way to approach him. And I wasn't sure I'd be able to do that.

But by Monday night, I was ready to talk to him — no matter what.

Unfortunately, he came home in a bad mood.

"We lost the Cutter case today," he told me. "I can't believe it. I thought it was open-and-shut. The jury was highly unreasonable."

I nodded. "Dad — "

"Honestly, sometimes people can be so unfair. . . . No, not unfair, unthinking. That's it, unthinking."

We were setting the table, getting ready for dinner.

"Dad — " I said again.

"Can you imagine letting someone go who so clearly was guilty of grand larceny?"

I shook my head. "I guess not. . . . Dad?"

"What is it, Mary Anne?"

Right then, I should have decided not to pursue the business of later hours, but I'd been planning on it all day. I'd rehearsed what I was going to say. I didn't know if it would work, but I was going to say, very rationally, "Dad, I've been thinking. I'm twelve years old now, and I feel that I could stay out until ten o'clock every now and then when I'm babysitting — not on school nights, of course, be-

cause I recognize that I need my sleep/ but just on some Friday and Saturday nights."

"Dad, I've been thinking," I said.

The phone rang.

Dad leaped for it. "Hello?. . .Yes, I know. . . . I know. . . . Right, an appeal. That's what I was think— What? . . . Oh, yes. Definitely. ..." The conversation went on for ten minutes while our frozen pizza finished baking and then began drying out in the oven.

Dad finally got off the phone, and immediately it rang again. When he got off the second time, I practically threw the pizza down in front of him.

"Dad, I want to stay out until ten o'clock when I baby-sit at night," I blurted out.

My father looked at me blankly. "What? . . . Oh. Mary Anne, no. I'm afraid that's out of the question."