Trading Post

Maddison was watching *Toy Story* with her sister when Emilly woke up, and Camilla told her to go upstairs and keep the child company until Ana could come up to change Emilly's diaper. Maddison, having already used the bathroom, approached her sister's crib and said, "Look, the little fairy made a big mess—congratulations." Emilly replied, "I don't want you here; you're supposed to be wearing a full diaper, gloves, and boots." Maddison ruffled her sister's hair and said, "You need to calm down, little one; I don't know what you want from me."

Camila fangs her little girl and gave her kiss on her forehead before Madison got back to Ana to continue her feeding. When dinner came Emily had woken up she desperately needed a change, "Hay I need a change, Hey please I I really need a chage, mommy pwase my diapee stinks." When the door opened and the light turned on the one who came in was Madison by herself.

Chapter 96 What They Say   The kids were all sitting in a circle, before the playtime started, and Vance looked up at each of us before he started his open speaking session with them. Cait sat in Shane’s lap.   “Shane? How come everyone has to hear us talk?”   “It’s so that we learn that we aren’t alone, I think.”   “But I got you. I got Grandma. I got Daddy. I got Billy and Ruth. I got Summerstone….”   “But the only one that pees in your group there, is me. I think it’s so you don’t feel weird that you pee or something. Like, I… I get upset when kids at school say certain things that make me feel alone. Don’t you have that?”   “I guess,” Cait looked down. “But there are people that don’t have to pee that are nice, too.”   “Yeah. Maybe. But they don’t really get why you do it.”   “Why that gotta matter? Don’t other people have trouble with stuff? Like died people they love, or maybe don’t good to do math or read? Why pee so different?”   “Shane? Would you and Cait like to share what you are talking about?” Vance asked.   “Oh, sorry, no.” Shane was in a hurry to say.   “Well,” Cait frowned. “I have a question.”   “Cait? You might regret saying anything,” Shane whispered.   Cait looked up at him. “Shame is being powerful a ghost, you know. I don’t think I care about to say it.”   Vance whispered. “Shane, we are all here because we have problems. You know, that’s what group is for, right? To help us sort them out? This is a safe place, son.”   “Yeah, until fall starts and someone finds out somehow what we say in these meetings, and it spreads around town, right.”   Cait turned in his lap and facing him, she patted his back. “Everyone has trouble. I promise.”   “Cait is right,” Vance said. “There isn’t one person that doesn’t have their own struggles at your school, among your friends, or even in your family.”   “I know,” Shane frowned. “But no one else pees their pants… just because….”   Vance frowned. “Look behind you, Shane. Two high school kids are in the same situation you are.”   “So…, Ethan and Grace really do just pee their pants just because the late bell rang at school?”   Vance sighed. “They have their own issues they are dealing with that sound to them, just as silly, but I’m here to say, it’s not silly. Anything that affects your health, Shane, and all of you, is not silly or something to take lightly. And there is nothing wrong with you.”   “Yeah? Well, everyone sees me, and they see a loser.”   Vance sighed and Cait held him tighter.   “Shane, we all feel like that,” Vance walked over and stood next to them. “You know that this isn’t your fault, don’t you?”   He shrugged, his eyes watery.   Cait clenched on him harder and she whispered in his ear. “Pee, Shane. I’m here. I want you to pee your pants on me. You hear? You my big brother, and if you are allowed, then I’m allowed.”   Shane frowned.   “Cait, I don’t think that’s going to help….”   Shane’s pants started to wet into Cait’s dress and she whispered. “You’re not a loser. You are my big brother peer. I need you. I can’t do not sad if you can’t not be sad, I mean. I get okay to not scared here. You peed. I don’t only me pee, then I scared. You don’t come here because you got fixed it. It safe to peed here? Or it doesn’t?”   Grace walked up behind Shane and Mia next to him on the other side.   “I am called a loser, you know, too. We all are.”   Shane nodded.   “I pooped my pants earlier. That’s why I was crying. I had to come to the group, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to just… not even think about what I did. I… I hate pooping my pants.”   Shane looked up at her, and Cait did, too.   “I poot my pants, too,” Cait whispered up at her. “And I wear boy panties, not because I’m a boy, but because they let me hold it longer when I start to pre-pee my pants… so it’s not real pee a little longer so I can get on the toilet.”   Grace put a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Shane. It’s hard. And it doesn’t get any easier in high school if you still doing it there, either.”   “But do you at least use the toilet during breaks?” Shane asked her.   “Yeah… well… sometimes, I don’t.”   “Oh.”   “I sit in my chair and pee my pants and even poot them on purpose in class,” Cait whispered.   “You do?” Grace asked.   “Yeah. That what the teachers said.”   “No,” Shane rubbed her back, back. “When you say on purpose, it means you choose to, Cait. Like I choose to pee my pants because the toilets are too far away from class, and time is limited, and you get in trouble for not being on time.”   “Yeah. That sometimes the reason,” Cait whispered. “Sometimes. I just poop my pants because I started to wet, and scared to be seeded, so I poop em… I just push and it come out.”   Grace frowned. “Yeah. I… I pooped when I was my cousins. I was supposed to be the big babysitter. Aunt was really mad.”   “Did she hit you?”   “No. I was supposed to get twenty dollars for watching them for like three hours. But when Aunt got home, I pooped my pants watching them, so she called my mom and said I taught her kids bad, so she wasn’t paying me.”   “Did she even ask you what happened?” Shane whispered.   “Why would she? It’s obvious to her. I just pooped my pants.”   Cait rubbed her hand. “You didn’t just poop em though.”   Grace frowned. “My mom asked me why I didn’t go to the bathroom when we were in the car….”   Shane sighed. “And did you tell her?”   “Why? I’m in high school and pooped my pants, on purpose. What can I say about that?”   “You can tell her why you did it on purpose… I guess… but I get it. I don’t like to tell my mom when I peed either.” Shane shook a little.   “I always tell Daddy-Sean when I go potty. He holds me and he even get me in his lap while I still peeing. He says it just water.” Cait frowned. “Daddy says I can poot my panties on purpose, even when I feel better. He says… helping me is to give me choice, not make me not do it.”   Grace frowned. “Really?”   “Daddy-Sean says it my body. It my choice. I only need choice. So he don’t ever mad I pee on I want to, only he help me not pee by not my choice.”   “You’re a little girl, though, It’s maybe okay if you….”   “No,” Vance shook his head. “Her being a little girl is not the point, Grace. She has struggles just like you do. She has fears and she has peers picking on her for the same things.”   “So? What are we supposed to do about it?” Grace’s face was wet and she was shaking.   Cait crawled out of Shane’s lap and she went and held Grace’s leg.   “You don’t have to do what kids think is right,” Shane frowned. “I mean, it’s scary, but they don’t get you or me. They can laugh because they don’t know.   “It’s not just what kids think, though,” Grace frowned and looked down. “I have to stop wetting my pants before September. I have to!”   “Why come? Because they are callededing you names?” Cait asked.   “No? It’s not just that; I won’t be loved.”   Cait looked up at Vance.   “Grace? What do you mean you won’t be loved? Do you think your mother wouldn’t love you?”   “She doesn’t,” Grace whispered. “She just… she just gives me food, but she doesn’t talk with me. She… she says I’m bad.”   Cait looked down.   “What happeneding, Grace?” Cait pulled at her to pick her up.   “You’re all going to say I’m bad.” Grace picked Cait up.   “No,” Vance whispered. “We are not. We are all here for each other. Remember?”   “Yeah,” Grace whispered. “I still hate being the big kid that pees her pants and then I am supposed to set the example, but I pooped my pants and caused little kids to think….”   “That’s it though,” Cait cut her off. “In our group. All us kids eben big kids… you, and little kids...me; In our group… We already peededing our panties, so you don’t do it.”   Vance sighed. “Grace, you are not giving any bad examples here when you have an accident or even need to talk through one you had somewhere else. Everyone here feels the same hurt and the same fear. That’s why we talk. You can process what is going on, and you will understand what you truly have control over and what you need to realize, you just need time for.”   Cait reached around Grace’s back and patted Grace’s butt. “You allowed pooted your panties, Grace. I take you bathroom to change panties if you pooted or peed. Not because I good at clean, but because it get more scared by alone for ghost can telleding you lies that you don’t know.”   Grace looked down. “Yeah?”   “Yeah,” Cait hugged her. “And you not called Shane bad for pee pants for scared late, right?”   “No? It’s not his fault if he is afraid of being late, and get there on time, but then can’t wait and pees.” Grace’s voice trailed to a whisper.   “And that’s right. And it’s not your fault if you feel trapped while you are watching yoru cousins,” Vance said in a low calming voice. “Fear is real, Grace. Your feelings are real, and you need to understand them so you can face them.”   Grace frowned. “It’s bad no matter what if a sixteen year old kid poops her pants or even pees on herself.”   “Then my really big big loved people who is bigger much more big than sixteen bad?” Cat put her thumb in her mouth. “But I still loveding her even she peed her pants before.”   “You know of someone that pees her pants that’s older than sixteen?”   “Yeah. Bigger a lot more than sixteen. Loveding doesn’t get age time or getteding if you good or you don’t good something. Daddy in Wis con stanty saids it. Grandma saids it.”   Grace made a sound that told Cait that she didn’t believe her.   “Watch,” Cait frowned. Spreading her legs, she looked down at the floor and felt the first little gush pre-wet her panties. Her pre-pee.   “What are you doing?” Grace and a few of the other girls asked.   “I’m trieding to have a on a po-pose ask a dent.”   “You can’t do that,” Heather whispered as Cait started to leak pee down her legs and a stream started to hit the floor.   Cait pushed harder and made the stream more solid as it poured down under the dress and to the floor, half of it going down her legs.   “Even you mad or someone calleding me stupid…? I don’t cared no more. Ghost not even not here no more. Ghost can’t stoppeding me pee my pants because I want. Daddy Sean said I apposed to listeneding at the doctor and eben that stops, he doesn’ted take me doctor to stop, but just to maked it a choose for me.”   Grace frowned. “You’re just… just doing it. Just like that? I….” She started shaking.   “Grace, come, hon,” Vance called her over and sat her in his lap in the chair where he faced the group. He holds kids in his lap all the time, normally the littler kids, but no one said anything about him holding her.   Shane immediately put Cait in his lap while Cait was still trying to pee her pants.   Vance patted Grace’s leg like Daddy did Cait’s at times, and Cait smiled and snugged into Shane’s lap, her skirt all wet. She whispered up at Shane. “I like you. You’re safe.”   “You’re safe here,” Vance told Grace. “Whether you pee your pants on accident or on purpose, while you are in this room, you are not judged. You talk about what is going on and if you feel the need to wet your pants, or pee just comes out, it’s not a concern right now. What is the concern, is your feelings, kids.”   Shane started to pee. Cait smiled and sucking her thumb, she continued to listen to Vance.   “...many of you already know this story. I bring it up every few months, but I think it’s important. If you understand the damage you do to your own minds and your own bodies, then you’ll understand why it’s okay to potty your pants until you find better way to deal with your stress.”   “He’s going to talk about why he started the group,” Shane whispered.   “Oh. I want to hear this,” Cait sat up. “Hold me, though?”   “As long as you don’t mind I’m still peeing.”   “Wet your pants all the way, big brother. It’s nice when you do it. Makes me less scared to pee mine.”   “...my daughter was in her first year in high school, and she… she dehydrated herself, asked kids about drugs that were supposed to control needing to pee in the day time, and eventually wore diapers to school until she finally said in her suicide note, that they found out she had diapers, and that was the last straw. She went into the swimming pool at school when they weren’t supposed to be in there, tied her arms and legs to weights, and stepped off the deep end of the pool fully clothed.”   