Seven Minutes to Midnight

41

I must have cried myself to sleep that night, because my eyes were still red when I looked in the mirror the next morning. My mouth tasted disgusting. I brushed my teeth, but then I threw up and had to brush again.

I'd slept later than I thought. My dad had already gone to work.

"Hi, Laurie," I said, wandering into the kitchen. She was loading the dishwasher; I could hear a kid's television program blaring in the other room. I took out a bowl and poured myself some cereal.

Laurie didn't answer me. I wanted to ask her to drive me down to the police station so I could file a missing persons report, but I didn't. I didn't know Laurie at all. And when yelling erupted in the living room, that was the end of that opportunity.

"Gimme!" screamed James Alexander.

"It's mine!" Abby screamed back.

"Shut up! I can't hear!" Brandon yelled.

I stayed in the kitchen chewing my Rice Krispies while Laurie stormed into the living room and settled things down. She returned to the kitchen with a weeping James Alexander on her hip.

"Amy, I have a favor to ask of you," Laurie said, continuing to load the dishwasher one-handed.

I swallowed and looked up.

"Your dad said you wouldn't mind baby-sitting," she began.

Ah, yes. The blind offer I'd made. Had I had any clue about what monsters these children were, I never would have proposed such a thing. My baby-sitting experience was limited to Karen's kids, back when I was twelve and they were practically newborns, and my neighbor's cat Twinkles before it died two years ago.

"Yeah?"

"Well, if you don't have any plans for tonight, maybe you wouldn't mind watching the kids?" She finally looked at me. "Your father and I haven't had a night out in a long time."

I could only imagine.

"I don't have any plans," I said flatly.

"Good! I'll call your father at work and tell him. He'll be thrilled." Her face got serious. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure it would work out, with you living here. But if you can watch the kids every now and then, it would be such a life saver."

"Yeah. It's no problem."

"We'll give you money for pizza and rent a movie for the kids and everything. They'll be fine, I promise."

"Sure. No problem."

And so I was left alone, terrifyingly alone, with the kids at six o'clock that night, with a twenty dollar bill in my hand and three screaming children who didn't want their parents to leave them alone with "scary Amy."

It was halfway through a very messy dinner involving sauce on the walls and picking every speck of basil out of Abby's piece of pizza when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

When no one answered, I hung up before any kind of telemarketer could speak up.

I put in the movie while I cleaned up after dinner, ignoring the screaming coming from the other room. Then, beginning with James Alexander, I gave each of them a bath as per Laurie's detailed instructions. I put James Alexander to bed immediately following his bath, basically putting him in his room and shutting the door to muffle the screaming. He ran out a few times while I was bathing Abby, leading him to run screaming from my soapy hands and suddenly it was a game and he was shrieking with delight, no matter how crabby I sounded when I yelled at him to get in bed.