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Chapters 5 and 6
by Sofia Hammerstein
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'Alterations' continues the story of Stacy's journey from 'Exchanged' and 'Little Hope.' Stacy is a young college student who chose to travel to a new dimension to study their advanced computing technology at a prestigious university as an exchange student. Stacy thought he knew what he was getting into when he traveled, but multiple events show that he didn't plan for every problem he would encounter. Recently on a trip his adoptive parents adopted another Little, Bella, to help prevent her from being taken by unscrupulous Amazons. Stacy now begins orientation and classes at Emerson as the small family attempts to stay safe from the outside threat. Can Stacy manage to navigate college classes and everything the dimension can throw at him, and still make it back home with a degree? (Story set in the Diaper Dimension)
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Available for Purchase as
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 Kindle Book Priced $5.95 |
Please visit Sofia's Author Page |
The Legal Stuff: Exchanged © 2017-2025 By Sofia Hammerstein
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
Chapter 5: Cartoons
MY EYES GREW wide with the information that LPS was investigating already. “What happened?”
“Fred had just sat Bella down in a playpen with a bottle of juice and a fresh diaper. I guess the woman pushed her way through the door to look around for a few minutes before talking to him. She had to admit it looked like they were doing a good job of cleaning up the Littles mess, and she seemed to be well cared for now. Some of her comments alluded that if she was discovered not being a good baby girl for her new parents, maybe someone else could better help her?”
“That’s horrible!” I breathed. “But… how far do they expect you to go?” I asked nervously.
“Well, that’s the thing… we’d already talked to Bella about something like this happening. So that’s when she told us last night just to go ahead and treat her like a baby with most things. Height-wise, she’s a little shorter than a two-year-old, but she’s so skinny the younger infant clothes fit her better. So she asked us to treat her like she’s about eighteen months old as far as the potty, eating, sleeping, and everything else.”
“You’re not going to…?”
“We don’t have to do anything else, Stacy. At that age, she’s old enough to crawl, walk, or run. She can feed herself finger foods and eat solid foods, but she’s still young enough that nursing and using her baba and pacifier are considered normal.”
“What about doing stuff like getting on the computer or playing with things other than dolls? Her sewing?”
“With an adult supervising, we’ll let her do some of those. However, the sewing will have to wait for a couple of months until we’re sure LPS will leave well enough alone.”
“And me?”
“What about you?”
“What about LPS and me?”
“Oh, silly girl, you’re fine. You’re a well-adjusted Little who, as far as they’re concerned, knows her place is in her diapees but is too smart not to go to school.”
I nodded, “It’s not fair though that I get to do some things she can’t?”
“Like?”
“Like she’s already in bed by eight?”
“Remember you have those nanites, Stacy – Bella’s a normal Little. Normal Littles, even independent ones, rarely stay up past nine! Remember, we have our long days here. Bella has gone to bed around eight for her whole life. So it’s not like it’s a punishment.”
I looked at the clock and saw it was nine-thirty, “So do I have a bedtime?”
“Well, I’d definitely say before your Mommy and Daddy!”
“Obviously, kind of hard to get into my crib by myself!”
“Exactly! So probably no later than eleven on most weeknights?”
I nodded, “Okay, I guess I can live with that.”
Amanda kept stroking through my hair until it was dry enough that she could loosely braid it. “Umm, Mommy? When am I going to be able to get my hair done?”
“I have an appointment for you and your sister at nine tomorrow?”
“That soon?” I asked, suddenly a bit nervous.
“I figured tomorrow was the best time with the tours going on?”
I nodded, “What are we doing with it?”
“I thought maybe you could just have the length evened up to just above your shoulders, and we’ll get it curled under?” Then, she suggested, “Probably also have them cut bangs into your hair?”
I nodded, knowing that could be way worse, “So I can still have a ponytail or pigtails?”
She smiled at me and hugged me, “Yep!”
“What about Bella?”
“We’re going to get hers done into a short bob,” she told me, “it’s a pretty normal looking cut for a Little her size to have,” she added.
“How long will you have to treat her like this?” I asked, going back to our earlier conversation.
