Ishigreensa

Theories (unfounded)

Corinna Phillips Ishigreen Chapter 2 That’s Not Fair! Marina called me first into line, and as I looked up where my friend was smiling at me, I could also see that Mr. Wilson was frowning. I sat in my seat waiting for him to come and tell me off or something, but he didn’t even come to my seat. He went behind me where a boy was just about to do something to my hair. “Scott, is there a reason you are bothering your classmate’s hair?” “No sir.” “Then come and stand by me for the moment, you can go last,” and then at me, he motioned to go to the line. “She called you first, didn’t she? So go get in line,” he sort of scolded me. Marina hung her head as I was walking to the head of the line to form. As I arrived, after she had called three others, she whispered. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you scolded.” “It’s alright,” I smiled up at her. “He’s going to scold me no matter what. We both know that.” She called a couple more and then nodded back at me. “Yeah.” “Quiet in the line,” Mr. Wilson admonished. “Or you can all go sit down and in ten minutes, we can try again.” He would do it, too! We knew he would. He once made us miss all of our playtime, because when we finally got to the lunch room, we were actually late getting back to the classroom after eating, and we had to start Science five minutes late. Finally we were all in line, and we started walking down the hall to the lunch room, Mr. Wilson walking along side us, watching especially near the middle of the line. Marina and I sat together eating lunch, and then we were able to go outside together. I watched carefully for those two girls that were the most trouble for me, and also made to avoid anyone else that could cause us any problems. And soon, Marina and I were sitting on the ground doing a hand clapping game when Jennifer snuck up on us. “There you two are,” she smirked at us, standing over us. “Teresa and I have been looking all over for you.” “Why?” I asked looking up at her. “Well, we wanted to play jump rope together.” “You wanted to play jump rope? Do you even have any jump ropes with you, because I don’t see one on you.” “Well, Teresa has it.” “I guess,” I sighed knowing that refusing was probably going to get us into trouble somehow. “I don’t know,” Marina frowned. “I mean, we all know how this is going to go, and how do we even know you aren’t going to…,” but she trailed off her voice already quite quiet because she was not one to speak too loudly. “Look, Marina,” Jennifer rounded on her. “You can play with us, or we can just do this the teasing way and make your time out here a difficult time for you.” “We’ll jump rope with you,” I said helping Marina up. “There’s no reason to threaten her. You know she’ll do whatever I do.” “Good.” Jennifer walked us over where we found that Teresa had gathered three third graders and two second graders to jump along with us. “You two know ‘Hot Cross Buns,’ right?” Teresa asked Marina and me. I nodded. “Yeah, we know it.” “Good,” and she handed us the two long jump ropes that she had. “You two can control the ropes first.” Marina glanced nervously at me and at the second and third graders. I nodded thinking that she was worried about what Teresa and Jennifer were going to do to them, and that we’d get in trouble for. “Well?” Jennifer nudged the two second graders. “You can jump first. So once those two get the ropes going, you can jump in okay?” They nodded. Marina and I started off slow with the ropes, but Jennifer kept telling us to speed them up before they let the second graders in. Luckily, they didn’t make us go too fast before she let the second graders get in. As the second graders were doing well, Teresa started to ask us to go faster, but at first, Marina and I didn’t want to, but Jennifer gave me a look like there would be trouble if we didn’t do what they said, so I nodded at Marina and we started to pick up the pace. It wasn’t too bad though, and soon enough, the second graders were out, and two of the third graders went in. The same thing happened, and they lasted a little longer until we were going a little faster than for the second graders before they messed up. I had a sinking feeling that this was some kind of ploy as the third graders were still jumping and I saw both Jennifer and Teresa to one side talking in whispers until the two third graders were out. “Oh, dear, we didn’t really think this through,” Jennifer looked at the third third grader. “Some one is going to have to sit out, I guess.” The girl started to tear up because it looked like she had been invited only to be not included in our game. Teresa, however, walked over to the third grader and put her hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry,” she got down and smiled at her. “It’s okay. I’ll sit out this time, and we can all take turns sitting out, right?” The third grader looked up at her, and I narrowed my eyes at not only Teresa but at Jennifer, too. This had to be a part of their plan, though since they were letting the third grader play, I wasn’t sure where the trick was going to come in yet. With a sigh, Marina and I started the ropes again. Now, with anyone else playing, we would have already been lining up with the others, the rope having changed hands after every mess up, but this was Jennifer and Teresa’s game, and both Marina and I knew better than to question how they were doing things. If we did, there would definitely be trouble. While they were discussing who was going next and letting the third grader go, I put the rope down and walked over. “You are still on the ropes,” Jennifer told me. “I know, but I was just going to go to the bathroom real quick.” “After everyone has had a chance to jump,” she put a hand on her hip. “Unless you want trouble.” “No, I… I can wait.” “Good.” So, Teresa and Jennifer huddled quickly again after they made me go back to the ropes. “You shouldn’t trust them,” Marina said to me as we waited for them to decide to start again. “I don’t,” I sighed. “But what can I do? If we leave, they’ll somehow make the smaller kids cry, and then we’ll get in trouble for it. You know that, right?” Marina nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” “Just try to do what we can.” “Alright,” Marina nodded. “But I don’t like that they told you that.” I shrugged. “It’s not the first time.” She looked down. “I know.” Finally, Jennifer got the last third grader ready, and they let us start the ropes. Already knowing that they wanted us to go faster, I nodded at Marina and we started to swing the ropes faster, but Teresa yelled at us. “Are you two crazy? There’s no way the third grader is going to be able to jump in there like that.” I shook my head and slowed the rope down a bit, but they kept calling for it to be slower and slower, until it seemed we were going even slower than for the second graders. As we then started to speed up as before, waiting for one of them to mess up, Teresa went to one of the third graders. “You are going to hold the rope next so that that girl and I can jump, okay?” She nodded. I noticed she only approached one of them, though, so she was probably going to have me on the ropes for two turns in a row then. And as I predicted, that’s what happened. I was still on the rope as Teresa and a second grader were going, and I had to start the rope even slower than the last time. I felt my side ache a little, and I squeeze my legs together hoping they were going to mess up soon. But even when they did mess up, and I walked over to Jennifer, she shook her finger at me. “You are still on the rope, Corinna.” “I know. But I really need to use the bathroom.” “And I told you that you can go when your turn for swinging the rope is done.” I danced a little on the spot. “But I really want to go now!” “Okay, suit yourself,” she shrugged. “You can go…,” but there was a look in her eye that made me think that leaving was a bad idea, a very bad idea, and I went back and picked up the rope. “Jennifer, you can go next with one of the second graders.” And we started again. I was lucky that I was still okay for now, but I could feel it trying to push out. I had to wait though. I wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted, if they were just torturing me, or if they wanted me to have an accident, but if I had an accident, then I’d really be in trouble, so I tried to hold it. We went through another full rotation until it was supposed to be someone’s turn to take my place, my dancing, biting my lower lip, and trying to squeeze my muscles getting more urgent all the time. “Okay, everyone had a second go, so I really need to use the bathroom.” “After you had a turn to jump,” Jennifer looked me in the eye. “If you don’t take your turn jumping, then one of the second graders won’t get to jump this round, and it will be unfair, and you’ll be at fault if she cries.” “I can’t jump!” I whispered. “It’s either you jump, or you hold the rope the whole time.” “I’ll hold the rope, but I need to go to the toilet real quick.” “You can’t. If you go to the toilet then someone is not going to get a turn, and she’ll cry, and we’ll make sure it’s a second or third grader.” “But….” “Well, go ahead. Go to the toilet, but…,” and she studied the little kids for a moment, and picked out the most fragile looking of them. “she won’t get a turn until you get back, and she’ll miss at least one turn.” “That’s not fair, Jennifer.” “Well, it’s really up to you. You wait until recess is over, or you don’t let her have one or more of her turns.” “I… I’ll hold the rope.” We went through the full second rotation, and they had another third grader hold the rope, and I was nearing the end of the third rotation before I felt a little bit squeeze into my panties. I crossed my legs and slowed the rope because of it. “That’s not fair!” Teresa called out at me. “You messed up those two,” she pointed at the two jumping, one a second grader and one a third grader. Jennifer ran up to them. “You two get another chance. It’s not your fault that dummy got distracted. “I’m gonna wet my pants,” I told Jennifer when she looked back at me, Teresa already there staring at me. “Then do it,” Teresa put her hands on her hips. “Or tell the little kids that those three have to leave.” “Three? But, that’s not fair!” “Your choice,” Jennifer smiled. “Hold it, wet your pants, or tell those ones that they can’t play anymore.” I got red in the face, but picked up the rope again. I wasn’t going to wet myself on purpose even if a little bit had already came out. I wasn’t even done with swinging the rope for the third set in the third round, when I had dropped the rope, but pee was already gushing down my legs making a puddle, where I immediately dropped to a squat crying. Marina ran over and put an arm around me while I continued to pee my pants, and even after I finished. “Well?” Teresa frowned down at us. “Who’s going to tell the kids that the game is over? Because you know if any of them cries, who is going to be in trouble.” Tears still in my eyes and shaking, I made to stand up and grab the rope, but Marina shook her head. “I’m not playing anymore. Corinna can take me out of the game.” “No…,” Teresa told her. If you both quit then we stop the whole game, and we tell our teacher you made a bunch of second and third graders cry.” Marina frowned up at the bullies. “But she’s peed her pants. She needs to see the nurse.” “She can see the nurse when we go back inside,” Jennifer was backing up Teresa. “Just go get in line,” I sniffled at Marina. “I don’t want you to be in trouble, too.” And we continued until the end of recess. I didn’t want to go to my class line and stand there in wet pants, but I knew that if I went to the nurse first, the teacher would be mad and I’d get in trouble for not coming in on time. At least I wore a skirt, so…. I checked around it, and it wasn’t wet. Just my panties. We got in line, and Mr. Wilson picked us up, and we walked into the building. One of my favorite classes was next, and I really didn’t want to tell Mr. Wilson I peed outside. He might punish me for that, so I sat quietly in my seat while we started to explore our plants. “Mr. Wilson,” the intercom to our room sounded. “Yes?” “Please send Corinna to the office. She’s going home for the day.” With a sigh, he walked over to my desk. “Stand up, Corinna.” I looked up at him with a gulp. My soaked panties, having sat about ten minutes on my skirt, I felt it wetting it, and I thought it got the chair wet, too, but I couldn’t disobey. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I was still seated. “Sorry for what? You haven’t caused any trouble yet.” “She’s probably apologizing because she peed at recess,” Jennifer said making me blush. “That’s none of your business,” he turned on Jennifer for once. “And I don’t see how that’s an issue….” But when I stood up, he saw my wet chair and turned me and saw the back of my skirt. “Well, I still don’t see a problem,” he sighed. “You didn’t hurt anyone when you did this, right?” I shook my head no, hoping that he was really going to let me off. “Pack your things for your homework from this morning, and do the review questions for Science tonight.” “Yes, sir.” And I breathed a breath of relief to be out of there. Walking down the hall, though, I had no idea of why I was going home. Mom was supposed to be at work, and no one told her I peed my pants, so she had no reason to be at the school. I was doing mind gymnastics trying to figure out why I was being pulled out of class. My head down, knowing mom would see that I peed my pants when she saw me, I pushed on the office door. Two police officers stood there, talking to the office assistant and waiting, apparently, for me. “Corinna Phillips?” one of the officers asked me. “Yes, sir?” “You need to come with us.” “Wait! I didn’t do it!” “Do what, sweetheart?” I frowned up at him. The police were there for me, and everyone thinks I’m a troublemaker at school. If I wasn’t in trouble, why was I going with them? “We are talking you to the hospital,” the second officer told me. “We are not sure what is going to happen, but your mommy had an incident at work today, and she’s in the hospital.” I started to cry. The second officer took my hand, and I walked with them, dropping my bag, forgetting about it, as my hand went up to my lips and went into my mouth for the first time since maybe second grade. The radio was constantly buzzing in the front, someone calling in special codes and the two officers talked in whispers ignoring me in the back. I shook wondering how badly mommy was hurt. I couldn’t think. This was all unfair! Mommy just got a job, and was so proud of it! I couldn’t believe this!

Corinna Phillips by Ishigreen Chapter 1 Ordinary Life in 1980 As my eyes opened and blurs turned into the sharper images of my dresser across from the left side of my bed, where the door also was, the small table in the middle of my room, yellow with three chairs around it, one of which my big stuffed Rhino sat in, and my toy box under the window across the room from the foot of my bed. To the right, my bed was against the wall with the second window to my room. Sharing the wall with the head of my bed was the walk-in closet with sliding doors and a book case turned so that it was against the wall with the door in it, but closest to the closet. It was a very small bookcase with but three shelves in it, and not more than my arm’s width spread from finger tip to finger tip. At my door, my gorgeous mom with puffy afro-hair, brown eyes, and a smile so wide that I knew she was as happy this morning as any other morning to see me awake. It as just my mom and me. I never really asked about him much these days, but I was once told that daddy was Mexican, and as far as I knew, he was back in Mexico. He was the one that named me Corinna, but no one told me why I had mom’s last name instead of his, nor why he didn’t stay with us. Being in fourth grade though, I figured it probably had to do with him being Mexican or something. “Good morning, princess,” Mommy walked over and sat at the edge of my bed. “How did you sleep?” “Good,” I sat up and wrapped my arms around my mama. “I didn’t dream though.” Mama brushed my long silky black hair back around my ears and whispered. “You don’t have to dream to have a good sleep.” I nodded. “So, mama finally found a job. Remember, I might be a few minutes late getting you today at school because of it, okay?” “Alright mama. And then we won’t always have the landlord knocking on the door three times a month for the rent due that he knows when you get paid, and it’s always a few days after the rent is due?” “That’s right, baby,” she pulled me out of the blankets into her lap. “So, I won’t be able to come to the school today if you get in trouble. Try to stay away from the crackers and don’t cause too much trouble, okay?” “Yes, ma’am. I understand. I won’t even annoy the teacher if I can help it.” “That’s a good girl,” she rubbed my head. “Now, what do you say to some cereal and getting ready for school?” “Okay.” I leapt from the bed and ran to my dresser where I started looking for something cute to wear, like I always did. I was a pretty normal fourth grader, I think. I didn’t wear baby stuff anymore, but I still like pretty colors and designs, and I still liked skirts more than jeans. “My purple skirt isn’t here,” I called at my mom who had in the mean time gone to the kitchen to get breakfast ready. “Did you check your closet?” she asked. I ran to the closet and looked on the hangers and on the floor where sometimes my clothes would drop when I was in a hurry and grabbed something nearby, and it caused something to fall. “I don’t see it there, either!” “Well, you’ll just have to get something else, honey. We don’t have time to look all over the place for it right now.” “Aw...ah!” I complained loudly but just the same went and got a blue skirt and a pink and white striped cotton heavier shirt. It as October in Wyoming, so of course it was really cold out. As I walked out into the kitchen, brushing my hair, I heard the news on the small television in the corner of the living room. “Two young girls that were walking around the Laramie area after school yesterday, were found last night, both in a ditch between Laramie and Rawlins. The two fourteen year old girls had never made it home the afternoon before, and their parents had told the police that they had no reason to go out of town with anyone.” I turned to my mom who was looking at the television in horror. I frowned at the news, but as I did, the story seemed to be ending, and they were on to something else, where as mommy looked at me, and smiled. “Remember,” she said. “We never talk to strangers on the way to school or on the way home, right?” “Yes, mom, I know,” I looked down. I knew that the news story was bring out her cautious nature as usual. “And you know that you always stick to the main streets, right?” “Yeah, I know,” I sighed now sitting at the table after straightening my skirt. “The world isn’t like it once was,” she sighed and put a bowl in front of me with Fruit Loops in it, a brand of cereal that had colorful rings that were flavored differently depending on the ring you ate. I put a spoonful in my mouth as mom left me sitting to go check that my bag was by the door, and that I had put everything in it the night before like I was supposed to. I sometimes forgot, to be honest, so she probably had to do it. “Mom!” I complained just the same because I didn’t like her just going through my stuff. “I put everything in there, I promise.” “Honey, I told you. I don’t have time to run any forgotten homework to you today, and you know how forgetful you can be.” “But I put it in there. I remember, I put my math book and folder in last.” “Okay, baby…. I just don’t want you to get in trouble for not doing homework that we both know you did.” “I know.” I kicked my feet under the table somewhat frustrated that she had to keep checking my stuff like I was a toddler or something. I was in fourth grade this year, and I hoped I was going to be showing her how big I could be, finally. As I ate, and mom was satisfied with my bag, she walked over and she hung a key tied to a shoe lace and made into a necklace of sorts, around my neck. “This is the house key,” she told me. “You are old enough to have one now, and there maybe times I’m running late, so you can go home and let yourself in when I can’t be there to get you. I’ll call your school and let you know if you need to walk by yourself, okay?” I smiled and nodded. I finally got a house key! I felt so big and grown up with that symbol around my neck. “Today, I will be there to get you, but I might be a few minutes late.” “I understand, mom.” “And remember, no problems with that Jennifer or Teresa today, okay? Try to stay away from them.” “I’ll try, but they ARE in my class, mom.” “I know, sweetheart. Just do your best.” I finished my cereal and mom took me to the bathroom where she put some stuff in my hair to make it slick nice and we put it in pig tails, and then she waited while I brushed my teeth. We were soon leaving the house together, and I was on my way for a normal day of school, or so I thought…. Mom drove me to the front of the school in our old faded and rusty red hatchback two door. I slammed the door hard because that’s what you had to do to get it to shut, and then walked around to mama’s side of the car. “Have a good day, honey,” Mommy smiled at me. “You too,” I said back. “Good luck on your first day.” She smiled one last time at me, and then she drove off. Walking towards the playground because it wasn’t time to go in the building yet, I started to look for signs of a lighter skinned Mexican girl by the name of Marina. Her hair was a little lighter than mine. I think it was a really dark brown or something, but we were best friends since second grade. As I scanned around the playground, looking for her and hoping that Teresa and Jennifer were bothering other kids or something, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up at Mr. Wilson, a balding man with some white mixed in with his brown mustache and hair. He had a scowl on his face, and he was making to get lower to my level, to probably tell me off about something. “You are going to have a good day, today, aren’t you?” “Yeah?” I looked down at my shoes. “I mean, yes, sir?” The man sighed and he held my hands. “Yesterday, we had a hard day, miss. You had taken a swing away from someone who had it first at recess, you had not done any of your homework, and you were not paying attention in class. Right?” “Yes, sir,” I mumbled. I had done the homework, but he would never believe that Teresa wanted to copy it, and we fought over it until the paper tore. He wouldn’t believe me if I said that Jennifer was mad because I was at the swing first, and she just wanted to take it away from me. One thing I knew about how things work, if you ain’t white, it’s always your fault even if it isn’t. “Good,” he smiled and stood up. “Come with me and you can come and sit in the classroom, that way you won’t get in trouble before school.” I frowned up at him, but his face was serious. I didn’t dare ask why me. I knew why. I was the troublemaker in the class. Well, Marina was kind of a troublemaker, but I was more of one because I didn’t always keep quiet about how things were. Actually, the classroom as kind of safe for me, anyway, so secretly, while I resented not being able to meet Marina before school, I was kind of grateful that Jennifer and Teresa wouldn’t find me, either. I opened my bag and put my homework in the basket for turning in our work, and then at my desk, I took out some drawing paper and started to draw. I loved drawing. I sometimes saw other kids drawing at recess, outside, but I could never do that. In September, I tried it twice, and both times, my picture had gotten ripped, once my crayons broken on me, and even with all that, I was the one in trouble for starting a fight. I would never draw outside at school again. Mr. Wilson went about getting ready, and even left me in the room alone for probably ten minutes while he was doing everything he was supposed to. He barely batted an eye at anything I did, but that suited me fine. I didn’t want him staring at me looking for a mistake. A couple of minutes before the bell rang, he came and tapped my shoulder. “Go outside and line up.” I looked up at him wondering why I had to go outside after he had had me inside. I mean, I couldn’t tell him no or anything, but it didn’t make sense that he took me off the playground so I wouldn’t cause trouble, only to send me right out there after playtime was over, and I’d still see people that could make me fight! I sighed and gathered my bag together, and as the bell rang ran out the door and down the hall towards the playground. When I got out there, and for one reason or another, I couldn’t even use the door he collected us from, I saw him starting to lead the class in the building. It looked like I was late and I ran with all my might just getting in line before the last three people went into the building! “If other kids think they can come in the building, then they would bother you, and then you’d get in a fight,” had been his reason. Still, I wondered why I couldn’t just sit like I was in trouble at my desk or something…. People stopped by the basket on the way into the door, putting their homework in as they went to their desks. And only once everyone had sat down, the teacher smiled out at all of us. “Good morning, boys and girls.” “Good morning, sir.” “Tommy Andrews…?” Mr. Wilson immediately started to take attendance. You had to call people’s names in those days, and they had to answer. Most of them answered with here, but some of us just raised a hand. I clearly stated. “Here,” though and raised my hand both. I had made the mistake of just raising my hand up half way once near the beginning of the year. Marina had only said “here,” once, and both of us were yelled at in front of the class about the proper response being a raised hand and a clearly voiced response so he didn’t have to look for us. Even though others did what they wanted, I don’t think he ever called anyone else out on it. They started the Morning Pledge, a tribute to the flag of America. I sometimes thought the pledge was a lie. It said "justice for all" at the end, but it felt like justice was very different for a white person, a Mexican person, and a Black person. There seemed to be three different kinds. After the pledge, we were told what was for lunch and something interesting about the date, and they also told some of the students that had some kind of special status, that I still didn’t understand, one that was different from being white or black, but something like… they had a special job at school, about things they had to do. “Corinna, it’s your turn to bring the attendance to the office,” Mr. Wilson waved the file at me. “Do you want to take someone with you so you don’t have any trouble?” “No, sir. I can do that without any trouble.” He handed me the file and I saw a look of concern or maybe just malice on his face, but he let me go. Yeah, you probably guessed it. I didn’t think much of Mr. Wilson. He’s my teacher, and I have to do what he says, and in some ways, he does protect me from getting in trouble; but the way he looks at me, and the way he seems ready to blame me for everything… yeah, I really didn’t like him. He’s just white though. White men always blamed Black kids for everything. I took the folder to the office, found his little cubby slot where I needed to put the file, and also saw the papers I was supposed to take for him. For a fleeting moment, I wondered what would happen if I didn’t give him the papers; but then I shook with a deep feeling of shame and fear that made me put that idea out of my head at once. It was wrong to do something like that, even if I didn’t like him. And there was no telling what he’d do if I messed up something really big by being like that, so I took all the papers and walked back to the class like I was supposed to, dropping off all the papers on his desk in the basket labeled attendance. Since I was out of the room anyway, I did stop by the bathroom so that there wouldn’t be any trouble this morning with that stuff. Sometimes, he could be so thick when it came to people’s needs. I swear, he’s either blind, stupid, or just tries to make us wait as long as he can because he likes to torture us. Well, he wasn’t going to torture me on this particular day. So there! As I sat down and started to see what was on the board and heard hints that helped me catch up to what was going on, I could see a couple of boys were glancing back at me for some reason, and then I saw Jennifer glance at me too. I wondered if she told them something about me, but I had no clue as to what would interest the boys about me. I tried to ignore it all. “Now, let’s see if anyone did the homework,” Mr. Wilson frowned at the entire class. His basket was full of our homework, but he always said it that way anyway. He wrote three problems on the board and then walked over to the side and looked the class over. It was humiliation time. He had papers in his hand, and he glanced through the papers as he was picking students to come up and do the problems on the board. “Sean… you take the first one,” he rifled through the papers some more. “Amy…, you do the second one,” and for the third person, he didn’t even look through the papers. He stared right at me, and I knew he was going to call me up before he said it. “And lets see if Corinna learned anything at all yesterday.” A few kids laughed at me as I walked up to the board. It was no secret that I didn’t like math at all. I also didn’t really read well or spell good, but I was good at science and I was okay at history, at least when I didn’t have to read. My problem was figuring out the perimeter and the area of a square. I shuffled my feet. Okay, so I know that one of them was adding all the sides up, and the other one was multiplying two of the sides together. The problem was, the teacher forgot to put the numbers for the other two sides. How was I supposed to get the one that you added all the sides up for, unless you just add the sides once and not all four if they matched? I wasn’t sure that made any sense. Still, he had not written numbers on the top or the right side of my figure, but peeking over, the person who had the triangle, he had written all three numbers, four, seven, and eight. The person doing the circle, looked even more confusing because he wrote a single line down splitting it, and a number 12 there. With a sigh, I turned back to my work. This couldn’t have been a mistake, so maybe I just needed the two numbers. I added the four to the seven on my problem, but I still didn’t really understand how twelve could be the answer. That seemed to be too small, so I shrugged and added seven and four again thinking that maybe there was a reason he didn’t write them, maybe to trick me or something. I didn’t trust him to be honest to me, and it made way more sense to me, that you had to add all four sides. I wrote the area as being 24 cm. Then I looked at it again. You had to multiply one side and the other. He gave me the two numbers of the bottom and the left side, so I thought a moment on how he could trick me on that, but didn’t see how he could. If the four and seven were on the other sides, you still had just four and seven, so I multiplied them together… only I wasn’t good at multiplication. I added seven and seven and got fourteen. Then I added seven again… this was the second or was it the third seven? I was at twenty one. I forgot, do you count the first seven, or is that just the starting point, and you add four sevens after that? I got twenty-eight… but that might only be three sevens? I added seven again, and then I got thirty-five. I sighed. Okay, one of these was right, I think…. I wrote both of them down and the adding the sevens on the side of the board showed my work. He liked to see us show our work. Area: 24 and perimeter: 28 or 35. “Corinna,” he barked my name before going over the answers letting me know he was about to humiliate me again. “What is seven and four?” I blinked at him. “Twelve?” “Really?” he asked. “How in the world did you get to fourth grade and not be able to add that in your head?” I frowned and looked down at my shoes. “Boys and girls, we are going all the way back to first grade for a moment for Corinna’s sake. Everyone, take out a piece of paper and write down seven little circles on your papers. Corinna, you do it on the board.” I felt my face heat up as I started to draw the circles on the board. “Are you sure you drew seven of them?” he stood next to me asking me. “Prove it to yourself. Count them. Come on, finger touching the center of each circle,” he directed while everyone watched me. I shook at this unwanted attention. I counted them out, saying “seven” at last. “Now, draw out four more circles,” he told the class. Looking down at me, and my face getting even hotter as he stood there, he waited for me to start drawing. I was just starting to draw the second circle, when he stopped my hand. “I didn’t hear you count it out,” he whispered and erased the two circles. “Again. You have seven… count it out. Eight… as you draw the first circle. Come on!” I did it the way he wanted. “Eight… nine… ten… eleven,” I looked up at him. “Okay?” “So tell me, little girl, is seven plus four twelve?” “No sir?” “What is it, then?” “Eleven?” and I started to feel tears in my eyes. “So, you need to do that over, and you wrote it in the wrong place. You counted the numbers on the outside, didn’t you?” I nodded tears now leaking down my cheeks. “You put a fence on the perimeter of your yard, not all through the area of it!” I shook. Okay, I got the words mixed up. Is that really so bad? “Now, you get either twenty-eight or thirty-five?” he asked in that very pointedly mocking tone. “How about we have someone show you how to do this! Stay right here.” He turned to the class. “And once again, it seems Corinna needs a tutor to help her understand what multiplication is. Jennifer, come up here.” I glanced at Jennifer who walked up to him with a smug look on her face before I looked at my shoe again, starting to feel the hurt in my throat from the embarrassment, and hearing the noise from outside myself as I started to feel the whine coming out. “Show our little Corinna what seven rows of four looks like, will you?” he asked Jennifer. She started to draw the circles the way he had asked. I started to feel my voice getting louder as the whining started to hurt inside and I couldn’t stop the sound anymore. My lips were shaking the whole time, and my hands were balled into fists at my sides. My legs shook. “Now, you can see the nice little rows of circles, can’t you?” Mr. Wilson seemed to mock me. “Go on count how many circles down the left side.” I pointed at them, my crying softly escaping my lips. “I said to count them. I don’t hear you counting,” he barked at me, and that was the last straw. I started to full on bawl at the problem. “You’re of no use,” he threw up his hands. “Go sit down, and Jennifer, correct this garbage,” he said erasing all the work I had done. I sat in my chair, hiding my face, as I bawled into my arm on my desk. I couldn’t help it. He was always doing something to show how bad I was at things. I hated him, and I hated math! I wanted to leave the room, but I didn’t have any excuse to do so. He didn’t send me out, and I didn’t even have to use the restroom. Even if I did, I bet he wouldn’t have let me go. When they were working on the assignment for the day, the teacher brought over a thick book with math problems in it, and he put it on my desk without a word--a yellow sticky note on the front cover that read: See me during morning recess. After math, I was glad to see that Mr. Wilson had gone off and the music teacher was there to teach us music. The music teacher wandered around the building because they forgot to give him a music room at our school. She never seemed to mind though. “Okay, class, as you know, the end of the month brings Halloween, right?” Mrs. Clarice said to us. “So, I thought I’d show you some spooky songs today.” Music was the thing I needed the most after an upsetting math lesson, and after a while, I was having fun with all my other classmates singing fun silly creepy songs. It was too bad we couldn’t have a full day of music class and not have to see Mr. Wilson for a whole day. I think Marina would agree. Marina was a lot better at math than I was, but she had her weaknesses, too. The teacher liked to humiliate her as much as he did me, for some reason, though he also picked on one other, a boy, who was actually white. But many of the other kids made fun of that boy, too. I’m not sure what was wrong with him, but I’d been too nervous to ask him to join us to play at recess until now. I mean…, he was a boy after all. He probably wouldn’t have even wanted to. At recess time, it only took Mr. Wilson about two or three minutes to tell me that for the rest of the year, I’ll be completing two extra pages in this thick activity book that had addition, subtraction and multiplication facts mixed in with some fun activities. “I know it’s extra homework,” he told me. “But it will help you in the long run. You can’t go through fourth grade without knowing your basic facts, at least through the tens, okay?” I wasn’t sure. Usually, he seemed to be trying to humiliate me or something, the way he always called me to the front of the room at the most difficult times, especially math, and showing off my mistakes, but now, he was… I wasn’t sure. Was this to help, or was he just punishing me for not knowing my facts very well? He let me go out and play for the rest of recess, and the day continued like any other, though he had decided not to call on me for reading aloud on this day. It was about fifteen minutes until lunch, and the teacher divided the room into two teams. It was a class favorite, spelling board races! I didn’t like it so much because I always lost the point for my team. Everyone knew I couldn’t spell, so they dreaded to hear my name being put on their team. I sighed as the teacher gathered together some of the lists we had studied until this point in the year. “We are going to review lists from the last three weeks,” he told us. “So, hopefully, you’ve all been practicing those words you missed on your tests.” I looked down blushing. No matter how much I may have practiced, there was no way I’d remember all those words. I was called to the front of the room, and I shook as we both prepared our chalk on the board. I knew it was unlikely that I was going to get this word before the other kid did. “Your word is…” and I strained my ears hoping to hear the first syllables before my competitor, hoping for any edge to finally get one word before my competitor. “...Super.” I started to write… Sup… and thought a moment wondering if I should put an extra “p” in the word. Those moments surely costed me the word, but I still didn’t hear if the boy next to me had won. I decided not to write the extra “p” spelling it “s-u-p-e-r.” I turned away, and the teacher nodded and the other kids looked shocked. I don’t know why Andy had spelled his word “s-o-o-p-o-r.” The teacher looked at him clearly quizzical at his choice of spelling, much like everyone else. He wasn’t a top speller in the class, for sure, but I figured everyone was better than me! “Well, what a surprise,” the teacher called him out. “Andy beaten by the worst speller in the class. Perhaps he should go home and write the word out ten times for homework?” I hung my head feeling bad for him. I also blushed because the teacher called me out again as the worst in the class. “Alright, get ready for lunch,” the teacher said after a few moments of silence while the kids had pondered what had happened. That was the first real clue that something was up that day. Somehow, my destiny was going to change, but rather than for the better as the strange spelling scene had played out, it was going to be the worst day of my life.

