Chapter 146: A.L.L. for Nothing

It was just another weekday afternoon; about half an hour before the buses came. As per usual, my disciples and I were secluded at the back of the playground, hiding behind the giant oak tree, determined to do nothing save perhaps bitch and plot something awful. Unlike usual, I had decided to try and break them of that habit.

The plan was elegant in its sheer simplicity. All I had to do was to get my crew to do literally anything else. If I could get them out of their own heads for long enough, the replacement behaviors would become routine. By the end of the week, we’d be done with making Beouf’s life miserable and would have two weeks off of school for Winter Break, Solstice, and the New Year. When we came back I’d have the best characteristics of emotional momentum and inertia to work with. It’d be like eating healthy for a week and then officially starting the diet

“I’m bored,” I said. “Anybody wanna play hide and seek?”

“Naw,” Tommy droned. “Hide and seek is for babies.”

“Practicing stealth from Amazons is a baby game?” As soon as the words had left me I wanted to slap my mittened hand across my mouth. My goal was to de-escalate the collective hostility towards Beouf. Framing a harmless game as some sort of pseudo jailbreak drill was not the right move for that. Old habits really did die hard.

Billy perked up at the idea, unfortunately. “Oh. I like your thinking, Gibson. Stealth mission! How do we convince Beouf and Zoge to play?”

Annie’s answer was quick enough to be common sense. “We use Ivy to do it. Duh.”

Presently, Ivy was sitting in her mother’s lap on the bench. I’d asked her to keep Zoge company. That way I only had to appeal to one set of idiosyncrasies. If Ivy had heard my spin on hide and seek, she’d have gasped like I was plotting treason. Then I’d have to find a half-truth to calm her down without making Billy and the gang think I was going Full Native.

I could use words to spin things so that my friends thought that taking it easy on Beouf was the most adult thing to do, or I could assure Ivy- also my friend- that we were just having fun and playing pretend because at the end of the day we just wanted to be happy Little babies and sometimes that meant being naughty for the fun of it. I couldn’t do both at the same time.

Chaz pushed himself up to a standing position and leaned against the side of the tree for balance. “What if we drag it out? What if we find a way to distract them by playing a game, and then see if we can get one of us over the fence?”

Over the fence? So many red flags flashed inside of me that I only saw crimson for an instant. “We’re not gonna get away,” I said.

“Well yeah,” Chaz agreed. “The fun part is seeing how far you can make it before you get caught. Really freak ‘em out!” To my dismay and aggravation, Chaz’s suggestion was getting looks of approval and nods of agreement from everyone else.

“And what about tomorrow?” I asked. “What happens when we’re not allowed to go to the playground ever again?”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Billy scoffed.

“Who cares?” Tommy spat. “This is just a dumb baby playground. It’s not like we use it, anyway.” That was a bold faced lie, and everyone knew it. But Tommy wanted to feel tough, and anything that brought significant comfort or was approved by the Amazons was ‘babyish’. No one wanted to appear any more babyish than they already did, so no one wanted to argue that point. All of us liked the playground well enough. Just not enough to defend it, lest we seem even more mindfucked.

“That’s not the point,” I groaned. “The point is considering the consequences. Everytime we try something, they respond disproportionately in the opposite direction. Remember the line leashes?”

Tommy’s logic was irrefutable. “So?”

Hard to argue with that. “Is the long term punishment worth the short term hassle we want to cause?”

Chaz butted in. “We already know we’re never escaping,” he reminded me. “We’re just trying to keep ourselves adults for as long as we can while making Beouf and the others miserable. Right?”

Shit. I had said that, hadn’t I? I suddenly had the feeling that defusing the Adult Littles League was going to take more than an afternoon talking behind a tree and a couple days playing hide and seek.

My brain went deer in the headlights for a second but recovered, “Yeah,” I said, “but we don’t want anybody to get expelled or make things worse for them.”

There was no immediate rebuttal for that. Beouf was a giant teddy bear, but she was still a bear. More importantly, everybody knew that Brollish wasn’t, and any report of an escaped Little on campus would get back to her.

Annie decided to pour gasoline on the fire I was trying to douse. “I think Clark just doesn’t like it because it wasn’t his idea.”

If I could have slapped her ringlets straight right then and there I would have. “I think the only time Annie is a big girl is when her Daddy isn’t watching.”

Annie shut her lips tight and her nostrils flared with surprise and panic. So did mine. I’d come dangerously close to airing her dirty laundry. Bad habits are really hard to break.

As if trained, Tommy jumped onto it. “Oh yeah? Is Annie a Daddy’s girl when nobody is looking?” He was doing more than just teasing her. “‘Daddy! Change my mush tush and come play tea party and dollies with me!’”

My arms twitched, wanting to fumble for a pacifier. That would have only put the focus back on me. I settled for chomping on my tongue to stop myself from speaking further.

In his own way, Billy attempted to defuse the situation. “I thought you only called me ‘Daddy’,” he joked. That earned him a hard punch in the bicep, one he actually said “Ow!’ too. That single exchange stabilized the momentum back to something beyond us sniping at one another.

“I’m just asking what the point of pulling a prank on Beouf is going to be if it results in things getting worse for us in the long run.”

“Things can’t get any worse,” Billy said. “We’ve already lost, remember?”

“He’s just as diaper brained as Ivy,” Tommy jabbed in. “Beouf broke him down, easy. Now he just wants to be a good baby. He’s basically Ivy.”

“No,” Chaz defended me, “Clark’s just not mindfucked. He’s just thinking long-term.”

“Naw,” Billy said. “He’s given up. Fucking with Amazons was a game to him.” He pointed at my imprisoned hands. “He lost, so now he doesn’t want to play anymore.”

“Game over,” Tommy snickered. “New game.”

I grit my teeth and chomped down harder on my tongue to keep from lashing out. I hated how much of myself I heard in their words. “That’s not…” I stopped. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t this exactly what was happening? Was I healing and trying to heal my classmates? Was I trying to be a good friend to Beouf? Or was I just switching to a new game now that I wasn’t the best at the one we were currently playing?

“No offense, Clark,” Annie lied, “but maybe you should go keep Mrs. B. some company. I think you’ll have more fun playing with her than with us.”

Oh wow. Being condescended to as if I was as naive and trusting as Ivy; that was a new low.

“Ask yourselves,” I said, “‘Is messing with giants worth losing what few freedoms you have?’” I paused and held up my mittens. “And Beouf? I stand by what I said when I was a teacher: She’s crazy, but she’s the lesser of a ton of evils. She stuck up for me when I was almost expelled.”

