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37. Go Out and Play When they got downstairs, Ffrances offered two laughing girls their shoes so they could play in the garden. Gabby got regular canvas shoes, while Tess had to put up with weird translucent plastic things that felt like they would slip off if she moved too much. She shrugged; even if she was still thirteen, she was supposed to be dressing like a little kid. She hadn’t paid attention to her shoes in the photograph, but Ffrances had probably picked something that looked the same. It wasn’t a big deal, and they turned out to be comfortable enough. Ffrances wanted them to pose for the camera first, so she could make a new copy of that photograph that they would all be laughing at later. In fact, Tess and Gabby already couldn’t stop giggling at every little thing, but any photos Ffrances took would allow them to keep a reminder of how much fun they’d had. It wasn’t as easy as they had expected. Ffrances told them to move, and to change their positions, but it just didn’t  look right. They were trying to recreate a photo of them chasing each other, and just standing there didn’t look the same. Even when they stretched out and tried to imagine they were running, it wasn’t the same. Ffrances tried telling them to imagine that they were sisters who were always competing, and although that was funny, it didn’t help to make the scene look real. It just made it easier to keep on laughing, until both of the girls were feeling out of breath. “How about you chase each other around, and I’ll try to get a picture?” That worked a little better, but they both kept stopping to look at the camera, wanting to know when she was taking the picture. So after a few more minutes, Ffrances had another idea. She put a hand on Tess’s shoulder to stop her, and whispered a question while Gabby was still catching her breath. All she needed was a little nod, and then Ffrances was giving instructions again. “Okay, girls! You’re both eleven now, and when you start chasing each other you get so into it that you really want to win, and you don’t notice what else is going on around you.” Tess blushed as she imagined herself being a little smaller. She knew that anyone who saw her would think she was a little kid now, too small to even pretend to be a big girl. When she looked down at herself she saw that she could just have been a toddler, legs like twigs with no curves at all. She’d been expecting Ffrances to just say they were a few months younger, but she didn’t mind too much. It was only a small difference, still, and she could tell herself it wasn’t real if she started caring at all. She couldn’t tell if Gabby had changed, but she was sure it had happened. There was nothing funnier right now than Gabby’s desperate attempts to pretend she was a big girl, not even realising that she was getting smaller too. “My turn!” Tess yelled, and ran straight towards her cousin. Gabby yelped, and turned around too slowly. Tess tackled her and almost knocked her down, which was hilarious to just about everybody except Gabby. “No fair,” she pouted. “You didn’t warn me. And it’s not your turn anyway, I’m chasing you now. I’ll show you, I’m going to be the big one and I already got longer legs, so…” Tess was already running away, looping around a flower bed in the middle of the lawn so that Gabby would have to decide if it was easier to run after her or go the other way. This time the race lasted a little longer, and Tess was determined that she was going to get away. She managed to dodge Gabby’s attempts at pursuit for so long, and laughed a little each time she came within an inch of being able to grab the back of the weird green dress. She’d never imagined that just running in circles could be so much fun. Gabby caught Tess, who pouted and said she was cheating. Then she was running again while Tess chased after her. Ffrances said that she’d got some pictures, and she thought they were good. But the two girls just wanted to keep on playing, never ready to admit that they had lost. Whoever got caught, they were determined that they would be able to catch the other faster. Tess ended up lying in the flower bed, crushing some plants that were probably dead anyway. Cleaning her clothes after this was going to be a big job, but she didn’t need to worry about that now. And her arms were wrapped around Gabby’s leg, so she knew she had won this time and nobody could argue. “Maybe you won this time,” Gabby smirked. “But that’s only because… because you cheated. When you’re the little one you won’t be able to get away with your little legs.” Tess just laughed. Even when she was eleven, she still remembered the rules; and she knew she would be the older one whatever Gabby tried. She thought about saying no; she should have done, because she had only agreed to this when she thought she would be able to stay the age Gabby had been in that old photo. Like the babysitter she remembered. But right now, she was having too much fun to bring it to an end. And another year surely wouldn’t make all that much difference to her. It would be worth it just to see Gabby’s face when she noticed she was tricking herself. “Let’s make it interesting,” Gabby was saying something that might have been teasing, but Tess wasn’t even paying attention. She just dismissed it all as more of the same boasting. Gabby just couldn’t accept how small she was, and that made it even funnier. “Tess, you’re nine now,” she said, and Tess knew those were the words she had to pay attention to. “And you’re really ticklish like a little kid, you can’t stop me tickling you once I catch you. Okay?” Tess nodded slowly as she heard the instruction, and waited until she was sure Gabby had finished before she stopped giving her full attention. Gabby had counted on that, and was already reaching out to grab the edge of the ugly green dress. Tess just about ran away in time, and leapt over the flower bed to the other side. Gabby was already chasing, but she wasn’t quite so fast to turn around. And this time Tess had a real reason to dodge, because she wasn’t looking forward to being tickled. They circled the garden three or four times, but Tess was always ready to leap aside and start running in a different direction before her cousin could tag her. It couldn’t last forever. Tess skidded on the grass, struggling not to crash head first into Ffrances, who was standing there trying to follow the girls with her camera. That delay was all Gabby needed to catch the back of her dress, and pull her down to the ground. Tess tried to fend her off, but her arms weren’t long enough, and there were too many parts she needed to defend. Gabby was tickling her sides, and Tess was laughing more and more now, until it was getting hard to breathe. It was the most fun she’d had in a very long time.

