Exchange Ring, by Libra

Chapter 1
Exchange Ring

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Chapter Description: By Libra

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By Libra

A short story about a babysitter, the baby boy on her care, and a cursed artifact.

Deondra Rhonda Wardelle was your average black slightly overweight teenage babysitter. She was normally polite and gentle unless you were to make her angry.

Right now, Deondra was entering Bandy’s house for the 3rd time that week.

"I’ve just put him down for his nap so he should be asleep for a few hours at the least." Mrs Bandy said as she left with her husband.

"Thank you for babysitting again so soon." Mr Bandy said as he closed the door with his wife just in front of him.

"No problem." Deondra called out just before the door shut.

’Another night of babysitting and studying. What a drag.’ Deondra thought.

Thinking she should go check on Robert Bandy to be sure he was still asleep, Deondra quietly made her way up to the nursery and peaked in. Dressed only in a pale blue sleeper with a diaper underneath he looked like a little angel sleeping there, she thought.

Robert, or Robby as everyone called him, was hardly any trouble babysitting. If it wasn’t for his size and age he would have been a very good boy. Because he was still a baby he used little pats and gestures to communicate what he wanted and needed; such as patting his diaper for a change or pointing to something then gurgling at it.

The only flaw the perfect baby boy had in his character was his pointing to a duck in a picture on the far wall and then obsessing over it.

Deondra always assumed that he wanted to hold it, but because it was a small picture with a fragile looking glass she never let him anywhere near it while she carried him.

"Yes, Robby that is a duck." Deondra often cooed at him when he refused to be taken out of the room before looking at the picture then reaching for it.

Deondra gave the picture a quick glance as she remembered the baby’s curiosity for it. She then shut the door and went back down the steps.

Only thing she didn’t like about the Bandy’s was their house. Nearly everything in it was twenty years old, from the style of the house to the furniture. Deondra could only assume the Bandy’s loved retro.

Deondra made her usual snacks and sat on the sofa, studying hard for the next big test. She was only a few years away from leaving high school completely. Nearly two hours later the faint gurgles of the baby were starting to come from the baby monitor just left of Deondra’s books.

’He is awake.’ Deondra thought to herself. With that thought in her head she climbed the stairs in a rush.

"Someone had a nice little nap." Deondra sang as she came into the nursery and saw Robby sitting up in his crib.

Robby only looked at her then patted his diaper.

"Need a diaper change?" Deondra asked as she picked him up and laid him down on the changing table. She did a quick check and sure enough he was wet.

Half way through the diaper change Robby pointed to the picture with the duck on it.

"Yeah, Robby that is a duck." Deondra said as she rolled her eyes.

Robby looked slightly frustrated then gestured with his hands.

"You want to touch the picture." Deondra said, catching on to his hand signals.

’Strange kid.’ Deondra thought as she finished diapering him then holding him on her hip.

Deondra carefully took the picture off the wall then let him within an arm’s reach of it. "Can’t hold it, but you can touch it." Deondra said as she expected him to reach for it.

Robby was still pointing at the spot on the wall.

Looking up Deondra noticed that there was safe behind the picture. It was an awfuly small one, but none the less a safe right there in the nursery’s wall.

"What’s that doing in here?" Deondra asked out loud.

Robby was excited now as he bounced to get her attention. Then using both his hands he held up some fingers.

Looking from his fingers to the safe Deondra had the impression he knew the combination.

Deondra decided to amuse herself by turning the dial to "6". The safe was so small it only had 1 through 10 on the dial.

"Only going to have a quick peak then shut it." Deondra said to Robby to ease her guilt.

Robby was getting to be a handful now so she sat him on the changing table and turned the dial to the next number Robby said using his finger. After "2" came "7", then the safe popped open in a way that scared Deondra.

"Made my heart jump." Deondra said, clutching the door of the safe and her chest.

Peering in carefully, the safe was empty except for a little silver ring in the corner, a beautiful one with bands that interweaved in and out of the other threads of silver. "This is what you’re excited about." Deondra said before picking up the ring and holding it in her fingers between her index and thumb.

Robby only stared at her not taking his eyes off of her or the ring.

"Well, it is a very pretty ring." Deondra said looking at it.

Without thinking about it she slipped it on to see how it would look on her finger.

