I sat back down and drew an outline of the lake.

  “It’s shaped like a Mickey Mouse head, isn’t it?” Dad asked. “But then we turn it upside down.” He shifted the paper. “Mickey’s standing on his head!”

  Truman smiled, and my father gave a quick lesson on north, south, east, and west before taking my pen and drawing a house about midway down the western shore. “That’s us,” he said.

  I took the pen back and drew in a house on either side of ours. “And here’s Maxine Tibbitts and Joe Wylie,” I said, and added a few dots along the western shoreline and then the eastern. “Those are all the other houses.” I pointed out the window so Truman would notice the houses across the water.

  Dad told him there are about six hundred Elizabethans. “Can you count to six hundred?”

  “I’m a good counter,” Truman said and began counting out loud.

  Perfect! This would take hours, right? Hopefully all the way to dinnertime.

  Okay, maybe not. The kid got to one hundred and one and skipped to two hundred and two, and in no time at all we were at six hundred and six.

  Dad told him we’d work on it and continued filling in the details on our map, marking the public beach at Mickey’s chin. “Maybe you’ve been to our public beach?” he asked the kid. “Can you swim?”

  “I’m a good swimmer.”

  Dad nodded and added a few buildings to represent the little town center of Lake Bess, namely the general store, Town Hall, and our one-room schoolhouse. No, really.

  I filled in a few details down at Mickey’s ears—the bed and breakfast on Mickey’s left ear, and a few houses at Mickey’s right ear, Mallard Cove. “Our friends Fanny Baumgarten and Evert Osgood live there,” I said.

  “Don’t forget Miss Rusty,” Dad said. He pointed to Evert’s house and told Truman about Evert’s basset hound, Miss Rusty.

  While we were on the subject of animals, I drew a barn adjacent to the B and B to indicate Oden Poquette’s farm, and told the kid about Rose and Ruby, Lake Elizabeth’s resident goats.

  Dad glanced over. “Do you like animals, Truman?”

  “Nots!” he answered, but Charlie wagged his tail anyway.

  ***

  The map completed, I looked up at my father. “Now what?”

  He rolled his eyes. “We color the map, of course.”

  Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  But of course we had no crayons. I rummaged around and found a few pens and markers and let the kid have at it.

  “You’re a good colorer,” I said as we watched him color the water with an orange highlighter.

  “The water’s reflecting the fall foliage, isn’t it?” Dad asked, but Truman was too busy coloring Oden Poquette’s barn blue to answer.

  He chose the fluorescent green highlighter for our house, and believe it or not, that was accurate. There’s a reason I call the place the Jolly Green Giant. Then he took the black pen and drew a black blob next to the green house.

  “Is that Charlie?” Dad asked.

  “Nots,” the kid answered. He scrunched up his face and concentrated on drawing a bigger black blob. “That’s Charlie,” he said, and the dog wagged his tail.

  ***

  I found my cell phone and took a few pictures of Truman’s masterpiece, and Dad taped it to the refrigerator. Then we took a tour of the house to show the child my mother’s masterpieces—her paintings that cover nearly all available wall space.

  A math teacher by profession, Mom spent the last year of her life painting pictures of flowers. She had zero artistic talent, but she more than made up for it with cheery colors. “To keep us Baxters smiling,” she told me back when I was ten.

  I pointed out my favorite. “We think that one’s supposed to be lilacs,” I said.

  “And doesn’t it look nice hanging over Cassie’s purple rocking chair?” Dad asked.

  I’m not sure what the kid thought, but we Baxters have a thing for bright colors. Mom painted pictures, I paint old furniture—mostly rocking chairs. Visitors probably think our color scheme is over the top, but hopefully the Victorian touches in the architecture give the place at least a little class.

  Dad pointed out the white marble mantel over the fireplace. “This house is over a hundred years old,” he told the little guy.

  “One hundred and one, two hundred and two—”

  We waited until he got back to six hundred and six before heading up to the second floor—my father’s territory.