“And she hid the cinnamon,” Chaz chimed in. He started losing his balance and slowly lowered himself back down to the mulch and dirt.

“That’s because he’s a teacher’s pet,” Billy snarked.

I pivoted so that I was looking directly at Billy. “Didn’t she change the timeout rules when Ambrose took over and made you cry?”

The big guy’s cheeks flushed. “How’d you know about that?”

“Did she take your side?” I pressed.

Billy broke off eye contact. “Yeah…”

“And Chaz,” I asked. “Didn’t she get your Mommy and Daddy to stop those hypnosis tapes before it was too late?”

Chaz wasn’t nearly as humbled, but he still looked away. “Yeah…”

“And Annie,” I told her. “I can all but guarantee you that she knows how you and Billy…” I made air quotes, “...’flirt’. She’s just looking the other way.” A realization hit me. “She definitely knows what we’re doing here. Not the specifics, but the gist of it. She knows we’re here bitching and moaning about Amazons and such.”

“So?” Tommy repeated himself.

Good thing I’d found a rebuttal. “Beouf is crazy. She definitely sees us as children. But she wants to give us as much freedom children can be allowed to have. We drive her crazy with Why Day or start love bombing Zoge, it’ll piss her off. If we do stuff to make it look like we’re escape risks, then it becomes a safety thing. We can bitch and whine and drive her crazy, but we can’t escape.” I held up my mittened hands. “Do you think I got these because I got caught masturbating?”

An awkward silence. “Kinda,” Billy said.

If I’d had my fingers accessible to me I would have yanked Billy’s stupid bowl cut off his stupid head. “No,” I fumed. “It’s because I got too close to escaping! Now, no more door knobs or clothes that I can undress myself from.”

Annie’s eyebrows shot up. “So that’s why Beouf has been carrying you everywhere lately.”

“Clark’s right,” Chaz said. “We have to be more subtle about it. We have to play it smart. If we give them any more ammo than we have to. We gotta break rules without looking like we’re breaking rules.”

Damn it! They’d learned well. Well enough that I was already defeated for the day. My months-long smear campaign of Beouf had been too effective. I’d been encouraging subtle rebellion and malicious compliance years before I’d been Adopted. For some of us that was our only emotional life raft on turbulent seas of despair and cognitive dissonance.

I sighed to myself in defeat. I wasn’t going to convince them to give up on the classroom pranks anytime soon. Certainly not by the end of the week. I’d have to apologize to Melony. It seemed the best I’d be able to do is make sure that the monsters I’d created didn’t escalate things too much.

“Okay,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”
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Time always stood still when Janet breastfed me. It was something that always lasted forever but was still too short; always ending just when my awareness of time had vanished and I’d forgotten that I’d started suckling in the first place. Paradoxically enough, it was both parallel and inverse to that delightful escape I got from hitting the snooze button in bed every morning.

“Good job,” my Mommy said whilst she shifted me over her shoulder to burp me. “Somebody’s gonna sleep good tonight.”

I needed sleep. I needed to not think. I needed to escape myself for a few hours. I was failing. I had no idea what to give Janet for Solstice. My gift to Melony was a non-starter with me being swept up in the name of damage control.

I couldn’t tell on the A.L.L. or bust their plan. That would lose me friends in the long run, and it would just make more work for Zoge and Beouf. It wouldn’t actually be fixing anything.

And Tracy?

Holy shit I hadn’t even thought about Tracy. What did I get for her? She’d taken a literal beating for me. She’d given me a way to coordinate my hair-brained escape plan. She’d skirted me past an Amazon’s wrath and had been temporarily diapered for her trouble.

I was failing. Failing, failing, failing, and I was making myself feel worse at the enormity of it all. Right then, I just wanted to wallow in self-pity and not think for a while. I didn’t want to be myself. Just this gremlin that selfishly consumed without thought or consideration of consequences.

A few thundering pats and belches later, Janet’s hand moved from between my shoulder blades to the waistband of my Monkeez. “Thought so…” she whispered and gave my padded rear a pat, pressing the lumpy load I’d deposited up against me ever so slightly.

I don’t remember when I pooped, but it had definitely been during breastfeeding and not after. When I was caught up in the act, the bulk of my anxiety tended to float away. Wetting required no thought; practically bedwetting. There was no sting of a withered bladder straining to keep up pretenses and any sudden warmth in the front of my pants was barely noticeable compared to every other magnificent stimuli. Messing was far from automatic, but any grip I had causing me to hold my bowels firm took a backseat.

I’d feel the slightest discomfort, notice how it was killing my buzz, push it out, and then forget about it as soon as I was done pushing. I’d known I’d done it, but the ‘when’ never seemed important for as long as I was suckling. Depending on your outlook, Janet’s milk really did help my digestion. My stools were becoming softer on the whole while not being overly sludgy or watery.

“Sorry,” I mumbled on the way over to the changing table.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Janet promised me. “You just did what you had to do.” She closed her bathrobe. She’d given me a bath that night, but was likely hopping in the shower as soon as I was tucked in. “It’s a good thing,” she rubbed my naked tummy. “It’s natural.”

I was too tired to correct her so the tapes cried out in protest for me. I closed my eyes and just let myself drift. “Thank you,” I slurred.

I heard the old diaper.get balled up and tossed away. My ears pricked up hearing the new one crinkle as Janet unfolded it and slid it underneath me. “For what?” Janet asked. “Changing you?”

A confused frown coated my face while powder coated my nethers. “Yes…?”

My confusion did not deter the thick nighttime diaper from forcing my legs further apart. “Honey, if you’re poopy, of course I’m going to change you.”


“You don’t hafta,” I slurred. “I got rash cream. I woulda lasted the night.”

The diaper, which had been drawn taught went slack and then was flung back open. “Almost forgot,” Janet said to herself.

“So you don’t have to change me if you don’t want to…” I droned, more sleep talking than anything.

Thick white cream coated my cheeks like peanut butter. “Lucky for you,” Mommy said, “I like changing your diapers.” She punctuated the sentence by snuggly taping the fresh diaper on, finally locking me in for the night.

My skin boiled and popped. I just couldn’t win. I couldn’t get the A.L.L. to stop being jackasses. I couldn’t give anyone I loved a real gift. I couldn’t even convince an Amazon to let me drift off in a soiled diaper. That should have been easy! The universe had decided that if I wanted it, I must get the opposite.

I sat up and opened my eyes in time to witness Janet pull an entirely too big sports jersey over my head. “Gross.”

