Anonymous Assist
ANONYMOUS ASSIST – April 7, 2025 – Walla Walla, Washington, USA
In perfect synchronicity, the doorbell rang as the Soto family sat down for dinner on a Monday night. Brandon Soto looked at his wife, Rachel, as if to say, “Are you expecting anyone?” She shook her head and then crept to the door to look through the peephole. When she saw their next-door neighbor, Chloe Lunt, standing outside, she pulled the door open.
“Hi, Mrs. Soto,” Chloe said warmly. She was seventeen and always quick to wave hello or stop and chat with Rachel if they met on the sidewalk. She wore her dirty blonde hair tightly pulled back into a ponytail and seemed to always be wearing pink.
“I’m supposed to do a project for one of my high school classes,” Chloe continued. “For the next five days, I need to do something nice for someone in my neighborhood. I picked your family.”
By that point, Brandon and the two Soto children, ages six and three, had wandered over to the dor. Chloe repeated her explanation about doing nice things for the family. “I guess I was supposed to stay anonymous, but I thought you should know what was happening. And here’s the first thing I did for you. Brought your mail from the mailbox.”
Chloe held out a collection of envelopes, flyers, and catalogs. Rachel Soto accepted them and said thank you. Brandon grimaced. He did not like the idea of anyone snooping through his mail.
“I was thinking that one of the things I could do for you is babysit,” Chloe said to Rachel with an eager smile. “How about you pick a night this week and I’ll come over and babysit for free. Then you and Mr. Soto could go out to dinner or something.”
“Oh, that sounds nice. But you don’t have to do that,” Rachel answered.
“I want to. And I’m supposed to for school.”
“Well, alright.” Rachel turned to Brandon. “What do you think, honey? You up for taking me out some time this week?”
Brandon knew better than to say no and they settled on Thursday night. Chloe agreed to be at their house by 5:30. “And don’t forget. I’ll be doing other nice stuff for you too,” she added.
After she walked away and they closed the door, Brandon looked at his wife with a worried expression. “What else do you think she’s planning?”
“Relax. Whatever it is, I’m sure she has the best intentions.”
Brandon grabbed the stack of mail from Rachel’s hands and huffed a little to show he was skeptical of Choe’s intentions.
The next day was garbage pickup for the neighborhood. As usual, before he left for work, Brandon rolled his family’s plastic garbage bin down their concrete driveway and left it near the curb. He returned home that evening, expecting to find the emptied bin in the same place. Instead, it had been rolled back up the driveway and was sitting in front of his parking spot in the garage.
“How did that happen?” Brandon asked himself. Then he remembered Chloe’s promise. He sighed, parked his car, got out, moved the bin, and then got back into his car so he could drive it into the garage.
“I see that Chloe struck again,” Brandon said to his wife before explaining the inconvenience of getting out of his car to move the bin.
“She was just trying to be helpful,” Rachel said defensively. “How could she know she left it right in your way?”
“I know. I know. Her intentions were good,” Brandon said with a hint of sarcasm.
On Wednesday, Brandon looked around outside when he got home from work to make sure nothing was misplaced. He went inside and the doorbell rang a few minutes later. Rachel answered the door to find Chloe dressed in pink sweatpants and holding a paper plate filled with cookies.
“They’re chocolate chip. My favorite. I hope you like them too.”
“Well, thank you!” Rachel said graciously. “Would you like to come in and eat them with us?”
“Nah. I’ve gotta run. But I’ll see you tomorrow for the babysitting.”
Chloe hurried away and Rachel presented the cookies to the rest of her family. Her kids each grabbed one and began chewing.
“How are they?” Brandon asked.
His six-year-old held up a thumb and smiled approvingly, wearing a chocolate mustache over his lip. Brandon took a cookie of his own and chomped down. After three bites, his eyes grew wide.
“Peanuts!” He raced to the kitchen sink and spit out the bite of cookie. “Who puts peanuts in chocolate chip cookies?” He took a closer look and could see bits of chopped up peanuts in the cross-section he had bitten into his cookie. He was only mildly allergic to peanuts but he could already feel an itchy tingle in his mouth. His nose began to run.
“Are you okay? You didn’t eat very much, did you?” Rachel asked in sympathetic alarm.
“No. But if I was super allergic my throat would be tightening up right now. She would have killed me.”
“I’m sure she had no clue you have a peanut allergy. It was an innocent mistake.”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “I hope I survive all of Chloe’s kindness this week.”
On Thursday night, Chloe showed up exactly at 5:30. She carried a bag packed with picture books and board games and talked excitedly to the kids about how much fun they would have together. Rachel and Brandon made sure Chloe had both of their phone numbers and then drove toward a restaurant they wanted to try that was not very child friendly.
Feeling apprehensive about Chloe, Brandon turned to his wife for reassurance. “She’ll be fine with the kids, right?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I don’t know. Why haven’t we used her as a babysitter before?”
