Chapter 140: Tour? Sure!

Monday

“Hi there,” Janet said to the Amazon, extending her free hand out while balancing me on her hip. “I called about taking the tour…?” She let her voice lilt up like it was a question.

The giant woman shook my Mommy’s hand. “Oh yes! Great!” she said. “Of course! Come on in!” The woman seemed a bit young for a professional Little-sitter. If she were even twenty-five, she’d just turned it that week. Not that a caregiver needed to be older than me, but I could see Cassie chewing this woman up. “Pardon the mess,” she waved us into the house. “We’re just getting the babies up from their naps.”

I sucked on my pacifier to prevent myself from speaking out. If the Little prisoners were just getting up from naptime, wouldn’t that be a reason for the place to be cleaner?

“I get it,” Janet replied warmly. “Wherever children are, there are messes.”

I slowly blinked to prevent myself from shuddering. Janet was just playing a part, I reminded myself. This was all part of our hunting expedition; our attempt to locate if not free Cassie.

Free Cassie.

I pushed the thought out of my head. She’d been taken away into protective custody after our house burned down. Part of me couldn’t quite grasp the concept of her burning it down on purpose. Hadn’t the washing machine been on the fritz? Maybe something had caught fire in the dryer, too. First thing was first; find her.

Janet had called all of her friends and support groups to be on the lookout for Cassie wherever they dropped their permanent children off for the workday. If those calls and texts covered all the child minding institutions in Oakshire and its surrounding areas that Little Voices approved of, that only left the ones that they didn’t approve of.

Turns out there were a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like enough that if Janet and I scouted one a day, we could easily go into early January.

Oakshire isn’t that big. Elizabeton is certainly more metropolitan and humongous by comparison, but it’s not what one would call a big city, either. All the various other little towns in the county are practically just glorified suburbs and gated communities that feed into one or the other depending on distance and socio-economic status.

Even in a place like Oakshire the amount of Little-centric daycares and sitting services is probably about the mean total of public schools, private schools, homeschools, professional tutors, chain fast food restaurants, and gas stations. The glut of faux childcare is a byproduct of Amazons taking ‘children’ that never grow up.

Real children tend to grow more independent, or at least bigger in size. They graduate. They age out. Their needs change. Taking care of kids, by definition, has a short shelf life, and without a steady supply of new ones to replace the ones that move on, any business venture regarding them is likely to be equally short lived.

Adopted Littles don’t present that problem. A single giant can be a nanny of the same charges for decades. A Little daycare can have zero new enrollments for years and as long as there are no dropouts or escapees, business will survive if not grow. A classroom like Beouf’s can take up to three years on average to fully break down and condition a rebellious Little into acceptance and Beouf gets tenure and a waiting list instead of a call to speed things up. When your so-called children don’t ever grow up, there’s no rush.

There’s no urgent need to centralize childcare in any given community. There’s barely a need to advertise. Plenty of ‘kids’ to go around. The only limiting factor in any given Amazon-centric space is the number of Littles and Tweeners unlucky enough to attract the wrong kind of attention and the number of giants and giantesses looking to fill some unfathomable void in their souls by condemning a smaller person to diapers.

The daycare we were presently at was one such place. It was a single story, eggshell white home with a two car garage and a backyard with a chain link fence. The front yard was decorated with big cumbersome playground toys meant to poorly ape adult counterparts. Plastic push cars. Tiny lawn chairs and circular tables. A faux log cabin with the door removed from its hinges and a window that even a Little would have to hunch forward to peek out of.

The only thing differentiating it from the houses on either side was the sign on the front lawn announcing that it was a daycare. I don’t even remember the name, probably something twee, like “Small Wonders”, or “Over the Rainbow”...I remember there being stick figures and a rainbow on the sign.

It was an ‘at home’ daycare that someone had opened up out of their house. The only reason we were visiting this place first was because it was less than a mile from the ashes of my old home, and some vaguely superstitious part of me wanted to start at the scene of the fall and work my way outwards.

