Today's first bonus chapter is dedicated to Santoro. Thank you for your support!
I'll try to get at least one chapter of The Last New Start out today as well, and maybe another one of this story. If anyone else would like to keep seeing new parts of this book more than once a day, supporting me on Patreon is a good way to keep the pressure on!
"Treating me like a baby!"
"Huh?" I answered, before wondering if it would have been better to say nothing at all. I'd barely been paying attention to the girls talking around me, too busy checking why my phone wanted my attention. It had turned out to be nothing important, but then I'd wound up dismissing a bunch of useless alerts, in my own little world until those words grabbed my attention.
"This babysitter," Callie explained, presumably repeating herself. I felt bad for a moment, knowing that I should make more of an effort to listen when my friends felt the need to vent. "Like, I'm old enough to look after myself, right? But they got this weird girl in to keep an eye on me, and it's like she's used to babies. Like she makes dinner, doesn't even ask me what I want, and then... ugh, it's crazy."
"Yeah, right?" Maggie chimed in. "Sounds kind of creepy to me. I'd hate that so much."
"Yeah," I nodded. I wasn't sure what the right response to that would have been. But a whistle on the far side of the yard grabbed our attention with the news that it was time to play.
"You never really know what's on somebody's mind. Unless they tell you of course. But they're always too embarrassed."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Wait, what?" My mind had still been on the conversation before today's game. I was standing next to Mum now, drying dishes after dinner while she washed them. I wouldn't normally volunteer for a chore, but she'd looked so drained when she got in from work that I felt like I had to help out.
"Nothing you've done, Sal. Just weird reminiscences. Like, years ago you used to come to us with every scraped knee, every triumph and every disappointment. If somebody pulled your hair or said something mean we'd know about it, and every time the teacher gave you a gold star you'd be rushing to tell your father when you got home. Do you remember that?"
"Not really," I laughed, and fumbled the mug in my hands, but managed to catch it before it hit the counter. I thought it was ironic that she was remembering my childhood on the same day Maggie was venting about being treated like a child. I didn't remember much about being a kid, but I was sure I'd been happier then. Maybe it was just nostalgia; you only remember the good bits. Or it could have been thinking about a time when my Dad was still healthy. "You said I was a handful."
"That you were. But I loved you for it, you know? When you were young I'd be solving every problem for you, keeping you safe. And sure it kept me busy, but I was sharing in your joy too. Now, I only find out what you're looking forward to if it's big things like this tournament. You might tell me when you have a test at school, but not if you're worried about it. I don't know which classes you breeze through and which you're struggling with. I'm not sure you'd tell me if you had a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, I guess. You don't, do you?"
"Mum!" I gasped, surprised she would even ask that. "You know I wouldn't–"
"You would!" Lindy's voice came through from the dining room, where she was drawing something on her tablet. "You're just too shy to talk to him. Standing at the side of the road and watching, you think nobody notices–"
"Linda! If Sally wanted to talk about those things, I'm sure she'd do so herself. She doesn't need you being a pain about sensitive subjects. Not another word." And then she turned back to me. "I know what it's like, dear. If I can offer any advice, you only have to ask. And you can tell me who you've been dreaming about when you want to. If you want to. I know that you're not a little kid anymore, and you can talk to your friends more easily than your mum. But I'm here."
"What if I was?" I asked, the question seeming to come from nowhere.
"If you were dating?" she asked, and her hands froze mid-scrub. Did she think there might be a boyfriend I'd been keeping secret?
"No, no," I blustered. "If I was a little kid. Just a weird thought. Like, if I woke up tomorrow and I was that little girl who tells you everything again, what would you do?"
"I don't know. That's an interesting thought. There's so many things it depends on. I'd have to call your school of course. See if you're still enrolled there. If everybody else remembers you being a rebellious teen. And maybe see a doctor. But if we're talking about some genie granting a wish, where we don't have to worry about the cause, I think I'd be so happy. I'd take a day off work and we could go to the park. Pick buttercups and throw bread at the ducks, like we used to. See if you can manage the new climbing frame they put in. Those things are so much fancier than they used to be, I guess plastic is easier to form into weird shapes."
"You sound like you want me to be a kid."
"Of course! Best days of my life were looking after you. The days when you worshipped me, and Mummy can fix everything. And that pure joy the first time you managed to run across the stepping stones. I'd do anything to have that little girl again. Not that I don't appreciate you now. You're so helpful around the house, and I look forward to seeing you and your friends raising a trophy. But when you were younger... I guess that's something you can only experience once, and I won't get to feel that again."
