Sink or Swim (6 page)
Authors: Laura Dower
“Pool! Pool! I wanna thwim!” he said, jumping into the air.
“Eliot, I told you to be careful. Now, slow down. There are cars driving around here. You have to hold Madison’s hand,” Mrs. Reed said.
Madison ran to catch up to him and grabbed his hand.
Soon they were inside the main entrance. Eliot tugged on Madison’s khaki shorts. “Come on!” he said, ordering Madison to follow him.
Suddenly he wanted to be friends? Madison was confused.
“Why don’t you and Eliot go into the pool area and wait for us,” Mrs. Reed suggested. “I’ll just register you as my guest, and then we can find a place to sit.”
“Okay,” Madison said. She scanned the room for familiar faces. Were Aimee and Fiona here today? They promised they’d come.
“Finnster! Hey!” Hart came up behind Madison. He was carrying a kickboard for the pool. “What’s up? Are you here with Fiona and Aim?”
Madison shook her head. “No. Actually, I’m here for my job. I’m a mother’s helper. This is Eliot.”
Madison pointed down to Eliot, who had his thumb stuck right back in his mouth. He looked up at Hart suspiciously.
“Do you like to swim, little buddy?” Hart asked.
Eliot nodded. “Thwim.”
“Well, I have to go check in. We have to clean up the pool area for some swim test later on,” Hart said. “See ya.”
“Yeah, later,” Madison said, nodding. Her crush disappeared into the crowd of other swimmers and lifeguards and parents and toddlers running around like wild animals.
Eliot wanted to join them all.
“Madison!” Mrs. Reed came wobbling over with Becka. “Here’s your registration card. This says that you’re helping take care of my kids. Just in case there’s any kind of emergency. You know.”
By some miracle, the four of them found two empty chairs in the middle of all the chaos. The air smelled sweet, like a hundred tubes of coconut oil. Speakers played a surfing, summer song that could be heard faintly behind the shrieks of kids playing Marco Polo.
Mrs. Reed sat down and pulled out a tube of sunblock cream. She handed it to Madison.
“No!” Eliot shrieked when Madison tried to rub some onto his shoulders. He was slippery and wiggled right out of her grip.
“Why don’t you two head over to the kiddie pool?” Mrs. Reed suggested.
Madison couldn’t believe that her job today had been such nonstop action. Couldn’t Eliot just sit and play nicely while she spent more time hanging out, talking to her friends?
Eliot was tugging at Madison’s shorts again. “Wanna go to pool,” he said assertively. “Come on.”
Madison grabbed his wrist, and the two walked over to the kiddie-pool area. The pool wasn’t very deep, but it looked hazardous all the same. There were dozens of toddlers and moms and brothers and sisters, and everyone was splashing at the exact same time.
In other words, Madison thought, it was the one place on the planet she didn’t want to be.
And into the pool they went.
Madison helped Eliot put on an inflatable water float that looked like a little horsey. He looked cute when he wasn’t yelling at her.
They walked down to an area near the wading pool steps. Eliot and another little girl got into a mini-splash fight. Madison broke it up when the girl splashed her.
“Eliot, let’s swim,” Madison suggested. “The water’s a little deeper over there.” It was about three feet deep. Eliot kicked and dog-paddled his way over with Madison behind him. The horsey kept him afloat.
“This is fun,” Eliot said when they’d been in the water a few minutes.
Madison laughed to herself. It was a lot of fun, she thought, apart from the noise, aggravation, heat, and wet.
And Eliot was enjoying himself. He’d stopped fussing at last.
Soon they got a little tired and went back into the shallower part. Eliot took off his inflatable horsey and picked up a plastic boat he wanted to try out. They launched it from the side of the wading pool. By now some people had left the water, so there was more room to play. Madison began to enjoy Eliot—and her job. She also wanted to make sure Eliot stayed safe.
“Hey, let’s put horsey back on,” Madison suggested, fastening it around his body again. Eliot dunked himself and his boat into the pool and laughed.
