I Have The Best Friends -- (Author) warmsleeper

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 11, 2023 at 10:35 PM
Content: This is a story about three girls - Isabella and her two best friends, Chloe and Sophie. These three have a lot of adventures in stories I’ve already written but this is their first adventure. Enjoy!

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I Have The Best Friends
Chapter 1

School trips didn’t happen that often but when they did, everyone was excited. It was a first school so the destination was never that racy, but it went from very short trips to local places in the forest for the 5 year olds to more intrepid places, with longer coach journeys for the 7 to 9 year olds, the top two years of the school. And yes, *everyone* was excited, even the grown-ups. It’s a little known fact that despite the certainty of some kid getting travel sick, the mental energy required to keep track of everything all day long and the remote possibility of losing a kid who had been distracted by some passing feather, teachers and teaching assistants also love school trips. That’s probably less true in terrible schools full of rude children. But this school was great.

It was at the heart of a lovely community and while it had its characters, the year group of 7 to 8 year olds on this particular school trip were a delight on the whole. You could tell this by listening to the sound of them, all fifty of them, chatting away in the classroom with their sun hats on, bags more heavily loaded than normal with supplies and clothing layers and the smell of suncream pervading the room. The Minecraft kids were talking about Minecraft, the ballet, tap and modern dance kids were showing each other their moves, a conversation about puppies was happening in one corner and there was much laughter.

“Rrrrrright everyone, are we ready to go?” asked Mr Jakes, the very smiley and positive teacher who was the object of many mums’ admiration and had just come back into the room after checking that the coach was ready for the swathe of small humans to embark. Eyes all flicked up, a hubbub of “yeah” sounds spread and the bags were all slung onto shoulders as the crowd ambled its way to the double doors that led to the playground, beyond which the coach and its driver were waiting.

As Mr Jakes chased a couple of kids who had made their first mistake of the day and left their sun hats on the desks in the classroom, the short but influential Miss Markham shepherded the rest towards the coach and then, using her surprisingly solid teacher voice, spoke.

“Everyone - attention please - you all need to pick a high viz vest please. Put them on now so that they don’t get left on the coach.”

There would be no arguments over this. For all of the kids, it was now very well established that everyone had to wear a high viz vest on outings of any kind. There were no exceptions so no-one complained. One at a time, the vests vanished from the box that was sat next to the coach door and it became clear that there were nowhere near enough.

“Mr Jakes,” said Miss Markham, “where is the other box of high viz vests? I think it might be in the photocopier room.” Mr Jakes duly ran off to see what he could find while Miss Markham chatted with the group of three friends who had found themselves near the front of the line.

“Sorry girls, no trip for you. We’ll be back at about 4pm, so you’ll have plenty of time to clean the loos while we’re away.”

“Bleurgh, not doing that,” said Chloe. “We’re not allowed to use chemicals,” added Isabella. “Well,” said Sophie, “I’ve cleaned toilets loads of times. It’s okay except when stupid boys pee all over the place, that’s gross.” The three girls fell about laughing as their sensible teacher mockingly pretended to be a boy, incompetently spraying the room like a lawn sprinkler.

“I don’t want a boyfriend,” announced Sophie, clarifying “well, not for being all sort of lovey-dovey and smoochy with. It’s okay to have friends who are boys, even if they are a bit gross.” “Yeah, you’re always hanging out with Lewis and he’s a boy,”, noted Chloe. “Lewis’s family are my family’s friends, Lewis is just at my house all the time. He usually just wants to do colouring or go on the swings.” Isabella poked her friend. “You hold his hand sometimes.” “Yeah,” Sophie replied, “because we’ve just always held hands since we were really little, like two or something.”

“How old would you be if you could be any age you want?”, asked Chloe. “I’d be grown up, maybe like twenty or thirty or forty so I’d be able to have as much screen time as I want, and go to restaurants all the time and not get told off.” “I think adults do get told off, at work and when they make their friends angry,’ observed Sophie. “And kids tell adults off, sort of. I’d be really little again, before I went to school, so like three or four. Because then you get to eat proper food, not baby food and gooey stuff, and stay at home doing stuff with your mum all day.” “That sounds boring,” said Isabella, “I’d be about ten because that’s when you might get a phone and you’re big enough to do loads of stuff we can’t do yet, like go to the shops or go out on bike rides with just friends, no grown-ups, but you’re not so big that you have to go to work.”

Moments later, Mr Jakes came jogging back over towards the coach holding a blue plastic crate with a couple of hi viz vests dangling over the side. “This says ‘Nursery’ on the side but I think they’re ours, they’re big vests. Chloe, could you just try this on please to see if it fits?” Chloe took her bag off her shoulders and weaved herself into the vest, velcroing it at the front. It was the right size. “Okay, everyone who doesn’t have a vest, please grab one now” commanded Miss Markham and the remaining hands came grabbingly towards the crate. Being one of the less grabby kids, Isabella waited until everyone else had helped themselves to an orange vest and then noticed as Sophie pulled a purple vest from the box. Purple was a much better colour than orange, any idiot knew that, so as Sophie ascended the steps into the coach, Isabella started rumbling through what was left in the box to find another one. She’d match her friend, which was always a good idea. But as she went through the box, she found that only a handful of the scrumpled-up vests on the top layer were the right size, a respectable ’S/M’ on the label. Below that, there were lots of yellow vests still in their plastic bags with ‘XXS’, which she knew meant they were for the nursery kids and wouldn’t fit. It would have to be an orange vest. Dammit.

