✅ Over Protected

6. Classmates Ask Questions

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Ddude. Thank you for all your support!

She really did it. The next few days, I kind of noticed that Mum was a little later down for breakfast, but I paid more attention to the fact that Sarah was almost never in the kitchen before Mum. There was rarely more than a minute between them. And there was often shouting; Sarah was angry each morning, but the walls muffled her voice enough that I couldn't quite make out what she was actually yelling about this time. I hoped that Mum would find a way to get her to calm down.

Then I was up later than usual, so I was still in my room when Mum got up. She went straight to Sarah's room, and announced herself with "Good morning, baby! Time for your diaper check."

The shouting started right away; so I guessed that was what it was all about. Sarah had earned herself daily diaper checks by lying twice about whether she had wet the bed. Of course she didn't like that, and she started cursing every morning when Mum came to check her. But Mum had clearly warned her what would happen, and one thing you have to understand if you know Mum is that when she says she is going to do something, she will do it. Promises of punishment are never empty, and there was no way Sarah could say that she hadn't been warned what would happen.

After I'd seen that, I knew that life was pretty hard for Mum. She was having to deal with my sister's anger, as well as doing most of the chores. I didn't want her to be completely worn out, so I started fixing my own breakfast a couple of days later. I guessed that I was old enough to do it myself now, and I could turn the coffee machine on as well, so Mum would have a drink ready when she came down. I felt like she would need something to make her feel a little better after the daily argument. And if looking after Sarah was taking more of Mum's time, it seemed only natural that she didn't have as much time left to focus on doing things for me. This way was easier, and I told myself that I didn't feel jealous at all.

Then there came a day that I didn't even hear an argument. I wondered if Mum had decided to let my big sister be an adult again, but I doubted it. By my calculations, she would still have to wait until Friday before she was out of diapers, even if there hadn't been any accidents that I didn't know about among the loud mornings. No, I escaped hearing their argument probably because I'd gotten up early to make sure breakfast was done before their regular fight, and it had gone more smoothly than usual. Mum was probably walking into Sarah's room just as I went out the front door.

* * *

"You're early!" Gem said as she waved hi. And she was right; normally I was the last one to arrive at the little park. Our neighbourhood wasn't actually on the school bus route anymore, but our parents had decided last year that rather than driving us through the terrible traffic on the edge of town, we could all walk together to the nearest place the bus actually stopped. So we would meet between Linnea and Gem's houses, cross the road, cross the park, and come out between the houses that backed onto theirs.

"Yeah," I said. "I did my own breakfast. Sarah's having a tantrum again."

"You make her sound like an angry toddler," Linnea joked. "Sometimes, I think you two somehow switched ages. She's like, so angry at the whole world, and she's always upset about something. She can't grow up, and you're the one that's always reading."

I couldn't help laughing when I heard that. Just thinking about Sarah, getting her diaper checked like a little baby. It really was like our ages were the wrong way round.

"Yeah, I guess it is," I said. "I hope she starts acting her age soon. Mum's always so worried about her, so it's like I have to do so much stuff myself."

"Wish I could do that," Lyra pouted. "They treat me like a baby now, I'm not allowed to do stuff myself. Even if I can."

"I dunno," Gem answered. "That sounds kind of nice. You said your dad doesn't trust you with chores now, right? I'd love to get out of them a few more years. Little kids got it easy."

"You wouldn't think that if you tried it."

I wanted to debate that, or to make some kind of joke. But I could see Lyra was really upset from the way she looked, and I just wanted to change the subject. Lyra was one of my best friends, we'd known each other forever. She'd always been the friend I worried about, the one that would get carried away and end up getting in trouble, trying to get into whatever crazy things were fashionable right now. And that had given me a lot of reasons to worry about her in the past. Lately she seemed to have calmed down a bit, being shy and withdrawn instead of outgoing and crazy, but that old concern still remained.

I quickly started talking about something I'd seen on TV, asking if anyone else knew about it. It was probably really obvious that I was just looking for a way to change the subject. But that was good enough, and everybody else went along with it. None of us wanted our friend to be sad.

By the time we got to the bus stop, my thoughts were all on rumours of a new reboot of Sparkling Thunder Presence, and if we thought it would be any good. We didn't even think about the conversation before. But when we got off the bus at school, I heard somebody calling my name.

"Alice?" she said, and I glanced over instinctively to see if she was talking to me. I saw an older girl leaning against the fence. I thought she might have been one of Sarah's friends, but I wasn't sure. She had ash-blond hair in a widow's peak, and I was sure that style would have been distinctive enough to recognise if I'd seen it recently. But she beckoned when she saw me looking in her direction, so it was clear she wanted me. I told my friends I'd see them soon, and wandered over.

"Hey!" she greeted me with a smile. "Don't know if you remember me. Madison. I was Sarah's best friend when we were your age, over at your place all the time."

"Yeah..." I mumbled, not sure how well I could remember so long ago. "You've grown a lot."

"Guess so. Well, I noticed Sarah's behaving different this last few weeks. Like she's suddenly embarrassed to invite anybody round even if they wanted to, and she's scared to be out late. And I wondered..."

"Yeah," I said. "She picked on you, right? Embarrassed you and made all your friends laugh at you. I heard about that. So do you want to get revenge?"

"Nothing like that," she said, and shook her head. "I'm just... I don't know. Some of the way she's reacting, the little evasive things, remind me of me. And I wondered if it's the same. It would be too much of a coincidence, right? I feel like there's something here I'm not getting, some kind of secret. And I can't just let that go."

I told her that there was nothing. I said Sarah was just stressed because of something I didn't know about with one of her friends. I might have let her believe that Sarah had a new boyfriend, Rand, because that was a rumour I'd already heard. I didn't actually say it, but I suggested that Sarah might have been talking to friends less because her focus was something else, and I wouldn't have been surprised if someone who'd already heard those stories jumped to that conclusion.

"It doesn't feel like..." Madison responded, and then ran out of words to say. I guess she didn't really know why she was asking. As somebody with insatiable curiosity, I could understand that feeling. But I still wasn't going to share Sarah's secrets with somebody who might have a grudge against her over some bullying a couple of years before. Especially not when the tables had been turned now.

"Look, if you can think of anything, let me know. Okay?" She leaned down a little to hand me something. A folded piece of paper, with a phone number on. And then before I could respond, I heard the school bell ring. Time for me to get to class, and I could think about all of this later.