A New Boy

78DB Jon

Chapter 1

       Sergeant Arthur Curley had his partner drop him off from work at the corner of Kerby and Mathews not far from Donahue's Market. As the squad car pulled away from the curb, the big-chested cop ran his hand through his curly red hair, loosened his tie, and eased his holster belt. Twirling his nightstick he strolled down the street on his way to pick up milk and eggs for the crepes his wife was planning for desert that night. He had been on the force 21 years, walking a beat in Southie for five, and then sixteen years as a patrolman. Despite Kate, who seemed to devote half her waking hours to the kitchen, the vigorous life he led kept him in excellent condition, with only a slight rounding at the corners. Scarcely noticeable, he thought, as he contemplated Kates cooking. He was well liked in the community, had raised 2 sons and a daughter; the last just graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in sociology. Officer Curley was feeling reflective as he strode down the street. It's been pretty good, he thought, with oldest boy John a doctor, starting practice in Cambridge, and by God his son Morgan a priest, with the parish down in Baltimore - that made his mother proud, and little Mary going on with a fellowship at Johns Hopkins for a PhD in child psychiatry.

       His daughter was a special pleasure to him. When she was born, he hadn't been at all sure what he was going to do with a daughter, but she proved to be quite something: though just as good in the kitchen as her mother, she hadn't let two older brothers keep her from the lime light. Her determination was family legend. In order to follow the family tradition established by her older brothers, she had integrated the previously all-boy local little league. An event that had led Curley to fill in for a departing angry coach. He had been a coach ever since, though each year he would solemnly announce that this was his last. The big gentle man was widely recognized as the best coach in the league, - not so much for his win-loss record, which was very respectable - but for the way he could bring a boy around. He seemed to have an amazing knack for seeing just what each little kid needed to reach his full potential: a little bit of praise at just the time; a stern hand when needed; a bit of a push in a new direction; when to ease up; when to go hard - coach Curley seemed to have some inner sight when it came to helping kids.

       Curley and his wife had lived on a quiet tree-lined street out in Brookline for 27 years in a grand big house bought in run down shape and fixed-up as the kids grew. Married at 18, the kids had come in prompt Catholic succession over the space of four years, ending with a full cesarean and hysterectomy with the birth of little Bill. Last by an act of God, he and his wife had particularly treasured the bright little boy, who always seemed to have a smile for everyone. Small in growth due to medical problems surrounding his birth, nonetheless he'd otherwise developed normally and been entirely all-boy in behavior. They had carefully avoided letting any stigma attach to his slow physical development, and his wife seemed to enjoy the little extra bit of babying it had required to keep his bed dry. Footed sleepers with snaps around the waist had been the standard bed wear for all his short life, and a pat on his padded rump when bedtime arrived had been the routine by which his father chased the seven year old to bed each evening. Any comments by friends staying over night were dealt with matter-of-factly by a father whose approval every boy on the block seemed to want. Somehow the combination of little Bill's disposition and his parents good sense had prevented any hazing by his friends for a problem that, even at age seven, was not that uncommon among boys, though rarely as openly dealt with as little Bill's.

       Thus it had been uncommonly cruel, Curley thought as he walked toward that market, that little Bill had gone so young. It seemed impossible even 14 years latter. One moment he'd been rushing around and in-and-out the house with a friend - and the next - there'd been a little crumpled heap on the street by the driveway.

       These maudlin thoughts were interrupted as Curley passed the alley next to Donahue’s Market by an unmistakable scream of pain from a young child. He quickly turned and looked down the alley to see a small group of children surrounding two boys, one of whom was rolling on the ground in obvious pain. Curley ran down the alley to see what had happened: as he watched in disbelief, the standing boy leapt into the air and came down with both feet on the other boy's outstretched arm. The limb, which was lying over some broken bricks, gave an audible snap. As the boy on the ground shrieked in agony, the other laughed, hauled back his foot, and was about to deliver a kick to the boys crotch when Curley caught him from the back and jerked him off his feet.

       "Let go you sonofabitch!" the boy yelled, twisting in Curley's grip and kicking out at Curley's knees. He turned his head and sank his teeth into Curley's arm. Blood oozed from between his teeth as he bit into the flesh. Curley dropped the boy in shock, who hit the ground running, heading down the alley - but not quite fast enough as Curley tossed his nightstick between the boys legs, tumbling him to the pavement.

       This time Curley put the grip on him, slamming him chest first into the wall and snapping cuffs on him so fast that it seemed a blur to the other kids. He then yanked the boy's feet out from under him and spread-eagled him on the pavement. The stream of language coming from the ground was impressive, not only for its quantity, vigor, and just plain vile nature; but for the truly creative possibilities that were suggested for what could be done with, and to, various parts of Sergeant Curley's anatomy. Curley had dealt with enough human refuse over the years to be a challenge to impress, but even he was amazed at what came out of the child's mouth.

       Ignoring the static, he turned to the wide-eyed children and told a boy of about nine to run to the market and tell Mr. Donahue to call for backup, and for an ambulance for the little lad twisting in pain on the ground.

       "Listen kid!" he said to the handcuffed boy, "You so much as move and you will never forget it!" Something about the deathly quiet in the cops voice made the boy go silent and still. Curley looked at the other children and said, "If he so much as moves a finger - you yell." As the children nodded, officer Curley moved to the writhing boy on the ground, put his hands firmly on his shoulders and gently held him still, all the while talking to him in a gentle reassuring voice.

       Two days later Curley was at Juvenile talking to Mark Struthers, the court probation officer. "You couldn't believe it - a ten year old kid! - He just laughed when he broke that boy's arm. It made me sick I tell ya. It made me sick. What's the world coming to"?

       "From what I can see from Jonathan's file," Struthers replied "the other kid's lucky he wasn't killed." Jonathan is a most accomplished 10 year old: ten times up for vandalism, five for assault - once on a teacher, and once for cutting up an older kid with a knife who threatened him - he's been thrown out of school more often than any other kid in Southie. His schoolyard protection racket has been one of the most difficult to break in the history of South Boston elementary. He's just about as vicious a ten year old as you could find anywhere on the planet. The teachers won't let him on the playground: he's shaken down or bullied every child in the school. There are children there who wake up at night screaming his name. He doesn't love anyone or give a damn about another human being - and I'm convinced he hates himself too. Frankly, about the best thing society could do with him, is to take him out back of the courthouse and put a bullet through his head. That boy will kill someone, and not that far in the future. As far as I'm concerned he has same fine prospects in life as the young Charlie Manson. A bullet in head would probably be the kindest thing we could do for him too." Struthers mused. "You know, it's amazing. He's a really cute looking kid. Looks like an angel - an angel from hell that is". - he added wryly.

       "Sweet mother of mercy, Mark, what on earth makes a ten year old like that. Do you think he was born viscous, or did someone make him that way?"

       "In that poor little bastards case, he was made. You wouldn't believe what he's been through. Even given what he's done, it's hard not to have some sympathy for him. The boy was removed from his mother two years ago. The neighbors complained about his tipping over the garbage cans. They never bothered about anything else that went on next door, and I guess the hospital didn't exactly do itself proud either. Fourteen trips to the hospital between the ages of five and seven - all for contusions and broken bones. Seems he was always falling down stairs. Afterwards, they even found a nasty scar from a cigarette burn on the sole of one foot at the children’s' center - must of been what made him so clumsy to fall down all those stairs - I guess you have to really watch it in a ground floor apartment. His father left at age 5, and it seems his mother somehow decided it was his fault. She punished him by having him sit at the dinner table each night and watch the rest of the family eat with an empty plate in front of him. Same at breakfast. Had to sit at the table until everyone was finished, ask to be excused, clear his plate - just like any other kid, except there was never any food for him. Then she'd send him to bed. If it weren't for the school lunch program, he'd died of malnutrition in a month. When she did feed him, it was dog food in a bowl on the floor - and then she'd beat him till he vomited. It seems that he wasn't vandalizing the neighbors garbage cans - he was trying to get food. Weekends can be pretty long when you don't get to eat. The officer that caught him in the neighbors garbage, had to fight to get a piece of rotten chicken carcass out of his mouth."

       "My God!" Curley gasped, how could anyone treat a child like that."

       "You got me," Struther's replied, "up until his father left he was the apple of his parents eyes. All the neighbors said he'd been a really nice child. But one day he's living on Main Street - and the next in Hell. Point is though, there's so much hate and horror in that boy now that it’s not likely he'll ever recover. The State's tried only two foster homes in three years. They had to remove him after a week in the first home to protect the other children - and they just tried a second one last week. That was six days ago. In four day's he was setting up a protection racket outside the new school. He broke that boy's arm because he let another kid shake him down for his lunch money before he could give it to Jonathan."

       "You know," Curley said, "what a kid like that needs is to start over. If we could just turn him back to being a baby, give him some real parents, a lot of love, not expect too much of him for a while, and let him grow up again - relearning what it is to be a human being, what love is, what makes people care about each other, it just might turn him back into being human again. You know that Kate and I had that foster kid last year from you - nothing like this kid of course, but still he wasn't any winner when he came. Strangely, if it hadn't been for his bedwetting, I don't think we'd ever have succeeded so well with him."

       "What do you mean?" Struthers responded. "It was impressive the way you and Kate turned him around. It was also impressive the way he was worked back into his mother's home. As far as I know both he and his mother seem to be getting on fine, and he's doing well in school. We all figured you had some kind of magic down here at the court house."

       "Well, you know ever since we lost little Bill, Kate's had a place in her heart for little bedwetter's. Little Bill's diapers were a special thing to Kate, somehow she liked them, she knew the boy was her last, and I think she treasured having him remain a little bit a baby as he grew up. That boy when he arrived at our house turned out to be a totally self-contained nighttime irrigation system. In the morning the only thing different between his bed and the Quabin Reservoir, was that the reservoir couldn't of held that much. Somehow Kate coaxed that boy back into diapers. That made her happy, she really loved it, and they became a special thing - a time for lots of love, tickles, and cuddling just before bed, and a little bit of nurturing in the morning. The kid seemed to not only like the attention, but he also seemed to like the diapers for themselves. He'd often get one of us to diaper him up before bedtime. Anyway, he throve on the special attention. When he was in diapers he became a different boy. A new boy in fact. Quiet, didn't talk back, wouldn't fight you all the time. He'd listen. I think that somehow, when he let those diapers go on, he was saying 'OK, I'm just a little kid, I don't have to pretend that I'm so tough, I'm vulnerable, and you can hurt me real easy, so treat me like the little guy I am.'

You know, his bedwetting was the focus of his problems at home. His mother had made him the little man of the house when his father died. She confided in him, expected support from him, made him the responsible one all the time. It was unfair of her, though it's very common in such situations. It robbed him of his childhood. The bedwetting probably started as a result of the extra stress on a boy who was being asked to be an adult, when he was just a small child. It became the focus of his mother's frustrations, however, the wet sheets, pajamas, smelly mattress - all the extra work, the embarrassment and comments from neighbors. Every time he wet, she'd scream at him, tell him to grow up, deride him in front of friends. He'd retaliate by misbehaving. At school his grades crashed and he started getting into trouble. Once he was able to let himself be a little child again, and got the extra love and nurturing he needed to really tackle growing up, his grades and behavior improved rapidly.

       When the caseworker became convinced his mother was ready to take him back, it was decided that they would start off gradually, first short visits, then overnights, and finally extended stays. She came to our house the first few times. She was surprised by the diapers - even their possibility had been a threat before Tommy came to us - and how they were such a positive thing in Tommy's life at our house. When Tommy moved back, the diapers stayed on at night. I guess they became a way for Tommy's mother to acknowledge to him that he was still a little boy and that she was there to take care of him, even if he did have to take a little more responsibility some of the time since there was no dad in the house. Tommy even wears them during the daytime on the weekends when he's feeling a little low, needs a little extra reassurance, or just wants to play toddler."

       "The problem is," Struthers mused, "is that Jonathan doesn't have that problem. He's got almost every other one in the book, but not that one. I'd think for starters, he'd have to be incontinent, at least at night. He'd have to really need diapers; otherwise it would be just another punishment. They'd have to be something he really needed, even if they were a humiliation at first." He'd also need someone like you and Kate, who'd look at the diapers as a positive thing, not an dirty smelly chore."

       "If you could make him incontinent, Kate and I would be willing to make a go of the fostering end of the business." Curley laughed. Kate would love to have another little bedwetter around the house."

       "You serious?" Struthers asked. "I think that the only chance a kid like this has would be someone like you guys. The whole idea seems wildly far-fetched, but Jonathan's already been remanded to intensive psychiatric care - he's a ward of the court. If we could convince the psychiatrist that this is a viable treatment - the court just might go for it. Doc Tomlinsons a bit fruity you know, and he'd probably let this go ahead just so he could study how it worked. I know as a fact that he can't see any other alternatives for Jonathan. I wonder if it's possible for a doctor to induce temporary incontinence in someone."

       Thus, it was that a month later, Jonathan Allen, age ten, found himself lying strapped on a hospital gurney in the children's surgery at St. Marks Hospital. The disbelieving boy found himself listening to a doctor explaining what was about to happen to him: "Jonathan, society has decided that it will not and cannot put up with your behavior. Not only are you a threat to society, but you are a threat to yourself. Thus, the court has ordered a special treatment for you. It's affects are not likely to last forever, it is likely that you will eventually grow out of them, but for a period, you will find that in certain ways you are going to be a baby again."

       What the hell? Jonathan thought. What is this asshole talking about. - Make me a baby again! "You gotta be kidding Doc, you can't do that. What are you gonna do - take out part of my brain." Jonathan suddenly went from angry to terrified.

       "No." said the doctor, "Of course not. After you go to sleep, we are going to inject a minute amount of a special South American drug, curare, directly into the muscles controlling your bladder. This drug attacks the nervous system, and the damage should substantially weaken your control in situations of stress. Given that you are still growing, the nerves around those muscles should regenerate with time, and thus the effects of treatment should wear off by the time you are older, maybe 15 or 16.

       "Huh?"

       "What I mean Jonathan, is, that from the time you wake up, for a few years, every time you get angry, up tight, mad, or push others around, you will lose control of your bladder - just like a little boy. You'll have a hard time attacking another boy if you wet your pants every time you do it. Oh yes, it is quite likely that you will find it difficult to keep your bed dry as a result too - but that's your problem.”

       "What!" It was the last thing Jonathan said as the first injection put him to sleep.

       Life at the Juvenile detention facility where Jonathan lived, and at the school he attended, became suddenly far worse - if that were possible - than it had ever seemed before. Though Jonathan was an intensely unhappy boy, his bullying other kids had been his one source of self-esteem. It was the one place he was a winner. Having given up on love, he had been willing to settle for respect - even if that was based solely on fear. The facility was not designed as a warehouse for children, though it was exactly that for a number of unplaceable children such as Jonathan. The principle population, however, came to stay for a few months or a week during a custody dispute, when a single parent became too ill to care for a child and had no one to take him in, as a holding ground before placement in foster care, temporary detention for delinquents, and the like. Thus, there was a constant supply of new children that Jonathan had had to intimidate anew. Now however, the first time he'd given a kid a shove - he'd wet his pants in front of a crowd. Stunned he'd stood there while everyone laughed. Pants wetting became a several time a day occurrence as the effects of the drug slowly manifested themselves, and he soon wore a number of unhappy nicknames. Though the counselors regarded the treatment that Jonathan had been given as definitely weird, they were not at all upset to find that it rapidly ended his bullying the other kids. They'd been thoroughly sick of this kid, and thought the comedown deserved. The semi-permanent children at the center attended South Boston Elementary, and for Jonathan life there was worse. Nighttime at the center was agony. He tried to stay up, pinching himself to keep awake, sitting up in bed. He had just enough control that if he didn't fall asleep, he could get to the bathroom by himself every few hours and keep the bed dry. After three sleepless nights, exhausted and miserable, he would invariably fall asleep each night- waking in a sodden bed. He'd try to stay there until the counselors hustled the others in his dorm out. Without exception, however, he was turned out in front of all the kids, the state of his bed commented on, and a wastepaper basket placed under the sheet to elevate it to dry over the plastic sheet while all the other beds in the room were made up.

       Unbeknownst to Jonathan, bedwetting among his peers at the children’s detention center was quite common, which can be expected for children from troubled homes, but those children were isolated from those who were dry. They lived in a separate dormitory, or house as it was called at the Center. There, with others of like habit, the problem was treated with gentleness - the beds were taken care of, fresh linen was provided where necessary, and those children for whom it was part of their routine wore diapers. No one ever let out that there was anything special about one of the four houses at the Juvenile Detention Center, and they had the support of living in a group where bedwetting was a common problem. No one at the center would normally expose a child to humiliation by his peers for a problem that was hardly his fault. In this case, however, the idea was to give Jonathan the incentive, and every desire possible to get out of the Juvenile home. Any way he could.

       There were three ways this was possible for a boy in his situation. Adoption (which under the circumstances was about as likely as the moon being eaten by a great cosmic fish with bells on its tail), foster care, or running away.

       On a Monday morning, three weeks after the operation, Jonathan was called into the Director's office. On the way he was taken by the bathroom and then immediately seated in his momentarily dry shorts on a plain wooden chair in front of the desk. No one put Jonathan in an upholstered chair anymore. Warden Jones looked at him with something approaching sympathy, and asked how things were going. Jonathan's answer was not very polite. The warden replied, "Then I suppose if we gave you another chance at foster parents you might be willing to make more of an effort to stay out of trouble than last time?" The response, which consisted of a very improbable anatomical exercise that the warden could perform on himself, was again less than proper. The director, however, had heard such things before, and was able to resist pointing out that there were limitations to what even a director could accomplish, and said instead "Then you'd like to stay here?" And leaned forward and said in the intercom "Mr. Brownell, Mr. Allen would like you to escort him back to House 3." This brought a quick reconsideration of Jonathan's part, and after a short negotiation a bargain was struck whereby Jonathan and the Center could say goodbye to each other. It was not a tearful moment for either party.

       The warden got up, and led Jonathan into the next room where Officer Curley was seated. "Jonathan, I'd like to introduce you to your new foster father: Sergeant Curley." Jonathan took one look at the Officer who'd recently arrested him, and who still had a bandage around his arm from where he'd sunk his teeth, and yelled murder. He knew that this had to be one more dirty trick - that guy was going to beat him blue sure as hell. The bastards! Jonathan also promptly wet his shorts. Their baby blue color darkened in a warm stain that spread across his front. Worse, a puddle formed at his feet as pee ran down through his underwear and shorts onto the floor. He stopped yelling in sudden embarrassment. Immediately, the guard standing by the door snickered "My goodness, look, the iddle widdle baby wet his pantsies."

       To Jonathan's surprise, Arthur Curley gave the guard a withering look and said, "My foster son doesn't look like a baby to me, and frankly I find your response to a problem which is no fault of his own, but deliberately created for him, more than a little cruel." Curley turned to Jonathan. "Come on, lets get out of here." Jonathan only hesitated briefly, decided what-the-hell, even if he did get a beating, it couldn't be worse than this place, and followed Curley. As far as he was concerned, this was the first time in human memory anyone had stood up for him.

       Arriving at Curley's patrol car parked out in front of the building, he hesitated. Curley looked at him and said, bet you've never gotten to sit in the front seat of one of these before. You know you can open the doors up front from the inside. He opened the passenger side, and taking a towel that he'd stashed under the seat for just this purpose, folded it, placing it on top, and told the wet-shorted boy to hop in. Jonathan was silent as they pulled out the front entrance and onto the ramp to the expressway to Brookline. As they drove down the expressway, Curley pulled up behind a prim middle age lady going five miles under the speed limit. He looked over at Jonathan with a wicked smile. "Have you ever wanted to let off a police siren?" It was a definite icebreaker, and provided a diversion from the boy’s wet pants and the damp towel that had been the focus of his moody attention. The wail of the siren was entirely satisfactory, and the sudden sharp response of the lady as she pulled over as the powerful cruiser roared by her and sped up the road was exciting. To his delight, he got to punch the siren a number of times on the way home.

       When they pulled up Spring Street to the driveway in front of a big shingle house with blue trim, neatly mown lawn and a broad rolling bed of daffodils in front, Jonathan leaned forward to look at his new home - not that he had any intention of staying there for long. He was already planning his exit. He figured that it wouldn't be hard for him to give this guy the slip. Then he'd show them!

       As the patrol car rolled to a stop in front of a two-car garage, Kate came out to greet them. At 45 she was a bright cheerful lady, given to tasteful quiet floral patterns on her cotton dresses. She had a quirky fondness for big floppy hats and lawn parties, but was otherwise a sober devotee of garden club, her kitchen, and any child that came under her wing. She had a definitely romantic sense of the kitchen, and had weaned her big Irishman away from his steak and potato diet to more exotic fare: rich stews, Italian manicotti, pea soup with meaty chunks of ham, not to mention the mind boggling pecan cookies that every kid in the neighborhood would kill for - but usually didn't have to, since Kate kept them around to keep them around. Jonathan looked at her with sudden trepidation. His experiences with mothers had not been the best, and he didn't expect much of any new one. His awareness of his wet shorts intensified, and a defiant flush came over his face. He pushed the lock down on his side of the seat, and looked at Arthur Curley.