“Come on you,” cajoled Mr Jakes, “need to get ourselves moving!”

“Isabella, get a yellow one!” shouted Chloe, whose vest was orange. “Then we’ll all have different ones.” This was the suggestion of a girl who, like her peers, spent a lot of time being taught about things like compromise, creating new good ideas and being encouraging. If they couldn’t all have the same, they should all have different. But Isabella explained. “The yellow ones are for the nursery kids, they’re teeny. I’ll look like a massive nursery kid!” As the girls laughed, Isabella had one final rummage through the box, eventually turning it upside down and emptying it to have a really good look for another purple vest. “Oh come on Isabella,” said Miss Markham, just pick one, any one will do.” Going further, she pushed an orange one into Isabella’s hand. “And put all of those back in the box please, so we can put them back into reception to sort out later.”

After putting on her orange vest, Isabella started flinging all the vests back into the box. And then, she noticed something that didn’t strictly belong in a box of vests but was exactly the sort of thing you might find in a box marked ‘nursery’. It was a set of grey toddler reins, balled up with an elastic band around them. No surprise at all really because the nursery kids were the right age for reins, these ones must just be there in case they’re needed. Maybe for the one crazy in the group or in case someone started getting really naughty and freaking out the teacher by running into the street, Isabella only paused for a moment to look at them and then finished piling the vests into the box, which was then picked up by Mr Jakes as he and Miss Markham ushered Isabella and two two other remaining kids not yet onboard up the steps.

As Isabella walked through the coach towards Chloe and Sophie, she walked past a group of boys talking about farts, the Minecraft kids and two very quiet girls who were chatting to each other. “I couldn’t find another purple one, just the orange ones”, she said. “I like the purple one. I love purple, it’s my favourite colour, not the light pinky one, proper darker purple. My duvet is purple at the moment,” Sophie machine-gunned her friends with her monologue.

“I found some toddlers’ reins in the box with the vests.”

“Some what? What are reins?” asked Chloe, reins not having been part of her early life unlike her friends. Chloe was an only-child, whose mum never had the need to use reins on her. Reins were much more familiar to Isabella and Sophie for different reasons. Sophie was the second of three children, so while she didn’t remember her own time in them, she was sometimes allowed to be the sister in charge of the reins with her little brother, who was now four but wore reins until he was nearly three. Generally, Sophie did not like being made to feel babyish. She hated that until just over a year ago, she had been made to ride in a rear facing car seat instead of a booster seat, which all her friends were in. It was the cause of arguments and upsets at home. Isabella was the youngest child in her family. She knew that reins could be fun, she had tried them on to pretend to be a horsey before and remembered the last time that she had been made to wear a reins-like gadget on a trip to a theme park when she was about five. It was a backpack shaped like a ladybird but had a long strap for adult to control child. She didn’t complain about it because while it was a bit babyish, it was still a cool backpack.

“Oh, you mean those things that toddlers wear like this,” said Chloe, tracing over her shoulders and around her chest, “with a handle for someone to hold?”

“I love those!” said Isabella, telling the horsey story. Sophie explained she wasn’t made to wear them but did wear a backpack, just once that she remembered. “Are they in that box with the vests?” asked Sophie. “Yeah, over there with the teachers’ bags on the shelf bit” answered Isabella, pointing to where Mr Jakes had placed the crate. “Are they the things with the strap at the back that the grown-up holds onto and stops the baby from running off?” asked Chloe, showing that she really had never thought much about reins when she had seen them in use. “Yeah, you pull the strap and the baby goes like this - errrkkk!” said Sophie, miming well enough to show that she had used them stringently with her little brother. “I love them,” said Isabella again, “I wish I could try them on and pretend to be a toddler!”

“We should ask Miss Markham if we can use them on Isabella while we’re on the trip!” suggested Sophie. Surprisingly to Chloe, Isabella was very keen. She was surprised because unlike Isabella, she had quite a strong sense of being a mature girl and the idea of dressing up like a baby was the opposite of that. But if Isabella wanted to, that was different. “Yeah, let’s ask!” Standing up and sidling up to Mr Jakes and Miss Markham, Isabella asked directly.

“Um, Miss, there are some toddler reins in that box with the vests.”

“That’s not surprising, must have snuck in from their supplies in nursery”, explained Mr Jakes.

“Can I wear them when we get to the town?” she asked, with no trace of blushing.

Interrupting, Mr Jakes queried that request. “Sorry, you’re asking to be put on baby reins? Why on earth would you want that on a school trip with all the other 7 and 8 year olds?”.

“Because they’re fun, you can pretend to be ponies with them! Pleeeease?”

Sophie harmonised with Isabella. “Yes Miss, please let us! We’ll be really careful. And Isabella was saying that she might run off when we get there, so it’s a really good idea. Pleeeease?”

Incredulous, Mr Jakes shrugged and said “over to you, Miss Markham!” before walking away to retrieve his clipboard register. Things didn’t look good with Miss Markham, who looked unimpressed. “Girls, how funny do you think it would look if one of our year 4 children were to spend the day being dragged around a museum in a pair of baby reins? People will think we’re making you wear them.”

“No they won’t,” Isabella argued, “you can just say that we love playing horses.” “Or that there’s one really naughty kid who always runs off and you need to keep them safe”, added Sophie. Chloe smiled charmingly, completing the big-eyed pleadfest.

“You’ll feel very silly in front of everyone else, I don’t think it’s a good idea”, said Miss Markham, nearly putting her foot down.

