✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

48. A Different Day

Tess grumbled wordlessly, slightly muffled by the side of her face pressed against her pillow. Her alarm was sounding quietly, and she reached over to slap blindly until it went quiet. She wasn't tired this morning, she felt like she had slept well, but she could still have done with another few minutes before she had to face the world. She might have considered closing her eyes again, to rest a few minutes before the alarm on her phone demanded that she get up. But in rolling over to turn the alarm off, something had already seized her attention.

She stood up, and the weight confirmed her first guess. She tore off the sides of the soaked diaper and threw it in the top of the bin. There was already some trash in there, she hadn't emptied it in a few days, so she decided it would be fine to empty it and take it out of the room before school. She didn't want her bedroom to smell of pee when she got back tonight; or if Gabby thought to stick her head in at some point before then.

Tess blushed when she thought about having another accident. She couldn't believe it had happened, even after she'd decided to use the hypnosis thing. She'd wanted to try it, knowing there was a chance she would have an accident if she was so tired; but after getting her evening bottle from the fridge she'd completely forgotten to ask the adults to say the words. It was hard to believe she'd made such a silly mistake. But she was a big girl, and the adults didn't need to know what had happened. She got the baby wipes out from the changing table, cleaned herself up pretty quickly, and still found time to give the purple and blue ferrets in her bed a quick snuggle before her phone reminded her that she should have been getting up. She quickly fumbled her way into her clothes, silenced the alarm, and rushed down to the kitchen.

"Morning sunshine!" Gabby called out as she breezed through. The tantalising scent of frying bacon tried to distract Tess, but she already had a mission and she was determined to take her trash out before anybody could discover why. She quickly dumped the bag in the big bin in the corner of the garden, and came back in just as her breakfast was ready.

"Somebody's cheerful today," Ffrances greeted her, tucking into what seemed to be a load of mushrooms in some sauce on toast. "Did something good happen?"

"No, just slept well. That's a good thing."

"That's good, baby," Gabby agreed. "Did you have an accident while you were sleeping so deeply?"

"No!" Tess snapped, pouting at the adult with a sudden flash of anger that went away as soon as it had started. "No I didn't, I'm a big girl. How did you know?"

"Well, that would explain taking the trash out first thing in the morning. Don't worry, you don't need to lie to us. You'll be a big girl soon, I promise. But until then, you know we'll help you out any time you need it. A little baby needs to tell us the truth, and it'll be so much easier for everyone. Understand?"

"Yeah," Tess nodded reluctantly. She wanted to argue, to protest that she was still a grown-up, but she couldn't see a flaw in Gabby's logic. There was only one thing she could really say: "But I'm not a baby."

"We know," said Ffrances. "She's only teasing you. Is that okay?"

Tess nodded, and then as soon as she started to wolf down her breakfast, everything else was forgotten. A few minutes later she was racing back to her room to gather all her stuff, making sure she had the score for this morning's music lesson, and running out of the front door just in time to catch the bus.

She had her phone in her hand, and friends on Clatter were quick to reassure her when she said her cousin was treating her like a little kid again. But she did have the presence of mind not to tell anyone why. The ride to school was as boring as always, and the classes swung between fun and interminable. Kim was a little ray of sunshine, laughing about everything and being overly cheerful, just like most of the previous week. Liz seemed down, but didn't want to talk about her problems. Chloe said 'insubstantial' when she meant 'institutional' in a history class, and most of their friends spent the rest of the day taking any excuse to use the words in place of each other.