Malice Aforethought

Chapter 7
Story Time

Mummy sent us back to the bedroom to get dressed. She chose out outfits from the dresser and closet and then we dressed ourselves. Well Benny and I did. Timmy managed to get his pull-ups on, though he wasn’t too pleased about having to wear ‘little boy pants,’ but couldn’t manage his t-shirt. And he thought he deserved big boy undies like me and Benny? Mummy made it clear he needed pull-ups just in case he had an accident. Eric didn’t even try to dress himself. Mummy dressed him since he was much too little to do it himself, even taping him into a full nappy without a whisper of complaint from him.

I was relieved to see the clothing mummy had laid out for me wasn’t babyish. Once we were all dressed I could see that Benny and I were in similar, though not identical, outfits. He’d been given cargo jean shorts while I was in some lime green board shorts. Both fell a good couple inches below our knees though. Mine had no pockets, but that didn’t matter as I had nothing to put in any. We each sported a t-shirt with a cartoon design. Mine was blue with Buzz Lightyear, his orange with a soccer playing cartoon rabbit. Thank goodness we were dressed like big boys for our outing.

Timmy and Eric also shared noticeably similar outfits. Both were in shortalls. Timmy’s were light blue over a simple white t-shirt while Eric’s were classic blue-jeans shortalls over a yellow t-shirt, like he wore to the mall and there was noticeable puffiness around his nappied bottom. The t-shirt was stained and had a hole in the tummy but mummy let him wear it anyway because it was his favourite shirt. Mummy pronounced them adorable and planted a kiss of each of our foreheads in turn.

“Okay, let’s get going,” she said, letting us lead the way to the car. She stopped to pick up a heavy looking diaper-bag that likely also held bottles, binkies, hand wipes and such.

“Wan’ Fwuffy,” Eric shouted, stopping short of the door and looking wide-eyed at mummy.

She just smiled, unzipped the top of the bag and after just a little rummaging around, drew out a well-worn stuffed bunny. Eric lit up and toddled heavily over to her, taking it in his hands and nuzzling it against his cheek for a moment before scurrying out the door after his brothers.

It was only as I stepped out onto the front stoop that I registered the warm cement under my feet. I’d nearly walked right out to the car before even thinking of shoes. It was the confusing numbers all over again. Where was my head? I turned around just as mummy closed the door. My heart skipped a beat.

“No mummy, need my shoes,” I explained, pointing to my unshod feet.

But she just shrugged. “Sorry honey, but I already packed those away. Little boys have no need for them.”

I shook my head angrily. “That’s just pwetend,” I squawked.

She nodded and brushed her hand through my hair. “And you’re doing such a wonderful job pretending and relaxing that I’m sure you’ll find you really love being barefoot, just like any other little boy. Your brothers certainly aren’t worried about putting on shoes,” she pointed out.

I looked over to the car and saw them hopping and spinning around, full of energy, all three in bare feet, clearly untroubled by the missing shoes. Even Benny, in his big boy outfit, didn’t seem to even notice his lack of footwear. “Don’t they look nice and happy with their free toesies,” she suggested.

Mummy was right about that. But there was just one problem. I leant close so I could whisper it to her. “But people will see me mummy. They’ll think I’m all little.”

To my surprise she nodded. “I know they will honey. And isn’t that exactly what you’ve always wanted? For people to know you’re really just a playful little boy. Nobody here knows you Aiden. It’s the perfect opportunity to live your fantasy. Isn’t it?”

Mummy was right, it was the reason I was here, wasn’t it? So why was I so hesitant? “Okay,” I whispered.

“Great! I knew you’d understand.”

The van had four oversized child seats already installed in it. I felt an inexplicable sense of surprise at seeing them all there. But I couldn’t explain the sensation. Of course mummy had car seats for us. She needed to keep her little boys safe. We were all very good and kept still while mummy did up our straps and made sure we were nice and snug. My feet didn’t quite reach the floor so I was able to swing them back and forth comfortably. I wasn’t really watching where mummy was driving us. I reached out my feet and touched the back of the front seat with my toes. Eric was next to me and he liked copying what I did. Silly babies like copying big kids.

