✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

37. My New Power

When we got down to the back door, I hesitated for a second. I couldn't find my shoes. There was a rack next to the door, but they all looked way too smart for running around the park with a soon-to-be-little kid. But Ffrances came to the rescue. I didn't see where she managed to find a pair of black Converse, but I was sure they hadn't been anywhere I could see them. I put my shoes on, and then turned to Tess. She had bright pink Crocs, so she didn't need to lace them up and was already waiting for me.

She was also laughing, like she had seen something I missed. I looked down at myself again, and then back at her. I didn't think I'd changed, and nothing else in the room seemed at all unusual. Tess was wearing kids' clothes, so it would have made sense if I just kept on laughing. In fact, it was hard not to. But I hadn't changed at all; Ffrances might have picked out the clothes for me, but she'd given me jeans and a tee that showed off my style pretty well, and I didn't think anyone walking past would think I was a sheep. Or a baby, like my cousin. If she told me to be younger, I might have to think about it so I would know how to play along, but she certainly hadn't said it yet. This trick was even easier than I had expected.

"What's funny?" I asked, and then went right back to giggling over what I was going to show her today. I had to start slowly, but I knew I'd be the one laughing when she was just a little kid again. I opened the door and stepped outside, and then wondered why we were going out the back way. It seemed a bit weird, because I was sure the front door was closer to the park.

"Come on, girls," Ffrances ushered Tess outside, and then closed the door behind her. "Now, we're going to be playing a lot. And I want you both to have fun. But I have to set some rules. Do you understand? No going outside the garden, I don't want anything unusual happening in front of other people."

I could understand that, anyway. I could get in so much trouble if somebody saw me teasing Tess. Here there was nobody who would see anything; the windows overlooking the garden were all on our house, except for Mrs Hogarth's attic next door, and the view from that direction was surely blocked by the evergreens that stretched higher than the roof now. It was a perfect safe space to try out the magic words on Tess.

"You ready to be my little sister now?" I asked her, and stuck out my tongue. It seemed the perfect way to show her that I was going to be in charge today; just a little childishness. Just enough to make sure that Ffrances didn't know I hadn't really been hypnotised.

"We can be sisters?" she said, and she seemed to be just as amused as I was. "Better than calling you cousin all the time. Like we live together, so it's like we're sisters anyway, right? Cousins sounds like you have to come visit each other."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." Or my head was still full of one of my fantasies, one of the stories I'd been reading at school yesterday about a bully being turned back into a baby by her sister. I could so imagine myself doing that to Tess, it would be incredible. And now I had the chance, it was hard to get it out of my mind.

"Just a minute," Ffrances interrupted, but she was still smiling. "I want to see if we can take that picture again. Right? Let's get that done, before you wear yourselves out with whatever games your little hearts can come up with."

"I'm not little," Tess protested, but she was still laughing about it. "She's the little one."

"You're going to be!" I answered, and we were talking over each other for a few seconds. But I knew we still had to do what Ffrances said. My teasing of the baby would have to wait.

Ffrances told us where to stand, and pointed her phone. She took a couple of pictures, and then asked us to move our arms around, and tried again. But she wasn't happy with the results. After a while I was getting tired of posing, but then she seemed to have another idea.

"Okay, you're chasing each other in the old picture," she said. "So maybe you'd better try running around again. You can be excited, can't you, and moving? That might work better."

She started out telling us where to go, and then gave us a little more freedom. We ran around in circles, with me trying to catch Tess and then her loping awkwardly after me. It was easy to laugh when I saw her, dressed up in clothes that were really too small for her, and looked like something a little kid would wear. But that was the point today, to have her dressed up like a toddler, and she was having so much fun I don't think she minded. It wasn't long before Ffrances realised that the baby needed to be a bit more excited; so she could just throw herself into the game and stop looking around to see where the camera was. So she told us both that we were eleven now, and to get totally absorbed in the game whenever they started playing.

I blushed as I realised that this was nearly it. She still hadn't noticed that I missed the hypnosis. Every time she said something like that, Tess was getting a bit younger while I just stayed the same. And now that Tess was seeing herself as being eleven, I knew that the next time she would have to be smaller than me.

But right now she was running away, trying to prove that she was faster. I set off running, and straight away she was changing direction. We had a big garden, with a big lawn and a couple of trees to dodge around, but I was sure that I could catch her soon enough. She dodged, I weaved, trying not to leave a gap where she could run past me. I slipped once as I tried to turn too fast, but I was back on my feet right away and almost ready to catch Tess.

I caught her, and Ffrances told me well done. And then it was Tess's turn to chase me. It was a simple game, but a lot of fun, and before long I'd completely forgotten that we were supposed to be posing for photographs. The next time I let her catch me, I knew that I had a chance. I wanted to be older than my cousin, but I was only allowed to use the magic words when they were fun. And we were having so much fun that Ffrances probably wouldn't make her any littler, so I had to do it myself.

"Hey Tess," I grinned, "Really think you can get away from me with your little legs?"

"Yeah, it's my turn!"

"Then why don't we make it more fun? Have something to play for."

Ffrances was watching. I could feel without looking that she'd turned in my direction. But I carried on, sure that we were allowed to play. Wasn't that the whole point? And Tess was nodding, so there was nothing the grown-up could tell us off for.

"Tess, you're nine now, and you're really ticklish like a little kid, you can't stop me tickling you once I catch you. Okay?"

She thought about it for a second, and I could see her blushing. But she didn't want to admit that I was faster than her. And then she answered: "But then I get to chase you too!" Before I could react she'd jumped up and sprinted away towards the hedge, and the only thing on my mind was showing her how small she really was.