She squeezed me in a hug and whispered, “only as long as we have to, and she wants to continue with it. If she decides she really wants to be done with it at some point, I’ll let you make contact with some people to get her free.”
I smiled back at her and returned the hug.
“Now, I spoke with a few colleagues about your placement test for tomorrow since I’ve never really paid much attention to it. They said you can choose which language you want to use as long as it’s something they have a compiler for.”
“Okay… You know which ones I understand – which should I use?”
“I think if you base your answers off what you called C#, that would be best?” She said, and I nodded, “It’s not exactly the same with some of the higher-order language functions of what’s current here, but it’s close enough that whatever you code should compile.”
“Okay… what’s different about the newer version you all use?” I asked, thinking back to our earlier conversation where it had been apparent that they seemed to have had all of our languages decades earlier than we did.
“Most of the differences have to do with some of the AI Cognitive Mapping functions we’re using in my studies...”
We had a totally nerdy conversation as she told me about some of the things she was working on. It turns out that AI and nanites were her primary focus. Her studies were based on the hopes of making it possible to remotely start civilizations on other planets with pre-built habitat domes. It was something straight out of science fiction, but it sounded really cool! She’d also been involved at low levels with the coding foundations for Tessa but wasn’t directly hands-on with the project anymore, so she didn’t know how far she had come along until last week.
When all was said and done, it was ten-thirty when Fred peaked his head in and said he was going to bed. As he left, Amanda asked, “You want a bottle before bed?”
“I’d rather nurse,” I said sadly.
“Well, you didn’t have any poopy accidents today? So let’s let your body clear until this weekend, and we’ll try to go back to nights?”
I nodded and sat comfortably on her hip as she filled a bottle with regular milk and some honey, heated it up, then sat down with me and fed the bottle to me while she hummed a lullaby to send me off to sleep.
I WOKE UP the following day to the flash of a camera. I blinked and came to the slow realization that I was being held. As I became more aware, I realized that I was serving as a teddy bear for Bella, who hadn’t apparently become aware of the attention yet. I looked up at Amanda and said, “Do you have to take pictures all of the time?”
“No, just when there’s an adorable moment,” Amanda said, smiling down at me.
“What…?” I heard behind me as Bella stirred. “Let me sleep in!”
“I need you to let your sister go, Bella; she has to get ready for her day, and so do you!” Amanda said as she reached down and lightly tickled Bella’s side.
“Stop it!” she whined while I made my escape.
I noticed that I really needed to pee and let it go into the dry diaper while Amanda picked me up. She felt my diaper warming and asked, “needed to go, huh?”
“Wish I would just go in my sleep and not think about it,” I admitted to her.
She squeezed me and said, “can you wait until after breakfast for a change?”
I thought about it for a second, then nodded, “Yeah.”
Fred came in right then, and she passed me to him, “Would you get Stacy going with breakfast? I made some oatmeal and cut up some fruit for her that’s on the table.”
“Sure, sweetie,” he told her as he took me and gave me a gentle squeeze.
As he carried me out the door, I watched Amanda pick Bella up and move towards the rocking chair to nurse her. I sighed heavily as he cradled me and walked downstairs, “Are you sure you don’t want to just avoid her milk forever, Stacy?” Then, as we made it to the bottom step, he asked, “I think you might never kick the habit if you start again?”
I shook my head, “Pretty sure… but you’re right, it’s an addiction. Every time I see Bella nursing, see Aman… Mommy pumping, or another Little feeding from their mommy… it causes this huge craving!”
“Is it getting easier?” He asked as he gently sat me down in the highchair and began buckling the harness.
I thought and shook my head, “Not really…?”
“Hmm… I wonder if there’s something you missed with the nanites? Most Littles who escape from their ‘parents’ seem to be able to move on with life without that problem?” he asked as he velcroed a bib onto my neck.
I shrugged, “I don’t know?” and added, “How active are the nanites still?”
“That would be a Mommy question, Stacy, but I think they are at least present still. Even if they are deactivated, I’m pretty sure they don’t leave your body completely.”
