2011

Back today with chapters 9 and 10! --- “Hey, Charlie?”   Charlie didn’t immediately answer, she was pretty consumed with searching for the ectoplasm, but after a few seconds, she did look back at Zoe.   “Yeah? Did you find it?” She asked.   “Oh, uh, no, sorry,” Zoe said. “I just wanted to ask you something, if that’s okay?”   “Yeah, sure. Go ahead,” Charlie said and went back to searching. Zoe hesitated for a second, then did the same, asking her question while she looked.   “What exactly are you and Alma doing here?” She asked.   “I look for Supernatural Sweets. They’re magic sweets that can do all kinds of stuff for the people who eat them - like, the one we’re looking for right now is the Treat Truffle, it’s supposed to give really good luck,” she said with a little sigh at the end, clearly not feeling the luck at this very moment. Normally, Charlie would be happy to launch into a much more exited, voluminous description about all the incredible things she’d seen Supernatural Sweets accomplish, but she was fairly preoccupied right now. “So I go around searching for info on them and ways to make them and Alma is like, my assistant-slash-partner-slash-bodyguard? She’s doing it as part of her witch training.”   “Oh…” Zoe thought for a second. “So you travel all over the place looking for magic stuff? That must be exciting. And scary.”   “It is,” Charlie said with a nod, but, a smile came to her face. “It’s both. It’s a lot of fun, too. Some parts of it are, uh, obviously more fun than others,” she said, letting out a wry laugh and gesturing to herself. Zoe gave a small, sympathetic smile. She saw the irony, but it didn’t feel that funny to either of them at the moment. “So what about you? What’s your story, how’d you end up here?”   “Uh, well.” Zoe started. She cleared her throat. “I left home to go to school. It was my first time out on my own. My friends and I didn’t like big parties and, well, we usually couldn’t get invited anyway. So, we would find places nobody would bug us to go instead. We thought this would be a funny place to do it. One of my friends kept talking about how ironic and post-modern it would be to party in an abandoned daycare. So, we partied here, and the girls caught us…uhm.” She grimaced. “Really easily, cause we’d spent all night drinking and smoking pot,” she said, sounding a little embarrassed. “Like, I don’t think you understand how much you guys are making them work, it’s so much easier for them usually.” At that, she did let out a genuinely mirthful little laugh, if a self-deprecating one.   “Then, um. Obviously, Ida enrolled all of us after that. She let my friends go one by one over the next few months, but.” She shrugged. “The ghosts like me and they don’t wanna let me go.”   “You mentioned it was going ‘slow’ before,” Charlie recalled. “But. I dunno. I’ve seen the ‘keep you and baby you forever’ thing before and after talkin’ to her a couple times, I really don’t get that vibe off of Ida.”   “You’ve — you’ve seen that before?” Zoe asked, a little nervously.   “Uh. Lemme put it this way,” Charlie said. “If you ever see a lady with horns and a tail, don’t walk, RUN, in the opposite direction.” Zoe blinked a few times. She wasn’t sure what to do what that knowledge, but it made her feel a bit uneasy.   “Um. Anyway. I mean, you’re probably right. Ida’s not really like that. She’s really nice, actually. But I guess I haven’t really pushed for it as hard as I could’ve or as hard as my friends did,” she admitted. Then, she let out a sigh and shrugged her shoulders. “But at this point, it doesn’t really matter. The other ghosts — the girls. They have…levers, that they can use on me.”   “What’s that mean?” Charlie raised an eyebrow, briefly stopping her search. Zoe just waved a hand and kinda laughed it off.   “It’s fine, I guess. I was never that sure I was really meant for the whole ‘grown-up’ life anyway.” She looked around. “Living with Ida and the ghosts, I know where I stand, at least.” Charlie stared at her, an unhappy grimace on her face. It was clear she wasn’t happy with that, but she also didn’t know how to press on it at the moment. She still had a lot of other stuff to worry about if she was gonna even save herself and Alma, who didn’t want to be here. She couldn’t begin to see a window to how she was gonna help Zoe, who seemed pretty convinced that this was just her lot in life.   Either way, Zoe seemed to sense the discomfort and quickly changed the subject.   “So, I guess this is probably the worst time you’ve ever had looking for one of these sweets, huh?” She asked. Charlie paused for a second to think about it, but didn’t seem to need more than that.   “I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “This ain’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this kind of situation. So far, things aren’t totally out of control, at least.”   “So, you don’t regret coming here?” Zoe asked, sounding a little confused.   “I regret letting Alma get captured.” Charlie sighed. “That part really, really sucks, I feel like a total bozo for letting that happen to her. I really gotta fix that. But, besides that? No, I don’t really regret it.” She looked at Zoe. Maybe she suddenly had that window she needed. “That’s life, Zoe. You get into trouble and you get out of it. You can mess up and fall behind and stumble and suck at stuff as much as you want. There’s just two important things y’gotta do.” She held up two fingers. “Y’always get back up, and y’always make sure y’learn somethin’ from it.” A smile tried to tug at her lips. “If that makes any sense. I dunno. I’m just ramblin’.”   Zoe looked Charlie in the eye for a moment, but, she swallowed and looked down.   “M-maybe,” she said, as noncommittal as possible, but Charlie let out a sigh. She could tell when words bounced off of someone who wasn’t ready to hear them. “So, uh. You said you think you can break the hypnosis on Alma?” She asked, quickly changing the subject again. “How’re you planning to do that?” Not seeing any point in pressing Zoe further, Charlie just answered.   “Well. We’re gonna make something called Forget-Me-Knot spice. Normally, the knot is a whole thing, it’s kinda like a garlic knot? But instead of garlic, you use — whatever. Not the point.” She waved a hand. “We’re just gonna make the spice. It like. It helps you remember stuff that your brain knows it should remember. It’s used as a memory aid, usually, but in a pinch, it’s really good at breaking certain kinds of hypnosis, since all the popular, sexy kinds’a hypnosis tend to target the memory center of the brain somehow,” Charlie explained, tapping her head a few times.   “Wow…” Zoe murmured. She was impressed. Charlie smiled, she tended to have that effect on people. Her exuberant and headstrong nature (which Charlie freely admitted got her into more trouble than not) usually meant people were surprised when she actually knew some stuff. “And that’ll work? And we can make it here?”   “If we can get it close enough to Alma, it should work. It’d be great if just the scent was enough, but, it’ll definitely work if she tastes it. And we can make it here, we just need a bit more ectoplasm for the enchantment…” She grinned. “And some ginger. That gives it the zing!” That got a giggle out of Zoe.   “I think Ida keeps the ginger on the top shelf. Maybe there’ll be some more ectoplasm there, too? Here, I’ll get…” She murmured and walked over to the kitchen table, grabbing a chair out from under it and dragging it across the floor over to the cupboards. “A chair! You can stand on this!” Charlie squinted at the chair in suspicion. She waved Zoe away from the chair, raised up her stun baton and gave the chair a jab. It rattled back and forth a bit, the way an old chair was wont to do, but otherwise remained a chair.   “Had to be sure,” Charlie said, clearing her throat.   “I understand.” Zoe nodded. She then held the chair steady while Charlie climbed on top of it. She rooted through the cupboards for a moment.   “Bingo!” Charlie grinned. “There’s the last of the ectoplasm I need…” She said, sweeping up the translucent ghostly matter with her hand. “And there’s the ginger! Ha, it’s even fresh!” She said as she grabbed the jar of ginger and twisted the top off. “Is Ida going on grocery runs or something?” Zoe blinked.   “…honestly, I never thought about it. But I guess she must be?” Zoe said. “She makes real food, like, not just for me. The girls don’t need to eat, but she still makes food for them every day, so she must be getting it from somewhere.”   “Eheheh, that’s funny!” Charlie said, feeling considerably more cheerful now that she was a bit more hopeful about their situation. “Maybe we’ll ask her about it after we get outta here,” she said as she mixed the ectoplasm into the ginger jar and shook it up a bit. “Meanwhile, this is probably the jankiest batch of this stuff ever made, but I think…it should work. Do I got any pockets here? Ah, whatever,” She muttered and shoved the small spice jar into her bloomers only a little haphazardly.   “Alright, we got the spice, now all we gotta do is find Alma and use it on her. Easy,” Charlie said with a sigh. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that last part. “Hey, Zoe, I’m not gonna ask y’to do anything you’re not comfortable with. If you could just gimme an idea where you think she might be, I’d really appreciate it, but seriously. Don’t do anything that’s gonna cause trouble for yourself, I got me and Alma into this, I’ll get us out.”   