✅ Over Protected

46. Sarah Plays Around

When I heard the knock on the door my head turned towards it automatically, but my head was just a jumble of ideas and stories now, I couldn't really think about what was happening. I was too engrossed in the ongoing adventures of Teddy Lupin, and I knew that there was nothing too important that I needed to worry about. Somebody at the door was grown-up stuff, and Sarah was the grown-up here.

I heard the voices chatting in the hallway, and they were kind of familiar. I could hear Sarah, and she sounded kind of nervous. But also happier than I had heard her in a long time, so I was pretty sure there was nothing to worry about. And there was a boy's voice as well. I wondered if he was going to come in and play with us. I knew that my brain was going kind of fuzzy now, so I might not always be able to do the things I needed to do, so having another babysitter to help out had to be a good thing. Something in the back of my mind was nudging me, telling me that there was something else to think about. But I ignored it, because I didn't have to think about all the serious stuff. And that was doubly true if we had two babysitters now. Between two of them, they could do anything.

We kept on watching Teddy Lupin, and in a couple of minutes the voices in the background had faded away. They were somewhere else in the house, and I quickly forgot all about them. There was nothing to worry about, just a magical teddy bear saving the hearts of greedy people by stealing back treasures and giving them to their rightful owners. I tried to follow the stories, which was a lot easier when the dolls were helping out, but maybe my head was a little bit too fuzzy because I kept forgetting who was where. But even when I didn't understand, it was still fun. They always made the moral of the story clear at the end, and I was sure that I could learn that and be a good girl for Mummy, even if I got confused by little bits of the plot before then.

Penny was having fun with Delilah, and when the end of the episode came they both got up to dance. Delilah couldn't dance by herself, and needed somebody to hold her hands so that she could stand up; but when we helped her she could bob her head from side to side in time with the music and it felt like we were really doing something good. Lyra saw how much fun we were having and she wanted to join in too, and then we tried to sing along even though none of us could remember the words. We just made up things that kind of fit, and by the end of the song we were all lying on the floor laughing out loud. It was hard to believe that something so simple could be so funny.

"Thank you," Penny said, between the fits of giggles.

"What for?" I asked, when I next got a chance to take a breath.

"For letting me be a baby with you. I don't have to do this, and I know Mum would never let me. But your Mummy is wonderful, and this is even more fun than I thought it would be. You're the best friends ever."

Even Lyra was giggling along. I kept looking at her; there was a part of me that couldn't quite let go. She knew that Penny was doing this for fun, and after what had happened to Lyra I knew that she could have been offended by that. But I didn't need to worry, even when my big-girl thoughts came back for a second. Because Lyra kept on smiling, and she seemed to be overjoyed that her friends were happy. And maybe she'd come to realise by now that being a baby could be a whole lot of fun if she just allowed herself to lean into it a little.

We went on watching, but after another episode we were starting to get a little restless. I didn't know what it was at first, just that it was harder to sit still between the songs. And after a little bit, Lyra was standing up and wobbling over to the bookshelves, looking for something else to play with.

"I think I..." Penny mumbled, and then went quiet, blushing bright red. She seemed as embarrassed as she had ever been.

"Are you getting bored?" I asked. "We can watch something else. Or..." A glance around told me that all of our drinks bottles were empty. Maybe I was getting a little bit thirsty, and that was why I was uncomfortable. I'd been feeling that for a while now, but it was hard for me to actually work out what was wrong. Another bottle of juice would help, but I could remember that we weren't supposed to do that by ourselves. We would have to wait for Sarah to come back. "Do you need a drink? We should wait, Sarah will do it when she comes down again."

"No, I... uhh..." she looked down, hands twisting around and around in front of her as she held one hand in the other and then swapped them over. She was embarrassed to say what she wanted, and trying to evade the question. But I was too little, I really couldn't help her. We needed to have a babysitter today, and I didn't know what Sarah was so busy with. But a second later, I looked up at Penny's blushing face and realised what she must be thinking. She needed to go potty, of course, because she wasn't a real baby. Mummy knew that it would take all day for the stuff in the diapers to wear off, so she didn't want to make Penny have an accident more than once today. Or was this supposed to let her see if she could hold it? I didn't know what Mummy would have wanted us to do, and I hoped that she would have told Sarah. But of course she wouldn't, because Sarah didn't know anything about us wanting to be babied.

"Do you gotta pee?" Lyra asked, before I could think what to say, and Penny just nodded. "Well, you got diapers. If you want to be a baby you should do it properly. Shouldn't you?"

"But I..." Penny stammered, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Okay," Lyra said. "We can help. It can't be that hard to get you out of a diaper, right? Are you using proper ones or pull-ups?"

"I don't know if I'm allowed..." Penny squeaked, and I could hear the nerves in her voice now. Even if she could manage to get her own diaper off and use the bathroom, there was no guarantee that she would make it next time. She kind of knew that Mummy didn't really know how long it would take her to go back to normal. And she didn't want to end up making a mess because she'd tried to take decisions into her own hands when she wasn't thinking clearly enough.

"I'll get Sarah," I said. "She's the babysitter, she's supposed to be helping."

I left Penny sitting on the couch, legs pressed tightly together. Lyra could reassure her, I was sure, and give her a little feeling of the responsibility that she was missing so much. And then I took the stairs two at a time, and knocked quickly on the door of Sarah's room.

"What do you want?" she said, hurriedly grasping to pull her T-shirt back on as the door swung open. She hadn't closed it all the way, and a little knock was enough to show me that Sarah and Scott Bluish had both been on her bed, and they seemed to really not like me seeing them. "Can't you just leave us alone for ten minutes? There's a time for playing silly games, and this isn't it."

But Scott put his hand on her arm, and gently shook his head.

"We're babysitting," he said. "Well, you're supposed to be. And since I got here, we haven't looked in on the kids once. You can't get mad at them for wondering where you've got to." And then he turned to me: "Alice, right? Are you missing your big sister? Or is there something that you can't do by yourself?"

"I... uhh..." I mumbled, suddenly nervous. When I'd needed help, I hadn't even stopped to think about what Sarah could be doing, and I really didn't want to upset her. "Penny needs... I mean, this is new to her and I don't want her to get upset, and my head's all foggy, I don't know how to do this by myself. Can you... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I just thought Mummy would have told you what we need to... Umm..."

It should have been easy to say. I was so used to it now, having my diapers changed by Mummy, and occasionally by Sarah. But asking for somebody else, who still had control most of the time, I didn't know how to express the problem. And somehow that was even more embarrassing than anything else.

"We'll be down in a minute," Scott said. "Try to calm down, okay? Go sit with your friend, and tell her not to worry until we get down. I promise, we won't leave you alone for an hour and a half again."

"Thank you," I squeaked, and hurried back downstairs. I saw almost right away that Penny was no longer fidgeting in her seat, but was blushing even more than before. The problem had apparently been more urgent than we realised, but at least it wouldn't be so hard to explain now. And under all the blushes I could still see a smile, so I thought that my friend was no longer so uncertain about how much she liked being a baby.

I could only hope that there wouldn't be any other problems tonight, so that I could stop thinking and let myself be the baby again.