It was a typical morning in the Spellman house, where teenaged witch Sabrina lived with her two aunts, Hilda and Zelda (both of whom were also witches) and Salem, a warlock who had been changed into a cat by the Witches’ Council for the crime of trying to take over the world years ago. The two aunts were in the kitchen, fixing breakfast for themselves and their niece, who was�they assumed�upstairs getting ready for school. Salem was lounging around wherever he could find free space, making sarcastic remarks about whatever the two aunts were doing, and dropping none-too-subtle hints that they could be feeding him better�and more often. As usual, the aunts ignored him as much as they could. P>
As Hilda and Zelda settled into their morning routine, Sabrina came bounding down the stairs, dressed smartly in gray slacks, white blouse and black vest. P>
“Hey, guess what?”, she exclaimed as she breezed into the room. “I was in the attic looking for stuff to use in my social studies family history project, and I found this old pacifier!” P>
She waved the pacifier in front of her startled aunts, to show them. P>
“Was it mine, or someone else’s in the family?”, she asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, she added, “Check this out�aren’t I cute?” And she stuck the pacifier into her mouth and sucked on it a few times. P>
This spurred her horrified guardians into action. 1P>
“Crackling Comets, NO!”, Zelda cried as she lunged forward, yanking the pacifier forcefully from Sabrina’s mouth and hurling it to the floor. 3P>
“HEY!”, the young witch yelped. “What’s the idea? If it’s not that cute, just say so!” 5P>
“That isn’t it,” Hilda said, finally finding her tongue again. 7P>
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“You don’t understand,” Zelda chimed in; then, glancing at Hilda, Zelda took the lead in explaining. 1P>
“That’s an Other Realm pacifier, Sabrina,” her aunt told her. “It has a spell on it designed specifically to pacify babies and make them less fussy.” 3P>
“So?”, Sabrina said, her brow furrowed in concern. “I’m not a baby! So it won’t work on me!” 5P>
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hilda informed her. “The spell is activated whenever anyone sucks on it, like you just did. If a baby does it�no problem. But if someone who isn’t a baby sucks on it, the spell will make them think like a baby, so that it can pacify them.” 7P>
The color drained from Sabrina’s face. 9P>
“You mean,” she said worriedly, “it will turn you into a baby?” 1P>
“Not physically,” Zelda responded, “just mentally. Although usually, it takes effect faster than this.” 3P>
“Well, maybe it isn’t working because I’m half-witch and half-mortal,” Sabrina said, hoping it was true. “Or maybe I didn’t suck on it long enough.” 5P>
At this, Hilda and Zelda exchanged looks that indicated they didn’t think either one was true. 7P>
“Yeah, I mean, it would have worked by now, if it was going to, right?”, Sabrina assured them. “You said so yourselves!” 9P>
With that, she turned and began to head towards the refrigerator. But after only two steps, she gasped, lost her balance, and fell to her hands and knees. 1P>
“Sabrina!”, Zelda cried. “Did you hurt yourself?” 3P>
“N-no,” she replied. “I’m not hurt. But at the risk of alarming anyone�I seem to have forgotten how to walk!” 5P>
Zelda and Hilda exchanged knowing looks again. Without saying so, they both knew what they needed to do. 7P>
“I’m not sure why it’s taking so long to take full effect,” Zelda told her niece, “but the spell is taking effect. I’m afraid you’re going to be a baby for a while, dear.” 9P>
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Sabrina made a move to get back onto her knees, and was about to try standing up, when a dismayed look crossed her features. She stayed on her knees for a few moments, then gingerly sat back down. As she did so, she was blushing beet-red, and as she sat, her diaper made a gentle “squishing” sound. 3P>
“Problem?”, Hilda asked, though her nose told her what was wrong already. 5P>
“I�ah�seem to have peed my diaper,” Sabrina admitted sheepishly. 7P>
“So I take it we’re not going to try walking anytime soon,” Hilda said, unable to resist a knowing smirk. 9P>
“This is explainable,” Sabrina said, almost as if she was trying to convince herself as well as Hilda. “All this baby talk made me nervous, and I just had a temporary lapse in control, that’s all.” 1P>
