✅ The Baby Makers

21. Friend Like Me

Stacie looked at the little corridor in front of her, with three or four doors on each side. There wasn't any space for pictures between them, and the corridor just ended in another door. She didn't know if any of them were the room she was heading for, and she couldn't check because she wasn't really sure where she was going. She hadn't asked Phil before she ran off, and that made her feel very silly. Now she had a dead end, and she didn't know where to go next. She moved towards the nearest door, but a little wobble left her on her knees. She couldn't even stand up right. She crawled over the door instead, and pulled at the handle. But nothing happened, and she was kneeling on the floor again, fighting the urge to cry.

"Stacie!" Phil's voice startled her, and she turned around so quickly that she would have fallen again if he hadn't caught her. "Are you okay? You're good at running!"

"Yeah," she giggled, looking down at feet that wouldn't go where she wanted. "I'm... umm... I can walk I'm not a baby." She didn't want to admit that she was lost, but she knew she'd have to ask for help sooner or later. Admitting her mistake was something she could think about later.

"I wondered if you were chasing a fairy," he said, and she could only laugh at that. She didn't need to worry when Phil was being so nice to her. "Do you want to keep on following what you were after? Or we can go and meet Natalye and Cass, or go draw pictures again. What do you like most?"

Stacie was just looking down at her feet now. That was a big question, and it was hard to remember all the options at once. But she wanted to be a good girl for Phil, so she tried to think about all the things he'd said.

"Feeling confused?" he asked, and this time she could nod; an easy answer. And she felt him pull her closer, giving her a gentle hug that made everything right again. "That's okay, you're just a little one, and you don't need to understand everything all at once. So, would you like to meet another little girl like you?"

"'es," Stacie mumbled, and gave another little chuckle when she heard her voice. She sounded so small and cute, a baby who could only think about questions when they came in bite-size chunks. And like that, she could feel safe again. So Phil hugged her more, and then took her hands and helped her to stand while he led her off down the corridor. After a few steps she felt the urge to run again, and pulled free. But this time she stopped at the corner, hanging onto the wall to make sure she didn't fall down, and watched until Phil pointed which way she should go.

The nursery, it turned out, was another floor up. Stacie didn't notice that they were walking right back the way they'd come before, but she did recognise the little box room with buttons on the wall. She pressed all the buttons, when Phil held her up to them, and giggled at how naughty she was being. She didn't notice that only the one Phil had pressed lit up. She giggled giddily as the room started to move; it was probably as exciting as any funfair ride. But she did kind of notice, as they stopped on the third floor, that the corridor had a very similar layout to the one they'd just come from, and the nursery turned out to be in the same place as the changing room. Stacie blushed a little bit when she realised that she'd run a lot more than she needed to, but then the thought slipped out of her mind before she could worry about it.

Phil didn't go in right away. He reached past Stacie to push the door open, and let her look into the room. It was as big as the art room, or even bigger. Everything seemed to be giant here. The windows in the nursery were high up and at funny angles, so maybe they were right under the roof, and little specks of dust shone like glitter in the shafts of light that criss-crossed up near the ceiling. The walls were all white higher up, but down towards the ground they were covered with a giant mural of foxes and bunnies and sheep all dancing in a ring. The animals were super cute and all smiling, making it feel like the room was full of friends even though there were only two women in there.

There were a lot of tables around the room, and little sets of cupboards that all seemed to be one wheels. There were also a half dozen cribs scattered around the room; some of them with plain wooden bars and some painted in pastel rainbow colours. There seemed to be a couple of different styles, and many of them had mobiles hanging above them, with wooden animals, flowers, or planes slowly swinging in the breeze.

The women were over to her right, by the closest crib. Stacie turned towards them, and wondered how to introduce herself. One of them was really tall and looked very strong. She had a deep tan and her skin looked dry, like the weather hadn't been very kind to her, but she was smiling. Her hair was dark, tied back in a tight bun, and she had a navy blue dress with a white apron that let Stacie know right away that she was a nurse. As she turned, a badge on her chest came into view: a little orange ring of wavy lines, with a white card in the middle with a bunch of letters on it. Stacie knew it was supposed to say something, but she didn't know any of those letters, so she didn't worry about it.

She was talking to somebody else, who was sitting on the edge of the crib where the bars were folded down to the ground. A tall girl with red hair that had little bits of different colours near the end. She was wearing a dress, but there was so much lace on it that Stacie thought even a big girl wouldn't be able to count all the layers. As she stood up and turned to face the newcomers, she looked a little bit like a ballerina, a little bit like a princess, a little bit like a fancy wedding dress, but to Stacie she looked a lot like a yellow christmas tree made of lace, with a smiling face decorating the top.

"Hey!" she called, and gave a nervous wave. "I'm Cath." The girl blushed and then looked down, then turned and ran towards Stacie. Stacie ran forwards too, but she only managed two steps this time before she stumbled and fell on her knees. The other little girl helped her up with out being asked, and it seemed totally normal for the two to hug like they were best friends. Even if they didn't know each other yet, Stacie was sure that they would have a lot of fun as soon as they talked.

"Thanks," she giggled, when she was back on her feet again. "I'm Stacie. I got a... a big girl name too but I can't remember it. Please to meet you."

"Aww, so cute! Do you wanna be my friend? We're gonna play, and Mama Nat thaid thee's got thomething thpethial for dinner."

Stacie hesitated for a moment, and tried to make out what the other girl was saying. She could see right away that somebody had done some kind of magic to make it harder for the girl to talk, and she even knew what kind of magic it was even if she couldn't remember the words for it. She thought it must be really embarrassing, but she didn't want to say anything about it because she could already see how much the other girl was blushing. So she just tried her best to work out what the words were supposed to be.

"I hope you can understand her well enough," the other lady, who Stacie guessed was Mama Nat, chipped in. She put a comforting hand on Cass's shoulder while she explained. "Cass likes feeling all blushy and embarrassed, so we gave her a speech impediment. If you girls want to talk more, we could revert that for a while."

Phil stepped in immediately to explain the big words to Stacie. He said that Cass liked playing a game where she wasn't allowed to say 's' properly, which was a lot easier to understand. Stacie didn't know why, but she didn't let it bother her. All that mattered was that the other girl was having fun. Then it was Phil's turn to talk. He said a lot of things to Cass and her Mama, and Stacie didn't understand any of it. It was full of big words she didn't know, like "oblivious", "vocabulary", and "mental age". But she knew that it didn't matter, it wasn't something for a girl as young as her to worry about.

"Okay!" Cass nodded. "I can do baby talk. Do you want to come thee my doll?" She grabbed Stacie's hand and darted across the room, heading for a toy chest in the corner. Stacie did her best to keep her balance as her friend ran, but she was already sure they would have a lot of fun.