Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapters 115 Uploaded!)

[BabyJilly_S]

7 hours ago, Personalias said:

I'm choosing to be purposefully ambiguous about how Amazons and Littles began to cohabitate the same world.  Could be two species that grew on the same planet in different areas.  Could be one is an invasive species from another dimension.  Could be some mad god jumbled them all together.  It could be that Littles are an evolution of Amazons and are more fertile (though I haven't said one way or another how "fertile" Amazons are.  That tends to be a common explanation as to why Amazons have that mothering thing going on) and Amazons adopt them as a form of population control/maintaining dominance in a world that is slipping away from them.

  Could be any number of things

And I'm being purposefully ambiguous concerning all of it because that's not the focus of the story.  "Why"  or "How" Littles, Tweeners, and Amazons all occupy the same space and are at a kind of systemic culture war aren't important to me for this story.  

The important thing is that they ARE and that Clark has to face the consequence of a world he was born into (and might be reborn into)

Indeed, the needs of the story must dictate and if such detail isn't required then it isn't. For the story it is sufficient to just know this without any further extraneous detours. I just find it all fascinating.  

I like that there is a thread of consistency in the universe (that the Princess created) that is common amongst these stories, whether intentional or otherwise. The "canon" as it were that authors use and add to as they go  

[Personalias]

Just now, BabyJilly_S said:

Indeed, the needs of the story must dictate and if such detail isn't required then it isn't. For the story it is sufficient to just know this without any further extraneous detours. I just find it all fascinating.  

I like that there is a thread of consistency in the universe (that the Princess created) that is common amongst these stories, whether intentional or otherwise. The "canon" as it were that authors use and add to as they go  

Oh yeah, that was another thing.  Maybe it didn't exist until a fetishist accidentally created it using a mad scientists portal machine.

PPP created a great setting and has been super chill with others popping in as long as they don't play with her specific characters.  (I have similar feelings for my take on Limbo. I just learned what jump chain is!)

Much credit and thanks to her for it as well as many other authors whose contributions I have referenced already in this story; even as bit of a wink and throwaway line.

 

[BabyJilly_S]

I was watching a rerun and wondered if she was influenced by Futurama? 

https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Amazonian

May have planted the seed? 

[Personalias]

Just now, BabyJilly_S said:

I was watching a rerun and wondered if she was influenced by Futurama? 

https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Amazonian

May have planted the seed? 

I tend to lean away from direct fanfics, but I've often toyed with the idea of a futurama fanfic with some very maternal Amazonians.  The cast of characters are both iconic enough to have predictable reactions to and malleable enough to where I could imagine most of them getting put in diapers and playpens and just kind of rolling with it for an episode.

[Personalias]

Chapter 14: The Old Waiting Game

I sat there in Oakshire Elementary’s clinic near the front desk, completely exhausted. Tracy, Mrs. Beouf and I had spent the entire previous night cleaning my room to beyond perfection.  My room was already in very good condition.  ‘Very good’ wasn’t going to cut it.  Nothing short of perfection would be acceptable.

As soon as Janet reported the essay that little pissant wrote about me, there would be blood in the water we knew and Principal Brollish would look for any excuse that she could warp or exaggerate to her advantage.  We weren’t going to give her anything to work with.

Mrs. Brollish disinfected and scrubbed every surface until it was shining.  I organized my closet space, graded logged and sorted papers for return; even the ones that by contract didn’t need to be graded, yet.  The play space for the kids went from ‘well used but tidy’ to ‘display model’.  We found a stray Pull-Up hidden behind the cubbies.  Bullet dodged; especially since it was a boy Pull-Up.  Amazons would read into anything.  

Tracy beat us both.  She called in some favors and got a couple of Tweener custodians to come in and work over the entire floor with a carpet cleaner. I had to excuse myself to go cry. The tears were a mixture of complete fear and panic coupled up with absolute disbelief and gratitude. 

The rest of the night was coaching on what to say and what not to say. “The games you play with Forrest and the others aren’t going to cut it here.” Mrs. Beouf told me.  “Don’t give Brollish an opening.  If you go for the cheese you’re going to get your hand snapped.”  If I hadn’t been so terrified, I might have been surprised that Beouf knew what I’d been up to all these years.

I got home late that night.  Cassie had been up and we had a fight.  Even now, I can’t remember the exact wording, but it all came down to us being worried. Cassie wasn’t stupid.  She knew what that hurried text about me staying late had really meant.  She wanted to bug out and run that night.  I wanted to stay and fight it.  Not just because I was right but because I wanted to- needed to- prove the shitheads wrong.  It was stupid and I shouldn’t have wanted to do it...

We compromised. I let her ride on the back of the scooter to work the next morning and she drove back home with it.  If I didn’t contact her by dinner; she’d be gone.

There hadn’t been sleep the night before. With the cleaning, coaching, fighting and me staring down the bars of a cot, sleep wasn’t going to come.  I’d ironed and pressed my best outfit.  The slightest wrinkle might be cause for Brollish to invoke the bullshit maturity clause in my contract.

The first hour at work had been easy.  Sleepwalking.  Check in. Get the kids. Get breakfast. By hour two I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I was worried over nothing.  Maybe Janet would turn in the essay and Brollish would see that it was a stupid story fabricated by a stupid kid.

It was not quite 9:30 when Brollish walked in with a strange Amazon and asked to speak with me in private.  “Not to worry, we have a substitute,” she told me.  Brollish was all quiet smiles. I don’t know that I’d ever seen her smile. 

So it began...

“Is this going to be a while?”  I asked, already knowing the answer.

Brollish held open the door and gestured for me to follow. “I think it’s best if we spoke in private.”   

On my way out  I spotted something poking out of the stranger’s purse, something white and rectangular.  “Tracy!” I called out, hoping I didn’t sound as suspicious as I felt.  I raised my hands into the air and clapped my pointer and middle fingers to my thumb twice, like I was playing invisible castanets.  My assistant saw the signal and followed my gaze to the Amazon’s purse.  “Got it, boss!”

I started walking alongside Mrs. Brollish, walking quietly in the open campus back towards her office.  “What was that?”  she asked.  She’d tried to make it sound like she was making small talk. In reality, the interrogation was already under way.

“Crab clapping,” I said, and repeated the motion I’d made.  “We’re working on manners and offering it up as an alternative to giving a presenter loud applause.  My students don’t really have the dexterity yet for snapping their fingers.”  This of course, was a complete fabrication.  The motion I’d made was really a bastardization of the sign language motion for ‘diaper’. 

 The proper sign involved doing that motion over my beltline, like the tapes on a diaper, but Beouf and Tracy agreed that might be too obvious a warning.  The coaching was paying off.  And yes, Tracy was going to do a lesson teaching all of my small fries about crab clapping as a polite way to applaud a performer when it was time to still be quiet.

Brollish didn’t speak further until we’d gotten to her office.  She went to her desk and sat down behind it.  I went and climbed into the chair across from it.  “Some serious accusations have come to my attention, this morning, Mr. Gibson.”

“If this is a matter of contract,” I said. “I’d like Union Representation, please.”  

“Don’t you want to know what the accusations are, or who is making them?”  

I didn’t smile.  I didn’t frown.  I took a breath.  Every instinct I’d developed was both screaming at me that this was a trap and telling me that I had to find a way to wriggle out of the trap right now.  That’s not how this was going to go down.

“I understand that you’re doing your job, ma’m,” I said. “However if these accusations are serious, I think it would be best if I had appropriate representation.”

“That would be Mrs. Beouf.”

“Correct.”

“I can’t call her out of her classroom during school hours for this.”  Yet Brollish could yank me out of mine.  Typical Amazon.  So typical, we figured it was exactly what would happen.  By my own estimation Brollish, was more than twice as clever as Forrest, and not quite half as clever as me.  That’s the thing about authority; you don’t have to be clever or even particularly good at your job to win. 

I decided not to argue.  “I understand, ma’am,” I said.  “I’m willing to wait…”  It took me everything not to say ‘...if you are.’  Don’t give the monster an opening.

Brollish leaned forward.  “That might take a while.  Are you willing to be outside your classroom for that long?”  She was talking slowly.  Choosing her words carefully.  She was baiting me.  “I know how important it is for children to keep to their routines.”   Would that I were six feet taller so that I could reach across and slap her in the face just then.

