## My true story Part 4

Post by Tigger9 » Fri Jan 30, 2009 12:43 pm

Hi everyone,
Here is the next part of my story. As before, I hope you like it!
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Twenty minutes later, I was stood in the hall waiting for my sister, who was searching for her missing trainer and S, who was still upstairs in our brother's room. She emerged after a couple of minutes carrying her long coat and blue stripy hat and came down the stairs into the hall, calling out to my sister as she did so. As she retrived her purse from her handbag, she looked up at me. "Aren't you going to put your coat on?"
"No, I'm okay."
"No you're not, it's getting a bit cool now. Bring it with you, you don't have to wear it but you'll need it." That made sense (I liked the small chunks of calm logic from S because they made sense - the same suggestion from my sisters or my brother would have been "I don't care if you don't want it, just put it on!"), so I went to the hooks on the wall inside the cloakroom and retrieved my coat. My sister had found her trainer and was sat on the bottom stair putting it on. Finally we were ready to go and after putting her head around the kitchen door to tell my parents that we would be back in half an hour, S followed us out through the front door. My sister and I got into the back of S's car and S told us, as she always did despite it being unnecesssary, to put our seatbelts on. She got into the driver's seat and did the same, and we set off on the two minute drive to the beach and zig-zag garden paths set back from it. We very often went out for short walks with S and it was generally to one of three destinations - the beach, the nearby town centre or the adventure playground three roads away from our house. Today, it was the beach.
We ran around in the small car park as S bought a parking ticket, stuck it to the windscreen and locked the car. As soon as she was done, she started walking towards the beach extending both hands; a well-known signal to us to run up and hold her hand, if we wanted to. We slowly made our way up the zig-zag paths to the top of the garden and the walled path to the main road, which ran along its edge. The three of us chatted away as we usually did all the way up there until we eventually reached the viewpoint over the beach cliffs. It wasn't a breathtaking view on a cloudy day like this, but it was nice and S told us that she loved it because it reminded her of home. She told us that one of the things she disliked most about the time she had spent in London when she was younger was the fact that she was not near the sea. My sister and I didn't really appreciate the meaning of that but we liked it when she told us things like that. By the time S had finished contemplating though, we had become a bit bored and were chasing each other around as usual. We ran back down the walled path and S followed, trying to steer us remotely by telling us to stay left and to head towards the fountain in the centre of the park. At this point, my sister was doing the chasing and as the faster of the two of us, I was having no trouble evading her. She hadn't quite given up though so I was looking for places to run to and for some reason, I decided to try to scale a very steep hill which had a number of small, bare trees on it and was covered in dry soil. My sister gave up after a couple of steps and dropped back down to ground level but I carried on, pulling my way up by grabbing onto branches and hoisting myself up. S eventually caught up with us and, seeing that I was clambering up a muddy hill, told me to come back down. I stabilised myself and started to lower myself down but kicking some soil down the hill, I realised that I couldn't get a foothold.
"I'm stuck" I said, looking behind me and down to see if there was anything further back I could grab onto.
"No you're not, you're fine" said S, reassuringly but clearly wanting me to just get down.
"I am, I'm stuck!"
"Are you really?" she asked, wearily.
"Yeah, my feet are just sliding, look" I said, demonstrating the problem.
"Kick down to dig your feet in" S suggested. I tried but it wasn't working.
"I think she is stuck" said my sister.
"Oh for goodness' sake," said S, clearly not quite sure what to do. "I'll have to come up there." She kicked hard into the soil with her toes and gradually formed flat areas which she could use to climb up to where I was. A minute or so later, she was able to reach me and put her arms out to catch my waist. "Come down a bit further and I can catch you" she said. I eased myself down as far as I could. In a momentary lapse of concentration, I then accidentally said out loud what I had in my head.
"I wish I had my reins on."
"Don't worry, they're going on when we get you down" replied S. That did surprise me.
"Did you bring them?" I asked, slipping down into her arms.
"Well I found that bag of them in the lounge and had a look through it. So they're not the ones you were wearing in the pushchair earlier."