Yes, there is a sudden time skip in the middle of this chapter. I don't mark it, so be aware of it. I am also starting to show something about Cait... a little peek before you know what is going on... into who she might be and there is a little bit of a "I'm telling scene here" but I'll let you read that. Have fun with the new chapter. Chapter Five: I woke up on Friday morning, and looked around in the dark room. I could see by the light shade of the curtains that light from the sun was already trying to get in, and that it was waking up the outside world. I thought I even heard a bird chirping in the distance. I felt down around me even though I knew the answer. I had not really peed in the bed since I was potty trained. It was dry. I sighed and wasn’t sure what I could do. Bringing water from the bathroom would only make the man that is supposed to be daddy think I peed all over the floor when he told me to stay in bed and make a mess only in one place. If I didn’t pee, then I’d get in trouble for getting in Sorsche’s bed, because they wouldn’t hear that I never pee the bed, so if my bed is dry and sorsche is wet, then I must have done it, and it seemed I’d be a lot of trouble if that happened. I shivered. I pulled back the blankets and looked down at my blue pajama shorts trying to will myself to go, but just thinking to myself to pee wasn’t really working. It was hard to tell what time it was, but both Sorsche and Grainne were asleep. I usually had to go when I woke up, so I knew if I sat on the toilet, it would go, but if I did that, I’d get in trouble. I wanted to not be in trouble, but expecting to pee my pants in bed? I hate it here. I tried to ask my body to pee again as I opened my legs and stared at my shorts, but they wouldn’t darken. Water wouldn’t leak. I shivered knowing that if I didn’t think of something soon, I’d be caught dry, and then I didn’t know what would happen. With a heavy sigh, I went to the bathroom and closed and locked the door to give myself some time to think. I don’t really know if I did because of knowing something subconsciously, or if I just wanted a distraction, but I turned on the bathroom sink on a low trickle. I stared at the water. I wished I could make my body go on purpose. I watched it for several minutes, when I started to feel it pushing as though it could…. I hurried out of the bathroom pushing my hands between my leg, wanting to get to my bed before any leaked. If any went on the floor, I’d get in trouble. I got in bed, and got laid down on my back, but the urge subsided, and I blew air though frustrated cheeks! How could I have to go while in the bathroom standing at the sink, but it went away as soon as I was in bed? I turned to my stomach, and fluffed my pillow laying my head facing Sorsche. Sorsche will get in trouble if she gets caught wetting the bed. I will get in trouble I get caught dry, or if I get caught in her bed. I was scared after seeing how Sorsche limped down the stairs the day before, but I was having a hard time getting my body to do what I wanted. I had to do something. “Well,” I finally whispered to myself. “It looks like I am going to get in trouble no matter what. I can’t pee. Maybe if Sorsche peed, I can just stay in her bed, and when daddy sees, I’ll just say I got scared. If he sees pee all over both of us, then he will think I peed and Sorsche didn’t. At least one of us won’t be in trouble…. I sat up, wishing the pee would just come out, but it stayed inside. I shook my head as I tried to tell my body to pee again, but it ignored me. I wasn’t going to get it to pee, so I stood up, shaking, still a little scared of this plan. I didn’t know what daddy would do when he caught me peeing on Sorsche. I mean, it would be Sorsche doing it on me, but he wouldn’t know that, if this worked…. I thought I heard steps in the hall. My bedding was still dry and my pants were dry. Sorsche’s bed was only a couple of feet away. I tried to will my legs to move and to at the same time, I told my bladder, “Can’t you just pee?” My bladder ignored me. My feet felt frozen to the spot. I waited for our bedroom door to be opened, and get caught standing there, about to wet my pants, only the pee wouldn’t come out. I shivered. Then whatever I thought I heard, just disappeared. It wasn’t footsteps after all. I looked over at Sorsche’s bed again, and down at my dry shorts. Dad would be awake soon, and if poor Sorsche was wet, then we’d both be in trouble if I didn’t do something quickly. I wasn’t really sure why a ten year old peed the bed, but I knew I didn’t want to see her limping for no reason. I was going to get in trouble because I couldn’t get my bed wet. There was no reason for her to be in trouble, too. I shook as I took a step towards Sorsche’s bed. It was at that moment, I felt it trying to come again. I could go back to my bed and try to wet it again, but…. If it didn’t come out, it might be too late this time, and besides, I might chicken out of getting up and getting caught in Sorsche’s bed if I had to do it again. Even if I peed in her bed, they couldn’t tell if it was me or Sorsche or both, could they? They expected me to pee my pants, so I could just take the blame and Sorsche wouldn’t get it. I took another step towards her bed…. The feeling was right where it should be, if I were on the toilet. I looked back at my bed. But what if I didn’t go? It feels like it wants to though, and I was told I’d get it worse than Sorsche if I disobeyed. Would I be able to wet the bed? I looked at the door, listening to see if anyone was walking. No one was out there. I pushed slightly with my stomach. Nothing came out, but I felt a very hot pringing pressure right there. It could come out? Should I make sure before I just let both of us get in trouble? I tried to push a little bit again. I felt a little bit, the ever so slight trinkle drizzle into my panty. I ran to the cot on the floor and laid down. “Please… please… please. Come on! Come out before they open the door. Please!” I sat up, the pee not wanting to go while I laid there. I sighed. I pushed my hands into my lap while I sat with my legs crossed around each other. “Please!” I felt a little bit. I lifted my butt up, and tried to push forward on my stomach, hoping to somehow squeeze it out of my bladder. I kept pushing my hands down on my stomach, massaging it towards where it should come out. I felt a little drizzle. “Come on…,” I pleaded with my body not wanting to get caught doing it on purpose. I mean, they wanted me to do it on purpose, but I don’t think it would look good if I was trying that hard. They might think I was trying to get it to come out to hide something else. I don’t know. I scrunched up my face as tight as I could as I scrunched up my determination to get this done, and I pushed. I felt another little drizzle. Frustrated, I sat and relaxed, but as soon as I relaxed, I started to feel the warmth inside my panties getting wet. It was finally coming out, and I sat there, peeing on my bedding through my clothes, I don’t know how long. I finished by squirting several times into my panty, and then I looked towards the door. It was still closed. There were still no sounds. I laid in my puddle, as uncomfortable as it was, and I rolled to one side away from it, and I closed my eyes not really sure if I would be able to rest. It felt disgusting laying there, even after rolling sort of out of the pee, though there wasn’t much room on the small area I had to lay in, so I still had my thigh in some of the puddle. At least I wasn’t going to get in trouble, I hoped. Maybe Sorsche will be dry this morning…. The door opened after a while. I smelled extremely dirty and my pants were wet and sticky, and I couldn’t help rubbing my eyes to get the tears out of them. I knew that the man standing at the doorway didn’t care, or actually, expected me to have the bed all wet. “Are you awake, little girl?” he asked as if he didn’t know my name. I could only nod as I started to lift myself up to look at him. “You didn’t get into bed with Sorsche or go pee somewhere secret in the house, did you?” I shook my head. “I… I peed the bed,” I shook as I said it, half feeling like I was lying because I was awake when I peed in it. “Well, pull the blankets back then because there is nothing to hide if you didn’t disobey anyone.” I felt a heavy breath push through my stomach and out of my lungs as I pushed the blankets off of me and revealed a terribly orange-yellow soaking lake in the middle of my bedding, and my pajama pants were even stronger smelling and the morning air started to feel cool through the wet things. “Good girl,” Dan told me as he walked over and took me by the hand to get me out of the soaked bedding. I walked with him to Sorsche’s bed, and he pushed at Sorsche’s shoulder. She rocked back and forth as he pushed at her to wake up. “Get up, Lazy, unless you want to go to school today smelling like the dirty little pig you are.” Sorsche grunted a little in her sleep, her body fighting the waking world. “Did you hear me, you stupid little dog? I said to get up before I send you to school in your wet panties!” I shivered at how he was talking to her as he woke her. In the bed against the other wall, Grainne sat up. I glanced over there, not wanting to hear the things that Dan, my daddy? …was calling poor Sorsche. Sorsche was so nice to me last night and I wished I was just a little bigger, then I might have hit him or kicked him where I know boys hurt. But as small as I was, I doubted I could really hurt him and he’d just get mad and …. And I was scared. I heard her spring up to sitting, causing me to look back at her. “Well?” Dan frowned at her. “Let’s see! You pissed your pants, didn’t you?” Sorsche shook a bit as she pulled the blanket back. I honestly couldn’t see a wet spot in the bed or her clothes, but daddy’s jerky movements and his thunderous roar shook me as well as her as he pointed into the spot between her legs. “Get up! I see what you did!” I jumped. Sorsche shaking, got on her hands and knees and backed away from where he was pointing. I still didn’t see anything. “Just as I thought,” the man towered over Sorsche’s bed, and shaking, I didn’t realize he had dropped my hand to reach for his belt on his pants. “Please, I didn’t, Sorsche shook.” “I… I…,” I grabbed his hand and it shook as I reached for the belt. “It… I… I….” He paused and looked down at me. “You did what?” he asked. “I was in her bed yesterday,” I shook. “I was waiting for her for something, and I accidentally did it. See? It’s dry,” I reached shaking over towards the spot to show as if it was dry, though I still didn’t really see what he was looking at. He frowned. “Was Cait on your bed yesterday?” he demanded of Sorsche. “She was,” the voice of Grainne came from the other side of the room. “I was getting her some clean clothes, but I put her on Sorsche’s bed because it was still wet from the day before so she wouldn’t get anything else wet.” Dan looked at me, and then back to Grainne, who was his hand on his beltloops. “Alright then,” he finally backed away from Sorsche’s bed. “Either way, you slept in a pissy bed, so go get a bath and give Cait one.” Sorsche nodded and she took my hand and led me off to the bathroom without a word. We were in the gym having PE, playing with scooters, these square things you sit on that have wheels on the bottom, and experimenting with the different ways we can lay and sit on them and move them with our hands and feet…. “Okay, in pairs, one kid lays on the stomach on the scooter on the way down to the cone, then you change positions, and the other kid gets on the scooter, and the other kid pushes the kid on the scooter using their legs,” the PE coach had instructed us. I was put next to one of the more boisterous boys near the back, so he would be pushing me on the way back. I was a bit nervous about him pushing me too hard and making me fall off on purpose or something as I watched the others race to the other side of the gym, and after changing places, racing back. “You better not fall off,” the boy said to me frowning. I looked up at him, kind of scared to start something because he’d probably just push me down. The PE teacher was watching the race to see who’d win each time, so he wasn’t looking our way. “I… I won’t,” I whispered. “And you better run fast,” he whispered at me next. “I will.” “And… don’t pee your pants!” “What?” “Come on, Cait, the whole class knows you do it all the time. Don’t play dumb. I’m not sitting on the school after you pee on it, and I’m not touching your legs if you got pee dripping down them.” I sighed. “I don’t even have to go.” “You know what, switch,” he told me. “I don’t want to get on the scooter after you’ve been on it. You’ll make it stink.” I shrugged and looking down, let him push me in behind him in the line so that he would be on the scooter first. I had only started wetting consistently at school over the last two days because of being scared of going home dry. The last time I peed at school in my pants was at least a month or two before that. I guess that didn’t matter to bullies though. They would bring up anything they can humiliate you about, I supposed. Anyway, I didn’t have to pee in gym, so I was able to get back to class without anyone really paying much attention to what he had said to me in gym. Later, we were walking home, and Grainne and Sorsche were on either side of me. Sorsche was dry as a bone, and that made me smile. “You didn’t have anything at the nurse’s office?” Grainne asked me once we had gotten away from everyone else at the bus stop that was still a good walk from our house. I looked down. “I still peed my pants, though,” I told her. “But aren’t you even afraid that dad won’t find two pair of wet clothes? The last two days, you had two pair of wet clothes. One that we had to take from the school in a bag, and one that you came though the door wearing.” Sorsche put a hand on my shoulder. “Grainne don’t make it a bigger thing than it is.” “But what if mommy scolds her or worse tells daddy that she only seemed to wet on the way home?” “Well, I can talk to mom,” Sorsche said. “Mom understands my feelings, and I can tell her how embarrassing it is to get caught by your classmates, and maybe Cait just didn’t want to leave her seat and have everyone see what happened. Right, Cait?” I nodded as I looked between them. “I peed my pants in third grade all the time, remember?” Grainne looked down. “Yeah, I know.” “Sometimes, I didn’t have clothes from the nurse though. I tried to hide that I peed at my desk as much as I could from the others, and I’m sure that’s what Cait did today.” “This boy in PE said everyone knows I pee my pants,” I whimpered. “I didn’t want that to be true, but if everyone keeps seeing me go to the nurse for clean clothes, they’ll definitely believe him, so I…. I wore my wet pants and got really dirty at recess so no one could tell I had peed.” Grainne frowned. “That couldn’t have been comfortable being stuck in wet clothes all day.” I just looked down, though I agreed with her. By now, my pants were very itchy and cold, and I felt like I smelled badly having wet them twice and still wearing them. I couldn’t wait for Mary to send Sorsche to take me to change my dirty things. “Something I used to do sometimes in third grade…,” Sorsche leaned down as if telling me a secret. “…I used to sometimes go into the bathroom, and in the stall, I’d take my panty off and dip it in the clean toilet water before I sat on the toilet. I’d make sure to only get a little bit around the crotch wet, but not the whole thing, then eventually the wet would go through my pants if I was wearing pants so Dan would think….” “You peed…,” I finished her sentence with her. “So, maybe I can do the same thing?” Sorsche patted her shoulder. “Just make sure to wet the middle of them enough that it will leak in to your pants eventually when you are sitting,” she told me. “But don’t get them too wet on the back or front, so that way, it takes a while for anyone to notice.” “The other kids will still see wet pants, though,” I looked down wondering how it was much more help than just wetting myself and trying not to let anyone else see what I did. I mean, I hated the smell and the pee was more uncomfortable than water, I thought, but I didn’t want the other kids to know I was peeing at all. I was more worried about that than how comfortable it was to wear wet undies. “I’ll just wet my pants,” I whimpered up at them. “If my class sees wetness in my pants, then it doesn’t really solve them thinking I’m not potty trained, does it?” Sorsche breathed in heavily and then let it out slowly. She seemed to have been trying to say something I didn’t understand, but the way she had given that breath, I think she had given up on it. “Whatever you do, make sure mommy knows you peed your pants at school at least once, and you peed on the bus or on the way home at least once, or…,” Grainne’s voice faded off as we came upon our drive. Sorsche got the mail, and we started towards the house. “Do you need to pee right now?” Sorsche asked me as we approached the old shack of a place. “Kind of…,” I whispered. “Well, it won’t make any sense for me to take you potty this time, so maybe do it before we get in the house?” “So I gotta go in my pants?” I asked. Grainne and she both nodded at me, so I stopped for a moment to try to get it started. It didn’t matter if I peed outside or in the house, sometimes Sorsche and Grainne covered for me and I went to the bathroom when they could, but sometimes, they couldn’t cover for me, and I had to pee my pants. There was no way they could cover for me when I pooped, so I just continued pooping my pants. It was already March, and the air was still rather cold though the sun started to come up a little faster these days, or maybe it was my imagination…. “Alright, children,” I was at school at my desk, now pretty much used to just peeing at my seat. “We are going to have a special guest in the library,” our teacher told us. “He’s a famous author, and he’s going to be sharing a book with all of the first and second graders. Then, he’s going to challenge us.” I listened on the edge of my seat. I knew that Sorsche loved reading and she loved writing. Sometimes, she read books to me just before I’d fall asleep, and sometimes, she’s tell me what stories she was writing, but she seemed too nervous to actually read what she had written. “So, I need everyone of you to be on your best behavior today,” the teacher told us. I nodded with determination I’d do whatever anyone asked of me. “Cait, would you please come here?” he called at me as the last person got into line. I gulped. Why was I being called to him instead of being told to lineup? He stood me in front of him while the line waited quietly for us. “It’s very important you are honest with me right now, sweetie,” he said to me making get a little bit jittery in the stomach. My pants were wet, and I shivered. He dropped his voice so only the two of us could really hear what he was saying, but the other kids weren’t dumb. He was asking me if I peed my pants, and they knew it. “Sweetheart, do you need to try to go potty right now?” I shook my head looking down at my skirt which hit my soaking wet panties. “Did you already pee at your seat?” I nodded slowly, afraid I had been bad. I hoped he wasn’t going to tell me I couldn’t go with the class to meet this special person. “Well, if you are wet, we can’t have you going to meet someone special like that,” he said quietly to me. “So, when I take the class to the library, you will stand by the librarian for a moment, and then I’ll take you to the nurse.” “But I wanted to meet him,” I whimpered. “I know, honey. But you want him to think he’s meeting a big first grader, don’t you?” I nodded with a frown, tightening my lips. “Well, you need to get your undies changed, if the back of your skirt is wet, then your skirt, too. You don’t want to smell bad in front of someone special, do you?” I didn’t know how it mattered if I smelled bad in front of a stranger or if I smelled bad most days, but shook my head no because the teacher seemed to want me to say so. “We’ll just get you cleaned up a little bit, and then you can go to the library, okay?” I knew I wouldn’t be in the front if we did that, and I wondered if the special person would even see me, but I had no choice. I peed my pants just like everyone told me to do, and now, I was going to miss time with this special person that could help me get started with reading and writing like Sorsche. That’s what I thought. I got tears in my eyes. “Can’t I just sit in the back and listen anyway? I will probably pee my pants anyway, right?” “Honey, we can’t let you go in there like that. It’s rules not only for you kids, but us teachers, too. I’d get in trouble if I took you in front of a stranger in wet panties, honey.” “You would?” “Yes, sweetheart. Honestly, you should be potty trained by now, and the whole school knows it, but given your situation, we really couldn’t do much about you. Your mommy doesn’t have you anymore, the one that neglected to potty train you, so there is nothing we can legally do now.” I wanted to tell him I was potty trained. I sniffled. I didn’t want to miss the special person reading. Maybe I should tell the teacher that I’m wetting myself on purpose. I don’t know what would happen if I did though, and that thought caused me to shiver. We walked down to the library just as was planned, and then he started to take me to the nurse. “Excuse me,” I stopped in the hallway, looking down, sort of thinking that it was time someone knew that I could use the toilet. It was making me miss something really special to follow daddy’s rules to be wet at school all the time, and I still hadn’t really been hit, so I wasn’t sure if he was as dangerous as Grainne and Sorsche said he was. “Yes, sweetie?” “I didn’t have an accident,” I looked up at him. “Sweetheart, you said you peed your pants when I asked you. I know you don’t want to miss the special time, but the longer we take to get to the nurse, the more of it you will miss.” “It’s not even that,” I mumbled. “I already know I missed the special time. I’m not saying it because I think you’ll take me back to the library. I did pee my pants in the classroom.” “Okay, then what do you mean you didn’t have an accident?” he turned and squatted down by me. “I decided to pee my pants… um… on purpose.” He reached for my hands and drew me closer to him. “What do you mean you decide to do it on purpose, sweetheart?” “I mean, I did it—on purpose. I like peeing my pants.” He frowned. “You like …?” I looked down. I don’t know why I said I liked it. I don’t. But I didn’t really know what else to say about it. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him that Mary expects me to and that my sisters want me to because they think I’ll get in trouble if I don’t. He shook his head. “Sweetheart, you are nearly seven years old, aren’t you?” I shook my head. I shook a little as I whimpered up at him, not really answering, just more whining that he tried to understand me. “Cait, I don’t know any six or seven year old girls that like to just pee their pants on purpose. Now, I do know that over the years, I’ve had kids come in from recess wet because they didn’t want to miss playtime, but never has a kid said she wanted to pee her pants.” I shivered. “So…, that makes me bad?” He shook his head. “Come on, we still gotta go clean you up, miss. I don’t know what to do with what you just told me, but we’ll figure out something. Even if you are doing it because you like it, that can’t continue, sweetheart.” I looked down. I knew it had to continue. I couldn’t ever go home dry, and if they called the school and the nurse said I was dry, I was still scared about what dad would do. He did whip Sorsche pretty bad when she didn’t do what he said, whether it was he didn’t want her to wet the bed, or he wanted her to show that she actually pooped her pants at school when something happened. I was directed in to see the nurse, but as I was just put in a plastic chair to wait a few minutes instead of going straight back to the bed areas to be cleaned up—even though there were no sick kids being tended to or waiting—and the teacher took the nurse further back and whispered to her. I sat there, and started to pee my pants again. I had to go for a while. I didn’t want to get up though, and I was kind of scared I was in trouble, and getting up might make them mad at me since the teacher told me to sit, when he directed me to the chair. The pee started to drizzle on the floor, but they were still talking and not paying attention, so I thought it was safe enough, and I let it flood off of the chair. The nurse would be able to tell daddy I peed twice because of it, so daddy won’t think I lied about peeing today. However, the more I sat and relaxed, and the stronger my stream got, I should have realized it would draw their attention, and at the height of my peeing, the nurse looked over and saw me full blown peeing all over the seat and the floor. “Well, she’s just peed her pants again,” she told the teacher. “I better get this poor child in some clean clothes.” He nodded and left us so the nurse could take care of me. “Sweetie, you’ve been wetting your pants a lot more since January than you were the first half of the year. In four months, I think I can count on one hand, the number of times you peed. But since January, it’s been every day, mostly twice a day, and quite often, you’ve started pooping yourself.” I whimpered and looked down. “Your teacher thinks you are confused and you might even be getting picked on or something.” “Picked on?” I asked in my whimpering. The nurse was pulling off my soaking wet pants now. “Are there any older kids threatening you at the bathrooms causing you be scared to go by yourself?” she asked me. I shook my head no. “No? I just… I wanted to pee my pants. That’s all.” She frowned. “Sweetheart, I know that’s not it at all.” I looked up at her wondering how she could think it wasn’t when even she said I peed my pants more now than I used to. “You are always ashamed when you come in, and seemed scared of having done it. You don’t act like someone that even does it because you’d rather play than go potty. Something is wrong, sweetheart.” I shrugged. “But I pee at my desk all the time, where no one sees it. I just do it.” But my quivering lips, my wet eyes, and my quiet voice was probably telling her more than I wanted them to. “I know you do, honey. Your teacher has told me about that. So, I want you to know, if anyone is bullying you and keeping you from going to the toilet, you can come and get an adult. The kids being mean can’t make you pee your pants if you tell us who is doing it to you.” “It’s not kids,” I whispered. “I just want to. I… I guess I am kind of scared of some of the bigger kids. But they don’t bother me or say anything, and they are not even near the first grader’s toilets when I’m scared, so….” “Well, are there classmates or maybe a bunch of kids in other classes that thinks it’s funny or something to force you to do that?” I shook my head no. “The only ones that really see say it’s gross and don’t want to be friends, but they don’t touch me. They don’t want to touch me because I’m too dirty.” The nurse sighed and got my panties off of me. “Well, we need to get to the bottom of why you’d rather sit there and pee your pants if you are able to realize you should go, sweetheart. We should probably talk to your daddy about it.” “No?” I looked up at her. “I don’t want him to think I’m potty trained.” “You pee your pants at home, then?” “All the time. And I pee the bed, sometimes on purpose, too.” The nurse frowned. As she put me in some brown pants over a pair of dingy white panties that smelled like they were just washed, she rubbed my back. “I think you should talk to someone, sweetheart.” I frowned at her. “You know, talk to them about why you want to pee your pants and want your daddy to treat you like a two year old or something.” “I just do,” I frowned at her. “I know, sweetheart. But that’s concerning. I’m going to call in an expert that might be able to help you voice why you want to be two years old again, or if there is something else going on that might be causing this.” I sighed and went back to the plastic chairs I sat in to wait for her, and I saw the puddle on the floor and the soaked chair I had made. The nurse caught me before I could decide to sit in a clean chair, and put me in a clean chair, as if she was afraid I might do something else. I was just looking at the mess I made, and thinking how much trouble that must be that I made for someone. She then went to her desk and called first the janitor and just told him to bring a mop, but didn’t tell him why, and then she called another person on her multi-button phone, and I tried to listen in on who that might be. “Mr. Givens, we really need your help if you are not busy right now,” she had said into the phone, probably as soon as he picked up. “Yeah, I have a very confused little girl in my office that could really use a friend to talk to about some very personal issues she’s having. In five minutes? Thank you.” “Mr. Givens is a special friend at our school who helps kids with all kinds of social issues,” the nurse told me. “He won’t be mad at all. You just talk with him, and if you feel the need to wet your pants in his office, just tell him you’re wet. He won’t mind, sweetheart.” I nodded. This thin tall man with a bit of hair on his face around his ears and chin and then a moustache in a brown suit and a red tie on a white shirt walked into the nurse’s room, and he bent down, his hands on his knees as he looked into my eyes with his own blue ones, and he smiled. “Mr. Givens, young lady. Who might you be?” “Cait?” “Well, it seems you need a friend.” “I wanted to go to the library,” I looked up at him. “I know. Talking to new people can be scary,” he said as though trying to understand, only he didn’t. “No. I mean, there’s a special man in there teaching about reading and writing books, and I have to meet him. Please!” Mr. Givens frowned. “You are in third grade, aren’t you?” I whispered. “Yes sir?” “Well, how about this. I’ll take you to the library, but then you have to come and talk to me after you meet the man. Can you do that?” I nodded. He took me by the hand and walked me to the library, and we sat in the back in chairs at the tables where all the other first and second graders were on their butts in front of him, and even some third graders were in chairs in front of us. “You can sit on your knees,” Mr. Givens told me. “I’ll be the one in trouble with the librarian if she sees you with shoes in the chair. Go ahead.” I nodded and put my feet in the chair, so I could sit a little higher, more like you do when you are outside, and you are on your feet, but mostly relaxed and trying to look at something on the ground, only I was trying to look over other student’s head at the handsome man that was reading “The Very Busy Spider” to us. He was halfway through the book when we came in, and apparently, he had already read one book to everyone while I was with the nurse. He read the last book to us after that and then he started to talk about how reading is important for play and the imagination, and how reading will help us learn new things that we didn’t know before. I listened intently to him. Finally, he was wrapping up, and seemed to be ready to take questions. “So, let’s see who would like to ask a question…,” he looked around. “Excuse me,” Mr. Givens interrupted everyone. “I really need to talk to this first grader right here, but she wants so badly to meet him. Is it okay if we let her go first so I can do my job?” No one stopped us, and he smiled and me and gently nudge me forward. I shook as I felt like I had cut the line and went sheepishly up to the man, avoiding especially the big kids’ stares who would be in the right to hate me at this moment. I didn’t ask for this, but they didn’t either. I was being treated kind of special. “That girl is in my class,” I heard someone say to someone else as I passed. “She pees her pants all the time.” “Ew!” “Girls, quiet,” a teacher told them, and I couldn’t tell if the teacher heard exactly what they said. “What’s your name, young lady?” “That’s Cait,” someone in the front said. “She ….” “Sean, quiet,” my teacher yelled at him. “It’s Cait’s turn to talk to him. You’ll get a chance later.” “I’m Cait I said when I could see he was still waiting for me to talk to him. He turned me sideways in his lap, and he asked me. “So what do you want to know about reading or writing?” “Well, I was wondering. There are so many books out there about special places, and some of them are, not exactly what I’ve ever seen. Do people really just write about places they know or what they’ve seen?” He smiled and patted my back softly. “People write about what they dream, too. That’s what your imagination is for. While the places might not be real, and some of the creatures in books might not be real, in the end, a good book still has something about it that is real.” I looked up at him hanging on his every word. “Sometimes, you have feelings that are so big, that you can’t always explain what you want someone to get by using normal words and normal places and normal people, so sometimes, people make up monsters and special places to really emphasize the size of problems, the magnitude of something that impresses them, or the importance of a place to them. So, yes, basically, people do write about what they know. They write about what they see, though it’s not always what everyone else sees that looks at the same place, and yes, they hide the name of a city, a monster, or something else behind a pretend name because—even big people get scared that others might not agree with their feeling or image of a place, a problem, or a monster in their way.” I smiled. “So, if I write, could it help people understand my monsters and my places?” “I’d say it not only could it, but it would.” I nodded. “Okay, next?” and he lifted me off his legs. It was kind of like sitting on Santa Claus even though he wasn’t. It was special, and if I were to put him in a book of my own, that’s who he would be. He would be Santa Claus taking a vacation to help some kids at school.”