“Oh yeah,” she smiled. “It’s totally gross. That’s why it’s only my tenth favorite thing to do with you.” She picked me up and cradled me. I let my eyes droop again.

“Do you want me to leave you in a poopy diaper?” Mommy asked. “Bath, breast, bed? No diaper check?”

“Not really,” I droned. “Just saying…” I had no idea what I was getting at.

Neither did she. “Saying…what?”

A silent yawn seeped out of me before I was able to speak. “It would have been a good punishment. A good diaper punishment.”

Her weight shifted. I was in her lap. The squeaks and creaks of an old rocking chair added to the symphony of crickets and frogs outside my window. “Oh, Clark,” Mommy said. “I’m not going to punish you for running away by keeping you in mushy pants on purpose. That would make me a terrible Mommy.”

The thing was I wasn’t talking about being punished for my escape attempt. “Yeah, well I’m a failure.”

“No you’re not,” Mommy said, concerned. “You’re not a failure.”

“Then what am I?”

Her reply was soft, low, and slow; like a lullaby “You’re my sweet, bratty, loveable, frustrating, clever, impulsive, special, impatient, precious, stubborn, sensitive, fussy, insightful, suspicious, funny Little baby boy!”

I drifted off there. If I hadn’t, I would have mumbled “Same thing.”

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Chump Dumping

ˈchəmp dəm-piŋ

Verb. Informal: The act of secretly hiding needed but easily misplaced items in a diaper pail so that they are accidentally disposed of once the Amazon empties said pail (Works with disposable diapers only).

There’s something infinitely poetic yet pragmatic about inconveniencing an Amazon using an amenity associated with Little enslavement. Tossing something in a bag full of crap made it easy to hide and get rid of, too. Few would think of searching through a diaper pail to find their missing keys; fewer still would want the keys after they were found.

Speaking of which, “We can’t toss her keys,” I whispered to Annie on the way to breakfast. “She literally won’t be able to go home until she finds them.”

“I know,” Annie whispered back. “Kind of the point.”

“But if she finds them, she’ll know somebody put them there.”

“Yeah. But then we can always say we were copying her like with the cinnamon. She thinks she did it first.”

Annie had a point. There was something darkly compelling about letting Melony believe we’d picked up a nasty trick from watching her. From what I’d been told, Annie, Billy, and Chaz had been doing this before I was even Adopted and enrolled. The irony was too much.

That and bad habits…

“Okay,” I waited until we were past the blowing fans past the cafeteria doors to speak again. I was leaning in so close to Annie that I was practically licking her ear. “But then she’ll look there every time something goes missing. Or she’ll place a lock on it or something. I don’t want this to be the last time this happens.”

That was a solid lie on my part. Moreover, I didn’t want to hurt Melony. Getting her keys or cell phone tossed in the diaper pail would likely send her over the edge. I was already failing at giving her a present. I didn’t want to literally give her shit instead.

We all clammed up when we reached our tables. The morning breakfast rush hadn’t died down yet but our teachers were too close to us for us to talk covertly. That left us with sulking silence or talking about more mundane subjects like stupid children’s shows we’d been forced to watch and actually enjoyed.

The kitchen’s breakfast cart was wheeled out and we were bibbed up. Grits, toast, and what could legally be called bacon. I practically snatched one of the bottles and took a drag on it like it was a beloved morning cigarette. I wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty that morning, but the way chump dumping worked was tanking up on liquids.

I wasn’t the only one. Every one of my classmates was gulping down bottles of milk as if they were dying of thirst; even those who weren’t normally part of the ‘usual suspects’. Billy and the gang had used the bus ride to convince everyone that today would be a good day to tank up.

Mandy guzzled down mlk like it was beer at a frat party. Shauna gorged herself on toast like she was in a competition. Jessie was flapping his arms, mouth open, like a baby bird until Zoge had spooned in so many grits that he risked choking. Ivy and Sandra Lynn followed suit. We all wanted to be in and out of breakfast as quickly as possible today.

All except for Billy, who just couldn’t help himself. “Awwww,” he crowed as soon as he saw me take a pull from my bottle. “Does Gibson wike his special ba-ba from his Mommy?”

Damnit, Billy. Couldn’t he wait to tease and tear me down long enough for a plan to actually go off? Gulping and horking everything down, especially the liquids, had been his idea to begin with.

“Don’t be silly, Billy,” Beouf interrupted. “That’s a bottle of cow milk. Same as yours.” It was almost the save I was hoping for. Almost. She went on, “He already had his first bottle of Mommy’s milk this morning. His second one won’t be until lunch.”

That sent the entire kidney shaped communal highchair roaring with laughter and me doing my best to keep a calm poker face and losing. I already wasn’t that hungry that morning. The mocking laughter of my classmates plunged my stomach down into the soles of my feet.

Beouf did not break her stride at the laughter. She kept spoon feeding us buttered grits and giving us bites of jellied toast and ‘bacon’ one at a time. “Are you jealous, Billy?” Beouf asked.

“Huh?” Billy’s mouth hung open. Beouf took the time to give him a spoonful of grits.

“Your Mommy breastfeeds you at home,” she said. “Says it’s your favorite part of the day.”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!” The eruption was so loud that the other half the class, the preschool class, and the kids who arrived on a late bus jerked their heads to the sound.

Beouf did not react. “If you want, I can give her a call and see if she’ll express some and send it to school with you.”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

“Would you like that?” she chirped. “Would you?”

Billy broke out into a sweat dripping and potent that it’s a wonder his pants didn’t swell three sizes. “N…n…y….nnn….”

“I’ll give you time to think about it.” She booped him on the nose and kept feeding us as if the entire exchange had just been mush mouthed babble. Billy was sufficiently humbled so that we could get through the so called meal.

Beouf really had called Billy out there. Just before our trays were cleared away and our bibs stowed, I gave Billy one last glance. He looked pensive; like he was wrestling with something internally that didn’t involve toileting.

Had Beouf called Billy out and tempted him?
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“Ruler,” I whispered to Tommy on the way back from breakfast. “What about a ruler?”

“She doesn’t use ruler’s often enough,” Tommy said. “Won’t miss ‘em.”

“Crayons?” I suggested.

“They’ve done that,” Tommy said. “And that’s like throwing out our toys, not hers.”

“Our? Toys?” I repeated. “You slipping?” I certainly had been..

“Shut up.”

Billy yanked his head around in front of me. “What about the nicer toys? Or the things in the tantrum room?”

