Chapter 81: New Procedures

I should have known that something was up the moment Janet sat me up from my morning change and I saw the sky blue Hippobottomus diaper taped around my hips. I didn’t though. That was because the toddler shorts and t-shirt that immediately followed were similarly colored.

“Going for a theme today?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

Like most school mornings, Janet was already busying herself putting socks and shoes on my feet for me. “I thought it would look nice,” she said. “Get some use out of the hippo diapers.”

I opened my mouth to insist that I liked Monkeez, but that would have been a lie. So I shut it and considered the benefits. With blue shorts, blue shirt, and a blue diaper on, fewer people would notice the statistically inevitable peekage when my shirt went the wrong way or the elastic waistband on the shorts slid down.

These diapers had a fade when wet design, which made certain other inevitabilities even less discreet than the bulging, puffing, and sagging that came with my forced wardrobe. I might have Zoge or Beouf pull my shorts down right outside the class bathroom to check instead of having them snake their fingers up the leg holes and straight into my padding, but that really wasn’t any more demeaning. Slightly less, perhaps.

It probably wouldn’t have come to that, either. Unless people pooped or their crinkling undies were swollen to the point leaking was likely, we didn’t get checked or changed outside of routine intervals. The most I’d have to stomach was likely a comment about hippos disappearing or something.

My eye twitched. “Are you gonna give Mrs. B. some of these?” I asked. It wasn’t likely, but the idea that someone might notice a white waistband when I’d been wearing blue earlier caused my skin to itch with anxiety. Just saying the words made my mouth taste of ash.

“I’m not throwing them away, if that’s what you mean.” Janet said. She picked me up and smirked. “I mean, I am. Eventually. One at a time. But I paid for them so I’m not going to waste them.”

I bit my tongue just in time for Janet to set me back down and remember to clip on the pacifier. If I hadn’t I would have called her out about how she wasn’t the one having to use these things. That wouldn’t have gotten me what I wanted, though. “I meant can you give her some for school…” I felt obscene just vocalizing that.

“Already packed a few in the diaper bag last night.”

That should have been another red flag that something was being planned. My life was full of them and my own hubris made them invisible to me until hindsight drenched them in glowing neon paint.

My Amazon Mindfuckery Alarm went on full alert when instead of carrying me straight out the door and buckling me into the carseat, Janet took me to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. “Want a drink?” She held the milk filled bottle up and out so that I could reach but not enough.

“Why? Don’t we have to get to school?”

She motioned with her head to a digital clock on the oven. Wow. It was half an hour earlier than usual. “We’ve got to get their early, so I got you up even earlier. We have a little time together if you want.” She jiggled the bottle. “You want?”

My stomach growled slightly. “What’s in it?”

“Milk.”

“What kind?”

“Just cow. Haven’t had time to get goat.”

“Just cow?”

“Clark…” I was getting more and more used to the Amazons in my life saying my name as a kind of tired desperation or curse. “When have I lied to you?”

Did lying to herself count? Or calling me a baby? Discretion was the better part of valor. I took the bottle and started nursing. Yup. Cow milk. Slightly more watery than the cafeteria stuff. Likely one percent or maybe skim. Definitely cow milk.

Janet sat down in her chair and held me close to her in her lap. “Drink as much as you want, but I don’t want to take that in the car with us.” She took a long sip of her coffee. “I don’t want to forget it and have my car smell like overripe cheese in three days.”

Damn! Note to self: Find way later to smuggle bottle of milk into Janet’s car. Not today though. She’d see that coming. Bummer.

The five minutes we spent sitting there sipping our beverages in silence was kind of pleasant, actually. Very reminiscent of a certain ritual I used to partake in. Then Janet ruined it by burping me and peering down the back of my pants. “Sorry,” she said. “Thought I smelled something.”

Oh to have the ability to instantly and quietly induce vomiting in oneself. Let’s see how Janet dealt with ‘spit up’. I resolved to make fun of Sandra Lynn all that day to make up for it. She wanted to play dumb games and actually read the books in Beouf’s library and eat mashed potatoes with her hands at lunch, she deserved to be called out on it.

A few minutes later we were at school earlier than usual and Beouf was already busy when Janet and I walked into the room. “Hey guys,” Beouf said. She was busy filling up the tiny bottles we sipped from during centers with water.

Janet let go of my hand and dug around the diaper bag. “I’ve got the diapers.” She took out a handful to show Beouf. It was like she was seeking approval or something…

Beouf didn’t turn around, still busily washing and filling up bottles. She must have skipped doing that last afternoon. Or perhaps she prepped and filled things just a few minutes before I normally arrived on campus. “Good. Stack ‘em where his name is.”

