The Mother Who Booked Me For Babysitting Without Asking Me

I babysat for two families in my last year of school. Word gets around, which is nice, and then word gets ahead of you, which is not.

A woman I had never met posted on the neighbourhood page that "the girl at number 12 does Fridays" and gave out my first name, my house number, and — I still cannot get over this — a rate she had invented, which was two pounds an hour below what I actually charged.

The first I knew of it was a knock on the door on a Friday at six, with two children on my step and a car with its engine still running.

I said I was sorry, there had been a misunderstanding, I had never agreed to anything.

She said, "But I've got a table booked."

I said again that I was sorry.

She looked at me — I was seventeen, in pyjama bottoms, holding a bowl of pasta — and she said, "You are being extremely selfish."

Then she left the children on my step and walked to the car.

I want to be very careful here, because I know how this reads. I did not take them in and I did not leave them on the step. I stood in the doorway with two small children and shouted her name, which I did not know, and then I shouted "Excuse me!" in the voice my mother uses, and my mother came out.