       Curley looked back and laughed. "A little shy about those wet shorts? Kate's not going to find them extraordinary, we've had lots of wet pants around this house. Our last foster kid wet his all the time, bed too, and she always had dry ones around for him and a hug as well. I don't think it’s going to be any different for you. If this weren't the patrol car, I'd let you stay here until you decided to get out on your own, but I'm not allowed to leave anyone unattended in it, and I'm getting out. You can either get out like a man, or I can drag you out kicking and screaming. That way your behavior will match your pants, and all the neighbors will know it. Your choice. I might say that if you want to impress people that you’re really not a baby, but a boy, then maybe you ought to learn how to act with dignity and accept your situation as it is. From what I know, you're going to have to get used to wet pants in front of strange people for quite a while- unless you decide to do something about it - and now's as good a time to start as any.

       Jonathan wasn't stupid - deeply angry at the world - but not stupid. He reached over and unlocked the door, and stepped out, taking his defiant look with him. The lady on the porch gave him a cheerful, and fully appraising look (he couldn't help but blush because of his shorts - the dark patch nearly covered their front, and was only highlighted by narrow baby blue dry strips on the side). She smiled. "My! you didn't tell me he was such a good looking boy Arthur. Come on in Jonathan - we'll find you some dry pants. Is Jonathan what you like to be called? Come on! You know you get your own room. It's upstairs, just down the hall from ours. I think you'll like it. I also moved in a few of my son's old toys that I thought you might like. After we get you fixed up, we can have some cookies in the kitchen.” She stepped down, gently put her hand on his shoulder, and steered the rather unsure boy up the front stairs into the house and up to his new room.

       The front stairs of the house circled around a large front hallway, and had a double landing leading to a broad upstairs hallway running front to back of the house. This hallway doubled as a large extra playroom when there were kids in the house. Double windows at the far end looked over the street below, and the window seat below them provided a great place for a walkytalky communication center, a command post for a destroyer, or the edge of castle rampart: whatever a boy's imagination would have it. Jonathan's room adjoined it, and was large, with bunk beds, a desk, a toy chest and a whole wall of bookshelves packed with the stuff of boyish dreams: from Stevenson’s Treasure Island, to the Doyle's The White Company. There was also a large bureau and an adjoining closet at the back of the room. The windows looked down from a fair height onto a large backyard surrounded by trees and hedges. Woods at the back provided an obvious route to adventure. All this Jonathan would get to know in years to come, but for the moment he was too overwhelmed by the rush of things to much notice, and it never occurred to him to think of this place as home.

       "Lets get you out of those wet things," Kate said leading him into the room. "You skinny them off and I'll get some dry ones out." She started rummaging in a bureau drawer. Jonathan just stood there looking at her. "I got your size from the JDC, and fortunately some of my nephew's old clothing will fit you- he lives over on the other side of town - and grows like a weed." She looked at the boy just standing there. "Oh come on now, I've seen lots of naked boys! Well if you have to, you can go across the hall to the bathroom and wrap a towel around yourself. You'll find a basket there just for your clothes. Jonathan retreated to the bathroom. It was a bright sunny place with a large bathtub and shower. A friendly room for long hot soaking baths on rainy nights, with cheerful off-white walls and the high ceiling that goes with large old wooden houses. There was a full-length mirror on one wall, and he looked in it at the small boy in wet baby blue shorts standing in the center of the room. The boy had medium length light brown hair brushed off to one side, deep chestnut eyes, and a slightly upturned nose. The T-shirt was stretched over a chest that was sturdy for a boy his age, even if he weren't overly tall. The smooth white legs extending down from the shorts weren't at all knobbly or awkward. He skinnied out of the shorts and jockey's, leaving them bunched on the floor, and pulled off his T-shirt, which was now wet up the lower half. He looked at his naked reflection. He had a definitely cute little rump, and the smooth crotch, small testicles, and little penis appropriate to his age. He was completely a little boy, even if the world hadn't treated him as such. He wondered, as he looked at himself (he was still too young to have the overly critical bodily self awareness of an adolescent) what it was about himself that was so different. He knew other kids had mothers that didn't beat them. His mom had always given his sisters dinner. What had he done? Why was he so different? It wasn't fair.

       Kate called from his new room, "You going to live in there Jonathan?” He grabbed a towel from the rack. It was a big fluffy blue one, and he wrapped it around him like a robe. After the wet shorts and T-shirt it felt good against his skin. He walked back into the bedroom. Kate smiled up at him "Your clothes are on the bed, get them on and we'll go to the kitchen for cookies." He looked at the clothes. There was a pair of shorts, some white socks, and a striped T-shirt, as well as a pair of unusually thick cotton underwear. Though they had a fly front, he could see that they weren't normal. He looked at Kate suspiciously. "Those look like training pants little kids wear." Kate looked back at him and said gently "They are just like them Jonathan. Training pants are designed so that you can use them like normal underwear, but they reduce the mess if you have an accident. If you leak just a bit you can get back to your room for a change without it being as noticeable because they are far more absorbent than normal underwear, and if you really wet yourself they will hold a lot more fluid and you won't spill on the floor as much. Which do you think is worse, having wet pants in front of everyone, or wearing training pants underneath that people can't see? It's up to you. I'll wait for you in the kitchen.” As she passed, she gave him a gentle pat on his shoulder. Noting that he flinched slightly at her touch she said, "It's alright Jonathan, I'll never hurt you," and left the room.

       As Jonathan came down the stairs, the warm dry pants felt good. The new underwear felt a little strange, it was thicker and he could feel it between his legs. He felt the front of his shorts. Though he could feel the extra thickness beneath, the shorts didn't look different from the outside despite his new underwear (he didn't want to say training pants). Somehow, they felt a little reassuring and made him feel subtly different as he entered the big warm kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table where Mr. Curley and his wife were waiting for him.

       "OK Jonathan," Curley greeted him, "welcome you to your new home. We want you to know that we asked to have you. No one made us take you, we wanted you. I could see that you were worried when you saw it was me. I'm going to forget how we met, and we're having a fresh start. No one is going to beat you up here, and I can guarantee that you'll always have enough to eat. You can count on us to always deal with you straight. We expect the same of you. You'll have a nice place to live, but you will have to abide by the house rules. We want you to help out around the house and in the yard: that means regular chores, dishes with Kate in the evenings, yard work with me on the weekends. There are also some special rules to go with your special problems. As long as you are unprotected, you will have to stay off the living room furniture - it isn't designed for wet pants. All your wet pants and clothing go in your clothes hamper upstairs. When you have wet sheets, Kate will change them for you in the morning and help you with fresh clothes when you wet your pants during the day. You will have to sit on a towel in the car when we go places and when you sit in a chair at a restaurant or movie theater. You will also have to help Kate with the extra laundry as long as you have wet sheets. If you do your chores well and behave, you will get a small allowance when we think that you have earned it. You can have friends over whenever you like, but they must behave reasonably, and if we find that they are likely to get you in trouble, then you will have to find new ones. You can have friends sleep over - in fact, since you don't know anyone out here, we've invited a kid we know rather well - Tommy, our last foster child who is just your age, to spend a weekend with us. He doesn't live too far from here, and you will be going to his school. Any questions?”

        Jonathan didn't say much, not seeing any point. He didn't believe much of this, and he really didn't plan to stay anyway.

       Tuesday morning he woke to a musical sound. Outside his window a bird was perched singing out its small soul to the morning. He listen for a while to the quirky little melody, consciousness slowly sinking into his sleepy little body. It took a moment for him to realize where he was. "This isn't the JDC -that's for sure." As he lay there, he gradually became aware of the wet sheet under him and his soaking PJ's. It was wet and cold, the moisture having wicked through the cotton flannel up to his arms and even partway around his back. Down in the center, it was damp but warm, but on his sides and chest evaporation made it cold. Yuck! He hated lying in the wet bed, but was too sleepy to get out of it at the same time. It was an argument between different sections of his body. His sleepy head said "Stay in bed.” his wet little bottom said "Hey! Get up, its uncomfortable down here." He was just about to come to a decision in this little debate, when he heard a cheerful voice come in the room: "Rise and shine little sunshine - the new day is here. You've got a new school to start, new friends to make, and work to do."

       He whimpered slightly, rolled over to see Mr. Curley standing by the bed looking down at him. "Go way, I don't want to go to school."

       "Of that my young friend you have no choice. Time, tide, and school waits on no man or boy."

       "It isn't fair, I hate it! You know I'll have an accident and they'll all laugh at me. I won't go. You can't make me."

       "That's where you’re wrong. Not only do I outweigh you by exactly 140 lbs, but I wrestle alligators for a living, and spit in their eye when I'm done. Up and at-em! You want to get yourself up, or do you want me to? The latter was said in Curley's quiet this-is-it neutral tone.

       "Oh all right, but I want you to leave while I get up."

       "Jonathan, we all know your bed is wet, and I'm here to help you clean up. And if you’re worried about my seeing you in your wet PJ's or naked - I've seen boys in both conditions many times."

       Jonathan resigned himself to the inevitable, and rolled out of the bed standing up in front of Mr. Curley.

       "You're quite a little soaker, aren't you?" he laughed. "Come on, skin the rabbit" and he reached over and helped pull the wet pajama top up over his head. Then he stood back and looked at Jonathan, waiting for him to take off the bottoms. Jonathan hesitated, and finally turned away pushing his bottoms slowly down, exposing his wet little behind to Mr. Curley's view. Curley went round the naked boy and pulled the sheets off the bed, then picked up the wet pajamas from floor. "Come on - off to the bathroom, its time for you to wash up and brush your teeth.” Marching Jonathan out of the room to the bath, where he opened the top of the large plastic cloths hamper and dumped sheets and pajamas in. "Your foster mother will pick up whatever's here every day and put it in the wash. You'll have to help twice a week folding it and putting it away. He directed the boy to the sink and indicated a brand new toothbrush hanging next to it. "You brush your teeth every night and every morning around here. It beats the dentist drill. I'm going to supervise that activity, until I'm sure you won't forget.” After the teeth were brushed, he then directed the boy into the shower. Jonathan started out after a quick rinse, but was directed back in, and a bar of soap was run through his hair and down his back by a whistling Mr. Curley, who then directed him to wash his genitals and behind thoroughly. Five minutes later a well-scrubbed boy walked across the hall into his bedroom to find Mrs. Curley laying out school clothes on his bed. The boy blushed a bright red when Mrs. Curley looked up to see his naked figure, but she just smiled and said, "Hurry up - your foster father will be downstairs eating breakfast before you get there. It's specially good, with fried ham and sweet rolls and you'll want to get there before it's all gone." She made no motion to leave, and stood there while the naked boy hurriedly pulled on the pair of the thick white training pants she'd laid out, a pair of faded Levis and a bright kelly green and blue-striped shirt. A careful eye would notice the outline of the extra thick underwear beneath the tight Levis, Kate noted, and smiled to herself. She regarded his apparent acceptance of this little item as an important first step in the overall plan for Jonathan.

       After breakfast, Jonathan was sent off to the bathroom and then Mr. Curley took him in the patrol car to school.

       Curley escorted him into the administration office and asked for the vice-principal. "Hello Joseph, this is the boy I told you about."

       "Wellll! So this is the kid. Doesn't look all that mean to me. You say that we should watch out since he's likely to wet his pants at the drop of a pin!"

       "The truth of the latter statement was demonstrated on the spot, as Jonathan lost control in his embarrassment.” He could see the secretaries looking over at him and smiling. Mr. Curley just laughed, “And that's what this bag of extra clothing is for. You can send it home with him when its full of wet stuff, and we'll drop off fresh clothes twice a week. I'll leave him to you; I've got to get to work. Behave yourself Jonathan, and mind the teachers.”

       After Curley left, Joseph Miller took Jonathan down the hall to class, stopping off at the nurse’s office on the way. The humiliated boy had to strip off his pants and underwear in front of the nurse and Mr. Miller, and then pull on a new pair of the extra thick underwear and jeans. Nurse Jackoby held up a pair of the underwear and commented on their unusual design for a ten year old, and Mr. Miller took them and looked them over as well. “Trainers!” He smiled at Jonathan and said that he knew a few boys in the first and second grades that could use a pair of these.

       As they continued on down the hall from the nurse's office, Mr. Miller said "Looking over your record, Jonathan, we've decided to put you into 4th grade with the 9 year olds. You're just too far back to continue on with your own age group. Besides you may fit in there better anyway."

       Jonathan was quite startled at this development. He had never considered the possibility of being held back - coming from a school in a poor district where the kids were routinely passed-along. This seemed a deathblow to what little self-esteem the boy had. Small tears of dismay welled up in the corners of his eyes: "P'please Mr. Miller, I know I can do fifth grade - please don't put me back. I was in fifth grade in Southie, why can't I be here. I want to stay with kids my own age."

       "I'm sorry Jonathan, but it just won't work, your grades at South Boston Elementary were mostly failing. In addition your behavior hasn't been that of a fifth grader, particularly not when you wet your pants all the time. I think that it will be less disruption with somewhat younger kids. Besides," he smiled, “more of the younger kids share your problem - at least at night among the nine year olds. More important, however, is that you are just plain behind. Fact is, academically you may really belong in third grade. You'll have your work cut out for you just to stay in fourth - and there are no promises of that either. You will have to show us that you belong there if we are to keep you there.”

       Third grade! Oh God! Please no! He thought.

       Jonathan was fortunate that he had emptied his bladder a short time ago as he was escorted into a large room filled with children who stared and whispered at the now terrified boy. He stood there at the front, while Mr. Miller introduced him to Miss Hanlin and left. Miss Hanlin had been already well briefed on Jonathan, but she felt for the little guy and was willing to let him have a fresh start - until he proved otherwise. She knew the bad he'd done, but also the bad that had happened to him - and the special course of treatment had been explained. She decided that now was the time for a small grace. He'd have time for all the children to get to know his problem later, she wasn't going to see him humiliated at the start, so she smiled down at him and asked wouldn't he like a desk at the back of the room where he could observe the other children and get used to the routine.

       Jonathan looked at her gratefully, realizing that this was a great break: the other children couldn't see if he had an accident and he would be out of sight from all the staring eyes in the back. Slipping into the seat in front of the small school desk, he was relieved to see that the metal basket under the top was low enough to cover his lap from view. He put the armload of books brought to him by the teacher in it and sat there as each child stood and introduced himself.

       By lunchtime he had settled down a bit, though the children giggled at the frequency with which he raised his hand to go to the bathroom. Nonetheless, there was only a small damp patch at the front of his trousers by the time the rest of the children rocketed through the door at lunchtime. Miss Hanlin looked at the little boy huddled at his seat in the back corner of the room across the rows of empty desks. "Jonathan, now that the other children are gone, I can take you down to the nurse for a change if you want."

       "Don't need it!" the boy said loudly, and he bolted from the room.

       Jonathan arrived in the lunchroom as most of the other children were getting up from the tables and heading out the door to recess. He grabbed a tray and slid down the cafeteria line, taking only a carton of chocolate milk and a tuna sandwich, and retreated to the nearest empty table. As he sat there picking at the sandwich, he could see a group of boys about his own age talking to each other and looking at him. The group was dominated by a red haired boy a little bigger than the rest to whom the others all deferred. He recognized, with animal instinct, what would have formerly been his natural rival on the playground. Now, however, he did not sense competition, but rather a threat. He hung back at the table, nibbling slowly on his sandwich, waiting for the others to leave. But they seemed to have all the time in the world. Finally, the lady at the lunch counter told them all to clear out. When no one moved, she started with Jonathan, who was reluctantly forced to head towards the door. Instantly, the others rose and followed him. Jonathan was all too aware of what was likely to happen next, and knew that finding an area with a lot of people was his best protection. He was worried because he had counted on spending recess near the bathroom, hanging around the halls. But that was clearly out. Heading out onto the schoolyard, he was dismayed not to see a teacher in sight. As he hesitated on the edge of the playground felt a hand give him a shove from behind.

       "Hey! I was speaking to you kid!"

       He ignored the shove, looking desperately for a teacher, but all he could see were other kids turning to look - sensing an impending fight. One of the kids stepped in front of him, boxing him in.

       "When Joe talks to you kid, you pay attention. See!" and shoved him backward where he tripped over another boys outstretched leg and fell hard on the gravel. His arm stung as the grit dug into it, and he rolled over clutching the skinned flesh.

       "He pissed his pants! Hey everyone come and look at this guy - he's pissing his pants!"

       He could hear laughter and jeers all around him, and looked up to see the red haired boy leering down at him.

       "What's your name piss-pants? I can see that you and me are going to be gooood friends. Yes indeed. Why don't you stand up and show evvveeeerrry one your little baby pants. Does mommas little baby need a change?"

       The laughter increased. Jonathan was terrified. He could see the group of boys moving in on him, and he knew that he was going to take a beating.

       "Around here we have a rule, little piss pants, you do what Joe Kelly tells you - and I asked you your name!

       "J-j-jonathan." he stuttered.

       Well piss-pants Jonathan, first we're going to show you what happens to little pant wetters who don't do what Joe Kelly tells them, and then you're going to agree to give me a buck every day - just cause you like me."

       That meant that Jonathan would have to do without lunch if he were to pay. His pants were already wet. To hell with it he thought, and stood up. "I'll fucking give you this you little fucking bastard” Jonathan drove his knee into the startled boy's crotch. Hard. Joe gasped and fell to the ground. “Any of the rest of you little fuckers want to join him?” The rest of the boys backed off. Jonathan turned back to Joe who was staggering up off the ground, and kicked him in the face. The rest of the kids gasped - this boy wasn't behaving the way a sissy pants wetter should.

       "What's going on here?" Mr. Miller strode into the group. Children started to drift off in various directions. He looked at Jonathan, who was standing there, pants sopping wet, tears of anger running down his face, and then down at the boy lying on the ground. "Well, well,” he thought to himself, “this is a little ironic. Joe Kelly meet Jonathan Allen. What an interesting turn of events - one little problem might just solve another.”

       “Nothing!” Jonathan said through clenched teeth. He'd decided that it would be a bad thing in his present situation to cross Mr. Miller And for Jonathan the lack of profanity under the circumstances was exceptional.

       “The little brat pissed his pants.” Joe Kelly said staggering up off the ground - trying to recover some of his lost face.

       “Well then, everybody can see that the great Joe Kelly has been licked by a pants wetter.” Replied Mr. Miller. "Maybe its time you thought twice before you picked on the little kids around here."

       A boy sniggered in the back and Joe turned and glared at him.

       "Come on Jonathan, let’s go in and get you changed."

       While Joe Kelly was an enemy for life, and would take any occasion to get even, those opportunities were strictly limited by the fact that he, and none of his group, was particularly eager to again put themselves within too close a range of Jonathan Allen. This had the salutary effect of diminishing somewhat his stature on the playground, and therefore his ability to terrorize and blackmail the other children. It put Jonathan in an odd position. Though clearly not in a position to dominate others due to his wetting, there was a clear, if hidden, respect for his obvious ability to take care of himself.

       The rest of the day was no more fun than what had passed. In gym class he had to undress in front of the other kids, and he heard some giggles and comments about his underwear, which, though the differences were not all that great from normal boy's jockeys, were clearly unique for his age. That was followed by his drenching his gym shorts during the middle of the soccer game, and being sent down to shower early and get over to the nurse. By the end of the day he had exhausted his changes of clothing, and was led by the hand by a teacher, with damp pants and sack of wet clothing, to the correct school bus to be driven home. His condition was noted by all on the bus, and much commented on all the way to his stop.

       Dropped at the driveway of the Curley's house, the tired boy was met by Mrs. Curley. "Doesn't look like you had too good a day!" She exclaimed.

       "No." He said miserably.

       "Well, I guess we shouldn't expect much on the first day. Lets get you changed, and then you can sit with me in the kitchen and tell me all about it." She put her arm on his shoulder and gave him a quick little hug, and then led him up to his room.

       In the kitchen she put a plate of pecan sandies and a glass of milk in front of the now dry, but silent boy. "I heard you beat up a boy named Joe Kelley today. You want to tell me about it."

       He looked at her sullenly. "Its none of your business."

       "Jonathan you are my business, and so is everything that you do and happens to you as long as you live in this house."

       "I don't want it to be."

       "Well that's the way it is. Mr. Miller said that the kid you beat up was the biggest bully on the playground, and that a number of parents have been complaining that he was stealing their kids’ lunch money. Is that true."

       "I guess so."

       "Did he try to take your lunch money Jonathan?"

       "He wanted me to pay a dollar a day, and I wasn't going to give it to him. You can punish me all you like but I'm not going to be sorry for kicking him."

       "Jonathan, did you hit or push him first?"

       "It wouldn't matter if I did."

       "Did you?"

       “No,” he said in a still sullen voice, “him and his friends tripped me and pushed me onto the ground. They said they were going to beat me up first and then I would have to pay them every day if I didn't want it to happen again.” He looked at her, his challenging eyes glaring defiance.

       "Then you did the right thing. Good for you! Arthur will be proud of you."

       "I did?"

       "Of course you did!" she exclaimed. "Every boy has the right to defend himself by whatever means are necessary and reasonable. I wouldn't expect you to even fight fair in a situation like that. In fact, I hope you wouldn't. The situation didn't call for it. I just hope that you didn't hurt the boy any more than necessary."