“PLEEEEEEEEASE!!!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Go on then. But be careful. In fact, I need to check once you’ve put them on to make sure you’re not going to strangle yourselves.”

“Thank you!” came the answer as the three girls went barrelling towards the box containing the vests and the reins. “Here they are,” said Isabella, pulling the elastic band off and letting the reins unfold. They were quite grubby and had obviously seen plenty of use. Grey straps with mint green stripes leading to a light grey panel at the front, a clip in the same colour at the back and metal clips attaching the walking rein to the harness. All three girls’ eyes lit up at the sight of this awesome new toy.

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58 PM
Content: Chapter 2

Isabella would try anything. She turned up at fancy dress parties wearing the craziest, most elaborate costumes and hallowe’en was one of her favourite times of the year. Last year, she was an evil bottle of ketchup and at a friend’s party a few months ago, she wore a crocodile outfit with an enormous head and huge, foam rubber teeth. Everything was an opportunity to Isabella and she hated missing out, so she rarely stopped for long to let nervousness get the better of her. Jumping off high rope course towers, riding her bike down the very steep hills, she would be there. Her best friends knew this about her, which was why Sophie correctly assumed that if any of them would want to try on the reins, it would be Isabella.

Chloe was a ‘stop and think’ girl, probably the most sensible of the three. She used to go to fancy dress parties in known safe options - a princess, Jessie from Toy Story - and was self-conscious. As she had grown up, her parents spent a lot of time edging her towards trying new things, whether food, sports or other things and that had helped her to become the balanced and capable kid she was now. But it was fragile and cracks appeared whenever there was a risk that Chloe might fail at something, that embarrassment or humiliation might create a chain reaction. She took a lot from her friendship with Isabella, who just didn’t seem to have the embarrassment fear that she did. If Isabella was confident, that probably meant she could feel a bit more confident too.

Isabella had never been properly responsible for her brother’s reins, she was only six when he last wore them, but she had seen him being manhandled into them by their mum many times. So she knew that the first step was to undo the buckle. She did that and then pushed her arms forward into the shoulder strap loops, shuffling them into place over her hi-vis vest and directing her friends as she did so.

“Do the buckle up,” she commanded, grabbing her long, ginger hair in a bundle and swishing it over her shoulder to avoid a tangle. Sophie picked up the two sides of the harness and tried to bring them together in the centre. “I can’t,” said Sophie, “they’re too small.” Watching from the side, Chloe realised what needed to be done and leaned in. “You have to do this, it’s like the thing on my PE bag,” she said, adjusting the slides and creating as much slack as possible in all four of the straps. Sophie tried again to close the buckle. It was still snug but with some pulling, the buckle halves came together and there was a loud click. Chloe’s and Sophie’s eyes lit up at the sight of their friend, now properly secured in a toddler harness with the walking rein dangling down at thigh level. Isabella squirmed slightly, trying to move the straps around slightly for comfort and realising that there was no adjustment to be had. “They’re quite tight”, Isabella said. “Do they hurt?” asked Sophie, to which Isabella shook her head. All six hands explored the reins, which were snug and digging into the red gingham school uniform playsuit that Isabella was wearing. “How does it feel?”, Chloe asked. Isabella breathed in and out, the harness gripping her chest tightly. “I love them!” she blurted out, dancing on the spot.

“Aww, you look so cute!” said Sophie. “You look like a massive baby,” offered Chloe, admiring her friend's bravery doing this in front of all of their school friends. “I look like I’m really naughty and need reins even though I’m eight!” said Isabella. “Can we walk you when we get to the museum?” asked Sophie, picking up the reins in readiness even though the girls were all sitting in a row on the coach. “I get to hold her next” said Chloe. “We should ask Mr Jakes to hold onto the reins when we’re walking,” suggested Sophie, to Isabella’s major embarrassment and blushing. “No, let go of it!” she said quietly, swatting her friend's hand to release the rein.

Word had spread near instantly about Isabella inexplicably putting on a pair of baby reins. A ripple of “Isabella’s got baby reins on” went through the coach and two boys stood up to point and laugh. “You look stupid! Why are you wearing those?”, one of them asked. “I think she’s too stupid to let walk around, she might run into the road and get hit by a car or something!”, crowed another, followed by muttered laughing. “We’re just playing, we can play if we want to. You’re just talking about Minecraft and farts!” retorted Chloe, the sharpest responder of the three. The chattering and laughing about Isabella continued for some moments but eventually stopped, the heat taken out of it by Chloe.

Well on the way to the city centre and the museum that was the main feature of their day trip, thoughts on the coach had turned to many other topics of discussion. Chloe, Isabella and Sophie were talking about clothes, Nintendo, holidays and spelling challenges. No-one was thinking about the reins that Isabella was still wearing, not even her. Eventually, the coach neared its destination and Mr Jakes spoke up.

“Okay everyone, all ears please! We will be getting off the coach in about five minutes so everyone gather your bag, make sure you’ve got your water bottle, sun cream, a hat and your pocket money. Hi-vis vests need to be on but leave your coats here, you won’t be needing them.” Everyone started to prepare themselves and Sophie stood up, putting her hi-vis back on. Isabella noticed that almost everyone had taken their hi-vis vests off during the journey, but hers was on and secured by the reins. As the coach started to empty, Isabella stood up and started walking, feeling very slight tension beneath her armpits as she realised that Sophie had already taken control of her reins. Sophie was desperate to start playing with them, shaking them up and down like she was riding a pony.