Most baby or Litte-centric diapers are white with some decorations on them. The decorations, amount and placement varies, and the stuff is always infantile so as to make someone sitting and walking around in their bodily waist seem cute; literally wrapping turds in happy smiley paper, but from a distance, most of them are generally white when first applied. From the way she was holding them and my proximity, I could tell that Janet was holding at least three different diapers, not just the blue hippo ones or my standards.

“Ooo!. Who’s Billy?” Janet called from Beouf’s so-called bathroom. “These ones with dinosaurs are cute!”

Beouf turned around and handed me a bottle fresh from her sink. I started guzzling if for no other reason than it might inconvenience her slightly to have to refill it so soon.

“Oh, those are the store brand ones I think,” Beouf called to Janet. “They’re no Monkeez but they’re pretty good. What size are they?”

“Four.”

“That’s a nine in Monkeez. They’re the same size.” Whatever brand Billy wore didn’t market to Littles…not as parents at least. “Don’t tell anybody, but go ahead and swap one or two with Clark’s. I don’t think anybody will mind.”

I wondered if Billy would think it was funny that I was stealing his underwear or whether he’d get mad in just how little say either of us had in the matter. Could be good fuel for stirring up trouble later. Still drinking the water, I made more than a few hippos disappear in my personal River Denial. The milk had rushed through my empty stomach and straight to my bladder.

The loud belch as a ‘fuck you’ to Janet for patting my back went uncommented on. I was basically invisible whenever two or more giants started talking to one another.

Janet came walking out into the classroom. “Where’s Mrs. Zoge and Ivy?”

“They’ll be here.” Beouf said. “They promised.” The tone of their conversation was quickly taking on a kind of grim overtone. Something was going on. “Ready?”

Janet chewed on her bottom lip “Yeah. Let’s do this.” I was suddenly very aware that I was being stared at. “Clark? We need to have a talk with you.”

Stupidly, I pointed to myself and looked around, even though there were only

“Yes, you,” Beouf said gently. She wasn’t using her ‘babytalk voice’ but she definitely wasn’t using her ‘fellow adult’ voice either. They both sat down at Beouf’s kidney table. Janet grabbed two Amazon sized chairs and seated them so that no one would be sitting in the ‘teacher’ position.

“What’s going on?” I asked. This wasn’t how things went. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go…

Janet patted a Little sized seat. “Sit. Let’s talk.”

They were supposed to leave me with Zoge and Ivy. I’d quietly brood and think of ways to amuse myself. Then the day would begin and I’d get to work making someone-anyone- regret that my coffee had been spiked that one time. That’s how the world worked now!

I sat down, feeling strangely numb. I wasn’t old or fat enough yet to go to a doctor’s office and be told I had congestive heart failure or cancer or something. I likely never would be based what I’d witnessed with Amazon medical technology and my current doctor had a jar filled with grape flavored tongue depressors. It very much felt like it.

Janet started. “First, we both want to start by saying that we both love you very much.” Uh oh. “And we know you’ve been having a lot of big emotions and the reasons for a lot of those emotions are perfectly valid.”
“This isn’t easy,” Beouf jumped in. “Maturosis expressing itself never is. That’s why my classroom exists. I’m trying to help you cope with your body changing and teach you new skills so that you can successfully manage your emotions and not feel ashamed of who you are and to pinpoint what degree of care you need so that you can have a happy and fulfilling life.”

I was angry. Furious. Indignant. Later that night, stewing in my crib, I would go on to replay this a hundred times and come up with scathing one-liners and counter arguments. None of this was new information to me. Beouf had had this outlook on Littles for years and had spent close to a month and a half doing it to me.

So my pulse did not quicken. My breathing did not change. All I said was. “But…?”

Janet answered. “But your behavior has been unacceptable.”

“We thought you’d grow out of it if we gave you some patience and time to process things,” Beouf said. “But it’s only getting worse and we’re here to tell you that we’ve seen what you’re doing and we’ve been patient with you, but feel you’re taking advantage of that patience.”

My nose crinkled into a light snarl. “I thought my progress report said I was doing well.”

“Only because there was no section for conduct.” It was Janet who said that. I was slightly taken aback, but only for a moment.

I set my jaw. I didn’t so much as blink. “So what’s the punishment going to be?”

Beouf shook her head, her curls of hair jiggling slightly after she stopped. “Not a punishment.”

“Just a warning, then?”

