[ S H E ' S  G O T  T H A T  W I L D S I D E ]

❛ problem at mario's ❜

          "LET'S GO," Jenny orders everyone leading us into another alleyway. It was super creepy in the dark. Chills tunnel through my body as we got closer to the city lights that filled the silent roads.

"Jenny?" my little blonde calls out.

"Yeah?"

"I'm scared."

"Sweetie, there's nothing to be scared of," Jenny comforts Emily.

"How can you snack right now?" A.J. asks Bobby.

"I'm not snacking. I'm taste testing," Bobby replies, he was a genius weirdo when it came to the culinary arts.

"Where did you get the candy?" A.J. asks.

"Uh, in the pawn shop," Bobby says unsure of his location to his actions.

"Bobby, you took candy from a stranger?" Jenny asks angrily.

"They were in a bowl. I thought they were free," Bobby exclaims. Suddenly, a scream bursts the quiet.

"Hey!" we all turn around gasping as we see the two when from the shop running towards us.

"I guess they weren't free," I tell Bobby harshly.

"You kids are in big trouble," Tiny yells out to us. Oh, boy. What did I do to deserve this tiring night!

"What do we do? What do we do?" Jenny panics. We need an answer now!

"Run!" Lola screams.

Immediately everyone starts running as if their life depends on it. We keep running and running not wanting to be chased by those weird men. "Are they still chasing us?" someone asks out of breath. I mean we were all running for our lives and all I know is, I won't be able to think straight right now.

"I don't know," Lola replies in fear, as she was also running for her life.

We saw the bus. "Hurry, guys. Let's run," Jenny yells at us.

"These shoes aren't made for running," Katy exclaims in exhaustion.

"Children, everyone, on the bus. Go, go, go, go," Jenny says pushing everyone into the vehicle. We got on the bus, I sat between Bobby and Emily while Katie was on my lap.

"Good evening, kind sir," Lola charms the bus driver.

"Seven kids. That's 14 bucks," he yells at Lola while holding onto her arm.

"Is it 14 now? My, my, how times have changed. Uh, let's just call it close enough. Yeah?" Lola negotiates.

"Let's not."

"Okay, well, the thing is, uh... Karl, we're having, like a minor situation tonight. You see, uh, thanks to Jenny, the world's greatest babysitter here, we don't have any additional actual money. So..."

"Don't listen to her, Karl. This whole fiasco is her fault," Jenny says, I don't know what they are doing but it's probably making the bus driver more annoyed.

"I think we can all stop pointing fingers and worry about Trey," Lola says as she tried to state her point.

"Don't pretend to care about Trey. Honestly, Karl, she doesn't care about anybody but herself."

"I care about a lot of things, Karl, like art and expression and photography. I bet she didn't even know who Leon Vasquez was until today," Lola argues.

"I did too. I read all about him," Jenny says trying to convince Lola.

"Please, I saw your portfolio. It's as stiff as you are," Lola scoffs.

"Where'd you learn to take pictures, sweetheart, your computer?" Lola taunts.

"Where'd you learn all this snappy sarcasm? We know it wasn't college," Jenny sasses.

"Enough! Get on and zip it!" the bus driver yells at the two babysitters.

"If you could just send me the address, I'd be happy to send you the balance," Jenny sighs.

"Sit!" he yells one last time, Lola takes out her camera taking a picture of the moment.

—

We finally reach Mario's! I could see Trey and his friends inside "Hey, guys," A.J. sneaks up to them.

"A.J.? What are you doing here?" Trey gasps getting up from his seat.

"Trey Anderson, freeze," both Jenny and I exclaim putting our hands on each side of his shoulders.

"Who's that?" one of Trey's friend asks staring at Jenny

"His babysitter."

"You have a babysitter? I want a babysitter! She's hot," his redhead friend exclaims, Jenny looks at him in disgust. Then he sees me and asks "Who's that?"

"A family friend and his crush of... How many years now Trey?" A.J. asks embarrassing Trey. My face stood still as my cheeks begin to form a color.

Trey Anderson likes me?! Wait, what am I saying, I could never like Trey. Emily likes him and that would be betrayal towards my own sister. "Sign me up to have such a hot family friend like yours," this dude does not have a filter. I look at him in disgust.

"You are so lucky we found you," Jenny exclaims to Trey holding onto his shoulder.

"Hey, Jenny. You look great," Trey compliments.

"Hi, Trey," Emily greets excitedly but only to be rejected.

