A Deal's a Deal, After All Untitled Babysitting Story (Yes That is the Real Name, Deal With it) chapter 8 by 2kfsk

Jason fumbled in his pocket and found his wallet, from which he swiftly retrieved a crumpled, decade-old twenty-dollar bill. The sight of the giant money made the tiny girl’s eyes glimmer.

“Remember, you tell nobody about what just happened,” Jason commanded. He held the twenty bucks in the pinky finger of his shrink ray hand; with the other hand, he placed Madeline on the ground, aimed, and fired.

Instantly, the girl shot back up to her normal height. Once she did, Jason felt the instinctive need to avert his eyes from her near nudity.

“Agh, I think my undies are still moist,” Madeline complained. Then she lunged toward Jason. “Alright, gimme gimme gimme!!”

Jason held his arm far above Madeline’s head. “I’m serious. You cannot tell a soul.”

“Psh, I wasn’t planning on doing that anyway! Ms. Jones hates me,” she said with an air of pride. A particularly strong leap caught Jason off-guard, and she managed to clip the twenty out of Jason’s fingers. He was figuring out how she managed to do that when both of them heard the doorbell chime.

“Oh, shit, that’s her!” Jason swore, then he pushed Madeline toward the window. “Time to go, Maddy.”

“B-but, my clothes!” Madeline protested. “Just let me grab them real quick!”

“No time, pick em up later!” Jason insisted. Madeline tried to overpower Jason, but there was zero chance of her winning this fight, and she relented shortly after. Jason all but shoved the barefoot girl out the still-open window. After nearly falling off the roof, Madeline swiftly stuffed the bill into her bra and gave Jason a mean-looking face before grabbing the discarded baseball glove, scaling down the rope ladder, and dashing naked into the night. Once Jason had visual confirmation she was off the rope, he pulled it back up through the window, shoved it behind Franky’s dresser, and shut the window just in time for Ms. Jones to open the door to Franky’s room.

“Oh!” said the woman. “I didn’t see you downstairs, so I assumed…” Her eyes went to Franky. “What on Earth happened to her!?” She dashed to Franky’s bedside and caressed her head.

“I, um, er, blackberry patch, chicken pox?”

Ms. Jones laid a hand on Franky’s forehead. “No fever… ugh, why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you! I knew you wanted to enjoy yourself at the opera, and, well…”

Ms. Jones gave an exasperated sigh. “Not the behavior I expect from an adult, Jason.” She stood up and dug a bit in her handbag before finding a hundred, and handed it to him. “Sometimes I don’t know what Franky sees in you.”

Jason was stung, but he figured he was lucky to not be in a police van right now, much less getting paid for his hours of labor. He took his fee submissively. “…Have a nice night, Ms. Jones.” He shuffled toward the door.

“Wait!”

Ms. Jones’ attention was still mostly on her daughter, and she didn’t avert her gaze as she asked, “What’s that? In your pants?”

Crap. The shrink ray! He didn’t want to take it out, but from here it looked very similar to a conventional firearm. He dug the thing out of his waistband, where it looked quite the sci-fi prop. “It’s, ah, one of my old toys from home. Franky loves us playing Cops and Robbers with it. Pew, pew! See?” He laughed nervously.

Ms. Jones gave a quick glance at the gun before turning back to Franky. “I don’t like her playing with guns. Please don’t bring that here next time.” She went back to attending to her child.

Jason nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he exited Franky’s room, grabbed his things, and left the house. So he wasn’t fired!! But, Ms. Jones had also just put a moratorium on him bringing the shrink ray with him. He’d dodged a bullet, so it might be a good opportunity to cut his losses and cease his game-playing with Franky altogether. As saddening as that would be…

But then, Jason thought of Madeline. And he wondered. Might there be an ample supply of pretty just like Franky ready and willing to be shrunk at a moment’s notice?

Jason considered this as he walked to his car, hands in his pockets.

The truth was, he hoped so.