Walking from the edge of the coach park to the path that led to the museum, the long line of high-vis vests marched reasonably neatly toward the town. The teachers and helpers enjoyed this age group more than the younger ones, the listening was slightly better and risk of kids suddenly getting distracted by a bit of fluff and wandering off was much lower than it would have been two years earlier. That risk was zero with one child. Chloe and Sophie took turns holding onto Isabella’s reins, which were now beneath her day sack. From the back it wasn’t that obvious that Isabella was in reins, but from the front it was as clear as day - the one child in this throng of kids that couldn't be trusted. One parent helper walked back along the line casting her eye across everyone to check that everyone had a hat on and as she noticed Isabella, she smiled and rolled her eyes. Isabella smiled back. She was such a cheerful girl, her eyes were bright and she had a cheeky grin. People found it hard not to be amused by Isabella, which she used to great effect and it was amazing what she could get away with.

After the first ten minutes and the interesting, interactive section of the museum, some of the enthusiasm started to drift and the kids were moving quickly through the sections on invention by the Egyptians, road building by the Romans and textiles by Middle Eastern countries. The squad of three girls stayed close to each other but were larking around, with Isabella straining on her reins and Sophie pulling her backwards as hard as she could. While Sophie and Chloe were laughing, Isabella suddenly grabbed the rein from Sophie’s hand and ran. “Hey!” shouted Sophie, “come back here you naughty toddler!”. The three girls ran through the slalom-like design of the ancient food section and unceremoniously crashed into a wall, shaking the display on both sides. The parent helper who had seen Isabella in the walking line earlier on poked her head around the corner.

“Right, that’s enough you three. This is not a playground, it’s a museum. You are going to break something.”

“But it was Isabella, miss! She ran off and we were trying to catch her!” whined Sophie.

“Enough girls, behave yourselves please. You are old enough to know how to behave in a museum. Or do we need to get reins for you two as well and then hold onto you?”

Sophie shook her head. Chloe wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. Isabella thought it was a very good idea.

“Yeah! You guys should wear reins too!”

“I don’t want to,” said Sophie, looking very slightly worried. This playing with reins thing was fun if someone else was in them but she didn’t relish idea of being seen in them. Isabella looked slightly taken aback that Sophie seemed rattled. For her, this was just fun with no threat. She had no thought at all that anyone would seriously try to use her reins to control her like they would a toddler.

“None of you have to,” the parent helper added, “I was only joking. Just behave yourselves please, calm down.”

Sensing they weren't going to be as brave as her, Isabella tested the water. "Do either of you want to try these ones on? They're really comfy" she said, holding the walking rein. "I don't," said Sophie again and Chloe shook her head.

"You should try them on, you won't know what it's like until you do and it's cool! And you're not a baby for just trying on some reins for fun, you know." This pitch didn't work on Sophie but Isabella saw Chloe's mind opening. "Ummm... I... maybe I will later." Isabella shrugged, that was enough for her. "Come on then, let's go to the gift shop!" she said, walking off with Sophie a few steps behind reaching to catch her rein.

Sophie explored the gift shop goodies while Chloe took over Isabella’s reins. Sophie had made a point of handing Isabella over, saying that either she or Chloe had to be holding her at all times as though she was a terrible flight risk. Isabella stood at the extent of the reins and looked at the holographic pens and pencil sharpeners while Sophie examined one of the calligraphy starter sets. Noticing the sticker albums in the rack next to where she was standing, Chloe absent mindedly dropped the reins and started flicking through one of the albums. The calligraphy set went back onto the shelf and the three girls made their way to the till to pay for the small items they had chosen. “Are these all together?” asked the lady behind the counter, who would have been around the same age as the girls’ mums. “No,” said Isabella, “we’re paying for our own things. I mean, I’m paying for mine and she’s paying for hers and she’s paying for hers,” she clarified, with unnecessary pointing, to the lady’s amusement. “Have you had a nice time visiting the museum?” she asked, to which the trio all nodded. “What was your favourite part?”, she asked.

“Erm, well, I liked the Egyptians bit. We learned about the Egyptians at school this year. And the Romans”, said Isabella. Chloe chimed in, agreeing that the Romans section was good. But the lady’s eyes stayed on Isabella as she wondered what special needs she might have to need to be crammed into a pair of reins on a school day out, when no other kids were wearing them. She must be high functioning autistic, she thought, but the way she was chatting and interacting with her friends made that seem unlikely. The chatter finished and the girls picked up their paper bags full of trinkets.

“Well, thank you girls. Enjoy the rest of your trip,” she said, as Sophie picked up the walking rein. “Come on now baby, let’s go, no running now,” she said and Isabella nonchalantly started walking towards her classmates. The lady seemed even more confused, realising that they were playing with the reins but wondering how they had found their way into use on a school trip.

“Rrrrrright! Now everyone listening please!” sirened Mr Jakes. “We will be going back to the coach in about ten minutes. Those of you who need to go to the loo, go now. Everyone else, stay here over near the wall please.” Isabella bounded into the toilet block. She was eight and sensible so had no trouble at all with the toilet, but she had put off going to the loo while they were in the petting area with the chicks. She darted into a cubicle, quite urgently needing to go and closed the door. With her hands and mind on autopilot, she pulled the zip of her all-in-one playsuit down and then in an instant, she realised there was a problem. The reins encircling her torso and shoulders meant that even if she did feed the zip down behind the harness, she wasn’t able to take the playsuit off. She had not thought at all that these reins would keep her trapped in her clothes.