Well, you might have to squirm a bit before you start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. They are not even in the middle of the tunnel yet, to be honest.

I was planning on writing this Wednesday but apparently I can't work again today because of a sickness going around where I work. So... lucky you, you have chapter four, or not so lucky if you don't like the story. As the case may be. Chapter Four: Sorsche let me sit on the toilet to pee. “They think you peed all over the floor and your bed was soaked, so there’s no reason for them to think anything if you pee in the toilet, if you want.” I nodded and went to the bathroom like a seven year old is supposed to. Then she helped me into the warm water, and she started to wash me, kind of treating me like a baby the way she washed everywhere. “Um…, Sorsche?” I looked up at her as she was washing my chest. “Yes, Cait?” “I… I can do that.” “No,” she said. “I’ll get it if daddy thinks you missed anywhere, and you are little. He told me to clean you up, so I have to do it. I’m sorry.” I sighed and looked down. Why was this house so mixed up and why does this Dan guy even have to be my daddy? Why does Sorsche keep calling him daddy even if sometimes she is clear to Grainne that it’s Grainne’s daddy by the way she talks? Sorsche got me out of the bath, and then she dried me off good before drying herself off. “Wait here,” she told me. “I have to take you to the room. If daddy catches you trying to get dressed by yourself….” “…You’ll get hit,” I finished the sentence with her now understanding that she was afraid of messing up. “I get it,” I sighed. While she dressed me in the bedroom, she told me again, to make sure I understood. “If you don’t want to make daddy call you a liar and hit you for it, wet your pants at school. Don’t go potty at all, okay?” I looked up at her, not wanting to believe that she was still warning me, but I saw the look in her eyes. She really wanted me to pee my pants, and she was almost shaking as she told me, like something bad could happen to her, if I didn’t do it. I looked down. “Alright, I’ll just sit at my desk until it comes out. I’ve done that twice this year when the teacher was, well, I was afraid to tell the teacher.” She hugged me, and put me in a pink and blue striped shirt and a pair of black pants. “The black pants will make it less noticeable to your classmates that you peed if they catch you starting to wet.” I looked up at her. “I’m just saying, if you think you are getting ready to go to lunch, a special class, or something where you have to stand up, even though you can’t be safely using the toilet today, you won’t want your classmates to catch you soaking wet, right?” I nodded. It was really embarrassing the last time I peed my pants completely in front of everyone and they noticed because I had to stand up not long after to go to lunch. That was completely an accident though, and I was soaked before I could stand up. “If you can get your pee pee to do it, the best time to wet your pants at school is in music class near the beginning because she doesn’t usually make you stand up unless you are practicing a special song for the holiday program. Also, at school during class time, you should try to control your bladder during reading and math since you are moving around the classroom a lot during those times.” I nodded as I looked down. “Good. Now, if you poop your pants, and the teacher calls on you, just stay seated, and wait for the teacher to bend down to you. The teacher shouldn’t be mean if you whisper in his or her ear that you pottied your pants so no one else knows, and they will probably help you get to the nurse with less people noticing if they can, especially if you tell him or her you accidentally pooped. Even if you do it on purpose, tell them it was an accident. That’s what I do.” “You still poop in your pants at school?” I asked. She tightened her mouth, and nodded. “Like I said, I have to get something in my panties if something happens, and if I happen to need to poop, it embarrasses me a lot, and I do kind of get scared of the others noticing, but I’m a lot more scared of dad getting mad that he didn’t see any kind of mess in my panties, and thinking I had to have went in my pants.” I felt tears push to the front of my eyes, and yeah, it was because I realized I had to potty my pants, but it was also because this ten year old girl told me she was basically being forced to poop her pants in front of the whole class in order not to get in trouble at home, and getting in trouble at home was scarier than pooping her pants! I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The two times I peed my pants at school, mommy was very nice to me, and told me accidents happen. Even the first time we came here, and I had an accident, she just hugged me and told it was too long a walk without a loo around for a kid my age. And she would never think I should just pee my pants at school. I shook my head. Why? We walked down to the kitchen, and the four of us school girls sat at the table eating cold cereal, toast, and drinking orange juice. I think Aoife was still asleep, and Mary went around the table checking on our clothes. She had Grainne stand up, and she helped her tuck her shirt in. She passed by Erinne where the girl gave her a face like you better not even try, and at Sorsche, she looked up at Dan, and with a sigh, she started in on her. “Stand up, Sorsche, baby.” She stood up. “I don’t want any trouble from you at school today, okay?” Mary talked to Sorsche, but mostly looking at Dan who seemed to be supervising this whole ordeal. “And I guess you made too much of a fuss at school during one of your classes?” Sorsche hung her head. “Well, I just had to…,” but then her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “… go to the bathroom.” Dan frowned at Sorsche as his booming voice accused her. “I didn’t see any wet panties your size in the laundry!” Why was Dan looking in the laundry? I thought Mary and Sorsche were doing the laundry. “I made it,” Sorsche looked up wet eyed at her mom. “The teacher finally let me go.” “But you made a scene and disturbed the class to do it?” Dan asked. “When we know you’re always wetting at school anyway?” Sorsche nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. He walked over and yanked her by the arm away from Mary, and they went upstairs. Mary continued to me, and had me stand up, and fixed my shirt again even though I knew it was tucked in because Sorsche did it for me before we came down. As she fixed me, she whispered to me. “Ignore the screaming. He’s not killing her,” Mary told me. “But let this be a lesson to you that you don’t want to be causing trouble at school. Understand?” I gulped and nodded. “She’s in trouble because she disturbed the class. I tried to hide it from him because I knew Sorsche just wanted to pee. She told me what happened, but your dad always seems to find out about misbehavior, and it seems the teacher told him she was playing around before she had to pee, so it was hard to tell if she had to go or not.” I shook because Sorsche was really screaming, and when she came down the stairs, she was limping. I looked up at Dan who had been putting his belt back through the loops of his pants. I shivered. I think I will do everything Sorsche told me to do now. Well, I’ll try not to pee so everyone sees, but I’m going to come home wet. I’m not going to the bathroom at all, that way I won’t have to ask and bother the teacher. The four of us going to school were loaded into the car. Dad had originally taken me into the office to re-register me, but the office people told him I could go ahead and go to class because I already had an assigned teacher, so I don’t know what daddy and the office talked about other than I was staying with him now. The first part of the day went pretty normally. I studied reading first for about from when the big hand was on the three and the small hand was on the eight until about the big hand was on the 9 and the small hand was on the nine. Then we had Music until the little hand was on the ten and the big hand was on the six. We had math after that until the big hand was on the four and the small hand was on the eleven, but when the big hand was on the eleven, and the small hand was on the one, I started to notice that my tummy wanted the toilet. I started to raise my hand to ask, but then for some reason, I saw Sorsche’s face, and her head shaking no in my mind. Then I remembered the conversation we had and remembered her screaming, so I put my hand down. “Cait?” the teacher called on me. “Yeah?” I looked up at the teacher. “You had a question?” “Um… no. I just…. I figured it out,” I lied. “Okay. Just remember, I’m here if you need help.” I nodded. As I sat working though, and felt the muscle in my bladder getting more excited and trying to tell me to raise my hand again, I also noticed that I felt a sensation in my back and a different part of my stomach. It didn’t hurt, but I knew, if I didn’t go to the bathroom, I was going to have an accident unlike I’d ever had since I was… well, except the time the other day when we walked too far, but at school? No. I can’t. I shook. I wondered if I could pee without letting that other out. I didn’t try to pee right away though. I was kind of scared if I did, I would forget and then make everyone laugh at me for pooping in the classroom. I shook a little bit. The teacher came over and took me by the hand and led me to the door of the class. “Sweetheart, go potty,” she told me. “You don’t want to pee pee your pants in front of everyone, again. Last time you did that, you were really upset, remember?” I nodded, but looking up at her, I gathered my courage. “I don’t want to go.” “Honey, you’re moving around a lot for not wanting to go.” I looked down. “Um…. I…. It’s just itching,” I lied. “Are you sure, honey?” I nodded. “Alright, Cait. You can take your seat then.” I walked back to my seat, and tried harder to keep my body from moving. I don’t know why I lied to the teacher, really. I mean, I know I’d be in trouble if Dan thought I was being bad, but I didn’t understand how pooping my pants wasn’t bad, but then he hit Sorsche really bad for just having to pee the day before at school. He didn’t even let her explain that she wasn’t playing, I don’t think. I continued in math class, still struggling to keep from going in my pants, but lunch was soon, and I didn’t want to get caught going in my pants while we were walking to lunch. The other kids wouldn’t understand. The teacher might not even understand since she told me I could go to the bathroom. We got sat down with our trays, and the others were talking with one other, everyone ignoring me as usual. They had been ignoring me at lunch ever since the second time I peed my pants around November, so I was kind of used to it. As I was eating, it started to get to be too much and I felt a little bit of pee go in my pants just before a bubble-like pressure pushed its way out of my butt causing a little bit of something that seemed to be at the door trying to push it open. I was about to do it. Somehow, I kept it coming out though for a little bit longer, and we kept eating until my table was nearly empty of first graders, and second graders were starting to come in. I thought I saw Grainne over in the lunch line. It was around that time, I felt some more pee push into my pants and a little bit of the yuck started to push past the gate into my butt cheeks. I was doing it. It was starting to slip. I tried harder to hold it though. I’d probably get caught doing it in the cafeteria. I had to get outside and find a private place to go, so I raised my hand. After recess, I lined up at the back of the line, an annoying lump sagging at my panties and making walking awkward as I moved. My pants were soaked. And I heard someone say something about the smell, but they didn’t say my name, at least not yet. As we walked into the room, the teacher stood at the door, and she put a hand on my shoulder as it was my turn to go in. “You wait here.” She was only gone for a moment and she came back and gave me a yellow pass. “Go see the nurse, honey. You’ve had another accident,” and she looked right at my pants, that were black. Sorsche said it would be harder to tell I peed, so I looked up at her and said, “No I didn’t.” “Honey,” she squatted down next to me. “You’ve pooped your pants. You can smell it, and you don’t want to go into the class like that. If you sit in your chair, it will eventually look like brown water and then everyone will know you pooped. Right now, everyone is just wandering about a strong fart, which I was ignoring until you came up to the door and I noticed how strong it was.” I looked down. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay. You’ve been having accidents off and on during the year, and your dad just told the school this morning that you weren’t really potty trained yet, which is why even though we only caught you a couple of times, you’d been coming home wet every day.” I looked down. “I know you were scared to admit it now, when I tried to send you to the toilet earlier. You were already wet and scared that everyone would know if you went to the bathroom, that’s why you lied to me, right? Or maybe you were already poopy going in your pants, but didn’t know how you’d get them down without making a mess?” I nodded not knowing what else to do or say. A tear fell down my cheek. “It’s okay, but go see the nurse so you can get some clean pants, okay?” I nodded and walked a shameful, red faced, burning, teary-eyed, baby step to the nurse’s office where I was lucky to see a nearly empty room. I showed the nurse the pass, tears still streaming down my face, and waited for her to scold me for going in my pants like she did last time. The nurse motioned for me to come to her, so I baby-stepped my way, kind of scared. I’d never pooped my pants at school before. “Your daddy says you are not potty trained,” the nurse told me. “Normally first graders are potty trained, and you are halfway through the year. But I guess you must have had some big problems in your little life?” I nodded, though the problems were all recent. “Well, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to scold you anymore, now I understand that the wetting is not purposeful trying to get out of class or get attention tactics.” “Do kids really do that?” I asked through my tears. “You’d be surprised what older kids have tried to get out of class. Normally you don’t see it in first graders, but I’ve also seen students get attitudes younger and younger…,” she stopped her self as if she was looking for the first time who she was talking to. “You know what, don’t worry about all that. Let’s just get you changed. Luckily, your daddy predicted you’d pee your pants today, and left you a change of clothes.” I nodded. That was the worst I felt in a long time, even after I had changed. The nurse thought it was just an accident because I am not really potty trained. I guess she doesn’t know that I feel it before it’s already about to come out. Anyway, somehow, I got through class without anyone laughing about me wearing new clothes, but then if they knew I peed, they had stopped laughing about that anyway. They weren’t interested lately if I peed my pants or not. Sorsche picked up Grainne first and then me. Blushing, I whimpered up at Sorsche. “I did it. We have to get my dirty stuff from the nurse.” She smiled and mouthed at me. “I did it, too.” Grainne hugged me and whispered. “It’s okay. Sorsche wets sometimes because of daddy, too. Just…. Keep it quiet. We don’t need to tell more people than already knows, okay?” I nodded. The nurse had washed out my panties, I guess, because when I got them, they were completely soaked inside a plastic bag, but the poop in them was missing, and there was probably a stain from it inside, but I didn’t check. It was yucky enough to have to hold a plastic bag of my messy clothes, but I was curious if the poop would be noticed when Mary went to get them, so I looked in the dark bag and saw. We were going through the kitchen, when Sorsche handed Mary her own bag with her clothes and I handed her mine. “Good girl,” she said to Sorsche. “I’m glad you didn’t play around, as your father calls it, and just peed. Good girl.” She got mine, and she patted my hip and cooed at me. “It’s okay, little one. You don’t have to worry. You are wet again, no doubt?” I frowned. “Sorsche, take Cait upstairs, both of you clean up a little bit, and then put your pajamas, okay?” “Cait will be wet before bed, though,” Sorsche said to her mom. “Oh, you are right,” she told her. “Actually, yeah, just put her in a long shirt and some panties for now.” “When Dan hit you this morning, did he tell you to potty your pants?” I asked Sorsche as she cleaned me. “Well, he didn’t say it like that,” Sorsche said. “But he said if he found out I was playing around again, needing to pee or not, and trying to get out of the lesson for no good reason, and peeing was a good reason, he’d give me worse tonight.” I frowned. “See why you need to pee your pants at school?” Sorsche told me. “He will get on you if he thinks you are playing around, and especially since both he and mom think you are not potty trained, he will not only get on you for being out of class for no reason, he’ll be making you tell him where you hid your messy clothes, and he’ll hit you until you produce something that you can’t or at least until you are so sore…. That, well, just pee your pants, okay?” I put my finger in my mouth moving my head up and down. She cleaned my butt, and she frowned. “Did you poop your pants?” I shook a little bit and whispered. “Yeah?” “It’s okay. It was bound to happen since you are not allowed to use the bathroom freely. I was just wondering because I went to wipe you, and some poop actually came out on the cloth, see?” I flinched away from the dirty cloth. “I’m sorry.” She smiled at me. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve pooped my pants before. You don’t have a choice, Cait.” She finished cleaning me up even though that meant she had to reach in my butt cheeks and clean it out some more. We were finally both of us, back downstairs, Sorsche in a long gown and me in just a shirt that barely covered my panties, and a pair of purple panties. Grainne scooted close to me while we were watching television. “I have a plan,” she whispered. “You don’t want to wet your pants at home on purpose, right?” I shrugged. “Well, what if I told you that your panties at least didn’t need to have pee in them, but mom would still see wet panties?” “I tried that the other night, remember?” “Yeah, except you tried to bring the water back to your bed because you need to pee the bed. You can’t do anything about the bed. You need to pee in your sleep or at least while you are lying down. I don’t have a way to help there, yet. But I’m talking about during the day. I have an idea.” “Okay?” “If I’m home, how about you tell me you want to go, and I’ll take you up. If I take you up, I can just tell mommy you peed your pants and I’m taking you to get you changed?” “Won’t she see there is no pee spot?” “Not if I pretend to have been cleaning it up when I tell her?” “Okay. I guess that might work, but then what?” “Well, you sit on the toilet and then give me your panties and I’ll get them wet in the sink. I can put them back on you and when you stand up, you pull your pants up, so they will get wet, and I’ll take you to the room to get some clean clothes, and when we put the dirty ones in the washing basket, mom will see they were wet.” “Okay. Why are you doing this, though?” “Why? What you should be asking, is why daddy expects you and Sorsche to pee and poop your pants all the time, and why mommy wants to believe you are not potty trained. I had an accident once at school last year, but that didn’t make mommy think I wasn’t potty trained. Daddy didn’t even care. He pretended nothing happened. But boy did Sorsche get in trouble when she came home in the third grade with dry pants. Daddy told her he knew she peed her pants, and told her to get them out. When she couldn’t… she got in big trouble.” I shook. “I can’t save you at school, though,” Grainne told me. “And you have to pee the bed, because I don’t want daddy to get mad at you, and I don’t want mommy to accuse you of peeing on Sorsche. I don’t like Sorsche getting in trouble when she does it, but if you do it in Sorsche’s bed, daddy and mommy both have told you not to do it, so you’ll get it bad.” I nodded. “I kind of want to pee,” I told Grainne. “Are you sure I shouldn’t just do it instead of you getting caught lying, too?” “Even if they catch me lying, I won’t get in trouble. And if they catch you on the toilet, I can tell mommy I made you sit there while I was washing my hands because I went to the bathroom, and they won’t even care because mommy knows I’m potty trained, and I can use it as an excuse that mommy doesn’t want you making puddles everywhere.” I nodded. “Okay.” She took me over and sat me on a kitchen chair, and then she got a cloth wet and told me to stand up, and she started to wipe the chair with it. She got the chair really wet while she wiped it, and then she looked at her mom who was watching TV before she wiped the wet cloth on the back of my panties getting them damp and partly on my shirt, too. “Mom, Cait’s peed,” she told. “Oh, um…, Sorsche, take Cait up to get cleaned up again.” Sorsche nodded and came into the kitchen, and then noticed that Grainne was putting back a wash cloth. “What’s going on?” Sorsche asked Grainne. “Cait doesn’t want to pee her pants,” Grainne whispered. “So I wet the back of Cait’s panty and her sleeping shirt at the bottom so mom will think she peed and I just wiped the chair so it looks like I cleaned it up.” “Well, that’s not going to work,” Sorsche told her. “When you pee, you always make a puddle on the floor, even when you sit in the chair.” “I didn’t when I peed in class last year,” Grainne told us. “That’s because you also went to the bathroom and finished in the toilet,” Sorsche reminded her. “The floor is all peed on,” Sorsche then said loudly so Mary heard. “Grainne go take Cait to the bathroom. I’ll deal with her in there in a minute.” Grainne nodded. “I’ll mop the floor,” Sorsche said loudly. “No, honey, don’t,” Mary started to get up. But Sorsche was already pouring water from a cup on the floor and spreading it with the mop especially under Cait’s chair. “Honey, you’re making a mess!” Sorsche looked down and that was the last thing I saw or heard as Grainne ushered me upstairs and to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet and handed her my panties so she could get them wet with water. “Don’t worry about Sorsche,” Grainne told me. “That’s just her mom, so she won’t be scolded for trying to help, as it were. Of course, she did that on purpose because she wanted to make it look like you really peed.” I nodded. I kind of felt some gratitude to the two. They might be letting Mary believe that I’m not potty trained, and letting daddy think I pee my pants all the time to keep me out of trouble, but they were trying to keep me out of trouble. Sorsche came up a few minutes later. “Mom’s mopping the mess I made, but Cait, get off the toilet if you’re done, and sit on the tub side. Grainne, sit on the toilet quickly, so when mom comes in, she’ll think you peed.” Grainne started peeing when she sat, so that made it seem even more real. Sorsche made sure I sat on my shirt where Grainne tried to wet it, and then she filled the tub before getting me up, and that’s when Mary came to the doorway. “Why are you in the bathroom, Sorsche?” “Well, Cait pooped her pants at school, and she just peed again, so I was thinking she needs a bath.” “Honey, she’s going to wet the bed,” Marry told her. “She gets a bath in the mornings, just like you do for a while. But… so we don’t waste the water…, Grainne, you can go ahead and take your bath and then put on your pajamas, okay?” Grainne nodded and Sorsche took me back to the bedroom to change my panties and to put me in another shirt. It was still too early for pajamas because if I peed again, I’d need to change.

I'm sorry. When life pulls me away from writing, I usually have a hard time coming back to a project. It's a weakness I have. I do have one complete story, but yeah, only one. I'll try to take another look at Sent Away again to see if I can get back into it. A few people have told me the same thing, about wanting to see me finish some stories. I'm sorry. I don't think this one is quite the same as the other stories. I'm still setting the scene as yet. We know a few things about Cait. Grainne and Sorsche's behavior in future chapters need to be well grounded in what is happening in the early chapters, or you might misunderstand Grainne later.

Fair, so I guess the hint I gave that made it hard for Cait to think she could go wasn't strong enough? Understood. I'll work on that the next time it comes up. I mean, I can't have her ask directly as that would destroy the confusion that Cait has, and the alibi that Mary or Dan have.

Well, it is slowly opening up why things are going bad for Cait. We haven't actually seen Cait at school yet, so we don't know why she's not asking teachers yet, or feels scared to, right? Or do you mean, if she can ask Mary, but if you remember in the second chapter, that was sort of answered at lunch time, at least as a start?