He put the tray on the highchair before placing the oatmeal, fruit, and coffee in front of me. The spoon sat in the oatmeal, and I drank a large gulp of coffee before beginning to carefully eat. I could feel the cloth padding of the seat’s cover on my legs since the onesie I was wearing only covered my diaper. ‘Oatmeal with Amanda’s milk is a lot better than this,’ I whined in my mind as I took each bite but kept eating it a spoonful at a time, alternating it with the fruit to help with the taste.
Fred read something on a tablet as I ate, so it was quiet enough for me to just think. ‘The nanites… I wonder if they can be programmed still?’ The thought of being able to maybe do something about the side effects of her milk and who knows what else was intriguing. I thought back to the code from the lab and remembered I had managed to get a copy of it onto my own computer. ‘Maybe I can hack my own nanites?’ I thought with a bit of a grin.
“All done?” Amanda interrupted my thoughts as she deposited a sleepy Bella into her highchair. She was dressed in a frilly pink bodysuit outfit with a skirt that hung well above the bottom of the crotch that was snapped shut. The result was that it easily showed off her pink princess diaper to the sides of the flap. Her long hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail that descended halfway down her back, making sense with us getting a haircut.
I gulped the last sip of coffee and nodded, “I guess so.”
“Let’s get you changed then and dressed so we can get going,” she pronounced as she came over to me, pulled the tray off, unbuckled me, and picked me up. “Do you need to use your potty?” she asked.
I thought for a second and shook my head, “not right now?”
“You sure?”
I nodded, “we’ll be able to come home before going to the university later?”
“Yes, we’ll have to drop off your baby sister,” she told me.
I just shook my head at the absurdity of having an older adult, over a foot and half taller than me, being called my baby sister! She pulled my wet diaper off upstairs and wiped me before asking, “What kind of diaper do you want, sweetie?”
“Just a regular Pamper?” I asked, “I don’t need anything thicker… right?”
She shook her head, “No, but I just wanted to make sure you didn’t want a thinner one?”
I shrugged, “All the girls last night saw my diaper, and I made no attempt to hide I’m not using the potty. Madison talked about their potty with them when one of the girls tried to pick on me.”
“What did she do?” Amanda seemed more than a little bit upset about me being picked on.
“It wasn’t anything big; she just wanted to know why I didn’t have a potty chart…?”
“You said?”
“Well, actually, Madison did ask me then if I needed one… I told her my mommy keeps me in diapers, so a potty chart would be kind of pointless!”
Amanda laughed then, “Okay, you handled that well.”
I nodded, and Amanda and I chatted as she dressed me in my uniform. As she finished, she handed me a dark green leather lanyard wallet that my student ID was now in and visible. “When did you buy this?”
“Yesterday while you were in your Little seminar,” she said as she quickly pulled my hair out of the braid that she did the night before. Then, she let it just hang loose around my head. “I can’t wait to have this styled, so I can do more with it!” she told me with a smile.
I shrugged, “Just as long as it’s not too short!”
“Don’t worry, Stacy, I want to have at least one daughter that I can play with her hair!”
‘One daughter?’ Before remembering the plans for shortening Bella’s hair to a short bob. It was sad, given how pretty her long hair was!
Soon enough, both of us were strapped into our car seats with pacifiers in our mouths and on the road to whatever salon she had chosen. Suddenly, the video screen she had strapped to the middle above our heads came to life, and a cartoon began showing. “Umm… Mommy? Is this safe?” I asked nervously.
“Yes, Stacy, it’s a regular Amazon cartoon with no messages. I did a lot of digging to make sure it was safe.”
“Okay…” I said and found myself watching a cartoon that was a cross between Dora the Explorer and a Disney Princess cartoon. I decided it had some decent production value, almost like an anime back home. We were nearly done with the episode hitting a cliffhanger when Amanda stopped the car, and the video turned off.
“Mommy!” Bella whined, “It was just at the best part!”
Amanda giggled as she came around and unbuckled me first, “It’s okay, it’ll be there when we leave. Let’s go get my two princesses pretty, though!”
To my surprise, she pulled the pacifier I’d forgotten from my mouth and left it in the car seat while she sat me down on the ground. I followed at a close distance behind her while she went to the other side to grab Bella. While she was gathering her up, I looked at the strip mall salon and saw it was named ‘Little Styles for Big Lives.’
