Alphabet blocks were in Nicole’s thoughts, and onesies were in her wardrobe.

The training chart on her door showed the blocks–all stacked in a jumble, spelling out nothing in particular. Vanessa had taken a glance at it and said that together they formed the words, ‘Baby Nicole’, but all Nicole could see was a jumble of letters.

She worried what that meant.

They’d woken up early. Vanessa had suggested the night before that they get a jump on things, so she had plenty of time to change Nicole and get her dressed without missing the bus. A lot of her clothes had changed overnight, but she still had some plain jeans and T shirts that were apparently juvenile enough to not be affected by the magic, and she was in too much of a hurry to mourn the lost fashion accessories.

Nicole also had to admit, an extra set of hands getting ready for the day was nice–and having Vanessa wake her up had been particularly helpful, because Nicole hadn’t remembered to plug her phone in before getting into her crib the night before, and her alarm hadn’t gone off.

Now, she was nursing the phone on a charger, waiting for it to boot up, wondering what had been taken from her that morning.

Her phone chirped to life, the startup song jingled, and she looked down–three percent battery, it still needed to charge, and…

“Poopie,” she said aloud, her words defaulting to a toddler swear. Even getting up early, she’d still be late–the clock read eight something-or-other, and her bus left at eight fifteen. She had to run.

“Gotta go, V!” she yelped, leaping from the couch and sprinting to the door. “Gonna be wate!”

Vanessa walked out a few moments later, too slow to catch her friend’s exit.

“Late?” she asked aloud, checking her own phone for the time. “It’s only like eight minutes past seven, but...guess she wanted to get ahead of things.”

…

Nicole sprinted up to the bus stop, heart pounding as she leaned against the signpost. (The bus, where was the–) looking around, she saw it coming up the road, still a couple blocks away. She’d made it, barely, but she’d take the win.

Withdrawing her phone for the bus pass, she frowned. The screen was black again, it hadn’t charged enough to survive her mad dash to the bus stop. Instead of using her prepaid app, she’d have to buy a ticket.

Fumbling for cash, she watched the bus pull up, immediately noticing that something felt off. For one, the bus had a different driver today, a man in his forties who must have been subbing in for the typical driver on her route. Stepping on, she continued to dig in her purse, fishing out a few crinkled bills and some change.

“Erm…” she said, looking between the pay terminal and the money in her hand. The pay terminal had a bunch of numbers printed on it, but they seemed to be floating off the label, dancing before her eyes. A six, and a one, and… a five? So it was six dollars and fifteen cents for a bus ticket?

That didn’t seem right to her, but she hadn’t bought a regular ticket in a while, she always had her phone. Looking down at her money, though, she realized she only had…

“Uh…”

“Lady,” the driver said, “Are you getting on or what?”

“Yeah, I just…” she tried to count. She had a few bills… one bill for each finger. Five bills. Ok, so she still needed a dollar, and–

“Lady,” the driver insisted. “It’s a buck sixty five, just put the money in the terminal.”

She swallowed. She’d read it wrong–that price made more sense, though. A buck sixty five, so one bill, and then…quarters. Three quarters? No, too much–

“I can’t–” she stammered, holding out her handful of wadded money to the driver. “Help?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Friggin’ kids, it must be that new math,” he grumbled, reaching out to take the appropriate currency. “Look, lady. A dollar, two quarters, a nickel, and dime. Got it?”

“I’m not a kid,” she mumbled defensively.

“Coulda fooled me,” he said, dropping the coins and inserting the bill for her. “Take your seat. You know your stop?”

“Mhmm,” she said, blushing as she hurried to the back of the bus.

He drove away, and she sat back, stunned and disoriented. Nothing felt right. She couldn’t read, and…that explained the baby blocks.

But she still could read. She recognized letters, right? So she’d just have to take things one letter at a time. She could do that. She practiced on the LED sign reading out the next stop.

“B,” she said aloud. “A, R, R, Y. Barry. D, R, I, V, E… Barry Drive? But…”

The Barry Drive stop wasn’t anywhere near her office, it was practically in the opposite direction. Maybe she’d read it wrong–but that was almost as scary as if she’d read it right.

Rushing to the front of the bus, she pulled the signal indicating her need to get off. The driver pulled over, and she stepped out, looking around–she’d ended up somewhere by downtown. Only a mile from her office, a walk she could make in twenty minutes, but she didn’t understand how.