Perhaps it was my own confirmation bias, but I could immediately tell that this place wasn’t originally designed with Littles or children in mind. The walls were decorated with scribbled drawings; mobiles dangled from the ceiling just out of my reach; there were clear attempts at ‘centers’ with plastic toy bins in one corner and soft stuffed animals piled in another. Big pieces of furniture like couches had been vacated and foam playmats were laid out where there would have been hardwood floors, and so on and so forth.

But all the doorways had been baby gated and all the sockets had been plugged over. There were scraps of paper, confetti, crumbled crayon, and dried crayon that a broom or vacuum cleaner hadn’t gotten to yet. There was a tremendous black garbage bag by the back door that I’d have bet even money was filled up with used diapers and there were dishes in the sink.

Not terrible or overtly trashy, but not professional. Filling this place up with nap mats and bouncers didn’t make it look any more like a daycare than putting a couch and a big screen in Beouf’s class would have made it a living room. I could have broken out of this place easily. It would have taken me a week, tops.

“Currently, we have eight Littles full time,” the young woman said in a soft voice, “and we have four or five that are part time. My Aunt and I are always here, and we’ve got kids from the highschool and community college who will come here first thing in the morning or in the afternoon to do volunteer work.”

Over her explanation I heard the sound of tapes coming undone and quiet cooing.

“Part time?” Janet asked.

“Oh, you know,” the other Amazon said. “Some Littles’ parents are in college; Adopted right out of highschool.”

The Amazons, the Littles, or both, I wondered.

Janet gave me a squeeze. “Sometimes you find the right one right away. Other times you need to wait a while.”

“Full agree,” our tour guide smiled. “When you know, you know. That’s why I’m waiting.”

I sucked harder on my pacifier to hide my frown. Janet was doing me a tremendous favor- this sort of thing was exactly what I’d hoped Tracy would be able to do, but better since I was able to witness the search first hand. That didn’t make me any more comfortable with how ‘in character’ she was getting.

Another woman, likely our tour guide’s aunt, leaned out of a dimly lit room and put a Little on all fours, sending him crawling with a light pat to his bottom. “Nate’s up!” she called.

“Heard!”

My eyes squinted and my nose wrinkled looking at the poor Little shuffling around on bare hands and naked knees towards the toy bins. He wore only a light blue onesie to cover him, not that he seemed to mind. Poor bastard was probably broken by this point. He looked balder than Chaz without needing to shave anything, with only a few dark whisps here and there on the back of his head. Guy was probably broken long ago.

More tapes ripped. More cooing. “Tammy is up!”

“Heard!”

An almost identical Little was put upon the floor, this one vaguely blonde. Tammy? No breasts, no hips. The only thing marking her as ‘girl’ was the pink t-shirt and matching ruffled diaper cover and booties. Was that a Little? Was she?

Janet turned her head and looked down on the floor. Her expression immediately looked almost as uncomfortable as mine. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t know you had Amazon children, too.”

Our hostess was confused for a second. “Beg pardon?” She regarded the two crawlers, and acknowledged a third one being let loose from what must have been the place’s nap room. “Oh! No, those are Littles, don’t worry.”

It took even me a second look to be sure. One by one they came out. They were all childishly chubby and sported toothless drooling grins and vacant eyes with the barest wisps of hair on top of mostly bald heads. The only curves came from fat and injections, and the only bulges were due to the thick padding they were taped into. Their heads were just a tad too small, and their limbs just slightly longer than if any of them still had growing to do. If Amazon technology had figured out a way to safely grind bones down or stretch skulls, surely they would have done it by now.

“Why…?” Janet said, not finishing the sentence.

“You know how Littles can be,” the young woman waved off Janet’s question. “So many times they refuse to believe that they’re a baby on the inside because they don’t look enough like a baby on the outside. So we fix it.” A beat. “Well ‘we’ don’t fix it. There’s actually a really good boutique in town.”

“Le Enfant Magnifique,” Janet intoned.

“Right! That’s the one!”

Janet gripped me even harder. Was that guilt? Disgust? Anger?

