✅1️⃣ Trusting the Babysitter

Chapter 35 - Eat, Drink, and Be Baby

Claudia looked across at the box of cupcakes. They didn't look quite so appetising now. As well as being just a little squashed, and the fact that little pieces had been pulled off around the edges, she could tell at a glance that the ones on the bottom layer were a little stale. They weren't carefully arranged in rows like the ones in her mother's locked box, but thrown in on top of each other and partly squashed when the lid had been closed. And there was no knowing how long they had been in there for, or how long it had been since the box had been washed. Claudia was pretty sure that her mum didn't know the box was being used for food, so she wouldn't have thought to clean it. And she couldn't imagine Lorelei being that careful.

"They're yours," Claudia was the first one to speak. "You can have–"

"No!" Lorelei snapped, and Claudia saw with resignation that Adam was already sliding a plate towards her. "No, for you. Your prize. Eat now. You got to eat it."

Adam broke off a piece of the cake, and carried it towards his mouth. He didn't particularly want to try this experiment, and he knew that there was a good chance this would be his last moment of freedom. But the cakes weren't mouldy or anything, just stale, and he apparently wasn't put off enough to refuse a direct order with that much force behind it. He chewed and swallowed little pieces of the cake in much the same way Lorelei had before Mrs Cartwright left. Whether it was the child's insistence, or the fact that their apparent ability to resist didn't think more than one step ahead, there was no denying that they had been told to eat the cakes.

Claudia followed suit after just a couple of seconds. She wasn't quite sure if she would have been able to resist on the grounds that these little pieces of cake were probably not clean; or fear of what Lorelei might make her do next. But she also knew that once Adam had eaten more than a few mouthfuls of sweet, crumbly cake, he would probably have been completely unable to disobey. And in those circumstances, it was easy to imagine Lorelei making the babysitter force-feed her. Going along with her sister's demands was certainly more comfortable than any of the other scenarios she could imagine if she refused now.

The cupcakes weren't so nice this time, but the mix of sweet and slightly spicy flavours was just the same. Adam and Claudia both found that they needed to drink a lot while they were eating, because the cakes had become dry with age. They were at least a week old, probably left from the last time there had been a babysitter here for an evening. The flavour was familiar, but the texture this time wasn't particularly pleasant. It was like eating donuts that had been left out on the counter overnight.

"Where did you get these?" Claudia asked, pausing between bites as she tried to swallow the cake. She already knew the answer, but would have taken any opportunity to take a break from eating for a second.

"I don't eat them!" Lorelei answered with another grin. Not malicious this time, but proud. The evil genius gloating, wanting everyone to understand just how clever she was. "Mum aaaalways gives me one. And the babysitter. But I don't eat mine. I put it in the box. So I got lots. All saved for a rainy day."

"You're such a clever girl. But you don't need to be mean with them. I mean, you've watched movies haven't you? You know that if you keep on being the bad guy, you'll get punished in the end. You won't keep on getting away with it."

Lorelei just laughed again, and it was impossible to read what she was thinking. She sipped at her own lemonade while both of the adults finished their cupcakes, leaving just a scattering of crumbs on the little plates. A few times she looked down at Claudia's tablet, which she had apparently reclaimed at some point, and played some childish game. But she never lost herself in whatever she was playing. She was always paying enough attention that she would have noticed if either of them attempted to disobey.

They looked down at the crumbs. There were quite a few,, and some of them were large. But Lorelei never seemed to eat anything without leaving a mess, so it was no surprise when she didn't even seem to notice.

"It looks like there's clouds coming over," Adam pointed out. "Should we go back inside?"

"Not yet!" Lorelei growled. "You're both babies. I'm the big girl now. You do what I say. You got to play being babies. And I'm gonna..." she frowned at her screen, tapping it harder now and her frustration obvious. "I can't play other stuff. Why not? Well? Tell me Caddy!"

"It's in child mode," Claudia reluctantly admitted. "You can only play the games that I've selected to allow. But I put all the games that you like on it. There's nothing else except my school work. And you don't want to–"

"I wanna do grown up stuff," Lorelei pouted, starting to raise her voice again. "Do it proper. So I can do everything."

Claudia took the tablet back, and swiped through a few things on the screen. She still tried to argue that there was nothing on there that Lorelei would be interested in, and that all the games she liked were accessible in child mode. But at the same time she couldn't disobey, so after a few seconds she handed the device over again, properly unlocked so that her school work and social media apps were all vulnerable to whatever Lorelei had in mind. It was a nerve-wracking moment.

"Good girl," Adam said with a little smile, but had the decency to blush instantly. "What are you going to do?"

"Not me. You! You gotta be baby. Babies. Adam first."