Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret by Vicki Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

moment, I understood the simple joy teachers must feel refusing late assignments.
    â€œI told you! I couldn’t! It’s just lucky I even remembered where you lived, otherwise …”
    A door opened up the street. “Yoo-hoo! Hello? Are you the cleaners?”
    A tall grey-haired woman dressed in skinny black jeans and a black T-shirt was waving from the front steps of a small red house. I could hear the tinkle of her bracelets from the sidewalk.
    Dolores waved back. “Yup. That’s us.”
    Us .
    A second ago, I’d foolishly believed I had the upper hand. Dolores grabbed me by the arm and started walking toward the house.
    â€œSorry,” the lady said. “Forgot to mention our street numbers had fallen off. Hope you didn’t have any trouble finding us … Love the outfits, by the way. Come on in.”
    There was really nothing else I could do. I went in.
    We took off our sneakers and left them in the pile of shoes already littering the hallway. The lady led us into the living room and laughed apologetically. The place was bright and cheery but crazy messy. Books, newspapers, dishes, clothes, miscellaneous junk was everywhere. No worse than my own bedroom, of course, but I was still a little taken aback. Mom always tidied up before our cleaning woman came.
    â€œLook,” the lady said, “I know it’s a disaster. Just do your best. Focus on the bathrooms—there’s one at the end of the hall, one at the top of the stairs. I’d love it if you could do the floors and give the kitchen a bit of a wipe too, but there’s only so much you can do in a couple of hours. Don’t even bother with the bedrooms. The kids are still asleep anyway. I doubt they’ll be up before you leave.”
    She checked her watch. “Eek. My meeting’s in twenty minutes. Gotta run.” She pointed. “Cleaning supplies under sink. Broom and mop in closet. Money on counter.”
    She kicked the shoes aside and headed out the door. “Bon courage , girls!”
    I stood in the hall until she left. Dolores went to thecupboard and took out bottles of Windex, Javex, Tilex and Vim. “This should do it,” she said, as if we’d never even had our little conversation on the sidewalk.
    â€œOh, and I got you these too.” She dug in her plastic bag and pulled out a pair of pink rubber gloves with wispy fake fur around the wrists.
    â€œI told you. I’m not doing this,” I said. “You set this up. It’s your problem.”
    Dolores let her jaw kind of dangle for a couple of seconds. “You expect me to clean all this? By myself? Seriously?”
    â€œYup. Seriously. See ya.”
    I headed for the door—and freedom—but Dolores beetled around and blocked my way.
    She clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Please. You’re right. I shouldn’t have organized anything without talking to you first, but I did and that was stupid. I’m sorry. But you’ve got to understand—if I screw up with these people they won’t call me back and I really need the money. Just help me today, then I’ll figure something else out for the rest of my appointments. I promise. Seriously. I promise.”
    I stared at her with my nostrils wide open and my lips shut tight. I was doing my best to look like I meant it but, inside, I could feel myself starting to cave. The ocean known as Dolores was sucking the sand out from under my feet.
    I couldn’t believe it. Was I actually feeling sorry for her? Or did I just not like the way saying no made me feel about myself? I always tried to be nice. No one, with the possible exception of Hank, had ever needed to plead with me for anything before.
    Dolores stuck out her chin and made her eyes go really round. “It’s only two hours and you’ll get forty bucks …”
    Until she said that, money had been the last thing on my mind—but then I turned and saw the