The New Narnia- Chapter 42: No Way Out of It

Chapter 42:  No Way Out of It

Tommy literally couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  What in Heaven, Hell, and Malacus was going on?  He’d heard the clock last night, but he’d ignored it. He’d resisted temptation.  He’d won...sort of.  Okay, so many he hadn’t ‘won’ won, but he hadn’t given in.  The disease wasn’t spreading, so to speak.

He wasn’t getting any smaller.  He was maintaining his independence.  (Not the best argument to make maybe, since Mommy was popping bits of butter-and-syrup-drenched-Eggo into his mouth).  At least he was in Pull-Ups!  Pull-Ups that weren’t quiiiite diapers.  A toddler bed that wasn’t quite a crib.  A dresser that he wished was a changing table...he might feel cute in a onesie actually…  At least he was small enough for a car seat...maybe he was little enough to have a stroller.

THIS WASN’T ABOUT Tommy!

It was about Katy.

Katy shouldn’t be that short.  She shouldn’t be in thick training panties!  And bus?  Wasn’t she driving now that Mommy could afford a car? Katie wasn’t an air head little girl who bopped along with her hair in pigtails.  Katy was Tommy’s big sister!   

Except she wasn’t.

Katy was his twin.  The one person who was so different from him, but so much the same.  The level head among his daydreaming and self-pity.  The person who suffered with him; sometimes less, sometimes more, but she’d always been beside him.

Self-involved with his own strange things, Tommy hadn’t been completely blind to Katy’s situation.  As the magic of Malacus warped everything around him, things had improved for everyone around him. Mom had a job.  The family had a house.  Katy had a boyfriend.

And all Tommy had to do was kinda sorta consign himself to being an eighteen year old going on three.  Amanda was never going to return those feelings for him.  Mom literally needed magic to light enough of a fire inside her so that she’d act like a mother.  And out of the two of them, Katy always seemed like she had the brighter future.  She had almost all of the same disadvantages as Tommy, what with being poor and in a shitty situation, but she was always better with people.  She actually had friends; friends who were getting closer and closer to her now that Tommy wasn’t around to embarrass her anymore.  

Good deal.  Very good deal. Worth it.  Totally worth it.  It made Tommy feel like a hero; a hero whose power was pooping his pants, but a hero nonetheless.  Tom the Titan of Malacus or the flying boy were just fantasies, but at least in living them, Tommy was helping in a way.  

But when he saw Katy walking out, dressed as the girl equivalent of where he’d been oh so recently, Tommy felt a rock sink into his gut.   She was ‘catching up’ to him.  Just that one trip into Malacus and she was regressing like he had been.  Call it hubris, but Tommy was also willing to bet that Katy hadn’t been smart enough...make that lucky and whimsical enough...to write her name on any wall.

She was in pre-schooler panties, now.  How much longer until she was in Pull-Ups with a toddler bed of her own?  How much longer until she was completely mush brained, and any pretense of potty-training went out the window?  How much longer until Tommy was the ‘big’ twin and Katy was in very own crib, with nice thick Pampers taped around her waist?

Was that dread, Tommy was feeling for his sister?  Or jealousy?

It took a wet wipe dragged over his lips for Tommy to snap out of his own confused reverie. He’d had a minor existential crisis all over breakfast while his mother cut it up and forked it into his mouth one piece at a time.

Tommy had managed all of this because the bib and booster seat scooted up to the table made him sure not to make a mess of things, even if a bit of a drool or mess of syrup leaked out. That, and like everything else about Malacus, good and ill, it seemed to come naturally.

“Sorry baby,” Mommy said.  “I know you like feeding yourself, but we’re on a bit of a tight schedule, today.”

“Why?” Tommy asked.  “What’s today?”  He tried to remember if Mommy had mentioned anything yesterday.  As far as Tommy knew, he was only due for yet another day of preschool level learning with forced potty breaks every half hour or so.   “Are we going to the zoo?  A movie?”  Homeschoolers did stuff like that, sometimes, right?  “A play?” he added hopefully.  

Anything would be nicer than just sitting around in his Pull-Ups doing nothing.  The downside of this reality alteration is that even when he proved himself to be way smarter than a preschooler, nobody believed it.  It was either attributed to luck, or people just forgot the next day.

Mommy clucked her tongue and unbuckled him from his seat.  “Noooooo,” she cooed at him.  “We’re going to go try out something new, remember?” He did not.  “Mommy’s gonna try putting you in Daycare.”

“Daycare?” he yelped as Mommy carried him back to his bedroom.  For once, Tommy was wishing he was walking.  His entire body felt numb when she set him down.

