Neighborly

At least twice a month the ten-year-old girl who lives next door comes knocking on my door, having somehow been locked out of her house upon her arrival home from school. She uses my phone, some relative zips home and opens the house up for her, and that is that. Sometimes I give her a snack while she waits.

When Baby was very young, these intrusions used to drive me batty (especially if I was pumping), and I spoke with her mother about leaving a key with us (she never brought one over). But they don’t bother me now, especially since we have gotten to be friends with this girl and Baby loves to see her. Invariably when we are out in the front yard reading the mail or doing yardwork she will pop by to play with Baby, and sometimes when we’re in the backyard, too. She once helped me immensely while I was picking up downed branches by keeping Baby busy doing the same with small sticks. Sometimes we’ll chat about topics like the inadvisability of kissing boys. I think she does all this because she wants me to ask her to babysit, but judging from her inability to keep herself from being locked out of her house I don’t think she’s quite responsible enough.

So I wasn’t surprised to hear pounding on my door around three thirty this afternoon. I asked her and the buddy she had with her if she needed to use the phone, but she surprised me by saying no.

“Because I’m wearing pants.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m only supposed to wear skirts.”
“Skirts? It’s cold outside! Why can’t you wear pants?”
“Because I’m a Christian” she said with exasperation, flapping one hand dismissively.

Apparently, her mother doesn’t want her to wear pants (which I see her in all the time, which made this exchange even more confusing) because of their religion (they’re members of some group that spends Saturday night at church and doesn’t celebrate Halloween). After she explained that if she called her mother, her mother would see her wearing pants, which she said she wore for PE (I told her she didn’t have to justify her pants usage to me), I offered her the use of my phone and a skirt. I dug up a size 4T skirt I had gotten secondhand for Baby a few months back, and the skinny little thing managed to put it on.

“Won’t your mother wonder where you got this new skirt?”
“Oh, I’ll just tell her she bought it for me and if she forgot it’s because she’s old.”

And just think–one day Baby will probably lie to me just like that! So much to look forward to. Shit, I hope I don’t have a neighbor like me who helps her, though. But I didn’t want her to get in trouble for wanting to wear pants to PE on a cold day!

What do you think I should have done?