“Giddyap, horsey!” he said.
From across the pool, Madison saw Egg and Drew strutting around the pool area, arms overflowing with towels. They had laundry duty today. Egg saw Madison looking and stuck out his tongue. She stuck hers out, too.
Splash!
Madison turned back around again to see what Eliot was doing. But he wasn’t in the water anymore. He had jumped up onto the main pool deck and glanced back as if to say, “Wheee! I’m free!”
“Eliot!” Madison yelled. “What are you doing? Come back here, Eliot.”
“No!” he yelled, laughing. He started to skip away. “No, no, no!”
“STOP THAT KID!” Madison yelled.
She nearly landed flat on her face as she jumped out of the pool after him.
“I
DON’T THINK SO!”
Hart said as he grabbed Eliot and held him close.
Madison scampered over to where Hart and Eliot stood, a few yards from the kiddie pool.
“Oh—thanks—Hart—Eliot—why?” Madison was breathless.
Hart smiled. “This little guy’s fast.”
“Fast!” Eliot repeated. “FAST!”
Madison quickly looked around to see if Mrs. Reed had seen what happened. She was over by the snack shop, holding Becka and chatting with another mom.
Whew.
Madison wiped her brow dramatically and tried grabbing Eliot’s hand, but he started to wiggle away again.
Hart leaned down and grabbed Eliot’s plastic horsey. Hart reeled him in.
“So you want the tickle monster, huh?” Hart said to Eliot. “Well, that’s what you’ll get, then!”
Eliot looked like he might cry, and Madison prepared herself for the worst. But when Hart tickled him behind his knees and by his armpits, he began to squeal with delight.
“Stop! Stop! Ahhh!” Eliot was laughing so hard that his nose started running.
“Now you
laugh
?” Madison moaned. She told Hart about the morning’s experiences. “Hey, Eliot, why don’t you laugh for me?” Madison said playfully.
Of course, she was only half kidding.
Why
hadn’t
he laughed for her?
Egg and Drew walked over. Their arms were still filled with towels.
“Excuse me, who said you could lounge around while we do all the work?” Egg said. “And who’s this, Maddie? Your new boyfriend?”
Drew snorted a laugh. “He’s the junior, junior lifeguard.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” Madison said. “Very funny, you guys.”
Eliot was still wriggling. Madison took his hand in hers. “Let’s go find your mommy,” she whispered. “We can play a game with Becka, okay?”
“Mama.” Eliot nodded.
Madison grabbed a dry towel from Egg and Drew and quickly led Eliot away from the boys, who were cracking jokes.
“Mama,” Eliot said again. “Go see Mama!”
Whew.
He sounded happy. Madison was relieved. She took off the inflatable horse and headed over toward the snack shop and Mrs. Reed.
“Ooh, is someone getting a sunburn?” Mrs. Reed said when Madison approached. Becka was asleep in her stroller.
Madison shook her head. She was worried.
“I—I put on the waterproof sunblock, Mrs. Reed,” Madison stammered. “Should I put on more? I’m so sorry—”
“Madison, don’t worry,” Mrs. Reed said, taking Eliot into her arms. He nuzzled his mom’s neck. “Are you having fun with Madison, sweetie?”
Madison waited for Eliot to scream, “NOOOOOOOOO! I hate her!” but he didn’t. He was sucking his thumb and asking for ice cream.
The rest of the afternoon was surprisingly uneventful. Madison lingered close while Eliot played with some of his toys in the shade. They ate snow cones together. Things were much easier when the four of them were all together.
Sometime after three o’clock a tall man walked up to Mrs. Reed. With his suit and dark glasses, he looked like a secret service agent, Madison thought. The man threw open his arms, and Eliot dove in for a giant hug.
“Daddeeeeeeee!” Eliot cried.
“Hey, big shot,” Mr. Reed said. He leaned over and gave his wife and daughter a kiss. “So you must be Madison Finn?” he asked.
