Lulu's Mysterious Mission Read online

  “You won’t be going anywhere by yourself,” said Ms. Solinsky. “I promised your folks I’d watch over you, and I will. And since this morning’s escapade, I will be watching over you very carefully.” She then explained what “very carefully” meant:

  “It means that I will be going with you to your trombone lesson today and to the front door of your school to drop you off and pick you up every day next week, as well as to the bathroom every night when you take a bath, as well as to your dog-walking job on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lulu. “Will you also be going along with me when I throw up your delicious bean-and-beet omelet?”

  “I am not amused,” said Ms. Solinsky.

  “Me either,” Lulu said to her, heading out the door with her trombone and—of course!—Ms. Solinsky. And shortly thereafter the two of them were standing outside the house of—I’ll explain this to you in a second—Harry Potter.

  So let me explain.

  Harry Potter, to everyone’s bemusement and confusement, is Lulu’s trombone teacher’s actual name, which forces him to have to reply, whenever he meets someone new, “Sorry. No. Not Harry Potter, boy wizard. The other Harry Potter, trombone teacher.” He also, much too often, has to put up with all kinds of incredibly stupid jokes about spells and potions and wands and flying broomsticks. It makes me kind of wonder, since I am the person writing this story, if maybe I should have found him a different name. But though I’m the first to admit that this might have saved him a lot of trouble, sometimes a writer has to make tough choices.

  By this time, Harry Potter had opened his door and invited Lulu and Ms. Solinsky to come inside and have a seat in the living room. “There’s something I need to take care of,” he told them, “so make yourselves at home. I’ll be ready for you in just a couple of minutes.”

  Ms. Solinsky—her posture perfect; her mouth in a stern, straight line—sat down at one end of Harry Potter’s couch. Lulu—chin on the palms of her hands, and elbows on her knees—sat far down on the other end of the couch. A clock ticked loudly in the unfriendly silence.

  All of a sudden, Ms. Solinsky leaped up off the couch. She was coughing and sneezing and gasping and wheezing! And coughing and sneezing and gasping and wheezing! Then coughing and sneezing and gasping and wheezing some more!

  “Cats! There must be cats in this house!” she said in a croaky voice, rubbing her now bright-pink and watery eyes. And just as she spoke, Harry Potter returned, saying apologetically, “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I really had to feed my hungry cats.”

  “To which,” Ms. Solinsky announced, dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes, “I’m sorry to say I am seriously allergic.”

  “But,” Lulu asked, displaying (I’m sorry to say) a most unfortunate absence of sympathy, “weren’t you bragging just yesterday that—and I’m quoting directly— ‘I never catch anything?’ ”

  “An allergy,” Ms. Solinsky said in the iciest of voices, “is something that you have, not something you catch.” She then explained that in order to keep her allergy from getting much, much worse, she would need to wait for Lulu outside the house.

  “But RIGHT outside the house,” she told Harry Potter. “Ready to take charge of her the instant that her trombone lesson is done.”

  “We’ll see who’s taking charge here,” Lulu said—but just to herself. And then, but just to herself, she chanted:

  And then, but just to herself, she said, “And now I know what to do to get her going!”

  Lulu made a lot of mistakes during her trombone lesson because her brain was busy with her new plan. And as soon as her lesson was done and she was back upstairs in her room, she sent out messages by e-mail and cell phone.

  All the messages said the same thing.

  All of them were sent to Lulu’s friend Mabel.

  Do you remember Mabel? Of course you don’t. Neither do I. But I am about to. And right now the most important thing that all of us need to remember about Mabel is that she is the owner of two cats. Because Mabel plus Two Cats equals Plan C.

  Which is why each of Lulu’s messages was marked top secret and said: “Bring your cats to my house right now for a sleepover,” though some of them said it like this: “Top ckret—brng ur katz 2 my hse rite now 4 a sleepovr.”

  While Lulu waited for Mabel she chanted her chant and, in between verses, pondered three questions.

  Eeny meeny miney mo, That babysitter’s got to go.

  Q: How long would it take two cats that had been secretly stashed in Ms. Solinsky’s bedroom to make her start coughing and sneezing and gasping and wheezing?