  We peeked into each of Dad’s rooms and stepped out onto each of his three balconies. I found my cell phone and snapped some pics of everyone enjoying the Lake Bess scenery, then we moved up to the third floor, which in a perfect world is supposed to be my private domain.

  And in a perfect world my guest room would have been a little more little-boy friendly.

  I winced at the pink walls and lace curtains. “This is where you’ll be staying,” I said as cheerfully as possible.

  The kid frowned at the queen-size bed with its pink coverlet. “I’m not a girl.”

  “We’ll have your own things tomorrow,” I reminded him. “Things will be easier tomorrow.”

  About then, the FN451z decided to say hello.

  Dad, Charlie, and I didn’t even flinch, but Truman sure jumped.

  I patted his shoulder. “Remember, I told you about the FN and Mr. Mad Scientist?”

  “You shouldn’t call Joe a mad scientist,” Dad scolded, and the FN answered with a beep, burp, and chirp.

  Truman giggled and asked to meet the FN.

  “Soon,” I promised, and we headed toward my bedroom, positioned in the direct line of fire from the FN’s greetings.

  I think the child approved of the blue and green color scheme in my room a lot more than the pink and lilac. He reached out for the royal blue rocking chair beside my bed and rocked it in time with the FN’s general burping beat. Charlie made sure his tail was safe and sat down to watch.

  “Would you like to sit in the chair?” I asked.

  Truman shook his head no, but rocked the thing even faster.

  I took a few pictures, and we climbed the stairs to my turret—a glass-enclosed octagon with terrific views in all directions.

  Despite the noise level, the turret’s my favorite room in the house, and I use it as my study. On that particular day, I had exams and essays stacked in every corner, and evidently they’d been reproducing while they waited to be graded.

  Dad must have noticed also, and again asked about the plan for the following day.

  “He goes to school,” I whispered, and while Truman and Charlie were preoccupied running back and forth between the rocking chairs, my father and I discussed the logistics of facing Monday with a kindergartner.

  We agreed that I would drive Truman to Hilleville Elementary before I headed to work, and Dad promised to pick him up.

  “Things will be fine.” I tilted my head toward the child, who was now jumping up and down on the tallest pile of exams. “We’ll just keep him in his regular routine. The social worker told me to keep things as normal as possible.”

  Dad turned slowly and gave me one of his I am your father looks. “Normal has never been your middle name.”

  Chapter 5

  Dad clapped, and Truman and Charlie looked up from scattering papers. “Time for toys!”

  “We have no toys,” I said. “We don’t even have crayons.”

  “But we have the Lake Store,” Dad said.

  The Lake Store. Why didn’t I think of that?

  Of course the general store across the lake stocked toys. Proprietor Oliver Earle stocks a little bit of everything this side of the Hollow Galaxy.

  Dad suggested I get some grading done while everyone else walked down to the store, and I had gotten every exam back into its correct stack before I heard a familiar “Yoo-hoo!” coming from downstairs.

  “Anyone home?” Maxine Tibbitts called out.

  Oh, please. I guarantee my nosiest neighbor knew exactly who was and was not home. Between her fascination with me, the supposed local hero, and with my father, the cute as a button seventy-year old whom she has a huge crush on, Maxine makes a hobby of watching the comings and goings at the Jolly Green Giant.

  I was irritated as I started down the stairs, but by the time I reached the first floor, I’d reconsidered. Maxine could come in handy. No, really.

  “Maxine!” I smiled. “What a nice surprise!”

  She blinked her bulbous eyes. “It is?”

  “You’re just the person I wanted to see.”

  Another blink. “I am?”

  “Absolutely!” I gestured her toward the living room.

  “I was hoping we could have a nice chat,” she said as I sat her down on the couch. “Although you know I don’t like to pry.”

  I chose not to argue with that ridiculous claim and offered to make tea, but Maxine wasn’t interested in pussy-footing around.

  “The child.” She got right to the point. “Who is he? A relation?”

  “Umm, not exactly.” I took a deep breath and summarized the day’s events.

  Maxine stared aghast. “You kidnapped him?”