Cait’s eyes got big.   “Apparently, she’d been dribbling pee into her panties for over two years by then, but she didn’t tell either her mom or me. Then, when she started high school, the strict schedule, the peers talking about her and making her scared to go into the bathroom… and she even tried to go in the boys’ twice but was shamed for that… she couldn’t take it anymore. She started peeing and even pooping her pants at school. Then as it got worse, she tried to find drugs, tried not to drink water at school, and all the time, thinking that she was unloveable if she was dirty… that’s what she heard at school….”   He wiped a tear that traveled down his face. “Of course, I was her father. I had seen her pants were wet twice, but I was trying to trust she’d come to me, that it was private, but in the end, I ended up being the worst. I should have confronted her about the cause of her peeing her pants… school bullying.”   He looked down.   After a long moment, he looked up. “I won’t let another teenager feel lonely like that again. It was my promise on my daughter’s grave, that I would pay attention. That no child will ever have to carry shame alone because she or he…,” he looked at Shane and Ethan. Ethan was the eldest boy, a fifteen year old. “I will not let you feel so alone, that you think death is the only way out, kids. You may not know it, but for three months after my daughter died, I peed the bed.”   The other kids looked down.   “I don’t say this as in it is okay that an adult pees the bed. I say this to tell you, that we all process problems in our lives, and sometimes, it causes things to happen to us that others judge us for, but they don’t know your story. They cannot shame you, not really, not unless they’ve lived your story and found a healthy way to deal with it. We are all only human, children.”   Cait rose her hand.   “We don’t raise our hands in this playgroup, Cait. We are all equal. I am a facilitator not an authority. Just we only ask that we don’t speak over someone else. I was quiet, so you could speak, hon.”   “Oh. It’s just….”   “I know, Cait. Social norm. This class teaches agency though. It looks past what kids are supposed to do, and it gives you a voice so you are not scared to speak up. There are a few kids that wouldn’t speak up if I made the group like a school, hon. And for a few kids like Grace, that would cause more peeing in her pants. While I don’t mind it if she pees, I don’t want to be the cause of making her wet either. Make sense?”   “Yeah.”   “So, what did you want to say, hon?”   “I forgot. But I peeded my pants on my brother.”   “That’s okay, sweetie. If you think of what you wanted to say, you can speak up if no one is talking at the moment, okay?”   “Okay.”   “I’ll let you change in a minute, little lady. Let’s finish our communication part first, okay?”   “Okay.”   “So, children? I know that sometimes, parents are hard to talk to about issues in school. There are a lot of different issues in this room where peeing and even pooping your pants isn’t the main problem, it’s a symptom. But remember, we have peer buddies to help you start talking, but you should also find a safe adult and talk about the main causes of any stress you have whether that stress specifically makes you potty your pants or not, okay?”   The kids nodded.   “Okay, let’s go play, and anyone that needs a change of pants, if you need permission, come and get me, otherwise, you know where they are. Just big kids, you help the little kids, and little kids…, if your big kid peer pooped their pants, you get me so they get any extra help they need.”   Then he let the children change and play.   Chapter 97 Cait Learned Something When Cait got in the car nearly an hour after the communication part, she leaned up at Grandma. “It’s okay if you pee your pants, Grandma. My playgroup teacher pees the bed, or at least he did for a while. He said his kid in high school and drowned and it made him pee the bed.”   “Now,” Sean patted Cait’s hand. “Let’s not bring up that unless we have to.”   “Okay. I just wanted Grandma to know… I understand like you don’t whip me for peeing and pooping mine.”   Sean smiled back at her. “She knows, hon. You have a good heart, but remember the lesson about not always having to say everything.”   “Okay.”   The ghost sat in the car next to her. She had on clean farmer jeans and a crisp clean pink shirt. She smiled at Cait.   “What do you want?” she asked it.   “You peed in the playgroup?”   “How you know?”   “You wearing different pants.”   “I did.”   “Why come the teacher telleding you that he peed the bed? Do you think he wants you to pee the bed?”   “No. I mean. I don’t think he cares it. He just said it to say anyone can.”   “Like Grandma?”   “Yeah.”   “Grandma shamed. You didn’t see her red face when you said she can pee her pants, did you?”   “I saw.”   “But you said it, but you didn’t say sorry, did you?”   “Oh.”   Cait leaned up. She whispered. “I didn’t want to make you sad Grandma.”   “What do you mean, hon?”   “I shouldn’t a said you can pee your pants.”   “Cait… I’m not sad you said that.”   “Okay. I thought you were.”   “No, Cait.”   “But Daddy said….”   “Cait,” Daddy sighed. “Grandma had an accident while you were in there.”   “Oh.”   “You didn’t make her sad, but bigger people don’t like it said, even if they do it. Can you drop it for now, please?”   “Yeah. I’m sorry.”   “You didn’t know, hon,” Grandma’s chin sort of shook a little bit.   I sat back. “You’re right ghost. I shouldn’t a said nothing.”   “Told you.”   Cait held Kooks close. “Can’t you tell me how to talk to big people so they don’t think I just… talking?”   “I’m sorry,” Kooks frowned. “I just learning as you are.”   “I can,” said Ghost.   “No,” Cait frowned. “If Kooks just learning, then you just learning, too. You still too much Daddy in you… and I mean… the sad Daddy on the Mysery Farm.”   The ghost crossed it’s arms. “I’ll pee my pants right here.”   “So?” Cait frowned.   “If I do it, it will make you do it. You know that.”   “Yeah, I had a feeling.”   “You don’t care?”   “No. But I peed just not even an hour ago, so you don’t even gotta go right now. You’ll have to wait for a while until you can make me pee my pants.”   “Fine. You win, this time.”     When they got to the farm, Cait ran to Summerstone, but not to seek Summerstone himself, though she did pet him. She was looking for Ginger.   “Ginger? You Summerstone’s mama, so you understand. Maybe you can teach me. I keep saying something that hurts Grandma, and maybe I hurt Shane. Maybe you can help me?”   Ginger walked over and nuzzled Cait’s hair, like Summerstone does, but she didn’t taste it.   “I told Grandma she’s allowed to pee her pants, but I guess kids can’t say that. It not our place to say what allowed. But Grace said about love, and I don’t know. It get all confuse my head.”   Ginger snorted at Summerstone, and Summerstone pushed against me.   “How I show Grandma I still love her?”   The horses stood quietly by Cait and they just stood there while Cait brushed Summerstone.   “Would Grandma feel less worried about being wet, if I just somehow peed my pants at the same time?” Cait asked Ginger.   Ginger snorted and Summerstone pushed a little harder making Cait fall to the ground in the hay.   Ginger snorted again.   “But what I do?”   Summerstone walked over and he stood side by side with Ginger. They seemed like one, and suddenly, mama horse pooped her panties, only horses don’t wear them, so it just went on the ground, but she did poop and if she had panties on, she would have pooped them. Summerstone paid no mind to it. He just nuzzled Ginger’s neck like he wanted her.   “They’re telling you to just pretend nothing happened,” Cait heard the ghost.   “What?”   “Big people don’t need you to tell them it’s okay. They not like Grace and Shane who are scared like you.”   “How you know about Grace?”   “Kooks told me.”   “Did not! You looked in my drawer of secrets against my will!”   “There are no secrets from me,” Ghost said. “I been with Cait a lot longer than you have. I know what she needs.”   The two of them glared at each other like they wanted to fight.   “NOW,” Cait said Sean’s now, but she didn’t say it calm like he does. “If either of you say one more word to the other, even if you say it after the other, I don’t talk to the one or both who speaks the rest of the night.”   They both got quiet.   “Thank you, Ginger and Summerstone.” Cait got off the ground and brushed herself off. “I’m going to see if Grandma wants help cooking. See you both in the morning.”   She skipped off, and somehow… it was more peaceful. She loved Kooks’s voice in her head, but right now, just a silent nothing was so… not full in her head… that she felt like an anvil was not only off her shoulders, but off her brain.   She walked over to the table without a word, took the strainer and the bag of potatoes, and without even asking, just started peeling.   Chapter 98 Cait Didn’t Expect That!   The next morning, Cait woke up without any dreams. There were no arguments in her dreams with Cait, the Ghost, and Kooks. There were no spot lit acyouzasun rooms. There were no memories at all of the night’s visions.   When she woke, she was simply in a wet bed, and she didn’t have to pee.   “I peed the bed,” she told the Ghost.   “I know. Good girl.”   “Good girl because Daddy in Mysery, or Good girl because Daddy at here?”   “Both?” the Ghost whispered. “Daddy in Mysery can’t hit you for peeing in the bed. And Daddy Sean is glad you don’t mind having wet your bed. “Go get them awake so he can change you. You want to see Summerstone”   Cait pulled Kooks up from the floor using his leash that was always clipped to her shirts or pajama tops. She loved him clipped there. It felt like he was following her rather than her just carrying a non feeling toy.   “Ghost is right for once,” Kookaberry told Cait. “You do want to see Summerstone, and you are supposed to get them when you pee because of the in-spection-thingy that hurts if you don’t get it watched.”   “Okay. She hugged Kooks, and then she hugged the air. I still need you both. Just cause I told you to shut up last night doesn’t mean I hate you.”   She got out of bed and walked to the bedroom door for her big loving people, but it opened before she knocked on it.   “Morning, Cait,” Daddy reached down and hugged her. “Need a bath and medicine, hon?”   “Yeah. It itching and it kind of hurts in a burn but not fire way? I can’t esplain it.”   “It’s okay. I get it, hon. Want Grandma?”   “Yeah. I need medicine. I love Daddy, but it feels… like Grandma should do medicine because of where.”   “I fully understand, Pet. Grandma it is. When you are dressed, I’ll be outside, so you can come as long as you promise to watch the ground and animals for hints of danger.”   “I promise.”   When Cait was in the bath with Grandma, Cait noticed something! Ghost’s pajamas were off on the floor too… fully peed in. And she was in the bath with her? Didn’t Daddy say that Ghosts don’t like baths?   Ghost smiled. “Ghosts don’t like baths because they force us to see who we are. Most the time, we scary and mean. But right now… I don’t feel scary and mean. I can see myself when I am not scary and mean. It’s kind of… new… kind of like… maybe the way it felt the first time Uncle held you after you pooped your pants. Do you remember how it felt?”   “Scary.”   “What was that?” Grandma asked.   “Nothing, Grandma. I was just be member something, but I not scared. Promise. I can’t be scared Grandma helping me.”   Cait walked hand in hand with Kooks holding her right hand and Ghost holding her left hand, though others would only see Kooks hanging from her shirt. She bounded over to Summerstone’s stable, and let him out leading him to her own pen.   “Did you eat?” she asked Summerstone.   Summerstone snorted.   “No, you have to eat,” Cait told him. “I felt the same way about a bath and seeing you the other day. Did you know that? But Daddy said you’d know and it would scare you. So I take a bath first, now.”   Summerstone bounced his head up and down that way that horses often walk.   “So, did you eat?”   Summerstone tasted Cait’s hair.   Cait sighed and shut her pen up so Summerstone was safe, and then she went back to the stable to collect some of the feed hay for him, and brought it out to her pen and held it out for him. He started eating.   After spending a little time with Summerstone, feeding, brushing, and talking to him, Daddy came to take Cait to breakfast.   “I’m glad you are learning that you are the one that feeds him, when you’re home, sweetheart. It’s important not only to Summerstone, but to your own well-being, too.”   “Why?”   “It proves you CAN be a big girl and do big girl things, Cait. It proves that you are capable no matter what people have been telling you for a long time. Just because you can’t do some things, doesn’t mean you are useless and can’t do anything.”   “Yeah. I guess so. I keep making mistakes with Impaty, though. I want to know that Grandma know I love, but I keep doing it wrong.”   “That’s what adults are here, for Cait. You can’t just magically know everything that is socially right. Social isn’t exactly natural… not with people, anyway.”   “Why?”   “I don’t know, Cait. Sometimes, I wish we could just tell how we felt, and it would come across just as we mean it. But it doesn’t. Trust me, I didn’t fully understand it until I was in high school, and even then, I messed up sometimes.”   “So even high school kids get sochul stunies stuff wrong?”   “Even college kids… and even people who have lived as long as Grandma and Daddy, hon.”   “So I not just bad?”   “No. You are just learning, hon. Big difference. Bad people don’t care to learn. Learning people try to do better if they find out something is not right.”   “I want to impatiply other people so they don’t hurt.”   “I know, sweetheart. The words you are looking for… is probably, ‘show empathy, baby.”   “Yeah, those words.”   Cait was kicking her legs under the table lazily, playfully, and she was eating bacon, eggs, and toast with Daddy and Grandma when the phone rang.   “Cait? Yes, she lives here. Who’s calling?”   “You sound a little older.”   “Did she do something?”   “And Cait is going to help?”   “Well, you can talk to her, I suppose. Cait? Your friend Grace from Play Group is on the phone.”   Cait jumped up and ran to the phone and called into it. “Cait!”   “Hey, Cait,” Grace whispered. “I really messed up last night.”   “How?”   “I peed the bed. I don’t know why. I… I don’t think I can go home anymore.”   “What are you doeding now?”   “I don’t know. I’m at the park. I’m just thinking. I don’t know who to call. You… you were so brave just peeing your pants yesterday in front of everyone. Even Heather doesn’t do it like that, and she’s a lot younger than you.”   “Only two years.”   “Well, you’re still brave. I just thought… I don’t have a safe adult to talk to, Cait. Can I… I know it’s weird. Can you call Shane for me? I think, he’s nice, but it would be really strange if I called him. I don’t want his parents to think I’m his girlfriend. That wouldn’t look good.”   “I can call Shane.”   “Can you come, too, so it doesn’t look like I’m just trying to meet him for… stupid reasons?”   “Yeah, I ask my Daddy and Grandma.”   “Okay. I’ll be at the park. I’ll be the only teenager sitting in wet pants, probably. So….”   “Wait,” Cait frowned at the phone. “Grandma! Grace is scared! Can you talk to her? I don’t know what to say. I might make her sad. She’s… she’s scared.”   Grandma answered the phone and then Cait went and sat on Sean’s lap. “I need to call Shane, and then ask him to meet me at the park as soon as possible. Grace. She needs Shane’s help, but she’s a high school kid, and Shane not, and she needs help, bad. She scaring me. When can we please please please go help her?”   “Let me talk to Grandma. You go call Shane and see when he can be available, hon. Tell Grandma to have her call back in thirty minutes and every ten after that until she gets through so we can tell her when to expect us, okay?”   “Okay.”   As Cait told Grandma what to say, and Grandma hung up, Cait looked up at her. “It dirty. But she gonna be in pee pee pants. Can… only… can you let her wear something? I sorry. She scared. She said she peed her pants and wet the bed, and everything. She scared, Grandma.”   “We’ll see what we can do for her, hon. You call Shane and see what his parents say, okay?”   “Okay.”   “Helloooo….” It was the voice of a girl maybe Cait’s age.   “Hi. Is your brother home?”   “Which one?”   “Shane. He my peer helper. I need help, and he said I can ask anytime for help.”   “I’ll get him. Mom! Shane’s Peer Group people need him!”   “Shane!”   Cait heard them calling around as if it was everyone’s place to know. Now, she realized with her heart sinking, that Grace was right to have Cait call. Grace would have hung up. Cait wanted to hang up, but Grace scared her too much than to worry about what a house of strangers thought.   “Cait? You okay?” Shane sounded very supprized at me call him.   “I okay, but not someone else. You be member Grace?”   “The high school girl that poops her pants? Yeah?”   “Yeah, well, don’t tell her that maybe, that how you be member her. She’s really sad it and she might not be able going home because she peed bed and she need help, and I thought you can… she thought you can talk her. Not that you can help, but just listen? Because you big kid not judge?”   “Oh, yeah, I can do that. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just….”   “The group be member her wrong reason. How about she the only high school girl and she come and support us even she is sick, too? That better be members her!”   “You’re right, Cait, I’m sorry. So…?”   “My Daddy and Grandma talking it. Can we pick you up?”   “Yeah, just um… come and get me when you are ready. I’ll be my house.”   When Grace called next, Cait raced to the phone and took it.   “This is Cait. Is this Grace?”   “Yeah. I just did it again.”   “It’s okay. You’re okay, Grace, you hear? My Grandma know zactly how to help. She get you clean cloziz that you like. But you tell what you like. Pants? Skirts?”   “Long… really long shirt that can hide if I pee my pants?”   “Yeah… and what for your waist? Skirt, shorts, or jeans? You choice. We don’t even mind you wear boy panties if you want. I wear them. Boy panties, you can pee a little more before you go to bathroom, it doesn’t wet your pants as fast as girls ones.”   “Um… Girls ones, please. And… skirt?”   “Okay. Gracie? It’s okay. You safe now. Grandma doesn’t mad about water. Daddy says that all pee is. Just dirty water. No one cares it like rain.”   “Okay.”   We got one of Grandma’s sleeping shirts and skirt for Gracie, and then we went to Shane’s house. He was out on the porch waiting for us.   “Hey, Cait. Sorry about the phone earlier. I should have said the girl that helped you at group yesterday.”   Cait shrugged. “I still learning what Daddy means. I don’t say nothing good, too, but I know by talking her, if you say you the girl that poops, she’s goinged to cry.”   “Yeah, you’re right.”   Once he was in the car, they drove to the park, and Grandma put an arm around Gracie. “Hon, before you and Shane and Cait talk? How about you come to the car with me first?”   “Why?”   “I’ll tell you when you get there, hon. It’s no one’s business but yours. The old man, Shane, and Cait will stay out here and wait for you. I promise. I’m not going to ask you any questions, but I have something you need.”   “Okay.”         Chapter 99 The Park Judgment   When Grace came back, she looked at Sean. “Um… Mrs. Kinsella said if you can leave us at the park for about thirty minutes, and you can take her to mail Cait’s letters?”   Sean smiled. “Now,” and he touched her shoulder for a minute and then he hugged Cait before he lumbered off leaving the three children to talk.   When they were gone, Cait sat on the ground. “Well?” she looked up at the others. “Just cuz you big, you can’t sit on the grass?”   Shane smiled and sat down and patted the grass between him and Cait. “Sit, Grace. Tell us what’s going on, okay?”   Grace sighed, looked around twice, and then finally sat down.   “I don’t know how to start. I’m just so… dirty.”   “Na-uh,” Cait frowned at her. “That a bad word. That worse than you say fucker. Say fucker, Grace.”   “I can’t!”   “But you can call our friend is stink? How come you can say our friend, Grace is dirty but you can’t say a no meaning fucker?”   Grace frowned.   Shane sighed. “Gracie? She’s learning things a little different than normal, but honestly, it’s healthier. Why can’t you call out things that are unfair with bad words, but you can call yourself names? You know, Cait and I don’t think you stink, right? Or that you’re dirty?”   “But I am,” Grace frowned.   Cait crawled on her hands and knees and sat in her lap. “No, you not. You nice heart and you smell nice to me.”   “I peed the bed, Cait!”   “I pee the bed. This morning, I peededing it. I didn’t even care. I went to the door of Daddy bedroom, but he opened it already and he get Grandma, and I get a bath. You peededing the bed not is dirty. What dirty is if you don’t alloweding cleaned up after, and you in park in wet pants, and that bad, and that doesn’t you! That not you.”   “It… it was. I ran out of the house before my mom saw what I did. I didn’t change.”   “Yeah, but why?”   Grace looked down. “She’s gonna be so pissed. I’m gonna get it if I go back. I don’t want to.”   “She’s hitteding you?”   “I don’t know,” Grace shrugged. “But she’ll tell people, and everyone will know.”   “You can stay my house, but only ascept you have to not care you get peededing on because I been wetting the bed at night.”   Grace frowned. “I… I’m bigger. I’ll probably get you wet more than you get me.”   “So? We both peededing the bed, so it okay.”   “Grace,” Shane took her hand. “You are not just a pee pants, and you just got scared. How do you know you will pee the bed all the time?”   “I… I don’t pee the bed all the time.”   “How often then?”   “It’s the first time in bed.”   Cait hugged her. “That why you get scarededing,” she rubbed Grace’s arm. “But you allowed to not get to bathroom if it happens. Daddy says so. You don’t get yelleding or askeding why you don’t go bathroom. If you neededing it, you get a bath from Grandma, but if you can do it, you just get clean clothes and pretend nothing big happeneding… because pee pants is just rain water on your pants.”   “You don’t believe that, do you?”   “At Daddy and Grandma house? Yes. I believe in them. At my Daddy and Mommy house in Mysery, no I don’t believe. Sisters get hitteding if I peededing pants in Mysery.”   “Oh.”   “Daddy Kinsella never hits, though. You don’t worry about Kinsella Daddy and Grandma, okay?”   “Well, I’m not exactly. It’s my mom. She’s had it with me. I can’t watch my cousins right, I can’t sit in class or at church right, and I can’t even get up in the night now.”   “You mighted beeding sick.”   “What do you mean?”   “Doctor says I keepeding to holdeding it bad all time, and it maded my body sick. So I poopeding my pants because I sick and the same thing makeding me pooteding my panties, makeding me pee on them.”   “I don’t think I’m sick.”   “Well, if you are or you not, still you have to be peeding in pants for something wrong. It not sense you go Group if it really your fault, Grace.”   “I… I don’t know….”   “Maybe my Grandma talk your mom,” Cait asked Grace. “Maybe Grandma can telleding your mom that you just need to see doctors and that doctors can be wrong, and that sick doesn’t have to lookeding bodies that are broken. It can be people brokeneding and hurteding her because they don’t want to understanded.”   “What are you rambling on about?” Grace asked.   “What meets rambling?” Cait squished her eyes together.   “It means you talk and talk, but I can’t understand because you keep going before I can keep up with your last thing.”   “Oh, I talkeding fast? Sorry. I mean… like at my home in Mysery, they call-eding me stupid because Doctor said my body look-eding good. Then Doctor here saided my body, my tummy stuff in my chest and in my place where pee supposed to stay. And it makeding my inside have harder turn, and then poop dried and then watery poops happeneding.”   Cait tried to go slower, but she saw Shane and Grace still looking confused.   “I don’t under-getteding big people words sometimes. I a little slow. I don’t even writeding or talkeding like my grade age. That what everyone says. I like belongeding kindergarten.”   “Not Kindergarten both Shane and Grace frowned.”   “Besides, you think I get all of the adult words they say?” Grace asked.   Cait shrugged. “Why do you must getteding every word?”   “How about, let’s start with you telling Cait and me how you think it is you peed the bed? It’s the first time. Something happened,” Shane put a hand on her leg. “We can listen. We can’t fix it, but we can support you.”   “Well, I don’t know what happened,” Grace frowned. “I dreamed that I couldn’t find my little cousin. I was looking for him. I thought I had to pee, but I had to find him first. I never found him, and I woke up peeing the bed.”   “You gotteding scared of losteding cousin ,” Cait frowned. “That how the ghost does it. It make you feeleding scared or shamed, and then your body get scarededing. And then you peededing your pants. That what it doeding to me, at least?”   Grace nodded. “Yeah.”   “You scarededing other people know. What happen when they knoweding you peededing?”   “I don’t get paid for babysitting. I get called names. You know, Like I belong in baby school, and well, I just… I’m not supposed to.”   Shane patted her arm. “I peed the bed last night. My sister caught me. She whispered to me to get my clothes changed, and then she took me to her bed and we slept the rest of the morning until time to get up. I don’t even know why she checked on me. She’s two years younger than me. It was really embarrassing, but it also felt good that she didn’t yell out to everyone why I was in her bed. She told everyone she got scared and I took her back to bed and fell asleep.”   