Chapter 13

Baby's POV

Having experienced many things in my previous life, I consider myself quite tolerant, but after a whole week of being drenched in water and having my meals cut short, my tolerance had reached it's limit.

Therefore I decided at the next meal, I would protest and try to stay in the nursery with nurse. I curled my fingers around nurse's clothes and gripped as hard as my little hands could. I yelled out "no! I want to stay with nurse", but I lost the battle and was taken to the dining room once again. I was so upset by this time; feeling so helpless, that I couldn't stop my tears as they trailed down my now hot cheeks.

"Baby are you alright?" asked Jasper.

"Why are you so upset? What's wrong?" The other people at the table asked me.

How could I answer them? Had they not see what I had gone through for the past week? What did they think was wrong?! By then I was no longer sad; I was angry! I clamped my mouth shut, refusing to eat or drink anything, until 5 minutes later when my stomach began growling. I realized that a hunger strike would only hurt me. So I ate what was on my tray, but was prepared when I heard the sound of the cup being brought up from the table. Using my hands, I tried to push the offending cup away. I got less on me, but I still got wet and I was thirsty.

The person by my side put her hands under my armpits to lift me up in my chair when my mother stopped her.

"I think she is probably still hungry and needs more fluids. You can take her back to get cleaned up when she is finished".

"Yes Ma'am" she said and I could hear the gentle plopping sounds on my tray along with the smell of different types of food than I had just eaten. It took me so long to eat until I was full and had enough to drink, that I was the last to leave the dining room. I was excited about the change, however and though that perhaps things were getting better.

I thought so until I got back to the nursery and found my nurse was not there. I searched for her by walking all around the room as I clicked, afraid to miss anything. It was very unusual for her to leave me, but I thought for sure she would return in time for bedtime, so I was not panicked...yet.

For the past four months since I could stand by holding onto furniture, nurse had been teaching me how to dress myself. She patted the limb that needed to be retracted in order to get dressed. Nurse had first tried showing me front vs. back and pants compared to shirts or dresses, but showing me how to get dressed the same way you would a sighted person, was an effort in futility. She moved onto the patting prompts after a few weeks of failing to show me. I noticed that stitching was added to the back of all my clothes and was almost sure that nurse had figured out my secret.

Fortunately I had previous experience getting dressed and with that knowledge along with the extra stitching, I was able to get myself changed into clean clothing after what seemed like hours.

I climbed up into nurse's chair; waiting for her to come back. Time for the evening meal came and Nurse was still not back. Everyone else seemed perfectly normal as they chatted with each other. I heard my name mentioned, but didn't know enough words to know what they were talking about. My clothes got dirty again and I was taken back to the nursery hungry, but I didn't even care at that point. I missed my nurse!

The person who helped me with dinner again dropped me off at the nursery, before leaving me alone. I checked the nursery again for nurse, but she still had not returned. I tried to recall where my nurse kept all my things for bed. I even managed to use my small chamber pot without an accident. I got myself into my night dress, then rinsed my mouth with some salty fluid, a version of teeth brushing, I figured, before getting into bed with great effort. I found a large block and moved it next to my bed and used it as a step stool since my bed was still too high for me to get into bed by myself.

I fell asleep hoping that my nurse would be there in the morning to wake me up and tell me good morning.