  Hot or cold or sun or snow, That babysitter’s got to go.

  Q: How long would it take for her allergy to go from serious to much, much worse?

  Soon, not later; fast, not slow, That babysitter’s got to go.

  Q: And how long before she had to telephone Lulu’s mom and her dad to say, “Cats! I can’t live with cats! Your daughter’s attacking me with cats! You need to get on the next plane and come home”?

  Up and down and to and fro, That babysitter’s got to go.

  Less than ten minutes after Lulu had sent out her urgent messages, she looked out her bedroom window and there was Mabel. She was pumping sturdily down the street and balancing in the basket of her bike something craftily covered up by a blanket. That covered-up something, Lulu was sure, was the carrier people use when they take a pet on a plane or to a sleepover.

  Mabel was a girl who could be counted on to understand “top secret.”

  Lulu rushed down the stairs and was heading out the front door to meet Mabel when she heard a voice roaring somewhere overhead, “Halt! Stop! Cease and desist! Don’t move! Hold it right there!”

  Lulu halted.

  But then the voice continued, “Listen up, Mabel. This means you. Halt or you will be under arrest for trespassing.”

  Lulu ran outside and looked around for Ms. Solinsky, whose voice (as all of us know, of course) it was. But the sitter was nowhere in sight until another “Cease and desist” made Lulu look upward. And there, her combat boots firmly planted on the roof of the house and her loud voice made louder by a megaphone, was Sonia Sofia Solinsky, her medals gleaming in the afternoon sun.

  And there, just beyond Lulu’s driveway, was the usually super-cool Mabel, off her bike and stuttering, “But . . . but . . . but . . . but . . .”

  “Time to leave now,” said Ms. Solinsky to an astounded Mabel. “Trespassing is a criminal offense.”

  “Mabel isn’t trespassing. I invited her. She’s visiting me,” said Lulu. “What is your problem?”

  “No problem,” said Ms. Solinsky, “because I know from your top secret messages that Mabel has been invited to come with her cats. And since I’m severely allergic to cats, she and they will have to leave. Immediately.”

  Mabel, cool girl though she was, was feeling alarmed at the possibility of maybe going to prison for criminal trespassing. “Sorry, Lulu!” she shouted, and then, accompanied by meowing sounds from her basket, she jumped on her bike and swiftly pedaled away.

  When Ms. Solinsky came down from the roof, Lulu indignantly asked her, “How did you know that Mabel was bringing cats? How did you know what I wrote in my top secret messages? How did you ever find out what I was doing in the privacy of my own bedroom?”

  “I have my ways,” Ms. Solinsky replied. “I am a trained professional. Which is why I’m hired by parents all over town—maybe the world—to babysit their especially difficult children.”

  Lulu, more indignant than ever, glared at Ms. Solinsky. “Are you telling me that my mom and my dad think that I’m an especially difficult—”

  “I’m not,” Ms. Solinsky broke in, “telling you anything. I’m merely pointing out that, thanks to my training, I’m able to know when a person is not really sick, or is planning to climb out a window and go into hiding, or is writing top secret messages, which—thanks to my training—I’m abl
e to read immediately.”

  Lulu moved on from indignant to outraged. “Isn’t it rude,” she demanded, “to read messages that haven’t been sent to you?”

  “Not as rude as bringing in cats when a person’s allergic to cats,” replied Ms. Solinsky.

  After which the two of them had nothing whatsoever to say till Lulu’s bedtime.

  You might imagine that Lulu, getting ready to go to bed, was feeling discouraged. Wrong! Lulu is not a girl who discourages easily, in spite of the fact that her sick plan, her hide plan, her bring-in-the cats-plan—all of them!—had failed. No, Lulu was not discouraged. She was . . . thinking.

  She was thinking that she had just finished spending a whole, entire, totally bossed-around Saturday in the company of Sonia Sofia Solinsky. And THAT WAS ENOUGH. THAT WAS MORE THAN ENOUGH! She promised herself that by the end of Sunday, she was absolutely, positively, utterly, no doubt about it getting this babysitter out of her life.

