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the living room. It was too much work to dismantle it, so me and Dad just shoved it in the garage. There were diapers taped on all the corners of our family room furniture that were left over from when Mom baby-proofed the house after Manny started crawling. She used packing tape to hold the diapers in place, and THAT wasn't easy to get off. Uncle Gary was on the couch in the family room taking a nap, so we just covered him with a sheet and hoped nobody would want to sit there.

Next was the kitchen. There's a bulletin board on the wall with different certificates and ribbons that Mom has given as kids over the years. Everything with my name on its use really lame, so I took it off the wall and hid it in the pantry. By the time the stringers showed up, we'd taken care of all the major stuff. But the visit got off to a really shaky start. You remember how I said Manny was afraid of some kid at church who acted like a vampire? Well, it turns out that kid was Wesley Stringer.

So any hope Mom had of Manny making a new friend was completely out of the window. Manny skipped dinner and spent the rest of the night hiding in his bedroom, which I wish I could've done, because Mom made a fancy meal to impress our guests It was cream of mushroom chicken with asparagus on top. I know asparagus is supposed to be really good for you, but to me it's like kryptonite. I didn't want to look unsophisticated in front of Laurel, so, so I decided to just close my eyes, plug my nose, and choke it down. The grown-ups talked about politics and stuff that wasn't all that interesting, and me and Laurel just

had to sit there and listen. Mom told Mrs. Stringer about some fancy restaurant she goes to with Dad when they have a "date night," and Mrs. Stringer said that she and her husband can never go out for dinner on weekends because Laurel is always off doing something with friends and they can't find a reliable babysitter for Wesley. I told Mrs. Stringer that if they ever need a babysitter, they should call ME. I figured it's a way to get in good with the Stringers and get paid for doing it. Mom liked the idea, to, and she said babysitting would be a great experience for me. Mrs. Stringer seemed pretty impressed, and she asked if I was free tomorrow, so I told her I was. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here, but

I'm sure one day I'll be sitting around with the Stringers on Thanksgiving and we'll all be laughing about how I used to babysit my brother–in–law, Wesley, when I was in middle school. Saturday Tonight Mom dropped me off at the Stringers' house at 6:30. Mrs. Stringer said Laurel had already gone to a friend's house, which kind of stunk, because I was hoping I might get to see her for a few minutes and talk to her about the dance. Mrs. Stringer said I should put Wesley to bed at 8:00. And that they'd be home around 9:00. She told

me I could watch TV until they got home and to help myself to anything in the fridge. After Mr. and Mrs. Stringer left, it was just me and Wesley. I asked Wesley if he wanted to play a board game or something like that, but he said he wanted to go out in the garage and get his bike. I told him it was too cold to ride his bike outside, but he said he wanted to ride it INSIDE. The Stringers have a really nice house, and I was pretty sure they didn't want Wesley scratching up their hardwood floors. So I told him we needed to find something else to do.