Grace frowned.   “That what safe people doeding, Grace. They don’t care you peededing. They care you sad or happy. They want you to not scarededing you peededing in pants.” Cait looked up at Shane. “Right?”   “Right.”   “Grace?” Shane put an arm around her. “Anyone that actually cares about you? They don’t care if you pee, only if you feel scared and sad because of it. And they care if you need to see the doctor. Otherwise, they know you wouldn’t pee on purpose.”   “You’re always scared at group, Shane.” she frowned at him.   “Well, I don’t really know if anyone at group is judging me. But at home, other than my parents and younger brother and sisters telling everyone in the family I did it again, they don’t make fun of it. They always ask if… if I need help, and last night, my little sister acted like she was scared and made me take her to bed even though she knew I peed in the bed.”   “Mom isn’t mean,” Grace whispered. “It’s just I’m always doing it. We see the doctor, and stuff, and she lets me see Harmony and lets me go to this group, but she’s… she’s just tired because I keep doing it.”   “Do you tell your mommy about your scarededing?” Cait asked.   “Right, because mom needs another reason to be upset at me?”   Shane shook his head. “She wouldn’t be upset at you, Grace. Not if she loves you. She’d just be….”   “She’s tired,” Grace frowned. “She’s not really mad at me, is she? But sometimes, it still feels like she wants to spank me even if she doesn’t do it.”   Cait looked down. “I know that feeling. I knoweding it more than you know. Not the Kinsellas, but my Mysery home, where if I doeding it wrong, Daddy will spank with the belt, and I found out that he not only spankeding me, but he spankeding Grainne, my big sister, if I peeded wrong or I poopeded or it doeding it in my pants in public.”   “He spanked your sister?” Shane frowned.   “Grainne supposeded to teacheding me, but I found out Grainne doeding it, sometimes, and they saided it her fault I doeding it because she doeding it.”   “Your sister wets her pants, she gets yelled at, then you wet your pants, then she and you get hit?”   “I get hitteding if I do it wrong, but she gets hitteding even I doed it right.”   Grace’s eyes got big. “Isn’t that abuse?”   “What meets a-byou use?”   “It means they hit you just because.”   Cait shrugged. “There always a because. I don’t think it a-byou use.”   Shane and Grace looked at each other.   Shane sighed. “Grace, try something… unless your mom hits you for accidents?”   “She doesn’t. She just tells my aunt, and then my aunt tells other people, church people, school people, just other people.”   “Your mom just probably trying to askeding her what to do. Your aunt wrong. It not nice to tell people that you have trouble,” Cait patted her arm.   “Your mom doesn’t hit?” Shane asked to be sure.   “No.”   “Try something,” Cait whispered. “It will feeleding bad at first, but if you doed it because you choosed it, it feeleding freed.”   “What?” Grace looked at Cait like she wasn’t sure what Cait was going to say, but she seemed to think Cait might say something….”   “Try to poopeding your panties, right now, on purpose.”   “Why?”   “Because you don’t go home right now. Grandma won’t send you home poopeding panties. Because, you can be allowed, and it be you choice and not scareded ghost choice.”   “I’m not a little kid,” Grace started.   “Cait’s not a little kid, exactly, either,” Shane suddenly said. “She knows what it feels like. She… she’s had trouble. You can see it in her eyes and her movements and her body if you look. She always glances around when it’s not her being… well what she did yesterday at group. Yesterday at group? That was… Cait actually didn’t look around and act like she was looking for someone to hit her.”   Cait’s face blushed. “My Ghost is different since last night,” she whispered. “She’s sort of nice. Even got in the bath this morning.”   The teens looked at each other. “Cait has a little kid’s imagination,” Grace said.   “Yes, but her Ghost she talks about is real to her. It’s sort of the way she tries to understand her scared stuff or whatever apart from what the rest of her feels like… I think.”   “Do you really think I should do what she is telling me to do… at sixteen… just do that?”   “I don’t know. She told me to pee my pants on purpose at the library on Tuesday. It was scary at first. But then she told the whole library she was peeing her pants while she was in my lap… like she was the one that did it, when she knew full well I was peeing my pants.”   “You did what she told you?”   “Not just because she told me to… because… it was weird that day. These two kids that make fun of me at school all the time… they tried to shame me and I didn’t even pee, yet then, and Cait made the whole library look at them by calling them… she called them… she said to them….” Shane was acting like he was trying to take deeper breaths like the wolf that blew the pigs’ houses down. And finally he said it. “She said there goes two fuckers because they said there goes the town pee pee pants or something.”   “What did they do?”   “They looked at Cait and saw who she was looking at, and suddenly, they were the ones hurrying out of the library instead; being scared like me. They ran.”   “She protected you?”   “The only way she knew how. She called my tormentors that word, and then she pretended to pee her pants when she didn’t even do it… but she said that she was sorry she was peeing on me loud enough, that anyone seeing us while she was in my lap, assumed she was peeing her pants instead of me.”   “That’s… that’s weird.”   “I know. I’m just saying, if she tells you to poop your pants, she won’t let no one be mean to you if they think they see. She’s not like that.”   “You don’t really think I should, though, right?”   “Honestly? I don’t know what to think, Grace. But if you do or you don’t, just don’t think she’s being mean. That much, I know is not what she’s doing.”   “Okay. But I can’t just poop my pants on purpose.”   “Then don’t,” Shane shrugged. “Just…. Just hug her and tell Cait that she’s brave and a little girl, and that rules are different when you are in big kid school. She’s smart. She’ll get it.”   Cait kissed Grace’s cheek. “You my big sister. I like you.” then she hugged her.   Shane smiled and nodded at Cait, as if to say… “told you so.”   Grace frowned and she looked down at her lap. Grace must have realized, she tried to push Cait off, but Cait clung tighter while she felt Grace peeing her pants. She stayed in her lap until Grace was done, and the after the wetness stop spreading against Cait, she looked up at her. “You feel scared?”   