Unfair-Chapter 132: What's in a Nickname? (Patreon)

Chapter 132: What’s in a Nickname?

Despite Janet’s milk flowing through me first thing in the morning, I did anything but ‘chill’ on that early morning ride to school that Monday morning.  I’d brazenly opened up the secret menu on my tablet and kept refreshing MistuhGwiffin, hoping for a reply to my post.  No such luck, but it was still very early, yet.  I couldn’t count on my rescue ride presenting itself on day one.  Just had to be patient.

I’d been very patient so far; perhaps too patient. I’d unconsciously correlated my will to hold a grudge as inverse as my need to escape.  As if for as long as I was making a giant’s life difficult, then I had reason to stick around and endure; content myself with planning instead of acting. Emotionally crashing and burning had been a wakeup call of sorts.  A rude one, but sorely needed.

I kept refreshing and looking up bus routes on my tablet all the way into the teacher parking lot. I’d give it a week, I decided. One week and I’d repost and look into other methods to reach the outside world and attain my freedom. That felt like a good balance to myself. I exited out of the secret menu just in time for Janet to see me playing another kiddie game on mute.  “Okay, you know the deal,”: Janet said, “Tablet stays here during school.”

“Yes, Mommy,” I sighed dutifully.

Janet paused her unbuckling of me from the seat.  “Mommy?”  The word seemed to leave a bad taste in her ears all of a sudden.  

“The door’s open,” I said. “People could overhear us.  So you’re ‘Mommy’.”

“I know,” Janet said. “You said it differently yesterday, that’s all.”

It was my turn to frown, in confusion.  “Different how?”

“I don’t know.  Just different.”  She resumed unbuckling me and set me on my feet. “Not bad, either. Not that this is bad.”

“Just different?”  

“Yeah,” Janet said. She then opened up the front passenger side and hefted a jumbo box of Monkeez into her arms. I quietly promised myself that that would be the last batch of diapers delivered in my name.

I waddled boldly ahead in the crisp pre-dawn air; filled with purpose and oddly relaxed with zero intent to cause mischief or mayhem.  Combined with the mammoth levels of oxytocin in Janet’s milk, taking more active steps towards my self-emancipation had given me a sense of renewed peace.  The game was almost over and nearly all the pieces of the puzzle were on the board.

Oakshire wasn’t going to be my extraction point. No need to distract or vex my best friends and other faculty.  No need to get Janet’s hackles up and put her on increased alert.  Might as well enjoy this time.

Beouf’s door opened up as we approached.  “Morning, Clark!” Tracy greeted us. “Morning Janet!”  The time-honored tradition of our clique gathering in Beouf’s room before the morning bell had well and truly been restored.

I walked in ahead of Janet so as not to trip her up and gawked at the redecoration Beouf had done.  True to her word, she’d slinked back in over the weekend and completely redecorated her room.  Bulletin boards for announcements and displays of student work had been completely redone with soft blue backgrounds, and sparkling glitter borders.  Paper snowflakes bigger than an Amazon’s head dangled on cloudy white strings of yarn. She’d even gone to the trouble to switch out her bean bag upholstery in the reading nook so that we could pretend to read propaganda and covertly poop our pants behind giant snowballs.  It was a veritable winter wonderland in a place where the temperature dropped to near freezing for maybe a week or two every year.

“Nice,” I nodded my approval.  Beouf was always really good at setting up displays and classroom decoration.

“Thank you, Clark.” Beouf chirped, sitting at her desk and typing something out on the computer.

“Hey hey,” Janet said, still lumbering the box of diapers, “Where should I put these?”

Beouf stood up and approached.  “Here let me get that for you.”  She held her arms out and took the box from Janet.  “We’ve got a couple minutes. Tracy, do you mind getting the scissors and helping me open this?”

Tracy spared me a fretful glance.  I allowed myself a blush and just shrugged it off. Unpacking a bunch of diapers meant for me wasn’t the same as diapering me herself.  No promises broken where I was concerned.  “Not at all, ma’am.”

They cut open the box and started to tear into the vacuum sealed stacks of diapers. “Oh look, these have seasonal designs on them!” Beouf laughed. “How cute!”

Despite myself, I crinkled forward to get a closer look.  In lieu of tumbling like toddlers and cuddling with giant bananas, the diapered technicolor primates did things like drinking from mugs of hot cocoa, zipping along on sleds and stacking up snowmen with bananas instead of carrots for noses.  

“The box says that these have a wetness indicator,” Janet said. “Little blue snowflakes.”


Without thinking, I pulled open my light blue sweatpants and stared down at my own diaper. Bitter sweet relief surged into my brain seeing the old familiar designs still doing cartwheels. Embarrassingly, I’d gotten so used to being changed that I no longer examined a fresh diaper barring a significant difference in cut, thickness or likelihood of being seen by others.   I could have been wearing one of Amy’s pink hippo diapers and not thought too hardly about it as long as no one else could see.

“Uh, Boss…?” Tracy said, sounding mildly disturbed. “What are you doing?”

Oops! Still blushing, I let the front of my pants snapped back into place, just not far enough. I’d pulled the waistband down as well as out.  Hastily I tugged my pants back up well above my belly button to compensate. I looked up and attempted to coolly explain away how I’d basically stripped in front of everyone.  “Just che…” I became a dear in the headlights.

