Free Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job by Willo Davis Roberts

in another hour or so—except that this was her car we were in, it was her door opener that had allowed these men into her garage.
    Did that mean that Mrs. Murphy’s car had been stolen while she was at the dentist, or was she somehow part of the plot? Could she have conspired with these three men to kidnap the Foster kids for ransom? Was one of them the man who’d come to the door, pretending to be a gas man? He’d been tall, too, and thin.
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    My head was aching and the blood pounded in my ears and made my heart feel as if it might beat its way out of my chest, too. No, I couldn’t imagine the housekeeper plotting with these men. They’d been hanging around, had been watching the Foster house the day I’d come for an interview about the baby-sitting job, and then watching me, too. No doubt they’d figured out that Mrs. Murphy was going regularly for dental appointments, and that I’d be the only one in the house with three small kids. They’d failed to get in by passing as a gas man. Then they’d tried to break in earlier and been scared off by the burglar alarm; so they thought of stealing the housekeeper’s car with the garage door opener in it.
    They got out and dragged us with them. I looked at Jeremy and Melissa and couldn’t help asking, “Couldn’t you take the tape off their mouths?”
    There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Henry reached over and ripped off the tape, on first Jeremy and then Melissa. It pulled, and they both put up their hands to the places where the tape had stuck.
    â€œI want to go home,” Melissa said in a quavery voice, and moved closer to me. They’d loosened her wrists when she was taken out of the car, and she slid a small hand into mine, which I squeezed as reassuringly as I could.
    â€œCome on,” Pa Hazen said. “Get in the other car. Dan, you get rid of this one. We’ll see you at the house.”
    This time I was shoved into the back seat of the black car with the Foster kids, and Henry again took the wheel, with his father sitting so he could watch us over the back of his seat.
    â€œDon’t try anything,” he said, looking straight at me, and I swallowed hard. What was there to try that could possibly save us?
    We were outside of town, in an area I’d ridden through but didn’t know very well. There were farms and scattered farmhouses; we saw a man on a blue tractor and a few grazing sheep and cattle, but nobody who could rescue us.
    The kids pressed close beside me, with Shana crawling into my lap. I didn’t have enough hands to hug them all, so I sort of took turns. Their small bodies were warm and helpless against mine, and guilt washed over me. IfI’d used my head, talked to Clancy or Tim, or even the dispatcher at the police station, this wouldn’t have happened.
    It wasn’t likely that the neighbors would have noticed anything amiss. If the Hazens had driven up in the black car, after the burglar alarm had gone off and the police had showed up, the people next door and across the street might have noticed. But who would pay any attention to Mrs. Murphy’s familiar car, turning in the driveway and entering the garage?
    When they realized we were missing, would anyone think to talk to Irene? She’d probably remember the license number of the black car. Only they’d know I’d disappeared from the Foster house, so they might not think of Irene at all. If the news came on at six and said we’d been kidnapped, her father would probably see it and tell her, and then they would call the police.
    Only, I wasn’t sure the reporters would have it yet. On a TV show I saw about a kidnapping, they didn’t announce it on the news until after the ransom had been paid and the kidnapped child was freed. The kidnappers had told theparents not to call the police at all if they wanted to see their son alive again,