“I think it would be best for all involved,” I said slowly, “in the long term, if I had Union Representation.”

“Are you sure?”

“I would like Union Representation.”

“You’ll have to wait all day.”  

“I would like Union Representation.”

“We could end this very quickly…”   

“I would like Union Representation.”

“You won’t be able to wait here.  You’ll have to wait in the clinic with an ad-...with another staff member.”

“I would like Union Representation.”

Brollish’s mask slipped for a moment.  Her face soured.  Her nose wrinkled in contempt. In her eyes I was the bratty kid whose Mommy and Daddy were super important sponsors in the Parent-Teacher Organization.  And there was nothing she could do about it.  

She hadn’t been counting on me stonewalling her.  She counted on me being clever or trying to twist her words against her, and give her an opportunity to do the same. The usual song and dance.  The best dancers knew more than one routine.  The best fighters knew when to dodge and risk tiring themselves out and when to block and let their opponents wear out.

Waiting meant more time for a case to be fabricated against me.  It also meant more chances to catch a fabrication.  Better odds in my favor.  

Still sucked though. Royally

It sucked waiting in the school’s clinic. It sucked being babysat, watched like a hawk by the school’s nurse.  It sucked being so damn tired and powerless.  It sucked having to hope that somehow, some way, my friends would save me; or at least run out the clock.  It sucked not feeling like the main character in my own life.

“You look tired, Mr. Gibson,” the nurse said.  “Why don’t you lay down?”  she gestured to a vinyl covered sick bed. Over the years I’d seen plenty of kids who’d thrown up or run a fever lay down on them in misery while parents were contacted to pick them up.  Never an adult, though. 

“No thank you,” I said.

“Are you sure?” I eyed the single diaper on the corner of her desk.  I was sure it hadn’t been there when I’d passed by the clinic this morning, and it wasn’t big enough to fit on even an Amazonian Kindergartener. 

“I’m sure.”

“Would you like something to drink?  I’ve got some milk in the fridge.”

Pants shitting poison.  “No thank you,” I said.  “I’m just waiting for the moment.”

“Do you need to go to the potty?”  So much wrong there. The only non-Amazon sized toilets were in the kindergarten classrooms, mine, and Beouf.

“I”m fine.  Thank you.”  No way was I asking for a boost up. 

Just had to stick to the plan.  No matter how hard it was.

Throughout the morning kids trickled in and out of the clinic. Nothing major, just getting usual stuff.  Diabetes checks. ADHD meds.  Routine upkeep stuff that the bureaucracy of school mandated be kept locked up and overseen in the clinic.  

These were a relief because for a few precious minutes at a time I wasn’t the center of an Amazon’s attention.  I still had to be on my toes, however.”

“Hey, Mr. Gibson.”

“Hey Tyler.”

“What are you doing here?”

I caught the eye of the nurse.  It might be considered ‘bad-form’ or ‘immature’ to tell a fifth grader that I was under investigation for something.

“Just waiting,” I said.

“Are you sick?”

I made a show of feeling my own face and forehead, like I was checking for a fever.  Nothing too animated, just token effort.  “I don’t think so.”

“Why are you in the clinic?”

“Mrs. Brollish needs to talk to me later and the nurse agreed to keep me company while I waited.”  All technically correct and nothing implying guilt on my part.

“Okay.  Have a good day.”

“You too, Tyler.”

Lather, rinse, and repeat for about half a dozen kids.

A few hours in my stomach started growling loud enough to hear.  “Would you like something to eat, Mr. Gibson?” 

“No thank you.”

“I don’t mind getting something from the cafeteria for you,” the nurse insisted.  “I’ve got a tiny box of chocolates if you’d like a snack.”

“No thank you.  I appreciate the thought, however.”  That was a lie.  Fuck the thought.

Next through the door, carrying a lunch tray was Tracy.  “Hey boss. Gossip is you were waiting for a meeting, so I brought you some lunch.”  I sat up a little straighter and felt my heart practically jump up and tickle my uvula.  I looked at the time.  It was already past lunch and Tracy was on her break.  That meant it was nap time for the kids...but if Tracy wasn’t watching the room, then...

She must have read my thoughts. “Don’t worry,” she told me.  “Beouf is watching the kids.  All of them.  We’re still working on stuff and following the lesson plan...with a few modifications.”  

I was confused.  There weren’t supposed to be modifications.  The fuck was happening?  “What about the substitute?” I asked.

“Got called away for some kind of emergency,” Tracy said. “Beouf volunteered to bring her class into our room and merge for the day.”  My Tweener friend leaned in close and added in a whisper, “Good thing, too.  She was up to something. Kept looking around the room like she was trying to find something.”

I remembered the diaper poking out of the stranger’s purse.  “Or looking to hide something so it can be found later.”  Tracy nodded, and crab clapped her fingers together.  If it weren’t for the Amazon in the room I might have been able to give her further instructions.

Speaking of which, the nurse cleared her throat.  “Shouldn’t you be on break?” 

 Tracy stood back up and left the tray on a chair beside me.  “Yes ma’am.  I was just dropping off lunch for Mr. Gibson.”

“I already offered him lunch and he refused.  Can he not make up his mind?” Typical.  By most any other metric, both Tracy and I should have at least as much if not more clout than this pill dispensing pencil pusher.  She wasn’t even a real nurse as far as I knew.  Her only real responsibilities were keeping track of meds and calling parents when their kids puked.  Legally she couldn’t even give an aspirin.  But she was an Amazon…

I raised my hand.  “Actually,” I said, “I was waiting for my assistant to bring me lunch.”

Suspicious eyes stared back at us.  She was connecting dots and we couldn’t look like we knew about this accusation ahead of time.  “Yeah,” Tracy bluffed.  “That’s our go-to.  Like whenever Mr. Gibson has an I.E.P. meeting that overlaps with his lunch.”  It was the best kind of lie:  One that was based in confirmed truth.  “Byyyyyye!”

Without waiting for Tracy to be completely out the door.  I tore into the pre-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwich and gulped down the pre-packaged milk.  They were straight from the cafeteria line, meant for Amazon students.  They were safe.
I saw the nurse staring at me from across her desk.  The sandwich was pre cut.  I offered up half to her.  “Would you like some?”

“No.  Thank you.”  Honestly, the food sucked.  It was cafeteria food meant for kids, but it was in Amazon proportions so it was filling.  It quieted my stomach and made me feel a bit more alert, at least.

Just as I finished downing the sandwich and was beginning to feel bloated from the milk, a new element entered into the equation to make me feel sick to my stomach.  “Right in here!” an all too familiar voice said.

Raine Forrest entered the room. Behind her, an Amazon man with a gut that hung out well over his belt was wheeling something in on a dolly.  It was something like a big glass tube that was almost as big as a Tweener and framed with steel.  Near the top end was a latch and a panel with different knobs. The inside of the glass had wired bulbs, like heat lamps at a fast food joint all up and down it.   All told, it looked like something of a cross between a bug zapper, a tanning bed, and a cheap air conditioner.

“Right here,”  Raine Forrest said. “Right by the socket.”

The guy with the dolly slid the monstrosity off and grabbed a clipboard from off the top.  “Sign here, please.”

“Gladly.”  I watched as the school receptionist signed for it, and handed the clipboard back.  The big man tipped his hat, and turned around, leaving with his dolly.

The nurse asked my question for me.  “What in the world is that?”

“It’s an instant body hair remover,” she said.  “For people who need a Little help keeping clean.” I felt my lunch threaten to come back up.  Even when she wasn’t looking directly at me, I felt Raine’s mental gaze.  She was sizing me up.  Window shopping.  Ready to get herself a new doll.

The nurse got up from her desk and walked up to it.  “I’ve never seen one like that, before.” Neither had I.

“It’s old,” Forrest explained.  “This one came from the high school.  Used for Littles who proved they were too immature to graduate.  Haven’t had any in a while, so they weren’t using this.”

“Lots of mature Littles?” the nurse asked.

Forrest laughed at that.  “Goodness, no.  They’re just not enrolling over there.  You know how it is.”  We all did.  “Mrs. Brollish requisitioned it this morning.  Just in case.”  My entire body felt a sting of shock at that last comment.  The room was filling up with elephants fast and no one was talking about them.  I felt like the weight of those elephants might crush my skull then and there.

