"Jess, I don't think we can do this."

"Don't worry bro, how hard can this even be?"

The siblings stood in front of the cousin that their mother had requested them to babysit. Neither of them agreed to it, but for some reason, their mom convinced them to do so anyway. But just because Jess and Jesse were taking care of their cousin for a day, didn't necessarily mean that they knew anything about the kid, let alone about babysitting. So far, the only information they had about the child was that she was a calm, quiet girl. The siblings didn't even know her name. The little girl barely talked. She spoke almost exclusively in one-word or two-word sentences, and sometimes didn't even bother responding to questions at all.

"Should.. should we call mom?" Jesse proposed, with a tone of worry in his voice. Jessica only shrugged. "Nah, we'll be fine. As long as we keep her company and feed her on time, this should be easy!"

"Speaking of feeding, do we even have any food left?" Jesse asked as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Oh, right. We were supposed to buy groceries for dinner." Jessica suddenly remembered. Jesse's worried expression only became worse. "So what, do we just leave the girl all alone?"

Jessica shook her head and faced the little girl. "Guess we'll just have to take you with us to the store. How about that?" The girl didn't respond. She just stared blankly at her caretakers, fidgeting with her striped t-shirt.

"Not much of a talker, huh?" Jesse said, crossing his arms.

"I'll take that as a yes." Jessica assumed optimistically. She grabbed the child's hand and left with her brother for the place where happiness went to die. Otherwise known as Walmart.

The group made their way through the store, searching through the aisles for the things they needed to buy. Jessica stopped at a shelf that held various types of sodas. "Maybe we should buy something for the weekend?" Jessica mentioned. "You think everyone likes Dr. Pepper?"

Jesse didn't answer the question. He seemed busy in his thoughts. "Hello? Earth to Jesse?" his sister waved a hand in front of his face, which made him snap back to reality. "Sorry, I was thinking."

"Is something on your mind?" Jessica asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Kinda. But it's nothing important."

In contrast to his sister, Jesse wasn't exactly too thrilled about going out for groceries when he had much more important things to do, like playing video games. The only reason he considered going was that Jessica insisted and he couldn't say no to that. And now he was stuck in the middle of Walmart, searching for the perfect box of cereal.

"How about this one?" Jesse proposed, grabbing the umpteenth cereal box from the shelf. The brand was called "Temmie Flakes", and it had a white cat-like figure on the front of the box. "Those corn flakes look like torn up pieces of colored construction paper." Jessica joked, but she was serious though. "I'm not eating that crap."

Jesse placed the box of cereal back on the shelf and continued walking through the store with his sister and the quiet child. It was only then that he realized the little girl was nowhere to be seen.

"The kid's gone." Jesse said fast, making it sound almost inaudible.

"What?"

"Jess, the kid is gone!" he repeated himself, louder this time. Jessica turned around to find out that her brother wasn't wrong.

"JESSE!" she yelled.

"What?!"

"This is your fault!"

"HOW is this my fault?!" he asked as he came to the realization that arguing wasn't going to get them anywhere. Jesse sighed. "Look, arguing isn't going to help us find our cousin, so let's just split up and look for her." he said in a much calmer voice than a few seconds ago. Jessica nodded, and she walked off to begin her search. Jesse did the same, starting off with the most obvious place a 5-year old could go. The candy aisle.

Jesse speed-walked through the aisle, trying so hard not to get distracted by the various types of delicious sweets. He stopped when he came to the conclusion that he was right about his cousin going to the candy aisle. "Kid, get down from there." Jesse said to the little girl who was holding a big sack of Skittles, which Jesse wasn't even aware existed in such a big size. He tried his best to get his cousin down from the shelf that she somehow managed to climb.

The girl stuck her tongue out at Jesse and threw the candy sack at his face. If he wasn't in the presence of a young child, Jesse would've most likely started to swear at the situation he was in. "Come on kid, just get back down here and I won't have to tell on you." Saying that got the little girl's attention, because she was back on the ground within seconds. Jesse let out a sigh of relief, when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

"There you are!" Jessica commented in relief. "Did you find her?" Jesse then felt a tug on his leg from the little girl that only could reach that high. "Yeah, she somehow managed to climb to the top of a shelf." Jesse explained to his sister. "But everything's okay now."

Jessica gave the girl a stern look, or at least she was trying. Jesse knew that his sister didn't get mad easily, but that didn't stop her from coming up with a punishment for her cousin. So, on the way to another aisle, Jessica dropped her off at the ball pit to keep her from causing any more trouble.

"So what was it that mom asked us to buy?" Jesse asked as he observed the different types of fruit and vegetables displayed before them, sorted by color and all. Jessica took a long list out of her pocket and handed it to her brother. He quickly read it and looked up, raising his eyebrow. "Did you get anything besides chips and soda?"

"Nope!" Jessica exclaimed cheerfully, crossing her arms over her chest. Sighing became a usual occurrence for Jesse at this point. A while later, the two got pretty much everything on the list and made their way home. Jessica carried most of the bags seeing that she was surprisingly strong, especially for a girl.

"Mom, we're home!" Jessica exclaimed as she bursted through the door, with her brother following behind. "Oh, good! Jade should be here any second now." their mother said, checking if they got everything from the list. Jade was their cousin's mom, and Jesse's and Jessica's aunt.

"So, did you three have fun?" mom asked. A dead silence filled the room as the siblings came to a horrific realization.

"Jess, did we.."

"We left her in the ball pit."

Somewhere in Walmart, in a pool filled with plastic, unhygienic balls, a forgotten child let out a sigh of disappointment.