       "Oh." Jonathan said. He was dumfounded by this rather straightforward praise for an action for which he'd expected to be punished.

       "Jonathan, there's a difference between self defense and bullying someone, and just because the Court has decided that the rest of the kids have to be protected from you doesn't mean that you aren’t expected to defend yourself. In fact, Mr. Miller was quite pleased to have Joe Kelly taken down a peg. You work on your studies a bit, and show him that you can be more than just a thug, and you just might make a friend there."

       Wednesday morning the bed was wet again, and Thursday, as well. A sack of clothes came home with him each day. The wetting was worse than even the Curley's had expected, and each day he arrived home as wet as the day before. Each day he was greeted gently by Mrs. Curley, and each morning a cheerful Mr. Curley got him up.

       Friday afternoon he ran up the driveway past Mrs. Curley from the bus, slammed the door of the house, ran to his room and slammed the door again. When Kate came upstairs, he swore and screamed at her from his bed. She went back downstairs and waited an hour. She returned to find the boy lying on his bed asleep exhausted, face stained with tears. She spread a comforter over him and went downstairs and called Mr. Miller. The school had decided to put Jonathan back to third grade.

       "He simply isn't prepared for 4th," Mr. Miller had said. "Moreover he just sits at the back of the room and sulks."

       "I don't think that it's a good idea, even if he can't do the work right now," Kate replied. After some discussion, she got Mr. Miller to agree to hold off for a week and that they would meet for a conference about Jonathan to review his progress after that.

       When Curley appeared home, he asked where Jonathan was. "Up in his room asleep an hour ago when I last checked. He had a terrible day at school and came home in a terrible tantrum. They told him they were going to put him in third grade with the eight year olds."

       "I think our young man is getting a bit too much thrown at him." Curley replied.

       "I know, I called Mr. Miller and got him to agree to hold off for a bit, and arrange for a meeting on Monday after school. Can you make it?"

       "I'll make it!" he said heading up the stairs.

       He returned hurriedly. "The boys not there!" A quick search of the house revealed only an open window and a snapped branch on the tree in front of Jonathan's window where the boy had slung himself down to the ground. "I hope he didn't hurt himself," Kate said, looking at the ten-foot drop to the ground from the broken end of the branch.

       Curley headed down to his car, just as it began to rain.

       Jonathan looked out from the station wagon’s window as it drove down the street to see the rain pelting the windows. "Thanks for the lift mister!"

       "You're welcome kid. Going anyplace in particular?"

       "Nah." Jonathan replied without thinking, "Anywhere you're going."

       "That sounds fine to me."

       Jonathan didn't notice the heavy tone in the man's voice.

       "You got a family kid?"

       "Nah! I used to live at the JDC, but now I live by myself."

       "Really? Now that's something. How would you like to earn a little bit of cash?"

       "Sure," said Jonathan, wondering what the man wanted him to do. In answer the man drove a bit further, then pulled over on a side street and off onto a short wooded road out of view.

       "Hop in the back kid, and I'll join you as soon as I put the seats down."

       "What for?" Jonathan queried, puzzled.

       "You know what for." the man said laughing heavily.

       "Uh - OK." Not having the slightest idea what the man was talking, about he climbed into the back, while the man reached over and put the seats down flat. The man got out and did something outside that Jonathan couldn't quite see in the dark and rain, but when he climbed in he was completely naked.

       "Common kid lets get those pants off."

       "Hey what are you doing? No, leave me alone mister."

       "Aw quite playing games, you know you want what I have. The man reached over and grabbed Jonathan by the belt, unbuckling the struggling boys pants, he started to yank them and his underwear down his legs. Jonathan immediately lost control, and sprayed the man right in the face.

       "You filthy son of a bitch the man screamed and kicked Jonathan in the chest. "Get the fuck out of my car you little queer!" Unbeknownst to Jonathan, he'd done about the only thing possible to save himself from a twice-convicted child molester. He scrambled with the door handle that fortunately yielded, and shot out the door as it swung open into the woods.

       "You little fucker! You pissed all over my upholstery." He heard a tearing sound and saw the man throw something into the brush. The car door slammed and he heard the car roar off down the road.

       Coming out from behind the brush where he hidden, the half naked boy spotted his pants lying on the ground in the rapidly fading light. His relief was short lived; they'd been ripped in half, split seam to seam down the middle of each leg and up the back. His shredded underwear were lying in the mud near where the pants had been. He looked at them, wondering what he was going to do. His chest hurt. The rain was pelting him and the T-shirt he wore was scant protection against the rain. He held up his pants and spread the cloth open. After some experimentation, he tied them around his waist in sort of a short skirt, tucking the spare leg in at the waist, and crept back up the road.

       After slogging down strange streets and roads for 4 hours, ducking behind the shrubbery each time a car came by out of the dark pouring rain, he was thoroughly chilled, hungry, and too scared to think. He was terrified the man would come back and find him. When a car came up from behind him and slowed, headlights blinding him, he turned and ran headlong into a yard, through a maze of wet brush, which scratched and tore at him, over a fence, into a yard. From nowhere, a dog came out, snarling and barking, teeth bared, pulling at its chain. Terrified he ran around the corner of the house, and before he could realize it, straight into the chest of a big dark figure in the rain. The man grabbed him pulling him to his chest. He screamed and screamed, kicking and tearing - but the man just kept holding on.

       "Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan." A voice kept repeating, "Its me Jonathan." The boy looked up to see Arthur Curley holding him. He collapsed, chest heaving, gasping drawn out rasping breaths. Arthur Curley heaved the half naked boy up into his arms and carried him out through the yard to the patrol car.

       "Its alright folks, I'm a police officer." he said to the people coming out of the house. "Just a lost boy, and we'll take him home now." Curley placed Jonathan on the front seat of the car and pulled a blanket over him.

       "I, I did-didn't rip my pants." Jonathan looked up at him "Ssss-some man did. H-he, he tried to take my cl-clothes off." Another squad car pulled up. Curley leaned over gave the shaking boy a quick hug and said "Its all right Jonathan. I know. Its OK. Now I'll be right back, you stay here, and we'll go home in a minute."

       "Find the kid Curley?" Sergeant Blake and his partner asked, getting out of the patrol car.

       "Yah. But a little late I think, some guy tried to molest him. I'm going to get him to the house, and I'll phone in what I can get after we get him calmed down."

       Kate could see Curley coming up the walk to the house carrying Jonathan in his arms. The boy was clinging to him, and it took some seconds for them to gently extract his arms from around Arthur's neck and sit him on the couch. She ran upstairs and got him dry clothing. He made no motion of resistance as she dressed him. And when she was done he clung to her, burying his head in her blouse and sobbed.

       "I'm sorry - I'm sorry - please, I'm sorry. I don't want to wet anymore. Please make it stop - I'm sorry I don't want to have to stay with the little kids. Please don't make me. Please. I want it all to stop. Please ---." He sobbed and sobbed. Kate just held him, rocking him back and forth gently in her arms, patting him on the back.

       "It's OK Jonathan we love you. Its OK." she repeated the gentle message over and over until he fell asleep in her arms. They carried the boy up to his bed and tucked him in pulling the covers up around his chin. In the night he woke up screaming, and Kate went in and Jonathan let her hold him and rock him back to sleep.

Chapter 2

       Jonathan woke up in his usual wet bed. He could see from the sun streaming in the window that it was late, 10 or 11 AM. He lay there for a moment, the events of the night before slowly coming back to him. In the light of day they seemed further away, but still terrible. It had been a mistake to run away he realized. It was a bigger and more terrible world out there than even he had thought. Here he felt protected. He didn't understand quite what had changed, but he knew that he wanted to stay with the Curley's. It was the first time that he'd ever felt that way about anyplace or anyone since just after his fifth birthday when his world had collapsed. He didn't remember his mother much, he was aware that she'd gone to jail for a while, but she had never tried to contact him when they released her, and he had subconsciously suppressed her memories. He often wondered where his father was, but sensed that he was not going to return, and felt a deep sense of abandonment. Till now he'd never felt like he belonged anywhere or to anyone - just to himself. He wondered if they'd let him stay at the Curley's. He wished that Mr. Curley had been his father, and that his mother had been like Mrs. Curley.

       He rolled out of bed and put his feet on the floor, sitting up on the edge of the bed. Looking at his feet, he suddenly realized that he had on a footed sleeper. He hadn't worn one of those since he'd been seven, but he knew that a few kids his age still wore them during the winter in Boston, since they kept you really warm if your family didn't have much heat in the house. He guessed that Mrs. Curley had put it on him to keep him extra warm after the drenching he'd had last night. He heard a noise and looked up to see the Curley's standing in the doorway. They'd been listening for any sounds of life upstairs in the kitchen all morning.

       "Well big fella, how you feeling this morning? You had a pretty tough night last night, so we decided to let you sleep in," Curley said looking at the small boy sitting in the wet sleeper. He really looks pretty cute in that sleeper, he thought to himself, and looking at him, saw, for a moment little Billy, sitting there. This impression was heightened by the fact that for the first time Jonathan had visibly brightened on the appearance of his foster

parents. His wife stepped around him and went over to the boy and gave him a hug: "I was so worried about you last night," and she kissed him. Jonathan didn't even flinch, instead he hugged her back.

       "C-could I stay here?"

       The boy looked up at Kate with his chestnut eyes pleading, and then at Curley.

       "As long as you like," she replied smiling.

       "W-why?"

       Curley realized that that was not at all a strange question for Jonathan. For most children it was never asked because parents were just a fact of life. For Jonathan, that anyone would actually want him was an entirely foreign concept.

       "There are a lot of reasons Jonathan. Partly it’s because of little Billy - he was our fourth child. Like you he was a bedwetter, and he was our last, and therefore special. He was killed by a car when he was seven, and he left a big hole in our lives. To tell you the truth, that's why we don't mind your wetting at all. Because of little Bill, we have a special place in our hearts for little bedwetters. Our last foster kid is quite a wetter too. He lives with his mother now, but you'll get to meet him next weekend. We think you'll like him too, not just because you share a common problem, but because like you, he's really basically a neat kid. When parents loose a child they know that he can never be replaced, but it leaves them permanently with the feeling that however many children they've had, it wasn't enough. It also teaches them that each person in this world is very special and very precious. And we think that about you too. A bit difficult right now, perhaps, but well worth all the time and care we can give you. Another reason why you can stay here is that you deserve a break. You've had a lot of terrible things happen to you that shouldn't happen to any child. That's not an excuse for you to misbehave in the future, but it’s a good reason for us to give you a chance. But most importantly, Jonathan, people need each other. They need to have someone they can count on for help and love when they need it. That's why I was out for four hours last night looking for you. That goes both ways, we think we need you, and we hope you feel the same way about us. We don't expect you to be the best kid in the world overnight. You have a few problems, in school, with your peers, with behavior in general - but if you like you can stay here with us and learn about all these things and have a home."

       "Enough lecture, Curley," its time we got Jonathan out of those wet things." She reached up beneath his chin and pulled the zipper down his front, exposing his little wet body to the cold air. This made the boy look down and he realized that he was wearing two pairs of training pants under the sleepers. Kate caught his sudden look of surprise and said: "I put them on you last night because the extra absorbancy keeps the moisture from spreading so much and would help you keep warm. I hope you don't mind."

       "I guess it makes sense. Thanks."

Kate peeled the wet sleepers off him, and he pulled the training pants down over his ankles. He seemed to have completely accepted being naked in front of the Curleys. Arthur Curley bent down and swung him up into his arms. "Now its into the tub with you for a long soak." and carried the naked little boy off to the bathroom, Kate following with a stack of wet clothes and sheets to put in the hamper.

       Sometime later, Jonathan watched his stepfather hang up the phone. "Well that's it Jonathan, the man you described fits perfectly one Bob Barker. He was released last week after 5 years in the county jail for sexual assault on a minor. It turns out that he also has a conviction that we didn't know about from another state - he missed a warrant for his return by hours when he was released. The car you described was reported stolen 2 days ago. He was picked up last night for speeding. Your tennis shoes and socks were found in the car. He's not going to be bothering any kids again for a very long time - if ever - so you don't have to worry about him any more."

       The best that could be said of school that week was that they didn't put him back in third grade. He was glad to hear that at the Curley's request, that had been delayed for at least a week. For the rest, all that could be said of school for the next week, was that he lived through it. He avoided other kids wherever possible, and made 3 to 4 trips to the nurse's office each day, where he was told to strip, and was handed another dry pair of pants, and another pair of trainers. Home was a refuge. Mrs. Curley greeted him with a warm hug, dry clothes, and a sympathetic ear each afternoon. He'd never had one before, and they would talk for hours in the kitchen. Accustomed to her presence, he gradually let her take more part in his dressing, usually relying on her to pick out his clothing, and to help him pull off his wet pants and underwear.

       Each evening he would wait for Curley to arrive at the door, and would run downstairs at the sound of his voice at the door. Curley would always greet him with a hug, and would challenge him to a quick game of checkers before dinner, or suggest that they head down to the shop for a bit of work on the skiff that was under construction there. After dinner, Jonathan would sit at the kitchen table, soaking in the long stories of Curley's years on the Boston police force, and of the Curley's other children, and what they were up to. Curley grew in Jonathan's eyes to be everything he could want for a father. He dreamt one night that he was Jonathan Curley, that he'd never been Jonathan Allen, that he'd never been beaten, deserted or starved: That he'd grown up on Spring Street, and had been a little league star and gone off to college and - woke up in his wet bed Jonathan Allen.

       Twice that week he went down stairs to the basement laundry and helped Mrs. Curley fold his sheets, clothes and underwear. The Curley's were surprised by his cooperative attitude, and concluded, correctly, that he'd decided to stay. On their part, they found him to be a sad little boy, desperately wanting for love. His rapt attention to Curley's stories, and imitation of Curley's mannerisms amused Kate, and she would kid Curley about it at night as they lay in bed. They rapidly came to be very fond of the boy, despite his occasional wild bursts of temper. These were sudden, and would have been intimidating in an older boy. The Curleys responded calmly to them, and Arthur would simply carry the struggling boy to his room and leave him with instructions to come out when he was through. For Jonathans part, this was entirely new to him; the passive resistance of the Curleys to his fits of temper or bad language was something he'd never dealt with before. Whenever he used foul language, or got mad, they would simply stop whatever activity was going on, and take him to his room. He'd blown up at McDonalds when he couldn't have everything he'd wanted, and been carried, struggling, pants dripping wet, by a silent Mr. Curley and been put in the car, meal abandoned on the table. He'd been taken home, put into pajamas and a dry pair of trainers, given a glass of milk, a peanut butter sandwich and put to bed. All with no comment or discussion whatsoever. No reaction and no punishment per se. He'd really wanted to have dinner at McDonalds too, and regretted his outburst.

       At school, Jonathan made no friends. His treatment of Joe Kelly meant that he was not teased to his face about his wet pants, though he did hear a lot of giggling behind his back. Generally he would eat lunch at whatever table was empty, and then hang around in the halls waiting for class to start. Gym class was always a nightmare, and he inevitably had to leave early for the nurse’s office. In class he sat and listened to the teacher, but never responded. As was his custom he made only a cursory, if any attempt at the written work, and he avoided being called on by any stratagem. He was greatly relieved when Friday arrived.

       Saturday morning Jonathan was in the bathroom for one of his innumerable daily rest stops, when he heard a car pull into the driveway. He heard voices and looked out the window to see his foster parents greeting a slim blond haired boy about his own age. His foster mother was hugging him, and Mr. Curley was patting him on the back. They looked very comfortable together and he felt a twinge of jealousy. It must be that Tommy kid they were talking about. He zipped up his fly and ran down the stairs to meet the boy walking into the front hall.

       "Hi! I'm Tommy, you must be Jonathan."

       "Yeh."

       "Boy are you lucky to get to live here. I really think the Curley's are neat. Has Mr. Curley told you about his little league team yet. It’s the best. They've won the championship 4 out of the last 11 years. He says that I might be able to play on it this summer. You know practice starts in two weeks. Wanta play catch this afternoon? Maybe you'll get to play on the team too.”

       Jonathan was a bit confused by this rapid free-fire greeting, but he was even more surprised that the boy had a bag with him.

       "You staying the night?" he queried.

       "The Curley's said I could - if it’s OK with you. Don't you want me to?"

       "Well I guess so, lets go play catch."

       "OK"

       Jonathan went upstairs to fetch the glove that the Curley's had put in his room, and ran out into the yard. The boys pitched back and forth to one another, developing a steady rhythm. A particularly fast pitch from Tommy, however, skidded off the top of Jonathan's glove and hit him in the face, momentarily stunning the boy, who fell backward on the ground. Shaking himself, he angrily said "Hey! Watch it" and started to get up. "Oh shit, you made me wet my pants!"

       "No I didn't!" "Yes you did!" "Did!" "Didn't!"

       Arthur Curley, hearing the shouting reached the scene just in time to pull the two boys apart. "Hey, hey! What are you guys doing”? He said giving them each a little shake.

       "He threw the ball at my head and hit me. I'll bet he did it just so he cold make me wet cause he's jealous I live here and he can't!"

       "No I didn't Mr. Curley, honest. He didn't keep his eye on the ball like you showed me, and it hit the top of his glove."

       "Yeah right!"

       "Yeah right yourself! And sure I'm a little bit jealous of you, but I like living with my mother now and want to stay there. You’re the lucky one to be staying here - so why are you mad at me? Besides why would I want to make you wet your pants anyway?"

       "So I'd be embarrassed in front of Mr. Curley."

       "Hey, he's seen me with wet pants too. Besides, don't you know I wet the bed too?"

       "Oh - I forgot."

       "You two ready to make up now?"

       "Yeah."

"OK."

       "Well then, lets get back to the serious pointers of baseball and forget this Mickey Mouse. If you two are going to play for my team you're going to have to be pretty sharp, so you better loosen up here. Jonathan, you missed that ball because you didn't keep your eye on it. A lot of boys flinch when a ball comes toward their face. But that's the best way to get hit there is. If you just concentrate on keeping your eye on the ball - like magic - the ball will be in your glove every time. Your body will do the rest of the work by itself. Here, you stand back a bit and I'll show. Now first I'm going to throw you a real easy pitch and I want to see how you catch it. There, now ----."

       Curley wove his particular coaches spell around the two boys, who were drawn-in first to the fascination of the game, then into working together to tag Curley in a game of box-the-runner. Curley was good, and ran the two boys ragged. At the end of two hours, they were like brothers. Pleased with himself, he called a halt: "Ok guys, time to head in for lunch. It also looks like you are a bit water logged Jonathan - how about a stop at the upstairs dry-cleaners on the way to lunch.

       "Oh" said Jonathan, somewhat surprised to notice that a change was long overdue, "I forgot."

       "Come on, Tommy can put his bag in your room while we get you changed."

       They headed back into the house and clumped noisily up the stairs. Jonathan was quite capable of dressing himself, he realized and wondered just how he'd gotten into the routine of having the Curley's dress him. He knew that only little kids had to be dressed by their parents - so he was a little embarrassed as Mr. Curley unzipped his pants and pulled his trousers and training pants down. He blushed even harder when the training pants were exposed to Tommy interested view and braced himself for a comment."

       "Hey! Those are neat. Training pants! I bet they'd work a whole lot better if you wore plastic baby pants on top of them."

       With a jolt, Jonathan realized that the kid wasn't teasing him. Even more so when he heard Tommy continue:

       "Boy! How come you never let me wear those, Mr. Curley?"

       "Well, you rarely wet during the daytime, Tommy. But if you want, you can wear a pair of Jonathan's now."

       This exchange flabbergasted Jonathan, and amazed he watched Tommy strip off his pants and pull on the trainers that Mr. Curley held out for him to step into.

       "Neato!" Tommy spun around modeling the pants, and ran out through the hall to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. "Wow!" Jonathan heard "They look just like my baby three year old cousin's! And they feel great, almost as good as diapers."

       Curley was greatly amused by the slack-jawed expression on his foster son's face, and smiled to himself, both at Tommy's antics, and in anticipation of the further revelations the day was going to bring to Jonathan. He reached down and held open a second pair of training pants for Jonathan to step into and pulled them up onto his hips. After finishing dressing Jonathan in shorts T-shirt and tennis shoes, he called Tommy back in from the mirror and helped him with his shorts as well. Back downstairs there were chocolate milkshakes and grilled cheese sandwiches served with a smile by Mrs. Curley.

       "Now I have both my little boys with me. What fun to see you together, I think you two should be great friends."

       The talk rolled on from that point, with the Curley's catching up on Tommy's doings and events in his mother's life. They were both careful to include Jonathan at all points in the conversation, who seemed to open up in the warm atmosphere of the kitchen. It turned out that Tommy was one grade ahead of Jonathan, and he greatly sympathized with Jonathan's predicament, but pointed out that: "It’s sure lucky those little guys have you in their class to protect them. The whole school was talking about how you fixed that Joe Kelly." This made Jonathan feel quite good. By the time the last of the pecan sandies had been consumed in was 3:30 and Mr. Curley suggested that they head down to the little league field for some batting practice.