“Uh-huh,” Hilda nodded. “Are you sure about that?” 3P>
“Well, it’s either that,” Sabrina replied, “or I have to believe that I wet myself because some stupid pacifier spell is turning me back into a baby. And I refuse to believe that.” 5P>
She took a deep breath, and then a look of new horror etched itself upon her face. 7P>
“And I really don’t believe what it feels like I’m going to do next�” 9P>
With a muffled “FRAPP!” sound, the mortified girl began pooping in her diaper as well. In a matter of minutes, a thick, gooey, smelly mess mired the diaper’s back portion. 01P>
This was more than Sabrina’s overloaded emotions could take, and she began crying and wailing like a frustrated toddler. 03P>
“Ah-hah-hah-hah-hahhhhh!”, she sobbed. “Don’ wanna be a baby! Wahhhhh!” 05P>
Now Hilda felt sorry for her stricken niece, and ashamed of herself for smirking at her earlier discomfort. Realizing that the spell had probably taken full hold by now, she rose from her chair and knelt down next to Sabrina, taking the teen’s head in her arms and stroking her hair to console her. 07P>
“There, there, sweetie,” Hilda said softly. “You’re going to be all right. Zelly will be back soon with the antidote, and in the meantime, I’ll take good care of you. Everything will be okay.” 09P>
Sabrina didn’t think things were very okay at all, but her aunt’s soothing words calmed her down, as did the stroking. She subsided into gentler and less frequent sobs. 11P>
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On this changing station was a full stock of baby supplies. There was a package of fresh, clean diapers; baby oil; talcum powder; and tapes to fasten the diapers shut with. A good supply of baby wipes were also on hand. 20P>
Hilda used her magic to levitate Sabrina onto the changing table. Then, waving her finger like an orchestra conductor waves his baton, she removed Sabrina’s wet and dirty diaper and disposed of it; cleaned her niece’s bottom; oiled and powdered it, and then put her in a fresh diaper. 22P>
For her part, Sabrina tried to keep still while this was going on, but couldn’t resist squirming and flailing her legs around. Hilda saw this and froze Sabrina’s legs in the air until she was finished. As the process went on, Sabrina contentedly sucked her thumb. 24P>
“There,” Hilda said with another sigh. “That’s done. Now I need to get you into a playpen so that you’re not wandering around getting into things while we wait for Zelda and the antidote.” 26P>
Hilda levitated Sabrina off the changing table, and then changed it back to its original form. Sabrina still sat on the floor sucking her thumb. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help herself. Besides, it seemed to calm her down for some reason. 28P>
Hilda went into the Spellman living room and zapped up an adult-sized playpen, filling it with blocks, teddy bears and other infantile toys. Then she zapped Sabrina from the kitchen into the playpen. 30P>
“There we are,” Hilda told her. “How’s that?” 32P>
She didn’t really expect a response, but Sabrina smiled and said, “Ga-ga!” 34P>
Hilda looked at her, puzzled. “Don’t tell me you still understand me?” 36P>
Sabrina nodded vigorously. 38P>
“Wow,” Hilda said. “That’s weird. Usually it’s a total regression.” 40P>
Then a thought struck her. 42P>
“Are you fighting the spell’s effects, honey?” 44P>
More vigorous nodding, punctuated with “Gah! Gah-ga-gah!” 46P>
“Hmm,” Hilda said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, sweetie. No one has ever done it before. Maybe your half-witch/half-mortal make-up has something to do with it. But you still can’t help acting baby-ish?” 48P>
Sabrina shook her head to signify “no.” 50P>
“And you can’t help talking like a baby?” 52P>
Another head-shake. 54P>
“Huh,” Hilda sighed. “That’s one for the books. Well, as long as you can still understand everything we say, that actually helps us out some. You can still sort of communicate with us, and be aware of everything.” 56P>
Sabrina nodded. 58P>
“Unfortunately,” her aunt continued, “since you can’t control your actions, you’ll still need to be in diapers until we get the antidote…you’ll still be wetting and soiling yourself.” 60P>
Sabrina sighed heavily. She’d half expected that, but it still wasn’t welcome news. 62P>
