“Honestly, Laura, you’re usually so well-behaved!” the chaperone says, shaking his head. Laura looks at him in shock. What was that about? “Your mommy won’t be happy to hear how naught you were today.”
“Sorry,” Laura mumbles instinctively. How did this man know her name? And why did he seem like he’d had her as a student for a while? Laura looks down at her outfit and is startled to see a name tag with a photo clipped onto the front of her shirt. Her name is on the tag, and the picture is of her as a four-year-old. Dread uncurls in her stomach. When the dice were destroyed, reality must have been altered to make it so that she was supposed to be a four-year-old.
The bus pulls up in front of a school. The children are all ushered off the bus and towards a crowd of parents waiting in the parking lot. Most of the children are allowed to go to their parents on their own, but Laura is dragged over to a woman by the chaperone.
“Your daughter misbehaved a lot today,” the chaperone says to the woman. The woman turns around. Laura’s eyes widen when she sees who her mother is in this new reality.