Jessica had walked in through the back.  She was bent over, frozen with her face cradled in the palms of her own hands; her eyes wide like saucers and filled with the same sort of manic longing that Janet used to display.  It didn’t take a degree in psychology to guess that she wasn’t exactly seeing ‘me’ in her mind’s eye.

She practically sprinted over and scooped me up.  “How’s my favorite Little Crinkle Butt?!” she asked, excitedly. “Were you lookin’ at your diapee because you need changed?”

I heard Beouf and Janet both audibly sniffing the air. “Naw,” Janet said. “I changed him right before we got in the car.”

“Yeah,” Beouf confirmed. “He’s probably not that wet. He should be good to go until at least Circle Time. When he poops, it’s usually in the middle of center rotations.”

For my ego’s sake, I shoved aside my Mommy’s and teacher’s all too familiar comments about my bladder and bowels and instead addressed the other nonsense that had shot out of Jessica’s mouth.  “Crinkle…butt?”

“What? You’re Mommy calls you that when she talks abou- oh no, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that was I?”

Janet kept unpacking diapers and passing them off to Beouf. “Thanks, Jess,” she said sarcastically.  “It’s a term of endearment, Clark. I promise.”

Beouf was going back and forth to the changing table in her bathroom.  Wow. Did I really need that many diapers?  “Do you mind if some of my other kids wear these, Janet?” she asked. “Not everybody’s parents are as good at sending along changes.”

“Sure,” Janet said. “I don’t mind.” Her head jerked up with a thought. “Ask Clark though. They’re his diapers.”  Oh how I still hated hearing that.

In her most calm yet practiced voice, a teacher doing her best to model politeness, Beouf called out to me. “Clark, do you mind if I put some of these diapers in your friends’ spots?  They’re running low and I don’t want them to run out today.”

I actively couldn’t care less.  “Sure.”  The only diaper that I couldn’t deny as mine was whichever one was presently taped around me.

“Okay, buddy. Thank you. That’s very generous of you,” Beouf said. “Billy, Tommy, Chaz, and Jesse won’t have to worry about leaks as much.”  She went back to stacking. “The boys always seem to go through diapers faster than the girls.  Or maybe its the girls’ parents tend to send diapers more regularly so I’m never short on them.  I really should keep better track.”

I looked at the pacifier clipped to my collar and opted to bite my tongue instead.  If Beouf kept a better accounting of classroom diapers, I might not be stuck in this position.  I shooed the resentful thought away.  I’d still had a very visible accident in front of a room full of Amazons. Beouf thinking that I’d been sneaking diapers out of her bathroom was just painting over the nail in my cradle.

“You got a haircut!” Jessica noticed. “I’m so sorry I missed it.”  She ran her hand over my head again and again, petting me like a cat. “I missed baby’s first haircut!”

“She gets like this after every Unification,” Janet explained to Beouf.

Jessica turned her head away from me. “Hush. I need this. My Unification wasn’t nearly as fun as yours.”  No one was looking at me, but I rolled my eyes. The word ‘fun’ was doing a lot of lifting in that sentence.  My make-believe Auntie held onto me, swaying from side to side so that she was rocking herself more than anything. “My parents are still bugging me about when I’m going to make them grandparents. They don’t care if I do it the old fashioned way or not.”

So many quips popped up in my head that I opted to make use of my pacifier rather than say them or bite off my own tongue.  Chief among them was loud wondering whether or not Adoption was the ‘old-fashioned way’ or not.

Beouf shook her head and clucked like a mother hen.  “Ah, the joys of cosseting.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jessica threw a smirk Beouf’s way. “You get your fix five times a week.” For half a second- Beouf almost looked offended. “Not that dealing with your students  isn’t work,” Jessica hastily added.  “Just that it’s kind of hard to cosset when you get to work with them everyday.”   

Beouf’s expression dialed itself back and she shrugged it off. “Point taken, Miss Starke. Point taken.”

“You teach preschool,” Janet countered. “Isn’t that close enough?”

“You teach third grade,” Jessica lobbed back.  “Isn’t that?”

Janet folded up the now empty box. “No. You’re right.”

“I love my kids,” Jessica said.  “But it’s just not the same.”

“Thank goodness,” Tracy quipped, sounding a tad too derisive for comfort.  All eyes honed in on her. My Tweener buddy sounded dangerously close to stepping on the Amazons’ collective fantasies.  She cocked an eyebrow.  “What? I don’t like changing diapers.”

That was enough to nip any blooming tension in the bud. Everyone else gave a tired laugh.  “I don’t think anybody likes changing diapers,” Beouf agreed.

Debatable. Very debatable.

“It’s just….” Jessica paused. “When you’re a teacher, you’ve always got to be pushing them and nudging them forward. Gotta take the next step and the next and the next. There’s no time to just…” she sighed. “Enjoy the moment.”

“Yeah,” Janet sighed.

Beouf had stopped dead in her tracks too, her eyes glazing over with nostalgia and a hint of regret.  “Yeah.  One moment they’re your babies. Then you look and the moment’s gone.” She removed her glasses and polished them with a tissue.  “Good thing I’m a grandma. I get to do it all over again!”

“But Janet doesn’t have to stop,” Jessica lamented. She looked down at me. “I don’t wanna stop.”

“Easy for you to say,” Janet yawned. “It’s not as much work when you don’t have to take them home or on weekends.”

