The Baby Project by Sarah Ellis

Author:Sarah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV013040
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2009-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

So the preparations for babysitting began. Jessica went to the library the next day and got out a “Babysitters’ Guide.” She spent the afternoon filling out checklists.

“Does this child have any food allergies?”

“We don’t really know, Jessica. All she has ever had is breastmilk.” Jessica filled in “not known.”

“Now, Jessica, I’ll feed her before I go and I’ll leave a bottle of milk. Give it to her if she’s fussy. She’ll probably sleep the whole time.”

Not if I have anything to do with it, thought Jessica.

“We’ll be home by ten,” said Mum.

“Don’t hurry.”

At five o’clock, Rowan arrived with a pizza and two movies. “Come on, kid. Let’s make a night of it.”

“Have a good time,” said Mum. “What are you going to watch?”

“Mary Poppins and a documentary on life in the Arctic,” said Rowan. Mum looked surprised. She gave a lot more instructions until Dad finally pulled her out the door.

Rowan took the pizza out of its insulated bag (exclusive bagman design) and he and Jessica sat on the couch with Lucie between them. Jessica carefully picked the anchovy off her wedge.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like anchovies yet?” Rowan was winding mozzarella around his finger.

“What do you mean ‘yet’? I don’t like anchovies. I never did and I never will. Why do grown-ups always think that when you don’t like something, you’ll learn to like it later. That’s just kidism.”

Rowan looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Good point. I don’t figure I’m going to learn to like parsnips. Next time I’ll order your half anchovy-free. Anyway, hurry up, okay? There’s something I want to do with Lucie before she goes to sleep.”

“What?”

“Pictures. Dan lent me this great old Polaroid camera. It’s a cool retro technology, prints on the spot, but gradually. Just the thing for baby pictures.”

Jessica gulped the rest of her pizza and Rowan got the camera ready. They started out with regular pictures—Lucie and her pink stuffed dog. Lucie on her sheepskin, Lucie propped in the big armchair. Then Rowan tried out some artsy angles—an aerial view down onto the top of Lucie’s head, a view of the bottom of her feet. They waited for each picture to appear, darkening and clearing as Lucie appeared out of the mist.

“It’s kind of like she’s being born, isn’t it?” whispered Jessica.

Then Rowan spotted Simon’s ugly peaked cap on the hook in the hall and they got silly. Soon, propped along the windowsill were a line of Lucie pictures. Lucie under an umbrella, Lucie peeking from behind the palm tree, Lucie reading Journal of Engineering Science, Lucie wearing headphones, Lucie with a nasturtium behind her ear. Even Lucie in the fruit bowl, held in place by an invisible Jessica.

Finally Rowan ran out of film and Lucie drifted quietly off to sleep. Jessica held her while Rowan put on the movie. The opening scene was of a giant black motorcycle roaring off the edge of a cliff.

“What happened to Mary Poppins?” asked Jessica.

Rowan winked. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them. This is called Kawasaki Kamakazis.

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