A novel by Danny
Chapter 1
So, you’ve come back for more, have you? Well
that’s good because I have more to tell about myself. For those of you that
don’t know who I am, my name is Alvin Holloway. Several months ago I used to
live in a beautiful
Gee-whiz, how do I tell you about my new
friends? I guess there is no other option then to come right out and tell
you... I’ve become friends with six
Stacks is a freshman girl at my school but
that isn’t her real name, it’s just a nickname she picked up from playing
hockey which she is really good at. Her real name is Hillary Thennings but so
far I’ve only ever heard her being called that by her parents, everyone else
just calls her Stacks. Her step dad, Mr. Rawnwe, runs a famous French
restaurant here in
Stacks’ has a younger step-sister named
Bertha and let me tell you that... well, how does someone go about describing a
girl like Bertha? She’s a unique piece of work in her own right. Though Bertha
says she isn’t into Goth, she sure dresses and acts like she is. She’s also
very anti-bathing, anti-deodorant and anything else that might make her more
palatable to the rest of the world. I found out recently that Bertha is a year
older than I am, but she is in the same grade due to being held back in fifth
grade. Lots of people consider Bertha a bully and the leader of the worst
bullies in our school but there is so much more to her than that. Bertha,
though cruel at times, has a tender and emotional side that only her closest
friends get a glimpse of every so often. She’s also madly in love with Larry.
There was a time earlier this year where Larry and I ended up competing for the
right to call Bertha our girlfriend, which is really weird because I didn’t
then nor do I now have any of those sorts of lovey-dovey feelings toward
Bertha. Actually, that idea is rather nauseating for me.
I guess you could say that Larry, who is also
my age is like the second in command of our schools bully gang; although, until
recently he’s not been doing a whole lot of bullying. You see, a while back he
and I got into a fight. We both got banged up but he came out on the loosing
end with a badly broken leg. He was in a cast for the better part of the year
and has had two operations. He’s got a metal plate and screws in his leg now
and about a month ago he finally got rid of his wheelchair and was allowed to
use crutches full time. When he was in the chair he seemed a lot more humble,
or maybe the word should be pathetic, but now that he is up and about, he’s back
to his normal evil self. Then again, he wouldn’t be Larry if he stayed a nice
guy the rest of his life. It was shortly after our fight that I learned that
Larry wears diapers too however he’s not a member of ILD.com. Larry keeps his
wetting problem very secretive. As a matter of fact, aside from Stacks and me,
no one outside of his family knows and Larry doesn’t even know that I know.
However, Larry knows about me wearing them but he doesn’t ever bring it up now
that we’re such good friends. Actually, there was this one day about two weeks
ago when I had a diaper failure in English class. Larry helped smuggle me to
the nurse’s office without anyone finding out. That was one of his rare good
moments.
I guess if I am telling you about Larry, then
logic says I should tell you next about his twin brother Christian or Chris as
he prefers to be called. Actually, Chris HATES
being called by his real name. Although Larry and Chris are twins they look and
act nothing alike. Whereas Larry is outgoing and always getting into trouble,
Chris is quiet and most of the time goes unnoticed by everyone around him. The
main reason Chris is so quiet is because he has a really bad stuttering problem
and because of that, he almost never talks. Oddly though, Chris can sing like nobody’s
business and he’s an amazingly good drummer too. He and his band, The Glass
Gloves, played at my twelfth birthday party and boy can they rock. Chris and
Larry were both born prematurely with underdeveloped organs. For Larry it’s
just his plumbing, I mean like his kidneys and bladder; but Chris, has a lot of
other problems besides his plumbing such as his lungs and his guts and stuff
like that. However, when Chris wasn’t even one-year-old he had an operation
that partially fixed his lungs. He’s allergic to just about everything you can
imagine, he sleeps in an oxygen tent at night and takes like a hundred
different pills everyday. Besides all that, he’s basically a normal guy like
me. There is one other thing about Chris; I’m sure you’ve already guessed that
he wears diapers too, but unlike his twin brother he is a member of ILD.com,
though he doesn’t like people in the real world to know about it. Actually,
only Stacks and I know that he is really Wet_Dwaggy on ILD.com; not even his
brother knows about that site, which is amazing in and of itself. Besides the
fact that they are twin brothers, Chris and Larry have very little to do with
each other. Chris has become my best friend in the whole wide world although we
almost never were friends. When I first found out about his needing to wear
diapers Chris was mortified and it took Stacks, forcing the two of us to talk
one day after school. She had locked the three of us inside the nurses’ office
and wouldn’t let us leave until we were friends again. From then on Chris and I
have been best of buds. At school we don’t hang together very much because he
doesn’t like being seen with his brother but when we are not at school we hang
out together all the time. For obvious reasons he can’t sleep over with me but
I’ve slept over at his place a few times. He and I had planned ahead and didn’t
tell his parents about my wetting problem at night; we kept that a secret just
between the two of us. The few times I have slept over, I have made sure I got
changed at home before going there and I just slept in my clothes in a sleeping
bag on the floor. Then the last time I stayed over I took my stuff with me and
after having my bath Chris helped me get diapered in the bathroom.
My other two friends who basically live in
Larry’s shadow are BB and Fish. BB, whose real name is Bruce Spawlding Junior,
is actually the exact same age as me. We only discovered that about ourselves
when I invited him to my birthday party. The party ended up being a double
party, mostly because Bruce’s parents hardly ever remember his birthday.
However, we’ve since learned that I am older by thirteen hours and twenty-seven
minutes, a fact that I remind him about every chance I get. BB is also a member
of ILD.com and is known as BB-N2-TB-DL but also goes by the name Baby Bruce.
And yes, you guessed it; he’s a diaper wearer too. Although, unlike the rest of
us he doesn’t need to wear them; he only wears them because he likes them. I
know... it took me a while to get used to that idea too. Another fact about BB
is that he is gay and doesn’t care who knows it. I guess he can get away with
that because he hangs around with the likes of Bertha and Larry and no one is
going to risk getting on their hit list.
And then there is Fish, whose real name is
Dana McKaty and now you can see why he’s called Fish. What boy would ever want
to be known by a girly name like Dana? I mean, that is just asking to get
teased by classmates. However, I guess the same argument can be used for having
a name like Fish. Of course, upon learning Fish’s real name and being the good
friend that I am, I started calling him McCatfish. Boy, he really hates it too!
For the most part Fish is a Xerox copy of BB as far as personality and the fact
that he too is gay and a diaper wearer. Although, I guess that is were the
similarities ends because Fish has a legitimate reason for wearing diapers. For
the first few months that I knew about Fish’s diaper wearing I thought it was
only because he has a problem with wetting like me, but I’ve since learned, and
he doesn’t know I know this about him, the reason he has a wetting problem is
because his old man used to regularly beat the crap out of him. When he was
something like two and a half his dad had kicked him so hard in the back that
he nearly killed Fish. Fish spent almost a year in the hospital and he didn’t
start walking until he was over four-years-old. For all that, his old man only
spent eighteen months in jail and I guess he still sometimes hits on Fish. Fish
is also a member of ILD.com and goes by the screen name of PampersBoy. Oh and
if you haven’t guessed yet, BB and Fish are an item.