Jessica maintained eye contact with me, getting lost in whatever fantasy of Mommy-hood her mind was constructing.  “Okay. Deal. I’m babysitting him this week.”

“Um…okay,” Janet chuckled, nervously.  “Friday?”

Jessica’s eyes did not flutter or move away from me.  “Nope. Too long.  Tonight. I need my Little fix, tonight.”

“Tonight?” Janet asked. “That’s not a lot of notice, Jess. You can come over and hang out with us tonight.”

“No,” Jessica said with an almost zealous fervor. “I totally want to hang, but later, but not tonight.” She took a long deep breath and exhaled before speaking again. In the intervening seconds I felt her body heat up in almost the exact same way I felt Janet’s when she was nearing peak Mommy mode.   “Today I am going to work with my students to get them back into routine after a whole week.  But tonight I want to play with a Little baby until I get to tuck him in for bed.”

Two beautiful women were practically fighting over me, but it was for the honor bouncing me on their knees and tickling me until I peed.  Just my luck. Typical.

Janet leaned back on a counter. She bit her lip and started fidgeting her head, her hands gripping the edge as if they were handles on a runaway scooter.  Perhaps she hadn’t gotten over finding out what I did the first time Jessica had babysat me. “Um….”

“You can call Helena,” Jessica coaxed. “I’ll watch her Little, too.”

Amy and me with a particularly well meaning yet naive Amazon who was cosseting for baby time hard? Oh fuck, escaping or not that was too good of an opportunity to pass up.   “Please Mommy!” I dropped the pacifier, and made my eyes big and round like saucers. “Please can I play with Amy? Pleeeeeease?!”

Jessica joined me. “Yeah, Janet. Pleeeeease? It’d make him soooo happy!”

Beouf smiled behind her hand.  “They’re playing you, girl.”

“Yeah,”  Janet grumbled. “I know….”  She was close to breaking.

“Hi Mrs. Zoge,” Tracy said loudly.  The resident Yamatoans had slipped in unnoticed. “It’s good to see you again! How was your family’s Unification?”

“We don’t celebrate Unification,” Zoge said in her soft, musical, unobtrusive way. “But we very much enjoyed the time off.”

“Good morning, everyone,” Ivy said.  She performed her practiced yet clumsy curtsey.  Purple tights clung to her legs and made the diaper beneath her dress stick out all the more; with its signature shape contrasting with Ivy’s skinny legs and the field of white peeking through where the fabric was stretched too thin.  “It is wonderful to see you, all.”

Jessica pointed down at Ivy.  “Her too! I want her, too!”

“I’m sorry?” Zoge said.  “I feel I missed something.’

“Miss Starke wants to babysit Clark, and Amy.”  Beouf looked like she was three seconds away from cracking up. “At the same time. Tonight.  Ivy too, apparently.”

A fog of memory came over Zoge. “Ivy and Clark and Amy?”  

As an explanation to Zoge, Janet teased. “Miss Starke wants to see what it’s like to be a real Mommy.”

I wasn’t planning mischief that day, I swear. But Amy’s wild streak combined with Ivy’s physical strength and total innocence?  In my (Janet’s) house? With the least experienced Amazon in my life’s rolodex?  This would in no way benefit my escape, but short of getting grounded again there was no way it could hurt.  Some firework shows are good enough to help light the fuse yourself.

“I want this, too, Mommy!” I was bouncing myself on Jessica’s hip.  “Auntie needs to meet all my friends! All of them!”

Down on the floor, Ivy was looking at me and was clutching her chest, fighting back tears and losing. Had I said something wrong? Was she about to start bawling and causing a new scene?  No. She was just momentarily overwhelmed that I’d unironically called her my friend.

Poor Ivy started tugging at her mother’s skirt and begging in Yamatoan. I didn’t need to speak the language to guess what she was saying.  “Please, Mommy, please! I’ll be real good, I promise! Let me play! Let me play! Pleeeeease!”

“Uh oh,” Beouf said. “Now they’ve got Ivy in on it.  This doesn’t look good, Janet.”

“No, Mel, it doesn’t.”

Zoge thought on it for only a moment.  “Tonight is not good,” she said. Ivy, Jessica, and I all shrank down in momentary despair.  “Tomorrow? Or Wednesday?”

“I could do Tuesday,” Jessica said.  “Tuesday might be better!”

“It would give me time to ask Helena…” Janet considered it. “Hmmm…”

Suddenly I was put down on my feet. Jessica had set me down and was now on her knees.  “Pleeeeease, Janet! Pleeeeease!”  I knelt beside her and folded my hands in a supplicant gesture. Ivy got on the other side and copied.

“PLEEEEEEEEEASE!”

“Okay, okay,”  Janet laughed.  “You win. I’ll text Helena and we’ll shoot for Tuesday after school.”
The three of us shot up to our feet and cheered.  Janet looked embarrassed that she had caved so easily.  Zoge and Beouf laughed and nodded knowingly, correctly predicting the storm that Jessica was volunteering to sail into.  Tracy looked uncomfortable, perhaps worried that I’d lost control of myself or suspecting ulterior motives for my enthusiasm.

The gentle tones of the first bell shook everyone awake. “Sh-” Beouf almost cursed. “We’re late!”  Almost everyone started for the door at once.  “Hanna, do you got this?”

