I signed up for the shift mainly because I needed the money although in the end I gained much more than that. I was working my way through college and this extra shift became available. We did all sorts of things as Community Service Officers from walking people to their cars at night to guarding equipment in buildings. If some need came for a sort-of security guard to be there, people on campus called us. And that’s just what happened that brought me to Janey.

The shift said "Janey Watch." Just from the title, I had to read the flier to find out what the shift was. We often had fire watches—where we walked through a building if the fire alarms were broken—and equipment watches—if a group needed to leave expensive equipment unattended overnight. But "Janey Watch." I had never seen such a thing. I read the flier.

Title: Janey Watch.

Time: Tuesday 1100 – 1800

Place: Hospital Pediatric Floor – see nurse for exact room number

Purpose: To provide preventive security for Janey, a 7 year-old whose father has made numerous previous kidnap attempts. You are not to intervene! If father is seen, call police using police radio. Studying is permitted on the shift.

The shift hours would work perfectly for me. Seven hours at time and a half would just about cover my food for the month. But the shift looked a little more stressful than I wanted. And I didn’t like kids very much. I was uncomfortable around them and they around me. I figured would bring a book and read, though. The father probably wouldn’t show up anyway. I signed up.

I arrived in uniform with my police radio to the peds floor. I was just about to ask the nurse at the desk where Janey was when I heard someone call my name. Someone talking way too loud for a hospital. Someone who was far too eager. I recognized the voice almost immediately.

I turned around to greet Ed Morgan. Ed was generally regarded as one of the two worst people to work with in our 75 person department. He wanted to be a cop so badly that he had bought most of the accessories for himself—a basket-weave leather belt, an cord which extended his radio microphone up to his lapel, and even his own pair of handcuffs (which he was thankfully forbidden to wear while at work). A wanna-be cop at age 19. And everyone, except poor Ed himself, knew that he would never be a cop. He would never pass the psychiatric evaluation; he was too eager, too much a run-in-and-rescue-regardless-of-the-circumstances kind of guy. One of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, but a horrible person to spend seven hours with.

He smiled as he saw me. I was polite to him, at least, which made me one of the only people at work who would even talk to him.

"Hi, Ed," I said flatly.

"Hey, Pete! I saw the shift and Maureen said I could work it, too. I love kids! Janey’s great, too. I’ve been here an hour already. We’ll keep her safe! You watch. Her dad better not show up while I’m on duty."

I smiled patronizingly and followed Ed down the hall. He pointed to the last room at the end of the corridor.

"She’s in there right now," Ed told me. "She doesn’t talk a lot but she does play with her friends, Aleeza and Sandra. They’re all pretty nice little girls."

"Alisha and Sandra?," I asked to confirm the names.

"A-leez-a," he enunciated. "She’s very particular about her name."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

I stopped near the door and poked my head in.

A little brown-haired girl sat on the middle of the hospital bed. She looked seven but had this look of adulthood on her face which made her seem much older. Her eyes seemed to have seen much in their seven years. There was a bluntness to her expression when she looked up at me—an honesty and piercing resolve which seemed to shout, "Don’t try to lie because I’ll see through it." It was a hard look but not a mean one. It was a grown-up face, and a beautiful one.

She saw me and stared for a few seconds. She saw my uniform and recognized me as one of the people sent to watch over her. After a few seconds of scrutiny, I no longer interested her and she turned to continue playing with the Legos on her bed. It was the only time our eyes met except at the last part, and by then I would understand far more about this complicated creature.

To her left was a blonde girl with curly little ringlets and bright ribbons in her hair. She was doing most of the talking.

"I want the blue one," she said of the mutual toys. "Blue is my favorite color. I should get all the blue ones."

"I like blue, too," said the third child, seated to Janey’s left—a small black girl with a long braid running half way down her back. She seemed shy, her voice as small as her body.

"Here," the blonde one I could guess to be Aleeza said to Sandra. "You can get one and Janey can have one and I get all the rest of the blues. Maybe you could have the reds or greens but I get the blues."

Sandra quietly took her token blue Lego and integrated it into the wall she was making. Janey continued using the other bricks, ignoring the blue one Aleeza had put in front of her. Janey seemed to ignore the other two and played in her own world. She seemingly didn’t need anyone in her life.

A nurse walked in between Ed and me.

"Well, Janey!," she said. "You new guard is here. What’s your name, hon?"

"Peter," I said.

"Peter, this is the lovely Janey. Janey, this is Peter."

Janey looked up briefly. I didn’t smile, only waved once to her from the doorway. Back to her toys.

"And Ed will be here, too," the nurse continued.

"Hi, Janey!," Ed said, his voice an octave higher than normal. He started smiling and waving his hand up and down exaggeratedly. I think this was his way of trying to relate to kids. Janey didn’t even bother looking up from her toys this time.