Those are the friends I’ve made here in
Joey, who is only eight-years-old, is
probably my second best friend in the whole-wide-world next to Chris. You know
something funny about him? When I first met him I thought he was only five or
six. I guess that is because he is kind of on the short side and his mother
dresses him like he’s still that young. Joey’s like the little brother I never
had. And his mom and dad are like my second set of parents. I even call them
mommy and daddy now and Joey does the same with my parents as well. It gets
kind of confusing when we’re all together, but it is also kind of funny at the
same time. Joey and his mom were just here to visit during spring break and boy
I miss them so much already. Something really weird about Joey and his mom is
that I met them before I found out about ILD.com, however sometime after I met
them I found out that it is Joey’s mom and dad that run the ILD.com website.
They are known as Mommy_Beth and Daddy_Phil and Joey is known as LilPrince.
However, I’ve been sworn to secrecy about their real world identities. About a
month after I found out about ILD.com and about Joey and his parents I found
out that my parents knew about them and their site long before I did. I’ll tell
you more about that later. As for Daddy_Phil, I actually only ever knew him
online because he was in the military fighting in the war in the
Now I want to tell you about my sweetheart. Jacquelyn
is my age and lives down in
Chapter 2
OK, I have been ragging on my new friends for
their oddities concerning diapers and I suppose it could be argued that I have
lead you to believe that I am the only normal person in all of Lewiston, Maine.
But I’m not... because as I just said in the paragraph above, I too wear
diapers because I am a bedwetter. It started out as just a thing that my
parents were making me do while we were on the road but after we finally
reached our destination the diapering didn’t stop. Actually it got worse. I had
a few daytime accidents and because of that my parents and my grandparents as
well, all felt that I needed to be diapered day and night. At first I had been
totally against it but after a while I got used to the idea and well, frankly
it is no big deal anymore. OK that isn’t really true; it’s still a big deal. If
it weren’t I wouldn’t be scared every waking moment that someone at school
would find out.
Each and every morning of this past school
year I have awoke, walked to my armoire, stripped off my wet diaper and placed
it in the diaper pail within the armoire. I would then mark an X through
another day on a calendar which I had put on the inside of the left armoire
door. I had made the calendar myself using the computer in my grandparents
Media Room. Each day I marked off meant I was one more day closer to returning
to
When I had found out that I was going to be
able to complete in the Teen Surfing Competition this year I knew that I had to
do something to be ready. Sitting on my butt watching the snow get deeper and
deeper wasn’t going to do it, so at breakfast one morning I happen to say
something to John about wanting to figure out a way that I could make sure I
was ready to compete. That is when Grandfather suggested that I use the weight
room in the basement. Before then I didn’t even know their house had a
basement, let alone their very own weight room.
There hadn’t been time that morning for
Grandfather to show me the weight room so I had to wait until after school.
When the final bell had rung I launched myself from my desk, and ran out of the
classroom and the school before anyone could stop me. I had run all the way
home only to find that except for Micah, no one else was home.
Finding the basement turned out to be easier
than I had expected. You see, my grandparent’s home is huge and I’ve gotten
lost in it on more than one occasion. When I arrived home and realized that yet
again my parents and grandparents were both out, I raced to the kitchen where I
found Micah. She was sitting on a stool eating Fish Balls and watching As The World Turns. And no, they were
not the kind of Fish Balls you are thinking, so get your mind out of the
gutter! Anyhow, I asked Micah how to get to the basement and she told me, “Go
to foyer, go past stairs like you go to garage only do not go to garage, go to
basement.”
I know what you are thinking, those
directions were a bit lacking on actual directions but I had learned early on
that Micah doesn’t like it when I bug her during As The World Turns so I didn’t press her for more details.
I did as she had said, I raced back to the
foyer, dropping my bag at the bottom of the steps, then shot down the hall and
instead of taking a right through the door that lead into the garage I went
further down, something I had never done before, to the door at the end of the
hall. Sure enough, when I opened that door there was a wide staircase just as
beautiful as the one that lead from the foyer to the upstairs only this one
lead down to the basement.
Now, calling my grandparents basement a
basement is like calling the bathroom that is off of my bedroom an outhouse.
The basement is decorated just as nicely as the rest of the house and except
for the lack of windows, you’d never know that you were below ground-level.
The first two rooms I looked in were not what
I was looking for. The first was completely void of furnishings, I mean not a
stick of furniture only artwork lining every wall with lights above them that
came on when I opened the door.
The second door opened to yet another fully
furnished bedroom; I think that brings the count of bedrooms I have found up to
twelve.
The third door I opened, which happened to be
the only door on the left side of the hallway, turned out to be the weight
room. Again, calling it a weight room was totally an understatement. Yes it had
weight lifting equipment but it also had a heck of a lot more. There were
treadmills, stair machines, rowing machines, a large area with wood floors,
mirrors and a long brass bar which I could only guess was for ballet dancers
because that is the only thing I had ever seen that I could compare it too.
But what really caught my attention was what
my nose was detecting...
“Chlorine?! Oh—my—goodness! We have a pool!”
I shouted even before I had physically seen it.
As it turned out, it wasn’t a pool, per say,
but what is known as a Lap Pool, which is kind of like a small pool where the
water moves instead of the swimmer. Now a real pool would have been cool but a
Lap Pool turned out to be the perfect thing for me. The minute I walked into
the Lap Pool room, which was on the far side of where the stair machines were,
the lights came on automatically and so did the Lap Pool.
Ok, I will confess that I nearly jumped out
of my own diaper when those water-jets came on. I’m not normally that skittish,
but I hadn’t expected that to happen so it startled me.
Anyway, when I saw all that water moving and
frothing I knew I had just found the perfect indoor training place for surfing.
If you had seen me running home from school that day and then seen me running
from the weight room up to my room, you would have thought that my sprint home
had been in slow motion. I mean, it was like I had a rocket attached to the
back of my diapered butt as I ran up both flights of stairs and into my room.
The first thing I did once I reached my room
was to pull my surfboard off the wall; it was about to get its very first taste
of water. I then ripped my clothes and wet diaper off, leaving them lying in
the middle of the floor and then pulled on a pair of shorts.
Running back to the weight room, while
carrying a long-board isn’t exactly an easy thing to do. I had to slow down to
navigate the turns and corners but eventually I got down to the Lap Pool which
came to life once again as I walked in.
“Man that is too cool!” I said to myself.
Without testing the water for temperature or
anything I set my board beside the pool and jumped in feet first. It was a lot
deeper then I had expected and the water was both cold and warm. The water in
the pool was cold but the water coming out of those jets was quickly heating
everything up. However, not fast enough for my poor balls which had crawled
back inside of me for warmth.