“Still toys,” Tommy grumbled. “We can do better.”

By ‘better’, he meant ‘worse’. I had to find a way to diffuse this without feeling like I’d betrayed anyone. I wasn’t going to sabotage the prank. I didn’t want to be a sellout or a Helper or go Full Native or whatever. I just didn’t want to hurt my Amazon friend.

Typical Clark.

“Stapler?” I suggested.

“Good one,” Tommy nodded. “Yeah. That and some scissors.”

Scissors and a stapler: Things every teacher used, but would not be missed immediately. They’d be in the dumpster by the time Beouf decided to reach for either of them, but she could just go to Jessica and Tracy’s room to borrow a replacement. It would be annoying and inconvenient, but it wouldn’t ruin anyone’s day.

Perfect.

As the supposed inventors of ‘Chump Dumping’, Chaz, Billy, and Annie took the lead.

“Drink lots of water,” Chaz reminded me once we’d all been set down for Circle Time. “Poop during activity centers if you can.”

“I know, I know.” I whispered back. “You already explained it.” A thought occurred to me. “How many times have you done this?”

Chaz wiggled his fingers, counting up memories, then held up his palm. “This is number five.”

The plan for this morning’s petty act of rebellion wasn’t a plan as much as it was a kind of game. There was strategy involved and teamwork needed, but there wasn’t a solid plan as much as being aware of opportunities and being willing to take chances and cover for one another.

I didn’t know this at the time, but this was not the fifth time students in Oakshire Elementary’s Maturosis and Developmental Plateau unit had attempted to coordinate their bowels and bladders. Just like any other playground tradition-Why Day for example- its innovators are lost to time, and the practice itself continues by word of mouth and stories starting with “this one kid taught me”. This had been done at least a hundred times under Mrs. Beouf’s tenure. It just wasn’t until recently that the bit of civil disobedience had been paired with thievery.

Things didn’t really kick off until halfway through activity centers. Barring massive diarrhea, it’d be hard to kick it off any sooner. Right after snack time, we were transitioning to the visual schedule when Miss Zoge took notice of Chaz.

To be fair, it was hard not to notice. The bottom Chaz’s romper was swinging dangerously to the floor. “Mrs. Beouf,” Zoge said, “Chaz needs a change.” Without waiting for the automatic thumbs up, she plucked him up from the carpet and toted him into the bathroom. “Very wet,” she clucked at Chaz. “Very soggy.”

Chaz made a show of pouting and crossing his arms whilst he dangled in the Yamatoan’s arms. That was the signal. And the game was on.

Believe it or not, in terms of mischief making, Beouf’s morning activity centers were by far her Achilles’ heel. A rookie might think that it would be the opposite. It was harder to mess around when Zoge or Beouf were sitting right across the table from you. It was, but only for you.

As the teacher, Beouf’s attention was split every which way during this time. She was running an activity or teaching a lesson and doing all the various ways of checking for understanding while also keeping mindful of the time. Simultaneously she was compulsively scanning and checking every other center, including Zoge’s, to make sure that the Littles seemed on task. And Zoge was doing the exact same thing. It’s possible to maintain perfect awareness of one’s surroundings while also playing complicated gaslight-y children’s games and using psychology to desensitize a person to infantilization. Possible, but not probable. And in Beouf’s case, it just wasn’t.

In a standard, less crazy, classroom a student might stall or avoid instruction by going to the bathroom. One student at a time would get momentary relief from the drudgery and get to exist unsupervised. But in Beouf’s room, going to the bathroom literally required extra supervision; forcing them to cut into their own instructional time.

Beouf compensated for this by changing everyone first thing in the morning. Circle Time was just as much about giving the rest of us something to do while somebody else got their bottom powdered. After Circle Time, people rarely got changed again till at least lunch.

There were always exceptions, of course. If someone was leaking or was stinking up the place, they weren’t made to endure it all until lunch. But it was hard to get a fresh diaper that wet first thing in the morning. With few exceptions you’d have to be drinking water like a fish and holding nothing in.

But if it did happen, if you did manage to ruin your underwear so thoroughly before noon that one of the Grown-Ups decided to change you early, that meant half as many eyes on everybody else and a few minutes of peace for those lucky enough to be at the correct activity table. In a regular classroom, one person going to the bathroom meant peace for one person. In our classroom, one person going to the bathroom meant a degree of peace for everyone else.

And if everyone needed changing at around the same time, the stalling effect would prolong and multiply. Less teaching. More goofing off.

Why were those not in my inner circle participating? Petty revenge. We were days away from a two week vacation and the biggest holiday of the year. Beouf was exhausted and phoning it in. No new toys or games or books had been brought out. We were pretty much just running in place; doing busy work.

No one, no matter the height, likes to do busy work. Ergo, it was long since decided that interrupting their instructional time with having to wipe everyone’s bottoms ahead of schedule was an appropriate level of comeuppance; the busy work of revenge. They didn’t realize they were complicit in the trashing of office supplies.They just wanted to passive aggressively goof off.

It’s very likely that the first ‘potty break’ was invented for similar reasons. Peeing your pants extra or hoping you have a well timed morning turd isn’t much to aspire to. But it does feel good fantasizing that you stuck it to authority by ironically giving them what they wanted. It just isn’t something worth bragging about.

It had to be during morning activity, too. During any kind of whole group instruction, one or the other was always free to check and change while their counterpart continued the lesson. Therapies split our numbers too thinly to be effective. And in the rare occasion that either Amazon took a bathroom break, common sense dictated that there would simply be a pause on diaper changes.

There was just enough organized chaos in this environment that we might be able to slip something by the giants.

I waddled up to Mrs. Zoge’s table, wet but not sopping. I’d held off on water for first activity with Beouf. As a result, she was less suspicious and my bladder I was behind the curve. There was a light squish when I plopped down in the seat; just wet enough to be detectable.

I scanned around the room. Zoge could be seen through the bathroom’s open door, changing Chaz’s diaper. Beouf was resetting one of her stupid propaganda board games. Across from me was an empty chair where Zoge was supposed to be.

And right next to that chair was her desk caddy. Black wire mesh and hard iron paperweight base, divided into three identical compartments. Home to blue pens, red markers that were not for coloring, regular pencils in their standard yellow coating, a sea of rubber bands of various sizes, and of course a mammoth pair of scissors.

Guiltily I honed in on the scissors. In my hands they were somewhere between a dagger and a shortsword. I licked my lips, hungrily. By sheer coincidence, Janet had bundled me up in my frog overalls. High quality denim and a garment that covered me from practically my nipples down. How convenient!

