✅ The Nice List

First Night

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Peter, with many thanks for still supporting me. And I hope that you're enjoying the story! I really thought this seasonal extra would be over in 3-4 chapters, but it turned out a little longer than I planned.

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Merri splashed a lot in the bath, and put bubbles in her hair. She spread the bubbles around a lot more when she found that they went different colours from all the paint on her body. Then she didn't know what to do next, but she did her best to make herself clean. The water kind of helped, and she kind of wished that Merri could be here to help her. But she also knew that she was still a big girl, and she had to be able to do things by herself.

She wasn't sure, but by the end of bathtime she felt like she was starting to be more grown up. Maybe needing to do things herself made some of the magic fade away? And she was even more surprised to find that she was a little sad about that realisation. She'd spent her whole life trying her hardest to be a big girl; she needed everybody to respect her, and her biggest fear was that she might not be mature enough. She hated the thought of being seen as childish... So why, now, was she somehow enjoying it? It didn't make sense, unless she thought it was a part of the magic. And that was even more crazy, because magic didn't exist.

She shrugged off the thoughts. She didn't need to worry about it, because those were big girl thoughts. And maybe that was actually a clue to the answer. She wanted to be a big girl because she had to be; because unless she remembered to do the chores, they wouldn't get done. Because her carefree friends at university had prioritised having fun above getting a group project completed, so she'd always been the one determined guardian of the deadlines. Perhaps she'd realised, today, that there was a kind of joy to be had in knowing that all that stuff was somebody else's problem.

Or maybe she just knew that magic was awesome, and playing with toys was super fun. That seemed more likely right now.

She was sure that she was clean now, anyway. She had rubbed herself all over. She tried extra hard to get it right, so that Tarja wouldn't have to help her. And then she rubbed herself with the towels until she couldn't see any more bubbles, and the towels looked like some kind of rainbow storm had hit. A lot of the bathroom did, in fact. But that wasn't important, because somebody bigger would clean up today. And then Merri went over to the little pile of clothes.

This costume was even more floofy and fleecy than the other one, and it had a hood with antlers on to make her look like a reindeer. It looked really warm, until she held it up and saw that it didn't cover her legs; there was just a little flap with snaps at the end to cover her bum, and a ruffled fluffy bit that she thought would feel really comfy to sit down on. She thought about it for a second, and then decided that her legs wouldn't be cold in the house anyway, and she'd never seen a reindeer wearing trousers before. Besides, if she had long socks they would keep her feet warm. She looked, but there didn't seem to be any socks with her outfit. That didn't matter, because she'd seen some in the lounge before, and she was sure she could find them again. There was something she was a little less happy about, though. And that was the underwear that Tarja had given her.

She stood there for a couple of seconds, staring at the folded diaper on the bathroom floor. She didn't need diapers, she'd already said that. She wasn't a baby, and she could look after herself. But then she looked at the reindeer again, and how cute it looked... and she thought about turning into a baby. Maybe Tarja was right; maybe the magic would just keep on going. She might need to wear one later, and then she would need somebody to help her get dressed. That would be way too embarrassing. So much better to put it on while Mummy still trusted her to dress herself.