Janet mirrored Beouf. “Not that either. We’re changing a few things to help you follow procedure.”

My fingers were now flexing, gently batting at the near everpresent pacifier on my collar. “So I am being punished.” I wanted to rip it off and toss it at them. I wanted to twirl it around in my fingers.

“No,” my old mentor tried to correct me. “Rules are things that have consequences. You can make good choices, or bad choices. We’re helping you with procedures. You’re not going to be punished, but you’re going to start doing things the right way. You don’t get in trouble for not using soap when you wash your hands, but someone’s going to make sure you do it until you remember to.”

That upset me more than it should have. I’d learned the distinction between rules and procedures a long long time ago. She’d taught me that. The fact that she was rattling it off to me again, using handwashing as the metaphor made me want to leap out and claw at her eyes. I was barely allowed to eat with my hands. No way was I given the autonomy to wash them by myself!

I withdrew and leaned back, crossing my arms and trying my best to look nonplussed instead of pouty or bratty or defiant. I had to play it cool to find a way to turn things on their ear. “What’s going to happen?”

Jannet huffed, definitely stressed, definitely afraid of how I’d react. Beouf reached out and patted her gently on the back. “I’m going to be coming here a few times a day to check in and help,” Janet said. She smoothed back her hair. “Instead of planning, when my students are at lunch or specials, I’ll be coming here to spend time with you and check on you. Give you a little extra attention.”

Translation: Another pair of eyes on me. Some of my lackeys might try and razz me because my Mommy was coming in, but that was nothing that couldn’t be navigated.

Kind of funny too. We’d met because Janet was coming into my class while her kids. Another parallel. This time she was taking her lunch off to spend time with me. Another role reversal.

But my classroom wasn’t my classroom.

“And?”

Beouf smiled slightly, veering more into her comfort zone by the minute. “And we’re going to have talks during Circle Time and whole group about appropriate behavior expectations and what to do and who to talk to if someone is making you feel uncomfortable or if you see someone acting inappropriately. I won’t be mentioning anyone by name or calling anyone out. This isn’t to embarrass you, it’s to re-teach expectations and procedure.”

Translation: The A.L.L. was being put on notice and the more mindfucked among us would be empowered to snitch. I could probably subvert that after a day or two. I’d done it before. This was fine. I’d lie low today.

“What else?”

Beouf kept rolling. “When you go to therapy, it’s back in small group. Not by yourself. We’ve already talked with them and convinced them to give you more opportunities for socialization.”

I actually had to fight to keep from smiling. These idiots! They were giving me ammunition to agitate! The only reason I didn’t throw back my head and cackle maniacally is the old adage of ‘When your enemy is making a mistake don’t correct them’.

“What else?”

“That’s it.” Beouf said. Janet glanced, almost winced, like Beouf was lying about something. “Almost.”

“Okay…” My frown was returning. “What?”
The front door opened. In came Zoge, holding Ivy’s hand as usual. I looked at Ivy and almost swallowed my tongue.

In general, Ivy Zoge was usually dressed as the consummate upper middle class girly girl toddler. Always wearing dresses and skirts of various styles; sometimes tights. Onesies happened but usually there was another layer to make it more than a t-shirt that snapped at the crotch. If her Mommy dressed her in pants it was dressing down and usually because of the weather.

The Ivy that had just come in was certainly ‘girly’ with pink ribbons in her hair, matching socks that went all the way up to her knees and a t-shirt that stopped just after her belly button but I’d never seen her diaper so intentionally displayed. Not on her. She wore absolutely no bottoms or anything that had any chance of concealing her padded behind. Had she leaked or something? Zoge changed her in the car? No. If so Zoge would be carrying her straight into the bathroom and digging around for spare clothes. This was very intentional.

Ivy looked up to her Mommy. “I thought me and Clark were going to get to match.” She was wearing the girls’ version of the hippobottomuses. She was just as pink as I was blue, diaper included.

I stood up so fast that the chair knocked over onto its back. Janet’s hand struck out and grabbed me by the wrist. “Wait wait wait! It’s okay, baby! It’s okay.” It didn’t hurt, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

“What’s happening?!” I demanded. “What’s going on?” I was pulling anyway. Twisting my arm anyway that it would go, vainly hoping that it would build up enough sweat so that I could maybe slip out and make a dash for it. Where? Fuck if I knew. “What are you going to do?!”

“We’re going to take your pants off, honey.” Beouf said. “You don’t need them.”

“For how long?”

“Rest of the week,” Beouf said. “Longer depending on the weather if it stays warm.”