“Yes,” Mommy said, pulling out a pair of loose fitting pants.  No zipper.  Children without flies in their underwear didn’t really need them.  She held them open and like a good boy, Tommy stepped in.  “A very special daycare.I think it’s about time for you to play with boys and girls your own age.  Can’t have you hanging around with your old fuddy duddy Mom all day every day.”

Something was wrong.  Very wrong.  He knew the Nanny wanted him to go to this daycare.  Charlie had told him as much (not that she kept it a secret).  But hadn’t Mommy all but slammed the door in her face.  Flashes of Mary Dean’s stubbornness shining through. Mommy was still Mary deep down, and if Mary Dean didn’t want to send her child to a special daycare, that kid wasn’t going.

What happened?

“But I thought…” Tommy stuttered.   “I mean.  I just…”  He gulped.  Was he still regressing, too?  “I’m in Pull-Ups.”  He looked down at the padding wrapped around him, almost afraid it wasn’t true.

“Of course you are!” Mommy replied.  “You’re Mommy’s big boy and getting bigger every day!”  Even Tommy heard the lie in that statement.  “Mommy just...Mommy just…”

“Just what?”

Mommy knelt down and looked him in the eye.   “Sometimes you need help going to the potty and remembering colors and shapes and stuff, and that’s okay.”  Her voice was steady and patient; a person used to explaining complicated things.  “People need help sometimes, and it’s okay to need that help.”

“Uh-huh…”  Where was she going with this?

“And sometimes grown-ups need help in taking care of their kids, and that’s okay too.”  There was a certain glimmer in Mommy’s eyes.  Was she tearing up?  And if so, what for?  In a weird way, she looked like she was in pain; emotional if not physical.  “So Mommy is going to get some help, and you’re going to make all sorts of new friends.”  Tommy remained silent.  Sometimes it was best to let the conversation turn into a monologue.  “And Mommy loves you, and will always take care of you, and will be picking you up at the end of the day.  She just has so much work to do. And it’s not your fault, or your sister’s fault, or even Mommy’s fault.  It’s just the way it is.”

Tommy blinked.  Fault?  Why was she talking about fault?  Why was she talking about Katy?  

“What’s about Ka-?” But Tommy stopped.  He felt he finally understood:

Every time something had changed about Tommy, the rest of the world had adapted and been shaped to remember him differently as well.  Tommy had ‘always’ been in training pants and special classes at one point.  Then he’d ‘always’ been in Pull-Ups and homeschooled.

Classmates and peers had thought that.  Mommy had thought that.  Katy had thought that.

And now that Katy was obviously changing.  “Mommy?  Has Katy always been in training panties?”  He even ventured a guess.  “And in special classes at her school?”

Mommy sighed.  “Don’t worry dear.  She’s just a little bit ahead of you.  Girls mature faster than boys.  She’s in the right place for her.  Now Mommy wants to help find the right place for you.”

That.

That nailed it.  His sister was being used as the tipping point. Tommy had been too stubborn to go back into the clock and finish regressing; it was a trait that he no doubt inherited from his mother.  The Nanny had tried to seduce him into it, trick him into it, and failing that at least convince Mommy to put him in the daycare with every other long-term visitor to the strange realm.

And when that had failed, they went after Katy.  Mary Dean had eighteen years of one child that just wouldn’t grow-up beamed into her brain.  Still, she’d been stubborn enough to resist, relying on homeschooling.  With all of her financial needs taken care of, Mary Dean would have been resolute in doing things her own way.

As of this morning, however, she now was under the impression that both of her children were in a kind of developmental limbo; one as maybe a three year old, and the other as maybe a six year old…

Finances or no, eighteen years of that would make anyone seek out a long-term babysitter.   Heck, regular old Mary Dean sent her twins to school at first BECAUSE school was essentially free daycare that gradually made kids more useful.

Tommy had no choice.  Literally.  He was picked up, toted out to his mother’s car and put in a child’s safety seat.  There was almost no point.  He might not go through the clock ever again, but he was being carted off to big baby prison.  

The real thing that loomed in Tommy’s mind is would his twin be joining him there.  That thought briefly flashed into a fear when Tommy looked out the side window..

“Mommy,” Tom called out  “Are we going to school?”

“Yes,” she replied condescendingly, looking back at him in the mirror.  “You can call your daycare school.  I’m sure they’ll teach you lots of fun games while you’re there!”