It wasn’t a long ride in any case. But mummy wouldn’t let us out right away. I undid my own buckles because I’m actually big and know how. I was scared I might have forgotten for a second, like with my numbers, but I hadn’t. Eric looked down at his own buckles and gazed at them in wonder. He poked at the harnesses but couldn’t begin to comprehend how to unfasten them. He frowned and looked frustrated by his incompetence. “Out!” he demanded.

“You gotta wait Ewic,” I told him.

He shook his head. “No! Out now!” he shouted.

“Out! Out!” Timmy mimicked from the back, banging his feet against the back of Eric’s chair, upsetting him further.

The poor mental toddler looked like he was going to lose it. So I distracted him by grabbing one of his flailing feet and tickling him on the sole. His bad mood was wiped away in a second. His scowl turned into a grin and he giggled cheerfully.

“Silly baby likes tickles on hims footsies,” I chided him.

He blew a raspberry, spraying his spittle everywhere, then grabbed his foot away from me and began to play with it himself. Seeing him pull his foot back and forth triggered a memory in me. I couldn’t place the memory at all, but it was so clear. “Silly toe-muncher,” I said.

Eric squealed with glee and obediently popped his big toe between his lips. Yes, there was something clearly familiar about this. But when had I seen it before?

The copy-cat in the back wasted no time in mimicking his new brother and when mummy opened the door at last she found both Eric and Timmy with their toes jammed in their mouths. She seemed to think it was adorable rather than disgusting, but still chided them good-naturedly. I saw the reason she’d taken so long. A two-seat stroller was now sitting just beside the van. It was obviously bigger than a normal one, just like the car seats. She wasted no time unbuckling the pair of toe-munchers and helping them down into the stroller, side-by-side. She buckled them into their new conveyance and retrieved Fluffy from the floor of the car before Eric had a meltdown.

I was so glad I wasn’t being forced to sit in some stupid stroller like a helpless baby. It seemed Benny wasn’t to be subjected to the stroller either, but as he hopped out onto the pavement mummy gripped his hand and held out an odd looking harness. “Hold on Benny, we need to walk across the park, so let’s get your harness on,” she said.

“Kay,” he said simply, standing mostly still while she strapped him into what was basically an oversized leash.

“That comfy?” she asked him as she finished.

He nodded solemnly.

When mummy turned to look at me I quickly shook my head. “I’m not wearin’ that,” I declared.

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking hopeful. “It would make you feel ever so safe and secure. Mummy would always be so close and you could run and jump and play without worrying about getting lost.”

For a brief instant, longer than I wanted to admit, that actually sounded pretty good. Then I caught myself. “No! Don’t need it. Not gonna get lost.”

“Okay then, but I want you to stay right at my side in that case.”

I was willing to make that compromise. I was just pretending after all. Of course mummy was worried cuz I was getting too good at making pretend and actually thought like a little boy sometimes, but that was just sometimes. I stepped out of the car and once again the warm pavement reminded me of my shoeless status. Even without a leash I would look silly and little like this. But mummy had said I really wanted that. Didn’t I?

We had to walk all the way across the park to get to the library. Mummy pushed the stroller and Benny skipped and ran along ahead, reaching the limit of his leash and then scurrying back. He seemed to have endless energy and didn’t mind his tether at all. The pavement was very warm and after a while it stung my feet so I asked mummy if I could walk in the grass.

“Oh, poor sweetie, of course you can. Just stay close and don’t run off,” she warned.

“I won’t,” I promised.

“That’s a good boy. Don’t worry, your footsies will toughen up soon and you’ll be able to run around on hot gravel just like Benny and Eric.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. After all, it wasn’t like I’d be pretending to be little that long. This was just a little holiday wasn’t it? I tried to think about how long I’d been meaning to do this for, but before I could really consider it I got distracted when Benny yelled, “Lookit mummy!”