  “Nooo.” I waved both hands. “I’m just babysitting is all. Just for a little while.”

  She kept staring.

  “It’s completely legal,” I lied. “It was Sarah’s idea. Sarah Bliss knows the law, right? She knows what she’s doing.”

  Maxine’s scowl got scowlier. “And she asked you?” She pointed. “You. To take care of that child?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not much of a kid person, but it’s only temporary, right?”

  She pursed her lips. “I suppose Bobby can help.”

  “You can help, too.”

  She jumped. “No!” She waved her index finger at me.” “No, no, no, nooo. I cannot babysit. Absolutely not. I’m not a kid person either. Not, not, no—”

  “Maxine!” I interrupted. “Yes, you are.” I mentioned her weekly column in the Hanahan Herald, where she religiously reports every birthday, sports accomplishment, 4H award, and graduation of every single Elizabethan child. “You’re good with kids,” I insisted.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I write about kids, which is far different than hands on experience. Touching children?” Maxine shuddered. “I shudder at the thought.”

  “But Truman’s really cute.”

  She said she’d take my word for it and promised she’d be staying out of the way until my temporary guest disappeared.

  I smiled and sat forward. “And that’s where you can help.”

  ***

  Truman dropped two bags of toys onto the living room rug and plopped down. Charlie and my father plopped down also.

  “Wait until you see what we found,” Dad told me, but I could see what they found. The kid was wearing a new sweatshirt—fluorescent green with a picture of a loon on the front and a “I’m Looney for Lake Bess” logo on the back.

  “Da-aad,” I whined. “Did you have to buy him that sweatshirt?”

  “Truman picked it out. It’s just like the one you have.”

  No kidding. My version of that stupid sweatshirt played a huge role in the dead redhead-pajama incident.

  I enlightened my father that I had donated my sweatshirt to the second-hand store in Hilleville. “I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, girl. That sweatshirt would have been a collector’s item someday.”

  A collector’s item to remind everyone how I became the official Miss Looney Tunes of Vermont.

  “Speaking of collector’s items, look.” Dad picked up a toy spaceship from among the other junk. “I don’t know how I’ve missed it, but Oliver tells me it’s been gathering dust on top of the potato-chip rack for months.” Dad jiggled the toy at me. “It’s the Spaceship Destiny!”

  For the record, it was the spaceship from a classic 1960s TV show.

  I asked what else they’d found, but could see for myself—a toy dump truck and a cement truck, three little cars, a box of crayons, two coloring books—one of birds and one of fish, and a soft plush toy cow. Demonstrating his Vermont instincts, Truman held onto his Holstein with one hand while he tried out each toy car and truck, alternating between making vroom-vroom sounds and moo-moo sounds.

  Meanwhile the other kid on the carpet described the latest piece of the Chance Dooley puzzle—something involving flying cows.

  I didn’t quite follow, but Truman did. He jumped up with his cow to run—make that, fly—circles around me. I found my cell phone and snapped a few pictures.

  “Play with us, girl,” Dad said.

  Charlie nudged me, and I sat down cross-legged to search for something I might like.

  “A slinky!” I said. Charlie wagged his tail at my slinky tricks, and Truman’s cow, which Dad dubbed Cosmic Cow, landed on my head to watch before taking off for the kitchen.

  I ran my fingers through my mussed-up curls and pointed to the Spaceship Destiny. “So, like, why’s the cow flying and the spaceship just lying there?” I asked.

  Dad sighed. “You already know why.”

  I grimaced at Charlie. “The tracker thingamajig’s gone kaput.”

  “Poof!” Truman said as he and Cosmic Cow ran-slash-flew back to join us. They sat down to inspect the Spaceship Destiny, and Cow nudged the thing with her snout. Dad sighed again.

  “Why can’t Evadeen Deyo fix the Destiny?” I asked and reminded everyone that Chance Dooley’s girlfriend also happened to be a whiz-bang spaceship mechanic.

  “It’s not that simple,” Dad said.

  I winked at Charlie. “Why are we not surprised?”

