Work Text:
"Do you have the day off from work?" Jane asked Mrs. Collins, the first time she got to ride home with Amber after school in her blue minivan. She thought it was a grown-up question to ask, but Amber made a face at her across the back seat, and Mrs. Collins gave a tinkly laugh.
"Being a mommy is my job, sweetie," Mrs. Collins said.
She told her own mother about it later, when she came to pick her up. Mom nodded seriously. "She's right, for some women just being a mom is a big job. And Amber has all those siblings."
Jane's mother was a doctor. A surgeon, Jane was proud to explain to other kids, not the kind of doctor who just gave you a checkup. Her father was a lawyer, but not the kind who kept criminals from having to go to jail. They were here parents, but that wasn’t their job.
Amber had a whole playroom, with toys organized into colorful bins and buckets. Amber had an older brother Michael and a little brother Nate, and a baby sister Rosie. Mrs. Collins baked fresh cookies for them at snack time. Once, she sat down to draw with them, and she drew such a good lion in the jungle it looked like it was out of a real story book. She roared at them, and chased them around the house pretending to be a lion until Baby Rosie had woken up and needed to be fed.
Amber always complained when Nate tried to play with them, but Jane prided herself on being patient with him, just like she’d be with her own little brother if she had one. Once he got so mad about something that he knocked down the building they were making and threw a block at them, and Amber was going to throw a block back but Jane made her stop, and she took him by the hand to Mrs. Collins and told her what had been happening. She had thanked Jane in a way that made her feel extra grown-up. She walked back to the playroom, wondering when she would be old enough that she could babysit for real, so she wasn’t paying close attention to what Mrs. Collins was saying to Nate. “If you throw blocks again, mommy will give you three-” and by then Jane was around the corner and didn’t quite hear the last word.
She kept thinking about it all that night and the next day. It gave her an itchy feeling in her brain. She almost asked Amber about it, but that made her stomach feel wormy, so she didn't. But the itch didn't quite go away.
That evening, when it was time for bed, she fished one of her old Berenstain Bears books out of the corner of her shelves. "We haven't read these books in a long time," she said to her father.
He read over the name: The Berenstain Bears and the Bully. "Is someone bothering you at school, honey?" her father asked her, looking worried.
She shook her head. "I just wanted to read it."
Nodding uncertainly, Dad read the book to her instead of the chapter book they'd been working on. And Jane found herself holding her breath when he got to the ending and read the words she knew would be there.
"'If the principal tells my mom and dad about this,' said Tuffy," read Dad, "'I won't be able to sit down for a – well, a long time.' Hmm, thought Sister. Here's a cub who maybe gets hit a lot at home. Maybe that's why she likes to hit other cubs at school."
Jane watched Dad's face carefully as he read. He frowned a little, and looked over at Jane to make sure she was okay. "Some grownups do hit kids when they get angry," he explained to her. "People used to think it was acceptable."
Jane's tummy felt wormy again, and she felt like she had a lot of questions but couldn’t think of how to ask them, so she ended up just asking "But not anymore?"
"We know it's wrong to hit anyone," Dad said. "But some grownups can't control their temper. Just like some kids, right?"
Jane nodded, and Dad finished the last couple pages of the book. "You sure nobody's being a bully at school?" he asked again. "It's good that Sister stood up for herself, but remember, if something like that happens to you, tell a grownup, okay? Because hitting is wrong."
Mrs. Collins hadn’t sounded mad at all. She must have just heard wrong at Amber's house, she decided.
At the store, Jane pointed out the Doctor Barbie to Dad. "She's just like Mom, and she doesn't even have any outfits," she begged, even though she knew that a Barbie without outfits wouldn't actually be much fun.
"Sorry, Janey," Dad said. "You know how your mom feels about Barbies."
When Jane found out that Amber had gotten a Barbie and a whole set of outfits for Christmas, she was so mad about it she yelled at her mother and got grounded from going to Amber's house that week. But then on Sunday, Mom turned the car left instead of right on the way to the library, and Jane found herself looking up at the Toys R Us giraffe.
"One Barbie, kiddo," Mom said wryly. "If that's what you really want."
The astronaut Barbie wasn't her favorite, but it was still a Barbie, and it earned a nod of approval from Mom when she picked it.
Jane and Amber planned their Barbie playdate for days. Monday was Jane's night at Grandma's while her parents worked, and Tuesday Amber had ballet. On Wednesday, Jane buried Astronaut Barbie deep in her backpack to keep her safe all day at school until they got to Amber's house.
"My Barbie is the real Barbie since she has a dress," Amber said in the car on the way to her house, raising her voice to be heard over Baby Rosie's crying. "Yours can have a different name."
"Her name can be Sally," Jane said. She had already thought about that, and Mom had told her there was a real girl astronaut named Sally.
Baby Rosie kept crying even when they got to Amber's house, but in the playroom she wasn't so loud. Sally was just about to blast of for Mars to look for treasure when Mrs. Collins came in with Nate.
"Girls," she said, squatting down to eye level with them. "Baby Rosie isn't feeling well, and she needs all my attention. Can you help me and let Nate play with you?"
