Babysitting Adelaide

It was a soft spring day with a gentle rain washing over the valley. Today Latte is tasked with babysitting Adelaide for the day. Latte’s twin tails wagged as she knocked on Leon’s door to signal that she has arrived for the job. Latte is somewhat excited to watch the the granddaughter of the Tide Pool owner, she has heard positive things about the place. Although she is also a little bit nervous- this is her first babysitting job and Latte isn’t sure that Adelaide will like any of the actives she’s brought along. Latte starts going over everything she’s brought with her in her head; a pack of domino’s, a copy of connect 4, some colouring supplies, a chess board. 

“Ahh hello! You must be Latte coming to hang out with Adelaide for the day! My name is Leon, please come right this way,” Leon’s voice drags Latte to reality and shifts her focus to what is going on around her. Leon has moved aside in the door way to allow her. Latte takes a step inside and Leon leads her to the living room, rattling off the house rules as he goes. 

“I’ll be back by 6pm, any problems or if you need anything please don’t hesitate to call me on this number,” Leon says, extending a pice of paper with his contact details to Latte. 

Latte takes the paper from Leon, “will do! I think I’ve got everything down.” Latte replies to a reassuring voice.

Leon turns to Adelaide, who has been seated on the sofa doodling this whole time, “I’m going out now, be good for Latte, I’ll see you later,” Leon waves to Adelaide. 

“See you later grampa,” Adelaide waves him off. 

With the shutting of the door, Adelaide turns to Latte “did you bring any fun games with you?”

Latte thinks for a moment before removing the bag off her shoulder, “I didn’t know what you’d like so I brought all sorts.”

Adelaide goes over the games, she looks over at the chess board. “Checkers? But these don’t look like counters?”

“It’s a chess set, the board is the same as checkers but the rules are a little more complicated and the pieces all move in different ways across the board.”

Adelaide pushes the chess set off to the side “it sounds boarding.” She looks over the other games “Ahh connect 4! Play this with me.” Adelaide looks up at Latte with big eyes. 

Letting out a gentle sigh, Latte begins setting up the connect 4 game. She decides to give Adelaide an easy win the first round she she doesn’t feel bad about loosing and gradually start playing better to make it more enjoyable for Adelaide. 

After the game is set up they start taking it in turns to place the counters in the slots, after about 5 turns each Adelaide stands up. 

“Ha! Connect 4! Stop letting me win and play properly! It’s no fun if you let me win every time.”

Latte is taken about, how did Adelaide know she threw the game? Latte reset the game. And they played another couple of rounds. The time seemed to fly by playing connect 4 and flicking between some of the other activities Latte had brought. Latte didn’t even notice Leon coming back home. 

“Ahh I see you’re having fun!” Leon announces as he walks into the living room.

“Grampa!” Adelaide runs over to greet him. “I had a great time! Latte brought all these fun games with her and next time she said she’ll teach me chess.