Instantly she felt the cold metal shrink against her skin. The ring had grown smaller and it was stuck on her finger. As Deondra tried desperately to remove the ring, she noticed something was wrong with the room.

Everything looked like it was taller than before and larger in size. Looking over to the changing table she saw little Robby wasn’t little anymore. Robby was now the size and age of a toddler and still going. Robby undid the tabs on his diaper as he continued to grow.

"It’s no good trying to get it off." Robby said in the high pitch voice of a toddler.

Deondra stared at him shocked that a toddler could say such a sentence with no lisp and trouble.

"What did you do to me you little brat!" Deondra said out of anger as she fought the ring. Her shorts and shirt were really loose now.

"Nothing. It was the curse." Robby said then he reached over the crib and grabbed the baby blanket. He sat back down and laid the blanket across his lap for cover.

"Curse?" Deondra said looking from the ring then to her body and finally over to Robby.

Deondra’s bra was just dangling off her shoulders by now and her shorts pooled around her feet. Her breasts were melting back into her chest as she watched with horror through the gap in the shirt, looking down. She used her hand with the ring to hold her underwear up as she still tried to pull the ring off.

"Might as well give your shirt to me. You won’t need it." Robby said. He was now reaching 6 years-old in age. His body had lost all of its baby fat and was thin and wire-like with only a small belly sticking out.

"I am getting younger." Deondra said looking down her shirt again before feeling her face.

As she clutched her underwear again more tightly, she felt her crotch and nothing but bare skin now between her legs.

"How do I stop this?" Deondra said howling at him and running over to the changing table to be face to face to him.

"You can’t." Robby said quietly with no emotion in his voice. He wasn’t scared or concerned for her at the moment.

"Tell me how!" Deondra said then gripped his shoulders hard.

Robby braced his back against the wall and with a shift kick he had hit her square in the flat chest. Deondra was almost the same size as him now as she fell back easily and landed hard on her boney butt.

"Think twice about fighting me." Robby said, slidding down off the table.

He had aged to 10 years-old by now and was still going. While Deondra, shaking off the shock of being forced down to the floor, was no older than 8 years-old and getting smaller and younger by the second.

Deondra could only sat on the ground and look at herself. As she was busy looking at her shrinking body it retreated backwards through childhood; Robby had slipped on her shorts that had fallen off only moments before.

"Good thing you’re such a tomboy." Robby said after the shorts were loosely on.

"Stand up." Robby commanded.

Shaking as she stood, Deondra got up clutching her underwear firmly. Her shirt was huge on her small frame now.

Now Robby was 12 years-old and had started to grow faster. Puberty was taking over and speeding up his maturity.

Without a word, he lifted her shirt up over one of her arms leaving her half naked. Deondra’s one remaining arm was still caught in the shirt and holding her underwear up.

"Use this to cover up with. Like it will matter in the end anyway." Robby said, tossing the baby blanket to her free arm.

Deondra allowed her shirt to become free and used the blanket in her free hand to hide herself on the lower half of her body. Her belly was now growing outward and round much like Robby’s stomach only a few seconds ago.

Robby slipped on her Backstreet boy’s t-shirt with no trouble.

"Help me Robby." squeaked a 4 year-old Deondra. She now had the baby blanket wrapped around her entire body and tucked in on her side just under her armpits. As the ring continued to get smaller, so did she in perfect unison.

"Call me Robert and I can’t help you right now." Robert said in a deep a voice as he was looking down at her with a warm smile.

"Come here." Robert said as he picked her up and gently carried her over to the changing table.

Deondra flinched a bit as he picked her up. The pain of being kicked and hitting the ground was still in her mind, even though the bruising that would have been there had faded along with the pain.

Deondra didn’t bother holding on to him, but instead tried to get the ring off. The ring was no bigger than a pinky ring now, still getting smaller as she got younger.

The last of her adult clothing fell to floor as Robert carried her. The white lacy panties landed softly on the floor.

"Listen up and stop that." Robert said in his deep teen voice, lightly slapping her hands. Deondra was in between the age of three and two years old now. "Only way you can change back now is to have someone else put on that ring as to exchange ages with them." Robert said softly in a kind voice.

Deondra raised her hand with the ring on it for Robert to remove the ring.

"Sorry hun. I’ve been stuck in diapers for twenty years now and have no wish to go back." Robert said, nodding over to the crib.