Meekly, I tapped her breastbone, quietly begging for air. I wasn’t Lion! She let up, and the full weight of what had just transpired sunk in with my next breath. If Cassie was here, how would I be able to recognize her?

“Cosmetic changes have been so helpful with our Littles’ adjustments.” The young woman gushed. “It helps them accept their new lives and builds a closer bond with their parents by giving them some matching traits. They can even change eye color!”

“I like his eyes,” Janet half-growled.

The younger Amazon was oblivious. “The more extensive procedures need to be booked in advance, but you can change him in short bursts.” She noticed my encased hands. “Uh oh. Why the mittens? Do we have a Little escape artist here?” She put a playful grin on her face.

I almost wanted to be enrolled here so that I could escape and ruin this woman’s entire career.

Almost.

“Hm?” Janet said, “No. No, no, no. Clark just likes playing with himself and exploring his body.”

The other Amazon threw her head back. “Oooooh!” she said. “Someone likes for his hands to get busy when he gets all nice and squishy down there.”

“And during diaper changes,” Janet tacked on. “As soon as fresh air hits him down there, his tiny soldier stands up and wants attention.”

I shriveled up and died slightly. It was a plausible enough story, but did it need to be so embarrassing? I thought about past changes and tried to remember if anything like that had happened with any kind of frequency. She was lying, right?

“I think the Boutique can help with that too,” the other giantess said. “Get those fingies free without him touching his no-no place.”

The woman’s aunt stepped over a baby gate out of the dimly lit room. All around her grown men and women who’d been surgically altered to look like infants toddled and crawled around underfoot. “That’s all done!” She extended a hand towards Janet. “Pleased to meet you. Don’t worry I’ve got sanitizer in there.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” Janet said, kindly enough.

“So you’ve seen the place, seen our kids. Any other questions?”

I clumsily pawed at Janet’s bra strap beneath her shirt to remind her what the mission was. “Actually,” she said, “yes.” She gestured towards the room where all the altered Littles had poured out. “Do you have a changing table in there and can we use it? Someone’s getting kind of squishy.”

More sucking. More swallowing of pride. More biting of tongue. This was the plan. Stick to the plan. Don’t be stupid.

“Sure thing,” the aunt said, “go for it. You’ll find everything you need in there.”

Janet mimed reaching over her shoulder and grasping empty air. “Uh oh. I forgot the diaper bag at home!” This was a lie. She’d left it in the car for this very pretense.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ve got plenty to spare,” our host replied. Now things were suddenly back on track.

Janet took me into the dimly lit room and flipped on the light switch. In an ersatz imitation of what used to be Beouf's nap room, cribs, mats, and playpens were crammed in it from wall to wall. It was the size of my nursery at home, but no bedroom was built to comfortably accommodate eight to twelve different beds.

Thankfully, the lone changing table was directly next to the door. Janet and I scanned the area, looking for the different stashes of diapers. The idea was so simple that it was brilliant: We couldn’t ask for every Little’s name or to interview them one at a time. There were few, if any, trustworthy or reliable ways to scout and see if anyone had seen Cassie or heard any rumors about a local Little who burned their house down. That would have tripped so many alarms that it wouldn’t have been funny. Not even Raine Forrest would have fallen for such questions, and for a time she was the very model of Amazon typicality in my mind.

But their storage and organization? There was a weak spot we could exploit! Cubbies. Diaper bags. Spare clothes. Things still needed to be labeled. We couldn’t get an official roster from any place, but we could play detective by looking for names, and possibly inferring if Cassie or someone very much like her might be among them based on what we found.

One slight monkey wrench immediately presented itself.

“Excuse me!” Janet called out into what was supposed to have been the living room. “Where are the diapers?”

“Look down and to your right!” The Amazon who’d preceded us called out. “You’ll see a couple boxes of Monkeez.”

Sure enough, they were there, and that was all. No labeled cubbies, no stacks of diapers on lower shelves of the changing table with masking tape designating whose bottom they belonged to. No backpacks with names on them in case they get lost. Just an open box of Monkeez.

“Um…” Janet called out, trying hard to stick to the plan. “Who am I borrowing from? Nate? Or Tammy? Or…?”

