Chapter 9
Truths
TO MY SURPRISE Granny began to laugh, and I heard a deeper voice join in from just inside the room as well. “Amanda you weren’t kidding when you said she was smart,” Grandpa Joe said.
“Wait, what?!?” Amanda practically screeched, and I noticed Bella became nervous and shook with her shout. “She’s right?!?!?!”
I looked at Granny and she nodded, “Yes she is. Hannah is alive, safe, and free on one of the little islands.”
“But… why… how…?” Amanda’s face was filled with tears.
I felt bad that I had just upended a core belief of Amanda’s then and kind of wanted to switch places with Bella as she sat down on the ground in shock. I wriggled around and Granny got the message, letting me go down to the ground while she held my hands and my feet landed. Amanda had sat Bella on one knee and I climbed onto the other and hugged her, “You told me you were at summer camp, remember?” I told her.
“You made me come home…? There was a casket… and a funeral?!?!?” Amanda asked her mom.
Grandpa Joe sighed, “Honey, Chloe and Cassie were getting more and more violent towards Hannah. We… well, your mom hadn’t seen it because she’s always had a blind spot with those two, but after your mom had falsely punished you that weekend everything tumbled out of Hannah about how the two of them were ganging up on her, and how sometimes they were even picking on you too. Hannah was terrified of Chloe, but she didn’t want to see you getting punished anymore. When Chloe and Cassie were gone your mom went to nurse Hannah before her afternoon nap. Just as she was going to start nursing her, Hannah told your mom about what had really happened. I think you figured that out when we apologized to you and ended up punishing your sisters the same way the next weekend…” he grimaced, “I wish we could undo both of those actually…”
Amanda shook her head, “I hated Mom for that… but even though I didn’t do it to Hannah you won’t catch me abusing Stacy or Bella with an enema ever after that!”
Bella asked, “What?”
“Tell you later,” I told her. “Or maybe Mommy will since it’s her story. So, I’m guessing something else happened and they retaliated again on that playground?”
Granny nodded, “Hannah DID have a head injury. Chloe forced her into climbing a tall set of monkey bars. Once she had her up there, she hit her hard and shoved her off the top. She fell head first and suffered a bad head injury when she landed. I wasn’t there with them, but I got the call to come to the hospital just as Chloe and Cassie ran in to tell me that she fell off. I called Joe at work, since he was closer to the hospital, to meet them, and told him I would call as soon as I got to the bottom of what happened.”
“Did they tell you what really happened?” Bella asked.
Granny shook her head, “No, they had struck some sort of sisterly pact that neither would rat out the other… but I could tell they were lying because neither were doing a very good job at it. Joe called me and said they were working on Hannah, but I should hurry to the hospital as fast as I could because it didn’t look good…” Granny was crying then, “I knew those two had to be responsible, and told Chloe, ‘You stay here and do a better job of looking after Cassie than you did with Hannah.’ I got in the car and drove to the hospital.” Granny was beginning to have a hard time talking then and I could see tears streaming from her eyes.
Grandpa took over, “By the time your mom got to the hospital the doctors had been out to tell me she was still being worked on, but warned me it was not looking good. They almost lost Hannah several more times during the six-hours of surgery, and she came out of the operating room without a clear answer of if she would make it. All they could tell us was that if she made it through the night her odds were good. We were allowed to sit with her in the NICU and watched her on life support in her crib with all of the tubes plugged into her… We could only just pray that she would make it.”
He wiped a tear from his eye, “Well… let’s just say you can’t watch your baby girl in that kind of situation and not get angry. Your mom kept me from going home and tanning their hides right then because she didn’t want me to be abusive… Even though I so wanted to be then! Lord knows they deserved it! While we waited for her to regain consciousness a police detective came and investigated the incident. After we spoke with him, he said that they were writing it up as an accident, but ‘off the record’ the detective was pretty sure that Chloe had intentionally tried to kill her. If they had been certain they would have arrested her, but he warned me that if Hannah made it through her injuries we needed to be constantly on watch because he was sure she probably wasn’t done.”