“Did you finish your bottle, Clark?” Ivy interrupted my fantasizing.

“Hm?” I startled, then stared at the drained plastic cylinder in my hand. “Oh. Yeah.”

Oh yeah. Ivy. It’s not that I didn’t trust Ivy to tattle on my harmless prank. If I could put it in terms she could appreciate, she’d give me the benefit of the doubt. I just didn’t have that kind of prep time.

Maybe my best play wasn’t to try to snatch anything myself.

“Do you want more water?” Ivy asked. I didn’t notice that her eager to please smile had a hint of mischievousness in it .

I was too busy looking at my own padded bulge. The Denim was good at concealing it; not perfect but good. And it didn’t stretch the way a lot of lighter fabrics do. Much more support. This outfit didn’t have snaps in the crotch, either. No chance of flashes of discolored white poking out between the seams. In other words, short of a leak or me asking for it, I wasn’t likely to get checked and changed. I just wouldn’t sag or swell enough, and my guts were in no mood to help me in the stink department. Chances are I wouldn’t be able to add to the distraction, either.

“No thanks,” I waved Ivy off, and poked gingerly at my crotch. “I don’t want to share.”

“Okay,” She snatched my bottle and dashed across the room to Beouf’s table. “Mrs. Beouf? Can I please have some more water?” She held up the bottle towards the Amazon’s face like a meek orphan asking for soup.

Beouf reflexively looked across the room and before she remembered that her assistant was indisposed. “Sure, baby,” she said, distractedly. She took the bottle, walked to the classroom sink, filled it up, recapped it, and gave it to Ivy.

“Thank you,” Ivy said and toddled back over to me. “Here you are,” she handed me the bottle.

My brows knitted together. I wasn’t upset, just unsure. “Why’d you do that?”

“Now,” Ivy said sounding more than a little like her mother, “you can ask Mrs. Beouf for water later and she’ll get you a refill.”

“Okay. But why?”

“So you can pee-pee more and get changed before lunch.”

Ivy was in on it too? Really?! It just occurred to me, “Are you saying you tricked Beouf? On purpose?”

She beamed big and toothy. But after a second her features melted into a subdued, demure smile. “Maybe…”

Goddamn it, I knew I shouldn’t have been, but for a second there I was kind of proud! I raised my bottle in toast to her and started chugging. Leaking was gonna suck. I just hoped it could happen before my window of opportunity was closed.

Zoge came back after changing Chaz. Long legged rompers had tons of buttons, Chaz was a full crawler, and Zoge was too doting most days to not carry him over to his schedule and then corresponding activity.

“Apologies, my loves,” Zoge said. “Nature called.”

Ivy began sniffling as soon as Zoge sat down. “Mama!” she cried, then lifted up her dress. I couldn’t understand what she said next, something in Yamatoan. But based on the dark stains on her leggings dripping all the way down to her ankles, I’m betting it roughly translated to “My diaper leaked and has ruined my pretty clothes!” She didn’t make it through the full sentence before tears were spilling down her cheeks and she had a mustache made of bubbling snot.

A leaky diaper? When had that happened? Did Ivy really just notice, or did she hide it until an opportune time? Were those crocodile tears or not?

Ivy was good at this. Of course she was! She’d been in this room for longer than I’d been teaching. She had probably seen almost every common scenario when it came to Littles acting out in captivity. She just didn’t do those things because she wanted to be a ‘good baby’. Now that we’d illogic’d our way where ‘naughty’ wasn’t necessarily the opposite of ‘good’, she had a whole new playbook to choose from.

For stalling purposes, a leaky diaper was a home run. Wardrobe malfunctions meant a change and dealing with the containment of wet clothes and replacing them with dry ones. It being Ivy and Zoge made it a grand slam. Ivy’s outfits tended to be more frilly, complex, or layered and there was no way that Zoge was going to send Ivy back out in just a t-shirt and a Monkeez. That meant even more time undressing and getting redressed.

Zoge gasped and jumped back out of her seat. In no time she scooped Ivy up and started shushing her daughter in their native tongue, trotting towards the bathroom. “Mrs. Beouf…”

Beouf didn’t look up from her board game with Jessie and Tommy. “I heard,” she said. “Do what you gotta do.” We locked eyes with each other. “Clark? Why don’t you come over here and play with us?”

Obediently, I rose and walked over. I wasn’t going to get a good opening to snatch those scissors anyhow. I sat at the end so that Jessie was between me and Tommy. I still had to smack Tommy’s hand away to protect my earlobes when Beouf was digging for an extra piece.

“Okay,” Beouf said. “Do you remember how to play?”

I blinked to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I’d just played it a little over an hour ago, and this was hardly the first time we’d done this one. “Yup,” I said. “You try to get from one end of this twisty maze path to the other and you win.”

“And?”

“You can go down any path, and you can go backwards and forwards to retrace your steps.”

“And?”

I picked up my game piece, a tiny poseable sexless action figure made of green plastic. Sticking out of it were corresponding manufactured plastic skewers. They were dull and flat; toy swords that crisscrossed the poor plastic person at multiple angles while never intersecting. “You want to land on spaces that allow you to take these swords out.”

“And they’re called?”

I sighed dejectedly. “Burdens and regrets.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jessie cringe.

“Why do you want to get rid of burdens and regrets?” Beouf prompted.

“Because when you start the game you can only roll a four-sided dice,” I explained. “But as soon as you remove a burden, you get to change it to a six-sided dice. Then eight, then ten, then twelve, then twenty.

“That’s right,” Beouf nodded. She pointed to some pieces of hard plastic that were off to the side. “And what are these?”

“Signs of acceptance,” Jessie, Tommy, and I droned in unison.

Beouf didn’t chastise anyone for speaking out of turn. She was just glad we were engaging with her. “And what do signs of acceptance do?”

Jessie raised his hand and spoke out anyways. “Every sign of acceptance lets you roll an additional die and you get to take the best roll.” He sounded far too proud of knowing that. If I wasn’t trying to de-escalate the A.L.L.’s habits…

“So in other words…Clark?” Beouf leaned in expectantly. I couldn’t tell if she was viewing me through her baby-crazy goggles and sincerely trying to hammer an idea home or if she was viewing me through her friend vision and trying to joke with me by making me say something she knew annoyed me. Maybe both?

“Things move faster when you let go of your burdens and regrets,” I said as monotone and cynically as possible, “and you get more opportunities when you find acceptance of yourself.”

