Lies My Parents Told Me [Second Star to the Right]
“Merry Christmas!” she’d exclaimed, face full of joy. “Your father and I talked, and we’re okay with it.”
She lied. That is, the girl had learned, what mothers did. She supposed she had known it, somewhere in the back of her mind - after all, who had it been who’d told her there was a Santa Claus in the first place? - but it had never quite solidified there. There had always been a basic sort of trust there, that she had taken for granted.
And so, as she sat in the living room that Christmas morning, she had felt a great weight vanishing from within herself, dissolving away into the kind of happiness she had almost convinced herself she’d never feel again, not after that day.
Her mother had been cleaning her room while she was at school - the last day of school, in fact, before Christmas break - and had, for whatever reason, decided to open her closet. To clean it, perhaps, or to put something inside it. Though it hadn’t occurred to her then, now she wondered if her mother wasn’t just snooping. Back then, she imagined that her mother had just opened the door for a moment, quickly grabbing whatever it is she felt she needed, and then started to close it again, when something caught the corner of her eye, off in the far corner, and her curiosity simply got the better of her.
She’d been so sure she’d made it, too, as she rode the bus back home for the final time that year. She’d bought the diapers along with her Christmas presents, the only way she could think to get her daddy to take her to the store but not make her stay with him the entire time. She’d sat with the bags next to her the whole ride home, holding the tops shut. Once she had them home, she realized the package was bigger than she’d thought, and wouldn’t fit into any of the hiding places she’d been planning to use, so, finally, she just left them in the paper bag and put them in the far corner of her closet, and hoped like hell her mother wouldn’t go into her room while she was in school and somehow notice them.
And it had almost worked. The whole way home that day, as the bus bumped along, throw her back and forth in her seat, she’d felt elated, certain that she’d somehow, beyond all hope, pulled it off, for that year, anyway.
Then she got home, and found the diapers sitting accusingly on her bed. She was already on the verge of tears when her mother came in and asked what in the world she had them for; despite all the stories she’d cooked up for just such an occasion, the truth is what ended up spilling from her mouth. She hadn’t been able to read her mother’s expression as she told her that she had diapers in her closet because she liked them, that she wanted to wear them, and yes, maybe even use them. She couldn’t tell what her mother was thinking, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t good.
So when, on Christmas Eve, her mother handed her an envelope with a smile and a sentence she’d never expected to hear, not after the uncomfortable silences that had reigned over the dinner table since that day, she had very nearly burst into tears again. When she opened the envelope, seen the brochure inside, she did, after very nearly having a heart attack.
“It’s a sort of camp,” her daddy explained, while her mother sat next to her and gave her a hug. “Where kids your age can go, and… Well, do that sort of thing.” He shrugged uncomfortably, apparently still not completely at grips with the idea of his teenaged daughter wearing diapers, even if he was sending her off for a week to do just that.
“It starts in two days,” her mother continued. “That’s why we wanted to give it to you now, so you’d have more than one day to get ready. I know it’s still not a lot of time, but…”
“That’s plenty of time!” she blurted out, wrapping her arms around her mother, sobs growing louder. “Thank you both so much!” If she noticed how tense her mother, or father when she gave him his hug, felt, it didn’t register. “I thought you hated me.”
“You’re our little girl,” her daddy said gently. “We could never hate you.”
But he was lying, too.
She’d gotten packed even before she went to sleep that night - she didn’t have a ton of babyish clothes, but she figured she could make do - and then again the next afternoon, since her parents had also given her a set of luggage, which, if she’d had it a few weeks before, would have been a perfect hiding place for a package of diapers. But then she wouldn’t have gotten this amazing trip, so she just laughed at the irony and continued to repack.
Even though her parents, and the brochure, said diapers would be provided there, she still put in a few, in lieu of the underwear she would have normally packed, and kept one out to change into for the trip. It would be the first she’d worn in front of her parents, but now that they knew, and accepted, she’d told herself she should get used to it. Maybe she’d even get her mother to diaper her one day, once she was comfortable with the idea herself.
Of course, while she was at camp, she’d have some stranger doing it, which she was also not totally sure about, but she might be able to bypass all that, since she wasn’t certain she’d even use them. Well, once, perhaps, to see what it was like, and if she got herself peer-pressurred into it. She’d let out a little giggle at the thought, having never expected to be around other people who would support, and even encourage, such a thing.
She had hardly been able to get to sleep Christmas night, feeling even more anxious than she had the night before, though on Christmas Eve she’d assumed her parents had already given her the biggest gift, so she didn’t have as much to look forward to as she normally would Christmas morning. Christmas night, she’d barely been able to get to sleep, and once she had, she’d woken up at 6:00. She tried for a while to get back to sleep, but when that didn’t work, she decided to triple-check everything she’d packed.
