✅ Over Protected

38. A Detective Checks her Theory

This chapter is dedicated to NEP. Thank you for your support, and hope you're enjoying the story!

I looked up when the doorbell played its little electronic melody, excited to see who was visiting today. If I'd been a grown-up, I might have told myself that it was probably somebody looking for Mummy, or one of Sarah's friends. But these days I was always excited, by every little thing I didn't expect. I never knew what was coming next, and it made the whole world into such a ride.

"I'll go and see who that is," Mummy said, standing up and patting me on the head. "Can you look after Farah while I'm gone?"

I nodded eagerly. Farah was one of my dolls, and it felt so nice to keep on snuggling her. I heard Mummy talking in the hallway, and another voice answered her. I couldn't make out the words, but at that point I might have struggled to understand grown-up talk even if I heard them. I hoped Mummy would come back soon, but I was still excited to see if I had a special visitor too.

"I think that's something we should talk to Alice about," Mummy was saying, as the door opened again. "But I'm not sure she's big enough to understand right now. Maybe after you play a little?"

I wondered who she was talking to, and what we were going to talk about. And then I saw Penny coming in, and I cheered. Penny and Lyra were my best friends, and it always made my day when one of them came to play. She had a big smile as well, and it only got bigger when she saw me waving. Maybe she looked a little nervous today, but that was something I wouldn't understand until later. I just thought about how happy I was to see her, and how much fun we were going to have. She was still dressed up in big girl clothes, so maybe she was going to be a babysitter today, but a a few times in the last couple of weeks she'd changed into more childish clothes like me, so we could both play with our toys and enjoy cartoons while Mummy looked after us. I knew it was just a game for her, like it was for me when my brain was working, but it was still fun to be babies having fun together, without a care in the world.

"Hey Alice!" Penny said, and hugged me. "You want to play? What are we playing?"

I tried to think how to answer, but I couldn't find the words right now. My head was a little bit foggy still, maybe more than I had realised before. But I held out Farah for Penny to cuddle, and she said hello to her, and that was all the confirmation I needed. We played without talking about anything else, until I felt that my thoughts were returning a little bit more. Mummy was probably in the next room, playing on the computer. She didn't need to keep a constant eye on me now that my friend was here to babysit. But sooner or later, I started to understand that it wasn't playtime for everyone; that Mummy was working from home now so that she could look after me more often. And I remembered what I had heard and not understood when Penny had arrived.

"You said there's something you want to talk about?" I asked. "Mummy said I need to be bigger. But there was a bit of big coming back already, so if you wanna talk about something important..."

I might have understood that it would be better to wait until Mummy said I was big enough. But once I was able to think about it, I couldn't help worrying about what Penny might want to say. Had she realised that it was weird to be looking after babies? Was somebody at school being mean to her for still hanging out with us? Now I thought about it, the last time she'd come to help Melania babysit for me and Lyra together, she'd seemed just a little awkward, as if there was something bugging her.

"Yeah," Penny said, but didn't continue. We went back to looking after our dolls, not saying anything else, for a couple of seconds. "You know this condition? You said Regressive Relapse Syndrome? I was curious, I looked it up. Thought maybe I could help you better. And..."