I had already braced myself for something based on my behavior; ‘Until you’re good’, or even ‘the rest of the day’. But making it a kind of uniform? NO!

Just no!

It would be like at the grocery store all over again. It would be like my first day of class all over again. But worse! All of that was on the exhale. On the inhale I realized that there were at least four different diapers stacked up with my name on them on Beouf’s changing table. Each one different and distinct from one another.

They would know! They would all know! Everyone would know what I was and what I’d done to myself! And they wouldn’t care that I’d been forced to do it!

My knees buckled and I planted my ass straight on the carpet, still digging my sneakers in and pulling away from Janet. “No! Just no!”

“This isn’t about choice,” Beouf said gently. “This is about procedure. You’re clearly still having major potty anxiety and this is to help you start to get over it.”

“I’m not having potty anxiety!” I shrieked. “I’m having the opposite!”

“Babies don’t have to worry about their diapers or who sees them,” Janet said, almost a whisper. “Diapers aren’t underwear. People don’t care if they see a baby’s diaper. Everyone already knows.”

“I’M! NOT! A! FUCKING! BABY!”

No one had come for my shorts yet. I was still flopping on the ground, dangling like a fish on a hook. Beouf stood over me, arms folded. She seemed a lot more confident when she did it than me. It had a quieting effect, and not in a way that felt good.

Was I seriously the only one of my old clique that couldn’t do ‘the teacher’ glare?

“Oh really?” Beouf said, firmly. “Do big boys make a mess and ruin their stuffed animals?”

“Lion’s mine. I can do what I want with him!”

Zoge came in for the double team. “So if you had a car, you’d be allowed to crash it?”

My half-snarl became full blown. “That’s not the same and you know it!”

“What about my stuffies?” Beouf rang in. “Those belonged to me and I was letting everyone play with them. Do big boys tell their friends to get other people’s things all dirty on purpose? I had to stay up all night trying to wash them and I don’t know if it’s safe to give them back.”

Ivy whispered. “Bye-bye Jessennia.” She sounded sad.

“How is what Billy did my fault?” I asked. I purposefully ignored everything I knew about incitement and conspiracy just to make that argument.

Beouf didn’t let up. “Do big boys try and flick other people in the ears? Do they try to make circus games to purposefully make their friends feel bad or give themselves an excuse to rough house and push too hard?” My face melted in surprise. “You’re smarter than a lot of people give you credit for bubba, but you’re not nearly as clever as you think.”

Janet came in for the kill shot. “Do big boys call out for their Mommy when they’re sick and then start acting all nasty as soon as they’re feeling better? Do big boys pretend to masturbate in front of people at school? Do big boys lie and say they heard things that never happened?”

Oh.

That.

Skinner had told someone about it.

Text and email were still a thing.

On the lighter side, Zoge clapped her hands over Ivy’s ears as soon as Janet said the first syllable of “masturbate”. Impressive, really.

I was on the backfoot mentally. “Quit saying big boy!” I whined. “Quit infantilizing me! I’m an adult!”

“You haven’t been acting like one,” Janet said. “For a long time.” She softened. “Come on baby. You need help. Let us help you.”

The air was still. Time was frozen. Ivy crinkled up to me. “It’s okay Clark. It’s not bad. That’s why I’m dressed this way. We get to wear things that Grown-Ups never could. It’s fun!”

“Mrs. Beouf and I called the other parents and asked them to help, too.” Zoge chimed in. “Many of your classmates will be dressed the same way today.”

“Exactly,” Beouf said. “Nobody is gonna notice. Nobody is gonna care. Nobody is gonna make fun of you. You’ll blend right in. Just another member of the class.”

Translation: Just another baby.

“No.”

Ivy came and put her hand on my free bicep. “Pleeeeease, Clark! It’ll be fine! No more Grown-Up stuff. Let’s just be Littles!”

So I bit her.

Fucking bit her. Just like that.

Snapped out, right past the tip of her middle finger, along the first knuckle joint. Bit down and clamped down as hard as I could. Ivy shrieked and yanked back, scraping it against teeth. Damn! No blood that I could see or taste but I think I left a mark. I was hoping to take something clean off and swallow.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” and the rest was her blubbering incoherently. Zoge snatched up her pet and rushed her away, shushing into the bathroom to search for a bandage or to just kiss her boo-boo and sing bullshit, possibly brainwashing, Yamatoan nursery rhymes.

“One thing at a time,” Beouf said. But not to me.

Janet bent down and picked me up by the arms, holding me out while I thrashed, kicking in the air. “This is for your own good, Clark.” I clawed at her wrists and pounded as hard as I could. Only a few flinches and jerks of her head showed that she felt it at all.