Zoge already had the line leashes.  “We’ll catch up and meet you, Mrs. Beouf.”  That was enough for Beouf to motor off. Jessica was right behind her.

Janet was fast on their heels but still called back.  “Have a good day, Clark!”

“You too!”

“Love you, Crinkle Butt!”

Tracy had been stuck holding the door open.  “Bye Mrs. Zoge! By Ivy! Bye-!”

“Tracy, come on!” Jessica called. “The buses are early!”

“Crap!”  The door swung shut, leaving just me, Ivy, and her mother.

Ivy sidled up to me and offered out her hand.  I accepted it, and we each stayed still as Zoge carefully fastened on restraints so that we could be allowed to walk just a few feet in front of her.

We were still holding hands when Zoge opened the door and we were walking through the hordes of students skipping breakfast and going to class.  “Did your Mommy change your name to Crinkle Butt?” Ivy asked.

“No,” I said. “Apparently, it’s just a nickname.”

“Ah,” Ivy said. Quietly, so that Zoge couldn’t overhear, she asked. “Do you think it’s a good nickname?”

“Not really,” I said, feeling my face flush.

“Me neither,” Ivy agreed.

That caught my attention.  “Why not?”

“Nicknames should be special. Crinkle Butt is not special.”

A rock of realization landed in my gut. “Because all of us are ‘Crinkle Butts’?”
“Yes,” Ivy said.  

“Do you ever wish you weren’t?” I found myself asking. I literally couldn’t help myself.

Ivy tilted her head, her pigtails bobbing this way and that while she considered.  “I don’t know…”

Up ahead, Beouf  was setting down Mandy and Tommy and was making them hold hands. We really were running late.  “Meh,” I said. “It’s only a nickname.”

Right ahead of us, as usual, the preschoolers were lining up just beside their bus, all smiling and at ease while Jessica and Tracy took positions in front of and behind them.  “Hey, Clark!” Elmer waved to me, happy and excited just to be at school.    

I smiled politely and waved back, but the joy didn’t quite make it up to my eyes or down to my heart.  It was good that Jessica was getting things back on track and that she and Tracy were working to undo the damage that Ambrose had done.

Just…

********************************************************************************************************

“Excuse me, Mrs. Beouf,” Skinner said when she burst into the classroom not one minute after Circle Time had wrapped up. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but would it be okay if I took some of your kids right now? I’ve got so many meetings later in the week and can’t fit them in at their regular time.”

“Sure,” Beouf said. “Take as many as you need. I’ll just have them take the top two activities from their schedule so they stay on track when they get back.”

Skinner looked at the notebook she’d carried in with her.  “I’m gonna need almost all of them, but first let me take Annie, Billy, Chaz aaaaand Clark.”

I really wasn’t planning to cause mischief. Not on a Monday.  But something about Skinner still made my blood boil. Something about her still got my hackles up beyond the crack she’d made about me and my wife.  I should have followed through on my threat and told on her to Janet.

Too much time had passed from that moment to this one, unfortunately. She wasn’t as afraid anymore and confidently ushered us out of our room over to hers.  I waddled uncomfortably the whole way.  I’d just been changed and my diaper was still kind of rigid. My gut wasn’t foreshadowing anything, but I would have pooped if I could just to add on the extra inconvenience on Skinner’s plate.

“Down we go, Chaz,” Skinner half-cooed, buckling him into a booster seat so that he could neither fall over nor crawl away.  Chaz was only the first. None of us were spared. Every Little-sized chair had been suitably altered, and within ninety seconds all four founding members of the A.L.L. were rendered into a captive audience, sitting in a neat row of four with our backs to the door so that Skinner could take a seat across from us.  “There,” Skinner said to herself. “Much better.”

From left to right, all of us looked at one another.  As if us getting up and moving around had been a problem Skinner needed to solve. This was just another flex with a pretense, no different than trying to get us to baby talk using stuffed animals. We were going to let her have it.

“So Gibson,” Billy said. “What dumb baby game is she going to try and get us to play?”

“Oh you’ll see, Billy,” Skinner said. She took a seat across from us and started riffling through her not so tried and true flashcards. “Clark’s name isn’t ‘Gibson’, though.”

“It used to be, though,” Billy retorted. “I like busting his chops.about it. He doesn’t mind, do you Gibson?”

I was too busy bristling at Billy for it to register that Skinner had just done the same.

“So you agree,“ Annie said, trying to avert a Civil War.  “You think we’re dumb babies.”

Unusually, Skinner didn’t take the bait. “Please don’t say such nasty things about my Little friends,” she replied. “‘Dumb’ is not how I would describe you.”  

A collective shiver ran up our spines.  ‘Friend’ is not how anyone here would have described Skinner.

She laid down one of her tried and true flashcards on the table for us all to see. “What’s this called?” It was a photo of a disposable diaper, unfolded and spread out so that it was positively unmistakable. “The answer may surprise you.”

“A diaper,” Billy said confidently.

“Nope,” Skinner replied. “Guess again.”

Chaz and Annie puzzled and squinted their eyes, both looking for the trick or the technicality Skinner was trying to use.  “Is that a Monkeez?” Annie asked. “Or a Koddles?”

“I can’t tell without looking at the decoration,” Chaz admitted. “It doesn’t look like it’s blue or pink on the outside, so I don’t think it’s a Hippobottomus or any of those other different colored diapers.”  He scratched his head.  “Is that an adult diaper? What do they call them when they’re on Amazons?  A brief?”