School uniform playsuits had only become a thing in the last few years. As playsuits became more popular for all women and girls and were no longer the preserve of toddlers and babies, the need for a school version had been met by all the usual supplies of uniform. Sophie didn’t mind them, she wasn’t fussed about uniform at all really but had a few and wore them in on days when her mum laid them out for her. Chloe didn’t really like them because they screamed ‘child’, not ‘big girl’. Isabella on the other hand absolutely loved them. She was the one of the three most likely to be found screaming around the playground, landing in mud or water in some caper and for that sort of thing, playsuits were perfect. No chance of a playsuit riding up like a dress or T-shirt could do. Today, Chloe and Sophie were wearing dresses while Isabelle, the one who happened to be on baby reins was also sporting the only type of uniform that looked innately toddlerish.

For the first time since she had let her friends and teacher put them on, Isabella squirmed around to try to free herself from the harness. She was a smart kid so straightaway, she knew that if she could shrug her way out of the shoulder straps, she could spin the harness around to the front, undo the buckle and step out. But with the harness already loosened out to its full slack and very snug on her, there was no way of sliding her shoulder out from under the strap. This wasn’t going to work. With a small amount of fear, she put her arm up her back and tried to reach the buckle. Again, with everything so tight and the buckle in just the wrong position to be grabbed from any angle, she couldn’t do it.

She was stuck, actually stuck. Locked in her clothes and she needed help from someone, kid or adult, who could let her out of the reins. Opening the door of the cubicle back up, she went outside and urgently looked for Chloe or Sophie. So many kids, so much red gingham school uniform but neither of the friends she needed. But she did see Miss Markham and wandered up to her.

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 15, 2023 at 9:11 AM
Content: Chapter 3

“Erm, miss?”

“Yes Isabella?”

“I need the loo but I can’t get out of my playsuit because of these reins. Can you let me out please?” she asked, uselessly tugging at the harness. Her cheeks were blushing brightly at having to admit that she needed help with the toilet because of her self-imposed restraints. Laughing, Miss Markham turned her around on the spot and instantly released the buckle. “Well, that could have gone wrong, couldn’t it? What would you do if you couldn’t find anyone to help you? You’d have wet yourself!” Barely acknowledging, Isabella ran back to the toilet with her harness still draped over her shoulders. In the cubicle, she slid the harness down onto the floor and went to the loo. When she was finished, she zipped herself back up into the playsuit, put her hi-vis on again and wriggled her way into the reins. After washing her hands, Isabella emerged from the block and returned to Miss Markham, who was talking to some other girls, whose argument had just been broken up. As they dissipated, not remotely interested in her reins, Isabella asked for her them to be resecured and they were fastened as quickly as they had been unfastened. “They’re very tight, Isabella. Are you sure they don’t hurt?” asked Mrs Markham. At that moment Chloe, who had enjoyed being in charge of her new eight year old baby, reappeared and picked up the reins, taking up all the slack. She was joined by Sophie, who also held the reins and the three girls drifted away, giving Miss Markham her answer.

“I was trying to find you just now,” said Isabella to Chloe while the four hands held her reins, “or Sophie. I couldn’t get these off so I couldn’t go to the loo because of my playsuit!” “You’re going to have to be let out every time you need to go. But one of us can do it,’ said Sophie. Chloe looked at the buckle.

“Is it hard to undo?” she asked, probing it with her fingers before squeezing the sides to see how stiff it was. It popped open. “Not really, it’s a little bit tricky, that’s all.” She fastened it back up again but then realised that Isabella’s hair was caught up in it. “Wait wait,” said Isabella as she grabbed her hair over one shoulder, “okay, do it now.” The harness buckle was closed again and Isabella dropped her hair.

The crowd headed towards the activity centre that was about quarter of a mile from the museum, the teachers and helpers variously leading the ones at the front and bringing up the stragglers at the rear. Isabella led her friends, with tension in her reins as she as good as pulled them along. “You’re like one of those big dogs that people use to pull sleds in snowy places, Isabella,” said Sophie as she watched Chloe being pulled along. “Huskies! I love huskies” said Isabella. “ I love your cuddly husky, it’s so cute,” said Chloe, referring to the large plushie that lived in Isabella’s room. “They can kill people, you know, they’re really strong and they’ve got huge teeth” Sophie said before Chloe pointed out that a dog’s behaviour comes mainly from its owners. “I wish I could get a puppy,” said Isabella, “I would get a sausage dog. But my mum won’t let us because she thinks we won’t take it for walks. I would though, I love walking dogs.” The parent helper from earlier on, who had been listening to the girls’ conversation with interest, piped up.

“Well at the moment, it’s you who’s being walked, Isabella!”

The girls all laughed and Isabella excitedly rubbed her hands all over the harness. “Maybe,” the helper continued, “you could hold a puppy’s lead while one of your parents holds yours! It’d be like a little train of things being walked!”

“You should ask your mum to take you out for walks on reins, Isabella!” suggested Chloe.

“She wouldn’t, she’d just tell me to stop being silly and take them off.”

“Well maybe,” said Sophie, “if you tell her that you wore them today and that it kept you really safe, she might think it’s a good idea after all.”

Isabella stopped to think about that suggestion. She knew that she was persuasive and could get her mum to agree to most things. And she was really enjoying having the reins on today. She thought about how it would feel if she did manage to get taken on a walk to the park, for example. Being seen in the reins by people she knew didn’t really bother her at all. The more she thought about it, there weren’t really any good reasons not to.

