Dad seemed like he was really serious about getting a straight answer out of Mrs Miller; though I wasn't sure what kind of answers he was expecting. He didn't even give me time to stop the video properly, but walked out of the den and grabbed his coat from the rack. Mum got up and tried to persuade him to calm down a little, but it didn't seem like he had any intention of slowing down. He just told her not to worry, and walked out to the car. I didn't know what I should do or say, but Mum turned around and hugged me tight. I guessed that we were going to stay here, while Dad went to find out that woman's side of the story.
"What happens now?" I mumbled under my breath, and then winced as I shifted position. My butt was still sore from this morning, but I was getting used to the pain enough now that I could put it out of my mind until I moved carelessly and it made me yelp. "He's going to get into trouble, isn't he?"
"Maybe. Your friend was right, though. She said that you escaped without punishment, and we should make sure to give you a booster before you start making excuses. So that you'll know how serious it is. In the circumstances, I'm pretty sure that is a crime. Maybe Mrs Miller will try to make excuses, but I think it'll be pretty tough for her to say anything that will change your father's mind. Maybe he'll go to the police. Or maybe he'll lose his temper. I don't like it when he gets like that, it reminds me of the young man he used to be when we first met. But I'm sure he wouldn't get in any serious trouble. Remember all the fuss about Laura Bobbins on the news?"
I nodded slowly; the developments in that case had been public knowledge, and even if I didn't know the details, I knew that Mr Bobbins had received no punishment for breaking a priest's legs after he found out what had been going on. But it was a sobering thought to realise that Mum thought my situation was comparable to hers. And I was just a little worried when I remembered that we didn't have the benefits of significant wealth to put a thumb on the scales of justice.
"Now, I'm sure your father will do what he thinks is right," Mum said. "It's not something we need to worry about. But I think I would like to know the whole story. Did she punish you in the morning?"
"Yeah," I answered, and then thought back to all the things I still needed to say. Things I would need courage to admit to Mum, that I'd psyched myself up to admit before coming home, only to have them pushed completely out of my mind when I learned that Cecilia was here. "I woke up early. We all did, I guess because there's only so much time you can spend asleep, and the subliminal thing had messed with all our sleep cycles. And then I had to tell everybody what's been going on. About the Floodgates dose and all that."
"How did they take it?"
"I could see they were shocked. But nobody teased me about it, or anything. We're all friends still. Everybody helped me clean up, and nobody was mad. Except Marcie's mum, of course." I stopped when I said that, and thought about what it really meant. The woman hadn't just imposed ridiculous rules that guaranteed me waking up wet; she'd deliberately made it happen, and then arranged the situation so that she'd have an excuse to punish me. All her anger must have been fake, because she had wanted me to pee on the floor. If anything, I wondered if she was mad that we'd done so well at cleaning up; or that my friends hadn't turned away from me.
"You've got good friends," Mum agreed. "You attract good people. I think I should have taken that as a reason to trust your judgement more. Or not to believe the first person who told us you had done something bad."
"Yeah, and I–" I started, and then realised that I was distracting myself. I could already feel that I needed to pee, and I'd had enough accidents for one day already. "I'll show you the morning video, okay? I'm kind of glad Dad didn't see it, and it's embarrassing, but I think you need to know. I'll be right back."
I dashed to the bathroom, and I was already feeling desperate by the time I got there. I fumbled with my clothes in my haste to pee, and felt like I only barely made it in time. No doubt I could have held it longer if I really had to, but it was starting to feel like I could go from zero to desperation in less than ten minutes now; which really would be a problem in school. I was lucky enough this time, and Mum was still waiting for me when I got back.
She asked me if I was okay, and I was too embarrassed to say anything. I just put on the next video; a quickly thrown-together composite, joining the best angles from the videos my friends had managed to capture in the morning. Starting with my own phone, still running as we were all doing our best to get the carpet clean before Mrs Miller came in, and then skipping through a few highlights of the breakfast conversation. When the voice on the screen insisted that I wasn't allowed to use the bathroom before my punishment, Mum pulled me closer and hugged me tight. I could see that she was almost as upset as I was, but she didn't look away from the screen. She wanted to understand what had happened, so she knew exactly how angry to be with her friend before she decided how to respond. There was fear in her eyes, probably fear of all the things she could imagine happening this morning. But I didn't think she could have much in mind that was worse than the truth.