“How does it work?” the so-called medical expert asked. 

Raine looked back to me sitting quietly. “It’s easy,” she said. “I can talk you through it.”  Of course Raine Forrest knew how it worked.  She likely researched it and recommended it to Brollish.  

On the side of the contraption was a panel that Raine opened up.  It was hollow on the inside except for a pair of black goggles, a silvery bathing cap and a plastic jar filled with white salve  “You just strip down the Little darling,” she said, “and put the cap and goggles on to protect them.”

“Which first?”

Raine smiled; a witch explaining her spell. “Cap first. Then Goggles.  This latch on the back makes it so they can’t take it off.”  She flipped open the top of the tube.  “Then you just plug it in, feed them through the top, close the lid and press this button.”  She pointed to a big red circle.  “Voila. All adult hair...everything not under the cap or protected by the goggles goes bye bye.”

The nurse grabbed the jar and started looking for a label.  “What’s this?  Petroleum Jelly?  I know how to take a Little’s temperature.”   They weren’t barely pretending this wasn’t meant for me.  Typical.

“That’s for after,” Raine said.  “This is an old model, so the process stings a little bit. This stuff soothes the skin.  Helps them get to sleep, too.” 

“Sleep?”

“Yeah.  The process takes a lot out of them, poor Little things.”  Another glance at me. “Don’t worry.  The tube is sound proof.”  Raine walked over to me and bent over to make eye contact.  “Hello, Clark.  It’s very nice to see you.  I’m super glad you came to school today.”

I said nothing.

She stood back up and picked the lone diaper up off the desk. She held it out from her, like she was farsighted and couldn’t quite make out the multi colored monkeys on the landing zone.  I knew what she really was doing.  She was sizing me up, putting angling it so that from her view it was between my legs.  A tiger sizing up its wounded goat. Damn it all, I prayed she was wrong.

“See you later, Clark.”

She walked out, leaving me alone with the lesser of two Amazons.  I sat there in the chair, silently trying to figure out where I went wrong with my life.  The nurse finally let me be and pretended to do work on her computer; likely looking up extra instructions on how to use the giant bug zapper torture device I was to be put in.

Typical.

The final bell rang.  The students loaded up on the buses and the buses pulled out for the weekend. I didn’t move.  The clicking of heels signaled Mrs. Brollish’s approach. I looked up as she entered and stared into the wrinkled hag’s face.  

“Mr. Gibson,” she said.  “If you’ll follow me, please.”  I hopped off the chair and followed along behind her back to her office.  No words were spoken.  Brollish looked quietly pissed.  That was a plus.  But if Beouf or some other Union representative wasn’t present - no...just Beouf...only Beouf..

If Beouf wasn’t present, the only words out of my mouth would be ‘Union Representation’.

There were three chairs, pulled up in front of the Principal’s desk.  The center one was obviously for me. There was a step stool and everything this time.  Sitting in the chair to my right was Mrs. Beouf. To the left, face red and snot dripping from his nose with Janet looming over him was Jeremy; former student and current accuser.   No one looked happy.

So this was the trial…

“Mr. Gibson,” Brollish started.  “Thank you for being so patient.  Are you aware of why I asked you out of your classroom today?”

I said nothing.  I just looked over to Beouf and she nodded.  “I don’t think you told me, ma’am.”

“One of your former students,” she gestured to sullen looking Jeremy, “wrote an essay accusing you of…” she paused. In a sane world; in a fair world, they could have just said I was accused of wearing diapers and laughed it out of the room.  I reminded myself that the world wasn’t fair every morning I woke up for a reason.

“Symptoms of an acute and chronic maturosis flare up,” Beouf said, filling in the silence with more clinical sounding pseudoscience bullshit.

“Yes, that,” Mrs. Brollish agreed. “May I read it to you?”  Beouf nodded to me.  I nodded back to Brollish.  She read the whole damn thing word for word and I did my best to keep a blank face, I had to act as though I didn’t know what she was going to say and was seriously considering the accusations leveled against me. But I couldn’t act as though it had any other effect on me or I might seem guilty.  “Is any of this true?” she said when she’d finished reading.

I chewed on the sides of my tongue.  Had to choose my next words like each one was a footstep in a minefield.  The trap hadn’t snapped yet but I hadn’t gotten the cheese, either.  “I’ve never worn diapers during my time here at Oakshire Elementary.”  Such a stupid way to phrase it, but anything more absolute would be nitpicked and used to try and justify shoving me in a bug zapper.

“Why would he write that?”

Beouf held her hand out to shut me up before I responded.  “That’s not important,” she said.  

Janet spoke up.  “We did a special lesson today, Mr. Gibson,” she said.  “It was about the difference between fiction and lying”  She was talking to me, but looking directly at Mrs. Brollish.  “About how fiction doesn’t hurt people because it admits that the story isn’t true up front.”

“Yes ma’am…”  Jeremy muttered, even though he wasn’t being addressed.  He looked at me and his face hardened.  Who knew such hate could come off an eight year old.

“I had my class do a special writing prompt to see if they absorbed the lesson.  The prompt was to talk about a time when you or someone else you knew lied and what happened because of it.”  Janet looked towards me.  “May I read some of them to you, Mr. Gibson?”

I dared to hope. “Yes…?”

Janet reached over Jeremy’s head and took a handful of papers from Mrs. Brollish.  Brollish looked absolutely disgusted with herself as she released the evidence.

“Lies are when you say things that aren’t true to either hurt people or to help only yourself,” Janet read.  “My friend Jeremy was telling me at lunch last week about how he made up a story that Mr. Gibson wore diapers and acted like a Little baby at school.  That is a lie though and it could hurt Mr. Gibson and if another adult heard it and believed it Mr. Gibson could get in trouble and end up in the baby Little class with the Little babies and that is not where Mr. Gibson should be.  Mr. Gibson is a good teacher and should be teaching the pre-k kids.”  

Janet finished and looked at me.  “Needs some help on sentence length, but I think it communicates the idea.  That one was by Hyacinth.  Another former student of yours.”

She shuffled the papers and read another one.  “This one is by Mason,” she said.  “Fiction is a fun story that teaches a good lesson, like The Wizard of Auz.  It teaches you to make friends and go on adventures but that there is no place like home.   A lie is like a story, but it teaches a bad lesson and pretends to be real.  Like when Jeremy Merriwhether wrote in an essay that Mr. Gibson wore diapers.  He was telling us about it on the playground yesterday. If people believe the lie, they’ll think Mr. Gibson is just a baby.  Jeremy will believe he can say anything he wants about people he doesn’t like and it doesn’t have to be true.  Neither of those are good lessons.”

Janet riffled through a few more papers “And this one-”  

“I think we get the point,”  Mrs. Brollish said.  She adjusted her glasses and looked straight at me.  “It was Mrs. Grange-”

“It’s Ms. Grange, actually,”  Janet interrupted. 

Brollish looked even more annoyed.  “It was Ms. Grange who brought the original essay to my attention first thing this morning.”  I still don’t know how Brollish did it, but she emitted a silent growl; something I could sense instead of hear.  I could almost see the little flaps on her neck vibrating.  “It was also Ms. Grange that conveniently discovered this pattern among many of her students’ essays today.”

Janet jumped in.  “Due to the serious nature of the allegations, Jeremy, Mrs. Brollish, and I have been talking and we discovered a lot of inconsistencies with his story.”  Jeremy sank a little lower in his chair.  “A lot of things that just weren’t adding up.  Like why neither he, nor his parents, nor any other student or their parents have ever reported such brazen babyish behavior from you and why he waited so long to tell anyone.”

Thank you!  Thank you Janet!  Someone was finally talking sense in this room!  I wanted to hug her right then.

The Principal stood up and walked over the eight year old Amazon.  “Jeremy.  Your parents are waiting for you up front.”  The kid stood up.  “But first,” she said.  “I think you owe Ms. Grange an apology for lying and putting her in an awkward position.” Yeah, that tracked.  Even acquitting me, Brollish was gonna throw shade.

Head bowed, Jeremy muttered out the barest of apology.  “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Look at me,” Grange commanded.  She was using her teacher voice, that tone that only the truest asskickers; rarely recorded and impossible to put into words.  Jeremy lifted his head.  “You owe Mr. Gibson an apology, too.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”  It was Beouf who spoke up.  “Because of your story, Mr. Gibson had to wait in the clinic all day and Mrs. Brollish had to pay for a sub.”  I caught the twinkle in Mrs. Beouf’s eye.

