The Good, the Bad and the Bossy (Best Babysitters Ever). Caroline Cala

just moved here from New York City,” added Principal Davies, which was pretty much the only thing she could have said to push Dot over the edge. It was Dot’s dream to live in NYC someday – heck, at this point it was her dream even just to visit – and Pigeon had spent her formative years there? This was so unfair. No wonder she seemed so sophisticated. No wonder her boots were so cool. “I’m sure you’ll all do your best to make her feel welcome,” the principal concluded, leaving Pigeon to fend for herself.

      Pigeon circled the lab tables, looking for a place to sit. Dot turned her attention back to the distillation of wood. There would be plenty of time to analyze the new girl, but for now, there was work to do.

      “Do you mind if I join you?” said a gravelly voice.

      Dot looked up. Pigeon was speaking to her.

      “Um, I don’t really do group assignments,” Dot said. She wasn’t trying to be rude; it was true. Unless the experiment absolutely called for lab partners, Dot always preferred to work alone.

      “It’s all right, we already did this experiment at my old school,” Pigeon said, casually tossing her long, wavy hair. A spicy fragrance wafted through the air. Dot immediately recognized it as a designer perfume her own hippie mother wouldn’t let her buy.

      “Well, the experiment is basically completed, so there’d be nothing left for you to do anyway,” Dot said.

      “I can just observe,” Pigeon said as she pulled up a chair.

      Dot inhaled, trying not to let her newfound audience faze her.

      “At my old school, distillation of wood was actually a sixth-grade experiment,” Pigeon said. Her condescending tone was not lost on Dot. “I wonder if I’ll be repeating a lot of the old curriculum here. Especially because science has always been kind of my thing.”

      “Science has always been my thing,” said Dot. “Which is why, outside of the school’s curriculum, I’ve been conducting research on my own for years now.”

      Pigeon impatiently tapped her fingernails on the lab table, breaking Dot’s concentration. Dot noticed they were painted a sort of green metallic oil-slick colour that Dot had never seen before. Even Pigeon’s nail polish was fancy.

      “So, where in New York did you live?” Dot asked.

      “We lived on the Upper West Side,” Pigeon said, “but my school was on the Upper East.”

      “Wow. That must have been amazing,” said Dot, while her head kept singing unfair, unfair, unfair.

      “This town seems . . .” Pigeon trailed off, as though searching for the right word. “Cute.”

      The way she said the word “cute” made it clear it wasn’t a compliment.

      Dot wanted to leave this town more than anyone, but she didn’t appreciate this stranger rolling up and trash-talking it on her very first day. Who did this person think she was?

      Dot’s hands flew across the equipment, attempting to complete the assignment as quickly as possible so she could be free of this situation.

      “I’m going to start handing back the quizzes from yesterday,” said Mr Frang. “Please don’t let them distract you from your experiments. If you have any questions, of course I’m available after class.”

      Dot didn’t even bother to look when the paper landed on her table. She never got anything less than an A, especially in science.

      “Hm. B-plus,” said Pigeon, staring at the quiz.

      “What?” Dot snapped to attention. “There must be some kind of mistake.” Dot did not get Bs, ever. She hardly ever got A-minuses. Bs were for the hoi polloi. The fact that Dot even knew what “hoi polloi” meant only further cemented her status as an A student.

      But sure enough, there it was: her quiz, with a big red B-plus on top of it.

      How had this happened? She knew she’d been kind of exhausted this week, with babysitting eating into her homework time, but still. This was unprecedented.

      Once again, Principal Davies appeared at the door.

      “Pigeon, I’m sorry. As it turns out, I need you to come with me. I forgot I have another part of the orientation packet to go through together.”

      “You know, I actually interned for Elon Musk last summer,” said Pigeon as she stood and pushed her chair in. “You know, the guy who started SpaceX? And Tesla? And who is, like, an investor and businessperson –”

      “I know who Elon Musk is,” Dot interrupted, annoyed.

      “If you ever need somebody to tutor you, I’m sure we could work something out.”

      Dot was flabbergasted. Pigeon smiled. “It’s been awfully nice chatting with you. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” And with that, she turned and walked away.

      “Yeah, likewise,” murmured Dot.

      Dot kept her eyes on her beaker, fighting the urge to watch Pigeon as she walked away.

      Dot knew one thing for sure: she did not like this Pigeon person. It wasn’t just her ridiculous first name, although that probably didn’t help. It was – Dot couldn’t believe what she was thinking, was she turning into her mother? – her aura.

      Pigeon had very bad energy.

      You’re being ridiculous, Dot thought. You don’t even know her. It’s her first day at a new school and she’s just trying to be impressive to make friends.

      Still, this felt like that moment in a movie, where the main character meets her nemesis. Dot wanted to remain open and kind. She wanted to know her story. But she was, Dot hated to admit, experiencing a feeling she had never felt before. She was intrigued. She was jealous. She was conflicted. For perhaps the first time ever, she was seriously intimidated.

      

      Malia watched as Connor Kelly sauntered across the cafeteria, blue plastic lunch tray in hand. He gave her a slight nod and then sat down with the other boys on the soccer team. Malia sighed. He was so close and yet so far away.

      Malia remembered a time, not too long ago, when she and Connor barely exchanged words. Back then, she sometimes wondered if he even knew her name. Now he said at least three sentences to her each week. That, Malia thought, was progress.

      Still, so much about Connor remained a mystery. He was like some exotic endangered species Malia could only observe from a safe distance. Across rooms . . . on social media . . . but rarely up close and personal. But now she had places to run into Connor – like the cafeteria, or the Gregory house, or, if everything went according to plan, the Veronica concert.

      She had spent all of her waking moments (and also some of her sleeping ones) dreaming for the past three days about the concert and how it might go. The darkness, the neon lights, the fog, the music, the dancing. Malia shivered. The thought of dancing in Connor Kelly’s proximity was almost too much to handle.

      But of course, before that could happen, she had to buy the tickets. Malia had lined up jobs like crazy, posting on social media to drum up some new clients. Plus, Bree’s mom agreed to let her babysit her brother, Bailey, three days a week, and Mrs Gregory had booked Malia for three upcoming jobs, which meant money and a potential Connor sighting in one.

      Shoko and Mo arrived at the table, placing their trays down with a clatter. Shoko and Mo were pretty much inseparable, and they always sat at the same lunch table as Malia and Bree. Malia snapped out of her daydream.

      “What are you wearing to the concert?” asked Mo urgently. The entire school had caught Veronica fever. The concert