Helping Heart

Chapter 20: Babysitting Business

It was a rainy day in Greenville and The Hart Kids were hard at work making their babysitting fliers. They agreed that they would charge their customers ten dollars an hour. 

"The good news is that it'll stop raining by tomorrow morning so the weather won't be so wet when we hang the fliers." said Dawn while looking at the weather app on her cellphone.

"We don't want out fliers to get all wet and smudgy." said Derek while picking up a black marker.

The kids worked on their big flier all morning. They drew a picture of a baby bottle, a smiley face,  a baby rattle and a diaper. The fliers were written in black letters that said "Best Babysitters" and the Hart kid's first names were written in their favorite colors. John in Blue, Dawn in Pink and Derek in Red. On the bottom of the fliers were slits of the paper with their home phone number written on.

The next morning, the rain stopped but the sun wasn't out, the tree trunks and telephone poles were still wet from yesterday.

"Maybe we can hang the posters up in the windows of Connie's Convenience Store." said Dawn.

"Sounds like a great idea." said John.

"I agree." said Derek.

The three siblings took the flier and went out to the convenience store.

They walked the four miles to the convenience store and while on their way to the store, a tall woman with black hair wearing a green jacket, blue jeans and black boots saw their sign and tapped John on the shoulder. John turned around and saw her.

"Are you three babysitters?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am we are. We've been doing it since last summer." said John.

"That's great, because my husband and I are going out tomorrow night and our regular babysitter called and canceled last minute." 

"Well my name is John and this is my twin sister Dawn and our brother Derek."

" It's nice to meet you all. My name is Mrs. Williams and I'd be happy to be your very first customer." said Mrs. Williams while taking out her small notepad and a pen.

"Here's my address. And I'll see you three at my house tomorrow evening at five thirty." said Mrs. Williams before saying goodbye to the Hart kids.

"Great we'll be there. See you tomorrow." said Derek.

"Well boys it looks like we got our very first customer." said Dawn.

They finally reached the store. Derek walked in and went up to the register.

"Hello and Welcome to Connie's Convenience Store. How can I help you?" said the man.

"I wanted to ask you if it's ok if me and my siblings could hang our flier on your window." asked Derek.

"That's fine with me. You can hang it next to our slushee poster." said the man as he pointed to the poster with the big red slushee poster.

Derek went back outside and told the twins that they can put the flier up.

Dawn held the poster while John took the sticky tape out from his jacket pocket.

"It looks awesome." said Derek.

"It really does." said John.

The three siblings walked back home and told their parents about their first customer.

"We're proud of you kids for taking some responsibility." said Mr. Hart.

"Make sure this babysitting business won't cut into your homework assignments." said Mrs. Hart.

"We promise to take our homework with us so that way we have something to do while the kids are asleep." reassured Derek while taking off his jacket.

The rest of the day was quiet and Dawn and Derek practiced reading their lines for the school play in two weeks.