Watersports

I put the wet side facing up and kind of wrap the dry side around it.  Usually body and urine is warmish, so the outer layers prevent smells from leaching upwards.  

DAY TWO AT DIAPER CAMP  My alarm went off at 6am. I had slept pretty good that night and was ready for another day at diaper camp.  I sat up in bed and had to pee so I let loose and flooded my diaper.  The warmth spread over the front of my diaper and down into my crotch.  I felt a poo was ready as well,  but I wanted to have breakfast first.  I put on my hiking boots and got up out of bed. I took off my onesie and put on my sweatshirt and then I got out a Crinklz Astronaut disposable diaper for later, to get changed into after breakfast and set it on my bed. I opened the door of my camper and headed down to the pavilion for breakfast. The morning air was cool and brisk. My thick diaper was a little bit swollen and felt really good between my legs as I walked.  I got to the pavilion to see what they had for breakfast.  Bacon and eggs,  variety of cereals,  oatmeal and some fruits.  Milk,  coffee and juices.  I decided that I really wanted to fill my diaper during the hike this morning so I chose some oatmeal,  two bowls of it, some punes and prune juice.  Not really a fan of prune juice,  but it'll make my fill my diaper.  I grabbed a cup of coffee too, just to help wake up.  I carried my tray over to a bench and sat down and was quickly reminded of the paddling Big Jim had given my bottom last night.  It was still tender.  I quickly ate my breakfast and chugged down the prune juice.  I snacked on the prunes and sipped my coffee.  Peed a few more times,  small little pees. My diaper was swelling up,  wet, but no where near capacity.  I contemplated just staying in that diaper for the nature hike, but I wanted to wear the Crinklz on the hike.  I went back and forth with my options as I sipped my coffee, all the time my urge to poop was building.  As I thought about what I was going to do, more campers were showing up for breakfast.  Most of them were still in their night diapers as well.  I decided to stay with my plan to get changed into the Crinklz Astronaut disposable diaper.  That ment a morning spanking for me. I got up and returned my tray, topped off my coffee and headed back up to my camper.  At my camper,  I took my medicine for the day, grabbed my Crinklz,  my water bottle and headed back down to the pavilion where I filled up my water bottle for the hike. I finished up the last sip of coffee and tossed the cup in the trash and headed over to get my diaper changed.  There was already a line formed of people getting their diapers changed and those who were also getting a spanking. I peed a few more times as the coffee kicked in. The line went pretty fast and soon it was my turn.  I picked out the ping pong paddle this time and handed it to the lady along with my fresh diaper. I didn't think that it would be to bad. She said hi, my name is Mary. You are Joshua and you want severe punishment spankings,  correct? I said yes Ma'am.  Then she asked how I wanted it administered.  Diaper position would be good,  I responded.  OK young man,  take off your sweatshirt and jump up on the changing table.  I set down the water bottle,  took off my sweatshirt,  pushed out a final pee and got on the table.  I laid down and Mary quickly fastened my feet into the harness and pulled my legs up into the air.  She unfastened my wet diaper and slid it out from under me. With my diaper off, she pulled the harness back,  pulling my hiking boots over my head,  lifting my butt up into the air and exposing it for a good bare bottom paddling.   Mary mentioned that it looked like Jim really gave me a good paddling last night.  Yes Ma'am,  he sure did.  All this time,  my urge to poop was growing.   Mary grabbed the ping pong paddle and quickly went to work.  POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP all over my right buttocks. The sting was more than I thought that it would be.  POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP all over the left buttock. POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP on the right.  POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP on the left.  Then she started on the back of my thighs POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP on the right thigh.  POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP left thigh. Back and forth,  up and down my buttocks and thighs. This spanking was much worse than I had anticipated.  And, I really had to go now.  Finally,  she set the ping pong paddle down and got my diaper ready and laid it out under my butt and lowered my legs back down. She quickly pulled the front of the diaper up between my legs and fastened the tapes.  As she finished the last tape,  I subconsciously relaxed and a big soft poop began to fill my diaper.  Though it was a fantasy of mine to be spanked again in my poopy diaper,  I didn't think that my ping pong paddling would have been so severe.   Mary instantly heard my pooping and checked my diaper,  pulling the leg gather back.  Ohhh boy, she said.  Your profile says that you want spanked again if you poop right away.  My feet were still in the harness and she quickly pulled my feet back up over my head. This ping pong paddle isn't going to do anything over a full diaper, she said.  You may as well get it all out and I'll find something more suitable for a diaper on spanking.  She walked over to the spanking implements and I pushed out the rest of the poop that was building up.  All that spaghetti and meatballs and big piece of cheesecake last night really made for a big, soft mess in my diaper.  Mary quickly returned with a big, giant wooden spoon.  This will work,  she said.  Are you all done pooping,  she asked.  I gulped and nodded yes. She used the spoon to press the mess down and squish it over my bottom and thin it out where she planned to spank.  It was soothing,  for a moment. Then she really went to town,  paddling my poor, messy diaper butt. Wack, Wack, Wack Wack. Back and forth,  right cheek,  left cheek. It seemed to go on for minutes without mercy.  Tears were willing up in my eyes as she went back and forth a couple more times.  Finally,  she was finished.  She lowered my legs down and unfastened the harness.  She helped me get off the changing table and told me to enjoy the nature hike. Everyone else will see your bright red thighs and know you got a good spanking this morning.  Now go ride the tricycle. 

Yeah I can relate. I had a bad injury L4-L5 And S1 from a road accident. I was already a DL and suddenly becoming 24/7 fully diaper dependant at the age of 28. It's hard to explain how that feels lol.

Mine was very similar to you Slomo. I was on my motorbike and got t-boned by a car that failed to give way. Mine was L4-L5 and S1, they had me on a catheter for months with severe urge incontinence and because of the massive amount of pain killers making me constipated, I wasn't aware that id end up in nappies. In the end have loss of motor function with my bladder and bowels.   I wasn't exactly sure about the permanence of things and yeah, there was so much going on same here, because of the severity of my injuries, dealing with severe nerve pain I wasn't fully aware for months that I was permanently fully incontinent. This was in 2018 for me. Its hard to describe what it was like already being a fully healthy DL until age of 28 and suddenly becoming completely nappy dependant that's for sure lol

Chapter 25 The Swing State Not the Show Me State   Cait sat on the swing with Kookaberry in her lap staring at the other kids in the park. She wanted to play, but she was scared. What if they don’t like her? So she sat there for a little bit, just watching. There were maybe ten boys and girls running around, chasing each other. It looked like a lot of fun.   “They’re having fun,” she told Kookaberry.   “You would have fun.”   “What if they don’t like me?”   “What if they do?”   The whispers carried out a little, but it was hard for Cait to gauge how much it did. She hadn’t talked to anyone other than the stuffed bear, the ghost, Uncle and Auntie now for a few days, and even at home before coming to the Dairy place, she just didn’t really say much there either. She was always in trouble there, and being quiet meant not being noticed, even if she was in poopy panties, at least no one noticed until she was at the table where they saw her or she asked for something, then she’d be in trouble and still didn’t always get help with what she wanted.   “What if they go and tell Uncle and Auntie that I did something bad?” she asked Kookaberry.   “But what would they tell them?” The bear seemed to reach to her neck and hug her. “You didn’t do anything to them, so they can’t tell on you. And anyway, see over there?”   Cait looked over and saw Uncle and Auntie talking, but they were watching the little lonely girl, too. They seemed to be whispering and their glances at her told her that they were worried. They didn’t look mad. They looked like they wanted to come over, but then they looked at the other kids, and they sat back down, as if walking over would stop the other kids from talking to her.   Suddenly, from the back of her head, she heard a shy little whisper and felt a poke in the middle of her back. “How come you by yourself not even playing on the swing right?”   Cait turned to face a girl that might have been her age, she wasn’t sure. She was maybe a little shorter. She looked at the bear in her arms and her thumb in her mouth. Cait quickly pulled her thumb out.   “We’re all play tag over there,” the girl stepped back a little. Her nose wrinkled a little bit. “You look like you’re all by yourself. Some of us were thinking that you shouldn’t be sitting all by yourself. It just looks sad. Do you… do like to play with others?”   “Yeah,” Cait whispered her face getting red. “I’d really like to.”   “How about you give your Dad and Mom your Bear and come and play with us?”   “They’re not exactly my Dad and Mom.”   “Oh. Well, if you wanted, you could take your bear, bit it looks so clean. I just didn’t think you wanted to drop it.”   “Yeah, can I take Kookaberry over to them? They’re my mom’s cousins but I call them Aunt and Uncle.”   “I’ll walk over partway with you.”   “Okay.”   “Um… can I ask you something?”   “Okay?”   “Did you kind of pee your pants?”   “No?”   “Oh, okay. It’s just you stink a little bit.”   “I’m sorry. I didn’t pee though.”   “Well, if you wanted to know where the bathroom was, you have to go the Seven-eleven around the corner. The Park doesn’t have one… if you’re getting ready to pee.”   “I’m not. I promise.”   “Okay.”   She stopped a few feet from the bench where Aunt and Uncle were now smiling at me.   “Did you make a friend, pet?” Auntie asked.   “I don’t know. She said I stink, but she said I can still play.” I looked back at her she smile at me.   “Well, we all have our own odors,” Sean put a hand on me. “Maybe she’s just not used to you yet.”   “She said I stink like pee.”   Auntie frowned. “Did you pee your pants, sweetheart?”   “No?”   “Do you want to go, Pet?” Uncle asked.   I shook my head no.   “Well, go play,” Auntie took Kookaberry. “We’ll be here if you need us.”   I sighed and nodded. “Okay. I just hope everyone doesn’t do what kids usually do.”   “If they do, you come and get us and we’ll find another place to play, Cait. You don’t deserve that, okay?” Auntie looked sternly at me. “Don’t put up with them being mean even if actually wet your pants a little bit, you still don’t deserve it.”   “Okay.”   I ran back to the blond girl with light freckles.   “I’m Ruth,” She smiled at me. “If anyone says anything meaner than telling you the truth about the stink, you tell me. I’ll push them down. I’m stronger than half of them, and the other half, we don’t have to play with.”   “Huh?”   “What’s your name?”   “Cait?”   “That’s a different name. Is it like the animal.”   “No. It said different. It makes with an ‘I’ in the middle. It comes from the old country that my Mama is from and my Aunt is from.”   “Oh, like German?”   “I don’t think it Jeromy. I think it Englass, but different.”   “Oh. Well, do you cry if someone calls you a cat or says meow at you?”   “Sometimes.”   “Good. Because I’m telling them the rule that you are NOT a cat and anyone that meows isn’t allowed to play with us.”   “Really?”   “Yeah. It’s mean to make your friends cry, and I not going to let them make you cry, even if you did pee your pants.”   “But I didn’t, I promise. I can pull down my pants and show you.”   “No. I’m sorry. Don’t do that. I’ll stop saying it. I just was trying to be your friend, and I guess… I really thought you did and you were scared that you did. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”   “Okay.”   “Time out, everyone! Time out. No tagging, Billy! I have a new friend and she’s playing so listen up!”   Ruth was definitely in charge out here like Kookaberry is at home. That’s what Cait decided.   “This is Cait, and that’s not Ca-at with a meow, David,” she put her hands on her hips when she saw a boy starting to whisper to his closest neighbor. “It’s cah with an ‘it’ in it, and it’s pretty. And if you meow at her, tell her she peed her pants, or anything else mean, I don’t care, you’re not playing no more. We don’t need you to play if you are mean to my new friend.”   “Yeah,” a group of five girls joined Ruth.   “What about the rule that new people are always it?” Billy, a bigger boy with heavy arms asked.   “She’s new. We giving a pass this time.”   “No, I can be it,” Cait felt a heavy feeling that she couldn’t explain and whispered.   Ruth turned and faced Cait. “Cait, I don’t think that’s a good idea this time. If someone touches you, you can be it, but you need to feel the freedom to run with someone at your side for a minute. I can tell. People pick on you.”   “How do you know?”   “Because you are too quiet and quick to prove you didn’t do something and you shouldn’t have to feel that way. And because you still look scared. And the way you look at Billy, like he might hit you or something. I don’t want you to think that anyone here is going to be mean. And I want to run with you until you forget about being picked on.”   “Okay.”   Billy, strong and blocky, the kind of tank Uncle was probably at school walked closer. His face looked a little bit like Ruth. “Wait, someone picked on you before?” he asked.   “It’s my fault.”   “Oh, the hell it is, Cait. You tell Ruth if anyone says anything! If anyone picks on my sister, and my sister is picked on when her friends are, and she’ll get me, and I’ll pound ‘em. You don’t put up with that here, Cait!”   He looked around. “If anyone so much as makes a little cat noise, and well, you best walk away from playing right now. You don’t want to deal with me if you start picking on her during play. So, David? Barbara? Yeah, you know I’ll hit a girl, if that girl is bigger than another girl, especially bigger than my sister and picking on her.”   Barbara walked away.   “Good. Now that’s settled, I’ll be it in Cait’s place. Cait, you stick with my sister when you’re not being chased. She likes you.”   Then we started running!   -- We ran through the jungle gym and hid under there for a minute to take a breathing break. “That’s my brother,” Ruth out proudly at him. “A little slow and dumb sometimes, but really smart when I went need him to be. And he’s pretending we’re not even here. See how he’s purposefully moving so we can’t get away when we are ready to run, but how he’s looking for someone else. He does that sometimes for me.”   “I thought brothers just chase you as soon as they saw your—or sisters.”   “If you are just playing with each other, maybe?” Ruth frowned. “Unless you know something I don’t? But in my house, yeah, he will chase me until he catches me if it’s just family, but when there are other kids to chase, if he can see I’m holding my side and need to really rest, he switches targets as if I’m not there.”   “Really?”   “Yeah. And if someone else is it, he will get closer to them than me if he thinks I’m tired too. If they ignore him, he says chicken! Slow ass! You have to pick on the tired because you too slow and you know it! Like that!”   “He protects you all the time, huh?”   “Like I said, sometimes a little dumb. Sometimes, I deserve to get caught, but I would never trade him for anyone else. He’s going into sixth grade this year, and I’m in fourth.”   “I’m in fifth grade this coming year.”   “Oh, nice! I can say I have a big friend, now. Not just my brother’s friends! Yay!”   “I hear you two talking,” Billy told us. “Everyone can. So I have to chase you. You gave yourselves away getting loud!”   “Come and get us then! Go that way, Cait!” And we started running.   Even when I was it, it was fun!   “Nanny nanny goat!” they wiggled their hands in their ears. “Too slow, Irish or Scottish girl!”   They never once said Cait, and when Ruth’s mom came to end the game as the sun started to set, Ruth led her over and it seemed she knew Auntie.   “That’s the niece you were talking about a couple of weeks ago at church, then?”   “That’s my little cousin,” Eiboline whispered. “She’s very helpful around the house, too.”   “Mom? She’s Ruth’s friend. She is pretty cool, too. She has a Scottish name or an Irish name or something. I know it has to be that because she says her family isn’t exactly English, but she’s from the same place, so it has to be Irish or Scottish, right?”   “Well, the Kinsellas are Irish,” his mom smiled.   Billy smiled. “I knew it! Can Cait have a sleep over some day with Ruthie?”   “I said not to call me Ruthie in front of my friends. I’m not a baby no more!”   “Ruthie, Ruthie Ruthie,” Billy patted her head. “It’s just your shy friend, Cait, Ruth. She’s not going to say anything mean about it.”   I looked down. “It’s not a good idea for me to stay the night,” Cait whispered.   “Why?” Ruth asked bright eyed. “If you need anything like medicine or stuff, mom has helped my friends before if they needed help. I once had a girl come and stay who needed help to get around when she was in crutches because she broke her leg. No one minds helping you if you need anything.”   Auntie smiled. “We’ll talk about it later, Ruth. Cait… she’s just had some adjusting even in our house. It could be good for her at some point, but not just yet, okay?”   “Okay. But she’ll come to the park again. Promise?”   “I’ll call your mom next time we are thinking about a park trip, okay?”   “Yay! And mom can call you!”   Sean didn’t put Kookaberry into my hands until we got back to the car, and his only word was, “now.” as he helped me into the car. The sun was moving out of where we can see, but from under the ground it’s last light was making the clouds orange and pink and red. It was very pretty as we got into the car.   “Ruth is so fun, Auntie. She knows I pee my pants, but she plays with me anyway.”   “What do you mean she knows, pet?”   “She said I stink like pee, and she told me about the bathroom, and when I tried to tell her I didn’t and I don’t want to, she didn’t let me pull my pants down to show her. She said I don’t have to prove it. And she still thought I peed until I said I can show her. She said she was sorry she said I did. But then she told everyone at the playground that no one is allowed to call me a cat or make cat sounds before we played, and then her big brother looked right at these two kids when he said anyone that makes his sister cry, he will make them cry. And his sister friends getting picked on is the same as her getting it, and he going to make them cry if they make me cry. And then we played and no one said nothing about cats at all. They just did the normal stuff with chase that everyone does. They did call me Iris girl and skotash girl. But I didn’t care. It was just true and it wasn’t really mean.”   I looked at Kookaberry. “You were right. I didn’t know kids can be nice if I didn’t try. Thank you for telling with your Just-a-mind thingy at Ruth to play with me. You knew, didn’t you?”   Chapter 26 A Long, long, long Three After The Park   Cait felt a little uncomfortable tightness in her side when she was talking, but it didn’t quite tell her what was wrong. She just kept talking about Ruth and about having these friends who didn’t call her a cat, and only when she ran out of breath, did she pull air through her teeth like she knew something was wrong.   Not yet having heard, the pull of air through teeth, Sean started the car and the car started to roll towards the parking exit.   “You had a really long recess,” Cait heard in her head.   Cait’s face was still heated from all the chasing and playful calling at the tagger. She recalled another moment when one of the girls was about to climb up the same level on the jungle gym after her, and she jumped onto the slide, the movement feeling like flight through the blue sky as she saw the clouds for just a moment going down the slippery surface.   Her underpants already felt warm and she knew she had some pre-pee in them again, but the feeling had gone away the minute she thought it came when she saw Ruth coming after her laughing and calling out “I’ll get you Irish girl!”   “The fun was great, huh?” But there was something off about how the voice said it. That wasn’t Kookaberry.   Cait’s legs pumped up and down to get closer together. “What do you want, ghost?”   “Nothing.”   “Are you alright back there, Pet?” Auntie Eiboline called back sort of breaking the ghost into fragments for a moment, but then realization. Cait noticed herself. She was moving her legs closer together to stop herself needing to pee. She sucked in more air in her teeth.   “Okay, Auntie,” but her breath was backwards, air coming in as she talked more than going out.   The adults looked at one another.   Cait felt her hand push itself between her legs, and though she was happy it still felt dry, she didn’t want them to see her hand there. Her eyes fluttered dark, Auntie’s face, dark, and face again for a moment.   There was silence.   Her eyes fluttered shut again. Opening them, she felt the tight tension under her eyes down to her jaw, and the pursed lips she sometimes pulled her mouth into when she was having trouble before the bottom lip flaps out again from between two of her front teeth.   “You’re gonna pee your pants for real,” the ghost told her. “You were just playing. You should have went to Seven Eleven before Uncle Sean put you in the car, but you didn’t.”   Cait’s face tightened and her eyes closed again, longer this time, shaking in her fist and her butt fought against the water in her eyes. “Don’t cry! They’ll notice!”   When she opened her eyes at Kookaberry, Cait knew he couldn’t defend her. The ghost was right. She chose not to think about the bathroom and now it was too late. It was her fault. It was almost as if Kookaberry looked sadly at her, and maybe even moved its mouth—“I’m sorry. You did feel it earlier and you ignored it. I can’t… I can’t help this time.”   Tears in my eyes got stronger as I tried to push my hands against my pants again, cramming them between my thighs to try to push on it. I didn’t want to be bad. I felt the sting of shame building and I felt the fire on my butt for the spanking I deserved for not being a big girl.   I sniffled.   “Cait?” Sean called back but his head was on the road. “You seem too quiet, pet. You’re not sleeping are you?”   “No?” her voice came out more whiny and almost cry-ly. She noticed it herself and turned her face towards a door.   “Sean, her hands. They’re in her lap. She’s wetting her pants, or scared to, one or the other. Pull over. Let’s let her know it’s okay. We don’t have to be home for her to pee, do we?”   “Naw, let me just find a safe place.”   “Cait, if you are trying to stop the pee, the way you are? It looks like it hurts. If it hurts, stop trying to keep it in, little one.”   “The… the car. He’ll be mad….”   “Your Dad isn’t….”   “Not Daddy. Uncle!” Cait turned back to look at Auntie. “Maybe he won’t hit me even if he can. But he still be mad if the seat is wet.”   Uncle Sean whispered “Now.”   The car slowed.   “Cait, pet? I’m not going to be mad about the seat. I’m not. I don’t care about the seat. We can clean the seat.”   “He’s lying. It’s his nice car… nicer than Ford, Daddy’s one. He likes this car. You better not.”   Cait felt a little bit drizzle against her will, and she felt it getting her legs wet.   “I’m ten. I can’t just pee in cars.”   “Cait,” Auntie Eiboline frowned. “You are going to hurt inside your body, girl. Your insides are more important and harder to fix than a wet seat is. Just pee, little pet.”   “I… I can’t.”   “Cait?” the car was still rolling as though looking for a safe stop. “I mean it,” Uncle said. “We had this talk before, pet. Poopy underpants over hurting your tummy, child. I don’t want you getting sick. We can change you when we get home, but you pee those things right now. You’re hurting, child.”   The car stopped.   “Eiboline, it has to be me. It’s me she’s scared is going to punish. It’s me that’s got to show her it’s not happening. Just be there for when she runs to you, but let me.”   Cait was still wetting, trying to stop it, but still peeing in her pants. It was impossible to stop, and it seemed to be going on and on, as though she had a lake inside. Maybe she did.   Sean opened her door and pulled her out and into his lap, her pee unable to be controlled even now, outside of her thoughts, it just kept going and he pulled her into his lap, her still wetting on him.   “Go ahead and poop,” Sean whispered even as the peeing started to settle and just squirt.   “I don’t think it can.”   “Try child. I don’t want you holding it. You don’t hold it until you need both hands to keep from wetting your pants anymore. Remember this morning, Cait-i-kins? I told you even if you asked for the toilet before, and we thought you went? That it’s okay to pee your pants?”   “I didn’t obey you,” Cait frowned at Uncle. “I didn’t go before you got back. I went in the bathroom, but it didn’t come out.”   “That doesn’t mean you get hit for peeing your pants, child. Pee’s not like that. It comes out when it’s ready. You did what you could. You sat on the toilet, right?”   “Twice, and even tried to pee my pant on purpose like five times, but nothing….”   “Then you did what you could. Just do me a favor and push a little on your butt muscle, and if nothing comes out right now, it’s okay. I just want to make sure you aren’t accidentally holding it.”   “Okay.”   Cait didn’t poop, but Uncle Sean kept holding her. “I’m going to go ahead and sit in the back. Both of us are soaked and we don’t want the driver’s seat wet, so I’ll just hold Cait the rest of the way home. Take it slow, okay? No seat belt right now.”   Sean sat in the seat, and then he turned Cait so she was facing him, and he cuddled her in his arms, her butt flat on his lap, he made sure to push her legs so she knew to sit even though she felt water squeeze out of the underpants and through the pants and all over him. He pulled her close, her back wrapped in strong arms, and Kookaberry was put in her arm.   “Tell her, Kookaberry. Wetting her pants isn’t a crime. If she chooses or she just makes a mistake, it’s not something she gets punished for. It’s just her learning new rules. Until she feels safe, she’s not going to be potty trained. When she wants to use the toilet, we let her, but when it’s too hard, we let her wet her pants. That’s the right way to potty train any child—but especially one as fragile as Cait-a-kins is right now.”   Cait slowly drifted to sleep with all the excitement of real friends, the emotional weight of peeing her pants, and Uncle once again, just being there… it was too much, and she fell asleep, sucking her thumb, even wetting the rest in her body that she didn’t know was still there as he sat holding her until they got home.   Chapter Twenty Seven Kookaburra Library   Cait was on the floor, the next morning, in the living room, where the ghost didn’t have an answer to the question: “They didn’t tell me to clean up the city yet.” It just sat with ghost fumes wafting up off of its stinky pee soiled skirt.   The clock read 5 little hand and 7 big hand. Uncle Sean was feeding the animals. He told the little girl, who had slept between and peed in the bed of the two people taking care of her for a second night in a row, “I need to make sure the animals feel safe and fed before we go. It wouldn’t be right for any of them to starve.”   “That means Shadow, too, right?” Cait asked looking up from her city.   “Yes, that would include the dog, too, pet.”   “Can I feed her? Or am I too dir-” Uncle Sean gave Cait a look that made her close her mouth.   “Pet, I’ve heard words I don’t like you saying because you only use them against yourself, and what you believe about yourself is how others will see you. You need to stop that. You are not dirty. You are not stupid. And you are not a baby. You are a little girl that is healing, and that’s the end of it. You are a little girl, Cait. Just—a little girl.”   At six little hand and 7 big hand, Auntie came down and collected Cait in her arms. “Bath time, little pet. We are going to be out all day, and I don’t want our little girl starting out uncomfortable, now do I?” She kissed the side of her face. “Seriously, though Cait, it’s important to do your best to feel your best when you go out. No little lady should ever leave the house to go to town without a bath, first, okay?”   “Even when I pee my pants all the time?”   “Doesn’t matter, Cait. Taking a bath is a choice. That’s why you don’t ignore it. A little pee pee in your clothes isn’t anyone’s business and sometimes, that’s not a choice, and that’s why we don’t judge whether to take a bath based on if we pee our pants or not. Understand?”   “Okay.”   At little hand on the seven and big hand on the thirty… Oh, Cait knew this! At seven-thirty, the family piled into the car, and Auntie Eiboline sat in back with her this time and pointed out the window as they drove among the farms.   “Your little friend, Ruth lives out that way,” she whispered. “And down that road, they have the best apples! They let kids pick upto five for free!”   Cait leaned her now clean little body into her aunt and she tilted her head up like a little girl might with her mom. “Last year, the teacher found something I could read, once. It was just a one page thing with a picture on the back, but I read it. It was hard, but I did it.”   “Well, a library has all kinds of books, Cait. Maybe we will find something you can read there for yourself. Have you never had a library card before.”   “Our farm in Mishuree is too far from town. Takes the buss like almost a whole small hand to get to our farm from school.”   “It takes almost an hour to get home from school riding the bus?”   Cait nodded.   “And your Dad, he got mad at you when you got off the bus?”   “He was at work. He didn’t see. Mom told Grainne to clean me up before he gets home. He doesn’t see it when I ride the bus.”   “Well, at least one thing done right,” Auntie muttered.   The car drove a bit without any real farm Auntie talked about nor any thing else with the exception of a church on a hill in the distance. The church we all attend on Sundays was referenced only once, and then the car seemed paused, as if painted at the top of a hill, and a full wide city stretched before Cait below it.   “There’s where we do most of our shopping,” Eiboline told Cait. “If you were ours, that’s where you’d go to school.” There a bit of sadness in the those last words. Cait could feel them as they sounded forced from her throat. It was like someone chopped auntie’s words in the strangest places, and then a hint of something that Cait recognized as a held cry lingered on two of the words. “Ours.” “school.” Cait looked up at Auntie, but she smiled down at Cait. Auntie wasn’t fooling her though. Those two words meant more than Auntie was telling.   “I’m wearing boy clothes,” Cait reminded herself. “The dresser has boy toys all over it depicting where the baby horse child, like her self, had on invisible poopy panties the other day. The Ajax told the dog to let the baby horse go potty.” She sighed. “Maybe the clothes belongs to someone who went to school in this place?”   The library was a small round building with so many cars parked around it, it felt like a Church building on a Sunday. “So many people here?” Cait looked up at Auntie.   “Well, a lot of parents take their children to the library in the summer, Cait. They take them to the pool, too, sometimes. Summer is the time when many parents breathe with their children and make memories that they want to take with them for years.”   “My Dad isn’t a lot of parents.”   “You can say that again,” Auntie’s eyes flashed red for a moment. Cait heard it in her voice that deepened and became quieter and more slow in speaking.   “Now,” Uncle Sean put a hand on either of them. “This isn’t about Dan, Eiboline. It’s about Cait building a memory with her cousin. Just mind that.”   Eiboline smiled at Uncle and Cait looked up and smiled, too. “Okay,” Cait’s voice was quiet. She didn’t need to be told somehow. No one told her the rules of a library. Even at school, she wasn’t allowed to go. But somehow, she could just feel it. No one was shouting. The carpet and the rows of books meant reading space. At school, when kids did silent reading, it was done quiet. The rule was there without needing a sign that Cait could read.   Cait was allowed to bring Kookaberry still in her arm and her thumb went nervously to her lips as they walked into the front desk space. There was a man behind the counter. Cait looked down at her shoes.   “I would like to make a new library card,” Auntie told the man. “She’s with us all Summer, so at least usable until August 20th?”   “We can do that,” their voices were soft.   “This is my cousin’s child, Cait. She’s a little treat to have around. She can brighten any room if you hear her play or you watch her. She’s a very decent heart.”   “How old is she?”   “She’s ten.”   “A little old for her thumb….”   “Now,” Sean pulled me behind him for a minute. “None of that. She’s growing just fine. That habit doesn’t hurt no one.”   “No, it doesn’t,” the man nodded before Sean let me back in the man’s view.   “She’s had a hard time at life. So. Now.”   That was all that was said about Kookaberry, my thumb, or my not ability to write anything on the card. The man just smiled and said. “That will do. Your Auntie can fill in the rest.   Even here, Uncle Sean told the man not to talk about my thumb. I felt my free hand wrap around without my meaning too, and I held Uncle Sean, or more, I pulled myself into him.   “Here we are,” Uncle Sean helped Cait into a chair and put her bear into her arms right where it belongs. “Now, we can look up anything you want, Cait-i-kins. Of course, we are going to find out what a Kookaburra is, but we can get stories, and maybe we can find something you feel comfortable trying to read, too, only if you want.”   “I don’t read good, though.”   “It’s not about reading good, Cait. It’s about being welcome to read what you can. There are lots of different kinds of books here, and some with no words at all.”   “Books without words? How do you read those?”   “I’ll be right back,” Auntie smiled and patted her head and then walked off towards a little space that Cait could see little kid sitting and a low shelf where kids half her size were getting books for themselves.   “So, Let’s see. I think factual stuff will be that way. Let’s us go that way,” he decided the table wasn’t as important at the moment as engaging his little cousin-niece.   Cait put her arms up, and Uncle Sean didn’t need words. He immediately bent down and lifted her up and carried her like was a five year old or something, but what Cait felt, was… he was carrying me because I mattered.   “Okay, let’s see. Koo… Koo…,” Uncle was muttering to himself while patting my dry bottom.   “Can I help you find something?” A younger girl maybe in high school asked him.   “Well, we’d like to know something about Kookaburras. I know they are animals and they live in Australia….”   “Ah, yes, come, I’ll show you how the card catalog works if you don’t know. You want real facts, right, not just a story?”   “That’s what we want,” Uncle Sean smiled.   It took her a few moments, but then she led us along the shelves explaining that 000 meant something, and 100 meant something, and so on. It was too many stuffs though because there 900s stuffs, and it seems hard to follow all the words she used, too.     Uncle Sean walked back to the table and it was still open. He sat down with Cait in his lap, her legs dangled to the left and right of his lap, and he opened the book, Birds in Australia.   “The librarian knew something Uncle Sean didn’t even know,” he tells Cait. “See had us look up a book about the birds of Australia. See? You don’t have to know everything. You just have to ask someone who can find the answer.”   Cait turned and hugged him. “But you know about milk farms.”   “Now.”   He carefully turned each page until they saw a section in the book about the birds. “Well, look at that. They actually do eat gum stuff off of trees,” he laughed. “Now I really did learn something other than them being a bird!” He pointed to the words. “You can try, Caitikins. I’m here. I’ll help.”   Cait started to read: Kook a burr a is a bird xat ivs in Ostoralea.   “Very good!” Uncle Sean patted her lap. He reread the phrase a little faster. So, what do we know from that?”   “Kookaberry is a bird that lives in Australia,” Cait smiled. “But it can laugh?”   “Let’s see….”   They read about the kookaburra until the end of that section, but it didn’t tell about the laughing. “Stay here a moment, pet. I’ll go see if I can find another book.” Cait saw him go, not to the box things that the librarian called a Card Cat-log, but he went to a librarian again. She could tell they were talking about her because Uncle Sean pointed over at her and smiled as he was talking to her in a quiet enough voice it was impossible to hear.   While he was over there talking, Auntie Eiboline came back with tree books. They weren’t about Australia or the bird, but they were wordless picture stories.   “You could read these stories quite easily,” she told Cait. Then she sat across from her and put a book open in front of her. “No words, but you can see what’s happening, can’t you?”   Cait nodded. “Yeah. There is a monkey. It’s outside by the tall building. It is watching a man with yellow clothes.”   “You are reading so well, Cait.”   Cait narrowed her eyes. “That’s not reading, Auntie. There no words.”   “There are two kinds of reading, Cait. Yes, you are not doing what teachers at school call reading by looking at letters and figuring out what those things are. But you can tell what the book says to you without those letters. You are reading the book in the sense that you know what it means without needing letters to tell you. Some adults have a hard time reading those kinds of readings.”   “Really?”   “They sure do. Your Uncle Sean is much better than I am at this kind of reading. That’s why he knows by looking at you that something needs to be done before I do.”   “Do you mean like I readed that the dresser shrine thingy is the dog is the boss in the dresser farm, and each animal has a place by it’s own by where it fence is?”   “That’s exactly it, Cait. You know by the feel of the page and what’s on it, what they want to tell you. So if I were to ask you to look at that page again, you just described, what do you think the story is?”   “Well, there is a monkey, and the monkey is thinks, why this man comes here? I follow because man is not I know him.”   “Good. Keep going.”   “The monkey see another man is not wear yellow, but only that man. The monkey only follow that man, so maybe monkey is think I like yellow.”   When I finished the story, Auntie read the Title. George and the man in Yellow. This is from a series of books,” she says to Cait. “It’s a very old series that goes all the way back to the 1940s. That’s about forty years ago.”   “Wow!”   Uncle Sean came back and Auntie Eiboline whispered. “Maybe I can find you some easy to read books on some of the ways you feel. That might help you understand how some stuff isn’t your fault when your insides tell you it is?”   Auntie went off to go see what she was talking about, but Uncle sat down with me again. “So, let’s see if Kookaburras really laugh….”   He pushed a the book between us, two seats at the table, and we shared. He read it and I looked at the pictures and told him what the pictures told me.   I couldn’t remember the last time I was in front of a book so happy to see one. It wasn’t taunting me with words I couldn’t read because Uncle Sean read, and it wasn’t hiding things from me because still, Uncle Sean read and then he told me simple, what it said. I didn’t have to worry. If I looked at Uncle, he didn’t make me ask. He just said the word I don’t get, and he told me why it meats what it was.   “Hold on, Cait. I have a question now. May I go look ask for myself?”   “Okay,” Cait smiled at her uncle still looking at the lastest find, still curious about the Kookaburra.   Cait read: “They are fo- fu- fond in ha habi-ta-ts rang-in frum hum-id forest to ayrd sa-va-na, as well as in sub-turb-an are-as wit tall trees or ne-ar run-in water.   Cait’s leg started bouncing. She didn’t really understand any of that, but Uncle Sean will explain it when he comes back. It was interesting though how much they had on the bird. It doesn’t even live in America. How do books know what animals in other parts of the world are like?   She looked up and didn’t see Uncle Sean or Auntie Eiboline anywhere. She looked back down at the book as her legs twitched a little closer.   “Uncle left you here by yourself,” she heard a voice. There was a chomp in the air, but it missed the words.   “If you embarrass your Uncle, this will be the (chomp).”   “Hey!” the ghost was slowly appearing. “I’m just warn (chomp).”   Kookaberry and the ghost were staring each other off.   The ghost seemed to fade from view, but Kookaberry wasn’t fooled. Cait’s arms moved the bear up over head, and the Bear rotated around slowly until it faced the front again. Cait’s hand bumped an ear. The ear twitching? Cait held Kookaberry tighter, her legs starting to wiggle under the table.   “Do you see a toilet?” Cait whispered to the bear. The Bear peeked up again at everything in its view, and Cait lifted her head just enough to look around, but even if she could see one, unless it was just a universal sign that she missed, she didn’t see anything that showed the way.   “We could walk out to the desk and ask someone, or just look from the open area over there. It might be easier to see.”   “And then Daddy will have your hide for real,” the ghost’s words were back stronger. “Look. You know you can’t read! Even if they told you how to get there, how would you? You’d be peeing all over the place and doing what Daddy tells you not (Chomp chomp chomp).   Cait would have told you she felt the rumble in the Bear’s tummy through her hands if she was asked how she knew the stuffed bear was eating the words.   “Cait knows (chomp chomp chomp) right.”   Cait’s hands went down to the pants, and held herself tight, one arm still tightly holding Kookaberry against her chest even with her hand trying to block any liquid. There was warmth down there. It felt a little more than just pre-pee.   An older kid, maybe three or four years older, maybe, walked up to Cait’s table. “Hey. You look scared.”   Cait shook her head.   “Are you sure?”   Cait tried to smile. “I’m just waiting for my Aunt to come back. She’s getting a book for me.”   “Okay.”   The older kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old walk through and out of sight.   “Cait?” Kookaberry whispered giving the ghost a chance.   “If you move from this table, you’ll embarrass Sean. Let’s say he doesn’t get mad. Let’s say he picks you up and defends you after you spread all your filth...(chomp).   “Wait, Kooka. I… I want to know the last part.”   The Bear’s mouth seemed turned slightly. Cait thought she saw a bear tooth peeking form the the top lip. Still, the bear rested and Cait could barely hold the bear as she felt it shivering through her fingers.   “If you pee all over the library, and everyone sees it, do you think other people will respect them? They just let you dirty the place their kids all go to read, and now, the Kinsellas will lose their (chomp chomp chomp).”   “Ghost is wrong,” Kookaberry seemed to have its face turned left and then right. “Ghost is just scaring you. That’s what (boo-ooo-ooh). The Ghost seemed to find it’s own way to cut Kookaberry off like what Kookaberry did to it.   Cait’s legs were really moving around now, under the table. Auntie was busy. Cait didn’t see Sean. She was getting close.   “Just do it right here, and hide it,” Ghost with wafting fumes of ghost rising from its own dingy pee stained faint dress. “The better you (chomp chomp chomp).”   “No shame, boo-oo-ooh!”   Cait felt more drizzle into her underwear, only now, she could feel it was heavy in the pants. She was actually staring to pee her pants, as she sat there.   Chapter 28 Now You Did It, Didn’t You   Her lap started to darken and gross smelly water licked out from her into her hands. Her legs slapped together, but it only caused the slap to get louder because wet jeans make that sound that dry ones don’t. Taunts filtered through her ears, not just through the ghost, but through other people, like the ghost had something like Kookaberry’s Just-a-mind thingy.   “Mommy! Look,” a child way younger than Cait yelled across the library. “That girl’s chair is leaking!   