She could hear her parents stirring in their room by the time she decided to get dressed, tossing off her nightshirt in favor of a fuzzy pink sweater, stepping out of her pajama pants, and, finally, for the last time for a week, sliding her panties down and off of her legs.
It took her a couple tries to get the diaper arranged underneath her in just the right way, as she didn’t want an incident like the first time she’d diapered herself, when the diaper had been crooked, and she hadn’t noticed until one side had already been taped. It had been so crooked she wasn’t able to get the other side’s tape to the front of the diaper, not without also taping part of her leg, which she doubted would be all that comfortable. She’d tried to adjust the first tape, but, even being as gentle as she could, she’d still ended up tearing off part of the outer covering of the diaper with the tape. It, of course, hadn’t wanted to stick after that, and after a few minutes, she’d given up, deciding to try again another day.
That other day never quite came, since her mother took her diapers shortly after that, only returning them on Christmas Eve with news of the camp. She knew what she’d done wrong, however, and was positive that, with a little more care, she could handle it.
Finally, feeling confident that the diaper was centered beneath her, she allowed herself to sink down onto it, feeling the padding pressing up at her, hearing a slight crinkling already. She pulled the front of the diaper up, holding it down against the bottom of her tummy while she reached around and grabbed one of the sides. It reached up and around with no problem, but she didn’t tape it yet, not until she had tested the other side as well.
She saved her sigh of relief at finally knowing for sure that the diapers she’d bought actually fit her until she had both sides firmly attached, and, after an experimental wiggle or two, she knew they weren’t going anywhere. It turned to a sigh of contentment somewhere along the way, as she curled up on her bed, staring down at herself, unable to keep herself from smiling.
It was difficult to get herself to put her jeans on over the diaper, but she knew her parents were planning on leaving pretty early, and it was pretty cold outside to go out without them, even just out to the car, even if she were brave enough to wear just a diaper out on the highway, where anyone could look in through the window at her.
Breakfast was, as usual, a rather rushed affair, even more so than normal. In fact, she hadn’t even finish her toast before being told to go put her suitcase in the car; she was still working on it when she hopped into the back seat and put her seat belt on. She hadn’t quite finished the last bit of the crust when she found herself lulled to sleep by the motion of the car, and it fell onto her lap, then rolled down to the floor at some point before she woke back up with a yawn, stretching against the seat belt.
“Are we there yet?” she asked sleepily.
“Well, yeah,” her mom smiled at her. “That’s why we’ve been trying to wake you up.”
Her daddy had already gotten her suitcase from the trunk and was waiting outside. She blushed a little, unbuckling herself and hopping out quickly. Luckily, daddy didn’t seem to mind too much, just started to head across the parking lot. Even though it was pretty heavy, she almost wished her daddy had made her carry the suitcase. Without it, she had no idea what to do with her hands. She felt nervous, but giddy at the same time, and she couldn’t get herself to just put her hands in her pockets and leave them there, yet when they were out, her fingers kept tugging at her sweater, picking at loose threads, which she was pretty sure wasn’t good for it.
It didn’t help matters when she finally managed to look up, at the building they were heading towards. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but whatever it was, was definitely not what met her eyes. It was a big place, though not particularly tall, just spread out, dark and low, ominous almost, like a cat crouched low in the grass, waiting for a mouse to wander by.
‘It’s just my imagination,’ she told herself. ‘I’m just being silly.’ But she couldn’t shake the feeling as they got closer. Was this really what she wanted? Sure, it had been nice to go online and discover that she wasn’t alone in her strange fascination. That wasn’t the same as going and meeting, and then spending a week with, a bunch of other kids who also had it. She wasn’t even sure how far she wanted any of the babying aspects to go, or if she wanted them to go anywhere at all. There was still a little voice in the back of her mind, reminding her how stupid all this really was, if you just sat down and thought about it.
Her mother noticing her slowing down, and turned back to her with an odd little smile, sad almost. “Are you okay?” she asked.
The girl nodded, though it didn’t get her feet moving again. Her parents shared an uncertain look, and then her mom held out her hand. “Come on,” she said. The girl did, holding her mommy’s hand like she had back when she was six, and still scared that if she crossed a parking lot alone she’d be run over for sure.
The inside of the building wasn’t much more comforting than the outside. The door led to a lobby, large and gray, dotted with tables with computer on top, and twenty-somethings seated behind. There were a few other teenagers milling about with their parents. Most of them looked to be older than her, and there were a couple who didn’t seem very happy at all, but older teenagers very rarely did, in her experience.
