Chapter 148: False Start

“This is such a dumb plan,” I told Janet while she dressed me that morning.

“It is,” Janet admitted, “but it’s the best one we have and today is our last day to do it before Winter Break. This counts as your Solstice present, by the way.”

“Deal.” I made a mental note to weaponize that against her next week when she inevitably bombarded me with even more colorful soft, squeaky, squishy, bouncy, and plushie monstrosities than had already been forced upon me. I winced internally, and made a mental note to forget that mental note. “So what am I wearing?”

Janet picked me up off the changing table and set me down on my nursery floor. I had to adjust my stance more than I was used to due to the booster inserts I’d just insisted upon. She waltzed over to the closet and pulled out the sailor suit. “I figured it could be kind of an in-joke. First day school outfit. Put on some long thick navy socks just in case.”

I closed my eyes and grit my teeth. “It needs to be more babyish.”

I didn’t open my eyes until after Janet’s reply, but I swear I heard her eyes fluttering. “The onesie version?”

“No,” I said. “No themes.” Themes required coordination. Coordination required time we didn’t have.

Janet bit her lip. “Okay…” She put the suit back in and took out a pair of shortalls. “What about this? Snappies.”

“More babyish. Cuter.” I was going for a certain look. “Like something Amy would be dressed in if she were a boy.”

Janet went back in the closet before I had time to inhale. Three seconds later she was back with baby blue footed pajamas. “This,” she said. “This.”

I pursed my lips together, overthinking every single aspect of what should be a miniscule detail. From years of watching new Littles arrive at Oakshire with Adoption papers fresher than their diapers, new Amazon Mommies tended to go one of two ways. The first way, for boys especially, was to send them to school in just a T-shirt and a diaper so that there was no mistaking what they were wearing and every baby crazy giant would be unconsciously invited to comment on, check and change their new lifestyle underwear. The second way, often for girls, was to put them in so many layers of infantile clothing that there was no doubt that there was a diaper underneath because there was no chance a Little that covered up was going to be able to make it to the potty, (that and no adult would wear something that ridiculous and restrictive).

I wanted to go for the first option, initially. The temperature had plummeted overnight and it wouldn’t be warm enough to justify the bare bones outfit until at least two in the afternoon, maybe three. Janet offered to wrap me in a blanket, but if the Amazons couldn’t see my big soggy diaper to really sell it what was the point? Oh yeah, Janet had nixed the idea that she leave me soaked from last night. Since it would be in bad practical taste to have my diaper on full display this morning, we had to go the other way.

“I don’t know,” I hemmed and hawed. “Seems pretty basic. Do we have any bonnets or anything?”

My Mommy smirked evilly at me. “None that match your mittens.”

Everything above and below my Monkeez flushed pink. I thought I’d been talking out my ass with regards to bonnets. Evidently, Janet had made the most of her time clothes shopping while I’d been scoping out the automated mall daycare. I made a note to myself to forget about forgetting previous notes. I was totally using today being my Solstice present as a backhanded shield later. “Oh…”

Janet came and knelt down in front of me, holding the outfit out by the shoulders and turning it this way and that so I could see the features. “It’s got snappies for easy diaper access,” she said, gesturing along the inseam. “But there’s plenty of room in the seat so nothing is going to make me rush you to the changing table as long as everything remains contained.”

“Mhm…”

She dangled the one-piece out upside down so I could get a good look at the grippy circles on the bottom of the feet. “The soles are padded and gripped, so you won’t need shoes,” she said. “And the knees are lightly cushioned, too, so you can crawl around.”

The giantess tugged at and stretched it. She rubbed it between her fingers and pinched. “The fabric is sturdy enough for all day play and warm enough to keep the chill out without making you sweat.” She wringed out the torso like it was a towel. “And it stretches and gives and moves with you so you won’t be uncomfortable.” She pulled the legs apart. They didn’t seem to stretch as much. “But it’s sewn up in all the right places so that it’ll support your Monkeez. No saggy sog butts allowed.”

Finally, she placed the sleeve right on top of my mittens. “And it matches your mittens so it looks like I planned it this way.” She was right. The shades of blue were slightly off from one another, but you wouldn’t know it without careful scrutinization. I would have guessed that my mittens and this outfit were manufactured by the same company.

I gulped. “Gotcha.”

“But,” Janet warned, “it’s also very clear that this isn’t made with outdoor play in mind. Meaning you’d have to be in a stroller or carried anywhere without hardwood, tile, or carpet.” She continued her pitch, returning the outfit to its original upright and unfolded state, her fingers clenching it by the shoulders. “As you can see it has no pattern or insignia designating it as seasonal wear or purely as pajamas. No snowflakes, or snowmen. No sleeping baby animals or snoozy clouds. Just a cute everyday outfit for an everyday baby. Ready at a moment’s notice.”

I nodded, sold. “Okay. Yeah.”

Janet picked me up and kept going. “If I had wanted to snatch a Little boy up the second his Maturosis expressed itself, this is the outfit I’d stuff inside my purse next to the diaper until the right Little boy had his first flare up in front of me.”

“Janet,” I shuddered, “that’s creepily insightful.”

“Thank you, baby.” She undid the multitude of snaps and spread the outfit out on the mat before laying me down on it; an almost naked babe atop the vivisected corpse of a conjoined shirt, pants, and socks combo. Some animals were never meant to live in the wild.

“How long did it take you to think about all that stuff?” I asked.

Janet’s eyes were honed in on my legs as she guided my first foot through the longest leg sleeve. “It was pretty quick.”

The second leg followed easily. I just had to slip one leg into a ankle-deep sock. The buttons would do the rest. “Are these the kind of features that are mentioned on Amazonian websites or something?”

Janet straightened out the sleeves and guided my arms through the appropriate sleeves. “Not the shopping ones, no.” The room felt a touch warmer for some reason. The dreamy, blissful, euphoric, almost paranoid look coming from my Mommy clued me into where it was coming from. Janet was cosseting, again. .

“Janet?”

“Yes, my squalling Little Prince?” Her voice was that much bubblier. She was definitely riding a kind of high at the moment.

“How often do you think about this kind of stuff?”

She finished sealing me in, snapping all the buttons together from my inseam all the way up to my chest. She picked me up and rested me on her hip. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It’s just the sort of stuff you learn to look for and catalog away.”

“Where?”

Her voice flattened. “Don’t ask questions you’re not ready to hear the answers to, dear.”

My nose crinkled and I stuck out my tongue. That figured. Little culture revolved around avoiding getting infantilized. Of Course Amazon culture would be the inverse opposite. I stopped looking at Janet’s face long enough to realize something else. “This could have been faster if you just opened the top and let me stop in. You didn’t have to lay me out.

Janet pouted her lip and tilted her head to the side. “Huh,” she said. “Yeah. I guess it would have.”

I didn’t have anything else to say on that front. I hadn’t realized it until it was too late, anyways, and took the victory that I pointed it out before Janet did and she didn’t coyly wink at me like I’d fallen into a trap.

We went through an expedited version of our usual morning routine from there.

“I expect you to behave,” Janet told me, opening the fridge and getting one of her breakfast shakes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her hand hovered over this morning’s bottle of expressed ‘goat’s milk. “Milk?”

“No thank you.” Not even my morning fix could ease the tension I was starting to feel.

Janet closed the refrigerator door. “Water it is, then.” She filled a bottle from the tap and gave it to me. “It’s probably not going to work.”

I took the bottle. “I know.”

“And you’re not going to get to come back to Oakshire today.”

“I know.” I took a tug on the nipple and enjoyed the feeling of the water dribbling onto my tongue.

“So if there’s any kind of classroom party or movie day today, you’ll be missing out.”

I stopped suckling long enough to say, “I understand.”

