Adi had a lot of preparing to do over the weekend. She knew she should have been thinking about it further in advance, but the weekend before she'd put it off thinking she could do it over the week, and then all her problems with hypnosis had pushed the upcoming event right out of her mind.
Adi had applied to attend Moistville College after finishing high school, and knew that being able to go there depended only on her exam results now. But as part of a new scheme to help students who were ill during the exam season, or who didn't do so well on the day, there was going to be a special foundation open day. The students invited there might be offered concessions; a chance to scrape through with slightly lower grades. Or they might be offered a foundation year, allowing them to study the course they wanted by taking an extra year first to bring their understanding up to scratch.
Adi was sure she didn't need a foundation year, but she knew that if she could convince the college tutors to extend the opportunity to her, it would be one extra safety net in case she got some stroke of bad luck on exam day. It would be a waste not to take advantage of every tool at her disposal, so she intended to give it her best shot. If she could make a good impression on Monday, the next few months would be so much easier.
Nobody would say her name over the weekend, she was quietly confident. So she could focus on letting the hypnosis thing fade from her mind, as well as filling in a hundred forms to declare what modules she was considering taking at college, and all the other little details that were necessary before the open day. On monday, she couldn't imagine going through the day without someone calling a list of names, or introducing themself to her. But if she was lucky she would have overcome the hypnotic suggestions by then; either by not using them, or by changing the trigger phrase to the never-used Addykins.
But still, as she thought about it on Friday night, she knew she'd have to prepare. Make sure she had diapers in her bag, and try to work out what she would do if there was no real opportunity to change. Or what to do and say if someone noticed, as much as she dreaded the prospect.
Packing her bag was harder than she would have thought. She only needed a thin sheaf of forms to hand in to different administrators, and while she was enjoying a tour of campus which was likely to take up most of the day, she wouldn't need any kind of books or anything. So carrying a full-size book bag would be just a bit odd, and would likely attract suspicion from Mom.
Adi had bags that would fit in on a tour of a college. She had bags that were smart enough to not put off whatever mixture of academics and bureaucrats was interviewing her. And she had bags large enough to hold two or more spare diapers in case she needed them. But she didn't seem to have anything large enough to fill all three roles. It was even harder because she didn't really follow the inanity of contemporary fashion. She'd always seen it as something beneath her notice, but now she didn't want to stand out because there were people she had to impress on Monday and she had no way of knowing whether they would judge her for her clothes.
In the end, she settled for the only solution she could think of: she called Toni.
"Hey Babe!"
"You know you don't need to call me that?"
"I know, Babe. But you don't seem to mind, and it's about time you had a nickname. So, what's shaking?"
"I..." even asking was hard. "I don't really get fashion. And I know you do, so..."
"You need a makeover? Oh, be still my heart! Trust me, I have so many ideas."
"I just need a new bag," Adi clarified. "I want to look good on monday, I don't want the college administrators to think I'm a dropout or tramp or something."
"I can help you with that, Babe. I love your look, but I know you could do so much better. You'll turn all their heads when I finished with you."
"Toni, I–"
"Look, I got to go. I'll pick you up at eleven tomorrow, okay? We can hit the Mercer Centre and I'll get you sorted."
"I can't–"
"Don't worry, Babe. I'll find you the perfect bag. But let me have my fun." The line went silent, and Adi started to wonder what she'd let herself in for.