Actually, the Lap Pool was so deep that when
I had jumped in I didn’t hit the bottom. I tried to tread water but the current
was so strong that I was quickly washed to the back of the pool and had to swim
like mad to get back to my board. Oh sure I could have just grabbed the side
and pulled myself along the edge but where’s the fun in that? That dang current
was so strong, that as I was trying to swim against it, it pulled my shorts
right off of me. I guess the shorts I had picked out were too big for me when I
didn’t have a diaper on under them. Oddly enough, it was because of that rather
humorous event, that from then on I only ever went in the Lap Pool when I was
naked.
That first day surfing in the Lap Pool didn’t
work out quiet as well as I had expected. Each time I would try to put my board
in the water and get on it the current would wash me and the board backward.
When I explained to John, and then showed him, what I was doing he had the
brilliant idea of tying the nose of the board to the front edge of the Lap
Pool. After that, indoor surfing became an everyday thing. I would get up in the
mornings, head down to surf and then John would join me later and we’d work on
strength and balance training before school. I also trained most afternoons too
but not every afternoon ‘cause sometimes it took me all afternoon and evening
to get all my homework done.
Actually, John and I have been getting along
a lot better and those months we spent working in the weight room together
really seemed to help the two of us mend the bad blood between us. I can’t tell
you the last time he yelled at me and we haven’t butted heads in months, except
for the whole hair thing but I will tell you more about that in a minute. Oh
and while I am on the subject of John... you will notice that I am still
calling my dad by his first name. Well, you see a while back, I started feeling
bad about that; I mean I really have been hard on him. How he has managed not
to knock my block off at least a hundred times, I will never know. I tried
calling him dad again but it just felt too weird. Even he seemed to act weird
the few times I tried it. So I went back to calling him John and we both seem to
be ok with it now.
Chapter 3
As the end of the school year neared I had no
idea that something other than the competition was fast approaching that would
change my life forever. When there was only three weeks of school left, and my
excitement had built to a fevered pitch, something horrible happened that
nearly stole every bit of joy and yearning that had been building up inside of
me.
I remember nearly everything from that
dreadful day in extreme detail. I was sitting in second period. We had a
substitute for the second day in a row because our regular teacher had a baby. Actually
she had the baby at school in and the school nurse had delivered the baby in
the nurses’ office; but that is a story for another time.
I think most of us were nearly falling asleep
listening to our Sub going on and on about the improper use of commas when the
distant sound of a low pitched, long lasting horn could be heard. And then a
minute later the P.A. system came to life and our school Principles voice sang
out.
“Your attention please. Your attention
please. To all school staff, this is a level four announcement. I repeat this
is a level four announcement.” There was a pause before he continued saying,
“Until further notice all students are to remain in their present classrooms.
No students are permitted to leave their classroom for any reason without being
accompanied by a teacher, a hall monitor, or a member of the school staff.”
Immediately following the announcement
everyone in our class began whispering and buzzing until our sub called for
quiet.
“I am sure that there is nothing to be
concerned about. We shall continue the lesson as normal.” And then began
lecturing again as if there had been no disturbance.
I leaned over to the girl sitting to my left,
“
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Shore
alarm.”
Of course that meant nothing to me and I
didn’t get to ask for further information because the P.A. system came back on.
“Your attention please.” Our Principle said,
“Would the following students please pack up your belongings. Someone will be
by to escort you to the office momentarily. Rudy Gentry, June Carrington...”
Roughly twenty or more names were called,
including my own. Out of those names I had recognized only a handful including
the proper names for BB and Fish as well as those of Larry and Chris.
Within five minutes of the announcement Mr.
Casting, our school Principle, walked into the classroom along with my friend Stacks,
who’s a hall monitor at our school and another teacher, whom I had seen in the
halls before but had never met. Before that day I didn’t even know her name. I
later found out that she was Mrs. Pilut and that she teaches eighth-grade
Biology. Mr. Casting and Mrs. Pilut looked right at our Sub while Stacks
scanned the room and then locked eyes with me. As long as I live, I will never
forget the pain and hopelessness I saw in her eyes that morning. I remember
feeling an incredible emptiness deep inside of me and I didn’t know why... but
I would, very soon. Mr. Casting talked with our Sub in whispers and then the
Sub’s face sagged as she covered her mouth and gasped.
As Mr. Casting turned to face us, out of the
corner of my eye I saw movement over by the door. I looked and saw a police
officer standing in the hallway, just outside the classroom with another girl
whom I didn’t know. Mr. Casting cleared his throat as he looked at each of us
and then glanced at Stacks. I guess he had expected to find me ready to go, but
I hadn’t even budged an inch. I also figured that he hadn’t remembered what I had
looked like from earlier in the year because he hadn’t called on me until after
Stacks pointed me out to him. Then again I suppose I had changed my look quite
a bit that year. I had grown nearly a full half inch and I was wearing my hair
longer, actually I hadn’t had it cut in several months. My bangs now hang over
my eyebrows and my ears cannot be seen at all. It had been a huge tension
between me and both my parents and grandparents a couple of weeks ago when I
had returned home one Saturday afternoon with my hair died jet black. My friend
Bertha had done it for me using a mixture of Kool-Aid. A couple years ago that
was the big thing in
“Mr. Holloway?” Mr. Casting called out and
his voice sounded remarkably empty and void of happiness much the way Stacks
eyes had been.
I guess I nodded my head in acknowledgement
because he then said, “
I was barely able to say, “A-a-am I in
trouble sir?” however, as I was speaking Stacks was shaking her head ever so
slightly and I got the message. I guess that’s one of the perks of knowing your
friends so well. You can speak volumes with just a look, a wink or the nod of a
head.
BB, who had transferred into our class
earlier that year, was slouching in his seat and trying not to be noticed. He
had got himself on Mr. Casting’s bad side, which is saying something, when he
and Fish were caught vandalizing the girls gym locker room. Actually, they were
toilet papering it, but our gym teacher had called it vandalism; I guess
because it sounded worse than saying they were TPing the locker-room.
“No son, you’re not in any trouble.” Mr.
Casting said, “I just need you to come with me.”
I glanced over to BB and I guess I gave him
away because Mr. Casting then said in a less than kind tone, “Mr. Spawlding,
you need to come along too.”
BB gave me a sarcastic expression which made
it clear what he was thinking. I could hear his unspoken words, “Gee thanks a
lot Alvin!”
I tried to express my apology using only my
eyes but BB wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was stuffing his textbook into his
tattered canvas bag; I did likewise, putting my book in my backpack and
clipping my mechanical pencil to the front collar of my wool sweater.
