2. The Buber children were a blended family of half-sisters and half-brothers,
all wholly disagreeable. Word of their disagreeableness had been passed
along from babysitter to babysitter. So when the parents tried to arrange
an evening out, there wasn’t a Valerie, Stacey, Kaitlin or Sarah to be found.
Faced with the prospect of giving up their night at the theater, which he
knew Mrs. Buber would dearly hate to miss, Mr. Buber had an inspiration.
He searched through his coat pockets until he found a business card for a
babysitter that he vaguely remembered someone
giving him at the zoo.
3. A short while later the doorbell rang. If you were busy thinking about thinking
whether you could still get to the theater on time, Mrs. Lyne might appear to
be a sweet, middle-aged babysitter dressed in a nice cloth coat with a fur collar.
e-aged
sweet, middl
BABYSIT
TER
Mrs. Lyne
3
917-555-506
Bronx, NY
However, if you were paying even the slightest bit of attention, as the
children certainly were, you’d notice that when she took off the coat the fur
collar remained.
4. Jakey, Jimmy, Mimi,Walter and Sadie stared at their parents in disbelief.
Were their parents actually leaving them with this who-knows-exactly-what?
Mother was talking about fire extinguishers and emergency numbers as if there
wasn’t a much larger, hairier threat right there in the room.
The children tried to point out obvious clues to the
babysitter’s true character.....
5. ...but all they got in response was a quick kiss good-bye and a warning whispered
in their ears to be polite. Older women sometimes grow whiskers, have deep
voices, and wear coats with dangling belts that one could mistake for a “tail.”
Before any of them could point out that the babysitter was no
longer wearing a coat, their parents were gone.