“And just to be on the safe side, I still want to keep you mostly undressed like you are for now. No sense in taking a risk. Can you be okay with that?” 64P>
Sabrina sighed again and wanted to say, “I guess.” What came out was, “Um glaah.” 66P>
“I think I get the message,” Hilda said with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Maybe after this, you’ll think to ask Zelly or I about things you find in the attic before you play with them.” 68P>
Sabrina glared at her aunt, wishing she could ask why they didn’t warn her about these things until after she did them. But she knew if she tried to say anything, it would just come out as baby talk, so she let the glare say it for her. If Hilda understood, she didn’t let on, though. 70P>
As this was going on, Salem cautiously made his way back into the kitchen from where he’d been hiding. Seeing that the room was empty, he looked for something to do, and finding the pacifier still on the floor, began to bat it around with his paws, reminding himself to be careful not to bite it lest the spell work on him as well. He didn’t know  72P>
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A challenge? Libby knew she couldn’t let that go, fellow cheerleader or not. 01P>
“Maybe you’d like to make me?”, Libby fired back. “Or are you just as immature as she is? Maybe you need this!” 03P>
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With that, Libby thrust the pacifier into Valerie’s mouth. Involuntarily, Val sucked on it a couple of times before she could spit it back out into the palm of her hand. 07P>
“Oh, that was real mature, Libby!”, Valerie pouted. “See how you like it!” 09P>
So saying, Val thrust the pacifier into Libby’s mouth. And as Valerie had, she involuntarily sucked on it a few times before she spit it back out. 11P>
At first, the two girls grinned at each other over their impromptu horseplay. Then their expressions went blank, and they sank to their knees, then sat on the floor. Confused and uncertain of what was going on, they both began to suck their thumbs. 13P>
It was at this point that Hilda re-entered the kitchen, having finally heard some of the commotion. She saw the two teenaged girls sitting on the floor, sucking their thumbs, then looked at Salem. 15P>
“What on Earth happened?”, Hilda asked. 17P>
“They found the pacifier and both had a turn on it,” Salem told her. 19P>
“Well, why didn’t you stop them?” 21P>
“Stop them?”, Salem echoed. “So a talking cat should have said, ‘don’t suck on the magic pacifier, girls, or you’ll turn into babies like Sabrina did!” 23P>
Hilda chewed that one over and decided that Salem was right, darn it all. 25P>
“Well, there’s nothing else for it, then,” Hilda sighed. She waved her finger at the two girls, rendering them naked except for diapers, and then zapped them into the playpen with Sabrina, whom she quickly rejoined. 27P>
Sabrina, for her part, was very startled to see that she had two new playmates. She looked at Hilda and said, “Waa?” 29P>
“Yeah, I know, honey,” Hilda said. “They apparently showed up while we were in here, and found the pacifier and started playing with it. But don’t worry�being mortals, they’ve both regressed fully, and once they get the antidote, they won’t remember any of this�Oh! I need to call Zelda and tell her we need a triple dose!” 31P>
She got out her Other Realm cell phone and dialed Zelda’s number. It rang twice before her sister answered. 33P>
“Hilda,” she said with a trace of irritation, “what is it? I’m in line at the pharmacy�” 35P>
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“Oh, good, you haven’t been waited on yet,” Hilda sighed with relief. “You need to get a triple dose of the antidote.” 39P>
“Triple?”, Zelda echoed. “Hilda, what have you done?” 41P>
Hilda explained the situation, and Zelda rolled her eyes to the heavens as if looking for strength. 43P>
“All right, I’ll get a triple dose,” she said at last. “Just do me one favor: find that pacifier and lock it up before we have an entire day care center to contend with!” 45P>
“Way ahead of you, Zelly,” Hilda agreed as she signed off. She zapped the pacifier into the palm of her hand, then zapped a small safe around it with no combination. That would keep the pacifier from ever being used again! 47P>