“Okay,” Janet stepped up to the garage door and took her keys and diaper bag off their appointed hooks. “Oh shit,” she cursed under her breath. “Almost forgot,” she pried open the bag. “Gotta load up. One diaper isn’t going to cut it.”

I rolled my eyes in the kitchen’s predawn darkness. “We’ll just stop by a gas station and get some more.” It would only take doubling back to my nursery to get more diapers, but when we were so close to pulling the trigger on this scheme, every delay was akin to an eternity.

ONK-ONK!

Both of us jumped at the sound of the car horn coming from just outside the house. There’d been no sound of any motor running and from how loud it was the car’s bumper was most likely nestled up against the garage door. The car might as well have honked “HI, CLARK!”

ONK-ONK!

“See?” I whined. Janet carried me to the back of the house anyways. Delaying our departure by almost a minute so she could restock my bag. “Let’s go!”

“Do you really want to be sharing diapers with Amy?” Janet asked, scooping and stuffing half a dozen Monkeez into the bag. “Her Mommy has a tendency to put her butt in pink.”

“I don’t…’ And I heard the lie before I finished it. “Okay,” I huffed. “Fine.”

She finished and rewarded me with a peck on the cheek. “Anything you want to tell the usual gang?”

Not really. With the search for Cassie renewed one last time and this Hail Mary called, I had more on my mind than what my classmates might want to hear right before school was out again. “See you next year?” I offered.

Janet’s hand rested on the doorknob. “I’ll make sure to give Mrs. B. your love,” she said.

Oh. Why hadn’t I known she was talking about my teacher friends?

*****************************************************************
“I’m thinking my name should be Cordelia,” Amy babbled on in her carseat. “Cordelia Cogburn. But my Amazon oppressor infantilizes and gaslights me by calling me ‘Cory’. I was an investigative reporter, but I got too close to the truth, so they sent me here, out of the way and I got Adopted almost as soon as I checked into the motel. I can’t prove it, but I’m convinced my Mommy was tapped as a resource to subdue me.”

This had been her third character pitch since Janet moved my car seat and strapped me in.

“What truth did you find out?”

Amy pantomimed a scowl. “I’m not telling you. For all I know, you’re a Helper who’s status returning to ‘big boy’ is dependent on whether or not you can get me to spill the beans! I say the wrong thing and they scramble my brains so that I can’t remember what I found out anymore. You get non-crinkly pants back. I lose all of my teeth and my ability to process spoken language.”

“Why wouldn’t they just do that anyways?” I asked. “Keep you from talking by scrambling your brains and pass it off as you just being a baby?”

At this, Amy paused. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully, the gears already turning. “What I do know is that I am a big girl and I definitely don’t need diapers. And when I do need them, I’m always surprised and in denial about it. Like, I don’t know when I’m peeing, and when I realize it, I freak out about it. That’s practically a given.”

“Why?”

“It just is.” She reached between her legs and rested both hands over her diaper. She was wearing a pink version of the same not-quite-jammies that I was dressed in. Either Helena and Janet had coordinated at the last minute and the fashion show I’d been put through had been for my benefit, or the two giantesses synced up more than I realized. “When I realize that I’m wet, should I freeze up and cover my crotch like I’m trying to hide an invisible wet spot, or should I gasp and flail like there’s an invisible puddle forming around me and I’m trying to swim out?” She made a big show of each pose, freezing up in silent mortification versus panicking as if the liquid leaving her bladder was blood spilling from her veins.

“:What about your teeth?” I asked, drawn in by her theatrics. “If you’re new to this, what about your teeth?”

Amy straightened and smoothed the state of the art flame retardant faux fleecy fabric over her legs as if she were smoothing out a skirt. “Cordelia lost them during an accident during the tail end of her misspent youth. She had too much to drink at a Gwiffin Party and broke them when planted face first at a keg stand. Got them replaced with a false insert that never quite matched the rest of her teeth; a karmic metaphor for how she never quite fit in as an adult. When her oppressor ambushed her at the motel they fell out during that first spanking and were left there on the floor with her bra, panties, and the rest of her adulthood.”

None of that jived with anything I knew about Amy. “How much of that was true?”

“All of it,” she said simply and confidently. “All of it was true.”

“What about the made up parts?”

“Especially the made up parts.”

“None of that even happened.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You know I can hear you,” Helena Madra said from the driver’s seat. “Can I please have an origin that makes me a little bit less of a supervillain?”

We both ignored her.

“What about pooping?” I asked Amy. “Got any planned reactions for that?”

“Oh that’s easy,” Amy said. “If I mess, I’m going to either wait for someone else to point it out to me or I’m going to wait until I sit in it and feel the first squish. Either way, Cordelia is the type to have an existential crisis about it. She put so much of her own identity into not messing her pants that doing it threatens her self-concept. You know, as you do.” A beat. “Do.”

I groaned audibly.

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” She smirked. “Or hold it in.” More groaning from me. “What about you? I think you could more easily play someone who poops their pants in resignation. You’re the kind to be resting in your Mommy’s arms and she’s talking to someone, and then when the cramps hit, you hold it in as long as possible but eventually give up and push it all out since you know nobody is going to take you to the potty or care how embarrassed you are.”

I felt called out. “Does it matter what our backstories are?”

“It does if we want to do it right.”

I shook my head and craned my neck so I could get as good a view of the streets outside as I was going to. I’d taken the route from Janet’s home to Oakshire Elementary enough times that I could literally make the trip in my sleep, snoozing and dozing until that last turn into the parking lot. We weren’t going anywhere near Oakshire Elementary today, however. I had no clue how much time we had to prepare.

“All that matters,” I said, “Is that we get inside and we get a look around. If you want to create a distraction or something so that maybe I can get away and explore, or peek on a computer screen or something, that’s fine, but-”

“No, no, no!” Helena broke in. “We won’t be doing that!” Her voice was bubbly and tinged with exasperation. I couldn’t see her lips in the rearview mirror but I was sure she was forcing a smile. “We’re not here to do anything naughty.”

“Fraud isn’t naughty!” Amy pumped her fist in the air. “We did it, buddy! Fraud isn’t naughty! Status confirmed!”

“Clark,” the Amazon replied patiently to me. “Amy is being very silly right now. All we’re going to do here is go in, inquire about enrollment, be shown to the guidance office or secretary or wherever that sort of thing happens, and see what we can see along the way.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“If we’re lucky maybe I can get someone to let us look inside one of the classrooms. It won’t be an entire school but it’ll be something.”

“Yes ma’am.”

If things go really well, I’ll try to bring up Casey-”

“Cassie,” I corrected her.

“Baby, I know,” she retorted. “I’m just practicing. I can’t get her name right the first time I bring her up, or I’ll seem too interested.” Goddamn it, she was almost as bad as Amy

“Okay…” I said, feeling condescended to and uneasy.

“I’ll see if I can bring up Cassie in a way that won’t tattle on you,” the Amazon promised. “I’ll say I heard from someone that a Little girl burned her house down and got help here. All technically true.”

I bristled and grit my teeth. Everytime someone brought the fate of our house up and that Cassie was the perpetrator I found myself agitated in ways I couldn’t properly articulate. The idea that Cassie would burn down our house in some kind of insane psychological break was absolutely preposterous. It was more likely bad wiring or a broken appliance caught fire. Hadn’t the dryer shut down just before the fire? No wait, that was that the washer.

Either way, if it was something wrong with the house then it could be my fault in some way. Shouldn’t I have been handy enough to fix that washing machine? Bert certainly would have been.

Shit, why didn’t we just call Bert? He’d have done it for the cost of gas, burgers, and parts if not free.

Point being, the fire felt better being ‘my fault’ for some reason. It wouldn’t change anything at present, but the presented narrative carried vibes of she did this to herself.

Meanwhile, in the car seat beside me, Amy looked like she’d just struck gold but kept silent.