What Beouf thankfully didn’t voice, and I deliberately avoided vocalizing was that the blades representing burdens and regrets had things like ‘need for a job’ and ‘societal pressures’ written on them.

And the signs of acceptance? Those little pieces of hard plastic? They were toy baby clothes and accessories. A bottle slotted perfectly in the action figure’s grip. Every action figure seemed to be screaming so that the tiny pacifier would slot in.. Booties, bonnets, and diapers snapped on.

The more babyish you looked on the outside, the more chances for success you had. The more adult things you had inside you, the more limited you were. The message was not subtle.

“That’s right!” Beouf lightly clapped, unphased by my blase response. “Now let’s roll!”

“Finally,” Tommy muttered and started rolling again.

“Mrs. Beouf?” Zoge called out from the bathroom. “Which one of us changed Ivy last?”

Beouf scratched her head with a single finger. “Weren’t you on deck at Circle Time? Why?”

“I think she leaked because her diaper is loose.”

I almost choked on my remaining water. Ivy unfastened and botched up her own tapes? No way!

Beouf shrugged. “Might have just gotten some dud tapes, or thin plastic.”

“Likely,” Zoge agreed.

“Clark?” Beouf noticed me sputtering. “You okay bud?

I coughed and pointed towards my now empty bottle. “Yeah,” I choked out, “Just went down the wrong pipe.”

“Do you want some more?” she asked, reaching out.

I winced, playing up my discomfort and held my bottle out to her. She took it and went back to the sink to refill it. Tommy and I locked eyes. He was closer to Beouf’s teacher desk. Upon that desk was a stapler. Closer to me was Beouf, quickly refilling my bottle. Watching like hawks, Annie, Billy, and Chaz were motioning to us to do something and warning onlookers to be quiet.

Chaz and Billy were at the play center right next to Beouf’s kidney table, mouthing “Go, go, go, go!”, and Annie was eyeballing Zoge’s scissors from her spot at the puzzles station.

“Jessie,” I said, “How do we power game this?”

Jessie’s face scrunched up in discomfort. “What do you mean?”

“There’s gotta be some optimal strategy to get through this game,” I said. “A fastest route? Some optimal ratio of swords to baby clothes, or good enough so that you don’t need the rest.”

“I haven’t really thought about it that much.”

“Or is there something in the rules that we can exploit? A way to break the game?” I pestered.

Jessie’s upper lip curled and hid behind his lower one. “I think that’s more your thing, Clark. No offense.”

“None taken.”

During this brief exchange, Jessie’s eyes were completely on me, allowing Tommy to slide out of his seat and run to the titanic block of wood that served as Beouf’s desk. Standing on tippy toes quickly batted the plastic and steel monstrosity to the edge and nabbed it.

I had no idea where Tommy was going to put something that was comparatively big. An Amazon stapler practically a police baton to a Little. Tommy was draped in a childish sweat suit made to mimic a race car drvier’s uniform.

That wasn’t my problem, though. My mission was to keep Jessie distracted. Just as it was for Billy to put his fingers over his lips as a signal to Shauna and Sandra-Lynn over at the reading nook and for Annie to anticipate Mandy’s reaction.

“Tommy?” Beouf asked. “What are you doing?” She handed me my water bottle back.

“Nothing,” Tommy said, not sounding the least bit convincing. He hustled back to his seat and noticeably flinched when he sat down. “Just gas…”

“Just…?” Beouf stopped herself and sighed. “Stand up, baby. Turn around. Let me check.” Brilliant! Tommy had passed off his sneaking around as the compulsion of a toddler hiding behind the couch to poop. That or maybe he really had pooped and was embarrassed. “Mrs. Zoge,” Beouf called out. “I think I’m gonna need that changing table soon.”

“Alright,” Zoge called back. “Almost done. Ivy has some backup clothes in the class closet.

“Heard,” Beouf replied. Lumbering over to Tommy, she bent over, pulled back the seat of his pants with her index finger and peered inside. “You’re wet,” she said, patting his behind to check for lumps. “But not messy.” She stood up and brushed her hands. “Maybe it was just gas.”

Movement out of the corner of my eye caught a blur of Zoge carrying a near naked Ivy out of the bathroom and into the supply closet, home of abandoned stuffies and the pot that made my afternoon decaf. “Bathroom is open if you need it!”

“No I don’t,” Beouf hollered back. “False alarm.”

“MOTHER! FUCKER!” Billy roared. Several pieces of a wooden train set launched towards the ceiling.

Berouf’s head swiveled around. “Billy?”

“I am so sick of this bullshit!”

“Billy?” Beouf repeated his name with plenty of caution. “Why are you upset?”

“You know why I’m upset!” He screamed. “I’m sick of this place! I’m sick of being stuck here! I’m sick of being on this,” he looked at the scattered pieces on the floor. “This train….to..nowhere!”

I tried not to laugh. For Billy, this was some virtuoso avant garde level acting. Give that boy a trophy!

“Billy, do you need to go use the tantrum room?”

“You’re goddamn right I do!” Nervous laughter punctuated Billy storming out. The last bits of clattering and crashing sounds of plastic and wood sang out before he crossed the threshold.

“Mrs. Zoge?” Beouf called out. “We got a tantrum! I’m going to monitor!” She moved slowly up until Billy came out and tried to slam the door closed. “No, no, no, Billy, don’t close that door! That door stays open!”

“Eat me!”

My mentor pointed across the threshold. “Say it to the sound dampening walls. I’ll keep one foot in so you can say it to me if you want.”

“DEAL!”

I got absorbed in the drama before it hit me! This was an opportunity! Two Amazons were distracted and the bathroom was unoccupied!

My cohorts were more proactive. Annie had already snuck over and grabbed Zoge’s scissors. Chaz had been waiting for them eagerly and picked them up the instant Annie slid them all the way across the floor.

When he crawled out from behind Beouf’s kidney table the scissors were clenched between his teeth like a movie buccaneer swinging from ship to ship. When he disappeared behind Mrs. Beouf’s desk, I heard Zoge’s voice getting louder.

I shuffled back across to Zoge’s table, playing the part of the good boy. What it really let me do was see Chaz crawl out from behind Beouf’s desk with a stapler in tow and edging towards the bathroom.

BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

Zoge’s nostrils flared with exasperation. She’d just gotten out of the supply closet with Ivy wearing a light blue smock of a dress and a yellow bucket cap. “Check your schedules, everyone.”

