A devious plan to sabotage

“Why don't we teach her a lesson?” Mindy asked.

Bianca looked up from her coffee.

“What kind of lesson?”

“The kind she'll remember.”

Selena leaned across the table. “Your stepmother's entire personality is built around looking perfect, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then don't attack her where she expects it.”

Bianca frowned. “What does that mean?”

Mindy smiled.

“It means we make her think she's getting ready for the most important meeting of her life, and make sure nothing goes the way she expects.”

By the time the three girls left the coffee shop, they had a plan.

Charlotte's vanity was legendary. She had a different product for practically everything, from expensive creams and serums to cosmetics that Bianca had never been allowed to touch. Her closet was equally ridiculous. Designer suits hung in careful rows, arranged by color and season, with shoes beneath them and handbags displayed as though they belonged in a boutique.

It was exactly the sort of thing Bianca knew how to sabotage.

The opportunity came two days later.

Hal was still away, and Charlotte had an important business meeting downtown that afternoon. She had mentioned it several times at breakfast, emphasizing the clients involved and the importance of making the right impression.

Bianca merely nodded.

Charlotte assumed she was bored.

She had no idea Bianca had already sent a message to Mindy and Selena.

At eleven, Charlotte went upstairs to shower.

The moment they heard the bathroom door close, Bianca slipped quietly into the bedroom.

Mindy and Selena followed.

They worked quickly.

Nothing was destroyed. That would have been too obvious. Instead, they made small changes that would only reveal themselves when Charlotte needed everything to work perfectly.

A few cosmetics were replaced with harmless substitutes. A product Charlotte relied on was made noticeably less cooperative. Several items were moved just enough to make her search for them.

Then they turned their attention to the suit.

Charlotte had selected an expensive business outfit for the meeting, including a fitted jacket and matching skirt.

Bianca held up the skirt.

“This is the one.”

Mindy grinned.

“Are you sure you can fix it without making it obvious?”

“I'm not fixing it,” Bianca said. “I'm making sure it won't fit quite right.”

Selena watched as Bianca made a few careful alterations to the inside of the waistband and the seams. Nothing was cut open or visibly damaged. From the outside, the skirt looked exactly as it had before.

“That'll be enough,” Bianca said.

They put everything back exactly where they had found it.

Then Mindy pulled a small pouch from her bag.

"Last thing," she began, holding up five tiny cameras, each no bigger than a coin.

Selena raised her eyebrows. "You actually brought those?"

"I told you I had a plan." Mindy was already crouching by the dresser, tucking one camera behind a perfume bottle so only the lens peeked out. "One here, one on the bookshelf pointed at the vanity, one on top of the closet doorframe for a wide shot, one tucked into the tissue box on the nightstand, and one clipped inside the lampshade by the armchair."

Bianca hesitated. "This feels like a lot."

"You wanted her to remember it," Mindy said. "This way we don't just hear her freak out. We get to watch it back forever."

It took less than three minutes to place all five. Mindy pulled up a feed on her tablet to check the angles, nodded in satisfaction, and slipped the tablet back into her bag.

"Let's go," Bianca whispered.

They slipped out of the bedroom and down the hall into Bianca's room, easing the door shut behind them. Mindy set her tablet on the bed, propped up so all three of them could see it, and the five small video feeds blinked to life, one showing the vanity, one the dresser, one the wider view of the room, one the nightstand, and one the armchair by the window.

"Now we wait," Bianca whispered.

A few minutes later, the shower stopped, audible faintly through the wall.

The girls went silent, huddled around the tablet.

Charlotte emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a robe, her hair damp and twisted into a towel, crisp and clear in HD on the screen. She walked directly to the vanity, apparently unaware that anything had changed, or that anyone was watching.

Bianca covered her mouth to keep from laughing.

Charlotte began getting ready.

The first problem appeared almost immediately.

She picked up one of her cosmetics, frowned at it, and tried again.

“What on earth?”

Her voice came through tinny but clear on Mindy's tablet speaker.

She examined the product, shook it, and tried once more.

Mindy's shoulders began trembling with suppressed laughter.

Charlotte muttered something under her breath before reaching for another item.

That one didn't behave as expected either.

“This cannot be happening today.”

She checked the time.

Then she opened a drawer.

Closed it.

Opened another.

Her irritation grew as she searched for an item that was normally kept in an obvious place.

“Where is it?”

The girls stayed hunched close over the small screen, careful to keep their voices low.

Charlotte opened the drawer again, this time with considerably less patience.

“I know I put it here.”

She shifted several bottles aside, checked beneath them, then moved to the next drawer.

Bianca glanced at Mindy.

Mindy had both hands pressed over her mouth.

Charlotte finally found what she was looking for, only to discover that it had been replaced with something subtly different. She stared at it for several seconds.

“No.”

She set it down.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her expression had changed from irritation to suspicion.

“This is ridiculous.”

