✅1️⃣ Trusting the Babysitter

Chapter 41 - As You Wish

Adam and Claudia got dressed in clean clothes from her wardrobe; black jeans and T-shirts this time, that nobody would realise were shared. By the time they came downstairs they were feeling a lot calmer. Claudia had half expected to hear her sister banging at the bathroom door, not knowing if she'd been able to hear them from the far corner of the house, but it seemed they were safe for now. They put all their clothes in the wash, making a second load of laundry in the hope that Mrs Cartwright wouldn't need to ask why a couple of dresses that Claudia hadn't worn in years had picked up grass stains. If everything was clean and put away, she would never know that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

They opened the door to the lounge, and found Lorelei still watching television. She had a smile on her face for a few seconds, but they saw it evaporate as she turned her head to look at them.

"No!" she yelled. "Bad girl! Why are you wearing that? You gotta–"

"Shut up," Adam snapped, cutting her off. "You've been nothing but a bully the whole day, and it's time you start treating your sister with some respect."

The brat glared at him for a long couple of seconds, and then he saw her mouth slowly close. She kept on staring, but she didn't make any attempt to defend herself, or to give an order.

"No more bullying, Lori," Claudia told her. "If you want to be treated like a big girl, you need to start acting the part. Yeah, Troy was mean to you two years ago. Did you try to get back at him? No. You can't get back at the guy who upset you, so you start hurting somebody else instead. You know that makes you the bad guy, don't you?"

Lorelei didn't answer at first, but she slowly nodded.

"Now, it's up to you how the evening is going to go. You can be good, we can watch cartoons with you, have Chinese for dinner, or fried chicken, and we can play with you if you want, or you can borrow my tablet later to play your games. Or you can keep on making a fuss, if you really want to. But if you misbehave, you'll be spending the rest of the evening sitting in your room, thinking about what you've done."

Claudia took a long, slow breath. She didn't want to think she'd been too mean, but she wasn't getting anything from her sister's stare now. She waited to see if she would get any kind of response, and then Lorelei's head turned back towards the TV.

"Come on, Adam," Claudia said with a sigh. "Let's sort out something for dinner."

When they got there, her scowl dropped a little and she looked more vulnerable again.

"Did I go too far?" she asked. "I don't want to turn the tables and start bullying her, but she needs to know that what she's done is unacceptable. I really hope we could go back to being friends. I mean... as much like friends as you can be with your little sister. She didn't yell, but she didn't even apologise. I don't know how she feels."

"That's probably my fault. Remember, the second time that drug barely affected us, it was mostly worn off in like an hour. By now we're probably only feeling compelled to obey if it's something we want to do anyway. So I'd guess we had a lot less than half a full dose. Maybe a quarter. So most of it's in that syrupy filling, which I added to her lemonade. If we had less than half of what she intended, she's had a fair amount more than a single dose. And I was pretty loud and direct telling her to stop talking. It doesn't mean anything, but she probably knows by now that she's got to do what we say."

"She's really obeying, isn't she? We're still guessing about how it works, but she wouldn't have stayed so quiet if she had a choice. And she knows what it can do, there's a dozen babysitters calling her a demon who'd attest to that. She must be terrified."

"Probably," Adam nodded slowly. "That's why we have to be reasonable. Revenge just leads to more revenge, and that's no good for anybody. We'll get something she likes for dinner, at least. Tell her to be good and eat quietly. And we behave as well. That means no being mean to the little kid. Tell her that you just want to be her friend again, but you can't do that if she's going to be so cruel. Tell her that if she's good she can play her games on your tablet, but maybe she has to prove herself. If we give her a reason to be good, and then follow through on all the promises, maybe she'll learn something. And if you need someone to play bad cop..."

"You think you can do that?"

"I don't need to be her friend." Adam answered, and then wondered if he needed to explain. "I mean, I want to be kind. But she needs some discipline now, or she'll keep on doing the same. And I don't need to put up with any kind of revenge she can come up with, because I'm not going to be here. I mean, you need to be her friend sometimes, because you have to see her on a daily basis. Better for me to be strict. If she wants to kick up a fuss, that's her problem."

"Except..."

"Yeah. She takes a previous babysitter's meanness out on you. And that's not fair. But we can't just give in to everything she wants. Okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. And I'll agree she needs some kind of punishment. But that's not what I meant. I mean, she recorded those videos. Who knows what she's thinking of... is she capable of blackmail?"

"You know better than I do. I guess you can delete that video from your tablet. But is there anywhere she could have sent herself a copy? I have no idea if kids that age have cloud photo backup, or email, or whatever. Anyway, we need to make sure those videos are dealt with before you have to deal with her again."

"Right. Yeah, if she's obeying orders we can tell her to delete all that stuff. Wherever she's saved it. But I think we'd better make sure first. I can see why none of her past babysitters wanted to come back."

"Will you?" she answered. "Come back, I mean."

Adam opened his mouth to reply, then realised that he didn't have an answer. He thought about it for what felt like hours before he actually spoke.

"Maybe. I mean, she won't get away with the same trick again, but maybe we won't either. She'll be suspicious of anything we try to feed her. I'm sure about that. So maybe next time I can do it without the drugs. If your mum will accept that."

"Anyway, food first. Don't want her getting cranky because dinner's late. We can work this out after. If you're coming to be a babysitter again. Or coming to visit me, if you'd prefer. I mean, I might get lumbered looking after the kid if I'm home, so there's no silly amount of money involved. But you could still come help me out if she winds up respecting you."

We're nearly at the end of the story now. But I've had an idea for a sequel, and it's in my Plot Babies book ready to be posted in the next couple of days. If you liked this story, please check it out and suggest any changes you'd like before I start writing. I'm more likely to write an idea that gets comments or votes; although the quick synopsis I've written might contain spoilers for the sequel if I write it.

Thanks for your support and votes; and please check out my other stories. If you want to know which ones are still ongoing, you can see my posting schedule at https://bolshevik.mrangel.info/schedule.htm