Procrastinating some more, here's chapter two!
STEVE'S CHAPTER
Little girls were easy to take care of. Or so Soda thought. He found out pretty quickly that they tend to cry a lot. And throw tantrums whenever they don't get their way, but Soda found a simple solution to this: give her candy!
For the most part Soda kept the girl entertained, swooping her up into the air in big circles kept her squealing and giggling but whenever Soda had to leave her to go help customers she would get misty eyed, and Soda, being the sucker that he is, simply snagged a candy bar from the shelf and handed it to Denise, effectively keeping her occupied while he was gone.
By the time he figured out that maybe this wasn't such a great idea Denise had finished off half a box of Milky Ways. Not only did Soda figure out that it probably wasn't such a good idea to stuff a 6 year old full of sugar, he also realized that he probably shouldn't be giving away that much of the merchandise for free.
However, when he stopped giving her candy she cried. A lot. "Shh, shh, it's okay Denise. Stop crying!" Soda panicked. Still Denise continued to sob as Soda heard an impatient cough from the line of customers. "Alright, honey. I'll be right back. You can stay right here, right? You won't move? After this I go on brake, if you're a good girl I'll give you more candy!" He promised.
For a moment Denise considered this then, deciding she was getting a good deal, she happily nodded.
Soda left quickly to attend to his other customers. His attention was captured by a large group of greasers with an even larger order, effectively leaving young Denise on her own, but only for a minute. Really, how much trouble could the kid get into in only a couple of minutes?
A lot it seemed, because when Soda turned back she was gone.
Steve's Turn!
Damned idiots, thought Steve Randle, am I the only one in the world who knows how to check the coolant mixture percentage?
It seemed that the answer was yes.
He continued to mutter to himself about all the 'damned idiots' in the world that didn't know how to so much as change a flat tire, which was when he heard the first crash. Followed by another series of large bangs, thumps, and more crashes.
"SODA! WHAT THE HELL!" Steve yelled, assuming that his best friend had wandered into the garage on his brake and crashed into the perfectly neat pile of tires rims that Steve had carefully stacked that morning. A moment of dead silence fell over the garage before it was erupted by a loud wail.
A wail that Steve, for one, was sure had not come from Sodapop.
Sure enough he was right, as he turned the corner he did not see his tall, charming, idiot of a best friend but a young girl with long blond hair and green doe eyes. Eyes that were currently filling with tears.
"Hey!" Steve snapped, "Did you do this?"
The girl's bottom lip began to tremble but she resolutely shook her head from right to left. "No? Then who did it, kid?"
The child blinked her big eyes at Steve but he stood firm, staring her down. The girl, seeing that Steve was nothing like the other boy did the only thing she could think of. She screamed for Sodapop.
"What the he—? Jesus kid! Shut up, shut up. I don't care! It's okay, just a little mess, we can clean it up!" said Steve. He should have known better than to try and reason with a distressed little girl.
She was wailing, with no end in sight. He couldn't stand the sound of it, so Steve did the only thing he could think of. He yelled for Sodapop.
"Soda! Sodapop Curtis, get your ass out here! Where the hell did this kid come from? Make her stop!"
Soda had heard the frantic yelling and come to investigate, hoping that he would find Denise here. To his pleasure he was right. Denise stood by a large pile of tires and various supplies that had Soda remembered Steve carefully organizing that morning. She had barely stopped crying and was now staring up at Steve as if he was some type of foreign creature with which she had no experience.
Steve's expression was fascinatingly similar. "Steve! You found her," He said ecstatically picking up Denise.
"Eh? What? Found her? The little devil ruined the whole garage! My whole morning! Wasted!"
Soda rolled his eyes, "Relax, you're still getting paid for this morning's hours. Not that big a loss!"
Denise stuck her tongue out at Steve.
"Listen, I'm really glad I ran into you! I need you to watch Denise while I work!" Soda said, finally seeing a way that he could get all his work done and keep his promise to the girl.
"What? No way! Whose kid is this anyway?" Steve suddenly got really serious, "Soda…you didn't take this girl from someone, did you?"
Soda looked at Steve like he was crazy, "What? No of course not. She's a neighbor, I found her in the candy aisle, her babysitter is Mary Jensen." said Soda, putting special emphasis on the previous babysitter's name.
Steve's eyebrows shot up at the name, Jesus Christ, parents will leave their kids with anyone these days. Steve felt the slightest, only the slightest twinge of pity for the little girl. But he told himself that it was probably just indigestion.
Soda noticed the flicker of sympathy and knew that if he gave just a little push that Steve would watch her for an hour, maybe two if he was lucky, "Steve, c'mon!" Soda said, putting a little wheedle in his voice.
Steve glowered, "No. I have work to get done, what do you think I do back here all day anyways? Read the paper? I don't have time to watch some stupid brat."
At the tender age of six Denise did not have what would be described as a firm hold on the English language, but she sure knew what brat meant. She glowered at Steve and grasped Soda more tightly, "I don' wanna' spend any time with you either, dummy!"
"Why you little—!" Steve only got that far before Soda cut him off.
"Steve!" He barked effectively keeping his friend from teaching young Denise some new vocabulary terms.
Gently Soda set Denise on the ground; she stood facing Steve but held her arms out behind her, wrapped around Soda's legs. Soda leaned over and cupped his hands over her ears before turning to Steve, "Look," He said, his voice was a low hiss to keep Denise from hearing him, "Just keep an eye on the kid till I get off of work, she'll be easy to watch!"
"No way!" Steve argued back in the same hushed tone, "I have a job to be doing!"
"So do I!" Soda snapped, heavily annoyed with Steve's refusal to cooperate.
"THEN YOU SHOULDN'T PICK UP STRAY CHILDREN!" Hearing the muffles sounds of their argument Denise looked up, interested in what they were saying.
"What was I supposed to do? Leave her in the store? Or return her to her whore of a babysitter?" Steve continued to look unsympathetic to Soda's plight.
Soda, realizing he was getting nowhere, started to get desperate. He had made a promise to Denise Parkers and he was gonna keep it! "Alright," Soda switched methods; if begging wouldn't convince Steve to help then bribing probably would, "If you watch her for one hour, two tops, then I'll get you a date with Susan Channing!"
Steve's whole face changed, he'd been trying to get a date with Susan Channing for weeks now! He was still extremely wary but really she was a six year old girl, and it was Susan Channing they were talking about here! How hard could it be?
"Alright, I'll do it, but one hour an hour and a half tops, okay Soda?" Soda nearly jumped for joy; that was all he needed.
He took his hands off of Denise's ears and shook Steve's hand. "Don't worry man, my shift ends at 12:30, I'll be done in no time!" Happily he left the garage to rejoin Ricky at the counter.
Steve looked down at the small child that was now his responsibility for the next hour, "Well, looks like it's just you and me, kid," Unless any of the gang showed up that he could dump her off on.
She looked up at him and blinked her big green eyes, "Steve? What's a whore?"
Ok so I thought I'd do one chapter per guy but I think this will just be an in between chapter and the next one will be Steve's actual chapter.
These chapters are pretty short because it's just a random, fluffy, filler story. If you have any good suggestions for babysitting mishaps then leave it in a review!