“I’m not thanking you later!” I screamed.

Beouf circled around behind and grabbed the waistband. “You don’t have to.” My shorts came off quicker than when a magician rips the tablecloth off a dinner table.

That’s when I started wailing in earnest. Everything bubbled over and I started screaming and crying, the lizard part of my brain still somewhat enjoying how uncomfortable Janet was becoming. I stopped kicking and did my best to cover up, failing the entire way.

“He’s wet,” Janet said over my caterwauling. “Should we change him? Maybe start him off in a Monkeez?”

Please! Please oh please! Don’t let me walk out wet so that everyone could see. Everyone would know! Monkeez too! Nice, mostly white, simple, uniform Monkeez! Same for the arriving buses! Same for breakfast! Same for lunch! Same for the playground! Same for the departing buses! I could keep dry and clean at least for those parts if I timed it right!

This is why, I realized, they were having me drink up so early. They didn’t want me to deliberately starve or dehydrate myself to prevent me from disgracing myself.

“It’s already started,” Beouf replied. Her voice was loud but nothing about her face read as ‘shouting’. “We’ll change him at Circle Time. Or in the cafeteria if he poops. Standard procedure.”

The back door cracked open then shut itself. Had Tracy been watching this? Spying? Listening from the other side of the door? The bell started ringing! This intervention had run late! Teachers, assistants, monitors, and custodians were power walking by to their various posts. The few that turned their heads got to see me, dangling by my armpits and crying in just my t-shirt, shoes, and wet diaper. They would be just the first that day.

Ivy’s crying mixed with my own in a battle to see who would be the loudest.

How much had the people next door or just outside heard through the thick brick walls? What had they thought they heard? Had they like me heard of someone being condemned to public humiliation in the guise of helping, pushed beyond the brink of reason?

More likely it sounded to passerby like a couple of babies; toddlers at best. Each one wailed because they lacked the emotional stability to control themselves as perpetual children did.
No doubt, that’s what the Grown-Ups closest to me would retell it as such over the coming days until I inevitably found some other story to give them. Just a couple of fussy babies, one with a boo-boo and the other mad because he wanted a change and wasn’t wet enough.

Armchair Maturorosis Experts might even label it the result of “Potty Anxiety”.

Chapter 82: A Dialogue

“And then what happened?” Amy asked.

I bowed my head. “I don’t want to talk about it…” I tried tucking my head in between my knees but that only made me think of how naked my legs were. It was Thursday night and I was approaching forty-eight hours wearing nothing but a t-shirt and diaper.

Janet had changed my shirt after school so that instead of the plain red I’d worn all thursday, I now had a light brown shirt with a yellow smiley face that read “I’m In My Happy Place.” Outside of the sneakers, all I had was my diaper. Amy was wearing a blue onesie with yellow rubber ducks on it. I never thought I’d want to kill for the chance to wear a blue onesie with yellow rubber ducks on it.

As had become habit, I was sulking in the back of the Community Center’s rent-a-nursery while the Amazons swapped mind fucking strategies. No doubt Janet was talking about me and all the ‘challenges’ I was facing or some such coded talk for me not being babyish enough to her liking yet.

I should have been doing something to assert my dominance here like I had in Beouf’s classroom, or at least schmooze to make the right connections. But once a week with half-an-hour at best wasn’t enough to do anything too complicated beyond blending in. Besides, it’s hard to plot and bully and schmooze and make connections when you’re so deep in your own rollercoastering emotions.

I sat there with Amy while in the lap of a Tweener sized teddy bear next to an equally large stuffed bunny, both propped up against the wall as makeshift recliners. Amy had crawled up to me and propped herself up next to me. No shouts of “Hi Clark!” or nothing. She just came up to me, planted herself in the big bunny’s lap and asked how I was doing.

So I told her…

“Did the other kids make fun of you for being embarrassed, were they wearing just diapers too, did Ivy cry the rest of the day is Jessennia okay, is there any difference in the blue Hippobottomuses than the pink ones, what was for breakfast that day, does Mrs. Beouf talk about me, do you have any non-gluten free cookies, did you know that a giant invisible bunny is called a pooka?”

I looked up and turned my head to meet her unblinking hyper-focused gaze. “You’ve been waiting the entire story to ask those questions, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

That almost made me laugh. I managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Amy said. “Now about those questions.”

“I said…” My voice was rising. I was on the verge of shouting. I took a deep breath. Amy didn’t deserve that. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” She said. She leaned back and away from me, relaxing. “Do you want to tell me about school today?”