“Okay, Zelly’s on the job on her end,” Hilda told Sabrina. “But even though your friends won’t remember being babies when this is over, you’d better act as if you think you’re a baby too, because they might have a vague recollection that something wasn’t right at the end, and you don’t want any more trouble.” 49P>
Sabrina nodded her agreement. Meanwhile, Val and Libby had discovered the toys, and were now fighting over the same teddy bear. Sabrina used her magic to surreptitiously create an identical teddy bear, which she offered to the two girls.  51P>
Upon seeing it, Valerie giggled with delight and reached out for it, relinquishing her grip on the one she’d been playing tug-o-war with Libby for. Sabrina let Val have the newer bear, and she hugged it tightly, leaning back against the playpen. Cradling it in one arm, she began sucking her thumb again and started drifting off to sleep. 53P>
Libby, for her part, was at first pleased that now she had the bear she wanted, and she hugged hers tightly, too. But then, seeing Valerie content with her own bear, her now-infantile but still selfish mind decided that she wanted Val’s bear. So she reached over and took it. This woke Valerie up, and she began to whimper and reach for the bear to take it back. Libby held it away so Val couldn’t reach it. 55P>
Realizing that Libby wasn’t going to let her have that bear, Val decided to go back to the other one and reached for it. Libby wasn’t having any of that, either. She kept both teddy bears away from Val, and Val, not knowing what else to do, started to cry. 57P>
Sabrina, who had been watching all of this helplessly while still sucking her own thumb, wanted to do something about it, but couldn’t figure out what. She was hesitant about using her magic, remembering her aunt Hilda’s admonition to avoid it. But it hurt her own feelings to see Libby treat Val so mean. Geez, even as a baby, Libby was a selfish brat! 59P>
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Meanwhile, Sabrina and Valerie were merrily playing with the blocks Hilda had provided. In Sabrina’s case, she was mostly pretending to be interested in them, but she knew that Val was currently really into it, and she felt Val had been frustrated enough with the teddy bear incident, so she played along. Even as she wished, for the hundredth time in the last half-hour, that her aunt Zelda would hurry back with the antidote, she had to admit that there was a certain pleasure to be taken in having no more to worry about than this. To her surprise, a part of her wished she could retreat back into babydom on a regular basis, whenever teenaged life got to be too stressful. She wondered if that were possible, even for a witch. Maybe when this was all over, she would ask her aunts about that.  74P>
Or maybe not. They might think it, and she, were weird. Maybe she was. 76P>
Finding these thoughts disturbing, Sabrina finally dismissed them and got down to the serious business of arranging the blocks. She wanted to see how many words she could spell with them. Val just wanted to arrange them in ways her infantile mind found appealing. 78P>
As Val and Sabrina lay on the floor of the playpen, stacking the blocks, Val wet herself. Not seeing anything particularly wrong with it, she continued playing, though Sabrina wrinkled her nose at the smell of urine-soaked diaper. A few moments later, Val finished the job by pooping in her diaper as well. 80P>
Hilda, who was out in the kitchen finishing breakfast and cleaning up, knew nothing about this. And Val, who was not the least bit uncomfortable as yet, gave no outward sign that she needed changing. So Sabrina took the matter into her own hands. 82P>
First, she tried to call out to her aunt. She tried to force herself to say, “Aunt Hilda! We need you!” 84P>
What came out was, “Waaah! Bo glah baah! 86P>
In the kitchen, Hilda heard this, but not understanding the situation, felt it was just the kids playing and ignored it. 88P>
Meanwhile, Sabrina waited. And waited. And waited some more. At first she figured that Hilda would eventually have to come in and check on them. But as the minutes passed and Hilda still didn’t show up, Sabrina began to become concerned. Not only did her friend stink to high heavens, but Sabrina was also afraid Val might get diaper rash. 90P>
“Well,” she thought, “I still have my magic. Maybe I should just change her myself. How hard can it be?” 92P>