       They returned from the field at 5:30. Though Jonathan had enjoyed the practice, he'd had trouble connecting with the ball. Mr. Curley attributed this to inexperience and said that he'd improve. He was again soaked, and had been embarrassed by the rather pointed comments of one of the other little league coaches, Lou Harrison, who'd also been down practicing with his two boys before the season started. Harrison considered himself Curley's chief rival, and took particular pleasure in the fact, as he termed it to his friends, that he'd stomped Curley's ass last year in the play-offs. This annoyed Curley mainly from the point of view that he didn't consider that the coaches were there to compete with each other, but rather for the purpose of helping kids. While he'd had his share of wins, he'd rather have a losing season with every kid playing, than have a winning one with a quarter of the team on the bench. Harrison had no such qualms, and had been twice reprimanded by the league for "forgetting" to play several of his weaker players in key games.

       Jonathan wasn't in the best of moods as he trudged up stairs to his room behind Curley and Tommy. As Curley was dressing him, he heard Tommy giggling.

       "You know these things would work a whole lot better with plastic baby pants."

       When he looked up at Tommy, he could see a dark stain spreading on the front of his shorts.

       "Alright, Tommy, I agree, but would you try not to drip on the rug." Mr. Curley said in an amused but exasperated tone.

Tommy giggled some more, "I just wanted to see how these worked, and what they felt like wet. They're not as nice as diapers wet. Too cold, with the air on them through your shorts, they're not thick enough to keep you warm. "Can we get ready for bed before dinner," he inquired."

       "Sure, wait one moment Tommy."

       Jonathan watched in stunned silence as Curley left the room briefly, coming back with a large padded plastic changing mat covered with baby teddy bears that he laid on the bed. Tommy grinned, and hopped up on it and lay on his back. He lifted up his fanny as Curley slid the wet shorts and training pants off him, and lay back with a happy expression on his face as Curley produced a washrag and wiped him off. He then took out a bottle of baby oil and spread it over Tommy's bottom and all around his diaper area, paying particular attention to the area between his legs and his little rectum. Curley then went over to Tommy's overnight bag and opened it. Jonathan's eyes went wide. The bag was full of diapers! Curley took 4 big diapers out of the bag and folded them expertly as Tommy again lifted up his hips. Sliding them under Tommy's fanny he brought the diapers up between his legs and reached back in the bag and brought out four diaper pins that he held up.

       "I like these turtles Tommy, they're really cute. Where did you get them."

       "I bought them with my allowance from the baby store. They're my favorites, I'll bet the clerk would be surprised if she knew I'd bought them for myself."

       "Maybe she would - but then again maybe you're not the only boy whose ever shown more than idle curiosity about the contents of that store Tommy." With this, he pinned the diapers tightly together around Tommy, two at a time, and reached over and took a pair of frosty plastic pants and put them over the boy’s ankles. Standing Tommy up, he pulled them up over his waist. He then ran his fingers around the elastic enclosing Tommy’s legs, tucking in stray bits of diaper. "Do you want your sleepers on now or latter."

       "Now; I want to try on the new ones Aunt Kate made for me."

       Jonathan looked on as Mr. Curley brought out a pair of snap-waisted sleepers made of the same cloth as the zippered ones he'd worn that night. When these were put onto Tommy, the boy looked just like a toddler, with the elastic around the back of the waist making the diaper bulge under the flannel bottoms all the more obvious - particularly on his behind.

       "You look really cute Tommy, your Aunt Kate will be really pleased". Tommy ran out of the room again, waddling slightly from the thick diapers to see himself in the bathroom mirror. He then disappeared down the stairs, and as Jonathan was coming down with Mr. Curley, he could hear Mrs. Curley commenting on how nice they looked to the enthusiastic Tommy. "They do look just like the ones your little cousin Luke had on when he visited, particularly with such thick diapers. I'm glad you like them."

       Jonathan felt a little left out, and a little bit jealous of all the attention Tommy was getting over something that he'd always thought of as a boy's worst nightmare. It was clear that Tommy didn't mind his diapers. In fact he actually thoroughly enjoyed them and all the attention that went along with them. It had been an eye opener when he'd peered into Tommy's suitcase before coming down to dinner: it was full of extra diapers! It seemed like Tommy had come really prepared.

       At dinner the conversation turned to Tommy's diapers and how well they worked. The discussion revolved around different kinds of plastic pants, and what he liked best now. Kate was particularly interested in the new prefolded diapers his mother was making for him.

       "Yeh! They're really terrific, she likes then because she doesn't have to do a lot of folding, and one is perfect for daytime, although she always puts two on me at night. Its great not having a wet bed all the time. I think they're really neat. Besides, he grinned, I don't have to get out of bed on cold nights just to go to the bathroom."

       After dinner the boys went into the living room to watch a Star Wars video that Curley had picked up on the way home. As Curley was inserting the cassette in the VCR, Tommy plunked himself down on the couch, and Jonathan followed him.

       "Hop up off the couch Jonathan, your foster mother would cream you, and serve you up for stew if you got her new furniture wet. You can sit in the wooden rocker with a towel under you or you can lie on the floor."

       "Jeez! It's no fair." Jonathan got up and sat down on the floor disgustedly. "How come Tommy gets to sit there?"

       "As you can plainly see, Tommy would have to try pretty hard to wet the couch the way he's fixed up. I can't see that it would be very fair to penalize him for your problem."

       "Hey it's cool. I'd rather lie on the floor with Jonathan anyway." Tommy hopped off the couch and lay on his tummy in front of the TV next to Jonathan with his feet in the air. Kate came in and sat on the couch next to her husband. After a while Curley chuckled softly in her ear: "I think you're spending more time admiring that cute little diapered rear end than you are Star Wars."

       "Well," she whispered, "its pretty cute, with that new sleeper, his fanny looks just like Billy's as a toddler. It really pokes up with that elastic along the back pulling the sleeper in just above the diaper. You really put thick diapers on him, and they really bunch up between his legs."

       "He certainly looks happy enough, I'll bet he's not very dry in there."

       She laughed, "I think that was the point of getting diapered up so early, he's looking forward to an extra change before bed. I'll be only to happy to comply - I've missed my little cutey."

       "At the present rate, honey, I don't think it's going to take our other young man too long to get the message."

       "I hope you're right, it really hurts me to see him so miserable all the time. I'm really worrying about what's happening at school. We ought to see what we can do to help. You know, I don't think he's read a book, or looked at the funny papers the entire week he's been here. Do you suppose he has a reading problem?"

       After the movie was over, Curley sounded taps: "Bedtime boys! Last one up is a bug-eyed tree frog with purple teeth."

       "Tree frogs don't have purple teeth!" Jonathan replied.

       "Well you sure will if you don't get up there and brush - now!"

       The boys scuttled up the stairs, and Kate and Curley headed after them. Arriving in the bedroom, Kate went over and unsnapped the front of Tommy's pajamas and pulled the bottoms down. She reached under the leg and ran here finger around under the elastic. "Pretty water logged Tommy." Tommy giggled. "OK, up on the changing mat (which was lying there from before dinner, Curley not having removed it from previous experience)."

       Jonathan stood there and watched while his foster mother fussed over his friend, who was giggling and smiling as he was changed in front of the entire group. He seemed to enjoy everyone watching and put up a show. Kate enjoyed it too, and played along, tickling Tommy at various moments under the arms and on his feet. "You are such a little squirmer!" She exclaimed, "You'd better hold still, or I'm going to pin you to this diaper by mistake." Tommy's legs were lifted up over his head, exposing his little rectum to full view, and he visibly relaxed with a small sigh of pleasure as Kate poured baby oil on his bottom and rubbed it in. Dropping his legs, she oiled the rest of his diaper area, and then gave his tummy a little massage and a pat. "We oil him up well, Jonathan, so that he doesn't get a diaper rash. They're really nasty, and preventing one is really important." She then placed 4 thick folded diapers under him as he lifted his fanny like a pro, and pinned him up. She pulled his plastic pants back up, followed by the pajama bottoms that she snapped first around the front and then rolled him over and did the back. Giving him a light little swat on his padded tail, she said: "OK hop up, I've got to get Jonathan ready for bed too.

       Tommy hopped off the bed and grinned at Jonathan, who was feeling more than a little left out.

       "I want the top bunk." Tommy said. "It may rain on me if Jonathan sleeps up there."

       "Very funny." He replied.

       He looked over and he could see his foster father straightening the sheets on his bed. "Do you think that we should put an extra soaker pad on the bottom? It would help keep the rest of the bed dryer, and it probably would be warmer."

       "Its a good idea dear, there may be another dry one out in the hall closet." She was busy sorting through Jonathan's bureau getting out a pair of training pants, and a pair of ordinary flannel ski pajamas. "These are your last pair of PJ's; we’re going to have to do a big load of wash together tomorrow Jonathan if you're going to have a dry pair for tomorrow night," she said shaking out the bright red pajamas.

       They were kinda neat, with a logo on them and yellow cuffs. Jonathan liked them, and thought to himself that it was too bad that he'd wear them only one night. He was really causing a lot of extra laundry. He suddenly realized that he hated making the Curley's do all this extra work. "Uh - Mrs. Curley, uh - you know, maybe I oughta wear some stuff like Tommy." He couldn't believe he'd said that. "It would really help you guys out and all, and you wouldn't have to change my sheets so much and everything." He gasped. He looked up at her shaking, just a little teary-eyed."

       Kate looked down at the little boy. "Why Jonathan - how thoughtful of you! It really would be a big help. You do mean diapers and baby pants like Tommy's don't you." It was a statement - not a question." She bent over and gave him an enormous hug. He was so scared he wet his pants again. Kate gave a little start and Jonathan started to cry he was so upset at having wet Mrs. Curley. "That's OK Jonathan, I've had little boys get me wet before. Its no big deal", and she hugged him even more tightly. "Jonathan you don't have to wear diapers just to make less work for us. We want you to be happy, and if you're really going to be embarrassed by them, we prefer to do the extra wash."

       "Well, maybe I'd be more comfortable too. I'm kinda tired of wet sheets and all. I mean it might be better for all of us." Jonathan, now that his suggestion was out, was considering the possibilities in more detail. "It could be just for tonight; if I don't like them and all, I won't have to wear them again. Don't you think we should at least try it? Besides, you let Tommy wear them." A powerful clinching argument as far as he was concerned. He couldn't believe he was actually arguing to be put back into diapers. I must be going crazy, he thought.

       "Boy! I can vouch for their being more comfortable,” Tommy echoed from the top bunk. "I think it's a great idea Aunt Kate. Jonathan can use some of mine, I've got plenty."

       "That won't be necessary Tommy, I think we can find some extras around here. We kept a supply back when you left just in case they might be useful sometime. Well young man, if you really want to try them, hop up on the changing mat after I get your wet clothes off. Curley, would you get some diapers and plastic pants for Jonathan off the top shelf of the linen closet and bring them in here,” she called. "Jonathan says he'd like to try them out tonight." While she was marshalling these resources, she stripped the little boy, unbuckling the belt on his pants, undoing the zipper, and pulling them down, then peeling the wet trainers down from his waist. After stripping his T-shirt with the traditional "skin-the-rabbit” she gave him a light spank on the behind, propelling him up onto the changing mat.

       Jonathan lay down nervously on the changing mat. He was still quivering a little bit, and he felt highly embarrassed. He could see Mr. Curley smile at him as he came into the room with a big stack of white fluffy diapers neatly folded in his arm and several pairs of frosty white plastic pants. He came over and stood next to Jonathan. He could also see Tommy peering down at him from over the edge of the top bunk. Jonathan had been undressed around people before, but he'd never felt this naked! He nervously crossed his legs, hiding his little penis and balls a bit from view. His foster mother smiled "Its OK dear, we've all seen this before, and you know the routine because you got to watch Tommy being changed. Now just spread your legs apart and I'll take care of everything."

       "I'm awfully big to be wearing diapers."

       "Of course you are dear, you're a big boy, but you are not the only big boy whose wearing diapers tonight. Lots of boys your age still wet the bed, and some of the happier ones will be dressed just like you."

       Though still nervous, this made him relax a bit. He could feel the sudden wet chill of the washrag as she started to wash his diaper area and flinched just a bit. He was rewarded by a little poke in the ribs, and he giggled a little. It was the first time he'd been tickled by anyone in 7 years. It made him squirm, but it was fun. Everyone laughed with him. He then felt her lift his ankles up and swing them over his head, bending him over and pulling his bottom up into everyone's view. He felt totally helpless in this position, but a strange sensation of pleasure filled him as she washed, and then oiled his little behind - giving a little start when she briefly rubbed some oil onto his little hole. She massaged his fanny a little bit more and then set his legs down. As his fanny settled back down he felt the thick cloth diapers beneath him instead of the hard plastic of the changing mat. His foster father must have slid them there while he was being oiled. He tensed a little bit as he felt the soft cloth, and as Kate put baby oil on his genitals, between his legs, and over the front of his tummy. Then he heard her softly tell him to spread his legs apart, and felt the thick diapers come up between his legs, cradling his little penis and balls. He suddenly realized he had his eyes closed tightly shut, and opened them and looked down to see his foster mother pinning the diapers together with little yellow ducky pins, snugging the diapers tightly around his waist.

       "Lift your legs up dear." and a pair of the frosty white baby pants were pulled over his ankles and up his legs. She then swiveled his feet to the ground and stood him up, pulling the plastic pants up over the thick diapers. "Now lets put your pajamas on. There!" she exclaimed, "All ready for a dry night in bed." Tommy looked down at him and giggled: now you look just like me - and my three year old cousin."

       "Not quite, I've got superman pajamas, and you've got snap sleepers on."

       "I like my sleepers, Aunt Kate made them for me, and little Lukie has superman pajamas too!"

       "OK, guys into the bathroom and brush your teeth. If you hurry, I'll read you a story, I've got a special one I've been saving up.

       Both boys ran to the bathroom. Jonathan felt very strange with the thick diapers between his legs. They forced his legs apart a bit as he walked. First to arrive at the sink, he brushed quickly and went and stood in front of the mirror while Tommy brushed his. Tommy's right, he thought chagrined. Standing there, he did look very much like a little three-year-old toddler with great big thick diapers bulging under the flannel ski pajamas. Still, he thought, it feels good not to have to worry about wetting myself. Suddenly he felt a sense of physical, and emotional, security that he'd not felt since - forever. Once long ago, he knew, he'd felt like this, but he'd almost forgotten.

       Tommy came over to him and stood next to him by the mirror. "We both look like toddlers don't we?"

       "Yeh. I guess your right. Feels kinda strange don’t it?" He smiled a little embarrassed at his new friend. "You know I'm glad you came over. Thanks."

       "I can't explain exactly why, but I really like being a toddler some of the time,” Tommy replied. "The guy I go to for counseling says its because my mother tried to make me grow up too fast or something. Maybe he's right, but all I know is I feel real good inside when I have my diapers on. I'm really glad you decided to wear them. It's nice to have someone else to wear them with. We oughta be friends forever." He put his arm on Jonathan shoulders.

       Jonathan suddenly realized that they were friends. He wasn't certain what that meant, but he knew that this was the first one he'd ever had. He turned and hugged Tommy.

       "Come on!" Tommy exclaimed, "Lets get back so Uncle Curley will read us a story."

       When they returned to the room, Curley was sitting on the bed waiting for them, a copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis open in his hands. Tommy immediately climbed up next to him and snuggled close, with his head on Curley's shoulders. Jonathan looked a bit confused at first, not having been read to in a long-long time. But when Curley patted the spot next to him on the bed with his big hand, he hopped up and sat there. After a while, as Curley read, he too leaned his head against Curley's shoulder. He could feel his stepfather’s great strong body next to his, and felt wonderfully safe and secure. All the while, the magic of C.S. Lewis's great story and his foster father’s strong gentle voice, wove dreams around his head. It was a story about some English children, about their own age, and their trip to a magic place called Narnia where the kids had all kinds of adventures and became kings, and princes and princesses, before being sent back home to be children again. Somehow, on the trip the children learned about good and evil, and what made you a decent chap. It was a wonderful story and made you feel good inside, and that the world could be a decent place if everyone tried hard enough.

       Both the boys spent the entire morning the next day racing around the house playing at being kings and lions, fighting the wicked forces of winter, and stopping evil from conquering the Kingdom of Narnia. Being a white knight fighting for the forces of good was an entirely new fantasy for young Jonathan, and provided a gentle, but key, push in an important new direction in his life. It had never occurred to the young boy that it was better to respond to bad things - by making good things happen.

       In the middle of the night, Jonathan woke up to hear rain beating on the window. He could feel a chill in the room from the spring gale pushing up against the window, and hunched down under the warm covers as thunder clapped over the house. It was warm and dry, and he snuggled under the blankets, falling to sleep again to the steady drum of rain on the window.

       He heard the bird singing by the window, and opened his eyes to see sun streaming in. The air was crystal clear beyond the window, and only a few white fluffy clouds were gently floating past, their outline sharp against the clear blue of the spring morning sky. He stretched lazily, his legs sliding deliciously across the dry sheets of his bed. He felt strange, everything was different. Except for the bird, the whole house was still. He lay there thinking about his world and how it had changed. Though he was still really scared about school, he was happy living here. It felt really good in bed.

       He suddenly realized why it felt so strange. First off, his bed was dry for the first time in a month. Even more important, he was wearing diapers! He lay there analyzing and inventorying the sensation. He could feel the bulky diapers between his legs. They felt very wet - but warm and snugly too. He spread his legs apart and then closed them again, pinching the thick folds of the diapers with his thighs. He could just get his ankles to touch. Then he ran his hands down beneath the covers to the waist of his pajamas and slid them under over the plastic pants. In the warm bed the plastic felt soft and reassuring. He ran his hands over its smooth surface feeling its texture against the wet diapers beneath. Then down around the leg elastic: pushing his finger under the edge and feeling the moist cloth beneath. He then brought his hand up to his waist and slid it between the plastic and the diaper. Boy was the diaper wet! He pushed the warm wet sodden mass against his crotch. That feels pretty good! He realized. He wondered if babies felt this way about their diapers. Withdrawing his hand from the plastic pants he put it up to his nose, smelling the warm wet salty-sweet smell of the urine on his palm. Then he slid his hand back down over his pajama bottoms, doing a tour around his waist, down along the edge of the plastic pants around his legs. Everywhere his pajamas were dry! It felt really good to be dry. He felt back and patted his own thickly padded behind. Suddenly he had to pee. He started to get up, but then, turned onto his tummy and let go. He felt wonderfully wicked enjoying the sweet delight of breaking a deep taboo. He lay there a minute as the warm pee spread out over his tummy. He could feel it climbing up where the diapers passed between his legs towards his bottom. The extra warmth felt good. He then nervously pushed his hands down and ran them over the sheet beneath him, and conducted another tour over the front of his pajamas. Everything was perfectly, wonderfully dry! He rolled over on his back, and smiled looking out the window at singing bird.

       After a while he began to hear noises as the rest of the family awakened. There were stirrings above him. "Jonathan?"

       "Yeh?"

       "You dry or wet?"

       "Well my beds dry, but my diapers sure aren't, how about you?"

       "I'm pretty soaked too." Tommy hopped down out of the bed and stood on the floor. Jonathan realized that he thought that his friend looked kinda cute in his sleepers. "You really look like a little toddler in those sleepers," he grinned pulling his covers off and sitting up on the edge of the bunkbed.

       "Goo-goo." Tommy replied dropping to his hands and knees and scuttling around the floor laughing. "You look just like a little kid too."

       Jonathan looked down at the enormous bulge of his diapers under his tight superman ski pajamas and thought "boy is that ever true." On impulse he hopped down on the floor too and started to crawl around. "Me wet - me need change!" he lisped. Tommy giggled. Soon the two boys were tumbling around the floor tickling each other and laughing. Finally, Jonathan rolled on top of Tommy and straddled his chest. Sitting that way made the thick bulge of his wet diapers press up between his legs and crotch, and he suddenly realized that he liked the feeling. "You know wet diapers kinda feel good don't they?"

       Tommy nodded agreement. "Hey lets head down to breakfast now, that way we won't get changed till later and we can wear our wet diapers longer."

       Both boys headed downstairs and ran into the kitchen where Kate was starting the coffee and making juice. She looked at her two boys and smiled, enjoying their babyish appearance and anticipating the pleasure of changing them both. "No you don't Tommy, I'm onto your arriving early to avoid getting changed until after breakfast. You and Jonathan scoot back upstairs and wait for me. I don't want you to get diaper rash from sitting around in the same wet diapers all day. You need to get dried out periodically unless you want to have a really nasty set of sores in your diaper area." To her surprise, the obvious look of disappointment was mirrored in Jonathan's face as well. "If you two haven't had enough diapers, I'll change you into dry ones and you can wear them all day if you like."

       "Hey that would be cool, then Jonathan can sit on the couch with me to watch TV. How about it Jonathan?"

       Jonathan decided that it would be OK as long as no one else saw them besides his foster parents, and both boys scuttled back up the stairs. When they got there, Jonathan's foster father was lugging a low bureau with a large top into his room. He looked over at Jonathan and smiled: "your changing table young man, we used this for Tommy too when he was here, but didn't know if we would need it for you or not. It’s a lot more convenient because it has room for all your diapers and baby pants in the drawers, and there is a shelf for baby oil and powder. You can also hang your diaper pail on the side and it has a place for washcloths. You'll really like it."

       Tommy smiled at the memory - he'd liked being changed on it. Some how it seemed more authentic to be on a real changing table than lying on a low bed. "I claim first on the changing table."