“Come on, Princess,” Amanda called to me when she had our diaper bag over one shoulder and carried Bella on her other hip.
‘Why isn’t she carrying me?’ I wondered a little as I ran after her, taking four steps for every one of Amanda’s trying to keep up with her long legs! ‘I wonder what it will be like to go for a girl’s haircut?’
As she pushed the door open, a happy electronic chime sounded. “Welcome to Little Styles!” A plump Amazon woman said as we walked in.
“I have an appointment for my two Little girls?” Amanda told her.
“Absolutely; what’s the last name?”
“Westerfield.”
“Got you right here! We should have both of your stylists ready to go here in a couple minutes. Why don’t you wait over there, and we’ll call you back in a sec? I’ll make sure they put your two princesses in adjoining chairs!”
“Thanks!” Amanda said and carried us over to some chairs next to your typical waiting area where small children were involved. Many baby toys sat inside a fenced play area, while magazines covered a table in front of some chairs. Amanda sat down with Bella still in her arms, and I climbed into the chair next to her.
‘This is weird,’ I thought to myself. ‘Why is Amanda making me walk and basically ignoring babying me?’ There was no doubt I was feeling jealous of Bella getting to get carried!
Chapter 6: Lifestyles
AS WE SAT down, Bella was given a bottle in exchange for her pacifier, and I just had to sit there hoping I wouldn’t go stir crazy. Amanda surprised me by handing me my phone, which made me smile. I began looking around my apps and e-mail.
‘I should reply to Dean Sanders and Mrs. Walters,’ and began quick, but professional sounding, replies to both thanking Dean Sanders and letting Mrs. Walters know I would be coming as suggested. I had just hit send on my e-mail to Mrs. Walters when I heard, “Westerfield?”
A tall Amazon woman and a much shorter Betweener man stood by the desk waiting for us. I hopped down while Amanda pulled Bella’s bottle from her mouth, replaced it with her pacifier, and followed them back. “I’ll take care of your little one,” the Amazon woman said, and I expected her to take me, but instead, she took Bella and sat her in a weird stylist chair with a harness and spots to tie down your arms and legs.
“And I’ll work on you, sweetie,” the Betweener said, “I’m Alex,” with a very effeminate voice.
‘Talk about living down to your stereotypes,’ I nearly giggled but appreciated someone slightly closer to my size. Alex directed me to a chair that was next to the other booth. This one seemed to be more like a regular salon chair back home. It was probably sized for a Little, but I was so small that I was still a bit small for it, but other than that, it seemed to be an ordinary chair. “I’m Stacy,” I told him after a moment when I had climbed up.
“And who’s this?” The woman asked in a sickly baby talk voice.
“Bella,” she said softly around the pacifier.
“You must have just found a new home, huh?” She asked.
Bella nodded nervously.
“Well, Mommy, what are we doing with her hair today?” the Amazon woman asked Amanda.
“I thought she would be adorable with a short bob? Maybe just a bit below her ears, so it’s not so easy to get in her din-din?”
“Easier to clean and take care of too?” The woman looked for a moment before nodding, “It’ll be a great look for her. Anything else you want? I can do a perm?”
“Nah, the Shirley Temple days are long gone; I’m not a fan of curly hair.”
“I can understand that. It’s a pain to maintain, too!” the woman replied. “Now, do we need the arm and leg straps? You just got her, right?”
“You can go without those; Bella is a pretty good girl, and the harness should be enough.”
“We’ll see, huh?” the lady said before getting to work.
The Betweener then asked, “Ma’am, what are we doing on your big girl today?”
“She can tell you,” Amanda said.
I must have looked like a deer in the headlights then, but I said softly, “Can you even it up to my shoulders to where I can curl it under? Then cut my bangs? I still want to be able to put it in a ponytail or pigtails?”
“How about some layering?” He asked me as he studied my hair.
I shrugged, “Sure.”
“Okay, with you, Mom?” He asked Amanda.
“Sounds perfect to me,” she said in reply and settled down in a chair across from us.
