The Bad BabySitter

Ren trudged into Thomas' house tiredly, Raimaru following close behind. They had just returned from South America. Where some Spido-Pod thing had showed up. She kinda lost interest in it after about five minutes, to tell the truth. She was more worried about getting Thomas home before bed time.

Thomas entered the house. The first thing he went to do was run into the kitchen and get himself some Caprisun. He loved Caprisun. After a complicated task of putting the straw into the whole, Thomas waddled back over to Raimaru and pat the dog on the head. He didn't seem at all worried or tired or anything about the whole thing in South America. He was silent on the way back, but he was fine really.

"Where were you guys!" Came a yell from none other than Kelly, Thomas's less fun sister. Her yell made Thomas nearly choke on his drink, coughing trying to expell the liquid. "I've been here for hours by myself! How come he gets all of the attention!?"

Here we go...

"Last time I check I was your babysitter. Not her's." Ren whispered to Thomas, smiling. "We were at the store." she called, making up a quick excuse. What could she say? Lying was her game. No one could beat her at it. Ever. And she was proud of that fact. She asks what we were buying and I'll tell her her Christmas Presents, or something. she thought smugly.

Raimaru wagged his tail as Thommy patted his head. He rather liked the little boy. He was... More mature than his sister, Kelly. He looked over at his owner, a confused look on his face. Why didn't she say they were taking him on a walk? Oh. Right. Walks didn't take.. however many hours they were gone.

Thomas smiled to himself, his sister, catching it, gave him an angry glare. "Is that what I'm supposed to tell mom? Because she called twice to talk to you and I had to cover. I can't exactly say: Oh, it's okay mom, they were just shopping for about ten hours!" She was seething with anger over this. She never really went anywhere with them when they went off somewhere.

Thomas's sister was twelve, and she was one of those preppy twelve year olds. She didn't even go to a private school, she went to a public school. Because of this, Thomas didn't even know what a prep was, but that came with being seven.

"You could have asked to come. And it was only four hours." Ren contradicted, picking up some toys that were scattered around the room. "Plus I was helping Thomas with his South American Animal project, so I took him to Wal-Mart to look for some plastic toys to go with it."

Raimaru walked up to Kelly, sniffing at her hand and wagging his fringed tail happily. He pushed his muzzle under her hand, wanting to be rubbed.

"Then where's your stuff?" Kelly questioned, avoiding the whole you-could-have-come thing. She took a step back when Raimaru came close to her. She wrinkled her nose up as if she smelled something fowl or something. What a prep. "Get away from me you dumb dog!" She yelled at him.

"He's not stupid! You're stupid!" Thomas yelled back at her. She wasn't going to let her insult the dog he considered his as well as Ren's.

"Shut up, Thomas! No one was talking to you!"

OOC: And I don't know what to add so I'll end it there. XD

Raimaru backed away with a whimper, retreating to stand in front of Thomas. Ren sighed. "Left it in the car. Bought you some Chrismas stuff too. So don't ask to see it. I'll bring Thomas' project stuff by tomorrow." She leaned down to ruffle Rai's ears, comforting the hurt-looking dog. "It's OK, boy," she murmured. "Hey hey!" she snapped to Kelly's and Thomas' yelling at each other. "If you both don't calm down, you're both going to bed right now."

That, carried with the extra, silent threat of, 'I can make your lives miserable at school,' should scare the kids into behaving. It worked most of the time.

"Christmas stuff in May?" Kelly did that thing that girls like to do where they kind of stick their hip out and put their hands on their hip or whatever. Kelly glared at Ren when she threatened to send them to bed early. "Like you could," she muttered, clearly angry about this whole situation.

"She started it," Thomas said under his breath like all children did whenever they got into trouble. He made a little gasp when his sister gave him the I'm-so-going-to-set-your-bed-on-fire look. She wouldn't! Oh she would.

Ren growled, starting to get irritated, and stood up taller, stretching. "Anyhow... Did you do your homework?" she asked Kelly, narrowing her eyes.

"Of course," Kelly snapped back, "I was here all day while you two were 'shopping'." Thomas stuck his tongue out at her. She was being all bratty and stuff. "I ought to tell mom," she threatened with retaliation back to Thomas. "I don't think she would appreciate you leaving me here." Goodness, it was like a ransom or something.

OOC: I have to finish this early.