"Don’t wanna be a baby." Deondra said before crying and going into a full upset rage.

"Please." Deondra begged looking very pitiful.

"Shhh." Robert said as he began patting her back gently before laying her down.

"Mrs Bandy is not so bad. She’ll feed you whenever you want and takes very good care of her baby. Mr Bandy will love to play games with you. " Robert said as he diapered her. The diaper was tight on her body, but the latter was still going backwards in time.

Deondra could only gurgle and coo now every time she tried to speak.

It then came to her to use the same method Robert had used to communicate. She used her hand to hit her arm a few times then the front of her diaper, trying to commutate a question.

"Your skin and the fact that you’re a girl?" Robert asked with an amused look. "They never notice their baby changing genders and race. They will just think you’re adopted or something. This entire family is cursed and the only escape is the ring. I don’t know what happened, but the Bandy’s never age and I can only assume their original child escaped a very long time ago." Robert explained to Deondra as she laid on her back while watching him closely. The process of aging was getting even slower now and Deondra felt she was slowing down in getting any younger.

"I think I am done aging to your age and you look like you’re my old age." Robert said as he was readjusting her diaper then sitting her up. To her dislike she couldn’t bring her legs completely together. The diaper made her look like she was bow legged. "Let’s get you dressed in a sleeper outfit." Robert said. He didn’t took the pale blue outfit in the crib, but instead went over to the dresser and opened one of drawers.

To her slight surprise all the boyish baby clothes were gone and only girl baby clothing could be seen. After pulling out a pink sleeper, Robert looked at her face with little amusement as before.

"It’s not just you and the clothing that have changed. The entire house has been updated. I guess that is the way you would say it." Robert said before lifting her up to her feet with one arm.

Robert then used his one free hand to put her legs in the outfit then sat her back down on her diapered butt.

He then carefully slipped off the ring and Deondra watched it carefully. It would have made a great magic trick if it didn’t really happen as Deondra watched the ring become bigger to fit an adult’s finger. Robert placed it back in the safe and closed it. He put the picture that was left on the floor back on the wall to hide the safe again.

’What else has changed?’ Deondra thought as she waited for Robby to put the ring back. Deondra looked wildly around at the nursery room and it looked the same to her.

Robert only laughed at her then picked her up. He placed her on his hip and left the room to show what he meant. She gripped his side out of terror of being dropped and held on as they went down the steps a little faster than she liked. The house had indeed changed into a more modern house. Walls were fresher and looked new. The appliances were newer models and the TV was much bigger. DVDs were on the shelves, instead of tapes, just above the TV.

"Amazing isn’t it." Robert said catching her eyes as Deondra looked around and took every detail in.

"Sorry to say that the Deondra the world knew is gone now. Your own parents won’t know who you are anymore." Robert said as Deondra looked at her discarded school books and bag on the coffee table.

Robert sat on the couch and put Deondra on the floor just at his feet. Deondra looked scared, but watched Robert to see what he was up too. She felt it was a bad dream and wished everything was back to normal.

Robert already had one of her books in his hands and flipping through it with great interest.

Deondra was now hoping that this was all a bad dream as she closed her eyes tightly and shouted in her thoughts to wake up now.

After a full minute she opened them to see she was still a baby and the world around her was oddly huge.

’No good trying to wish yourself back to normal’ Deondra said to herself. Only gurgles came out as she tried to speak again.

"Crawl around if you like. You will have get used to that baby body before too long." Robert said after he noticed her gurgles.

Deondra gave him a funny look then decided to take his advice. Everyday objects were huge and tall from her point of view. Chairs and tables look as big as dump trucks from the floor where she was on all fours. At first she nearly tipped over sideways, but managed to steady herself again and crawl some more. Her sense of balance had completely changed.

Deondra became somewhat clumsy as she crawled. Her arms and legs were bumping into the legs on the furniture as she moved around them.

Robert was too busy looking over her books and catching up to pay much attention to her as she was wandering about.

"Deondra?" Robert called out when he noticed she wasn’t in the living room any longer.

Curious he got up and found her at the steps either trying to get the gate that blocked the steps open or just trying to stand up on her own accord.

"Silly Deondra. You can’t stand up just yet. It took me months to get the hang of it and I didn’t have the strength to stay up very long." Robert said grabbing her under the armpits and hoisting her up to his hip.

