✅1️⃣ | Hypnosis Doesn't Work Like That!

60: Nothing Surprises Me Now

Adi was getting used to the effects of the hypnosis file now. It didn't make it any easier, but she wasn't surprised to find it worked every time now. So when she realised how casually she'd reacted, a few minutes later, she accepted it with a sigh and a wordless grumble to herself rather than a moment of panic.

Ten minutes later she wearing one of the thick medical diapers to guard against the inevitability of someone mentioning her name during a day of tours and interviews. There were three more pressed into a side pocket of her new bag, together with a bottle of baby powder, a packet of wipes, and a small squeezy bottle of water-free hand wash lotion. It was the kind of stuff nurses carried on their belts in some hospitals, so that they could wash their hands between touching one patient and the next without needing to find a sink every time. Toni often had one in her bag, claiming it was the only thing she'd found that would shift engine oil from her hands before mealtimes. But the reason she'd offered it to Adi after their shopping trip had been a little different. The stuff was theoretically apple-scented, but in practice it smelled very strongly of soap, or possibly some kind of antiseptic. The kind of scent that might follow you around for hours, but strong enough to cover any other smell if Adi couldn't change her diaper right away.

Things like that were the reason Toni was a genius. She always came at a problem from a slight angle, not seeing it in the same way as anyone else, and her solutions were practical while also being slightly oblique. She thought of the unexpected, and never missed a trick. Adi was sure she was lucky to have such a talented friend.

"Ready?" Mom was waiting by the door when Adi got downstairs again, and wasted no time getting onto the road. The rush-hour traffic was beginning to die away now, so the main road into Schwingford was flowing smoothly. But today they were taking a different route, cutting across a massive grid of row houses and then down Graveller Road. With factories and industrial lots on both sides of the road, it wasn't the most scenic route, but it got them to Duzcheburg Station in half the time the main road would have taken.

Adi wondered what she could say to her mother. "Did you offer to change my diaper?" just sounded weird. But that was the only meaning she could get, and she didn't know what would have prompted a question like that. Even if she was wearing diapers now, she was still an almost-adult and capable of looking after herself. But Mom was treating her like she was an actual baby? What was all that about? Or had she misread the situation completely?

If she'd been shocked at the time, it would have been easy enough to ask. She was sure she would have been able to muster a shocked "What did you just say?" But the hypnosis had kept her from being embarrassed until a few minutes later, by which time it was impossible to bring it up again without causing more awkwardness. She spent half the journey to the station trying to think of a way to broach the subject, but she just couldn't do it.

"Hey, Mom?" she finally managed, before glancing out of the window and finding a new question that pushed the old one completely out of her mind. "The station's that way. Where are we going?"