Another few seconds went by with no response. Charlie swallowed. Somewhere while she was talking, she realized that Zoe’s hands weren’t steadying the chair anymore.   “You know y’don’t have to do this.”   She turned her head and looked back down Zoe had grabbed a second chair and moved it next to the first one. Charlie was pretty sure she saw tears forming in the girl’s eyes.   “I really wish that was true,” she said. She sniffled once. Then she grabbed Charlie’s leg and pulled it out from under her.   Charlie fell over and roughly landed in the second chair. A pink puff of smoke surrounded her as the chair changed shape. A tray slammed shut over her arms, trapping them against her torso and a strap came up and buckled her into the seat. The strap rode up pretty hard between her legs, squeezing her diaper’s padding against her.   For the second time that night, she was being strapped into a piece of furniture that had been disguised as something else. This time, she was locked into a high chair.   —   “Hhh!”   Alma forced herself to quiet her breathing as she ducked into an empty room and flattened herself against the wall behind the door. She brought her hands together.   ‘Really wish I had my bat!’ She complained to herself as she wove the fingers on her left hand around the knuckles on her right hand repeatedly. Then, she did the same from the opposite side, weaving the right hand around the left. She knocked her fists together a couple of times and stared at the door. She waited, sweat building on her brow for that figure to come through the door.   “Has anybody seen Alma in here?”   Instead, Ida poked her head through the wall next to Alma.   “Gaaaah!” Alma screamed. She immediately swung at the side of Ida’s head. The force spell she’d woven around her hand shot off of her and knocked Ida backwards.   “Whooof! Well, that’s a stiff hello!” Ida said, raising her hands up and adjusting her hair.   “HRAAAAAAAH!” Alma roared, pulling her other hand back and swinging it as hard as she could. This force push came off of her hand stronger and hit harder, landing right in the ghost nanny’s chest and stomach.   “Oooourrfff!” Ida groaned out as she tried to brace herself. She wasn’t kidding that time, that one had really stung. She let out a little cough into her hand. Alma was already fleeing back out the door.   “Okay. Alma likes to play rough! Hehe, that’s fine…!” Ida said to herself as she rubbed her stomach. “Nana likes rough girls too, sweetie!” She said as she finished catching her non-existent breath and floated after her.   ‘Crap, crap crap, ew ew ew, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!’ Alma’s eyes were wide and buggy as she looked for anything that could give her any kind of edge against Alma. She’d spent how much of her life training for something like this? A fight against a formidable supernatural opponent? But only now did she understand how bad of a number those ghost girls and Zoe had done on her. She could barely even remember the spells she knew because her head was still half-fogged up. She also really could not overstress, when she had imagined this scenario in her head all those times while she was training to become a witch, none of those hypothetical climactic battles involved her running around with a load of her own mess hugging her butt and squishing against her every single step she took. It really didn’t help her feel like she had any sort of a handle on the situation.   She turned a corner, briefly getting her out of Ida’s line of sight. She looked around. Hiding in the rooms wasn’t working. She could hide in the closet again, but if Ida found her in there, she’d be trapped. She looked in every direction, wracking her head, trying to think of something.   “…oh!”   She put her hands together and started muttering an incantation.   Ida rubbed her chin as she floated down the hallway. She then went backwards a few feet. She crossed her arms and tilted her head, confused.   “Now, I know I saw you go around this corner, sweetie,” Ida huffed. “But you’re not here…” She went halfway into a wall to check a room. “I don’t think you’re here.” She opened up a closet door. “Did you double back somehow and I missed you?” She let out an amused little noise. “Listen to me. I’ve lived here since before this daycare was even built and you’ve got me all turned around! You’re so clever, little Alma.” She sounded genuinely impressed as she floated away.   And up on the ceiling, Alma really wanted to let out a breath of relief, but she kept her mouth shut.   