After I took a good long look in the mirror at the two new accessories attached to my upper torso, I decided I could pass for twenty. Sloane said that I was being absurd and that the oldest I could pass for was fifteen. I stood cupping my new breasts, thinking it would probably be best to keep these robust treasures under wraps while I got to know them. So I opted for the babysitting ring and decided I would be sixteen.

Once the decision had been made, I took out the phone book and called every hotel and home rental agency on the island. I left my phone number and told them to direct any guests who needed childcare services my way. The next hurdle was a place to hide all the income I’d be bringing in. I hopped on my ten speed and rode to the hardware store, where I bought myself a safe.

“No one is going to call you back,” Sloane told me. “It’s a stupid idea and you’re not going to make any money. You’re certainly not going to need a safe.”

“Sloane,” I told her, “you either grab life by the balls or you can ride in the back of one of Dad’s cars for the rest of your life. With an attitude like that, you’re going to end up becoming the general manager of a bowling alley.”

Within the first week I received ten calls. By the end of my second week on the Vineyard, every night was booked for the next two weeks. I couldn’t believe what a genius I was. Every day and night was packed with a different client, and business was booming. This was a dream come true, and before long Sloane was begging to get in on the action. I would give her clients only if I was overbooked, and insisted she pay me a two-dollar commission per hour. She resisted, of course, but I maintained a level of professionalism through and through. I simply couldn’t cut her a break just because she was my sister. “What would my other employees think?” I asked Sloane.

“You don’t have any other employees,” she reminded me.

“Not the point,” I told her.

By mid-July, I had seven hundred dollars saved. Word was spreading like a forest fire, and I actually enjoyed the work. I had a couple of regular clients who were on the island all summer, but most of my clients were only in town for a couple of days or up to a week. Most of the kids were pretty good, and if they weren’t, I would just put them to bed as soon as their parents left. I preferred babies since they couldn’t talk and tell their parents that I’d spent half the night on the phone talking to my best friend, Jodi, in New Jersey, and the other half of the night going through their personal items.

If the children were annoying, I would play hide-and-seek with them. They would hide, and I would make myself a sandwich or an ice-cream sundae.

If the parents had unreasonable expectations, I’d have a sit-down with them and give it to them straight. “Listen, Melinda,” I told a mother who insisted I take her six-month-old daughter to swimming classes twice a week. “Are you trying to kill your baby? She can’t do that yet. She’s not a salmon.”

One day I got a phone call from a woman named Susan who was renting a house in town. She had two sons.

“My oldest is fourteen and my youngest is seventy-two months,” she informed me.

While I sat perplexed trying to figure out what seventy-two months added up to, I decided to focus on the bigger issue at hand.

“Fourteen?” I asked. Who hires a babysitter for a fourteen-year-old? I wondered if he was retarded. “Is he retarded?” I asked.

“No, he’s not retarded,” the woman replied, sounding a little shocked. “He’s just a little hyper, but he’s a good boy. It’s more to have someone else there who can be in charge of my youngest, Kyle.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, as I took a bite out of the apple I was holding and kicked my feet up on the sofa. “Well, I charge ten dollars an hour for two kids.”

She said that sounded reasonable, and we set a time for the next evening.

“Who was that?” Sloane asked as I hung up the phone.

“A client,” I told her. “I have to babysit for a fourteen-year-old tomorrow.”

“You can’t babysit for a fourteen-year-old,” Sloane told me.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re twelve, that’s why!”

“They don’t know how old I am,” I said, as I polished off my apple and penciled my new client into my Filofax.

“Chelsea, you can’t babysit for someone who is two years older than you,” Sloane said.

“Girls mature faster than boys,” I reminded her. “It’ll be fine.”

The next night my father dropped me off at Susan’s house. He was impressed with my work ethic and business sense. “You’ve really shown a strong sense of self, Chels. I’m proud of you,” my father told me.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said as I hopped out of the car. “If you need to borrow any cash, I’m sure we can work something out at a moderate interest rate.”

I walked up the steps and peered through the screen door. “Hello,” I said. Susan came running to the door, carrying her seventy-two-month-old son on her hip.

“Oh, Chelsea, it’s so lovely to meet you.” She was harried and it didn’t take long to figure out that she was completely unstable. “This is Kyle,” she said in baby talk as she introduced me to the kid she was holding like a baby kangaroo. “Can you say hello to Chelsea?” she asked him as she took the pacifier out of his six-year-old mouth.

“Hi,” he said shyly, and then nuzzled his head into Susan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go in and meet James.”

James was her fourteen-year-old and I half expected him to be in a crib, but instead he was sitting on the living room floor playing Nintendo. I sized him up and figured we were about the same size, although it looked like he had a bit more lean muscle mass than I did, which would give him the advantage if it came down to a tug-of-war.

“He loves those video games,” she said, shaking her head.

“Kids,” I said, shaking my head in unison. I wanted Susan to think we were totally in sync, even though it was becoming very obvious that Susan needed to be under psychiatric supervision. I followed her to the kitchen, where she had three pages of telephone numbers listed in case of an emergency. At the very top of the list in bold print was: any sort of emergency: dial 911.

Then it went on to list every family member still alive, including a few relatives she had in Russia. I tried to picture myself calling overseas to Moscow if and when Kyle hanged himself. I couldn’t believe someone like Susan would allow a complete stranger to babysit her children.

“I know this is a bit extensive but I just wanted to cover all bases.”

“Hello, I’m James Sr.,” her husband said meekly as he walked into the kitchen. He looked like a battered wife with his head hung low and his terrible posture. I immediately felt sorry for him.

Susan and I spent the next forty-five minutes going over the boys’ routines. “Their pajamas are already laid out. Kyle goes down at seven thirty and James can stay up till nine o’clock and watch a show. Both can have some frozen yogurt after dinner but only the sugar-free kind. There is a tub of vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream in the freezer for James Sr. The children are not allowed to have that.” Then she leaned in and whispered, “James Jr. is a sugar addict.”

“Does he go to meetings?” I asked her.

“He can be very moody. We try and stabilize his blood sugar level, and if he’s on his best behavior, he can have one or two spoonfuls of regular ice cream, but anything more than that and he tends to get carried away.”

I wanted to tell Susan that the reason James Jr. probably got carried away was because he was living in the equivalent of a state penitentiary, and that she was doing far more damage than good to these children by treating them like they were both infants.

After weeks of childcare over the summer, it became obvious that the best contribution I could make to the world would be to open up my very own day-care/night-care center. Clearly I knew more about child-rearing than most of the parents I had encountered. Sugar addict? Who isn’t a sugar addict when they’re fourteen? I, of course, couldn’t speak for myself at the time, being only twelve.