He was pointing out a sizable adventure playground to our right. It really did look very enticing. But mummy wasn’t slowing her pace. “Yes dear, and we can play on it after story time. Okay?”

He didn’t really have a choice, being leashed as he was, so Benny just nodded and skipped back ahead. She was right that the hot pavement didn’t seem to bother him at all.

It was quite a relief as we entered the cool, air-conditioned library and soft carpet replaced hard, sizzling asphalt under my soles. But that minor physical discomfort was instantly replaced with a different concern as we walked into the library. Heads turned in our direction and I knew that we had to be quite the sight. A little blonde girl in a short pink dress pointed at us and called to her mother to look too. I felt an instant sense of embarrassment, but also unfairness. She wasn’t just pointing derisively at the young men in the stroller, and Benny on his leash. Her finger was aimed at me too, at my Buzz Lightyear t-shirt and baggy shorts and most of all my lack of shoes. But the pig-tailed little girl was standing there in bare feet herself. How dare she point her finger accusingly at me for doing what she probably got to do all the time.

Mummy and the others paid her no attention and we were out of sight and plunging deeper into the library in no time. It wasn’t exactly a busy day there and while people looked up as we passed, there weren’t actually any gasps or disapproving looks. We shortly turned a corner and arrived in what was obviously the children’s section of the library. Right at the centre of the brightly-coloured area a gaggle of small children were milling about, playing while they waited for story time. A comfortable looking solitary chair sat facing them, clearly positioned for the story reader. A few seats ringed the carpeted section, meant for the parents. There were no seats for the children though, they were simply expected to sit on their bottoms on the floor.

We’d barely turned the corner when we were confronted by a rotund woman with short black hair and an overly broad grin. “Well hello there Elly, I see you’ve brought a few more charges with you this week,” she declared, looking down at Timmy in his stroller and then over at me.

“Yes, I’m looking after these little ones while their mother is in Durban on some urgent business,” Mummy explained.

“One of the women from the support group?” the plump library lady asked.

Mummy nodded in confirmation. “Yes, she had to go at short notice and needed some help with her wonderful, special boys. This little one getting a ride is Timmy and my big boy here is Aiden.”

Special. That’s what she called us. So that explained how she was passing us off dressed and behaving like this in public. My memories of big person things might be occasionally fuzzy but I knew what special really meant. A part of me wanted to contradict her, to blurt out that I wasn’t a retard, I was a big boy… no, a grown-up. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to make mummy angry. And it occurred to me that having her know I was a real grown-up just pretending to be little might be more embarrassing than her thinking I was ‘special.’

“Well they are just adorable,” the rotund librarian said, mainly focussing on Timmy smiling cutely around the thumb he was sucking. She smiled at me too but didn’t say a word to me, instead directing all her thoughts at mummy. It was like I didn’t matter on a personal level. I was just one of mummy’s cute little charges to be seen but not heard.

“I know, they really are,” Mummy agreed. “Thanks again for letting me bring them here. I know my boys really enjoy it.”

“Of course they do. It’s no problem at all. This is a place for those who are little on the outside or the inside,” she assured. “Now, bring them over because we’re about to get started.”

Mummy undid Timmy and Eric’s straps and helped them from the stroller, then unclipped the leash from Benny’s harness. Finally we were free to make our way to the story area. There was about twenty young kids playing around there. Some were interacting with their mums while others played with toys on the floor. They ranged in age from nappy-wearing toddlers who probably hadn’t seen their second birthdays up to six and seven year olds. I felt my face flush and my heart-rate tick upward as I prepared for their pointing or jeers.

