Wise Guy Willie And The Babysitter

Willie Baxter was excited. His parents were going out of town for the weekend. That meant having a babysitter, and having a babysitter meant having a whole lot of fun. Of course, Willie’s definition of fun was slightly different from most people’s definition of fun. To Willie, fun involved a very specific set of tools. It involved rubber snakes, jars of green slime, and a very expensive collection of whoopee cushions that he kept locked in his desk drawer like precious treasure.

Right now, Willie was in his command center. Most people called it his bedroom, but Willie knew better. It was a laboratory of mischief. The floor was a graveyard of failed experiments and a treasure chest of successful ones. A plastic spider sat on his pillow. A pile of fake dog poop rested near his closet door. Tangled piles of invisible string hung from the bedposts. In the center of this messy kingdom sat Willie himself, his bright orange-red hair sticking up in every direction like a small, friendly fire on top of his head.

Willie’s hair always got extra messy when his creative juices were flowing. Today, they were flowing like a rushing river. He was putting the final touches on his latest masterpiece, which he called the Great Toaster Surprise.

"Target spotted near the kitchen appliance," Willie whispered to himself. He loved to narrate his own missions like a highly trained secret agent. "Agent Willie is moving in. The payload is primed. Initiating Operation Spring-Loaded Spider in three, two, one..."

With the steady hands of a surgeon, Willie used a pair of tweezers to squeeze a large, hairy, rubber tarantula into the left bread slot of the family toaster. He carefully hooked the spider’s legs to the metal heating grates inside. He attached a tiny, highly sensitive spring to the bottom. If anyone pushed the toaster lever down, nothing would happen. But the moment the lever popped back up, the spider would launch five feet into the air. It was a work of pure genius.

"Perfect," Willie muttered, wiping a speck of dust from his nose. The action left a smudge of charcoal on his cheek, matching the grass stains on the knees of his favorite cargo pants. He stood back to admire his work. The toaster looked completely normal. It looked innocent. It looked like it just wanted to warm up some delicious sourdough bread. But Willie knew the truth.

Suddenly, the sound of muffled voices drifted up through the floorboards. Willie froze. He pressed his ear against the air vent in the corner of his room. The vent was his secret listening post. It connected directly to the kitchen downstairs, allowing him to gather crucial intelligence on his parental targets.

"George, we have to find someone," his mother, Martha Baxter, was saying. Her voice sounded strained, like she had been chewing on a sour lemon. "The flight leaves in exactly twenty-four hours. This is our tenth anniversary. We deserve a weekend of peace."

"I know, honey, I know," his father, George Baxter, sighed. Willie could practically hear his dad rubbing his temples. George was a hardworking accountant, but his thinning red hair was getting thinner by the day, mostly because of Willie’s experimental humor. "I’m trying. I’ve called every agency in the tri-county area. I even called the high school wrestling coach to see if any of his athletes wanted to make some quick cash."

"And?" Martha asked.

"He told me that the entire varsity team has suddenly developed a fear of our address," George said, his voice dropping to a weary whisper. "Apparently, there is a list circulating among the local teenagers. A 'Do Not Visit' list. And our house is at the very top of it. They call it the Danger Zone."

Up in his bedroom, Willie’s eyes sparkled with pure joy. A huge grin spread across his freckled face. He didn’t feel bad about the list at all. In fact, he felt very proud. Being at the top of a local babysitter blacklist was a major achievement for a nine-year-old. It was like winning a gold medal in mischief.

But the best part of the conversation was the word babysitter. His parents were definitely going away. They were going to hire someone new to watch him. To Willie, a new babysitter wasn’t a guardian or a rule-enforcer. A new babysitter was a fresh audience. They were a blank canvas just waiting for his comedic brushstrokes. The teenagers in the neighborhood had grown too cautious. They looked under cushions before they sat down. They checked their shoes for tape. They were boring. A new sitter would be completely unprepared for his greatness.

Willie scrambled away from the vent and rushed to his closet. He pulled out a large shoe box labeled "Top Secret Supplies." He popped the lid off and began conducting a rapid inventory check.

"Itching powder," Willie said, touching the small paper packet. "Check."

"Fake dog poop," he said, tapping the realistic brown plastic. "Check."

"Invisible string," he said, pulling a thin nylon thread. "Check."

He had enough supplies to turn the entire house into a hilarious obstacle course. He could already picture the look of total surprise on the new sitter's face. It was going to be the most legendary weekend in the history of the block. He would be the talk of the third-grade playground on Monday morning. Toby Higgins, his best friend and loyal accomplice, would be absolutely amazed.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the atmosphere was much less happy Martha Baxter was pacing back and forth across the linoleum floor, her colorful sweater swishing with every sharp turn. She held a notepad with a list of twenty-five names, and every single one of them had a thick red line drawn through it.

"How is this possible, George?" Martha asked, waving the notepad in the air. "Willie is only nine. He is a sweet boy. He is creative. He is intelligent."

"He put a fake snake in my briefcase last Tuesday, Martha," George said gently, staring at the telephone on the kitchen counter. "I opened it during a meeting with our biggest client. The client fainted. I almost fainted."

"It was a rubber snake, George. It couldn't hurt anyone."

"The client didn't know that," George sighed, picking up his car keys and nervously tossing them from hand to hand. "And let's not forget what happened to Tom Packer last month. He is a seventeen-year-old varsity wrestler, and he left this house crying because Willie glued his sneakers to the entryway floor. We had to buy him new sneakers, Martha. These pranks cost us a lot of money."

Martha sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. She looked at the colorful family calendar on the refrigerator. The weekend dates were circled with a big red heart. "I just wanted us to have a nice, quiet anniversary trip. Just forty-eight hours without any whoopee cushions or fake spiders."

"We will find someone," George said, though he didn't sound very convincing. He reached for the phone again, his fingers hovering over the keypad. "There has to be one brave soul left in this town. Someone who doesn't listen to teenage gossip. Someone who can handle a little... creative energy."

Upstairs, Willie took his spy binoculars from his desk and peered out the front window. The street was quiet. The sun was shining. The world was full of possibilities. He couldn't wait for his parents to make their choice. Whoever they found, Willie was ready to welcome them with open arms—and maybe a little bit of itching powder in their jeans pocket. The battle of wits was about to begin, and the Willie Wise Guy was already three steps ahead.