Her daddy led her to the nearest table, where a pretty blonde girl was watching them intently, a big smile plastered on her face, the name “Georgia” plastered on her chest. “Hello, there,” she cooed at the girl, who blushed, and found herself pressing up against her mother. Her daddy took a little folder, like the kind that airplane tickets sometimes came in, out of his coat pocket and handed it to the girl, setting the suitcase on the table where she indicated.
“Everything looks to be in order,” she noted cheerfully after a few moments of typing. “Is she wearing now?”
Her daddy started to shake his head, but her mom spoke up with, “Yes,” first, surprising her daddy a little. She blushed again.
“All right…” the girl pushed a few more keys before nodding. “All right, we can take her in whenever you’re ready.”
Her parents exchanged a glance before looking down at her. Her mother spoke first. “Goodbye, sweetheart,” she said, bending down to give her a hug.
“Just remember we love you,” was her father’s parting words. And that was probably the biggest lie of all.
“Of course I will,” the girl smiled. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure what to say, so she just stared at them, until her father nodded, and Georgia stood and walked around the table.
“Come along, dear.” The girl turned away from her parents and started to follow the older girl, barely making it past the table before turning and waving. Georgia waited for her a minute, before starting off again, and the girl followed.
“What about my suitcase?” she asked, about halfway across the lobby. “Should I have grabbed that?”
“It’s fine,” Georgia assured her. “It’ll be taken to your room. Don’t worry, hon.”
She nodded, trying to act, and thus hopefully fool herself into feeling, confident. Georgia smiled down at her in a way she wasn’t sure she liked. She pretended not to be bothered by it as they trekked across the rest of the lobby in silence. Before they stepped into the hallway Georgia was taking her to, the girl turned for one last look at her parents, but if they were still there, she couldn’t find them among all the other people.
“Come on.”
The hallway appeared to be quite long, but Georgia only took her a few yards or so down it before turning at an open door, gesturing for the girl to go inside. She complied, taking a few steps in, now with her guide behind her, closing the door. The room was smaller than she’d expected, given the size of everything else so far, but the same dull gray. If anything, it was darker, more dreary. At the center of the room was an examination table, like the kind you’d see when going to the doctor, complete with the roll-out paper covering.
“Hop on up,” Georgia instructed, turning towards the shelves set back into the walls. The girl tried to get a peek at what was inside, but Georgia, obviously experienced at this, was opening and closing them too quickly for her.
The tabletop was chilly, even through the paper, and her jeans, and she was shivering when she asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Well, no offense, hon, but you’re a hair on the small side, so I’m trying to find some proper undergarments that will fit you.”
The girl had certainly heard the phrase “dumb blonde”, but beyond movies and television, had never witnessed such a thing herself - the smartest girl in her class was a blonde, in fact - until now. She felt a little guilty for thinking that way right after having done so. She was sure Georgia dealt with a lot of people, and it had to be hard to remember everything correctly for all of them.
“I’m already wearing a diaper,” she reminded her.
“I -know- that,” Georgia responded, her voice taking an edge of harshness, apparently used to having people assume she was a ditz. “But I hardly think that’s the sort of thing a teenager should be wearing.”
The girl on the cold table blinked. “Well, I mean, I guess it is a little strange, but…”
“Ah, here we go!” Georgia exclaimed happily, pulling something from a shelf at last, and holding it up proudly. “Now, why don’t we try these?”
“I… I don’t understand…” The girl tried to scoot backwards, only to find the paper bunching up underneath her.
“Aren’t they cute?” Georgia asked, letting the girl examine the panties. They were pink, and across the back, a kitten was playing with a ball of string, while another was waiting to pounce on the front. “I’m sure they’re much cuter than your boring old diaper.”
And then, as if to make sure, she reached over and unbuttoned the girl’s jeans. The girl blushed, tried to move away again. “Now, if you can’t stay still, I -will- strap you down,” Georgia warned. “It’s your choice.”
The girl didn’t see any straps on the table, but decided not to risk it, just letting the older girl pull down her pants. “Well, would you look at that,” she said with surprise, upon the revelation of the girl’s Luvs diaper. “You really are small, aren’t you?”
The girl blushed; it didn’t deter Georgia from reaching over and untaping her diaper. “Still dry, huh? Maybe you aren’t too far gone after all.”
“What is going on?” the girl asked at last.
Georgia smiled sadly at her, tugging the diaper out from beneath her bottom and tossing it away into a garbage can. “You know that brochure your parents showed you?” she asked, starting to untie the girl’s shoes. “I’m afraid that isn’t our real one; it’s just one we make for, no offense, lazy parents who can’t bear to tell their children the truth, or are too weak to force their kids to come even if they know they won’t like it.”