“I wouldn’t want to be held really close all the time,” said Chloe, apparently also thinking through the practicalities, “I like being able to run around in the park.”

“You can just let go and not hold on if you want to let the baby run,” explained Isabella, “and you can tuck the reins in at the back so they’re not loose and you don’t fall over them, like this.” Isabella tried to demonstrate drooping the rein over the back of the harness but everything was too tight. She gestured to her friends to do it but wasn’t easily able to explain how she had seen her mum do the same thing with her brother’s reins. After a moment, the parent helper leaned across and tucked the rein in. “Like that”, she said. “Ohhh, I see” said Sophie, untucking the reins and holding back onto them.

“Well,” she continued, “I wouldn’t want to go out for a walk with reins on because people wouldn’t know I was only in them for fun and would think my mum was just this crazy lady who kept her big kid on a lead, it would be so embarrassing.” The parent helper looked again at Isabella and smiled. “And compared to that, Isabella doesn’t care one tiny bit!” Isabella looked a little bit more thoughtful than before and then shrugged. “I don’t really. I mean, I like wearing them for fun.” But the difference between being an eight year old extrovert with no self-confidence problem and being an overprotected child well past the age of actually needing this sort of physical restraint had raised its head. Until now, Isabella had not thought at all about how it would feel if she wasn’t in control of the reins wearing.

“I mean, I don’t want to have to wear them, like being made to wear them and not being let out.”

“This is why we’re all so surprised that you want to wear them at all, Isabella” explained the parent helper. “Most children resent wearing them but aren’t allowed out of them precisely because they need them to be kept safe.” “Yeah,” agreed Sophie, “you wouldn’t just let a toddler off their reins because they said, ‘can I get out of the reins’, would you?”.

“She can probably just let herself out if she wants to,” suggested Chloe, forgetting that a short time ago, Isabella had needed help to go to the toilet. “No she can’t, she’s stuck in them until one of us lets her out!” said Sophie. “That’s why they do up at the back,” the helper explained, “so even bigger toddlers can’t let themselves out. They’re pretty much the ultimate anti-escape thing for toddlers - even the ones who can get out of their car seats, buggies, high chairs and everything else can’t escape from reins.” Isabella’s hands reactively went up to her reins and her fingers ran around behind her back to see again if there was anything she could do about the buckle. Realising this was an escape attempt, Sophie started to encourage her.

“Go on, that’s it, stretch just a bit more and you’ll be able to do the squeezy bits on the buckle. Reach a bit more, just a bit more!” Isabella reached and strained but as she already knew from earlier, there was no escape. Realising it was futile, her arms dropped and hung her head very slightly, blushing beet red. “Any of us can let her out. The only one who can’t is her!” noted Chloe. The helper was amused at the sight of Isabella, realising only at this late stage of the day that she had spent in reins, realising that even though she had only meant to wear the reins as a bit of fun, she was just as helpless as any of their previous, dirty pawed occupants from nursery. For whatever reason, this was an eight year old kid in reins and it didn’t matter why they were on.

Surely, she would now want to get out of them. “Do you want to come out of them now, shall we free you?” asked the parent helper, reaching over to release the buckle. “At least then you’ll be able to go to the toilet without having to be unlocked first.”

Isabella’s brain was furiously processing all of this. Eventually, the cheeky smile returned. “No. I like them,” she said and went back to her husky-inspired pulling.

Like all good school trips, a stop in a local play park was included to burn off some of the energy before the return coach trip. Mr Jakes held the play park gate open while Miss Markham and the helpers shepherded all the kids towards the swings and slides. He had not paid a lot of attention to Isabella for most of the day, but he noticed that the reins were still installed as the girls ran in. “Are you seriously still wearing those things, Isabella?”, he asked. “Yep!” was the single word reply. The girls darted towards the swings, Sophie stopping Isabella to tuck her reins in at the back, while Mr Jakes and Miss Markham talked.

“She’s an odd girl, that one. They’re lovely though, those three, aren’t they? Have you noticed how one of them will get all of their water bottles out of their bags for them and then put them away? They look after each other.”

“Honestly though, I’ve spent all day feeling a bit worried that people are going to report us for marching one of our children around in reins!” said Miss Markham. “I have seen a few eyebrows go up today!”

“I’m sure they’d assume she’s ASD or has other needs.”

“I had to let her out of them earlier, she realised that she can’t go to the loo while they’re on.” “Eh?” said Mr Jakes, confused as Miss Markham explained the problem. “We never had to use reins with our two, they never ran off,” mused Mr Jakes. “We did for our youngest,” Miss Markham recalled, “she was our wild child! She ran out in a car park once when she was about three, scared me to death and I kept her in her harness for a while after that.”

Their eyes glanced around the park as the kids all played. After ten minutes, the adults started gathering everything together in readiness to move the horde toward the coach. Just then, a sobbing Sophie clutching her hand started walking towards the teachers. She went over to Mr Jakes, who quickly saw that she had fallen and landed on her hand, spraining her wrist. As Miss Markham did their basic checks to make sure the hand wasn’t broken, Chloe got wind of what had happened and ran over to help. Isabella, who was away in her own world, carried on playing, swinging around on the wooden climbing frame, oblivious to her friend’s injury. After a few moments though, she realised she was talking to herself and looked around for Sophie and Chloe. When she realised that both of them were standing with the teachers and most of the kids had started to congregate back at the metal fence at the edge of the park, she clambered down towards the floor. But as she slid down the curved railing that connected the climbing frame to the ground, she stopped abruptly with two pulls to her armpits. Turning around, she realised that the rein had dropped down into the space between two bars and caught around a climbing handle lower down. As she then descended, the slack had come out and she was stuck. “No problem,” she thought, “I’ll just climb up a bit and free myself.” She tried to pull herself back up but to no avail. There wasn’t enough slack available to let her pull her chest back and get a grip on the rail beneath her foot.

