“Dis is so people don’t see my diapy,” Jacob says out loud, trying to justify to herself what she’s about to do. She removes the hard-won shorts and T-shirts, then slips the dress over her shoulders. Underneath the dress in the box was a matching diaper cover. Not wanting her pretty new dress to get dirty if her diaper leaks, Jacob puts that on as well. After shoving the boy clothes into the Lost and Found box, Jacob wanders into daycare’s play area.
While the desk may have been unmanned, the rest of the daycare isn’t empty, as Jacob discovers. There are a lot of toddlers and babies scattered around. The toys they play with would have bored Jacob this morning, but right now, nothing seems more fun. She excitedly skips over to join a group of little girls her age playing with dolls.
The little girls are more than happy to let Jacob play with them. They don’t even realize that she wasn’t in the daycare until a few minutes ago; they treat her like an old friend. Though they do tease her for her name.
“Jacob is boy name,” says the little girl who introduced herself as Leah. “Not girl name.”
“It my name, though, and I girl,” Jacob argues.
“You need better name,” says one of the other girls, Katie. “Pretty one.”
“Like what?” Jacob asks. The girls think for a few minutes.
“Suzie,” Leah suggests.
“Princess,” Katie says.
“No,” says the third girl, Laura. She holds up a doll of Princess Ariel from The Little Mermaid. “You look like her. Be Ariel.”
“I like Ariel,” Jacob says. The girls cheer, glad to have come up with a good name. Ariel, previously known as Jacob, is equally thrilled. A daycare worker stops by to check diapers, but, like Ariel’s new friends, doesn’t seem perturbed by the appearance of a new toddler in the daycare.
Caught up in the excitement of playing with dolls, Ariel doesn’t snap out of it until…