The Babysitter Murders - By Janet Ruth Young Page 0,3

Dani thinks.

Make this thought go away!

But instead, more details flood into her mind. How his briefs are probably worn thin too. That’s two icky layers of thin material. How his scrotum would feel making contact with her hand.

Revolting. And the worst thing: Mr. Gabler’s reaction. How shocked he would be. How shocked that she would do something like that, when he thought she was a worthwhile and valuable member of the group. Her image of his expression is so detailed that it seems real. Dani has to look at her hands to make sure they’re not touching Mr. Gabler.

But he’s okay. Nothing has happened.

“Dani,” Gabler says in his usual way. “You with us?”

Dani nods and sings louder. Her left palm tingles as if it’s had contact with Gabler’s privates. When Gabler turns to the baritones, Dani rubs her hands together. It seemed so real. Did I really touch him? she wonders. But no one looks shocked. No one yells or stares or reacts. While Dani tries to focus on the music, her imagination keeps running ahead. Now it fills in all the reactions of her group mates. Meghan, Shelley, Gordon—what would they think? I guess she not getting that solo. I guess she’s not my friend anymore.

Well, she’s kinda cute, but I guess she’s plain crazy.

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T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S

Dani closes her eyes for a minute. She feels panicky. Maybe she’ll have to drop out of Hawtones. She doesn’t know how she can keep coming to practice if Mr. Gabler’s VPL continues to show.

She brushes her left hand against her skirt.

“Hey, Shell,” Dani asks after class, “did I seem . . . weird in there? Was I acting unusual?”

“Weird and unusual how?”

“Well . . .” What can I say? “Did I seem to interact, like, oddly with Mr. Gabler? Or did I move differently?”

“You closed your eyes when Gordy was massaging you. You turned red a few times. So no, nothing unusual for you. If you didn’t turn into a goofball around Gordy, that would be unusual.”

“My knees felt rubbery right then,” Dani says. “I could hardly stand up.”

“Will you try for that lead?” Shelley asks.

“Not if Meghan wants it.”

“What Meghan wants,” Shelley responds, “Meghan gets. And that’s the way it should be.” She sticks “Old Cape Cod” into her backpack as they head to lunch.

11

4

Kinda cute. That was how Malcolm Pinto would describe Dani and her pal. Dani is a little too tall, a little too athletic, a little too everything, and that a cappella crowd is too smiley and sunshiney, as if an enema of Tang, Gummi Bear vitamins, and major chords has been shoved up their butts.

But getting back to Dani. She has a long, tall tennis build—

square shoulders from walloping those serves, no hips, and in between a stretched-out triangle. The only thing that saves Dani from seeming like a rich bitch is that everything touching her seems like it’s been hung in the sun on a really bright day. Her clothes look brighter and whiter than anyone else’s, like the outfit she has on now, a pink hoodie over a white ribbed tank top and a faded denim skirt. The bits of jewelry she wears are made of string or rope, as if she made them from scraps on the deck of a sailboat. Her hair is reddish blond (Malcolm’s dad, who likes to help Malcolm evaluate the looks of the various high school girls, corrected him once by saying “strawberry blond,” savoring the term as if he was reading something nice off a menu) with pale gold glimmers that are probably natural. She’s hot, but her hotness is combined with another term. He hates to say it: She’s merry.

Shelley is cute too, in a smaller, darker way. She has the sparkpluggy, power-at-the-core type of tennis build, and she T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S

wears simple clothes like polo shirts and bandannas and high-top sneakers. “That’s a baby dyke if I’ve ever seen one,” Malcolm’s dad, Michael Pinto, said when Malcolm pointed her out. Malcolm had felt admiration for his dad, who, because of his police work, not only knew what went on in the world, but had a shorthand term for any situation you could come across. “Nothing new under the sun, my boy,” he would say. “Nothing your old man hasn’t seen before.”

Malcolm takes