Grace nodded. Her eyes were shiny. She was about to cry.   “You allowed to peededing your pants, big sis. You know it doesn’t your fault. It doesn’t. I know you didn’t wanted to. You wouldn’t even do it on purpose when I told you to. You too scared to do it just like that. Anyone that can’t see that… they a fucker, Grace. You a good girl. I promise.”   Eiboline walked over with Sean, and Eiboline saw Cait trying to kiss and hold the shaking crying big girl.   “What happened?” Eiboline looked at Shane.   “Grace had an accident, but she didn’t even realize she was peeing.”   “Oh, no. Poor miss. Hey, Grace?”   “What?” Grace’s tone was dis just be spectable. Her eyes were starting to spill water onto her cheeks.   “Come on, you’re coming home with us, hon. You, too, Shane. Cait likes visitors, and we can get you both lunch, and we can provide a safe place for you both to get a bath, okay?”   “I didn’t pee yet,” Shane frowned.   “No…, but you know it’s okay if you do,” Eiboline nodded at him even as she helped Grace up to walk her to the truck.   “Now,” Sean said and walked behind Grace, his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll just walk behind you so no one looks at your butt, okay?”   When they were in the car, Shane scooted closer not further from Grace, and he hugged her. “You’re allowed. I don’t even go to high school yet, so you don’t need to think I’d tell anyone. And Cait’s in elementary school.”   Cait crawled back into Grace’s lap. “I pee my pants all the time. Just pretend I peed on you if someone happens to see. I your little friend, and I had a accident because I a little kid and you were holding me. You didn’t pee.”   “I told you Cait’s different,” Shane whispered.   Grace frowned. “I’m getting her clothes all wet.”   “Too late,” Cait said. “Daddy says he already gots lots a cows. Your mommy’s one cow not so big.” She giggled.   “What?” Grace asked.   “Oh, sorry, I forgot you didn’t say your mama will have a cow. My Daddy has a whole bunch, so if she has one, tell her that one isn’t a big deal because you saw a man have a million of them.”   Both Shane and Grace snorted and then laughed.   “Gracie?” Cait looked up at her with her finger in her mouth. “I… I’m kind of peeing for real in your lap. I don’t think I should pee in your lap without at least… but it’s going. I’m sorry.”   Grace hugged her. “You’re the little girl. You said so. I… It’s weird… but it’s too late. You’re peeing. Just do it, okay?”   “Sure?”   “Yeah, Cait. You earned it. You sat on a big girl peeing herself. If I pushed you off, what kind of big friend would I be? You just let me pee on you, and I push you off for the same thing? Not going to happen, Cait,” and she pulled her closer. “Just pee, Cait. I don’t care.”   Cait relaxed. “I not apposed to hold it.”   “You said that last night,” Grace frowned. “Why?”   “The doctors said my body got hurteding. I hold it too much all before. He said it hurted inside me, and outside me, I scared to tell someone, so I got bad stuff and my skin got injury. So he said tell someone. When we go home, Grandma put me clean panties fast and then put medicine because my skin hurteding.”   “My skin hurts,” Grace’s face got red. “It itches a little, too.”   “You might got the same thing,” Cait frowned. “Doctor said acid pee made by inside not good stuff inside can make your skin outside hurt and itch. Daddy says it itchy-ditches!”   “Itchy-ditches?” Grace found herself giggling a little again.   “Yeah,” Cait giggled. “That what he called it. It felt less like I did something when he said it, and it felt like funny.”   “It does sound funny,” Grace agreed.   Cait leaned up to the front of the car. “Daddy? Grace gots itchy-the-ditches. She says so. Can Grandma and Grace, and Grandma use some my medicine to help her? Please? It doesn’t feel good to have it, and she doesn’t know it doesn’t not apposed to happen just because she peed.”   “We’ll see when we get home, Cait. But if her skin is broken down like that, maybe you shouldn’t pee on her baby. Your pee pee has stuff inside it that breaks bodies down and if she’s already got her own troubles, it will make it worse. You can sit next to her and hug her, hon.”   “I didn’t mean to. Did I bad again?”   “You didn’t know,” Grandma frowned. “You don’t do bad things Cait. You do things that you don’t understand. And most little kids do. But that’s one of the reasons you don’t sit on people and pee, hon. Unless they are brave enough tell you about their own itching-the-ditches, you don’t know if you are hurting their skin… especially since you know your waters are accidentally harmful right now.”   “Okay.”   “I want to hold her,” Grace whimpered. “She makes it feel warm right now in my lap. If she moves….”   “That’s between you two then,” Grandma nodded with a smile. “But I am trying to teach Cait how to be careful and how to heal people without accidentally hurting them or their feelings. She’s little. She sometimes needs help to understand that things are different for big kids than younger kids.”   “She’s really nice, though,” Grace smiled. “I don’t mind her mistakes. They are not the kind that tells the whole school that I poop my pants all the time… even if I do.”  

thank you for the two new chapters! I’m all out of reacts so Ill have to give manual hearts instead. 💕💕 Aino is so intelligent, I hope she can find a job that actually satisfies her creativity and drive; that shitty company doesn’t deserve her. If I was her I would be doing less than the bare minimum while looking for better jobs. It’s going to be a miserable existence for her now with Elisa gone back to Helsinki.  I was surprised she kept the Alpaca that creep gave her though, I would have chucked it in the trash before accepting a gift from him. He seems like the sort that would give out a spy camera stuffie to spy on people.  Glad you’re feeling the drive to write again, I look forward to the next chapter. 

Maddison readily accepted the milk; it was very sweet and delicious. Alice beamed at the praise, but Maddison noticed Camilla looked worried, so she quickly climbed into her lap for a hug. Maddison said: "I didn't get upset with Sister Emilly." Camilla kissed her forehead, happy to have such an understanding little girl, and Maddison finished by saying, "It might take a while, but our little fairy will come around; it won't be today or tomorrow, but she’ll come to love this life."