My Little Princesses

Hi there. My name is Heather and I'd like to share with you my experience of being a babysitter for some horrid boys.

I was the oldest child of three, and my younger siblings were twin boys. There was a gap of four years between us. Of course, as the oldest child, and as a girl, I was expected to take charge of the boys when my parents weren't around, which was often. My father worked in Saudi Arabia as an engineer and so I rarely saw him. My mother was a nurse and worked long hours in the local hospital.

My brothers were horrible. What is it with boys? They are messy, noisy, disruptive imps and they deeply resented the fact that I, a mere girl, was in charge. They caused me no end of trouble and when my exhaused mother returned home to find the house in turmoil, I would get it in the neck!

For some reason. my mother thought that my brothers could do no wrong and they were clever enough to play on this. When mother was around they transformed themselves into little angels, almost to the point where it was like seeing two completely different boys to the ones I had to look after on an almost daily basis. Mother of course wondered why it was that I could not cope with such a simple job of looking after such adorable, well behaved boys.

After enduring her scorn and scoldings, I would go to bed in tears, and wishing my brothers had been born as girls. Girls were sensible and sweet when compared to boys.

Then, as I watched my impish brothers arguing over a stupid computer game they had become hopelessly addicted to, a wonderful and delightful idea flashed into my brain. What if I could turn them into girls? Not literally, of course, but they could be as close to being girls as possible. They had proven that they could be well behaved and polite when they wanted to be. Now they could be the little sisters I'd always wanted.

Over the next few weeks, I made the necessary preparations. My old clothes were rescued from the attic and I noted with satisfaction that they would not only fit my brothers perfectly but were extremely feminine. Lots of frills and lace. When I had to wear such things, I made a lovely little girl. But those days were behind me. At age thirteen, I was close to being a woman. I would die if I had to dress up like that again.

I planned to defeat my brothers through their silly computer game. When they went off to football practice or cubs, I got the game out and played it. It was a really stupid game set in world war two, where points and medals were won by the number of enemy soldiers killed. It was very gory and violent and had a fifteen rating. My brothers had only just celebrated their ninth birthdays. This was another example of my mother's weakness where they were concerned. Nine year olds should never have been playing such a game.

I spent several weeks learning all of the controls and then I had to study my brothers playing the game to work out whether or not I could beat them. I quickly worked out that, like all boys, my brothers were lazy. They knew enough about the controls to play the game reasonably well, but had failed to learn some of the more advanced functions, which I had mastered.

My next step was to play the game with them. They were surprised, but did not object. I was only a girl after all. I would be an easy conquest. I let them believe that for a time, for I deliberately pretended to be hopeless and allowing my computer generated character to be killed without even managing to fire his weapon.

As my character died for the umpteenth time that day, my brothers turned and smirked at each other. I could imagine their shared thought. Girls really are hopeless!

After fuelling that delusion for over a fortnight, I decided to spring my trap. After mother had left for her gruelling 18 hour shift at the hospital, my brothers immediately began playing up. Ben was raiding the cookie jar without permission and Josh was pulling the cat's tail, causing her to screech.

Instead of kicking up a fuss, like I usually did, I sat and did my homework. Then, an hour or so later, the boys inevitably grew bored of behaving badly and turned to the games console. I had just put the finishing touches to my essay before putting it carefully in a folder. Then I got up and approached my brothers.

"Hi boys!"

Ben and Josh mumbled something that might have been hello. Their minds were fixated on the game.

"Can I join in?" I asked, putting a pleading tone into my voice.

"S'pose so" was Josh's less than enthusiastic reponse. Undeterred, I sat between them and witnessed a creditable performance by my brothers that I knew I could easily surpass. The boys were elated by their performance and it was then I decided to pounce.

"Boys, why don't we have a competition? If I beat both of you at this game, you'll have to do anything I tell you to, but if either of you beat me, I'll have to do whatever you tell me to do".

The boys looked at each other and grinned. I could guess what was going throught their minds. Only a girl would be so dumb as to challenge her brothers to a boys' game that she was useless at! As I expected, they enthusiastically agreed.

There were only two controllers, so I had to play against my brothers one at a time. I treated them to a masterclass in how to play the game. I notched up more than double the points that Josh did and then outdid myself against Ben, achieving the highest score ever. Whilst playing the game and realising that they were losing badly, both boys became frustrated and tearful.

I felt a small twinge of pity as I saw their little faces crumple as I entered my name on the screen as the first (and second) highest scorer, but soon dispelled it. Had I been the loser, I had no doubt that the little tykes would have made my life a living hell.

I allowed myself a victory smile at my subdued brothers. Who is hopeless at computer games now?

"Well, boys, as you can see, I beat both of you quite easily". I smirked as the both boys cringed at the knowledge that they had been beaten by a girl in a game that they believed they were brilliant at. I felt no pity, remembering the trouble that they had caused me in the past.

I decided to twist the knife a little deeper "Remember our little wager? As I won, you two have to do anything I say from now on!"

The boys squirmed but nodded.

"Good. Now, I'm going to run you a bath and you two are going to take a bath". Josh and Ben hated having a bath so this was more like a punishment to them than a pleasure. The boys looked at me in horror. An hour later, both boys had had their bath, amid dark mutterings and protests.