  “Evadeen has almost fixed the problem.” Dad emphasized the almost. “But the intergalactic tracker gasket needs a full twenty-four hours to recalibrate before the Destiny can take flight.”

  “Calerate?” Truman asked.

  “Calibrate,” I corrected. “It means rewind.”

  Dad nodded. “So the Destiny is stuck on Flickle for the time being.”

  I scowled. “Flickle?”

  “It’s a planet,” Truman told me.

  Dad nodded again and explained that Chance could end up lost in space if the Destiny took off too soon. Charlie and I cringed at that idea, but Truman and Cosmic Cow didn’t have much sympathy and went for a few more laps over the coffee table.

  My father glanced overhead. “It’s rather unexpected, but what with the very limited gravity on Flickle, virtually every creature can fly.”

  “The flying cows of Flickle?” I asked. “That’s a little far-fetched even for you.”

  “Well then, you’ll be happy to know the flying cows of Flickle prefer to keep all four hoofs on solid ground. Unless of course, they’re being chased by the dreaded—” Dad grabbed the slinky “—the dreaded Twirly Twine Twister! Feared by herds throughout the Hollow Galaxy!”

  He leapt to his feet and chased Truman and Cosmic Cow three times around the coffee table and back into the kitchen.

  Charlie got so excited he actually barked.

  ***

  Cosmic Cow won the battle of the kitchen table, and my thoroughly demoralized father set the plain old ordinary slinky on the counter.

  “Time to make dinner,” he announced, and looked down at Truman. “Macaroni and cheese. Would you like to help?”

  Say what? What could the kid do? He couldn’t reach the stove, he couldn’t boil water for the macaroni, and the cheese grater was definitely off limits.

  But my father had a plan. He found the rolling pin and a box of saltines and told Truman he was in charge of cracker crumbs. “Cassie will show you,” he said. “She used to do this when she was your age.”

  She did?

  I had no such memory, but I spread a few crackers on a cutting board, and Truman did a great job making a mess.

  Charlie chased the clouds of crumbs flying through the air, and I wondered if that anti-gravity thing on Flickle had hit Planet Earth also. Eventually the crumbs settled on the floor with the spilled salt from earlier, and the dog rolled around in the mess before he and the kid ran back to the living room.

  I put vacuuming on my mental to-do list and rescued whatever crumbs had managed to stay on top of the table.

  “Now what?” I asked my father.

  He shook his head and put down the cheese he was grating, and took me by the hand into the living room. “It’s time to color.”

  Okay. Why not?

  I set the coloring books and crayons on the coffee table, Truman colored birds, I colored fish, and we somehow managed to stay occupied while Dad got the casserole in the oven. Then we went back to the Cosmic Cow-Twirly Twine Twister game.

  Make that, Dad and Truman went back to the dreaded Twirly Twine Twister. I had my own dreaded task to tackle.

  ***

  “Yoo-hoo? Anyone home?” I called out, and the FN451z burped a greeting from above.

  “Be right down,” Joe answered, but his face dropped when he saw me. “What’s Bobby done this time?”

  I scowled. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed him?”

  “Him-who?”

  I rolled my eyes, but why was I surprised? When he’s tinkering with the FN451z, Joe Wylie is oblivious to the outside world. The Spaceship Destiny could crash land on his roof, and he wouldn’t notice.

  I told him to sit down and filled him in on the latest, and what a shocker, he stared aghast.

  “Yeah, I know.” I took a deep breath. “I kidnapped him.”

  Joe stared some more. “No,” he said. “You did the right thing.”

  “I did?”

  “It’s Sarah who’s at fault. She chose you?” He pointed. “You?”

  “Why does that surprise everyone?”

  “Because you’re not comfortable with kids. I’ve seen the look of panic on your face every time a child tries to talk to you at Bingo.”

  Well. Yeah. But because of my supposed local-hero status, I’d somehow gotten myself volunteered as caller at the weekly Lake Bess Bingo game. Kids galore, every Wednesday night.

  “You’re scared of children,” Joe said, but then he claimed I’d do fine. “Bobby will help you, and I’ll help.”