Today's Megan's first day for baby sitting Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. It is a misery just as she thought it would be. She doesn't believe she's cut out for doing a job like this.

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Author's note: I DO NOT OWN THE POWER PUFF GIRLS! CRAIG MCCRACKEN AND WARNER BROTHERS DO!

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On the Job

Chapter 4

I woke up at one in the afternoon that Monday, which wasn't great since I had to be ready for baby-sitting at the Utonium's in one hour. And I needed a while to make myself look presentable.

Thirty minutes later I was blow drying my hair so it would be as straight as possible. I looked okay, I guess. I was wearing eye shadow, a pair of blue jeans, and a black tank top.

"How do I look?" I asked Richard.

"Like a baby-sitter," he replied, proudly.

"Good."

We headed over to the Utonium's house. The Professor opened the door and smiled at us. "Hey, Richard," he said. "Hello, Megan."

"Hey there," I said. "Where are the girls?"

"They're inside," Professor replied. "I'm gonna quickly let them know you're here and then I'm gonna head off to work." He turned around and called, "Girls! Megan's here!"

The girls ran up to the door and smiled at me.

"Seeya, Megan," Richard said giving me a hug. Then he started home. The Professor waved to me and then got in his car to go to work.

"Don't just stand there!" Buttercup told me.

"Come inside," Blossom insisted.

"Okay, thank you," I said politely. I entered the living room. I knew I needed to say something so I decided to compliment their house. "I just love this living room," I gushed. "And this whole house."

"Thank you," all three girls said at the same time. They walked over to their couch and sat down on it. Buttercup turned on the television. There were two Muppet-looking creatures on the screen. One of them was hitting the other with a baseball bat. The girls giggled as if this was incredibly humorous.

"Since I'm your baby-sitter, is there something I'm supposed to do right now?" I asked.

Blossom turned around. "Um… you could watch TV with us."

"You don't want me to get you anything?" I asked.

Blossom shook her head. "We're fine."

I sighed. They didn't need me. I sat down on the end of the couch to Bubbles' right. I didn't really feel like watching these jokester puppets but the girls did, and I was the one invading their home.

"Hello!" Bubbles said to me during the commercial break.

"Hi," I said smiling kindly.

She jumped at me and gave me a big hug. "Aww," I said, returning the hug. "Thank you."

She was so cute. She continued hugging me until the commercial break was over.

The show finally ended at 2:30.

"That's just the greatest show!" Buttercup pointed out. "But they keep having reruns! Why can't they ever just make new episodes?"

"They can't," Blossom explained. "The show was canceled three months ago."

"Oh." Buttercup turned red. "I knew that."

I looked around at the living room while they discussed their favorite canceled show about the puppets hitting each other in the head with baseball bats. I wanted to say something, so I didn't seem like a complete mute. But I didn't know what.

"Hey, Megan," Buttercup said. "Did you see that rain on Friday night?"

"Oh yeah," I said nodding. "That was pretty bad."

"You're telling me," Buttercup agreed.

"It was a good thing too," Blossom pointed out. "Can you imagine all the crimes that could have been committed on a random Friday night like that if it were dry? I say we were lucky it rained so hard."

"Octi doesn't like the thunder," Bubbles said.

"Well, Octi can take a hike!" Buttercup snapped. "I love the thunder! Bang! Bang! Boom! Boom! Crash! Pop! Loud! Noisy! Thunder!"

Bubbles hid under a pillow.

This was where I got to turn into the big, responsible adult. "Buttercup, cut it out," I told her.

All three girls stared at me for a moment, blinking their big eyes once or twice. Then Buttercup frowned and crossed her arms. "Cut what out?"

"You were scaring Bubbles," I said, hoping I hadn't said anything wrong.

"That's okay. Don't worry about it," Blossom laughed. "Buttercup always tries to scare Bubbles. It's nothing new. We're all pretty used to it."

I knew that as the baby-sitter it was my job to make some rules around here.

"Well, whenever I'm here, Buttercup, you can't try to scare Bubbles!" I declared. "And we won't watch that show about the puppets hitting each other. It fills your minds with violence."

Buttercup scoffed. "You think watching that show fills our minds with violence? You should see the violence we see out in real life."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but you're not allowed to watch that show or try to scare each other when I'm in this house," I snapped.

Buttercup screamed in frustration.

"Calm down, Buttercup," Blossom insisted. "Megan's the baby-sitter. She's the one in charge here."

"But she's ruining everything!" Buttercup pointed out. "I thought she would be cool with everything we did since she's a teenager, but no. She has to be all tough and no-nonsense."

"Buttercup, when will you ever learn to respect your elders?" Blossom wanted to know.