"There are a few things you need to remember now." Robert said as he sat her on the coffee table then held her little hands with his fingers so she wouldn’t fall over.

"Never take the ring outside this house. I don’t know why myself, but the girl who switched with me warned me all the same. Second thing to do is to try out this baby life at least for a little while then get someone to switch ages with you. Third is to be a good little baby because if you’re not the Bandy’s will stay home with you all the time and never leave you with a babysitter. " Robert said in a calm and very serious voice. The last part of his speech had a sarcastic tone to it.

"Most important is to never forget the combination to the safe." Robert said looking very stern and even more serious.

Deondra only nodded her head to show she understood and had heard everything.

"Don’t bother trying to get either of the Bandy’s to put on the ring. Doesn’t affect them and both of them think it was Mrs Bandy’s grandmother’s ring." Robert said now losing his stern voice while looking at her.

"I am going to babysit you the rest of the night until they come home. So they don’t freak out about you being left alone and then for you to be stuck for years without a babysitter to trick. Then I’ll take whatever money you got along with your stuff and start my own life." Robert added as he glanced briefly to her school bag.

"Hope you won’t be too mad at me for switching places with you." Robert said catching her mad look that sometimes babies can get.

"Until they come home I think I will tell you everything I know about this house and the curse that I’ve been able to learn." Robert said then lifting her off the table and into his lap to sit.

Deondra felt like she was being lectured to, as Robert explained things over and over about the ring and house. She now knew the story of the ring, house and the little information on the curse backwards and forward. Before too long she leaned in close to his chest and fell asleep as his chest gently moved back and forth as he took slow breaths.

Seeing that Deondra was asleep, Robert stopped talking and picked up her school book and began to catch up on computers and other such subjects he longed for to read. Hours passed before the Bandy couple finally got home and Mrs Bandy took the sleeping girl in her arms.

"Dee, Dee." A woman’s voice called to Deondra as she began to wake up from being moved about. Deondra found herself in Mrs Bandy’s arms being cradled in a rocking motion.

Deondra meant to say Mrs Bandy, but only "Ma, Ma" came out of her mouth.

"Yup. Mommy is home." Mrs Bandy said as she gently rocked her.

"Wasn’t trouble was she?" Mrs Bandy asked after looking up away from Deondra. Deondra looked over to see that Robert was still hanging around.

"No trouble at all. She slept on the couch beside me all afternoon while I studied." Robert lied on the last part knowing he left her for a short time to pack all of Deondra’s old things in her school bag including the underwear.

"Here is a hundred for coming on such a short notice and so quickly." Mrs Bandy said after digging a Franklin out of her purse.

"Oh thank you Mrs Bandy." Robert said very politely then picked up the school bag and threw it over his shoulder.

"Honey I do think these outfits are getting too old for her to wear anymore. They must be twenty years old by now. " Mr Bandy said coming from the kitchen and looking at his wife. He was looking at the clothes they were wearing.

"We will pick up some new outfits after we get Dee-Dee some new toys. All her old ones are a bit boyish for her. I would really like her to have some dolls to play with." Mrs Bandy said answering her husband.

"Well I should be going and I’m afraid I can’t babysitter anymore." Robert said then made his way to the door. Robert was very eager to leave the house forever.

"Oh Robert. Are you sure you can’t babysit again?" Mrs Bandy said just as Robert was halfway out of the door.

"No. You’ve been like a mother to me, but lets just say I am a little tired of seeing diapers." Robert said with a grin then waved to them, all while looking at the worried look on Deondra’s face.

Robert knew what she was thinking.

’How long?’ was the question in her mind, about when she’ll be back to normal.

Deondra had mixed feelings about being left alone with the Bandy’s and to be forgotten by the world. Mr Bandy gave a warm bottle of milk to his wife and she began to feed Deondra. At first Deondra refused it then eventually accepted it. She was after all very hungry and thought it was stupid to fight her existence for now.

Deondra was still feeling very tired and now full as Mrs Bandy burped her then carried her into the nursery.

"Sweet dreams." Mrs Bandy said as she laid Deondra down inside the crib and then wound the mobile.

Deondra tried her best to fight the sleep that was coming over her, but the hypnotic music of the lullaby was too much. Soon she was fast asleep and dreaming about becoming an adult again.

The End.

 

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