Dylan shoulders his backpack and gets off the school bus, walking up the sidewalk. He scuffs his boots moodily against the pavement with every step as if lifting his feet is too much bother. He is thirteen, almost fourteen, and after more than a year as a latchkey kid, his parents now send him to a babysitter after school again.
“A babysitter,” he thinks angrily, “just like a little kid!” It’s the same sulky walk and moody thoughts he has every day on the way to the sitter’s after school. And just like every other day, he glances around surreptitiously for anyone who might see. “Nobody better see me going to the stupid babysitter’s.”
Dylan resents having to go to a babysitter’s house after school. It’s embarrassing.
“Nobody my age has a babysitter.”
He arrives at the sitter’s house, Mrs. Foster. With a last look around to make sure nobody is around, a noncommittal shrug, and an I don’t care slouch, he scuffs his boots up the sidewalk to the back door on the side of the house.
Dylan pauses at the door, pushing away the urge to knock. Mrs. Foster said to not bother knocking and to just walk in, but it still feels weird to just walk into someone else’s house. He opens the door and goes in.
“Mrs. Foster, I’m here,” he calls out, kicking his boots off and slouching out of his backpack and coat.
“I’m downstairs doing laundry,” Mrs. Foster calls back. “Help yourself to a snack if you’re hungry.”
Another thing that feels weird to Dylan, helping yourself to a snack at someone else’s house. Especially someone you don’t feel like you know that well.
Dylan shrugs and cuts through the kitchen to sit in the living room, plopping himself on a chair glumly.
THE LATCHKEY KIDS IS AVAILABLE ON KINDLE AND IN PAPERBACK ON AMAZON
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