She was stuck, tied to a climbing frame. She looked out helplessly to the other children and her teachers.

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 17, 2023 at 8:09 AM
Content: Chapter 4

She wriggled and strained but nothing happened. This was properly embarrassing. Isabella did not embarrass easily but here she was, tied to a now almost completely deserted climbing frame with no option but to call out for help. She tried to stand in a nonchalant, ‘I’m still playing’ pose but with so little slack, she couldn’t style this out.

“Chloeeeee” she called, as quietly as she could. Again she called, raising the volume level slightly and hoping that Chloe would notice her before anyone else did and run over to help. But Chloe was hovering around Sophie, who had stopped crying but was still getting attention for her sore wrist. “Chlo-eeee!” shouted Isabella more loudly, her tone increasingly more desperate. Come on Chloe, just turn around and catch my eye, she screamed telepathically. Chloe didn’t register at all. But someone else did. Max.

Max was part of the girls’ extended group, who sometimes joined in with their antics and whose family were also friends with Isabella’s family. Max was good friends with Lewis, the boy who Isabella didn’t recognise as a boyfriend but who had known her since they were tiny babies and had always been very close. One of the reasons that Isabella, Chloe and Sophie liked Max and Lewis is that they didn’t retreat into boy stuff by default, like most of the boys did. They didn’t tell stupid, gross jokes, run around pretending to have guns or playfight. They came over to find out what the girls were up to and then more often than not, they would join in. They drew the line at dolls, not because they were too girly but because they were boring, but dressing up, playing with hair and the other time fillers the girls got up to were all interesting to them. Isabella knew Lewis’ life inside out - his family, his food likes and dislikes, his Lego collection and the things that made him happy and sad. Max had a similar bond with Lewis and through that, he had inherited some of his friendship with Isabella.

Max wandered over to where Isabella was standing. It was impossible not to notice her embarrassed look and bright red cheeks, but he didn’t know yet what had happened. “We have to go now, come on,” he said, gesturing for her to jump down. If only she could.

“I… can’t.”

“Why not?” asked Max, confused. Isabella demonstrated by trying to lean forward but being suspended on the reins. “Are you stuck?” Isabella nodded. Without being asked, Max reached up onto the climbing frame and looked behind Isabella to see what had happened. “I think your baby reins are caught up around that bar down there. How did you get stuck like this?”

“I don’t know,” she explained, “I just tried climbing down and then I couldn’t move and I couldn’t climb back up. Can you get me out?”

“Erm,” said Max, not really knowing where to start, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Can you reach the buckle? Just undo that and I’ll be able to get out myself.” Max fumbled around behind her back, not realising that when Isabella said ‘the buckle’, she was talking about the harness closure. He fiddled with the metal spring clip that attached the rein to the harness. “I can’t do it, it’s too hard to press,” he said. Contorting around, Isabella realised that he was working on the wrong fixing. “No, not that bit, the bit that’s on my back, the bit that holds this part on me” she explained, pulling at the harness.

“Oh, okay,” said Max, putting his arms around her waist. Ten seconds passed and nothing happened. Isabella looked up and caught Mr Jakes’ eye.

“Isabella, Max, come on, time to go now please.” His eye stayed on hers, his teacher radar picking up that something was not right with the two eight year olds obviously trying to solve a problem. He took a step towards them.

Isabella panicked. “Quick, Max! Get me out of this, Mr Jakes is coming over.” Max tried but was unsuccessful. Mr Jakes got closer, his head tilted quizzically. Isabella desperately tried to wriggle free but it was too late. As Mr Jakes loomed over them, Isabella dropped her arms and Max continued to try unsuccessfully to free her. “What on earth are you two up to?”

“I got stuck,” said Isabella, barely able to look at her teacher. “And I’m trying to help her get out, but I can’t do the buckle,” added Max. Mr Jakes smiled, folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “Look at the state of you, Isabella.” Isabella strained at the harness, knowing it wouldn’t help but not wanting to just give up and look defeated. “So then,” he continued, “what shall we do with you?”

“Could you let me out please?”

“Well,” he said, arms still folded, “I don’t know. We can’t really leave you here, I suppose. Can you imagine if I had to tell your parents that we had to leave you in a town thirty miles away because you managed to get yourself tied to a play park climbing frame with the baby reins you wore all day?”

“Don’t tell them that!” said Isabella. Max didn’t like the sound of that either, it seemed a bit mean, so he continued to try to free her.

“How did you even get stuck?” asked Mr Jakes and Isabella explained again what had happened. “Silly girl. I don’t think reins and climbing frames go well together, do you?” he said, arms still folded and waiting for her response. “No.”

“Okay then,” he said, unfolding his arms and looking to see how he could release her. Within a couple of seconds, he had reached in and released one of the spring clips, which straightaway freed Isabella and allowed the rein to unwind from the frame. Isabella climbed down the rest of the way to the ground, keen to run over and join the other kids. Then she was stopped in her tracks. She turned round and saw Mr Jakes holding onto the free end of the rein. “Whoa whoa, just a moment,” he said. Isabella glanced back around to the other kids, some of whom had noticed what was happening and she realised that they had just seen Mr Jakes stopping her from running away. This was the first time an adult had held her reins and everyone had seen. She was no longer in control of this.