Pointing her finger at Val, Sabrina caused her to turn over onto her back. Startled by this, Val whimpered and began to suck her thumb again. Sabrina then made Val’s diaper come undone, falling away from her.  94P>
She had expected Val to lay perfectly still while her dirty diaper was changed. This didn’t happen. Instead, once her diaper had fallen away, Val got back up onto her hands and knees and went back after the teddy bears. Sabrina hastily zapped up a wash cloth to cleanse her friend’s behind, but Val kept moving and the cloth kept missing.  96P>
Then Val crawled back over the dirty diaper, squishing poop all over her hands and knees and the playpen floor. 98P>
“Oh, Drell love a duck!”, Sabrina thought, invoking the name of the head of the Witches’ Council. Now there was an even bigger mess to clean up. 00P>
It was at this time that Hilda came back to check on the girls. 02P>
“Oh, Drell love a duck!”, she cried, echoing her niece’s thoughts. “What a mess! And don’t think I don’t see your helping hand in this, Sabrina!” 04P>
Sabrina wanted to say, “I’m sorry, I was just trying to help!” But what she actually said was, “Ahwa wugga, glaah gleep!” 06P>
Her aunt seemed to understand anyway, because her attitude softened.  08P>
“I know, sweetie, I know,” she sighed as she held Val still with her own magic and cleaned up the mess. “This is really tough on you�it’d almost be kinder if your mind had regressed, because this way, you’re aware of what you can’t do. I think I’d better put a lock on your magic until you’re cured, so things like this don’t keep happening.” 10P>
She pointed her finger at Sabrina, and although nothing visibly happened, Sabrina soon found that when she pointed her finger and tried to work magic, she couldn’t. She pouted and stuck her tongue out at her aunt. 12P>
“Hey, sister, I’m cutting you a lot of slack on this stuff,” Hilda retorted. “Don’t push it.” 14P>
Then an idea struck her. 16P>
“Say! It just now occurred to me that you didn’t get any breakfast yet!” 18P>
She zapped up a bottle of baby formula and fed it to her niece.  20P>
“I don’t know whether or not Val and Libby had breakfast either,” Hilda mused, “so I’d better feed them too!” 22P>
Two more bottles were zapped up and Val and Libby took their turns, Libby being awoken from her nap for this purpose. 24P>
When feeding was done, Hilda burped all three girls, and Val, her tummy full, lay back down and fell fast asleep. Sabrina wanted to stay awake and wait for Zelda to come back, but she became drowsy too, and soon she was napping as well. 26P>
Libby, for her part, chose that time to empty her own bladder and bowels, which required Hilda to change her. Once this was done, Libby went back to sleep like a lamb. 28P>
“Ah, peace and quiet,” Hilda sighed with relief. “Nothing beats it.” 30P>
Now that everyone was asleep, though, Hilda was at something of a loss as to what to do next. She thought about watching some tv, but was afraid that the sound of it would wake up her three teenaged infants, so she rejected that idea. She thought about puttering around upstairs, on one of the various projects she hadn’t finished, but decided she’d better stay downstairs in case the babies needed anything. She finally settled on reading a book she’d bought months ago but hadn’t started. 32P>
She got about four pages into it before she, too, was sound asleep in her chair. 34P>
At about this point, Libby woke up. She sat up in her crib, looked around, and decided that she was bored and wanted to explore. So, since Hilda had not bothered to lock the crib walls into place to prevent it, Libby climbed out of the crib and began crawling around the house. 36P>
She stopped for a bit at the playpen, where Sabrina and Valerie were slumbering peacefully, and considered taking at least one of the teddy bears with her. But Val was sleeping on top of both of them, and Libby had presence of mind enough to realize that if she tried taking either one, Val would wake up and start crying again in protest. Libby  38P>
had a vague recollection that the last time that happened, she got a spanking, so she opted not to bother with the teddys after all. 40P>
Moving away from the playpen, Libby crawled back out to the kitchen, opening cabinet doors and looking at the things within them. She didn’t know what any of them were, and when she picked them up, she found that they weren’t all that much fun to play with, either. Luckily for her, Zelda was compulsive neat freak enough to make sure that all the lids were tightly sealed, so Libby’s baby-ish mind wasn’t able to figure out how to open them and pour their contents out. That kept her from making another big mess, and from poisoning herself. 42P>