She tried another cosmetic, carefully applying a small amount before immediately stopping.

“What is wrong with everything today?”

Selena leaned toward Bianca and whispered, “She's going to lose it.”

Bianca fought back a smile.

Charlotte checked the clock again. The meeting was getting closer.

She abandoned the troublesome products and reached for the cosmetics she considered dependable. One by one, however, they produced results that were slightly off. A shade was not quite right. A familiar product felt different. Something she normally applied without thinking suddenly required concentration.

Charlotte became increasingly flustered.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Fine. I'll make do.”

She continued getting ready.

On the screen, the girls watched Charlotte gradually reconstruct her usual appearance through sheer determination. Whatever had gone wrong with the products, she refused to let it ruin the meeting.

Charlotte refused to give up.

She adjusted her foundation, worked carefully around the areas that had gone wrong, and reached for another lipstick. The color was slightly different from what she normally wore, but it was close enough. She added a little more powder, checked her reflection, and finally leaned back from the mirror.

It wasn't perfect.

Charlotte noticed immediately.

But it was presentable.

“Good enough,” she said, though her expression suggested that she considered the phrase an insult.

Bianca watched her carefully through the tablet screen.

Mindy leaned toward her.

“She actually fixed it.”

Bianca nodded.

“I knew she would.”

Charlotte stood and looked toward the bed.

The sabotaged business suit was waiting exactly where she had left it.

For a moment, the girls expected her to walk over and put it on.

Instead, Charlotte turned toward the dresser; the one with the camera tucked behind the perfume bottle, now angled almost directly at her.

Bianca's eyebrows rose.

“What is she doing?” Selena whispered.

Charlotte opened the top drawer.

She moved a few things aside, apparently searching for something specific.

She paused.

Not the distracted pause of someone looking for a missing piece of jewelry or a cosmetic. This was deliberate. On the screen, they watched her glance toward the bedroom door, then toward the bathroom, as though checking that she was truly alone.

Bianca's amusement began to fade.

Charlotte opened the drawer farther.

She reached into the back and stopped again.

Her fingers remained hidden among the contents for a moment before she finally pulled something forward.

Then she reached toward the back.

Bianca leaned closer to the tablet, the small image filling her vision.

Charlotte pulled out a neatly folded white garment. The material was soft and papery beneath her fingers, with the faint crinkle of disposable material when she shifted it in her hands.

Then another. This one was unmistakably cotton, soft and slightly warm to the touch, its fabric folding with a quiet, familiar rustle.

The girls stared.

Mindy's expression changed instantly.

Selena's mouth fell open.

Bianca didn't understand what she was seeing at first. Then she recognized what Charlotte was holding.

A thick white adult diaper.

And beneath it, a thick pair of white cotton panties.

For several seconds, none of the girls moved.

On the screen, Charlotte didn't move either.

She stood beside the dresser with the items in her hands, staring down at them. The confidence that had returned to her face after finishing her makeup seemed to disappear.

She looked toward the door again.

Then, very quietly, they watched her cross the room and lock it.

Bianca's eyes widened.

Mindy's hand went immediately to her mouth.

The click of the lock barely registered through the tablet's tiny speaker, but all three girls flinched at it anyway.

Charlotte lowered her gaze.

She was no longer the woman who had been complaining about her makeup or

checking the clock. She looked suddenly cautious, almost secretive, as though the bedroom itself had become a place where she could not afford to be careless.

Bianca slowly turned toward Mindy.

Mindy stared back at her.

Selena mouthed the words, No way.

Bianca's face went completely blank.

All three girls had expected to find expensive clothes, jewelry, or some other secret weakness.

They had not expected this.

Charlotte, unaware of the lenses watching her from five different angles, placed the items on the bed beside her suit.

She hesitated before doing so, keeping one hand resting on them for a moment.

Then she looked at the closed bedroom door again.

Bianca could barely believe what she was seeing.

The woman who spent so much time criticizing everyone else's appearance had been hiding something entirely different.

Mindy leaned close to Bianca's ear.

“We just found her secret.”

Bianca didn't answer. She was still staring at the screen, unable to look away.

For once, she had no clever response.

The prank had been supposed to embarrass Charlotte. A bad makeup application. An ill-fitting suit. A little frustration before an important meeting.

This was different.

This was something Charlotte had gone to considerable lengths to hide.

Charlotte picked up the business suit and looked at it thoughtfully.

Then her eyes moved back to the items beside it.

She seemed caught between the polished image she had spent the morning rebuilding and the private routine she had apparently kept hidden from everyone around her.

She checked the clock.

Then she looked at the door one more time.

And in Bianca's room, three faces lit by a tablet screen realized that their prank had just become something much bigger than they had planned.

Bianca slowly looked at her friends.

None of them were laughing anymore.

They had found something Charlotte desperately did not want anyone to know about.

And on the other side of the wall, Charlotte still had no idea the cameras were there.