I liked kids. Perhaps not enough to have them myself, but babysitting had always been rather fun, at least for a way to earn money. No gig went perfectly smoothly, and I was often worn out in the end, but nothing truly bad ever happened either. At least, not until I met the Lee children.

I expected the job to be rather easy. There were only two kids, 5 and 7, which meant they were old enough to care for themselves. I was really there to just keep an eye on them and provide entertainment.

“We will be back by midnight, but their bedtime is 8 so try to get them to sleep by then. If Carter doesn’t fall asleep, he is allowed to stay up and read, but Elsie needs to just lie in bed until she falls asleep or tomorrow will be a nightmare. Thank you so much for doing this,” their mom rushed about to grab last minute things before she hurried out the door.

“Bye bye mommy!” Elsie, a blonde five year old who just lost her front tooth, waved a cheerful goodbye from the doorstep with a gap-toothed smile. I am thankful that there are no waterworks; some kids just can’t stand seeing their parents go.

“Be good for Miss Anna, okay?” Mrs. Lee smiled and kissed each child on the forehead. “I love you.”

Then she was gone, and Elsie was tugging on my hand to come play dolls with her. She was much more excitable than her older brother, Carter, who had yet to say a word. He turned and started walking away, face expressionless.

“Hey, Carter, do you want to come and play with us? It doesn’t have to be dolls, we can play anything you like.”

Carter shook his head fervently, without even stopping or looking back. I shrugged. Oh well. If he didn’t want to play then there was nothing I could do. I usually got asked to return or at least a generous tip if the kids were happy, but as long as Carter didn’t hate me I was chill.

“Ignore him, he doesn’t like people. Now come play with me!” Elsie pulled one more time and I relented, following her to her room where barbie dolls were scattered everywhere.

“Okay this is the mom, this is the dad, this is the sister, this is the teenager—are you a teenager?—this is the brother, this is the dog, and this is the cat. I don’t have a dog or a cat but every good family has them and I want them so bad. Do you have a dog or a cat? Or both?”

I smiled as Elsie spewed words, “yeah, I have a dog named Coconut.”

“Oh do you have pictures? That is a good name for a dog. Do you call them Coco? My American Girl Doll has a dog named Coco, see here,” she rushed over to grab a fluffy white toy dog whose collar read Coco.

“That’s very cute. We don’t call her Coco but I do have pictures,” I pulled out my phone to show her.

We talked and played for a couple hours. Around noon she said she was hungry, so I went downstairs to cook the chicken nuggets left in the freezer.

“Carter,” I yelled. “Dinner’s almost ready!”

I expected him to be out in a second, so I set his plate down and let Elsie go ahead and eat. She started gobbling up her food, but when Carter didn’t show up after a few minutes, I went to investigate. I knocked on the door to his room, but there was no answer, so I opened it.

“Carter? You in here?” I turned on the lights, worried because they had been off. The room was undisturbed, spotlessly clean.

I checked the door to the backyard to see if maybe he had gone outside, but it was still locked from the inside. At that point I really started to get worried, but I calmed myself down enough to talk to Elsie.

“Hey Elsie do you know where Carter might be? He’s not in his room.”

“Oh that dummy. He knows he has to be back in time for dinner,” she giggled.

“So, you know where he is?”

“I do, but I want candy if you want to know too.”

Honestly, I was so worried that I didn’t care if I was being blackmailed by a five-year-old. I went to the kitchen and grabbed her a lollipop from the top shelf.

Elsie smiled in greed, popped it into her mouth, and jumped off the dining room chair. I followed as she walked confidently down the hall in which her and Carter’s rooms were located and to what looked to be a coat closet.

Odd choice to spend hours in, but okay. Elise pushed the coats to the side and where I expected a boy to be hiding, there instead was grass and sun.

Elsie’s smile grew mischievous as she stepped through, “come on. This is our world.”