“Annie? Mandy?” Beouf said from just beyond the tantrum room. “You girls remember how to play the acceptance game, right?” She was happy not to have them repeat the rules to her over the sound of Billy’s bedlam.

Everyone but Chaz and Billy went to the wall and tore off the next piece of velcro. Billy was accounted for. Chaz was not. Zoge stood, watching us scatter and reassemble like a kicked anthill.

One problem. When the dust was settling, there was no sign of Chaz, and Zoge’s seat had a clear view of the bathroom.

“Clark?” Ivy asked. “What are you doing?”

I was stranded halfway between my next center and the schedule wall. My eyes were closed. My face was red. My knees were bent. “Poopin…” I grunted. I was trying to anyway. I didn’t have any bullets in the chamber or grumbling in my gut, I was just trying to force something out. Anything to draw Zoge’s attention and keep her from sitting back down.

“Clark, my love?” she asked. “Are you alright?”

“Almoooooost…” I groaned. I let out a deep sigh. “Done!”

Zoge sniffed the air. “Are you sure?”

I was panting. “Uh huh.”

She hunched over and adjusted her glasses. Overalls made waistband checks nearly impossible and the feeling of a full diaper would be hard to differentiate with the thick denim. “Better safe than sorry,” she said.

I was bluffing. The only thing all my straining had accomplished is to squeeze my already weak bladder a little more, like wringing the last few droplets out of an already juiced orange. Hardly enough to justify a change and the extra water I’d guzzled was still in transit.

But stalling was stalling.

“Hmmm,” Zoge frowned. I was already laid out on the changing table with the safety sap taught over my chest. Zoge was searching for the snappies along the inseam that this pair sorely lacked. “I forgot.”

In the ceiling mirror’s reflection, I caught sight of the back of a Little foot poking out from under the changing table inches away from Zoge’s shoes.

“I can help!” My voice echoed. “Let me stand up! Let me stand up!”

“Of course,” Zoge soothed. “Please help.”

I stood up and locked eyes with her. I held my arms out to ‘T’. “Okay. Now unbuckle them!” She did and I slid the romper-pants hybrid down to my ankles. “Tadaaaaa!”

The old Yamatoan smiled. “Very helpful.” She scooped my legs out from under me and laid me back down. I think I can take it from here.” I was resecurred to the table and lost my shoes and overalls. “I’ll put them back on,” she promised, seeing my nervousness.

To her I was still the Little boy who got nervous about having his diaper uncovered. I was nervous because I was scanning the ceiling mirror for Chaz’s limbs.

Her wrinkled hand squeezing the front of my padding drew my attention. “Wet,” she said. “But are you stinky?” Trying to look cute, I gnawed on my mitten and held my tongue. “Okay, my love,” she cooed at me. “Time to clean the baby.”

Tapes ripped. My diaper opened. My legs were lifted. I was teething harmlessly on my restraints.

“False alarm,” Zoge pronounced. “Only wet.”

I popped my mitten out. “Does that mean you’re not gonna change me?” I whined.

“I’ll change you,” she promised.

Her hand reached under the table. She made a face and ducked her head. When her head popped up she reached over pulled my wet diaper back up over me. “Hey!” I yelped. “I thought you were going to change me!”

She retaped the diaper onto me fast and loose; less of a diaper and more of a temporary barrier. I put this to the test and let loose a tiny stream that was barely contained by the leak guards. She poked her head out of the bathroom. “Mrs. Beouf? Did Miss Grange remember to restock our supply?”

“Yes you are going to have to clean the play center up,” I heard Beouf say. “That’s not part of the tantrum room.” A beat passed and she took her focus off of a still tantruming Billy. “What?” she called back. Then, “Supply Closet! By the coffee maker!”

Zoge turned around and looked down at me, specifically at my chest. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. I had no idea which one was supply cabinet three. I hoped it was far away.

Zoge refastened my Monkeez for a second time and put me on her hip. Bobbing me up and down and speed walking she took me into the crowded supply closet. As promised, right by a cold and unplugged coffee pot was a giant size box of Monkeez with my name written on every side in black sharpie.

She grabbed two or three and rushed out as quickly as we’d rushed in. My blood pressure took a massive drop when I peaked a certain buzzed bald held shuffling behind Beouf’s desk. At least Chaz was away from the scene of the crime.

“Take two,” Zoge smirked, laying me down once more. “Or is three?“

“What happened?” I asked, more relaxed.

“You ran out of diapers,” Zoge said plainly. “Mrs. B and I forgot to restock.”

“Huh,” I said without thinking. “That’s weird.”

“I know,” the teacher’s assistant agreed, all while continuing to change me. “I could have sworn you had two or three left after breakfast.” A smile crept up my face when I saw my balled up diaper get plunked into the pail. Mine was the first diaper burying the soon to be missing scissors and stapler. “I’m just getting old, I guess.”

“I guess.”

But the more I thought about it, the more something about it bugged me. Beouf and Zoge were normally meticulous about their environment. Schedules were always reset and rearranged, toys were always cleaned up, diapers and wipes were always stocked up.

Zoge finished getting me dressed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She carried me out of the bathroom and set me down where I’d feigned self-defecation. “What’s your schedule say?”

Zoge’s question went in one ear and out the other. “Huh?”

“Where are you supposed to be, my love?”

I looked around, feeling like I was failing in more ways than one. “I don’t know.”



***********************************************************************************************************

The rest of the day went by without further incident. No one got caught who didn’t want to be. The entire class needed changing before lunch. Billy cleaned up the non-trantrum toys after Chaz was in the clear. The Amazons hadn’t missed their supplies. Very little work got done.

By those metrics, it was an incredibly successful “Chump Dumping” or “Potty Break” depending on your goals and terminology. But something was still going against my grain when we were congratulating each other behind the oak tree that afternoon.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Billy roared. All of us nervously shushed him. This was still very much a secret victory we were celebrating.

Chaz was starry eyed and grinning like an idiot. “That was awesome,” he said quietly to us.

“You were awesome,” I said back. “Crawling ninja master!” Was there something inherently stealthier about crawling? That would certainly explain Amy’s track record.

Chaz shook his head and puffed out his cheeks, reliving the close call from earlier. “I almost got caught,” Chaz said. “You doing what you did kind of saved me.”

“It was probably an accident,” Tommy whispered.

“Actually, Tommy,” I spoke up, “I kind of got the idea from you.”

Tommy softened. “Yeah?”

“That fake out behind the desk when Beouf almost caught you? Genius!”

“A shade of the more gentle and docile boy Tommy used to be broke through his weaselly exterior. “Thanks,” he told me. Then he remembered his manners. “What about Billy?”