My first ever experience in a salon was definitely a new one for me. Alex washed my hair before beginning to snip with his scissors, and I had to fight from crying at all of the hair falling everywhere. But, I tried to stay calm because Bella certainly wasn’t quiet next to me.
“Oww…” she cried at one point, and I hoped she was okay. But, from what I could tell, sobs were definitely coming from around her pacifier.
“It’s okay, Baby,” Amanda cooed at one point.
I eventually felt like I really needed to go pee and let it out into my diaper without even thinking much about it. After a while longer, I really began to feel the need to go the other way but fought to hold it in. ‘Pooping in this chair seems more than slightly embarrassing!’ Just as Alex finished with my hair and turned me towards a mirror, a small fart probably gave away my need to go to Amanda. “What do you think, Princess?”
I looked at my face and turned my head back and forth. The haircut was adorable on the little girl in the mirror! The fact that I was that little girl was still a bit of a shock - but I definitely liked it! With the haircut and my uniform, I looked like I might be about eight to ten years old. Well… at least if the size was taken out of the picture!
I smiled, “Thank you, I love it!”
“What do you think, Mom?” he asked as I saw Amanda stand up, now holding a Bella with shockingly shorter hair. Whereas my haircut added to my age, hers made her look like a young toddler.
“She’s beautiful, just like my big princess!” she smiled and kissed my head. “We’ll have to get her nails done next time we come in!”
“Our nail tech is great, actually, and all our nail polish is kid-safe! We do that, so if she sucks her thumb still, there’s no worry about what she’s eating,” the Amazon that had cut Bella’s hair said.
‘Great…’ I mumbled to myself, knowing I had sucked my thumb on numerous occasions to deal with someone like that.
“Let’s go pay, then we’ll go home and show Daddy!”
I reached the ground with help from Alex, who I turned around and said, “Thank you for treating me like a big girl today.”
He smiled widely at me and leaned down to whisper, “That’s why I’m here, honey, the big girls get me! Just make sure your mom asks for me in the future, kay?”
I smiled and gave him a hug before following Amanda to the front. After she paid and I began waiting for her at the car to put me in my car seat, the urge to poop became stronger. ‘Come on, you can hold it!’ I screamed at myself as the car began moving again. I distracted myself with the video that came back on, but there wasn’t much else to try and forget what was going on. As soon as she parked in the garage, I asked, “Mommy, can you please hurry? I need to go potty bad!”
“Just a moment Stacy,” she told me calmly as she came around to my door, picked me up gently, opened the kitchen door, and sat me down.
I hurried to the potty, pulled my skirt up, let the wet diaper plop beneath me, and sat down on the potty just in time for a mess that I was glad hadn’t gone into my diaper!
“What a big girl you are!” Amanda cooed at me as she came inside with Bella in her arms. She carried her straight to the playpen and sat her down. “Bella, I’m going to be right back,” she told her and came over to where I was sitting with the wet diaper lying in front of me and still on the potty.
“Lean forward, baby, so I can wipe you,” she told me. Then, a moment later, “what did you eat yesterday? This is icky!”
I thought back and said, “I had that bottle of regular milk last night?”
She nodded, “Maybe…?”
Once I was cleaned up, she handed me another Pamper and said, “put this on while I clean out your potty. I think Daddy’s upstairs in your nursery; if you want to go show him your new haircut then?”
“Can I wash my hands first?”
“Sure, sweetie, just let me go clean this out. This is worse than normal!”
I peeked in as I stood up and agreed. The watery stool was particularly putrid for some reason, but I was proud to have held it for what must have been a solid hour! I leaned against the cabinets and put on the fresh diaper just as she collected the wet diaper in a ball and tossed it in a new diaper genie that I hadn’t seen before. “When did you get that?” I asked as she picked me up to wash my hands in the sink.
“Yesterday, your Daddy made a trip to the store with Bella to pick up a few more things. With two of you in diapers in the house, it seemed like a good idea to have one downstairs too.”
I nodded as she sat me down and asked, “Mommy may I have my phone back so I can take a selfie of my new hair?”