Chapter 3

       School Again!

       Monday morning came. Tommy was awakened by his foster parents, who came in and gently shook his shoulder. When he rolled over, they smiled down at the boy, and his foster mother leaned over and gave him a kiss. "You have a big day today young man. It's your third week in 4th grade and you want to be there on time."

       "But I thought Mr. Miller said I'd be put back to third grade today!" Jonathan replied.

       "That's yet to be seen, you know that your foster mother called Mr. Miller, and he agreed to hold off. We're all having a conference with Mr. Miller today after school, and we'll discuss what comes next. Your foster mother and I don't think that your going back another grade is a very good idea."

       "Me neither! I don't want to go back with those little kids at all. It'd be awful. I'll do better, I promise!"

       "We know you'll try your best dear,” his foster mother said. She'd pulled the covers off him while they were talking, and pulled off his pajama bottoms exposing his diapered bottom. "Hand me the changing mat dear." As Curley handed it to her she slid it under Jonathans upraised bottom, and then pulled off his plastic pants, and unpinned his diapers. "You are such a little rainmaker." and she ran her fingers up his tummy. Jonathan squealed and squirmed. "OK, now up and at-em tiger. Go comb your teeth and brush your hair and your foster father will get your clothes out for you."

       "You mean brush my teeth and comb my hair," Jonathan giggled."

       "Well now you certainly can't claim that you didn't understand what I want you to do - now scoot!"

       Jonathan ran off to the bathroom while Curley pulled out a dry pair of training pants, some levis, and a knit shirt with a big green grinning crocodile on it. It had Florida Leprechaun in bright red letters above it, and a shamrock hanging from its mouth. Jonathan really liked the shirt when he came back. After dressing him, Mr. Curley hoisted him on his back and gave him a piggyback ride down the stairs and into the kitchen.

       "Don't you two roughouse unless Jonathan's diapered. Otherwise both of you are going to get all wet, and Curley's a lot harder to change than you are Jonathan."

       "Aww that's not fair."

       "Say, it might be fun to have you change me dear. Hey Jonathan wanta have a tickle fight." Jonathan giggled.

       "That's enough, both of you. Eat your breakfast.

       When Jonathan arrived back in class that morning, Mrs.Hanlin was not pleased. While she'd been willing to go along with the experiment initially, Jonathan's continuous wetting was more of a disruption than she'd bargained for. More importantly, the boy had sat in the back of the room sullenly for two weeks now. None of his written work was legible, and he had yet to answer a question correctly in class. She didn't really have it in for Jonathan, but had been looking forward to her classroom returning to normal. "Good morning Jonathan," I hadn't expected to see you back here this morning, and I rearranged the desks this weekend. Why don't you take the one by the door. Suzy, you move your stuff over to the desk next to the aquarium. Yes, I know it’s always been your desk, but it may only be for a while."

       Jonathan's heart sank. The desk by the door was in the front row. He'd be clearly visible all the time to the entire class. He waited for a very cross-looking Susan Brown to move her things across the room, and then sat self-consciously down. He sat there immobile for the entire morning, raising his hand only twice to go to the bathroom. Just before lunch he was staring at the clock waiting for the little hand to reach 12 so he could escape."

       "Jonathan!"

       "Oh. Yes Mrs. Hanlin."

       "I asked you what was 7 time 9."

       Jonathan looked at her with a blank stare.

       "Don't you know?"

       "45?"

       The class giggled.

       "Jonathan, stand up and face the class." Jonathan stood and turned slowly around. He didn't feel too good all of a sudden. The kids were all whispering and giggling. "Jonathan, I want you to say your times tables now - starting with one times one and go all the way up to ten times ten." Jonathan felt his ears ringing; the whole world seemed to be staring at him. "Jonathan! Don't you even know your times tables? How can you be in 4th grade if you don't know that! You belong down in the third grade!"

       The entire class shrieked with laughter. Jonathan had wet his pants standing in front of the entire class. "Baby baby baby. Baby baby baby. Baby baby baby." They entire class was chanting. Mrs. Hanlin first looked disgusted. Then it slowly came over her what she had just done to this poor little boy. "Class be quiet."

       "Baby baby baby"

       "I said be quiet. Now!"

       At that moment the bell rang, and the kids streamed out leaving Jonathan standing in a puddle, tears streaming down his face. After the last kid had left the room, Mrs. Hanlin went slowly over to Jonathan and put her hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. She sat down on the desk next to him and waited quietly as the boy sobbed. She watched his little shoulders heave up and down. After a while she reached out, placed her hand on his tear stained little cheek, and turned his face gently towards her.

       "Jonathan, I don't think I've ever done a meaner thing in my life, and I'm sorry. Your wetting has been a terrible disruption here in class, and I'm afraid I lost my patience with you. You never answer my questions, and you just sulk in the back of the room. You haven't handed in any passing work the whole time you've been here, and you don't seem to even try. But none of that excuses me. I hope you will forgive me."

       The little boy bolted from the room.

       Jonathan ran down the hallway and out the back door. He wanted to go home, and had every intention of going the two miles to his house on foot. He'd never go back to that school. Never! He hated everybody there.

       Mrs. Hanlin ran from her classroom. The boy was nowhere to be seen. Laden with remorse she went down sadly to Mr. Millers office for help.

       Outside the school, Jonathan was climbing over the high chain link fence that went round the back yard. The kids weren't allowed back there, and there were dumpsters and garbage cans stacked to one side, a loading dock, and a narrow alleyway between two buildings leading back to the front of the school.

       "Leave me alone you bully!"

       It was a girl’s voice, shaking with anger and a note of fear in it. He stopped climbing.

       "Give it here sweetheart or your pretty little dress is gonna get all mussed up."

       It was Joe Kelly's voice. He heard a scuffle and the nasty laughter of a couple of other boys. There was a ripping noise and a short muffled shriek. He jumped down from the fence and ran across the yard into the alleyway. There ahead of him were three boys. One of them was holding his hand over a girls mouth, one was yanking at a small purse clutched tightly in her hand, and another was pummeling her. The girl was putting up a brave struggle but went suddenly still when the boy dropped his hold on the purse and produce a nasty looking knife.

       "I told you you'd get all messed up if you didn't pay up sweet heart, and now you’re going to get cut just a little to teach you a lesson." Jonathan gave a shout. Joe Kelly turned and looked at the onrushing boy. "Oh its baby pants wetter. The whole school is laughing at you after you pissed your pants in Mrs. Hanlin’s class."

       Jonathan skidded to a stop in front of him. Jonathan was a very street wise ten year old, and from a much tougher district than Joe Kelly operated in. Knives were nothing new to him. The girl stopped struggling and looked at the two boys facing each other as she was held by Kelly's two sniggering cronies.

       "I see that you've switched to picking on girls now. Boys to much for you Kelly!"

       "Well well, all that from a little piss pants. Well why don't you go piss in them somewhere else little boy. This is where the big boys play and you might get your little widdle bottom spanked by this big bad boy."

       "I may be a piss pants, but this little piss pants is going to beat the living crap out of you."

       Kelly glared and started to advance.

       "Oh! Jonathan exclaimed and dropping open his mouth turned his head sharply glancing up the alley behind Joe Kelly. Kelly, catching Jonathan's unexpected movement, glanced back quickly over his shoulder in the direction he thought Jonathan was looking. He turned his head back just in time to receive a karate kick square in the mouth. Blood spurted from his cut lips and he gave a cry. Jonathan, as he came down, slapped Joe Kelly's wrist so that the hand holding the knife went past him, and drove his knee for the second time in a week directly into the dazed boys crotch. As Kelly fell to the ground, Jonathan did a knee drop directly into his solar plexus. Kelly gasped and rolled on the ground struggling for breath. Jonathan kicked the knife lying on the ground across the alley and turned to the other two boys who had let go of the girl and were rushing at him. The quick witted girl, reached out and tripped the rearmost who put an arm out and skidded in the gravel. He gave a scream of pain as the skin on both hands peeled off on the pavement. The other, Jonathan side stepped, caught off balance and using his own momentum, slammed him headfirst into the wall of the alleyway knocking him dizzy and putting him out of the combat. He walked over, picked up the knife, drove the blade between two bricks and snapped the blade, throwing the stump contemptuously on the ground next to Joe Kelly, who wouldn't be able to move for another 15 minutes, but would live, painfully, for at least another week.

       "Thanks a lot Jonathan."

       "Huh! You know me?"

       "We're both in Mrs Hanlin’s class together silly."

       "Oh!" He said reddening with embarrassment as the events of the morning came back to him.

       "How'd you ever learn to fight like that."

       "The school I went to had a Karate class for kids. You aren't supposed to use it except for sport. But when you live on the streets there's no such thing as fair. So I got to practice it a lot."

       "I guess it's good you know it, but it scares me a bit. You know, I didn't laugh at you with the other kids in class. I know it’s not your fault you wet your pants. Besides, she grinned, I've always thought you were kind of cute. And now you'll just have to get used to being my hero," she smiled. "Lets get back to class, I don't think that those guys will want to bother anyone else today." She said glancing at the moaning forms behind them.

       As they walked back to class together - the last place he'd expected to go back to that day - she kept up a steady stream of conversation, drawing him out. She lived two blocks from him. Her name was Sarah, and she thought that she really ought to be in fifth grade since her birthday was right on the line, and besides she was the smartest kid in class. She wanted to play little league this year, and was he really living with coach Curley. She wanted to be on his team, it was the best. As they walked back, she steered them through the side door and down the hall by the nurse’s office.

       "Maybe you ought to stop by here before we go back to class. I'll wait here."

       Jonathan turned bright red. "Oh go on," she said, "you're not bad looking in wet pants, but I'm sure you're more comfortable in dry ones," giving him a little shove.

       "Well Jonathan, how did little Sarah get her hooks into you. Better watch out for her young man, she'll hog tie you and hang you in her closet," the nurse greeted him as he was propelled by Sarah through the door. Sarah stuck her tongue out at Marylin Jackoby, and then grinned. Marylin laughed and said "Just wait till we get home young lady, I'm going to glue that tongue to the garage door, and then open it." OK mom, but you'll have to get dad to fix it first - which will take at least a week and I'll miss my dentist appointment - Oh dear, I'll be so upset."

       "You go wait outside and give Jonathan a little privacy."

       "OK mom. By the way Jonathan just stopped Joe Kelly and a couple of his thugs from mugging me in the yard. Joe had a knife, but Jonathan took it away from him and accidently broke it before giving it back."

       The girl scooted out the door. Nurse Jackoby looked down at Jonathan thoughtfully. Her daughter, though very unconventional, never lied, and for her to admit that someone had had to bail her out of a situation was an almost unheard of occurrence. The torn dress also had not gone unnoticed. Despite the tone of the delivery, the message was clear: "I was in big trouble mom, and he helped me out." Jonathan had just acquired a major new ally at Brookline Elementary.

       "There must be more to you young man than a lot of people think, my daughter doesn't select her friends lightly, and it looks like she's taken a considerable liking to you. It also seems that I have you to thank for helping her out of a very bad situation. Now lets get you fixed up and back to class."

       Sarah and Jonathan arrived back at class together just as the bell rang. Mrs. Hanlin was considerably relieved to see Jonathan return to class, and noted with some surprise that he and her star, if somewhat burdensome, pupil had obviously made some connection. That at least was a good sign. She made a point of letting Jonathan sit quietly through the class for the rest of the afternoon. When the bell rang, she asked Jonathan to wait a moment. After children had rushed from the room, she saw that Sarah was waiting for Jonathan by the door. "I just want you to know Jonathan, that if you want I'm going to give you a chance here, but you are going to have to meet me half way. I'm looking forward to meeting with your foster parents this afternoon, and I'm hoping that we can work out something to help you out."

       Jonathan nodded his head. "I am trying Mrs. Hanlin."

       Mrs. Hanlin didn't press the point and said he could go. She was glad at least that Jonathan had found a friend, though this was hardly a boy that she'd thought Sarah Jackoby would have picked as a companion.

       Sarah sat with Jonathan on the bus and got off with him at his stop. The trip was a long one due to an accident, and by the time they left the bus together he was wet again. Sarah didn't say a thing. Jonathan was to find out that he had acquired the most loyal of friends. She walked with him to his house, and introduced herself to Jonathan's foster mother, who invited her in. Kate smiled. "I'm happy to see that Jonathan's acquired a new friend. I'm afraid a lot of kids wouldn't want to be seen with him because of his problem."

       "That's OK, I know it’s not his fault. My mom's a nurse, and she explained all about Jonathan to me. I think he's pretty terrific, you should have seen him take care of that bully Joe Kelly today when he tried to take my purse. Besides, Jonathan's prreettty cute,” she grinned wickedly at the blushing boy.

       "Well cute or not, we better get some clean clothes on you young man. You wait here Sarah, and Jonathan will be right down. If you want to stay and play, you call your mother and tell her you’re here, though in an hour I'm dropping Jonathan off at my sister-in-laws because I have to go to a conference at his school."

       "Could he come over to my house to play instead?"

       "Well, that's up to Jonathan, you know he might need a change over there."

       "That's OK, my mom's the school nurse, and she's changed Jonathan a whole bunch already."

       So it was quickly arranged, and an hour latter Jonathan was on his way over to Sarah's house with a bag of extra clothes clutched in his arms. Arriving there, he was greeted by Mrs. Jackoby who sat them both down in her kitchen for a full explanation of the day’s event. Jonathan was a bit reluctant to talk, having come from a world where there was a code of silence among children towards adults, but Sarah had no such qualms. She viewed adults, particularly her mom as friends and allies, not the enemy, and elaborated for her mother in detail what had happened. Her mothers expression was very serious, and after the conversation ended, she called both the principal and the police. "I think that its time that something was done about Joe Kelly, and soon. He won't be in school tomorrow or for a long while either - if ever - I'm going to see to that. What do you two plan to do this afternoon? Why don't you head out into the yard and practice up for little league."

       Sarah was an excellent baseball player, having starred in Pony and Minor League, and she had to hold back a bit as Jonathan seemed to fumble the ball quite a bit. After a while she grew tired of the game and suggested that they go inside and play in her room. On their way up the stairs they heard her mother call out: "If you're going to play inside, Jonathan will have to stay off the furniture in case he wets."

       Jonathan reddened visibly: "Lets go back outside." Sarah, however, had other ideas, and he reluctantly followed her into her room. Fortunately, there was only a throw rug on the floor and they pushed that aside and got out Sarah's incredible collection of Leggo. Jonathan liked Leggo, but had never had a set of his own, and became easily absorbed in fitting the pieces together. He worked away for a while and produced a remarkable Leggo dragon for a fascinated Sarah, who had abandoned her own project to watch. "That's really neat! I've never seen that one before; did you learn how to make that from someone elses set? I've never seen a dragon leggo before."

       Jonathan was surprised at her enthusiasm. He liked what he had made, but didn't think it out of the ordinary. "Nah! I just made it up. I like to do that, don't you make up things like this."

       "Sure, but I've never made anything that good before. Oh - by the way, don't you think you better get mom to help you change?"

       Jonathan looked down in surprise. He was sitting in a puddle. He'd been concentrating so hard, he'd just plain forgot to go to the bathroom. A look of deep shame came over him and he stuttered out that he was sorry.

       "Stop that Jonathan. We both know you can't help it, and if you're going to always be apologizing and feeling rotten, I'm not going to want to play with you. Besides, you don't have to wet everything all the time anyway. Why don't you do something to protect yourself? It would sure make life a lot easier for everyone."

       "I don't think I'd have very many friends if I wore diapers and baby pants all the time. There aren't very many kids who want to be seen playing with a baby."

       "Well, there may not be, but I'll bet there are more who'll play with a kid in diapers, than will play with a boy who is always soaking wet. How can you wrestle with other boys, and do all the things guys are supposed to do if you wet yourself every time you get excited or concentrate on something and forget to go to the bathroom? Hey, if you were wearing diapers right now, I wouldn't have a puddle to clean up on my floor and my mother wouldn't have to change you, and you wouldn't always have to haul around a sack of wet clothes. The least you could do is wear some plastic pants over those trainers my mother says you wear all the time - oops!" She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked guiltily at Jonathan. "I wasn’t supposed to let you know that mother had told me that."

       "Jonathan stared at her angrily - she isn’t supposed to tell anyone!"

       "What do you expect - we live together, and she and dad were talking about you at the dinner table. She talks about her work at home just like anyone else. She'd be really mad at me if she knew I'd blabbed. You won't tell will you? She thought it was kinda mean what they did to you, regardless of how you'd behaved. She said she was going to try and be nice to you, just because of it. Dad wanted to know all about how you were treated and she told him about your trainers - she thinks that its stupid, that you should wear diapers like any kid that wets his pants. She said that the trainers look good, but without plastic pants, they're really pretty useless. I'm really curious though, I think they sound kinda cute - I'd like to see what they look like - mom says they look just like the ones little boy toddlers wear."

       Jonathan was very reluctant about this suggestion. "Oh they're all wet and smelly now, you wouldn't really want to see them."

       "That doesn't bother me, Mom says people make too much out of this sort of thing; urine is just salt and water, it’s just the way your body cleans itself. You get it on your hands - you wash them. Every mother does when she takes care of her babies, and it really isn't any different for boys and adults too. She's changed lots of diapers, including kids older than you."

       "Not at school."

       "Sure, as long as I've already blabbed, I might as well fill you in. You don't think you're the only boy in diapers at Washington elementary - theres 900 kids in the school, and there are a lot kids who still wet their pants cause they haven't grown out of it. There are a whole bunch of first graders who still wear them, and there are always a few in second grade every year. I know cause taking care of their diapers is one of mother's jobs. She has a regular group of kids troop in just before the end of recess each day.

       "I'll bet there aren't any other ten year olds."

       "Not always, but Mom has a couple of older kids every year who are handicapped and need them. You've seen that kid in sixth grade that uses the special wheel chair, and there's another fourth grader who wears leg braces. Mom says they're real good sports too. Hey - at least you don't have to use crutches or anything. Both of them are pretty neat guys, everybody likes them, and they have lots of friends."

       "No kidding!" it made him feel better to know he wasn't the only one in this predicament. He was glad Sarah had blabbed, and it was a relief that he didn't have to explain everything, or hide anything either. She knew all about him and she still wanted him for a friend. That was neat - he really liked it, and she was a lot of fun too.

       "Hey now that I've filled you in why don't you let me see your trainers, I really want to see what they look like. I won't tell anyone. Besides, its only fair - you made a puddle on my floor and I'm going to have to clean it up."

       "Oh OK,” Jonathan said very reluctantly, and glanced over at the door. Sarah ran over and shut it softly. He looked at her and she stood there waiting expectantly, a look of keen interest on her young face. He reached down and undid his belt buckle, unbuttoned the front of his pants and pulled down the zipper. He could see Sarah lean forward as he slowly slid his pants part way down, then he pulled them back up.

       "Hey! that's not fair, you said you'd really show them to me. You gotta take your pants off!"

       Jonathan sighed, took his shoes off, and stripped off his pants, and when Sarah pointed out that his shirt hung down over the trainers he took it off too, and stood there naked except for the trainers in front of her. Remembering Tommy's little performance, he decided he might as well put a brave face on the situation so he spun slowly around, pushing his hips out a little and struck a pose. "Goo-goo!" he said, and put on a silly smile for her.

       Sarah looked at the Jonathan with appreciation. The trainers were soaking wet and stuck to his skin. They were cut just like boy's underwear with a fly and everything, but you could see that they were a lot thicker. She reached over and pulled back the waist band on the side a little bit.

       "Hey!" said Jonathan nervously.

       "I just want to see how they're made silly, I'm not going to pull your pants off. Its neat the way your mother lined them with terry cloth - I bet they'd work pretty good if you wore plastic pants with them - at least for light wetting. Mother says you really flood your pants though, but at least they'd work a lot better. You know they remind me of the stay-dry panties my mother had me wear until I stopped wetting during the day in school."

       "You used to wet your pants in school too!"

       "Sure, right through to the end of first grade. Nobody really knew cause we didn't have gym class, and mother always changed me at lunch." She laughed, "Maybe that's why I'm so interested in your underwear." She really liked the way he looked. The wet trainers outlined his cute fanny beautifully on his trim little body, and he was a well-built boy. She really liked his smile. He shivered and bent over and picked up his shirt, which he pulled on. Just then they heard a click, the door swung open and there was Mrs. Jackoby.

       "What are you two up to she said looking at them sternly."

       "Hi mom, we were playing Leggo and Jonathan wet his pants so I made him take them off. I told him he had to wipe up the puddle off my floor with them. Besides I thought he would be more comfortable without his wet pants on - he's still got his trainers on." Both children looked at her with guilty expressions.

       Mrs. Jackoby could see from the evidence that her daughter’s explanation was at least half correct. She also figured that Jonathan was very unlikely to have initiated this little strip tease - and she'd noted at the dinner table the other night that Sarah had had a rather keen interest in the subject of her classmate’s underwear. "Sarah, I think that you are getting a little old to be playing doctor." She gave her daughter an its alright this time, but you'd better not do it again look. "Come on Jonathan lets get you fixed up with some dry pants, your parents will be here any minute now.

