As Laura tries to decide what to do, a boy about her current age walks over to her, followed by a man. Laura swallows nervously, worried that she’ll be taken somewhere.
“Hey, uh, I saw you trying to get into the magic store over there,” the man says to Laura. Laura nods. “…Why?”
“Um…” Laura’s mind freezes. She can’t think of a single reason. The boy next to the man shakes his head.
“It’s okay, Ben. I can tell.” The boy looks at Laura. “You got messed with by the dice, too, didn’t you?”
“How- how did you know?” Laura squeaks. She blinks. “Wait…you said ‘too’. Are you…?”
“Not supposed to be six?” The boy smiles ruefully. “Yeah. Luckily, I was visiting Ben when I first started rolling the dice, so I’ve got an adult who’s in on the whole thing.” The boy cocks his head. “And so do you.” The boy holds out a hand. “I’m Mason.”
“Laura,” Laura replies, shaking the hand. “It looks like the magic store is closed all weekend.”
“It is. Ben’s going to take me there when it opens first thing Monday. But until then, I’ll be staying with him. And if you want to, you can, too.”
“That- that would be great,” Laura says with relief. “I was just thinking about how I needed to find a place to stay for the night.”
“You can stay with me, no problem,” Ben says cheerfully. “I’ve got a niece and nephew, so I know how to take care of kids.” He looks Laura up and down with a discerning eye. “How old are you?”
“Right now, four.”
“Hmm. Are you in training pants?”
“…Yes,” Laura mumbles reluctantly.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Mason says, waving a hand. “Ben’s planning on putting me in training pants at night. And you’re a toddler right now, you can’t really control yourself that well.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Well, it’s starting to get dark,” Ben says. “We should probably head out and stop by a couple stores on the way to my place.” He takes Laura’s hand and leads her over to a car in the parking lot of the magic store. Mason follows. At the car, Laura and Mason climb into the back seat, and Ben gets in the driver’s seat. They pull out of the parking lot. Exhausted from the day she’s had, Laura falls asleep immediately.
Laura is woken up by a finger being put down the back of her training pants. She shoots up with a yelp of surprise.
“Sorry about that,” says the person checking her, Ben. Laura looks up at him. “I had to check how you were doing. You’re wet.”
“…Oh.”
“Don’t worry, we got you some protection.” Ben picks Laura up out of the playpen she just now realizes she was in and carries her down a hall, into a spare room. The spare room has both a crib and a child’s bed in it; Ben’s niece and nephew must stay here when they visit. Ben sets Laura on the ground, then grabs something from one of the store bags littered around the floor.
“…Princesses?” Laura mutters distastefully when she sees the package of patterned training pants Ben purchased.
“You’re not a girly girl, huh?” Ben asks. Laura shakes her head. “Unfortunately, since you slept all through the shopping, we didn’t know what you liked. So you’re going to have to be a girly girl for the weekend.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
“That’s true.” Ben goes back to Laura and begins undressing her. “So, we didn’t need as many things as I thought, since I’ve got some things from when my sister brings her kids over. I even dug out an old car seat to use to take you places. Had to get a booster seat for Mason, though. He’s small for his age.” Ben pulls Laura’s wet training pants down. She steps out of them.
“I’d- I’d like to wipe myself,” Laura mumbles. Ben nods. He hands her a package of wipes and turns away. Laura cleans herself up. Ben holds out a new pair of training pants for Laura to step into and then pulls them up.
“It’s getting close to bedtime, so I think I’ll just have you wear your pajamas instead of putting the overalls back on,” Ben says. He removes a pink, frilly toddler nightgown from one of the bags and slips it over Laura’s shoulders.
From there, the evening progresses quickly. Laura and Mason are given dinner, Mason is instructed to put training pants on, and the two of them go to bed. Ben puts Laura in the crib, apologizing for not having a toddler bed. But Laura is too tired to be upset. She curls up and falls asleep before Ben even leaves the room.