“When we’re done,” Helena continued, “we’ll go home and we can all play ‘Spy’ or ‘Hide and Seek’ or whatever fun games you want for the rest of the day.”

Amy looked like she was comforted by this plan. More than comforted, she was ecstatic. I wasn’t, but this really was the best I could do given my position. New Beginnings was built and governed by the school board. Ironically, this meant that it had shorter hours than a lot of daycares. It might have some sort of Extended Day after school program, but those programs were usually autonomous from the school they serviced.

It did have an overnight unit for Littles who had experienced a sudden ‘flare up’ and hadn’t been properly Adopted yet or whose Amazons wanted to take a short ‘child free’ vacation, (Littles don’t tend to go into foster care since a waiting list does the trick). But other than that, the hours were as constant and student information was as tightly guarded as it would be in any public school.

To throw onto the pile of obstacles, it was the last day of school before Winter Break. If Janet and I had waited to scout the place out till this afternoon, Almost none of the Littles would be there and neither would the teachers. Not even Brollish would force her teachers to stay after school the day before vacation.

That and there was the outside chance that Janet might be recognized while doing the usual spiel. Oakshire was just big enough to where people could comfortably be strangers in each other’s lives but still just podunk enough that she ran the risk of being recognized. Brollish would not have reacted well if she got a phone call from New Beginnings telling her that one of her staff had taken off work to haphazardly inquire about transferring me.

Amy and Helena had never been to New Beginnings, however, and we wouldn’t be around long enough for them to do any kind of background check. An Amazon comes in with two captured Littles saying that they’re difficult babies who need to be enrolled is anyone going to question her story off the bat? Especially if the Littles being difficult were Amy and me?

There were only a handful of variables to consider to keep stories straight. Had Amy and I had been Adopted together or separately? Were we strangers forced together into this false Helena’s twisted familial fantasy, with nothing in common save being in the wrong time and place while having the ‘right’ look to draw her attention? Or were we husband and wife once? Lovers forced to take on different dynamics now that one of our Amazon overlords had decided that this was a better fit for them? Perhaps we really were family, and this whole thing was bringing back forgotten and unresolved issues from long ago about who really was the most ‘mature’ between us?

Shit. Now they had me doing it, too.

“Promise to bring Cassie up?” I nagged Amy’s Mommy one last time.”

“If I can,” Helena reassured me. “I promise.”

Most Littles in my position would be forced to sit on a stranger’s lap pretending to be Father Solstice and beg for presents they didn’t actually want.

Me? Janet had convinced her best friend this side of ‘Auntie’ Jessica to take the day off from work, and babysit me and my best friend this side of ‘Mrs.’ Beouf so that I could try my hand at infiltrating the worst place a local Little could ever wind up in all in the name of finding out what the fuck happened to my wife?

Honestly? It was the perfect present for me.

Damn.

I really did love Janet.

More surprisingly, I was beginning to think that maybe she loved me back.
**************************************************************************************

I’d never gotten a good look at New Beginnings until that day. As impulsive and self destructive as I tended to be, anything involving New Beginnings still felt like tempting fate comparatively. Being close enough or lingering long enough to take in any details beyond the general shape of the main building or noting the perimeter fence was tall even by Amazon standards felt risky. It was like the mall or The Gardens. Littles didn’t go unless they absolutely had to.

But it was more than that.

This was New Beginnings. This was the place of nightmares where Littles went in captured but intact and came out broken mindfucked living dolls. Beautifully empty husks of Littles that once contained potential, ambition, and curiosity, now only held shit before it exited into the back of their pants.

If you were a Little, New Beginnings was the place that you told your friends about at sleepovers to spook them and keep them awake. New Beginnings was the place that you lied about getting this close to when you were a dumbass teenager trying to score points with your dumbass friends. New Beginnings was the kind of place where you told your children they’d go to if they didn’t behave and finish their broccoli without complaint.

Inside of me, my fears all coiled and knotted around each other like a ball of hissing hydras. All of the fears and anxieties surrounding Cassie snapped at me and another. Finding her versus not finding her; her still being herself versus her being reduced to a bundle of conditioned responses; her hating her life versus her loving it versus something in between; there were no good outcomes. Sprinkle on top the chittering anxiety just being inside the perimeter fence would somehow break me in some irrevocable way, and add a dash of existential dread that maybe I’d been wrong about how bad this place was and I actually was making myself so nervous that I involuntarily clenched my bladder, making it impossible for me to pee my pants.

That last part really ate at me. What if, in my brief investigation this morning I discovered that New Beginnings wasn’t that bad? It would be bad, certainly, but I’d already witnessed and endured far more degrading, frustrating, humiliating, and torturous treatments than I thought possible.

I breastfed willingly, had formed genuine opinions on toddler wear, and was far more comfortable soaking wet than I’d care to admit. How much lower could I sink? I’d seen Littles with their faces mutilated to look like infants and ones who had to perform everything, even getting changed with perfect execution and sincerity. I’d seen automated play places coerce their occupants into perpetual joviality and Littles lose their sense of shame to the point to where they were having padded orgies with stuffies. Could New Beginnings actually be worse than that?

No. Surely not.

But if it wasn’t, what did that say about me? Was my sense of self really that resilient to this forced upon lifestyle? Or was ‘resilient’ the wrong word and ‘suited’ was the better choice? When I saw ‘green’ did everyone else see what I would call ‘red’? When I said ‘adult’ did everyone else hear ‘big boy’?

The back half of those worries would only come into play, however, if New Beginnings was just another typical Amazon daycare only funded by taxpayer money. It was the darkest of silver linings to have at least some of my biases and fears confirmed.

Sitting on what used to be Oakshire’s northern border before a real estate boom just over two decades prior, New Beginnings’s campus is presently slightly closer to Oakshire’s geographical center than the city limits. It sits on flat land that likely used to be farmland or a field for cattle grazing before the county snatched it up. Almost everything else got snatched up by developers and turned into the kind of posh neighborhoods where Ivy’s family lived.

Its nearest neighbor is the county school bus depot. If Janet hadn’t gotten that email in time and Beouf had stayed silent, it would have been nothing to have a bus come pick me up and take me to Oakshire’s premier mindfuck factory. Any Little in the Oakshire Public School system- employee or student- could have an ‘accident’ and the same buses that normally took children home would ferry them away forever. That’s probably why so many Littles are opting out of public education, both as a profession and an institution.

Other than that, the campus is flat land with a sizable parking lot, a bus loop and a self-contained building that is three floors at its highest point all surrounded by black chain link fence that even your average Amazon would struggle getting over. Oh, and there’s a duck pond across the street. It looks very nice.

The outside was composed of bright white bricks that looked clean without appearing sterile, complimenting the stately dark brown roof and walkways extending out to the parking lot. It looked conservative without being brutalist, and modern without attempting to appear futuristic.

It was emblematic of everything wrong with Amazon society and twisted through the lens of Oakshire in particular. It was a theme park representation of what a small town might think a college campus or museum looked like. It was the perfect example of how whether it was school or prison depended on whether or not you were enrolled there.

It was part of no single community or neighborhood. If this decade’s big excuse was that Littles had a genetic disability, then New Beginnings was technically a school for the disabled and it’s hard to make a zoning plan for a condition. There were never any homes within walking distance, and even if there were, their student body wouldn’t be trusted to make the trip. The campus just sat there in a big patch of nowhere, waiting for its yellow worker bees to bring minds to mush up every Monday through Friday.

A whole lot of effort had gone into the construction and continued maintenance of that building over the years; keeping it modern and updated, always attractive to passerby. I hated that there were real teachers with real classrooms that had to improvise and scrape to keep up with materials and supplies so that people Raine Forrest would likely adore could have access to the latest Little breaking techniques and technology.

I felt like I was being driven into a cancerous miasma when we passed through the open gates and into the parking lot. Even Amy stopped riffing and rambling mid sentence and craned her neck to see the mysterious fortress we would be venturing into.