Chapter Three I felt tears starting to gather in my eyes, my heart ached, and I squirmed on the toilet knowing that if I didn’t, I’d probably really get in trouble, and I shook as I sat there, wondering why I was put here. Sorsche was staring at me, and rubbing my leg, and saying things like “It’s okay, baby.” Grainne looked on at us from the door, and mouthed something at Sorsche. “I know, Sorsche said. I’m trying to get her to,” her voice barely above a whisper back towards her. “Why don’t you go see where mom is, and make sure she’s not on her way up to check on us?” Grainne frowned but left us for a moment, the door still wide open. “Come on, Cait. You’ll get us both in trouble if mommy finds out I put you on the potty before she said we were potty training you. Just pee. If you don’t do it soon, I’ll have to take you off and just make you go in front of whoever sees it happen.” I shook as I looked down at my bare legs because the skirt was pushed out of the way. “Come on,” Sorsche whispered, trying to push me to go. “I don’t want you to get in trouble with dad, and I don’t know if he thinks you should be doing this or not. You’re a lot younger, so he probably won’t spank you for peeing, but he will if he thinks you are hiding you peed, and he thinks you are lying.” I gritted my teeth trying to get my bladder to do what she said. I didn’t want to get in trouble for lying, even though, I didn’t understand how this wasn’t lying. I’m not sure what you call this, but mommy will probably not be happy they made me do this. Would she be happy if she found out I was trying to pee my pants? Would she be mad at me for doing it, too? I started to breathe heavily and I felt my watery eyes start to spill down my face, as finally, a squirt went into my panty. “I peed a little,” I told her. “Can I just do the rest in the toilet?” “Honey, no. That little bit would not be enough for daddy to think you peed, and if he thinks you’re lying….” I felt my face heat up, and I shivered as I tried not to make a sound. Another squirt went into the toilet, then another, and finally I peed my pants. Sorsche squatted there the whole time holding my hand while I peed and finally helped me stand up, and she smiled at me. “Let’s hurry back to the bedroom. Put the skirt on. In the bedroom, you’ll sit on the skirt so we can show mama that you really peed, and then we’ll change your skirt.” “Okay,” I frowned. Sorsche took me into the room, and sat me in the middle of her bed where it was still kind of wet. “Just sit there for a few minutes until I find something for you, then you can climb off carefully so you don’t get wet all over. They can’t think you peed on my bed or you’ll really get it.” I nodded. As Sorsche finally found me a pair of shorts, she motioned for me to come off the bed and Grainne reappeared in the room. “Mom’s talking to dad right now,” she said. “I think dad’s going to drive mom and Cait to get Cait some clothes of her own. “Oh, okay. I better get her some panties then.” “Why?” Grainne asked. “Well, I was just going to leave her wet panties on so it would get her shorts slowly wet, then dad would think she peed and wouldn’t question if he didn’t see her wet later, but if they are taking her shopping, it would be too soon for Cait to pee. She might get scolded.” Grainne frowned. “Yeah, let me check the panties. I don’t want her to wet my favorite ones.” “Okay.” I was back downstairs in a pair of pink shorts and some clean panties underneath. “You peed on Sorsche last night?” daddy asked me. “I did,” I confirmed what Mary already told him. “Well, you don’t climb into other kids’ beds without permission from now on. You stay in your bed unless you are put in someone else’s bed by Mary or myself.” I nodded. “Alright, well, we need to go shopping,” and then he turned to the stairs. “Erinne! Come down here, please!” Erinne came down and I saw daddy present her with 10 pound. “I need you to watch Sorsche, Grainne, and Aoife while we are gone. Your sister, Grainne needs some extra panties and a couple of extra skirts because Cait peed on her clothes, and I need to get Cait some stuff that fits her right.” “Sure,” Erinne said. “I was going to make Sorsche clean her bed, if that’s alright with you. Because she peed the bed last night?” “Well, I found out that Cait was in the wrong bed, and she actually did that.” “Oh. So is she a baby, or are you going to spank her for it?” “I haven’t decided yet. Mary thinks she’s just not potty trained.” “Mary isn’t exactly….” “Erinne, please go inside before you say something I’ll spank you for,” Daddy warned her, but then I thought I saw a wink from him and a smirk from Erinne as she went back into the living room. Dad frowned at me and looked Mary over. “You’re sure she’s not potty trained?” “Well, she’s not been to the bathroom all day, have you, Cait?” My mouth dropped. I asked to go several times before I wet at lunch time. But she was right, that I wasn’t in the bathroom except once when Sorsche told me to pee my panty. I frowned. “No?” “And she pooped her pants last night, didn’t you Cait?” I shivered looking down. That one wasn’t Mary’s doing, but it wasn’t something I just did. I waited forever before it came out. “Cait?” Daddy asked. “I did,” I said in a low defeated voice. “Well, I guess we’ll have to start putting plastic down on any furniture she sits on so she doesn’t pee on it, and I don’t know, but if she’s not even potty trained for that, then I don’t suppose we can expect her to clean herself off when she poops herself.” Mary shook her head no and I was climbing into the back of the little four door car. “I suppose Sorsche can clean her up when she’s around,” daddy said. “At least that way, you don’t always have to worry about Cait. Aoife still needs your help sometimes.” Mary nodded. “Sorsche took her up this last time. That’s where they were just a minute ago.” “Did Sorsche change your pants?” daddy asked me. I nodded sadly. Mary held my hand kind of tightly, and we walked around here and there. The place we were shopping at, well, the clothes were clean and had a nice smell, but I wasn’t sure they were brand new. There was something just a little off about the way they were displayed. “I hope you didn’t pee again in the car,” Mary said. I looked up at her frowning. “If you did, we’ll just have to guess your size….” “I didn’t,” I protested. Daddy shook his head and asked Mary. “Why are you discussing this with her if she’s not potty trained? Just checked her!” He grabbed me by an arm, and pulled me over to where he was down into a squat, nearly pulling me over a knee and he checked. “She’s not wet,” he told Mary. “You can take her into a dressing stall and check what fits.” I was so shocked, that I still had my mouth open, and several people had passed us by as daddy had checked the outside of my shorts for any wetness! I was so embarrassed! I didn’t get any say at all about what I wanted in clothes. Daddy said we were getting me sensible things right now. “You can maybe get something nice after Christmas, or maybe Santa Claus will bring you a special sweater or something.” I didn’t argue. Then I started to realize, Erinne had been in really nice things the two times I had seen her, but Sorsche’s clothes, were, well, not exactly bad, but Erinne’s clothes were definitely cuter than Sorsche’s clothes. Even Grainne had nicer things than Sorsche. As we looked around and they filled the wobbly cart with this and that, I noticed the clothes they were getting me matched more like Sorsche’s vibes than Grainne’s or Erinne’s vibes, and I didn’t get a choice. Is this what they did to Sorsche? We had gotten a cartful of stuff that Mary tried on me, and then we went from that store to a nicer one, where they bought a brand new package of panties even though they got me panties at the other store, and then I remembered, they were getting Grainne some extra panties and a couple of skirts, and sure enough, we stopped by the skirts and Mary picked out some nice ones for her. As we were about to leave the second store, Mary sighed over at Dan, and I wasn’t sure if he was really my daddy or not. Why did I have not so good stuff? Why didn’t Sorsche? “Dan, it’s getting late. If you want Erinne, Grainne, and Aoife to get showers tonight, we probably shouldn’t delay dinner.” “Out with it, Mary. Are you just tired and don’t want to cook?” Mary bit her lip. “I mean, it is late, Dan.” “It is, isn’t it? I guess we can pick something up on the way home.” We came into the house, and we had chicken, potatoes, peas, corn, rolls, and macaroni from some nicer place where they could order it out to go. The chicken was in a big bucket that said it had 18 pieces. Mom told Erinne that she could organize us getting our hands washed to help out since she was already given ten pound. Erinne shrugged and she picked Aoife up and took her up first. “Sorsche, honey, please check on Cait. We’ve been out, so she probably needs changed again.” “Yes, mom.” After we were all ready at the table, Dan made us put our heads down, and he asked God to bless the food, he asked for everyone to have more patience, and asked for Mary and Erinne to get along better, and then he asked me not to cause trouble, but he said it all in a prayer. I wasn’t sure if God did those kinds of things, but I guess Dan thought he did? I was given two pieces of chicken like the other kids, except Erinne got three pieces. Mary only got two, and then Dan got three. Mary didn’t say anything and no one else said anything about it. I guess that’s just the way it was in the house. After dinner, Erinne took Aoife up to give her a bath while Sorsche and I were asked to clean the dishes. “Come on, Cait. I’ll show you what we are to do,” Sorsche told me. Before I knew it, I was in my cot for the night, and Sorsche was in her bed and Grainne was in hers. Grainne was the only one that had wet hair as evidence of having had a shower of all of us in the room that night. And I went to sleep. I woke up sometime in the night like the night before, and I looked over at the open doorway. I didn’t think Grainne had left it open when she came in, but it was open. I shook my head wondering who would leave it like that, but crept out of my warmer blankets and towards the door. Even the dim lights downstairs were off. I thought Dan and Mary must be a sleep, too. I didn’t want to wet my pants. I walked through the hall and to the bathroom, and started to sit on the toilet. Pee came out, and then I went back and started to get in bed, when I remembered, Mary was going to check my bed. She said if my bed wasn’t wet…. She was going to think I did it in someone else’s bed again. I snuck back to the bathroom and found a large sponge and got it wet and carried it back towards my bed with warm water in it. I pushed the sponge on my lap after I sat in the bed, and then I went back to sleep. Even if the bed was now wet, at least it wasn’t really pee. They probably won’t care and think it’s pee, so they won’t think I got into anyone else’s bed this time, and I went back to sleep. “Who tracked water all the way back to the bathroom?” I heard daddy yell pulling me out of my sleep. Shivering, I rolled over to my stomach and looked up at him and saw him pulling Sorsche out of her bed and checking her bed and her pants. She was dry. I shivered. “Was it you?” he asked me. “Did you pee all the way to the bathroom getting the hall floor wet all the way from your bed?” I felt my jaw quiver. He pulled the blankets off of me, and saw my wet bedding and my soaked pajamas. “Well? Did you pee on the floor after you were told to stay in bed since you are not potty trained?” I shook. “Daddy,” Grainne looked up at him. “Maybe she’s sort of kind of potty trained, and she’s trying to go potty?” Dan frowned and looked back at me. “Do you know when you have to pee pee?” he asked. I nodded. “Why don’t you go to the toilet like you are supposed to, then?” I didn’t know what to say to that. I shrugged. “Maybe she’s like Aoife,” Grainne tried to come to my rescue again. “Grainne, this is not between you and her and me. Instead of sticking your nose in other people’s business, why don’t start getting ready for school?” She nodded and climbed out of bed, not caring he was there, and started to strip off her pajamas. I mean, he was her daddy, and she and I are seven years old. It’s not like he’s a stranger or something. Dan pulled me up until I was on my feet, and he frowned at me. “You didn’t make it to the toilet, obviously,” he told me. “The trail goes all the way to the bathroom from your bed, but it doesn’t start in front of the toilet, so that means you never got to the toilet, did you?” I sighed not saying yes or no. “If you are not going to make it, then stay in bed. I don’t want you making messes all over the house. Do you hear me?” I nodded. “I mean it. You stay where you are if you are peeing in your pants, and leave a puddle in one place instead of everywhere. Then come and get someone so we know both the puddle and you need to be cleaned up.” I frowned and looked down, and said sadly, “Okay.” He hugged me and then he reached down and started to pull my shirt up. I looked up at him. “You need to get ready today,” he told me. “I have to take you to school so they are aware of the changes.” “Okay.” He pulled my shirt off of me, and then my pants and panties until I was naked. Looking over at Sorsche, he whispered. “You didn’t get a shower last night either, did you?” She shook her head no. “Go and run a bath for both of you. If you are late, I’ll take you to school since I have to take Cait anyway.” “Yes, sir.” Sorsche took my hand and walked naked out of our room to the bathroom with me. Daddy didn’t even give her any privacy. I guess it’s okay. He is taking care of all of us, but of everyone, Sorsche is least his, I think. “How did the floor get all wet?” Sorsche asked me when we were in the bathroom. “If you went pee in the bathroom, then there should have been a huge puddle somewhere where you gave up, but I didn’t see a puddle on our way into the bathroom.” “I… Please don’t tell.” “Just tell me what you did, okay? You of course know by now, that that trick, whatever you did, it didn’t work, right? Now, they are going to be watching you anytime you leave a room to see if you are leaving puddles on the floor.” I nodded. “I went in the toilet,” I told her. “But then I remembered, Mary said she’d be looking in my bed, and if it wasn’t wet, I’d be in trouble because of her thinking I peed in your bed again.” Sorsche sighed. “I know how hard this is,” she told her. “I’ve been living here for the last six years, and especially daddy is really strict. I get it that you don’t want to get in trouble, and you don’t want to pee your pants or the bed. But if you are not careful, you are going to get it worse for not doing it, than you would if you were my age and doing it.” I frowned up at her. “How do I convince Mary and daddy I’m potty trained?” “Well, first of all, you don’t. At least not yet. Just go ahead and let mommy see you pee your pants a couple of times without thought. It’s hard, but once you get to doing it, it will be easier as you get used to it.” “But I don’t want to get used to it.” “Well, you need to. If you don’t, it will cause you trouble later. You need to be able to do it, sometimes, even after you are considered potty trained by them, or you’ll get called a liar. My mom seems to be doing to you what your dad did to me, and he still does, sometimes.” “Oh.” “So, try to pee your pants at school today. I know it’s gross and scary, but seeing your dad or my mom on the war path will be a lot worse, trust me. Wet your pants at school.” I nodded. “I… I’ll try.” “Well, I’m not going to check you to see if you did,” she told me. “That’s between you and my mom if you get yourself in trouble when she thinks you are lying and hiding wet clothes in your desk or somewhere at school.” I shivered. “Your dad will probably tell the school that you pee your pants, so it shouldn’t surprise the teacher too much. If the other kids see, just don’t do anything. Ignore them if they talk about it. That’s what I do.” “You pee your pants at school, on purpose?” I asked. “Sometimes. It depends on if I think your dad expects it because of something happening. Like on a field trip, I definitely try to pee my pants at least twice if I can. If we have a fire drill, I try to pee my pants. It has to be a situation where holding it might be hard for someone maybe in first grade, then I do it, and your dad expects it. I don’t get in trouble for those reasons unless he finds me dry and thinks I’m lying.” I frowned. “So, if you do it on field trips….” “Well, you need to do it all the time, at least for a while,” Sorsche said. “You are still in first grade, so there is no way they are going to think you should be coming home dry.” I nodded. “The teachers are tricky anyway. Sometimes, I’m not sure when to ask. I guess I can just hold it until it comes out?” “As long as you are wet before the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter to your dad, and if my mom is treating you like your dad treats me, then my mom should be fine just seeing you come home wet. She probably won’t care to question why you did it or anything.” I nodded.

They had hellish workshouses, yes, much further in the past, maybe the 1920s, but it was even worse for the children who went to "orphanages" that were barely funded and had disgruntled people taking care of these "unwanted" children, and some people were nicer, but a lot of them had more than 12 kids at one time, and no real money or help to take care of them properly. If you were not white, no matter what you did against society pre 1970s, you were put in prison or even beaten to death with NO oversight what so ever. Recently, some of that was show cased that some people had thoughts like that, but they were at least scrutinized, and in many places, brought to justice.

Chapter Two: Mary, the mother of the house fed us all dinner that night, and then she walked me up to the bedroom that Grainne and Sorsche shared. I looked up at her, and wondered if she was putting me with Sorsche, but then I saw Sorsche making a spot on the floor with kind of a thick pad, a plastic sheet over it, a sheet around the plastic, three blankets, and then a couple of pillows. It was right between both of the beds. Dan still had not come home, the man that mommy says is my daddy, but I don’t think he wants anything to do with me. “This is temporary,” Mary told me as she squatted down to my side. “I don’t want to put you right with Sorsche just yet because I don’t want to make trouble for my own daughter. You are obviously not potty trained, and she gets it when she pees the bed, so this way, you can just wet the bed and Sorsche will not be blamed for your doings, okay?” I shrugged. There was no point in arguing that I was potty trained. I did go to the toilet once before dinner, but I don’t think Mary was paying attention, and if that was the case, then every time she saw me, I was wet. I’d just have to show her. I guess daddy showed up sometime after everyone was in bed, or at least all the kids were. I sat up in the strange bedding on the floor in the dark, and I looked around. I could hear the deep but soft breaths of the girls in the beds on either side of me, and then I clambered up to my feet. I didn’t know how late it was, but I suspected it had to be after midnight. I opened the partially open door and peeked into the dim lit hall balcony that looked over the living room. It was dark up where I was, and Mary and daddy were talking, so they didn’t notice me. I paused for only a moment before I went to the bathroom and used it. When I came back from using the bathroom, before going back to the room I was to sleep in, I heard a sudden loud shout from downstairs. “What do you mean, she’s upstairs?” Daddy asked. “I thought you were intent on stopping this!” “I was counting on you being there to support me,” Mary said her voice a few notches softer than his. “This girl is your mistake, not mine. We have a court order, and you agreed to the settlement, so I wasn’t going to go against a court order without you there to back me up!” “I left so you’d have time to explain why this was strange and why you wouldn’t want to look after the girl. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to, and it makes us look….” “Better?” Mary cut him off. “It makes YOU look better. I’d be the one sending a child into the cold in the coldest part of winter. I’m not doing that, even if I don’t feel obligated to take care of her.” “Well, she’s in the house now, and it’s your fault,” daddy told her. “Don’t bring it up every time we disagree how she is in the house, because you are the one that allowed it, not me.” Mary’s lighter steps echoed away, though I could tell she was still stomping mad. I slipped into the bedroom before he came up. He was angry that I was here, so I had to be careful not to let him catch me listening in on their private words. I settled into bed, and I started to cry. I wanted my mommy. Being cold next to my mommy was better than how I felt right then. I wasn’t wanted, and people were yelling because of me, and I wondered if they were going to throw me out of the house the next day without my mommy knowing, and then I really wouldn’t know what to do. The next morning, I woke up with the sun flooding my bedding in light. The other two beds were empty, and one of them was wet. I crawled to the open door and looked out into the hall to see if it was clear. Maybe if I stayed out of the way, they wouldn’t throw me out of the house so at least mommy could find me. It seemed quiet as I looked down over the balcony hall and into the living room below. No one seemed to be there watching TV or doing anything. I walked silently down and into the kitchen. I was hungry. It was probably stealing, but I lived here, now, or at least for now, didn’t I? Surely, I could eat something. Mary was trying to feed Aoife some breakfast. The little girl had food all over her face, her hands, and some on her lap and some on the table. “Sit down, Cait,” Mary told me when she noticed I was standing there, looking in on her. “I’ll get you something to eat in a minute.” “Are you guys putting me out today?” I asked her. “Putting you out?” “I… I kind of heard you talking last night,” I admitted to her. “Your dad was just drunk and blowing off steam,” she scoffed. “He wouldn’t dare put you out after he agreed to this deal. He’s done wrong, and he knows it. Don’t worry, you are safe until the summer, at least.” I sat in the chair, kicking my legs. “Where is everyone else?” “They are at school, aren’t they, honey?” Mary smiled my way. “You have to have your address and other records changed, and your daddy insisted something else was more important this morning, so you’ll just have to stay home until he can get it done.” I nodded. She finally picked Aoife from the table wiping her face and hands with a towel. Aoife seemed happy to finally get the freedom to run to the living room and I saw some baby toys that she was now throwing this way and that making a mess. “You have oats this morning,” Mary told me. “It’s a little cold, but Erinne said you were too hard to wake up, so we just let you sleep.” I shrugged. She put some in a bowl for me, and then she put a little sugar on it. It was cold and didn’t taste the best, but I wasn’t going to complain. After hearing them fight last night, I wasn’t sure if she was telling me the truth. It sounded to me like she didn’t want me at the house a lot more than daddy didn’t want me there. “After you are done eating, I’ll take you upstairs and show you where to put your bedding up in the mornings, and change you into some clean clothes. I know your bedding and your pants have to be soaked by now.” I frowned. I wasn’t wet. She was going to get a surprise, but I decided not to say anything just now. She’d probably get mad at me or something if I argued with her. As the lady took my hand after breakfast and started to lead me upstairs to the room again, I asked her. “Sorsche and Grainne said I’m kind of Grainne’s twin, but I don’t know how that works when she’s in second grade and I’m in first,” I told her. Mary frowned for a moment. “Well, you aren’t twins because you are from two different mommies. Grainne is my child and your mommy is somewhere in town on the streets.” I nodded. “But you were born in the same year. Grainne was a spring baby and you were a fall baby. Your birthday is around Halloween?” “September twelfth,” I said. “Grainne was born April tenth.” I frowned. Only five months apart, I counted the months on my fingers. “So is Grainne a year and five months older than me?” “No, sweetie, just five months.” She put a hand on my back and whispered to me. “Lift your blankets so I can see how wet they are.” I nodded and bent down to pull them up. They were dry. “Little girl, where did you sleep last night?” “Right here.” “No, baby, you didn’t. You aren’t potty trained, and I will not have a liar in my house. Now tell me where you peed. I swear, if you peed somewhere else in the house and made a mess….” “I promise, I didn’t.” “You slept next to Sorsche, didn’t you? You pee in Sorsche’s bed?” I looked up into her eyes, and I could see that they looked angry, and she was hitting the back of one hand on the palm of the other. She was probably about to spank me. “Why don’t your clothes look wet. Tell me what you did, or so help me, you are going to get it.” “I… I slept by Sorsche so you wouldn’t know I peed the bed,” I fibbed scared that she would hit me for telling the truth because she thought I was lying. “Why aren’t your pants wet?” “I… I was scared I’d pee, so I took them off last night and put them back on when I got up this morning.” “Do you know what your daddy did to Sorsche because you peed on her?” I shook in fear and remorse. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her the fib, but she wasn’t going to believe the truth. “He hit her because she’s ten years old, and he thought she peed the bed. You owe my daughter an apology when she gets home, and a spanking.” I looked down. “But I…,” but it was too late, I already told her I peed in Sorsche’s bed. She would have me either way as lying even if she believed me this time. I stood closer so she could check the back of my pants. I knew she was checking to see if I pooped myself or something, but my pants weren’t wet. I wasn’t sure why she had to check for poop if I wasn’t wet. “You sleep in your own place wherever we put you from now on,” the woman said. “If you get one of the other children wet from getting in their beds without being put there by an adult, you will start getting spankings, do you hear me?” I nodded. “Good. I will be checking your bedding from now on to see if you obeyed me. I know you are not potty trained.” I kicked at the floor. How was I going to prove that I was? I shook with anger that she was basically calling me a baby without saying the word. Mommy did tell her I peed at school a couple of times, but that was different. It’s hard to tell when you have permission to ask at school. The woman changed my clothes even though I wasn’t wet though telling me that I had to be in different clothes daily so I didn’t wear dirty things. I just nodded, but I frowned at her as she said this. I don’t know what to do about her. Is she going to check me all the time? I bet even the three year old doesn’t wet herself all the time in the daytime. I hoped she wasn’t going to check me like she might the three year old. The woman took me to the bathroom though, and she didn’t even let me wash myself. She treated me just like a baby, washing me all over and making sure everywhere was clean. Then she dressed me like I was a baby, even more than Sorsche did the night before. Finally, I was in the living room, the only place Mary let me be without yelling at me. I wondered how I was going to get to the bathroom if Mary didn’t let me walk around the house. Could I ask her? “Play with me,” Aoife said bouncing her light brown curly hair as she nodded exaggeratedly at me. I nodded. There wasn’t really anything else to do. Mary had the television on some adult programming that wasn’t interesting at all. Aoife gave me a rattle and a stuffed dog to hold, and she held a stuffed rabbit. I started to put the rattle down, but Aoife came back and put it back in my hand again. I didn’t really know what to do with it. It didn’t interest me at all, but how do you tell a three year old that a rattle isn’t seven year old’s toy? Christmas was only about a week or so away by now. I knew that unless there really was a Santa Claus, I wouldn’t be getting anything this year. These people didn’t like me, and I had always suspected since I was about five, that mommy was buying all of my presents. I mean, why did she have to go to the stores so much at the end of November and the beginning of December if she wasn’t buying things. Decorations only took one trip. Plus, I never got what was on my list. Santa Claus makes the toys he delivers, or so they say, so he doesn’t depend on money, but mommy does. I noticed that this family’s tree was a little shabby like the trees my mom and I had over the last two years. Maybe they didn’t have much more money than my mom had before we were evicted. I don’t know why we were evicted so suddenly, but I just shook it out of mind. It didn’t help to think about it. Aoife got closer to the tree, and Mary noticed. She picked Aoife up and took her over where she was sitting and she motioned for me to come to her. Of course I did. I was a good girl that did what I was told. “If you two are playing together,” Mary started. “Who is older?” she asked me. I pointed at myself. “Should you be touching things on the tree?” Mary asked me. I shook my head no. “Why not?” “You might make it fall and break it?” I asked. “Yes, but even worse, if you break it, it could cut your foot,” she told me. “If you are playing with Aoife and she gets near the tree, you need to distract her and bring her back away from it. She’s three, so she doesn’t understand that she might cause something to fall and break.” I nodded. “Go play,” she patted my butt but not in a spanking sort of way, but just a sending me off way. I started to see if I could leave the room by walking towards the stairs, but that got shut down as soon as I put a foot on the bottom stair. “Cait, where are you going?” she asked me. “You said I could go play,” I said back in as low a voice as I could. I didn’t want her to think I was back talking her. “And you were playing, where, honey?” “Oh,” I blushed. “I just thought….” “Honey, I need to keep an eye on you so when you pee, I can change your pants.” I sighed. “Don’t you want me to use the toilet?” I asked. “Sweetheart, I don’t want you peeing all over the house. We both know you aren’t potty trained right now, and I think it’s important you get used to people before we start that stress.” I frowned. “Your mom told me how you keep peeing your pants at school, and Sorsche told me you had pooped your pants last night.” I just nodded. “It’s okay. Just come and get me after you’re wet, if you think about it, and I’ll change you, otherwise, I’ll just check on you from time to time.” “Are you still checking on Aoife?” I asked. “Sometimes, but she’s starting to tell me when she wants me to take her potty, so she’ll be potty trained before you are.” I frowned. “Have you asked Santa Claus for any presents yet?” Mary asked me changing the subject. “No. I’ve been busy because of everything that was happening, and we were on the streets for two months before I guess you said I could stay here.” “Well, maybe I can give you some paper and you can color some pictures for Santa to show him what kinds of presents you want,” Mary told me. It’s easier for Santa understand pictures than words from kids your age because little kids don’t really write that well.” I nodded. That made sense, and that meant there might still be a Santa. Maybe he just couldn’t read my writing. I knew I was the worst reader and the worst speller in my class, but I still didn’t know why mommy kept looking at stores if she wasn’t buying the presents. It’s not like she bought loads and loads of decorations every year. I didn’t tell Mary my suspicions though. I just sat at the table where she put me and started to draw pictures of things I’d like. I doubted I was getting any of them. Mommy wasn’t even able to live anywhere, so she had no money for presents, and it was too close to time for Santa for him to get a letter at the North Pole from here, even if he was real. Still, Mary wanted me to do this, and I told mommy I wouldn’t go against her. She had Aoife drawing next to me, though Aoife looked more like she was just looping lines of different colors on her paper. I knew Santa couldn’t make that out, if he couldn’t read my writing, because Aoife’s picture didn’t really look like she drew anything. I didn’t say anything though. I started to feel it in my stomach, and I wondered what Mary would do if told her I had to pee. I didn’t want to be bad, but it had to be more bad to pee my pants on purpose than to tell her something she didn’t expect? I’m seven years old. I couldn’t just pee on purpose, could I? I wiggled a little bit and looked over where Mary was encouraging Aoife. “What is it, honey?” the lady asked me. “I’m going to go pee,” I told her. “That’s okay,” she said. “Just finish your letter and I’ll clean you up. It’s not your fault, baby. Just be a good girl and finish your letter.” I frowned. If I told her I’m going to the toilet, would that be going against her? She told me to finish my letter. She said she was going to change me. I sighed and kept working on the drawings. I’d just try to hold it a little more. I think it was around noon, now. Mary was still doting on Aoife and watching and telling me to fill in all the squares she made for me to draw. As I got nervous about wetting my pants, I started to just make the outline shapes so I could finish faster, but Mary frowned when she noticed I wasn’t coloring them in. “Cait, baby, Santa won’t know what you mean by those shapes if you don’t color them in so he can see them properly. You don’t have to rush, sweetheart.” “I just really have to pee,” I told her again trying to tell her and hoping she got it, that I was potty trained. “Baby, I know your panties are already a little wet by now. It’s okay. I’ll change you in a bit, honey. I actually have to make lunch in a little bit, so I’ll change you after lunch. Do a good job on your letter and don’t worry about the pee pee.” I frowned. She really expected me to pee pee my pants even though I kept trying to tell her I was holding it. It was getting hard to hold it by now and I was wiggling a lot. The wiggles were starting not to work though, and it was going to be only moments before I peed if I didn’t run to the toilet, but Mary didn’t want me to go. “I’m going to pee my pants,” I told her as one last warning. “I know, baby,” she said. “I don’t expect you to do otherwise. Now, write your letter and I’ll change you after lunch.” It was pretty uncomfortable, and I guess I had her permission. It was really getting hard to keep it in, and my stomach hurt a little bit from holding it, so I let a little bit out, but my body tensed as soon as I felt my panties get a little bit on them. I’ve never peed on purpose before. Next to me, I heard a drizzling that fell to the wood floor, and then I saw Aoife, on her knees, scribbling color on her pad, and pee was pouring between her legs. She was peeing her pants. There was no reaction from Mary at all. Aoife didn’t cry or anything. She just kept coloring like it didn’t matter and in moments, I think she had finished. By this time, Mary was at the stove making something that smelled kind of good. It took a bit though, and little by little, the pressure overwhelmed my body until after squirting accidentally two more times in my pants, I started to pee fully in my pants. It was about that time, that Mary came to get things off the table for us to eat. “Mommy,” Aoife looked up at her. “I pee peed,” and she touched her wet pants. “Oh, honey, okay. Well, let’s get these things out of the way so I can put your food down for you, and then I’ll change you and Cait after lunch, okay?” Aoife nodded. I looked down because I was embarrassed, and even though she didn’t look mad and had said she expected me to…, still it kind of scared me to pee my pants. We had a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, tomato soup, and graham crackers to munch on, and she even gave me the same apple juice that she gave Aoife to drink. Aoife’s drink was in a cup with a lid, but mine was in a regular plastic glass. I sat there eating, the wet pants kind of making me itch a little bit and the wetness making me feel a little cooler and slimy, like I was dirty. I tried to brave through lunch though, and I did like the food. After lunch, just as she promised, she did pick up Aoife and then took my hand and walked us upstairs. She gave me a cloth with water on it to wipe myself and told me to take off my wet pants and meanwhile, she cleaned up Aoife. It was embarrassing to take off my soaked pants in front of her and Aoife, but it felt better to do that than to leave them on. I wouldn’t have really minded, really, if I hadn’t just sat at the table and peed them like I was two or three years old. I frowned and sighed and waited for the lady to take me back to the room I slept in, and she went through Grainne’s stuff again to find me something else to wear. “Don’t you use nappies or anything on Aoife?” I asked. “No, sweetheart. She doesn’t need them anymore. She still wets sometimes, but she’s learning to use the toilet, and I don’t really want to be washing out nappies or wasting money on store products anymore.” I nodded. “Okay.” It didn’t make sense to me though. If she used nappies, even on me because she thought I wasn’t potty trained, then she’d just be washing out basically panties, but because she didn’t have nappies at all, she had to wash all the clothes I peed in. I wished she’d just let me go to the bathroom though, then I wouldn’t pee in the clothes. She gave me a pair of dingy white panties and a green skirt to put on this time. The green skirt was a solid color. “When your dad gets back from wherever he went, I’ll get him to take us to town because we need to get you some other things to wear. You only came with what you had on, and if you keep wetting up Grainne’s clothes, she is going to run out of things to wear, too.” I nodded understanding what she was thinking. I really wanted her to know I was potty trained though. But if I wasn’t allowed to play out of her sight, and she didn’t let me just go to the bathroom, I wasn’t so sure I’d be dry while I was staying with daddy. I was allowed to watch some television while she put Aoife down for a nap after we were cleaned up, and I continued to play with Aoife’s toys because I had permission to touch them, and those were the only things in reach of where I was allowed right now to play with. A while later, the door in the kitchen slammed, and I heard voices. “Gherity is an idiot,” I heard someone say back there. “No, she isn’t,” I heard…, I think it was Sorsche. I knew Sorsche’s voice best of the kids because she was the one that basically took care of me all last night. I looked back over to the kitchen as the girls started to make their way to the stairs. “Sorsche,” Mary called to her daughter. “Cait and I need a little word with you, don’t we Cait?” I looked blankly up at her for a moment before I remembered that Mary thought I peed on Sorsche last night. Then, I looked down nodding. Sorsche came into the living room while Grainne and Erinne went upstairs still talking. “Well, Cait? Aren’t you going to say something to her?” I stood up shaking afraid that Sorsche would be mad at me if she thought I was the one that really got her in trouble, and I said in a very quiet voice. “I sorry I got cold and scared last night, and slept by you, and ….” Sorsche looked from me to Mary and then back at me. “I’m sorry I peed on you.” Sorsche opened and closed her mouth twice while I stood there apologizing to her my head hanging. “Don’t worry, Sorsche, I’ll talk to your father when he gets home. I can’t do anything about him already having spanked you this morning, but maybe you aren’t grounded for two weekends.” She nodded and lowered her head not telling Mary that I was apologizing for nothing, but at the same time, she didn’t exactly look happy either. Her face was kind of red, I think. “Why don’t you take Cait upstairs and check her. She’s peed her pants around lunch time, so I changed her then. She obviously needs to be checked on often.” Sorsche nodded and reached for my hand, and I walked upstairs with her. Erinne was talking to Grainne, standing in the doorway to their room where Sorsche pushed by her with me. “Say Excuse me,” Erinne scolded Sorsche. “That’s my bedroom doorway. It’s your fault you are blocking it and bothering Grainne while she’s trying to get her school clothes off.” “Whatever, Miss Pissy,” Erinne shot back and walked then walked away before Sorsche called her a jerk to her back. Sorsche sat on the edge of her nearly dry bed, by now, and she pulled me closer to her. “Why’d you tell mom you peed in my bed last night?” she asked me. “Well…, she was getting mad because she couldn’t see where I peed, and I got scared, and knew that you peed because your bed was wet this morning, so I… I just said I did.” “Where did you pee then, in the night? Or did you just wet your pants in the morning after you woke up?” she asked me as she felt between my legs. “I… I don’t know,” I said not sure if I should tell her I went to the bathroom. “Does it matter?” Grainne asked. “Yeah, it does,” Sorsche said. “If there is a puddle somewhere, and dad finds it, either she or I will get another beating for peeing all over the house, and since he knows I only wet the bed…, well, it’s no guarantee though. I could still be accused and hit for that.” Grainne frowned. “He always acts like perfect princess Erinne doesn’t do anything wrong, and he’s always picking on you for the littlest things. So you peed in your sleep last night, does it really hurt anyone else but you?” Sorsche sighed. “Talking about your dad like that isn’t going to help things, Grainne. Just do me a favor and get some panties and an other skirt for Cait for me. Even if she’s not wet right now, mom told me to check on her, so I’m not going to bring her back down in the same clothes.” “But she’ll think I peed my pants,” I protested. “She already thinks that, Cait, or she wouldn’t have told me to take you up and change you.” I nodded. I kind of had to pee, so I asked. “Can you at least take me to the toilet so I don’t have to do it for real?” She frowned. “So, you don’t really pee your pants all the time? Are you potty trained?” I gulped. “I sometimes pee at school, but usually I go to the bathroom.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you what, we can go to the bathroom and sit you on the toilet, but mom will probably get mad if your panties don’t get wet before bed, so just pee through the panties. You can take the skirt off until you do.” I frowned. “I don’t want to pee the panties.” Sorsche hugged me and whispered, “I know. But mom thinks you pee your pants all the time, and she might be nicer about it, but if Dave finds out you had dry panties all night, and he thinks you pee your pants all the time, he’s going to probably hit you and demand you show him a wet spot that doesn’t exist.” I shook. “So, daddy expects my panties to be wet?” She nodded. “Not only that, but he will think you are lying and hiding it if he doesn’t see any wet panties.” “How do you know that?” I asked. Grainne was the one to answer that as Sorsche got red and quiet. “Daddy sometimes accuses Sorsche of peeing her pants, and if he can’t find her in wet clothes, or where she put her wet clothes, or something, then he demands her to show him, and the longer she holds out showing him, the more he yells until he sometimes hits her for lying.” “But Sorsche is potty trained, at least in the day,” I whispered. Both Grainne and Sorsche nodded. “Why does he think she pees her pants then?” “Well, he doesn’t accuse her all the time. It’s like if she’s really late getting home or something else that causes him to think she didn’t have a toilet to get to, then he checks her and expects her to be wet.” “I just pee my pants if I know I’m coming home a bit late from school because it’s easier to show him I’m wet then what he does if he thinks I’ve hidden it.” I shook my head. “Will daddy think I’m hiding it if my bedding isn’t wet at night?” “That’s hard to tell,” Grainne told me. “You’re kind of his, so he might believe you, but he doesn’t seem happy you are here, so he might treat you more like Sorsche. I’m not really sure, yet, because I haven’t see daddy around you yet.” “Just pee the panties,” Sorsche told me. “Trust me, you’ll be in a lot less trouble if you peed your panties than you will if daddy doesn’t find wet panties, and thinks you are lying about it.” I nodded and took a deep breath before I started to try to coax my body into peeing through my panties into the toilet. The United States did too! But the United States had rather offensive words for a lot more than just that. in the 60s and 70s, it was normal to call Black Americans a very offensive word that wouldn't really disappear from civil tongues until the end of the 1980s. Even then, I said civil tongues. It wasn't really until the mid 1990s that that word was frowned upon even when not in entirely civil situations. And on occasion, even today, you'll hear it in fights. We had words for Mexicans as well, that was not quite as offensive as the one used for Black Americans, but still was offensive just the same. And we had words for other races other than white. We had words for the poor, or for people that didn't go to church, and for people that society just didn't approve of. Honestly, today, we are still making offensive words for things that the majority of society doesn't agree with, so really the practice isn't dying, it's just changing on who they use it on.