Granny had regained her breath, “As far as I could tell the only remorse Chloe showed was that she might get in trouble… I don’t think she really cared that she had hurt Hannah… she might have even enjoyed that.”
“That’s sick Mom,” Amanda sobbed out. “I always thought she had to have done it… but to know for certain…”
“The whole reason we had taken Hannah in was to protect her, and in the end, we had failed miserably,” Granny said morosely, “I knew we couldn’t trust your sisters to not hurt her more. But we couldn’t just release her on her own then since she was injured and would just be adopted by someone else. Besides, the Trelini family was still keeping an eye on her.”
“Even after all of that time?” I asked.
“Every month or so we would get a visitor who would watch us all for a day or two,” Grandpa said, “I discussed it with them more than once, but someone new from their crew would keep showing up. They knew that we knew, and were watching to see if at any point we let her grow-up and release her.”
“So, while it’s more involved than I can remember now, your sister when she woke up… well we told her it was time to get her somewhere else that would be safer.”
“She really did wake up?” Amanda both sobbed and sounded happy.
“Oh yes, and surprisingly there was no lasting damage to her brain or anything. She lost a couple teeth that I had the doctors replace with implanted teeth… They wanted to just pull the rest since it made the most sense to them. It took me a lot to convince them to replace them and leave her teeth…” Granny shook her head, “We had a couple days that we waited before we came for you, during which we started moving pieces into place. I had a friend who created a death certificate for her. We bought a casket and had a funeral, never letting anyone know that it was a farce. All the while we had Hannah stay at a friend’s house that we had sworn to secrecy. I did the best I could to start re-teaching her how to use the potty as she healed. After she was better, we told you girls that your dad was redeploying for a short mission, but he really took Hannah to one of the islands. There he helped her get paperwork to show that she was a free little, an apartment, and enrolled in a program to help littles learn how to take care of themselves after being in captivity.”
I looked up at Amanda whose face was streamed with tears and smeared makeup. “She’s alive after all these years? Have you ever talked to her again?”
I looked at Grandpa Joe who had come to sit down next to us, “we secretly trade cards every Christmas, and we’ve visited her a couple times over the last couple years since Megan began college.”
“Do… do… you think she’d…”
“Like to talk to you?” Granny asked with a smile. “I’m sure of it. The time zones are kind of weird, so it’d be best to wait until about ten our time, but I’ll send her your number and let her know that we finally told you the truth.”
“She… won’t mind?”
Grandpa Joe wrapped his arms around Amanda’s shoulders above Bella and I, “She actually always wanted us to let you know. You were the one sister that loved her and cared for her. You had a couple mean moments just not thinking as a kid, but you were the only sister who she actually considered to be her sister.”
I had tears in my own eyes with the story and felt Amanda’s arms around me tightly, “Thank you,” she whispered to me.
“Now, no one else can ever know she’s alive though,” Grandpa Joe said to all of us.
“I don’t know anyone to tell,” Bella said.
“You won’t catch me talking to Cassie and Chloe if I don’t have to…” I said.
Granny looked sad at that, but nodded, “I wish I could somehow go back and fix whatever went wrong with those two…”
I nodded my affirmation there before thinking it was time for a subject change when my stomach grumbled, “So dinner?”
“Stacy, is food the only thing you ever think about…?” Bella grumbled.
I shrugged, “Computers?”
She stuck her tongue out at me, while Amanda hugged me and whispered, “Thank you…”
“Well I need to start the grill up. You want to change into your swimsuit before you go down there?” Fred asked me.
I stood up quickly and said, “Swimming!” in an excited voice.
“Clearly there is one other thing she values over food,” Amanda said tickling my side.
Everyone else giggled at it and I hoped it had helped Amanda and her parents regain a little bit of composure. She walked over to the drawer she had put my swimsuits in and handed me one. “Can you reach one of your swim diapers over there on the shelf?”
I looked and nodded, “I think so.”
“Bella do you want to go swimming too?” Amanda asked as she stood up and settled her onto her hip.