I was only fourteen. I didn't want to think of myself as an elder just yet.

"Can we color?" Bubbles asked hopefully.

"Of course you can color," I told her, smiling. She jumped up and gave me another hug. I hugged her back. Then she ran to her room to get a coloring book and crayons and came back.

"Now you're already picking favorites, huh?" Buttercup asked me.

She and Blossom sat down beside Bubbles and the three of them starting coloring in their coloring book. Bubbles looked up at me and handed me a blue crayon. "Color with us!" she insisted.

"Okay, I'll color with you," I assured her.

I sat down with the girls and colored in the picture of a whale that Bubbles had ripped out of the coloring book. I colored in the lines. Bubbles and Buttercup didn't. Blossom did. I still found it weird how Blossom was so advanced for her young age.

"This is the best picture of a flower I ever colored!" Bubbles gushed.

I looked at her flower. There were red zigzags all throughout the picture. Buttercup laughed. "You scribbled all over it!" she said.

"You did too!" Bubbles snapped, pointing at Buttercup's purple picture of a bat.

"I have another rule," I interrupted them. "You're not allowed to insult each other's drawings."

"Ha!" Buttercup laughed in Bubbles' face.

"Hey! You started it!" Bubbles snapped.

"Girls, girls, please," Blossom said, waving her hands in the air. "Please stop arguing. It's bad manners when we have a guest here."

I didn't want to take sides so I just smiled.

I didn't feel like discussing the coloring anymore so I asked, "Are you guys hungry? Is there any snack I can make for you?"

"We're not hungry right now, thank you," Blossom replied.

"Okay, then," I said.

This was getting really awkward. I had no idea what to say or what to do. I let them play kickball outside while I called my mom.

"They're so mature," I explained, as I sat upright on the couch. "I don't think they even need me."

"Tell your father you don't want to do this anymore," Anna told me. She always blamed everything on Richard.

"No, that would break his heart," I pointed out. "And it's not even that I don't want to do it, really. It's just that I don't know how."

"You don't have to," Anna groaned. "You can just come back home to New York, and never have to deal with Richard again."

"That's not what I want, Mom," I told her.

"Then what do you want, Megan?"

"I just want to, maybe, try a little longer and then decide if it's completely hopeless. Can you just give me some time?"

I heard her sigh. "Fine, Megan. If that's really what you want."

"Thanks, Mom. Love you."

"Love you."

"Bye."

I hung up and walked outside.

I was startled to see that Buttercup was running around the subdivision at a wild, almost impossible speed. Bubbles was too far behind to catch her.

When Buttercup reached fourth base she did a victory dance. "Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed. She punched the air in Bubbles' direction. "You're out!"

"That's not fair, Buttercup," Bubbles sighed.

"Yeah, I know," Blossom agreed. "It's so weird! She's the only one in her own team and she still seems to be beating us."

"What is going on?" I demanded to know.

The girls stood in a line, embarrassedly.

"You don't want us to get competitive?" Blossom asked curiously.

"No," I said shaking my head. "How was… Buttercup… running so darn fast?"

The girls exchanged looks with one another.

"You have to run really fast," Buttercup pointed out. "That's the whole point of the game."

I wasn't gonna push this one any further.

"Okay," I sighed. "I just didn't understand, that's all. Can you guys just come in for lunch?"

"Sure," the three of them replied politely.

They followed me into the house and sat down at their dining room table. "I don't really know how to cook that well," I told them. "So I'm just gonna get you…" I glanced at the counter. "Salad."

Buttercup made a face but I ignored her.

I grabbed three bowls (one pink, one blue, and one green), put some lettuce into them, and added some veggies. Then I poured some ranch dressing over them and handed them to the girls.

"You're supposed to mix the dressing," Buttercup said frowning.

"Oh, sorry," I apologized.

"That's okay," Blossom assured me. She turned to Buttercup. "We can do that, ourselves."

They could do everything themselves.

Bubbles finished her salad quickly. She walked up to me with a big smile on her face.

"Thank you for the delicious salad!" she exclaimed.

"You're welcome," I said smiling.

"It is the bestest salad I've ever tasted!" she added.

"I'm glad," I said, relieved.

"Now I am going upstairs to play with dollies!" she explained. "You must come with me."

She reached up and held my hand. I followed her upstairs. Blossom and Buttercup weren't far behind. We all entered the bedroom. It looked just like it did the last time I saw it. Beautiful. I missed my fairytale bedroom in New York.

Bubbles emerged from a pile of stuffed animals on the floor. There was an octopus with a hat on her head. "This is Octi!" she explained.

"Hi, Octi," I said, holding the octopus for a moment. I studied him. "You must have had him for a while," I said. "He looks a little battered."