“They lied to me?” The girl wasn’t sure why it came as such a shock to her, but the words, or perhaps the implication of them, brought tears to her eyes.
Georgia ruffled her hair gently. “Get used to it, kid.” She set the girl’s shoes down, tugged off her jeans. “We’re not here to enable your addiction to diapers…”
“I’m not addicted!” the girl insisted.
But Georgia just shook her head, obviously having heard that one before. “We’re here to cure you.” And with that, she pulled the panties up the girl’s legs, then having her hop down from the freezing table at last. “You can pull them the rest of the way up yourself,” she said, turning back to the shelves.
The girl did, reluctantly, the cute designs doing nothing to make up for the comfort of the padding all around, and then, not even bothering to grab her jeans, darted for the door.
At first she thought she’d been fast enough that Georgia hadn’t had time to react; then she tried to open the door. “Believe me, you’re hardly the first to try that.” The girl noticed a card reader set into the wall, gave the doorknob one last, feeble turn, just in case.
“Please, I don’t need this!” she tried instead. “It was just a stupid idea I had. I’m not addicted!”
“Feel free to save me some trouble and put your pants back on,” Georgia nattered, ignoring her. “I can do it, of course, but I have quite a few more cases to process this morning, and every little bit helps.”
“Just let me out of here,” the girl pleaded. “I can still catch mom and dad, and they can take me home and I’ll never touch another diaper as long as I live, I swear!”
Georgia turned around, now holding a syringe. “If you’re not going to get yourself dressed, then hop back on the table,” she instructed.
The girl grabbed for the door again. “Don’t do this!”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “Chill out, kid.”
She darted away from the older girl, rushing around to the other side of the table, but there weren’t many places to go in the tiny room, and Georgia’s reach, even one-handed, easily trumped the girl’s little legs.
“Please stop it,” the girl bawled.
“You’ll thank me one day,” Georgia said quietly, then sunk the needle into the girl’s arm.
She was feeling a little woozy even before the needle was taken out of her, as the room swam in and out of focus. She stumbled backwards, tripping over her own feet and landing on the floor with a jolt that lit up the base of her spine with pain. She stared up at Georgia, tears falling freely from her eyes, her hands tangled up in her sweater, trying to pull it down to cover the kitten posing on her panties.
“You’ll feel better when you wake up,” she continued her lie, grabbing the girl’s jeans from the table. “I promise.”
She didn’t dream, and, all things considered, that was probably for the best. Her head was still swimming when she woke up, which made keeping the little room she’d woken in in-focus quite difficult for the first few minutes. Not that there was much to see there, really, just four beds, including the one she was in, up against one wall, with a door on the opposite one. At least the walls weren’t gray, but a nice, comforting purple.
As soon as the room stopped acting like it was on a boat or something, or at least pretended to be docked, she sat up slowly, then scootched over closer to the foot of the bed, having noticed something there. She was quite surprised to see her suitcase there, and not as much so to find her shoes sitting beside it.
It took a couple of tries to tug the suitcase up onto the bed with her, though just one to get it unzipped. Right away, she could tell that her things had been dug through, and, unsurprisingly, her diapers were nowhere to be found. As the room went more into focus, she noticed little doors set back into the walls, like they had been in the changing room.
Her legs wobbled a bit when she hopped down from the bed, but were feeling fairly sturdy by the time she crossed the room to one of the doors. She pulled it open and, much as she’d expected, found clothes there, all folded and stacked. They were most definitely not hers - they were too big, and too dark - so she assumed they belonged to the occupant of one of the other beds.
She lucked out with the next door she tried, discovering mostly empty shelves behind it. The bottom drawer contained a row of panties, in her size, she supposed, folded up nice and neat. She could see designs on the ones at the far left, big and bright and cute, but as the row progressed to the right, the designs got more and more toned down, until the last few pairs were white, plain and boring.
The rest of the shelves were still empty when she closed the door and walked back over to her bed. ‘This place can’t be for real,’ she told herself. And even if it was, surely her parents were just using it as some kind of a warning… Weren’t they? They weren’t really going to leave her there. They were probably waiting for her right outside, waiting to hear that she’d learned her lesson.
So she zipped her suitcase back up, though decided against taking it with her, figuring her daddy could go get it and take it back out to the car for her. She felt a little anxious as she reached for the doorknob, remembering the last door she’d tried to open, but luckily this one opened easily out into the hallway.
It was a gentle green color, peppered with doors like the one she’d just opened, the occasional water fountain, and more than the usual number of doors marked “Restroom”. Her parents were definitely not waiting for her there, nor was anyone else. The place looked quite thoroughly abandoned, in fact, and that gave her a big enough case of the creeps that she slid back inside the little room and closed the door.