It wasn’t too complicated. Gravity reversal to put her on the ceiling. Camouflage to make her blend in with ceiling. Less effective than invisibility, but much cheaper and easier, plus with how dark the daycare was, not that big of a difference. Alma wanted to feel a little proud of herself, that she’d tricked such a powerful ghost in its own territory, but this just solved the immediate problem, not any of her other ones. Ida was still looking for her and Alma still had no idea where Charlie was. She winced.   ‘Ugh, do I just run? Do I just drop and bolt for the exit or jump out a window or something? I can’t just ditch Charlie, though, my whole job is to protect her! But at least if I leave for a few hours, I can get changed and clear my head and come back more prepared.’ She knocked her own head a couple times, then she shook her head emphatically.   “No. No. I’m not leaving without Charlie. Not an option,” she muttered just to herself.   “Awww. That’s very sweet, Alma.”   Alma gasped. That was all she had time to do before a pair of arms swooped out of the ceiling and wrapped around her.   “Gotchaaaaa~~”   Alma groaned as the ghost nanny raised a hand up to boop her on the nose, then quickly went back to holding her close with both arms. Alma struggled for a second, but quickly realized there was no dice in that. Ida’s arms were huge and her grip was very firm, easily keeping Alma’s hands at her sides. No more spellcasting gestures. Alma was also positive if she tried an incantation, she’d get a pacifier in her mouth before she got the second syllable out.   “Were you pretending that I tricked you?!” Alma asked incredulously. “That’s more insulting than if you’d just caught me!”   “Not in the strictest sense!” Ida said defensively. “You really did have me turned around and I really was impressed! I promise!” Her semi-wounded look quickly faded to a smile. “But then I just took a couple sniffs of the air,” she giggled. Alma groaned as a hand reached down and palmed her seat, shifting the mess around some more. “You almost got away, but your stinky pampers made you easy to find, sweetie.”   “Stooop….” Alma groaned. The knowledge that it was the messy diaper the ghost nanny was currently kneading back and forth that gave her away did not help her feel any less patronized, for the record.   “I’m sorry, sweetie, it’s just very funny how you’re so determined to keep nana from changing your diaper.” She let out another giggle as she tucked Alma onto her hip, floating away from the ceiling, towards one of the rooms. “You act like such a big girl, but really, it’s okay if you like staying in a poopy diaper for a while, nana doesn’t mind!”   “THAT’S NOT WHY,” Alma snapped. She managed to pull one of her arms out of Ida’s grip. Again, she knew that she’d immediately be stopped if she tried to cast a spell, so she just pointed. “It’s ‘cause of the stuff those little twerps did to my head! So, trust me, as much as I really hate how awful this thing feels, don’t mess with it unless you’re gonna give me back my real underwear and my real clothes!”   “Hmmm, well that is a bit more complicated, isn’t it?” Ida tapped her chin. She had carried Alma into another room - this one wasn’t as empty as some of the others and looked like it was actually used sometimes, maybe as a smaller playroom. There was a changing table over in the corner, but Ida didn’t take Alma to it yet. “Nana doesn’t like to take sides when her little ones are playing a game…”   “Then don’t. Just lemme go!” Alma insisted.   “Buuuut.” Ida trailed her finger through the air. “I’d also be taking a side if I did that. And it is Nana’s job to change any poopy diaper she finds.” She looked genuinely unsure what to do. Until a little smirk came to her face. “Unless….”   “U-Unless?” Alma asked.   “Well, nana has to clean your poopy butt eventually,” she said. “But if you wanted to play for a bit first, I suppose that would be alright.”   Alma heaved a sigh. That was how “nana” wanted to “avoid taking sides” she guessed. She knew she’d be refreshing the hypnosis when she changed Alma, but she’d wait a bit longer before she did it, giving Alma time to think of a way to slip away again or at the very least, forestalling the worst case scenario a bit.   “Can’t we just wait, without ‘playing’ anything?” She asked.   “Nope!” Ida said with a giggle. “Nana would prefer it if you said ‘Please, nana, can I play in my poopy diaper for a bit longer before you change me?’” Alma felt like she might throw up right there.   “I’m not doin’ that,” she said flatly and Ida actually recoiled a bit.   “Fair enough, sweetie. Nana.” She cleared her throat and tugged her collar. “Nana may have overplayed her hand a bit there. Shall we just get started, then?” Alma kept glowering at her for a few seconds, then nodded. “Okay! We can play right here, how about…this one!” She said and turned so Alma was facing a bouncer seat that was hanging from the ceiling.   “Nnnnuh uh. Nope!” Alma shook her head. Ida giggled. She floated over to a rocking chair.   “How about we just sit here, then?” She asked, settling herself into the chair. It looked too small for Ida’s large body but once her ghostly form touched it, it expanded in an instant, becoming a comfortable fit for Ida and very big for Alma. Alma blinked a couple times, seeing she was suddenly higher up from the ground than she thought she should be. She looked up at Ida. Her brows knit in confusion. For the first time since she came here, she cared about something other then escaping or getting Charlie’s stupid chocolate truffle.   “Are you a — were you a.” She shook her head. “Are you a witch?”   “Hmmmm.” Ida leaned back and the chair started to rock back and forth. “I’ve been a lot of things. But right now, I believe I’m just a silly little ghost nanny.” Her arms shifted, pulling Alma a little closer.   “Mmph.” Alma initially fidgeted, but, she quickly ascertained this was better than going in this bouncer, so she just let it happen.   “Do you want to know more about me, Alma?” She asked. “If you wind up having to stay here, will you still want to? If you leave, will you still want to?”   Alma thought about not answering, but she figured the longer they talked, the longer this would go and the longer she’d have to think of a plan to slip away before Ida could change her diaper.   “I…I dunno. It’s just. You’re really strong, and you clearly can do some stuff that I think is beyond just being a ghost. I thought it was weird that the little ones could do things too, but. If a being that’s mostly just made up of energy like a ghost spends all of its time with a witch, then. Eventually, they’ll pick up some magic just, like, by osmosis.” She looked up. “Plus, I just. I thought I recognized your jewelry?”   “You think it’s a witch’s jewelry?” Ida asked. One of her hands started rubbing Alma’s back, up and down.   “Not exactly, but. Kinda? If it’s what I’m thinking of. It’s kind of similar.” She initially leaned away from the touch, but after a second, she stopped, so Ida kept doing it. “I dunno! Can you just answer?”   “Well. I can say you’re clearly a very smart, very studious, very observant girl,” Ida said to her. “Being a witch is very important to you, isn’t it? Would you feel a greater connection to me if you found out I am or was one?”   “Well…I dunno! That’s kind of a lot to figure out in this situation, isn’t it?” Alma asked. “Right now, I just don’t wanna be trapped here for six months or a year, or whatever!”   “That’s why I’m asking, sweetie,” Ida said softly. “If you find out, will the answer influence your decision to escape or not? If you do escape, will the answer influence your decision to come back? If you stay here, will it influence how hard you try to leave?” She let out a little sigh. At the same time as the sigh, Alma felt a little pulse of warmth engulf her. Alma was suddenly aware that she was leaning into Ida’s body pretty heavily and those arms were wrapped around her other side.   She was…very soft.   “You just said you want to leave. I just don’t want to tell you something that may affect that decision before you’re ready.”   Alma sucked in a breath and swallowed it.   “Charlie was right about you, huh.” Ida softly laughed at that.   “Perhaps. She’s a perceptive girl, too. Whatever she said about me, I hope it was nice,” Ida said. She rocked back and forth, cradling Alma against her body for a few moments. Alma didn’t say anything. She really didn’t know what to think of Ida right now, whether she was an enemy, an ally, or something else entirely, but for the moment at least, it seemed like it was fine to just. Stay like this.   Then Alma felt herself being lifted up. Then, she was sat back down on Ida’s body. The seat of her diaper pressed against Ida’s body, which gave for a second, before pressing back on Alma’s padding and squishing it against her.   “Ahh….” Alma winced out. “H-hey, that’s not—!”   “Up,” Ida said simply. Without removing Alma from the embrace, she gently guided her up, then set her down again, flattening Alma’s diaper against her again and getting another wince out of Alma.   “C-C’mon, we don’t gotta do this,” Alma pleaded.   “It’s okay. Trust nana, just for a moment. This won’t have to count against anything else. Nobody else has to know,” she said. “This is just for us.” As she did, she released another pulse of warmth. Alma took in a breath when she felt it wrap around her like a blanket. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes and unfortunately, yes, even her messy, sludgey, diapered butt. She just felt warm and comforted all over. “Up,” she said simply. This time she didn’t bring Alma up herself. It was a request, one Alma wasn’t following yet.   “Y…you promise?” Alma asked.   “Promise,” Ida said back.   Alma swallowed. Then she set her head against Ida’s shoulder… …and she pushed herself up.   Ida guided her back down. This time when her bottom bounced on the ghost nanny’s body, it briefly glowed orange as another, stronger pulse of warmth came out. Alma let out a little noise at this one. Her toes wriggled a bit in her silly little white booties as she stretched out, then withdrew again.   “Again?” Ida asked. It took a minute, but Alma let out a huff.   ‘It’s just to take up more time. That’s all.’   That was what she told herself as she nodded and pushed herself up again.   They continued on like that, a pattern quickly establishing itself. Alma bounced up and down on Ida (it would’ve been something roughly equivalent to her knee, but, well, Ida didn’t have legs). Ida’s body flashed a soft orange color every few seconds, like a firefly. Alma was squished and bounced and smushed in her mess repeatedly, but after a while, it stopped feeling like she was stuck in a gross, uncomfortable, stinky mess. After a while, all she noticed was the warmth.   Eventually, Alma stopped bouncing. Not out of a desire to stop, but because she was a little out of breath. She went back to resting against Ida, sweat gathering on her forehead from a mix of the warmth and the exertion and Ida was happy to just rock back and forth with her for a bit. Alma wasn’t sure how long she bounced for and she wasn’t sure how long they rocked for after that. On some level, she knew it wasn’t good to let her guard down like this, but…that didn’t change the fact that her guard was down.   She let out a little noise as she was lifted up. Ida was getting out of the chair. A moment later, she was let out of the warm embrace and laid down on a soft, flat surface instead. She blinked a couple times, just staring up at Ida’s smiling face as she felt a tearing noise.   She winced when she suddenly felt a cold sensation. She saw Ida chuckle fondly. The cold sensation was gone a second later, replaced by a warm one. She realized she felt something else over the next couple minutes. That sludgey, uncomfortable feeling that she’d reached a sense of equilibrium with was going away. It was being replaced by a feeling of being… …   …clean.   ‘Oh, crap.’   “Wait!” Snapping back to reality, she tried to sit up. Ida gently caught her and laid her back down.   “Ida, you don’t have to!” She insisted. Ida let out a sigh and stopped wiping Alma’s bottom. Alma saw her look off into the middle distance, saw the grimace appear on her face. For all of a second, Alma thought she’d successfully convinced her.   But that second passed and the conflicted grimace was replaced once again by the confident, congenial, slightly patronizing smile of the daycare’s nanny.   “Sorry, sweetie,” she cooed. “But nana has to follow the rules! And that means changing every little one’s poopy diaper!” She said and went back to cleaning Alma, finishing wiping her up. Before Alma could object, she’d gotten a new diaper and slid it under her bottom. Next came a generous helping of powder on Alma and into the diaper itself.   “I…I…” Alma didn’t know what to say. She had a bunch of thoughts in her head, a lot of them in conflict with each other, plus unfortunately an even more burning curiosity to know who Ida was, plus, even more unfortunately than that, a realization that her time was up and she hadn’t come up with a plan to escape because she was too busy cuddling with the ghost nanny. Between the remnants of the ghost girls’ hypnosis and the warmth still working its way through her system, Alma’s head was feeling pretty cottony and she didn’t have the capability to parse all of these thoughts out from each other and either way, she didn’t have the time. Ida was diapering her right now. She was a handful of seconds away from going back under the hypnosis.   Alma bit her lip. She wanted to say something. But she needed to think of it quick. She took in a breath and forced herself to decide. She wasn’t sure if things had changed or not. But, there was one thing she was still pretty certain of.   “Ida.” She bit her lip. Then she looked the nanny in the eyes. “I’m gonna escape from this place. I swear! ‘Cause I’m a witch!”   Ida hesitated for a moment. Then, the slightly put-on slightly patronizing smile of the nanny doting on her little ones vanished, just for a second, replaced by a different kind of smile. Alma wasn’t sure what it was. But she knew it was different.   “Then I suppose I’ll talk to you again soon, my witch,” she said, inclining her head.   Then, the front of the diaper came up, the padding settling neatly between Alma’s legs. The tapes went on, first one, then the other. Ida gave the finished padding a pat, sending a small puff of powder out of one of the leg guards.   “There we are! Feel better, Alma?” She asked. Alma blinked a couple times and looked around.   “I - I think so,” she said. She seemingly only just then realized she was laying on a table, getting her diaper changed. She let out a grunt and sat up, grabbing for her bloomers to pull them up.   “Here, let me, sweetie,” the nanny said, taking Alma’s bloomers in her hands and pulling them up until they softly nestled the girl’s diaper once again. Alma let out a sigh, but wiggled a bit in her bloomers. The clean padding felt nice, at least.   “Hey! Hey, she’s right here! Lemon, she’s here!”   Licorice floated into the room through the wall, pulling Lemon along with her. The scene didn’t leave much to the imagination. Alma and Ida at a changing table. Two diapers, one messy and balled up, hanging between two of Ida’s fingers. A clean one, freshly taped onto Alma. Licorice put two and two together quickly and let out a sigh of relief, her entire body relaxing and floating to the ground at once.   “Thanks, Ida,” Licorice said.   “For what, dear?” Ida asked. Licorice gave her a look and puffed her cheeks out.   “Uh huh,” she said back, not buying Ida’s faux-ignorance for a second, but not willing to push on it either. Instead, she floated back up to Alma. “Hehe, so you just got changed, huh?” Alma looked off, blushing a bit.   “Y-yeah. I guess so,” she said as she turned herself around and went to hop off the table. Ida caught her and very lightly and gently set her on the ground instead.   “Heheh! That means you wandered off and pooped your pants!” Licorice said, poking Alma’s stomach a few times, teasingly.   “Stooop!” Alma whined, swatting at her. “Ugh! It’s not like you don’t do it too! How long’s it been since you had to get changed out of a messy diaper?!” She asked, which did seem to disarm Licorice. She looked up at Ida, who put her hands on her hips, clearly willing to fact-check the next words out of Licorice’s mouth.   “Like. Two and a half hours,” Licorice admitted, and suddenly seemed very uninterested in making fun of the state of anybody’s diapers anymore. “Anyway! You shouldn’t have wandered off, silly! We have to get ready for your party, don’t you remember? C’mon!” She said and took Alma’s wrist.   “O-okay!” Alma agreed, but before she left with Licorice, she looked up at Ida. “Uhm. Thanks, Ida,” she said quickly. Licorice huffed and let go of Alma, vanishing through the wall. Ida smiled down at her.   “Did you like bouncy-time, Alma?” She asked. Alma blinked a couple times, her eyes fogging over, then squinting as if she was trying to recall something. After a few seconds, she looked at Ida again, then looked away, a blush appearing on her face. She twisted her foot on the ground a couple times.   “Mmn.” She gave a little nod. Ida leaned down and patted her head a couple times.   “We can do it again later,” she said. “Promise.” Then, Ida looked up at the wall and chuckled as Licorice returned. “Oh. I believe your ride has arrived.”   “Oh - ah, Licorice, is that really.” She sighed. “Do I gotta?” Alma asked.   “Of course you do!” Licorice said, holding the handles of the stroller she’d just rolled in. “It’s your party! You gotta arrive in style!”   “I can just walk, though!”   “No walk!” Licorice insisted. “Style! Elegance! You have to arrive like a star!” Alma let out a huff. She wasn’t really buying it, but she also knew Licorice wasn’t gonna let it drop. So she gave a little nod. But before she could take a step towards it, Ida’s hands came up under her arms.   “Let nana handle that,” she said softly. Alma blushed a little harder, but ultimately nodded. Ida set her down in the seat of the stroller and hummed to herself as she pulled up the buckles, clicking them all together over Alma’s chest in a five-point harness. “There you go, sweetie. Have fun at your party!” She said with a wave.   “Y…yeah," Alma said. Licorice grinned and turned the stroller around, pushing her out the door.

But he won.  Of a sort.  

I saw some stuff show up as early as August!  It showed up in droves in September.  

I'm in the Anderson area!

It's the cookies and social media "trackers" ...  Look at the raw source of any web page and they're everywhere.    Doesn't matter what page you're on, there's likely a facebook or twitt... um... X tracker in there.  So next visit to one of those sites, suddenly you're seeing ads from that company.