"Yeah…mhmm…alright. Cool. Yeah. Ok….Yeah, no problem. Alright see you tonight Scoot." I hung up the phone and flopped onto my bed. Another Saturday night wasted and it's all Scooter's fault. He called me and asked if I would babysit for his two nephews and of course I had to say yes…did I really have a choice? A glance at the clock told me it was 2:45. "Still got about 2 hours until I start." I said to myself so I decided I should get a shower and get dressed. I took my time in the shower, singing as I washed. When I got out I realized I spent a little too long in there, and had to throw on a black v-neck and some khaki shorts to wear and slipped on a necklace and into my black vans.
"Mom! I'm babysitting for Scooter tonight!" I yelled as I ran down the stairs two at a time.
"Alright honey, do you want to eat something first?" I hear coming from the family room. My mom was in there watching some sappy chick flick.
"I'll just grab something on the way or call for pizza if the rugrats get hungry" I replied. I grabbed my keys off the table and kissed my mom on the cheek. "See you later."
The sun was bright in the sky as I drove to Scooter's house and my car told me it was 89 degrees outside. I love living in LA, being able to cruise down the highway with the music blaring and the windows down. I don't know what I would do if I still lived in Canada. Oh yes I do…freeze. I guess I can't be mad at Scooter for making me babysit. The man did help launch my career and if it weren't for him I'd still be singing on the streets. As I'm pulling into Scooter's driveway, I see him leaning against his Lamborghini smiling at me. "Justin, my boy! Nice to see you!"
"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm babysitting your nephews so you can go out to who knows where. I better be the nicest person for you to see right now." I replied.
"Well…there is someone nicer that I'm looking forward to seeing if you know what I mean…" he said, looking back at the house as someone started coming down the steps. I recognized her from somewhere, I just couldn't tell where. Was she a super model? Fashion designer? …"Justin, this is Adriana Fonseca."
Bingo. She's an actress. Of course she's an actress. "Nice to meet you" I said giving her a smile and shaking her hand. She replied that it was nice to meet me too. Then they said goodbye, got in Scooter's car, and drove away. "Guess the kids are inside…" I muttered to myself before turning around and heading inside.
I had only babysat for Scooter's nephews a few times, but I guess he thought I knew the drill. No matter how many times I'm at his house, it seems it gets bigger and bigger every time. I reach the family room and see the boys watching a movie. "Hey guys" I say to get their attention and they both turn around to greet me back. I see that the older one, Matthew, dirty blond hair almost as long as mine and blue eyed has on a blue American Eagle shirt and wearing jean shorts with blue Jordans. His shoes remind me he's athletic and I think how going out and shooting around would be fun. I start a mental list of stuff to do with the boys and put that as number one. Matthew's 12, he likes that stuff…right? Then I look over to the younger one, Joey. He doesn't look like his brother with his short dark brown hair and brown eyes. I remember he'll be 10 in March because it's the same month as my birthday and see he's playing on his iPad. I make the mental note that this kid would be entertained for hours with video games and tell myself that I'll put some time aside to play along.
"Justin!" Matthew says, pausing the movie, "Finally you're here! Did Uncle Scooter leave?"
"He just left with his date. Said he'd be back later and that we should enjoy ourselves. What do you guys want to do first?"
And so the adventure began. We finished watching the movie they had started, some action movie with Vin Diesel in it, and then as I predicted Matthew wanted to go out and shoot some hoops. We did that for the next hour or so and then went in when Joey complained he was hungry and didn't want to play anymore. I ordered pizza for us and got out some chips and soda to go with it. "Best babysitter ever" I thought to myself (because what kid wouldn't want to eat junk food on a Saturday night?) After the pizza came, we went into the family room and ate and watched another movie and I played a game with Joey on his iPad. When the movie ended it was almost 8:00. "Alright boys, almost bedtime?" I said hopefully.
"No way! On the weekends we don't go to bed until we're tired!" said Matthew, and I looked at Joey as he nodded along. "Ok…so what do you want to do now?" They thought about it for a minute and their response actually surprised me a little. They wanted to go to the beach. "The beach? But we'd have to…" I started to say but then remembered that Scooter lived on his own private beach. "Ok, let's go. Matthew, do you have shorts I can wear?"
