Blueberry Hill: a Sister's Story(3)

“What happened?” she asked. “Mister Lorenzo keep you after class?”

“I was cleaning out my locker,” I lied.

Even though the walk home was downhill, Patty huffed and puffed like a dying steam engine. I should have helped her. I should have offered to carry her books or stopped long enough for her to catch her breath. But I didn’t.

I was at the age where everyone’s opinion counted and when kids laughingly called out names like Fatty Patty. I cringed. I was afraid that through the factor of association I would forever be linked to the fat girl, the outcast. Now I look back and think how shallow such thoughts were, but when you’re a shy teenage girl a breeze is seen as a windstorm. Everything is a threat to your fragile image.

~

After months of walking home alongside Patty, I finally break down and ask Donna to teach me how to ride a two-wheel bike. I sit on the stoop in front of our house watching her circle past me on the walkway like the bareback queen in a circus act, and all the while I’m thinking I am never going to be able to do this.

“It’s easy,” Donna yells. She pulls back on the handlebars, does another whirly, then lets go and still doesn’t fall. The truth is I wish she would—not hard enough to actually break something, just hard enough to injure her ego.

It’s a sibling rivalry thing. All kids have it. You might not always see it but it’s there, mixed in with brotherly or sisterly love. It shows its ugly face in the ordinary moments of life, but when hearts are broken or lives shattered it inevitably gives way to love.

“Come on! I’ll show you how if you do that report for me!”

Grudgingly, I say I’ll do her book report if she’ll teach me how to ride the bike. She agrees.

I climb on the bike and get seated. The oval courtyard now looks like the Indianapolis Speedway. Donna says not to worry, she’s going to steady the bike and run beside me as I circle the walkway.

“Maybe we’d better start with something smaller.”

“Smaller?” She gives me a look. “Start pedaling.”

I do, and she runs beside me steadying the bike. Unfortunately, the second she lets go the front wheel wobbles and I topple over. I wasn’t going very fast so there wasn’t far to fall. Nothing but my pride is injured. We repeat the process over and over, but I can’t move past my fear of failure.

Two hours and a dozen falls later, we take a break and flop down on the grass mogul beside the mailboxes. The two-story brick buildings circling the courtyard line up like Monopoly houses. Each of these buildings has a front porch littered with tricycles, pedal cars, and other toys. I know a lot of these kids because I babysit for them on Friday or Saturday nights when their parents go to the movies or an Elks Club dance. The families trust me because I don’t bring boyfriends over like some of the high school girls. Besides, they know my mother is nearby and keeps an eye on me.

As I sit there rubbing my shin, Missus Keller sticks her head out the door and warns her redheaded toddler, “Don’t you dare take a step off this porch, Bobby.”

The kid defiantly starts down the steps, and the mother yells again.

“Get back up here! One more step, and you’re in trouble!”

Bobby looks back at his mama then scrambles down the other three steps and takes off running across the courtyard. Seconds later poor Missus Keller starts chasing after Bobby; she’s got his baby sister tucked under her arm.

By now the baby is screaming and the two-year-old terror is staying just out of reach, laughing like it’s a big joke. Without realizing it, he runs toward me. I nab him and hold him until his mother gets there.

In between yelling at Bobby and jiggling the crying baby, Mrs. Keller hands me two quarters and says, “Thanks, Bette. I wish I had someone like you to keep an eye on him every morning so I could get my housework done in peace.”

I can’t believe my ears. “You mean you’d pay a babysitter to watch him even if you’re at home?”

“Um-hmm. The only problem is I can’t spare more than five dollars a week. I doubt a sitter would take a job for such poor pay.” With that, she trots back across the courtyard, both kids in tow.

I turn to Donna. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So?” I repeat. Now I am on the knowing end of the conversation. “If I could make five bucks for every kid in this development, I’d be rich.” I start counting the number of porches with kid toys.

“You’ll be babysitting all summer. You won’t have any time for fun.” Donna scrunches her face into a look of disdain. “That’s nuts.”

“But if I watch them all together, at one time…” Now the wheels have started turning.

“At one time?” Donna says. “How?”

“I can have the mothers bring them to the kiddie playground every morning at nine o’clock and come pick them up at noon. We could organize games and let them play with each other—”

“Whaddaya mean ‘we’?” Donna says. “I’m not babysitting those mean kids.” She shakes her head side to side. “No way.”

“You’d be a partner. Make a lot of money.”

“Unh-unh!”

“It would only be three hours a day.”

“Weekends?”

“No weekends,” I promise.