She laughed, “Teenage girls are all alike!” She produced it, and I ran upstairs to show Fred and find the mirror in my room. I just caught her picking up Bella and saying, “Let’s have a snack, and then I want you to take a nap for your Daddy before lunch.”
‘This must be what it feels like to be a big sister normally… But I hate how jealous I am that she’s getting all of the attention from Amanda! And, all of her milk!’
Upstairs I found Fred assembling a pink bed in the nursery. It took me a second before my brain stopped, and I said, “Daddy, why are you putting a big girl’s bed in here?”
“Well, Stacy, we needed to get another bed for Bella. But your mommy and I decided we’d surprise you with a big girls princess bed since you’re the older sister!”
I felt my mouth drop slightly as I realized that a toddler’s bed had ironically become a big step up for me! First, of course, the bed was ridiculously pink and cute. It was obviously meant to be a bed fit for a ‘princess,’ featuring tall bedposts topped with crowns and flowery painted details that were so sickeningly sweet I knew every mom in the world would awe over. I ran over to him and hugged him, “Thank you, Daddy,” I told him.
“You’re very welcome, Stacy. Now Mommy will talk to you about the rules of sleeping in a big girl’s bed later, but why don’t you try it out?” He smiled at me.
I kicked off my shoes and hopped onto the exposed mattress of my new bed with a smile on my face. No longer being contained by bars every night was something I could really appreciate! There was still a babyish railing along half of the bed to keep a toddler from rolling out of bed. But, other than that, it was pretty nice! The mattress even felt nice and firm, like I liked!
Amanda came in without Bella and said, “Do you like your new bed?”
I jumped off the bed, ran over to her, and said, “Thank you, Mommy!” Then, as she picked me up and hugged me, I asked, “Why, Mommy?”
“You’re a big college girl Stacy. You should be in a big girl’s bed!” She sounded sad about it. “As much as I want to baby you all of the time, it’s not necessarily the smartest choice if you have to get by.”
“We also want to offer you the option of pull-ups at home if you want them,” Fred added.
I shook my head, “There are no small potties for me at school, so I’ll just keep my Pampers if that’s okay?”
“Sure, sweetheart,” Amanda said.
“Don’t you two need to get to the luncheon?”
“Oh, yes, we do,” Amanda said and checked my diaper before saying, “Oh, Daddy, what did you think about Princess Stacy’s new haircut?”
“It’s beautiful, just like her,” he replied as he came and hugged us both and kissed me on the forehead and her on the lips. “Have a good time Stacy,” he said.
“Thanks, Daddy,” I told him.
“Bella is taking a nap after her snack, honey. She had a hard time dealing with the haircut earlier…” she added.
Fred looked pained but said, “Okay, I’ll check on her in a bit. I just have a few more things to do in here for Stacy. We might go out shopping for a few more things later… Or, go to the park or something.”
“Okay, Dear,” she told him before walking downstairs with me and setting me down so I could grab my backpack and see that Bella was indeed out like a light bulb.
‘Poor Bella,’ I couldn’t help but think while remaining supremely confused about my own status. Other than helping me into the car seat, I didn’t feel like Amanda treated me at all like a baby as we traveled to the university. ‘Why does that bother me…?’ I wondered. ‘Do I like being babied?’
As much as I hated to admit it, I decided the answer was ‘yes, yes I do.’ I didn’t want to be one of Cassie or Chloe’s abused Littles, but the loving treatment Amanda was giving Bella was making me completely jealous. ‘I know she talked about having to have me grow up… but I guess I wasn’t expecting her to really do that.’
Apparently, my thumb found my mouth on the way because Amanda said, “You want to lose that tasty thumb before others see you?”
I blushed but pulled it out and let her wipe it off with a baby wipe she held in her hand. After discreetly tossing that into a trash bag hanging from the seat, she picked me up and sat me down on the ground. “So, this is supposed to be the last time we’re supposed to see you until Labor Day,” she teased me.
“I guess I’m not going to get that lucky, huh?” I teased her back.
I walked alongside her, having left my backpack in the car since I didn’t need it yet. The luncheon was apparently in a location called Venture Commons. I discovered that it was a vast indoor athletic facility with plenty of space for tables for all of the new students and their parents. I could see as we walked in that each table was covered with an elegant place setting. “Professor Westerfield!” a voice greeted us as we approached the front of the line.