“They’ll come,” she said out loud.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t her parents on the other side. “Oh,” the first girl, maybe seventeen, said upon seeing her. “She’s awake.”
She was tall, but she seemed friendly enough, clad in a baby blue tank top and sweatpants. That didn’t keep the girl from edging away from her, though, starting to feel even more scared for some reason.
“They must’ve really overdosed her,” observed the next girl, a slightly shorter, rounder, paler specimen, to whom the clothes she had found earlier probably belonged, considering she was dressed all in black. “She looks like she just woke up a few minutes ago.”
The third girl didn’t say anything, just slunk over to her bed and sat down with a sigh. She was the shortest of the three who had just entered, though still taller than the girl who had just switched to staring at her. She didn’t give any indication of noticing, or caring, that she was being observed.
“Hey, are you okay?” the tall girl asked, kneeling down in front of the girl’s bed. “Do you remember where you are?”
The girl shook her head slowly. “I-I’m not supposed to be here,” she said quietly. “I’m not addicted to diapers, I just want to try them, once…”
The taller girl smiled sadly at her. “I don’t think they care about that here. I’m pretty sure just thinking about it is too much for them.” She started to laugh bitterly, only to stop when the girl burst into tears. “Hey, it’s okay,” she tried to soothe her.
“Don’t lie to her,” the girl in black cut in. “You saw the Clockwork Orange bullshit they’re pulling on us. It is most definitely -not- okay.”
The taller girl glared at her. “That’s not helping.”
“I kn-knew I was a freak,” the girl sniffled. “But is it really th-that bad?”
The tall girl reached out slowly, as if testing to make sure she wouldn’t get bitten, then patted the girl’s hand. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
The girl blinked a couple times, but couldn’t seem to find her voice again, so the tall girl answered instead. “I’m Harriet,” she said. “And that’s Chloe,” she gestured to the pale girl, who had sat down on her own bed, “and Alisha.” The short girl didn’t give any indication of hearing herself introduced, just kept staring blankly into space.
“How old are you?” Chloe asked, when it seemed apparent that the girl wasn’t going to volunteer any information about herself.
“13,” she said quietly. “I just turned 13 last month.”
Harriet looked over at Chloe, confused. “I thought the minimum age was supposed to be 15…” Chloe shrugged. “We thought you looked a little young when they brought you in…”
“Her parents probably just lied on the paperwork,” Chloe shrugged again. “Didn’t want to wait another two years, I guess.”
She wanted to speak up, to tell them that her parents didn’t lie, but even if she still believed that, somewhere in her mind, she got interrupted by Alisha. “Thirteen is still too old to be wearing diapers.”
“Shut up, robot,” Chloe snapped at her.
“Don’t listen to her,” Harriet advised, glaring daggers at the perpetrator. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There’s something wrong with all of us,” Alisha contradicted her.
“Well, there’s certainly something wrong with you,” Chloe shot back, before turning to the girl. “She checked herself into here, can you believe that? She wants to be ‘cured’.”
The girl could tell she was supposed to be shocked, but she couldn’t bring herself to act. “Well, it’s not like it’s normal,” she shrugged. “I even thought about peeing in mine… Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
Before Chloe, who was quite clearly not pleased with that answer, could say anything, Harriet held up her hand and gave her a warning look. “It doesn’t matter if it’s weird or not,” she said in her best teacher’s voice, turning back to the girl, “you should still be allowed to do it, if that’s what you decide you want to do. It isn’t hurting anyone. It’s your decision to make.”
“And what’s weird,” Chloe broke in, “is people who can’t understand it. You’ve worn, right? You know how comfortable they are, how they make you feel all warm, and innocent, like you don’t have a care in the world…”
“Well, they’re nice,” the girl said uncertainly. She didn’t think it had been quite like that for her, but it was kind of hard to remember for some reason. “But I don’t know if I’d want to, like, wear them all the time, or something… I was just curious.”
“You don’t have to,” Harriet smiled. “The point is, you should be allowed to like them, or not… You shouldn’t be forced into thinking one way about it, just because your parents don’t get it.”
“Not that it matters,” Chloe pointed out, “since we’re kinda stuck here.”
That shut them all up for quite a while. The girl glanced around at them, trying to imagine them all in diapers. It was an odd image, not quite enough to make her giggle, but enough to bring a bit of a smile to her face. But when she finally broke the silence, she wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s Clockwork Orange?”
“Huh?” She was staring down at her own feet, crossed in front of her on the bed now, so she wasn’t even sure who said it.
“You said before, what they were doing…”
“Oh, right. Don’t worry about that.”