"When I go to college, I'll invent a potion of youth," I laughed. There was no way I could see myself as a scientist. My skills were mediocre in just about every subject at school, and I couldn't imagine a successful future that didn't centre around either sports or stacking shelves at EZ-Mart. But it was fun to imagine the unimaginable. "Just watch me, I'll come back here for summer, and I'll be another year younger every couple of days. We can go to the park and do all those things."
"Make sure you tell me first, then. I'd need to get a lot of new clothes for you if you're changing that much. I'm not sure how much of your old stuff is boxed up in the cellar, or your toys either. We'd have to stock up on baby food, too. Maybe formula if you're getting that young. Diapers, even."
"Diapers?!" I exclaimed, not quite believing she'd even said that. "You think I'd need..."
"Well if you're getting younger every few days, you'll be a baby by the end of the summer, won't you? It's better to have stuff, just in case. Especially if you're experimenting with untested mad science."
"That's weird," I said, trying to imagine how it would make me feel to be put back in diapers. I couldn't remember that long ago; I had no idea how it would feel to wear something like that. And maybe I wondered about it a second too long; I'd been expecting Lindy to cut me off again, yelling from the next room to tell me "It's weird" in a much more disapproving tone, or more likely "that's gross!". But when I glanced through the door, I saw that she had already gone to her room while we were talking.
"I guess it would be," Mum nodded, and I could see that she was still smiling. I wasn't sure how anyone could actually be enthusiastic about looking after a kid, if they were young enough to need diapers. That did seem kind of icky. But that smile made me wonder if we were even imagining the same thing.
Then she went to turn the taps off, and something burst. The sink became a fountain in an instant, spraying water up to the ceiling. We rushed forward together, trying to plug it with towels before everything around us was soaked. We managed to get the leak under control, but not before we were ankle-deep in water.
"Well that seems–" I started, but the steady thrum of pressure building in the background turned into a loud hiss, and water started spraying from between the bricks in the wall. Moments later our clothes were soaked, and we were running to stay ahead of the deluge. Mum managed to patch some of the leaks by sticking diapers over them, but there were just too many.
"We're out of diapers!" I gasped.
"I'll nip to the store," Mum said, taking charge as usual. "You can just stay here until Mummy comes home, can't you?" She lifted me into the crib, and I started to panic as the water rose around me. But I was safe; the giant crib floated in the stream, and a whole family of rubber ducks was bobbing alongside as the flood carried me down the street. Lindy was less lucky, being carried in the opposite direction on the back of a paint-splattered alligator, with reins which seemed to be no use for helping her to control it. I waved in delight, and then yelled how unfair it was that she was bigger than me now. She just kept wailing "No, no, no, no!" but the words were drowned out by the high pitched hissing of water spraying out from the walls to increase the flood around us.
I sat bolt upright, dizzy for a second. I was still in my room, and it was still dark. There were no alligators or giant beagles, and I certainly wasn't back in diapers.
I should have known it was a dream from the start. I'd gone straight from the pre-practice conversation to a chat with Mum, skipping over all the hassle with Gail's hornet bite, and arguments about whether we should change our kit. Those conversations had both been weeks ago now, and I'd been blaming them every time I had a weird dream about being a baby again since then. But I didn't think that was quite how either chat had gone in real life; it was like a Hollywood version of a major historic moment, correct in broad strokes but optimised for drama. The bit about water spraying from everywhere was completely crazy, and I never understood how I could go through that without realising it was a dream. But I hadn't made the connection until I sat up. I could still hear the whine of water forced out under pressure, and feel the sensation against my skin...
No. No way. I could not possibly have peed in my sleep. I denied the accusation by whispering "No!" under my breath. Sure, there was a damp patch on my clothes, but it had to just be sweat. It was a hot night, and I'd had the covers over me in case Lindy came in, so she wouldn't see my cuddling Lincoln like a baby. I couldn't have wet myself. I'd been dreaming about being a baby, sure, and it had been a dream with lots of floods and leaks everywhere. Had that been something in my subconscious trying to tell me that I needed to go? Surely dreams didn't work like that. And just thinking about a kid's little accidents shouldn't be enough to make me have one. That was completely unrealistic.
I told myself it couldn't possibly have happened, but that didn't seem too helpful. Now my priority needed to be working out what I should do about it.