✅ My Sister's Problem

103. Not a Baby

"I'm not a baby, Moooom!" Lindy's protest was my first sign of what the problem might be. She'd wet the bed again, triggering another wave of guilt for me with the realisation that this was all my fault.

"If you were a baby," I heard Mum's response too, now the bedroom door was apparently open. "I would have made sure that you were properly protected. I trusted you to decide if you needed it, and apparently you overestimated how grown up you are."

"I didn't!" Lindy argued, somewhere between angry and defensive. "I'm not a baby, it was Sally! It's another one of those pranks, I thought she'd stopped, but she sneaked into my room again, and–"

"The door was locked from the inside," Mum cut her off. "And Sally is wearing mittens that don't allow her to pick anything up. How did she trick you?"

"She must have–" Lindy started, and then hesitated. "But... I don't wet the bed. I got over that years ago! It's not fair!"

"It's something that could happen to anyone. And nobody is going to make fun of you, I promise. But you need to be honest with me. Do you understand? Accusing Sally when we both know she didn't do anything this time just makes it harder to believe you in the future. I think owning your mistakes deserves more respect than just not making any."

Then I heard footsteps that could only be my sister's bounding down the stairs. Seconds later she burst into the lounge, and found me trying my best to hug Mr Muggins, in spite of the difficulty added by the mittens. She sat on the couch then and watched me. I could see she was smiling then, laughing at my predicament, but she didn't say anything or move closer. She just wanted to see me play, so I just carried on playing. I glanced to my phone a couple of times, but Mum had fastened my mittens properly again so I wouldn't have been able to unlock it even if there was nobody watching.

"Are you having fun, baby?" Lindy asked. "Do you like being a stupid little baby? You'd better get used to it, I'm going to find a way to get Mum to turn you into a baby full time. How would you like that? You only need to break the rules again and your punishment will last past the start of school. Are you looking forward to it?"

That was too easy to imagine, and the anxiety hit me like a train. Sure, I could enjoy playing with my toys, and having Mum treat me like a little kid. But I still dreaded anyone outside our family finding out about this. I couldn't cope with the humiliation of being seen, and everyone I cared about laughing at me. That was just too much, and the way Lindy talked made me think that she'd already come up with some way she might make it happen. I told myself that Mum wouldn't allow that; she already knew that Lindy was making up so much of this stuff. But I had to accept that there might be some kind of chance, some way that my sister could find to get me in trouble again. And being humiliated in front of my friends, however unlikely, was my biggest nightmare right now. Somehow, it was even worse than the thought that Hugo might have actually believed what Lindy said as we left.

I carried on playing with my toys, pretending to be a little baby just like I'd been told to. I was going along with my punishment, doing what Mum and Lindy had demanded of me. And even if I wasn't enjoying it now as much as I might have done without that threat hanging over me, I kept on playing. Trying to imagine myself back into the state of mind where I was just a little kid and I didn't know about anything that could upset me. But Lindy could tell that she was getting to me. Maybe I hesitated too long, or maybe my movements were too forced. Maybe I even shed a tear as I tried not to imagine being humiliated in front of all my friends. But she knew that she had hurt me, and then I heard her laugh. There was nothing I could do about it now, though, but turn back to my toys and pretend that I hadn't heard.

It wasn't long before Mum came down again, with a basket in her hands. It didn't take a genius to work out why she had such a big pile of laundry, but I pretended that I didn't see everything.