Hush Little Baby by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online Page B

the bus they’d take. He was surprised by how worried he was over talking with Kit. It had suddenly assumed huge proportions, as if on this speech hung his future and his hopes.
    The door opened. Kit was not holding a flute, but a squalling, screaming, quivering red-faced baby.
    All speech was driven from his mind and mouth.
    “I wish I had a hand free to photograph you, Row,” Kit told him, “because your expression is priceless.”
    “Where’s the camera?” said Muffin. “I’ll take his picture.”
    “Too late,” said Row. “I’m no longer surprised.” But he was. What was Kit doing here with a little teeny baby? Wasn’t Kit his cousin’s best friend? Wouldn’t Shea have mentioned it if there was a new baby at Kit’s house? Whose new baby? Wasn’t her father on the West Coast? Anyway, weren’t they pretty old for having babies?
    He finally looked at Kit again, and she said, “Oh, Row! I am so glad to see you, I have had the strangest afternoon.” She gave him a sweet smile and he fell into it. It was that smile that had drawn Row, because she seemed like a person who meant to smile a lot more than she did. She was too serious.
    Kit let them in and they automatically moved to the back of the house. The front rooms were so formal, so much the property of the decorator, that nobody could imagine actually bothering with those rooms. They flung themselves down on a vast green leather sofa. Rowen had never seen such large furniture. There was so much to look at. Kit. The inexplicable baby. The house, which seemed so un-homey for a girl like Kit.
    Kit couldn’t remember the little sister’s name. It was a silly nickname, she thought, something that would be embarrassing once the kid was older. But she couldn’t bring it to mind.
    “Can I hold the baby?” said the little sister eagerly. She was a cute little thing, stick thin, as if her wrists would not be equal to the weight of the baby.
    “No, Muffin,” said Rowen sharply, “you can’t. You don’t know how to hold babies.”
    Muffin. I knew it was something pathetic, thought Kit. “I haven’t had any practice at holding babies, either,” she told Muffin. “Today is my first day ever. Come on, between us we’ll figure out how you can hold the baby.”
    Muffin sat down on the immense couch and eased herself back and back some more until her legs stuck straight out in front of her. She had plenty of lap now. Kit gently maneuvered the baby into Muffin’s arms, and Muffin sagged joyfully back on the couch and smiled down at him. Her smile transformed her. She was suddenly, beautifully, a mommy in training, like a Halloween costume.
    Kit beamed at Muffin.
    She had to have a photograph of this. She would make extra copies, because Row and Muffin’s mother would certainly want one. She found the camera she’d used to photograph Sam the Baby and Ed the Creepy Cousin and took two angles of Muffin and Sam. Then she took a photo of Row looking puzzled, and a final shot of Row looking irritated.
    “Enough with the immortality, Kit. We came to collect you for movies,” said Rowen. “But I don’t think they’re newborn-rated.”
    They all laughed.
    “He seems really little,” Rowen said. Is he okay? Is he meant to be that small?” Rowen took the disposable camera from Kit, knelt next to his sister, and took a shot of Muffin’s cheek resting against Sam’s.
    Kit loved how they were with each other. How sweet when a big brother was that fond of a little sister. Her throat choked up a little. Was she, at this very moment, a big sister?
    “I don’t know, Rowen,” she said. “I was on my way home to wait for my mother to get back from shopping when you and Muffin came to the door. I figured I’d hand the baby to Mom, and she would know things like whether the baby is too small.”
    Rowen stared at Kit. Really stared. “Who’s the mother of this baby, then?” Even his voice stared at her. “Whose baby is this? What’s going on?” He pulled