  Lulu lay in bed thinking, and chanting her chant:

  Lulu tossed and turned in her bed—thinking, chanting, thinking, chanting—and then she smiled a wide and wicked smile. She had another plan (and yes, I know that it’s her fourth plan, Plan D), but this was the one she was certain was going to work. For tomorrow Lulu intended to teach Ms. Sonia Sofia Solinsky the true meaning of an especially difficult child.

  On Sunday morning Ms. Solinsky awakened Lulu early, telling her to get ready for another brisk run and another bean-and-beet omelet. Lulu leaped out of bed and rushed around the room to get ready, but NOT for another brisk run and horrid omelet.

  The first thing she did—and this took enormous effort—was to push her dresser against her bedroom door, wedging it under the doorknob to make it hard, almost impossible, for Ms. Sonia Sofia Solinsky to come in.

  Next she turned on her stereo and television set, raising the volume as loudly as it would go, and joining in, just as loudly, with some truly terrible tunes on her trombone. (Lulu wasn’t all that great at playing the trombone; she made it sound like a hippo with a stomachache—but I’d rather you didn’t tell her that I said so.) She finally, very carefully, put earplugs in her ears, and waited for the pounding at the door.

  It didn’t take long at all for Ms. Solinsky to be pounding at the door.

  “Turn off that noise,” she commanded, “and open up—now!”

  But although she spoke and pounded so loudly that Lulu could hear her in spite of the noise and the earplugs, Lulu sweetly answered, “Sorry, can’t hear you.”

  Ms. Solinsky kept pounding and pushing at Lulu’s bedroom door, demanding, “Turn off that noise and open up!”

  Lulu kept sweetly repeating, “Sorry, can’t hear you.”

  Then Ms. Solinsky used both of her fists to pound against the door, yelling, “Turn off that noise and open up!”

  Once again Lulu replied, “Sorry, can’t hear you.”

  Then Ms. Solinsky raised one of her feet (remember those heavy combat boots?) and aimed a mighty kick at Lulu’s door, roaring as she kicked (and roaring’s much louder than either commanding, demanding, or yelling), “TURN OFF THAT NOISE AND OPEN UP RIGHT NOW!”

  And Lulu, just as sweetly as before, once again replied, “Sorry, can’t hear you.”

  Next came a long and what some might call a terrifying pause. Then Ms. Solinsky bellowed (which is even louder than roaring), “DON’T YOU DARE SAY SORRY TO ME. I KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR ME. SO NOW HEAR THIS: I AM COMING IN!”

  The next thing Lulu heard was Ms. Solinsky running to the end of the hall and then running back—full speed—toward her bedroom door. And the next thing Lulu saw was Ms. Solinsky crashing through that heavy door and knocking down the dresser blocking the door. Once past all these obstacles, she turned off Lulu’s loud stereo and TV, after which she put her combat boots to use again by stomping Lulu’s trombone into dust.

  There were broken bits of door and dresser all over Lulu’s bedroom. A lampshade was crushed; a chair was minus one arm; the trombone was ruined, of course; and some green gooey glop, which used to be Lulu’s science experiment, had dribbled out of its jar and now was stickily, stinkily splattered on the rug. Lulu studied the mess in her room and smiled a very big, very satisfied smile. Because, strange as it may seem to you, things were going exactly as she had planned.

  As you’ve probably already noticed, we’re more than halfway through this story, and I still haven’t mentioned Lulu’s Mysterious Mission. But before you start complaining, kindly keep in mind that I warned you that I might not. On the other hand, I also said that maybe—just maybe—I might, and I still might. So calm down.

  As Lulu and Ms. Solinsky stared at each other across the wreckage of the room, Lulu began to chant her little chant:

  This time, however, Lulu didn’t bother to chant her chant secretly—under her breath, to herself, or alone in her bed. Instead, she chanted it loudly and outrageously and shamelessly, while standing face to face with Ms. Solinsky.

  Who was not amused.

  “You are,” she told Lulu, “an impudent, insolent, insubordinate child! Impossible! Incorrigible! Insufferable!”

