Okay, I admit it, I was thinking of Miss Lilly’s mother. After Sophie said no, I considered Miss Mackenzie—on the condition that Beth was standing at a strange angle, so Miss Mackenzie didn’t recognize her at first glance.
Otherwise, in this chapter, Sophie left room for another subplot. Catalonia and Honshu are the two worst places for little in the entire diaper dimension, and at the same time, it’s always been true that people living in diasporas feel the need to fanatically adhere to the traditions of their country of origin—especially those considered barbaric in their new country (in this case, the extremely cruel treatment of little ones; and even though the state of Ames isn’t exactly a prize, compared to Catalon, it’s literally a billion-dollar jackpot).
And now here we have a restaurant serving Catalan food where they treat the Littles decently. The only explanation I can think of is that the owner, along with his wife and their Littles, fled Catalon because they were threatened with having their Littles taken away from their care due to treating them too gently.
The escape from Catalonia, the extremely hostile reactions of other people from Catalonia to the decent treatment of the little ones in this restaurant, and the possible attempt by the Catalan equivalent of the LPS to kidnap their Littles back to Catalonia (how many times in our world have Iranian agents already tried to eliminate the fugitive Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad in the US—this will simply be something similar).
That was certainly a very suspenseful story.
Sofie likes side stories; when she gets into them, a new novella emerges.
I’m leaving a cookie under the chapter.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)