The kid pivoted and gave more of the same half-assed apology.  “I’m sorry Mr. Gibson. I’m sorry Mrs. Brollish.”

Mrs. Brollish reached out and took his hand. “Come along, Jeremy.  Your parents are waiting for you out front.”

“Do I have to hold your hand?” the little asshole whined.

“After what you did, be glad that’s all you have to do.”  Mrs. Brollish said, sternly.  “Your parents may decide that you have to visit the clinic for a few days.”  The look of dread in Jeremy’s eyes was palpable and sweet.  I hoped his parents wouldn’t give him that most ironic and Amazonian of punishments...but I wasn’t going to shed any tears if they did

The Principal turned around and addressed us.  “Ladies and sir,” she said. “I’ll be right back.  Please wait for me and we’ll finish this right up.”

Beouf, Janet, myself. The three of us all smiled and flashed thumbs up at each other.  I was.  Almost done.  Almost free.  We were grinning like idiots up until the moment the office door reopened and Mrs. Brollish took her seat.

“Just a few more things and we can put this behind us.”  It was back to business.  “Mrs. Beouf, thank you for stepping up like you did.”

“Happy to do my part,” Mrs. Beouf said. She looked at me and explained.  “The substitute that was hired to watch your room switched to watching Ms. Grange’s class after she read the essays and brought Jeremy here.  Mrs. Zoge and I merged our class with yours and gave Tracy a hand.” 

I wanted to laugh.  I wanted to cackle with drunken glee.  Not only had Janet rounded up witnesses to my defense, she’d gotten the mole out of my classroom in one masterstroke.

“Yes. About that,” Brollish narrowed her eyes towards Beouf.  “Why was that?  Why did you empty your class into his room instead of the other way around?   Mr. Gibson doesn’t have any developmentally appropriate supplies for your students.  No baby toys.  No diapers. No bottles.”

Another trap. An attempt to get my friend to implicate me where Brollish had failed.  “I felt it would be best if Mr. Gibson’s students remained in a familiar educational environment to minimize disruption in their routine.  No reason to uproot them further.”   (Translation: “There was no way we were leaving Clark’s room unguarded so you could plant something.)  “It was easy enough for them to bring their bottles and a few toys.” (Translation: “Suck hosewater you old bat.”)

“Did you clean up after your students?”

“Of course,” Beouf confirmed.  “Mrs. Zoge and her daughter got the last of it packed up before it was time to take the kids to the buses.”

“So there are no baby toys left in Mr. Gibson’s?”  Uh oh.  I didn’t like where this was going.

“Correct.”

Brollish leaned back in her seat. “What about hygiene?  Changes?  None of your students are potty trained.  Did you bring their diapers over to Mr. Gibson’s room?”  Oh crap….

Beouf shook her head nonchalantly.  “No ma’am.  My classroom isn’t far from Mr. Gibson’s.  Mrs. Zoge or myself just took turns walking our Little darlings back to our room if they needed a change.”  The hell was Beouf doing?  Plausible deniability much? ! 

“So what you’re telling me,” Brollish said, “as Mr. Gibson’s local Union Representative, is that there are no developmentally inappropriate toys, bottles, or diapers from your room in his?”

No.

“Yes.”

“And that if I went in and inspected his classroom, if I found something, it couldn’t possibly be from your classroom.”

No. No.

“Correct.”

“And therefore, logically, anything remotely immature would have to belong to Mr. Gibson…”

Please Beouf.  Please Melony Beouf.  Please develop telepathy right now!  This is a trap! If you’re my friend, if you’re REALLY my friend, don’t walk me into it! No! No! No!

“I would have to agree.”

Brollish didn’t smile.  She didn’t laugh.  But something changed in her posture.  Something quiet, but dangerous.  If the woman had mastered a soundless growl like I thought she had, she’d made an artform out of a subsonic laughter.  She didn’t laugh.  She didn’t smile.  But she did stand up.

“Then out of due diligence,” Mrs. Brollish said. “To completely clear Mr. Gibson of these obviously false allegations, allow me to inspect his classroom.”

Beouf stood up, too.  “Yes ma’am,” I said.  I had no choice.

On the way out walking to my classroom, Janet shot me a look.  ‘What the hell?’ it said.  All I could do is shrug.  Beouf was walking side by side with Brollish.  A dark part of me wondered if this was part of some elaborate triple cross. I immediately even felt guilty about that, but feeling guilty was better than feeling afraid.

Brollish took out her set of master keys and opened the door to my classroom for me.  I went inside first.  “Well…” I said.  My throat felt extremely scratchy and my one word came out as barely a whisper.  

“This shouldn’t take long, Mr. Gibson.”  Brollish said.  “I’ll only be a moment and then we can put this whole thing behind us.”  Like everything she did, her tone was calm. Cold. Calculated.  There was more going on here.

I felt Janet’s hand squeeze mine back and only then did it register that I was holding her hand to begin with.  I looked up just as Beouf kneeled down so she could put her hand on my shoulder.   

The Principal went over to the supply cabinets, cabinets that were so high up I couldn’t possibly reach them without assistance.  It’s where I had Tracy store arts and crafts supplies, and even she needed a chair to reach them.  Even if what Amazons believed about Littles were true, it wouldn’t have made sense for me to hide any baby stuff in something so hard for me to reach.  An Amazon, however; a tall stranger with a purse looking for things to plant…

I tried to step back.  Time to bolt.  Beouf shifted her hand down my back and blocked my path.  She pressed a finger to her lips and quietly shushed me.

“Everything seems to be in order here,” Brollish said, shutting the cabinets.  “Tracy does a very good job organizing the cabinets for you.”

I stayed silent.  Nothing to confirm or deny. No falling into last minute word traps. Next, Brollish went over to my student’s cubbies, looking carefully into each one, moving aside blankets as if she expected to find something.  

Because she did expect to find something…

Someone had planted something for her to find and told her where to look.  

She’d gone straight from the tall cabinets to my kids’ cubbies and they weren’t anywhere near each other.

Lastly, she went over to my desk. My teacher’s desk.  My big thick desk that was too big for me and could have doubled as a small tree-house. She slid open the top drawer and looked inside.  All I kept in there were staples and paperclips.

That’s all she found, too.

Quietly, Mrs. Brollish walked back up to us.  “Everything seems to be in order.  Mrs. Beouf. Ms. Grange.  Mr. Gibson.  Have a good weekend.”  

And she was gone.

I let go of Janet’s hand and looked at my old colleague resentfully.  “Mrs. Beouf?!  What just happened?”

“Seriously,” Janet echoed my tone.  “What the hell?”

Beouf stood up and walked towards the back of my classroom; back towards hers.  “Come on.  Let me show ya.”  Her grin was the very definition of ‘shit-eating’.

As the three of us crossed the short divide between my room and Beoufs, I heard voices singing. “Chō, chō ha ni tomaru.”  Was that Mrs. Zoge? “Happa ni akitara sakura to asobu.”  And who was singing with her?  “Sakura no hana no ue de.”  Ivy?  “Teishi shite saisei shite saisei shite teishi”

Amazon mother and adopted daughter waited for us; the two of them giggling happily as Ivy bounced on her mommy’s knee; playing some kind of hand game.  It would have been sweet if it was an actual mother and child. Mrs. Zoge saw us come in and gently slid Ivy off of her.

“Mommy…” Ivy whined a bit. 

Zoge looked down at her Little doll. “Grown-ups are talking, my love.”  She handed her a rattle.  “Play with this.”  Ivy looked at me and waved a bit before going to shake the rattle.  “I assume things went well and that we missed nothing,” Zoge said.

“Looks like we got ‘em all,” Beouf said.

“Beouf, I’m not following you,”  Janet said.  

I pointed to Grange.  “Same.”

It was Zoge who replied.  “The substitute,” she said.  “I’ve never seen her here before.” She spoke slowly and quietly.  When others chose their words carefully it sounded forced or sneaky.  Now that Zoge was doing it, there was an almost musical quality to her voice.  Maybe it was the Yamatoan accent.  

“Me neither,” I agreed.  “Subs come and go, but she wasn’t what I’d call one of the regulars.”

