'The Weekend I Baby-Sat Grandma'

"Guess what, Evan?" Mom asked with a smile on her face. She had just hung up the phone and come into my room.

I'd been playing with my GameBoy and looked up. "You won the lottery?" I asked.

"Don't I wish." Mom leaned against the doorframe, grinning. "Guess who's going to stay with you while we're gone?"

"Jessica." Weeks ago Mom had lined up Jessica to stay with me while she and Dad were away celebrating their anniversary. Jessica is a house sitter, and I guess that includes sitting with people's kids.

"No. Jessica's down with flu."

I closed my GameBoy and put it on my desk. If it wasn't Jessica, then maybe it was our regular sitter. "Amy?"

"Amy's only 14. Too young for the entire weekend. Try again," Mom said.

"Not mean old Mrs. Marsh?" I could feel my face getting hot just thinking about her.

"Oh, Evan, Mrs. Marsh isn't mean."

"Not to you, maybe, but she hates kids, especially me."

"Well, it's not her," Mom said. "I asked someone else, someone you really like -- Grandma."

"Cool!" I cried. Grandma Ellis used to read to me before I could read. Sometimes she'd read almost to the end of a book and stop. "If you were writing this," she'd say, "how would you end it?"

When I was younger, she used to hang a big blanket over the kitchen table so it was like a tent. Then, we'd crawl inside and pretend we were hiding from Indians. Googa, my baby name for her, lives in a retirement home in another state. I talk to her a lot on the phone, but we haven't seen her in over a year.

"Googa's coming? When?" I asked, jumping up and down with excitement.

"Tonight, sweetie, so clean up this pigsty, OK? Dad's bringing her from the airport, and she's staying a week. She said she can hardly wait to see you."

*

Tuesday: What will Evan and Grandma do together?

This story will be on The Times' website at latimes.com/kids.