She shrugged, “I really don’t know how…” I could tell she was nervous of the water still.
“We have your floaties and the ring you can sit in that we bought,” Fred told her. “You can just sit in the water with the shade up and just float?”
I watched her face go through a few expressions before she nodded, “I guess… If nothing else I’ve got my heroine big sister who will save me?”
I groaned and stuck my tongue out at her while everyone else giggled. Fred and Grandpa started walking out the door as Granny stood and asked, “Do you need a hand Stacy?”
I held the swimsuit and had just grabbed the swim diaper then, “Maybe later Granny? These are just pull-ups basically.”
She smiled and nodded, “I’ll hold you to that!”
Granny decided to leave then, so it was just Amanda changing Bella on the changing table, and me standing on the ground next to it. I pulled the uniform I was wearing off and then pulled the tapes off of the pretty soaked Pamper. “Mommy, would you please hand me a wipe?”
“Sure sweetie,” she said as she held a hand on Bella and grabbed a wipe to hand to me. I used it quickly and wrapped the used diaper and it to put into the diaper can. “Here, I’ll get it in there,” she told me since it was just a little too high for me to easily do it.
“Thanks Mommy,” I told her with a smile and pulled up the swim diaper before donning the stretchy one-piece swimsuit over the top of it. I adjusted the straps then and pulled my socks off.
“Make sure you put your clothes in the hamper over there,” she told me with a reminder.
“Yes Mommy,” I told her with a sigh. ‘Somehow I don’t think she’ll ever let me get my room as messy as Mom did back home…’
She put Bella down on the floor next to me and said, “I’m going to go change into my swimsuit and then I’ll come get you both to go to the pool.”
“Daddy’s the only one cooking tonight?” I asked in surprise.
She smiled at me, “Grandpa and Granny are helping him too.”
I nodded and watched as she closed the baby gate behind her, leaving the two of us alone. Bella walked over and sat down on the edge of my bed. Her pink swimsuit had several rows of ridiculous frills on her butt and chest. You could just see the swim diaper peeking out from the edge of the bottom.
“You doing okay?” I asked her.
“Okay?” She asked with a bit of bite to her voice. “Not really…” she sighed.
“Which is the part that’s the worst?” I asked.
“You mean the baby part, or the part where there’s people who want to both make me a baby and make me have babies for them?”
“It’s not the freedom part?”
She shook her head, “Stacy, so far I’ve gone out and done more things with our ‘parents’ in the last few days than I did in the last two years total…”
“I guess you couldn’t risk going anywhere?” I asked.
She shook her head, “No, I couldn’t. I’m not as helplessly cute as you are, but I’ve also known my whole life that if I grew taller than the average three-year old Amazon toddler, I would be lucky…” she shook her shorter hair, “I didn’t get lucky.”
Before she could continue Amanda was back and held two small swim caps in her hands. She sat down on the ground next to me and tugged at my hair for several minutes to get it covered safely by the swim cap. “Come here Bella,” she smiled at her sitting on my bed. Bella stood patiently as Amanda had an easier time putting hers up with there being less of it. She kissed the top of her head and picked us both up, putting us each on a hip. “You two definitely are good for getting a workout!”
Bella actually giggled at that and we went down the stairs in her arms. Outside Fred and Grandpa were gathered around the grill and Granny seemed to be working on some sort of salad. ‘Ick!’ I thought to myself about that.
As we went through the outside door, I could see that the window had been replaced. The glass looked a little bit different and I had to ask, “Same material as the tablet?”
Amanda looked down at me and shook her head, “you are too smart for your own good. Yes, it’s a new thing you can buy. Supposed to be indestructible, and the cool thing is it’s also possible to make it project a screen for a movie.”
I looked at it closer and noticed the huge sliding door would make a sweet movie screen indeed to watch from the pool! “Which side does it show on?”
“It’s like the tablet, it can display on either side.”