       That night at dinner, the conversation had been all about Jonathan Allen. Mr. Jackoby was extremely angry about the incident at school, and was much impressed by his daughters accounting of Jonathan's actions. After their daughter went to bed, his wife told him about the incident in the bedroom. "Poor Jonathan, he looked really sheepish when I came in. Only our daughter could have talked him into taking his pants off. I'm not surprised though, from the way she was so fascinated about his wetting problem at dinner the other day. I think our daughter sees Jonathan as her first nursing opportunity and boyfriend wrapped up into one. She likes him because he's strong and can protect her and because his special problem means that she can mother him at the same time. I don't think she'd go for a boy she could dominate too easily, but I know she likes to think she’s in control a good deal of the time."

       Mr. Jackoby laughed too, "I agree! Poor Jonathan, he's not going to know what hit him. But you better keep the lid on Sarah's interest in advanced doctor games."

       "You know dear, there's a lot more to Jonathan than meets the eye. I've read his entire file, and he frightened me at first, but I've got to admit, since they operated on him he's been like a new boy. It probably has a lot to do with the Curley's, but he's had a radical change in his behavior. I have the feeling that he needs an enormous amount of reassurance, and that it will be some time before he copes with or sees the world like a normal little boy, but now that they have his aggressive behavior under control, it seems as though we can deal with the root underlying emotional traumas much more easily. Originally, looking at his file, you wouldn't have thought there was any chance at all in his growing up to be a happy productive individual. But what they have done has left him in a position of having to rely on others, and through that he's relearning trust. I do hope that they can do something to help him succeed in school or in sports, as it is clear that the next step will be to build his sense of self-esteem. Mrs Hanlin wants to put him back to third grade. I think that would be devastating to him right now, the whole treatment he's received has been one blow after another to what little ego he has. You know, he did something interesting today: he made a model dragon with Sarah's Leggos that is incredible. I've never seen a kid do anything that creative with them before. Sarah's put it up on her shelf to keep she likes it so much. I think that kid may not be as dumb as his records suggest."

       The conference at Jonathan's school had not gone as well as they'd hoped. At least they had convinced the vice-principal and Jonathan's teacher not to put him back another grade. Kate had forcefully made the point that with only six weeks left in the school year, it would have little positive effect, and could create an incredibly disruptive situation. Jonathan's behavior, though moody and uncooperative at school, was at least not, other than his wetting, interfering with the functioning of the class. They pointed out that there would only be a minimal difference at best between moving him back a grade this late in the year and simply holding him back next year academically, but that there would be a giant difference in the effect it would have on his self-esteem. It would also leave open the possibility of his moving on with his class should his academic performance improve.

       Mrs. Hanlin was not sanguine about his chances. "I think that Jonathan has basic skills problems. He seems to have great trouble reading, and he appears to guess at most of the words when called on to read in class. His writing is virtually illegible and knowledge of mathematical principles seems entirely lacking short of simple addition and subtraction. He should be given an IQ test as soon as possible, as it is entirely likely that he needs to be in a special needs class.

       Kate was surprised at this last suggestion: "You know, I taught school for a while, and I worked with special needs children. I know one when I see one, and if anything, I think that Jonathan may be more intelligent than most children his age, not less. I think we should make an effort to get him some extra help. He's made friends with one of his classmates - Sarah Jackoby, maybe she can help him along with his schoolwork. Most importantly though, I think that once he has fully accepted his wetting, and is reconciled to the measures that have to be taken to control it, and we can get him on an even emotional keel, he will be ready to move on to other tasks. For now I think that it is best to offer him help and encouragement, and not make a big deal out of his schoolwork. He's got more than enough to deal with just on his emotional problems. I think we should be delighted by his obvious progress in this area, and not concerned with a lack of progress in other areas. We've done enough to tear him down, now we have to help him rebuild. If he has to stay back a year - so be it, but lets at least give him six weeks to prove whether that's really necessary."

       Mr. Miller and Mrs Hanlin had agreed to the sense of this but were concerned about the disruption his wetting in class was creating. The Curley's said they would encourage Jonathan to deal with his wetting problem in a more direct way - but had asked for more time to do this. They were very concerned about how they were going to approach this problem since a large part of the whole plan was to let Jonathan decide how and how far he would go back to childish clothes and behavior patterns and thus accept his need to regress a bit. They had been pleased at how fast he had adjusted to letting them choose his clothing and dress him routinely. His accepting diapers at night had gone very smoothly, and his developing interest in childish clothing and role-playing was clearly being fanned by his friendship with Tommy. But moving him to wearing diapers or plastic pants to school was a giant step, and they preferred that he arrive at this decision himself. They could make this solution as obvious as possible, but they were very reluctant to force it upon him as it would interfere with the very important aspect of his treatment that he feel that he was allowing himself to be treated as a younger kid because he needed to be.

       On the way home from the Jackobys, Jonathan told his foster parents all about what Sarah had told him about the other kids in school that wore diapers. "So I'm not the biggest, or at least the only baby there - when it comes to wetting," he added quickly. Jonathan's keen interest in these kids was a good sign, both the Curley's thought. He continued to talk about Sarah and her mother all the way home. Both foster parents were greatly relieved that the budding friendship had clearly cemented itself.

       "You ought to invite her over to play, Jonathan, it sounds like you're getting to be good friends," Mr. Curley interjected.

       "Yeh! And she says she doesn't mind my wetting or anything. Her mother told her all about me, even my trainers. I was real mad at first, but when I thought about it, it was kinda neat that she knows all about me and she's still willing to have me for a friend."

       "It may not have occurred to you Jonathan, but you are a pretty likeable young man when you behave yourself. Now that you're not bullying anyone, or trying to shake them down - yes we know all about your former little racket - no one at school has any real reason not to like you. We're not surprised at all that a smart girl like Sarah Jackoby has taken a shine to you."

       "Yeh. She's the smartest kid in class. She doesn't even have to try and she gets great grades. Some kids have all the luck. I could never get good grades - I wish I was smart."

       "Why Jonathan, what a silly thing for you to say, of course your smart - you just need to try harder."

       For some reason, Kate's last statement was like a trigger to Jonathan. He went hysterical. "You guys just don't know. I'm stupid! I can't do anything! I'll never do anything! I'll always be stupid. . I've quit trying and I'm not going to! It doesn't do anygood. I try hard and they all laugh at me! I don't Care! I don't care! You can't make me care!" He was sobbing hysterically as they pulled into the driveway. Curley carried him up to his bedroom telling him gently that that wasn't true; he was a smart little boy, that he could do anything if he tried hard enough. And that no one would laugh at him for trying. Curley was wrong.

       After an hour Kate went up and sat on the bed with the boy. "If you're through we'd like you to come down and have some dinner with us." She patted him gently on his back as he lay there silently on his stomach. He heaved a sigh and rolled over and let her hug him. "You guys are still wrong." He said. There was no further response to her quiet denial, so Kate let it drop. "Would you like to get diapered up before dinner?" He nodded his little head, and she had him stretch out on the bed while she pulled his pants off, which were soaking wet after his outburst. When he was diapered, she brought out the zippered sleepers. "Don't you think these would be nice on a chilly night like tonight?" He again nodded and she had him stand up and step into them. She zipped up the front, and stood back thinking how cute he was in those sleepers, just like a toddler. She smiled and held out her hand and they went down the stairs together to dinner.

       School the rest of the week passed much as the previous week, with the exception that Jonathan was now sitting in the front row. He did try harder, Mrs Hanlin could see that. He obviously paid more attention, and he did better in the oral spelling quizzes, but in written work, his handwriting and answers remained illegible. He was careful about his wetting, but couldn't avoid the accidents that often followed being called on in class for answers he didn't have - Mrs. Hanlin was trying to be careful, but didn't want to never call on him. Gym class remained a major source of continuing humiliation. Each day he got more tired of the accidents. By Thursday night, he felt desperate.

       His foster parents had treated him to a trip to McDonalds. While waiting in line, another boy had pushed him, claiming, unfairly that he'd cut. Jonathan had started to respond angrily and had wet his pants. The other boy had laughed at him and everyone in the restaurant had seen him standing there in a puddle. Kate had taken him out to the car while Curley had stayed and gotten their order to take out. On the way home Jonathan had sat and cried quietly in the back seat. "I'm so sick of wetting all the time. Can't you make it stop? I don't want to wet anymore. I'll be good I promise. Please!" It wasn't an angry tone just a sad one, and both the Curley's sat there feeling guilty, knowing that they were in part, responsible for Jonathan's condition. They both knew, however, that miserable as he was about his wetting, that he was now, in sum, a much happier boy than he'd been in a long time. They both hoped with all their hearts that it all worked out well. They both were determined to never give up on the little boy they'd come to love so quickly.

       At home, they sat around the kitchen table discussing Jonathan's problem and eating big Mac's, and chocolate cake. It was pointed out that, short of growing older, there was no cure for his wetting. "You know Jonathan, if it weren't for your wetting you wouldn't be here. The fact is if we hadn't been willing to take you in, it's unlikely that the State would have given you this treatment. So in part it’s our fault." Curley looked at Jonathan a bit remorsefully, "Having had you for almost a month now, we have really come to love you, and we at least would be sorry if we hadn't had the opportunity to have you as our little bedwetter."

       Jonathan digested this revelation for a few minutes then looked at them both and said, "I've never had anyone to love me before. I guess if I had to choose between being dry, and being with you. Being wets better. It still isn't much fun to be wet all the time though. You know, Sarah thinks I should wear diapers and plastic pants to school. So does her mother. Maybe I ought to wear plastic pants over my trainers. That way I wouldn't wet all over the place. I suppose that it would be really a lot nicer to have dry pants all the time. I wouldn't always have to get changed right away, and I wouldn't get embarrassed so much. Besides there are some other kids my age who have to wear diapers to school anyway."

       "That sounds like a pretty good idea, Jonathan, and we ought to try it. Why does Sarah think you need diapers instead of training pants?" Kate answered.

       "Her mother told her I was a real heavy wetter and that my training pants wouldn't really work that well even with plastic pants."

       "Hmm - then why not wear diapers instead?"

       "If I wore diapers, everyone would know I was a baby."

       "Why would they think that, and what would be so awful if they did anyway?" Kate interjected, seeing where Curley was leading Jonathan, and deciding to give him a little backup.

       "You know why! Only babies wet their pants all the time."

       "Well you do wet your pants all the time - don't you."

       "I know," he said glumly, and hung his head, "I guess I am a real baby."

       "There's nothing wrong with that Jonathan," Curley said, "a kid who knows he's a baby is a lot better off than one who doesn't when he really is. We all are babies in one way or the other; some of us have a hard time controlling our tempers, some people steal from others because they don't care what other people think or feel - that’s real baby behavior, others just want to lie around and not do anything. The point is its important to know just where you're still a baby and accept it. Then you can allow yourself to get the help you need and really grow up. You know you really enjoyed playing at being a toddler boy with Tommy yesterday - didn't you?"

       Jonathan blushed a bit and said sheepishly: "Yeh."

       "Why do you think that was?"

       "I'm not sure, but Tommy said his counselor told him that it was because he needed to be a little boy some of the time because his mother tried to make him grow up too fast."

       "Do you think that could be true for you too?"

       "But I don't have a mother like Tommy - a real one that is."

       "Tommy's mother treated him pretty bad you know - bad enough that he was taken away for a whole year and lived with us. Not as badly as your mother treated you, but it was similar in some ways. Your mother was mentally ill. Unfortunately she didn't recover enough to come back to you. The result was pretty much the same - you didn't get to be a baby very long, and all that time that you normally would have had a lot of help learning to grow up, you didn't get any. Don't you think that maybe being a little boy some of the time wouldn't be a bad thing for you too?"

       "I guess so, but what if I want to be a big boy?"

       "Jonathan - you are a baby in many ways, but believe me, you are a very big boy. Only a big boy would risk getting hurt to help someone else like you did for Sarah. That was really brave of you and everyone thinks so. Which would you rather be, a kid who people think is a terrific person even if he does wear diapers, or a kid who doesn't wear diapers and no one thinks much of cause he never helps anyone else."

       "How about a kid who doesn't wear diapers and who people think is terrific?" Jonathan grinned.

       Curley reached over and ruffled his hair, "I don't think that's one of your options, what do you think?"

       "The problem is everyone will laugh at me!"

       "So laugh with them. The only reason people tease others is to get a reaction. What most people want is a negative reaction, your losing your temper or feeling bad about yourself. If you don't give them that satisfaction, they soon give up. Better if you laugh with them, the positive reaction makes them look bad if they persist, and everyone thinks that you are a good sport. People like people like that. If they tell you you’re a baby - fine laugh and say that’s right! What are they going to say next? Once its out of the way, most people will move on to finding out what else there is to you. Give it a try - wearing diapers is really no worse than wetting your pants all the time anyway."

       "What about gym class? We have to change and they'll all see me without any pants."

       "The other thing that draws peoples attention Jonathan, is curiosity. Letting them see your diapers out in the open will satisfy that - if you ran around in nothing but diapers for a week, everyone would take them for granted. Keep them carefully covered all the time and half the kids in school would be trying to get a peek at them. I can guarantee you that within a week a bunch of kids would organize a pantsing party for you anyway. So do it yourself. Volunteer to satisfy their curiosity yourself. You'll be surprised at the reaction, and the whole issue will be out of the way."

       Friday morning Jonathan's foster parents dropped him in front of the school. He was wearing diapers and plastic pants under a pair of fleece sweat pants and a sweatshirt. He had a diaper bag with three extra changes in it to give to the school nurse. His heart was pounding furiously. Exactly what he should wear, how thick the diapers should be, should he try to make them inconspicuous under his clothing, should they be really obvious - all that had been discussed backwards and forwards. In the end it was decided that the diapers should be thick enough to handle his wetting for the morning and afternoon class periods, with only a change at lunchtime and one just before gym class, because that's what he needed, and that they shouldn't try to hide them or try to make them overly conspicuous. People would find out anyway, though he shouldn't go out of his way to make it obvious that he was wearing them, people would think that strange, he should adopt the attitude that he didn't have anything to hide either. Thus, the fact that he was wearing diapers under the sweat pants was reasonably clear to anyone who bothered to look, but not obtrusively so.

       At the moment, however, he felt like he were standing stark naked in an auditorium filled with screaming girls as the kids streamed by him. Sarah came running up; "Come on we'll be late for class." She stopped and looked down at his crotch. "Well! It’s about time. Good for you. Lets go."

       No one else noticed his diapers as they headed to the classroom; all the kids and teachers were in far too much of a hurry. When he arrived, however, most of the kids were already seated and looked up at him as he entered the room. Mrs. Hanlin heard the sudden whispering and giggles and looked up to see the children nudging each other and pointing at Jonathan.

       "Well Jonathan," she said in a firm voice. The room fell quiet at once, everyone waiting to hear her comment. "I'm glad to see that you've decided to deal with your problem in a sensible manner. You are to be congratulated. I know that wearing diapers to school is really tough on a big boy like you. I wonder how many of the rest of the kids in this class would be brave enough to do it if they had to. But I think that everyone knows from the way you handled Joe Kelly that there isn't a braver kid in this school. For those of you children who don't know it, Joe Kelly was expelled from school yesterday and is being held at the Juvenile Detention Center. He and two cronies tried to attack Sarah Jackoby several weeks ago - with a knife. Jonathan here single handedly stopped them and took the knife away. I think we all owe him a big thank you."

       Half the kids in the class had been bullied by Joe Kelly or lost their lunch money to him at one time or another. There was no more laughter directed at him that day in the room, and a lot of the kids came up to him and thanked later at recess. Nonetheless he was more than aware that he was the object of intense scrutiny. It was clear that his classmates were all fascinated by an otherwise normal boy who had to wear diapers. From time to time he could hear whispers behind him. At one point he heard giggling behind him, and reaching in back he realized that the sweatshirt had ridden up the back of the chair exposing the top of his plastic pants and diapers. He pulled his shirt down, and resisted the urge to sink into the earth.

       Mrs. Hanlin left him alone for the rest of the day, and he had a great deal of time to mull over what she had said to the whole class. Not just the part about taking care of Joe Kelly either. It made him feel really good. He was in a pretty good mood therefore by the time he stopped by for a diaper change at Mrs. Jackoby's office.

       "Goodness!" She exclaimed when he came through the door, diaper bag over his shoulders, "I see that I have one more boy to diaper. Terry Smith will be terribly pleased to have some company his own age at this session." She motioned over to the corner of the room where three boys, two obviously only about 6 and one older boy were seated. All, when he took the time to look, were diapered as well. The older boy had a pair of crutches leaning against the wall next to him. "Hi," Terry said in a friendly voice, "Welcome to the wet set. No secrets here anyway - aren't you the new boy that fixed Joe Kelly? Man he was the only kid who ever tried to trip me. These crutches make a pretty good club though," he grinned, "he never tried that again!"

       As they were talking, Mrs. Jackoby went over and picked up one of the six year olds and hoisted him onto her examining table which had a plastic cover on it. "Well Timmy, how are you doing today?" She efficiently unbuckled his trousers and stripped them down exposing a pair of Gerber toddler extra-large plastic pants over his thick diapers. She pulled the pants off and unpinned the diapers, placing them in a small plastic bag. Next she took a wash cloth and wiped down his whole diaper area, squirted baby magic on her hands from an economy size bottle sitting on the examining table, and rubbed it on his fanny, crotch, tummy, and the top of his legs. She then reached under the table and pulled out a bag marked Timmy from which she took a prefolded flannel diaper which was pinned on the boy, who was talking non-stop all the way through the operation. After pulling his plastic pants back up, she patted him on his well padded rear, and handed him his pants: "you're old enough to put your own pants on Timmy, scoot down and let someone else have their turn."

       Why do adults always do that! Jonathan thought to himself. Every time I get changed - I get a pat on my fanny. You know, I think they like the feel of a diapered bottom. Maybe they're a little bit jealous! He giggled to himself.

       The little boy looked up at him with a suddenly cross expression on his small face: "What's so funny - you wear diapers too!"

       Marylin looked at Jonathan with a cross expression on her face.

       "Of course I do, silly, I'm just as much a baby as you are, I wasn't laughing at you; I just had a funny thought - that's all."

       "Sure you did!" the little fellow said starting to pout.

       "No seriously. OK. Did you ever notice that every time you get your diapers changed, whoever does it gives you a pat on the bottom?"

       "Yeh?"

       "How about you?" He said turning to Terry.

       "Yeh - your right - I've been getting my diapers patted for 10 years I guess." He chuckled.

       "Do you ever wonder why adults do that? Well I figure that they like the feel of a diapered bottom. I think they're a little bit jealous that we get to wear them and they can't!"

       All 4 kids in the room turned to look up at Mrs. Jackoby, who reddened a little bit. "OK," She laughed: "you got us! - Actually you may be right. I think everyone is a little bit jealous of all the love and attention babies get, and how cute they look. We adults just don't like to put it that way. Maybe we're even a little jealous of big kids who still get to wear diapers." She looked down at the grinning little kid she'd just finished diapering and gave him another firm swat his derriere: "Now I get my little bit of fun."

       Timmy jumped down, and everyone laughed together.

       After Jonathan and Terry had their turn on the table, all four boys headed off together, the younger ones eagerly asking about how he fixed Joe Kelly. Jonathan, found that he was a little bit embarrassed by their obvious hero worship. It certainly was a change from the way the little kids used to think about him at his old school. Both boys wanted Jonathan to walk with them to their lunchroom, and it slowly dawned on him that they wanted to be seen with him in front of their friends. For both of them, being seen with an older kid who also wore diapers, and who also just happened to be the school hero of the hour was a big lift. So he walked with them into their cafeteria, and let them introduce him to a couple of friends before he and Terry Smith headed out to their own lunchroom.

       "They're pretty good kids, but its a real relief to have someone my own age in the wet set." Terry smiled. "You know it’s hard sometimes to have to wear diapers all the time."

       "Don't you ever enjoy it - even a little. I think I do some times."

       "Not very much, I've always had to wear diapers, and always will. I'd like a lot to be like other kids. Do you actually enjoy it?"

       "Well," Jonathan said, "Sometimes I do, I guess its because my mother used to beat me up all the time and wouldn't give me any food. I kinda missed out on being a little kid. Now I live with the Curley's, and they think that its OK for me to be a little guy some of the time. I didn't always wet, but I got in a lot of trouble all the time and the doctors decided if I wet my pants every time I tried to do anything bad, then I'd stop. I guess they were right, but I also can't help wetting all the time very much. They did say that I would probably grow out of it though. Me and my friend Tommy, he wears diapers too, we sometimes play at being little kids just for the fun of it. But I don't feel very good about it right now, not today, not in school, and I'm really terrified about gym class this afternoon."

       "Boy that's quite a story. My parents never beat me up, much less wouldn't give me any food. That's rough. But you should be glad you get to go to gym class at all." Terry sighed, "I'd be glad to run around in just my diapers in front of the entire school - if I could."

       "Oh - I'm sorry!"

       "Hey man - nothing to be sorry about, its not your fault, everyone's got problems. The worlds not fair. Its what you do with what you've got that counts. I'm a pretty wicked arm wrestler - what do you want to bet I can't beat you?" Terry grinned wickedly.

