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Chapter One: Megan’s Disgrace I had brown hair that hung down just past my shoulders, green eyes that when they watered, they would melt people’s hearts, and I had a few little pickle-cute spots, as my mom called them, the freckles that appeared just around my nose and went out just a bit on to my cheeks. I was normally a very talkative and active child, and now, at twelve years old, I had so many friends, that it was hard to give them all attention all the time. I don’t even remember how I became popular. But it was November already, and we were all sitting in class, the dreaded Language Arts that was taught by Mr. Hate, himself, Mr. Hastings. “Pop quiz!” he suddenly told us after we were settled into his third hour class. “And I hope you all did your reading for last night. With the recent lack of homework completion in this class, I decided that what you all needed to motivate you, is pop quizzes sprung on you until the end of the semester!” Of course, we all groaned at his decided punishment. Just the same, with the same heavy sigh that all my peers had given, I numbered a clean sheet a paper to twenty five like he had requested, and waited for the first question. Honestly, this was one of the worst, meaning least understanding and spiteful teachers of seventh grade. No one liked him that I knew. “Number one…,” Mr. Hastings was starting to tell us through his walrus thick mustache covered mouth the questions for our twenty-five question pop quiz. I shook my head as I heard the question, and sighed. Yeah, I had not read the assignment that last night. I mean, all the teachers had homework for us, and it felt never-ending. Reading, we could normally just fake because we ended up reading it again in class, especially in Language Arts, and there were real homework assignments to complete, that had attached questions or papers to hand in. I sighed as he was eventually on telling us the question for number three. I was starting to think that this pop quiz might take the whole period. That was not going to be any fun at all. No silent reading time that we could pass notes to each other during or even writing summary questions so we could doodle or zone out as we pretended to write. Okay, I did hate Language Arts, not only because the teacher was a harassing hawk-eyed tyrant, but because I really didn’t enjoy anything to do with reading or with math these days. Simple addition wasn’t so bad, and simple picture books, when I was in elementary school was okay. But since starting middle school last year, everything had been stepped up by the power of ten! I am not by any means a tall person. I think I am on the short side at my school, though there are definitely some much shorter girls around. I looked over to my right, and Stephanie was one example of one of the girls that was shorter than me, with silky raven black hair, brown eyes, and light brown skin. She was one of the nicer girls, maybe a little too nice for her own good. “Eyes on your own paper,” Mr. Hastings called out his usual warning when eyes started to wonder, so I looked back at my paper as we approached number seven on the pop-quiz. I sighed and shook my head. Why did he always assume we were looking at others’ papers just because we grew bored of looking a piece of paper in front of us? I tried to put that thought out of my head as the quiz went on. The hands overhead on the wall was ticking rather slowly, and the questions and time he gave us to answer them was even slower at getting added to the paper. Looking at what answers I had already written to check any work was not worth it to me. You see, I had trouble when it came to seeing too many things on a paper at a time. One trick I had developed in like the fourth or fifth grade, was that I was taught to slip a wide piece of paper over most of the words on a page, so I could focus only on what mattered at the moment, but during our pop quiz, I wasn’t allowed to have my paper helper out, so I had to just try to keep the top part covered with my arm as I wrote. I felt a little tension in my stomach, but I numbered the paper for the next question, number ten. I wanted the pop quiz to be over with, and the clock up on the wall mocked me, it’s hands probably a few minutes behind the questions now, so that maybe the pop quiz was not going to take the whole hour. The tightening in my stomach grew a little more troublesome and I felt an embarrassing tension in my groin, but knew not to raise my hand. This was the worst teacher of all to ask, and even many of the other teachers told us that we needed to learn to control ourselves and to use wise judgment in taking care of ourselves. So I looked back down at the twelfth blank number, waiting to hear the question so I could try to scribble something there. Yes, I called it scribbling, not writing, the same things I always