“New substitutes,” Zoge said, “they get lost. They find things and put them back in the wrong places because they do not know any better.” Her face was straight and plain, a mask of tranquility.  Beouf was already starting to crack up and covering her mouth with the palm of her hand.  

Ah. So that’s what happened.  “And what did this new substitute misplace?”  I didn’t put any extra emphasis for sarcasm.  There was no need here.  Not now.  I’d won.  We’d won.  Me and my friends.  Old and new.

The foreign Amazon bent over and picked up an empty bottle. “She put a bottle of my daughter’s apple juice in the tall cabinet.”

Ivy looked up from her rattle.  “It was yummy!”

“Also, she misplaced my daughter’s new rattle and put it in one of your students’ cubbies.  All the way in the back behind their blankets.  Very odd.”  Ivy gave it another shake and giggled.  I wasn’t entirely certain that she was giggling at the rattle, now.

Now Janet got it and started laughing. Beouf was having to hold herself up by leaning against her desk.  I remembered what was sticking out of the intruder’s purse.  “And her diaper?” I asked.

“Most peculiar,” Zoge said.  “She put it inside your desk.  Such an unusual place to put a diaper.” 

 Ivy lifted up the hem of her dress and gave the front of her diaper a pat.  “It’s a big one, Mommy!”  It’s true.  It fit but it was big on her.  The tapes on either side of the diaper almost touched in the middle.   Ivy and I were both Littles but I was thicker in the middle than her.  If Ivy had been any slimmer the two tapes might have overlapped one another.

Zoge bent over and picked Ivy up.  “A mistake on my part.  I accidentally bought her a size too large.  My Ivy is not yet big enough for these, but it would be a waste and I did not wish for them to go to waste.”   She patted Ivy’s padded backside.  “A little wet,” she said.  “But I think we’ll wait till we get home to change.  Just in case.”

(End of Part 1)
 

[Sarah Penguin]

[Panther Cub]

GAH! That one was a real nail-biter!

[Moon3ye]

The last chapters and especially this chapter were better than any thriller. Dude falter it all had panic, tension, conspiracy. I still have goosebumps.

[Personalias]

6 hours ago, Sarah Penguin said:

5 hours ago, Panther Cub said:

GAH! That one was a real nail-biter!

Thank you!  I'm glad that you were able to relate to Clark enough to feel his suspense.

3 hours ago, Moon3ye said:

The last chapters and especially this chapter were better than any thriller. Dude falter it all had panic, tension, conspiracy. I still have goosebumps.

I'm glad I managed to pull some stuff off and weave things from previous chapters together for an an intense end to the arc (but not the story).

Thank you.  I'm taking this as a type of Christmas present.

[YourFNF]

17 hours ago, Personalias said:

got home late that night.  Cassie had been up and we had a fight.  Even now, I can’t remember the exact wording, but it all came down to us being worried. Cassie wasn’t stupid.  She knew what that hurried text about me staying late had really meant.  She wanted to bug out and run that night.

Honestly I agree with the wife. I would want to stick together if we got caught but yeah... ?

17 hours ago, Personalias said:

Mr. Gibson,” she said.  “If you’ll follow me, please.”  I hopped off the chair and followed along behind her back to her office.  No words were spoken.  Brollish looked quietly pissed.  That was a plus.  But if Beouf or some other Union representative wasn’t present - no...just Beouf...only Beouf..

You do an amazing job conveying emotion by the way. I can practically feel my gut sinking and my hands getting a little tremor ??

[Personalias]

17 hours ago, YourFNF said:

Honestly I agree with the wife. I would want to stick together if we got caught but yeah... ?

You do an amazing job conveying emotion by the way. I can practically feel my gut sinking and my hands getting a little tremor ??

Thank you so much!  It's something I've been working on.  As much as I like what some people refer to as "squirmy stuff", a goal of mine in this was to have Clark be believable and somewhat relatable as a result.  

[bobindiapers]

This story is such a roller coaster of emotions, I love it!

[Personalias]

On 12/26/2020 at 8:08 PM, bobindiapers said:

This story is such a roller coaster of emotions, I love it!

Thanks!  I feel like I've done my job when I have people paying for the whole seat but only using the edge.

[BabyJilly_S]

That was tense  They are being much more devious than in other stories. The laws that govern I guess mean that the Amazons cant be as overt in their manipulations and we end up with CSI levels of forensic examination with moves and counter moves.

Was interesting that if he didn't come home after school the next day his wife was going to bale out.....I am wondering how him falling foul of the laws could affect her.

Help from his Amazon friends was welcome, I wonder if they had got caught helping what their punishment or ramifications would have been too....

Good stuff again. Thanks.

[little dragoniusrex]

i read this chapter for the third time and I can't help but smiling about the turn of events. i am so glad at least they managed to safe the day. But now I am wondering if his wife has already left there house to run away because I didn't read anything about mr gibson being able to phone his wife that thing might be going good for him. so i expect there might be a future issue to.

[Samriis]

Awww... I was really hoping to see another chapter this week... oh well, just raises the anticipation for the next one <Grin>

[Personalias]

PART 2:  The New Horizon

Chapter 15: Be It Ever So Humble...

Cassie and I were in the back of a strange car, strapped into booster seats that barely fit us.  We were close to an hour outside of town.  None of my Amazon co-workers, not Beouf, not Janet, not Zoge, knew where we were.  None of our neighbors knew where we were, either (not that they’d care).  We couldn’t even reach each other, couldn’t hold hands.  Our seats were on opposite sides of the car.

Every now and then, we’d steal glances at each other while the driver rambled on and on about what a fun time we were going to have. The rest of the time, I’d look out the window, dreading what was to come for myself if not for Cassie.  

Cassie just looked at her phone and texted her friends.  “Be there soon,” she said.

This wasn’t every sane Little’s worst nightmare: We weren’t captured.  Neither of us were diapered or gagged with special pacifiers.  The booster seats were Tweener sized and were the only way we could manage to get the seatbelts on properly.  The belt buckles had been modified so that even a Little could press down and unlatch themselves. The only dread I was feeling was having to stay with my in-laws for a few days.  Welcome to the start of our Spring Break.

The aforementioned driver was Tracy, of course.  After ‘the bus incident’, both Cassie and I were a little gun shy about traveling among strangers; doubly so after the close shave in my classroom.  But we couldn’t make the trip all the way on my scooter- not with our suitcases- and Little sized luggage stood out and could be tampered with.  So, I asked Tracy for a favor and offered to pay her for the gas money.  Tracy refused the gas money.

Tracy sat on an elevated seat so she could see all of the road in front of her.  Pedal extenders made it so she could work the gas and brakes.  Even with the Tweener mods, I’d be lucky to see past the hood.  Little sized cars weren’t permitted for sale outside of Little-centric countries.  
Cars sized specifically for Tweeners didn’t exist.  They had to make do with modified versions of whatever was available.  At least it was common enough where no one thought it strange for a Tweener to be driving.  I’d been independently commuting for years and I still turned heads on my scooter.

I had been riding high all of the last week.  With my co-workers at my back, and Brollish with no choice but to clear me of the charges, I was practically bulletproof.  I felt invincible.  Janet did me the solid of making copies of those nice essays my former students wrote.  Even Cassie grinned when I framed them and hung them on the wall next to her paintings.  She had her accomplishments.  Now I had proof of mine.

Now after going through hell and having a solid week that was completely free of excess paranoia, I was getting a real vacation.  

“What are you guys going to do?” Tracy asked.

“Not worry about giants who want to burp me.”

“Aaaaaaahaaaaahaaaaahaaaaa!”  Tracy was slapping the steering wheel as her laughter drowned out the radio.

Cassie put down her phone and scoffed.  “Clark!”  Cassie wasn’t mad.  Not really.  I’d definitely said the quiet part loud; the parts that big folk aren’t supposed to hear.  It’s not even that quiet, if I’m being honest.  It’s just that your typical Amazon doesn’t listen.

“What?” I said, doing my best to sound innocent.  “It’s true!  We’re definitely not going for the view.”  Connecting with other Littles wasn’t about the location, it was about the company.  Littles communities were places where we could let our guard down just a little bit.  Where we were headed, no one towered over us.  Furniture was made, (not adapted) to fit us, and there was absolutely no risk of coming across someone in a diaper who wasn’t older than three.

