Midnight Message

Chapter 8 - When a stranger calls

‘Again! Again!’ squeals a 9 year old girl as she jumps up off the floor and tries, without success, to push a stray curl of hair off her face.

Gemma smiles as she watches the curl of red hair fall back across Clara’s face. It is Wednesday evening and Gemma is babysitting the Lawson twins. After struggling through the rest of her day at University Gemma had returned home and curled up with a book until dinner. As always, her mum had insisted that everyone share one good thing that had happened to them that day. Her dad said he had received a thank you card from a patient. Angela shared that three people had complimented her on her new haircut. Zack rolled his eyes and, with a mouthful of food, said ‘who cares about your hair, coach complimented me on my tackling. He said he’s going to ask me to give a tackling demonstration at footy camp this weekend’. Gemma sheepishly stated that she had handed in her contemporary issue essay that morning and her mum shared that there had been no traffic on the road as she drove home from work.

After dinner Angela rushed up to her room to prepare for the arrival of her friends. She thanked Gemma again for letting her borrow her laptop for the study session. Gemma told her sister it was fine and she could use it anytime. Then she put the book she had been reading earlier into her bag and walked over to the Lawson’s house. She was warmly greeted by Mrs. Lawson who thanked Gemma for coming and gave her some money as payment for the babysitting, before rushing out the door in an effort to make it to her night school class on time.  

‘It’s my turn first’ Luke says excitedly.

Gemma laughs as she watches the energetic boy jump up and down in excitement. His hair is red like his sister’s and resembles a mop. It flops up and down in time with the little boy’s jumps.

‘You guys are getting too heavy for this!’ Gemma says, laughing. ‘I’ll give you one more ride each, then it’s time for bed’.

Gemma grabs hold of Luke’s hands and begins spinning him in a circle. Luke’s arms are stretched straight out and, with a squeal of delight, his feet lift off the ground. Gemma keeps a tight hold on Luke’s hands as she continues to spin. After a few more circles Gemma slows down and carefully eases Luke to the floor. She lets go of his hands and leaves him lying on the floor, giggling excitedly.

‘Now me!’ Clara says, bouncing over to where Gemma is standing.

‘Hang on!’ says Gemma as she touches her hands to her head ‘let me get my balance back first. I’m still dizzy!’

After using a pink clip to pin Clara’s stray curl back, Gemma takes hold of the little girl’s hands and spins her around, for the third time this evening.

Once Clara has landed safely on the floor Gemma says ‘Ok guys. Now it’s time for bed.’

The twins groan, but run upstairs obediently. Gemma smiles as she watches two heads of red hair disappear upstairs. She loves babysitting Clara and Luke. They’re such sweet kids.

After allowing the children 5 minutes to get changed, Gemma walks upstairs and supervises the twins as they brush their teeth and climb into their beds. As she goes to turn off the light in Clara’s room the little girl says ‘bedtime story first!’

Luke comes bounding into his sister’s room and makes himself comfortable on his sister’s bed. Gemma stifles a laugh and says as seriously as she can ‘it’s already way past your bedtime’.

The twins just stare back at Gemma with their bright green eyes. Gemma sighs. ‘Ok guys, just a quick one.’

She pulls a purple display folder off Clara’s bookshelf and carries it over to the bed. The display folder is full of children’s stories that Gemma has written. Some of them are written specifically for the Lawson twins and have the two children as the main characters. Others are general children’s stories that Gemma has written over the years. The twins love listening to the stories Gemma writes.