"Oh" I said, not having much else to say in reply as she carried me back down the hill.
"Which ones did you bring?" asked my sister and S answered the question by pulling the reins out of her pocket. It was one of the old black Mothercare sets with metal clips, adjusters and a clasp. "Can I see them?" I asked, taking them from her and looking carefully at the straps and listening to the distinctive jingling sound of the metal parts.
"Are these like the ones you used to have?" my sister asked.
"Yep, they are. Do you like them?" she asked me. I found them as interesting as any set of baby reins, although they didn't necessarily stand out as anything special.
"Let's put them on you" said S, taking them back from me and expertly adjusting the bar sliders to let all the slack out of the straps. She then spread them out in front of me and draped them over my hands, pulling them up over my chest as usual and fastening the clasp, which I noticed did not click. She then knelt down, turned me around by my shoulders as she usually did and went about tightening all the straps. After about thirty seconds, she stood back and looked at me, as amused as ever by the sight of me in baby reins again. "Right then," she said, taking up the slack in my walking reins, "who's going to hold onto you - me or her?". She gestured at my sister who noticed and immediately asked if she could hold onto my reins. "Okay, here you go" said S, handing the reins over to her. The feeling of being the helpless one, the baby, swept over me again as they handed control of me between them, but in a fun way. My sister, for whom there was still lots of novelty in the idea of her little sister being in baby reins, shook the walking reins up and down shouting "giddy up!" and the metal clips jingled noisily. I played along and broke out into horsey mode, running/galloping around the flat park area. I ran around in circles and my sister flapped the walking reins up and down as though she was driving a horse and cart. S followed us at walking pace and at some distance for a few minutes. She seemed far more interested in looking at the sea than at us. Eventually though, she started walking in the direction of the car park and called after us to follow her. We had started going off in the opposite direction so my sister stopped following me and pulled my reins, bringing me to an abrupt stop.
"Come on then, let's go home now!" she said, tugging my reins lightly towards her. I faced the car park and started running but got about two steps before I was once again halted by the force of the reins around my waist. "No no" she said, as though talking to a two year old, "no running off. Let's walk back nicely!". I couldn't resist the temptation to play up to that patronising statement and I immediately started trying to run forward, flailing my arms around in front of me and pretending to moan like a tantruming toddler. My sister started laughing her head off and I carried on with the toddlerish behaviour by grabbing hold of the harness straps, trying pathetically to wriggle my way out. Then, with my sister off guard, I snatched the walking reins out of her hands and ran like hell towards the car park. "Hey!" she shouted behind me, breaking into a run to try to catch up with me, but I was much faster than her and easily got away. But then she shouted out to S, who was only slightly ahead of me, and told her to catch me. S, who was very fast indeed, even for someone who was not used to chasing younger siblings, came towards me and caught me with little effort, grabbing me in a big hug.
"Gotcha!" she said, picking me up and swinging me around before setting me back down on my feet. My sister ran up behind and immediately made for my walking reins.
"She grabbed the reins out of my hands!" she said, taking up the slack.
"Well this shows that reins only work if you hold onto the person who's wearing them!" said S. "Are you going to be able to hold onto her safely this time or should I take her?", to which I perked up.
"I want S to hold me!" I said, trying to take the reins out of my sister's hands, although she was holding onto them much more tightly this time.
"Okay then, I'll take her back to the car" S said, and my sister relinquished the strap to her. "You definitely won't be getting away from me" she said, pulling me up short and tight and starting to walk to the car park.
The feeling of the reins was very imposing now. The harness itself was very secure and even though this was all just a game, I felt completely untrusted now that I had made an escape attempt. S held me at very close range; I could only have been about six inches away from her and there was enough tension in the reins that she was able to gently steer me left or right. It was a strange feeling and while I did quite like the safe, secure sensation, I felt like I was being punished for being naughty. It had that flavour to it, for some reason. Neither S nor my sister talked to me as we walked along, but they did talk to each other.
