✅ My Sister's Problem

102. Day Five

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Cassie, with many thanks for all the support you have given me. Thank you!

I woke up, but I was too calm to open my eyes. I was lying in bed with something soft and fuzzy under my arm, and what felt like a pacifier in my mouth. It was nice and warm, and I couldn't hear anyone else demanding that I move. And perhaps most importantly, there were no awkward details of whatever weird situation I'd gone to sleep in clamouring for my attention. Not yet.

I lay there for a couple of minutes, trying to avoid thinking about anything that would trigger the uncomfortable moment of recall. But even as I thought about it, I could visualise sitting in front of the TV and doing my best to sing, with Mum or Lindy repeatedly rescuing the pacifier and returning it to my mouth. I'd felt so safe and protected then, just feeling like a baby, and I was sure that Mum had said the special words to make me wet my diaper a few times, because my adult thoughts had seemed out of reach the whole time. We had watched TV, eaten dinner, dung songs, and Lindy had tried telling scary stories; and for the whole time, I hadn't needed a single adult thought. I wasn't sure, but I got the impression that that had been some kind of compensation for me; Mum had wanted to do something that I would enjoy to make up for the rest of the day. And that made me wonder about what had happened to need a silent apology.

I remembered waking up part way through a diaper change, and Mum had just told me to keep on being a baby. I'd already been rested, and relatively happy with my situation, so of course I had gone along with that. It had only been brief, but it had put me in exactly the right mood to sleep deeply all night long, so right now I felt completely refreshed, like all my worries from this trip had gone away.

I didn't want to think about the bad things, so I tried to imagine that I was just a little baby. Sucking on my pacifier a little could bring back that feeling. It didn't take long to find that there wasn't actually a pacifier in my mouth, but my thumb. But it still felt good to suck on, and I could imagine that I was still the helpless little baby who needed to be taken care of.

I knew I was just putting off the inevitable. I wanted to stay in my bed and be a sleepy little baby all day, but I wasn't tired now. I was fully refreshed, and I could feel my energy levels rising no matter how hard I tried to suppress them. So I reluctantly freed my thumb from my lips, hugged Mr Muggins close, and then rolled over to see what the day had in store.

The light outside was still dim, and there was a thin sliver of rainbow colours being cast on one wall where the curtains weren't quite closed; that must be the sunset. And at this time of year, that probably meant that it was a long time before anyone else would be awake. I should just go back to sleep, but I knew that would be impossible now. I was too awake, and too excited for the day ahead.

As I thought about what we were doing today, I couldn't even remember what had been in the plan; although we were never going to follow any of those anyway. Today would be a complete surprise to me, and that made me feel like a little kid even more than the diapers and the stuffies. It was great not having any say in the decision, so long as it was something that I didn't actually care about.

I managed to swing my legs out of bed, but I wasn't sure what to do next. I didn't want to wake anybody else, but I was too energetic to just stay still. Then I looked at my thumb. The mittens could apparently be partly opened, so that I had one thumb sticking out that I could put in my mouth. I guessed that must mean that Mum and Lindy had already seen me like that; and there was a good chance that Lindy would have taken a picture or two that she could tease me with later. I hesitated when I thought that, expecting some feeling of animosity. But I was surprised to find that I didn't really mind that. Lindy teasing me, like a big sister bullying me, would make me feel so small. And that was no problem at all. It was only when she showed those pictures to someone whose respect I valued, or threatened to, that I was uncomfortable with her behaviour. That was a strange realisation, but it didn't manage to distract me from the original train of thought which it had branched off of.