The Change of the Seasons: Teacher's Pet

Chapter 6
Life's a Dream

Chapter Description: Lizzy comes to grips with her new life as a Growndown schoolgirl.

[size=2]Lizzy Baxter sat timidly in her former daughter’s chair as the older girl braided her hair. Still quite unsure of herself in this new reality, the once fully grown woman now nervously crossed her little legs together as the little girl she now was.

It had been several days since the 42 year old Elizabeth had been regressed into the 8 year old Lizzy, but she had yet to adapt to the change in scale of her new everyday life. Admittedly, this was mainly because little Lizzy now shared a room with Emily, her daughter turned big sister.

This had been the work of the mother Lizzy had once been mere days ago. She had wisely upgraded Emily’s furniture to accommodate the teenager her daughter was becoming. But now the already tiny girl was made even tinier in the teenager’s chair. Lizzy’s slender, childish legs dangled well above the floor and she was constantly being repositioned by her own daughter.

“Does it feel weird to you?” Emily asked.

“It hurts when you pull my hair sometimes.” Lizzy said.

“Oh, sorry I won’t pull as hard.” The young teen replied. “But I meant like what we’re doing right now. I still remember when you first braided my hair for me back when I was your age.”

Lizzy remembered that too, though it felt like a lifetime ago. Back when she was a woman in her late 30’s and Emily was still just a little girl attending elementary school. Now Emily was beginning her journey into womanhood while Lizzy was now about to reenter elementary school as a 3rd grade girl.

“Yeah I was better at braiding” Lizzy taunted with her higher pitched voice before yelling, “Ouch!”

“I guess I’m still learning.” Emily sarcastically said.

Daughters eventually became women alongside their mothers. But the two women would never be equal in each others eyes. This truth was something little Lizzy often pondered as an adult after her all too common over-the-phone arguments with her own late mother.

Elizabeth had come to the conclusion back then that equality between the role of mother and daughter was simply not possible. The only true control a daughter had over her mother was when that mother entered the pseudo second childhood of her elderly years, and that hardly contained the joy that flourished between them when the daughter was but a girl.

Back when Emily still had sleepovers, Elizabeth often tried to play the role of cool mom among the preteen girls. She would briefly join them in conversations in her nightgown and tried to keep up with the girls’ discussion. Elizabeth had wondered, fantasied even, how the slumber party would have gone if she had shrunk right there and then in front of the preteens to a girl of their stature. Would she truly have been equal in their eyes?

Lizzy certainly didn’t feel equal to her 13 year old daughter now. The 5 year age difference between the girls gave them radically different bodies, Emily was tall and shapely while Lizzy was short and flat. Little Lizzy felt increasingly submissive towards the girl that she had given birth to.

“And there.” Emily piqued as she stepped back from Lizzy and revealed her handiwork. “A Dutch lace headband for my little girl of a mom!”

For once Lizzy smiled at the child that looked back at her in the mirror, mesmerized in her former daughter’s work. Lizzy’s return to girlhood had rendered her hair delightfully brown in color and while it was thinner than in adulthood, it seemed far healthier than it had ever been in her entire life.

Laced and braided with all the expertise a middle schooler could provide, her new hair style of choice perfectly replaced the headbands she wore as a woman. So much so that it finally clicked something in her mind’s eye. Lizzy didn’t feel so divorced from Elizabeth anymore. The 8 year old’s face that stared back at her was her, just far younger in age. The girl’s dark green eyes were hers along with the small dimples that appeared in her gentle smile. The freckles that concentrated around her little nose were also hers as well, though that was more of a reunion of sorts, as the woman she had been had long forgotten what it felt like to have them.

The child she has been transformed into was not at all different from the little girl she once nostalgically gazed at in her old family photos. This sense of continuity of sorts calmed little Lizzy and she felt a bit more comfortable in her new immature body.

Emily seemed to share in Lizzy’s pleased state. She also studied her mom’s new form, likely remembering the old photos of her mother as a child.

Without thinking Lizzy hopped out of the chair and hugged her new big sister.

“Thanks Emily! You’re the best!” she expressed.

Emily smiled back despite herself, “I learned from the best.”

The two girls were interrupted by Ethan’s entrance into the room.

“How are my two lovely ladies getting along?” he asked them.

“We’re good dad.” Emily spoke for her, “I just did Lizzy’s hair. Come check it out.”

Ethan took a handful of steps towards them and gazed down at the little girl his wife had become, “Looking pretty good cupcake. You excited for school tomorrow?”

Lizzy sighed. She was not very pleased with her former husband’s new “dad act” towards her. In recent days Ethan had gone from being indeterminately stoic towards her to acting like the bumbling goofball he had been when the kids had been little. Sweetheart became sweetie-pie, curvy beast became cupcake, and his continued use of baby became much more diminutive towards her.

School was also something Lizzy was not all that excited for. Along with being told that she would only be a woman again the old fashion way, she had also been told that she was being placed in a special “transitional class for Growndowns”. One that would place her, a 3rd grader, on the bottom of a totem pole among 4th and 5th graders until she could prove to the adults that controlled her life now that she was a "proper" child.