Not telling anyone yet.

Yes, sort of.... The exact year will be ambiguous for a bit because right now, I'm just setting the scene.

This story starts out in Ireland. Cait and Grainne, I know are 2 of the character's names, as well Sioban is an unimportant character in Cait's class from the movie: The Quiet Girl, but the story will not stay in Ireland, but I hush right there before I give too much away.

You might be in for a rude twist as the story unfolds, but we'll see.

First of all, yes, a lot of this wouldn’t make sense in the real world. I understand that. Likely Cait would have been taken the minute mom went to the attorney and admitted they were on the streets, and he would likely be in prison or at least have gone to trial for prison. So, yes, I’m asking you to suspend your disbelief that far…. Grainne, Cait, and Sorsche Ishigreen I remember walking up the winding dirt road for the first time and seeing a small house surrounded by a large land and two vehicles in the yard. One was a rusty old green pickup, and one was a small four door purple tinted brown car. My mom had me by my hand, and I wore a dirty and torn brown skirt and a red sweater. I had looked up at my mom several times in the what seemed like a three hour walk to this place, and I told her I had to use the restroom, but she just smiled and told me “soon.” Pee slid down my legs and splattered the ground as my mom pushed her hair back trying to tame it somewhat before raising a hand to knock on the old paint chipped door. She said nothing about the pee hitting the ground though. A dark hair woman came to the door carrying a small child on her hip. She looked down at me a moment, and I crossed my legs nervously because I knew she saw the puddle on the ground. Then she looked up at my mother frowning. “Whatever you are selling, we aren’t buying,” she told my mom. “I’m not selling anything,” my mom looked down and put a hand on my shoulder. “Is Dan here?” “What do you have to do with him?” the woman narrowed her eyes. “Well, this is his daughter,” my mom said a little quietly. “That’s impossible. He’s been with me for a long while now, and there is no way he has a daughter that big.” “Well, he does. And I need to discuss this with him.” “He’s out right now, so maybe you should just come back.” “When?” “Later,” the woman told my mom shortly. “Look, he’s out of the house right now, and he won’t be back for a while.” “Well, if I could just have a time?” “And I told you, later. I don’t know what time he’ll be back. He’ll get here when he gets here. Now leave. You need to clean up your disgusting kid anyway. How old is she anyway? About seven?” “Six,” my mom said in a small voice. “And she’s not disgusting. It was nearly a three hour walk from town to get here, so she just didn’t have a place to pee.” “Whatever. She still needs a bath, and I wouldn’t be showing my kids off to someone in that state. What kind of a mother are you?” My mom sighed and turned and took my hand to leave the unfriendly woman standing there, watching us go. “I’m sorry, mommy,” I said sadly. “It’s alright. It’s not your fault, baby. That woman is just ridiculous thinking a six year old should be able to wait more than three hours before tinkling on herself. I’m sorry it took it took so long to get here.” “Are we going all the way back to our house?” I looked up at mommy. She looked kind of sad. “No, honey. We are just going to wait at the end of the road off of their property. We can’t go back to that house. We’ve been evicted, and that’s why you have to meet your daddy.” I shivered. There was something that made it feel that something was final in her words. “It’s okay if you potty your pants again,” she told me. “I don’t know how long we will be waiting.” Sometime later, it was nearing dark, a man was let out of a car, and he started to walk past us towards his gate. My mom stood up and hurried me to catch up with him. “Dan!” The man turned to look at us. “Sioban! What are you doing here?” “Looking for you, actually.” “Look, I told you nearly seven years ago, I’m not leaving my wife.” “I’m not asking you to do that.” “Then what do you want, and who is this?” “This is your daughter, Cait.” “You never said I had a daughter by you, and anyway, I never had a choice on whether you kept her, so she has nothing to do with me.” “She is your daughter, and if you throw her away, she’ll end up on the streets, which is where I’m going from today.” “I don’t really care, Sioban. It’s none of my business if you threw your life away looking for anyone that would take you in a for a short while and doing whatever instead of improving your situation!” “Look, this isn’t about me. I’m not asking for help for me. I’m asking you to take your daughter and protect her!” “And I told you, just because we fucked, it doesn’t mean she’s my daughter.” “If you don’t take her in, I’ll go to the papers and tell everyone the story of a deadbeat.” “Go ahead and do that. It won’t bother me at all.” “What if I sue you for child support and backpay for child support, money you should have been giving me for her in the first place.” “You wouldn’t dare. Besides, by the looks of things, I doubt you have that kind of money for a lawyer. Now get lost!” Mommy hugged me close. “Don’t worry, Cait. I won’t let you end up in the foster system nor on the streets. We’ll get him to take you.” “But I want to stay with you, mommy!” “I know, honey, but until I get on my feet again, it’s safer for you to stay with him.” I still attended first grade, and mom kept me as clean as she could for a few more days while she worked on how to get this Dan to take me in. I knew I wasn’t as clean as the other kids though, and so I tried to stay to myself so I wouldn’t cause any trouble. I didn’t raise my hand or draw attention to myself. I was already sad and scared that I wouldn’t be able to stay with mommy much longer, and mommy had told me that even if this Dan didn’t take me in, that eventually the government would take me away if they learned I was sleeping at parks and other unsafe places. Somehow, we got through about a month, and mom went before a criminal lawyer. I don’t know why we went to them, but she looked down with tears in her eyes, and she proved her age to them. She was only sixteen years old when she had me. “I know what he did was wrong,” mommy was telling this attorney. “But I don’t want him arrested. I want him to just man up and take his kid because she has nowhere else to go and the last thing I want is for her to be abandoned in the system.” “Are you sure you can trust him to take care of her if we put the child with him?” Mr. Grandall asked my mom. “I know he will if you can just write him a letter and let him know that his choice is clear, that if he doesn’t take care of her, I’ll take him to criminal court.” The attorney smiled. “Kind of ruthless, aren’t you?” “I have to be,” she told him. “I’m on the streets, and I don’t want my child growing up in the system or on the streets. Dan has at least a roof over his head, and he has two cars, so he can take care of her.” “I can probably get child support from him if we take him to court and make him take a parental DNA test.” “No. I don’t want anything from him other than for him to take responsibility for Cait, at least until I can get back on my feet.” The attorney shook his head, but started to take down all the information mom had for him. I was too nervous to interrupt them, so I started peeing in the chair I was in. I couldn’t hold it anymore even though I wiggled like crazy to try to keep it inside. It was December, and I had been on the streets long enough to understand why mommy didn’t want me on the streets with her. It was cold. I couldn’t always find a toilet in time, even when I wasn’t too nervous to speak up, and we had no showers or baths or anything. When it snowed, the best my mom could do, is put these tattered blankets over me, and take me somewhere warm to eventually get my wet pants changed for clean ones, and then bundle me up again, some places wouldn’t even let us use their restrooms. We walked along the snow covered ground back down the old road we walked on nearly two months ago, and we came to the drive that led to my daddy’s house. I looked up at my mom. “We don’t have a choice, sweetie,” Mom told me. “It’s only going to get colder, and the lawyer said your daddy settled. He said he’d take you in.” I frowned and felt tears welling in my eyes for the tenth time that day. “I don’t think daddy wants me, though,” I told mommy. “I know he doesn’t think he wants you right now. Once he gets used to you, though, you’ll be part of his family. It shouldn’t take any time at all. You are so sweet, little one.” I smiled up at her, though the tears were still welling in my eyes. “Mommy will be back for you as soon as I can get on my feet, honey. Now I know you have a safe place to stay for the rest of the winter, I can focus on finding work and getting a place for us again.” I nodded. We walked up the dirt drive, but it was a long walk, and I couldn’t help it. I started to poop my pants this time, but I tried really hard not to let it out, and when it started, I tried really hard not to let it just come, but tried to keep it inside as long as I could even if a little bit came out. Mommy knocked on the paint chipped old door, and stood there, waiting. The door opened, and I saw that same dark hair woman look from mommy down to me, and I was covered in two blankets over my clothes. The blanket was long and drug on the ground. There wasn’t enough of the ground under me visible for her to see a puddle, but I was still pooping, so the pee didn’t start coming out yet. There wouldn’t have been a puddle yet. “We got the letter from an attorney,” the woman said. “The first thing we are going to do is take a parental test to see if he really is the father.” My mom nodded. “If you wish, you can do that, but you will see that he is her father.” “We are just keeping her until you get back on your feet, then?” “That’s all,” my mom said. I bit at my lip, nervous because I felt a little bit more push into my panties. “And how long do you think that will take?” the woman asked my mom. “I’m hoping to have her back by the summer,” mommy said. “Look, Dan did admit to having an affair. It’s upsetting he left me many times when I was pregnant to drink and stuff, but now, I find out he was seeing another woman while I was pregnant?” the woman said. “I didn’t mean to be heartless the last time you were here. I was just shocked and I guess mad at you because you are the one he cheated on me with, then we get this letter and find out you were only sixteen at the time?” My mom looked down. “I can see how that would upset anyone. I’m really sorry. I was a dumb teenager, and he made promises.” “I know,” the lady said. I pushed some more poop into my panty, and then pee stared to push, too. We were in the house by now, and I was standing next to mommy, her arm around me sideways, while she sat at this wood table talking to the woman. “Is your child peeing on my floor?” I looked down. “Sorry. Cait just gets really nervous sometimes, and it causes her to not speak up in time. She’s done it at school at least twice so far this year.” The woman sighed. “I know you were only sixteen when you had her, but you’d think you’d at least have potty trained her by now?” “She is potty trained. She’s just nervous.” The lady shook her head. She called for one of the other kids. “Sorsche!” This bigger girl came in and saw me standing there, pee still sliding down my legs and all over the floor. “Take her to the bathroom and give her a bath, please. Then get her some of Grainne’s old clothes to put on.” The big girl had darker hair like her mommy, but where as her mom had one blue eye and one brown eye, this big girl just had two green eyes. She was kind of skinny, and she had a nice smile as she looked at me. “Sure mama,” and she took me by the hand. The last thing I saw before I was led away, was the woman standing up and getting a mop. “Do you pee pee your pants all the time?” the bigger girl ask me as she took me to the bathroom. “Not always,” I looked down ashamed. “Just when I get nervous and don’t know when to cut into someone else talking to tell them I need to go.” She smiled at me. “Mama says you peed your pants the first time you came, and before you even started to talk to mama.” “We walked a really long time, and I just couldn’t hold it no more,” I said back to the big girl. She patted my shoulder. “My name is Sorsche. Don’t worry about it. It’s not that big of a deal. I was just trying to find out how often I might have to help you.” “Oh.” We got into the bathroom, and she took the blankets off of me, and then pulled down my skirt, and immediate flinched back. “You pooped your pants, too?” “I’m sorry,” I looked down. “It was a really long walk. I tried really hard, but our moms were talking, and I already had some in my panty when they started to talk, so I ….” “You got scared?” I nodded. She sighed. “Well, um… step into the tub, I guess,” she told me. “I still have my panties on.” “I know,” she said. “I’m trying to keep the poop off the floor.” I stepped into the tub, and then she turned the shower on, which was on a hose that hung up, and the took the hose and started to direct the warm water at my butt and around my privates. “What are you doing?” “Trying to make the poop come out of your panties with the water so we don’t have to touch it.” I frowned. “Okay.” She rubbed at the back of my panty after a while, and I could feel the poop sliding out of my panties and some of it down my legs and hitting the tub bottom, she directed the water and pushed the poop into the drain. Then she sprayed me again until almost all the big stuff was out of my panty. “Okay, take off your panties, now,” the big girl ordered me. I did. She told me to ring them out and I did, and then I set them on the floor by the tub. I finished taking off my shirts, then, and they were kind of wet from the spraying water, and then she filled the tub while I sat down. “How old are you again?” she asked me. “I’m seven now,” I looked down. “Seven and pooping your pants? You must be really embarrassed.” “Like I said, I didn’t have anywhere to go potty on the way here, and it was really bad and I was starting to poop even before we got to your door.” She nodded. “I can understand that. I was just saying it must have been embarrassing.” I smiled and felt my face heat up and I mouthed more than any voice came out, “yes.” “Hey,” she sat on the edge of the tub. “Sometimes I still pee the bed,” she told me. “I might as well tell you because dad will probably make us sleep together since mom is probably going to tell him you were wet every time she saw you, and dad knows I pee the bed.” “I don’t always pee the bed, though,” I said defensively. “I don’t always do it either,” Sorsche smiled as she started to wash me. “And it’s always embarrassing when I do. I’m ten years old and am supposed to know better, but I sometimes I can’t help it.” I looked up into her sincere eyes. “I’m only telling you because I’m pretty sure dad will make us sleep together, otherwise, I wouldn’t have told you. It’s really embarrassing to be ten and wetting the bed.” I understood that. I got really embarrassed when I peed my pants at school twice and everyone saw. Another girl came into the bathroom because the door was left open. This girl had curly darker hair and brown eyes. Her face seemed a little puffier than Sorsche’s face. She was about my size, though. “This is kind of your twin,” Sorsche told me as the girl pulled down her pants and sat on the toilet. “Her name is Grainne.” “I waved at her. “Grainne, this is Cait. Mom told me to give her a bath because she….” “Peed in the kitchen?” Grainne asked. Sorsche smiled. “Exactly.” For some reason, Sorsche didn’t tell her I pooped my pants. “Are you the first grader that everyone says peed her pants twice since this year started?” she asked as I heard her peeing. I felt my face get a little bit red. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m in second grade, and there was a boy that pooped his pants in my class last week.” I looked at her in disbelief. “It’s true,” she said. “Cross my heart.” She eventually got off the toilet and fixed her clothes before coming over to get a better look at me. “You have a lot of freckles on your face,” she told me. “I know. My mommy says that I’m a redhead, and that redheads often have a lot of freckles especially when they are kids.” She smiled at me. “So, there’s you and Sorsche?” “We have a baby sister, too,” Grainne said. “She’s three, and we have a sister two years older than Sorsche, but she has a different mother. Her mother is actually with Erinne right now, out somewhere.” “So, your dad had another daughter against being married?” Sorsche looked at me kind funny and Grainne shrugged. “Oh, no,” Sorsche eventually realized what I meant. “No, daddy had been married once before and my mom was married once before. They got together when I was four and Erinne was six.” “Oh,” I frowned. “So, is Grainne your sister?” Sorsche shook her head. “The other people say she isn’t, but I love her, and she treats me like a big sister, so I don’t care what other people say.” “What is the baby sister’s name?” I asked to change the subject. This was one mixed up family, it seemed. “Her name is Aoife,” Grainne told me. Sorsche had me finished by now and pulled me out of the tub. “Cait’s clothes are wet, so mommy said we need to use some of your old ones on her.” Grainne nodded and took me by the hand. Sorsche followed behind us, and we went into a cramped room where there was one bed one side and a bed on the other side. The room smelled a little bit like pee. Sorsche told me she sometimes peed the bed, so I guessed that’s what I smelled, and then I saw one of the beds were stripped and a huge stain was visible though it seemed to be drying out. Sorsche blushed. “Is that Aoife’s bed?” I asked pointing at the bed with the stain on it at the time. I mean, two people share this room, and they said the little sister was three. It could be Grainne and Aoife’s room. “No,” Sorsche said before directing me to the wardrobe so I wouldn’t keep looking at it. I could tell by how fast she stirred me away from seeing it, and the way she turned red that it must have been her bed at that moment. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as she pulled out clothes for me. Grainne came up on my right, and handed me some panties and an undershirt. “You can wear these.” I started to put them on. Sorsche helped me dress even though I could do it, and then she brought us all back down to the kitchen. My mom was still there and she reached out for me to come to her and I sat in her lap for a minute. I saw that the three year old had a lighter brown hair and blue eyes, and she was sitting in the lady’s lap. “I am really sorry about all of this,” My mommy told the other lady. “I just didn’t know what else to do with my baby until I got on my feet. You know if I sent her off to foster, I’d likely not see her again.” The lady was talking calmly and more nicely to my mommy by then. “I know. I probably would have done the same in your shoes. We’ll look after Cait for you until the summer just as you said.” The door opened, and I saw this taller girl come in with light brown hair, blue eyes, and well, she looked like she was a little taller than Sorsche. I guessed that was Erinne. “So, they brought the girl, I see,” she said in somewhat unfriendly tone. “Yes, Erinne, they brought Cait to stay with us for a while. And stay out of the fridge. We’ll be having dinner in about an hour.” “Don’t tell me what to do, Mary.” “Erinne, I’m warning you,” the woman said sharply at her. “Show a little respect especially in front of guests.” “I’ll show you some when you actually earn it,” the rebellious girl bantered. Mary sighed shaking her head. “She’s had an attitude for the last six years,” she told us. “She’s gotten a little better, but as you can see….” My mommy stood up and walked over to the older girl. “You are lucky you are not my kid,” she told her. “If you talked that way to me, and I was feeding you and making sure you had clean clothes, well, you’d go for a week without clean clothes, and you’d get whatever I could put together without cooking for that week,” she told her. “Well, you’re not. Besides, daddy wouldn’t allow that. He’d yell at her if she did that, and make her make me food and clean my clothes.” My mom shook her head. “I’m sorry you have to put up with that, Mary,” she said to the woman. I looked up at my mama, and she patted me on the butt as she talked to me. “I know Mary isn’t your mommy, and you should remember that you do have a mommy. But I know you are smart enough not to talk to her the way that kid is talking to her, right?” I nodded. “That’s my good girl,” and she gave me one last long squeeze before she headed for the door. “Don’t you want to talk to Dan?” Mary asked her. “It’s a three hour walk back to town, and it’s already getting dark.” Mary frowned. “I’m sorry about him. He knew you were bringing Cait today, but he insisted he had to go out earlier.” “I understand,” my mommy smiled. “I’ll see you later, if I can still visit my baby.” “You can visit her anytime you want,” Mary told my mommy.

Thank you.