"Whatcha got there, Janey?," Ed asked. "Whatcha building? Is that a castle? Or a house?" He walked over to the bed. I was getting a little sick from all the sweetness.

"I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything," I said to the nurse. As I turned to leave, I was pretty sure Janey looked up at me but it could have just been my imagination.

I sat in the chair someone had put by the doorway reading Catcher in the Rye for the third time. I would occasionally look up and check on the kids and the hallway to make sure it was okay. Aleeza’s sentences—usually starting with "I," "Me," or "My"—provided background noise as I read.

After an hour, Ed got tired of playing with the Legos and came to sit beside me. My terse answers to his questions told him that I wasn’t in a talkative mood or at least not with him. He sat quietly doing his chemistry homework.

A half hour later, the nurse brought the young patients out to the hallway to eat lunch. They sat near Ed and me in diminutive chairs with small tables built into them. I wondered how Aleeza managed to eat considering how much she talked through lunch. Nothing fascinated Aleeza more than Aleeza. Sandra seemed resigned to the gnattering and Janey ignored it completely. I had to smile at Janey for being so resolute at such a young age.

Ed talked during lunch, too. The nurses had brought us TV-dinner style meals from the cart, complete with jello and peas with little onions mixed in. Ed talked about the three guys he had caught smoking pot the week before and the two skateboarders he had nabbed the week before that. I found sudden interest in my sliced turkey.

I felt someone looking at me and I looked up. Janey turned her head away, looking intently now at the completely blank wall to my left. I smirked and finished my lunch.

The girls brought out their toys to the hallway after lunch. Three cars this time—bigger than Matchbox cars but smaller than Tonka trucks. One blue, one white, one green.

"I get the blue one," Aleeza said. Her voice had become so consistent I almost didn’t hear her anymore. "Janey gets the white one and Sandra can have the green one."

I looked up from my book and said quietly but firmly, "Why don’t you let them pick which cars they want?" I stared down seven year old Aleeza for the better part of 10 seconds. She broke first, her eyes darting away from mine.

"Fine," she said snottily. "Fine, you pick which cars you want. I don’t care." She crossed her arms and literally turned up her nose. She obviously did care.

Janey picked the blue, Sandra the green. Aleeza was left with the white.

"I don’t want the white," she pouted, suddenly close to tears. "I don’t want it! I don’t want it!" She stormed off towards her own room.

I couldn’t exactly tell, but I thought I saw Janey smiling ever so slightly. She and Sandra, who was clearly relieved by Aleeza’s leaving, played with all three cars. Janey even made sound effects as the drove the cars, the only sound I ever heard her make. I tried to hide my own smile behind my book.

The afternoon passed. Ed bought Janey a small stuffed bear with a bow tie. She wouldn’t even take it from his hand as he held it out to her. Ed set it next to her on the bed. Aleeza came back without explanation and Janey and Sandra allowed her to play. Still no sign of Dad.

About 30 minutes before my shift would end, the nurse came back to the room.

"Janey, the game room will be closing soon. We’ll need to get up there so you can get some new games for tonight. Do you want to go?"

She nodded her head once—yes.

"You can bring your friends, too," the nurse said. As she passed Ed and me, she said, "You two better go along also. Just in case."

"Okay!," Ed answered for us.

Janey’s entourage walked down the hallway—the nurse and Ed in the lead, Janey flanked by her two companions, and I took the rear. As we walked, Janey’s resolute face began to show some pain. There was a reason she was in the hospital to begin with.

The nurse looked back and saw Janey limping slightly.

"Oh, darlin’," she said. "You probably shouldn’t be walking. Why don’t you let Ed carry you?"

Ed stuck out his arms, that clownish look coming to his face again. "I’ll carry you, Janey! I don’t mind! Really!"

Janey crossed her arms and took a step back away from Ed.

"Do you want me to carry you?," the nurse asked.

Janey shook her head once—no. The nurse shrugged her shoulders and continued walking. The entourage followed.

As we neared the stairs, Janey turned. Without warning, she turned around and stopped so she was standing directly in front of me. She looking into my eyes for the second time that day and her face which I had once thought looked so adult now looked very vulnerable and afraid. She slowly raised her arms up to me. She wanted me to carry her.

The nurse turned around and gasped. Ed looked surprised and a little hurt. I knew exactly what I needed to do.

I reached down and picked up this girl whose father wanted to steal her. She put her hands around my neck and squeezed with a strength I didn’t know a seven year old could have. As I lifter her off the ground,, her legs wrapped around my waist. She set her head on my shoulder, her face towards my neck, and I squeezed her even harder as I heard her take on deep, contented breath and then sigh as big a sigh as her seven years would allow.

We walked down the hall, Janey and I, and I think the others followed; it’s hard for me to remember much after that except the feeling of pride and warmth I felt for this stranger in my arms. I carried her fragile and comforted body in my arms. As I set her down, I was saddened for I knew it would be years before I would carry anything as precious in my arms again.