1.18 Will you be ready when it all explodes?

Like her older sister, Britney had gotten an unusual looking doll for her birthday from a distant relative. Which was odd, since Jo had no sisters or brothers, and his parents had died a long time ago. Anna hadn’t brought anybody along when she arrived in Appaloosa Plains. Nobody even knew she had moved here. How could this doll be sent by anybody she knew? Had they spied on her the night that she decided to leave her old life? There was no other way this toy could have gotten here. They had followed her, and eventually they found her. Who knew, maybe there was even a camera in these dolls, to spy on her every move! The same day, she locked those dolls away into a closet. Neither Birdy nor Britney were allowed to play with it anymore. 

Anna now was even more protective of her children than she had been before. Every car that passed the house was eyed by her conspicuously, every visitor at the front door had to declare his or her motives for showing up. It seemed a little paranoid, but for her it was the only way to make sure nothing would happen.

Jo couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He still hadn’t learned about Anna’s past, at least not completely, and he didn’t know why Anna had gotten so careful all of a sudden. He decided not to make a big deal out of it. In a while, she would get back to normal, and until then he tried to make sure that the kids weren’t suffering from their mother’s temporary insanity. Britney was a natural in walking, and she learned it within only a few days. It seemed like she was eager to run around and explore the world.

 

Considered hormonal by her husband, Anna more than one time asked herself if her fears were justified. Of course they were. Those dolls hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, somebody had dropped them off at their house, which meant somebody knew where she lived. Tendering her little garden behind the house, she was glad it couldn’t be seen from the front. To the people on the street, she was invisible. When she wandered around inside the house, she tried to stay away from the windows, so that nobody could see her either. And in the evening the first thing she did was closing the curtains and activating the motion detector for outside. Now, nobody could get near the house without her knowing about it. 

 

Birdy was unaware of what was going through her mother’s mind, but she felt that something wasn’t quite right. Anna jumped at every noise, never let anybody inside the house spontaneously – those were the things Birdy noticed.  She tried to support her mother, tried to make her feel safer. She frequently asked her if the baby was okay, and if there was anything she could do to help. Anna couldn’t believe how much her daughter had grown in the last few months. Going to school had been good for her; she instantly had found many friends and her teachers were delighted by her enthusiasm.

Seeing Birdy like this, gave her hope for Britney’s future, as well. Both of them were going to have a great life, just like their little sister or brother that was yet to be born. While she was waiting for her due-date, she noticed how quickly Britney adapted to the language around her. Even as a baby, she made noises that sounded like short words, and now that she was a toddler, she learned so many words so quickly. Every time she talked to her, Britney had something new to tell, or to ask. She loved asking her mother things, whatever they were. And later, when Jo made her dinner or cuddled with her, she would often repeat what her mother had told her before. She was curious, and knew how to amaze her parents with her accuracy and her imagination.

Fortunately, the lessons on walking and teaching were completed by the time Anna went into labor. It was less painful than when she was expecting Britney, but still the contractions demanded a great deal of her. As quickly as he could, Jo took her to the hospital.

Little Beth was, unlike her older sister, completely healthy, which is why she could be taken home a day after her birth. The two girls were waiting in the house anxiously, curious to meet their little sister. 

Life soon got back to normal, though. Second grade was harder than first grade for Birdy, and she often sat on her desk for hours, doing her homework. She wasn’t interested in Simlish and writing neatly, she paid much more attention when it came to her science class or maths. Logic and experiments fascinated her, and she was willing to do a lot of research at home. Simlish bodies were particularly interesting, both bone structures and what was going on in their minds. More than one time she spent an entire break in front of a skeleton, studying the connections between the bones. This is how a body was supposed to work, and when something wasn’t right, doctors had to fix it. One day, she wanted to be a World Renowned Surgeon, and help many people get the body they wanted and deserved.

It couldn’t hurt to be in good physical shape, so that she could run from one operation to the other. And as long as she was too small to ride on Kokette, she practiced on her rocking horse.

Kokette was preoccupied by Anna most of the time, anyway. The unicorn seemed to feel that something was not right, and was there whenever Anna needed a shoulder to lean on. Anna felt Kokette breathe, imagined to feel her heartbeat, ran her hair through the unicorn’s mane. This was her home; this was her castle. She was supposed to be safe here. 

 Beth hadn’t gotten one of these mysterious dolls for her birth, which disburdened Anna a bit. Maybe it had been the right step to lock the other dolls away, maybe there had really been cameras and her persecutors had thought she had run and left them behind. 

With their mother lightening up a bit more every day, Birdy and Britney found it easier to have fun at home. They loved each other so much, and spent most of the weekends together, playing cuckoo all day.

When she wasn’t playing, Birdy already helped a lot in the household. She had learned how to separate waste at school, and since her mother wasn’t too familiar with it, she took it upon her to clean the house the right way. Unfortunately, that included cleaning the potty. But only one more toddler to get through (after Britney had grown up), then it would never be used again. Right?

Author's notes: Namesake for Beth is....have a guess! ;)