“Nope,” Skinner repeated. “Not what I’m looking for but you’re kind of on the right track.”

I remained sitting as tall and dignified as I could manage. “We’re not gonna call it a ‘diapee’ or ‘didee’ or ‘di-di’ or whatever baby word you want us to say,” I told her; arms firmly crossed over my chest and frowning.

“Not what am I thinking either,” Skinner said. “Good guess, though. Give up?”

Never. “Yeah,” the others said.

Skinner flashed what may have been the cheesiest, most punchable smile. “The word I was looking for was ‘nappy’!”

I clapped my hand over my forehead. “Oh come on!”  This is what her tactics had come to? Gaslighting us so we didn’t think we knew what words were? Or was she just trying to frustrate us by keeping a list of synonyms for words, and whatever one we didn’t guess was the correct answer?    

The speech language pathologist flashed another card.  “What’s this?”

The guesses all leapt out of my classmate’s mouths at once.  

“A stroller!”

“A baby buggy”

“Carriage…no wait…pram! A pram!”

Skinner touched her own nose and smiled.  “That’s right, Chaz! Over in Albiene it’s called ‘a pram’!” She quickly switched to a picture of a pacifier. “What about this?”  .

“A dummy.” I said it in a flat, unenthused monotone. I wasn’t exactly talking about the pacifier.

“Correct, Clark!” Skinner said. “In Albiene and some other parts of the world, it’s called a’ dummy’.  Now what would happen if you were using those terms here?” She asked.  “What if you said to someone that you wanted a dummy?”

“They’d go out and find me Billy,” Chaz joked.  Billy made to punch him in the arm, but pulled it at the last second.  We all giggled, especially Chaz, but Skinner seemed only slightly annoyed.

“Right,” Skinner said.  “And pram? Or nappy?”

“Um…maybe pram is a food?” Billy said. “I dunno. Somebody would probably ask me what I meant.”

“Or maybe someone would think I wanted to go to sleep?” Annie supposed. “Like a nap?”

“But that isn’t what you were talking about, is it? That’s not what you wanted or what you wanted to draw attention to?” Skinner tapped each one of her photos in turn. “But if you went over to Albiene and you asked for a diaper, a stroller, or a pacifier, they might not know what you’re talking about or if they did they’d want to correct you and know that you didn’t exactly belong.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I’m forced to go on vacation to Albiene,” I droned, unimpressed. “What’s your point? “

“My point is,” Skinner lectured, “that language is an adaptive tool. We change and modify our language based on our location and company.”

“So you’re trying to teach us to use fewer words,” I interrupted, “to make it so that we are easier to understand?  Is that the pitch I’m hearing?”  I stared straight at her,  my arms still folded, hostile and unimpressed.  This look should have crumpled her; sent her fumbling and frustrated and giving up.

It didn’t, though.  “One, y’all are already losing words. You just can’t see it. Two, this group in particular seems to be labeling under the belief that just because I’m trying to teach you new words and new ways to communicate that I’m trying to take your old words away.”

“Bullshit,” Billy said, beating me to the punch.  “We’re not losing words. Quit blowing smoke up our asses!”

Skinner didn’t take the bait to correct Billy for his cursing. Instead she reached over and grabbed a stack of index cards.  “Annie, what does NPO mean if written on a patient’s chart and why is it NPO?”  

Annie’s head jerked back like she’d just been swung on.  “It means, don’t take any food by mouth. No. Wait. Nothing by mouth! Nothing by mouth! And it…it’s” she started struggling, “Nada por…something…?  It’s from another language.”

Like a smug game show hostess, Skinner read off the card. “You’re right, it’s shorthand for  Nothing By Mouth, but the literal translation you’re looking for is ‘nil per os’.”

Annie sank as low as the booster seat would allow.   “Oh yeah. I haven’t had to use that one in a while…”  She looked at me, pathetically guilty, begging me not to say anything. It was very possible she’d  spent more time playing nurse with her Daddy than she ever got to practice medicine on a real hospital floor.

Not that I would have done anything, but I didn’t get the chance. “Clark,” Skinner asked, “what are the five key components of reading instruction?”  

The record track on my brain suddenly scratched.  “Five components?” I asked.

“Yes,” Skinner said, her eyes boring into me.  “Vocabulary terms only, please.”

Shit. I hadn’t been quizzed on those since college. So much theory gets tossed out the window in practice.  Half of it is impractical, and the other half is common sense. That and I was so much better at describing concepts and putting them in plain spoken language or wrapping it in metaphor.

“Phonemic Awareness,” I said, remembering. “That means-”

“I don’t need to know what it means,” Skinner cut me off. “I just need to know the other four components.”

“Phonics,” I said.  

“Correct. Three more.”  Skinner paused a beat.  “Come on. You can do this. You’re almost halfway there.”

Phonemic awareness and phonics were what most of my reading curriculum was based around. Manipulating sounds and connecting those sounds to written letters and then words was at the cornerstone of reading; especially for my usual caseload.  What else did we usually practice? “Sight words?” I guessed.  I always pushed simple word memorization to aid in their speed.  Knowing t-h-e spelled the as a knee jerk reaction was way easier at the early stages of reading than it was to teach the ‘th’ sound and how ‘e’ sometimes made an ‘eh’ sound and sometimes made an ‘ee’ sound, but also could make an ‘uh’ sound.   “Sight words,” I said more confidently.