Her classmates would by far be her former colleagues. This sounded nice at first to Lizzy when her former husband had reassured her of this fact until she also realized that they would also all know her. On top of all of this, Lizzy had been completely flabbergasted to learn that her first teacher in decades would be her former trouble maker of a student, Rebecca Brownwood who had been transformed into a Grownup. She reeled at the thought of seeing that naughty girl looking smugly down at her as a woman.

“I guess….dad” she said meekly, barely getting that last word out of her mouth.

“Well I thought we could all spend the night together as a family girls.” Ethan announced, “It would help us all to get our minds off everything.”

“But dad!” Emily denied, “I wanted to watch-“

“That wasn’t a suggestion Emily.” He retorted.

As she and Emily were led down the stairs by their father. She still couldn’t get over how displaced she felt as a little girl. Despite how intimate she had been with this house as a woman, the home now felt almost entirely different to the 8 year old girl she had become. The size change was partly to blame, but what really threw Lizzy off were the family photos. All across their house, the Baxter’s family history had seemingly been rewritten from scratch.

A loving photo with the adult Elizabeth curled up against Ethan now featured Lizzy, at 5 or 6 years old, sitting contently on top of her former husband’s lap. Photos of the children were all altered as well, now securely between Eric and Emily was a little preschooler of a girl that was all too recognizable to Lizzy. Every single photo was different, even the ones that did not feature Lizzy. It was like her new place in the family had forever changed the context of each of the photos. The Baxter family’s portrait symbolized this perfectly which showed a slightly older (but still young) Baxter family now joined by a baby version of Lizzy that could be no older 18 months old. The infant girl was happily sucking on her thumb while being proudly held in Ethan’s loving arms. Eric looked happier alongside his little sisters, and even Emily looked overjoyed at having a baby sister.

This new Baxter family was still alien to her and her family, who could also see the altered photos since the day she had been transformed into a girl. She still remembered pestering her little ones into taking almost all those old photos and now they had all been essentially deleted from existence. Ethan had told her that she would start remembering the memories behind these photos eventually, like they all would, but they had to accept the disconnect for the time being. When that time came, she wondered if she would lose all her memories of motherhood and just revert into a silly little girl. She prayed that she could retain something of her past life.

Father and daughters wandered into the family room and found Eric opening a favorite game of theirs on top of the coffee table

“Life’s A Dream!” Lizzy squealed in delight.

When her teenage kids had been real kids, the four of them often played this game on weekends. The kids had loved it and she had failingly tried to get them all to play it again recently. Lizzy ignored the depressing fact that she had to become a kid again in order to guilt trip her family into this.

“Ok Emily sit next to your brother on the couch.” Ethan ordered.

“Whatever.” Emily complied.

Ethan himself went for the lazy chair and turned it towards the coffee table.

“Come on Lizzy. Hop on abroad daddy’s lap.” He teased.

“Daddy!” Little Lizzy flustered at him like the housewife she once was.

Her former husband gulped down a laugh at her sudden seriousness, “Oh come on sweetie-pie! You know you want to.”

“Little mom doesn’t want to sit on her husband’s lap!” Emily joked to her brother.

“Come on Emily, she’s going through a lot right now.” Eric defended her.

The remaining ounces of the mother she had been gleamed in pride to her son’s actions, but they were soon utterly forgotten as Ethan lifted up off the ground and sat her on top of his strong, wide legs. As Lizzy relaxed into her new dad’s embrace, some reassurance came to her about this situation. The fading woman inside reminded her that Elizabeth had been a cuddlier with her husband, and she always found the excuse to wrap herself around her loving husband. In many ways, this was something Elizabeth had only fantasied about as a 42 year old woman, and now that fantasy was an everyday reality to the 8 year old girl.

For the life of her, little Lizzy couldn’t understand why an adult woman would want to subject herself to a man like this. It was probably related to the naughty adult things she had once done with her daddy when he was her husband but it felt less and less relevant. Daddy’s lap was mighty warm and comfy to the little girl’s flat butt and she just loved to feel his soft, breathing belly press up against her tiny back.

Her husband turned daddy kissed her cheek, “Told you so baby girl.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lizzy denied.

“Alright,” Emily said as she reached for the dial to spin. “Let’s get this game going already.”

“Emily.” Ethan interrupted her, “I believe Lizzy here is the youngest member of Baxter family now. She gets to go first I believe.”

“Yep.” Eric agreed with his dad.

“Well alrighty then Lizzy. You get to spin first.” Her daddy told her.

“Okay.” She said and reached for the dial from her daddy’s lap.

The game board was a cartoonish recreation of Old Lake Valley. The players started in New Springs and crisscrossed their way through the town to represent their life from birth to childhood. The path then quickly crossed the farmlands of Short Meadows to represent the onset of puberty in preteens before tightly wrapping around Mt. Longview that represented the confusion and struggles of adolescence. From there, the path from Mt. Longview descends out of the valley into Pilgrim’s Rest to represent the transition towards young adulthood in their college years. Adulthood largely went south and then east through Lowtown Junction before the path went north and finally ended in retirement at the heart of the valley at Old Lake Beach.