"Hey, what's up, Hanna? You look pretty as always," he says in awe, I chose to ignore him.

"Please don't rat me out, Jenny. I'll be grounded for life."

I look over at Emily and I could see Emily's smile turn into a frown. "Probably till you're 18," Lola adds.

"Who are you? Trey asks her.

"Lola. Technically, I'm your babysitter, so thanks for making me look bad, by the way," she replies.

Jenny giggles "You didn't need help for that. Come on, Trey, let's go," she says as she grabs onto his shoulder pulling him up.

"What about the concert?" Trey asks.

"There's no way you're going to that concert. Besides, we have much bigger problems to deal with right now," Jenny clarifies.

"Jenny got mom's new car towed," Bobby explains.

"You drove my mom's car into the city?" Trey laughs.

"To get you, and now we need $100 to get it back by midnight," Jenny replies.

"I don't suppose you losers have any money," I ask the three idiots.

"I spent it all on tickets," Trey sighs, I roll my eyes at the situation.

"Wait, that's it. Why don't we just scalp Trey's concert ticket to get the cash for the car?" Lola proposes, not sure that's a great idea but it's the only idea we got.

"You mean, sell it ourselves?" Jenny asks.

"Exactly. Brilliant," Lola says to herself.

"Wait. It's mine," Trey says holding the ticket to his chest.

"Oh, cool. So you wouldn't mind explaining to your mother that her car got towed and her precious children spent the night sitting in a cold park bench in the city."

"You know what? I have a better idea. Why don't we just call her now, shall we?" Lola adds as she takes her phone out and a piece of paper that's probably for the gala.

"Oh, Helen," Lola sighs.

She starts typing the number and I was freaking out, if my parents knew we were out in the city, we would be in a lot of trouble. Trey gives up his ticket "This is so not fair," he whines.

"Life isn't fair, kid," Lola smirks.

"Jenny, I really have to go to the bathroom," Katy cries.

"Okay. Uh, everyone, stay put," Jenny commands as she walks away with the younger Cooper to the bathroom. I was walking towards the bar in Mario's "Bummer about the concert," Emily says trying to make conversation with Trey, he ignores her once again.

"Dude, forget the concert. Go for Hanna, she's our age right?" I overhear one his friend says.

"Yeah," Trey replies. I could feel the smile on my back.

"Hanna was totally checking you out, too," his other friend nudges, excuse me I was not checking Trey out!

"She was?" Trey asks a little bit too excited.

"Yeah," one of the friends says. I start tuning everything out, tonight couldn't get more stressful.

Next thing I know Trey and his friends come over to where I am and we started talking, we all got to know each other more even though Trey and I met when we were little but we haven't talked much then. I hear Jenny calling for us kids making sure we were all here but then I realized Emily wasn't "Emily?!" I call out. Oh no, I can't lose my sister, my parents are gonna kill me.

Then I hear something that I wouldn't be able to explain to my parents neither would Emily "Uh, she's getting a tattoo," Lola says calmly.

"Getting a what?!" Jenny and I exclaim in disbelief.

"A tattoo," Lola trails off, soon realizing what she had just done.

We see Emily walk in back to Mario's, I sighed of relief, I walk really quickly to where Jenny, Lola, and Katie were "Emily, are you okay? Please, please tell me you did not just get a tattoo," Jenny pleads.

"What? It's henna. The guy did it for free 'cause he liked my aura. Cool right?" Emily says.

"What aura?" I say harshly.

"Super cool," Lola replies to Emily as she took a picture of her and her henna tattoo.

"So not super cool. How could you do that without asking me?" Jenny flips out.

"I asked Lola," Emily explains.

"She did," Lola mutters.

"Lola... Lola is nobody, okay?" Jenny says. That's harsh even coming from Jenny.

"You can't just wander off like that. Something could've happened to you. You are my responsibility, okay? And that better come off with soap and water," Jenny adds.

"Uh, Jenny," Bobby trails off running towards us.

"What, Bobby?" Jenny yells.

"Please don't let them get me," he yells back while running away past us.

"Go, go, go, go!" Lola orders and we all turn our heads to see those two men trying to chase us. I grab onto one of Trey's hand while A.J. grabs onto my hands and we all ran. We ran and ran but we didn't even know where we were going.

—

[ A U T H O R ' S  N O T E ]
Hello, it's 2018 version of me! I still can't believe people actually still read this book but I just wanted to take my time to say thank you for the success of this book. But continue to enjoy and read!