  “I’m not quite sure what all those words mean,” said Lulu to Ms. Solinsky. “Why don’t you give me a minute to look them up?”

  “I am not amused,” said Ms. Solinsky.

  “But you are in trouble,” said Lulu. “In really big trouble. I’m taking pictures”—and that’s what (click, click, click) she started doing—“of how you completely and totally wrecked my room. And”—(click, click, click)—“I’m ready to send them, right this minute, to my mom and my dad.”

  “And why would you do that?” asked Ms. Solinsky.

  “Because when they see what you’ve done to my room,” said Lulu, “I’m sure they’ll be flying back home on the very next plane.”

  (Well, what do you know?! Just as you maybe suspected! This was Lulu’s Plan D, and it has worked!)

  “I did what had to be done,” Ms. Solinsky told Lulu. “I make no apologies. That’s what it means to be a trained professional.”

  “But that’s probably not what it means to be,” Lulu said, “and I’m quoting directly, ‘the best babysitter in town—maybe the world.’ ”

  “Let me say once again that I make no apologies,” Ms. Solinsky told Lulu. “But clearly my training to be a babysitter wasn’t nearly as exhaustive or effective as my training to be a spy.”

  WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHAT WAS THAT ? WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THAT  ? WHAT DID MS. SOLINSKY JUST SAY?

  “Excuse me,” gasped an astonished, astounded, amazed, and goggle-eyed Lulu. “Did you just say ‘spy’?”

  “I did,” Ms. Solinsky reluctantly replied. “I never should have said it—that was a terrible breach of security—but I did.”

  “You personally were trained to be a spy?” asked a stupefied Lulu.

  “Trained and served as a spy,” said Ms. Solinsky loudly and proudly—she was clearly enjoying Lulu’s adoring attention. “Code name Triple S.”

  (Another security breach—but never mind.)

  CODE NAME? SHE HAD A CODE NAME? TRIPLE S WAS HER CODE NAME? LULU LOVED IT.

  “So wait,” Lulu said. “You trained and served as a spy and now you’re . . .”

  “A former spy. A retired spy. And, at present, a full-time babysitter whose specialty, you may recall, is babysitting especially difficult children.”

  The especially-difficult-children stuff should have made Lulu angry all over again. Except she was way too thrilled about the spy stuff.

  She stood there, saying nothing, but her brain was churning, churning. After which it churned and churned some more. After which came the following conversation:

  Lulu: “A former spy. A retired spy. Not a spy anymore. But it sounds like you still remember how to do it.”

  Ms. Solinsky: “Of course I remember. Once a spy, always a spy.”

  Lulu: “And did you—may I call you Triple S?—did you, Triple S, have lots and lots of amazing s
py adventures?”

  Ms. Solinsky: “Amazing AND successful. In fact, I was so good at my work that I wound up being named Head of All Spy Training.”

  A spy so good that she was a trainer of spies! Lulu was so excited she hardly could breathe. She pressed a hand against her chest to calm her pounding heart and then asked the question that she was burning to ask.

  “Would you, could you, please, dear Triple S”—did she just say dear?—“would you stay here and train me to be a spy?”

  Train her to be a spy? Lulu wanted spy training from the very exact same woman about whom she’d repeatedly been chanting those most exceptionally unfriendly chants?

  Ms. Solinsky looked long and coldly at Lulu. “Excuse me,” she said, “but what’s happened to all those cute little eeny meeny miney mos? What’s happened to those photographs you were sending to your parents to get them to fly back home on the very next plane? Weren’t you only recently trying all kinds of fiendish tricks to get me to go? And now, all of a sudden, you want me to stay?”

  Lulu hung her head. She was actually embarrassed. But Lulu being Lulu, she only stayed embarrassed for a few seconds.

  “It’s true,” she told Ms. Solinsky, “that I wanted you—the babysitter—to go. But I definitely want you—the spy—to stay. I just this minute decided that I want to be a spy when I grow up. And you are the perfect person to teach me how.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” asked Ms. Solinsky.

  “Because I really want you to,” answered Lulu.

  “That’s IT?” said Ms. Solinsky. “Because you WANT me to? Do you usually get what you want just because you WANT it?”