Page 38 of Nanny for the Athletes

I went back inside the house to check on Claire. She was still sitting at the table where I had left her, tapping her fingers and looking bored.

“How much of your homework have you done?” I asked.

“Most of it,” she replied.

“Let me see.” I peered over her shoulder. “Claire. You were on this same page when I left you earlier. You haven’t done anything.”

“It’s hard,” she complained.

I sighed. “Maybe you can come help me with my job. Do you like dogs?”

“No,” she said emphatically.

“What do you like?”

“I don’t know.”

I gritted my teeth. Stubborn kids were more frustrating than stubborn dogs.

The task on the page was to copy a lowercase L repeatedly on five lines, then five more lines with the uppercase version. “You do know how to read and write. Right?”

Claire gave me a glare that would have made Logan proud. “Duh. I’m not a baby.”

“Then why haven’t you done this part yet?”

“I don’t know.”

I took her pencil. “Here. It’ssupereasy. You draw a lowercase L like this. See? It’s just a straight line!”

She squinted at the page in concentration. “Oh.”

“Now you try.”

She took the pencil and repeated the simple vertical motion.

“See? That was easy!”

“I guess.”

I glanced at my watch. I was even more behind schedule than before. “I need to get back to work. But I’ll come check your work soon. When I get back, I want you to have done this whole page, and the next page, too.”

Instead of agreeing, Claire said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Um. Sure.”

“Why is there so much old people stuff here?”

The bluntness of the question made me laugh. “This was my grandma’s house.”

“Where is she?”

I smiled sadly. “She passed away. Now it’s my house.”

“Oh.” Claire stared down at the table. She looked like she was going to cry.

“It’s okay!” I said. What was the best way to explain this to a child? “My grandma was lucky to live a nice, long life.”

Claire still said nothing.

---