I think that police officer scared the crap
out of BB because he was unusually quiet. He walked with his hands shoved
deeply into his pockets, his bag hung from his left shoulder and he was keeping
his head hung low. At any other time I would have laughed because I had noticed
that there was a hole in the side of BB’s canvas bag and I could clearly see
the bright white plastic of an extra diaper. BB would die if he knew that it
was visible, but I don’t think anyone else had noticed it.
Stacks was walking behind us with that other
girl and I wanted to turn around and ask what was happening but couldn’t. That
police officer had his hand resting on the back of my neck while Mr. Casting
and that other teacher lead us down the hallway toward the office.
We walked into the office and I saw that
Larry, Fish, Chris and a few other students I didn’t know were sitting there like
a band of guilty looking desperados.
In the office, none of us spoke a word. There
were a few nervous glances shared, but overall we were all to frighten to
speak. I had tried to ask Fish what was going on but all I got from him was a
shrug of his shoulders.
When my grandmother walked into the school
office alone I think I nearly crapped myself. She didn’t even look my way as
she was greeted by the Vice Principle and then escorted to his office. No more
than two minutes later she came out, motioned for me to come with her and we
left.
“What’s going on?” I asked even before we
were out of the school.
“Not right now.” Grandmother said.
As I was escorted out of the school I
stopped, turned, looked my grandmother in the eye and was about to speak when
she put a finger to my mouth.
“All in due time,” was all she said.
I tried to ask more questions but she had
taken hold of my arm and was in essence dragging me to the car while she
sniffled into a lace handkerchief.
She opened the back door and pushed me in as
another, much older rust bucket of a car pulled up behind ours. A woman emerged
looking totally distraught, but I didn’t have time to find out who she was
because Grandmother closed the door, nearly hitting me with it in the process.
Finally, as we began moving she started to
tell me what had happened. “There was an accident this morning at the
shipyard.” she said as though she were reading a newspaper headline to me.
To say I was confused would have been an
understatement. Why would there be so much hoopla at school over something like
that?
Then she told me why, “There is a fire; it
has spread to several of the fishing boats.”
The way Grandmother was speaking scared me. I
sat silently and listened as she continued, “Your Grandfather left immediately
after getting the call. We don’t know yet how bad it is or if the fire is out,
but we do know that at least two ships have already sunk and that a lot of
crewmen are unaccounted for.”
I sat there in the backseat very quietly
thinking about what she had said. We were nearly home when I asked, “Does mom
and John know? Are they with Grandfather?”
At first she didn’t answer me and I didn’t
really think anything about it at the time. When she did answer all she said
was, “I spoke to your mother and she asked that I pick you up.”
About three hours later I was sitting in the
media room with Grandmother, Micah and Liam, the gardener, watching the news.
It was bad, very bad. They said that five boats had sunk and three others were
badly damaged by the fire. At first they said that three people had been found
dead but every few minutes that number climbed higher and higher. At last count
there were seventeen people that had been killed and there were still many more
unaccounted for. At one point we even saw my own mom on the news.
“There’s mom!” I shouted so incredibly loud,
as I sprang from my seat toward the big screen.
We had only seen her for less than half a
second as the camera panned past a crowd of people. She had been kneeling on
the ground and another woman was hugging her as my mom cried hysterically.
I wish I had never seen that because in that
very instant my entire world came crashing down around me. For maybe three
seconds I stood before that enormous television screen frozen and lifeless as
my brain began to understand why I had been singled out at school and brought
to the office. I turned around; Grandmother, Micah and Liam were all standing
and looking at me with worried and anxious expressions.
I think I said it before I actually knew I
had thought it. “My dad is dead isn’t he?”
Micah rushed toward me, scooped me into her
arms and pressed my head into her bosom. Then I lost it! I totally lost it.
Micah and Grandmother were on the floor holding me and crying right along with
me as Liam, who is a well build
It took forever before they were able to get
me calm enough to understand that we didn’t know for sure if my dad was dead or
not. But that didn’t really help. I had seen my own mom crying on TV and why
else would she do that?
Chapter 4
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime,
we heard my mother call out, “Hello?
I literally leaped over the furniture and
flew from the media room. I found both mom and a short lady police officer
standing in the foyer. Mom looked horrible and when she saw me she began to cry
again. I didn’t even bother to acknowledge the presents of the officer as I
threw my arms around my mom and wailed.
When mom had come home Liam had left us. I
presume that he went to his own home. Micah on the other hand didn’t leave, but
she did vanish into the kitchen only to return soon after with hot tea and
small cucumber sandwiches for all of us. But none of us could eat.
Mom, Grandmother and I sat together praying,
watching the news and waiting. Sometime during the late afternoon, while lying
in my mother’s arms, I had cried myself to sleep. They didn’t put me to bed but
instead left me to sleep right there. I suppose they didn’t want to walk away
from the TV for even an instant. I only awoke again when mom was trying to
change my overly soaked diaper.
“Ssshhhhh.” She said when she saw my eyes
open, “You are so wet that you are about to spring a leak.”
I had been asleep for over two hours. During
that time Grandfather had called to say that he wouldn’t be home for a while
and to say that we shouldn’t give up hope. To me, that didn’t sound like
something Grandfather would say. I honestly think Grandmother made that up to
try to make mom and me feel a little better.
It was after dark before Grandfather came
home. We had just heard them announce on the news that the death count was up
to twenty-seven and dozens more hurt or missing.
I had never seen my Grandfather look as old
as he did when he walked into the house that night. The lines in his face
seemed to have been etched deeper and his shoes scrapped the floor as he
walked. His clothes were covered in soot and filth and there was a rip in his
left pants leg just below the knee. I don’t know why, but it was his shoes that
really stood out for me. They looked like something a hobo might be wearing;
not something a multi-millionaire would have on.
After Grandmother and Grandfather started to
head upstairs so that he could get out of his dirty clothes and get cleaned up,
mom took me up to my room. We didn’t talk to one another; I think that if we
did, we’d both begin to cry again. She helped me out of my school clothes,
changed my diaper once again and then helped me into my pajamas.
Without being asked or told to do so, I went
over to my bed pulled down the covers and climbed in. Mom sat on the side and
petted my head until I fell asleep.
Grandfather, after returning home had taken a
shower, put on a fresh set of clothes and left again. He didn’t return until
breakfast time the following morning.
Grandmother, mom and I had been sitting at
the table in silence. Two fried eggs, a strip of bacon and a half slice of
buttered toast lay on a plate before me. They had long since gone cold. There
was no sound at all, but the clinking of my fork as I stabbed at the gelatinous
yokes.
We hadn’t heard him come back home so when he
walked into the room we were all surprised. He stood in the doorway, his cheeks
red from recently dried tears. I remember thinking how odd it seemed to see
someone as solid as my Grandfather appearing so fragile.
Grandfather opened his mouth like he was
going to say something but then closed his mouth and licked his bottom lip. I
remember the words he said exactly; they are etched into my mind forever.
“Witnesses said that John had pulled two men from one of the burning boats and had
gone back to help another when the fuel tank exploded.”