"Fine then. Good luck finding another babysitter." she fired back. There were no other babysitters for about a mile or so. But while there were plenty teenage girls looking for a babysitting job, Ren was the only one who allowed her charges to stay up late, eat junk food as much as they wanted, and pretty much do whatever. And then, when it came time to behave, she could threaten them. And she always went out with threats. That was the nice thing about her, though.

"But I don't want another babysitter!" Thomas whined. All of the other babysitters they had sucked, and none of them had a dog like Rai! None of them! And if they did, they didn't bring it. And they were all mean, and never even paid attention to them! Their parents weren't even sure about hiring Ren! Ren was the best!

Kelly seemed to agree with this too, because she said no other threat of unemployment. "Fine," she sneered. "Mom said they were on their way five minutes ago, so you," Kelly hissed at Thomas, "better go to bed." She went back to her room, angry as ever over this whole thing.

Thomas looked over at Ren, giving her that, do-I-have-to-go-bed look. He still hadn't even finished his homework, much less draw a picture! He hated his bed time. He had to go to bed a lot earlier than Kelly. She went to bed a nine and he went to bed at seven. Seven! That was terrible.

Ren smiled. That threat always works... she thought with an inward chuckle. She looked pointedly over at Thomas. "Yes, you have to go to bed. I'll come by extra early and get you up to finish your homework. In fact, I'll help you with it now if you think we have time." she said, walking over and sitting on the couch. Kelly said five minutes? Hah! That girl could be lying. But still... She quickly hid her gun inside it's holster. "Gotta hurry, though."

Thomas nodded briskly. As fast as his feet could take him, the little boy ran into his room and was back in a flash with a pencil and a box of crayons. It was just a twenty-four pack, not the cool big boxes of sixty-eight. He laid his paper down. On the white sheet was a two sentence insturction of what they were to do. Under that was a line-which next to it said 'Animal'-and under it was a rectangular box with enough room for a third grader to draw on. Under that was a a line or two where the student would write why they picked the animal, and something they know about it. Next to that was a box identical to it with it's own set of lines, and under these two, were two more just the same.

A simple assignment, but it was a hard task for the little seven-year-old.

"Hmmm... let's see here." Ren picked up the paper and read it swiftly. Just because she didn't like reading as much as some people didn't mean she couldn't speed-read. Her mom had made her take the class in second grade. "You chose the Toucan, Jaguar, Tree Frog, and Tree Boa. Right?" she asked, looking over the top of the paper.

THomas shrugged. He knew he saw the Toucans, other than that he just knew he saw a frog, a snake, and a big black cat that gave him a little fright. "I picked a Toucan," he simply said with another shrug. He'd run out of his Caprisun, and he wanted some more. Would she let him have another? "Can I have some more Caprisun?"

"Sure." Ren smiled. "I can write and you can draw. That way it'll take less time." she offered. "Just tell me what to write."

OOC: Muse dead.

Yes! Thomas ran to the fridge and got himself another one before coming back with new cheer. He nodded his head briskly. He'd draw, she'd write. He grabbed one of the crayons, and at the top of the paper wrote his name as netly as he could, which wasn't really that neat. In the first spot he started to draw a little toucan in the box. "Um," he tried to think of what to write. What did toucans do? "Oh! Uh. Toucans sqwauk and fly around if you get too close?" That wasn't something you'd hear ont he Discovery Channel, but...

"OK." Ren wrote the words down in neat, fluid print. Well okay, maybe not to neat but it was readable. Next line was why you wrote about them. "Why'd you decide to do Toucans, Thomas?" she asked, remembering him pointing out the birds because of their beautiful colors.

"Because they looked funny. And I bet one of them has some Fruit Loops." He was series about the Fruit Loops thing. Anyways, he also pointed them out because they yelled things at them after they were scared off. He didn't catch everything, but most of it sounded mean. He wondered why Ren hadn't commented on it. He was convinced that everyone has special little powers like he did. His family did! Or, at least most of them...

On the next block he grabbed a black crayon to draw the Jaguare. They were black, right? He forgot what the animal looked like after all of the excitement, but... that's what they looked like, right?

Outside the house, a noise could be heard of a car driving up, ith lights shining into the windows. It was their parents, but THomas gave it no mind. He was drawing.

Ren caught the lights in the windows, but didn't think twice. "That's all?" she asked, jotting everything own in her neat-messy handwriting.