Skinner looked at her notecard. “Keep going…”

“Sight words and..and…” the word came to me. “Fluency!”

“One more,” Skinner said.

The thing was that with my crew and Skinner all looking at me I couldn’t come up with one more word.  “It’s been a while..” I admitted.

Skinner read off her stupid notecard.  “The five components of reading instruction are… phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.”  She put the notecards aside and folded her hands in front of her.  “What was that about losing words?”

This. I should have expected this. When a typical Amazon struggles to treat you like a baby, they do their level best to make you wish they did.  

“Okay, I’m rusty on the terminology and specific vocabulary,” I said. “My strength was always in summarization.”

“Evidence that your latent Maturosis might not have been so latent, and was just slowly progressing over time until it got you here,” Skinner said.  Would that my hair were longer so that I could better yank at it in frustration.  Skinner’s neck was too far away. “Billy, what is a tort case?

“Oh come on,” my big bully boy whined, “You know I don’t remember that!”  I blinked in confusion.  Had Billy wanted to be a lawyer? Had he been a lawyer?

“Chaz…” Skinner looked at literally the youngest among us.

“Pass,” he said dejectedly. “Pass.  I barely got out of high school the first time.”

“Who cares?” Billy fumed. “Annie’s not a nurse. Gibson isn’t a teacher anymore.”

“Exactly, Billy” Skinner touched her nose again. “We’re not in Albiene, so we don’t use their words. Annie isn’t a nurse and Clark isn’t a teacher anymore, so they don’t use those words. Professionals have specific terms they memorize to communicate their expertise!  Would you want a surgeon or a doctor who didn’t know all the technical terms? Would that make you feel safe?”

Despite my psychic protests, my three classmates reluctantly shook their heads, agreeing with Skinner. Damn. This particular bit of crazy almost sounded reasonable coming from her.

“Yeah,” I spoke up, “so how does me talking like a baby make people feel safe? What am I supposed to be an expert at? Peeing my pants?”

Skinner had done her homework and prepared for this. “It doesn’t make you look like an expert,” she said with enough confidence that it didn’t sound like a concession.  “It does however communicate that you’re well behaved, accepting of your situation, and wanting love and attention.”

I sucked on my teeth.  Wow!  I hadn’t expected her to say it so brazenly.

“So you’re teaching us how to surrender,” Annie quipped. “How to say we give up.”

“Not exactly,” Skinner rebutted.  “I’m just teaching you alternate ways of communication.  Have any of you ever just been overwhelmed and you needed to get a Grown-Up’s attention, but they’re too slow because you’re crying or scared or you just can’t find the words to make them understand you?”

No one nodded or replied.  We didn’t need to, though.  We’d all been there at some point or another.

“So what’s wrong with giving you shorter, simpler words that will grab your Mommy’s or Daddy’s attention and communicate your needs faster when your regular ones aren’t working or you’re in a spot where you can’t access them?”

A full on snarl had found its way onto my face.  If the last week hadn’t been enough to relight a fire under my ass, this session was doing the trick. “Why should we have to come down to Amazon expectations?”

“Good one, Gibson!” Billy reached his hand out and we exchanged high fives.

The Pathological Speech Language Pathologist  nodded, too.  “Good point, Clark.  Let me ask you a question. Why does your diaper have cartoons on it?  Why do y’alls butts smell like flowers most of the time?”

My snarl melted in a mask of confusion.  This was a trap. I just didn’t know how. “Because Amazons want us to smell good when we’re not drenched in piss and covered in shit?”

“What about the cartoons?” Skinner kept at it. “Does having cartoons on them make the diaper any more absorbent or fluffy?”

“No…” Chaz said, mirroring my distrust and mounting anxiety.

“So why do they have them?” She pressed. She gave me another look. “Oh! Or why Grown-Ups call it pee-pee or ‘poo-poo’ instead of what Clark said?”

Annie’s head moved left and right, looking for one of us to speak up. “Because piss and shit sound gross?”

Skinner touched her nose yet again. “Ding-ding-ding! It’s a lot easier to change a diaper when you’re thinking of it as ‘pee-pee’ and ‘poo-poo’ and when it’s got cute decorations on it!  Why do y’alls clothes have so many snaps in them?”

“To deny us privacy,” I muttered.

Chaz gave the desired answer . “To make it easier to change us.”

“Mhm,” Skinner nodded and touched her nose. “Now you’re getting it!  Almost everything we do with babies is to make them easier for us to take care of!  Babies are always gonna need a certain level of care and so will Littles. That care isn’t always pleasant for the Grown-Ups.  So we trick ourselves and make things cute and easy so that the gross stuff doesn’t bother us as much.”

The funny thing is, I half-agreed with her.  Amazons did love to trick themselves.  “You still haven’t told me why I need to learn to baby talk,” I said.

“Why Clark,” Skinner beamed evilly. “I thought you of all people would want to be in on the trick.”  There it was. There was the trap.  Framing compliance as an act of rebellion; like with the stuffies but on purpose this time.

Billy didn’t see it. “She’s got you there, Gibson.”

