Toast. Laurie Foos

      Open Door

      For Ella and Zachariah

      Chapter 1

      Will is watching videos on his iPad when I come downstairs. When I sit down next to him at the kitchen table, he doesn’t look up at me. I look over at the wall where Mom has pinned what she calls the “visual schedule” she’s made for Will on the corkboard on the wall. My stomach squeezes a little.

      Today is a big day in our house. Today we’re getting a babysitter, and not just a babysitter who comes after school and lets you Google the answers for your math homework. Not one who sits on the couch texting her boyfriend while you watch a movie your parents won’t let you see. Today we’re getting a babysitter who is going to stay with us while Mom and Dad go away overnight.

      This is totally unheard of in our house. We have not had a babysitter, ever, in the history of my being alive who wasn’t Gram. Also, my parents have never gone overnight anywhere that I can remember. Sometimes we’d stay at Gram’s house. But when we went to Gram’s, Mom and Dad always stayed home. Gram died two years ago, when I was nine and Will was eight.

      Dad sets Will’s toast on a paper plate. Will picks the toast up and examines it.

      Will’s toast has to be more tan than brown because if it’s too brown, there’s no way Will is going to eat it.

      “How is it, buddy?” Dad asks. “Is it tan enough? Not too brown?”

      Will puts the toast back down on the plate and hands the plate to Dad.

      “There’s not enough tan,” Will says. “It’s burnt.”

      I look at the toast. It is browner than the toast that Mom makes. But it’s definitely not burnt.

      “I want Mom to make my toast,” Will says.

      Dad throws the toast in the garbage and starts again.

      “Mom is packing,” Dad says. “I’m making the toast today.”

      I want to ask Dad if he’s explained about the toast to the babysitter, if she knows all the things Will doesn’t like. I don’t get the chance, though, because Dad is suddenly standing over me at the table and smiling. He hands me my plate of toast. He doesn’t ask me if mine is the right color.

      “Well, it’s a banner day in the Hamilton house,” Dad says to me and winks. “Isn’t that right, Mia?”

      The visual schedule has times and pictures of things that Will does. It helps him when things change. On the paper Mom has printed out is a picture of the babysitter. She has red curly hair and wears a light blue T-shirt with the words “Be Kind” on it. In big letters it says “Shelby,” and then underneath it says “Babysitter.”

      I push my toast around my plate and smile at Dad because I know he wants me to smile. I’m pretty good at knowing what other people want. Mom says I have a lot of empathy, which is a fancy way of saying that I understand what other people are feeling. It’s also what makes me such a great big sister, she says.

      When Dad hands Will his new slices of toast, Will picks the toast up and holds it in front of his face.

      “Come on, Will,” I say. “That toast is definitely tan.”

      He nods and takes a bite.

      “Yup,” he says, “definitely tan.”

      Dad gives me a thumbs-up and says he’s going to take a shower. My toast is cold. I eat it anyway.

      Will looks up from his iPad and starts looking around the room and up at the ceiling.

      “Where is it?” Will says. “Where did Dad put it?”

      For a minute I don’t know what he means.

      “Where did Dad put what?” I say.

      “I don’t see it,” Will says. “The banner.”

      There are toast crumbs all over Will’s iPad. Usually that grosses me out, but not today. Today I know what I have to do once that babysitter gets here. Today I have to be what Mom says I am: a good big sister.

      Will has what Mom calls “a literal mind.”

      “Oh,” I say. “There’s no real banner. It’s just an expression.”

      Will wipes his mouth on the collar of his shirt and goes back to looking at his iPad.

      “It’s just an expression,” he says.

      Chapter 2

      Last week at the bus stop I thought about telling my friend Hannah about the babysitter. Then I remembered that Hannah has a different babysitter every time I’m over there. Since we met in fourth grade, she must have had around twenty of them. For some reason they all have long dark hair and wear gray hoodies. Once when I asked Hannah if she ever noticed that, she said sometimes she wonders if her parents rent babysitters from some company. I imagined all these babysitters with dark hair and hoodies lined up on a conveyor belt. I wondered what would happen if the conveyor belt pushed its way to our door instead. It’s not that I was jealous, but I wondered. Hannah said the babysitters let her stay up late and drink soda. Some of them even let her curse.

      Now that we’re actually getting one, though, I’m not wondering so much. Instead I have this little squeezing feeling in my stomach. There will be someone staying with us who won’t know all the things that Will likes and doesn’t like. Someone who won’t know all the important things there are to know about Will.

      I go into Mom’s room and sit on her bed while she packs. There are at least four pairs of jeans laid out on the bed. It looks like she dumped her whole underwear drawer on there, too. I’d rather not look at Mom’s underwear, so I scoot up by the pillows.

      “Mom,” I say, “what if Will doesn’t listen to the babysitter when you’re gone?”

      Mom looks at me as she folds and refolds a black sweater before putting it into the suitcase that