We got a late start and Oakshire Elementary was a lot closer to home, but there were still stragglers in a car pickup lane snaking around the purposefully serpentine parking lot.

Helena skipped the line and slowly maneuvered around to the visitor and parent parking closer to the front office. Amy did her best to peer into the neighboring cars. “Oh!” she said, “Mommy! Slow down! That van has Mint’s Hints on!”

“We can watch Mint’s Hints when we get back home, baby girl,” Helena bubbled back. “Promise.”

“That’s not the point!” Amy said theatrically.

“I know baby,” Helena said while we rolled slowly up and down the asphalt. “It’s really hard to wait for what you want, can’t it?”

Amy all but slammed the back of her head into her cushioned rest. “It really iiiis!”

“Why are you looking into cars?” I asked Amy. “What if they have hypno toons on them or something?”

“Mint’s Hints isn’t hypnotic.”

“But you didn’t know it was Mint’s Hints until you watched.”

“I can’t just shut my eyes,” Amy shrugged. “I’m driving here.”

“No baby,” Helena corrected her. “That’s me.”

Amy ignored the correction. “If the hypnosis was strong enough to be able to trigger at a glance and without sound or prior conditioning, the windows would need to be tinted or we would have a lot more car crashes.”

I gave up trying to formulate a counter argument when Helena parked the car, cut the engine, and popped the trunk.

“Oh wow,” Helena said when she started digging us out of the back seat. “Did you guys see the parking spaces?”

Not counting the handicapped spaces, there were a total of ten non-teacher parking spaces right up front near the entrance, with specific sign posts designating them as such. Two were extra wide spaces were specifically for police and emergency vehicles, three were designated with plain white signs and black print for ‘Visitors’, one each for the Principal and two Vice Principals, one for visiting school board members, one was specifically for senior citizens for some reason, and at the spot closest to the main campus walkway was a spot for “New Mommies and Daddies”.

This place was a black hole determined to lure in and consume everything and everyone.

Helena had taken the spot. Good. If she hadn’t I would have begged her just to keep the ruse perfect. I found myself planted next to Amy in her double umbrella stroller. It was banana peel yellow. Also good. Yellow was gender neutral. Anything in a pink or a blue might have given the game away. If Helena was supposed to be a new Mommy and Amy and I were Adopted siblings, it wouldn’t make any sense to have color schemes that favored one stereotypically gendered color over the other.

If reading that last paragraph made you dizzy from the level of mental gymnastics involved, welcome to my world. But as Janet had reconfirmed just that morning, Amazons cared and thought a lot about these kinds of things. I don’t think I’ve ever personally witnessed two Amazons talking about snatching up and babying a Little who wasn’t already being babied. But I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Amazons quietly snipe behind each other’s back about ‘parenting methods’.

Not only are Amazons completely baby crazy, but they can also be judgemental as all get out towards each other for not being some version of ‘perfect’. Perhaps that’s why Janet’s parents never Adopted. They wanted the mass societal pressure of parenting to end at some point. Compare that to Janet, who was genuinely afraid that I might be taken away from her if I didn’t call her ‘Mommy’ loudly enough in public.

“Wait!” I said just as the wheels were rolling. “What about diaper bags?”
The stroller stopped. “Are you stinky?” She hopped around and started to unbuckle me. “You don’t smell stinky.”

“Not what I mean,” I said. I tensed up my shoulders and drew my arms to my chest to prevent myself from slapping at her. Why ask if she was going to start checking me anyway? “Just bring it.”

Amy’s Mommy lifted me up and parked me over her shoulder long enough to check my pants to her satisfaction. She turned away from the stroller as if to give me privacy, but only succeeded in getting me a birds eye view of Amy quietly chuckling up at my indignation.

“I don’t think you’re messy,” she said. “And if you’re wet you’re not that wet.”

“I’m not wet.” Of this I was painfully aware. My bladder was continuing to fill and for the life of me I couldn’t get any relief even if I wanted to. I was no longer having to concentrate holding onto a coffee cup filled up to the brim, careful not to spill, but trapped underneath a bench press. And instead of spotting me all the gym bros and trainers were slowly adding on more weight.

All of that certainly wasn’t helping my nerves, patience, or tone.

“We’re not going to be here very long,” Helena said, buckling me back in. “I don’t think either of you need a change for a while.”

“I know,” I tried, “but you need to have a diaper bag with you.”

“Wh-?”

“Mommy!” Amy broke in. “Remember? Year one?”

Dawning realization came over Helena’s face. “Oh gosh, you’re right!” She pushed us forward and opened up the front passenger seat. She dug out an almost matching yellow bag and proudly slung it over her shoulder. There was no way that a baby crazy Amazon still reeling with excitement wouldn’t parade a diaper bag around in excitement and pride of their accomplishment. “Look how clever you two are! It’s Amazing what babies pay attention to and remember!”

Babies. Yeah.

I looked over at Amy who still had a shit eating grin proudly plastered across her smug mug. “What are you so happy about?”

“Clark,” she whispered excitedly, “Buddy. Didn’t you hear my Mommy. Lies of omission don’t count. The game just changed forever!”

“I think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is.”

“We’ll see,” she winked. “We’ll see.”
.
“Oh that’s neat!” Helena’s comment interrupted. “Look!”

Bridging the main covered walkway to the school’s front entrance, the car line drop off point and the parking lot was a small cross walk. There was no crossing guard are present, but the few remaining cars were using it as a stop sign. Stop at the crosswalk, hand off the Little, check for pedestrians, drive off.

In lieu of a stop sign, there was a yellow ‘stroller crossing’ sign. Already we were being exposed to Amazon propaganda. I saw at least two cars with “My Little is an honor student at New Beginnings!” The fuck did that mean?!

Amy and I rolled over the crosswalk and wheeled underneath the covered walkway. Fifty feet or so ahead lay the school proper, with big wide glass doors that invited you inside while showing nothing but a walk-around privacy wall with the school’s name and logo on it. My skin crawled being so close to it. To make it worse, I still couldn’t pee and I was being given too much time to think about it.

Helena leaned forward and pulled at the doors. Her tug was met with a deep metallic jostling. “Hm?” She turned her head to the side and finally noticed the intercom. “Ah!” I’d have criticized her, but the metallic rectangle implanted into the wall was well above my normal line of sight.

“Hello,” came a lady’s voice from the other end. There was an expectant silence that followed.

“Hello,” Helena said in a polite yet cheerful voice. “I’m interested in enrollment. Can I talk to someone about that?”

“If you go to Oakshire School Board- all one word-backslash New Beginnings-also one word-, you’ll find everything you need to bring to enroll your Little one.”

My mask of neutrality melted like candle wax. Internet? We couldn’t even get in the front door? All of that worry and prep and grasping at straws and I don’t even get to see another face? Really?

“Thank you so much for that information,” Helena purred, insincerely. She pursed her lips together and asked. “Do you have anything I could take home with me? I’m terrible with computers and my babies were really curious about what a real school looked like.”

There might have been a time delay, or the receptionist was genuinely sure about what to say.
“I’m sorry ma’am, our guidance counselor and secretary aren’t here today.”

“Where are they?” Helena asked, her tone becoming less cheery. “Are they sick? Are they skipping work? Was there a conference?”

I leaned as far back as I could and waved my arms up at Helena. “What are you doing?”

I got a pat on the head for my trouble. “Just let Miss Helena work, baby.’

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to give that kind of information,” the voice over the intercom came back.

“What about your Principal?” Helena pressed, her smile becoming eerily fake. “Could I talk to them?”

My eyebrows and chin blasted off in opposite directions. Was Amy’s Mommy actually threatening to complain? Beside me, Amy had the same bemused expression she’d had when Helena wouldn’t take my word on the condition of my backside.

