Olivia Bennett apparently liked me babysitting a lot. Allison and Olivia had been friends since childhood and since Olivia's daughter Sophie was the same age as Candy and Jack, the little kids always had a play date or two. I babysat for the Bennett's mostly on date nights for Mike and Olivia. Sometimes I'd be watching all the kids, Jamie, Candy, Jack, and Sophie after school for a while or just to pick them up since I was old enough to be considered responsible.
Lately, I hadn't babysat except for my own siblings. Every kid in the town it seemed was having nightmares, including some teenagers. I hardly slept really anyone slept. Thank goodness it was going to be Easter…Spring Vacation, if you want to get all politically correct, soon. I couldn't put up with this much longer.
I sat with Candy and Jack. They were whimpering in fear again. Bad dreams kept them up all night. Allison and Dad thought it'd be best to have them sleep together, but it hadn't helped much. I'd rub the twins backs when it got to the point where they'd be scared. That normally lulled them back into a somewhat peaceful sleep for a while. My grades had suffered a little bit from these nightmares, but nothing I couldn't recover from. Other students with younger siblings were also feeling the effects. The teachers and parents decided that it must be something in the air that is causing the kids to have nightmares.
I think it had something to do with that boogieman, Pitch or was it Ditch? Fitch? Mitch? Vitch? Rich? I don't remember. It could have just been a delusion anyway. I mean I haven't seen the Vampire-boy since then. I didn't go to school with him and if he was in college then thank goodness that I don't have to put up with him except for summer. I really didn't like the vamp-boy.
"Genny?" Jack whimpered.
"I'm here."
"It was scawery."
"I know." I said. All their dreams were scary. If they knew about some of the bad dreams I had now that would have them not sleep for awhile.
"Stay?"
"I'm staying."
"Kay."
It was my night to stay with the twins. Allison and Dad had been doing it for the longest time. We thought about putting Delgado and Pandora with them too. Maybe then they'd feel safe and protected.
I woke up and was wedged in between the twins. I have no idea how we were all fitting on Candy's twin bed, but here we were. Jack was clinging to my arm and Candy was on my leg. Apparently they never had to wake me up again with a bad dream. I didn't dream at all, I had no idea I'd even fallen asleep.
"How cute." My father said as Allison snapped a picture. He looked over on the little screen. "That's a keeper."
I growled. I didn't really care about the picture I just wanted to be free of the twins. I really had to go to the bathroom. "A little help?" Dad chuckled and pulled Candy off my leg. Allison went for getting Jack to let go of my arm. I headed towards my room when I was free.
I never saw that boogieman again until some weird dream thing, but I'll tell you about that later. Let me tell you I was angry if I did see him I'd rip him apart. Since Candy and Jack couldn't sleep and kept having nightmares. I didn't sleep, if vampire-boy was who he said he was and was the cause of all this he was going to pay. Easter made it even worse. Burgess has a huge Easter egg hunt. I would know this year the high school students were in charge of helping the kids find the eggs. Of course since I had two younger siblings I would be helping them and I was going to help Sophie too.
Now there were no eggs anywhere at all not even in the 'easy' part of the hunt for the younger kids. You know the part where there is like 10,000 eggs visible to a grown adult I couldn't even find one there. No one could. Sophie, Candy, and Jack were all disappointed. I was disappointed.
"Bunny?" Candy asked.
"He's just a little late this year. Maybe he got the date wrong." I said trying to cheer her and Jack up. We were walking Sophie home well I was walking. The three of them were in a wagon. Since they hadn't slept well and I couldn't carry three kids at once with Easter Baskets easily I figured they could fall asleep in the wagon. "Like when Dad got the date that Grandma was coming over wrong."
"Wrong? Like Grandma?" Jack repeated what I said.
"Yes." I told them. "I'm sure the Easter Bunny is going to come tomorrow. Maybe we got the date wrong."
"Sunday."
Damn them and learning what days of the week were what. Why can't preschool teach them anything useful like how to do my Calculus homework? "Maybe its Monday this year." I said.
"Monday!" They cheered.
I sighed with relief bullet was dodged. Thank you children and your ability to be naive.
Not long after Easter everything went back to normal. Candy and Jack slept without problem. So did every other kid in Burgess. Even the adults got some of the best sleep they've gotten in the longest time. Heck, I even woke up with a bunch of 'sand' in my eyes every morning.
It was actually when everything went back to normal that I got a babysitting job again. It was for Jamie. Apparently, Sophie and Olivia were going on a 'girls' day. Mike had to go on some type of business trip so I'd just watch Jamie all day long. That wasn't going to be hard. I mean it was a school day so all I'd have to do is pick the kid up from school and watch him do homework. How bad could it be? I've done it before. I didn't know how wrong I would be.
"Can I go outside?" Jamie asked for what seemed to be the thousandth time.
"No. Not until your homework is done. Your mom's orders."
"But."
"No buts."
"But Jack's outside."
"What?" I looked out the window. The only Jacks in town I knew of was my little brother and the strange old guy that loved the woman that smelled like cat urine. "Pippa's the only one out there."
"Pippa's already outside?" Jamie groaned.
"Looks like the twins are just heading out."
"I'll never get this done." Jamie put his head on the table. "It's too hard!"
"You want hard you can do my homework." I said holding up my physics homework. I was almost done with it. "What's your problem anyway?"
"I don't get why we had a civil war."
"Is that all your assignment is?"
"Yes." Jamie replied.
"So all you need to do is say why there was an American Civil War?"
"Yeah."
"Just say it was all fought because the south had slaves and the north didn't like it." I knew there was more to it than that, but he was doing whatever grade he was in homework. It had to be an acceptable answer.
"Now can I go?"
"Sure, but stay where I can see you!"
A/N: and here it is chapter 2! Hope you all enjoyed it. I know I did. Have any questions, comments, concerns you can PM me or leave a review and I can reply and answer anything you got!