Madison smiled and extended her hand. “Yes,” she said meekly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Reed. Thanks for giving me this summer job.”
Mr. Reed winked. Up close he looked like an important movie actor.
After chatting about swimming and suntans and Eliot’s afternoon by the pool, the Reeds and Madison packed up the two tote bags. It was time to go.
Madison had survived—barely survived—her first day as a mother’s helper. She looked around the pool one last time to see if Aimee or Fiona would magically appear, but neither BFF was there. Even Hart, Egg, and Drew were missing. “Oh, well,” Madison told herself. “I guess I’ll see them tomorrow.”
“Thank you so much, Madison,” Mrs. Reed said, grabbing Madison’s hand and shaking it. It seemed like a weird thing to do, but Madison shook right back.
“Eliot, what do you say to Madison?” Mr. Reed said.
“I want a piggyback, Daddy,” Eliot said. He looked up at the sky.
“Eliot,” his father said again. “Don’t you have something to tell Madison?”
Madison leaned down close to Eliot’s face. “See ya tomorrow,” she said. “We can play trucks again.”
Eliot looked down at his feet. “Tucks,” he said simply. Then he turned around to his dad. “Up, Daddy, up.”
Madison shrugged. “I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow,” she said, smiling.
Mrs. Reed smiled back. “See you then.”
Dad was standing in the doorway of Madison’s room in his apartment, drumming his fingers against the door frame. “So, tell me what else happened on your first day, working girl. You haven’t said much since I picked you up.”
“Oh, Dad,” Madison said, covering her face in mock embarrassment. “I told you.”
“You haven’t told me anything!” Dad said. “Do you like him?”
“Eliot is a nice kid, I guess. Well, he’s a little crabby sometimes, but it could just be the first-day thing. I mean, it takes a kid a while to get used to a new person, right?”
“Right,” Dad said.
“It’s a little harder than I thought it would be, but that’s okay. I’ll survive, right?”
“Right,” Dad said.
“We went to the pool and he almost ran away but that’s not a bad thing, is it? I mean, he was just being a normal two-year-old, right?”
“Absolutely, Maddie,” Dad said. He reached over and rubbed Madison’s shoulders. “You’re going to be great at this. You’re a star at whatever you try to do, honey. Trust me. I know these things. I’m your dad.”
“Oh, Dad,” Madison moaned again. “You’re a big sap.”
“Well, maybe I am,” Dad said with a chuckle. “But I’m proud of it.”
They joked around for a few moments more before Dad returned to the kitchen to finish making his meat loaf. Madison powered up her laptop and went online. Although her e-mailbox was empty, she surfed around for a while before dinner.
Madison logged on to TweenBlurt.com to see if the site had a chat room or a bulletin board just for baby-sitters. Now that she’d started her real job, she thought it would be smart to learn about good games to play and songs to sing with Eliot. But just as she typed the word
BABY-SITTER
into the site search engine, she got an Insta-Message.
It was Fiona. Madison soon discovered that Aimee was also online. The three BFFs agreed to meet up in a private chat room they called SUNGRLS.
After her BFFs disappeared offline, Madison was pleasantly surprised to see an e-mail flashing in her mailbox.
From: Bigwheels
To: MadFinn
Subject: BABYSPITTING—HA HA
Date: Fri 20 June 6:02 PM
I’ve been thinking about ur babyspitting HA HA baby-sitting job. How’s it going? When u said he was 2 and a half or something I knew u would probably have 2 deal with some kid who’s screaming and whining about EVERYTHING. U have 2 hang in there even if it’s hard. My mom told me once that being patient is the best thing u can do EVER. It WILL get better I swear. But don’t ever ever let the kid bite you. That happened to my friend Josie once and she had 2 get a tetanus shot or something like that. Have u ever gotten a tetanus shot?
WBL or else :>) I’m going CRAZY until camp!!! My little brother and sister are soooo annoying.
Yours till the baby sits,
Bigwheels, aka Vicki