The pause that followed was excruciating. “You know what?” finally came the reply. “Come on in. I think we’ve got some forms you could fill out and leave with us.” There was a quiet click from the door.

“Thank you!” Helena sang, even though the intercom had likely been shut off.

“Gotta get buzzed in,” Amy whispered over to me. “Fancy.”

“Yeah,” I whispered back hastily. “I know.”

New Beginning’s front office was closer to a greeting pavilion. We stepped around the privacy wall and into a roomy sun lit area. The ceiling was high even by Amazon standards and gave the space a sense of grandiosity and purpose that it might not otherwise achieve.

A woman at the far end of the area and dead ahead waved to us. “Hello!” She was stuck behind glass and speakers at what appeared to be a kind of security desk hybridized with a receptionist station.

Helena walked over slowly and confidently like she owned the place. I felt the contrasting heat from the inside chase away the pockets of chill air from the outdoors. It allowed me to relax slightly and better examine the immediate surroundings.

A parent coming to Oakshire could open the door on their own but wouldn’t make it five steps before the reception desk barred their way without further direction. New Beginnings locked the doors but gave you a powerful first impression once you were allowed inside.

The white brick continued on the inside, but was complemented by a field of deep purple trimmed with gold sprouting from the floor up until about Little height. It gave the inside a dignified but spirited appearance.

The big open area was only the start of things. It was merely the crossroads with which every road would lead to damnation. I could see vast corridors at my four o’ clock, two o’clock, and ten o’ clock. I was able to lean forward and get a good enough down one hall to catch someone turning a corner into view. This area was the great crossroads and heart of the beast as well as the command center.

Between the entrances and exits were display boards and decorations; the kind of things meant to instill school pride, ensure student buy in, and most importantly make parents happy.

“On A Quest To Do Our Best!” One cork board declared. Beneath it were a series of what might have been finger paintings but looked closer a series tie-dye Rorschach tests. We weren’t close enough for me to read any of the names.

At three o’clock were three separate restrooms: Men’s, Women’s, and Nursing/Changing. This place was so committed to the bit that they didn’t want Littles to be in proximity to a toilet.

Right next to the nursing and changing station was a poster. It started at ground level and rose up to just underneath where the majestic purple coming up from the floor ended and the pristine white took over all the way to the ceiling. It was a simple outline of a Little and the words “If You’re At Least This Little, Ask for Uppies!” There appeared to be one of these posters near each hallway entrance, and they were terribly varied. One wore a dress sketched on, another a onesie, and a third had a diaper and a T-shirt.

Frankly, everything close to my eye level was just as nauseating. “There’s No Falling If You’re Crawling!” “Welcome to Stroller Town. Population: You!” and an eerily phrased, “Embrace Change!” That one didn’t even have anything diaper related as a picture. Kudos for restraint, I supposed.

Of note and placed at Amazon eye level were several matching posters to the “Ask for Uppies” pictures. They depicted the outline of Amazon men and woman carrying a Little on their hip, cradling them in their arms, or plopping them in carrier harnesses. Those each just read, “Safe”.

To the left and back of me, at about seven-thirty, was a big screen television surrounded by comfortable looking couches all walled off with baby gates, effectively making it a playpen. Stuffies, stacking rings, and other toys too big to choke on or get lost underneath furniture were piled neatly together as a display and signifier that this space hadn’t been used yet.

The big screen was on, and the television was playing some generic cartoon about a family of cats. Everything looked computer animated, but in a way where the likely aim was to reduce animation costs more than anything. The volume wasn’t particularly loud, but it was loud enough to hear the musical number that was playing.

“Babies must wear diapers,
Because they’re not Grown-Ups yet.
Diapers help keep babies dry,
Even when they are wet.”

It sounded soft and sweet, not quite like a lullabye, but it was a gentle, passive melody meant to relax.

Fuck that noise.

It was easy enough to block out and disregard since everything else was so lively. Amazon and Tweener staff were quick footing it from one entrance way to the next. The Tweeners pushed dolleys, carts, and boxes around, shipping and making deliveries. Amazons took long purposeful strides as if they had someplace to be in a hurry. All looked at their watches and cell phones, counting down the hours until they’d finally get a break. No Littles, though.

“They must have some amazing dental plan,” Amy whispered beside me. “Look at all the smiles.”

“Shh,” I hissed back. “We’re supposed to be new and scared of this.”

“I will only do one of those.”

She was right, though. Every passerby that noticed us gave us the biggest toothiest customer service smile imaginable. This was a happy place and we were meant to know it.

“Hello!” The same voice from the intercom said again when we’d made the trek. A Tweener woman who must have been in her forties stood behind the glass on a footstool, waving cheerily. Behind the counter and glass were desks of computers, phones, and an intercom system. A single door remained open behind her, bringing with it the sounds of inaudible chatter, printers and copy machines. Must have been a mailroom or something.

Darkly, I wondered if the purpose of the protective glass was meant to discourage the receptionist getting Adopted by a spiteful parent..

The woman’s voice came out with the same bit of electronic distortion as it had when we were speaking to a metallic rectangle. “Do you have your ID with you?”

“Of course,” Helena said.

ID? Wouldn’t that mean they’d have proof that we were here? Wouldn’t that mean we’d get caught? Was this where it all came tumbling down?

A hand on my right gripped onto my forearm, making me jump in my seat. “This isn’t the scary part,” Amy whispered.

I took a deep breath. Amy was right. They would get her driver’s license, and know that she was here, but that was about it.

They’d just have to wait an extra ten seconds because Helena was absent mindedly fumbling through Amy’s spares. “Whoops!” she chuckled when she looked down. “Reached for the wrong bag!”

“No worries,” the receptionist fake chuckled. “Happens all the time around here!”

“Really?” Helena asked. “That’s good to know.”

“After a while, most people just combine their purses and baby bags.”

“Not until I can trust someone not to play with my lipstick!” All three women, Amy included, started laughing at that.

“I think we can help with that.”

I had no idea if Helena was putting on an act and I didn’t care. This was golden! Grade A infiltration and ingratiation!

Helena got her driver’s license scanned and a visitor’s sticker with her picture was instantly made and handed off to her. “There you go. Do you have your children’s Adoption papers with you?”

Amy’s hand quietly latched back onto my forearm. That kept my mask up.

Amy’s Mommy sucked on her teeth and made a face. “Hfffff! Not on me, unfortunately.”

Ever the professional, the receptionists’ eyes shook and her nostrils flared in a way that screamed ‘I KNEW IT’, but she filtered all such frustration out of her speaking voice. “Well okie dokie,” she said, “we’re not going to be able to enroll your Little ones today, unfortunately.”

“No?” Helena frowned. “I didn’t want to start them today, but I’d hoped I could at least get them enrolled.”

“Buuuuuut…” the receptionist said, “I can open a file for them. You can fill out some forms for me and leave them here, and next year you can come back with the proper forms and we’ll enter everything in.”

“Oh, I like that!” the giantess buzzed. “Could I take them home with me and come back with everything all at once.”

The receptionist’s smile got just a bit brighter. “You certainly could!”

“Wonderful!’ Helena beamed. “I’d like to fill them out here, please!” She really was Amy’s Mommy.

“Then why did…?” The receptionist banished the disappointment from her eyes. “I mean, of course! Through a slot in the glass, she slid a clipboard with a tiny novel’s worth of forms. “You’ll need two of these if you’re planning on enrolling both of them.”

“That’d be nice,” Helena said and received a second novel.

“Okie dokie,” the receptionist complied. “After you fill those out,” she said, “all you’ll need are Adoption records, proof of Maturosis, vaccination records, and a copy of your utility bill or some other proof of residence. And don’t worry about the proof of Maturosis. If you Adopted them in-state, their papers will automatically include a Maturosis diagnosis.”

“Really?” Helena feigned disbelief. “I must have missed that part.”