       "You’re on!" Jonathan was pretty proud of how strong he was for his size, and thought that he could take the crippled kid pretty easily. The two of them found a picnic table on the playground and seated themselves, Terry leaning his crutches against the table. He should have known something was up when he realized that a small crowd of kids quickly gathered around them - and they all looked like they knew something he didn't. He and Terry counted to three. Jonathan decided to get this over with right away; he didn't want to humiliate his new friend. He gave a mighty heave. Nothing happened. Terry smiled at him lifting an eyebrow as if to say "when do we start?" He heaved again, straining. Terry's arm just stayed there, and then slowly and steadily he pushed Jonathan's arm flat on the table without visible effort. Jonathan gasped in amazement. His arm ached. "Man! What’s the trick?" The kids around him laughed. "Terry's the strongest kid in the school," one little boy said. Jonathan looked at Terry in surprise. "Hey man, like I said, its what you do with what you have. I lift weights at home." Jonathan was impressed. He also noticed that he'd soaked his diapers again.

       After lunch recess Mrs. Hanlin started the math lesson, which was an introductory block on fractions. It was the class’s first introduction of the subject, and was entirely new material. Mrs. Hanlin had always found the subject frustratingly difficult to communicate to 9 year olds. For starters, she asked if anyone in the class knew what a fraction was. To her surprise Jonathan's hand shot up - she looked around, he was the only kid in the room with his hand raised. "OK - Jonathan do you know what a fraction is?"

       Jonathan was so excited he stood straight up next to his desk to answer - he knew the answer, that morning his foster father had started to drill him on his times tables on the way to school. Instead of a rote lesson, Curley had tried to teach him some tricks to figure out the sums as he went along. "Six times six is 36, subtract one six and you have 30 or five sixes. Each time you reduce it by a fraction." Jonathan had asked him to explain what a fraction was. He repeated that answer now: "A fraction is when you have a part of a whole. Like if I had a whole pie and cut it into four pieces then I'd have 4 quarters. If I kept two of them for myself, then I'd have a half a pie to eat. You show a fraction by writing the number of pieces you have of the whole at the top and the number in the whole on the bottom. So if I kept 2 pieces for myself out of four, I'd have two fourths or 1/2."

       Mrs. Hanlin was flabbergasted. "That's exactly right, Jonathan, it sounds like you could teach the lesson to the class instead of me - you certainly seem to be the expert."

       Jonathan sat down beaming.

       Accordingly, Jonathan was in a great mood as he headed to gym class from his change at the nurses office. He liked the wet diapers, but it felt better to get dry ones on. He carried a new pair of gym shorts with him, a little larger than the old ones. He was definitely apprehensive about what would take place in the locker room when he changed, but was going to charge ahead.

       The locker room was located beneath the gym. The entire fourth grade had PT together, about 150 kids in all, and the locker room was a beehive of activity with 70-80 little boys all stripping and changing into gym shorts, tennis shoes and T-shirts. Jonathan headed straight for his locker across the bare concrete floor, weaving his way between the benches and the piles of little boy clothes strewn around the room. As he moved across the big room, he couldn't help but notice a lot of curious glances in his direction. By the time he was standing in front of it, he could see that most of the kids in the room had stopped talking and that there was a lot of whispering, nudging and pointing in his direction. He swallowed hard. He could feel his heart thumping away. He looked around. Several times he heard the whispered word "diapers!" He shrugged, smiled sheepishly, and pulled off his sweatshirt. Then, with something of a wicked glint in his eye, he paused and waited, if this was going to be a show he might as well make the most of it. Finally, the boy next to him said, "Hey, aren't you going to get ready for gym?"

       "Oh - sure." He sat down on the bench and took off one tennis shoe and dropped it on the floor. Plop! He waited some more. Finally the boy said: "C'mon we gotta get going were going to be late." Jonathan looked at the fully dressed boy with an expression of then what're you waiting for? And grinned at the impatient kid. He took off his next shoe. Plop! Finally he stood up, looked the boy straight in the eye and said: "Boy, you really want to see what I've got on don't you?" The boy reddened, Jonathan laughed and pulled down his sweatpants and stood there in his diapers and plastic pants in front of 75 gaping boys.

       Pandemonium reigned in the locker room, one kid said in a loud voice "Hey look at the baby!” "Goo-goo." Jonathan shouted in his direction. "Wanta wrestle with baby?" Every boy in the room knew that the last three kids to pick a fight with Jonathan had had a trip to the hospital, and this kid got suddenly quiet. Jonathan gave everyone in the room a grin, and said "So hey - you do what you gotta do. At least nobody else here has to worry about being the biggest baby in class - I've got that position all to myself." A number of the kids laughed with him.

       "Hey! Everybody out, you're late. What's going on here. Hubba hubba!". It was Mr Connor the head gym teacher. Instantly every kid in the room grabbed whatever they didn't have on and headed for the door. Jonathan hurriedly pulled on his gym shorts and T-shirt. As he was lacing his shoes, Mr. Connor arrived in front of him. "Jonathan, what's taking you so long today? Oh! I see. Well, I guess there won't be any more puddles on the gym floor from now on." He stood there and waited for Jonathan to finish lacing up his shoes and as Jonathan headed for the door, he gave Jonathans padded rump a firm swat. "Go on now boy, I'm right behind you."

       "Boy!", Jonathan thought to himself, "Adults sure like to do that." Mr. Connor did not see the appraising look that Jonathan cast is his direction as he ran across the gym floor to join the long line of waiting kids. As he skidded into the line next to Sarah, she smiled at him, and he returned the greeting with a somewhat sheepish grin. He could see various heads poking out of the line of kids looking in his direction. Glancing down at his white gym shorts he could see that the diaper bulge was quite evident beneath the elastic waistband of his shorts. He also realized that if he bent over, that his diapers would be clearly visible at the leg openings to everyone. Not surprisingly he felt remarkably self-conscious. Mr. Connor pulled 4 kids out of the line and told them to choose teams for four-corner capture the flag. This game, a rather poorly constrained form of anarchy, was a great favorite and the kids waited eagerly to be chosen. Jonathan, who had quite naturally figured that he would be last to be chosen cause nobody would want to have a diaper boy on their team, was dumbfounded to be among the first 20 or 30 kids picked. Notoriety evidently had its advantages. Between the diapers and Joe Kelly, every kid in school knew who he was he guessed. He also guessed that Curley had been right, his initial cheerful acceptance and openness about his diapers had made a good impression on his classmates. I guess the trick is if I can accept being a diaper boy, it’s a lot easier for them to do so as well.

       Moving around trying to tag the other children, and while sneaking across the line to try and grab another team’s flag, Jonathan found that he couldn't help but waddle slightly as he ran, even when he ran. This was noticeable enough to bring some laughter from the other kids, but he laughed with them, so it didn't turn into anything serious. The extra thickness of the diapers was definitely an encumbrance, and he resolved that in the future he would get Mrs. Jackoby to only put a single diaper on him for gym class, rather than the two he normally wore. Folded, this would only give him two layers of protection, and he might leak a bit if he got to excited, but it would be better than waddling around while trying to compete. Like any other boy his age, he liked to win, and to perform as well or better than the other kids. Besides, he noted wryly, it wasn't only adults who tried to pat his diapered butt. He couldn't help but notice that the other children seemed to coincidently tag him there far more often than other sections of his body.

       In the locker room after gym period, Jonathan dressed while the other boys headed off to shower. While he was lacing his sneakers, one naked little kid came up and sat next to him. "You really wear diapers all the time." He said in a wistful tone. "Gee - what do they feel like?" There was an excited tone in his voice.

       "Actually," Jonathan replied, "they feel kinda of warm and comfy - particularly on cold rainy nights."

       "How about when they're wet?"

       "Then they feel kinda warm, wet and comfy," he replied with a smile.

       "You like them?" the boy said in a very quiet voice.

       "They aren't so bad, sometimes they're even fun - you can sure get a lot of attention out of your parents with them."

       "W-would you mind if I-I touched them?" the boy said, glancing around nervously to see if anyone was watching.

       "Sure go ahead." The boy stood up and stuck out his hand very tentatively, placing it, like he was touching a hot potato, against the side of Jonathans sweat pants. "Oh-wow!" he sighed. Jonathan suddenly realized that the kid's little penis had a terrific boner, and was standing straight out from his smooth naked little body. "I gotta go," the boy suddenly said, and darted off. Just before he disappeared towards the showers, he stopped, and with a wishful look on his face said "Th-thanks!" turned a bright red, and fled.

       Jonathan gave Sarah a Technicolor rendition of his adult diapered fanny patting theory and she giggled hysterically: "Truth is Jonathan, I've wanted to pat your diapered fanny all day!" This led to her trying to do just that as they left the bus. First Sarah chased Jonathan around the house and then Jonathan chased her. Kate watched them highly amused both by Sarah's obvious interest in Jonathan's diapers, and greatly cheered by Jonathan's obvious good spirits. The end result of all the roughhousing and tickle fighting was that Sarah had to wait in the kitchen, while Jonathan's soaked diapers, which had leaked onto the back of his sweatpants, were changed upstairs by Kate.

       At dinner that night Jonathan regaled the family with story's of his remarkable first day in diapers at school. "Boy - I think that kid was actually jealous." Do you think that there are a lot of kids who would secretly like to wear diapers?"

       "I'm not sure how many there are, but some do, I had a kid on my little league team two years ago, Joey Caruthers, and a friend of his Timmy Bryant, who I know used to do it all the time at home. Joey had a bedwetting problem, but his friend Timmy didn't - at least not at summer camp. I was there for a week as part of the police departments program on delinquency and sexual abuse prevention, and I checked with his counselor out of curiosity. I once ran into both boys at Joey's house playing in the backyard. Joey had forgotten that I was coming to pick him up for an extra team practice. They were having a grand time when I came round the side of the house: They were running around in incredibly thick diapers, one wearing shortalls and the other a onesie. They were happy as clams until they realized I was standing there. They were the most embarrassed pair of kids I've ever seen. It seems that they both liked, and their parents let them, wear baby clothes. Timmy confessed that he'd liked diapers as long as he could remember, and that he stopped wearing them for only about a year just after he was six. Joey said that he had to wear them anyway for his bedwetting, and that he guessed that he'd just learned to like them. I told the boys that it was OK, that I thought they both looked pretty cute in their outfits, and that I wouldn't tell a soul. Joey was pretty sheepish every time I'd look at him cross-eyed during baseball practice for a long time after that. Every year I give each kid that graduates from my team a special present. Joey got an extra package from me just to open at home, it had a T-shirt in it with Champion Little Slugger printed on it and a picture of a toddler in enormous diapers holding a baseball bat emblazoned on the front. Somewhere I also found a pair of baseball motif diaper pins to go with it. I got a real cute thank you note from him, and he has kept in touch from time to time over the last two years. Maybe you'll get to meet him sometime. As far as I know both those kids still like to play in diapers and baby clothes, and they're at least 13 or 14 now. I also know that a lot of adults like to wear baby diapers and clothes too. There's a club for adult babies in California that advertises in men’s magazines from time to time that has close to a thousand members."

       "You know I thought I was crazy for a while, but maybe it’s not so unusual for a kid to like diapers after all. Besides," and giving his foster parents a wicked little grin, "I've got a great new theory - you know the way you guys always pat my fanny after you diaper me. Well, you always do it to Tommy too. Not only that, Mrs. Jackoby did it to every kid she diapered in school today - I watched, and Mr. Connor my gym teacher did too. I kinda figure that all you guys like the feel of kids’ diapered fannies and maybe you are a little bit jealous when we get to wear them."

       "And how many people have you told this little theory too." Curley said amused.

       "I told it to Sarah's mom, and she said it was at least partly true!, and when I told it to Sarah, she said she'd wanted to pat my diapered butt all day too - and chased me round the house to do it."

       "Jonathan, I can't speak for every adult in the world, but your theory holds more than a little water. I'm sure you realize by now that both Kate and I like to see kids in diapers and we like diapering them. In part, it's because we miss little Billy, but the truth is I know from personal experience of at least one kid who tried on a diaper or two when he was growing up - me. I haven't done it since I got married - we always seem to have a few diapered kids around, and I think I get more fun out of taking care of them. But once in a while - yeah - I'm a little jealous."

       Saturday morning, Tommy arrived to spend the night. The two boys immediately headed up to Jonathan's room to exchange notes. Jonathan filled him in on all that had happened the day before, and the two boys had a fine time giggling over Jonathan's adult diapered fanny patting theory. They discussed the incident with the other boy in the locker room at great length. "Boy! I would have loved to watch that kid when he touched your diapers. It really turned him on didn't it. Wanta bet he plays baby at home? He probably uses bath towels before his bath and then wipes up the floor with them afterwards to hide that he wet them before stuffing them in the laundry hamper."

       "I'll bet a bath towel would feel pretty much like a diaper, but it wouldn't be as much fun as having real plastic baby pants on." Jonathan replied.

       "He could use that plastic that the laundry comes in from the dry cleaners, or he could cut holes in the corners of white garbage bags - they'd kinda work for plastic pants." Tommy said enthusiastically.

       Jonathan began to have a sneaking suspicion about Tommy, "Sounds to me like maybe you tried that once."

       Tommy blushed a little, "Yeh - I did before I came to live with the Curleys. Mrs. Curley told me that I didn't really have to wear diapers if I didn't want to but that they'd really make me more comfortable. I said Oh - OK, like it was maybe the worst thing in the world. Truth was the first night I was so excited I couldn't sleep. Real baby pants and diapers with real baby diaper pins. I loved it!"

       "You mean you always wanted to wear diapers and baby pants? Do you wet your bed on purpose?"

       "No, actually I was pretty unhappy about it when it started happening, and mom got real angry with me. She scared me sometimes. I guess that's why I had to go away for a while; she and I were always fighting about it. Now it’s real different, there isn't all that extra laundry, and she seems to really like diapering me and babying me when I want it. I was a little shy at first; I mean how does a guy tell his mother that he wants to wear baby clothes. Now she makes em for me when she has time. She shows me the Sears catalogue or one of those kids fashion magazines with clothes for toddlers in it, and I point out what I like. If she likes it too, then she sews them up for me."

       "You got other baby clothes than those sleepers Mrs. Curley made you." Jonathan was surprised and realized that he was a bit excited. He wanted to see them.

       "Yeh - I even brought some with me, wanna see em?"

       "I guess so." Tommy ran over and opened his suitcase. He reached in and pulled out his sleepers, and then moved a huge pile of diapers onto the bed. There were three or four neatly folded pieces of clothing beneath. He pulled out the first one and held it up. It was an exact copy of a little kid’s onesie, complete with snaps at the crotch. "Oh - wow!" Jonathan breathed. Tommy chuckled, "Now you sound like that little kid at the gym!" Jonathan giggled, "Yeh! I guess I'd like to see you wear that too."

       "Really. You really would?" OK." Before Jonathan could stop him he'd run down the stairs to fetch Kate. She came up the stairs, holding an eager Tommy by the hand and brought him into Jonathan's room. "I suppose I'd better get you in diapers first, that onesie wouldn't look very authentic otherwise." Kate looked over at Jonathan, and was pleased to see that though clearly a little shy about her knowing that he'd wanted to see Tommy in his onesie, he was obviously very interested. She hoisted Tommy up on the changing table, and quickly stripped him of his pants and shirt, oiled him and pinned him up into three bulky diapers followed by plastic pants. She had him sit up while she pulled onesie down over his head and then lay back and lift up his fanny and spread his legs apart. Reaching under, as Jonathan carefully watched, she pulled the front and back bibs together and did up the snaps between as Tommy's spread his legs apart. Tommy was smiling happily and giggling as she hefted him up and set him on the floor.

       Tommy looked at Jonathan, "Goo-goo me little boy. You like my baby onesie?" Jonathan looked him over; the onesie was made out of a Healthtex fabric with little penguins all over it. It really looked cute. The way it showed off the diapers bulging on Tommy's bottom, with his bare legs poking out from the neatly covered plastic pants made him look just like a little toddler boy. "Yeah - it is really neat. You look just like a little kid."

       It was apparent to both Kate and to Tommy that he was dying to try the onesie on himself. "I have another one in my suitcase just like this one, but with teddy bears on it." Tommy looked at Jonathan, who blushed a bright red. Kate looked down at him, "Welll?" He blushed even more furiously, but gave a barely perceptible little nod. She smiled and picked him up and placed him on the changing table too, while Tommy ran over and got the other onesie out of the suitcase. He ran back and stood next to Kate watching eagerly while she worked on Jonathan. "I guess that you’re probably ready for a change anyway," she said stripping off his clothes. She reached under the leg band and felt his diapers. "I guess you could go a little bit longer before a change?" Jonathan looked disappointed. "Oh - all right, I guess you're wet enough." and she pulled the plastic pants down his legs, leaving them on his ankles. "The nice thing about a onesie is how easy it makes a diaper change." She then unpinned his damp diapers and put them in the plastic sack that hung at the side of the changing table. As she washed and oiled him, she couldn't help but admire his smooth creamy skin and how pretty his naked little crotch and fanny looked. She liked to imagine it all covered with diapers and what it must feel like as he wet them. She was sure that he enjoyed it now - (just like Curley did, when she wasn't around - she'd noticed the extra diapers in the hamper from time to time, but had kept mum, not wanting to hurt the pride of the big Irish cop). She smiled down at Jonathan, and he smiled back as she rubbed the oil in between his legs and around his cute little fanny. Then she placed three diapers under his rear, and pulled them up between his legs. She noted that now he always gave a quiet little sigh, and that his body seemed to relax when she did this. Jonathan was coming to depend on his diapers, and clearly felt uncomfortable without them. She pinned him up tightly and slid the plastic pants back up his legs. Sitting him up she took the second onesie from Tommy and pulled it down over his head. He immediately lay back, spread his legs and lifted his fanny up slightly as she pulled the two bibs together between his legs. Jonathan felt a small wave of pleasure spread through his body as she did the snaps up. Picking him up, she set him down next to Tommy, "My but I don't remember when I've seen two prettier little boys," she exclaimed. Jonathan blushed madly, while Tommy giggled some more. "You two can go play now, but stay in the yard, or in the house. Lunch will be ready in a while.

       Jonathan had thought only to try the onesie on; that he was now clearly expected to spend the rest of the day in it discomfited him more than a little. It was one thing wearing diapers under your shorts, entirely another parading around in baby clothes like a toddler. “What if somebody sees me?" he said plaintively.”

       "Whose gonna see us besides your foster parents, and they already know about it. Besides its fun to dress this way, and you'll really like it, onesies are really comfortable and its a lot easier to get your diapers changed!" Tommy's enthusiasm overwhelmed Jonathan's weak objections, so he agreed to wear it for a while - at least.

       Jonathan waddled a little bit from the thick diapers. He toddled over to Tommy's suitcase and looked at the other clothes. "Hey! These are real baby stuff." He held up a blue diaper cover with little lambs running all over it. It was plastic lined with elastic at the waist and leg holes. Next to it was a pair of shortalls made of light brown corduroy with button tabs at the sides above the waist. He held them up.

       "Those are my favorites!" Tommy exclaimed. They look really cute, and I can get away with wearing them places. People look at me in a funny way, but they always treat me like I'm a little kid whose big for his age. I always pretend I'm six, and mom goes along with it. She explains that I need the diapers because rapid growth creates special physical problems for young boys." Both Tommy and Jonathan were a bit small for ten year olds, and could probably have passed for large seven year olds if dressed with care. But six was stretching it. Jonathan wondered how many people were really fooled, and what they actually thought of the diapered boy.

       Uncomfortable with the idea of running around the backyard where a neighbor or passerby might possibly see them, Jonathan elected to play upstairs that morning. As the day wore on, Jonathan had to admit that the onesie really was both as comfortable and as practical as advertised. Tommy never tired of pointing out how well it displayed his diapers, and emphasized the slight waddle they created when he walked. Most of the morning they played with a set of blocks and some toy soldiers on the floor of Jonathan's room and in the wide upstairs hallway. They were both disappointed that the day had turned windy and blustery, and looked gloomily out the hall windows from the window seat below. Shortly after noontime, his foster mother called the pair down to lunch. As they entered the room, his foster father looked up from his paper and smiled at the two boys. "Well, here come two little drops of sunshine on a gloomy day. You kids having fun?" He looked meaningfully at Jonathan in his onesie, who immediately reddened.

       "You let that boy be Curley. Jonathan, ever since your foster father found out how red you can turn, he takes wicked delight in kidding you just to see blush. Come sit at the table, its such a nasty day outside, I've made you both big mugs of hot chocolate to go with your soup and sandwich." Curley didn't look a bit remorseful, and grinned his best Irish grin at his wife, and then said, well if I can't tease ya, the best I can do is please ya. There's a new Disney movie at the Cinema VI, and a day like today was made to go to matinees on. How’d you two desperadoes like to rustle up some pants and hitch a ride with me to the movin-pitures?"

       As anticipated, the suggestion was met by wholehearted applause. After lunch both boys were bundled upstairs where they were changed into less bulky diapers and dressed in elastic waisted pants over the onesies. The effect was clearly childish. Tommy was clearly excited to be going to the movies, this way, Jonathan felt considerably more reserved about it, but since he had to wear the diapers anyway, he might as well go along with it. "Anyway," Tommy was explaining, "a lot of kids our age like to think they’re too old to go to the Little Mermaid, and mostly younger kids will be there. We probably won't see anybody our age. Jonathan wasn't so sure, Tommy was in the fifth grade, but he hung out with a younger set at school, and he heard a lot of the fourth grade already talking about this movie. "Oh well," he thought, looking in the bathroom mirror at his reflection, "they all know I wear baby diapers anyway, and I don't look all that different from the way I'm usually dressed for school." For some reason, he hadn't noticed the snaps up the crotch.

