What do you do when you look seven years old but you’re actually a college student in your late teens? For Kathleen’s entire life, she had fought against people treating her much younger than her actual age. Feeling obligated to grow up fast to show people she wasn’t the age of her size, Kathleen never let her inner child out. Tired of fighting against the world, she explores the adult submissive world. What she finds, however, is an enjoyment of regression. Had she made a mistake? Would life be better if she just let people treat her the way she looks at seven years old?

Principal Steve Mesmer exclaimed, “There is no way that little girl is nineteen!”

“Kathleen has a rare form of dwarfism. Being nineteen and looking like a seven or eight-year-old has been challenging for Kathleen. The more she tried to act her age, the harder she found life to be. Since going off to college, she has found a way to balance the incongruities between her age and her body image. She started acting as a seven-year-old. She is still a full-time college student, getting very high grades in all her subjects, but she also enjoys time as a little kid. I have become the Daddie to little seven-year-old Katie.”

Noticing the expressions on the faces of the various people at the table, Adam stated, “Let me remind you in this discussion that Katie was only in this school to see her friend Laura sing at an event where family and friends were attending. If you look at the pictures on the table, Mr. Mesmer was right. This one looks like she is playing dress-up in her big sister’s closet. That was Kathleen before she met me. And this one, if you look closely, you can clearly see that the little girl has breasts.”

“So you force her to do this?” Jan asked.

Adam shakes his head, “There is no force. Katie is very much willing to do this. All I did at first was encourage her. She took to it much more than I ever planned for her to do. She basically is seven, ninety percent of the time. Even when she isn’t with me.”

“So she is getting a college degree with the mentality of a seven-year-old?” Superintendent Grabowski questioned.

Adam, without changing his expression, responded, “I don’t think that is the correct way to phrase it. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to best describe Katie’s situation. Katie is a sophomore Animal Science major and biology minor at Mountain College, but she described herself to Denise Schneider as a nineteen-year-old, going on seven.”

“So Laura and the Schneiders know,” Steve inquired.

“Very much so. There are no secrets among the friends and family. The Schneiders picked Katie up from her college dorm an hour before the attack,” Adam explained.

“That doesn’t give her much time to change,” Steve pointed out.

“When Katie left the college dorm, she was wearing exactly what you saw that night,” Adam responded.

“She dressed herself in that dress?”

“Oh, I highly doubt that Katie put that dress on herself. I am not sure who did it, but it was probably either her roommate or her adoptive sister. I wasn’t informed. I am going to guess her roommate, though,” Adam responded.

Dan looked at Adam and Tim, two fellow lawyers who were known to be some of the most successful lawyers in the area, “Why are you telling us this?”

“Because there are no secrets, and if you searched for her, you would find her real age,” Adam stated. “I learned early on in this relationship that secrets are not the way to go. Everyone who is important in Katie’s life knows.”

“Relationship?” Counselor Jan asked. “You mentioned you are her Daddie, not her father.”

“Her father and mother live in Clearwater. When Katie is functioning at a seven-year-old level, she views me as Daddie and them as Grandma and Grandpa. Guess you could call me the boyfriend of the nineteen-year-old,” Adam explained.

Jan pointed at Tim, “You are also the grandpa of the seven-year-old?”

Tim nodded.

Jan was visibly uncomfortable with what she was hearing, “What is Katie’s last name? And can I meet her?”

Adam responded, “Telgenhof. And at the end of this meeting, I will gladly direct you right to her.”

“We are here for more than a discussion about your relationship with Katie,” Dan pointed out. “Why have you called this meeting?”

“We have three…” Adam stopped and looked at Jan. “No, you can help us solve a problem. We have four demands.”

As the district’s lawyer, Dan picked up his pen, “Which are?”

“Demand number one: All correspondence, media, and items about this case will refer to Katie as Jane Doe, age seven,” Adam stated.

Dan thought for a moment, “Depending on what the other requests are, I don’t see a problem with that.”

Tim added the subsequent demand, “We want Pearl Holt fired. It is our understanding that she has been fired before, but this time, we want her permanently banned from employment with the school district.”

Superintendent Rick Grabowski looked at Dan before responding, “She is already tentatively fired. It is not permanent until the school board meeting in January.”

Adam nodded before continuing, “Demand number three is that we want five hundred dollars.”

Rick's eyes went wide, “That is it?!?”

“We will be going after the other party for more money. That being said, I don’t need the money, and Katie also doesn’t need the money.”

“What is demand number four?” Dan asked.

Adam sighed, “Unfortunately, since this attack, Katie needs counseling. She has basically killed off her nineteen-year-old side. She woke me up Saturday night with a scream, but when I ran into her room, she was sleeping again. That never happened before the attack. We want Miss Moore to provide counseling for Katie on the school's dime.”