Heads turned up at our arrival, big eyes looking us over. But they didn’t point, they didn’t laugh. They smiled, some quickly returning to their activities, other giving little waves. And I realised that this was a regular group and Mummy brought Eric and Benny here often, so these children were used to them, to adults who had children’s minds. But they didn’t stare and point at me either. As I looked around I noticed that nearly all the children, boy and girls, toddler and primary schoolers, were barefoot. And I felt so thankful to mummy for making me leave my shoes behind. My bare feet now identified me as one of them. They knew that I belonged on the carpet with them rather than in the seats with the grown-ups. It gave me a rush of excitement.

I was still feeling giddy when the plump lady sat in her comfy chair and took out a big storybook to read to us. I was sat on my bottom on the carpet now, legs crossed. A little blonde boy of about five sat to my right. He smiled over at me and said, “I like stories.”

I nodded right back. It hadn’t escaped my notice that the little boy was dressed in a nearly identical outfit to mine. The way he interacted with me, I knew he saw me as an equal. I was on the floor. I didn’t have shoes on, I was here for stories too. And, strangely enough, I felt the same way about him. I didn’t see a silly little boy but a potential playmate.

“Yeah, I like stories too,” I told him.

He giggled and nodded. Then, without really thinking about it I added, “Just hope it’s not a girly story.”

Now he nodded more seriously. “Yeah, they’re stupid,” he spat, sticking out his tongue and making a silly face.

I felt the urge to copy my new buddy and did so without a second thought, sticking out my tongue too. “Yucky!”

Soon we were making all sorts of silly faces at each other. He was such a fun boy. I wondered if his mummy would let him come over to play with me.

“Okay boys and girls, are you ready to hear a story?” the librarian woman asked, interrupting our fun.

The children quieted down pretty quickly since the mums were all shushing us and everyone wanted to hear the story. I put my finger to my lips and shushed the other kids too. That made me feel good, helping the grown-ups. I also looked around for mummy, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. For a second that made me feel scared and I thought about standing up and calling out for her. But then the woman held up the book for all of us to see and read out the title. And I forgot about mummy for the moment.

The book was called Peter Pan and I was sure I’d heard of it before but couldn’t recall where. But that was okay, it was nice just to sit there next to my new buddy and listen as the lady read the book to us. She did lots of funny voices for the characters and it was a good story. As she talked about the children flying through the air, to a land where you never had to grow up, something inside my mind clicked into place. I recalled my flight here, to South Africa. I remembered sitting on the plane, wide awake as everyone else tried to sleep in the darkened cabin, planning for something. What was I planning for?

As the story continued I felt less interested in it. My mind was working over the odd, confusing, broken up memories that had just surfaced. I was on the place, planning for meeting with Mummy. Except her name wasn’t mummy. It was… something else. And she was doing something nasty to me, something to make me never grow up, like the kids in the story. But was it nasty? The story made it seem fun and happy, not having to grow up, getting to be a little kid forever. My new little buddy was enjoying the story, he seemed to like the idea of getting to be a playful, dirty, innocent little boy for a long, long time. And wasn’t it nice, sitting there in my bare feet, making silly faces and planning an afternoon of rambunctious fun with a playmate? Wasn’t it better to plan that, then some ugly grown-up stuff?

I looked over to my left, to the other three young men sat in the crowd of smaller children. They were smiling and giggling innocently at the simple story. They seemed perfectly content living in their own little Neverland. So why wasn’t I feeling that way too now? I realised how much I’d been drifting off to Neverland myself. The lost ability to count numbers, the sudden comfort with being led around barefoot in public and a dozen other little changes I’d gone through.

It was frightening to realise how much I’d already changed. This was supposed to be pretend, wasn’t it? That was why I’d come here. Or was it? I was questioning that now, based on my memories of the flight here, of making plans to hurt mummy, or whatever her name was. This was all going too far and now I felt certain that mummy was behind it. Losing my numbers wasn’t pretend, that was all too real. That was something to worry about. But mummy told me not to. And that was proof she couldn’t be trusted. I needed to leave here right now, before this ‘pretend’ game got any realer. I needed to get away from mummy and clear my mind, put my memories in order, before it was too late.