Free Dandelion Summer by Lisa Wingate Page B

of teacups from all over the world. Each one had a little label on the bottom telling where it came from. I could’ve stayed in that room all day, but I figured I’d better go do the job I was supposed to do.
    The kitchen was huge, with green tile countertops, a refrigerator big enough to stuff dead bodies into, and a giant brick archway with pans hanging overhead. Inside it, the shiny new stainless-steel stove looked weird, since everything else in the kitchen was old. Off to the left, a little table sat tucked back by some windows. There were bird feeders hanging all over the backyard—like, fifty of them. Birds darted in and out, checking the feeders, but they were empty and it looked like they’d been that way for a while. I wondered if the pretty lady in the pictures used to fill them. One time when we lived in Odessa, Mama and me rented a trailer house from a lady who fed the birds out back of her house. She said a free bird is good for the soul.
    There was an envelope on the counter with my name on it. I opened it and found money and a note inside. J. Norman’s daughter wrote the note, I guess. It was full of instructions, step by step, for what I was supposed to cook, and where everything was, and how to turn on the stove, and to be sure to turn it off, and where to set J. Norman’s plate, and that I was supposed to hang around and clean up after he ate. Geez. Really, as long as she must’ve spent writing all that, she could’ve just fixed him dinner herself. At the bottom, the note said, I assume your mother told you that my father is not to be climbing the stairs unassisted, under any circumstances. All necessary items have been moved downstairs for him. If he argues with you about this, please call, and I’ll talk to him. After that, there was a phone number and her name, Deborah . At the top of the page, the stationery had a fancy emblem from the college, and her full name, Deborah Lewis, PhD. She had perfect handwriting, and the strokes were deep into the paper, like she was pushing hard when she wrote.
    Since I’d already messed up in my first thirty minutes on the job, there was no way I was gonna call her. Anyone who’d write a note like that wasn’t about to pat me on the head and tell me it was all right.
    I was supposed to make some kind of pasta for J. Norman. His daughter’d left all the ingredients in the refrigerator, chopped up in separate little baggies—onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and low-fat imitation hamburger crumbles. There was pasta and a bottle of sauce on the counter, and whole-wheat bread. The note did everything but tell me which side to butter it on. Guess Deborah didn’t know I’d been cooking since I was old enough to pull a chair up to the stove, because Mama was always too tired, and most of her boyfriends liked food on the table when they came in. I didn’t mind it so much. Once I got old enough to come home and stay by myself after school, cooking gave me something to do, and besides, I like to eat.
    J. Norman didn’t have to worry about me eating his food, though. That low-fat fake hamburger smelled nasty, even once I put the vegetables in. I looked around in the refrigerator to see if there was anything else I could add to it, and came up with a little low-fat ham. I chopped it thin and put it in, and fried it all and added the sauce. In about twenty minutes, dinner was done, and it was only four fifty-five. Now what was I gonna do with myself until six, when I was supposed to leave? Four till six Tuesdays and Thursdays. Man, this was gonna stink.
    I put the food on the table, made toast and a glass of orange juice (just like the note said), and set a single place at the table. Then I went looking for J. Norman. He was upstairs in a room with the door shut. I knocked on it, and he hollered at me, “What do you want?”
    “Your food’s ready,” I told him.
    “I’m occupied.”
    “Well, it’s ready, and it’ll get cold.” What was I supposed to do now?