✅1️⃣ Trusting the Babysitter

Abridged Chapter 40 - What she Missed

You know about the other version of this story by now. This chapter is the shorter 'clean' version. The original version is in the mature copy of this book.

Adam did his best to get himself clean, his nose barely an inch from the tiles of the shower. The hot water made him feel like he was in a sauna, and probably made his whole body red enough to hide his blushes. Claudia passed him a bottle of something that smelled like jasmine, and was presumably getting herself just as clean on the other side of the tiny cubicle. This way they could both be fresh before dinner time, it was quite an innovation.

"So, you did something to the cakes. To make the drug stop working?"

"Uhh... yeah..." he mumbled, and tried to catch up with what he'd already said. It was a good story, and he was proud of figuring out what was going on, but he didn't feel he could impress Claudia as much as he might like in this situation.

"Okay," he said after a few seconds to get his thoughts in order. "Claudia sent me to get her lunchbox, right? I knew it had to be something special. It's locked, but it's just a cheap thing you'd give a kid for the novelty of having a locking box. You can open it with anything that'll fit in the hole, even a pen. So I checked what was in there before bringing it out. She'd told me to bring it, but she didn't say why, and that made me curious. I bet you would have done the same. I kind of guessed what it might be, and I was right."

He went on to explain as best he could how he had decided to thwart Lorelei's plans to make the two of them into baby slaves. He said that Mrs Cartwright had mentioned making tea with the herbs, and incorporating that into the cakes. And he remembered that the flavours he couldn't quite place had been strongest in the syrupy honey-mix that was the filling of the cakes. He didn't know if that meant anything, but he'd been willing to gamble on it. So he'd made holes in two of the cupcakes on the top layer, and drained out their contents before taking the box outside.

"I didn't know if it would work," he said. "I hoped we might escape the drug's effect. As it happened, it still worked. But it seems to be wearing off faster, so maybe that's a part of it. Making stale cakes even drier was an unintended side effect. But I think it might be safe to say the drug is in the syrup. As long as we know that, we'll be a little safer. And if we can stop her giving orders, that would make a big difference."

In the time it took for that conversation to wrap up, they had already finished showering. Now they stood on opposite sides of the bathroom, back-to-back, with warm towels that somehow helped Adam to feel human again.

"So how do we do that?" Claudia asked sarcastically. "I mean, if she notices we're not being kids, she's going to give new orders. We can't hurt her. And even if we have more cupcakes, we couldn't force feed her or anything."

"No. But I guessed that the drug was mostly in that syrup. And from how fast it's wearing off this time, I think I was right. So I put it in her lemonade, and she didn't argue at all when I told her to watch TV until we come down."