FATHER ALWAYS SMILING

Chapter 05 ~~~~~~

"Calm down, Miss. Ortiz," Alastor chuckled. "Amalie is fine, currently being looked after by a good friend of mine. This was only towards me, thankfully."

Elain looked at him, confused. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"It's rather long. Do you mind if we sit?"

"Oh, yeah, of course!" Elain then closed the door and joined Alastor to sit on the bench with a fair amount of space between them. "So... what happened?"

"About a week ago, I took my daughter to a bookstore, where she hoped to find a certain book from a writer she loves. We found it, but before she gets the third book, this boy shoves her. Then the mother gets involved, threatening me and claiming her child would never do such a thing before said boy tries to hurt my daughter. The police and some good people became involved. It was a rather ugly scene."

"That's awful,"

"Yes, it was, but where this came from was when I had just dropped Amalie off, I had another run-in with that woman."

"And she hit you?"

Alastor merely shrugged. He was keeping details of that to himself. He purposefully tracked down the woman's store, which turned out to be the home for that vulgar creature and brat of a son.

"Yes, but that doesn't matter now. What's done is done."

"Still, she assaulted you. You need to report that to the police." Elain said, her voice filled with worry, which held Alastor's attention. "You can't let someone like that get away with what they did. It could have been even worse."

In response, he gave her a cheery smile. "Don't worry, Miss. Ortiz, I plan to take care of it, which is why I wanted to ask you something. I know that this is short notice, but would you be willing to watch my daughter for a few hours tomorrow night? I have something important I need to take care of, and I still haven't been able to find a replacement sitter."

"I'd have to check with my folks, but if it's just for a few hours, I think it should be alright. I've watched Kaya plenty of times when Nate isn't able to." Though watching Kaya is like trying to keep a cat in a bath sometimes. And Amalie doesn't seem like that kind of kid. "May I have your number, so I can let you know if I get the okay from my parents?"

Without missing a beat, Alastor pulls out a pen and notepad from an inner breast pocket of his vest. "Here you are. This is both my home phone and cell. If you can't reach me on my home phone, you most certainly will with my cell."

"Alright, I'll talk with you later, Mr. Hilmarsson." She said as she watched him leave, and when he returned to his home, Elain's smile faded. Before falling back to lay on the porch. Maybe doing something different since everything else didn't seem to help would be good?

"Babysitting your neighbour?" Elain's mother said, looking slightly surprised as they were cleaning up after dinner. "I see no issue with, do you?" Zuri turned to Jair with the same look as her question.

"I don't think there's a problem, though you need to let us know when he'll be back, so we can figure out the time you'll be back." Her father says, handing her the cordless phone that he grabbed off the kitchen's countertop. "You can call him now, put him on speaker so we can go over when he might be back."

Elain pulled out the piece of paper and dialled up the number. On the second ring, there was an answer.

"Evening, Hilmarsson residence, Alastor speaking."

"Hi Mr. Hilmarsson, this is Elain. I have you on the phone with my parents. They're okay with me watching Amalie. They only want to know when you'll be back so they can expect me."