"Yeah, and if you can't fit mine we can get a pair from Uncle Scooter's room" Matthew said, as he and Joey ran upstairs to change. They were back in less than a minute, and when I changed into Scooter's old basketball shorts, we headed out. There was a nice wooden path that lead from the backdoor of the house the whole way down to the sand. I was surprised that the boys had enough energy to practically full-out sprint the length of it down to the beach. When I finally reached the end, they were already splashing around out in the water. I laid down the towel I brought, and put theirs out too for when they came out of the water. Sitting down on my elbows, I really wished that the sun was still out so I could tan. I messed around on my phone as I watched the boys out in the water, but then I started getting tired so I plugged my headphones into my phone and sat back to take a nap. I figured if the boys needed me they could just wake me up so I closed my eyes and drifted off.
"Justin! Justin! Wake up!" I hear after what seemed like 5 minutes. Groggily, I sat up to see Matthew sitting in front of me.
"Wh-What is it?" I mutter, expecting him to say that he or Joey had been injured somehow.
"Look what I did!" He said smiling at me and pointing. I follow his finger and see he's pointing about 10 feet from where we are. At first I don't see anything, but then I see that he's pointing at a clump of hair laying in the sand.
"What is that? Seaweed?" I ask, then get off my towel to check it out. As I get closer to the object, a smile comes on my face. The clump of hair is attached to Joey's head which appears to just be sitting on the sand. "Joey, did you let him bury you?"
"Yeah Matthew said it would be fun. We did it while you were sleeping."
"haha you kids are crazy" I said, pulling out my phone and taking a picture of Joey. After Matthew and I were done posing with his head, I started to dig the sand away from him to get him out.
"Awe why do we have to dig him out? Can't we leave him until Uncle Scooter gets home?" Matthew started pleading to me.
"We have to dig him out. I don't know when your Uncle is coming home and it's getting darker out. How about we get him out and we'll go back to the house to get some ice cream?" Negotiating with a 12 year old…what has my life come to?
"Well…I kind of wanted to ask…if we could…maybe…" He was stuttering and dropped his gaze down to the sand. It took me a few minutes to figure out what he wanted to say but then I caught on.
"Matthew…do you want to bury me in the sand?" I finally said. He looked me in the eye and shook his head yes. I sighed before I replied "fine. I'll let you bury me. But only for a few minutes."
A smile bigger than any I have seen on any of my fans came across his face and I got up and took my shirt off to get this over with. I saw him start digging in the sand a few feet from where we had left Joey. "What are you doing? I thought I was just going to be laying down like your brother."
"Joey isn't laying down. We dug like a 4 foot hole and he jumped in." Matthew said without even looking up. He was a fast digger, already about 2 feet into the sand. I went back over to Joey to dig him back out while Matthew finished. It took some effort, but I was able to get both of Joey's arms out and decided to leave him to dig the rest of the way. Next I went back to my towel to put my phone away so it wouldn't get sandy and put my shirt over it. I also took off my necklace and put it on top. "I'm done!" I hear behind me, and look back to see Matthew climbing out of a hole that looks really deep.
"How deep is that thing?!" I asked, leaning over the edge of it and seeing that there's water at the bottom. It looked like the perfect hole for leaving just my head uncovered.
"I think like 5 and ½ or 6 feet. I wanted it to be a good fit for you!" Matthew said, obviously very proud of what he had just dug. "Alright, in you go!"
The next 30 minutes were spent with me in the hole with my hands behind my back (at Matthew's request) and him above me piling the sand back in. After a while I saw that Joey had gotten completely unburied and was helping by pushing the sand in with his hands. These kids were not worried about getting dirty, that's for sure. Was I like that when I was a kid? I remember one time me and a couple friends had gone out into the woods to play paintball, and when we came back we were covered head to toe in dirt, mud, and paintball marks. Man was that a fun day….
"Ouch!" I said, coming back to reality and having to catch my breath. The sand was up to my stomach now and that last pile of sand hit my chest like a ton of bricks. I tried to wiggle around, but found that I already couldn't move much. The kids continued on as if I hadn't said anything, and in no time I was literally up to my neck in sand. I tried to move around again, and found that to my distain I had even less ability to move around than before.
"There! All done!" Matthew exclaimed. "Are you trying to move around?" They both watched with joy as I wiggled and tossed around with no success. I eventually had to give up because I was out of breath and everything was starting to hurt.
"Alright guys, take your pictures and get me out. Come on this hurts." I explained to them. It was then I realized that not only was I negotiating with kids, I was also at their mercy now.
"Joey, go get my phone. And his!" Joey got up, ran over to the towel and grabbed the two phones. When I saw him again he was squatting in front of me flashing picture after picture. "Now take one of me and him!" I heard Matthew say, and after they had each taken a selfie and a group shot on both phones, I thought they would be satisfied.