I sat in my seat and sobbed but mom
completely came apart. She collapsed to the floor screaming. Micah had come
from out of nowhere as did Liam who I was surprised to see back. Liam had
carried mom up to her and John’s room before the doctor came and after the
doctor left Micah stayed with mom. I guess when you are rich, doctors still
make house calls because one came and gave my mom a shot to make her sleep.
Later that day we found out that one of the
two men my dad had saved was BB’s father. Bertha and Stacks had come over and
told us. I didn’t see them because I had been upstairs taking a very long
shower. Actually, I was sitting under the falling water weeping. Micah had been
the one to talk with my two friends and then passed their news on to us.
I don’t know how much my Grandparents pay
Micah, but they need to pay her a heck of a lot more! In the days to follow
Micah pretty much took over the house, taking care of everyone, including me
and you know what I mean when I say that right? Grandmother, who at first had
been strong, seemed to run out of strength after the first day and seemed as
though she were almost hollow inside whenever I would see her. Grandfather was
hardly ever home; if he wasn’t at the hospital visiting those that survived the
fire then he was working and visiting families who had lost loved ones. He
would only come home to shower, eat, sleep very little and then he’d leave
again.
Chapter 5
On the third day mom finally got out of bed
again because we all had to go to the funeral. There was no viewing as there
was no body found to put into the casket. Instead, we went to the docks were
the fire had happened and tossed a wreathe into the water when they said my
dad’s name.
It was after two names were read that I saw
Larry and Chris toss wreaths into the water. Later, I found out that those two
wreaths were for their father and uncle.
As we were heading back to the car a man came
up to us. He was walking on crutches and at first I hadn’t realized who he was,
but then I saw BB walking behind him looking at the ground.
“BB!” I said, glad to see him.
When he looked up at me he smiled and then
did something weird; he hugged and kissed me on the lips right there in front
of everyone.
The man was BB’s father. He took my mother’s
hand and said, “I am Bruce Spawlding, uh, senior. We’ve not met yet but I have
heard a lot about you from my son Bruce here. You’re husband save my life and
the life of my brother.”
Mom had already been crying, but when he said
that she erupted with even more tears and fell on his neck.
BB finally stopped hugging me and said, “I am
really sorry about your dad.”
I couldn’t respond. I just nodded my head but
I do remember thinking about how fast word had spread about John. I’m not sure
how the news got out, but the day after we had heard about it flowers started
arriving from so many people that after a while the house looked and smelled
like a colorful garden. You know the one bad thing about that? I don’t think I
will ever be able to look at a flower again and see it as beautiful.
BB went on to say, “I finally got to talk to
Fish this morning and one of his cousins was in the hospital because his leg
got burned. I saw Larry for a minute yesterday too but I didn’t get to talk
with him.”
Finally finding my voice I said, “I’ve not
talked to him or Chris either.”
BB screwed up his face, “Did you know their
dad and uncle were killed?”
For some reason BB’s words acted like a
double edge sword cutting right through my heart and I began to cry again,
which caused BB to respond by hugging me again, only tighter than before. I
don’t know why, but I didn’t want BB to let go of me. I wrapped my arms around
his back and locked my fingers together as my tears soaked his shirt.
BB’s dad had, crying now too, continued to
say something to my mom and grandparents, which I hadn’t heard most of until I
picked up on him saying, “We tried to keep John from going back aboard that
boat,” his voice was really breaking up bad as he said, “but he wouldn’t hear
it.”
Finally, it took Grandfather forcing my arms
apart to pull me off BB. He then walked me to the car where I laid my head in
my grandmother’s lap and cried all the way home.
Chapter 6
Sometime during the night, while I was
sleeping Grandmother and Grandfather had to call an ambulance and have my mom
taken to the hospital. I hadn’t heard anything and only found out about it the
next morning when Micah came in to see if I wanted any breakfast.
“She is very tired and the doctors will take
care of her for while.” Micah told me.
I am not supposed to know this, but I
overheard Grandmother talking to someone on the phone and she said that my mom
had taken a lot of sleeping pills and that is why they called the ambulance.
Maybe that should be affecting me more then it is; then again maybe I am just
overdosing on emotions and can’t feel anymore right now.
Never in my life have I felt as lonely as I
did the rest of that week. I tried to go online to ILD.com but I just didn’t
feel like chatting or answering emails. And television had become something to
avoid because it was to depressing when I would see another news broadcast,
talking about the accident. At one point I had thought that I’d be safe
watching cartoons, but they even interrupted Tom and Jerry to do more news.
On Sunday afternoon however, something good
finally happened. I was sitting in the kitchen with Micah watching her make
something she called Haggis when Grandmother walked in. At first I hadn’t
noticed that for the first time since the wreath ceremony Grandmother had taken
the time to put on makeup and do her hair up nicely.
“
I figured that it was probably one of my
school friends come to see how I was doing, but when I reached the foyer I got
such a shock.
“JACQUELYN?!” I squealed loudly when I saw
her standing there with a large suitcase beside her and a big piece of paper
hanging from a string around her neck.
It felt so good when Jacquelyn gave me a hug.
It was such a shock to see her finally after so many months.
“Why are you here?” I then shook my head, “No
wait...How did you get here?”
“Your granny bought us a plane ticket.” She
said.
“She did?” I asked but then quickly said,
“Wait, did you say US?”
Boy when Jacquelyn smiled, I nearly melted on
the spot. She took a step back, reached for the knob of the door and opened it.
I had fully expected to see Jacquelyn’s family but instead, standing there
smiling ear-to-ear was my young friend Joey as well as his mom and dad. Up
until that moment I had never seen Joey’s dad; I had only talked to him online
in the ILD.com chat room or on Instant Messenger. I knew that he had only
recently returned from the
“JOEY!” I shouted and pounced on him, nearly
causing him to fall over backward.
I started to cry, not sad tears but happy
tears because I was just so happy to see all of them. However, when Beth hugged
me my tears turned from joy to tears of sorrow and I squeezed her as tight as I
could and wailed like a baby. I felt as though if I could squeeze her tight
enough it would make everything that had happened go away and bring my dad back.
We hugged and cried for the longest time
there on the front stoop of the house in front of God, the neighbors and
everyone. It never even occurred to me that all I was wearing was a white onsie
and a pair of sweatpants which didn’t really hide the fact that I was wearing a
diaper beneath them. The onsie had been my Grandfather’s idea from earlier in
the school year to help hide the fact that I was wearing a diaper under my
clothes. It holds the diaper up tight to my bottom in the back and keeps it
from sagging when wet. The onsies that Grandfather had made especially for me
are made of heavier material then normal onsies you can get online and the leg
openings are lower on the leg, kind of like boxer-briefs. Instead of snapping
in the crotch like baby onsies do, most of mine have a flat zipper that goes
from the left leg all the way up to my chin. I do have some with snaps but I
don’t like those as much as the zippered kind; Mom and John say the snapping
ones are better for changing. Grandfather had them made in lots of colors and I
even have some that have long legs and sleeves for the colder days and for
those, the zipper goes from my left ankle to my chin. The one thing I like best
about these onsies is that once I got them on, they look just like a real
t-shirt that’s been tucked into real underwear because they got a fake
underwear waistband and even a fake Y-front to make them look more like real
underwear.
