“Y’all, I’m sick of this wood. Get me back to my ’hood,” Ricky rapped in a bellowing voice before the two knuckled-headed boys collapsed in bursts of laughter.

“Mary Catherine!” fourteen-year-old Jane shrieked this time.

Mary Catherine finally arrived from the rear of the file, forcing a scowl across her face to hide her smile.

She thought the boys were actually pretty funny but, of course, being an experienced nanny and nobody’s fool, she would take that secret to her grave.

“Boys, you will cease this instant,” Mary Catherine said to them as sternly as her lilting Irish brogue would allow. “Nature walks are about relaxation. We’ll not have your human beat-bashing nonsense.”

“It’s beatboxing, Mary Catherine,” Ricky said helpfully, between giggles. “Human beatboxing.”

“I’ll box you about your human head and shoulders in about three seconds,” Mary Catherine said, pulling his hat down over his face. She whirled around and busted Eddie making faces over her shoulder.

“And for you, Eddie Andrew Bennett,” she said, poking his chest, “another rock near one of Orange County’s fine feathered friends and we’ll see if that portable PlayStation of yours can throw Youkilis out from third!”

TWO

HEADING BACK TO the rear of the line, Mary Catherine looked pleadingly at the two oldest Bennett kids, Juliana and Brian, for some much-needed assistance, but they avoided her gaze-eyes expressionless, zombielike, as if they were sleepwalking. Wasn’t looking like any help was on the way from the teen ranks this early in the a.m. She was on her own and surrounded on all sides, she thought, flicking a drop of sweat from her nose.

After they got up here late last night, maybe this was a bit too much too soon. But then again, wasn’t the entire point of vacation to get these kids out of the concrete jungle of Manhattan and up here into the clean, fresh country air? They would happily laze around in their pajamas until noon if she let them.