It was more of the same without the shock value. “No…”

“Do you want me to tell you the upsides? Like pants are overrated or how diapers can be a legitimate fashion choice?”

“No.”

“I haven’t done an experiment, most of my experiments are mouth experiments, but I think I get changed more often when Grown-Ups can see mine, so that’s a plu-”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I was trying really, really, hard not to growl. My fuse was burned down to the nub and I didn’t want to explode today. Not at another LIttle, even if they were almost as mindfucked as Ivy. My face felt hot. I’d really bit her…

The fuck?

“Want me to tell you about the daycare lady that really gets me upset? All our food comes at once but she never lets me eat the pudding first.” A shocked look came over her face. “Oh. Oh fudge. I think I just gave away the entire story, what if I complained about how most of our clothes don’t have pockets but we’re not supposed to put things up our nose or in our hair, how else am I supposed to make sure the other kids don’t use my crayons before I’m done with them, why do they have scented markers but not flavored markers? I think that just gives us false hope.”

“I don’t want you to complain,” I said flatly.

“Oh,” she said. “Do you still want to complain?”

Yes. “No.”

The white haired kid toddled up. His romper came down to just above his knees. Color me jealous. “Hi guys, what are you up to?”

“Not now, Dawson,” Amy said softly. “I’m working.”

“It’s Danny.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ugh. Whatever.” He went back the way he came.

Amy shifted and tilted over the bunny. She crawled around in a tight circle like a puppy and layed on her stomach so that she was still looking at me. “So what do you want to talk about?”

I huffed and puffed for half a second. “Last night sucked.”

“After Diaper Day?”

“We’re not calling it that.”

“Oh yeah,” she mused. “I guess every day is Diaper Day. How about the No Pants Party?”

I didn’t know if Amy was purposefully trolling me or if her head was just that empty. Were they mutually exclusive? “No. Moving on.”

“Okie doke,” Amy said. “Why was last night rough? Were all pants banned from your sight? Were you not allowed to watch T.V. that had pants in it?”

“What? No!” I said. Feeling silly, I added. “Muffets don’t wear pants anyways.”

Amy nodded as though I’d said something profound. “Ah yes. Can’t wear pants if you don’t technically have legs.” She tapped the side of her head and gave me a wry smirk.

“It’s not about the pants!” I gripped my hair and tugged at it, trying to keep my voice down.

None of the other Littles paid us much mind. They’d all learned to give me my space, at least. All except Amy, who was giving me someone to talk to, so I didn’t mind as much. If you feel the need to confess something, a witness lacking credibility is better than a priest or a therapist.

She gave no retort or reply. Her question was in the silent waiting she was doing while everyone else was clearly doing activities that to her would have been more engaging or interesting.

“Last night, Janet had a game night.”

“Janet?”

I bristled. “My…y’know. My…” Amy showed no sign of recognition and every sign of infinite patience. “My Mommy.” My shoulders jerked up towards my ears and my upper lip curled. It felt like losing calling her that when she wasn’t around to be manipulated by it.

“Gotcha,” Amy said. “Your Mommy was playing games with you. What games? Go Fish? Yahtzee? Old Maid?”

“Not with me,” I said. “She was playing a game with Jessica and a couple other people. I don’t remember their names.”

“Jessica?”

“My babysitter,” I clarified. I forgot that I hadn’t told anyone about Jessica. “Her best friend. Likes to pretend she’s my Aunt.”

Amy rolled to her back and leaned her head so that she was staring at me upside down. “Is she your pretend Aunt because she’s not really related to your Mommy or is she your pretend Aunt because you think your Mommy is pretending to be your Mommy?”

“They’re not related,” I said. “They’re just best friends. Auntie Jessica is what she wants me to call her.” I caught myself. “Both! I mean both!”

“Gotcha. How do Grown-Ups even make friends?” Her eyes shot up to her bangs just scraping above the carpet. “I don’t get it. Where do they find the time?”

Considering that my entire friend network now numbered among my jailers, all I could do was run my hands through my hair and say, “I don’t know.”

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Amy redirected the conversation. “What kind of games did they play? Go Fish? Yahtzee? Old Maid? Is Old Maid still socially acceptable?” Her tongue fidgeted between the missing tooth gap at the top of her mouth.

“No,” I said. “None of those games. It was one of those weird…custom games.” I reached out into the air, imagining it.

The closest thing I had to a friend rolled back over so that she was looking at me upright. “Like kitty cat where you crawl between the big person’s legs? Or Why Day?”