Players collected cards dictated by the space’s color they landed on which either helped or obstructed them.

Lizzy spun a five which placed her right next to the elementary school that she was all too familiar with. She grabbed the corresponding card and read it aloud to her family.

“Being a good kid is its own reward. Gain im-mu-nity from any negative effects until you’re in college.” She read.

“Lucky.” Emily snobbishly said as she went spun the dial. “Woah! I got a ten! Coming right through baby sister!”

Emily knocked her piece down and went to pick up a card and similarly read it aloud, “Growing up too fast is a waste of life. Go back to the space where you started this turn. What?! This is stupid! I literally just started!”

Lizzy grinned a smile at her daughter turned big sister as Eric began his turn, “You’re lucky that happened so early, you would be super ticked off if it happened later on”

They went on like this for several minutes, with Lizzy cruising into an early lead over the others while Eric and Emily reignited their childish rivalry over the game. Ethan, who allowed Lizzy to spin and move his piece for him consistently managed to lag behind his kids, both teenage and Gronwdown.

The Baxter’s fell into a rhythm they hadn’t felt for some years now and Lizzy felt some measure of her adult persona resurface in the body of the 8 year old girl. Momentary thoughts crept into her young mind that were almost immediately contradicted by reality. In one instance she reminded herself she needed to turn on the coffee maker for tomorrow morning before she childishly realized that she absolutely hated coffee.

In another instance, Lizzy thought that something was weirdly erotic about how her daddy steadily bounced her up and down on his knee before she realized she hadn’t the slightest idea of what erotic even meant.

This was the new reality of the 42 year old teacher and mother. A true second childhood in which Lizzy grappled and wrestled with the conflicting natures between the adulthood she had known and the girlhood she was reentering.

At least, she admitted to herself as she gazed at the smiling faces of her beloved family members, everyone seems to be happy with her now.

She was finally pulled away from these thoughts when her turn brought her out of college and she graduated from Pilgrim’s Rest University.

“Good job Lizzy!” Her big brother congratulated her. “You get to be a teacher again if you want.”

“Thanks Eric.” She smiled at her former son.

The stimulating bouncing stopped and her daddy spoke aloud to her, “Would you really like to be a teacher again Lizzy? Just like you were when you were an adult like me?”

That question perplexed little Lizzy. Of course she wanted to be a teacher, that’s why she was one when she was an adult. But her daddy’s question drove deeper than that. Was there some reason why New Springs thought she shouldn’t be a teacher? That saddened the young, impressionable 8 year old girl profoundly because so many students had told her what a good teacher she had been to them.

Why did she have to grow up all over again?

“I don’t know daddy.” She answered her former husband honestly.

“Well cupcake.” He told her gently, “The world is your oyster now that you’re a kid again.”

In that moment, little Lizzy wondered if real life was truly any different from this silly game they were playing.

The game went mostly smoothly from that point on. Daddy staged a comeback near the end by Old Lake Beach but Lizzy managed to still come in 1st place, followed by her big brother, her daddy, and finally her big sister.

Once the game was finally over with. The Baxter’s went about preparing for bed. Lizzy and Emily brushed their teeth in the bathroom and went back to their room together. As Lizzy climbed into her child sized bed, her daddy entered the room.

“Goodnight Emily.” He told the teenager as he kissed her forehead

Her daddy then knelt down beside her bed and whispered to her, “I think you’ll really enjoy going to school again. Goodnight Lizzy, I love you.”

Something welled up in Lizzy right there and then. The women trapped in the child rose out of her bed and kissed her father sweetly on the lips. In the fashion of a wife to her husband.

“I’ll always love you Ethan.” She lamented to him. “Don’t spoil me now, you hear?”

Ethan teared up at that, “Elizabeth?”

But the relapse of her adult persona was already gone and little Lizzy gently smiled into his eyes, “Yes daddy?”

A look a disappointment fell across her daddy’s face and the significance of what just happened dawned on the little girl as well. For a brief moment she felt like herself again. If it had lasted a bit longer…what would she told her older siblings. Perhaps it was for the best that she didn’t say anything to them. The girl she was did not understand that logic but the mother in her did.

“Sweet dreams Elizabeth.” Her daddy said to her, seemingly coming to the same conclusion as his wife turned young daughter.

As she settled into bed and allowed sleep to overtake her, she wondered what childish dreams she would have. Would she be an adult woman in them? A teacher? A mother? Perhaps her whole adult life had been a silly little dream. The fanciful ideals of the woman she wanted to be when she grew up from a child that was no more than halfway through her time in elementary school. The philosophical nuances of such a thought did not pierce the innocent musings of the 8 year old girl though, for she had much bigger things on her mind.

Because tomorrow, Lizzy Baxter was going back to the elementary school she had long taught at, not as teacher nor even a woman. But as a young, adorable schoolgirl.

Teacher’s Pet will continue in: Awkward Reunions and Role-Reversals and Icebreakers, Oh My![/size]