✅3️⃣ Treating the Babysitter [Camp NaNoWriMo July 2023]

17. According to Plan

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Ross. Thank you again for all your support!

Waterfowl scattered in all directions, making the trees shake around them. There were a couple of giant willows here, dipping the tips of their branches in the lake like nervous swimmers, and a little shallow area where a dozen ducks had been peacefully resting. But Claudia had all the excitement of a toddler now, and Adam didn't want to discourage her from having fun. She could be as loud as she wanted, and nobody would be able to hear her over the ducks in any case.

He kept on making plans in the back of his mind, hoping that he could find something that would work before it became relevant. But he didn't want to take Claudia into a crowded area while she was in a diaper, and he didn't want to leave her on her own either. Intellectually he was sure that she would be quite capable of taking care of herself, but his instructions were to treat her like a rebellious child. Besides which, he would have felt like a jerk if he didn't actually keep an eye on her in what could have been an embarrassing situation. He was responsible for taking away her choices, so he had to take responsibility for the outfit he had put her in, and for her simplistic speech, and every other decision he had made.

In a way he was glad that she was running up and down on the edge of the lake, splashing in the water and annoying the wildlife. If she'd been a real child, he would have been considering some kind of discipline for that; she couldn't grow up running wild like that. But his plan had been built around punishment for the kind of machiavellian plans that Lorelei had once come up with; and acting her age would probably be the best therapy for that. Getting the energy out of her system would be a good thing, and he was sure that she wasn't going to get herself in any difficulty. So he busies himself pulling some of the weeds off a bench until they could have a place to sit down; and when he finally managed to make it almost tidy, it wasn't long before Claudia dashed over to join him.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"You look like you're having fun," he said. "Wanting to let your inner child play a little?"

"Umm..." Claudia answered slowly, quickly realising that she couldn't really explain whatever complex tangle of justifications was going through her mind. But she had one answer that worked just fine with childish words: "Maybe."

"That's fine," he said. "I don't really understand it, but I think that should be good for you. So, do you want to try feeding the ducks? I can probably find a way to the shop if you want."

"We should have brought bread," she said. "It's okay, we can come again some time."

"Yeah, maybe," he said, thinking what it would be like if he could spend time with her more often. But then she realised that he was only home from university for the summer, and then there was little chance he would have time to come back here until next year. Was seeing her again worth jeopardising his studies for? He didn't even know. But before he could think too deeply the other half of her statement caught his attention. "Wait, bread? I mean, sometimes you see people feeding bread to the ducks, but you should never do that. It makes them really sick because they can't digest it. You need to give them bird seed."

"Are ducks birds?" she asked, and then laughed. Of course she knew the answer, but she had to talk like a child. And she could see the humour in her weird comment.

"Yes, they are. Want me to get some seeds so you can feed them?" Claudia nodded, and he knew that it was too late to change his mind now. "Well then, can you sit here and be good for me? Don't cause any trouble while I'm gone, and if anybody comes along and worries you have to be a big girl, right?"

He hoped that would be good enough. His instincts were starting to treat her like an actual child now, and he needed to remind himself that she still had all her adult thoughts behind the facade she was putting up.