“Those are all ours,” the aunt said. “All our kids are about the same size, so we have them all wear the same diapers while here. Makes it easier instead of fussing who wears what.”

“We charge a teensy bit extra than other places,” the younger host said. “But we use that to provide the diapers and we buy whatever’s on sale from week to week.”

Janet laid me down on the table and unbuckled my overalls. “Ah.”

Defeated, I boosted my hips so she’d have an easier time shimmying the denim down past my knees. These didn’t have any snaps, unfortunately.

Mommy wasn’t done yet. “What about leaks and stuff? Or dirty clothes?”

“We’ve got plenty of hand-me-downs and spares,” came the answer. “If he needs it, we send him home in the loaners and ask that you send them back after a wash within a week or so.”

I watched the last bit of hope flicker out of Janet. This was a dead end. “Gotcha.”

She ripped the tapes off, changed me, dressed me, and said our goodbyes with false promises to be in touch. She hummed the song about taking the morning train again while she wiped me down and sprinkled fresh powder over me. Even that didn’t unspoil my mood.

“I’m sorry, Clark,” she said once we were safe and back in the car.

“It’s okay,” I lied. “If Cassie was there, she probably wasn’t Cassie anymore, anyways.”

Silence followed as we backed out of the home daycare’s driveway. “Yeah.” Then, “Sorry…”

I gave no reply. I was so frustrated that I wanted to scream and sob. Life as a child was being a growing fish in a small pond. You had your school; you had your home; you had a few other familiar places mostly dictated to you by your family. The world is small, and even if you are too, you still have a special and designated place in it. It’s not until we’re adults and relying more and more on ourselves that the true scope of the world and how insignificant we are in it begins to click. Cassie could be anywhere. She might not even be in Oakshire. She might not be within a thousand miles. Someone could have Adopted her and then moved to Yamatoa for all I knew.

I was a needle searching for another needle in a haystack filled with yet even more needles.

“I think we can squeeze in one more before we need to be back home for dinner,” she offered. “Wanna try?”

Was I really going to put myself through this? Damn right I was.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “Yeah.”

We actually managed to make two stops and scheme ourselves free whirlwind tours before it got too late and we had to go home. The other places were more organized and thus easier to scan and search, but there was nothing pointing to Cassie.

Tuesday.

In my experience, Littles are not overly fond of most Amazon interpretations of religion. That’s not to say that we’re entirely atheistic or secular. Many of us are deeply spiritual and practice matters of faith in our own time and community. The Gwiffin Party, though inspired by Little counter-culture mocking an old black and white horror film, might actually have its roots in much older traditions of revelry and celebrations of life’s splendors via debauchery.

Plenty of Littles are religious: It’s just that spending an hour or more a week hearing about one or more invisible sky giants and what they want you to do with your life lest they punish you seems a lot less practical and relevant when there’s very visible ones on the ground with you and those giants can be just as mysterious as to what their needs are and just as wrathful if those needs aren’t met.

So imagine my discomfort that Tuesday afternoon when Janet carried me into Saint Sissyfuss’s School for Etiquette. As I had been made to understand it growing up, Sissyfuss was supposedly a clever Little who managed to trick the gods into thinking him a grown man not once, but on three separate occasions, and allowed him to sign himself out from whatever afterlife daycare is designated for dead children waiting for their parents to kick the bucket and continue taking care of them.

Eventually, the gods got tired of his antics, re-diapered him, dressed him in a dress that was far too short and refused to let him speak until he finished a single task. They demanded that he do a grown-man’s work of pushing a boulder up a hill. But if anyone should see his diaper peeking out, then the boulder would roll all the way down and he must either start over, or give up and accept his place. Whether or not he’s still pushing that boulder depends on denomination, personal bias, and whether you feel like you’re in any danger of being diapered yourself.