“Huh?” I pouted my lips searching for the words. “No. This was like one of those fancy complicated games sold in hobby stores or whatever. Where before you play you’ve got to put together the entire board with all these props and pieces.” I started miming piecing together the three-dimensional puzzle monstrosity in my mind.

“And did your Mommy give you something to play with or perhaps something very tasty to chew? Or both?”

I was looking at Amy with my eyes, but not with my mind. “No,” I said.

Her brow furrowed “That’s unfortunate.”

“I just sat there at the kitchen table in Janet’s lap and-”

“You mean your Mommy?”

“-right, and there were these dice and special rules, and some dice had symbols and other times they were doing math in their heads and everybody moved several pieces around the board at once every turn” My eyes were crossing just reliving it. “And they were using terms that I didn’t know what they meant in context like arbiters and mages and breach challenges and and…” I clapped my hands to the side of my face. “And cube roots and imaginary numbers….and…I don’t even know. It all sounded like babble to me.”

“Sounds like a lot to take in.” Amy said.

“Yeah,” I sunk lower in my bear recliner. “I didn’t understand anything that was going on.”

“Did you ask your Mommy to explain?”

“I tried,” I said. That part was mostly true. They were deep in gameplay when I finally realized I had no idea whatsoever. “She told me she’d explain later.”

“Later sucks.”

I was almost naked, but I felt sunburnt. “I felt stupid,” I admitted. “I felt dumb. I felt like…like…” I bit down on my tongue and fiddled with the ever present pacifier dangling on its clip. “I felt like…”

“Like a baby?”

My reply was more of a hot breath. “Yeah…”

I half-expected Amy to tell me that I was a baby and that I should be okay with that. What I didn’t expect was what she did do. She crawled off her bunny to me, and asked if she could sit next to me. I scooted over and allowed her over. “That’s really tough, bud. Side hug?”

I nodded and let her throw an arm over my shoulders. I bit Ivy for touching my shoulder. Amy asked. Also I liked Amy better.

“It sucks.” I whispered.

Amy neither lowered her voice to match mine nor raised it. “Yeah. It does. Don’t feel bad. Amazons are just really smart with numbers and complicated science stuff and not so good at explaining it.”

“I really thought if I watched and listened enough,” I remembered, “that I’d catch on, but five minutes till my bedtime and I still wasn’t understanding what was going on. I just feel so stupid.”

“I getcha,” Amy said. “My Mommy works at the bank.” That earned her a double take from me. “What? Do you know how banks work? Six years and I still don’t know what her job is. She’s a Fiduciary something something executive dividends something asset allocation something standard deviation something manager. All I know is she doesn’t have the fun job of putting the money cylinders into the whooshy whooshy tubes.”

Helena Madra, Amy’s Mommy, was on daycare duty. Like a doting mother hen, she threw us- or rather Amy- a glance every thirty seconds, but she was keeping her distance while busily checking that every other brainwashed baby was playing nice. Hard to believe that people like her could be so obsessed with children’s songs and strollers and nursery rhymes, while doing complex mental equations math in base 16.

But they did. I knew it. I’d known about it for a while. Seeing it in action made the whole thing more real. That crazy natural instinct for STEM subjects had allowed them to act on their baby crazy instincts in ways that their size never could.

“You’re just throwing a bunch of words together,” I said, trying to reassure myself.

Amy ran her tongue between her teeth again. “I dunno. Maybe.”

Our conversation was interrupted yet again when a dark haired Little boy walked up and waved. “Hey Amy!”

Amy brightened up. “Hey Brad.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

The kid took a deep breath. “I don’t like to pee my pants!” The dude wasn’t even wearing any. He was less dressed than me. I still had my shoes and socks on.

“Join the club,” I said sarcastically. Amy quickly withdrew her arm and elbowed me sharply in the ribs. “What?”

“That’s great bud!” Amy ignored me. “You’re doin’ it!”

The manchild bent his knees like he was ready to jump for the ceiling, and tucked his elbows into his arm pits. He giggled and flapped his balled up fists, smiling like he’d won something. I legitimately thought he might cry happy tears. “Thanks!” He walked away. “I don’t like to pee my pants! I don’t like to pee my pants! I don’t like to pee my pants!

Too late, I remembered who I was talking to. That was Bradley. The poor schmuck who’d been sent to New Beginnings. A few weeks ago he’d only been able to say things like ‘Do it cause Mommy said so!’ and “I like to pee my pants!” This really was a big accomplishment for him…

Amy provided more context. “We go to the same daycare, now. He’s getting better. I think they got him out in time.”