“I am here too still you know,” Bella reminded us both as Amanda laughed and kept moving towards the pool. Inside the gate she sat us both down on a deck chair and sprayed us down liberally with sunscreen. I saw a weird pink baby flotation device thing sitting on the concrete next to the pool. It looked like you sat down in some sort of seat that let your feet get wet, but kept your upper body above water. On the top was a canopy that shaded the baby that was sitting in it. ‘That does not look comfortable to me…’ I thought since you wouldn’t have the freedom to swim. ‘Maybe for Bella it’s a good way to get her acclimated to the pool though…’ I admitted.
As soon as she had finished spraying me down with sunscreen, she handed me a new pink pair of miniature goggles. “I thought you might like these for your laps?”
I smiled, “Thanks! It’ll be nice to keep the chlorine out of my eyes!”
She patted my head and kissed my forehead, gave me a light pat on the butt and I took that to mean I could get in the water. She didn’t need to tell me twice before I dove into the pool! I dove down into the water to touch the bottom before swimming to the surface and turning to see where Amanda was just finishing spraying Bella. As she began spraying herself, I decided to start swimming some laps and let her worry about Bella and herself.
I swam through the water, making lap after lap thinking about everything that had happened in the last couple weeks. So much had gone on, and I wondered what was going to happen next. I couldn’t help but fear the group that was after Bella. ‘Wait a second, it was the Trelini family in both cases?’ I thought to myself. ‘So, they already had a reason to have a grudge against Amanda’s family?’ I still wanted to know why they were so interested in Bella though. She didn’t seem that special…
I thought about that for a while before I found myself ambushed in the water by Amanda. “I caught a fish!” She giggled as she hugged me tightly, suspended out of the water by her side.
“I was swimming…” I whined.
“Time for din-din,” she told me, “your sister’s been out of the water for like twenty minutes now.”
“How long was I swimming?”
“A bit over an hour-and-a-half?”
I looked up at her then and said, “I don’t feel tired…”
“The nanites,” she reminded me with a whisper.
I nodded and let her carry me out of the pool, wrap me in a towel, and took me over to where a picnic table was setup by the back door. “Your parents had joked they had a fish, but I didn’t believe them until I saw you swim,” Grandpa Joe said with a twinkle in his eye as he brought me with a smaller chunk of a huge sausage and a mini burger.
“I keep telling them, I’m not a fish, I’m a dolphin…” I rolled my eyes. Bella for her part laughed at my response.
I noticed then that Megan had shown up as planned and came to sit down next to me. As she sat down, I leaned over and gave her a hug, “Hi Megan!”
“Eew… I have fish water all over me now!” she joked before tickling me a moment and hugging me back.
I just stuck my tongue out at her, “I’m surprised you’re not at the movie night event tonight?” I asked.
She shrugged, “I went my first couple years, they’re okay – not that great.”
“You still live in the dorms though?” I asked.
“Yeah, even with Mom and Dad being so close to the campus I prefer my space?” She said. “Besides, my full-ride covers it.”
I nodded and talked with her for a few minutes before Granny waved at me from across the table. “So, with everything going on, I never had a chance to hear how you did on your test Stacy?” she asked.
“It went well,” I said, “I tested out of four semesters of math, but I’m going to only skip two to be safe.”
“You did well enough to skip four semesters?” Megan looked at me like I was an alien, “But littles don’t do well with math…” She paused, “Hell I had to take the remedial math before beginning Calculus…”
I shrugged, “I’m sure some actually do Megan, you just don’t hear about them because their parents keep them too busy at daycare… Plus I’m from the other dimension and we don’t have bigs there – we are the bigs and littles.”
“It must be a really nice place,” Bella told me, “I don’t understand why you would ever leave it. Your computer test scores?”
“Umm… perfect?”
“Perfect as in good?” Megan asked
“Perfect as in the perfect score,” Amanda said, “almost ended up getting her into a lot of trouble by doing that well actually.”
“You have to be careful Stacy; you’re going to have a lot of bigs who will feel threatened by you. They may not be able to adopt you, but they can find other ways to humiliate you…” Bella advised.