But she had already tried that, and it hadn’t worked. “Does it hurt?”
Nobody answered out loud; the way Harriet hugged her was all the answer she needed.
She had been knocked out for longer than she’d thought - upon hearing her tummy growl, the other girls informed her that dinner was long over, and that lights out was just a short time away.
“I can take you to the cafeteria,” Harriet offered, “but I’m pretty sure it’s locked.”
“It’s okay,” the girl sighed. “I’ll live.”
She went down to the nearest restroom with the other girls to brush her teeth, not quite able to remember if she’d done that in the morning after breakfast, until she recalled waking up and guiltily noticing the last bit of crust from her toast in the floorboards of the car.
She didn’t change into her pajamas when they got back to the room, however, insisting that she wasn’t tired. Since there wasn’t anything else to do, though, she ended up curling up in her bed, staring towards the door, still half expecting to see her mom burst through to rescue her.
She was still staring when the lights flickered a couple of times, and then went off completely. The girl didn’t react, just remained still. When, a few minutes later, she heard Harriet whisper to Chloe, “Do you think they’re asleep?” and Chloe responded affirmatively, she didn’t bother to correct them.
They got quieter after that, and the girl wasn’t really interested enough to put any effort into making out what they were saying, so she decided to block it out instead, until it became a low buzz that, tired or not, began to lull her back to the darkness of sleep. She was just barely aware of shapes slowly moving around in front of her, and the sound of cupboards being opened and closed.
Finally, one of those shapes approached her bed, gently shook her out of her half-sleep. “Shh,” Harriet warned, holding one finger up in front of her mouth.
“What’s going on?” the girl asked, apparently not quiet enough for Harriet, who glanced behind her at Chloe, whose shadow made a motion that was likely a shrug. Harriet grabbed her hand and led her out into the hallway, which was still lit, dimly, except for right in front of the bathrooms, where the light was noticeably brighter.
It was to the nearest of those than Harriet led her, followed closely by Chloe. The bathroom was a bit dimmer than it had been when the girl had been in to brush her teeth, but she could still see perfectly well.
“What’s going on?” she echoed. “What have you two been up to?”
Harriet shushed her again. “You still need to keep your voice down,” she warned. “They could be listening, or something. It’s hard to tell what they have set up in this place.”
“Which is why we should wait,” Chloe interjected. “Going out our first night is a horrible idea.”
“You’d rather wait until they’ve reprogrammed us not to even think about leaving?” Harriet hissed. “Maybe it’s already working on you, and that’s why you want to wait.”
Chloe bristled at that. “I’m just being smart.”
“If you say so,” Harriet said meaningfully, but gave a bit of a smile at the end. “Honey, if you haven’t already guessed, we’re getting the hell out of here. Chloe’s brother and one of his roomies are supposed to meet us in like ten minutes.”
“If -they- haven’t been mind-wiped out of it,” Chloe pointed out. “He’s not the smartest apple in the tree, and I doubt anyone who would want to be his friend would be, either.”
“Either way,” Harriet continued, “we want you to come with us.”
“My parents are coming back for me,” she said automatically, and loud, as if volume made it more true.
“Fine, wait for them as long as you want,” Chloe responded. “Get brainwashed, be ‘normal’, whatever.”
But Harriet was smart enough to see through her. “No, they aren’t. They’re not coming back until the end of the week, and you know it.” The girl didn’t say anything, or even nod, but hearing it just made her even more sure it really was true. “We’re not going to force you to come. We really think you should, though. This place… It isn’t right. Especially not for a kid.”
The girl considered pointing out that she wasn’t a kid, she was a real, live teenager now. Instead, she said, “I haven’t even seen any of this brainwashing stuff… How do I know you aren’t making it up, and this isn’t just some kinda trick?”
“Let’s just go,” Chloe whined. “She’ll just end up getting us caught.”
“Chloe, bite me.” Harriet ignored the bird she was flipped. “Do you want to come or not?”
The girl thought about it for a minute, and then another, before Chloe began to get impatient, and then even Harriet started to head for the door after giving her a sad look with the air of a goodbye.
“Okay,” she said finally, as Harriet put her hand on the bathroom door. “I want to get out of here.”
Harriet beamed, and, though she likely would’ve denied it, even Chloe seemed pleased. “Then let’s go get our stuff,” Harriet grinned, pushing open the bathroom door, nearly slamming it straight into Alisha’s face.
“Perfect,” Chloe growled. “Have you been spying on us?”
Alisha stared at her with her big, nearly blank, eyes. She didn’t say anything. The girl could see Chloe’s hand curling to a fist, and saw Harriet notice as well, and not even try to stop her.