“That’s good.” I remembered how Chaz had a lisp from some hypno cartoons every time he was wet. It might have become permanent if I hadn’t told Beouf. Happier times.

“How’d the game end?”

“Huh?”

Amy repeated herself. “How’d the game end? Did your Mommy put you to bed before they finished?”

Yes and no. “I flipped the board.” That gave me a nasty smile remembering it. The tinkling sound of a hundred tiny pieces hitting the kitchen floor. The fluttering of a thousand game cards wafting in the air, some caught by the fan, going this way and that in the central air conditioning. The looks on the giant ladies’ faces. The shrieks of surprise. “They did not like that. Not one bit.” My face was beginning to ache, but in a good way now.

“What happened then?” Amy asked, not seeming half as excited as I was feeling. “Time out? Vegetables? Did they make you pick up the mess all by yourself?”

I felt like a supervillain in those old timey comic books. “That’s the brilliant part. It was so close to my bedtime that my Mommy had to just put me to bed.” I looked down at myself. “That and I think she’s being a tad spiteful by keeping me like this outside of school. But that’s it so far.”

“That’s neat.” From the sound of her voice she didn’t really think so. “Would have been neater if you’d swallowed something that way they wouldn’t get all the pieces back until later.”

“I don’t think any of those pieces were edible,” I told her.

“Anything’s edible if you can eat it!” She punctuated the statement by flashing me two thumbs up.

Right.

Madwoman.

Awkward.

“Um…maybe next time.” There would be no next time. Not even close. Gross.

If Amy felt the same way she didn’t show it. “So when you bit Ivy, how did she taste? Salty? I remember her hand being salty, I’m not big into eating people but I’m genuinely curious as to how her hand has aged, I thought it would taste sweeter than it did.” She held out her hands in front of her like she was holding a sandwich, her eyes scanning something that wasn’t there while she remembered her own past. “I was also a rattlebutt snake at the time, and they don’t taste sweet very well. It’s very sad. I get very sad that they can’t taste cookies or candy sometimes, but they get to have a rattle and that’s lots of fun. Ivy should have just listened to the warning of the rattlebutt.”

“Why did you bite her?” I asked. I could still imagine the solid push of her finger on my teeth. Despite her freakish strength she still screamed like anybody else. Some itching nagging sensation at the back of my memory thought she’d mentioned it once already.

Amy lowered her hands. “She tried to take my sandwich. I shook the rattle at her and even told her not to take the sandwich that was in my diaper. However when I took it out to take a bite, everything happened so fast. The rattlebutt snake can strike at 3 meters per second, and an average Ivy can strike at one table length per second so it was pretty evenly matched, but she got bit. Sadly the ol’ rattlebutt snake had no venom, musta been defanged….” She looked sadly at the floor.

A realization. Amy had bit Ivy. I’d bit Ivy too. I felt myself scooting away. Very slowly.

A random thought made its way from my brain and out my mouth before I had time to shut my trap. “How’d you bite, Ivy?” I asked.

“I opened my mouth, and just chomped on it. It was really fast.”

There was no easy way to say this. “With…what…teeth?”

“My front teeth,” Amy explained. “I used to have them. Now I don’t.”

There was an intrusive thought I didn’t want. Mittens were placed over my hands whenever I got too messy or destructive with them. The Amazons were more than willing to hold off on punishments until it was a convenient time and place for them. What if biting Ivy had earned me a trip this weekend to an Amazon Pediatric Dentist? “How’d you lose your teeth?”

The woman-child, the nuisance, the nutter, the carefree Little girl that had absolutely no sense of embarrassment or shame; her face darkened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” I backed up a little more. Not enough to show fear or resentment, just enough to respect personal space…or get bit. Molars could still hurt. My escape instinct was flaring up, but I was out of time this week. “What daycare did you say you go to?”

“Tiny Tots.” And just like that the old Amy was back. “Why?”

“Do any of these other kids go to Tiny Tots?”

“Uh-huh. Couple.”

I looked at the clock. The back half of the meeting would be out any minute now. “Could you tell me the names of the other local daycares and tell me which kids go where?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and Amy.” I said before she started babbling out information.

“Huh?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Talking to me.” I said. “And listening.” Right as it was ending, it occurred to me that I had just had the first actual conversation I’d had with no ulterior motive in a long time. Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Some tiny part of me that still had a shred of empathy felt that it would be right to thank her for the kindness.

“Aw,” Amy smiled softly the same way she had at Bradley. “You’re welcome, bud.”