The weight of responsibility
Allison had a bad night on Saturday. She went to the Fairlaws’ house to babysit their son, Jake, and daughter, Lisa. Jake is five years old, clever, in a sense, and always up to something that would cast away any babysitter after one day on the job. Allison knew this, but she could not say no this time: the Fairlaws always paid double the money if the kids were in bed safe and sound by the time Mom and Dad got back home. Considering that the next day was the last one to sign up for the New York trip that Allison—and everybody else in her school, for that matter—had been dreaming about, she knew that she needed that money no matter what.
She arrived at the Fairlaws’ at eight, said goodbye to Mr and Mrs Fairlaw as they were leaving, and sat down for dinner with Jake and Lisa. To her misfortune, everything went as expected: Jake started the night by pouring his glass of milk all over the floor during dinner.
“Clean that up,” Allison ordered.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Jake responded. He ran away from the dinner table, laughing.
“I’m bored. I want to play a game,” Lisa whined.
“Jake, if you clean up your mess we can play a game,” Allison said.
“Okay.” Allison gave him a handful of paper towels and he used them to clean up the milk. “I want to play hide-and-seek,” he said.
“Okay, I will be the seeker first,” Allison replied. “You two have thirty seconds to hide!” Allison covered her eyes with her hands and counted slowly from one to thirty.
“Ready or not, here I come!” she called. Allison got up and peeked into the kitchen closet. Nobody was inside. She checked under the couches in the living room. She looked in the garage. Allison decided that nobody was hiding downstairs, so she walked upstairs and continued her search. She opened the door to Lisa’s bedroom and found her hiding under the bed.
“I found you!” she squealed. “Okay, now help me find Jake,” she told Lisa. Allison and Lisa searched all over the house. They could not find Jake.
“It’s been more than half an hour and he is nowhere in sight,” Allison thought. “They were supposed to be in bed by nine.” She started to get really worried. She told Lisa to go and brush her teeth, and then go to her bedroom until she brings Jake upstairs. A second later she heard the rattling of keys at the front door. Allison knew she was in trouble, and at the worst damned time, really, so she needed to act quickly.
She quickly went to Jake’s bedroom and stacked some pillows under Jake’s blanket. After that she met with the parents. She told them that they had been playing in the backyard and that she was going to pick up some toys that they had left outside.
In fact, she went outside to look for Jake, because the backyard was the only place where he could have stayed hidden for so long. After ten minutes of searching she found him between the shed and a bush. He was already asleep, probably because of boredom, so she picked him up and took him inside while the parents were busy with something else.
Allison put the boy in bed and went downstairs to talk with the parents. Luckily, they did not notice anything, therefore she got the payment and a request to watch over the kids the next time. The Fairlaws were very satisfied with her work.
The next day Allison managed to sign up for the trip to New York. She thought that this trip was surely well-earned.
Allison was thinking about the trip to New York and how badly she wanted to go. Her first thought was to deceive the parents and tell them that Jake and Lisa were already sleeping. Meanwhile they would be taking off their shoes and coats, she could still find the boy. Yes, it would have been the easy way, but Allison knew that it is not always the best. She realized that a kid’s safety is way more important than a trip, to which she can go anytime. She made up her mind and told the parents the truth: Jake was not found yet.
Instead of shouting at her, Mrs and Mr Fairlaw continued the search with her. They found Jake in a couple of minutes; he was already sleeping in the wardrobe of his. “Thank god,” said everyone.
The Fairlaws were angry, but Allison was happy that nothing worse had happened. Later when they were calmed down they realized that Allison was very decent and told them the truth. Honoring her honesty, they paid her all the promised money, and made her swear that next time she would not frighten them this much.
The little siblings were safe and Allison was feeling as if she was in a dream: she could sign up for the trip, thanks to the Fairlaws. After all, being straight and honest is always better than choosing the easy way.
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