And then, at last, Alisha spoke up. “Take me with you.”
“What?” Chloe’s hands relaxed as her eyes expanded. “Why would you want out of here? You wanted to be here!”
Alisha shrugged, “Maybe you guys are right. I asked my parents to sign me up, but now that I’m here, I can’t get out any more than you guys.”
“Or maybe,” Harriet said, eyes narrowing, “you’re a spy.”
“I’m not.” Coming from her, though, it was hardly the most convincing recommendation. “I just changed my mind.”
“Why should we believe you?” Alisha didn’t have an answer.
The girl, however, did. “You guys said that everyone should have the chance to choose whether they want to like diapers or not,” she pointed out. “Doesn’t Alisha count?”
“She already chose!” Chloe spat.
Harriet, of course, was a little more understanding. “Do you really think we should bring her?”
“Why are you asking her?!” Chloe hissed. “Since when is she in charge?”
The girl nodded.
“Oh, come -on-!”
“Would you shut up, Chloe?” Harriet glared. “If anything will get us caught, it’ll be your moaning.”
“I should have never told any of you about this,” Chloe grumbled, but she did it much quieter, and followed Alisha and Harriet obediently back to the room to grab their bags. Alisha’s stuff wasn’t packed yet, so she just threw as much stuff into her suitcase in a few seconds and was ready to head out with the others, Chloe grabbing the girl’s suitcase when she saw how much she struggled with it after slipping on her shoes.
“Were you planning on staying a month?” she snarked. “Or do you just carry bricks around with you?”
Harriet shushed her, opening the door slowly. The hall was still empty and silent as they slunk out into it, doing their best to keep anyone from suspecting either of those things had changed.
The hall turned out to be longer than the girl had suspected, making her wonder if there could truly be that many people out there who liked diapers. She was still pondering it when the little band turned down into a different hallway, one that lacked even the scant lighting they had been traveling in.
The girl, who would normally have insisted she wasn’t afraid of the dark, gave a gasp, loud enough to earn a “Quiet!” from one of the older girls. She grabbed Harriet’s hand while she could still see it in the light shining on their backs, and they ventured further into the darkness.
When they heard the sound of footsteps behind them, despite being nearly invisible to one another by that point, they turned as one, huddling closer. In the distance, they saw a silhouette walking down the hall they’d come from, and then stop. Harriet’s hand tightened.
The person continued on, and, once the sound of their footsteps faded, the girls breathed a collective sigh of relief. The girl would have missed the next turn if she hadn’t been attached to Harriet, and she was a little afraid Alisha was going to be left behind until she heard her squeak.
“Shut up,” Chloe commanded, tugging her in the right direction. “I don’t want to have to come looking for you.”
“You guys are about the worst escapees ever,” a male voice said. “Are you -trying- to get caught?”
It was right then that the lights flickered on, blinding the girl for a few seconds while Chloe cursed somewhere beside her.
“Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job of it,” the boy’s voice came again. “Thanks.”
“Just tell me you have it, Ollie.” The girl blinked a couple times, finally clearing away enough white spots to see the two new people who had joined them. One, Ollie, she assumed, could only have been more obviously Chloe’s brother if Chloe’s hair had been a bit longer, to meet his length. His companion was tall and wiry, like a little man you’d make out of pipe cleaners, though with a slightly rounder head than any of those that the girl had ever made.
“My dear Mr. Stephen,” Ollie held out his hand, and the other boy produced a card from his pocket.
“Do you think they’ve had a chance to deactivate it?” Harriet fretted.
“You’d better hope not,” Stephen said, his voice surprisingly deep and gravelly.
“Only one way to find out,” Chloe pointed out, shoving the girl’s suitcase into her brother’s hand.
That was when they heard footsteps again, coming towards them. All eyes turned to Harriet, and the girl noticed for the first time the double doors in the wall behind them, a small window set into each. It looked just like the entrance to the cafeteria at school, other than the slot beside it, which Stephen quickly stuck the card into and then out of.
Nothing happened.
“Son of a bitch,” Chloe sighed, setting her bag down. “Perfect.”
Even Harriet was looking down. “Sorry, hon,” she said quietly, squeezing the girl’s hand.
“So much for that,” Alisha shrugged.
But the girl pulled free from Harriet’s hand, snatched the card away from a surprised Stephen. “Who the hell is that?” Ollie asked his sister, who didn’t really have an answer, either.
She slid the card back in and out, with no more success than Stephen had found, so she tried again. “It’s not going to work,” Chloe told her testily, as the footsteps grew louder. “Maybe we could break the door down…”
“Yes, because leaving a trail of destruction is always a good idea,” Ollie rolled his eyes.