Jane was torn. Here was a grownup asking her for help – asking her to babysit! But she knew Nate wouldn’t do a good job playing Barbies with them. "Okay," she nodded reluctantly. "Here, Nate, you can be a Martian," she suggested, offering him a stuffed dog that towered over the Barbies.
But he couldn't be a Martian; he couldn't play with them at all. He just wanted to run around, and kept grabbing the Barbies, and even tried to put Jane's in his mouth.
"I have an idea," Amber said at last, after Jane huffed in frustration again. "Nate, do you want to play hide and seek? Jane, you can count!"
Jane found herself smirking as she closed her eyes and counted loudly. She heard the footsteps of Amber and Nate leaving the playroom.
"Ready or not, here I come!" she called out. As soon as she peeked into the living room, Amber came out from under a chair, a finger to her lips.
"Shh," she said, and both girls giggled as they went back to the playroom, and the Barbies.
Astronaut Barbie was just about to be rewarded with a dress for her bravery when the playroom door opened again. Mrs. Collins was standing there. Her face was stony, and Nate was holding her hand, sniffling and looking sad.
"Girls," Mrs. Collins asked, not sounding as angry as she looked. "Did you tell Nate you would play hide and seek with him and then not come looking for him?"
Jane hung her head, all at once ashamed even as Amber let out a whiny "Noo!"
Mrs. Collins squatted back down to eye level with them. "I am very disappointed," she said, and now she did sound mad. "That was very cruel and very irresponsible. And Amber Marie, you deliberately disobeyed me. Jane, I think your mother needs to come take you home now. Amber, go to your room."
Jane shamefacedly followed Mrs. Collins to the kitchen. Usually the kitchen table was a comfy place to have cookies, but there were no cookies today, and Jane sat and fidgeted while Mrs. Collins picked up the receiver and dialled and asked for Mrs. Green, which Jane new was double wrong.
"It's about her daughter- no, it's not an emergency," Mrs. Collins said in a clipped voice. "I see."
She angrily flipped through a small notebook, then dialed another number and this time asked for Mr. Green, and Jane heard her father's voice on the line through the phone. Jane fidgeted harder as Mrs. Collins told him what had happened.
"Your father is coming to pick you up," she said to Jane at last as she hung up the phone.
"I'm really sorry," Jane said. She realized she should have said that sooner.
"You should be," said Mrs. Collins, sounding a bit mollified. "I thought you knew better, Jane. I want you to be a good influence on Amber."
Jane nodded. She hated being in trouble, but Mrs. Collins seemed less mad now. The rhythm was familiar from her house too. Grownups got angry, but then they calmed down, and you talked about how you would do better, and they praised you. She watched as Mrs. Collins walked over to the counter and pulled out one of her wooden baking spoons.
"Are you going to bake cookies?" Jane asked, perking up. That would be the perfect way to end a bad afternoon.
Mrs. Collins gave her a look. "No," she said. "I'm going to give Amber a spanking. You wait right there, your father will be here soon."
Jane felt the worms in her tummy all at once. She felt her brain itch. She wanted to cover her ears and listen at the door and run away and go save Amber all at the same time, and she did none of those, she just sat there, she couldn't move.
Eventually Mrs. Collins came back, and put the spoon in the sink with a clatter that kept ringing in Jane's ears when her father finally arrived, and for the whole drive home.
When they got there, Jane found herself stuck to the brick walkway up to her front door, which suddenly loomed in the early night.
"What is it, Janey?" Dad asked with a sigh.
"Are you-" she started to ask, but the words stuck in her throat. Maybe if she asked, it would give him the idea. Maybe saying the word would make it happen.
"Am I what?" he asked, impatiently.
From her room later Jane could hear Dad on the phone. He was using his Work Voice, and she heard 'violence,' and 'unacceptable,' and 'in front of my child' loudest of all. The rest of the evening Mom and Dad seemed angry, but not at her, which just made Jane feel more confused. She had left her Barbie at Amber’s house, but she knew she shouldn’t ask about getting it back.
She worried all during the drive to school the next day. Had Amber needed to go to the hospital? She knew that sometimes kids went to the hospital from their parents hurting them. Would Amber be a bully when she got back?
But Amber was there, and she acted the same as always. Jane watched her carefully, and she didn't even seem to have any trouble sitting down. It was enough to make Jane almost wonder if she had imagined the whole thing.
"My mom says your parents said you can't come over anymore," Amber said suddenly when they went out for second recess.
"Oh," said Jane. Her tummy felt wormy again. "Yeah," she added, even though she hadn't known that. "We can still play at school, right?" she said, half asking and half telling.
"Of course!" Amber said. "We're still best friends!"
But the next Wednesday, Jessica Mariano went over to Amber's house while Jane had to go to Dad's office and color with Claire the paralegal, which wasn't as much fun even though Dad got them burgers on the way home, and on Thursday Amber and Jessica were still laughing together about something silly that they had said the day before. And at the end of the year, Jane and her family had to move to Massachusetts for her mom's fellowship, and she knew she wouldn't see Amber again. And she never did get her Astronaut Barbie back.