✅ My Sister's Problem

116. Window of Opportunity

This bonus chapter is dedicated to my newest supporter on Patreon; thank you Brandon!

I thought I would be able to get in touch with Hugo, and when Mum gave me my phone back it really felt like everything was right with the world. Maybe I would have been better going up to my room so that I had a little privacy, but it didn't really occur to me. I just lay on the floor in the lounge, comfortable on the soft carpet and kicking my legs in the air behind me. I ignored Lindy's comments about playing on the floor like a baby, and tried to ignore all the mental images that those jokes conjured up for me. She was probably happier with me lying there anyway, because she could sprawl out with her feet up on the sofa. She got her laptop out of her bag, and quickly folded the keyboard around the back so she could use it as a drawing tablet.

I hesitated for a few seconds, and tried playing Bubble Hunt Magnate to pass the time. I knew that my sister would quickly be absorbed in her art, and then she would make no effort to look over my shoulder. So much easier than sitting in my room, where she would feel obligated to try snooping. Dealing with Lindy required a little reverse psychology at times. And once she stopped shifting position, I knew that I was safe. After such a long day, it seemed that she'd fallen asleep right there on the couch, a half-finished picture on the screen in front of her.

Then I opened could quit the game and look at my messages. There were quite a lot of them; and they were getting increasingly desperate as I read them. Hugo was curious about the last things that I'd said, talking about having him as a babysitter. Of course, I'd been pretty vague about it, trying to see if he would be interested in being my babysitter without freaking him out if he was just joking. And some of his first responses were the same kind of scared, tentative comments about how I would be such a cute baby. And then he started getting anxious when I didn't respond; wondering if he'd offended me, or gone too far. He promised that it wasn't a big deal, and that he was only joking. But of course, I still hadn't responded.

He actually speculated that we might not have had any cell signal, like the trips out here when we were much younger. The cliffs blocked the signal, so none of the masts in the town would be able to reach my phone here. That was why we had the fancy "personal mast" thing. It was one of the advantages of the network Mum was on over their rivals: you could get your own mobile antenna, which hooked up to the cable modem in the beach house and made sure that we could make calls and receive texts. It just looked like another router, but I couldn't believe how much difference it made, knowing that I could still call people if I had to.

As the sequence of messages went on, it sounded like Hugo was getting more and more worried that he had offended me. He promised never to talk about this again, and then started to sound upset. And that was where it had been when I got the last message yesterday. There was nothing from him so far today, and that immediately made me panic. I didn't want to hurt him, or to upset him. I tapped out a message asking him to call me soon; saying that I'd not been able to use my phone for a couple of days, and begging forgiveness. Then I hit the little 'send' arrow in the corner, and watched as it turned grey.

"Failed to send message."

I muttered under my breath, and tried again. But it just gave me the same result again. I couldn't send a text. I tried again, and again it failed.

Next I tried reaching him on Clatter. If text messages weren't working, I was sure that the Internet would suffice. I couldn't even look at my live messages, or get a list of friends to send a private chat to. Nothing worked.

I might not be that good with tech stuff, but I was pretty sure I should be able to figure out a simple problem with the wifi. I asked my phone for its settings, and found that there were two access points available; named SCP31347-AE and Beach House One. Neither of them was connected. And while I couldn't even remember setting it up, I guessed that Beach House had to be ours. I chose it from the list, and waited for the precious internet connection to be established.

"This network requires you to sign on." Well, at least that was a simple message. It would come up whenever I used the wifi in a café or something, usually asking me to enter a password or just to accept their terms and conditions. And I could do that. It seemed strange that I hadn't done this before; but perhaps I'd been relying on my phone's mobile data when we first arrived, and not thought about it until that failed.

I watched a webpage load, so very slowly. What was it? Some terms of service I'd have to agree to, or asking if I wanted the adult filter enabled, or something? It looked like there was a video in the middle of the screen, so I guessed that it had to be some kind of promotional thing, and would hopefully go away as soon as I'd watched it once, letting me get on with reading my messages, I gritted my teeth and glared at the screen, wondering what was taking so long. And just like that, it started to play. Just a black rectangle and some sound playing in the background. At first I couldn't make it out; just like something atmospheric for the beginning of an ad. Like the sound of waves breaking, and then the volume picked up so I could hear the sounds of rain and running water.

"Mom!" Lindy yelled, suddenly sitting upright. "Moooom!" Mum was back in the lounge in seconds, and I struggled to shut down the unwanted audio. Closing the browser didn't stop the sound; it kept on playing in the background. I tapped the mute button, but of course that would mute ringtones and alerts, not music. It took a couple of seconds before I could think clearly enough to close down that window. And by then, Mum was just staring at me.

"She was playing water sounds!" Lindy glared accusingly. "She was trying to make me..."

"I wasn't!" I protested. "I was trying to connect to the Internet! There was something wrong with the router, and then when I connected this came up... I don't know what it is."

"The Internet's fine," Lindy said with a shrug, turning her laptop screen around so that I could see it. She was on one of her dumb art forums, which seemed to be working without a problem.

"I just wanted to call Hugo," I said, practically begging now. "Please, just let me talk to him. He's been so worried. And if you–"

"We talked earlier about this," Mum said. "Trying to make your sister wet the bed is unacceptable, especially when she's taking a nap on the couch. I know you said earlier that you'd get her back for her unorthodox approach to the sports day, but I really, really didn't expect it to be you breaking the rules this time. Couldn't you keep in in friendly rivalry? We'll just have to get you back in your baby outfit?"

"But I didn't!" I protested. But this time, I knew that there was almost no reason for her to believe me. I couldn't even understand what had happened, so I didn't have any kind of theory about how Lindy could have organised it. And why would she want to? I might have been in even more trouble if she'd slept through the unexpected burst of water sounds, but I didn't think it was something she would have been willing to subject herself to. It didn't make any sense as a prank; but then it didn't make sense as a random occurrence or some kind of phone virus either.

I didn't argue anymore. I let Mum lead me up to my room, and sat there stunned as she put me back in mittens, onesie, and a diaper. In a way it was kind of comforting to be treated like that, and I was sure that if I had managed to sort things out with Hugo already I would probably have enjoyed it.

"Please," I begged again. "Just let me send a message to Hugo. To tell him what's going on. Or some of it, anyway."

"You've had twenty minutes to send that message," she said, and I guessed she was right. I'd spent too much time being cautious, and waiting for Lindy to stop paying attention to me. But it was too late to fix that now. My only option was to wait until I had another opportunity to chat; or hope he would call me back some time when Lindy wasn't around to object. I really didn't think that Mum would stop me talking to him if I got a chance, but it was hard to know. And when Mum brought me downstairs again and told Lindy to look after me, I knew that I wouldn't be getting my freedom back any time soon.