Libby then crawled over to the back door, which she and Val had left ajar when they came in. They did this because they had assumed that they, and Sabrina, would leave for school the same way. But now, it was an open invitation for Libby to crawl out�and into full view of the general public! 44P>
She managed to nudge the door all the way open, and out of the house she crawled. As she did so, she passed Salem, who was sunning himself on the patio. Intrigued, she paused to try to play with him. 46P>
“Gaa,” Libby cooed. “Keeee!” 48P>
“Geh?”, Salem said sleepily, rolling over to see who’d spoken. Seeing that it was Libby, still diapered, otherwise naked, drooling and reaching for him, Salem did the only thing he could think of to do. He panicked. 50P>
“AAAAHHHH!”, he shouted, leaping straight up and out of Libby’s reach. Nimbly, he used his cat reflexes to land on his feet near the door, and ran inside the house. Libby, frustrated in her efforts to play with the kitty, whimpered and cried a little bit, before moving on to see what else she could find to do. 52P>
Salem darted through the Spellman kitchen and into the living room, where he found the still-napping Val and Sabrina in their playpen, and the snoring Hilda, who had slept through Libby’s escape. He jumped onto Hilda’s lap and called out her name. 54P>
Startled out of her sound sleep, Hilda flailed her arms and cried, “Wha? Wha? Wha?” 56P>
This noise awoke Sabrina and Val, who joined her in a startled chorus of “Wha”s and “Waa”s. Val was startled enough to begin crying again, which meant that she had to be calmed down again by Hilda. Sabrina, upon seeing that she was still diapered and that the antidote had not come yet, began softly crying herself, a fact that disgusted her even more. Val, of course, presumed that Sabrina was crying for the same reasons she herself was. 58P>
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After Val and Sabrina had been calmed and stopped crying, Hilda turned to Salem and demanded, “Okay, cat, what’s the big idea?” 62P>
“Well, since it appears to have escaped your notice,” Salem replied, “one of the inmates has escaped!” 64P>
Hilda spun and looked at the empty crib. 66P>
“Aw, man,” she moaned. “Where’s Libby now?” 68P>
“Last I saw,” Salem responded, “she was on the patio, but headed for the front�” 70P>
That was as far as the cat got, before Hilda whipped past him and headed for the door. 72P>
By this time, Libby had crawled out onto the driveway and was watching in rapt fascination as a caterpillar inched its way through the grass. At first, she thought it was a new toy, and picked it up, giggling as it crawled along her fingers. Then, wondering how it would taste, she stuck it in her mouth, only to spit it out again seconds later, and begin crying at how horrid it tasted. 74P>
As this was going on, traffic on the street had come to a screeching halt due to the spectacle that Libby presented. It wasn’t every day that a nude, nubile teenager clad only in a diaper presented herself to public view, and the cars that normally sped by the Spellman house without giving it a second glance had now stopped to see what was going on. 76P>
Some of the drivers had gotten out of their cars, and had begun calling questions to Libby about what she was doing and whether or not she needed help. Libby, of course, understood not a word of it. She just sat there and cried, with all the hurt feelings and moral indignation her baby-ish mind could muster over the unfairness of crawly toys that taste horrible. 78P>
It was while she was in this state that Hilda found her. 80P>
“Oh, Libby,” Hilda said as she bent down to scoop the teen up into her arms, having first cast a discreet spell to make her feather-light. “What’s the matter, honey?” 82P>
Not understanding the words, but sensing concern in Hilda’s voice, Libby pointed at the now-deceased caterpillar and wailed, “Baa! Bleh-beh-beh!” 84P>
“Tsk. Well, I could have told you that.”, Hilda replied, as if Libby’s meaning was crystal clear. 86P>
Seeing the crowd that had gathered, Hilda pasted on a phony smile and addressed them. 88P>