This time I didn't interrupt the video to explain. I just let her watch the spankings. I wasn't the only one who'd thought to video the scene, in case we needed proof later that she'd gone beyond the limits. And I had quickly cut the clips together by syncing the timecodes attached to the files, so the audio seemed to be almost continuous as the view flicked from one camera to another.
I couldn't bear to look as my spanking drew to an end. I found that I was crying again, even at the reminder of the pain I had been subjected to. And then I felt Mum's body stiffen as Marcie shouted out. She'd seen the auto-syringe on the screen, and she knew what Mrs Miller had done. Would she realise that it was the intensity booster, rather than just giving me a couple of extra days of the same punishment?
On the screen beside us, my friends were arguing with Mrs Miller now. Telling her that she was out of line, but the old woman just seemed incapable of admitting that she could ever have done something wrong. It was Mum who reached over and tapped my phone screen to make it pause, while I tried to resist reliving all those memories, and the shame that came with them.
"The other booster," Mum said. "I'm guessing she recorded that little scene. Even without what happened the night before, she knew we would have said that's unreasonable. She wanted to make you embarrass yourself in front of your friends, only a minute after promising that you wouldn't. I hate that she could be so manipulative. She was planning to take her recordings and put them in a different order, I think. Because we told her very clearly that she is absolutely not allowed to use that booster on you unless you're doing something after being warned that is clearly deliberate and confrontational. So promising her that you wouldn't wet yourself and then doing it immediately, yeah... she hoped to get something she could present to us as proof that you were deliberately antagonising her."
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I didn't know what to do. It was all just too much..."
"Now, don't start with that. There was nothing you could have done in the circumstances. And I can see why you wanted to get your friend out of that house before making any more waves. But you won't have to get involved with the legal system over this. We've got those videos now, and I'll see what Mrs Miller sends us. You've got clear proof that she was acting without permission, and that she manipulated you. And she called us and lied, trying to trick us into using the boosters in an illegal way as well. I'm going to hand all of this over to the police, and let them handle it. If she's not stupid enough to antagonise your father any further."
"You think he'd..." I didn't even know what she was hinting at.
"Your father is not a violent man now. But he takes protecting his family very seriously. I've seen him before when somebody lashed out at me, and I am sure that he would react the same way to anyone trying to hurt you. He has some very... old-fashioned values, you might call it. And I can see why that has made him the bad guy in your eyes. He was brought up to respect his elders, and obey authority figures, and he has yet to understand that since then, we've moved to a place where adults and those in power are much less deserving of that deference. It took me some time to see that myself. You understand? I thought that you needed to learn an important lesson because you were in conflict with an authority figure, but then I understood that you were standing up for what's right. Your father finds that a lot more difficult to understand, because his family has mostly been in one of the classes favoured by the law. But! What I meant to say is that those old-school values are very important to him. And one of those things is that it is a man's duty to protect his children. There's a chance that Mrs Miller might find herself with a black eye after this evening, if she can't justify her behaviour."
"I think she..." I started, and then stopped again. I wasn't quite sure if it was okay to say what I was thinking at that point.
"I know, violence isn't the answer. And that's why I'm going to spend some time on the parents' association Clatter and FriendSpace groups, making sure that every other parent knows about this. I don't even want to think about another child being left in that woman's care. And like I said, we're passing this to the police as well."
"I was going to say," I mumbled. "I think she already has some bruises. A little after you paused the video, Elspeth knocked her out. Dad's not the only one who can be protective."
"I wouldn't like to be in her shoes," Mum mused. "The Gordons are very supportive parents, with very little respect for the law or tradition. But one thing they are strict on is the belief that violence is always wrong. Don't worry, I won't let that detail come out to her parents. And I'll make sure they know that Mrs Miller called us with lies about our daughter in a last-ditch attempt to cause trouble before she was arrested. In this case, as much as I would love to side with the pacifists, I have to say I'm kind of glad that someone stood up to her. And I'm amazed that Elspeth could keep her temper in check so long, if this is a side of her that only the adults were in the dark about."
"Thank you," I whispered, and just let Mum hold me, drawing a little comfort from the knowledge that someone else cared for me. Perhaps, in spite of all the anxiety I had about the upcoming weeks, I would be able to remain sane until the end of the school year.