Skinner wrinkled her nose like someone had just shat her cereal. The disgusted look faded when an excited Chaz leaned forward and asked her, “So like…a scam?”

“Better than a scam, Billy!” She mirrored his excited posture. “It’s like a cheat code! Even if your Mommy and Daddy knows what you’re doing, they’re going to want to give you what you want so bad that they won’t care!”

This was getting away from me. This was getting too far away from me and too fast. And damn my stubbornness, I could not let this go unchallenged.  “Cool,” I said. “I already know how to say ‘diapee’ and ‘ba-ba’ and stuff.  So what good are you?”

Skinner leaned to the other end of the table so that she was farthest away from me.  “Does anybody else here remember when Clark was waddling all over campus in just a t-shirt and diaper?  Remember how embarrassed he was?”

Three heads turned and looked at me. “He was redder than he is right now,” Billy said.

“But he got over it,” Annie chimed in.  “We all did.”

“Yup!” Skinner sat back up and touched her own nose. “You had to get used to it.  This is the same thing! My job is to help you practice and get comfortable with using these communication tricks so that you can use them when you want or need to!”

If Beouf had said it, I might’ve believed her sincerity.  

“Guys,” I interrupted. “Tell me you’re not buying this.”

My crew all shook their heads in solidarity with me.

“Who here’s seen Little Mister Grange here get all cute and cuddly with an adult when he wants something?”  All hands save mine immediately shot up. “It’s the same thing. Is it Maturosis or is he just being a tricky Little guy?  Does it matter?”

Three so-called Adult Littles looked at one another from left to right, unsure of how to respond; or perhaps whose disapproval they feared more.

“She’s got a point, Gibson.”  Billy said.  “It’s not like practicing this stuff is really gonna make us worse, right?”

It would though. It totally would. What if this was the straw that broke their resolve?  What if after I escaped they all plunged themselves into denial and doublethink so bad that they went to the Pretend Play Preserve every weekend so they could haughtily poop their fun-derwear?  What if they put on a big goofy lion suit and tried to stall getting changed because they were genuinely so invested in playtime? What if their buzzing went away?

“Billy,” Skinner asked, “Why do you still call Clark ‘Gibson’?”

Billy took more time to think than I expected of him. “I don’t know. It’s just a nickname.”

“Is it because you still see him as a teacher? An adult?”

Billy bristled the same way Skinner had started to. “No.”

“Then why are you giving him power over you?” Skinner whispered. “Why call him something that he isn’t any more?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Billy said again.  I’d yet to see Billy be this particular flavor of uncomfortable and actually start to question his own thought process.

Skinner leaned more than halfway across the table. “Is it?”

“Yeah…”

“Are you sure?  Language is a reflection of thought.  Maybe you think Clark is still bigger than you and that’s why you let him boss you around?”

“Clark doesn’t…” Billy stammered, “I mean Gib…Clark…no!”

Chaz was snickering behind his hand, loving to see Billy sweat it out.  Annie looked concerned, worried what was happening almost as much as I was. I felt like the straight man in a comedy act; smart enough to know something was wrong, but not clever to the point where I could affect the outcome.  If Billy stopped calling me ‘Gibson’…why did I care if he called me ‘Gibson’ anyways?

Like the phoenix rising from its own ashes, my wit returned to me.  “It’s not just a nickname,” I realized. “Billy likes reminding me how I used to work here! He likes rubbing it in my face! He won’t let me forget!”

“Yeah,” Billy said, puffing out his chest. “I…” he did a double take and stared at me. “Huh? I just like busting your balls, dude.”

Chaz picked up Billy’s slack. “What’s wrong with it? Who cares? Gibson doesn’t. Right Gibson?”

I flashed my own smug grin across the table. “I love it. Good language trick. Keeps me humble.”

“Yeah!” Billy enthusiastically agreed.

“If language is a reflection of thought, Mrs. Skinner?” Annie said, “What thoughts do you want us to be having if you’re trying to get us to talk like babies?”

“Nothing…” Skinner’s lie showed plainly on her face. “That’s not what’s happening. I’m just...  What if you want to uh…what if you want your Mommy or Daddy to buy you a new toy, and crying hasn’t worked?”

I looked her dead in the eye and in the most condescending snooty voice that I could must I said, “I’d tap her on the shoulder and politely say ‘will you please purchase that useless piece of plastic for me as it would bring me great joy that would likely radiate out to you and make our home life together much more pleasant in the short term.’  In return I promise to shit in my nappies without complaint and ride along in the pram when we go on our constitutionals for a period not to exceed a fortnight.”

Glorious cackles of hilarity all around. Almost. Skinner huffed in defeat. “Let’s go back to class,” she grumbled, her sales pitch firmly shot down and in flames. “I don’t even know why I try sometimes.”  

The thing is she almost had them.  It really was almost a Little Voices level of propagandic excellence.  If she hadn’t zeroed in on Billy’s stupid nickname for me, it might have worked.

*****************************************************************************************************

My afternoon coffee was half chugged before I started unwinding and talking to Beouf in earnest.   “Easy there, killer,” she chuckled. “You’re gonna give yourself the hiccups!  Do you need a burp?”  The unnerving thing was I couldn’t tell if that last part was teasing or not.

“I did a bad thing today, Mel.”

Leaning against the back door, Tracy’s eyes widened in delight, even as she failed to hide her enthusiasm. . “Uh oh. What are we going to have to bail you out of this time?”  It was good to have her hanging around again.

