The Babysitter Murders - By Janet Ruth Young Page 0,19
feed the object of your hatred an entire package of Ex-Lax.”
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T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
“But I don’t think I really am mad at the person, see?”
“Ex-Lax completely leaves the system within twenty-four hours.”
Shelley stretches on the bench with one hand resting on her abdomen. Since she started texting Meghan all the time, she seems to move differently. Shelley has a really solid body.
Malcolm is staring again.
“I mean, what if you didn’t want to hurt them at all?” Dani says. “If you just thought about it?”
“Then make an effigy and stick pins in it. Safe, fun, and cathartic. And if anything bad does befall this person, hey, it’s probably a coincidence.”
Dani dips a cookie into the pudding. “Hey, do me a favor, girlfriend?” she asks. “Don’t tell anyone what we just talked about.
I feel like such a jerk.”
“Two peanut butter cookies.”
“Deal.”
“What conversation?” Shelley says. “It never happened.”
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“I heard something weird today and I don’t know what to make of it.” Malcolm and his dad are driving to their favorite hardware store to look at grills for Father’s Day.
“What’s that, son?”
“It’s about Strawberry Shortcake.”
“What’s that little cutie up to?”
“She told Baby Dyke she had an urge to grab the music teacher. Mr. Gabler.”
“Grab him how?”
“I’ll let you guess. Hint: There are two of them.”
“Not his twins? His boys?” Michael lowers his sunglasses and peers at Malcolm.
“That’s right.”
“Wow,” Michael says, stopping at a traffic rotary and tapping the wheel. “Let me digest that for a second.”
“I was kinda surprised. Did you ever hear of a girl getting the urge to grab a guy’s nuts?”
“Not since I married your mother.”
Malcolm laughs and nearly drops his soda, although the joke makes him a little uncomfortable. No matter how funny his dad is, Malcolm doesn’t feel entirely right hearing intimate sex things about his mother.
T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
“Gotcha,” Michael says, handing his son a wad of napkins. “A beautiful young girl like that wanting to grab the teacher’s jewels?
I knew I went into the wrong line of work.” He looks to see if he got another laugh. “Do you think this teacher and Strawberry Shortcake are having some kind of affair? That might be legal, depending on her age, but it would be unethical. I would want to report that. He would lose his job.”
“I don’t imagine so. He’s kind of your average middle-aged guy. He looks kind of like a eunuch.”
“She was joking, then,” Michael says.
“Not entirely. That’s why it seemed weird. She looked all riled up, like she really was going to molest this dorky teacher. A Jekyll-and-Hyde situation, maybe?”
Michael pulls into the store parking lot. “I have one further explanation. I call it the one-size-fits-all explanation, and it’s very simple.”
“Meaning?”
“All that glitters is usually not gold, son. Your comely friend Strawberry Shortcake is apparently wackier than a bag of ham-mers.”
“Nuttier than rat shit in a pistachio factory?” Malcolm asks, using another expression his father taught him.
“You want to watch out for girls like that,” Michael says, opening the door to the store. “Girls like Strawberry Nutcake.”
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Beth Solomon moved the dining room chairs into the living room, pushed the table aside, and covered it with an old sheet.
Now she’s at the top of a step stool in last year’s capris and a ball cap to protect her hair.
“When will you be done?” Dani asks. This time she’s intent on getting it right, telling about the weird thoughts. She’s going to start serious and keep it serious. She’s not going to let the conversation become screamingly funny, as apparently happened with Shelley and Mr. Gabler’s testicles. She’s not leaving this room until her mother knows what’s been happening.
“Probably an hour and a half. I’m not too happy with the job I’m doing. I’d rather work by natural light. This electric lamp is casting shadows and I know I’m missing a few spots.”
“But if the old paint is white and the new paint is white, what difference does it make?”
Beth scratches her nose, then checks her hand too late to see if there’s paint on it. “It’s a different shade of white. What do you say on Saturday you help me do the ceiling in your room?”
Beth had her own real estate firm by age thirty and was the best-selling broker in Hawthorne. Lately she’s said the money from selling houses is chicken feed and