Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job by Willo Davis Roberts

siren.
    â€œMarysville Police Department,” a voice said in my ear.
    â€œUh, I’m the baby-sitter at the Foster home on Oakwood Drive,” I said nervously. “Ah—” I had to wait for the next blast of sound to end before I could continue. “The burglar alarm is going off, and I don’t know why, or how to stop it—”
    â€œWe have an officer on the way,” the dispatcher’s voice said calmly. I suppose it was easier to stay calm when you weren’t where the crime was actually taking place.
    Jeremy ran to the front of the house to peer through the windows, which were covered with the iron grillwork. I had thought that was decorative, but now I wondered if the windows were barred to keep burglars out. They were all that way except the ones that opened inside the fenced yard.
    Could someone really have attempted to burglarize the house? Or had Jeremy, in spiteof his denial, been responsible for setting off the alarm?
    â€œThe cops are here!” Jeremy said excitedly as I entered the front hallway.
    He struggled with the lock and opened the door as a police car pulled in at the curb, closely followed by a second patrol unit. Jeremy ran out to meet them, shouting, “It’s a burglar! It’s a burglar!”
    I had a fleeting memory of my mother saying kids sometimes did things to get attention; and then two of the officers were entering the house. One of them, I was both glad and embarrassed to see, was Tim’s friend Clancy.
    Clancy was about my father’s age and had a magnificent handlebar mustache like someone out of an old movie. He looked at me and then at Jeremy, who was jiggling up and down, hopping from one foot to the other.
    â€œHello, Darcy. What happened here?”
    â€œI don’t know. Just all of a sudden that horrible alarm went off. I didn’t see anything,” I said.
    â€œYou see anything, son? Any person looking in a window, anything like that?”
    Jeremy stopped jumping; his brown eyes were shining, though. “No. I didn’t see anything. But it’s a burglar, isn’t it? The alarm went off!”
    â€œI’ll check around the back,” one of the younger officers said, and disappeared. Another one started through the house, and a minute later the alarm stopped. The quiet was almost as unnatural, at first, as the noise had been.
    â€œWhere were you when it went off, Jeremy?” I asked. I could usually tell by looking at my younger brothers if they were telling the truth or not, but I didn’t know Jeremy very well yet.
    â€œIn my room, looking for my Star Wars book. All of a sudden it went off. It made my hair prick,” he said, and touched the back of his neck.
    That made me kind of inclined to believe him, because that was how it affected me, too.
    â€œDo you think the burglar got any of Mama’s jewelry?” Melissa asked, leaning into my side.
    Clancy squatted down so he was more on a level with her. “Where does your mama keep her jewelry? Do you know?”
    â€œIn a box in the bedroom. It’s in the wall,” Melissa said.
    â€œIt’s not a box, it’s a safe,” Jeremy corrected her. “There’s one in Daddy’s study, too, but it just has papers in it, or maybe money. I can show you,” he offered.
    I went with them to look at both wall safes. Clancy made a grunting sound, and I finally realized where Tim got his habit of making that sound instead of using words.
    â€œNobody’s been at either of them,” Clancy said. “You hear anything, Darcy, before the alarm went off?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t notice anything.”
    â€œAll the kids with you when it began?”
    â€œNo. Jeremy was in his room, looking for a book.”
    â€œYou try to open a window or anything like that, son?”
    Jeremy shook his head. “No. Daddy says we’re not supposed to open the windows, or it will set off the alarm. Besides, the