Giana watched her alarm clock intently. She told herself that she wouldn’t be late today. It was 5:19 am. Giana did not take her eyes off the time as she sipped her coffee. She was already ready to go, and this time she was going to be early! 

When it was time to go, she raced out of the house and hopped into her car. She was going to be early, even if there was tons of traffic! Giana grinned as she whipped out her key, and stuck it in the car. 

…Nothing. Giana took it out and put it back in again. Nothing again. A sense of dread crept up inside of her. She got out of the car and examined everything she could think of. Finally, after she found nothing, she called Zephyr. 

“Hey! What’s up?” They answered quickly and cheerfully. 

“Uh…my car, um, broke.” Giana said shakily. 

Zephyr sighed. “Oh dear,” they said, “I’ll be there in five.” 

“Thank you!” Giana replied, apologetically and relieved. When Zephyr came, he inspected the car. Apparently there was something wrong with a motor, or a watch-ma call-it, or something like that. 

“Hey, I don’t think I can get this fixed today, so I can drive you if you need,” Zephyr said. Giana looked at them so gratefully. 

Zephyr drove as fast as they could without breaking the law. Even then, Giana was still late. She groaned and she trudged up to the door. Ding Dong! Before she knew it, the parents were out the door and gone, and she was ushered in. Giana felt used to it by now, but it still caught her slightly off guard. “Hi guys!” She exclaimed. Raven stared at her blankly. “Where’s…the others?” Giana asked hesitantly. 

“Gone.” Raven replied nonchalantly. 

“Aha…ha…what do you mean, Raven?” said Giana. 

“Just upstairs sleeping,” Raven shrugged. 

“Oh good,” Giana relaxed slightly. 

“…sleeping forever,” Raven mumbled. 

Giana laughed uncomfortably, “Sorry, what was that?” Raven raised an eyebrow as if they hadn’t said anything. “Right. Of course,” Giana said, “I’m gonna go check on ‘em” 

Giana went upstairs. They were sleeping soundly. Giana shook them awake gently. “Good morning sleepy-heads!” The kids awoke. Niki’s eyes opened wide when she saw Giana, and jumped into her arms. 

“Yippee!” Niki shouted. 

Oliver groaned, “Five more minutes.” he said, rolling over. Giana chuckled.

Later that day, they were playing monopoly. Niki and Oliver kept accusing Raven of cheating, but they just silently smiled. Raven won, obviously. Oliver refused to let them win, and demanded rematch after rematch until he won. Giana knew Raven was just getting bored, so they let him win. Giana smiled to herself. She felt so lucky to be able to babysit these kids, even if some of them were a little crazy. 

By bedtime, everyone already knew the drill. The kids got ready for bed, hopped into their beds, and pestered Giana until she gave in to tell them a story. 

“Okay, it all started 10 years ago, when 8 year old Gabby really, really, wanted a pet frog. But recently, her grades… they weren’t so hot. She was failing. Every. Single. Class. Except English. She absolutely loved English. Buuut, that wasn’t enough for her parents. And so they made her a deal. If she could pass all her classes, then she could get a pet frog. But she would be responsible for feeding it, and taking care of it. So she set a list of goals on how she was going to get her grades up, in just a month!

1. Ask her teacher if there are any extra credit assignments that she can do 
2. Turn in all her late assignments
3. Spend more time studying
4. Ask if she needs help
5. Participate more in class

So Gabby went to school, and talked to all her teachers. They were all so glad that she was trying to pick her grades up that they let her turn in all her late assignments, even the ones months old, let her do extra credit, and called on her first in class! She spent most of her time at night doing old assignments and studying for upcoming tests. Within a month, her grades were doing much better, and had gone from mostly d’s with a few f’s, to mostly b’s with one or two c’s or a’s. So as the end of the semester approached, she worked harder than ever, so that when her grades were on her report card, it was mostly a’s scattered with a few b’s. Her parents had never been so proud, and so they had promised to get her a frog. And they did! But… they got her an old frog. It was so grumpy, it seemed like it almost even hated being fed. He denied food! And so after a few weeks, her parents told her to ‘just get rid of it’ but she couldn’t do it, she had grown to love the little ol’ grumpy thing. She tried so many things, so many different foods, she even tried playing with the frog, but nothing seemed to work. One night, as she was eating dinner with her parents, she heard a crash. They ran into Gabby’s room, and saw that the frog’s cage was flipped over and the frog was gone. 

‘NOO!’ Gabby yelled!

Her parents convinced her to go back to dinner, and that they would look for her frog later. So they all headed back to the table, and as they approached, they saw something odd on Gabby’s plate. HER FROG WAS EATING HER SPAGHETTI!! They took the frog off and put him back in his cage, but the frog was no longer grumpy, after having a full stomach, and Gabby was no longer sad. Because, after all, she had her frog back.” 

Cites

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