✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

Chapter 381: Briefing

Lily sat down for her lunch while Nyx was still downstairs, shovelling armfuls of important-looking documents into her bag. Lily was sure that she would have been able to tell pretty quickly what kind of work the nice lady would be doing today if she took a quick look over them, but right now they were just complicated squiggles on the paper. She let herself not understand what she was seeing, dismissing it as silly grown-up stuff that wasn't nearly as interesting as the babysitters helping to set her food out on the table. She was still playing along, but it was a lot easier to let it happen.

"Are you having fun, Lily dear?" she asked as she straightened up to get moving.

"Yes thank you missus Nyxery..." Lily started and then broke down in giggles as she somehow got her tongue all tangled in knots. She wasn't a baby, she could talk properly if she wanted to, but it was so much easier to just let mistakes happen and enjoy wherever that took her. She didn't need to think properly now, there were grown-ups for that. Well, maybe not grown-ups, but bigger kids who could look after her.

"Nyxoriña," she prompted helpfully. "But everybody calls me Nyx. If you want to be super polite, then Miss Nyx is fine, or Miss Spenser. Now, are you okay with Garfield, Jack, and Caitlyn looking after you today? Have they been giving you enough attention so far?"

"Yep," Lily nodded happily. She didn't need to think more than that. Everything was good.

"And are the things on the whiteboard fine, nothing that's going to be a problem? I let these three pick one each, but I want to be sure that's fine by you. Can you see what they are?"

Lily looked up to her magic whiteboard, which was propped up in a narrow empty space on the counter. It took her a little effort to turn the squiggly writing into words, or maybe to step back from acting little for a second.

"I'm gonna..." she started, and giggled at the silly things the boys had written. It was obvious which one was Cait's pretty handwriting between two lines of spidertrack squiggle. They had different ideas about what a little girl might do as well, and they seemed a little bit silly to Lily. But she wasn't going to do grown-up thinking, she was going to keep on playing along with the things they'd chosen. Being silly just meant it wasn't a big deal, and none of them had been as mean as the things Adelaide had ended up doing. "I'm gonna get long words mixed up and say the wrong one sometimes or not be able to say one and think it's super funny. And I'm gonna be super excited by everything they want to do so I'll be interested and giggly and maybe a bit loud. And I'm... I'm gonna not notice right away when I got to pee so it's just like suddenly desperate, so I feel real proud that I make it to the bathroom."

She could feel her face hot with the blush as she read the last one. She could remember the time Adelaide had made her pee in her pants when she played being a little girl before, and it was one of the most embarrassing things that had ever happened to her. And she knew that was kind of fair because Adelaide was just a baby so the same thing happened to her a lot. This one seemed weird, like it was supposed to remind her of that without really making her embarrassed or upset. It was kind of a funny idea, but it would probably be harmless. Lily didn't complain, but she decided that she wasn't really going to do that one, maybe just pretend a little bit so one of the boys didn't feel left out.

"Yeah, that's all silly stuff that's fine," she nodded to Miss Nyx as laughter invaded her cheeks to strike down the blushy horde. "Thank you!"

"I'll leave you in their capable hands, then. Have fun."

On the other side of the kitchen, the boys were still lining up a dozen little plates on the kitchen table. They seemed to keep getting in each other's way, so every time Gary wanted to put something down at one end, Jack was coming the other way. They squeezed past each other and then did the same again, trading places with every single thing they moved. It was kind of like clowns at the circus, except that nothing actually got spilled. Cait couldn't keep the smile off her face, and it wasn't long before Lily was giggling too.

"It's almost like they're doing it on purpose," Cait smirked, watching Jack with a sideways expression that carried whole paragraphs of subtext that Lily didn't feel like being old enough to understand.

"Yeah!" Lily beamed, amazed that the boys who'd first looked like some kind of big bullies might try so hard to make her laugh. She liked them already, and she couldn't wait to see what kinds of tiny sandwiches and little pies and sausages on sticks they'd set out for everybody to share. They were using the cutest plates and dishes ever, little plastic things with different cartoon pictures on them, with a check pattern like a gingham summer dress around the edges. And she was sure there was going to be enough for three babysitters and a little girl, even if they took some back to the nursery to keep snacking after.

This really was the best day ever.