I nodded as I took another bite of the ginormous sausage. Dinner shifted to other topics and I watched Amanda behaving quite nervously as I think she was waiting for a sign that her long lost baby sister would give her a call. ‘I can’t imagine the hurt she felt, and the new hurt she probably feels… I can’t imagine Hannah having lived through Chloe and Cassie much longer though if Chloe already almost killed her. She seems to have been a monster all of her life…’
“Earth to Stacy?” I heard along with a poked from Megan.
“Huh?”
“Grandpa was talking to you sweetie,” Amanda said to me.
I looked up at him, “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“Are you done eating?”
I looked down at an empty plate of food and nodded, “Yes sir.”
“Come on then, we need to talk about your schedule,” he said as he picked me up and put me on his side. Given the fact that I barely came up to his knee with the top of my head it was a long way up to his level. He put his elbow below my swimsuit covered rear and carried me inside to the nursery and sat me down on the floor.
I dug through my bag and handed him my schedule, “Here it is.”
He looked at it and seemed to think some before grabbing a phone from his pocket and comparing schedules. “Okay, I think I’ll have your Granny pick you up from your little seminar on Tuesdays, and your class on Thursdays to bring you to my studio. We’ll have a bit over an hour before my first class comes in after school lets out for us to train you by yourself. I’ll probably have you join that next class too since it’s one of my elementary classes…”
“Is that a good idea?” I asked.
“They’re all bigger than you, but you should be okay. It’ll also help you learn control to only do enough to stop, not permanently injure or kill someone.”
I nodded, “Umm… I would normally probably not feel like I’m in a rush to fight, but given everything these last couple days… any hints on how to fight off someone your size?”
He nodded, “Unfortunately your options at your height are limited. Normally most littles are at least a foot or more taller than you… Still you should be able to punch up at my knees?” He motioned for me to try.
I slow motioned a fist forward and could just make contact there, “It’s a stretch though?”
“Well it’s the first place you should probably attack because if you can knock the person hard enough then they can’t chase you. Until we get you fully trained, you’ll just have to aim to disable and then evade them… Kind of like you did with my daughters and that lady. Most of us are not going to like seeing a little kidnapped from their adopted family. Just managing to scream and keep out of reach for a limited amount of time should allow help to get here.”
“Where else is vulnerable?” I asked.
“I’ve known some of the little operators to go for ankles. If you can kick hard enough you can injure someone there. The other option is if you have a knife you can cut through calf muscles or maybe even bury the knife into the back of the knee…”
I nodded, “I don’t have a knife though…”
“I’m going to find one for you that we can conceal on your body somewhere.
“With my diaper being a constant target to change… clothing that can be easily taken off… it there anywhere safe to hide something?”
He shook his head, “It won’t be easy, but something where you would wear like a bra, a shoe, or maybe on your back is what I’m thinking. The shoe would be my first choice, but your feet are so tiny though it’s going to be tough. I’ve got a friend though who I’m hoping can help out.”
“Thanks for all of your help,” I told him.
“You’re welcome… if something happens to you or Bella, I’m pretty sure my daughter wouldn’t know what to do.”
I nodded, “I’d hate that for her too…”
“So, I’ll see you on Tuesday… we might try and see if your mommy can’t get you to me this weekend sometime too. Plus, there’s the Sunday lunch that you’ll be coming to again.”
I tried not to make a face, but failed, “I know, my daughters are a pain in the rear. Hang out with Bella though, don’t abandon her just in case they try something on her…”
I nodded, “thanks for the advice. I’ll do so.”
Amanda came in then with Bella and an odor that I knew meant she had to have gone poopy in her diaper. Bella looked mortified about it, and tears were obviously streaming down her face… I couldn’t blame her. “You two get it figured out?” Amanda asked as she stripped the swimsuit off Bella.
“I think so,” Grandpa told her, “Tuesdays and Thursdays I’ll have your mom pick her up and bring her to the studio. She can stay with us until you or Fred get off then to pick her up.”
“That works I think,” Amanda said. “Still trying to figure out what to do with Bella…”
“Could she stay with you?” I suggested.
“In the classroom?” Amanda asked back.