Well, when you take someone with obvious signs of abuse to a doctor, that's what I think tends to happen. I could have maybe put off the doctor's visit, but given everything that's been happening, it felt like that would make the cousins as irresponsible as the kids' parents. There is another twist coming in the next chapter.... Chapter Eight Gracie's Protections We were finally walking out of the clinic that kept us for nearly four hours. Some of the tests were kind of scary, and some of them hurt a little bit like the taking the blood, and even though the doctor didn’t watch me pee in the cup, but Auntie helped with that, I still felt nervous about it because it was still against daddy’s rules at home. I was glad we were finally walking out of there. It was around 2:30 by then, and Uncle Sean had mentioned going somewhere else important, but it seemed he decided to treat me before the other serious appointment. We got in the car…. “Sammy, let’s go get you some ice cream first,” he smiled at me. “I’m not sure how long the other thing I wanted to do will take, and I promised you ice cream.” “Yay!” I clapped my hands but did so as quietly as I could so as not to draw too much attention to us. “Honey? You wanted ice cream, did you?” Aunt Shelley asked me. I nodded my head with enthusiasm. “Oh, okay. Just making sure because I wasn’t sure if you were excited or not.” “Oh, I am,” I whispered. “I am just trying to be good and not draw any embarrassing attention on you.” Uncle Sean turned in his seat and looked me in the eye. “There is absolutely nothing embarrassing about a child getting excited over something, honey. If you squeal for a moment or something, then that’s natural.” “Okay.” My aunt smiled and she decided to get out of the passenger seat, for we were still parked, and she got in the backseat next to me. Then she side hugged me. “Why don’t I sit back here?” she looked up where Uncle was looking at us. He smiled. “You did tell her to squeeze your hand as a way of telling if she needed something important. It’s probably good if you sit back there with her all the way back home. It might help her keep her pants dry on the way home.” I looked down. “I’m sorry.” “You have nothing to be sorry for, honey,” Aunt Shelley pulled me more into her lap to hug me. “It was an accident, and Sean is right. If I am sitting next to you, then you can squeeze my hand easier, and then we might find you a toilet before you start squirming this time.” “Okay.” We didn’t seem to drive very far, maybe just a few blocks over before we found a little ice cream shop, and Uncle Sean parked the car. “Shelley, why don’t you take Sammy into the bathroom, just to make sure. It’s been a little bit since she last went, and the doctor did find out that she tends to not get it all out, so her bladder probably fills up faster than it should….” Aunt Shelley nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Come on, Sammy. We’ll just give you a chance to see if you can go. Don’t be scared if nothing comes out, but we do need to keep a closer watch on you for a while because we really don’t want you holding it anymore.” “Aunt Shelley?” I whispered as we walked into the store. “Can… can I take off the diaper?” “How about we leave it just until we get home?” she rubbed my arm. “I know you probably feel funny wearing it, but if I miss your sign and you have another accident, it will feel a lot better if you are wearing it.” “How could I feel better wearing this baby thing?” We were walking through the bathroom door. “Honey, if it were a baby thing, it wouldn’t come in your size, would it?” I looked up at her trying to get a read on what she meant. Surely, only babies wear these things! I don’t know why it as in my size, but I’m not a baby, and I know better than to wet my pants. I won’t do it. “I… it’s… it’s still a baby thing,” I whimpered up at her. She put an arm around me. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but this is a two hour drive back home, so I really think that for the rest of this trip, at least until you have your next accident, I’m going to insist you wear it.” “Okay.” “And it doesn’t make you a baby to me, okay? You are my big girl. You are just having issues caused by some unhealthy habits and some unnatural… um… rules that I hope we can still talk to your parents about later.” “Didn’t they say they are going to take us away from our parents?” I asked. “They said Child Services are going to check on your family, yes, but that doesn’t always mean that they take kids away. You did say it was the school that bruised you like that.” I nodded. “It was the teacher and the principal that grabs my arm and pushes me into my seat all the time, and sometimes, I fall from them pushing me too hard.” She hugged me and walked me into the bigger C-stall that is meant for people in wheelchairs, I think. I mean, that’s the symbol on the door. I stood in front of her, and she started to pull my skirt down, and then my panties and she had to take my panties off of me, and then she carefully pulled the diaper down and off my legs so I could sit on the toilet. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Aunt Shelley smiled at me. “I promise, we can get rid of the diaper once we get home. I just don’t want you holding it for two hours if you get nervous and forget to squeeze my hand on the way home. I’d rather you peed, than that, and the diaper will make it so it’s less uncomfortable for you if that happens, honey.” I looked down. “Okay.” And I felt myself tinkle a little bit in the toilet. Not very much came out, but some did. I guess I did have a little bit in there that I didn’t even know about. After I was done, I found Uncle Sean waiting not far from the washrooms for us, and I smiled up at him. “I went pee a little bit,” I whispered up at him to try to make him happy. He patted my head. “That’s good, honey. But you aren’t doing this to make me happy, but rather, to make yourself comfortable, sweetie. We don’t like you holding it like you are used to because eventually, even if the doctor doesn’t find anything wrong, it could eventually hurt you.” I smiled up at him. His face was definitely serious as he said it, so I knew he was telling me something he thought was really important. He took my hand, and walked me over to the counter, where he picked me up again, and he hovered me over, so I could get a good eagle-eye view of the different flavors in the glass see-through counter. “Go ahead and pick out three flavors,” he told me. I looked up at him. “Three?” He smiled and patted my butt. “Three, honey. We’ll get you a three scoop sundae, or if you want, a banana split.” “What’s a banana split?” I asked curiously. He pointed out a poster with it, and to me, it looked more like three different sundaes nestled side by side inside a banana. Of course, I guess the difference is that a regular sundae is stacked up while the banana split had the ice cream side by side, and the banana split had a banana with it, but for the rest of it, it looked very close to the same to me. “Can I really get a banana split?” I asked. “Of course, honey.” There were so many choices of ice cream in side the there, that I kept pointing out this one and that one, but then kept changing my mind. I couldn’t help it. I was so excited, I think I was bouncing up and down in Uncle Sean’s arms, but he didn’t swat me or even harshly whisper at me to calm down or be quiet, but rather, he instigated it by pointing out a flavor he didn’t think I saw. “I’m sorry our cousin is having such a hard time deciding,” Aunt Shelley told the person behind the counter. “It’s just she hasn’t had real ice cream in a while.” The lady smiled and nodded. “Well, if it helps, we can give her a small taste of some up to three kinds.” “You can?” Uncle Sean asked. “It’s part of our service,” the lady smiled. “Any one is allowed to make sure they’ll like the taste of an ice cream flavor before they order it.” “If anyone is allowed, would she be allowed to use her three and then use my three?” Uncle Sean asked. “Technically, you have to point it out sir…,” she seemed a little uncomfortable. “But once I give you the spoon, I can’t control what you do with it.” He smiled and nodded. “Thank you, miss.” After sampling, not three, not six, but nine different flavors because Uncle and Auntie already knew what they wanted, I was allowed to sit with a banana split with cherry chipped vanilla, dark fudge chocolate, and strawberry cheese cake flavored ice creams, all with strawberry sauce running over them, as much nuts, sprinkles, and M&Ms as I wanted on it, and even little cherries on each peak of ice cream. Uncle had to pay extra for the cherries because they didn’t really come with the banana split. I could tell because he got one too, but his didn’t have cherries. We gave each other tastes of what we had, and this was probably going to be one of the highlights of this visit that I’d remember. When we got ice cream at home, maybe once or maybe twice in one summer, it was always something really simple. An ice cream on a stick or a single cone or something. I had never had something this fancy before. It was around four when we got to this little square building, inside of which, was very muffled in sound, and very uptight feeling. I felt my whole body get a little stiff as we walked down the quiet halls. It felt worse than the most serious church service, maybe worse than a funeral or something. I knew I wasn’t supposed to play here, just because of the stillness of the place. I was dragging Miss Hoppity along, and I realized just now, maybe I should have left her in the car. Aunt Shelley had Mr. Ivory. Despite knowing I shouldn’t have toys in a place like this, I hugged Miss Hoppity closer to me, and buried her face under my chin as I carried her. She was so big even as I tried to carry her properly, that her body hung down past my stomach, her feel bouncing on my thighs as I carried her. Aunt Shelley had a hand on my shoulder, patting it gently. And we came into a waiting room. There were some older people like Aunt Shelley and Uncle Sean’s age there, there were older kids that were probably in high school in there, but I think I was the only kid there. Quietly, I walked over to one of those bench seats. You know, the type that looks like each space was its own little colorful chair, but it was connected on a black iron thing to look something more like a bench or couch or something? I sat quietly, and held Miss Hoppity in my arms. I was definitely going to be a good girl and be quiet here. I was not going to embarrass Uncle Sean and Aunt Shelley here. We eventually got called back into a room that had a funny sort of couch in it, a small round table with chairs, and a nice oak desk. There were some books on shelves in here. The doctor for this place was a woman, and she had yellow blond hair. I looked down though because I wasn’t supposed to look at important adults in the face for very long. Daddy would slap my thighs if I did because it wasn’t polite. “So, it’s kind of lucky you came in when you did because I did have a cancellation,” the woman told Uncle Sean and Aunt Shelley. “Normally, though, you should make an appointment.” “I’m sorry,” Sean said. “It’s just something that has been bothering us about our cousin, and we just came from the regular doctor’s office. You know, farm work doesn’t really give you any let up, so you don’t always have a chance to plan everything around it.” The woman smiled. “I understand. Well, my name is Dr. Stevens. If this session is for your cousin, you can come back in about an hour if you like….” “It’s actually for all of us,” Sean frowned looking down. “We are trying to figure out how to communicate important needs with her, but we are struggling, and we were helping you could help us.” “You know, family counseling is a little more expensive….” “I’ll pay anything to get her to be less scared to tell us what she needs to, and for us to make her comfortable enough that she feels like she doesn’t need to do these horrible habits that she has. I can’t help but feel we need to all understand one another to make this work.” “I understand. Well, do you have two hours?” “We have as much time as you can give us,” Uncle Sean frowned. “In my experience, this is not a one visit fixes anything situation. The best I can do right now, is start assessing things with what you tell me and by what I am observing, but I can’t really give you any answers probably for three sessions. As it is, you’ve only been here ten minutes, so if you feel that’s going to be a waste of your money, you can leave now, and I won’t charge you anything. I just want to be up front. It will take a minimum of three visits though, and those visits are not cheap.” “I don’t care how much they are,” Uncle Sean said looking down. “We’ll figure out how to pay for them. Our Cousin is suffering, and we need to know how to help her.” “Alright, then. How about you start off by telling me what you’ve noticed and what you hope to learn so you can help her, then?” He nodded. I let the adults talk while I held Miss Hoppity tightly and looked over its fluffy floppy eared head feeling even more nervous about this place than before. It was so serious here. But I knew that Uncle Sean was worried. I knew it because he said he didn’t care about the cost, and I’ve never heard daddy say he doesn’t care about the cost. Only something very serious could make an adult not care about money. I felt myself shiver a little bit when Aunt Shelley reached out and patting my back gently, she guided me into her lap. She held me, letting me keep Miss Hoppity in my own lap. I still couldn’t help shivering a little bit. “Well, how about we talk to the little miss, then?” Dr. Stevens’s attention focused on me. “What are the rules at your home, when you are home, about the toilet, little miss?” I looked up at her not sure what I was supposed to say. The rules were just normal, weren’t they? “Well, don’t pee your pants…,” I frowned. “...And you have to go at the right place, which means the toilet, and um…. I don’t know.” She smiled. “I see. Well, are you ever not allowed to go?” I shrugged. “I mean…. If daddy’s in there, then I don’t want to go in there.” “That’s normal, honey. No, I mean, are there times you wanted to go, and you thought the bathroom was free, but you were told to wait?” I shrugged. “Only when I was told to do something first?” “And how long does that thing usually take that you are asked to do first?” “I… I’m not sure. I never really looked at the clock when I do it.” “Have you ever had an accident at home where you live?” I blushed and looked down. I wasn’t sure if I should tell or not. It was embarrassing, and I was kind of scared daddy would be mad for me shaming our family by admitting I pee the bed. “She says she has never had an accident at home,” Uncle Sean spoke up. “But she has the same problem a lot of kids have, and that doesn’t concern me as much except that she’s so scared when it happens.” “And that problem is…?” the counselor held a finger up at Uncle Sean and looked directly at me. Tears in my eyes, shaking even more in Aunt Shelley’s lap, I whisper-whimpered…. “I… I wet the bed all the time.” She smiled. “Well, like your older cousin said, sweetheart, a lot of kids do that. It’s not that serious that you do it. You’ll grow out of it. Right?” I looked up at her and frowned shaking my head. “It’s really bad. Even my baby sister doesn’t do it anymore. Just me. I’m stupid and bad and ….” She frowned. “I see.” “I’m bad all the time,” I told her now. “Daddy is always mad at me because I can’t be good at all. I do bad stuff all the time, and if I’m being honest, I do sometimes wet my pants at home, but I hide it. I have to. I don’t want anyone to know, and it’s scary every time because if I get caught.” Aunt Shelley hugged me tighter and she whispered. “It’s okay, baby.” The lady turned back to Uncle Sean and Aunt Shelley. “Well, it is natural for a kid her age to be embarrassed to tell her parents if she’s wet her pants at home, but that would normally mean she should be checked by a physical doctor, too.” “We just came from there, particularly because we wanted to make sure her habits had not led to more serious physical problems. We will know more in a weak, but the doctor did say she has a light infection.” The counselor smiled and wrote something down. “The reason we are here, though,” Aunt Shelley said seeming to be a little impatient at getting to the point. “… our baby cousin sits there at the table and holds it. It’s only when I notice her struggling to hold it, and ask her to use the toilet, that she goes. If I watch her carefully, I can stop her from peeing her pants, but if I’m not watching, she’ll sit there and hold it until her little body just can’t anymore.” The counselor frowned. “And she does this often?” “Nearly every time she has to go.” “She’s always promising she can wait until night,” Uncle Sean spoke up. “She seems to think going even in the toilet is bad if she doesn’t feel like she’s had to hold it long enough.” The lady frowned. “That’s definitely not normal.” “We’ve been doing everything we can think of to help her realize she can just go, and trying to catch her holding it as soon as we can so we can tell her to go, but she keeps doing the same thing, and always apologizing if she can’t help but wiggle due to trying to hold it, always promising she can hold it longer….” The Counselor wrote something else down. “Sweetheart, how often do you want to use the potty during the day?” I shrugged. “What I mean to ask, is do you feel like you are always on the verge of wetting your pants, or do you ever feel like you can relax because you don’t feel anything?” “I… I… I try to not do it. I promise. I’ll try harder. I don’t need to use use the toilet. I promise.” She sighed and wrote something down. “So, you don’t want to use the toilet even if your body is telling you that you need to pee?” “Um…, everyone has to go sometimes,” I looked up at her. “But it’s important to be polite about it, right?” She frowned and wrote something else, and that made me squirm a little bit. “And who told you that you need to hold it to be polite?” she asked me. I looked down. “Um…, at school, if you come in from recess, you can’t raise your hand for an hour. If you are taking a test, the answer is always no. If we are in the car, there is no bathroom. If we are shopping and the adults are talking, you can’t interrupt them until they stop. I… I don’t think anyone ever said to me, that I don’t go, exactly. But I get yelled at for doing it at the wrong time, so holding it, means I don’t get yelled at, and sometimes….” “Sometimes, what, honey?” I shivered. I felt a little bit of pee leak into my diaper. I just went at the ice cream place. How come I peed? I felt really scared and shook some more. She paused and wrote something else down. “Honey, what if I told you that it’s not normal or healthy to hold it all day like that?” I frowned and looked down. “But I have to,” I felt tears leaking down my face. I felt more pee push into my diaper. “Honey, no,” the counselor whispered to me. “Your cousins brought you to me because they don’t want you to do that around them. You don’t need to hold it all day.” “But it’s either hold it, or pee my pants,” I sniffled and whined. She sighed. “Your little cousin’s parents definitely need to be checked into,” the woman said. “I’m not saying they are doing this on purpose to her, but they do need to be taught that what they are doing is wrong.” Uncle Sean nodded. “I know. Right now, though, what can I do for her?” She frowned and sighed. “Are you allowing her to pee her pants?” the woman suddenly asked. Shelley blushed really red, and nodded. “If we did anything wrong…?” “No,” the doctor stopped her. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just asking, if she wets her pants at your house, how does it go?” “Well, she’s only really been caught doing it at night, when she wakes up and seems to be trying to get to the toilet, but doesn’t make it,” Aunt Shelley said. “And she did it when she was out in back with me, though both times, it was more my fault than hers.” “Well, if you can tell me the stories….” I just held my head down as I suddenly felt the main peeing going in my diaper while they talked about what they noticed about me. I was just spraying the last few squirts when they had finished telling her what happened. “I think you are on to something,” the counselor told my cousins. “She needs validation and she needs to recognize her feelings and her own needs. She also needs to do so in a safe environment.” “So, um… I was thinking…,” Aunt Shelley’s face went red as she spoke, but Uncle Sean cut her off. “Actually, we were both discussing it, and I actually wanted to bring it up with you. I think… Well, Shelley and I both think… would it hurt to tell our little cousin to just wet herself sometimes?” The counselor smiled up at them. “Sometimes?” “Well, we don’t always catch her until she is obviously struggling so hard to hold it that we are sure a normal child her age would already be going in her pants, but she refuses to do it, and nearly always makes it when we make her. She only really wets herself at night, and I am thinking that’s because she’s holding it all day and eventually, she just can’t wait.” The counselor sighed. “It’d be better if you can get her to recognize that she needs to go, and maybe even just ask you to pee her pants if she’s hurting.” “But she won’t do that, at least not right now,” Uncle Sean said. “And I’m worried she’s going to destroy her body before we can get her to change this. I don’t know how long she’s been doing this… but it seems to be far too long to us?” The counselor nodded. “Honey,” she directed her attention to me. “Do you do everything your teachers tell you to do at school?” I looked down and shrugged. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be in as much trouble as I keep getting into. “I see,” she seemed to read me. “Well, is there anyone that you listen to without thought?” “Gracie,” I whispered. “But don’t tell daddy. He’d be really mad. I’m apposed to listen to mom not Gracie. But Gracie… I’m not scared to tell her I peed sometimes.” The counselor nodded. “And who is Gracie, sweetheart?” “She’s my big sister. There are five of us, and when mommy is busy or tired, and daddy is at work, and everything, she is the one that makes sure three of us don’t get in trouble with daddy. Mommy is always watching the baby.” “I see. Has Gracie ever told you to just wet your pants?” “No way. She knows daddy would get really mad if I wet my pants. She tells me no matter what, I need to hold it as long as I can especially around daddy. If she sees I have to go, please let her ask.” “Why doesn’t she let you ask?” “Um… sometimes, I ask at the wrong time and get in trouble. She says she will ask instead, and if she gets in trouble, then she gets in trouble, but she’s the oldest and knows when the best time is to ask.” The counselor wrote something down. “So, your sister is the one that told you to hold it all the time?” “Yeah. So daddy doesn’t get mad and I don’t get in trouble. She encourages me when I’m doing homework, telling how much more I have to get done, and tells me not to wet my pants, and to be a big girl…. And when she helps me, I can usually get my homework done and mommy doesn’t see me do it, but sometimes I don’t get all the way to the toilet, but then Gracie just scolds me, and tells me I’m lucky mom or dad didn’t see, and she changes me, and then she hugs me and tells me to try to do better next time.” Uncle Sean looked shocked and Aunt Shelley looked angry. “Have your other sisters ever peed their pants, honey?” “No. I’m the bad one. I think Gracie and Leah used to, but they haven’t for at least two years, I don’t think.” The counselor wrote that down. “Well, your sister was wrong to tell you not to wet your pants when you are hurting, honey.” “But please don’t punish her?” I pleaded. “She was just trying for me not to get in trouble with daddy.” “Why would she be worried about you getting in trouble with your parents?” “Because…. It bad to wet your pants and you get in really bad trouble. I remember the last time Gracie and Leah got caught peeing their pants, when we were camping. It was a long time ago. I think Jenna was the only one that didn’t do it that time….” I went quiet. I wasn’t supposed to tell if Gracie or Leah peed their pants. That was daddy’s rule, not Gracie’s rule. He said it was shameful and only family needed to know that dirty secret that his daughters couldn’t behave themselves enough to keep clean. “Did you get hit for peeing your pants?” the counselor asked me. I looked down. “Not all the time, but sometimes, they spanked me if I did it where people would know I was being dirty and bad. I was lucky I didn’t get spanked when daddy thought I stole someone’s drink at school last week, and then he thought I peed my pants at school, too, only I didn’t.” I don’t know why I kept telling her things I wasn’t supposed to. I knew I wasn’t supposed to. Daddy would be furious. I was really going to get it, but somehow, the way the woman looked at me, the way she asked, and the way Aunt Shelley rubbed my back and whispered for me to go ahead and speak…. It was hard not to say all this stuff that I had bottled up since at least three years ago, ever since I first saw Gracie get it really bad when I saw her poop her pants once. “You said Gracie got it bad once,” the counselor seemed to drag the story from me, though I didn’t really want to tell the story at all. It made Gracie look bad. But her calmness, the feeling I was safe and wasn’t in trouble even as I finished peeing my diaper, and the feeling I was allowed to talk here. I couldn’t help it. “Well, she was in seventh grade…,” I frowned. “You gotta promise not to tell Gracie or daddy that I told you. I don’t want daddy to punish her, and I don’t want Gracie to think I just tell people about her pooping her pants at school….” Aunt Shelley rubbed my back. “I think I just knew it because she had to come to our elementary school to pick us up, and just like daddy’s rules, if we make a problem, we better the fu…” I looked up at Aunt Shelley. She didn’t want me to say that word. “...Um… we better really hide it, because if the school finds out or someone else, then we get it worse. So, she came to our school and we walked home. It was last year. She was in Seventh. I was in second. I noticed her back of her pants was brown, and I asked….” I went quiet. “Well, I guess that can be really embarrassing,” the counselor frowned. “Are you sure it was poop, honey?” “It was brown, and she got really red when I asked her why her pants was brown, but she didn’t answer and I dropped it because Jenna told me to be quiet. Leah told me I’d get her in trouble if I kept asking, so I’m pretty sure it was poop.” The counselor wrote it down. “You promised not to tell them,” I kicked the table. “Honey, I’m writing things down so I know how to talk to you next time. I neither made any promises, nor do I intend to talk to anyone about anything you tell me unless the police make me.” I frowned. “Why would the police make you?” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Just understand that what I write down is so I have proper notes about what we talked about. I have a lot of patients, and I have to keep you all straight so I don’t tell strangers your business, okay?” I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry I kicked the table. Uncle can spank me when we get home, or here, or wherever he wants. I was bad.” Uncle Sean shook his head. “Honey? I’d be really upset too, if I thought someone promised not to say something I didn’t want everyone to know. You didn’t do anything that unreasonable.” “Can you just try not to act out before asking why someone is doing something though?” Aunt Shelley asked me. I nodded. “I try. I don’t want to be bad. I promise.” Aunt Shelley nodded and we continued. “Okay, well, sweetheart, I’m going to ask you to do something,” the doctor told me. “Now, I know you have no real reason to listen to me, but you do need to feel safe and you need people you can trust. Have your cousins scared you at all?” I shook my head. “No, not really. Their new rules breaks daddy’s rules, and that’s scary, but that’s the only thing scary about them.” “Well, I’d like you to obey them like you would…,” she looked back at her notes. “Like you would Gracie. It’s for your own good.” “But they are telling me to break daddy’s rules!” “Doesn’t Gracie ever tell you to break daddy’s rules?” “Not really. She tries really hard to help me keep them so I don’t get in trouble, but if I fail, then she tries to talk to daddy for me, and sometimes, she says she did something so I don’t get in trouble. Like, when I had to sleep with her because my bed was wet, and her bed got wet because I peed in my sleep, she told mommy she peed the bed and so she washed and hung both hers and my sheets out. She got scolded but somehow, she didn’t get spanked that time.” “Well, you need to try to trust them,” the counselor told me. “No matter if it does break your daddy’s rules, your daddy’s rules are a little unreasonable.” I put my fingers in my mouth, getting nervous. “I will go over these notes and do some other searches until your next session. Please schedule that before you leave, and yeah, I think it probably wouldn’t hurt to tell her to just pee her pants if you feel she’s been waiting too long once in a while. But you need to understand, if you do this, you might have to potty train her again if she gets used to just peeing.” Aunt Shelley smiled. “I don’t mind potty training her, if it helps her be healthy and teaches her not to hold it like she’s been doing.” Uncle Sean nodded. “Exactly. Better her peeing her pants, than her needing an operation because of destroying her body.”

That's fair, I did probably gloss over the fact that they kept calling her a baby, and she has negative experiences with that, but until now, I write that off to her just being a bit uncomfortable learning the new rules and the new situations she was in. I will probably have her show a little more resistance to that term as we progress, especially because she is starting to get more and more comfortable with Sean and actually almost calling Shelley, "mommy" in her own head. She's still pretty confused right now though, so the resistances are probably going to start small for a while... I think. Thank you for bringing this up, as I probably wouldn't have realized I was doing this without you having said so. But I definitely see your point.

That is true..., but remember, the little girl wasn't telling them when she had to go on her own, and they were not used to having kids of their own to look after. They had one kid eight years ago, and he died when he was four, so they are not very experienced with older kids. Not only that, but they were trying to watch her, but there was no sign she had to go until they were almost into town. So, I dare say saying this was completely their fault is a little harsh. A normal kid would have told them a lot sooner, and I don't know about Europe or Germany, but there are usually rest areas on the interstate often enough that if they stopped for her, a normal kid would have made it to the bathroom in time.