"Ok, you got your pictures now start digging me out please!" I shouted, starting to lose patience because it was really hard to breathe now and I was getting claustrophobic. "Come on, right now I said."
"Hmm…what do you think, Joey? Do we have to listen to him now that he's just a head and can't do anything?" I assumed Joey shook his head no, because then Matthew got up and started to walk away. "We're going to go back to the house and get that ice cream. You stay here Justin, maybe we'll bring you some."
"What? Matthew! Joey! Come back here now and dig me out!" I started screaming at them but as I heard their footsteps getting further and further away I knew they had left me. "Now what?" I mumbled, and thought about the situation I had gotten myself into. Two kids had buried me in the sand on a private beach behind a mansion and there was no one around to scream for. The moon had fully come up now and I could see it over the water. Despite my current predicament, it looked really cool shining bright and reflecting on the waves. What time is it? What are the boys doing? I thought about how Scooter is going to react when he comes home and sees the boys in the family room, eating ice cream late at night, and me nowhere to be seen. As if that wasn't bad enough, the waves were starting to creep higher and higher up the beach, and if the kids didn't come back soon, I was going to get drowned out…or freeze. What irony…freezing to death in Los Angeles, one of the hottest cities in the world. I figured the best thing for me to do is to try and wiggle my arms free, and then I can dig out like Joey did. The trouble was that my hands were behind my back, pressed against my body and the back of the hole. Try as I might, I couldn't get my hands to move, and the only progress I made was that they started to cramp up and hurt more. "MATTHEW! …JOEY! …MATTHEW! …JOEY!" I started to scream, hoping that somehow they would hear me. The house isn't that far away is it? Oh…yeah, it is.
"THUD. THUD. THUD." I stop shouting as I hear what sounds like footsteps coming down the steps from the walkway. I can hear the shuffling of sand and I take a sigh of relief.
"Oh thank god boys, you came to dig me out." I said. "It's about time. Tell you what, if you dig me out right now, and go to bed afterwards, I won't tell your Uncle about this. Deal?"
I'm surprised to hear no response. I thought that they would either accept from fear of getting in trouble, or leave again to see if I could bargain. "Guys? Is it a deal? What's going on?" I'm starting to get a little nervous and my mind starts racing. I twist my head around as far as I can but all I can see are the person's feet. And they aren't kids' feet. "Hello!? Who's there?!" The person bends down and covers my eyes with their hands. "What are you doing!? Hey, stop!" I try to twist my head around to get the hands off but I can't. The hands twist around and I think the person is moving in front of me. I'm starting to thrash around but still can't get my hands out or do anything to defend myself. I'm just about to scream out when I hear "SURPRISE!"
"Justin…what happened?" The hands come off my eyes and I see Scooter bent down looking at me and laughing. "I just got home and the boys said you were a little busy at the beach. When I got closer to the beach I saw your head and understood what they meant. So…What happened?
I explained to Scooter about me falling asleep, waking up to Joey buried, and then Matthew asking to do the same to me. "Well that was your first mistake" Scooter laughed, "That boy is a clever one. Always coming up with something. I feel bad for Joey. He has to put up with whatever Matthew wants to do." He called the boys down to help dig me out, and after we were done I was forced to go into the cold ocean to wash all the sand off my body. Scooter got me a towel and my clothes and told me to keep the shorts, and we went back to the house so I could warm up before leaving. "You're welcome to stay the night if you'd like, Justin" Scooter told me.
"Thanks, but after tonight, I can practically hear my bed calling my name." I replied. I turned to Matthew and Joey, "Thanks for an…interesting night boys" I said, smiling and taking each in for a half hug. "But you know…now it's on like Donkey Kong. I'll remember this next time I babysit you."
Both of their faces lit up. "You're going to babysit us again?!" Matthew said. "Uncle Scooter, can he babysit us again?" They looked at him like they were begging for water in the desert.
"That's up to Justin, boys." Scooter said. They turned to me and I smiled in return.
As I turned the key to start my car, I smiled and laughed to myself. I had actually had fun tonight with the boys, and even though they tricked me, I respected them for it. Driving home, I was nodding off, knowing that the second I hit my pillow I would be out…and I couldn't wait. I got home and didn't even bother to drive into the garage. I locked the car, muttered a goodnight to my mom, and got under my covers, still in my clothes. Before I fell asleep, my phone vibrated. I opened the message and saw it was Scooter asking me to babysit in 2 weeks. I smiled to myself and looked forward to giving up a Saturday to babysit the boys.