“
I released my python like grip on Beth and
pulled the three of them through the door.
“I take it our arrival is a surprise?” Phil,
Joey’s dad, said to me as he messed up my long hair.
I wiped at my tears and nodded my head.
“I just wish we could have been here sooner.”
Beth said to Grandmother.
“The important thing is you are here now.”
Grandmother said to her.
However, Phil wasn’t done with my hair just
yet. He tousled it, and then tousled it some more before finally saying, “What
on earth is this mess atop your head?” he didn’t say it mean or nothing but he
wasn’t exactly joking either.
You see, like I said before, Phil and Beth
are more like a second set of parents to me then anything else. Even though I
had never actually met Phil in the real world, it felt like I had because I’d
talked to him on the computer so much. Most of all the kids that come to
ILD.com identify them as Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth but I don’t, I mostly just
call them mommy and daddy but for the sake of confusion as I tell you about
this I will try to remember to call them Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth. Even my
real mom and John were totally cool with me calling them Daddy and Mommy
because they had known all along about them and their website since the day we
met Joey and his mom at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum in Canada.
I’m kind of getting off track here but I will
take a minute here to tell you that when I first found out that Mom and John
knew about ILD.com and about how Joey was what they call a Preteen Baby, I
flipped out; but only for a day or so... then I was cool with it. I mean, I’d
found ILD.com totally without my own parents telling me about it and I had
begun to embrace the idea of wearing diapers before I learned that they already
knew, so it didn’t take me long to accept all that. Actually, once it was out,
life got much easier and all the tension that the diapers had caused between me
and my parents was gone. Now, let me get back to what I was saying.
Totally ignoring Phil’s hair comment, I
turned to Grandmother and hugged her, “Thank you!” I said with a sniffle and then
pulled away and said reproachfully, “Why didn’t you tell me they were coming?”
“What?” Grandmother said trying to play
innocent, “Did I forget to tell you? Well you will have to forgive an old lady
and her failing memory.” Her mouth stretched into a tight, wicked grin, which
made her lips go all white.
Chapter 7
Jacquelyn was given her own room at the other
end of the hallway. I think that was probably Grandfathers idea because he
knows how much in love we are and he wouldn’t want us sneaking into each others
room at night. Phil and Beth were put in a room across from my mom and John’s
bedroom but I had insisted that Joey bunk with me.
“I have that totally huge bed Grandmother!” I
complained when it was suggested that Joey would sleep in the same room as his
parents.
After getting settled in, Grandfather
returned and took Grandmother, Beth and Phil to the hospital to visit mom.
Micah had agreed to keep an eye on Jacquelyn, Joey and myself but we didn’t see
too much of her except to bring us a snack of fried, caramelized apple slices
topped with crushed walnuts and vanilla ice-cream. Mostly Jacquelyn kept an eye
on Joey and me; she sure had grown up a lot since I’d last seen her.
For over an hour I had forgot about all the
horrors of that week and was once again happy. We sat at the table laughing and
talking while eating our snack.
“Boy I still can’t believe you guys came!” I
told them with a mouth full of food; some of which was dribbling down my chin.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” Joey said
while giggling as ice-cream dripped from his chin too. We had only just started
eating it and he already had the stuff all over his face like babies do with
their food.
“What was that thing you were wearing when
you got here?” I asked Jacquelyn.
“Huh?” she grunted and scrunched up her nose
in thought. Boy she is so dang cute.
“He means your ticket.” Joey said, spraying
chewed bits of apple as he spoke.
“Oh yeah, it was my plane ticket.” She said
and then explained that her parents had put her on a plane at the
“Were you scared?” Joey asked.
“Well,” she said slowly, “Maybe a little at
first but then they started a movie on the plane and I was ok after that.”
“What movie?” I asked.
She laughed as she said, “Son of Rambow. It
was the funniest movie I have ever seen in my life!”
“Son of Rambow?” I laughed, “You have got to
be kidding me.”
“I ain’t allowed to watch war movies.” Joey
said.
Jacquelyn rolled her eyes as she said, “It
wasn’t a war movie. It was about two boys making a war movie. You guys would
like it.”
We continued talking and laughing for a while
but eventually the conversation hit on a subject that forced me back to the
reality of the moment.
“We got out of school yesterday for the
summer.” Joey announced.
“Really? We’ve been out since last Friday.” Jacquelyn
said and then she asked me, “Are you out of school yet?” and almost in the same
breath she asked, “Did you pass?”
I had been shoveling a spoon full of
ice-cream into my mouth as she asked and in that instant my mind flashed back
to that dreadful morning, the same morning I had been dreaming about every
night since it happened. Suddenly I was back in my English class and hearing
the Shore alarm blaring off in the distance.
“
“Huh? Oh sorry. What did you say?” I asked
apologetically.
She repeated her question, “Are you out of
school for the summer?”
I shook my head, “Supposed to be two more
weeks left.”
“Oh that stinks!” Joey snorted.
I hadn’t even given any thought about having
to finish the school year but thanks to my two friends, I was now. How could
Grandmother torture me by bringing my friends to visit me when I won’t be here
to see them because I will be in school?! And then an even worse thought
occurred to me.
“What’s the matter?” Jacquelyn asked me and
if you really want to know, what she said next could have gone without saying.
“Did you poop your diaper?”
I couldn’t do anything about the blood that
had instantaneously rushed to my face but I did my best to pretend that she
hadn’t said what she said.
“The Surfing competition!” and even as I said
it I could see that dream vanish before my very eyes like a puff of smoke.
I looked down at my bowl of half eaten apples
and ice cream, most of the ice cream was gone already. Then I glanced over at
Joey who was trying hard to not look at me.
“What?” I asked him.
Joey quickly stuffed his mouth to overflowing
and looked at me with phony sincerity.
I pointed at him with my spoon, a drop of ice
cream dripped onto the table. “Boy,” I said, “you better talk or I will sick Jacquelyn
on you!”
“Excuse me?! Sick Jacquelyn on him?” Jacquelyn
said angrily, “What do you think I am? Some kind of dog for you to order
around.”
“Oh boy!” I mumbled under my breath, “Uh, I
didn’t mean it like that!” I said trying not to laugh. I’d set Jacquelyn off
like that before while talking to her on the phone and even once in a letter I
had wrote to her. She had wrote back with a five page letter telling me how
dumb I was to say whatever it was I had said in my letter. I suppose I haven’t
actually said so, but it was during our phone calls and all the letters we
wrote one another that I had realized that I was in love with her.