Her pees was running off of the chair, and she could hear the pit pats that usually damped inside her underwear were now heard falling off her chair to the carpeted floor under her.   “Disgraceful, how some kids’ parents don’t teach their kids anything,” Cait hear a lady maybe just become an adult stage whispering to another girl as they passed by.   “You said it. Honestly! Thumb in her mouth, Bear in her arms, and peeing all over the floor. What a stupid butt baby!”   The two of them landed right in front of Sean, looking them in the eye and a frown on his face.   Cait felt tears running down her cheeks though her mouth made no other sound but sucking on a dirty pee-wetted thumb in her distress. Her legs are still banging into each other, but the floor is already on the floor. What little dribbles still fall are from what is already in the chair. And there is a loud hum of this is exactly what I was talking about rant that was popping through her ears. “Now, everyone knows, and the Kinsellas are going to be thrown out of town because some ten year old is just like Daddy says she is.”   One of the women nearly bumped into a stone wall of a man with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed at the both of them. “Here, let me get that beam out of your eye,” he whispered.   “What?” the woman looked up at the man now strengthening his glare at the girls.   “That beam,” he unfolded his arms. “The one that’s right there blocking your path to a better choice. You want to spread gossip, do you? What would it feel like if someone found out that two nearly adult girls were walking through the children’s section, targeting a scared little miss that is clearly distress with harmful words because they don’t know nor do they care to research the word empathy in their studies?”   “You can’t… you don’t even… She’s too old!”   “Get out my sight before I have the library call security. We’ll see whose side security is on, if you’d like that.”   The girls ducked away.   Sean jogged the last few steps to the table and he scooped the sobbing soggy lass into his arms and pulled her body right into his shirt. “Cait, it’s okay,” he whispered.   Her brain stuck at his shirt. She couldn’t hear anything for moments. The scene was strange and her heart raced. She was floating up into his chest while her bear fell tot he floor and her thumb came out of her mouth to wrap around his neck. It was so slow. Her ears were still useless, no noise. She didn’t hear the sounds of the whispy ghost that was quickly fading. A hand bent down with the left side of Uncle Sean, and he picked up Kookaberry and he tucked the bear back into her arms. Her ears were now starting to catch up as sounds started to cut through the thick air.   “Now.” was the only word she picked up on.   Several people came over, but their hands were not pointing. They were not laughing. They were not looking at her pants or the bear. They were looking into Sean’s eyes who was shaking his head at them, and one by one, they went back to their own doings.   Sean sat Cait down, back in her chair, him sitting in her pee, as though it didn’t matter to him, and he had her still in his lap, and he turned the book page where he had found what he was looking for earlier, as if she had not just shamed him. And her teary blurry eyes could only look up into his stronger protective ones. Her only question on her lips. “Why?”   “You are reading, Cait,” he whispered silently. “You are doing nothing wrong. You don’t get to be chased out of a learning place where you weren’t bothering people just because some of them don’t want to understand. This library is for everyone, pet.”     Chapter 29 Movies Don’t Need Lunch, Cait   “Sean, we should take her and clean her up. I know you want to make a point about her worth and no one gets to chase her away. I think you made the point, but the point isn’t worth her being in wet underpants that might get her a yeast infection or something is it?” Aunt Eiboline was sitting at the table with them by then, and she didn’t say anything for a bit. How long, Cait wasn’t sure. But she shrugged at sitting in pee. She was used to it.   “You’re right, as always Eiboh. And you were right. I guess I was being juvenile by sitting here on purpose as though the pee doesn’t matter. It probably does matter to the library staff. I just don’t think it matters as much as Cait does.”   “Well, I’m not saying Cait doesn’t matter. It’s exactly why….”   “I know, Eiboh. You are right that her health is more important than the point that she has a right to be here.”   Cait just listened to the two of them talk for a minute. “I’m sorry I….”   “No,” Sean rose a finger. “You are not sorry, Cait. You are not sorry because you didn’t do anything to your Auntie or to me.”   “But everyone will think you have a dir.”   “Cait, no,” Sean swatted her butt. “Stop it. You are not dirty. Anyone who wants to hear gossip out of context will say what they will, but our friends know that we hate gossip, and they know to ask me if they want to know what happened.”   Cait froze for a moment, thinking. She peed, and he didn’t swat her. She touched the dresser that Auntie told her not to, and he didn’t swat her. She kept forgetting to tell them when she started to wet her pants, but he didn’t swat her? Why… why did he swat her? Why didn’t it hurt? What was so bad about telling the truth that she’s dirty?   “It’s not true, though, “Kookaberry’s soft body rubbed against her arm as she was settled in the car. “You’re not dirty. You don’t like wet pants. You hate it. You’re just… scared to go to the bathroom, like Uncle Sean says. He says toilet training, you’re not ready because you’re scared, not because you’re dirty. Don’t you listen?”   “Daddy says...(Chomp!)”   Cait nodded. He was getting annoyed earlier. Maybe he just doesn’t like it. He keeps saying “No.” And Cait held Kookaberry out to look into its glassy button eyes. “Uncle Sean doesn’t want me to say I’m dirty no more, and he doesn’t want me to say….” She looked at Kookaberry for more answers.   “Now,” Uncle Sean’s favorite word, Cait realized, “We are going to go shopping and get some clothes four little beautiful cousin to change into. Then we’ll go see a show, and after that, we can have a nice little dinner out. How does that sound?”   “Kookaberry,” Cait whispered to her toy. “Uncle Sean said I’m getting some new clothes.”   “Yes, he did, Cait. You are important to him. He wants you to be comfortable. He doesn’t mind the messes. I didn’t lie, did I, yesterday… before the park?”   “No.”   “What about lunch?” Cait put her finger on her lips thinking they had not skipped lunch since they had been there.   “Have you never been to the movies?” Auntie Eiboline asked while Uncle was driving, his own wet butt on the driver seat, but no one said anything about him being wet. He chose to sit in Cait’s mess, and they were going to buy her clean clothes. Cait dismissed that. She could guess what Kookaberry would say and what Uncle Sean might say. Of course she could. Kookaberry? She giggled.   Cait shrugged. “No, I never went to a movies before.”   “Five kids, Cait. You know Daddy says we can’t do that kind of stuff.” The ghost was starting to taunt Cait and question the cousins as being smart.   “But he can go to the restaurant, can’t he?” Cait frowned. “He goes to the one that sells the adult amber stuff and where people are loud some times,” Cait’s voice wasn’t quite to herself as much as she thought it was.   “What do you mean, she goes to the restaurant by himself sometimes?” Uncle Sean asked.   Cait thought back to the time she ran away from school in third grade, maybe it was….   He searched for her maybe… she wasn’t sure how long, but he picked her up after finding her, and they didn’t go home. There was a dingy like restaurant that she remembered where they had a long bar where he had some drinks. She had been sitting off by herself a little closer to the door, but where he could see her. She even peed there, because kids weren’t even supposed to be there, so she was to sit and be quiet, and that’s what she did.   “Well, Cait, if we were to feed you lunch right now, and we could…. Restaurants are everywhere, but sweetie? There is a joy at movie theaters you can only understand through experience, and I would not take that away from you,” Auntie Eiboline whispered.   “Aye,” Sean whispered. “Popcorn, or especially caramel corn, candy, soda pop, and a movie! That’s relaxation, that is.”   Cait scooted to the edge of her seat. “I’m not allowed soda pop.”   “Wrong house, Cait. His rules don’t mean anything to us.”   Cait felt her hands shake a little bit, and she glanced down at her lap where she felt a little damp-wet.   “He left you for the summer with us, so he has to live with the fact he did leave you with us. Just like he doesn’t want us to sue him for something you might do… well, if he’s not responsible for what you do, then he’s not responsible. We are, little Cait-i-kins!”     Chapter 30 New Tries-ees?   As the car came up on the little shopping area, Eiboline helped Cait out of the car. “We’ll just be looking around until you get inside. We’ll be by the little Miss area.”   Auntie held my hand, but I didn’t mind at all.   “You see why Daddy says you are trouble, don’t you? You wanted someone to hold your hand, and you are glad to just replace your mother, just like that, just because this lady holds your hand. Are you a baby? Are you even a good (doter)? You are stupid, Cait. They treat you like a big girl, and you go and do this…. Stupid.”   “Stupid,” Cait whispered to herself.   I held Kookaberry to my face and smelled in the bear. He was safe. He smelled like the wardrobe, but he also had a hint of Auntie’s perfume on him.   “Would you like jeans, a skirt, or something else, Cait?” Auntie asked as we got closer to the area where they had clothes that fit me.   “Look at this wanna be mother!” The ghost whispered. “She’s making you choose what to put on after you just peed all over the library! She’s no mother. She probably let other kids pee their pants, too. That’s why she doesn’t got any. Her kids ran away because she told them to do it instead of spanking the for doing it.”   Cait frowned. “Kookaberry?”   “Well, that is, I don’t remember the boy doing that. I don’t remember what she would have done. But I think the ghost is just trying to confuse you. So…. It’s nicer to hit you and call you names for having a hard time, than it is to hold your hand and tell you not to call yourself names?”   Cait stopped abruptly and Auntie looked down at her. “Are you alright, pet?”   “Am I a baby to you?” she looked up at Auntie Eiboline and searched her eyes.   “No, sweetheart. You are a ten year old child. You’ve had a hard time, for sure, but you’re not a baby. Why would you think that?”   “Because….” And she looked down at her soaking wet pants.   “You listen here, child. That mess, caused by being scared all the time, that mess? That’s not your shame to carry, lass. It’s not good that they let you feel this way about yourself. But you can bet on one thing, pet. That man is not coming here to get you. If we take you back, we take you, and I have a talk with my dear good cousin to find out what has gotten in her head to treat her own child like this.”   “Huh?”   Auntie sighed. “I’m sorry. Just trust me, you are not going back there if they plan to continue to shame you for struggling, Cait-i-kins. You don’t deserve that. So, right now, what we need to figure out, is what to buy you to change into.”   “Oh, I just thought you were going to buy me more pants,” Cait looked down. “I mean, it’s farm clothes?”   “No, pet. You have pants at home because it’s what we had at the time. Now we are here, we can get you what you are comfortable in.”   “Honest?”   Auntie smiled and took her hand leading her over where the they had the kind of overall bib-skirts that go over your shirt like a boy’s overalls, but it was a skirt. “Would you be interested in something like this?” Auntie asked.   “Um… yeah, I like it,” Cait tapped her mouth with her finger. “But can we look, or are we in a hurry?”   “No, sweetie, we are in no hurry. This is your day. But let’s get you three changes?”   “Three?”   “You know, because the movie will be long and we really should get you a nice dress for church next Sunday, too.”   “You really mean it?” Cait felt her feet bumping up and down, not exactly jumping really, but really close to it. She had her Bear still in her arms, and Auntie had not tried to take it away.   While Cait and Auntie were looking at another skirt, Uncle walked over with a pair of black nice Mary Janes and he waved Cait over.   “You want some nice shoes for church, don’t you?”   “I thought we just getting something so you not ashamed to take me to see a movie with wet pants on?” Cait asked.   “You thought wrong then,” Uncle Sean smiled. “It’s not about shame or what is practical, Cait. It’s about a little girl getting to be a little girl, isn’t it? I never heard of a girl going into a store and coming back with just one pair of pants or shorts and a pair of panties. Doesn’t happen. It’s not natural, and you are a little lady, sweetheart. That means, we treat you like a little lady that wants clothes!”   “So… I thought Auntie was saying she’d get me two things to wear and a Sunday dress, and I thought… she still had to ask you… and ….?”   “Eiboline? Just two things she has a choice with and her Sunday dress? Look, whatever we agreed to last night, I don’t remember. I was sleeping. But we got money, Eiboline. We can get her more than that.”   “But my cousins will be furious if we buy her….”   “Well, that man should have been more careful to leave her bags and shouldn’t have made sure to make it a point that we were responsible for Cait while she was here, not him.” There was a fiery look in his eye that I could tell his Irishness then.   “He can get upset all he wants. He did this! Sending a child to us in a dingy dress that she was forced to pee herself in, and then took her stuff with him. Did he really think I wouldn’t get her a dress for church that wasn’t dingy?”   “So… you never changed your mind about her getting three dresses, two that she can wear and dirty as she pleases, and seven sets of skirts, pants, and shorts as she pleases?” Eiboline asked him.”   “Too Right!” he nodded with exaggeration. “And ten shirts and several packs of panties so she doesn’t have to worry about smelling when she goes to church. She’ll keep one set of panties in one of the drawers that are just for church so no one sees her wearing stained panties,” he lifted her and patted her butt.   Cait squirmed a little bit as he patted her wet butt because she was till soaking wet, but as he continued to talk while patting it, she relaxed. It felt good not to be hit and yelled at for it.   “I want that for her, not because of shame, but because she wants to feel equal to everyone else that doesn’t worry about pee pees even if she needs a second pair of panties at church,” and then he held me out a bit to lock eyes and asked me. “Right, love?”   “Uncle Sean?” Cait shook a little bit, almost scared to ask. “Um… I… I like… um… am I being stu…?”   “Cait?” Sean’s head shook side to side. “Watch your words, love. You’re not allowed to say that word right now.”   “I’m not allowed to say stupid. I’m not allowed to say dirty. I’m not allowed to talk like that. It’s do different that it’s scary, but somehow, I like being scared that way. It’s… I don’t like being stupid.” Cait searched for something to talk to, but the ghost was quiet. Kookaberry was resting it’s head in her arm, like it was sleeping.   She frowned. “Sorry. I just… um… I’m scared.”   “Good girl. Now tell me what Cait-i-kins is afraid of, love. We’ll fix it.”   “Um… Panties leak too fast, when… it’s hard to hold it.” Cait was shaking and even as she looked across the aisle from the girls stuff trying to find the boy’s underpants, she bit at her lip wondering…. “Maybe I am weird?”   “Go, on, sweetheart. No judgment from Uncky, sweetie.”   Cait thought about Grainne sitting there in her good dress when Cait was a lot younger, and remembered the shame of having a diaper on under it, even though Grainne was like a third grader.   “You pissed your pants last week at school,” her dad scolded her that morning. “So now, you wear diapers to church, and if you keep wetting your diapers at church, then you keep wearing them. What’s weird, Grainne, is wanting to piss on the Lord’s stuff.”   “She was crying,” Cait whispered to Kookaberry. “Daddy didn’t let her put on panties though. I don’t know if anyone at church saw.”   Cait put a finger in her mouth as she looked up at Uncle. “Well…. And it being church is it just-be-spectful if I wore something I not made to? I don’t want other people to think I being just-be-spectful on the Lord’s stuff.”   “Just tell Uncky what you mean, love. Beating around the bush doesn’t get what you want. I need to know how to help you, just like I need to know when you are pee peed, so we can change you, hon.”   “Um… boy panties are… thick. They hide the pee longer until I can get in the bathroom? Maybe I don’t pee on the Lord’s stuff because I can wait longer with pre-pees…. Maybe It doesn’t get on the chair.”   “God didn’t invent underwears, Cait. If you like the thick feel of boy undies, then we get you the thicker undies. Okay? But Cait? The Lord cares more that you are there than if your dress, your seat, or the floor is wet. He knows our struggles, and he is made happy that you chose him even when you are scared or you have trouble being what people think you should be.”   Her face blushed. “Okay…,” but her face was red and she was shaking. Was it really okay?   She looked over at the dresses, nice and innocent and what girls wear, and then she felt down into her wet pants and touched her wet underwears. “Is this okay?” She took her hand out of her pants before Uncle thought she was doing something bad.   As they walked around, Cait noticed that they didn’t just linger in clothes. They got her some socks and other basics of course, but they did land in the toys.   “Cait. All those toys we put in your reach, you still play with those as much as you want,” Auntie told her. “But your Uncle and I were talking, and you need some princessy and Girl toys, too. So, you walk through this section, and you get seven was it Sean?”   “Yeah, seven. Get seven activities that don’t have to be girl stuff per se, but it has to be Cait-- I want this-- stuff. So, there will be some explicit girl stuff among it, but it doesn’t have to be all girl stuff. Do you understand?”   Cait shook her head and held Kookaberry tightly. “Kookaberry?”   “Kookaberry is always yours, baby. What we mean,” Auntie Eiboline sighed. “We don’t want you to feel like you HAVE to play with boy toys all the time. We want you to own the choices of some of the activities you have at home….”   “Huh?”   Sean put a hand on her shoulder. “Make sure you pick seven things that when you want to feel more like a girl, you can still play in the house. Okay?”   “Oh. Okay.”   Cait looked in the cart as they started to count up things they wanted for her. Her heart felt tight. Her hand clenched. Her feel shook. She slid her hands down the legs of her soaked pants. She looked up.   “Um… Uncle? You got too much,” Cait frowned as she looked up at him from just beside the cart.   “We did?”   “Um yeah. It’s more than ever.”   One year, at Christmas, Cait didn’t know where it came from, but when there were too many things under the tree, they opened them all, but then Daddy shook his head. “Girls, you know that Santa made a mistake. Cait, tell me how many times you were a good girl this week. How many days were your pants dry? Grainne? How many times did you get in a fight just before the end of school. You girls see? Santa made a mistake. You can pick three gifts, then we have to give the rest to someone else who deserves toys.”   Sean counted out the items in front of Cait. “No… seven bottoms… check. Three dresses… It looks like we got what we said, Cait-i-kins.”   “No, I mean. It’s not even Christmas, and this is like three years of stuff at one time!” She shivered at what daddy would say at this haul. She didn’t want to be (grady)?   “Cait. You need to remember something. We are getting you things to last the whole summer, and because your bag got left in the car, you need this stuff. We do it because you matter, and I know your Daddy is struggling and what he can get isn’t his fault.”   Aunt Eiboline narrowed her eyes. Her mouth tightened. She shivered. She didn’t say anything.   Sean emphasized. “As much as we don’t agree with a lot of what he’s doing, he does have five girls and not enough money, so it makes sense you think this is three years of stuff. But we have just one girl for the summer, and we aren’t hurting, Cait. We didn’t get too much.”   Auntie nodded. “We probably didn’t get enough, but we’ll get more in a while, pet.”   When they approached the store clerk to check out, he looked down at Cait’s wet jeans, but his comment is something Cait looked up into his face to try to understand.   Cait flinched at first. Her hands were tightened, and she grabbed hold of Uncle Sean and pressed her face into his side. Here it comes. The ghost will pop out any minute, and the clerk will….   “Wet your pants, hon? Were you on a long trip?” He asked her as if it wasn’t something that mattered in a way that needed to be ridiculed. It felf more like he was saying it’s normal for kids her age to do on long trips? It was like weather or something?   Cait’s blushing face peeked partly away from Uncle Sean enough to see him with one eye, and she nodded with her hand trying to squeeze between Uncle Sean and where she pushed her cheek against him, putting her thumb in her mouth.           Chapter 31 Going Bananas   “Yeah,” Sean smiled. “She just had a little set back, we’re fixing it. You don’t have a bathroom she can borrow to get her pants changed, do you?”   “Oh, of course we do,” he smiled cheerfully. Then he spoke into a loud speaker thingy. “Michelle, teller one, please. Michelle, teller one!”   “By the time we get this stuff rung up, the young lady will be here and she can show the little miss, or if she needs some morale support, she can bring her aunt along, but there’s a restroom in the back. Not supposed to let customers use it, but what am I going to do, send a ten year old kid out of the store in wet clothes? They can fire me if they don’t like it. It’s not like they pay top pay here.”   “We’re going to see the new movie out. I think it’s Des-in-neys?”   Sean and Eiboline exchanged glances. They looked sad even though Cait was every excited about seeing a Des-in-neys movie.   “Do you mean a Disney?” Movie the store clerk asked.   “No. They said it was Des-in-neys Erby Goes Bananas,” Cait explained.   The clerk look up at Uncle.   “It’s not something you want explained, trust me,” he sighed. “Just agree with her. It’s easier for now.”   “Uncle? How long the movie is on?” Cait asked. “Do they have a toilet inside there? You said popcorn. How do they put popcorn in a place for a movie? And I can really have pop? But if I have pop, mom says pop makes you pee, and she say I’d pee all night in my bed!”   Even as she was chattering in the car on the way there, Uncle and Auntie chuckled “Cait, slow down. You’ll see soon enough.”   Cait was soon in a big backed comfortable seat she imagined is in one of those nice train or bus rides that she thinks people use sometimes to go across the country. The giant screen stretch across the forward wall so giant that she felt like she had to turn her head, and even while they talked about other programs that were going to be offered later in the summer, she couldn’t help turning her head this way and that around the entire wall. It was so huge. The sounds seem to come from right beside her, behind her, above her and everywhere. This was no television thing. She was proud of knowing how to say television.   Sean on one side of her opened her twizzler red licorice thingys. She never had those before. This was going to be good.   “Sean,” Auntie Eiboline whispered at him. “She’ll never finish that tub of caramel corn and that large drink!”   “So?” Sean whispered back while they were getting it back at the snack area. “She doesn’t always have finish everything, does she. But she’ll have it if she wants it. She knows she won’t be in trouble for peeing, so why not let her have it?”   Auntie frowned. “You are too much Sean!”   “Well, what is the point of having her if we can’t spoil her?”   And so the three of them sat there, the theater was so big and so grand and so… magical. And right in little girl’s lap, was her constant companion. Uncle put a safety pin on Cait’s new shirt and then he pinned the bear with a leash made from a suspender that he tied around Kookaberry in case she fell asleep, so she wouldn’t lose him if they left and forgot to look for him.   “That car is driving itself!” Cait exclaimed clapping her hands and her knees got excited too, and clapped with her hands.   There was one tiny small (chomp) but Cait didn’t even see the ghost or hear its whisper, so she wasn’t sure. Was it trying? It didn’t matter. The credits were starting. The car was driving itself. There was a man who was introduced. She didn’t know what his real problems were. There was a boy. He said Herby is called Ocho. She just took it all in as though there were no take backs or no parts that said another part is wrong. It was all just a car moving by itself, and it has feelings, too, just like Kookaberry.   “That’s your vans name, you know,” she whispered. “It’s Dis-i-neys Erby.”   Kookaberry rubbed its soft body on her arm in agreement.   If another kid after the movie was asleep and if Cait should be, no… maybe it was the sugar. Maybe it was the excitement. Maybe it was that they had a boy her age in the movie. Maybe it was the car and it’s connection to her magic bear. She didn’t know. But she sat there quiet for nearly the entire movie. She felt the warm water in the seat at some point, but she looked up at the adults and she saw Uncle put an arm around her still laughing and her he knew she was wet but he didn’t ask. And she knew it was okay.   The car coming apart in the end of the movie was so magical because Sean explained that cars are not like flesh of people. The car didn’t die. The engine is the car’s soul and the car can be fixed because it’s engine parts, so Herbie was okay. And Cait giggled. “You hear, Kookaberry? Your van can cut in half you have to, and you need a dep-i-a-ty to help and when you need two places, van can be two and you both go different and then you need a ga-rajee person to fix your van.”   Her whispers were really low, very respectful of everyone around. Besides, these were Kookaberry’s secrets, so she can’t said it too loud anyway.   When Cait felt herself peeing a second time near the end of the movie, she heard the bear (chomp) again just as Uncle Sean picked her up, and she hugged him so he knew she didn’t even pee in her sleep, but he just pat her wet butt and whispered. “What do you think about Herby?”   “I can’t tell you unless you put your hand on your heart and stick out your tongue and say nah on your tongue. It means you can’t tell no body except Auntie because you tell her everything.”   Chapter 32 The Heart of Darkness   “I wet my pants, twice,” Cait looked up as Sean carried her out of the theater, a couple of people looked their way, but it was hard to tell if they heard, of if happenstance, it didn’t matter. (Chomp). The ghost stayed invisible for now. “But that’s okay, right Uncle Sean?”   He kissed her head. “I’m glad you told me, hon. You’re learning to tell, and that will help us take better care of you. We’ll change you soon, pet. But not here. It’s too crowded in these ones. People trying to get to their seats, you understand?”   The sun was nearly setting on this perfect day that Cait had with her family. No one cared or worried about her bottom, and she was still bouncing in his lap recalling a few likes like “5 and 3 make 8. Any body know that.” her voice exactly trying to match the Mexican boy and laughing.   A bird is soaring over them and circles the restaurant where a whisper is cut off by (chomp) this one so tired and nearly out of just habit, it seems the whisper is barely worth Kookaberry’s time, still, he is there on guard.   The door of the small building opens, and a family exits. Two toddlers and two adults. The man of the family glances and Cait’s face and smiles, but he doesn’t linger or think too much because the elder of his own two girls is tugging at his arm to be lifted up, too.   The smell of Mexican spices and maybe tortillas linger at the doorway.   “And then, the Chinese guy said. When come to end of book, time to close book, but then they make the car mad and the Chinese guy says… he says… he says it doesn’t close the book!” she was trying to quote the movie, but having only seen it once, she couldn’t remember all of the lines.   Her legs are wet, she feels icky and sticky, and there is a lingering smell around her, but she’s not focused on that as they walk through the waiting area towards the restrooms on the other side of the restaurant. Eiboline is in close to them, her hand on Cait’s wet ankle to ground her, and her other hand carrying a bag with a change for her.   A high pitched giggle in the restaurant caught Cait’s ears. She glanced around. A high pitched giggle in the restaurant caught Cait’s ears. She glanced around. And there they were. Ruth. And Billy. And their mom and dad. Ruth, still a little smaller than Cait, was pointing with wide eyes at the steam rising from a plate of fajitas someone was carrying past their table. Billy saw the same waitress, and he smiled whispered to his sister. Then, there was a moment of horror!   