Sparks Fly

Chapter Six

Chapter Six- Baby Sitting my Ex Best Friends' Baby Sister

Sitting on the Winfield's large grey sofa, the next Monday, I wait for Amanda to come back from the bathroom. When she enters, she encourages me to stand up and follow her. Following her up the stairs she leads me to a room with light pink walls with soft white clouds hand painted on the walls to match the pink. It looks like a sunset.

On the side of the wall is a beautiful white dresser with gold embroidery on it, with a cane basket on it full of nappies and wipes and a cane basket with a pink blanket in it. On the other side of the room beside a large toybox, lays a cot. The room is beautiful.

Amanda walks over to the cot and reaches in and hands me a sleepy, yet smiley Claire. After instructing me to her daughters needs for the next three hours, she shows me where the emergency contacts are and leaves. When I hear the car pull out of the driveway, I carry little Claire downstairs to the kitchen to feed her some snacks and when I am about to finish feeding her, the mashed pumpkin, I hear the front door slam. "Mum! I am home. Where are you?"

When he enters the kitchen, his eyes light up and he walks over and kisses his little sister on her forehead, "Hey, Claire bear!". Then his eyes meet mine. "What the heck are you doing here?" Glancing at his sister I notice that she has spilt her pumpkin puree on herself. I grab a wet one and wipe Claire's face and sticky hands. "Your mum hired me. I am Claire's babysitter. Your mum said that she needed to go back to work for a of couple hours and that she was after a babysitter. I thought that you would have been informed considering you live here. Sorry, she said that you and Colby both did sports so you couldn't do it in the afternoons."

"Why would she want to hire you? Don't tell me you still want to be a teacher?" smiling at him, I somehow feel touched. "I can't believe that you remembered about that."

Looking embarrassed he spits, "well you were always going on about it. Ever since you could talk. It was very annoying." Laughing at his expression, I felt like we were back to old times. Always bickering. But I knew that we were not and that we would never be.

"Well, yes I still want to be a teacher. I already have my working with children check and first aide certificate. I did a course with my last school."

Huffing he sets his stuff down at the kitchen table. "Well, I need to study, so can you leave the kitchen?" looking at him, I shake my head. "Your mum said that I can study here as well, and I need to study for maths. What are you working on?"

Slamming his book closed he yelled, causing Claire to cry. "I am studying science and I am not very good at it. So, can you please stop. We are not friends Marney. We haven't been friends in a long time, and we will never be friends again." Nodding I sigh while trying to comfort Claire. "Dude. I know we are not friends Archer. Believe me I know. But wake up to yourself dude. I asked you a question. I did not ask if you wanted to hang out or get ice cream like old times"

Sighing he takes Claire out of my arms and within minutes she has stopped crying. "Wow, how did you do that?" glancing at me he shrug, "it is just something you learn."

"Do you want help with the science homework. Its my best subject." Shaking his head, he ignores me as he walks up the stairs with a sleeping Claire.

Feeling a little hurt I open my math book and begin to work on geometric formulas. Placing my hand on my forehead I sigh. "Why does this even exist?" I whisper, under my breath. Suddenly I see and hear the chair in front of me, being pulled to the side, scraping along the tiled floor. "Do you find this stuff hard?" Nodding, he sighs. "How about I help you with this and you help me with the science booklet." When I agree he begins to explain the formula to me, and it finally clicks.

Soon we are working on Simpsons Diversity Index and he stops and looks at me. "What?" I ask him. Blushing he looks at me and says "how did you get so good at this stuff? You used to be so bad at science."

"Well, it has been five years since you've seen any of my work. But at my last school, my ex-boyfriend used to always make me study with him I guess I just picked some of it up. We were both in the pinnacle science classes and English classes. He was in the pinnacle maths class as well, but I was not. I'm still useless at maths."

"Marney... You are rambling. You always used to waffle on about nothing." Not long after he starts to pack up when, I hear a cry from up the stairs. Standing up I feel a hand on my arm, "I'll go get her." Shaking my head, I refuse. "Archie, its my job. I'm being paid for it." Yanking his arm off me, he shakes his head. "Its fine. I will deal with her. Just don't call me that nickname ever again."

Backing away I apologise. It seems like we are friends and then we are not anymore. I do not know what to do. I miss him. But I do not deserve the way he treats me. I never did anything to him. Nothing to deserve this.

Not long before Archer comes back downstairs, the front door opens. When Colby sees me, he runs forwards and picks me up spinning me around in a circle. "Hey pumpkin spice," he whispers as he kisses my forehead.

Clearing his throat, Archie stands by the stairs with Claire, "are you love birds done yet? Claire needs a nappy change, and I am not doing it. Marney, it's your job, you're being paid by our mother to do it. It's not my job. I'm not being paid to change her."

Sighing I smile at Colby, I grab Claire and begin to walk upstairs to clean the gorgeous yet stinky girls nappy. "Sure, I don't mind cleaning up after YOUR sister. But we have to try and get along. I don't mean we have to be friends, but we have to at least be civil. We go to the same school and we will be forced to do class work together eventually and I work here. That is not going to change anytime soon. So, we have to suck it up." I leave Archer with that as walk up the stairs.

Geez its going to be a long two years.