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“Good,” Zelda nodded. “Now, we need to get these two fixed up. I have an idea on what to tell them; Hilda, you follow my lead, okay?” 51P>
“Got it,” Hilda replied. 53P>
The remaining antidote was mixed into the bottles for Libby and Val, and fed to them. Since Hilda had already bottle fed them a few hours ago, they weren’t really hungry, and fussed and fought a little bit. Ultimately, the two adult witches stuck funnels into the teens mouths and poured the formula down into them.  55P>
As the last of the formula disappeared down their throats, both girls burped loudly, and their vacant, infantile gazes began to fade away as their teen intellects returned. During this transition period, Hilda and Zelda zapped away the diapers and restored their cheerleader outfits and other clothing to them, then transferred both teens to the living room sofas. The playpen was also zapped away, in the nick of time. 57P>
“Hey,” Libby said, recovering her wits first, “what happened? Weren’t we in the kitchen?” 59P>
“I’m afraid there was a gas leak, dear,” Zelda said hastily, an assertion Hilda confirmed with a vigorous nod of the head. “You girls were both overcome, and we moved you out here to the living room where you’d be comfortable. You were both out for several hours.” 61P>
“Oh,” Valerie said. “Man! I had the weirdest dream�” 63P>
“It couldn’t have been any worse than mine,” Libby said haughtily. 65P>
“Well, maybe on your way home you can compare them,” Hilda said helpfully. Zelda shot her a dirty look. 67P>
“Hey! Where’s Sabrina?”, Valerie asked. 69P>
Right on cue, Sabrina, now clad in her pajamas, appeared at the top of the stairs. She was clutching a box of Kleenex, her hair was a rumpled mess, and her nose was red and puffy. She sneezed forcefully, then blew her nose into one of the Kleenexes. 71P>
“I t’ought I heard boices,” Sabrina said foggily. “Are you guys ogay?” 73P>
Valerie took one look and was agog with astonishment. “Wow! Do you have a beauty of a cold!” 75P>
“Danks,” Sabrina said. “How do you two beel?” 77P>
“We’re okay, no thanks to you, freak,” Libby said tartly. “Come on, Val. Let’s get out of this house of death before anything else happens to us!” 79P>
“Yeah, I guess we better go,” Val said. “Hope you feel better, Sabrina!” 81P>
“I’m bretty sure I’ll be bedder domorrow,” Sabrina coughed. 83P>
The two cheerleaders left through the front door, and Sabrina dropped her sick act, as all three witches exhaled with relief. 85P>
Two hours later, the three witches were sitting in the kitchen again, having a quiet lunch. 87P>
“You know, Sabrina,” Zelda said as she sipped her mug of coffee, “I saw that wistful look in your eyes when I came in with the antidote. Part of you kind of liked being a baby again, didn’t you?” 89P>
“Well, kinda,” Sabrina said sheepishly. “It felt kind of�nice�to be safe and protected and not have to worry about homework, or Libby, or whether Harvey really loves me, or any of that. Does that make me a weirdo?” 91P>
“No, dear,” Zelda responded. “it’s quite normal. Everyone has thoughts about that once in a while, especially when life gets to be too stressful. The trick is not letting it become an obsession.” 93P>
Sabrina stared at Zelda. “You sound like you have experience with that!” 95P>
“She does,” Hilda put in. “See, there’s an easier way to do it than to suck on an Other Realm pacifier. All you have to do is place a temporary Turn Back The Clock spell on yourself. You just need to make sure you put a time limit on it that you can live with, because once you set the limit and the spell takes effect, you’re stuck with it until the time expires.” 97P>
“And this is something you’ve done before?”, Sabrina asked Zelda. 99P>
“From time to time,” her brainy aunt admitted, looking sheepish herself now. “Every hundred years or so, the pressure gets to be too much, and I like to de-tox by spending a few hours or so as a baby. But I plan it in advance�I hire a sitter, set a specific time limit, and never give in to the temptation to make it a permanent situation.” 01P>
“Cool!”, Sabrina said. “So I can do that, too, if I want to?” 03P>
“Sure,” Hilda said. “But next time, make yourself regress physically as well as mentally, okay? You’re easier to carry that way!” 05P>
Sabrina giggled. “I’ll see what I can do!” 07P>