Rachel shrugged. “You always want to drop the kids off with your mom.”
Brandon sighed. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. We’ll only be gone a couple hours. Nothing too bad could happen in two hours, right?”
Service at the restaurant was unhurried. The atmosphere should have been relaxing but Brandon could not shake the feeling that something strange was happening at home. They did not linger for dessert and were back at their house by 7:30.
“Well, looks like the walls are still standing. That’s a relief,” Brandon said to Rachel.
They found Chloe and the kids in the backyard. They were playing with two baby ducks.
“Uh, where did the ducks come from?” Brandon asked.
Chloe smiled like she was bursting to tell the story. “We were reading a book about a duck but then we got bored. I remembered that they sell ducks at the farm supply store, so we drove over there. And don’t worry, I made sure the kids were in their car seats. Well, they fell in love with these two ducks and I had to buy them. And don’t worry about paying me back. They’re my gift to the kids.”
The Soto children ecstatically cuddled the ducks before releasing them onto the backyard’s patch of grass. Then the kids followed as the ducks waddled back and forth.
“Uh, what are we supposed to do with them?” Rachel asked. “Where do they live?”
“They can live in the backyard or in your house,” Chloe replied without a second thought. “If you want to give them a place to swim, they’ll love the bathtub.”
“But we don’t really want pets right now. I don’t even know what ducks eat. We can’t keep them.”
“Ducks are easy. They eat all kinds of stuff. You’ll have fun with them. But I have to go now. I’ve got homework.”
While Brandon and Rachel stared open-mouthed at the gift ducks, Chloe collected her storybooks and games and walked home.
“What do we do?” Rachel asked Brandon.
“I don’t think we can take them back to the store. The kids are already too attached to them.”
“I’m supposed to let them wander around our house?”
Brandon groaned and shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll learn to fly really quickly and leave on their own. On the bright side, we only have one more day before Chloe leaves us alone.”
For the first time in the week, Rachel said nothing about Chloe just trying to be nice.
While Brandon was at work on Friday, he sent multiple texts to his wife asking if Chloe had dropped off anything or tried to improve any part of their house. By the time he got home, Rachel had seen no sign of Chloe.
“Maybe we should take off so we’re not here when she comes over,” Brandon suggested.
Rachel gave him a skeptical look and replied, “You want to abandon our house to her? What if she drops off some pet rabbits to be friends with the ducks?”
“You’re right. We better stay put. I just wish I knew what she was planning.”
Brandon paced nervously as he checked the window for Chloe. As it grew dark outside, she had still not arrived.
“What if she decides to wash our windows or clean out our gutters? I can already picture her falling off a ladder.” Suddenly, Brandon had an idea for a preemptive strike. “What if we go to her house and tell her we need help with something specific. Then she won’t have to come up with an idea that blows up in our faces.”
“What would we ask her to do?”
“Something easy. Like taking a survey. You could tell her you need a survey participant for your work. Ask her a bunch of made-up questions and we’re done.”
The entire Soto family walked next door. That included the two kids carrying their baby ducks. Brandon knocked on the door. Chloe’s mom answered and she fetched Chloe.
“Hi guys! What are you doing here?” Chloe asked in a surprised and friendly voice.
“I need your help with something,” Rachel explained. “It should be easy and I’m hoping it will count for your final day of doing nice things for our family.”
“Sure. I’m always happy to help. But actually, I finished off that service thing this morning. It happened on my way to school. I saw a bunch of nails in the street at the end of your driveway. I stopped and picked them up so you wouldn’t get flat tires.”
“Nails? In the road? How did they get there?” Brandon asked anxiously.
“I don’t know. But there was a bunch of them. I guess I should have told you. This is why I don’t really like that anonymous helping stuff. People should know what you’ve done for them.”
“Well, thank you, Chloe,” Brandon said in a stunned voice.
“Shall I take the survey now?”
Rachel remembered the fake survey idea and said, “You know what, you’ve already done more than enough. The survey’s no big deal. We don’t need to bother you anymore.”
After Chloe took a turn petting the ducks, the Soto’s said goodbye and walked back home. Along the way, Brandon stopped at the base of their driveway and imagined nails on the ground.
“You know who probably dropped them? That contractor working across the street. They probably flew out of his truck when he was turning around. I never would have seen them until it was too late.”
Brandon pictured four flat tires on his car and the hassle they would have caused. He chuckled at how grateful to Chloe he suddenly felt. Half an hour earlier, he had been afraid of her, but now, even the squawking baby ducks in his kids’ arms did not seem all that bad.
Please remember to subscribe for weekly reminders about new stories. You can subscribe by clicking here: Subscribe. You can also follow new content on any Podcast platform or on YouTube. For the full list of stories, return Home.