✅ My Sister's Problem

67. Day One

I woke up early in the morning, and the first thing I felt was that my diaper was soaked. The second thing I noticed, with a glance towards the door, was that the handle was sitting slightly diagonally; it hadn't returned to its normal position. That was some defect with the fittings at our beach house; it always happened if the door was closed from the outside after it had been locked.

My first thought was suspicion. Lindy had been in my room, trying to pull some prank or other. It might have seemed strange that I was worried about letting her in here, while at home she could have messed with my stuff any time she wanted. But at home, for the most part, we were equal. We wouldn't interfere with each other's sleep, because we knew that once that truce was broken there would be no way to reset it. But here on the beach, where there was no such unspoken agreement, we were always on the lookout for some trick or other. In a strange way it had been a part of the fun. So knowing that Lindy had intruded on the very first night of the trip was a little worrying, in a way that almost felt like nervous anticipation.

Then my half-asleep brain finally caught up with the present when I saw a pink mp3 player sitting on top of my suitcase, and I realised that I had no idea if it had been Lindy or not this time. While she could have come in at night, the door would have shown its telltale hint in any case. Mum had been in here when I went to sleep last night; or rather she had put me to sleep. I'd told her that it was okay to keep on treating me like a baby, and to make me wet my diaper. And the downside of that was that she couldn't lock the door properly, meaning that I had no way of knowing if Lindy had found an opportunity to mess with me as well.

In any case, I had slept more deeply than ever, before being lulled into wakefulness early by the shrill screech of gulls fighting over some poor fish trapped in the shallows, the soft murmur of the breakers, and the smell of salt carried inland by the morning breeze. But sleeping deeper meant that my diaper was completely soaked. I reached up to take the pacifier out of my mouth, and then realised that I couldn't. My hands were contained in soft woollen mittens, pretty comfortable but restricting my motion enough that I couldn't grab the plastic ring on the back of the pacifier. I turned my head and spat it out instead, and then fumbled around until I could throw off my blanket and get to my feet.

The diaper was so thick that I could barely stand. In this thing I would be waddling like a real baby. I wasn't sure for a second if I should try to lie down on the floor or on the bed to change; but I realised that it was a lot less likely to leak on the carpet as I unfastened it if I could get to the bathroom first. Of course, that was easier said than done. I tentatively stretched out one leg, sure at every moment that the unusual bulk between my legs was going to make me lose my balance again. I'd taken about four steps towards the door when there was a faint tap.

"Sally dear?" Mum's voice called; loud enough to be heard, but not enough to wake me if I'd still been in bed. "Do you need any help?"

"Please," I answered. I was close enough then, so I could reach for the door. But without the use of my fingers, it was hard enough to unlock it. I managed, somehow, and opened the door so that Mum could step inside.

"Good baby," she said with a smile. "You look adorable like that, you know. Now, I know we said that you were only being punished for yesterday, but I wonder if you might want to stay dressed like that for a little while. I think Lindy is still asleep, so if you'd like I could help you with breakfast, while you're not old enough to hold a spoon yourself."

I glanced down at my hands. I probably couldn't manage a spoon. I wouldn't have been able to wrangle the diaper tapes either, I realised, so my quest to get to the bathroom was probably futile. And these mittens had buttons at the wrists to keep them snug, so I probably wouldn't have found it easy to get them off either. I turned them over slowly, wondering how I would have gone about escaping if I really needed to.