Jan asked, “Why me?”

Adam smiled at Jan, “As a lawyer in the tri-county area, I get a feeling for who the good and bad counselors are. You have an outstanding reputation in your private practice. I am assuming that you treat the school practice the same.”

“I do. I see no reason why to cheap out care because the school district can’t pay as much.” Jan paused for a moment before tilting her head a little, “What do you mean kill off?”

“Up until the attack, if we wanted Katie to answer something as an adult or give her adult opinion, all we had to do was say the name ‘Kathleen.’ That was the prompt used to get her adult side to show up in any situation. Since the attack, if someone says ‘Kathleen,’ you will get an answer like, ‘Kathleen is not in right now’ or ‘Kathleen, who is that?’” Adam told the counselor. “I want to stress we don’t want the seven-year-old side killed off, and we for sure don’t want the nineteen-year-old side killed off. But we do want a happy medium.”

Jan nodded, “I think I understand.”

Tim interjected, “We do reserve the right to stop Katie from seeing you and make the school pay for a different counselor. But we will only use that right if we feel you are harming Katie.”

Dan asked, “What if your demands are not met?”

With a straight flat expression, Tim responded, “We will go through the difficult process of suing a school district for emotional distress. With Pearl Holt being fired before, we think we have a good case to get a multi-million dollar settlement.”

Superintendent Grabowski’s face fell. He knew they had an excellent case. He looked at Steve, who looked right back at him with a frown.

Dan broke the staring contest and said, “I don’t see a problem with the demands. But they can’t be approved until the school board meeting in January.”

Adam nodded before adding, “Oh, we have another request, not a demand.”

“Yes?” Dan responded.

“We would like a copy of the video files for when we stop at the police station.”

“I have them set aside on my computer and can easily give them to you if Dan has no problem with that,” Principal Steve Mesmer stated.

“If we start those when there are no other kids, and it is just Katie and Pearl, I see no issues with letting you have a copy of the files,” Dan responded.

“Now, Jan,” Adam said, “Some information you should know. Denise Schneider wrote me a three-page letter about the attack. She also wrote a letter to Katie’s friend and roommate at college. I’m not sure if the two letters are the same or not. I am telling you this because Katie refuses to talk about the attack. She just says see the note. She, personally, has not read the note. We are going to need your help in getting Katie to tell the cops her side of the story. They won’t take ‘see the note’ as an answer.”

“Right, they very much will not,” Jan affirmed. “I think I should probably see Katie as soon as possible. Do you know where she is right now?”

“Ninety-nine percent chance she will be in the cluster outside of room 313 Whitlatter Hall this afternoon. She has Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons free. She is a homebody, rarely leaving her dorm except to go to class or eat. Avoid lunch or dinner time to see her,” Adam said. “If her two guardians are there, they can be quite protective of her. Actually, the whole cluster is protective of her. Just say Adam Olsen sent you, and they will back right down.”

Jan nodded at this, “I will get over to see her this afternoon.”

“It would help if you were there when the cops showed up,” Adam looked at his watch. “Oh, I forgot. It is exam week, and I am not sure of her exam schedule. I take a backseat in her college education. I only make sure she remains full-time and maintains at least a three-point-O. Since Katie has a tentative GPA of three-point-nine, I don’t get involved much with her college life.”

Tim stood up, “Gentlemen and Lady, it has been nice meeting you all. And Dan, we will put all of this in writing and get it to you in the next few days.”

As everyone shook hands and started to leave, Adam stopped Jan, “Katie often doesn’t get back to her dorm on these afternoon free days until one p.m.”

After the two lawyers, the superintendent, and the district lawyer all left, Jan looked at Principal Mesmer, “Can I be excused from the school for the afternoon? Looks like something just came up.”

Steve smiled, “Why, of course, Jan.”

Pearl Holt opened her door to be greeted by two guys. They handed her their business card.

The younger one said, “We represent Jane Doe, and the family has some demands for the attack on the sixth.”

Defensive Pearl asked, “Which are?”

“Demand number one, you refer to the girl as Jane Doe, aged seven. Demand number two: you pay the family via the yellow law firm fifteen hundred dollars,” The younger one said. He continued, “And demand number three, you plead guilty to any charges. You are allowed to plea bargain, but you must plea guilty.”

Pearl said, “I haven’t been charged.” She really didn’t have a problem with the Jane Doe stuff. She doesn't even remember the girl’s name. Heck, she didn’t know the girl’s age. She must be seven because they said Jane Doe was aged seven.

The older one said, “Not yet. But I assure you that is coming.”

Pearl asked, “What if I don’t agree to your demands?”

“We will sue you in a multi-million dollar lawsuit,” the younger one handed her a paper with the demands. “Have your lawyer look over the demands and get his opinion.”

With that said the two lawyers went back into their small-sized gray SUV.

