✅ My Sister's Problem

95. Baby Girl

"Mum?" I said, as Lindy hurried off upstairs to get changed for the day ahead. "Can I check my messages? I just..." I was nervous even to ask that. This had always been a family trip, the last week of the summer break. Without ever talking about it, we'd gotten into the habit of cutting ourselves from the rest of the world.It was the only week of the year I wasn't constantly checking for messages from my friends. Once or twice I'd sent someone a note when something particularly funny happened; but I'd found that just took the fun out of recounting my adventures when I got back home. It was a time for us to come together as a family, and it seemed to be more fun if we could take ourselves out of our normal lives. Even without the punishment, I would have needed a good reason to interrupt something Mum had planned for reading texts.

"Missing your friends?" she asked. I nodded slowly. "I can understand that, but you know you'll see them again at school, only a few days away. Is there a reason you need to talk to them this year? Something that can't wait?"

I hesitated, and thought hard. The conversation with Hugo was really starting to stress me out. On the other hand, I didn't imagine there being such a big difference between responding today or on the way home. It had been a couple of days since I could talk to him, and another day wouldn't make it any more serious. But it was still eating at me; I wanted to know what he'd really sent, and if Lindy had managed to cause more problems than I realised.

"Look, you're supposed to be getting punished," she said. "Your friends know that we have the family rule for the trip, don't they? So if they don't hear from you, they'll all know why. So you know it's not going to be too serious, it's just a part of the game. I think if you're a little bit on edge about it, that helps Lindy to see that this isn't just a game. That's not something you can just pretend, is it? But if it helps you to be my good little baby and relax, I promise I'll call Nadine and let her know what Lindy's outburst was about. Not the baby thing, but so that she knows it was just your sister trying to stir things up. Okay?"

"It's Hugo." I finally managed to summon the words, and then realised that I hadn't really said enough. "I mean... We were talking about some things, and I'm so on edge. Like it could be so bad, but it could be so good... and I know he's sent me a message that I haven't seen. And then Lindy... I don't want anyone else to see that. I don't think I could take it."

"The kind of message that would feel weird if I read it out for you?" She raised an eyebrow, and I silently nodded. "Well, I think you're old enough to be having some of those conversations now. I won't look at that stuff unless there's some reason for me to worry about you. So... okay, you can use your phone while we wait for your sister to come down again."

She quickly unfastened one of the mittens, so that I could use my phone. She even passed it to me. I knew that my Mum really cared about me, and even when she was punishing me for my behaviour over the summer, she wanted me to be happy.

I looked at the latest message from Hugo. It was simple enough. After I'd said that I liked some parts about the idea of a babysitter looking after me, he had answered with suggestions and guesses; thinking about the different things that a child might do with a babysitter at different ages. He admitted that he'd been imagining some of them, and he couldn't stop blushing now when he thought about it; that sounded adorable to me, and it was all too easy to imagine being trussed up with those mittens on and a babysitter feeding me. He couldn't possibly have blushed as much as I was at that moment. But then the last few messages were different. He started to get anxious, apologising for saying such strange things. I wanted to reach out and hug him, tell him that everything was fine. But I had to read all of the messages first, and the longer it went on the more worried he got. Taking the sudden interruption of my replies as a sign that he was making me uncomfortable, or something like that, and begging forgiveness. I knew I needed to reassure him, because he would just be convincing himself even more deeply that there was something wrong with those impulses. Once he learned that, it would be hard for him to think about it naturally again, without having to force himself. I stared at the screen, and wondered how to respond. Should I come right out and say that I wanted him to treat me like a baby? There was no way I could mention the hypnosis thing, or the way I had been treated this week, but I knew that was the one thing that would convince him he wasn't the strange one.