“Most people skip right by it. It’s usually just an automatically checked box sort of thing.”

“Oh yeah” Helena said. “I think I know what you’re talking about.” The way she said it gave the impression that she didn’t know what she was talking about but was too embarrassed to ask further questions for fear of being seen as ignorant. I was never going to play poker at the Madra house. Both of them were too good at bluffing.

“That’s a lot,” Helena said.

The Tweener nodded. “Yeah. But you know how it is.”

“Why do I need proof of residence?” Helena asked, genuinely curious it seemed. “I thought that didn’t matter here.”

The Receptionist replied easily. This was a question she heard often. “We’re pretty popular around here,” she said. “We’ve had people from out of town and out of county use their friends’ and relatives addresses and enroll them here.”

“Really?” Helena clicked her tongue.

“Yeah. There are people who will drive two to three hours every day just to get their Littles in here even though they don’t live or pay taxes here.”

“It’s not naughty if it’s fraud!” Amy squeaked. Both Helena and I drowned her in glares.

“I can tell why she needs to be here,” the Tweener chuckled. I caught a predatory glint in the corner of Helena’s eye. Without knowing it, the receptionist had just crossed a line. “If you’d like, we have a waiting area for your babies to play in while you fill everything out,” the receptionist offered.

There was enough space and silence in that moment to hear the cartoon again.

“Littles must wear diapers,
Because they’re not Grown-Ups yet.
Diapers help keep Littles dry,
Even when they are wet.”

Jolts of nerves shaked and rattled in my skull. That chorus had used the word ‘babies’ last time, right? Right?

“What cartoon is it?” Amy piped up, immune to the warning glares she’d just recieved. I couldn’t properly squeeze her forearm, but I could press down on it as hard as I could to let her know that she’d just done something stupid.

The Tweener didn’t think Amy’s curiosity suspicious. Clearly, she didn’t know where she was working. “That’s actually a video for big kids, baby girl!” she said. “It’s called…it’s called…” her voice got softer whilst she talked to herself. “Time for potty? No…” She rotated upon her step stool and called through the open back door. “Hey Miss Debbie? What’s that video that’s always playing out in the lobby called again?”

“Potty-Time-No-More-Diapers?” I blurted out. Amy whisked her arm out from under mind and reasserted her grip.

The receptionist twirled back around. “That’s the one!”

Helena’s eyes narrowed, suspiciously. “Why is a potty training video being played at a school for babies?”

On this question, the receptionist sounded less sure of herself. “I don’t know. I think it’s because when babies see it, they realize they’d rather be themselves than try to be big kids. It’s cute.”

It was more likely because it wasn’t actually a potty training video.
“I see.” Helena said. She actually might have.

“We switch them out every couple of weeks,” the receptionist blabbered, nervously. “We’re just waiting till after break to switch it out to something more age appropriate.” Helena chose not to help her with the uncomfortable silence. “I’ve heard those songs so many times I could probably do them in my sleep now.’

“You go potty in your sleep?” Helena asked, pointedly.

Too late, the Tweener realzed the trap she’d walked into. “No ma’am!” the Tweener stammered. “Not what I meant! I just meant that because it’s on loop, I’ve heard all the songs.”

“Mommy…” Amy whined. “Nooooo….”

Helena lightened up and stopped torturing the Tweener. “Ah. That makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying, ma’am.”

The Tweener wiped a few beads of sweat that had mysteriously manifested atop her forehead. “Anyway, you can let your Little ones play over there while you fill out the paperwork. Or you could take it all home,” she hinted.

I held my breath, waiting for Helena’s response. I pleaded up to her with big puppy dog eyes. There were no good options presented. We couldn’t just leave with paperwork we were never going to fill out, but leaving us in front of the big screen made it so that the best case scenario was having to watch an actual potty training video.

“Do you have anywhere…quieter?” the Amazon asked. “I don’t want them to get overstimulated.”

The Tweener seemed to be about to argue with Helena and then she thought better of it. “I think I have just the place, ma’am. One moment!”

She disappeared from stroller view as soon as she hopped off the stool. Ten seconds she came out a door I hadn’t seen before. “Right this way.”

We followed her into a narrow hallway. Gray and bland and almost too small to fit the double stroller, the back end of the reception area was just as boring and businesslike as everywhere at Oakshire not specifically designed with children in mind. It was much bigger, much easier to get lost in, but just as boring.

We passed by doors and offices with labels by their closed doors: Principal, Vice-Principals, Curriculum Specialist, Reading Coach, the works. Almost every variation of a job title involving education without teaching in a classroom was included.

The receptionist opened up a door marked “Guidance,” and ushered us inside. “How about here?”

“This will work,” Helena decided. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” the receptionist grinned back, not meaning a single syllable of it. “I’ll just let you work on that.”

“Wonderful! Thank you!”

“Someone will come shortly to check on you. Let me know if you need anything in the meantime.” She closed the door and walked away before Helena could ask for anything else.

When we were alone, Amy spoke up. “Mommy, when did you become a Kraken?”

“Karen, baby girl.” Helena said.

“I said what I said,” Amy replied. “When?”

Helena eased herself down into the office chair meant for visitors and let out a tired groan. “You might not believe this, baby girl, but Mommy has mellowed out a lot since before you came into her life. Old habits die hard.”

The guidance counselor’s office was relatively small, especially when compared to the lobby. It had more homey, superficial touches. A back shelf held family photos, none of whom seemed to be Littled, oddly enough. A clear covered jar was just out of optimal stroller reach and filled with pretzels. A poster on the back of the door featured a smiley face wearing sunglasses and the words “YOU AIN’T COOL UNLESS YOU PEE YOUR PANTS!”

This was an office, alright. A few knick-knacks, a desk, non-perishable snacks, some token decorations meant to signal advocacy a few filing cabinets and a-

“Clark! Look!” Amy said. She was craning her neck and trying to point through the guidance counselor’s desk. “A computer! We have to!”

Damn it. Amy was right. This was a golden opportunity. All we had to do was get Helena to let us out of the stroller and just look the other wa-

“I don’t think so,” the giantess said. “That doesn’t seem like a good choice to me.”

“Darn it,” Amy huffed. “Your Mommy is teaching my Mommy bad habits.”

I hung my head slightly and admitted to myself, “Everything is probably locked and password protected anyways.”
“A pretzel is password protected?”

I decided I didn’t want to know whether or not Amy was serious and directed my attention to the clipboards. “You’re not actually going to fill those out, are you?”

“No, honey,” Helena laughed. “We’re just going to wait here for a few minutes.”

“Can I look?”

She considered one of the clipboards in her hand. “I don’t see why not.”

“Me too?” asked amy.

“Are you going to tear holes in the paper?”

“Just a couple…”

A thin plank of wood was slipped into my lap. “Then I think I’ll let Clark be in charge of holding the clipboard.”

I flipped through the pages, scanning and skimming through the forms, trying to find something I could use. Name. Age. Date of Birth. Date of Adoption. Height. Weight. Blood-Type. Social Security Number. Caregiver’s names. Home Address. The usual. It was like a more thorough version of the forum Janet filled out for the mall daycare. If I ever found a filled out version of these forms. I’d know exactly where to look to find what I wanted to start tracking someone down.

Short that thought…

Light music was coming from speakers in the ceiling somewhere. It was more kiddie music from the sound of it. Auto-tuned children singing the songs that they probably didn’t appreciate the words to.

“Do it ‘cause Daddy says so!
Do it ‘cause Daddy says so!
Do it cause Daddy says so!
Trust! Obey!”

“The in the name of everything holy is that?” I groused.

“Hm?” Helena had already whipped her phone out and was scrolling through something. “Probably just background hallway music.”

“Do it ‘cause Daddy says so!
Do it ‘cause Daddy says so!
Do it cause Daddy says so!
Trust Obey!”