Chapter 7: “Baby, That’s Enough,” They Told Me. I was taken upstairs, and Aunt Shelley helped me out of my night clothes and started to run a bath for me. I didn’t really mind her bathing me. It sort of felt nice that she cared that I was actually clean. “Use the toilet, sweetheart,” she said to me in a soft kind voice. “I don’t think I gotta go,” I whispered. “I know,” Aunt Shelley told me. “But just try, sweetheart. If nothing comes out, it’s okay. I just want to make sure you are as comfortable as possible in the car. It’s about a two hour drive to the nearest city.” “I thought there was a town about half an hour from your house?” I wondered my voice kind of quiet because I was afraid she might think I was talking back. I wasn’t really scared of her hitting me for it or anything like that, but I just didn’t want to sound ungrateful. She was really taking care of me. “Sweetheart, there is a small community not more than thirty minutes from the house, but we are going to take you to see a doctor. While the community has a nice doctor that would be helpful for general things, the things I want the doctor to look at are out of his field. We need to go to the big city for that.” “Oh, okay.” “You can bring your rhinoceros and the pink rabbit to play with in the car, if you like.” “The pink rabbit? Aren’t you scared I’ll lose it or something?” “You’ll just have it in the car,” Aunt Shelley said. “And no, as attached as you’ve been to those two stuffed animals, I don’t think you’d leave them anywhere on purpose, and if you fall asleep then I’ll get those for you while Sean carries you, sweetheart.” I smiled up at her. She took off the undershirt and the panties that she had put on me so I could eat breakfast in dry clothes, after I had scooted off the toilet, and then she helped me into the tub where she started to wash me like the first day. “I am very sorry that it has been so difficult for you this week at our house, baby,” she said as she started to wash my back. “I know our rules are confusing for you, but they are all I know about raising a healthy child. I don’t understand what your parents are teaching you by forcing rules that don’t make sense to me, so it’s hard for me to have those rules since I don’t know their importance.” I frowned. “Well, daddy says that good girls need to learn to be polite, and need to learn that there is a time and place for things.” “I agree with that,” Shelley smiled at me. “But there are just things in that, that make no sense at all.” I looked down and sighed. I didn’t understand all of daddy’s rules either, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to defend him. Daddy would have to explain them to her, maybe when they saw each other again. Aunt Shelley started washing under my arms. “Well, I don’t supposed it is any good trying to understand what adults are thinking by asking an eight year old about specifics,” she eventually figured out for herself. “But we are going have you checked anyway just to make sure you are healthy by a doctor, and then we are going to work on rules, that at least while you are here, you follow, that are healthy for you.” “I understand,” I looked down hoping she wasn’t going to ask me to do anything daddy wouldn’t want me to do. When we were down in the living room again, Uncle Sean had come into the house by then, and he smiled at me. “Are you ready to go then?” he asked. I smiled back nodding, and held up both the rhinoceros and the pink rabbit. “Aunt Shelley says I can take these with me in the car?” He winked at me. “Of course, sweet baby. Now, I’m going to go up and get ready for town. Where is Shelley?” “I think she’s getting a bath, too.” “Okay. You are free to play in the living room while we get ready, okay?” “Okay.” I was downstairs playing for a little while, the blocks that were still out, was now being constructed into a bridge of sorts. The television was on morning cartoons. It was a pretty relaxing time until Aunt Shelley walked in and smiled at me working on the bridge. “Are you about ready to go to the city yet?” she asked. I smiled up at her. “I don’t really want to see a doctor, though.” “No, of course you don’t,” she walked over and hugged me. “But doctors are important to help us stay healthy if we are healthy, and they help us if we are sick or have gotten hurt.” “I know.” “I’m going to pack you some snacks for the car, and some extra water.” “But if I drink water in the car, I might have to pee in public,” I reminded her wondering if she was okay if I had to pee later on or not. “Honey, the doctor we are seeing will need you to pee at the doctor’s office,” Aunt Shelley explained. “He will collect your pee pee in a cup, and that will be sent to special people who can use it to test for things to know how your body health is.” “Oh,” I frowned not knowing that anyone did anything with pee. “I thought pee was just gross water the body got rid of.” “Well, it is,” Aunt Shelley smiled and patted me on the head. “But that gross water also has stuff in it that the body is trying to get rid of, and when the doctor checks that stuff it is trying to get rid of, it can sometimes tell a doctor if something is there that shouldn’t be, or if there is something missing that should be there in your body.” “It does?” my eyes got really big. I’d never seen a doctor that I could remember, and had no idea that doctors had to handle your gross stuff in order to figure out if you are sick or not. “Does the doctor touch other gross things on your body, too?” “Well, it depends on what they are looking for, but they might,” Aunt Shelley told me. “They usually just stick with checking your pee and your blood, though, unless they are looking for something specific.” “Well, blood is kind of gross, too, at least other people’s blood is….” “I know, sweetheart,” Aunt Shelley kissed me on the forehead. “But the thing is, we will need you to pee in the toilet at the doctor’s office, and some of the pee will go into a cup, okay?” “And I’m allowed to go and to ask to go?” I looked up at her with my eyes shining kind of not understanding if I’d have to do this, but then I might get in trouble because no matter what, daddy’s rule is, I don’t go in front of other people, and I don’t ask, so how was I going to not get in trouble if I had to pee in front of the doctor? I decided not to ask about that though. It might sound like I am trying to back talk if I keep asking about it even if it did look like I’d be getting a spanking when we got back. “Yes, sweetheart, you are allowed to go potty, and to ask if you need to go. But whether you ask or not, when we first get there, I am going to try to let you go as soon as I can, so you shouldn’t be wet at least at the doctor’s office. If you don’t pee when I first let you go, then we’ll keep a watch on you and keep asking you because the doctor really does need that, okay?” I smiled. “Okay.” But it as a fake smile. I was kind of worried. I’ll have to pee in front of the doctor, I’ll have to ask to go, eventually, and they are going to have to spank me, and if something happens and I pee in the car too early before we even get there, then I won’t be obeying Aunt Shelley, and that will probably get me in more trouble. Aunt Shelley was already picking me up off the floor, and Uncle Sean came in dressed in the nicest clothes I’d ever seen on him. He was wearing a nice white shirt with a brown tie, and some nice black dress slacks with shiny black shoes. “Well, are we ready?” Uncle Sean asked. “Yeah, her little bag with a change of clothes in it, is by the door, and I have a bottle of water and a bottle of apple drink for her prepared near it….” “Does she have her little toys that she’s been carrying around?” “The rhinoceros and the rabbit?” Aunt Shelley clarified. “Of course,” Uncle Sean smiled. “We can’t leave those behind or she might get a little worried and she won’t have anything to distract her from her nervousness.” I looked up at both of them wondering about the rabbit. “You… you don’t mind if I take Ms. Hoppity out of the house?” I asked. “Of course not,” Aunt Shelley patted my butt as she had me in her arms now. “That’s your toy, now, sweetheart, and you are allowed to take it with you when it doesn’t bother what you are doing. Of course you can’t take it into church with you or to school or anything like that because it might get taken away from you at those places, but in the car, or even seeing a doctor, there is no reason you can’t have it with you.” I smiled. “Thank you.” Uncle Sean reached down and picked up the rabbit and the rhinoceros, and we all met at the door, where Uncle Sean put Mr. Ivory in my arms along with the small bag with a change of clothes for me. Auntie continued to carry me, and Uncle Sean brought the rabbit, the bottles of apple drink and water, and a plastic cup out and put those in the back seat. Between the both of them, you’d think they were trying to put a baby in the car with as much as they fussed around me, making sure I had the toys in my lap, the clothes out of my way in case I peed my pants, and the bottles of drink and the plastic cup close enough that I can get them when I wanted. That…, and they also put the seat belt on me as if I didn’t know how to do it myself. Auntie kissed me on the head and Uncle Sean patted my lap. “Are you comfortable enough?” Uncle Sean asked. “Oh, go get her a blanket, just in case,” Auntie Shelley said. “If she gets tired, she should be comfortable while she’s sleeping, and if she is warm enough, then she can always waddle the blanket into a pillow of sorts to help her sleep.” “Good idea,” Sean smiled. Auntie went ahead and poured some apple drink into the cup for me while Uncle was in the house. “It’s not going to hurt you to get another little drink, honey. We really need to make sure your body has enough time to get the water ready to come out when the doctor needs it, okay?” “Okay,” I nodded up at Auntie and started to drink the juice. Then, we started on our way out the drive way after Uncle had brought out not only a blanket, but some crackers and peanut butter in case I got a bit hungry while we were driving. I don’t think anyone ever made sure I had toys, a drink, and a snack in the car ever before, even if we were going to be going somewhere more than an hour away. I mean, it wasn’t because daddy would withhold it if I asked, and Gracie did ask for us sometimes if we were in the car for a while together, but I just… I just learned to wait until he gets it for me. That way, I don’t ask at the wrong time. So, not only did I have a blanket next to me, my toys in my lap, the clothes just out of the way so I didn’t get them wet, and some drinks that was probably way more than I’d drink on the trip in easy to reach near my feet, but now, I had crackers and peanut butter with a spoon to spread it on the crackers right next to the blanket, too. I sat back in the car, and started to listen to the music they had on the radio, and while the music was nice, they were kind of ignoring me at the moment. I wasn’t sure what they were whispering about, but the fact that they were whispering, and they were not exactly including me in their conversation did sort of make me think they were talking about me. I decided not to dwell on it though. They were nice to me, and if they were talking about me, maybe it as something they were just worried about, but something they didn’t think was important for me to know at the moment. “Do you think I’m going to get in trouble once Uncle Sean finds out I’m doing it on purpose like daddy says?” I wondered to myself, talking to Mr. Ivory. “I don’t want to cause him trouble. And anyway, even if he doesn’t get mad, I don’t want to waste his money. I could tell him I’m doing it on purpose….” I frowned and looked down. I am almost nine. I should be able to hold it longer. I wished I was more like a normal kid and could wait all day like I’m supposed to. I haven’t wet my pants in a long time before I started to stay with Sean and Shelley, but I also didn’t hold it like I was supposed to. I sneaked pees outside in the fields sometimes, and at school, I sneaked out of the classroom sometimes so I wouldn’t wet my pants, but I knew I was supposed to wait until at school, the teacher let us go to recess, and at home, I was supposed to go in the toilet and not out in the fields. “I don’t know why I keep not being able to get to the toilet in time at Uncle Sean and Aunt Shelley’s house, Mr. Ivory. They let me go if I just wait long enough for them to see I have to go, and Uncle Sean even made it so I can go at the field, but I know I’m not supposed to.” We drove a little longer, and since the stuff was right there, I picked up the bottle, but it was kind of heavy and the car kept bouncing around. Scared I might drop it or spill it, I put it back down. I didn’t want to make a mess if I could help it, but then I didn’t realize…, I thought they were ignoring me to talk. “Sammy, baby?” Aunt Shelley turned to fully face me around her seat. “Are you thirsty, baby?” I looked down. “Here, give me your cup, and give me either the water or the apple, which ever you want, baby. We’ve been driving about an hour and a few minutes. It’s natural to be thirsty, sweetie.” I handed up the cup and the apple drink. I don’t know how Aunt Shelley did it, but she was soon handing me back the cup and I don’t think she spilled anything, and I started to drink it right down. I don’t know why, but I was really thirsty. It wasn’t because the car was hot because Uncle Sean’s air conditioning worked really well, and I was comfortable. After I drank another cup of juice, I closed my eyes for a few minutes, when I realized I had to go potty. I looked up towards the front, but I just bothered Auntie for a drink, and I didn’t see a toilet. I looked outside, and it looked like there was nothing around but highway for a while. I sighed and sat back. I’d just have to wait. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it had been a little while, and I also hadn’t done the other thing for going on four days, so I guess my body decided it was now too long, and it was wanting to do that, too. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, looking out the window, hoping to see the city, at least, that we were supposed to be coming into. I thought it had been nearly a couple of hours since when we started out. “Samantha!” I heard Aunt Shelley sounding like she yelled at me, like maybe she had been trying to get my attention. “Huh?” I looked from the window towards her, my left hand in the crotch trying to hold my pee back, and scooting a bit on my butt, not sure how to stop it other than moving around at the moment, especially since the pee seemed to be more in danger of leaking than the poo at the moment. “Honey,” Shelley smiled at me to comfort me a little bit. I was a little bit afraid I was in trouble or something. “How long have you been sitting there like that?” I looked down and noticed that I was wiggling a bit and my hand was in my crotch, and she was watching the whole thing. “Um….” “It’s okay, baby, but you are really squirming. Are you okay?” “I… I don’t know,” I sniffled. “But I can wait, I promise.” Aunt Shelley looked back to Uncle Sean and I saw them exchange a grimace. “Honey, no,” Aunt Shelley told me. “You don’t need to promise anything. Just do what you can, but the doctor’s office is what…?” she looked back at Uncle. “It’s still probably about ten to fifteen minutes from here.” “That’s a bit far,” Aunt Shelley continued her thought. “If you potty your pants, it’s okay, sweetheart.” “I don’t want to,” I sniffled. “I know,” Aunt Shelley smiled. “I’m not telling you to do it on purpose at the moment, but if it happens, don’t be scared, okay?” I nodded. Finally, I saw the first signs of building in the city. We came up over a hill, and looking down into a valley, there were large buildings here and there, and all around them, clustered, were blue-gray structures. I pushed both my hands on my pee pee area and squinted my eyes trying to keep everything in. It was getting harder, but now we saw the city, I hoped that we’d get there in a minute or two. I really couldn’t do this… now. If I did it now…. The doctor would know I was bad, my older cousins would be embarrassed and ashamed of me, and I’d really be in trouble with daddy when he picked me up after the summer. I continued squirming for a little while, and we drove down into the valley among the structures that soon become recognizable as different buildings. “Honey,” I hear low voices in the front because I wasn’t playing. I was having to concentrate too much on not going potty to really be able to play right now. “Do you think we should pull over at maybe a gas station or something?” Auntie asked. “Hon, I would, but you know in town, most of those places don’t have public toilets. It might make it harder on her if we stop, and find out we can’t go there. It’s probably safer to get her to the toilet at the doctor’s.” “I don’t really think she’s going to make it though, Sean. She’s really moving back there, and she looks like she’s about to cry.” “Well, it won’t make her feel any better to get out at a gas station and be told she can’t go while she pees on their floor,” Uncle Sean reasoned with Auntie. “Why don’t you just tell her it’s okay to wet herself. If she knows it’s okay, at least she won’t be as scared if it happens?” “Yeah, I guess.” “Baby,” Aunt Shelley turned back to look at me again. We were at a red light. “I know you are doing your best, sweetheart. But I think it’s a safer bet to get you to the doctor’s at the moment.” “I know. I can wait,” I said pushing on my pants and hopping up and down in my seat, trying really hard to squeeze my legs and muscle to not let any out. “I just want you to know, baby, that you are allowed to wet your pants.” I blinked up at her. “I know how hard you are trying, sweetheart. You won’t be in trouble if you leak or even if you just go all the way. Remember, the only rule about wetting, is not lying about it, okay?” I nodded. “I’m not wet yet, though, I promise.” “I know you’re not, baby. You are trying too hard to be wet right now. But I want you to know, I do kind of expect you to be kind of wet when we get to the doctor’s so don’t be scared. We’ll still try to get your sample in their testing cup.” “Okay.” “And you don’t have to be scared of being wet.” “Okay. Aunt Shelley sighed and turned back to face the front. I couldn’t wet though. I couldn’t. Not only was it bad to wet my pants in the car, but if I just did it right now…, I’d probably start pooping myself, and I can’t do that! We were now in the middle of town. Here and there, I saw some kids running around at a park, in the street, or in someone’s backyard playing. The sun was shining brightly on the sidewalks, the grass, and everywhere. Here and there, people walked with strollers, bags, and in small groups or individually. I’d never really been anywhere this busy before. I lifted myself up a little bit, adjusted my hands, and sat back down squirming my legs under me to try to get comfortable again. The sharp but dull at the same time pain pushed on my stomach, and I could feel it sloshing around, and saying I didn’t have much time. “We are almost there,” I heard Uncle Sean say. “The clinic is just around this corner.” He was in the right lane, and had his signal on, but the light was red and he was stopped. Sometimes, people did turn on red, but I didn’t tell Uncle Sean how to drive. He knew the rules. I trusted he was trying. I felt a little bit spray before I closed my legs hard and pushed with my hand into my groin not wanting it to just keep coming out. It was luckily only a tiny bit, and with my nighttime panties on, it didn’t show through my pants yet, but I was getting scared that any minute, it was going to give up on me. I started shaking, a little bit scared, knowing that peeing my pants was bad, but Auntie was okay with that…, but what if I pooped my pants? No, I can’t do that! I felt salty stinging tears push into my eyes. “I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Aunt Shelley told Uncle Sean in a low voice, as if she was unaware that I could hear her. “She’s starting to cry. I think we better prepare for the worst, and maybe let her go in the car so at least people don’t see her doing it.” He nodded. “Yeah, it would be better for her to just wet in the car. I mean, she’s going to be embarrassed either way, but at least this way, she doesn’t have to have people watch her do it.” Auntie nodded and then turned back to me. “Baby, just go ahead and wet your pants,” she whispered. “I can’t…,” I shook scared of pooping myself. “Honey, it’s okay. You’ve held it as long as it is healthy and safe to do so. You are going to be wet one way or another when we go in, and I’d rather you not have the added humiliation of having people watch you do it.” I sniffled. “But…, I can’t.” She sighed. “Well, we can wait in the car until you are wet,” Auntie said. “There’s no rush.” “It’s not that,” I shivered and started to feel my butt open a little bit. “It’s…,” but I suddenly felt a heavy emotion cause me to whine, breathe funny, and to push on my butt hard with my hands trying to close my butt, but as my hands adjusted from my pee pee area, I started wetting. I started crying. “Honey, it’s okay. This clinic is for this kind of problem,” Auntie explained to me. “They aren’t going to worry if you wet your pants, baby.” “It’s not… I mean… I don’t want to do that either,” I was crying though and hiccoughing so much from it, that I wasn’t sure Auntie understood the words I was saying. “But…, I… I’m about to do the other.” “Baby, just go,” Auntie kept saying to me. We parked, and then Uncle Sean looked back at me, and I had to look down. I was scared. I was leaking pee and poop was trying to come out, my bottom opening more and more. “Baby,” Uncle Sean sighed. “It’s obvious you are already peeing, and probably pooping your pants,” he told me. “Just get it over with. I promise, it’s okay.” I looked up at him. “You… you don’t care that I’m pooping my panties?” He frowned. “Baby, you’ve held it too long. It’s not your fault. I just want to take you in so the doctor can get a look at you, but it’s going to be worse if people see you doing it, so that’s why I want you to just finish.” “Because you are getting embarrassed?” I was crying. “No, sweetheart,” he cooed at me. “Because you are getting embarrassed. I honestly don’t mind that a child has to go potty badly enough that it ends up in your clothes, but I know you are a big girl, and you’ve told us how you never pee your pants, so I know this is really hard for you.” I frowned up at him, and my leaking watery eyes tried to stare through the blurriness into his eyes, trying to read him, but the blurriness made it hard to read his face. “Baby, Sean is right,” Auntie Shelley said. “It’s too late, and we just want to make this as easy on you as we can. There is no way to take the embarrassment of pottying your pants from you, but we can try to make it less so by not letting people watch you do it, right?” “Are you going to spank me after I’m done?” I sniffled. They both grimaced at each other, and then turned back to me. “That is it,” Uncle Sean said. He opened his car door and went out and came to my door, and opened it, and he put his arms around me. I thought when he said that, that he was going to slap me right then, but he put his arms around me as I put my hands in front of my face. He started to rock me on my butt, and his moving me caused the poop to come out easier because I couldn’t keep the pressure where I needed it. “Baby, you are not going back home after the summer. I don’t care what we have to do, you are not going to go back to that. You don’t hit a kid for her having a problem that already embarrasses her and causes her to cry,” he told me. “You are not in trouble, baby. It’s okay.” He decided to pick me up even though I wasn’t done, and he started to carry me. “Just get her stuff, Shelley. Right now, she needs babied more than anything. The poor child is more scared of getting hit than being embarrassed, and that is really wrong!” Shelley nodded and she picked up my cup, my juice, and the rabbit, and they carried me in, Uncle Sean holding the rhino to my chest as he carried me like a baby. I was feeling the poop now slipping easily into my panties because of how Uncle held me, and the pee was starting to push here and there going, too. We went up to the front, and Uncle leaned in over the counter as there were other people up there. “Can we talk to one of you privately?” he asked. “I know the procedure, but this is important, and there is nothing else we can really do about it.” The one girl got up and led them back into a back hallway, and into a small examination room. “This is our little cousin,” Sean started to explain. “We’ve brought her in because we’ve noticed some unhealthy habits from home, and we want her checked to make sure she’s okay, but unfortunately, the baby has pottied her pants, and we don’t want her out there in front of the other people like this. We do have some clothes for her in case she had wet herself, but she’s… well…,” and he picked me from under the arms and showed her my butt. The lady smiled and whispered. “You can stay here. We’ll send someone right in.” “I’m afraid she might not be able to give you a sample because she’s already had an accident.” “I’m sure the doctor can still look at other things,” she told us. “And anyway, if the doctor is just doing a check for whatever, then it will probably take a while, so if she drinks enough during that time, by the time you leave, she can probably give a sample.” “Thank you for not making her embarrass herself out there with people gawking at her.” “No problem,” the nice lady said. “We do often leave one or two of these spaces open for situations because she’s not the first to have a problem that she found too embarrassing to want others to see her in.” Once she left us, Uncle put me back in his lap as he sat down. “Uncle, I’m messy,” I reminded him. “And…?” he patted my back. “I know you are. Hopefully, the nurse is going to get you something so we can clean you up, and then we’ll change you into clean clothes.” “You didn’t even get embarrassed telling them I went to the bathroom in my pants while you are watching me?” “Why would I, baby? You are here because we are worried about you, and we already know you have trouble with holding it, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place. You are not the first person to wet your pants coming to a clinic like this, okay?” “Oh… okay.” He kissed my cheek. “Don’t be scared, baby.” Auntie brought the rabbit over and put it in my arms. “Here, hold your stuff,” she told me. “It will comfort you until we can get you cleaned up and changed, baby.” A few minutes later, three nurse people came in, and one of them put a bucket of water on the floor, two others spread out some plastic on the floor, and then one of them led Uncle out of the room. “While your wife takes care of the child, we’ll need some details from you at the front,” they said to him, but I knew what they were doing. I’m not dumb. They were getting rid of Uncle so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed while Aunt helped me clean up myself. Of course, Uncle didn’t try to argue, but I dare say, I think he mouthed ‘thank you’ to the nurse that told him that because he probably didn’t realize it, either, that I knew what they were trying to do. I appreciated it though, even if I knew it. “Okay, baby,” Auntie smiled at me taking my toys from me and putting them on the bed. “Let’s get this done, okay? I know it’s going to be a little uncomfortable, but we can’t leave any poopy on your butt especially near where you pee because it could cause problems later.” I nodded. “Okay.” I was cleaned up and in clean clothes. Mommy… I mean, Aunt Shelley, had put me in a rather thick thing that the nurses gave her, and it taped on me. I think it was a diaper, but I didn’t think they made diapers my size. Anyway, I was dressed in panties over the diaper though I wasn’t sure why and I didn’t ask Aunt Shelley. She knew what she was doing. And she put my messy stuff in a plastic bag that they had given her, and for one reason or other, she left it on the floor in that office, and then we walked back out, hand in hand, to the waiting room where I saw Uncle writing on a piece of paper on a clipboard. “Are you alright?” he asked me when I sat down next to him, Auntie on the other side of me. “Um… yeah. Aunt Shelley cleaned it up, and I… I think… I think they made me wear a diaper.” He frowned. “Well, just don’t think about the diaper,” he told me. “No one knows you have it on except us, because you told me, baby. We’ll let you take it off once we leave, but this is the rule at the hospital, probably, since you’ve wet your pants, so try not to worry about it. A lot of people have wet their pants coming to this clinic. You aren’t the first, sweetheart.” “But I don’t have a problem holding it,” I frowned at him. “I peed on purpose.” “Baby, you didn’t pee on purpose,” Uncle’s face turned stern. “I don’t know what that man that calls himself your dad is telling you, but regardless of your bodily health, your aunt and I both saw you struggling in the car. You held it as long as you possibly could, baby. So we know you didn’t do it on purpose, understand?” I looked up at him. “But… if nothing is wrong with me, then I must be doing it on….” “Baby, stop,” he pulled me into his already damp lap from me wetting on him earlier, or rather him just holding me because my clothes were wet. “You might be healthy, and you might not have a good reason to potty your pants when a toilet is near and you know you can go, but we were in the car, and you were trying to hold it. You didn’t do it on purpose. Okay?” I looked up at his serious face, and then I reached my arms around him and hugged him. “Thank you for believing me!” I suddenly said. I wanted him to know I didn’t want to wet my pants, and it wasn’t really something I wanted, but I knew it was bad to wet, and I was used to it being called bad and on purpose when I did it no matter if I wanted it or not. I started crying because finally, someone believed me, when I didn’t want to, but I accidentally peed my pants in the daytime, and in public, where Uncle could have been ashamed and scared of what others thought about what I did, and about causing him trouble like that. He continued to hold me until it was time to take me back to the back again. He still carried me though, and I put my face on his shoulder. He was safe, and I felt better him holding me. I wasn’t as scared of the doctor while… um… Uncle Sean was holding me. I almost said the wrong thing. We settled down Uncle Sean putting me back in his lap while Sean and Shelley spoke with the doctor. “It says here, you’ve been having to watch her or she’d wet herself?” he asked them. Aunt grimaced. “Did you have to write it that way?” she asked Uncle Sean. “I mean… the doctor needs to know,” he frowned. “I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth. Has she even gone once without you asking her to go?” “I guess not.” “Well, this is not a question of her body’s needs, but rather her thinking,” the doctor said. “Yeah, we know,” Uncle Sean said. “It’s not specifically because of that that we want her tested, but because we are afraid of her holding it all the time, she might have hurt herself.” He nodded. “I can understand that, and I’m happy to perform the tests to check. I just wanted you to know, I can’t solve that one. That one’s more for a mental health professional.” “I understand,” Uncle Sean nodded. “Does it ever hurt…?” the doctor started to ask me some questions as he pulled my shirt up and pulled down my skirt and down to past my panties, he had to pull them down a little and he saw the diaper. I felt my face heat up a little bit. “That’s all I’m moving,” the doctor said. “I don’t need to see anything lower for this test.” I looked up at him. “This will give me an idea of what your insides look like. Do you want to see?” “Okay.” He gave me the plastic thing at the end of a cord that was attached to a computer thing. “I need to put a little jelly on it,” he told me. I let him, and then he put his hand over mine, and he started to move it around my lower tummy. “Go ahead, you can look around first,” he told me releasing my hand so I can move it. “Just keep it below this,” and he put his hand in my way so I couldn’t move it over my ribs area. After I had moved it around a little bit, I gave it back to him, and he stated to check around and had me breathe in and out at times. “Sweetheart, you said you peed already earlier?” he whispered to me. I nodded. “I’m sorry I wet my pants.” “Honey, I’m not expecting an apology, and it’s not about that. I can see some water still in your bladder, sweetheart. That’s not normal when someone is done peeing. Did you feel finished after you peed?” “I… I think so?” “Do you want to go right now?” “No?” I shivered scared that Aunt Shelley will think I’m lying. “Baby, don’t be scared,” the doctor told me. “I’m not asking you these things to scare you. I’m just trying to get an idea of what your body is doing.” “So, she’s not completely peeing?” Aunt Shelley asked the doctor. “I’m not fully sure on this,” he told Aunt Shelley. “Children her age wouldn’t just pee their pants on purpose, so sometimes, their body contracts once the pressure is off, and they forget that they have to go. Have you noticed if she had to go within the hour after you had successfully taken her to the toilet?” “Well, it’s hard to tell with her,” Uncle Sean spoke up as Aunt was trying to think. “She doesn’t tell us when she has to go, we have to guess, and she seems to not know for sure when she is allowed to go on her own or even to ask.” He frowned. “Well, it is possible that her body has gotten used to not fully going if she is scared to go. Has she gone in places you don’t normally find kids going?” “Well, she had an emergency out back my farm, so I told her she was allowed to go out there, but yeah, I’ve not caught her doing it other than that.” “But,” Aunt Shelley reminded Uncle. “I think she told us that she goes in the fields at home all the time.” “That is right. She and I were talking about whether there were really snakes out there, and she told me that she often goes in the field, but she’s also scared of getting caught doing so because she’s not supposed to.” “Well, if she’s going where she’s told she isn’t supposed to, then it could lead her to not finishing completely,” the doctor told us. “Can I do a blood test on her?” “Yes sir. Please, all the tests you can. We want to know how best to help our little baby cousin.” They let me out to the sort of front, that wasn’t where everyone waited, but it was a smaller waiting room where a few people were, and Aunt and Uncle sat with me, Uncle putting me back in his lap and Auntie putting my toys in my lap. “Don’t worry,” Uncle Sean whispered to me. “You are okay. We are here, so you won’t get hurt, and we know you are trying to be a good girl.” I squeezed his hand and looked up at him. “It’s okay, baby.” “Sean?” Aunt Shelley asked because he was babying me again like I was scared. “Did she just squeeze your hand?” “She did.” “Hon, that might mean she has to pee. I told her she could do that instead of saying something to encourage her to let us know.” “Oh, do you want to take her to the toilet?” “I do. Just in case it’s that and not just being scared.” He lifted me up to my feet and took my toys from me. “Go potty with Auntie,” he told me. “And when you get back, I’ll give you back your toys.” I nodded. Auntie took me to the nurse station in that area first. “Do you have a testing cup for Samantha?” she asked them. “She should have already given her sample,” the nurse said. “Well, she had had an accident earlier, and they told us she could do it later. She’s acting like she wants to go now, so if the doctor wants the sample is now or never, probably. She’s going to wet herself if you make her wait too long.” The nurse nodded and handed Aunt a cup. “Bring it right back and tell us her full name when you get back. We’ll label it then.” Then we went to the bathroom. We were back at the seat with Uncle holding me again, for only a moment, when they called me to a small room, where they made me sit by myself, and hold out my arm. Uncle sat right next to me though, and he showed me how to hold my arm. He then said, baby, look at me…. I frowned wondering why, but he smiled. “How would you like some ice cream after this?” “I’d love it,” I said feeling better. “Do you like chocolate or strawberry,” he said just as I felt a prick on my arm. “Eyes this way,” he told me as he put his hand over mine to cause me to make a fist. “I bet a Sundae would be even better than a cone, yeah?” “Yeah!” I said with a big smile. “I never had one before, I saw commercials of it on TV. It looked really good. Can I get nuts and candies and everything on it?” “Sure,” he continued to hold my fist until the nurse mumbled something and he pulled my fist apart so I was relaxed. Then, the nurse had me hold something on my arm, a little white square of bandage. “You did that on purpose,” I accused Uncle Sean. “Did what?” he asked me though he didn’t look as innocently as he thought he did. “You distracted me.” “So what if I did?” he asked me. “Were you scared?” “No…? Well, I was, but you kept talking to me. So I wasn’t.” He smiled. “That was the idea.” “So the ice cream was a trick, too?” “No, absolutely not,” he said. “That would have been mean! No, we’ll get you a sundae after we are done with the important stuff. That’s a promise, baby.” I hugged him. “The doctor wants you to go to radiology,” the nurse told us after looking at our chart. “I’m not sure, but this means he probably found something he wants to make sure of.” Uncle Sean nodded. “Makes sense.” We went to this place, where Uncle and Aunt were not allowed to go in. I reached for Uncle’s hand. I loved Auntie, but some reason, Uncle felt really safe, and I wanted him. “Can she at least take her rhino in with her?” Uncle asked the doctors. “I’m afraid not,” they told him. “I’m sorry.” He frowned, and he got down on his knees, and he hugged me. “Listen, baby, your Aunt and I will be right out here, and we are not going anywhere until you are done, okay?” I started to cry. “I know, baby,” Auntie gave me a hug. “But it’s the rules. Be brave, sweetheart. It’s not going to take that long.” I sniffled and hung my head, still really scared. I had to lay on a machine in a thin gown. It felt like everyone could see my panties and my diaper on me, but it was covered by the gown, I think. And I was told to be straight, and to keep my arms down at my sides and my legs down and spread slightly. I felt the shakes working through my body as the other people left the room leaving me alone. It was too quiet…. “Baby, relax,” I suddenly heard on a speaker where I couldn’t see it, like the kind they use at school. “I’m right here. Just relax, and put her chin down closer to your chest. That’s right, just lie that!” It had the voice of my aunt! Then I heard some whispering in the same area she was, and knew that she was being coaxed on what they wanted her to say. “Okay, baby, the machine will slide you under the tunnel part, and the sounds are going to be loud. But I want you to concentrate on my voice, okay? I’m right here, and I can see everything. You are safe, sweetie.” “Okay,” I breathed out in relief. I don’t know how long I had been there, the tunnel thing pulling me under like five or six times, I think, and the rattling and clanking sounds going on for at least a minute each time. I felt stuck in there, but at least my aunt was there, and she kept telling me directions like to breath in, wait, and then relax and to breath out. She kept calling me pet names like baby, sweetie, and little one, and over all, her voice was calming. Finally, I was allowed to get out of the machine, but I didn’t care about clothes. I ran out the door into the hall looking for my aunt or uncle first! I had hospital gown on, anyway. “Hey,” I heard Uncle kneel down and put his hands out towards me. “Don’t tell me you were scared?” “I was,” I admitted. “I wanted you to hold me.” “I’m sorry I couldn’t,” he frowned. “But I can now.” I let him pick me up. We ate lunch at the hospital, and eventually, after a long day of testing for this and that, I was finally fully dressed in my clothes, except for the stupid diaper under my panties, and we were sitting in front of a doctor. “I’ve sent some things on for further testing,” he told us. “Her urinary tract is in fairly good health, as far as I can tell, at least as far was where the organs are supposed to be, and their general shape. There is a bit of an infection I’m picking up from the preliminary tests we’ve done, and I am worried about her not fully releasing her bladder.” “She tends to hold it until she’s nearly wetting herself before she even thinks about asking to go,” Aunt Shelley told him. “I don’t know what to do about that, but I’m nearly tempted to just tell her to wet herself for awhile.” “Well, I am not sure about that,” the doctor said. “Ordinarily, I’d shoot that down right away, but with everything you’ve said about her home life, I think maybe you should take her to see a mental health specialist and bring that up to them.” “No doubt you’ve seen the bruises on her arms and her back?” Uncle Sean asked the doctor. “She doesn’t have any broken bones or anything?” “No. Honestly, that’s what caused the concern why I had X-Rays and the other tests done. It’s easy to see that someone has abused her.” “I’d understand if you called social services,” Uncle Sean said. “Actually, we did,” he admitted. “But you gave us your address, and we do not feel the child is in any danger. Honestly, if you had done these things to her, you wouldn’t have brought her in to have her checked out simply because she’s not using the toilet naturally.” He nodded. “Social Services should be coming to your place within a week though. If you cooperate, I’m sure you’ll have little disturbance to your summer plans. But there might be problems for the people that actually did this to the little girl.” “Well, what if the school is involved in this?” Uncle Sean asked. “What do you mean?” “I’m not saying her father is a saint or anything,” he quickly made sure the doctor knew he wasn’t protecting daddy. “But she had told me about the principal grabbing her arm like that, and pushing her so hard she fell out of the chair on the other side.” “Are you sure she’s not accusing the principal to protect someone else?” “I know that’s a possibility,” Uncle Sean said. “But the way she said it, and the timing it was said, and just the innocence that she didn’t even know that was wrong what the principal had done, I kind of doubt it.” He frowned. “And what school district is this?” “I am not sure of the district. It’s out of state,” Uncle frowned. The doctor looked at me. “Honey, did some one at school push you out of your chair?” “Um… no? But….” I looked up at Aunt Shelley. “Tell them the truth, baby. It’s okay. You told us, and I know the way you said it that you didn’t lie, baby.” “I was bad,” I started. “She’s always calling herself bad,” Uncle Sean frowned. “That’s something Shelley and I are trying to reteach her, that not everything she does is bad, and even if she does something, it is no excuse to hit her like we’ve seen.” He nodded. “Well, let her tell the story her way,” he told my Aunt and Uncle. “This is important that we get her own words.” “I was bad because I stole my classmate’s drink at lunch time because I was thirsty and I didn’t have a drink. I’m sorry.” “Never mind that detail,” the doctor smiled. “Just tell the rest of what happened, honey.” “I ran away from school because everyone said I peed my pants, but I didn’t. I was so mad at everyone even my sister said I did it. So I got lost in the woods, but they found me later. They grabbed me so I couldn’t run away, and it hurt kind of, but I was bad so It was my fault.” “Alright, sweetheart, but then they got you to the school, and….” “Well, I got taken into the principal’s office, and the they pushed me into the chair, but I missed and I hit the floor.” He nodded. “And this was the only time you were pushed like that?” “No….” “Alright, sweetheart. Well, I’m just going to give these notes to the people I report it to, and they’ll get more detailed. But I think Child Protective Services will definitely make sure that that principal is no longer in charge at your old school, if they can prove these things.” I looked down. “But I was the one that was bad.” He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “Regardless of your behavior, child, no one has the right to harm you. Now, we will have the result of all your tests back in about a week, so you and your family will need to come back in at around that time so learn if there is more to your problems than we have thus far discovered.” I looked down. We were in the car before I knew it, and we were again driving through the unfamiliar streets of this unknown city to me, and I had Miss Hoppity in my lap and Mr. Ivory sitting next to me. Uncle and Aunt were talking. “What do you think will happen to the other children if Social Services knocks on their door in the next few weeks?” Aunt Shelley asked Uncle Sean. “I don’t know,” Uncle Sean sighed. “But maybe we can reach out and and see if they can come and stay with us if that’s possible.” “Honey, you know our place doesn’t have enough bedrooms. I don’t think they would let us take all the children in with our small place.” Uncle Sean sighed. “Well, we had to tell the doctor about their dad, didn’t we?” “Yeah, of course. Even if we didn’t want to, the doctor had seen the bruises.” I looked down sadly. I felt a tugging at my heart, and a deep cry filled my insides. I hoped my sisters were not going to jail or something. I didn’t even want my daddy to go to jail, but I knew he sometimes was… well, I wished he was nicer sometimes

I actually erased the information you wished I hadn't shared, so that if anyone didn't read it yet, they won't have spoilers, and if you don't remember everything said in a while, then maybe it will not be as much of a spoiler... maybe.