heard when I eaves dropped on anyone that mentioned how I wrote something whether they be teachers, my own mother, or even my friends, sometimes. I definitely had neither good penmanship nor sensible spelling. It was a wonder anyone even understood my writing, but somehow, many of my teachers could guess it enough to help me. I felt a stronger tug at my groin as I started to answer the fourteenth question. The clock on the wall was getting even slower than ever, and I knew that the pop quiz was not even going to take half of the lesson. I wished time would speed up though. I kind of wanted to use the toilet, but after what happened last year in a less tyrant’s class, I was kind of scared to raise my hand and draw attention, not to mention, there was no way he’d say yes while we were in the middle of a test. I started to wonder why I suddenly had to go so much. I mean, yeah, I did skip going to the bathroom between the last two periods, and I often did go then, but I didn’t feel like I had to do anything so I just went to class. Besides, I hated the school bathrooms, so only really went in them when I felt like I really needed to. There were the dingy walls, the dirty toilets, the smell that always made me want to gag, some questionable people in them that I wasn’t sure if they were smoking or doing something else, and of course, there were the occasional bumps into Angela and Barbara. We had never gotten on since probably about the fifth grade, when they found out about my reading problems. I felt my side with my left hand as I started to respond to question fifteen. The clock was slower still, now seeming like we may even have half an hour left of class by the time the quiz was over, maybe even more, at this rate. I sighed and holding my side, proceeded to try to scribble down the answer. I was a bit surprised at the questions that the teacher was asking though. He warned us when we sat down that he hoped we read last night’s assignment, but the questions he was giving us had more to do with what we’d already gone over in class in the last week. I was glad he was orally telling the questions instead of making us read them. I knew from the way the others looked at him, sighed, and groaned, that they hated it when the questions were oral, and so he probably thought this made them harder. He was a tyrant like that, but with him trying to be a tyrant, he was actually accidentally helping people like me. My side felt like it was tightening a little. My groin felt like it was pulling and pushing at the same time. My stomach hurt a little, but I gritted my teeth trying to get through question number seventeen. Only three questions left, and another thirty minutes of class. “Please, don’t do this to me. Please,” I whispered to myself, scared I was going to wet my pants before class was over. I had not done that, since well, I don’t want to remember the last time it happened. It certainly wasn’t in late elementary school, or last year, or this year…. I really had to use the wash room, and I was getting kind of nervous. My legs were starting to bounce and my knees to touch as I squeezed with just my muscles at the moment. I felt my face get a little heated, but I knew that raising my hand to ask was only asking for humiliation. This was a tyrant teacher, and I remember last year, there was a boy in science class, who raised his hand. He was made to sit there and pee himself in front of everyone, the teacher seeming as if she had no idea though he had told her, and had squirmed for over twenty minutes before I saw the spilling pee out of his chair hitting the floor. I’d have died if that were me. Actually, I think he did die, at least, as far as being aware of things when he was around. He didn’t respond to anyone when they said hi to him after that. He always had his head down, and he had to avoid Angela and Barbara and the boy versions of them even more so than anyone else in the school. There was no place he could live his shame down, and I was scared to even be seen near him, afraid someone would call him my boyfriend or something. It’s not easy to be twelve years old, not for anyone, but for someone that was loser enough to get caught pissing their pants, it was a lot worse! Finally, the last question was asked, and I started to fill in the question when I felt my eyes startle and grow two sizes in my head. I felt my muscles tighten harder, and I felt a very light spray that immediately stopped, dampening my underwear. I looked up at the clock, and we still had twenty five minutes to go. How did I get in this mess? I was scared to raise my hand. I couldn’t get caught peeing my pants under any circumstance, and I just knew this tyrant would say “no,” and that would certainly draw everyone’s attention on me. There was no way they wouldn’t know I couldn’t wait if something leaked out if they were watching me. I started banging my