✅ Over Protected

37. Penny Plays a Role

Sorry folks! This was supposed to be yesterday's chapter... but somehow at 11:30 when I finished it, I forgot to hit "Publish". *facepalm*

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"Hi baby!" Penny said with a laugh. I cheered and clapped my hands when I saw her. I was always happier when she came to visit. It was starting to become a routine now; I thought that she must always come on the same day of the week, but more and more of my thoughts were getting lost with all the fog in my head, and I usually didn't even know what day it was. I didn't need to know; I could be delighted when Mummy was here to look after me, and I still enjoyed the days I could go to school, although there weren't so many of those days now. It was something that happened occasionally; Mummy said it was a treat when I was being a good girl, but in my smarter moments I suspected that it was really so that I would still have friends while my little vacation back to infancy had to end.

I was at home today. I'd been playing on the floor with a toy workbench, trying to put red circular blocks into a blue square hole. I knew that it wasn't going to work, but somehow it was still fun to keep on trying them. I'd given up worrying about if anything was right or not; there were bigger people to do all the hard stuff for me, and make sure that everything was okay. And then Penny came in, and I was so happy to see my friend again. It always felt like a rare treat, no matter how many times she had come. And I was glad that she still wanted to see me; most of my friends had decided they didn't want to come around anymore after they knew what was happening to me; although some were still interested in chatting when I was big enough to go to school. But Penny was the friend who loved coming to play, or to babysit. And she was the one who the grown-ups trusted to come and play with Lyra as well, so that she could have a supportive friend when she came to grow up again.

Penny came and sat down beside me. She didn't mind sitting on the floor while we played, but she wouldn't sprawl out like I did. She always tried to stay just a little bit grown-up, like she was a babysitter even when Mummy was around.

"How are you today?" she asked.

"I'm good," I said. And then I thought that she might have brought some schoolwork for me. I didn't want to get too far behind, so I'd still do work when I could. But if I could even think about why she was here, it meant I was thinking more clearly than I often did. I was big enough to answer her, anyway: "I think I'm thinking today. Not like I'm all baby, but I can still play."

"So you don't get all confused if your brain switches off?" she guessed.

"Something like that. Sometimes it's fun to just... not have to think about the hard stuff. Kind of like a break."

"Sounds like you're making the best of it," she said. "I'd be so scared if something like that happened. Like, you don't know how long it'll take to wear off, or even if it will. What if you're stuck like this forever? Or so long that you can't do your school work? Like you'd be old enough to go to college, and still trying to catch up with middle school again."

"I trust Mummy," I said. "She said it'll only be a year or two."

"You seem happier, anyway. Want to see if I can help with your homework, if you're doing good? We can watch cartoons after, and your Mummy says I can make dinner for you while she goes to work. Or maybe we'll get Sarah to do it." She giggled there, and I found myself laughing along pretty quickly. Sarah complained sometimes about having to do more of the chores, so Mum tried not to put too much work on her. But she could do everything well enough, and I was sure that having some responsibility helped her.

"Oh!" I said. "We got dinosaur fish now! Like crunchy dinosaur shapes, but made out of fish instead of turkey. Mummy says they're brain food, but they're really nice too."