The obnoxious chorus stopped long enough for an obnoxious bridge.

Spoken aloud over the chintzy muzak, a grown man said, “Because you took a nap when you were supposed to, I was able to get all my work done! Now you’re rested and I can take you to the circus!” This was met, naturally, with a resounding round of canned cheers and applause, followed by one last round of the chorus.

“I think I like classics better,” Helena said and left it at that.

“Look,” Amy pointed to a paper about five or six pages in. “Clark? What are your symptoms?”

At some point, Amy had managed to sneak the clipboard out of my lap. I leaned over and eyeballed what she was pointing at.

“What symptoms of Maturosis is your Little struggling with?” I read. Beneath the prompt was an entire checklist too absurd to bother memorizing. “Lack of sleep? Too much sleep? Not sleeping through nights? Obsession with being ‘big’? Fear of diapers? Preoccupation with potty training?” Some of them were too ridiculous. “Fear of Amazons? Not enough caution around strangers? Temper Tantrums? Emotional withdrawal and masking? Separation anxiety.” Some of them were infuriating. “Generalized anxiety? Depression? Poor hygiene?!”

None of it was terribly surprising, but I felt vindicated seeing Amazon logic cemented in print once again. Hammering home the double standard, Helena grabbed her copy and flipped to the matching page. “That one. That one. Not that one. Never that one. Oh I remember that one. So glad that one didn’t last long.”

I held my tongue but mouthed a certain T-word.

Somewhere in the air around us, the music changed again.

“I like to clap my hands!
You like to clap your hands!
They like to clap their hands!
We like to clap our hands!”

Every line was punctuated with two quick claps; a basic call and response song.

“I like to clap my hands!” (Clap-Clap)
“You like to clap your hands!” (Clap-Clap)
They like to clap their hands!” (Clap-Clap)
“We like to clap our hands!” (Clap-Clap)

Second verse was about stomping feet.

“I like to stomp out feet” (Stomp-Stomp).

It wasn’t good, but it was better than what preceded it. It sounded like something I might have played for my preschoolers when practicing basic body parts and motion. It had a man singing it, too. An adult. Little, Tweener, or Big, I was uncertain, but he’d gone through puberty and knew how to play an acoustic guitar.

“What if we made bingo cards outta these?” Amy mused. “That could be fun!”

“I’ll suggest it at the next meeting,” Helena said. “Might be a fun icebreaker.”

I rolled my eyes. “Or you could play it during the back half and let the Grown-Ups make jokes about us.”

“That’d be cool, too.” Amy agreed.

I was about to give Amy a good natured elbow to the ribs when I realized.that I wasn’t holding my bladder anymore. I didn’t even know when it happened. Fuck. Did I pay too close attention to that cartoon somehow and somehow lose the rest of my potty training, or was it just a matter of my bladder quietly giving up the ghost? “What were the words to that song outside?” I asked. “The one about babies and diapers?”

Both Amy and her Mommy looked up from their checklists and shrugged indifferently.

The third verse of the current song was way more concerning than the first two.

“I like to munch my toes! Nom-nom!
You like to munch your toes! Nom-nom!
They like to munch their toes! Nom-nom!
We like to munch our toes! Nom-nom!”

“You guys are hearing this, right?” I asked. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Amy agreed. “Not my thing. Very simple and repetitive but not intuitive.”

The final verse was variations on “I like to pee my pants” and every line was punctuated with a squealing, high pitched decoration of “Pee-pee!”

“I like to pee my pants! Pee-pee!
You like to pee your pants! Pee-pee!
They like to pee their pants! Pee-pee!
We like to pee our pants! Pee-pee!”

“Guys,” I said. “I think I’d like to go-”

Two sharp raps on the door preceded a newcomer’s entry. The door opened and an older Amazon woman walked in. An Amazon’s Amazon, with buxom breasts, wide hips, and a billowing hair covering her broad shoulders.


She moved past us without speaking; wordlessly walking past the chairs and around the stroller so that she could seat herself directly in the guidance counselor’s desk across from Helena.

This new stranger had been gorgeous once, no doubt about it. Her hair was a silvery gray that still had a few faint traces of light blonde in it. At a guess, I’d have put her close to Brollish’s age, but she lacked that other Amazon’s boney physique. She looked like someone who had gone from ‘Miss” to ‘Missus’, skipped ‘Ma’am’ and went straight to ‘Madam’. Easily old enough to be a grandmother, she carried herself like a queen instead.

There was more life in this old girl than the dispassionate walking skeleton that was my principal, though that probably wasn’t a good thing. Just the difference between two different monsters. Speaking of which, this woman looked nothing like the chubby, smiling woman in her forties featured in all of the desk pictures.

This wasn’t the guidance counselor.

“Hello,” the woman said. “I’m Miriam Thompson; Principal.” She offered her hand. Helena took it. “Pleasure to meet you. What are you doing in my guidance counselor’s office?”

Helena maintained her composure. “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Pleasure to meet you. You were busy, so I asked your receptionist to sit me here while I looked through all of these forms.”

“We do like to be thorough.” Her voice was warmer than Brollish, but she had the same dead eyes of a shark looking for a guppy to swallow. “And you are?”

“Oh,” said Helena. “Forgive me. Helena Madra. This is Amy and Clark. Hopefully, they’ll be attending here after Solstice.” Even as a lie, hearing it spoken out loud felt like a gut punch.

“That’s certainly a possibility,” New Beginning’s principal agreed. She made no move to push the conversation along, however. If any moves were to be made, we’d have to make them.

“My name isn’t Amy!” My nutter friend burst out. “It’s Cordelia Cogburn and I’m a reporter and-”

“Adults are talking,” the older giantess cut Amy off. She did not take her eyes off Helena to address my friend. There was no warmth there, unless you counted the heat from barely masked rage. Amy might have not been a person to this Thompson lady as much as a particularly annoying and yappy dog. She looked only to Helena, seeing if Amy’s Mommy would correct her.

“But the truth!” Amy started.

The principal did not so much as move her eyes. “Little girl. Adults. Are. Talking. Be. Silent.”

And for once, Amy was. She didn’t even whisper any parting shots or hiss ‘Fascist’ or anything. I turned my head and saw the fight bubbling up inside her and then fizzling back down like a bag of popcorn that’s been popped and left to go cold again.

“No matter how old some of them get, they never grow up, do they?” Thompson’s smile was as hollow and fake as Brollish’s ever was.

“Well,” Helena chuckled, dryly. “That’s the thing with Maturosis, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the bigger, older, more in charge of the two nodded. “It is, indeed.”

I called it then and there inside my head: This bitch didn’t believe in Maturosis one bit. I couldn’t prove it and it wouldn’t matter if I could, but I just knew it from watching and listening. She wasn’t like Beouf or Janet with a few extra crazy boxes checked. This was Ambrose with a better figure, a more appealing complexion, a better head of hair, and more experience. She wasn’t an addict trying to justify her feelings to herself, but a tyrant wielding a convenient excuse.

And she was the head honcho around these parts.

We were screwed.

“An acquaintance said this place did wonders with her Little girl,” Helena pushed the encounter ahead. “I thought it sounded wonderful. I just wanted to see it for myself. I know it’s busy and you’re all about to go on vacation, but do you think I could have a peek at one of the classrooms? Maybe while the little ones are playing somewhere else? I just want to see what the environment is like.”

Mrs. Thompson sat there like a statue, waiting for Helena’s request to evaporate and be carred off in the wind. “Who?”

“Excuse me?” Helena asked.

“Your friend. The one who recommended us? What’s her name? We’re a big school but a very tight knit community. I’ve probably heard of her.”

“We’re not particularly close,” Helena shrugged it off. “More of a friend of a friend. They heard me venting about my…” Helena hesitated, “...situation. Their daughter’s name was ‘Casey’, or ‘Cassie’. Something like that. They said this place did wonders. Turned her from a pyromaniac to a good girl in practically no time at all.”