In and out. Nothing.
“They probably already know right where we are,” Chloe pointed out. “What difference will it make?”
“Well, they might -not- know,” Ollie said. “And then we really would be screwed.”
“We already are, dumbass!”
Click.
The siblings turned away from each other’s throats at the sound, in time to see a green light come on above the card slot. Harriet pushed the door open before the light went off, as the girl pocketed the card.
“Are you guys coming?” the girl asked.
The cafeteria was huge, and well lit. It didn’t seem like the best place to hide, but the girl decided to stick with Harriet, who was heading across the room like she knew what she was doing.
As it turned out, she was just good at looking that way, as the door she was heading towards refused to open. She held out her hand for the card, but once she had it, she couldn’t find a place to put it. By then, everyone else had caught up, and were all standing around, watching Harriet’s frantic search.
All of them, except, luckily, Alisha. “Look!” she said frantically, pointing towards the double doors, where a shadow could be seen approaching through one of the windows.
Harriet grabbed the girl, and took her to the ground with her, while the others dodged underneath tables. Harriet started to edge towards one as well, then froze as the shadow at the window took on color, becoming a face.
It scanned the cafeteria, eyes going this way and that, staring straight at them several times, the girl was sure, before finally vanishing again. Harriet waited a little longer, then motioned to everyone that it was clear.
“So, are we going to try for the lobby?” Stephen asked. “Maybe that guy is alone, and we can…”
But he shut up when he realized nobody was paying attention to him, and turned to see what they were watching. He was greeted by the sight of Alisha gently pulling up the metal curtain over a large counter that the girl wasn’t surprised to find was right in front of a long line of sinks on the other side of the wall.
“Guess it -was- unlocked,” Alisha turned and smiled at the others, crawling up onto the counter. “Hold on a sec.”
She vanished into the kitchen, and for a long moment, the girl thought that perhaps she’d decided to run off and leave them to fend for themselves. Then the door Harriet had been frantically trying to open did just that, revealing Alisha’s smiling face. “Come on,” she said.
The girl had always been a little curious at what a kitchen for some place this size - or rather the size of her school - would look like, but she didn’t have time to sightsee. Harriet was dragging her along as fast as she could go, heading for a door at the far side. Alisha reached it first, turned the dead-bolt, and pushed it open.
The moon was shining outside, nearly as bright as the sun had been that morning. It was a chilly night, but not as bad as it could have been, seeing as it was the end of December.
They didn’t stop until they could no longer see the building behind them - the hills surrounding it helped quite a bit - when they all collapsed into the grass, out of breath. They didn’t talk for a long time.
The girl was staring up at the moon when Harriet spoke, not realizing the question was directed at her until no response came, and it was repeated. “Where do you live?”
She shrugged.
“How do you not know where you live?” Chloe sighed.
“What does it matter?” The girl was still staring into the sky. “I’m not going back there.”
“Then where do you think you’re going to go?” Chloe inquired. “We can’t just leave you out in the middle of this field. You’ll get eaten by wolves or something…”
“You guys aren’t going back, are you?”
The older kids stared around at each other uncertainly. “Well, we’re not really sure…” Harriet answered for them. “But you need to…”
“They don’t want me,” the girl stated.
“I’m sure that’s not true…”
“Well, I don’t want them, then,” the girl shook her head.
Harriet smiled at her patronizingly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetie.”
“And you do?” the girl snapped. “You aren’t that much older than me, you know. I don’t think I can trust them anymore. They wanted a normal little girl, and I can’t be that for them.”
Chloe shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”
“Hey!” Harriet protested. “We can’t just take her with us! I’m pretty sure that’ll be considered kidnaping…”
“They’ll be looking for us anyway,” Chloe pointed out before turning to the girl. “If you slow us down, I won’t hesitate to leave you behind.”
“Okay,” the girl agreed, though she knew Harriet would never allow Chloe to do that. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can just be ourselves,” Alisha smiled. Harriet and Chloe turned to look at her. “That’s what you guys were talking about, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yeah,” Chloe nodded assent. “But I don’t know if such a place even exists.”
“I’ve heard of a place like that,” the girl said, staring back up into the star filled sky.
“Where?”
“A little place called home.”
“And how do we find that?”
“I think,” the girl smiled, getting to her feet, and brushing the dirt from her jeans, “it’s somewhere in that direction.” She pointed off in the direction of a particularly shiny star.
“Sounds good to me,” Ollie agreed, smiling over at her as he stood. Alisha hesitated, then gave her best ‘Why not?’ shrug and got up as well.
“Well then,” the girl said, as she started to walk, trusting the others would fall in behind. “Straight on 'till morning, then.”