Billy struck a pose to our applause. “Thank you. Thank you. Happy to take a time-out for the team.”

“As long as it’s not with Ambrose,” Annie smirked.

Even that didn’t dent Billy’s pride. “Damn straight, babe. And that was a great pass you made with the scissors.” Everyone agreed.

“The harder part was keeping the other girls from squealing.” She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes to hide that her smile was becoming too genuine. “Now I have to have a sleepover for my birthday.”

“So giving,” Chaz said. “So kind.”

“What about Ivy?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Annie said. “She’s coming too.”

“No, I mean, did you see how she distracted her Mom for so long? That was awesome.”

The eerie, uncomfortable quiet of their own biases was the initial reply.

“You think she did that on purpose?” Tommy asked. “Her?”

I told them about Ivy’s instant waterworks and the convenient timing of her noticing her accident before she went into hysterics.

“On purpose?” Tommy repeated himself. “You’re sure?”

“Dude, she specifically tricked a teacher to get me extra water so I could pee more.” Those were words I had never expected to say in that order with such conviction.

Annie chewed on her lip, still hesitant. “I knew she wasn’t going to tell on us. I just didn’t expect her to play along.”

Billy looked from face to face. “So? Should we bring her over again? Or…?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

Tommy was voluntold to go fetch our miniature Yamatoan and walked away to find her. Okay. So as a group we were still including Ivy and playing with her. That was a step in the right direction! That was kind of like what Melony asked me to do for her present.

Kind of.

“Seriously though,” Chaz spoke up again. “Clark saved my life back there keeping Zoge distracted.”

“Which one?” Billy asked

“Both,” Chaz quipped. “Seriously though, you were smooth!”

“If Clark were taller,” Annie reminded us, “he could take Beouf’s job.” That sounded like a compliment this time, but didn’t exactly feel like one.

“I was just lucky,” I said. “Zoge just didn’t keep track of my diapers.”

A surprised snicker thundered out from Chaz. Annie and Billy’s eyes came alive with realization and had to gag themselves to stop their laughter from exploding out of them. “Oh…yes…she… did!”

“Huh?” I said. “What’s so funny?”

Chaz’s confession came out in hushed raspy laughter, like a snake that was being tickled. “I threw away a couple of your diapers!”

I did not scream “WHAT?”, but my face certainly conveyed the emotion.

Billy put his hand on my shoulder. “No, no,” he giggled. “It’s cool, Gibson. It’s cool.”

“Every time we do this thing,” Chaz explained, still grinning, “I take whatever we’re tossing, grab a diaper or two, ball ‘em up, and toss ‘em in.”

“That way no one will see the junk,” Annie said, trying to be helpful.

“And,” Billy said barely keeping it together, “they’ll have to dig through…more shit…if they want to find the stuff!”

“And it wastes a diaper,” Chaz finished.

I was fuming. I was furious. I was standing perfectly still yet shaking. “You said this was the fifth time?”

Chaz didn’t notice my change in demeanor. “Yeah. Fourth or fifth.”

“When did you start doing this?”

“Last couple weeks of school last year,” Chaz said. “And first week of this one.”

My world went on mute save the sound of blood pounding in my ears.

Diapers. Missing Diapers. That had been a crucial bit of evidence used in stripping me of my adulthood.

I had had a violent and public accident. Beouf had been running out of diapers faster than usual and found it suspicious. Therefore, I must have been trying to delay or hide my Maturosis by stealing them out of her bathroom. It was flimsy evidence, barely circumstantial. An invented crime to fit a narrative. I probably would have ended up here anyways, but Beouf’s engine had already been primed in the days and weeks preceding.

Knowing that it was these jerks, these mindfucked man-children, these failed adults had contributed in some way to my downfall, made me livid. It was bad enough that they resented me for getting to live like an adult, they had to indirectly drag down with them.

Maybe it wasn’t indirectly. Maybe it was on purpose. Was there someway one of them could have poisoned me?

“Why…?” I whispered. My voice was low. My eyes stopped blinking. Me knees threatened to quake. My throat threatened to choke. If not for my mittens my hands would be fists.

“Clark?” Annie said. “What’s wrong?”

“Gibson? You okay?”

“Are you mad I stole the idea from you?” Chaz asked. “You weren’t one of us and it’d be dumb to talk to a…” he almost said ‘Helper’ but instead said “...teacher.”

My rage stoked itself over with curiosity. I was looking for more reasons to justify biting Chaz’s head off. “What idea?”

“Subtle acts of rebellion,” Chaz seemed almost insulted. “Find ways to inconvenience them and give them the middle finger without them realizing it. Like saying ‘Typical’ instead of swearing.”

My anger fell and broke its neck. “I did say something like that, didn’t I?”

“It’s literally the first thing you ever said to me,” Chaz said.

“Same,” Billy said.

Annie smirked. “I didn’t get sent to time out.”

“Heh,” I giggled. “Heh, heh. Hehehe. Hee-heee-heee.” Then I chuckled.. “Hahahaha.” Then I chortled. “Hohohohoo,” then I just startled screaming with laughter. “HEEEEEEEEEE-HEEEEEEEEEEE-HEEEEEEE!” I fell over clutching my sides. Making someone laugh so hard that they pee their pants isn’t much of a flex if that someone is diapered and all but unpotty trained.

I can say for certainty, however, that I would have wet myself even if I hadn’t been.

“What’s so funny?” Tommy wondered.

“Was it a good joke, Clark?” Ivy asked bending over to check on me.

“No clue,” Annie said. “He hasn’t told us, yet.”

And I didn’t. By the time I was able to compose myself again, we were being leashed up for the walk to the bus loop. And it was much too funny to explain by then.

It was the ultimate bit of Karma from the universe. I spent years giving empty words to captured Littles, encouraging them to play the system and strike out in subtle ways. Nothing groundbreaking, just the toddler equivalent of a chef spitting in someone else’s food.

And what happened? Eventually, three of them took the notion and actually ran with it. And it riled Beouf up just enough that she was more than ready to accept that I’d finally come down with her fictional affliction. And then when I fell from grace, hoisted by my own petard, I found those same assholes and taught them to be even better at.

“I did it to myself,” I mouthed while my classmates were being loaded into specially installed car seats. “I did it to myself.”

It wouldn’t be the last time that I had this sincere and profound realization. It probably wasn’t the first. But it was probably the first time that I said to myself out loud and knew it to be true.

“I did it to myself.”