She waved her spoon as though she were
dismissing my words before they could reach her ear.
I looked back to Joey and said, “You see what
you did! Now my woman is mad at me!”
I should have quit while I was behind.
“Your woman?” Jacquelyn said now holding her
spoon like a weapon.
Suddenly a blob of ice-cream splattered the
right side of my face. I looked at Joey and he was sitting there, his spoon
held up and obviously looking as guilty as anyone can look.
“Oh no you didn’t!” Jacquelyn said to him but
I was already scooping deeply into my bowl, preparing to return fire. However,
I never got the chance to retaliate.
“FRIZ!” Micah shouted from the doorway.
In a calm but threatening tone Micah said,
“You make mess and Micah hang all tree you from ceiling by toe nails.”
The ice-cream that had hit me in the face
slid off my cheek and went splat on the rug below. Micah then announced loudly
as she took an aggressive step toward me, “Ah-ha! Mess! Now Micah get mean.”
But it was obvious that she was only pretending to be mad. All three of us
decided to pretend to be scared, at least I think we were pretending as we
screamed and ran from the room. Unfortunately Joey had tried to duck under the
table but that only slowed him down long enough for Micah to capture him.
Joey squealed like a pig getting gutted as he
tried to wiggle his way free.
“We have to save Joey!” Jacquelyn said in a
commanding voice.
“Joey who?” I laughed and didn’t even slow
down until I reached the stairs.
I turned around and saw Micah coming out of
the dining room holding Joey upside down by the ankles.
Jacquelyn screamed again and came running
over to me, “She’s going to eat him!”
Micah stopped and said, “No—No—No! Little
boys to chewy, taste like dirt,” and then the corners of her mouth curled up
and I swear I saw horns sprout from her head as she said, “but little girls
taste like pudding.”
Jacquelyn and I tore up the stairs screaming
all the way and we didn’t stop until we got to my room. We didn’t hear Micah
chasing us and we had no idea if Joey was being skinned and stuffed into the
oven.
“Boy your cook can be scary!” Jacquelyn
whispered.
“Oh believe me; you don’t ever want to call
her a cook to her face. Make sure you say Chef or she’s libel to cook you too.”
I warned her.
“Good to know!” she said holding tightly to
the back of my onsie.
After a minute or two we peeked out of the
door; we didn’t see anyone in either direction so we felt safe in venturing out
in search of our captured comrade. We quietly crept down the stairs but we
couldn’t hear any sign of Joey or Micah.
“Do you think maybe she is already cooking
him?” Jacquelyn giggled nervously.
“Better him then us.” I quietly laughed too.
First we checked the dining room, the mess
we’d left had already been cleaned up so next we moved on to the kitchen door.
Ever so slowly we swung it open but still we didn’t find Micah or Joey.
“Where do you think they went?” Jacquelyn
asked.
Right then from behind us Joey asked, “Why
did you guys leave me?”
I think I screamed louder then Jacquelyn did
but she had shoved me out of her way and leapt into the kitchen. All three of
us were laughing hysterically. Joey was on his butt just outside the kitchen
door holding his stomach while Jacquelyn leaned against the counter to keep
from falling over from laughter.
“Joey you scared the crap out of us!” I
snorted.
“Good thing you are diapered then!” Jacquelyn
said and despite the fact that I knew that she knew all about my diapers I
still blushed again.
“Where did Micah go?” I asked Joey.
He was still laughing so hard that he
couldn’t answer so he shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh my stomach hurts!” Jacquelyn cried.
“OK-OK, no more please!” Joey pleaded as he
fell backward and began to roll around on the floor, “You should have seen
yourselves!” he roared.
Joey was laughing so hard that he farted,
which only made the situation that much funnier.
The rest of the day the three of us talked
and played together. I showed them where I had begun training for the surfing
competition, which I knew I wouldn’t be going to anymore.
Chapter 8
A couple hours after they had left, my
grandparents and Joey’s dad returned; they were all looking tired. Joey was the
first to realize that his mom hadn’t returned.
“She’ll be back in the morning.” was all the
explanation Phil offered.
Now I had fully expected that my two friends
and I would spend what remained of the day hanging out together but it seemed
that Joey’s daddy had other ideas.
The three of us were in the Media room when
Phil came looking for me. I had been showing them the computer I used when I
was talking to them online and writing letters to them when Phil came in and
asked if he could talk to me alone. It wasn’t a big deal, he says stuff like
that to me all the time online and then we go into a private chat and we talk.
A few of those private chats were ‘cause he found out I was doing bad things
online but most of the time it was just so that we could talk without other
ILD.com members butting in.
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure.” And
then looked at my two friends and said, “Be right back.”
Little did I know that I wouldn’t be right back.
Outside of the Media room Daddy Phil said,
“Let’s go up to your room.”
Again I shrugged and lead the way. As we
neared the top of the stairs, just to be sure, I asked him, “Am I in trouble
again?”
Phil smiled and said, “You tell me.”
I couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping as I
remembered how he’d tricked me with that line once before.
“Oh no... you aren’t getting me like that
again.” I said pointing up at him.
Phil smiled wider and gave me a playful push,
“Get going smartly pants.”
“Don’t you mean ‘smarty pants’? I asked and
he tried to give me a shoe in my backside but I was too quick for him.
In my room Phil closed my bedroom door before
going over and sitting on the side of my bed.
“Goodness, you sleep on this thing?” he
commented when he felt how soft it was.
“I know! It’s murder getting out of it in the
mornings too.” I said.
He then slid off the bed and sat himself on
the floor, leaning backwards against the side of the mattress. He motioned for
me to join him so I settled down directly in front of him.
“So what’s up?” he started out saying.
“What’s up with what?” I asked back.
Using his eyes he pointed to my greasy,
stringy jet-black hair and I understood what this talk was going to be about.
Subconsciously I ran my fingers through my
hair, which signaled that I got the message.
He didn’t probe me or bombard me with a bunch
of questions, instead he sat there looking at me and waiting. I had experienced
that same thing in our private chats but I’d never had to endure it while he
was looking at me. Up until this visit I had managed to keep my hair secret
from him and Mommy Beth but now I found myself telling him all about my reasons
for letting my friend die it black and why I had insisted on not getting it
cut.
Now, I cannot tell you how he did it because
frankly I haven’t got a clue, but before we were done talking I had agreed to
let him take me to a barber to get the black washed out and get my hair cut.
I had figured that we’d go somewhere the next
day but then he said to me, “If you don’t need changed right now, why don’t you
put on some pants and we’ll go.”
“Right now?” I said.
“Yeah right now.” He said pushing me over as
he stood up.
“Um,” I mumbled as I realized that I
definitely did need to be changed.
Daddy Phil and I had talked online at length
about this very situation. Mommy Beth had changed me before at their place in
“You want me to get your Grandmother?” He
asked.