The large boy looked just behind the waitress. There was Sean’s face. He seemed to gulp as he looked towards her. Cait looked and locked eyes with his. Her legs squeezed against Sean, and she buried her face into Sean’s neck, but she saw the boy still, through a small peephole she glance through between his chest and her hands covering her burning red face. His eyes seemed to first see the redness of her buried face or at least her hands, and then had to have seen the leash on the bear. She squeezed her legs together out of habit of anyone at school seeing. Billie moved so Cait didn’t see Ruth’s face. He whispered but she heard it carry a bit so she could just hear a little. “...thee! Keso-fun-di-do!” and she knew the sound of the excited cry of her friend from the park. Cait’s heart thumped in her chest. “Your friend will….” But though Kookaberry (chomped) he seemed to miss or the ghost just just-appeared and came back behind him. She didn’t know. But it was still talking. “...will see your wet pants now. She’ll know you lied at the park and you did pee!” “I didn’t pee,” Cait whispered with a frown. “Not then.” “You did know though,” Cait’s legs were shivering. “Oh! The gooey cheese!” she heard Ruth excitedly look to her mom though she couldn’t see Ruth’s face. “I want that!” Even as Cait was carried out of sight, she knew he had seen. The Bear on a leash, the soaked pants as his gaze dropped to her butt and legs, and her red face tucked in Sean’s chest. He saw Uncle Sean. He knew it was her. At the bathroom, she whispered up. “Come in with me, Uncle, they saw.” “Who saw, hon?” “Ruth and Billy. They know I peed my pants. At the tables over there!” She pointed in the direction, but her aim was off because she refused to look in case they looked back and were to confirm who they had seen. “Give me the bag,” Sean told Eiboline. “You go get us a number. We’ll be out soon. The girls will understand when they see Cait’s distress. And if they don’t, then shame on them.” Auntie rubbed Cait arm. “You’re safe, sweetheart.” As another woman started in with a kid a little older than Cait, Sean looked the mother in the eye. “I’m taking my little cousin in next after the last woman leaves. If you go in there, you go in there knowing I’m coming in with a scared and upset little one that needs her pants changed.” The woman gave him a glance over for a moment. “Well, you won’t need to open any doors.” “Only the stall for the little one that’s having a hard time that I am taking care of. That’s the only one.” “Then I see no issue,” and she walked in and started telling the other women in there. “A Dad is about to bring his retarded kid in here for help,” he heard it. Cait heard it. “So if anyone doesn’t want him in here with them, I suggest you leave quickly.” Ruth’s mom came into the bathroom, and not moments later and noticed that Sean, not Eiboline was in there with Cait. “Where’s Eiboline?” “Eiboh’s going to get us a table, Susan. I’m sorry to be in here like this, but Cait needed me right now.” “I’m not retarted,” Cait sniffled. “Of course not, child,” Susan frowned. “Who called you that?” “A woman that told everyone my dad was taking me in here. I don’t care that they called Uncle Sean Dad. But she said I’m retarted just cause….” and she felt the tightness in her chest she gets when she wants to cry. “You’re not retarted, sweetheart. It’s okay. Billy told me that Eiboline might need help so I came to see what I could do.” “Billy saw me,” Cait looked up at Uncle Sean. “He thinks I retarted, too.” Susan put a hand on Cait’s back. “No child, he doesn’t. He wouldn’t have told me that Eiboline needed help if he thought that.” Cait opened her hands and looked up at her. “How come?” “Because, little lady. We know some people that get that all the time. That is one term my kids will never use if I have anything to say about it.” “I peed at the movies.” “That doesn’t make you anything, but wet, little girl. Accidents sometimes happen.” “Just as I keep telling you, Cait-i-kins. People that want to gossip are not worth your trouble to think about, and people that care, ask you what happened. They don’t listen to rumors for truth.” “Billy saw,” Cait whispered. “Ruth saw. Now Ruth thinks I’m just a baby.” “No, child,” Susan frowned. “Ruth doesn’t even know anything. If Billy saw, he didn’t tell me what he saw. Of course, Ruth was right there. He just said Eiboline needed help. I thought she was crying or something. Turns out, Billy was just trying to get me to come to see if you needed help, probably.”   Chapter 33 Friends Breaking Bread   “The truth is, we are letting Cait have a break from toilet training at her own pace. This is a little trick though for a ten year old because of things like this,” Uncle Sean said as he pulled Cait’s pants down. “She’s just been hurt so badly and not just with physical violence.”   “How does the state allow this?” Susan asked. “You hear about it all the time, raids of the state taking kids from deserving folk, and then you get something like this. So when you say take a break from toilet training?”   “She’s allowed to pee or poop her pants as long as she comes to get help afterwards. She’s just… it’s not going to do anything to force her to use the toilet until she feels safe, and she’s still got a ways to go, as you just heard her fear about Ruth and what she might think.”   “Poor child.”   “Well, you obviously have the little child well in hand, so I’ll just see if my family will let us have you seat with us. I know Ruth will love it, love. She’s been going on and on about you all day since yesterday afternoon, how you are HER friend that she made, and you are a big friend and not because you’re her brother’s friend. You may not realize it, but you are her first friend that her brother hasn’t in some way influenced.”   “Huh?”   Cait came out much more elegantly than she went into the bathroom. She wasn’t crying, she was wearing a skirt, not pants, and she was smiling as she approached Ruth’s table where Eiboline was already seated.   “Cait!” she squealed.   Cait took a seat next to her, and Billy got an extra chair from another table to use so Cait could sit there.   “So this is your summer guest,” Todd smiled at Sean. “She’s a lovely little lady, isn’t she?”   “She is,” Sean smiled. “She’s far more sensitive to the needs of others than many know. She spent hours the other day taking burrs out of dog’s fur she barely knew because the doggy was suffering, her words, I kid you not.”   “What’s the Bear’s name?” Ruth asked.   “Kookaberry.”   “Like the song, right?”   Cait smiled. “Yeah, exactly. He chomps ghosts so they don’t hurt you with their -hunting-.”   Cait smelled the food around her and her stomach tightened a little. She was hungry. She wondered what people were eating. She’d never seen a place like this before. She stood up and looked over her table towards another table where they had something flat bread with melted cheese and vegetables in it. To her left a few tables along, she saw what looked like the same flat bread, but rolled and stuffed with stuff. She started to walk.   At the table others were talking.   “Mommy,” it seemed that Ruth was ignored for a minute because mommy was talking to Mrs. Kinsella.   Cait wandered over where she saw a man eating chili beans out of a bowl with the same flat bread.   “Did someone lose a child?” the man suddenly barked a little irritated. “Didn’t anyone teach you not to stare?”   Cait shrugged. “Uncle Sean says you’re not important,” and she turned and walked away from him.   Cait suddenly sat down with some brown people. Her Daddy wasn’t there, so she didn’t care if he approved or not. “What are you eating?” she asked the girl with red and blue hair fixings that were pretty and hair that was interesting with so many braids, it was cool.   Cait didn’t realize she was missed, but Sean caught up with her, and she frowned at the people there. “I’m so sorry. She’s… It’s her first time in a restaurant. I don’t mean to make excuses. I’ll teach her….”   “Hey, man, no foul no harm,” the man at the table said. “She was just curious. She was actually really respectful. She was just telling my daughter how pretty her hair was and making her smile in a way I had no heart to tell her to leave!”   “Cait, hon,” Sean patted her leg. “How about we go back to our table so we can get you something to eat?”   Cait’s eyes caught sight of the ghost, about to tell her how she was bothering others. Cait smiled at it and even waved. Then, as the ghost started to open it’s mouth and Kookaberry started to open it’s mouth, she shook her head the bear and she faced that silent starting sound with her own.   He hugged Sean tight, and she said. “Okay, Daddy!”   The ghost’s words were cut off before they were registered. The bear even seemed to do a double-look at Cait.   Cait hugged Sean tighter, and she laid her head on his shoulder, and she whispered again. “Daddy.”   The ghost sat there, frozen. Cait could almost see it pre-peeing its pants like she does, but then she saw it. That white almost invisible ghost stuff… but in the form of a pouring liquid that poured down between the ghost’s legs and being unreal, could only go through the floor, but it was what it was. It was the ghost that peed, not Cait.   She smiled again, and she let him put her back at the table.   Chapter 34 Does it supposed to Hurt to take up Space?   I crawled into Grandma-Auntie’s lap and looked up at her with a small falling tight tension of sorrow in my face when Daddy Sean brought be back to the table and I hugged her while she patted my skirt bottom. I studied her for a minute, her strong weather worn wrinkles in her eyes made me feel that this was a person that I knew I could trust. Her eyes were severe, but her arms and her heart were gentle. She didn’t smile broadly like fake people. She just was, and I knew it just was to her. I was safe knowing I didn’t have to be good by not going potty in my pants sometimes.   “Auntie? Was I bad for walking around?”   “Now,” she used Daddy Sean’s word, and I sighed and hugged her in relief. She wasn’t mad.   Auntie put Kookaberry in my arms, and she pointed at the menu around me whispering in my ear what each item on it was, and what it meats.   Billy pointed around her back and shoulder to something. “I like those.”   “Billy?” his mom started.   “No, Susan,” Eiboline whispered. “Let him. This is what Cait needs, someone who isn’t judging her for not reading, but just telling her what he likes without judgment. I’m grateful for his advice to her. I don’t think she’s ever had Mexican before.”   “Oh, in that case, Cait, you’re safer getting this. It still has hot sauce and carries some fire in it, but it’s not as hot as what I like. You can try some of mine, though, if you are curious, just….”   “What if we split two or three dishes if we include Ruth?” I asked Billy.   “I don’t think we’ve ever asked if they do that here,” he frowned. “They do it in Chinese places.”   “They have Chinese foods places like this?”   “Well, kind of,” Billy said.   I looked up at Auntie-grandma. “Could we do that somehow?”   “Why don’t you make sure Ruth wants to do that first,” Auntie Eiboline smiled and then we’ll see if they can give us some extra plates or something. I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”   “Yeah, I want to share! Ruth came over and put an hand on Billy’s arm while she scooted in front of him to get between her mom and Eiboline so she could be next to me. “I’m already getting this one. This one if really good. It called a Chicken Fa-eight-ah.”   “If I get Taco salad, Sis gets Fajitas, and then Cait gets Burritos…,” Billy talked to the table.   “Maybe that’s what Dan meant by she’s trouble,” Sean chuckled. “She wants to share, and we find we need to maybe think about how to split this cost because the kids will fight over the fajitas and the burritos if we just order one a meal a piece for them.”   “Well, I can order the Burritos, too,” Auntie Eiboline smiled. I could have one of those and then maybe share something with you, Sean. You know how I eat anyway.”   “Well, if she does that, Ruth’s mom whispered. We can do the same with the fajita, if you don’t mind.”   “I’m sorry,” I rubbed Auntie’s arm until she looked down so I could say it right because no one heard me.   “What are you sorry about, pet?”   “Making everyone change orders and spend too much. You can just….”   “No,” Sean stood up. “Cait, you listening? No one at this table thinks you deserve that. You are not second to anyone and you don’t beat yourself up. You come to us with a problem, and we solve it, pet. If you heard my troublemaker problem in the wrong light, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you were a problem, love.”   “She does this all the time?” Ruth’s dad asked.   “About a lot more than just eating out, yes. She has to learn that she can take up space and be. Someone has made her feel too small for too long.”   “Daddy at home,” I whispered. “Because I bad at home. I do bad stuff all the time and get in everyone’s way. That’s why they sent me here, so I can’t be in mama’s way. She has trouble enough now with she gets a new baby this summer. And my sisters can’t change my pants this summer because they working farm and I get in their on foot.”   “You are not underfoot, Cait,” Sean reached over and rubbed my hands. “You are not bad, and you need to understand that all ten year old children need help sometimes.”   “I going to be eleven in November.”   “Ten or eleven, Cait, you are a child, and you need as much room as anyone else to be and to grow. You are not bad.”   I looked down. “I peed my pants when we came in here.”   “Cait!” Billy was impatient. “I did all that work to make sure you didn’t get embarrassed and my sister and you can be on equal foot, and then you tell her that in front of her?”   “Uncle Daddy Sean says if our friends want to know, they ask us. They don’t listen at ghost ship. So if Ruth asked me or she don’t ask me, how can I her believes me if I don’t tell her what happened. I did pee, so she can ask and she doesn’t need to ask someone who mean to me if I peed.”   Ruth looked between her brother and then me. “Hey! You saw my friend in the restaurant and didn’t tell me?”   “She looked scared sis. I… you’re not close yet. I didn’t want her to be scared to be your friend. She… she talked to you, so I… I didn’t want to scare you from her or her from you, and yeah, I saw. She looked so scared hiding her head, and I know if I did that, I’d be scared, too. So I… I tricked you to look away so she could go where the Kinsellas were taking her. I didn’t mean to… you know… hurt your feelings, sis.”   “Fine. If you just did it so she didn’t cry, then I assept your pologiss.”   She hugged her brother.   “That the real reason you won’t stay the night? Sometimes you pee even if you didn’t at the park yesterday?” Ruth asked. “Because we have another family friend who pees, and it doesn’t matter. Mama says pee isn’t who our friend is, and it not who you are. It’s just something we all do, and a few of us do it in our pants for a while, and it’s okay.”   “You think like that? But I’m older!”   “So? Age nothing to do about it, and it’s not a baby problem. You know you not a baby because it make you scared or you feel like you want to hide so you know you not a baby. Baby doesn’t know it not what to do when your body and your emotion and your education worked. And if you pee pee, I can help you find clean clothes. You just need help if you pee pee. That’s the end. Then we play again.”   I looked at Ruth and my eyes feeling a pin prick or several, really, I started to understand. The Kinsellas, their friends, even a kid younger than me. They don’t see Cait pees her pants. They see Cait is a fifth grader and Cait can do things maybe with help. And I smiled. “Take that, ghost,” I whispered.   “We don’t walk around when we have a table,” Ruth told me. “Mom and dad says that sitting at the table is the right thing, and we shouldn’t disturb other people, but they said we don’t have to be -shut your mouth, quiet- just quiet enough that we don’t bother other people.”   “That’s right,” Susan told Ruth. “Cait might just need a little help understanding. Be patient with her.”   I frowned. I think Susan doesn’t really know how much I don’t know. I mean, okay, at the bars I went to in the past, it was loud and big men moved about hitting balls on a table with sticks, and they spilled beer on the floor, and they put their faces in other drunk people’s faces and shouted at them, and then they both laughed. I was always scared at those places.   A fly buzzed around the light above the table. It was targeting it’s perch as though it was a smart bomb or something. It flew through the maze of heads until it tangled itself in a forest of red strawberry smelling with pink bubble bath scented hair. It crawled and it stopped. It’s feet felt the hairs right at the right spot….   Voices became muffled, and it was like the fly was now quiet, not aware of danger out there, but as if it was seeping deeper and deeper into the feelings of one little girl as time seemed to jump back to a small dingy restaurant-like place. It wasn’t as bright as the Mexican restaurant. It was so dim.   A man sat in a corner of the main bar, raising his hand for another glass of that awful amber liquid that was served in a heavy glass mug. The observation made from a small round table where a single little figure pushed its little arms further into its sides to avoid touching people near the table, and she closed her legs so small that she wouldn’t trip someone walking through.   Loud Country Rock was playing, people talked over other loud groups of people who were so noisy and free spirited, it was like lunch time at school, only if they let all the grades in the lunch room at the same time, had no teachers that told child voice noises that they need to get smaller, and no one stopped anyone from spitting their mean words at each other in the ohter’s faces. It was just so loud!   Daddy way over there drinking that amber stuff and these people so close to the small redheaded child, seemingly unaware or just not caring that she was watching them carefully to make sure they weren’t going to suddenly spit their loud crazy talk at her, and she saw Daddy, but the path to him was so crowded with people, she could get there. “Don’t make me hunt you down,” he had warned her when she was dropped off at the table. She had been given a glass of cola and then a glass of water. But she wasn’t to move. No Matter What.   “Daddy, what the bathroom…?”   “Cait? What did I tell you? Look, you are already in trouble for walking out of school earlier when you stole someone’s drink, peed on the chair again, and ran off during lunch. Do you want to give me a reason to use the belt on you at home? I already have three. Now sit and not another word about it!”   The darkness lifted, and the fly flew away from that head as though it wanted nothing to do with these people at this table at all. That exchange was enough, that even a fly who has no reason to understand human behavior just knew on instinct that it wanted nothing more to do with her thoughts!   “How do you know if you are too loud without teachers around?” Cait asked Ruth.   Ruth shrugged. “Mom and dad. They shush us and remind us about our noise if we start laughing. They don’t get too mad if the noise is by accident, and long as we listen and we get quieter before we bother anyone.”   “Your mom and dad, they always sit right next to you at the restaurant?” Cait’s eyes could still see daddy on the other side of the bar drinking a glass while drunk people crowded to close to her while pee poured under the table through her too thin and too tattle-tale thin fabric, and too I want to make everyone see while the pee hits the floor and everyone draws Daddy’s look at that, rather than that they are spilling beer and throwing up all over the place and getting against Cait’s arms and legs even when she pulled in….   “Yeah. I don’t think we ever sat separate, did we Billy?”   “We did once, at that ice cream party.”   “Yeah, but the whole one side of the restaurant was taken up by your baseball team, and it was a pizza party, and the rules were different. You were allowed to laugh and talk loud because you won your last game of the season. That was two years ago, right?”   Food started to slowly come their way, root beers, brown filled soda in plastic cups for the children surprised Cait. Restaurants have cups for kids?   “Some restaurants don’t have cups for big kids like us, but then their water glasses are small enough that if you use two hands, even a first grader won’t spill,” Ruth explained. “I don’t think you ever been to fam-ly restaurants, huh?”   “No,” Cait looked down. “I only ever saw spitting, mean, yelling men that sometimes played their anger on a pool table for money or they drank until the loser loses his lunch to win.”   “What kind of restaurant is that?” Billy looked up at his dad.   “The kind you don’t need to know anything about until you are twenty-one, kiddo.” Billy’s dad ruffled his hair, but not like where daddy’s palm always hit my head hard and made me get watered eyes, Billy laughed and looked up at him with a big smile. He liked it!   “Cait,” Auntie-grandma patted my leg. “So sit by your friends so you can eat and play a little. Just follow Ruth’s lead, and you won’t be too loud, I promise. If you are, we’ll let you know the right way, hon. No shame and no fear. Remember?”   “Okay.” I hugged her and then took my place between Billy and Ruth. Billy was in the chair he brought to the table when we decided we were eating with them.   My underwears felt a little wet, but I didn’t care. Uncle Sean didn’t care. And I already peed earlier, so it couldn’t be because I had to go potty. Maybe it was sweat and not pre-pee.   The waitress made Ruth squeal with excited-ment when she put three empty dishes on the table in front of us kids. “Requested extra dishes,” she smiled at us children. “I wish more kids shared. It would waste a lot less food, and frankly make clean up easier for me.”   I blushed. She liked that we were sharing. I didn’t remember if it was my idea or Billy’s idea, or if it was Ruth’s idea, but we agreed, and our parents got involved, too so we’d all have the same fraction of the same food. I felt like I did part of that. It felt good that my friends wanted to share, and that it helped the nice waiter-girl, too.   We started to eat, and everyone was talking. I had a mouth full of this bread stuff with stuffing in it that had beans and other stuff, and it was good. Billy was telling Ruth something about fourth grade, the grade she would be going into, and Auntie Eiboline was telling Susan something. I felt my legs free, not being pushed into a tiny space to not bother, but actually pushing out, even touching Ruth’s legs, but she grabbed my leg and then sat her leg over it, as if she was in my lap, kind of partway, and smiling, she took a bite and winked at me.   “You touching me doesn’t bother me, Cait. I like it.”   A single comment from her past whispered in her ear from fourth grade. “Girls don’t fart….”   Why did the ghost say that, right now?   I looked over and around. I didn’t see the ghost. I went for another bit, and then my stomach hurt. I bent at the waist.   “Cait?” Ruth’s voice sounded far off.   “No, no, no!” I heard myself in math as the mess ran all over my chair. “No! This isn’t math class,” I was starting feel my shoulders shake, and my butt felt fiery. I tried to put a hand back, under my skirt, trying to pinch through my underwears at my bottom, but I could already feel it… filling up! Gross slimy brown liquid spat right through the underwears and into my hand. I pulled my hand out looking at it as horri-scared, as someone who’d been shot in the stomach and looked at their hand after looking. I couldn’t hear anyone else. I felt a heaviness pushing again and my underwears were too heavy. I felt it spreading and going all over the seat.   “She pooped her pants,” I think Ruth said. “She’s crying! Mommy! Stop talking1 Cait’s stomach hurts! She’s crying! She’s pooping her pants!”   “Now… you will not have any friends,” the ghost put its ugly white face changing into the face of Daddy in mine. “I told you, but you decided to call Sean your Dad. Who made sure you didn’t do this in public. Now, here you are, doing it in public. Let’s see how they stop the whole restaurant seeing what you did, and let’s see them make Ruth still be your friend. Don’t even, you useless bear! I told you this would happen!”         Chapter 35 Please Don’t Mad; Not Hitting Mad; Just Mad?   The Bear snapped at the air, but this was too real, too loud, too messy for Kookaberry. The ghost was here, and Kookaberry couldn’t take away the runny brown mess that even got on Ruth’s shorts.   “You’re bites can’t stop this, stupid bear! You’re as hopeless as that little dirty panty messer that’s not even wearing the right panties! She’s wearing boy undies like a mixed up disturbed little….” but it didn’t say. It seemed saying anything else was going too far, but it was enough.   Cait’s body made a sound, and then another rush of heavy mess logged in upon and over the rest of the mess already in her underwears and there was a sicking slimy slippery sliding that poured over the seat and down to the floor. Her skirt was just ruined. She was bawling with her cleaner thumb in her mouth. She didn’t know what else to do.   Sean stood up. “We have a pair of shorts your daughter can borrow. Cait just bought them today, but I’m afraid… well, Eboline can explain to Susan,” he was already reaching under Cait’s arms. “I have underwears for your child she can borrow, if it doesn’t shock Ruth or you as her parents too much. You have to understand, Cait needs special care, and she’s scared that… well, Eboline can explain it to Susan in the bathroom.”   “Wait, you’re going to let our daughter wear your daughter’s new things?” Todd asked looked up surprised.   “Even if it were your daughter’s mess, it would be the right thing to do, sir. But Cait feels bad getting her dirty, and while it will help your daughter get clean, it will also reinforce what I’ve been teaching Cait. We clean it up, and it’s okay. And we got your little girl dirty, so we clean her up, and both your daughter and Cait will feel better. Trust me.”   Todd frowned and nodded. “New clothes?”   “Why not?” Sean asked. “They’re doing what they are supposed to. They’re being worn and used by children who need them.”   Sean now had messy, thumb sucking, crying, shivering, scared Cait on his hip, his heavy warm hand rubbing her back and patting her messy butt. “She’s just scared. We get both her and her friend clean, and she’ll be okay,” he told the waitress.   “Well, you people take care of your families, and I’ll have your food moved to a clean table. She’s not the first little girl to make a mess on my shift.”   “You don’t have to,” Sean whispered. “I’ve been teaching her to clean up after herself. She just needs to feel….”   “That’s nonsense,” the waitress waved him aside. “You take care of the child. It’s my job to provide you with a pleasant clean place to eat, and that’s exactly what I’ll do. It’s no trouble.”   Cait was still bawling and couldn’t stop. She hated the ghost, her body, the whole thing. She couldn’t look at Ruth or Billy. She kept her eyes closed hoping not to see anyone look at her like… “You know, this is too far. We’ll be nice to you for our parents, but it’s over. You had no right to poop on me/ my sister. You’re not right.”   A soft hand touched her arm, but she pulled it away not wanting fake comfort from a girl that was definitely just humiliated by her and grossed on by her. She didn’t need the younger child’s fake pity.   Kookaberry seemed to hear something though. (Snap) It’s gnashing teeth were weak sounding and soft, but it was still there. He heard something. The Ghost stilled for a second.   A second attempt a smaller hand on her dirty leg grabbed her ankle. “I’m not letting go.” sounded like it was underwater. It was muffled, another trick of the ghost trying to suppress what was there, but a light soft warm hand seemed to anchor to her ankle, and it wouldn’t drop even though Cait kicked at her feet at the fake pity.   A very faint whisper, but the voice of the one that has been real with her since she found him, Kookiberry asked. “If it was fake… why is she touching your poop? Her hand is on your foot with poop on it.”   Cait opened her eyes. They were walking through the restaurant towards the bathroom. Auntie wasn’t there. She was somewhere, but she wasn’t there. Around them, she saw Ruth holding her ankle, and though her dad tried to pull at her waist to lift her, she pushed his hand away. “Cait’s the one crying. I’m not letting go of her. She’s my friend. I’m not letting her think I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not!”   As they opened the door to the men’s room this time, Todd looked at Billy. “Bill? Cait doesn’t want you watching her being dressed. Go in the toilet and use it.”   “The urinals….”   “Bill…,” Todd frowned at his son. “I know. But this time, just go in the toilet and use it, and stay there until I say otherwise. You care about this little girl, don’t you?”   “Yeah,” Kookiberry could hear the resentment in his voice, but it wasn’t against his dad, and it wasn’t exactly against Cait either. It was… that he couldn’t help her, but Kookiberry told Cait that it wouldn’t be right. He’s not old enough to help with a mess like this, and his heart is right, but his actions are no needed. He likes you though.”   Cait looked over where Billy shut the bathroom stall and she assumed was getting ready use the toilet.   “Where’s Auntie-grandma?” Cait’s blurry eyes tried to focus on Sean.   “She’s getting you and your friend some of your clean clothes. I told Ruth she could wear your shorts so she could be clean, too.”   “Okay,” Cait breathed. “Good.” Her crying was forgotten for a minute.   “I pooped my pants like last month,” Ruth looked at where Sean was still holding her. “It was at church and everything. Some of the other older kids yelled at me for it, and even two of the church ladies. I was crying. Mom told them to stop it. She said I’m a little girl that had an accident, and if their God punishes a baby for pooping her pants, then their Gods weren’t the same.”   I looked down at her blurry form, my tears still trying to not let me see. Maybe it was the ghost again. “Your mom called you a baby?”   “Yeah. But she only said that cause I was nine and the woman was way older and she was making a point that you don’t be mean to a kid that didn’t mean to have an accident even at church.”   “And you’re really not… you know… mad that I got you dirty?”   “It’s just stuff,” she shrugged. “I have to take a bath anyway when we get home. And your Uncle….”   “No. My daddy,” I pulled tighter into Uncle Sean.   “Sorry. Your daddy said I can wear your new shorts. I hope you’re not mad about that.”   “I got you dirty. Why can I be mad when it’s my fault you’re dirty?”   “No….” Ruth slapped her foot much like Sean popped her on the butt the other day when she called herself stupid, Cait remembered. Only Sean’s pop didn’t hurt because Sean chose not to have it hurt, and Ruth couldn’t really spank her, especially not on the ankle, but the message was the same. “Cut it out, Cait! You’re blaming and hurting yourself, and you’re wrong!”   “You didn’t choose to poop your pants, Cait. If you did, you wouldn’t be bawling your heart out and sucking your thumb earlier! You got scared and everything! Something made it happen, just like what happened to me at church, and if your God makes you cry after you already got scared and punished for pooping, then he’s not my God, just like Mommy told that woman!”   “I pooped my pants, and I’m ten,” Cait frowned. The energy for self hate now dissolved in front of a younger child who just saw no reason to let her be in that place.   “So? I pooped my pants, and I’m nine,” Ruth whispered. “Think one year makes it okay if you can’t do it, but I can?”   “I guess not,” Cait remembered getting it far earlier than being nine when she made mistakes.   “Now, no more thinking about the mess on me. You get your daddy to put you down and you do what I do. You can do this. I know you can. You bigger than me, and I took off my own poopy panties at church.”   “Now, wash your hands, first. You icky cause you tried to keep from pooping your pants. I did the same thing. I know how it feels and it’s gonna be gross, but we’re changing our clothes together, so we can be gross together. It’s okay.”   While Ruth was taking off her messy shorts and leading Cait to take off her skirt, she saw the strange underwear. Cait looked down at the messy underpants and then up at Ruth, her finger on her lip. Ruth didn’t get mad about pooping her pants….   “You might not know,” Ruth sounded like she was being slow and trying to see how Cait felt as she said at each word. “But… those panties… Well, their made… not exactly… for girls.”   “They hold pee better,” Cait felt her face flush. “When I’m almost going to pee my pants and trying to not let it get in my pants all the way because I want to be a big kid… they help with an extra second or two.”   “Oh. Okay,” Ruth nodded. “If you wearing it because that, then I don’t care.”   And then clothes were handed in at them while there was commotion outside, a firm stance by the two mothers. “Our children’s father are taking care of girls in there right now, and adult men can wait a few minutes. We’ll let little children boys in the girls’ room…” could be heard.   Chapter 36 Wardrobe Division   “She’s my friend… my friend… friend….” echoed in the darkness.   A light soft hand grasped her ankle and didn’t let go. “I won’t… won’t… won’t….”   The heavy stomach and thick slick sludge grunge dirty shorts and boy underwears out where everyone can see. Dirty underwears sticking it’s ooze on Cait’s legs and the shorts wet and sick on her friend, but the face is blurred, and the echoes continue. “...friend….”   The rustle of blankets and sheets pushed back and away from a soaking wet pair of boy underpants that covered the middle of a pair of legs. A delicate hand touched the wetness in the underwears, confirming and somehow knowing this is normal, and the little body sat up.   “You peed in the little boy’s bed,” she heard a whisper in the dark. “You peed the bed.”   “I always pee the bed,” the little girl felt her mouth forming words, her throat working for the air it took to form those words, and her chest moving up and down as she looked around the dim room. The curtain was pulled back just enough that light was starting to break through the heavy fog of her dreams. “I’m not in trouble. Daddy’s not here.”   There was no answer in the darkness to that.   On the floor Kookaberry had fallen in the night, but it’s rescue line was still attacked to Cait’s pajamas. She didn’t change last night. Uncle Sean… Daddy… he changed Cait in the bathroom and Ruth’s dad wasn’t mad that he was changing Ruth, and Ruth was still smiling not only in the bathroom where she was being put in a pair of Cait’s new shorts that were just bought for her, but she was smiling through the rest of dinner. Billy was joking. Ruth got in Cait’s lap even after that, and hugged her and said that this little pissy and poopy pants… well, she didn’t even say pissy or poopy pants… she left that part out. She said: “This big girl is the best big girl in the whole big wide world, and I hope she stays the night soon.”   “You were wrong,” Cait whispered into the darkness as she pulled Kookaberry’s leash until she could reach him and pull him into her chest. “You and your master, you are both wrong,” Cait whispered a little stronger into the dark. “Ruth didn’t leave just because I was bad.”   “You’re not bad,” Kookaberry told me. “Remember? Daddy Sean says you just not potty trained, and he’s not going to potty train you until you ready, and not being ready is not the same as being bad. Remember?”   “Yeah,” Cait frowned. “I be-membered. He says I am a big girl, but I just need time. He said it’s just water, and even the messes are just something to clean up, and not so important. He said to get him if I pee. I don’t want to though.”   “He won’t be mad if you lie here and even go back to sleep,” Kookaberry whispered. “He knows it’s still scary for you to fully pee your pants. He won’t spank if you don’t do every single rule he makes. He only popped you once. The only thing he spanks for, is you saying the word s-t-o-o-p-i-t. If you don’t say that work, he doesn’t spank.”   Cait nodded at the large empty room where no one could hear the conversation she was having. There were no ghost and no Kookiberry-s in Sean and Eiboline’s heads. There were no ghosts and no Kookiberrys in Billy’s head. It was just Cait who heard them, and her whispers in answers to them were just little mumbled mutterings that no one could even hear if they put a hand on her throat when she muttered. It was just the conversation in her head, and the room sat motionless and still, not watching her.   The dog’s eyes were still watching the farm and its, now silent to Cait, words were directed in barks at the bigger animals in their neat little fences. The colt wasn’t standing scared too far from the mother horse. No, the colt, that had on invisible poopy panties a few days ago, was laughing today. She was teasing her mommy and her mommy was partly looking at the dog and partly at her. Did Cait move the mommy’s body so it looked different the day before? If she did, Eiboline forgot to correct it.   “Your mommy loves you,” Cait whispered to the colt. “Your mommy is there even if you have trouble, and no matter how many fences there are, and if you get too tired to jump them, your mommy will charge over to you, not to tell you that you were bad, but tell you how proud she is that you got as far as you did before….”   Warmth spread out of Cait and into the bed. She squeezed her legs together out of Habit. Water gathered in her eyes out of Habit, but Kookiberry hugged her tighter, or she hugged the bear. Did it matter? Hugging the bear ever tighter, the pee in her pants got soggier until she fully peed again, after she had already wet the bed in the night. But she wasn’t scared. Daddy said to get him. Not the crop farm daddy, but the Dairy farm daddy, the one that slept down the hall, he said to get him.   “We have to get Daddy,” Cait told the bear.   “After you finish peeing where you are,” she heard a dark voice in her head.   Cait gritted her teeth and she frowned right at the window where the voice came from. “No.”   She got out of bed, pee sliding down her legs a bit and she started into the hall. It was a rule that played in her head. “Stay where you are—Come and get me.” It was the old and the new, and she was listening, with Kookaberry, (chomp) Kookaberry hugging her tight while she felt pee splattering on the floor every few steps until she was outside the bedroom door, and she pushed the door… she touched the fence. She touched the boundary, and it didn’t hurt.   “Uncle?” She felt the last of the flood push itself through her pajamas and wet the floor at the door. “Daddy? Uncle-Daddy? Are you in here? Are you awake?”   The blankets moved, and I saw Auntie-grandma. “He’s already outside, Cait. Do need help?”   “I want daddy!” and Cait ran from the bedroom, down the stairs, and to the kitchen door. She hadn’t been let outside on her own yet. Uncle was supposed to be making it safe out there.   “Even if your new Daddy will carry you, Cait, if you go out there, and there are snakes all over the ground he is cleaning up… you will get bitten. That will be worse than old Daddy’s belt. Cait stood there, frozen.   The sounds of Auntie’s slippers whispered across the floor as she approached the kitchen and she frowned at Cait’s hand reaching for the door. Her pajamas were still dripping and she turned to see her Auntie there.   “The snakes are out there, wanderer,” the ghost used old daddy’s words against her. “You know that’s why Uncle Sean doesn’t want you out there right now, and why Daddy would get upset every time you leave the house without supervision back home.”   “I want Daddy,” Cait whispered.   “I know, Pet,” Auntie didn’t correct her. By now, Cait was sure Auntie knew she was starting to call Uncle Sean, Daddy. “But Daddy wants you to stay inside a few more days unless you are with Auntie Eiboline. He just doesn’t want something bad to happen.”   There was a tear that ran down her left cheek. “Stay inside, child. I promise you, he’ll be right back after feeding the animals. When he’s got the farm ready for you, he’ll let you wander a little more, as long as you follow the rules.” Cait wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a little more in a whisper after that. “We just don’t want it to happen again.”   Those words were like Sand in a flour sifter though. They were lost the moment she whispered, and Cait couldn’t quite make out if she actually said it, or if the ghost was playing tricks on her. Auntie had turned her back to Cait for a moment, which made the words even harder to have been heard. She was looking out the window.   “Okay.” Cait took what they said at face value because they had been there for her every time she had needed them, and they had let her play at the park and make a friend, and they had taken her to the restaurant and they controlled everything. So, if Sean knows this farm so very well… he must know something she didn’t.   Auntie took a deep breath as she turned away from the unseen cross, from where Cait could only guess, might have been the direction of that un-rul-ie haircut of a field inside a fence, but whether that is where she was looking, Cait didn’t know. The sound of a heavy snort of some large animal seemed to breathe through the (win-doe) window as Auntie finally turned to Cait, her eyes still shining from something….   “I know what might help make you feel better, Pet.”   “Yeah?”   “How about you clean it up?” Auntie’s still misty eyes danced in their round homes at Cait in a mesmerizing appeal. “Remember a couple of days ago, when you cleaned up the mess?”   “Yeah…,” Cait started to process what Auntie was trying to have her think about. “Remember how good you felt? Maybe if you clean up the dirty water on your own, you’ll feel better.”   “What… what do I use?” Cait felt her hands and her heart racing. Auntie was telling her. I don’t want you to do it for me…. I want you to feel free of it.     “You have your stuff in the bedroom where we put it. Just clean the carpet by your door, by the bathroom, and then by our bedroom. That’s where it really shows. Then after you’d done that, then you can decide if you want me to give you a bath, or if you want to wait for Uncle to come in after he feeds the animals. How would that be?”   “Okay.”   Auntie turned from Cait, trying to give her a little bit of trust that she could do this without her explicit instructions. Cait started to walk away.   “You’re gonna mess (Chomp).”   “Don’t listen to the ghost. Cait? Auntie trusts you. If she didn’t think you were able, she’d come up and help you. You understand that Auntie is trying to help you in a way that’s stronger than if there’s pee on the floor or not, right?”   Cait shrugged. “I still want Daddy Sean though.”   Kookiberry just looked up at her from her arms. He stared at her like he expected her to try, so Cait took a breath. “I’ll do it, then.”   Cait scrubbed and scrubbed, still seeing a faint yellow stain though most kids her age would have thought the stain was gone long before then. Kookaberry didn’t stop her. He didn’t know what clean was. He was just a bear, so he had to trust Cait to stop when she felt it was good.   Cait was still looking at the faint yellowness that neither Kookaberry nor Sean, and admittedly, the ghost had stopped talking about long before Sean’s first creaks on the last three steps of the top of the stairs finally drew Cait’s head his way. The stains in front of the bathroom and her own bedroom were still there.   “Cait-a-kins? What are you doing, love?”   “The pee. It won’t come out.”   Sean frowned with a sigh. “I won’t? Is it stuck on the floor or is it stuck in your eyes, little one? Because I don’t see anything but a wet carpet in front of the door.”   “What about right there?” Cait pointed at a yellow ring so faint and so hard to fully follow around it’s extended reach, even an ant would end up missing the edge if it was trying to follow it.   “Cait. Up you go,” Sean didn’t let her argue. “You cleaned this one up as much as it needs doing. It’s breakfast, so let’s get your hands washed and you in some clean clothes. Is that alright?”   “Okay.”   Uncle Sean settled a now fully dressed in farm clothes, jeans and plaid shirt, Cait, and Auntie served her a bowl of oatmeal.   “She’s not ready to clean the messes by herself,” Uncle Sean told Auntie. And it’s nothing to do with how clean she’ll get it. She doesn’t know when it’s clean enough. She was scrubbing the floor in front of our door since you sent her up there to clean it, and I didn’t see anything wrong with the floor, but her little eyes still saw the stain as clear as day, a stain that wasn’t there, Eiboh.”   “Oh, my. She was taught how to clean the stain yesterday, and she seemed relieved to have cleaned it up herself.”   “Well, I’m not saying not let her do it. I’m saying she needs checked on and supervised, or she’ll be up there all day still scrubbing long after the stain is gone.”   “I’m so sorry, Cait. I should have checked on you. Next time, when Auntie lets you do it, we do it together, alright, pet?”   Cait looked down. “I just didn’t want you to think I’m dirty and leave the mess when you let me clean it up.”   “We would never think that, child,” Uncle Sean patted her very dry and clean bottom. “Now, sit and eat. I’ll have the farm ready for you by the end of the workday today, if all goes well, then this evening we can take a quick walk through so I can show you where you are allowed to wander and be as safe as I could make it for you. You’ll still have to learn to watch the animals though, so for a few days, you won’t be allowed to wander on your own until I know you are paying attention to the animals, though.”   “Okay.”