For an entire week, Cassie and I were treating ourselves to feeling how Amazons must feel every day of their lives:  In control. At ease.  Normal.  

Cassie was still giving me side-eye, tinged by good humor though it was.  “Sorry, Cassie,” I said.  In all honesty, I was not sorry.  Not even a little.

“It’s true, though,”  Tracy said.  “Amazons are bonkers!  Most of them are jerks, too!  I’m pretty sure I’m tolerated because Amazons just like to boss people around.  Clark treats me way better than any Amazon ever did.”

“Well, yeah.  You’re a good person,” I said.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

“That and I’m still big enough to kick your ass.” I caught glimpse at Tracy in her review mirror.  She was sticking her tongue out at me.

“That and you're still big enough to kick my ass,” I repeated, rolling my eyes.  “That helps, too.”

Cassie crossed her arms.  “If you two dislike working with Amazons so much, why do you do it?”

Tracy and I closed our mouths.  Her eyes went back to the road.  Mine went over to Cassie.  She was back to looking at her phone.  So many different ways to take this.  I wanted to yell at Cassie and argue and tear her down a little bit.

It was easy to criticize working with crazed giants when they never had to see your face.  Honestly, I could have probably gotten by on some kind of online teaching gig.  As long as there wasn’t anything in the background to give perspective, I could have posed as an Amazon teacher via webcam.  
But then I wouldn’t have made the friendships and relationships that I had.  Then I wouldn’t be working with kids as much as I was talking to a camera and giving lectures.  I wouldn’t have essays framed on my wall about what a good teacher I’d been to those third graders back when they were my preschoolers. 

I wouldn’t have learned to befriend the Melony Beoufs and Janet Granges of the world; nor would I be able to differentiate between the Zoges, the Forrests, and the Brollishes.  There’d be a lot more Jeremies than Hyacinths and Masons at Oakshire Elementary.  Jeremies grew up into Forrests and Brollishes.

Time for a change of subject.  “What are you gonna do this week, Tracy?”

Just looking at the back of her head, I saw Tracy wiggle.  In the mirror her poofball bangs were  starting to wag like a poodle’s tail. “Me and hubby are paintballing!” 

Cassie looked up from her phone. “Paintball?”  She sounded genuinely perplexed.

“Yeah! It’s great!  I get to shoot people and nobody gets hurt!”

The phone was now in Cassie’s lap, screen side down. “I thought something like paintball would be more of an Amazon game.”

Tracy looked at Cassie in the mirror.  “No, ma’am. I mean, like, Amazons play, but it’s like...like…” Tracy stopped talking to make a turn.  “It’s like...like..it’s perfect.”

“Perfect how?”

“My legs are longer so I can run faster than a Little, no offense…”

“None taken.”

“But I’m still small enough to be able to crouch down and hide in the trees and the tall grass.  I can both run and hide!”

“The guns?” Cassie asked.

“Amazon strength doesn’t matter when the gun is doing the shooting.  What matters is hand eye coordination, reaction time, and using the surrounding terrain to your advantage.”

“I wouldn’t mind shooting an Amazon…”

Tracy ignored Cassie’s comment and couldn’t stop herself.  “Everywhere else, I’m either too big for one thing or too small for another thing.  At paintball I’m just right.  I’m an M.V.P.”
“The world feels like it was made for you,” I said.

“Yeah.  Pretty much.”

I looked back over at Cassie.  “See?  Tracy gets it.  That’s what we’re going for.  Not paintballing, but that feeling.”

“I getcha, boss.”  We giggled.  I still loved it when she called me boss.

“Aren’t you worried?” Cassie asked.  “You could be out there in the woods or whatever, and if you get scraped or bruised, some random Amazon will decide that you’re too fragile…?”

“Not really,” Tracy said.  “Derek’s an Amazon.”

I cocked an eyebrow so that Tracy could see it in her mirror. “Derek?”

“My husband…?”  Oh right!  The husband she was joking with Janet about...the one that she barely ever talked about at work.  I could feel the surprise on my face. Obviously, Tracy saw it.   “Yeah.  He’s an Amazon.  Can’t help who ya love.”

Cassie laughed.  Actually laughed.  “Nope.  Really can’t.”  In the backseat of the car we exchanged middle finger salutes and blew a quick kiss to one another.  You know you love someone when you can flick them off as a way of flirting.

“We’ve got a plan worked out,” Tracy told us.  “If some Amazon decides I’m too immature or whatever, he’ll pretend to adopt me and then we’ll get out of town and act like it never happened.  He’s a mechanic, he can work anywhere.  Also he’s great at modding my paintball rifles.”

Huh.  Solid contingency plan.  

The last fifteen minutes of the car ride was spent on increasingly twisting and empty streets with a few “shortcuts” off the paved roads.  Tracy spent most of those fifteen minutes of the car ride explaining the nuances, positions, and common strategies in paintball.  Apparently, in the competitive paintball circuit (yes there is such a thing she told us) there’s a formation called ‘Master Blaster’ where an Amazon puts a Tweener or a Little on their shoulders and runs like hell while the person on top shoots in all directions from their living perch.  Not tactically sound, but it’s a hell of a show when it works.

Tracy pulled over at the entrance and left the engine running.  Cassie and I got out of our booster seats and Tracy helped get our suitcases out of the trunk.  “This is the place?”

I looked at the old worn sign that read ‘Misty Brook’.  “Yup.  This is us.”

My coworker looked doubtful.  “You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay then,” Tracy said.  “Pick you guys up in a week?”

“Please and thank you.”  I reached for my wallet and started to open it.  “You sure you don’t want some gas money?”

 “Naw, we’re good.  You’d do the same for me if you could. See you in a week.”  And as her car pulled out, the tallest person within at least a mile was out of sight, leaving me and Cassie at the front entrance of Misty Brook.

As a kind of institution, Misty Brook followed a few universal constants. For example, the surrounding meteorological situation was anything but misty, and it was nowhere near any natural body of water.  But it’s an unwritten rule of trailer parks: Their names always have to include some vaguely peaceful sounding adjective and a body of water; kind of like the way that all retirement homes always seem to be named after something bright and cheery and then a kind of tree.

Misty Brook sounded much better than Hot Parking Lot. (And Sunny Oaks sounds like such a nicer place to send grandma and grandpa than Dimly Lit Concrete Building.)

Another rule that Misty Brook followed was that it always seemed kind of dirty, even when it wasn’t, and anyone outside of their trailer somehow seemed their worst possible selves.  The outside of everyone’s homes were all clean, any garbage was bagged up and canned. That just made every scratched paint on a window shutter, and every spot of rust or scratch in the paintwork stand out all the more.  A single piece of litter wafted by on a hot breeze like a tumbleweed and it made everything in twenty yards of its path seem a bit more unclean.

If the people outside their homes had had lawns or garages, they would have been playing, or lounging or just working outside.  Instead, they were up to mischief, or loafing around.  

Another rule of Trailer Parks is that anyone living in them is fiercely proud of whatever they’ve managed to scrape together and anyone not living there finds themselves having arrogant, judgemental, and classist thoughts interrupt their inner monologue; even if they grew up in places just like this one.

Misty Brook was a Little’s Trailer Park, however, and that meant there were extra certainties.  Any vehicles big enough to move the trailers were illegally tinted, so that Amazons couldn’t tell who was driving.  A Little standing on the driver’s seat while their partner worked the pedals was still illegal, if necessary.  Rent was always paid on time for fear of adoption and everyone knew if you were leaving and when to expect you to be back.  Lastly, anytime someone taller than six feet was nearby, everyone old enough to know better slowly and inconspicuously found a reason to go inside.

I looked at the Littles reading books on their front stoops, politely not noticing our ride.  I nodded the grimaces from old timers listening to their radios who’d seen Tracy.  I appreciated the school kids playing hopscotch who were too involved to notice.  No one was going back inside, thank goodness. Scooters and sidecars were still in plain view.

I looked at Cassie.  “That could have been worse,” I remarked.

“Yeah,” Cassie said.  “Because my dad spread the word.”

“Would you rather your folks risk driving the car to the bus station and back like last time?” I  elbowed her, playfully.  THAT visit was close to a year ago, and I’d yet to let Cassie the paranoid live that one down.

