Kids Is A 4-Letter Word Read Free

the phone book.”
    Jo could feel a new kind of wetness seeping through her dress and eyed Billy warily. “Did you pee-pee?”
    Billy grinned. “Uh-huh.”
    She groaned, then said sternly, “You have to get down for a few minutes until I can change your diaper.” When the little boy resisted, she shushed him. “Just until I make a few phone calls.” Claire took Billy’s hand and tried to divert him.
    Jo pulled out the phone book and turned to the back page. Fifteen names or so had been handwritten below “baby-sitters,” but each had been struck off with a black marker. Jo decided to try anyway.
    “Hello?”
    “Hello,” Jo said pleasantly. “Is this Carla?”
    “Yes,” the girl said cautiously.
    “My name is Jo Montgomery and I need a sitter for John Sterling’s kids—”
    Click.
    “Hello?” Jo asked. “Hello?”
    After receiving the same response from the next two sitters, Jo glanced at her watch nervously. If she missed the meetingat four, she’d sacrifice the biggest deal of her career, and possibly jeopardize her entire business.
    She scanned John Sterling’s card for his office address. Maybe she’d just leave them with good ole Susan until Mr. Sterling arrived. But the address was across town, and Jo knew she’d never be able to make the trip and get back to her own office in time to meet with her client.
    Frantically, she redialed Susan’s number.
    “This is Jo Montgomery again. I’m taking the children to my office for a few hours.” She gave the secretary her number and address. “I’ll bring them back here once my meeting is over. Could you let Mr. Sterling know so he’ll be home as soon as possible?”
    “Sure thing,” Susan said cheerfully. “I hope you have good insurance.”
    Jo hung up, and muttered, “What a witch. Okay, kids,” she announced with much false bravado. “Everyone’s going with me.”
    “We can’t,” Claire said, her face serious. “We’re not supposed to leave with people we don’t know very well.”
    Jo nodded patiently. “And that’s a very smart thing but right now, I have no choice but to take you with me. Tell you what, why don’t we write a note to your daddy about where you’re going, and we’ll leave it for him in case he comes home before we get back, okay?”
    Claire considered the situation, then relented. “But I’ll write the note,” she said in a superior tone.
    “Fine,” Jo said, glancing at the boys’ painted bodies. “I’ll get these two cleaned up. Where’s the bathroom?”
    Jamie led the way up curving stairs to a cyclone-tossed bedroom with two beds on the floor. “This is our room,” he announced. “Me and Billy.”
    Jo smiled woodenly, her nerves fraying at the sight of the unkempt quarters. Toys lay broken and strewn, bedcovers loose and knotted in disarray. The dingy off-white walls were punctuated with small holes and marks from shoes, paint, markers and crayons. Juice boxes and food wrappers dottedthe floor. An aquarium bubbled in the corner on a brokendown desk, its water suspiciously purple. Goldfish darted from corner to corner, apparently unaffected. At Jo’s unasked question, Jamie offered, “If you mix red and blue food coloring, you get purple.”
    Jo picked her way through the mess and at last they entered a spacious bathroom. A shower curtain hung from three rings. The mirror above the toothpaste-caked sink was cracked. Gaping holes and scars above the naked window testified to another set of curtains Jamie had bested.
    “Well, now,” Jo said cheerfully, “out of these clothes and into the shower.”
    “We don’t take showers,” Jamie said, his arms crossed. “We take baths.”
    “Showers are much quicker,” Jo cajoled. “Besides, I know for a fact Peter Pan took a shower every day.”
    “Nuh-uh,” Jamie said warily.
    “Uh-huh,” Jo said, nodding. “He hung a bucket with holes in it from a tree and stood under it for his shower.”
    Jamie’s eyes lit up. “Let’s try that—I’ve