided to let him go alone this time, and looked up at the hallway above to make sure he walked into his bedroom instead of his sister’s.
    I sat on the bottom step and stared at his door, thinking about the week that had just ended and wishing I were in Lakewood. It was only thirty miles. Aunt Madge said she’d drive me once a month, but she also said she didn’t think I should go up unless it was a special occasion. “No one can live in two places and feel at home in both of them,” she advised.
    “Rich people do all the time,” I had retorted.
    “Tell me how that works when you get there,” she had responded.
    A slight noise above me reminded me where I was . Thomas Edward looked down at me from the railing above. He has dark blonde hair that is in almost a bowl cut. He was leaning forward so much that it looked as if the bowl was about to fall over the railing.
    “That’s not your bed,” I said, but softly.
    “I can’t sleep,” he complained.
    “Try for fifteen more minutes . I’ll come up to see if you’re awake.”
    “And then what ?” There was a slight tone of triumph in his voice.
    “You can write a note to your parents and tell them why you can’t sleep.”
    He scowled. “I don’t like you.”
     
    “YOU SHOULD HAVE told me that kid was a brat.” I said this to Margo at the lunch table on Monday.
    She gave me what might