“Was it Skinner?” Beouf asked. “Because I already got an email from her.”

“Oh no!” Tracy giggled. “Seriously? What did you do?”

I ignored Tracy, momentarily, worried that I’d once again tripped over my own pride.  “What’d it say?”

“Nothing I haven’t read before,” Beouf said. “Or had Kindergarten and First Grade teachers complain to me about .”

Tired of lurking, Tracy pulled out a chair that was too small for her and leaned forward on her knees.  “Secrets don’t make friends, guys. Gimme the gossip.”

So I did my own dramatic recounting of what had happened.  Both Beouf and Tracy were in stitches by the time I was done.

“The thing is,” Beouf said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, “Most of that is pretty sound where Maturosis is concerned. Code switching to circumvent language obstacles is valid.”

In lieu of rolling my eyes or getting into an argument, I took another swing from my bottle.

“Yeah, but it’s Skinner,” Tracy said. “Her classroom management sucks.”

“Her classroom management is shhhhhh….” Beouf almost swore. “...garbage.”   Dang. I almost got her to cuss in front of me. Bad luck. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after that…

“So,” I licked my lips, anxiously. “Am I in trouble?”

Beouf leaned back in her chair and stretched.  “If it doesn’t happen in my classroom or on my playground, I don’t much care.  Whatever happens between you and Skinner is between you and Skinner.”

The back door creaked open.  “I know the sound of tea being spilled when I hear it!” Jessica chirped.  “Can I join?”

“Sure,” Beouf said. “Pull up a seat!”

“Did those letters you sent off for Unification come back yet?”  I asked, suddenly remembering. Melony stiffened, but didn’t get a chance to reply.

Jessica jerked back around the way she came before getting a chance to sit down. “Oh crud! I forgot to send home this week’s newsletter and announcements!”

“So?” Beouf said. “Just send them tomorrow. None of that stuff is ever urgent.’

“I can’t remember where I put them.”

Tracy tried and failed to hide her amusement.  “Oh-em-gee! You’re just as bad as he was!” she thumbed over to me.

“I know, I know!” Jessica said. “Did I stuff them in my desk or did I leave them in my mailbox? Tracy? Help?”

Tracy stood up and followed Jessica out. “Yes, Boss,” she moaned playfully, “I’ll help.” Without looking back, she waved. “See you guys tomorrow.”  

All was silence for a moment. “Bet you’re glad that’s not your problem anymore, huh buddy?”  I heard Beouf say, but I didn’t turn around.  I was staring at the back door where Tracy had been. “Clark?”

“Boss…?” The words came out of me half-strangled. “Boss?”

Tracy hadn’t been talking to me this morning…

Melony scooped me up and plopped me on her lap. We were both on the floor and she’d made a nest out of her legs again.   “Hey,” she whispered gently down at me.  “Talk to me. It’s okay.”

“She called…” I found myself taking deep breaths to prevent myself from screaming and sobbing.  “Tracy…She called Miss Starke…Boss.”

Her arms found their way around me and she pulled me into her, burying. “Oh hun…” she said. “That doesn’t mean anything.  It’s just a nickname.”

I had to scrunch my entire face up to keep the waves of emotion from slamming me head on. “But it was my nickname…”

One nickname. An ironic affectation considering our heights and relative social standing. An in-joke. A sign of our connection and camaraderie through the years. A call-sign to remind me that not everybody taller than me had had their perceptions shifted.

She probably hadn’t even meant anything by it. No slight or offense intended. Jessica was probably a very good teacher. If she was half as sincere and well meaning with my kids as she was with me, she was amazing; miles better than Ambrose.  And it was good to see Tracy back to her old self instead of constantly on guard and on the verge of a breakdown. I was happy for her.  Really happy.  Happy for everyone.

I just wasn’t a teacher anymore. I wasn’t ‘Gibson’ to my co-workers and work friends. I wasn’t ‘Mr. G’ to any of my kids. I wasn’t even Tracy’s ‘Boss’ anymore. I’d been replaced.  And as soon as I was gone, I’d be forgotten, too.

“It’s okay if you wanna cry,” Beouf promised, trying to rip me out of my own head. “Get all those feelings out.”

“I don’t want to cry,” I lied. My nose was filling up with bubbling snot by the second. I was rubbing at my eyes the way a fiddler put resin on his bow. “I want to…to…” I looked up at my best friend and mentor.  “Mrs. B.? Can I please throw a tantrum?  Toss a chair? Break something?”

Bless her, the woman did not laugh.  “Sure, buddy. I’ll give you some of Mrs. Zoge’s crayons you can snap and paper you can rip up.  Would that help?”

I wiped my nose on my forearm and nodded.

“You can scribble it all up and scream all you want.” Beouf  promised. “And I’ll build a block tower you can knock over. You won’t even have to clean it up.”

“Can I paint a frog?” I whispered up at her as if in prayer.

She gave me another long, deep hug, like she was trying to smother the flame of sadness within me.  “Yeah,” she said. “Good idea. Let’s paint a frog.  Do you want me to be a frog, too?”

If I so much as opened my mouth, I knew I would crumble into blubbering gibberish. I settled for giving her a tight lipped and squeaky “Mhm.”

“I’d like that, too, Clark,” Melony said. “I ‘d like that too.”