Up until now Patsy had accepted our excuses
for Butterfly staying in the cottage, but by the next
morning she was beginning to get a little suspicious.
Thankfully Butterfly's fever had broken during the
night and she was feeling well enough to join us for
the lunch shift.
Just when we thought we were safe, Patsy made
an announcement that made our blood run cold. "Payday tomorrow," she declared cheerily. "I'll
need everyone's social security number and addresses."
We looked to Crystal.
"Can't you pay us off the books, Patsy? We'll
accept less money," Crystal proposed.
Patsy shook her head slowly and a curious
expression came over her face. "You girls should be
able to tell by now that that's not the way I run my
business. I'm to
tally on the up and up." She shifted
around to glance at each and every one of us, and it
felt like she was waiting for one of us to crack. I couldn't stand the silence any longer and
finally spoke up. "We'll have to dig through our things
for the social security cards. Is it okay if we bring
them tomorrow?" Crystal glared at me while Raven
and Butterfly looked on wide-eyed.
Patsy let us go that evening without another
question, but as soon as we got to the cottage Crystal
let me have it.
"What were you thinking, Brooke? How are we
supposed to come up with those cards?" She was
livid.
"I couldn't help it. Patsy was staring at us with those big eyes and I just thought we had to make up something!" I knew I'd gotten us in bigger trouble, but