✅ My Sister's Problem

74. Midnight Shenanigans

I opened my eyes, and smiled lazily. I didn't remember my dreams, but I knew they had been good. I could hear the low sound in the background that I associated with the sea; a sound of birds, surf, and the cool salt breeze keening over the rocks as it fought against the oppressive heat of late summer.

The sound of the beach wasn't actually the sound of the sea, I realised. Sure, the waves were in there, a rhythmic pounding, and the sound of the spray thrown up by the rocks. But it wasn't the sound of water flowing. It wasn't something that would set off the compulsions I'd unwittingly given my sister, and I was glad of that. I didn't want to cause any more trouble for her, even after her attempts to hurt me today. The best way to get revenge is to be unlike the one who wronged you, I'd read that somewhere and I was sure that it was from someone famous or intelligent. I would let her be herself, until all this strange anger against me dissipated. And if she tried to hurt me by doing things I enjoyed, there was no reason for me to complain.

It was still dark, although the sky was starting to fade from black to blue-grey. At this latitude, at this time of year, that could have meant it was any time between four and six in the morning. Too late to wake up if I thought about it. So why had I woken? I reached down and checked my diaper. Soaked, of course. I'd had a few cold drinks last night, and perhaps Lindy had brought them a little more frequently than I would have had myself, but that wasn't such a big deal. I did need to pee, but when I'd been sent to sleep by the insidious magic of Mister Tunes I could just as easily have wet my diaper again and gone straight back to sleep.

I sat up, and felt the swollen diaper pressing between my legs. It really was soaked, but surely not enough to leak. And on such a restful night, I realised that it actually felt kind of good. It was like sitting on a tiny water bed, firm enough that I could feel it but soft enough to make it comfortable, the pressure moving back and forth as I let myself rock against it and test the feeling. Then the stabbing in my stomach got my attention again, and I knew it was that feeling that had woken me up. Any sleepiness quickly faded with the threat of impending diarrhoea to wake me up, and I staggered out of my room and down the hallway to the bathroom. As I passed Lindy's door, almost opposite mine, I could still hear the reassuring monotone of a computer-generated narrator reading out a book. It must have been earlier than I thought, then, because Lindy rarely cued up chapters with an estimated time of more than an hour to lull her to sleep.

I got to the bathroom in time, thankfully. Even after I stopped for a second or two at the end of the landing because the faint glow from the night light on the stairs was glinting off something I wouldn't otherwise have noticed, and I felt obliged to grab it.

I knew once I tore the diaper off that there was no chance I would be able to put it back on again, but I don't think I would have tried even if I hadn't torn the plastic in my urgency to get it off. I was content to sleep like a big girl now, and maybe my sister would find a way to baby me again tomorrow.

My mind was eager to think of anything but where I was right now, and the current state of my guts. So I let my mind wander and wondered what my revenge might be. After she'd tried to humiliate me in front of Gabe, I felt that it had to be something fairly serious, just for the principle of the thing. It was the second time she had tried to humiliate me in front of someone else; and even if Gabe knew about our prank war, I didn't want him to be visualising me in diapers every time we met. And I wanted to show her that doing something like that was a bad idea, because I didn't want it to become a habit. But I had a lot of rules in my mind; probably more than Lindy would stick to. I never wanted to traumatise my sister, and I would stay well away from anything Mum had said was out of bounds. She knew better than I did what was likely to cause problems I hadn't even thought of. So there was nothing left that I thought would impress on her that she was pushing the limits. I would have to keep on looking; something was bound to come to mind sooner or later.