“Take a playpen and something for her to do? You could say she has to be close so you can nurse her? You hate bottle feeding?” I suggested.
Bella looked at me as she was sat up from the changing table completely naked. “That might be worse than daycare…” Bella said.
“Stacy, let’s talk more in the bathroom. Why don’t you come take your bath with your sister tonight?”
I nodded and she added, “Go ahead and take your swimsuit, swim cap, and swim diaper off.”
Before I did so I took a second to use the swim diaper since I hadn’t gone in a while. It started to leak a bit before absorbing most of the urine. I pulled everything off and looked for a robe… before admitting she probably expected me to take a naked stroll into the bathroom. I obliged her, feeling my body fully blushing by the time I hurried in through the doorway, and found her just lifting Bella into the tub of less water than she used with me. I sighed in disappointment at the shallow water as she lifted me in. As she sat me down next to Bella, I could see she blushed as brightly as I was.
Amanda washed Bella first as I watched, “What do you have tomorrow Stacy?” Amanda asked.
“Those two Little’s seminar sessions. The first is nine-thirty to eleven, and then one to two in the afternoon. There’s also that sorority event I was invited to at I think four-thirty?”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to go to that?” Amanda asked me.
I shrugged, “As long as I can nearly get kidnapped while walking right next to you on campus, I’m pretty sure I can also run into trouble anywhere?”
She nodded, “I guess you’re right…”
Bella asked, “Aren’t you scared they’ll get you?” as Amanda moved on to wash me.
I shrugged as the soapy mitt met my shoulder blades, “We’ve done everything we can to make it to where I can be found if I do get kidnapped.” I held up my watch, “Mommy when are you getting one for Bella?”
“Tomorrow after we drop you off,” Amanda told me, “while you’re in class I figured we’d run and buy one of those for her. I also need to go buy some more diapers for both of you.”
As she washed me, she asked Bella, “So you would rather go to daycare than be with me in the classroom?”
I sighed as she massaged my body as well as washed it and I couldn’t deny that it felt nice while I was curious for her answer. “Could I stay with Granny?”
Amanda looked thoughtfully on that, “Maybe… problem is she might want to go see the other grandkids and you might get stuck around Chloe or Cassie… and that’s risky.”
Bella sighed, “Is daycare terrible?” she actually asked me.
I shrugged, “I have no idea Bella, I’ve never been.”
“Oh, right…” she said with a frown. “I guess maybe could I try daycare? And if it doesn’t work maybe you take me to work?”
Amanda sighed, “It’s probably the best option… I’ll try and find a place where you won’t be bullied too much. The university has one for faculty… but since it’s geared towards getting college kids prepared for their new lives once they’ve flunked grown-up life, I’m not sure it would be pleasant.”
“What about the hospital?” I asked just before she dumped a cup full of water to rinse my hair.
I spat out a bit of soapy water that went into my mouth.
Bella giggled at me and I stuck my tongue out at her before preparing for another cup to hit my head.
“It might be better actually… Daddy does have free daycare as a perk with his job. We could try both I guess and see which one you’re more comfortable at. I’ll also research if there’s any others that are better to littles… You won’t need to go until at least next week though no matter what,” Amanda told her. “I might even take off more leave if I need to since my maternity leave allotment started anew Saturday with you.”
She eventually had gotten us both cleaned up and said, “I’d love to have you both stay in the water all day, I know that’s what Stacy wants, but let’s get you dressed and we’ll watch a movie with your Aunt Madison.”
“What about Granny and Grandpa?” Bella asked.
“They had to go home already,” Amanda told her.
“Oh…”
“Granny said she might come back over if she can get ahold of Hannah…”
Amanda’s world was still completely rocked by the new information so I leaned over and hugged her leg. She returned it as Bella said, “Good, I hope she does…”
I got the feeling that Bella had started to bond to Granny that day, as she already seemed pretty attached to her. Learning she wasn’t a completely psychotic little kidnapping monster may have helped her feelings there too. Amanda picked Bella up first, and then me, while wrapping us in towels. She stood both of us on the countertop and handed us toothbrushes with toothpaste on them to brush. I brushed longer than Bella before spitting it out into the sink and rinsing with the cup Amanda offered. She pulled the swim caps off of our heads then and kissed both of us and ran her fingers through our hair. “Let’s go get you girls in your diapees and jammies and we’ll go watch that movie!”