“Can I help you two gentlemen?” the cop at the desk asked.

Adam said, “We are lawyers, and we would like to press charges for an attack that happened on Wednesday. We have the security footage.”

The desk cop responded, “Let me see if a cop is around to help you.”

A female cop just happened to walk in at that moment. The desk cop turned to her and said, “Great, Lisa, these two gentlemen would like to talk to you about an attack that happened Wednesday.”

Lisa Harper led the two guys to a room to talk. She asked who they were and got the two locally famous Olsen lawyers' names. Lisa’s heart skipped a beat. She knew of these two and feared the day she would have to go up against them in court. Today, however, they were asking for her help, not fighting her.

“So, tell me about this attack?” Lisa asked, thinking attacks are hard to prove sometimes. They usually turn into he-said and she-said cases.

Adam handed over a memory stick, “Let's let the security cameras speak for themselves.”

If this was all recorded by cameras, then maybe this just got a lot easier. Lisa put the memory stick in her computer and pulled up the video. She watched it before speaking, “That is definitely an attack. The attacker is, for sure, Pearl Holt. Who is the girl being attacked?”

Tim answered, “Katie Telgenhof.”

Lisa rewinded the video and paused on a clear shot of Katie, “She looks to be somewhere between six and nine.”

“She is actually nineteen,” Adam stated. “But because of her size, she dresses quite young.”

Lisa's face fell. Her being nineteen meant complications. She typed something on the computer in front of her. She asked, “Spell that last name?”

“T E L G E N H O F,” Adam replied.

“Oh, here is her driver’s license. Under Kathleen A.”

“That is her,” Adam said. He handed over a copy of the famous note, “Here is a write-up about her attack that Denise Schneider wrote that evening.”

Lisa read it, “It says here that the Schneider’s told the principal that Katie was age seven.”

“That is the complicated thing. Katie regresses normally. She has found life easier to handle if she just lets people believe she is the same age as other people her size. I am her dad for her young self. I am the Daddie she was asking for in the video,” Adam explained.

Lisa got defensive and asked, “Is this forced? Does she go to school? Do scouts? Does she have any activity that would put her regularly around real kids?”

Adam calmly responded, “Negative, not forced. She is a very willing participant. Positive on school, she goes to Mountain College. As for activities that put her regularly around young children, the only one I could think of would be one-half hour every two weeks for children’s church.”

Lisa felt better. She wasn’t too worried about the children’s church. She was more concerned about misrepresenting herself as a real kid for something like a grade school. Scouts really wouldn’t be a problem if everything were kept innocent. Though she would rather the scouts know the actual age. She asked, “Does this Laura know, and how does she fall in?”

Adam felt like Katie was under investigation, but he expected this, “Laura is one of her seven-year-old friends. Stacy is her other seven-year-old friend. Laura has only seen Katie three times. Katie has a busy schedule. Stacy and Katie are with each other every other weekend.”

“Why every other weekend? And does anything adult happen? That is really what I am worried about,” Lisa stated.

“She stays at college the other weekend. And I don’t think Katie has an adult side to her. She is very much a seven-year-old when she is around them,” Adam responded. “Stacy’s father is a state congressman. He wouldn’t put up with Katie not being innocent with his daughter.”

Lisa looked at the two lawyers before responding, “I am satisfied with Katie, but I will talk to Laura, Stacy, and her to make sure. Now, getting back to this attack, being technically nineteen, only Katie can press charges. She can give you the right to press charges on her behalf. Basically, you did your step. She just needs to say she wants to press charges.”

“That is fine,” Adam said.

Lisa continued, “Can you give me contact information for Katie, Laura, and Stacy.”

Adam told the cop how to get a hold of all three. He explained that Katie would most likely be easiest to locate after one thirty when Katie should be done with both morning exams and lunch.

After eating at Reynolds, Katie was studying in the cluster while using Ally as a pillow. Katie looked especially little today, for this morning, her hair had been put into curled pigtails, complete with pink bows. Tiffany was studying across from the two when they all looked over at the cluster door opening. Instead of seeing one of their cluster mates returning, a lady in her late twenties walked in.

“Can I help you?” Tiffany asked.

“I am Jan Moore, and I am here to see Katie. Since she is the only seven-year-old student at Mountain College,” Jan looked directly at Katie.”I presume you are Katie Telgenhof.”

Tiffany immediately stood up, positioning herself between Katie and Jan, “Why do you want to talk to her?”

Katie was now sitting up and trying to disappear into the couch.

Jan smiled but was worried about how stressed Katie was visually getting, “I am the Washington Elementary School Counselor.”

Ally wrapped her arm around Katie and glared at the lady, “How did you find her?”

~o~O~o~

Author's Note:Kudos, Comments, and questions are always welcomed. -- Thanks Becky