As of this writing I still have no idea how much is legend, how much is bastardized pop culture, or how much is propaganda with depictions and standards that shift over time. Like, it probably wasn’t a dress, just a toga because that was the style at the time. Or if it was a dress, it was a child’s gown because all children wore dresses up to a certain age regardless of gender. I don’t remember if the name ‘Sissyfuss’ is the origin of the words ‘sissify’ and ‘fuss’ or if he was named after them. I don’t know if Sissyfuss was his real name or if he ever existed. I certainly don’t know what happened to him after he died.

Technically, Sissyfuss might not even have been a Little. The words “Amazon” and “Little” don’t show up anywhere in any of the original texts. Talking heads on television and dusty old scholars think that maybe Sissyfuss was “the first Little” or at least an allegory for the first interactions between Littles and Amazons. Others, naturally, think the story is quite literal and only debate whether the stubborn Little boy is still insisting he’s a Grown-Up while grunting up that hill and whether his celestial jailors allow him naps and diaper changes.

I don’t know.

I’m a preschool teacher, not a theologian. I just remember dipping my toe into the subject back in college and my eyes threatening to glaze over permanently after the dozenth liner note. The things I did take away from my readings were that Amazons talked about their ancient gods much the same way they talked about themselves, and that even in their mythologies, histories, and holy texts, the game is rigged against Littles. Three times a guy beat the system at its own game, and on the third time the system decided to make up new rules just so they could win.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled to be searching for my wife in a place that venerated such thoughts and behavior.

St. Sissyfuss was a private school if it could even be called that. It was next to a church atop a grassy hill; a huge concrete boulder at the bottom so that passerby could see it driving by. It wasn’t actually a boulder- its bottom was flat and melded with the cement beneath it- but it wasn’t hard to make the connection.

The school in its entirety was a single room attached to the side of said church. It was a fairly big room, roughly the size of mine and Beouf’s classrooms put together without the walls between them. Maybe slightly bigger. The only thing that differentiated it from the Church was the placard next to the doorway.

My guess was that it started as an adjoining nursery to the church but as the years went on, someone figured that utilizing it as a Little training facility during the week could lead to additional income. Goodness, I hoped that Cassie wouldn’t be here. A place like this might actually be worse than New Beginnings, or so I thought.

The inside was immaculate. Everything was clean, neat, and in its place. Even Beouf’s room didn’t look this neat most days, but there was still the odd imperfection that indicated use. This wasn’t just a model.

The woman showing us around was short for an Amazon, but not as short as Zoge. Her skin was smooth and dark, but the little wrinkles around her eyes hinted that she might be as old as Brollish. Her white knit turtleneck looked hot, even in the increasingly chilly weather, yet I imagined she’d start shaking like a shaved cat if she removed it. Her brown skirt swished with every footstep and I silently marveled at how she didn’t trip over it.

“Thank you for letting us see your school so late in the day,” Janet said. “We had to sign out early and leave with the buses just to get here on time.”

“Of course,” the teacher said. “I know how it is. A teacher’s work is never done.” Like Zoge, this woman also had a sort of musicality to her speech. Zoge’s was quiet and chirpy; staccato like a flute. This woman’s speech flowed like ocean waves. Her eyes settled on my mittens. “And even teachers need help from time to time.”

“We do,” Janet agreed. I received the tiniest squeeze on the word ‘we’. “Thank you, anyways.”

“No trouble at all,” she practically hummed. “The children are outside exercising for a few minutes, so I have the time. Shall I show you around?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’m Mrs. Kay,” the teacher said, directing her gaze at me. She gestured to the door we’d come in through. Hanging from the door, low enough that even a Little could reach it was a thick three ring binder. “This is where we sign in and sign out every day. You’ll have your own page and Mommy will write your name and time whenever she comes and goes, but it will be up to you to make your mark by hers.”

Janet knelt down and picked the notebook up. “Like this?” she said. I smiled behind my pacifier and scanned the names as quickly as I could while she thumbed through a few pages. No ‘Cassie’. It was a start though. Things were going much more smoothly than the day before.

“Why does the book need to be so low?” Janet asked.

“So that the Little ones can be held accountable,” Mrs. Kay said softly. “They must take ownership of who they are.”