37. My New Power When we got down to the back door, I hesitated for a second. I couldn’t find my shoes. There was a rack next to the door, but they all looked way too smart for running around the park with a soon-to-be-little kid. But Ffrances came to the rescue. I didn’t see where she managed to find a pair of black Converse, but I was sure they hadn’t been anywhere I could see them. I put my shoes on, and then turned to Tess. She had bright pink Crocs, so she didn’t need to lace them up and was already waiting for me. She was also laughing, like she had seen something I missed. I looked down at myself again, and then back at her. I didn’t think I’d changed, and nothing else in the room seemed at all unusual. Tess was wearing kids’ clothes, so it would have made sense if I just kept on laughing. In fact, it was hard not to. But I hadn’t changed at all; Ffrances might have picked out the clothes for me, but she’d given me jeans and a tee that showed off my style pretty well, and I didn’t think anyone walking past would think I was a sheep. Or a baby, like my cousin. If she told me to be younger, I might have to think about it so I would know how to play along, but she certainly hadn’t said it yet. This trick was even easier than I had expected. “What’s funny?” I asked, and then went right back to giggling over what I was going to show her today. I had to start slowly, but I knew I’d be the one laughing when she was just a little kid again. I opened the door and stepped outside, and then wondered why we were going out the back way. It seemed a bit weird, because I was sure the front door was closer to the park. “Come on, girls,” Ffrances ushered Tess outside, and then closed the door behind her. “Now, we’re going to be playing a lot. And I want you both to have fun. But I have to set some rules. Do you understand? No going outside the garden, I don’t want anything unusual happening in front of other people.” I could understand that, anyway. I could get in so much trouble if somebody saw me teasing Tess. Here there was nobody who would see anything; the windows overlooking the garden were all on our house, except for Mrs Hogarth’s attic next door, and the view from that direction was surely blocked by the evergreens that stretched higher than the roof now. It was a perfect safe space to try out the magic words on Tess. “You ready to be my little sister now?” I asked her, and stuck out my tongue. It seemed the perfect way to show her that I was going to be in charge today; just a little childishness. Just enough to make sure that Ffrances didn’t know I hadn’t really been hypnotised. “We can be sisters?” she said, and she seemed to be just as amused as I was. “Better than calling you cousin all the time. Like we live together, so it’s like we’re sisters anyway, right? Cousins sounds like you have to come visit each other.” “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Or my head was still full of one of my fantasies, one of the stories I’d been reading at school yesterday about a bully being turned back into a baby by her sister. I could so imagine myself doing that to Tess, it would be incredible. And now I had the chance, it was hard to get it out of my mind. “Just a minute,” Ffrances interrupted, but she was still smiling. “I want to see if we can take that picture again. Right? Let’s get that done, before you wear yourselves out with whatever games your little hearts can come up with.” “I’m not little,” Tess protested, but she was still laughing about it. “She’s the little one.” “You’re going to be!” I answered, and we were talking over each other for a few seconds. But I knew we still had to do what Ffrances said. My teasing of the baby would have to wait. Ffrances told us where to stand, and pointed her phone. She took a couple of pictures, and then asked us to move our arms around, and tried again. But she wasn’t happy with the results. After a while I was getting tired of posing, but then she seemed to have another idea. “Okay, you’re chasing each other in the old picture,” she said. “So maybe you’d better try running around again. You can be excited, can’t you, and moving? That might work better.” She started out telling us where to go, and then gave us a little more freedom. We ran around in circles, with me trying to catch Tess and then her loping awkwardly after me. It was easy to laugh when I saw her, dressed up in clothes that were really too small for her, and looked like something a little kid would wear. But that was the point today, to have her dressed up like a toddler, and she was having so much fun I don’t think she minded. It wasn’t long before Ffrances realised that the baby needed to be a bit more excited; so she could just throw herself into the game and stop looking around to see where the camera was. So she told us both that we were eleven now, and to get totally absorbed in the game whenever they started playing. I blushed as I realised that this was nearly it. She still hadn’t noticed that I missed the hypnosis. Every time she said something like that, Tess was getting a bit younger while I just stayed the same. And now that Tess was seeing herself as being eleven, I knew that the next time she would have to be younger than me. But right now she was running away, trying to prove that she was faster. I set off running, and straight away she was changing direction. We had a big garden, with a big lawn and a couple of trees to dodge around, but I was sure that I could catch her soon enough. She dodged, I weaved, trying not to leave a gap where she could run past me. I slipped once as I tried to turn too fast, but I was back on my feet right away and almost ready to catch Tess. I caught her, and Ffrances told me well done. And then it was Tess’s turn to chase me. It was a simple game, but a lot of fun, and before long I’d completely forgotten that we were supposed to be posing for photographs. The next time I let her catch me, I knew that I had a chance. I wanted to be older than my cousin, but I was only allowed to use the magic words when they were fun. And we were having so much fun that Ffrances probably wouldn’t make her any littler, so I had to do it myself. “Hey Tess,” I grinned, “Really think you can get away from me with your little legs?” “Yeah, it’s my turn!” “Then why don’t we make it more fun? Have something to play for.” Ffrances was watching. I could feel without looking that she’d turned in my direction. But I carried on, sure that we were allowed to play. Wasn’t that the whole point? And Tess was nodding, so there was nothing the grown-up could tell us off for. “Tess, you’re nine now, and you’re really ticklish like a little kid, you can’t stop me tickling you once I catch you. Okay?” She thought about it for a second, and I could see her blushing. But she didn’t want to admit that I was faster than her. And then she answered: “But then I get to chase you too!” Before I could react she’d jumped up and sprinted away towards the hedge, and the only thing on my mind was showing her how small she really was.

A chronic bedwetter. At least I could wear diapers/pull ups during the night. Wearing them full time and having to wear to school not ideal. Although I would wear all the time during summer vacation and other school breaks. 

I got myself an Abu Little Paws with around two boosters for the early morning. Its quite crinkly, squishy, and in need of a change at the moment.

You certainly have my attention.