“No, I think you’ll do Daddy.” I said
jovially.
I got up and opened the armoire.
“Wow!” he exclaimed when he saw all the
diapers.
“Yeah, mom just bought a bunch right
before...” I started to say but couldn’t finish because I was going to say
right before John died.
Phil then did something that caught me
totally by surprise. He swept me into his arms and hugged me for a very long time.
He didn’t let me go until he was sure that I’d got all my tears out.
When he put me back on my feet I rubbed the
tears away using the back of my arm. He put a single finger under my chin and
made me look up at him as he said, “You can have as many of those as you want,”
meaning the hugs.
I won’t lie, the first time having Daddy Phil
change my wet diaper felt kind of weird but he was just as skilled at it as
Mommy Beth and in no time I was changed and fully dressed. He had picked out a
pair of blue jeans and a bright blue onsie with red around the collar and both
the wrist and leg cuffs with a matching fake underwear band. Over that he
pulled on a blue sweatshirt and then told me to sit on the floor so that he
could get my shoes and socks on me.
I hadn’t done any of the dressing myself, Daddy
Phil had done it all and once he had both of my shoes tied and helped me to my
feet, only then did I realize that he’d tied my shoelaces together. I had tried
to take a step and fell forward only to have him catch me.
“HEY!” I complained and laughed at the same
time.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.” Daddy Phil
laughed too as he flipped me over on my back and tied them right this time.
Before we were leaving I pulled a blue denim
jean jacket out of my armoire and pulled it on because I know that it was still
nippy outside even though it was nearly summer time.
I guess he had already talked it over with
Grandfather because when we went out to the garage the two of us got into one
of Grandfather’s other cars.
It seems that, either Grandfather had already
told Daddy Phil where the Barber shop was or he had showed him before they came
back from seeing mom, because we drove right there without getting lost even
once. I found out when we walked in that they had conspired with the barber
because he greeted us as we stepped through the door.
“Ah, this must be the mop you were telling me
about.” The barber joked as he shook Daddy Phil’s hand as if they were old
friends.
He must have been in his fifties I would
guess, with a marine style hair cut and a mustache that was trimmed so straight
that he must have used a ruler.
I gave Daddy Phil the meanest look I could
muster and all he did was laugh it off.
The Barber then turned his attention to me,
“I think to start," he put a single finger to his lips in thought,
"we had better wash your hair.”
I looked up to Daddy Phil for reassurance.
“He’s not going to bite.” He said to me.
“I’m more worried about having an ear snipped
off.” I mumbled.
The barber washed my hair seven times before
he sat me up and began cutting it. All the while my back was to the large
mirror so I couldn’t see what he was doing but it sure seemed like he was
cutting an awful lot off.
“Don’t cut it too short.” I said but Daddy
Phil was sitting across from me and told me to let the man do his job.
“I better not look like a goof when you’re
done!” I quietly said only loud enough for myself to hear; or so I thought.
The barber leaned down and whispered into my
ear, “When I am done every girl in town will want you.”
After what seemed to be nearly forever the
Barber asked Daddy Phil, “Well what do you think?”
I didn’t think Daddy Phil’s reply was at all
funny.
“Do you think it is pink enough?” he had said
straight faced.
“PINK!” I shouted but he started laughing and
I knew he had been pulling my leg.
The Barber turned me around so that I could
see myself in the mirror and I couldn’t believe how totally cool my hair
looked. It was back to my normal color, maybe a bit darker since it wasn’t as
sun-bleached anymore and he hadn’t cut it as short as I had thought. Well, the
back was a lot shorter and my bangs no longer hung in my eyes but I still had
bangs and my ears were still covered. And it wasn’t combed all neat and proper
but instead looked somewhat like the messy windblown style. Kind of the way I
used to come home looking like after spending an entire day surfing. My skin
also didn’t seem quiet as pale now that my hair wasn’t jet-black anymore. It
felt good knowing that I hadn’t totally lost my tan yet.
“So does it meet with your approval?” The
barber asked me.
I was still gawking at myself in the mirror
so Daddy Phil answered for me, “I think he likes it.”
“I more then like it! It’s perfect!” I said.
“Can’t get much better praise than that.” One
of the other Barbers commented.
When we got back home you should have seen
the way everyone was carrying on when they saw my new haircut; especially
Grandmother who just gushed all over me.
“Now he looks like the Grandson I remember.”
She had said.
Grandfather’s reaction was less verbal. He
just looked at me and winked his approval.
“
“Nooo!” Joey said dramatically, “He looks
like my brother Alvin again.” This was probably the best complement anyone
could have given me.
When it was time for bed I didn’t want to go
because I didn’t want to mash my hair with a pillow which was sort of a goofy
thing because it was kind of a messy sort of style. So what would sleeping on
it matter anyway?
Jacquelyn said goodnight to us and even gave
Joey and me a sweet little hug before skipping down the hallway to the room she
would be sleeping in.
As he had done before Daddy Phil came in to
change me and Joey too. However, I wasn’t put back into one of my normal
diapers from my armoire but instead Daddy Phil put a different kind of
disposable diaper on me. I didn’t know it until he was done and I tried to
stand up. It was so very, very thick that I could hardly walk. As it was, I had
to stand kind of like one of those big Samoan wrestlers with my feet apart and
my knees bent.
When Joey was done being diapered he sat up
and laughed at the way I was standing. “Daddy he looks funny.” Joey said.
Joey was wearing the same kind of diaper only
a size smaller. It was totally white except for the blue strip on the front
with small pictures of Elmo and Big Bird smiling back at me.
“Alright you two, you don’t have to go to
sleep right away but you do have to get into bed.” Daddy Phil announced as he
scooped up Joey and tossed him onto the pulled down bed. Joey was instantly
lost in the fluff of the bedding.
“AAAaaahhhh! The bed is eating me!” Joey
crowed.
I laughed as I too was lifted off my feet and
launched into the air above the bed. I actually had some hang time before
gravity pulled me down. When I hit the mattress there was a chain reaction
effect which caused the bed to expel Joey back into the air.
“Whoa, that was fun!” Joey said when he had
landed again.
Daddy Phil tucked us both in, kissed us both
on the forehead and then said, “Try not to make a lot of racket and don’t stay
up talking all night.”
“OK Daddy,” Joey said.
“Night Daddy,” I said too.
There is no way of knowing how long the two
of us lay there talking before we both drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 9
A voice could be heard as if calling
longingly for me from a great distance.
“Aaalllvvvviiinnn.”
I gasped at the sound of my name and looked
around for the source, finally squinting into the darkened crowd before me.
The voice became less sing-songy as it called
my name again.
“Aaaallvinn.”
I spotted a girl standing at the far end of
the school hallways. Suddenly she and I were only a few yards apart and I was
able to recognize that it was Stacks, although she looked younger and less
sporty. She called me again though this time she sounded annoyed that I hadn’t
yet reacted to her beckoning.
“