Chapter 6: What Sean Wants To Do With Me I came back down wearing a pair of shorts and Uncle Sean had the stew on the table for me. “What are you wearing?” Uncle Sean asked. “Just a pair of shorts.” He sighed. “You don’t plan to go to the toilet until you can’t hold it anymore, do you?” I looked down. “I just want to be a big girl like my sisters.” He nodded. “Well, I already think you are a big girl like them. Whether you go to the toilet or not is not going to make you a big girl or a baby.” “It’s not?” “No. But wearing wet shorts against your privates for any length of time is going to make you very uncomfortable.” “But I don’t pee my pants in the day…,” but I had to stop. I do too, now. I just did it today, just before. I lowered my head. “I used to not to.” Uncle Sean got up and walked over and kneeling behind my hair, he whispered in my ear. “Honey, you don’t,” he told me. “You were out back there, and the toilet was too far away. It doesn’t count if you pee your pants out where the animals are, okay?” “It doesn’t?” “No. But I do have another idea, if you’d like to try it so you really don’t need to pee your pants out back there.” “I … um… what is it?” “Well, you can wear a skirt, and hopefully you are wearing regular panties and not your bedtime things?” “I am….” “Well, if you wear a skirt, then you can just pee in front of me, and you can adjust your panties so they get out of the way of the pee, and your skirt will cover you so you won’t have to be scared of being watched.” “Um….” “It’s okay,” Sean put a hand on my shoulder. “I’d really like you to do this for me.” “Why?” “Because I don’t want you holding it until I go back to the house all the time. I won’t get my chores done if I keep bringing you back, and I don’t want you holding it like that anymore. I promise, this compromise will mean you can pee when you want, and you won’t be going in your pants.” “Okay,” I sighed. “If you want me to….” “I do, sweetheart.” After lunch, Uncle took me by the hand and led me up to the bathroom. “Go ahead and try just so you start out comfortable,” he told me. “Then I’ll show you some more of the fences I want to fix.” “Okay.” He closed the door for me, and didn’t watch, but I still couldn’t get any to come out. I had already done it in my pants earlier, so with a sigh, I pulled up my skirt that Uncle insisted that I wear, and after washing my hands, I came out of the bathroom. “Just let me know when you want to go potty again,” Uncle told me. “If you let me know that’s what you want to do, and you go where I tell you I think is safe, I won’t come looking for you until you’ve had time to go, okay?” I nodded. “But I don’t really care if you watch me. Anyway, wasn’t the skirt so I can just go in front of you and you won’t have to see?” “I did say that, yeah. But still, people usually like a little privacy, and as long as it’s same to do so, I’d like to give you your privacy, sweetie.” “Okay.” We started to go out back and we peeked on Olive-Spot first thing. She was in the pasture, but Uncle pointed her out from a far. “We don’t want to disturb them while they are out there. See?” He pointed at rather large imposing black bull. “He’ll run us through if we disturb his family without reason. He can be ornery, but I keep him because I know with him around, wolves are going to think twice before trying to get in at our other animals.” “What about the dog?” I pointed at the dog that was lying close by. “Oh, that was Toby’s dog,” Uncle Sean frowned. “He’s very gentle, but since Toby died, we hadn’t really been expecting much from him, and now he’s pretty old. I just take care of it because that’s what Toby would have wanted.” “He doesn’t come into the house.” “No, he doesn’t. He hasn’t been in the house since maybe a week after Toby died. At first, he had been banished from coming in because of grief, and we didn’t really know what we were doing. We blamed the poor sweet animal, but once our senses came back to us, he hasn’t really found a desire to come into the house after that.” “Poor dog.” “Yeah. Humans can be very cruel when we are grieving a loss.” I looked sadly at the dog. “He’s very gentle. If you wanted to, I think think he’d let you pet him.” I nodded and started to slowly approached him. The dog’s tail thumped on the dirt and he lowered his head into my hand. “What do you know of the boy’s death?” I asked him. “It’s name is Ore,” Uncle Sean told me at last. “Toby asked where gold came from, and he was only four at the time, but when I told him its from a rock, an ore, I don’t think he really understood, but he liked the name Ore, so that’s been the dog’s name ever since.” “I’ve never heard you call its name.” “No. I don’t really feel that attached to Ore. It’s probably because I’m afraid that if I get too close to him…, well, I don’t know exactly. I just don’t want to get too close to him.” “But it’s okay if I do?” “Sure,” Uncle Sean said. “I don’t think Ore had anything at all to do with Toby’s accident. It was just a tragic thing that happened, and he was probably found there, because he was trying to help him.” I nodded. “So, you are sure it’s not the dog’s fault, but you still don’t really forgive him?” “No, honey, there is nothing to forgive. I don’t blame Ore at all. I just don’t have it in my heart to really love him right now, and I think Ore understands. Dogs are very smart creatures.” “It’s still sad,” I looked up at Uncle Sean as I pet the old dog. “I bet Ore could be a lot more help around the farm than I could be.” “Maybe,” Uncle Sean smiled. “But sometimes, things are really hard, honey.” “I know. And it’s like you said. I think Ore knows, and I think he’s still around because he forgives you for blaming him. He’s probably just waiting for you to accept him again.” Uncle Sean frowned and looked down. “Well, we have some fences to mend.” “Can Ore come?” “He’s a free creature. He can do what he likes.” I called him, and we all walked towards the first of many fences that Uncle wanted to fix. We came to a broken section that had several missing boards for nearly three parts of the fence. This was where he kept some goats, and I could see the goats just beyond, grazing on the grass out there. “What kind of animals are those?” I asked wondering because I had not seen a goat up close before, and the pictures of them always showed them all with horns. “Those are goats, sweetheart.” “Where are their horns?” “Horns?” he chuckled. “Well, not all goats have horns.” I frowned. “They don’t?” “No, sweetheart.” He started to measure some points on the first pole, where he’d replace one of the boards that was broken off, and then he measured points on another pole, and he smiled up at me. “We’ll be replacing the boards between these poles.” “Those don’t look dangerous,” I told Uncle Sean. “Now. I’m not going to be replacing the fence anywhere near the dangerous animals,” he told me. “Not while you are out here with me. The further you are kept from the more aggressive animals, the better.” “Okay.” “Sweetheart? How strong are you?” Uncle Sean asked me. I balled up my fist and rose my arm like you see those men that show off their muscles do, and I presented my little lump in my arm at him. It wasn’t very big at all, but it was stiff. It didn’t sag the way Popeye’s arm did before he ate his spinach. Uncle Sean felt my arm, and he gave me a serious looked. “Okay, then let’s see.” I looked up at him. “I’m going to put this board up here, and use this other one to hold it in place. I’d like you to hold the piece that holds it in place, and lean on the main fence board so I can work on the other side of the fence hammering it into place. Can you try that?” “Of course! I’m strong,” I said proudly. “Okay, but if it gets too heavy or it hurts your hands, you are to jump back and away from it so the board doesn’t hit you, understand?” I looked up at him. “I mean it, tiger. I don’t want you getting hurt. How about we practice you jumping away first?” I looked up at him. Was this for real? He held the boards together and I watched, and then I saw him jump back releasing the boards. “Can you do it just like that?” I nodded. He did it a few times with me until I laughed about it. He smiled, too. Though I knew he didn’t want me to get hurt, I couldn’t tell if he was doing this for practice, or if he was kind of playing with me, but he did make it fun to practice. “Okay,” he smiled as it seemed I had caught on. “One more thing. If you see a snake, try not to move. Most snakes are not aggressive if you don’t move. You are a little too big for most of them to be interested in eating you, and if you are quiet and don’t move, then you are not a threat to them, either.” “Okay.” “You stay perfectly still if you see one, and even if I yell at you, you stay still. I’ll come and see why you are not responding to me, and I’d rather you disobey me and not get bit than you try to come when I call you, and the snake get scared and bite you. Okay?” “Okay.” The other end of the board wasn’t that far away though. I think he could have easily seen if a snake was near me, but maybe he was just trying to teach me how not to get bit if I wasn’t near him. I wasn’t sure. He sure didn’t like me being far from him though. He was really upset earlier when I just went to find a broom to help him. I don’t know how long it took to repair those three sections, but I was kind of hot out there, though by then, we’d been outside pretty much all morning, and at least an hour into the afternoon. “Are you drinking your water?” Uncle Sean asked me. “Oh, I’m not thirsty,” I told him. I was hot, but I didn’t really think about drinking anything until he asked about it. He had given me a strange container to drink from when we came back from lunch. “It’s a water flask,” he had told me when we came out earlier. “It’s what the pioneers used when they were traveling west.” “I thought they used canteens,” I said referring to the rounded things I had seen on the westerns. “No, sweetie, those were used some later, but most people used water flasks first. Canteens were invented a lot later.” “They were?” Anyway, I pulled my flask off my hip, it was dangling there tied around a belt Uncle Sean had put on me. I thought the belt as to hold my skirt up at first, but when he put the water thing there, then I understood why it wasn’t doing anything to hold the skirt, not that the skirt needed it. It fit me just fine thought it was kind of stained from me always sitting on the ground back at home. “Go ahead, honey. Drink some,” he smiled and took a drink from his own flask. “We still have a lot of work to do, and I don’t want you getting tired or too hot out here.” “Okay.” Though I didn’t understand why he said he didn’t want me to get tired, or what water had to do with it. Section by section, we repaired the three segments of the fence that Uncle Sean wanted, and I was really helping him. I could hold up one side of the board, well, at least keep it held up and in place with the stick Uncle asked me to hold against the loose wood, and he even let me hit the fence several times with the hammer. The first time I tried to use the hammer, it was a little harder than I thought. “That’s it,” Uncle Sean encouraged me. “Now, step to the side, and swing the hammer at the nail.” I did what he said, and then it hit the wood instead, denting it some. I looked down. “Honey, try again,” he one hand on my shoulder. “Do you think I hit he nail perfectly the first time I tried?” “But you at least hit the nail?” I asked. “No, sweetheart. I didn’t. The nail is a very small surface, and it takes practice to hit it. “Now, no giving up, okay? Shelley keeps telling me how much help you are, and you can’t be much help if you give up so easily, now can you?” I frowned shaking my head. “I’m not giving up. I just didn’t want to ruin your fence.” “Baby, we are replacing this area because it was already damaged. It won’t hurt anything if we have to put a few extra nails in, alright?” “Okay.” “Now, try again. You can do it.” I missed the nail like ten or twenty times, but Uncle kept telling me to hit it until finally, I did! I hit it. I got so excited, I nearly forgot what the goal was and was jumping up and down excited that I pushed the nail in a little bit more. “Sweetheart, sweetie! Baby! Samantha!” Uncle had to call at me several times before I looked up from celebrating. “The nail isn’t all the way in, yet. Please do it again.” “Oh,” I felt my face get a little red. “It’s okay,” he chuckled. “I can’t remember one kid that didn’t get excited the first time they hit the nail right, myself included. But we can’t forget about the fence, okay?” “Yes, sir.” He rubbed my head. “Hit the nail, baby.” I took aim, and missed the nail three more times, and then hit it hard, and it sank some more. Uncle smiled at me and nodded at the board each time, and eventually, I got the nail in. “Shelley was right. You really are a great help, sweetie!” I felt myself blush again. I don’t know why they said I was help, but it felt good every time they did, and I did get the nail in all by myself, too. We left the goats, and Uncle took me to the produce growing area, where he had potatoes, watermelon, and other things growing. “I’m going to enter that one at the fair contest next month,” Uncle Sean pointed out a giant watermelon. “I’ve been working on that one for sometime, and I think it might be the biggest one yet.” “Am I going to the fair, too?” I asked. “Of course, sweetie. We’ll not be leaving you out of any of the fun this summer.” I smiled. We waded through fields with onions, cucumbers, and others things, too. Uncle showed me what he as doing as we went through the fields. I was drinking my water properly now as it got really hot, and Uncle was drinking his, too. “How are you feeling, baby?” he asked me after we had done a lot of amazing things. I could now see why Uncle spent a long time out in the field, but it made me wonder why daddy didn’t. “Great!” I said smiling up at him. He put an arm around me. “I need a moment, but I don’t want you anywhere dangerous, so can you hang out over here?” he asked me directing me a place where I could see the horses. “Yeah. I can wait here for you.” I didn’t want to be a problem for Uncle. I looked at the prized watermelon and some of the other things they were growing while Uncle took a little time to do something he didn’t want me to see. I supposed that if he wasn’t taking me back to the house, like every five minutes, then maybe he was doing the same thing he would have wanted me to do…. I didn’t really mind though. I’d pulled my pants down at our own place when I was by myself in the fields, only if daddy caught me, and he sometimes did, I’d get it for behaving like an animal instead of a little girl. “Now, we can go ahead and go start rounding up the animals,” Uncle told me. “It’s about time to start directing them back to their sleeping places so they can be safe for the night. As I told you before, there are dangerous things out there, even things that can kill the larger animals.” “Yes, sir.” He rubbed my head and then took me by the hand as we went to get the goats first. Uncle didn’t want me to go anywhere without telling him, and I kind of understood, now, that it wasn’t that he was controlling me, but because he really thought there were things out there that could hurt me. I still thought he was just being a worrier though because snakes had never bothered me before, and I was assured that our place back home had a lot of them, too. He let me touch one of the goats for a moment after we put them in their little inside space. “You’re a cute little guy,” I told the goat I touched on the head. It looked at me with its rather large round eyes. “That one is Splutterdiggs,” Uncle told me. “That’s a funny name.” “Well, I call him that because of the way he behaves, sweetie. He can be ornery at times.” We left the goats, and Uncle Sean put a hand around my shoulder as we walked out towards the cows. “It’s pretty out here,” I told Uncle as I saw the sky starting to take on a sort of an orange-like hue. “It is, sometimes, yeah,” he smiled down at me. “This is why I live out here, and have never really liked it in the city. Cities are crowded, you nearly never see the stars at night, and it’s hard to find an open enough space to even see the sky change colors in the early morning or the late evenings.” I nodded. I didn’t know what he was talking about since I had lived on a farm all my life and had known nothing but the large expansive sky overhead. Daddy never got me up early enough, really, to enjoy the early morning, and I rarely ever saw the sky change colors in the evening because I always had to be inside long before that. We came upon the cows, and Uncle Sean pointed out a place behind where the main gate swung open. “I want you behind there,” he told me. “Why?” “Sometimes, the cows can come charging out of the gate, and they aren’t going to run into the fence because it hurts them to do so, for the most part.” “Oh.” Uncle then walked into the area, and as he did so, he grabbed some rope that was hanging off a pole of the fence. I kind of wanted to pee. Uncle told me the reason for wearing a skirt was so I could pee in front of him and not have to worry about being watched, but I had panties on. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to not get my panties wet, so I kept holding it. I’d ask him after he finished getting the cows to come out of the pasture. Though Uncle had worried about them charging out of the fence, it seemed they were pretty calm at this time, and Uncle was leading one of the brown cows, closely behind it, the big strong snorting bull was in tow, and then the other cows were coming along. I saw Olive-Spot, and I came out from behind the fence and walked towards her. The big cow next to her lowered her head at me, and looked into my eyes with one of her great orbs as if daring me to touch her baby. “I’m not going to hurt her, I promise,” I crossed my heart with my fingers at the cow. “We’re just taking you home so your baby will be safe.” The cow kept staring at me, and she swished her tail, but she seemed to let me walk with them just the same. We got the cows put into their holding areas, and I hurried to Uncle’s side. “Excuse me, sir?” He bent down and pushed a stand of hair from my eyes and around my ear. “Yes, sweetheart?” “I have to pee….” He nodded. “If you want a little privacy, we can walk around to the back, and then I’ll wait around the corner for you.” “Well, you said that it’s dangerous, and you told me I’m wearing a skirt so I can just do it, but I’m not sure how to keep my panties dry if I just do it.” “Oh, well, you and turn around and pull your panties off, and hold them while you go, and spread your legs out a bit, but stand up kind of straight, and it should just go straight to the ground. You can go ahead and remove your panties in here, and I’ll turn my back until you take them off.” I looked up at him. “And it’s okay to do this?” “Sweetie, anything is better than you running off on your own. If you are uncomfortable doing this, then you can go around the corner from me, or if that’s scary, you can even just wet through your panties, it’s up to you, sweetheart.” “I don’t pee my pants, Uncle.” “I know, sweetheart. That’s why I insisted you wear a skirt, so you have some options open that still kind of keep you decent, but will let you pee without it getting all over you.” “That’s still kind of like peeing my pants, though, isn’t it?” I asked Uncle. “Honey, what do you mean? If you spread your legs and pee on the ground under your skirt, the only thing that will get wet, if you don’t remove them, is your panties.” I looked down. “I… I don’t want to pull down my panties outside.” “You don’t have to, honey.” “But then I’ll be wetting my pants?” He sighed. “Well, I’m almost done out here anyway. If you promise to go straight to the house, and don’t come back out after you are done. Just play or something in the house if Shelley isn’t back?” “But you don’t want me to go to the house by myself?” “It’s not my first choice, no,” he frowned. “We are still a little ways from it, and if you met a snake or something on the way….” I sighed and looked down. “I’ve not seen a snake at all, though.” “I know. They usually hide around very large animals, but I still worry about you.” “I… do you want me to wet my pants?” I whispered up at him trying to get a read. “No, sweetheart. I don’t want you to do anything that would scare you or make you feel bad. Wetting your pants at eight years old doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in yourself.” “So…, you are saying…?” I asked. He frowned at me. “Honey? Don’t you understand? I’m saying I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel bad about yourself.” “So…?” He sighed. “Don’t pee your pants, baby.” “I don’t know how long I can wait.” “Okay. Well, you can go behind a building and I’ll be around a corner in case you need me, you can just go under your skirt, or you can go back home.” “But you don’t want me to walk back to the house on my own.” “No, honey, I don’t want that, but if it’s the only way to not make you pee your pants, then I don’t see what choice I have. Your health and happiness come first.” “I can hold it.” “No, sweetie. That’s the one thing I do not want you to do anymore. You’re holding it too long, and as it is, I bet you’ve already been waiting, haven’t you?” I looked down. “Yes sir.” “So either way, you need to pee right now. The options are, around the corner, under your skirt or back at the house.” I squirmed for a moment. “I… I don’t want to worry you, so I’ll do it here, but….” “You don’t know if you want to do it under your skirt or around a corner?” I nodded. “How about this? Just reach inside your skirt and pull your panties off, and you can do that over there behind the hay bails, and then we can come outside, and you can pee on the ground, and then you can go back behind the hay bails to put your panties back on?” “I won’t be able to wipe.” “I know, but at least you won’t have to pee in your panties, and we can have you change your panties when we get back to the house.” “Okay.” I understood why he didn’t want me to just pee behind the hay bails, because they were still inside the building. And at least, this way, I didn’t wet my pants, so I did what he said. We eventually got all the animals inside, and were headed back to the house. Uncle Sean was holding my hand. “When we get inside, you can go up and wash yourself off in the bathroom a little bit, and then put on some clean panties. Just put the dirty ones by your other clothes. I’ll make sure Shelley knows you didn’t wet again, but I just had you change because you didn’t have anything to wipe with this time.” I nodded. “Have you never peed outside at your own farm?” he asked me. “Well, I did,” I frowned looking down. “I mean, I did all the time, actually, but I was by myself. No one knew I was doing it.” He smiled. “So, you were scared to do it because I was there, or because I knew about it?” “Both,” I admitted. “I was kind of scared of getting in trouble for it, and kind of embarrassed. I had never even done it if my sisters were close by.” “Well, as long as you have privacy, I don’t see it as being a big deal,” Uncle Sean said. “People have been going out in nature since before the idea of cities, and when people camp, unless they are at a modern fancy campsite, they still have to do it outside.” I frowned. “Daddy once caught Leah going outside, and I think we were camping, even, but he got really mad at her. She got it good for that, and then she wasn’t allowed to play even with the older sisters watching her. He watched her the whole time.” Uncle Sean frowned. “Well, I suppose you were at a modern campsite where there were people around?” I shrugged. “Probably.” “Even still,” he sighed. “I don’t think he should have spanked her. When did this happen?” “I don’t remember, I think maybe the year before last?” “So you were around six at the time?” “Yeah.” “And that would have made her around eight?” “I think so….” Uncle Sean shook his head. “Well, even if he needed to explain to her not to do that around other people, he shouldn’t have spanked her.” We went in the house, and I really felt my mouth get wide and my heart fill with delight as I saw Aunt Shelley in the kitchen working on something. “Did you have fun out back?” she asked me with a smile. “I did…,” I smiled. “Except I was bad before lunch.” Uncle Sean shook his head at Aunt Shelley. “She wasn’t bad. She just forgot the rule not to leave my sight, and it turned out she had to go potty.” “...And I peed my pants,” I finished telling on myself so I wasn’t lying to her. She said no secrets and no lying at her house. “She did have an accident,” Uncle Sean confirmed. “That’s why she’s in a skirt now and not the jeans from earlier. I figured a skirt would make it easier for her to go without being exposed if she had to do it in front of me.” Aunt Shelley smiled and walked over, and hugged me. “She’s been dry since then, though, and we did let her go like twice while we were working. The last time, she was still too nervous, and I had to direct her, but she pulled off her underpants behind a hay bail, and then peed on the ground outside before putting them back on again. She really has to be watched, or she’ll hold it until it’s impossible for her.” Aunt Shelley nodded. “I know. Poor child. I’m going to take her to clean her up.” “Sure. Anything I can do to help you stay on schedule with dinner?” “Not really. I just came in the door about a minute before you did, so it’s going to be late one way or another.” “Well, I’ll start peeling the potatoes then,” Uncle Sean said, and then Aunt Shelley took me by the hand took me to take a bath. Later in the evening, Uncle Sean had me in his arms, and I was sitting on his lap watching television, both Uncle and Aunt right there. I felt pretty happy at the moment, and I felt my eyes getting heavy. I was glad I was there, and slowly my breathing was slowing, and my eyes were getting heavy. I was safe, and even if I peed right now, Auntie would call it bed wetting, and I wouldn’t be in trouble. The darkness of my closed eyes had cleared. I looked around, in the empty school halls, but I could only see one figure, force marching from the fifth grade rooms towards the toilets. I frowned as the figure got closer to me, and then she turned right into the toilets not even recognizing me. I think it was Leah. I walked into the bathroom behind her, but I didn’t end up in the bathroom. I was in the office, and daddy was there, and he had swatted me on the thighs to sit still while the principal was telling him something. “She pushed a first grader on the playground,” my dad was told. “Now, fighting at school isn’t even tolerated, but certainly picking on younger kids is something that has to be taken seriously. She’s a bully!” I felt tears in my eyes as the principal had taken the other kids’ word at value and ignored what really happened. Daddy yanked me by the arm, and I was having to nearly run to keep up with him as he pulled me around through the halls, and then we came face to face with Leah. She was coming out of the bathroom. “Where is your class?” he demanded of her. “Um… in the classroom?” I saw Leah shaking a little bit. She knew she was in trouble. She broke the rules. I woke up and was shaking myself. I opened my eyes, and looked around into the darkness of the room, taking in all the silhouettes, and the missing extra bed. I finally realized I wasn’t at home right now, and this was nearly three months later. I was at Uncle Sean’s house, and I felt it, then. I was peeing. Sitting up, I pushed the blankets back, but the pee kept coming out, and I finished in my bedding. I sniffled. I sat there for several minutes, not sure what to make of what had happened. I remember that day, actually, from my dream. A first grader had come and kicked me and then ran away. I chased him. I was mad! He kicked me for no reason at all. He tried to get away by climbing up a slide, but in his hurry, he lost his balance or something and fell. I shivered. Because I got mad at him, I got in trouble for fighting, and I got Leah in trouble. We knew better than to leave work undone, and if we were in our classrooms, and the teachers teaching, then we had unfinished work. Daddy wouldn’t have caught her out of the classroom, if he had not been there to get me for fighting. Leah didn’t talk to me for two days because daddy got really mad and when she got home, she was spanked hard. I finished peeing, and I sighed and looked over at my door. Did I just pee on purpose in my bed? I guess I kind of did. I stood up and started to pull the blankets off my bed. Aunt Shelley had put a plastic under the sheets, so at least the bed didn’t get a huge pee stain on it, the sheets were soaked. I got the sheets off, and then I went to lay on the plastic, and before I got the top quilt to pull over me, I saw the door open, and the tall slender frame of my aunt reached out and turned on the light. “Are you okay?” she asked as she came over and pulled me off the plastic sheets that still had a puddle where I was about to settle again. I looked down. “I wet my pants.” “I told you, already, baby. At night, it’s no different than wetting the bed to me. It’s not your fault, sweetheart.” I sighed and looked up at her. “I got Leah in trouble.” “Honey, she’s way over in other state. How could you have gotten her in trouble?” I frowned and looked down. “I got in trouble at school, and then daddy caught her being bad because he had to come and sort out what I did.” “Honey, you are not at school,” Aunt Shelley reminded me. “You haven’t been at school since Saturday, sweetheart. Your school year is over.” “Oh, yeah, sorry. I meant, I was thinking about the day I got Leah in trouble. She was so mad at me, she didn’t talk to me for two days.” Aunt hugged me for a moment after getting me out of the soaked bed, and then she walked me over to the closet to get me a long shirt and another pair of my bedtime panties to sleep in. “Honey, that happened a while ago. I’m sure she’s forgotten about it. Besides, if she did something truly bad, then you had nothing to do with her getting caught, baby. She was going to get caught anyway if she did something.” “But… daddy wouldn’t have known,” I muttered looking down as she put the nightshirt on me. “But then it would be lying.” “But I wouldn’t have known, so I wouldn’t be lying. Besides, I think sometimes, lying to daddy or at least not telling daddy something can get us not in trouble. Sometimes, we get in trouble, but I don’t think other kids get in trouble for the same things.” Aunt Shelley frowned. “Well, come on, baby,” and she picked me up and carried me to their room for the second night in a row. “What’s happened?” Uncle looked up at Aunt Shelley. “She had a nightmare.” “Aw… poor baby. Put her right here,” and he reached out his arms and brought me down right next to him between Aunt Shelley and himself. “Go to sleep, sweetie. You’re safe now.” My eyes once again closed, and when the darkness lifted, I felt a little smaller somehow, and if things around me were a little bigger. I was being carried, I think, and my pants were soaking wet. Gracie was nearby, but she didn’t look the same as usual. She had longer hair, and she seemed a little lighter in build. I looked back at the car, the door still open, and I saw two wet areas where we had sat. I think I was in Gracie’s lap and we were in the middle and the middle was wet. I must have peed on Gracie. Leah’s seat area was wet nearer to us by the open door, and Jenna’s spot was the only dry one. I frowned as I looked around and realized Daddy was holding me and patting my wet bottom. Mom was holding baby Katie-Beth, and she was a baby. She couldn’t have even been a year old yet. He was yelling at Gracie, who was ten years old and at Leah. Both to them had their eyes looking down, and tears running down their faces. Both of them had peed in pants on, but I did too. Daddy wasn’t yelling at me, though. Jenna was the only one not even wet. “Daddy?” I squirmed in his arms. “I peed peed my pants. Gracie holding me.” “Baby, shush,” Daddy let me down while he got closer to Leah and Gracie. I woke up again, this time, light was coming through the window, and I saw that Aunt Shelley was still lying next to me, her eyes open, and she was rubbing my tummy. Uncle Sean was already out of the room. Then, I frowned. I felt wet. I peed again. “Are you alright?” Aunt Shelley asked me as I looked up at her wondering how I was going to tell her I peed in her bed. I sighed. I didn’t want to say I was alright because I peed in her bedding. I was sorry I got her sleeping space wet. “Sweetheart,” she whispered soothingly to me. “What is it? You didn’t have another bad dream, did you?” I gulped. Did she know everything I did? “You can talk to me,” Aunt Shelley told me. “I promise, you are safe here, baby.” She pushed and pulled me up onto her and by then, she could tell I had soaked myself again, and I started to feel myself shake with silent sobs. “What is it, sweetheart?” she asked as she rubbed my back while I lay wet and straddled over her, my legs splayed around her lower tummy. Tears came out of my eyes, and I shook and shook, and couldn’t stop. “It’s alright, baby.” She put both her arms around me, protectively, and she stared to rock me, sitting up as she did so, she adjusted me. She touched my wet butt. She had to know what I did, but she still seemed clueless about what I was upset about. And I realized, she didn’t know I was upset I peed. She kept telling me it’s okay if I wet the bed. I tried to choke the tears off so I could speak, but it was hard. The sobbing kept coming, and the words were taken away from the force that caused me to cry. “Baby…. It’s okay,” she eventually breathed evenly and soothingly into my ear. “I know it’s embarrassing and scary,” she continued. “But you just had an accident in your sleep, baby. You’re not in trouble, and you didn’t hurt anything. You are okay, baby.” She did know, at least by now, why I couldn’t stop sobbing. It was quite an emotional roller coaster, and Aunt Shelley called Shay Anne that morning. “I’m really sorry, but my cousin’s child is staying with us, and she’s really needy right now. Is your dad doing alright?” I sighed. I didn’t want Aunt Shelley to think I was too much trouble. “I… I can play with Uncle Sean with the animals again,” I tried to tell her while she was on the phone, but she put an arm around me while she spoke to this Shay that I had no idea of who it was. “I’m glad he’s feeling better,” Aunt Shelley told her. “Maybe in a day or so I’ll bring little Sammy with me, and the you can meet her. She’s a nice little girl, but she has had some trouble adjusting to the new rules around our house.” I heard silence for a bit, and then Aunt Shelley hung up the phone with a soft goodbye. “No, sweetheart, I think we need to talk today,” she told me as she directed me back to the table, and we started to eat. “Sean?” “Yeah, Shelley?” “Do you think after you’ve fed the animals, you can take us to town today?” “Oh, um… sure. Is there something you needed?” “Well, not me,” and she nodded in my direction. “We’ve been talking about it the last few nights, you know?” He smiled and looked down. “Yeah, about that…. Okay. I’ll just go check on the animals, and he quickly left the table not even finishing his breakfast. “What?” I looked up at Aunt Shelley wondering what was doing on. “Honey, you’ve been having a hard time over the last few days here, and you still won’t go to the bathroom on your own most of the time….” I frowned. “I don’t pee my pants….” “Baby, that’s why I’m worried. If you at least peed your pants sometimes, then at least we’d know your bladder was working properly.” “I don’t understand. I’m eight. I’m not supposed to….” “You are not supposed to under normal conditions,” Aunt Shelley pulled me into her lap. “But baby, there is nothing normal about your behavior at all. You need help, sweetie.” “Why? I am a big girl! I can do even better. I won’t pee the whole day. I bet I can hold it until the sun goes down.” Aunt Shelley shook her had and rubbed my back. “No, baby. Please don’t do that.” “But you want me to pee my pants!” “Honey, I don’t want that either, but the alternative being that you are always holding it way beyond what is healthy, yeah, I would prefer you being wet to you not peeing at all.” “But I’m not supposed to…,” and I started crying. Aunt Shelley sighed and rubbed my back. I buried my face in her chest and continued to crying not understanding what exactly they wanted of me. Uncle tried to make it so I wouldn’t pee my pants, but right now, Aunt Shelley acted like I should do just that. I was feeling really confused and wondered what bad things I was doing that made them act so confusing. “Baby?” Aunt Shelley rubbed my back and spoke softly. “How about this? Will you please tell us as soon as you have to go? We are going into town, and you aren’t supposed to be wet around other people are you?” I shook my head no. “Daddy says that’s being bad.” “Well, we are going to be around other people, so will you please come and squeeze my hand when you need to pee again? If you squeeze my hand, I’ll just take you to the toilet, and you don’t have to talk or say anything. Then, you are not really saying anything you are scared to say, and you are not interrupting if you just squeeze my hand, and I’ll know to get you to the bathroom before you start squirming around. Would that be okay?” I looked up at her for several minutes trying to think how my squeezing her hand might break daddy’s rules…. “You do as your mom’s cousin tells you,” he had said. “But remember the house rules, too.” I remembered them alright. I would never break a rule daddy had for any reason. Never embarrass people by saying things that are personal. Eating and going to the bathroom will be taken care of in time. There is no need to say anything about those things. “Honey, just squeeze my hand,” Aunt Shelley told me. “Then I’ll know you have to go, and you won’t start squirming around….” That kind of made sense. I wasn’t saying anything, and Aunt Shelley didn’t want me squirming around, so this kept her not getting embarrassed. It seemed to follow daddy’s rules. “Okay.” “Good girl,” she kissed my head. “Can you come upstairs so I can get you cleaned up so we can go into town?” “Okay. Thank you. Sorry, when I looked back, I didn't really know how to fix the first time I tried to describe her age, so it hasn't been fixed. In my mind, it is getting the age correct, so I think maybe I'm just not seeing something you are at the moment. I'll try again later to see what is unclear. I know sometimes, when I am writing, I think I'm reading something when actually, I'm just remembering and the words are not actually reading as they should to my eye, so I'll try to look again later on, after I have let it be forgotten what I had in my head so I can see if that clarity helps me see through the illusion my mind is using to hold me back from seeing it.

Yes, due to the way she's been treated at home, she does have some growth issues as far as her mental state. Remember, everyone thinks she is a liar and that she pees herself all the time on purpose. She had, until that first time that she couldn't hold it on the farm, always managed to hold it until class was out at school. She's confused about what big kids are supposed to do, and her dear old dad and mom are confusing her by expecting her to "behave" and stuff. She is eight though, and eventually, Uncle and Aunt are going to start worrying about her actions because she is pretty far behind developmentally from what they know kids are like. Truth be told, her other sisters are not much better off.... But we'll see some of the things that happens through flashbacks starting in the next chapter or two.