The Girl Who Wanted to Wear Diapers

Chapter 7: Not Going to Happen Again

There had to be some kind of catch.

I looked at my older sister in astonishment after hearing her spell out the favor she wanted. I really hadn't had a clue about what the favor was going to be, but what she was asking wasn't anywhere close to any of the guesses that had been swirling around in my head since she had done my homework for me yesterday in return for a then-secret favor.

I guess I had just figured that it was going to be something a little bigger than what she had asked, or at least something that I otherwise wouldn't have wanted to do for her. But this? It would be a piece of cake.

Grace was taking us to the mall. She was supposed to stick with us as a chaperone the whole time. Instead, she was going to drop us off at the mall and return to pick us up four hours later. All I and my friends had to do was not say anything about it.

"Well," Grace said with a hint of impatience in her voice.

Oh, yeah. I suppose she needed me to answer her and not just stand around gawking at her. "Yeah, of course."

And that was the end of that discussion. Grace left to head back to her room. I texted my friends the good news.

I made no mention of the favor in the message to them. Nothing done on a phone was secret, after all. I really didn't think that my parents looked through my text messages, but I wasn't confident that they didn't have the ability to do so if they ever wanted to.

I still couldn't help but question the situation. Grace was a good older sister, but her altruism had never extended this far before. What was in it for her? She would get four hours to herself, four hours when her time would be unaccounted for by our parents.

What could be so important that she'd risk the fallout of her plot being discovered?

For me, I couldn't see any downside to it at all. Four hours by ourselves at the mall. That was going to be an easy secret to keep; it was not like I would have any incentive to tattle on my older sister.

There was one other benefit for Grace, which I noticed once I went back downstairs. I suppose it didn't hurt my sister that her willingness to take me and my friends to the mall also got her in Mom's good graces. Mom was practically gushing about how much of a good older sibling Grace was.

That was true, just not in the way that Mom was thinking.

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When my parents upgraded to a new minivan last year, they handed down the old one to my sister. The silver Toyota Sienna wasn't the most fashionable of vehicles for a teen girl to be driving around. My sister had nearly thrown a fit when our parents told her that it would be her vehicle after she got her license. But a car was a car, and having one was a lot better than not having one.

Grace skipped the turn that led to one of the two massive parking ramps on either side of the three-story mall and instead drove us right up to one of the entrances.

"You guys have fun," Grace said as she pulled over to the curb and put the van into park. "I'll be back to get you right here at five. Any problems and you call me right away, OK?"

I got out of the passenger seat, and Emma and Angie joined me on the sidewalk, but not without a little confusion.

"We're getting chauffeur service now?" Angie asked as Grace pulled away.

Grace and I hadn't said anything about the favor on the way to the mall. I had almost thought she had either forgotten about it or had decided to backtrack. And I hadn't wanted to bring the topic up in front of my friends in case Grace had somehow decided to change her mind.