Cassie pulled me for a side-hug and nuzzled me.  “I know. I know.  You’re right.”  She kissed me on the cheek.  “This time.”

“Dear diary,” I joked. “I was right today.  Reset the counter.”

Cassie squeezed me a little tighter. “It’s only because it was Tracy,” she whispered.  “If any of your Amazon co-workers had come here, we’d be banished and this place would be deserted by tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Not happening.  I’m not that stupid.”

“But you are stupid,” she teased.

“Dear diary.  At least I broke even today.  Maybe next time.”

Misty Brook and the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses were the closest thing towns like Oakshire had to a Little Town.  Large metropolitan cities inevitably develop their own Little Towns.  When in large enough groups and with a little bit of luck (or Amazonian negligence)  Littles have always been able to pool together enough resources and ingenuity to live together in communities that end up resembling the few cloistered Littles nations in relative comfort and safety.

Amazons tend to avoid these areas, either due to general physical discomfort (everything is too small for them), or cognitive dissonance, (babies don’t go grocery shopping or play baseball).  The more extremist Amazon activists and politicians (the Raine Forrests of the world) demand that Little Towns be forcibly disbanded ‘for socialization purposes’.  It’s hard for one of the giants to snatch up a single Little when there are over a hundred more surrounding them, and Little security guards with tasers who have been authorized to escort the offending Amazon off the premises.

Funnily enough, it’s probably the Brollish’s of the world that keep Little Towns working.  They’re crazy.  They look down on us.  But they understand practical and keep to the letter of laws if not the spirit.  Money is money for landlords. Votes are votes for politicians.  Amazons don’t have much to worry about when it comes to pissing off other Amazons.

All they have to do is sit back and collect rent checks or rack up votes, and stay away from the property they own and the people they represent.  Easiest job in the world, really. Anything resembling a massive raid on these neighborhoods would ruin their narrative of fairness.  Forced adoptions are easier to justify when they’re presented as a case by case basis.  The Beoufs of the world wouldn’t be able to justify that an entire neighborhood of Littles suddenly had their “maturosis” flare up and express itself all at once.  

My parents got to retire to a Little Town. I’m happy for them.

Misty Brook was no Little Town.  Just the closest thing around to one.  Trailer parks, warehouses, and a handful of struggling niche businesses did not a private community make.  Old rumors like an Amazon landlord deciding his newest tenant was too cute not to adopt, and her boyfriend was better suited for petticoats were the ghost stories Little teenagers told each one another to stay awake at night.  Places like Misty Brook would be abandoned lots at the first sign of real trouble.

“I don’t think anyone’s coming out to meet us.” Cassie started walking away, rolling her suitcase behind her.  “Let’s go.”

I trudged along behind her, pulling my suitcase and waving at anyone making eye contact. “Good morning.”  

“Mornin’.”  

“Good morning.”

“Howdy.”

“Good morning.”

“Mmmhmmm…”

As we stood in front of the double wide, I closed my eyes and breathed deep. Damn it was good to be back.  Now please, I prayed, give me the strength to deal with my father-in-law.
 

[YourFNF]

This is really fascinating in terms of the world building involved.

[Personalias]

Just now, YourFNF said:

This is really fascinating in terms of the world building involved.

Thanks.  What did you like most?

[YourFNF]

54 minutes ago, Personalias said:

Thanks.  What did you like most?

Just like seeing how the independent Little population manages to survive on a more macro social level

[Sarah Penguin]

[BabyJilly_S]

Very cool chapter indeed. More insight into Amazon Little life. Of course now you have written it it's logical that there could be the possibility of enclaves hidden away where safety, refuge and little sized toilets await. I wonder how secret these are?

Maybe a sympathetic Amazon with land letting a self sufficient band of settlers stay. Or maybe someone got rich and bought some land.     

However my pessimistic side has visions of amazon SWAT teams bearing down followed by hordes of baby buggy wielding Amazon women....  I  hope they have escape tunnels, very small escape tunnels....

[Personalias]

2 hours ago, BabyJilly_S said:

Very cool chapter indeed. More insight into Amazon Little life. Of course now you have written it it's logical that there could be the possibility of enclaves hidden away where safety, refuge and little sized toilets await. I wonder how secret these are?

Maybe a sympathetic Amazon with land letting a self sufficient band of settlers stay. Or maybe someone got rich and bought some land.     

However my pessimistic side has visions of amazon SWAT teams bearing down followed by hordes of baby buggy wielding Amazon women....  I  hope they have escape tunnels, very small escape tunnels....

Good possibilities

[Personalias]

Chapter 16: Meet the Brauns

Cassie had barely knocked on the door to her family’s double wide. Her knuckles rapped on air the third time around.  The door flung open. “Cassie!”

“Dad!”

Herbert Braun flung the door open and gave Cassie a bear hug.  Making exaggerated grunting and growling noises as he pretended to crush her.  Cassie did her part by pretending to suffocate. “Oh god! Dad! You’re killing me!  Can’t breathe! Can’t breeeeathe.” 

 It was their thing.

 My father-in-law looked exactly like his daughter:  Except for the mustache, extra couple hundred pounds, the gut, relatively huge arms, and deep voice, that is.   Hair.  They had the same light brown hair color is what I’m saying.  The man was nearly thirty years my senior and I had more white in my hair than him.

“Clark!” he said once he’d released Cassie.  “How ya doin’, carrot top?”  

“Bert,” I smiled softly; politely.  “Good to see you.” Bert’s hand gave mine a squeeze so hard  I had no choice but to squeeze back as hard as I could just to try to meet the pressure.  That’s something that I took for granted working besides Tweeners and Amazons: In Oakshire most people thought me fragile; kid gloves and gentle touch time.  In Misty Brook I was average; everything was fair game.  My father-in-law?  Bert was a Little- way too short to be a Tweener- but he was so thick and strong that all suspected he had a few drops of Amazon somewhere way, way, back in his family tree.

We all stepped into the trailer so we could be bombarded with another round of welcomes; this time from Mrs. Braun.  “Welcome home, Cassie.”

“Hi Mom,” Cassie said. “Thanks for having us.”

“Of course hon,”  her mom hugged her and moved onto me.  “Clark. It’s good to see you.”  She wrapped her arms around me.  Cassie’s father was tall for a Little; her mom was shorter than average.  Cassie split the difference.

I hugged her back.  “You too, Irene.”  When we were dating, Cassie and I looked through some of her old family photos.  I legitimately thought the hottie in the picture was Cassie with her hair dyed blonde and that the infant in her lap was some random cousin.  Turns out that was one of Cassie’s first baby pictures.

“Let’s talk about what we’re doing together this week,” Cassie’s dad started.  “Got a lot planned.  I was thinking about doing some donuts out in Chester’s Field.” He looked at me.  “I’ll even let Clark work the pedals.”

Because nothing says ‘family bonding’ like your father-in-law shouting ‘Gas it!’ and ‘BRAAAAAAKE!’ for close to an hour.  “Why do I have to work the pedals?”

“It’s my truck, Clark.”

Cassie’s mom shot a warning look. “Bert.”

“Fine,” Bert grunted  “We can split it fifty-fifty.” The corners of his mouth raised a little.  “But I get to go first.”  Herbert Braun was from a generation of Little Men that expressed their affection by being jerks to each other and it irritated the hell out of me.  Yes, me and Cassie did some of the same things.  Not twenty minutes before we’d been raising our middle fingers to each other while blowing kisses.  But if you can’t see why that kind of thing might create a different reaction coming from my wife as opposed to my father-in-law, there’s not a lot I can do for you.

Cassie gestured to her suitcase. “Mind if we go upstairs and unpack before we make any plans?”  Yes, my in-laws lived in a trailer.  Have I mentioned that Bert was more than a little bit of a handyman?  An Amazon sized double wide is still decent with the right modifications.  Things like ‘stories’ and ‘floors’ are also fairly arbitrary units of measurement when you think about them. 

The only thing Bert had never quite perfected was wiring.  The top floor, containing the original ceiling, was bright as anything.  The Amazon manufacturer had wanted a mobile home for less affluent Amazons to feel warm and inviting.  The bottom of the trailer was lit by Little sized lamps and modified windows to let in sunlight, but there were always pockets of shadows here and there.  It made the bottom floor cozy and rustic seeming during the day and kind of depressing at night.  