“Need to clip this back on,” said Mr Jakes, reaching down to the spring clip on the right hand side of the harness and reattaching the rein. He then stood back up and let go of the rein. “Come on now you two crazies, we need to get ourselves moving,” he said, walking back towards the crowd leaving Isabella secured. Isabella stood still. There had been no offer to take the reins off; instead, Mr Jakes had improved the security. “Come on, you big baby!” shouted two kids who found the whole thing funny. “Shut up!” shouted Isabella, plainly embarrassed.

Max could see that Isabella wasn’t happy. Breaking the tension, he picked up the rein. “Can I hold onto them? I’ll be really careful,” he said, stroking her upper arm. That made things even worse for Isabella. Now she was a little kid in reins being consoled, still with no-one offering to release her. A few seconds passed and Isabella pulled the reins carefully but firmly out of Max’s hands and marched back over towards Chloe, who with Sophie’s owie and the growing rumble to get going had not noticed Isabella’s predicament.

“Baby Isabella!” shouted the same idiot boys again. That was a mistake, thought Isabella who despite this tiny setback was very good at standing up to meanness. She walked up to one of the boys, wound back and punched him in the arm. He was knocked backwards, landing against the metal fence. Miss Markham, who saw what had happened, waded in.

“Stop, stop it now! Isabella, I saw what you did to him there. You punched him in the arm.”

“That’s because he was being stupid and mean!” replied Isabella.

“Yeah”, said the other boy, “about you wearing baby reins like a toddler!”

“I can if I want to!”

“You don’t even need them!”

“It’s just for fun, you idiot!” barked Sophie. Another boy then piped up.

“Ha ha, you just got beaten up by a little girl in baby reins!” Punched arm kid scowled and growled at him.

“Okay, okay now, everyone calm down.” Mr Jakes separated the fight and sent the two boys on ahead. Turning round to face the girls, he crouched down. “I think it might be better if we take those off now, Isabella.” Isabella was not in the mood to fight and if she was honest, she was starting to feel less great about wandering around in reins now that she had found herself stuck in her clothes, tied to a climbing frame, mocked by classmates and, albeit briefly, held by a teacher.

“Okay.” No-one moved. “Can someone let me out?” she asked, indignantly. She had meant for her friends to get her out but once again, Mr Jakes reached behind her back and effortlessly released the buckle. The harness popped open and Mr Jakes pulled it down off Isabella’s arms, rolling it into a ball and putting it away in his pocket.

“Yay, now you can run around freely again!” said Chloe. “And go to the loo without someone having to unlock you first!” added Sophie. “I still can’t believe you spent most of the day in them.”

Isabella quickly reset and went back to her normal self, the reins now out of sight and out of mind. Sophie was amazed. Having her bestie lark around like this was fun but it all having turned embarrassing at the end was exactly what she thought would happen. How could it not? Reins were a functional thing, they were for taking control away from little kids who couldn’t be trusted to have it and the one thing that she, as a fellow eight year old, did not like doing was giving the independence she had slowly started getting from the grownups back to them. Sophie hated it when a grandparent made her hold hands crossing the road, or when she was refused permission to go and see one of her friends at their houses. And she absolutely despised it when she was referred to as ‘the baby’, being the youngest in her family. She was self-conscious about being seen as one of the older, more responsible ones and that was 100% incompatible with wearing baby reins. It would never happen. And there was no intrigue anyway.

Chloe took a different view away from Isabella’s experience today. As an only-child, she had no little brother or sister to supervise and she would have loved a sibling. She knew from hearing her parents talk over the years that another child was not in the offing, so she had swung her focus to her friends’ siblings. Isabella’s little brother was awesome in her eyes, she loved that Isabella was protective of him and played with him so much. She remembered seeing Isabella walking him on his reins when he was two and the feeling of longing it created in her. She wasn’t sure though which one of them she wanted to be - the two year old little bro or the six year old big sis. Either would be good.

She wished she was as self-assured and bold as Isabella. Isabella was blunt at times and could be like a bull in a china shop, rarely tuning in to Chloe and Sophie’s quiet sharing moments, but she had this ability to just switch off to people’s opinions and that had allowed her to spend the day, a school outing day with all of her peers present, in reins and looking, to her mind, unbelievably cute. Not just in reins but in a series of ‘stuck toddler’ moments that, despite being all a bit silly, were genuine helplessness. Chloe did not remember a moment in her life when she was not naturally and by default trusted to behave, be sensible and be quite grown up for her age. No-one ever forced her to hold hands crossing the road - she liked holding hands anyway - and she was bright and alert, needing little supervision.

I would like to know what it feels like to not be so sensible, Chloe thought to herself. Not today, too many people around, but one day.

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 17, 2023 at 8:17 AM
Content: That’s the end of this story! Hope some of you enjoyed it. Would love to hear feedback.

Isabella, Chloe and Sophie go on a much longer adventure after this, in 24 chapters. That involves all the gadgets - reins, car seats, onesies, nappies etc - and gentle power struggles. If there’s enough interest, I’ll post it on here.

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Author: warmsleeper
Timestamp: Aug 17, 2023 at 5:25 PM
Content:

Nitebones said:

hi, liked the story quite wholesome, i was wondering if you posted the other chapters somewhere else

[End of quote]

Thank you! I have posted elsewhere, not here yet though.