knees together as the teacher went to the front after collecting the papers, and then he told us to open our books. By now, he knew not to ask me to read. He had asked me to read in front of the class about a month ago, and after only a few slow starts at mixing up words, not pronouncing words right, and stumbling over everything, he had decided it was best not to pick me for the last month. I probably should have been in a special class, but for one reason or another, no one bothered to care how I read. At that time, I just thought I was stupid when it came to reading and complex math, so I kept as quiet as I could about that shame, only telling my best friends. The clock on the wall seemed to hesitate between each tick, and I could hear it mocking me as each slow tick seemed to echo in my head. It was like the clock face had a sudden mouth, and it was sticking its tongue out, and I could feel it inside me, acting like a little brother, taunting me. “You’re gonna pee your pa...a...ants,” I could just somewhat see and hear the sing songy face of he clock trying to make me lose my self respect, what little I had. I mean, I already couldn’t read right, and I couldn’t keep my numbers straight. Wasn’t that enough shame for a twelve year old without making me piss myself, too? I squeezed really tight as I felt a strong sudden wave trying to seize my body, and the sounds of other readers seemed to fade a bit as I concentrated harder and harder on my muscle. I was NOT going to let even a little more out, no matter how it bothered me, and it sort of gave me a dull ache. I didn’t care. There was no way I’d do that-- willingly. The clock on the wall continued to grin at me as the minute hand vibrated with a click eight minutes until time to get out of class. People had been reading along, and I had not heard the last several people even, let alone, had the concentration to move my wide strip of paper to follow along! I was shaking. I hoped against hope. It was only eight minutes! “Megan!” the teacher sounded a little irritated. “Huh?” I asked a little confused at first why he would be addressing me. “Do you even know where we are?” he asked his voice sounding lower rather an more excited, but I somehow knew that if I said no, I’d be in trouble. I glanced around the room to try to count the number of readers, and then I tried to count the paragraphs. He never called on me in more than a month. Why did he have to decide to do so now? I found a paragraph that might have made sense, and it was fast enough, he didn’t say anything at first, as I started to try to stumble over the first couple of words. “We’ve already read that,” he sounded annoyed. “Sorry,” and I tried the paragraph under that. “You need to see me after class,” he frowned at me making me feel scared, embarrassed, and my pee was still worrying me, and the clock was still laughing at me. I shook in my seat, but he ignored me and went on to the next person after me. The time continued to tick slowly, and before the bell, I felt a little bit of drizzle before I suddenly realized it, and pulled myself out of my worries about what he was going to do to me long enough to get control. Shaking, I put my hand under my desk. No one seemed to notice. I felt the front of my jeans, but I didn’t feel anything by the zipper. No one noticed yet. I lifted a little and slipped my hand under my bottom, wincing, scared of what I’d feel. My legs were white-tight pressed together, my knees nearly hurting from rubbing the ball round bones against one another, and my hand pushed at the fabric under my butt. It was a bit damp, but it wasn’t all over. Maybe no one noticed. Fully aware that another leak would definitely get me noticed, I pulled my hand out from under me, and carefully kept looking at my book, as I wiped my smelly hand on the side of my pants to get the dampness off of it. I started to smell myself instantly. I knew I had leaked, and now, I was starting to worry that I smelled bad enough that everyone else knew it, too. I scooted in my seat, my knees doing tiny bounces off of each other for fear of moving too wide and letting the flood out. The clock mockingly bounced its minute hand, not obviously, but just enough, that through the echo the sound made in my head, I knew it was just making fun of me. My knees rubbed through my jeans, pressing and hurting. My privates pulsed and ached at me to release the water inside. The teacher was staring at the reader. An echoing voice that I didn’t hear the words of was making sounds from trying to read, but I can’t understand the words. A bead of sweat gathered at my brow. My face felt warmer, and then cool, and then warmer again. I could feel myself breathing, and I could almost hear the nervousness of the air escaping my mouth. I hoped, as I looked around, that no one else could tell how scared I was, and how close I was to peeing in my pants!