She gasped and started to run, her heart in her throat. She couldn’t stop. If she stopped, he would take it away from her, and she needed it. Running down the hall, she came to the baby’s room and dashed inside. Mommy and Daddy were gone, but the baby was awake.

She pulled on the paper around the candy. It came off easily. Then she climbed up on the chair next to the cradle and leaned down. He had big blue eyes and he stared at her very hard.

“Here, baby,” she whispered to him. “Here. Eat.”

Suddenly someone was yelling. She jerked back, startled. The maid named Ana was calling out and people were running toward the room.

Ana pulled the lollipop from her hand. “No!” she cried. “You can’t give that to the baby. No!”

Molly was scared. She wasn’t bad. Didn’t they understand? She wanted to give the baby something fun. She wanted to give him the thing she had always loved best. But the faces seemed angry.

Then Daddy was there and he pulled her up into his arms. “You and your red lollipops,” he said, holding her close.

“Don’t yell at her,” Mommy was saying. “She was doing it out of love.”

“You can’t do it, though,” Daddy told her, being very serious. “You can’t give things like that to the baby. He’s not ready.”

Tears were popping out and running down her fat cheeks and her lower lip was trembling.

“You love the baby, don’t you?” Daddy said.

Did she? She looked down at where he was watching. And suddenly, she saw something in his big blue eyes. He was her brother. He was hers. Maybe she did love him. She nodded and gave a big sniff.

“Of course you do.”

“Tell you what,” Mommy said, tousling her hair. “You wait just a second. I have an idea.” She reached in and rummaged in the big bag of baby care items she took with her everywhere these days.

“Here.” She pulled out a bright red pacifier and showed it to Molly. “What do you think? Do you want to be the one to give it to him when he’s ready?”

Molly’s eyes lit up and she nodded, smiling through her tears.

“Only when I say it’s a good time, okay? But you will be the keeper of the red pacifier. I’m going to trust you.”

“And you know what?” Daddy said. “Next week at your birthday party, you’re going to have all the red lollipops you can handle. Okay?”

Molly nodded again and threw her little arms around his neck. She was a big girl now. She was learning lots of things. And that was good, because that little baby was going to have a lot to learn from his big sister and she wanted to be ready.

“We love you, Molly,” Daddy said.

She nodded. She knew that. She loved them, too.

Even the baby.

About the Authors


Liz Fielding

Reading is, and always has been, the first love of Liz Fielding’s life. Except writing.