Catching someone waiting for a different bus, she asked, “Excuse…me…my phone is dead, can you pwease tell me the time?”

The woman hesitated, caught off guard by Nicole’s lisp, but glanced at her own phone. “It’s just past seven thirty.”

(Oh,) Nicole realized. (Okay. I left early, I got on the wrong bus.) Exhaling in relief, she said, “Thankies.”

“You’re welcome?”

That wasn’t too bad. She’d just need to catch a new bus, or walk. She could make that walk in time, and there was a thorough map posted by the stop. All she had to do was…

Read the map and find a route.

Just finding where she was on the map took her ten minutes, by which point she was sniffling in frustration. Tracing the road with a finger to where she knew her office was helped, but she couldn’t make out the tiny letters spelling the streets, and even after getting a stranger to read them for her, matching the names in her head to the street signs above intersections was downright impossible–there were just too many other letters floating in her vision.

She got lost four times, and had to find a public restroom to change her diaper once. It took a good Samaritan stranger noticing her distress and giving her simple, direct instructions–‘Start walking down this road and turn when you see the big fountain with a mermaid’–that she managed to get to work.

Gazing up at the office building, Nicole swallowed. She wasn’t that late, was she? Only a few hours.

(Maybe someone covered for me.)

Swallowing, she stepped inside, took the stairs–she didn’t trust herself on the elevator buttons–and got to her desk, plugged in her phone, and started plugging away at work.

At least she managed to keep herself clean, mostly. She had to proactively check her diaper, and that constant paranoia meant she spent almost as much time nervously sniffing and reaching down to squeeze the padded crotch, but she didn’t have any more unnoticed messy accidents before lunch. She only managed to fill out one report in that time, mouthing out every letter and pecking at the keyboard to type, but it was something.

It didn’t surprise her when Jean intercepted her immediately after lunch, but her heart still sank. Jean’s dubious sniff of the air around Nicole made her feel even smaller, even more helpless–she couldn’t be trusted to keep her diaper clean.

“Let’s go talk in my office,” Jean offered. Nicole meekly followed.

The door shut behind her. “Am I being fired?” she all-but whispered, looking down at her toes.

“We’ll talk about that,” Jean said, walking to her desk and spinning the computer display around for Nicole to see. “Come look at this.”

Nicole walked up, leaning in to look at the report. It was the one she’d filled out before lunch–just some expense sheets. The number at the bottom was really big. “Um…did I file too many enspen… expsen–too much stuff?”

“The–it’s wrong,” Jean snapped, her weariness turning the last word harsh–she hadn’t quite snapped, but she was getting impatient. “Nicole, this is simple addition. How did you add a dozen expenses under a hundred dollars and add them up to be greater than our company’s entire gross sales? How did you not notice?”

“I don’t…” Nicole stared, squinting harder. She knew the numbers were wrong, but she couldn’t find the mistake, the letters were just floating off the page.

“And the labels–what even are these?” Jean asked. “‘Snackies’? ‘Choo choo’?”

“Um–um–” Nicole stammered, trying to think, trying to form the words so that she wouldn’t sound like a babbling toddler. “That was…Employee meals… and tram fare.”

“Nicole,” Jean said, sitting down at her desk. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you right now, but it’s clear you’re in no state to work. You’ve got two weeks sick time and eight personal days, after that we’ll need to see if I can convince management to suspend your employment instead of firing you outright.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re not… You pwomise? I’m not fi-fied?”

Jean sighed, almost sadly. “I like you, and you’ve given us good work. Go see a doctor, figure out what’s going on–once you show me you can keep your pants clean and your spelling neat, we’ll get you back to work.” Under her breath, she added, “Do not repeat this outside my office, but if I need to fire you so that you can collect unemployment, tell me. I want you to be OK, Nicole, you’re just…up until this past week, you were a mature, competent adult. I don’t know what you are now.”

Nicole wiped at her eyes with her arm, wet tears sliding down her cheeks. “I…um…fank you…”

“Get help, Nicole.”

Nicole nodded. (Help. Right.)

Taking out her phone, she called Vanessa, choking down her sobs. “V? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Vanessa’s voice came back, reassuring and solid. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I need a ride.”