I dragged Nancy further around the building, looking for another door, a window left a hair open, anything I could work with. It was shut up tight, either from plain ol’ good security, or to prevent any potential pranksters from doing anything too fun. I’d seen plenty of TV shows and movies where breaking into schools seemed quite easy, but in practice, it was turning out to be impossible. If I’d had to, I suppose I could have found a rock, or chunk of asphalt, but I was hoping not to break in my police record with a breaking and entering charge.

Luckily for us, the man with the scar was quite slow, apparently, as, even with all my scrambling and searching, he still hadn’t caught up. In fact, I didn’t see any sign of him at all. For a split second, I thought about sticking my head back around the corner of the schoolhouse, but that seemed far too convenient a way to get it chopped off.

I took us the rest of the way around the building instead, keeping up a fairly quick pace. I left Nancy behind, peeked out into the parking lot. There was no sign of him, so I retrieved my charge and dashed across. Unfortunately, Nancy missed a step, likely tripping over her own Mary Janes and fell. For a real toddler, it wouldn’t have mattered as much, but, no matter how she was acting, or what – if anything – she may be thinking and feeling, she was a teenager. Her fall dragged me down as well, and for a few moments, we lay in a tangled pile. Nancy’s face crumpled, so I shoved my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

Slowly, I stood back up, scanning for any other activity. It was still clear; I helped her up and gave her a hug before holding a finger up to my lips in the hopes that she’d be able to understand that at least. She nodded, mimicking the motion for a moment, then began giggling.

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed her hand and went through the lot, as quickly as she could manage. As things still appeared safe enough, I left her outside the car long enough to open the trunk, throwing aside frisbees and tire irons and old grocery bags to get the blanket folded up at the bottom. I spread it out on her seat, helped her up on top of it, being sure her wet bottom was squarely set on the blanket, then buckled her in.

As we turned off that street, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, as I nervously turned the key and made my way away from the school. I let myself believe that everything was fine, for a second or two, until I looked over at Nancy, a reminder that thing were certainly not back to normal, and I wasn’t sure exactly how to change that.

And speaking of things I didn’t know how to change, Nancy giggled innocently in the seat beside me, not seeming bothered by the wet diaper between her legs. I’d spent a rather minimal amount of time changing babies’ diapers – I couldn’t say that I had any experience with those of my best friend. I assumed it was similar, though on a larger scale, though, of course, it would seem to require another diaper that would fit her. Should I stop on the way and buy her some? Were they a one size fits all kind of thing?

Or should I trust that, once I had her home and got the costume off, the curse would be broken? I could have tested it there, I suppose, but I doubted that, if it did work, she’d thank me for stripping her in the car in the middle of Springwood Street. Then again, thinking back, it hadn’t seemed to take effect until she had the whole thing on. When we got to a stop sign, I reached over, tugged at the bow she’d tied in the ribbon around her left ponytail. She turned her head at the feeling of my hand.

“Nancy?” I asked hopefully. She smiled over at me, vacantly, before her attention was grabbed by her own hand, covered in chocolate. “Let’s put that away for now,” I suggested, hearing another car pull up behind us, and hoping they wouldn’t mind a tiny delay, reaching behind me and pushing the bag on the back seat further away from her hands. I nearly pulled over so that I could get the hand wipes from the glove box – fortunately, she took care of that by herself, sticking a couple fingers into her mouth. Probably not too sanitary, but I figured it would be all right.