“Ah,” Janet said. “I see.” I had a feeling that she didn’t. I certainly didn’t at the time.

“Over here are the children’s cubbies,” we were directed to the far wall. The changing table was high and in plain view against the wall, but the row of cubbies were al Little sized, labeled, and with accompanying pictures of Littles.

“Oh wow!” Janet gasped. “Clark, do you want to take a look?” Giving me a chance to scout the roster while playing it off as a Mommy encouraging her Little boy to explore and get comfortable in a new environment. Brilliant move! This! This is why I loved her!

My stomach gurgled at that thought and I suppressed a sour belch. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about how I felt about my Mommy when looking for my kidnapped wife. I nodded and for the first time in several days I was set down on my feet and allowed to walk freely in Janet’s presence.

“These cubbies are very cute!”

Cute, nothing. These were nicer than the stuff my kids used. Every cubby contained a stack of diapers and a tiny photo of the Little whom they were assigned to; kind of like the visual schedule in Beouf’s room. Ever analytical, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that this place at least had the trappings of a decent early childhood setting. More to the point it made for an easy scan of this room’s roster. I only had to examine the pictures on the cubbies to know that.

But something didn’t feel…right.

“They’re also very necessary,” the teacher added, referring to the cubicles. “Saint Sissyfuss teaches us that Littles must be kept busy if they are to be safe and out of mischief. Idle hands, flapping mouths, and indulgent ears are the ingredients for discord.

“So you teach them responsibility?” Janet ventured a guess.

“We teach them obedience and truthfulness,” I heard the other Amazon correct her. “That is the key to peace and happiness.”

Meanwhile I was looking for a picture of Cassie and coming up short. Great. One more dead end. More than that frustration bubbled in the back of my skull. Something was off about this place, and I just couldn’t tell what.

I looked left to the changing table. It was in plain view, but that wasn’t unexpected. I looked right and saw a covered trash can all by its lonesome. Above it was a poster on the wall. “Leave your boulder here,” it read.

“So?” Janet said. “What do you think, buddy?”

I shook my head. No sign of Cassie anywhere.

The teacher clicked her tongue. “Ah, indulgent ears.” A few steps and she was on top of me. “I can tell he still believes his own lies,” she said. “That’s why you need the gloves, yes?”

Janet’s cheeks flushed. My escape attempt was a source of shame for her. Me not being a hapy baby made her a bad Mommy in her own eyes. “Unfortunately…”

The door opened slowly. Two Littles strained and pushed the heavy door away for their classmates to come in. Single file they marched and lined up shoulder to shoulder. No one held hands. No one was bound together with leashes. Compared to my crew at Oakshire Elementary, they were a well trained military unit.

A second and third Amazon, a man and woman came in behind them. They looked younger than Mrs. Kay, but not young. Roughly my age at the least. Probably older.

“Thank you big kids,” the man said to the two Littles holding up the door. The pair sighed and scurried in, taking spots in the lineup.

All told there were about twenty Littles all standing at attention in front of me. Not me, but rather the cubbies closest to the changing table. The military metaphor was more apt than I suspected. Everyone was in uniforms; the boys in plaid shorts and white t-shirts, and the girls in plaid jumpers. The boys wore jaunty little plaid berets on top of their heads and the girls had matching bows or ribbons depending on whether their hair was up in pigtails or not.

The girls’ dresses were far too short to cover the bottoms of their diapers, and the boys’ shorts were just baggy enough so that nothing concealed the crinkle coming from within them. Every mouth had a pacifier in it, quietly suckling whilst their eyes stared straight ahead and unblinking. No flapping lips from this lot. Instead of the march of jackboots, this lot’s procession sounded like a radio searching for stations on an empty highway: all rustling static.

“Please. Before you make your decision,” Mrs. Kay said to Janet, “Let me show you how we can help.”

Janet and I looked at one another. Quietly, and against my better judgment, I agreed to watch.

“Raphael,” Mrs. Kay commanded. “Go get your diaper.”

A Little boy with his pants bulging waddled past me without looking and took a diaper out of his cubby. I was standing less than a foot away, but he didn’t regard me. He just took a diaper off the stack below his picture and went over to the changing table.

