✅ My Sister's Problem

52. The Solution

Author's note: Somehow a mistake crept into this chapter, with half a line missing. I have now edited it. Sorry to anyone who got confused in the last 20 minutes!

"What did you do?" Lindy snapped, apparently not understanding that we were on the same side. "Did you... is this some kind of revenge for last time? I'm going to tell Mum, and she'll be so mad. You can't just..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed that I was focused on unzipping the covers from two of the couch cushions. She'd just wet herself, and I cared for my sister way too much to let my sister get in trouble for something I might have indirectly caused.

"Revenge for what?" I snapped. It was pretty obvious what she was thinking about; a few weeks before she'd put my hand in water when I fell asleep in the lounge, and made me wet myself. I was still being punished for that, and now she was the one having an accident. But I didn't want her to know that I knew that, so I couldn't say anything about bowls of water. "I know it's not your fault, it's not something you can control. It's just a thing that happens sometimes, maybe it's stress, or hormones, or exhaustion. I don't know, but it happened to me pretty recently. And I still remember how Mum reacted then. I don't want to see you getting punished like that, sisters help each other stay out of trouble, remember? So let's get this all cleaned up before she's back. Unless you want to deal with it yourself?"

"N...no," she mumbled. "Thank you. But how? The carpet... And I'm..."

"Okay, you need to change your clothes. I saw Mum on the way home, she was just going out. And she saw how soaked in sweat I was. So put your clothes in the laundry hamper, put on something similar, and I'll throw it in the machine right away. There's a clean diaper in the corner in the bathroom, Mum knew I was planning to shower so she'll expect me to change. And I've only had this one on for an hour, so it's probably okay even with all the sweat. That makes all the numbers add up. I'll put these in with the laundry too." I indicated the seat covers, "And we can scrub the carpet with that zero-odor shampoo stuff then put a towel over it so it dries faster. Maybe an hour at most, and we can toss the towel into the laundry basket afterwards with the ones I used showering. If I put the machine on after I changed out of my sport stuff, it makes sense the only thing in the hamper would be towels."

She was nodding, and I could see the wheels turning in her mind. Everything made sense, but she could see the biggest problem with that plan. Mum would see a towel on the floor before the washing machine finished, and would want to know why we were washing the cushion covers. But I had a solution for that too, amazing myself with how quickly I could analyse a problem and see the solution.

"You've got a whole bunch of friends round here, right? Codi and Jen, and that weird Marten kid. Is this Niall nearby? I'd say ask Harper, but they got some family thing on. Ask around your friends, see what everybody's doing tonight. Let them know you're disappointed because we were going to have a barbecue this evening, but the grill's still not working right. I'll bet if you mention it, somebody will decide they want one while the weather's so good. If they can get their parents in on the idea, ask if we can come round if we bring burgers and Mum's smoky chicken strips. I checked the other day and there's a batch in the freezer that needs using. Mum was going to get takeout on the way home, but if I call her first and say one of your friends invited you over for dinner, she can't object to that. And she knows most of your friends' parents, so she'll probably get invited too. If we're careful, nobody will find out that it was our idea; she'll think it was an invite out of the blue. And if we get caught on that, well... maybe I really wanted to hang out in somebody's yard watching grown men struggle to manage fire. We get all of us out of the house for a couple of hours, Mum's happy because she doesn't need to cook, you get to see your friends, somebody's dad gets an excuse to play with fire, there's no real downside. And I'll make sure I head home first, maybe play the exercise card. Maybe you'll need to distract Mum for five minutes, or ten. But there should be enough time for me to get the towel off the floor, push the couch back into place, and put the cushions back on before you get in."

Lindy nodded slowly. "Y...yeah. I can see who's free. How do you think of this stuff?"

"There's always a solution. You just need to know where to look."

I started cleaning the carpet, just enough to make sure there was no smell, and then pressed a towel down on it. Lindy was upstairs, changing her clothes and calling around to various friends. I couldn't hear her words clearly, but I didn't need to know what she was saying. It was better to focus my attention on what I was doing, and let any potentially-overheard conversations be drowned out by a shark documentary still playing in the background. It took several minutes before I realised that a good chunk of the show was recorded by some naturalist talking to shark experts on a boat, with long atmospheric shots of their native waters broken only by the sound of waves lapping against the hull. Then I had a better idea what might have happened; it wasn't quite running water, but it was the same kind of white noise. And as Mum had suggested when I wet myself, being very tired might have made Lindy more prone to falling for sounds that were only vaguely similar. I hoped, now, that the conditioning could completely fade from her mind before something like this happened again.

"The Greens are having a 'welcome cookout'," Lindy called, bouncing downstairs. "They moved at the start of summer, to that new housing development on the way to Barrowford. Niall was supposed to be inviting people from school, but... well, a couple of my friends are going because Mr Green invited all their friends in the neighbourhood so far. Like Brin and Marten. They'd be happy to have us too. I think Niall was too shy and didn't know who to invite. I mean, it must be hard meeting people at camp, and not having school friends in a new town until summer ends."

"Perfect," I said with a smile. "The location, I mean." It really was; because it would be so much more convenient for Mum to meet us there and then drive back afterwards. I made sure I knew all the details, and then went up to the bathroom. I told Mum that I was taking a shower, and that I needed to change my diaper because of sweat. Lindy had already taken the fresh one, but that wasn't such a big deal. I asked about visiting the mysterious Niall and his family, and suggested that it would be good for us to go too, so that Mum could introduce herself to Niall's parents if she hadn't already. When she seemed unsure, I hinted that I thought Lindy might have a crush on the new kid; that made all the difference. I didn't know if it was true, but it was an easy assumption to make from all the nervous embarrassment. Mum said she'd meet us there so that she wasn't arriving really late. We could make our own way there; it was only the one-way system that would make it a long journey, and that was no problem for bikes or skates. I thought about asking Mum if Lindy could go without a diaper; but I wasn't sure what the answer would be. And even mentioning it could have given her a hint that not everything was as it seemed.

I could shower then. I took my diaper off carefully, and showered as quickly as I could. Turned the TV off, swapped my cuter clothes for something that might be appropriate for meeting some of my sister's friends.

Lindy rode her bike there, and I got my skates on. The house had a huge garden, and it seemed the whole neighbourhood was around. Lindy quickly found someone she knew, but there were none of my friends there so I found it easier to chat with some of the adults. I was surprised to find that Niall Green was a girl – a skinny redhead who was almost as tall as me – but found her to be charming, polite, and too cool to care what anybody else thought about her. Was she somebody Lindy wanted to be like, or someone she wanted to be with? I couldn't tell, but I was sure there was somebody there.

Still, there was little to keep me around once the kids were playing video games in the lounge and the adults were divided up into knots discussing something in the soil that made all the lawns around here go yellow, or whatever else they were talking about. Thinking about my cunning plan, I made an excuse before too long and said I would head home. Mum stayed around so she could give Lindy a lift back, and also I guessed to see if Niall had mentioned Lindy to her parents at all, and what they thought of her.