The Girl, the Kallens and the Babysitter

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash 

“Let’s draw!” lisped Keith, scooping up a handful of vibrant crayons.

‘‘What do you want to draw, Keith?’’ I asked, smiling at him as I searched for his drawing book in a messy stack of games that was lying on the floor.

 “I’ll draw a dinosaur!”

 He roared, and I gasped, pretending to be terrified.

It was my third time babysitting for the Kallens. I always agreed to take care of their four- year- old son, Keith, when they went out for dinner. I absolutely adored Keith, and the Kallens usually paid me a lot of money, which didn’t hurt either.

I helped Keith draw a slightly lopsided T-Rex and then began to sketch my own scenery. After a while, I happened to glance at the stairs and, to my immense surprise, noticed a girl coming down them!  She was scrawny and pale, but graceful nonetheless, like a wilting flower. Her only outstanding feature was her wavy, fair hair, that glided gently past her shoulders towards her waist. She seemed a few years older than Keith.

I stared at her, bewildered. I didn’t know the Kallens had a daughter! I had lived in this neighbourhood for three whole years now, and I didn’t remember ever meeting her. I hadn’t even seen her the last two times I was in their house! I made a mental note to ask the Kallens about her later.

Keith either didn’t catch sight of her, or was pretending not to. It seemed like they’d got into a fight. Come on, I told myself. She’s just a little kid. Maybe she wasn’t at home the other times you were at this house. What’s the big deal?  Putting my apprehension aside, I forced myself to grin at her, and she cautiosly came closer.

“Hi! I’m Madelyn. What’s your name?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“Kiara,” she murmured, so softly that I had to stoop down to catch her reply.

I asked her to sit at the table with us and she did. ‘’How old are you, Kiara?’’

‘’I’m- ‘’ she faltered for a moment. ‘’ I’m nine years old.’’

Keith began pulling my hand, wanting attention. He seemed annoyed that I was speaking to Kiara instead of him. I coloured with him for some time, but then my eyes returned to the girl. She wasn’t doing anything; just looking around the house with a sense of …. of longing. But that didn’t make sense. I must’ve imagined it.

“Wouldn’t you like to do something, Kiara?’’ I asked her.

She jumped, startled. ‘’Oh-um…not really…’’ she muttered.

Keith began whining, so I turned back to him. ’’Keith, why don’t you show me your new teddy bear?’’ I suggested to him. He was distracted for a few minutes, rummaging in  his toybox. I began to talk to Kiara again. She told me that she was homeschooled, and that was why she didn’t hang out with the other children at the park. When I asked what her hobbies were, she said she liked thinking. Wow, I thought. She seems pretty weird.

I spoke to her for a few more minutes, but she seemed more inclined to letting me talk than talking about herself. She still didn’t speak to Keith though. I decided not to interfere in whatever quarrel they’d had. It was best to let them sort it out themselves.

After some time, I served Keith his dinner, but when I asked Kiara what she would like to eat, she told me she wasn’t hungry at all.

‘’Please have something,’’ I implored her. But she wouldn’t eat anything, not even the pasta I’d served her.  She didn’t seem to be a very good eater. She was so skinny, unlike her chubby little brother.

I would’ve tried to persuade her to change her mind, but Keith was getting impatient so I turned to him instead. He wanted me to feed him, though I knew he could eat on his own. Still, I indulged him, and he giggled happily as I pretended he was a dinosaur grabbing his prey and swallowing it.

After Keith ate his dinner (and Kiara’s pasta, too), I let him watch TV for some time while I finished my sketch. Kiara didn’t do anything. She seemed content to sit beside me and look around the room. I reprimanded myself for judging her, because I knew her strangeness wasn’t her fault. She was just socially awkward.

A few hours later, the Kallens got home. They thanked me profusely for babysitting Keith and paid me my money. Then they told me I could leave. I said goodbye to Keith, who gave me a hug. But when I went to say goodbye to Kiara, I couldn’t see her anywhere. I assumed that she’d gone upstairs to sleep. I checked the time on my watch, wondering if it was her bedtime already, and realized it was nine o’clock! I immediately rushed home, not wanting to cycle back in complete darkness. I definitely didn’t have time to ask the Kallens about Kiara, and why I had never seen her before today. Anyway, I wasn’t that curious about her anymore. She just seemed like a nondescript lonely kid.

When I reached home, I ate a light dinner and decided to call it a night.

A few days later, I was lying on my bed, reading a new magazine. There was a three-page-long article about the struggles of being a parent. As I flipped through it, getting incredibly bored, I found something that caught my eye- it was a quote from Mrs. Kallen!

She was explaining why she thought that it was good to be overprotective of a child.

‘’ My husband and I learnt this lesson in the worst way possible,’’ she had explained, sobbing. ‘’We used to have a daughter, but we never paid her enough attention. We often left her all alone at home when she was only nine years old. One day, we went out for breakfast with friends and left her to amuse herself. We came back home much later – to find her lying in the bathtub, dead. We rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. The doctors told us that she had hit her head in the bathtub, but could’ve survived if only we had been at home and taken her to the hospital sooner. We now have a son, but we’ve never told him about his sister. We hope we will be much, much better parents to him.’’

Below the quote was a picture. Without even looking at it, I had a spine-chilling feeling in my gut that I would recognise the girl in the image. And I was right. The photograph depicted a scrawny, pale girl with wavy, fair hair flowing down to her waist.