I took a closer look at his picture. It was the same guy, but his hair was trimmed shorter, and he had a thin black mustache above his pearly whites. When was this taken? It couldn’t have been after he’d been snatched. Nobody smiled like that so soon after Adoption.

“What are you?” the teacher asked.

“A baby,” came the reply from behind the pacifier. He was lifted on the changing table, stripped, wiped, powdered, and diapered. The room was silent through it all.

“Mr. Jay?” the teacher called.

“Yes Mrs. Kay?”

“Got one comin’ to you!”

The male Amazon went over to the lidded trash can at the end of the cubbies and stepped on a leaver. The lid popped up and Mrs. Kay did a hookshot that would make any professional basketball player envious. In one swift arc, Raphael’s balled up used diaper soared and landed in the trash can with an audible thunk.

Quietly, Mrs. Kay whispered down to the Little boy. “I believe you. And you believe you, too. Good job, today!” She took him off the changing table, pulled his pants the rest of the way up, and then sent him back to the line.

“Miss Elle,” the old Amazon said. “Next.”

“Go on, Caroline,” presumably the second aide said. “Go get your diaper.”

A ghostly familiar face that I’d only seen once or twice waddled up to her cubby and took out a diaper. Her hair was in a pixie cut, just like when I’d last seen her. She’d put on some weight. The smiling picture of the woman in makeup and wearing a realtor’s jacket on her cubby jogged the last bits of memory needed.

Something clicked in my brain. Every time Beouf changed my diaper I was forced to watch until I was desensitized to the act. Every time these people got changed they had to look their past selves in the eye. How long until they didn’t recognize themselves.

“Are you a baby?” The teacher asked. Mutely, the woman with the pixie cut nodded and sucked on her pacifier. That was good enough, it seemed. She was lifted up, laid down, and changed like her predecessor.

“What happens if they say no?” Janet asked.

Mrs. Kay didn’t look up from wiping the Little girl’s poopy bottom. “I don’t change them,” she said curtly. “I only change babies. Babies obey and tell the truth. Big kids have to do everything themselves.”

The second change didn’t end the way that the first had. The girl was placed back down on the floor and her ruined balled up diaper was placed neatly into her hands. “Go push your boulder, Caroline.”

A short, muffled scream, like when a cat gets its tails stepped on, burst out from behind the girls’ pacifier. Her shoulders shook and her arms trembled as if the entire weight of the world was in that plastic backed ball of waste. Slowly, step by step, she walked across the room to the lidded trash can. No Grown-Up stepped on the pedal. She had to stomp on it herself as hard as she could. By putting all her weight on the pedal and reaching up as high as she could, she was just able to tip the diaper over the rim of the can. All stretched out like she was, her dress covered nothing of her fresh padding.

Ownership. They had to sign themselves in and out of this place. Had to open heavy doors unaided. Had to fetch their own diapers and call themselves babies to get changed. They had to get changed in front of everyone, and toss away their own humiliating waste too. The only way to get any kind of help or relief from anyone was to be considered ‘baby’ enough.

Still by the trash can, Caroline looked red faced and on the verge of tears. If any of the others saw it, they didn’t remark or snicker. They only stared straight ahead at their own cubbies, eyes clouded and talking to themselves in their own heads. I didn’t have to wait long to find out why.

Diaper changing was put on pause so that the Little girl could be picked up and draped over the lady aide’s lap. Mrs. Kay reached for something hanging from the changing table that I hadn’t been able to see from my angle.

Her skirt swished as she quietly, grimly handed the thick wooden paddle to the other Grown-Up.

THWACK!

The Little woman jerked and kicked her legs involuntarily from the blow.

THWACK! THWACK!

Two more and she found the control to go limp.

“How old are you?” Miss Elle asked.

“Two!”

THWACK! Another blow rocketed through her body. For a second I thought the girl’s neck had snapped.

“Have you ever been naughty, Caroline?”

“Yes! I’m sorry!” Caroline choked back.

THWACK!