They came into the room that they both shared, in their dressing gowns and slippers and their faces fell when they saw what was on each of their beds. A dress, girls' underwear and socks and a pair of shiny mary jane shoes.

"We have to dress as girls?" they wailed.

"Yep" I answered them, smiling "Hurry up and get dressed boys!" The boys tried to beg me not to do this to them but I marched out of the room. Fifteen minutes later, two boys in dresses and with red faces sheepishly inched into the living room.

Josh wore a pink frock with lots of white lace and Ben wore a shiny yellow frock. The skirts of the frocks were too short to completely cover up the frills of their underwear and they wore frilly ankle socks and the shiny little girl shoes.

They looked adorable and very feminine, I decided. Had their hair been a little longer they could have passed for real girls. The boys were close to tears.

"You both look very sweet!" I said, causing them to cringe again. They tried, unsuccessfully, to pull at the skirts of their dresses to hide the frills of their knickers, just like any good little girl would, to preserve their modesty.

I made them put on frilly aprons, to protect their nice new clothes, and set them to work tidying their room, and mine, and doing chores. I was able to sit in perfect peace and quiet and watch television knowing my once troublesome brothers were nicely petticoated and completely in my power. It was a lovely feeling.

My mother would have hit the roof if she had any inkling of what I had done to my brothers so by the time she returned from work, they had been restored to their normal clothes and I had told them that they were not allowed to tell her anything about it. I hid the clothes in my own room.

From then on, once mother had left for work, Ben and Josh had to put on their frocks and frillies. Besides doing my chores, I also made them play with my old dolls and got them experimenting with make-up. They did look so pretty when they were made up and they knew it, for they shed many tears when they looked at their prettified features in the mirror.

From girlfriends, I borrowed other outfits for my new "sisters" to wear. They ended up in denim mini-skirts, cheerleader outfits, bridesmaid's dresses and then, my favourite outfit that I always enjoyed seeing them in, their princess costumes. Full length fluttery pink gowns, with lots of ribbons and lashings of lace and little red hearts, pink opera gloves, pink high heels, layers of full white petticoats edged with lace, silk white stockings with little red hearts all over them and silk, frilly underwear. My little princesses, as I liked to call them, also had to wear full make up, jewellery, blonde wigs and a tiara.

They looked so cute as princesses that I insisted in taking a photo of them which I kept (and still keep) in my purse as a reminder. Any time I need cheering up, I just open my purse and take a look at my little princesses and the world instantly becomes a brighter place.

Of course, for Ben and Josh, having been brought up as boys and being the apples of their mother's eye, suddenly having to wear dresses and having to look pretty was hard to take. There were many tears and tantrums, especially when I showed them the princess outfits and they realised that they would have to wear them! To make it worse for them, I always wore jeans or trousers, so I was trousered and they were in skirts. In their own minds, I was the "boy" and they were the "girls".

Over time, the boys got used to their new clothes to the point where, as soon as mother left for work, they would don their frocks without even needing to be told. There were no more tears or tantrums and the boys behaved as if doing girls' chores and playing with dolls and make-up was natural for them. They had been taught who was the "alpha male" and where their place was and they gradually accepted it and all that went with it.

This routine lasted a little over three months. Although I had done my best to keep it all under wraps, I knew that it was inevitable that mother would eventually discover what was going on whilst she was at work. She came home early one day with an upset stomach and was even more upset to see her darling angels in frocks and aprons.

Her voice shaking with anger, she ordered Ben and Josh to bed and gave me the dressing down of my life. I was grounded indefinitely and had to suffer the indignity of being sent to bed before my brothers for a fortnight, as mother instantly decided that I was unfit to babysit my brothers and hired a neighbour to babysit all three of us.

The punishments - and having a babysitter at my age - were humiliating but I lived with it. My brothers, restored to boyhood, were curiously subdued and docile. They had lost interest in their games console and preferred to read or sit watching television.

My - and their - old clothes, the frocks and frillies, sat in a black bag destined for a charity shop but Mother was too busy to get around to disposing of them.

One evening, our sitter, Mrs Henderson received a call on her mobile. Her mum, an old lady who lived in a nursing home and who was plagued by a multitude of ailments, had taken a turn for the worse. Mrs Henderson became anxious and was almost in tears when the call ended. She immediately decided that she had to leave immediately. I was left in charge until mother returned.

As soon as Mrs Henderson left, to my surprise, the boys immediately went to the black sack in the hall and emptied out its contents. They each took a bundle of clothes and went upstairs. I stared at them in confusion. I hadn't told them they had to wear their frocks. I smiled as I realised that they actually wanted to wear them!

Sure enough, a few minutes later, my brothers re-appeared in their frocks and sat quietly watching television. They were even holding hands and smiling at each other, and at me. It seemed that, given a choice between trousers and dresses, my brothers preferred their frocks!

We kept it a complete secret from mother. The frocks eventually went to the charity shop, but I simply went and bought them back without mother knowing and kept them hidden. Ben and Josh wore their frocks as often as they could.

They had been horrible boys, but a dress and some frills and lace had reformed them into little angels. Into my little princesses.