Amanda lifted us both by our rears onto either side of her and carried us to our nursery. She sat me down on the ground and went to diaper Bella first. “Silly girl, couldn’t wait until I could get your diapee on?” She said a moment later.
Bella started sniffling, “I’m sorry… I didn’t even feel it…”
“Shh… it’s okay, it’s what we expect to happen, remember?” Amanda must have slid a pacifier into her mouth as she pulled out the wet towel from under her and replaced it with a diaper. A moment later she was dressed in a pink footed-sleeper with white polka dots and a cute little monkey in a dress peeking out from the side. The monkey had a tiara on and I almost ‘awwed’ out loud myself, but was afraid I’d end up in a matching outfit!
Amanda sat her down on the ground and picked me up to put me on the changing table. The towel I had wrapped around my body was quickly removed and my ankles were in the air as she slid one of the pink princess diapers under my bottom. “Why not my regular Pampers?” I asked her.
“We’re sitting and watching a movie anyway, it’s not like you’re moving around?” She countered, “Besides you did fine earlier?”
I sighed, “I guess…”
She left me buckled on the table for a second and returned with a purple version of Bella’s footed-sleeper. I started to frown, but she tickled me, “I saw that smile when you saw what Bella was wearing. You thought it was just as cute as I do!”
I giggled uncontrollably until she stopped, I sighed, “Okay, yes, it is cute…”
Dressed, she brushed out both of our hair before she gathered us in her arms to go back downstairs and to where some blankets had been placed facing the TV in the living room. “I thought maybe we’d watch a movie in the backyard on the new glass?”
She shook her head, “Not until things calm back down…”
I nodded and smiled as Megan walked in holding a massive bowl of popcorn and two bottles of juice. Soon I found myself in Megan’s lap watching some bizarre version of Mean Girls where a four-foot tall little is somehow made popular at school. She somehow ended up with a bunch of huge Amazonian cheerleaders as her ‘friends.’ Occasionally Megan would bite off the edges of the popcorn kernel and feed me the middle puffy part while we watched… I could remember my mom doing that with me when I was little too… I tried not to think of the germs she was sharing! In the end there was a lot of laughter from Amanda, Megan, Bella, and I… at least until the end of the movie when I felt my blood turn into ice. Instead of being some sort of learning moment of morals at prom, the little is seen jumping into the sweet nerdy girls’ arms, and asks her to be her mommy… Someone gave the nerdy girl a diaper and a moment later the dress was gone and a naked little in only a diaper was shown smiling happily as she was bounced in her new teenage mothers arms as they danced around the prom.
“That was…” I had just said when the TV paused in the credits and showed that someone from Grandpa Joes house was video calling.
Amanda did something and Granny showed up on the screen, “Hi Mandy, what are the girls doing up still?”
“Movie night Mom, remember? We just finished it and I was going to be putting the girls to bed…”
“Oh, that’s right… I guess Bella did have a nap today, Stacy should be exhausted though by now?”
I shrugged, “I’m fine actually…”
She shook her head, “Anyway, I called to let you know I got ahold of Hannah just now. Do you want to video conference with me too, or just with her?”
I looked up at Amanda who was kind of shaking, “With you?”
“I thought so… here, let me get her on too then.”
As she began pushing buttons on her side I stood up and sat down on her lap next to Bella. She trembled as she wrapped us both in a large hug and the face of an older woman came onto the screen. She had gray hair and looked to be in her late forties or fifties, but I knew she had to be around sixty since she was twenty years older than Chloe. She looked surprised for a moment before smiling, “Mandy?”
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My apologies again for the delay in posting of these chapters. Things will be more regular again until I have this completely up on this site. Thanks to those of you who have been reading! Please leave me a comment every couple of chapters just to let me know you're along for the ride! :-)