The bathroom was downstairs, too.  My father in law could only do so much with plumbing without attracting unwanted attention.

Conversely, the top floor was almost airport levels of brightness, with the lights meant to shine far further than they were permitted.  But every electric cord or cable had to be snaked through a drilled in hole down to the bottom floor so that it could be connected through an extension or surge protector.

The beautiful part was that everything else was completely sized to us.  I didn’t need a step stool to brush my teeth in the mirror, or go to the bathroom.   Climbing into bed didn’t involve literal climbing.  When I sat in a chair my feet touched the floor.  And glory upon glories, there was the off chance that I might bump the top of my head on something.  It was very livable by Little standards.  It was also a major fire hazard.  One spark and all of that lovingly made custom wood furniture could go up in flames.  Such is Little life.

“Get comfortable,” Cassie’s mom said. “Then we’ll talk about plans.”  

Two sets of footsteps came down the stairs. “Cassie!  Clark!”

“MICHELLE!”  Cassie let go of her suitcase and for the briefest moment she was a twelve-year old as she ran up, screamed and hugged her younger sister.  Michelle screamed and hugged right back.  That was their thing, apparently.  Michelle’s husband, Bruce came down the stairs carrying their eighteen month old with him. 

We exchanged nods.  We’d seen this all before.  “Sup, Clark?”  He sat the toddler down.

“Hey, Bruce.”  We shook hands and pulled each other in for a half-hug.  

Bruce patted his kid on the head.  “Hey, Olliver,” he said.  “Do you remember Uncle Clark?”  

“Cwark!” My nephew didn’t hug me as much as he gave my thigh a very friendly headbutt.  “Unca Cwark!”

I picked Olliver up.  “Whoah!” I said. “You’re getting big, dude!  You were just starting to crawl the last time I saw you.”  My nephew giggled and nuzzled my forehead.  

“You wanna talk big?!” Cassie said.  She pulled out of Michelle’s hug.  “What about THIS whopper?”

Holy shit!  Going by waist size alone, Michelle was damn near a Tweener.  “When did this happen?”  I put down my nephew so that I wouldn’t drop him.

“About seven months ago,” Bruce joked.  “Ollie’s gonna be a big brother.  Did we forget to tell you that?”  

“Congrats guys!” I said before giving my sister-in-law a hug.  “I don’t remember you being this...THIS...when you were pregnant with Ollie.”

“That’s how pregnancies are.”  Irene stepped forward.  “That’s how they were with me, anyways.  First one sneaks up on you.  Second one, I ballooned up right away.  That’s how it was for me, anyhow.”

Bert joined his wife. Cassie and I were encircled, surrounded.  “Speaking of which,” he said.  “When are you two gonna let ‘er rip?”

“Dad!”  Both Cassie and her sister said.  Michelle added in by slapping her dad on the bicep.

“What?” Bert said.  “I want as many grandkids as I can get.”

“Bert.” 

“And with that Amazon sized house of yours, you could use something to do with the space.”

“Bert…”

“If you’d let me come by for a few weeks I could make an entire second floor for you two.”

My mother-in-law pivoted in front of her husband.  Bert froze and shut his mouth; eyes darting off to the side. As scared as I was of Amazons, Irene Braun made a good case for short women being absolutely terrifying.

“Clark and I are going to go unpack,” Cassie said.  She picked up her suitcase and moved towards the stairs.  I picked up my suitcase and followed up into the overbright light.

Cassie’s room was just like it was back in college.  Memory boards filled with pictures on the wall next to some of her early paintings. Up against a wall sat a well loved drawing desk filled with old paints, pencils and brushes, an old portfolio book of her old projects laying on top; remnants from high school and college before her business went digital.  Next to the empty dresser on the far wall was a shelf with old nick nacks that were too precious to throw away; childhood awards, a doll or two that had been reclassified as display models, and a dusty high school yearbook.   

A single pristinely made bed stuck out from the rightmost wall, and an air mattress lovingly made laid next to it for me. Amazons weren’t the only ones who never fully accepted kids growing up.  

My wife threw her suitcase on her bed and started unpacking it.  “Sorry about my dad.”

“It’s cool.”  I threw my case next to hers and followed suit.  “I’m used to it.”

“Michelle having another kid is going to make things awkward this week,” Cassie groaned.  “I’m not ready to have kids, yet.”  She opened a drawer and started transferring clothes.  “Michelle isn’t either.  Living day to day is hard enough.  Add looking after another person, and it’s impossible.  I don’t know how she and Bruce are gonna manage two.”

I did my best to bite my tongue….and failed.  “If it’s from a survival perspective, I’ve never heard of a pregnant Little getting snatched and mind fucked, before.  You’d be safe for a couple of months.”

“And then in double danger after.”  Cassie slammed.  “Growing up, do you know how many of my friends only had one parent because the other one got snatched?”

“No…”

Cassie stopped unpacking and tore into me head on. “Do you think being a mother helped that Little girl in the restaurant a couple weeks ago?  How do you think her kids feel knowing that their mom is sleeping in a crib every night and calling some stranger ‘Daddy’?  Do you want to put that pressure on our kids?  With your job?”

“What about my job?”

“If we had a kid, how would you explain to them that their father works right next to captured mind-fucked Littles and isn’t allowed to do anything about it?” She got in front of me. She looked very much like a brown haired version of her mother in that moment.  “What would you do if I got caught?  How would you explain to our kid that you saw his Mom at school everyday getting her ass wiped and put down for naps?”

“I thought you’d want me to run and bug out if you ever got caught,” I said.  This was a mistake.  I’d opened up the wrong can of worms.

“Okay, then run away,” Cassie said.  “If I got caught today, you’d be on your own. It would suck, but you could get by.  Now add a kid.  Does that make things easier or harder?”

I held up my hands in defeat.  “Okay, okay! I see what you mean.”

Cassie broke her stare and finished unpacking.  “Honestly, I don’t understand why any Little has a kid.”  She sounded sad, now.

“Cassie…” I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder.

“In a weird way,” she said, “I kind of wish every Little in the world would get snatched and mindfucked.  That way there’d be no more Littles for those monsters to snatch.”

I stepped up and wrapped my arms around her.  Held her tightly against me.  “Don’t talk like that, hon.”

“Sometimes, I think the only reason they let us grow up is so that we can make more dolls for them.  They’re breeding us.”

“That’s not fair…”  I whispered.

“Life’s not fair, Clark.”

I held her.  We were quiet as I heard Cassie crying a little bit.  It’s times like this when I realized how much of a toll my job -fuck that- our very existence took on Cassie.  Some days it felt like we had two choices in life:  Live a life of dignified secrecy and squalor, or lose everything we’d ever been or could be.  

Even our big fancy Amazon sized house wasn’t much comfort when either of us got in these moods.  We’d lived there for years, but how much longer would it be before some jealous Amazon decided that they wanted the house for themselves and concocted some kind of excuse? All Amazons were crazy... but some of them were just mean.

We couldn’t win, we couldn’t break even, and we couldn’t get out of the game.  I found myself thinking just then, that if we moved back into the trailer park, we’d at least be a smidge safer.  More Littles to snatch in one place meant a greater chance for any one of us getting away.  Cassie could still work from home, and I could at least manage part time working as an online tutor.  Quitting the job would be difficult.  It’d be akin to admitting I couldn’t handle it, and if worded wrong that might trigger even Beouf’s hyped up maternal instincts.

Damn.  And this was supposed to be a vacation.  The thing about letting your guard down is that’s when your body and brain decide it’s a good time to process all the pain you’ve been ignoring.

Taking a chance, I pivoted the conversation.  “If your dad is so worried about you getting pregnant,” I teased, “we could tell him about how we plan on starting a family right away.  Like tonight.”

“Ewww! Clark!”

“I’ve got condoms,” I said.  “This time will just be for practice!”

That got a begrudging giggle from her.  “Clark, no.”

“What?!” I kept teasing. “It’s not like this is the first time we’ve have had sex in this room. Remember college?”

She nuzzled me.  “My dad doesn’t know that.”

“You’re right...we should tell him.  No more lies!” 

Cassie elbowed me in the ribs.  Gently, but I lost my breath.  Worth it.  Totally worth it. “We are not telling him of how we’re having sex up here.”

“But we are having sex up here?” 

“After dinner.”
 

[Sarah Penguin]