“President Nitsche!” Amanda replied happily with a smile at the voice.
I looked to see a huge man with graying hair and a nice suit on. Amanda stopped next to where he was standing by the ropes of the line. “What brings our distinguished professor to an opening undergrad event?”
“My daughter, Stacy,” she said and patted my head with a smile.
I decided to go for broke and try a curtsy, “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Aren’t you adorable?” He said with a smile, “Nice to meet you too!” Then, he looked at Amanda, “I had totally forgotten about your Little exchange student. Surely this can’t be her?” he seemed surprised, “I thought she’d be larger?”
“So, did I,” I said with a smirk. I became a bit self-conscious when I realized many students and parents were staring at our conversation.
“Something either about a second trip through the gate or something… we’re not really sure what happened to her,” Amanda told him, “but she’s every bit as intelligent as we hoped she’d be.”
“That’s great! It’s unusual to let a Little live off-campus… or even accept an adopted Little to the university, but you do have an unconventional way about you, my dear.”
Amanda smiled at him in response.
At that point, he said, “It’s nice to meet you, Stacy. Please let me know if you ever need anything, ladies. I know you’ll want to eat something soon!”
As we traveled down the remaining distance, the stares continued, and I wondered just what I didn’t know! At the front of the line, attendants were seating the students and families as they came in. “One adult and a highchair?” ours asked.
“No, two chairs, please, but a booster seat would be helpful?” Amanda asked.
“We can do that,” the lady said and directed us to follow her to a table.
When we arrived, I couldn’t help but feel a sinking feeling as a family took up four of the eight chairs. A mother, a tall Amazon college daughter, and two highchair-bound Little girls sat across from Amanda and me. Their Little girls were sandwiched between the mother and her daughter. Amanda possessively sat between their mother and me. We were joined by a geeky-looking but tall Amazon boy and his mother a moment later.
As I was helped by Amanda into the booster seat, the ‘mother’ of the Littles helpfully said, “They do have high chairs available if you ask for them.”
“That’s okay, my daughter will be fine in a booster. It’s just a matter of helping her reach the table,” she smiled at the woman.
“To each their own,” the woman said snippily.
With that, I had a moment to stare at the two Little girls. She clearly had some treatments to them as they both had babyish smiles practically plastered on their faces. Drool dripped from their mouths to their bibs, and both alternated holding and gnawing on teething toys that were pointless with their teeth removed. Finally, one started to fuss a little, and the mother said, “Phoebe, here’s a jar of food for Fifi, would you spoon feed it to her?”
“Yes, Mom, I’ll feed the rugrat.” She looked at the jar and said, “Mom, really? You’re making me feed her carrots again? I have things to go to later, and I’m going to be a mess because she hates them!”
“She loves carrots,” her mom said condescendingly. “Just do it.”
“Rugrat, you’d better not spit this up all over me,” the girl warned severely to her sister, who began whimpering.
“Be nice, Phoebe. You won’t see your sisters for four months while you’re here at school.”
“Hi, I’m Jackson,” the boy next to me said suddenly.
I looked up at the tall boy and said, “I’m Stacy; nice to meet you!”
“I see you have a uniform on? So you’re a student?”
“Yep!” I smiled, “I know I’m short, but I can’t wait to start classes here!”
“What are you going to study? I’m studying Computer Science?”
“Me too!” I said with a smile.
“Hi, I’m her mother, Doctor Westerfield,” Amanda said to him.
I watched his eyes go like bug crazy and really began to wonder just who she was. “The professor of AI studies?”
“That’s me,” Amanda said.
“I’m Janice, his mother,” the lady next to him said.
“You’re really bringing a Little that cute to the university?” Phoebe’s mom asked, suddenly interrupting after spooning a mouthful of peas to the Little closest to her. “She’ll be adopted before she graduates and can use her degree.”
I smiled at her and said, “Actually, I’m already adopted, ma’am, so while you’re right, you’re also incorrect.”
The lady snarled at me, “Be quiet! Baby girls should be seen and not heard.”