The shrunken boy grunted a bit in frustration.  That’s not what he meant.  He had to choose his words more carefully, he was learning, if he wanted to be understood.  “I mean, are we going to...um...Katy’s school? Scrumpton High?”  Even coming from a different direction from the other part of town, Tommy could still recognize enough landmarks and street signs to guess where they were being taken.

His mother’s eyes lit up.  “Wow! I didn’t know you remembered the school’s name!”

“Maaaaahm…” Tommy suppressed a whine. “You’re not answering my question.  Are we going there?”

“Yes.  Yes we are.”

“Whyyyy?”

“Because your daycare is at Katy’s school.  You’re eligible for a very special program.”

A bit of relief, and this time it had nothing to do with his pants.  If it was his daycare, but Katy’s school, there might be some hope for her, yet.  The fact that Tommy had never heard of any kind of ‘speical program’ or daycare didn’t disturb him.  Where magic is involved, such things are more than possible.

The campus was mostly still by the time Mom parked.  Buses had come.  Breakfast had been served. Morning announcements had been broadcast and first period was well underway.  “You’re going to love it here!” Mommy said, picking him up out of the car.  “You’re going to make so many new little friends, here!”

Tommy grit his teeth.  He didn’t want to tell her that he very likely already knew at least two people: One who’d been in diapers longer than Tommy had been alive and one who’d possibly changed them longer than anyone on this planet had been walking around.  

Charlie might...might...be a friend.

The Nanny though?  Ooof, there was a lot to unpack there.

He was only slightly thrown off, when instead of walking to the front office and checking in, his mother parked near the back of the campus and walked up to a backdoor that Tommy was all but certain hadn’t existed when he’d been a student.  (Hadn’t existed...or hadn’t been seeable by the uninitiated)

A quick knock on the door, identical to most in the school building except for the kiddie decorations on the front.

Tommy braced himself.  Time to get the Nanny treatment.  Instead, a dark skinned woman in her mid thirties greeted them.  Just in case, Tommy checked her eyes.  Both hazel.  “Hiiii! You must be Mrs. Dean!”  She regarded the young man in his mother’s arms.  “And this must be Tommy!  Hi Tommy.”

Young master Dean said nothing.  “He’s feeling a little shy this morning,” his mother explained.

“Oh that’s fine.” The woman said.  “Plenty of people are slow to warm up.”  She motioned to follow.  “Come in! Come in!”

The setup was almost identical to the preschool room he’d ventured into.  He was set on his feet, and his head started to swivel, both looking for a way out.  Tiny tables.  Tiny cubbies.  Tiny chairs.  Boxes of crayons.  Guiltily, he looked, wondering if the restroom was similarly juvenile.

No! This was NOT the time for that!

Speaking of bathrooms… “Do you have a diaper bag for him? Or extra Pull-Ups?” The teacher asked. “He can make it to the potty sometimes, right?”

Mommy blushed and patted the sides of her dress as if she might find something there.  “Oh no, I knew I forgot something!  I can run right home and bring you some.”

The teacher waved it off.  “Now worries.” She said.  “We’ve got plenty of Pull-Ups here.  Just bring what you can when you can remember.”

As if on cue, Tommy saw an entire box of not quite diapers by a far corner.  This room had a bit of everything.  The one thing that there wasn’t, Tommy noticed, was anything that resembled ‘children’ or ‘classmates’ or even ‘other people’

Mommy must have noticed too.  “Kind of quiet, huh?”  She said.

The teacher shrugged. “It’s a slow day. Tommy’s classmates will be along shortly.”

“How many?” Tommy asked.  To hear CHarlie tell it, everyone who went through Malacus ended up even lower than preschool with memories and intellect to match.

It’s a fairly small caseload,” the teacher admitted. “This is the three and up, room.  Most kids use the one and up room.”

“Oh,” Mommy said, sounding disappointed.  “I told Tommy he’d have lots of friends.”

The teacher perked right up.  “Oh he will! He will!  Plenty of friends! He’s just the first!  Promise!”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

That seemed to settle the matter as far as Mommy was concerned.  She bent down and gave Tommy a kiss on the top of his head.  “Okay, Tommy.  You be good, alright?”

“Yes ma’am.”  Tommy lied.  How it was a lie, either through deliberate rebellion or poor impulse control, Tommy wasn’t certain.  He just knew it was a lie.

As soon as Mommy walked out the door, the new teacher poking her head out and waving goodbye, a finger tapped Thomas Dean on the shoulder.  Tommy whirled around, looking up, before looking at his own eye level.  Another student from nowhere.  “You!”

Not a student.  Not really.  The little girl standing in front of him had two different colored eyes.  One green, and one blue.  “Hi,” she said.  “Let’s talk, shall we?”