Bubbles took more offense to this than I would have hoped. "I only got him last year," she said in a small little voice.

"Oh," I said, embarrassedly. "My mistake."

"He's just been through a lot, that's all," Blossom said.

"He's been through a lot?" I repeated. I was hoping she'd explain. But she didn't.

Suddenly the phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hello?" I said.

"Blossom?" said a little old man's voice.

"Um…no… this is Megan," I said.

"Can you put Blossom on the phone immediately? This is urgent from the Mayor!"

"The Mayor… wow," I repeated, impressed.

Blossom took the phone from me. "What is it, Mayor? ... Really? ... Really? … Uh oh ... We're on it! Come on, girls!"

The three girls ran toward the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" I wanted to know.

Blossom thought for a moment. "The mayor needs us to do something at his office. We kinda work for him."

"What?" I said.

"We work for the mayor!" Buttercup shouted. "Bye!"

The girls were out the door before I could say anything else.

I sat in front of the TV, waiting for them to return. Why did they need a baby-sitter if they already worked for the Mayor? I didn't understand. What was I doing here?

They came back two hours later.

"Why were you out so long?" I demanded to know.

"The job takes a while," Blossom said.

"No!" I said. "Listen, if I'm gonna be your baby-sitter, then I'm in charge. You guys haven't shown me that yet. And if this continues any longer, then I quit."

Tears filled Bubbles' eyes.

This made me sad. "Sorry," I apologized.

Blossom and Buttercup looked sad too.

"I take that back," I said with a sigh. "I won't quit. I just want to be in charge. And when I'm in charge you can't be away for more than two hours."

"Thank you!" the girls said.

They ran upstairs to play dollies again.

I didn't follow. I wasn't in the mood.

Two hours after that the Professor entered the house. "Hello?" he said.

"Professor!" the girls squealed in delight.

They ran up to him and gave him a big hug.

The Professor laughed kindly.

"Hello," he said smiling. Then when he was done hugging them he looked up and said, "How was your day, Megan?"

"Good," I replied (the stereotypical answer).

"Good," the Professor said. "You know, I'm probably good for the rest of the week, so you don't have to come back until next week."

Music to my ears. "Okay," I said.

"Do you need someone to take you over to your house?" the Professor asked. "The crime rate's high, so Blossom can take you over there."

If she was gonna be my escort to my house, then why was I baby-sitting her?

"That's okay," I assured him. "I can get there, myself. It's really no problem."

"Okay," the Professor said, smiling.

"Bye, girls," I said to the girls.

"Bye!" they said waving at me. They all sat in front of the TV when I was at the door. I was surprised Bubbles didn't give me another hug. I shouldn't have been. I didn't deserve it.

The Professor waved to me one last time and I waved back at him. Then I opened the door and walked across the street to my house. I couldn't believe the crime rate was so high that I needed an escort to walk me across the street.

It got me nervous. I gasped at every small noise when I walked over to my house. I got there safely and knocked on my door.

Richard opened it and I went inside.

"How was your first day of baby-sitting?" he asked me.

"Oh, it was a blast," I said.

"Do you really mean that or are you being sarcastic?" he asked.

"What do you think, Dad?" I asked. "I wasn't cut out to be there. They can totally fend for themselves. So I was just basically humiliating myself."

"Megan, that's not what they think," Richard assured me. "Anyway, does he want you to come back tomorrow?"

"No," I said triumphantly. "He wants me to come back next week."

"Oh, okay," Richard said.

I climbed upstairs and got into my bed. I stared out my window at the city, and at where the power plant building used to be before the robot took it down.

On Friday night the Gangreen Gang didn't show up at the work shop. This made me angry. It made Richard angry too. He had drove out all the way to work for nothing. At least Ima Goodlady came in the room and wrote a check to Richard for all the money he deserved.

"Here you go, Richie," she said in a sugary sweet voice.

"Thank you so much, Ima," he said gratefully.

"No problem, angel," Ima replied.

She smiled at me before she left the room.

"I can't believe they'd do this," I said, shaking my head in disappointment.

"I can," Richard muttered.

"Dad, you really need to get another job," I said loudly.

He didn't say anything for a moment and then stared out his window. "I'll think about it," he said. I could tell he was nervous about going anywhere new in the high crime-rated city of Townsville.

I was furious at Ace. I thought he would come.

I was also furious that they would just walk all over my dad. Richard didn't stand up for himself. Ever. He always let people walk all over him.

"Don't worry, Dad," I said, so many schemes running through my brain. "I'm gonna fix this."

"You're gonna get me a new job?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I'm just gonna fix it."

I knew what I was gonna do tomorrow; Saturday night. I was gonna go on a little trip to the dump.