"So can little kids in reins not be held onto by their older brother or sister then in case they get free and run away like she did just then?" asked my sister.
"Well it depends how good the old brother or sister is at holding on tight," replied S, "I mean, you were not expecting her to run off like that and she is a bit bigger and sneakier than your average child on reins!"
"I saw a kid once who looked like she was about two," said my sister, "and her brother was holding onto her baby reins, but he was only about five!".
"That does seem a bit pointless to me, I must admit" replied S. "Why let a kid that age be supervised by another kid who still isn't old enough to have any road sense?".
"Yeah," said my sister, "and they might drop the reins or anything."
"I remember something from years ago. My sister had a friend called Mary whose family had five kids, and the youngest two were twin boys. They both used to wear reins, but I remember Mary telling me that they hated being held back like this," said S, gesturing towards my reins which she was still holding tightly. "So they used to get the walking reins and then clip one end to each of the two boys, and they'd basically be tied together. They didn't mind that."
"Why though? How does that stop them from running away?"
"Apparently it just stopped them from making a bolt. If one ran, the other would hold them back, and they'd basically be clumsy when they were tied together. Worked well, apparently."
We reached the car and after telling my sister to jump in the back, S walked me around to the other side of the car, still pulled up very short. She opened the door, finally loosened the grip on her reins and told me to get in and put my seat belt on. I did so and she closed my door before climbing into the driver's seat. She and my sister carried on chatting to each other while I sat still in the back seat, once again looking down at the harness contemplatively. It was so snug and well-fitted, and that is probably what made this all feel like more than a game. The reins were as effective on me as they would be on any child and seeing the straps run behind my back and up over my shoulders out of my view reminded me that these reins were not a toy. The journey back to the house was only a few minutes by car so we were back in no time.
"Right then you two," said S as she turned the engine off and opened her door, "dinner is in about twenty minutes so go and get into your PJs."
I opened my door and got out of the car, dragging my coat with me. S waited until I closed my door and then locked the car. "Don't drag your coat on the floor, you'll get it all dirty!" she said in the big sister tone she had come to adopt around us. "Do you want to be let out of your baby reins now?"
"I don't know" I said, in my usual dilemma.
"You'll need them off so that you can get ready for bed" she pointed out, turning me around by my shoulders to remove the harness. It had not really occurred to me at that point that having the reins on prevented me from taking off any T-shirt or dress I happened to be wearing. I mentioned this to S, who explained that it was yet another benefit of using reins with small kids. She explained that some toddlers were 'undressers' and that there was probably nothing more embarrassing for a parent than for their kid to strip naked in a supermarket, or at a restaurant, particularly if they are still of nappy-wearing age.
"But they don't stop them from taking off their trousers or pants or nappies though, do they? I mean, they're only on the top bit of their bodies."
"Well yes," she replied as she unfastened the harness clasp, "I suppose so. Still, some clothes are better than none!"
"Yeah, I suppose" I said. S pulled the harness off my arms, bundled it up and handed it to me. "Although I guess if you dress them in all-in-ones of some sort, then they couldn't get anything off."
"All-in-ones?" I asked. "You mean like a babygrow?"
"Yes, exactly" she replied.
"How would that work?" I asked.
"Well think about it. If you put a kid in one of those and then make it so that they can't get the top bit off, then they won't be able to get undressed at all. See how that works?"
"Oh yeah!" I answered, and I felt another game coming on as I ran up the stairs towards my bedroom.

### Re: My true story Part 4

Post by jennifer » Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:48 pm

Another cute story. I see your friend S had a good method to keeping you out of trouble. I see you hinted at another future game, though there aren't a lot of one piece outfits for a kid you age. Well, maybe footed pajamas or a jumpsuit, but not much else comes to mind. Anyway, another fun story, I am looking forward to the next part. Take care,
Jennifer

### Re: My true story Part 4

Post by kidnapper » Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:54 pm

better than before.and actually part 5 will be better too.