“What did you do?”

“I pretended I was a Grown-Up!” the Little said.

THWACK!
“For how long?”

“Thirty-fou-”

THWACK!

Caroline let out a sob, pressed her paci into her mouth with her hand and corrected herself. “Thirty-three years!”

THWACK!

“Who is your Mommy and Daddy?”

“I don’t know their names!’ the girl hiccuped. “They're just Mommy and Daddy. My Mommy and Daddy!”

THWACK!

“What other naughty things have you done?”

My fingers ached as I tried and failed to curl them into fists. If Janet hadn’t rushed over and picked me up, I might’ve pretended someone was Ambrose. My Mommy pressed my face into her bosom and wrapped her arm around my head, but it failed to muffle out the torturous scene before us.

“I stole a job from a Grown-Up because I wanted to play pretend!”

THWACK!

“I let another baby put their no-no thing in my no-no place.”

THWACK!

“Are you a mother?” the Amazon with the paddle asked.

“N-n-no! I’m just a b-b-b-” she lost the ability to speak before she could finish the sentence.

“What the hell?!” Janet stormed up and took the paddle out of the aide’s hands. “What is wrong with you people?”

The once musical sounding Mrs. Kay glared back cooly through half lidded eyes. “Their parents have signed a waiver in accordance with our beliefs and methods.”

“To beat children?!”

“They don’t think they’re children,” the so-called educator said. “When they do we treat them accordingly. Isn’t that right, class?”
Nineteen heads bobbed up and down in agreement, pacifiers all moving in tandem with each other. Caroline’s pacifier was out of her mouth, but her lips were muttering and whispering over and over like a panicked prayer, “I’m a baby, I’m a baby, I’m a baby, I’m a baby.”

“They have Maturosis!” Janet snarled. “This isn’t how you care for someone!”

“If you knew how naughty some of these children were before coming here you’d disagree.” The head teacher leveled a finger towards the woman she’d just ordered beaten. “Little Caroline was almost taken away from her parents and sent to New Beginnings.”

“NOOOOO!” Caroline howled. “NOT AGAIN! I’M A BABY I’M A BABY I’M A BABY!”

The Amazon who’d been thrashing her less than a minute ago cuddled Caroline and rubbed her back, whispering sweet nothings in the girl’s ear.

“She’s got a ways to go,” the old Amazon stated proudly, “but her progress has been exemplary. Your boy would do well, too.”

Janet looked at the paddle in her hand and dropped it like it was something diseased.Pulling my head out from between her breasts I saw over a dozen Littles tense and jerk up on the balls of their feet.

“No. Thank you.” Had there not been others she considered babies around, I suspect Janet’s words would have been significantly harsher. The way she said ‘thank you’ meant anything but.

She charged straight out the door, down the grassy hill and to our car. “The nerve of some people!” she fumed. “Can you believe it, Clark?”

Regrettably I could. Beouf and her kinder gentler methods were gaining popularity, but plenty of old ways died hard. “Yeah,” I rasped, talking for the first time since we’d left the car and gotten into character.

“At least Cassie wasn’t in there,” Janet consoled herself, buckling me into my car seat. “I’d hate to think of her trapped in a place like that.”

“Why?” I heard myself asking. “You never even met her.”

“Yeah,” Janet said. “Well she’s special to you, so that means she’s special to me. Comes with the territory, y’know?”

“Yeah,” I said, though maybe I didn’t actually know.

“At least we know one less crummy place where she’s not,” Janet repeated herself.

My skin started to crawl, my brain reliving the past few moments. That was one of the worst places I’d ever seen. To think that such a place existed but somehow New Beginnings was worse? That poor girl, Caroline, had taken her licking like a champ comparatively speaking, but lost any and all composure once New Beginnings was mentioned. And to hear her teacher talk, Caroline had gone on her own misadventures and acts of rebellion, too. No way would my Cassie be any tamer.

A terrible thought wormed and inched its way into my head as Janet turned on the engine and started to drive us to our next daycare to scout: If my wife wasn’t in the second worst place for Adopted Littles, where was she?