Mariska shook her hand, admiring the woman’s colorful rings. “I’m usually here on Thursdays. What would you like us to do?”
“You could start with the kids.”
“Kids?” said Bob behind her, his tone strained. Mariska turned in time to see his forehead bead with sweat.
“I thought this was an old folks’ home?”
Laura frowned. “Nursing home. It is. But for the hurricane, some of the residents have their at-risk families staying with them. I was thinking you could help us organize a little hurricane party for the younger ones.”
“Oh, that would be fun,” said Mariska.
“Not the word I was thinking,” muttered Bob.
Mariska stiffened, but if Laura heard Bob, she didn’t show it. She moved around the desk to join them.
“I’ll take you to your room so you can drop off your bag and then show you to the playroom.”
The woman strode ahead of them down a long hallway, Izzy’s toenails tapping on the shiny tile floors. The air smelled like disinfectant.
“You didn’t say anything about any kids,” grumbled Bob.
“Oh, you love kids.”
“Not other people’s kids.”
“Oh shush.”
They dropped their bag in a room bare but for a queen bed, before heading back down the hall to the playroom. Mariska heard the kids chattering as they approached and it made her smile.
A woman in the playroom turned as they entered. She sat on a stool reading a book to a crowd of eight, single-digit-aged children. Flyaway strands of hair circled her head like a halo, and her eyes lit as they entered. She snapped the book shut and stood.
“This is Mariska and Bob. They’re going to babysit for a bit,” said Laura.
“Wonderful.” The woman thrust the book at Mariska and headed directly for the exit, disappearing before Mariska could say hello.
Laura watched her go and flashed an uncomfortable smile as one of the children began pulling on her pant leg. “Mariska, do you know where the games are?” asked Laura.
“I think down the hall in the supply—”
“Great. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Laura disappeared as quickly as the last woman did.
“Now what?” asked Bob, watching her go.
Mariska motioned to the kids. “Just watch them for a second. I’ll get games and music and then we’ll play with them.”
Bob grimaced. “I’d rather be swept out to sea by the hurricane. Do I have to talk to them?”
“Just keep them in the room.”
He grunted.
Mariska headed down the hall toward the supply room. The building felt more alive than normal. She could hear families talking and laughing inside the rooms as she passed. Usually, all she could hear were televisions playing game shows and soap operas.
In the supply room, Mariska found a metal cart on which she piled toys, an old boombox and a box of children’s cassette tapes before wheeling it back down the hall.
She heard the children in the playroom screaming the moment she left the supply closet.
Oh no.
She quickened her pace.
As she turned the corner, a small boy dodged to avoid the cart and instead ran directly into her leg. She stooped to grab him by the back of his shirt before he could bounce to the floor.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
He grinned and tried to twist from her grip. “I’m a wild Indian.”
“You don’t say?”
Mariska forced a smile, but her heart started pounding in her chest. The playroom sounded like the battle of Little Big Horn was raging inside.
“Take my hand. We have to go back to the playroom. See all the toys I have?”
The boy ogled the cart and took her hand as instructed, yet never ceasing his Indian whoop. Mariska hustled down the hall as fast the kid could follow and pushed the cart into the playroom though the ajar door.
“Oh my—”
The sound of screaming children bounced from every wall. One of them had found a package of construction paper and torn it into confetti. She guessed it was one of the two girls running around the room throwing the shredded paper in the air, screaming, “It’s raining rainbows! It’s raining rainbows!” Izzy jogged after them as if trying, and failing, to herd them back to the center of the room. The girls squealed with wild delight whenever the dog came close.
Panicked, Mariska shut the door behind her and raised a hand to cover one ear.
“What are you doing?”
Bob looked at her. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
He sat in the middle of the room on a wooden chair, glaring at her. Two of the boys had tied his feet to the chair legs with a jump rope, and had moved on to secure his body with another. They paused only to tap their bunched fingers over their mouths as they whooped Indian war cries.
“They’re wild Indians, too,” said the boy beside Mariska. He jerked his hand from hers and ran to help his fellow braves secure the prisoner.
“I left you for ten minutes,” said Mariska. Her voice faded behind the jangling sound of a boy slamming a tambourine into the head of another. The boy being hit couldn’t stop giggling.
“All I did was tell them they’re acting like a pack of wild Indians and they all went bonkers,” said Bob.
“You can’t give them ideas like that.”
“Now you tell me.”
Mariska plucked the tambourine from the musician’s hand. He grabbed a drumstick and she snatched that as well. “Why didn’t you tell them to sit quietly?”
Bob laughed. “Right. I’ll tell the hurricane to calm down while I’m at it.”
Laura and a teenage girl appeared at the doorway, Laura’s eyes bulging. “What’s going on? We can hear this from the lobby.”
Her companion began herding the running children like a border collie, Izzy
