Honey, I Shrunk the Babysitter | Job | Cleona Collins

Job Details:

The sun settled down slowly behind the distant hills, its dying rays shinning with orange down on Cleona. She traveled the cobblestone road to Magnolia Town’s countryside where the affluent called home. Golf courses and country club lawns filled the side view of her little journey to her client’s house. It made her nauseous to travel through such a wealthy community, a place where probably no one would have given her the time of day were her species not so peculiar. At the very least, though, she had to give them credit for the nice-smelling lawns, which all smelt as if they had just been cut even in the absence of cut-grass bits. Besides the chirping of crickets, the only other noise to entertain Cleona was the hissing of the sprinklers that sounded off every few minutes. Given the pristine look of the area, she was pretty surprised that the neighborhood watch hadn’t shown up to interrogate her like Ralph had done in Peace Village.

Katy’s house did not surprise the haughty pixie much. The house’s frame dwarfed many of its neighbors’ houses, its lawn glistened with green water droplets in the light of dusk, and color lights escaped through the artful glass windows. Cleona almost felt bad disturbing its peace. Almost. She approached the door without inhibitions and knocked on the door. To the pixie’s surprise, the woman who answered – Katy – dressed rather plainly, though no man would look less than twice at her. Her demeanor turned out to be humble as well, though the same couldn’t be said for her pompous husband who apparently had to be talked out of wearing coat-tails earlier. The duo explained they would be attending a regal party and needed Cleona to watch after their son, Cory, until they returned from their get-together.

Cleona disliked babies, even cute ones. They cried all the time, always wanted to eat, and never cleaned up after themselves; in fact, she had resolved long ago never to have any children of her own, meaning Mr. Collins was in for a rude awakening. Despite this, the jewels promised to her would hopefully offset the inconvenience of caring for a baby. However, Cleona had never cared for a baby before, a fact she neglected to mention to Katy and her husband. Regardless, she felt confident she could watch after little Cory for a few hours. It proved easy at first – she pulled the baby, who was about the same size as her, into the living room and plopped a box of wooden cubes in front of him to play with for the moment. He used the blocks to mostly build towers, although he would occasionally try to spell words with them. She could have sworn Cory spelled “666” with the blocks on purpose but shrugged it off as a creepy coincidence.

The most annoying sound in the world rang out through the house – a baby’s cry. Cory became evidently bored with the wooden blocks and began wailing and flailing on the floor. The temptation to simply thump the baby on his head was great but Cleona resisted. She took a wild guess and assumed he was just hungry. Mumbling a few curse words under her breath, the irritated pixie searched the kitchen for milk and fixed him a bottle of milk, which she had ensured was worm enough by taking a sip herself. Actually, she took much more than a sip; she guzzled the whole thing down like a tiny glutton. The milk tasted so well in fact that Cleona almost had to go and drink it in front of the baby out of cute cruelty. Alas, she poured another bottle and brought it to the brat, who promptly sucked on it like it was a teat.

A headache set in one Cleona as the baby began showing signs of chronic boredom. Doing what any responsible adult would do in her situation, she plucked Cory from the ground and started flying around the house. She flew him over tables, under lights, and in and out of windows. The baby giggled like a maniac the whole time and was absolutely shining with mirth when the flight came to an end. Cleona, in contrast, felt exhausted. She had just carried a baby who probably weighed more than herself for several minutes around a mansion; not to mention she had to resist the urge to drop him the whole time. Still, the baby-hating-pixie had to admit that the baby’s laughter was a little cute. Just a little though.

Cleona would never understand what was going on in her head when she decided that letting the baby finger paint was a good idea.  It started out with just a tiny jar of pain and a blank parchment. Simply enough, Cory dipped his hand in the jar and started making artwork, which consisted of unrecognizable shapes and what appeared to be a rendition of a demon. When he finished with his spooky picture, Cora proceeded to try an eat the paint off his hands. Not wanting to be responsible for the poor thing’s demise, Cleona lifted him up from the ground once more and rushed him to the kitchen sink, where she forced a stream of water into his mouth and made him spit any of the paint out. Miraculously, the baby was fine as far as she could tell. Although, he appear rather tired from the ordeal.

Bedtime turned out not to be such a bad thing. Cleona dropped the baby in his crib and he fell asleep without incident. Apparently swallowing paint and then having it drained out was exhausting. When Katy and her husband returned from their social gathering, they displayed surprise and awe at how well everything went for Cleona. They had expected at least one thing to go wrong; although, to be fair, Cleona kept quiet about Cory trying to swallow the finger paint. Impressed with such a job well done, the two gave the extraordinary pixie her promised jewels.

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Cleona Collins
HP:100%
MP: 100%
WC: 1,001/1,000
PC: 1/1