Mrs. Thompons’s chest heaved with what might have been pride. “We do get our fair share of babies who…” now it was her turn to choose her words carefully, “...started out rough around the edges. Usually because their Maturosis was identified much later than it should have been so the poor dears developed some nasty coping mechanisms.” If asked to specify which coping mechanisms, I’d have wagered they all summed up to ‘Acting like Amazons and Littles were equal in any way shape or form’ but I didn’t have the guts to pry. This woman barely acted like I was in the room at all, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d already seen right through me.

Once again, she made no further remark or offer. She just waited expectantly, letting the quiet and her uncomfortable stare do most of the work for her.

“So…” Helena started.

Thompson took over just as Helena was starting to get comfortable enough to regroup. “How long have you been a Mommy?”

“Not that long,” Helena lied. “Why?”

The old woman’s neck rotated forty-five degrees, leaving one eye on me and Amy and the other still on Helena. “And did you Adopt both of them at the same time or is the quiet boy a new addition?”

Helena was aware enough not to directly lie. “Why do you ask?”

She leaned over, slowly standing up so that she was looming over all of us. A perfectly manicured nail jabbed the air nearest Amy’s diaper bag. “Is there a reason you have pink Hippobottomuses but no blue ones?”

Silently, I gasped. Helena had forgotten to close the top diaper bag up after she’d gone on auto-pilot searching for her wallet. “Oh…” was all Helena got out at first. There were likely tons of stories she could tell to explain it away, but few would sound very believable. It wasn’t against the law to not pack a diaper bag for two so-called children, but it was an inconsistency all the same.

“I just would have thought that you’d have more gender neutral diapers if you had a boy and a girl. Or have an extra bag.” Amazons really did notice every single detail when it came to this sort of stuff.

I wanted to fold right then and there, but Helena Madra didn’t know how to take a hint or was made of sterner stuff. “It’s a long story.”

“Try me.”

So she did. She started with a deep breath and… “I want to enroll my daughter here and I’m stuck babysitting her friend. They’ve picked up a lot of bad habits from each other and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to start the process for her and give his Mommy some forms and literature to convince her.

Mrs. Thompson sat back in the guidance counselor's chair. “Is that it?”

Helena Madra mimicked the more relaxed posture. “Pretty much.”

“Oh my goodness, why didn’t you just say that?!” The older woman started laughing. Helena joined in, relieved. Amy and I wisely stayed silent. “Here I thought you were some crazy trying to scout out my school!”

“Whaaaaaat?” Helena cackle shrieked. “Really?”

“You wouldn’t believe how many radicals and crazies we get trying to snoop and sling mud just to satisfy their crackpot theories about the kind of work we do with our children,” Mrs. Thompson laughed. “When I heard about you making a ruckus and I saw the kids, I knew something was up! I just didn’t think it’d be something normal for once!”

Helena’s laughing eased down. “Yeah? Like what?” From the stroller I gave a silent chill. Amy’s Mommy had found the right combination of her words and was easing her way past defenses. We’d be

“Oh you know,” the principal started, “I’ve had people withdraw their students after reading the wrong pamphlets.”

“Really?” Helena sounded astonished.

“Mmmhmmm,” the older woman said, nodding like the wise old sage she might have thought herself to be. “No fact checking with us, either. Just read a pamphlet and decided that what we were doing to her child was wrong and wrote a very lengthy email telling us as much.”

What were they doing, though? I dared not ask it. Neither did Helena. “Oh wow,” was the only response she gave.

“That’s not the half of it. Did you know that Littles with previously undiagnosed Maturosis have tried to break in here before? Literally got Amazon and Tweener friends to dress them up and enrolled them so they could see for themselves what all the fuss was about.”

“Really?” Helena gasped. “How did you find out?”

“We caught them,” Mrs. Thompson said flatly. “And diagnosed them. Quickly found them some great Mommies and Daddies right here on staff.”

Helena turned her head to the stroller and then back to Mrs. Thompson. “And you thought…? Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no!” She laughed. “Trust me. These aren’t adults trying to sneak in. They’re definitely babies.”

“They always are,” the principal agreed. “Though it’s not always them. Did you know that one year, I had twins, literal biological identical twins? Their Daddy enrolled only one of them and switched them on alternating days.”

“What? Why?”

“Not sure,” Thompson lazily shrugged. “We took both in, eventually. It’s free and we get more funding with every student. People are just crazy sometimes.”

“People are crazy sometimes,” Helena agreed.

Helena looked like she'd smoothed things over. Maybe this expedition wasn’t over before it started. But before hope could nestle its tiny seed into my heart, the door to the guidance office opened back up. “Mrs. Thompson I’m sorry to interrupt,” a horribly familiar voice burst in, “but I heard you were in here and I was wondering if you could take a moment to sign…”

The intruder stopped speaking and snapped her head in my direction. Her eyes were cold and covetous. Her dark hair lay flat like sticks with her bangs threatening to one day overtake her eyebrows completely. I’d dealt with her bullshit every day for a decade. One of the few bright spots about getting snatched up by Janet and plopped into Beouf’s classroom was that I didn’t have to dodge her clumsy traps every day before the buses pulled in. Her exit from my life had been the final cherry on top with Ambrose getting fired.

“Clark Gibson?” she said, not believing what she was seeing.

“Raine Forrest?” I said back, not believing it either.

Thompson stood up and met Raine’s gaze. “Raine? Did you say ‘Gibson’? That one Little you told me about at your interview?”

Raine stood up straighter and dropped her hands to her side; proud, yet nervous. She was a child giving a book report to an exactly and demanding teacher. “Yes, ma’am.”

Helena started to stand and go for the stroller. “I think I’ll take the forms home and fill them out…”

“Ma’am,” Thompson stopped her using only in her voice. “I am talking to my staff. Please. Sit. Down.” Helena sat. “Are you sure that’s him?” she asked Raine, again. “The one from Oakshire Elementary? Who punched a woman in the nose?”

“Broke it,” Raine said.

“And he’s still there?”

Raine lamely gestured over to me. “As far as I knew.”

“Thank you, Raine.” Mrs. Thompson said. “You can go now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We waited until the door closed behind Raine. “Miss Madra,” Mrs. Thompson said. “Thank you for your interest in our program. I really do recommend you take these forms and give them to your friend and fill out a copy for your Little girl, as well. I really do think this would be a good place for them.” Helena looked like she’d just been backhanded across the jaw. “You may leave now. Happy Solstice.”

Helena made no further comment. She took everything as instructed and left with us. It was silent all the way back to the car. We were taken out, buckled in, and driving off without a single word.

I wasn’t going to see Cassie. Wouldn’t even know if she was enrolled or ever had been enrolled. And I’d shown up on one of the worst radars possible.

Helena, had different concerns, however.

“Amy? Baby?” We were still in the New Beginnings parking lot and Helena twisting around in the driver’s seat so she could look directly at us. “I want you to know that Mommy said some very mean things in there but she didn’t mean any of them. She was only pretending. You are perfect just the way that you are and Mommy would never send you to that place.”

“I know,” Amy sighed. It might have been the longest I’d seen her quiet. “It’s like when I pretend to be a kitty, but you were being a kraken.”

“Clark? You too, honey. I’d never send you there and I know your Mommy wouldn’t either. And I like how Amy plays when she’s around you. You two are very good friends for each other.” She looked like she was ready to burst into tears.

“I know,” I said. “You were just selling the bit. No harm done.”

“Okay,” Helena sniffled. “Good. I just needed you to know that.” She backed the car out of the ‘New Mommy’ parking space and sped us away from that gods forsaken place.

“Whelp,” Amy said, “That didn’t work out. What’s next? Tacos?”

It really was a dumb plan.