       Arriving at the theatre, the boys and Curley followed the stream of kids up the stairs and joined the line. A number of the kids in the line immediately noticed the diapered duo and immediately started pointing and whispering. There was considerable giggling. Jonathan was relieved to see that most were younger kids, and none of them from his school. Getting their tickets, they headed for the refreshment counter, where in the press of kids, no one could even see their trousers, and got big giant cokes and popcorn from one of the girls at the counter. "Cute T-shirts you have on." she smiled at Jonathan, "you borrow them from your little brothers?" Jonathan winced and blushed a bit, but then smiled right back. "You don't know the half of it!" He quipped, giving Tommy the giggles. He wondered what she'd have said if she knew that these T-shirts snapped at the bottom. For some reason the thought gave him a little shiver of unexpected pleasure.

       The movie was terrific, and both boys came out bubbling with excitement. "That Sebastian was incredible! Snap! Snap! Did you see the way he cut that rope and dropped the boom on that chef who wanted to cook him!" Tommy immediately started snap-snapping pretending his hands were Sebastian the crab’s claws. "I'm a gonna pinch your butt man!" The boys ran around laughing and giggling among the swarm of kids pouring from the movie. Curley was highly amused by their good spirits.

       Arriving home just before dinner he lead the boys upstairs for a change. "I'm first! " Jonathan ran over to the changing table and waited expectantly for his foster father to pull the pants off. Instead he was hoisted into the air and onto the table. "Heave-ho, me hearty and off they go. Spread your yards and we'll jibe your sails!" Jonathan gave Curley a confused look: "You want me to spread my legs to take my pants off?" "Just to unsnap them,” Curley grinned at Jonathan's slack jawed look of amazement as he rapidly undid the snaps along the legs and pulled the trousers open and up his waist and then undid the onesie. "I swear boy! I didn't know a kid could blush down to his toes. You didn't know these pants had a snap crotch?"

       Tommy giggled. Jonathan looked at him with an accusing glare. Tommy tried to look innocent - but failed miserably. "You looked really cute from behind. You didn't notice because only the kids in back of you could see that you had snaps up the legs of your trousers. You should have seen their expressions! Jonathan looked truly mortified. "That's not fair! I'm going to bean you!" He jumped off the table and chased the laughing Tommy down the stairs with his open trousers hanging down over his diapers and plastic pants. Curley couldn't help smiling at how cute the kid looked. He could hear Tommy going ouch! ouch! at the bottom of the stairs, and looked over the hall banister to see Jonathan straddled on top of the squirming boy snap-snapping! him using his fingers to imitate Sebastian's pinchers. "OK! OK! I'm sorry. I apologize! I should have told you!" Tommy squealed, laughing and choking and coughing. Jonathan relented - a bit - and proceeded to tickle his friend a bit. "Hey stop it I'll wet my pants!" He giggled. A statement that made Jonathan collapse in giggles as well. Tommy immediately leapt on him and reversed positions. Madly attacking his friend under his arms. By the time Curley got them back upstairs, they had soaked through their diapers, and had leaked onto their trousers and onesies. "Next time I'm going to get you two fire hydrants, junior size cokes!" Curley groused half seriously.

       Monday morning again, School, Jonathan groaned. Rain was beating against the window and he could hear his foster parents getting up. Any minute now they'd be in to roll him out. He buried his head under the covers and snuggled down into the center of the warm patch at the center. "Maybe if I close my eyes and open them again it won't really be Monday morning." The weekend had been fun, playing with Tommy and his foster father. Sometimes he almost felt like he had real parents. He felt snug. Though his diapers were wet, they were warm and reassuring, and comfy under his sleeper. He heard footsteps in the room

        "I'm not here! Go way! I'll call the SPCC for cruelty to innocent young children!" Curley heard the disembodied voice of his foster son issuing from the lump in the middle of the bed. "I'm not here either!" he replied, "I'm actually sleeping in the next room. Instead I'm a green bugged eyed kiddy whomper. Grrowwwllll!" So saying he reached over and hugged the little form under the blankets. "And I'm a gonna wompa alla over you!" So saying he thrust his hands under the blankets and poked around the squirming form until he found a few ribs, which he then tickled madly. The form erupted squealing in laughter, and the two of them rolled around on the bed. "Don't blame me if my diapers leak all over the place - I can't help it." Jonathan said as he lost control and flooded his diapers anew. Curley laughed, "then we'll wrap you in diapers to your chin tonight and put you to bed in a plastic tarp. Then I can tickle you all I want!" he proceeded to run his hands up and down the squealing boys sides all over again. "Up and at-em!"

       "Oh-OK. I guess you chased all my grumps away."

       "And a good thing too. Grumps! I hate getting grumps in my eggs in the morning." The boy giggled again, getting out of bed and standing up for Curley to unzip the sleepers and take him to the shower.

       Arriving early at school, it was obvious from the many curious looks he got that news of his diaper debut had spread throughout the entire school over the weekend. Following Curley's advice, he just smiled when people looked at him and pretended nothing was happening. He was getting used to being the focus of attention, and was slowly realizing that he had more control over what people thought of him than he'd ever realized. It was all in how he responded. As he walked down the corridor he ran into Terry Smith heading for his homeroom. He admired how fast Terry could move on his crutches and hurried to catch up to him. "Hey Terry! How's it going." Terry glanced back and saw Jonathan, turned and waited for Jonathan to catch up. "You made quite a scene out of gym class I hear. I heard you really put down some kid who was trying to make fun of you. That took guts to undress in front of 70 kids wearing diapers."

       Jonathan grinned, "I figured if I told them: alright guys I'm am the biggest baby here, it'd take the steam right out of their sails. It seemed to work pretty well. I get a lot of odd looks, but I'm alive aren't I, and hey! I wasn't the last kid chosen to play on a team for a change."

       Terry laughed, "My dad'd say you got moxie kid! I think that's supposed to mean real balls. Anyway you certainly don't have anything to hide anymore." Involuntarily both boys glanced down at the slightly visible bulges in their trousers, and then shrugged. As they walked along Sarah came up and joined them. "Hey! Need your diapers patted Jonathan!" All three laughed, and a number of kids turned wondering what the inside joke was. "See ya at recess." Terry called as he swung into his classroom."

       It was a mixed week for Jonathan, he seemed all of a sudden to have a few friends. Real friends. Strangely enough, under the leadership of Terry, the wet set really was a kind of club. The 4 younger members, two had been absent on Friday, looked up to and got considerable support from the older boys. Jonathan discovered that he really liked helping the little guys out. Mikey, Timothy and Billy were in the first grade, while Jason was in second. The older of the three felt real self conscious, and would have felt totally without a friend if it weren't for Terry and Jonathan. The other boy, Arnold, was in sixth grade and had to use a special wheel chair. He really didn't consider himself to be part of the group, as he was older and all. He was always a bit condescending to the younger kids, and Terry made a career out of ribbing him when he had to show up for the noon session at the nurse’s office. Jonathan was not at all loath to join in. Arnold usually found another time to come. But the other six boys always made a point of it to walk to the lunch room together, and stop in with the little guys for a moment. To the younger kids both Terry and Jonathan were real heros. Terry cause he could out arm-wrestle any kid in school, and Jonathan who had fixed Joe Kelly. Jonathan eventually realized that he was unconsciously mimicking a lot of what Terry did and said. I guess I'm not totally immune to a little hero worship myself he had to admit to himself sheepishly. Terry had been kidding him about his imitating him. They were the best of friends.

       Academically, on the other hand, school was a very mixed bag. He was struggling. It had been a long time since he'd actually tried, but now he wanted to please his foster parents, and he had to admit his friends, Terry and Sarah, seemed to place a lot of emphasis on doing well in school. When he'd tried his who cares routine, they'd both given him a real dressing down and a cold shoulder for a few days. He could do reasonably well in oral quizzes, but invariably crashed when it came to written work and reading. How come he always did so badly? He tried as hard as any kid. He really didn't think he was that dumb when he was around other kids outside of class. But he guessed he must be. Mrs. Hanlin could see that he was trying, and could see the frustration in his eyes. In some ways it was worse now that he was trying, since by doing so he was in effect proving that he really couldn't do it. She guessed that this was why he had angry outbursts from time to time in class. Though she was normally strict all the time, she gave him a bit more leeway than usual, reasoning that after the terrible humiliation she'd given him in class, she owed him a little. Besides there were only about 3 more weeks in the school term.

       In gym class, he noticed that there were always a few boys who inadvertently just happened to be around when he was dressing. They were friendly enough, but were real shy of being seen with him. Once or twice he saw the boy who'd felt his diapers the first day looking at him from a distance, and he always smiled back. The kid’s name he eventually found out was Tobin Wheeler, who it was rumored used to wet his bed a lot. His parents had evidently sent him off to overnight camp one year for a few weeks, though it was supposed to be a secret, it had been common knowledge among the boys that his cabin was for bedwetters. Jonathan kinda felt sorry for him. He was pretty sure that the kid was fascinated by diapers, but had no one to talk to about it. I'll bet that's real scary, he thought to himself. To grow up feeling real weird and having no one you can share it with. He was pleased to find that he still wasn't chosen last, even after the novelty of the diapers had worn off a bit after a couple of weeks.

       After school, Sarah usually got off the bus with him and would play at his house until her mother came home. Sometimes she'd stay over for dinner. Some days she would help Jonathan with his math homework, she'd quietly given up trying to help him on reading, he just couldn't seem to get things right and she found herself getting angry at him. "You're so stupid!" she'd blurted out in frustration one afternoon. Jonathan had gotten so angry it had scared her a bit, and had given her the cold shoulder for a week. Boys could be so frustrating she thought. She really liked Jonathan, and she had to admit to herself, she really liked seeing him in his diapers. She was pretty careful about that. Jonathan wore them all the time, so it was normal for her to be around at changing time. She had on several occasions gone upstairs while he was being changed and had "inadvertently" glanced in his bedroom as she passed by on the way to the bathroom. She'd stay there for a while, and then flush the toilet and head downstairs again. She kept remembering how cute he'd looked in his wet training pants. But there was a lot more to Jonathan than that. She really liked the way he took on the younger members of the "wet set" at school. Normally, you'd expect any boy in his position to try and disassociate himself from younger kids who wet their pants. He seemed to have a special sympathy for younger kids who needed help. Sometimes she thought that he was a different person around them than around his peers, where he maintained a strictly so what attitude except with his closest friends, Terry, Tommy, and herself.

       As the weeks passed by, it became increasingly obvious to all, including himself that he was failing. This wasn't like his old school at all, he thought, they kept kids back all the time here. There was even a boy his age already in third grade. He was terrified of staying back. It'd been bad enough to be put in fourth grade in the first place. He thanked God he wasn't at his old school, where all the kids already knew him.

       The first of May came, a time when young men's fancy turns to baseball - and their fathers. Tommy had spent Friday night at the Curley’s and Sarah had showed up early Saturday morning so that they could all go together to the tryouts. Both Jonathan and Tommy had been mortified when she'd walked in early at breakfast. They were both still in their sleepers. She had looked at them with great amusement, "My those are cute!" She grinned, "You guys better run upstairs and change, I don't think you wanna go to tryouts in those things." Sarah, like Curley, had developed a real taste for seeing Jonathan blush. She'd never know a kid could turn so red, and she couldn't resist teasing. He'd given her a look that'd kill and had stomped off with Tommy up the stairs. It had added greatly to the comical effect of the two dressed as toddlers. They couldn't quite stomp off properly in footed sleepers and thick night diapers. She'd enjoyed the sight, having never seen either in such thick padding before. When they'd returned, she'd been properly remorseful, and had promised it'd be a secret. “What were friends for anyway? Besides, they were kinda cute, and now that she knew they wouldn't have to hide when she came over.” The two boys, chagrined, found no alternative but to accept this, and eventually they were all talking madly about the tryouts that morning.

       Curley drove them down to the high school gymnasium where the tryouts were being held. Each boy or girl stood at the far end of the giant double basketball court sized gym and fielded 4 flies and 4 grounders, and then went to a batting pen where the coaches looked at their swing. The place was a study in controlled pandemonium. Tommy had opted out of diapers for the morning, so Jonathan was the one lone boy in the place. Most of the other kids were far too nervous to bother much, though he did hear a few sniggers from kids he didn't recognize. There were about 300 kids in all. Many would go to the minor leagues to play an extra year; you had to be ten to even try out. Most of those would get drafted the next year and the remainder, by quiet agreement would be parceled out to the majors for their last year of little league when they were twelve. Every 10 year old’s dream was to make it to the majors his first year of eligibility. There were two leagues, each with 12 major league teams of 15 kids each. While minor league teams were always named after professional baseball clubs, each major league team was named after its sponsor, often a men’s service club or a fast food restaurant. Two were named after funeral homes, and the boys on those teams always hated the inevitable jokes.

       Curley was the coach of Burger King in the National League, and he waved goodbye to the kids as they entered the gym and headed off to join the other coaches from the league. They eyed the group from the American League who had taken up their regular spot on the opposite side of the gym. Besides competing against each other, the best teams from each league would have a final playoff for the championship. In addition the two leagues competed in an all star series as well, which decided what kids and coaches competed in the national little league world series. There were several levels of rivalry here; most did not involve the kids.

       Each year Curley had to find 7 to 8 new kids to replace last years graduates, and the few kids who had to quit for one reason or another. The core of the team was always the remaining regulars at the beginning of the season. But in order to do well, particularly in the playoffs, by which time the new kids would be fully integrated into the team, you had to pick wisely in the draft. You needed to find the outstanding 10 year olds with an eye to the future, since then you would have a steady player for at least two years, when they were 11 and 12. These were always the first to go, and a lot of coaches spent considerable time scouting the minor leagues the previous season for likely prospects. Each team was expected to take at least 1 twelve year old, and sometimes two. Thus, it was important to try and grab the best 10 year olds and then go for the best 11's right away. Making a bad pick at the 10 year old level could stick your team with a real handicap, since returning boys, once drafted, were guaranteed their positions until they graduated after their twelfth birthday.

       Jonathan went and registered with his friends and they each got a number that was pinned to their back by a mother. He was only wearing a single diaper, and was planning to head for the bathroom right after and right before his turn, so it wasn't particularly obvious what he had on. Nonetheless, the mother who pinned on the number gave his pants a curious look, which, as always made him blush. He went over and sat on a bench and watched the other kids catch. Some of them were pretty good. As his turn approached he hurried off to the John, but found an interminable line. He waited frustrated at the crowd of kids ahead of him. None of them seemed as scared as him, and they were laughing and joking, punching each other in the arm. A few curious glances were made in the direction of his trousers and he heard two kids whispering nearby. He decided to leave; it was almost his turn anyway. Coming back out into the gym, he saw Sarah make a diving catch on a miss-hit ball that actually had a couple of coaches clapping. She made everyone of the balls hit out to her. Tommy followed, and though he dropped a fly, and bobbled a grounder, he did pretty well too.

       "Number 148! Number 148!" It took him a moment to realize that that was his number. He stumbled out shyly onto the gym floor to be waved to the back of the gym by an impatient coach. He waited expectantly, his glove poised. He heard the bat crack; the ball went up in the lights. He didn't even see it come down. He heard laughter from the kids along the walls as he ran around looking for the ball. In all he managed to catch one fly on a lucky bounce, and he stopped one of the grounders only by standing in its way and then bobbling it. He left the floor miserably, and only when he heard a kid snigger "Look that kid even wet his pants," did he realize the full extent of the whole miserable disaster, he hadn't even feel himself wet, and the single diaper had not been enough as the frightened kid had totally lost control. Not even looking at his friends he walked out to the car and sat in it by himself for an hour.

       Curley had had a bad feeling about this from the beginning. He would have preferred keeping Jonathan out of the tryouts altogether, having practiced with him over the last month and a half. He knew instinctively that to do so could easily have been just as big a disaster. The bad performance was sad, but Jonathan would take a while to get over the total humiliation of the whole situation. Worse, the pants wetting had marked him. Normally a coach could squeeze in a kid who played badly without it being noticed by the other kids, since they usually were too scared themselves at the tryouts to notice who else did badly or well. Naturally those who didn’t get chosen would resent any kid who really hadn’t earned a place. Otherwise he could have slipped Jonathan onto his team, and hoped for the best. After the last kid had batted, he wasn't surprised that Jonathan didn't show up, he and the other 23 head coaches met in the school auditorium for the draft. He had eighth pick, it hadn't been a good year for Burger King the year before, and managed to snag Sarah. She was an outstanding fielder and was good with a bat. He knew that by age 12 many of the boys would have caught up with her in stamina, but for this year she would play as well as any 11 year old and most 12'vs and give him a considerable edge. He then went for three boys who looked like they had good pitching arms, and a boy he'd marked as a potential catcher. The two most important positions on any little league team - catcher and pitcher. You had to find several of the latter, and at least one of the former to even begin to compete. He knew that this year he'd get two twelve year olds out of the lottery, so that left him with one additional choice. He picked Tommy.

       Sarah and Tommy were waiting for him outside the auditorium. They looked at him expectantly. "Did we make it? Did we make it?" He nodded. "Which teams?".

       "Look kids, I've got a real problem with Jonathan, if I tell you, you will have to keep it a secret until I can break the news to him at home."

       "He did pretty bad - didn't he," Tommy looked up at Curley, a lot of the enthusiasm-drained momentarily from his face. "Yeah! Tommy he did," Curley replied tousling the mop of hair on his head. "I appreciate your concern. If he hadn't wet his pants, I could have chosen him too, but there isn't a kid there who won't remember how bad he did in the tryouts after he wet his pants. I could exercise a coaches prerogative and draft him as my foster son, but it would be pretty unfair to a lot of kids, and their parents would make a real scene." Sarah reflected on this a bit, and then caught a nuance of what Curley had said: "You drafted both of us!" Curley smiled and nodded. The two kids were ecstatic.

       When they reached the car, to Curley's relief Jonathan was sitting glumly in the back. They all got in, the two other children doing their best to hide their own good feelings. All the way home not a word was spoken.

       "You drafted Tommy and you didn't draft me!" Jonathan exploded. "Now I have to play in the minors with all the little kids!" Curley argued with him and tried to explain. Jonathan wasn't listening to reason. In fact, he wasn't listening at all. He sat there rigid, tears rolling down his face with an angry defiant glare. He ran upstairs and slammed the door.

       Two weeks later, the Curleys got a call from Mr. Miller at school. He wanted them to come in for an urgent conference. They speculated that the reason was Jonathan's continuing weak performance in school, and looked forward to the meeting grimly. It hadn't been a good two weeks for Tommy. He'd been testy with his friends, and had been distant to both Sarah and Tommy, appearing to make out that somehow it was their fault that they and not he was in the majors. They had gotten several concerned letters from his teacher about his lack of progress in school. They were not prepared for what Mr. Miller had to tell them when they arrived at his office.

       Mr. Miller and Curley were old acquaintances, having worked together through the police departments cooperative volunteer anti-drug and sex abuse programs over many years. "Curley, I am afraid I don't have very good news for you. There have been a rash of thefts in school lately. We've had a terrible time tracking down the culprit. Last week a boy brought a brand new Walkman to school that he'd gotten for his birthday. Somebody jimmied his locker and got it out within a few hours. That limited the suspects to a pretty small group. The only kids who could have done it would have to have been absent from class at the right time. Jonathan was on one of his innumerable trips to the bathroom at the time. Worse, several kids saw him with a Walkman that afternoon. Does Jonathan have a Walkman of his own?" The Curleys exchanged worried looks and shook their heads slowly. "I'll search his room this afternoon and get back to you."

       When Jonathan got home that afternoon from school, he and Sarah walked in the house together to be met by both his foster parents. Jonathan was surprised to see his foster father home at this time of day, he usually worked until six. "Hi! . . ." he started to say.

       "Sarah, something has come up, and we need to discuss it with Jonathan in private. We'd appreciate it if you could run home. We're sorry to have to ruin your afternoon."

       Jonathan realized that both his foster parents had very serious and troubled expressions. "Uh-oh!" he thought to himself. His worst fears were confirmed as soon as Sarah had left, when his foster father produced the Walkman he'd lifted from some kid's locker the week before. He looked at them both: they were obviously going to give him a real talking too. "So you found it. Yeh I took it. So what. He shouldn't have brought it and shown it off around school if he didn't want some one to take it. What's the big deal?" He adopted his best so what? attitude. Neither of the Curleys were the slightest bit prepared for his response, while he demonstrated this attitude about schoolwork to his classmates all the time; they had ever seen him take this attitude before. They were stunned and appalled. Curley felt his blood pressure steam up to a boil. Careful! He thought to himself - lets think this one through. He looked at the defiant boy. "Jonathan, I don't steal. Anything. I think too much of myself to do that. I guess you didn't have as high an opinion of yourself as we did. That makes us both incredibly sad." Jonathan could see that his foster mother was about to say something, but Curley laid his hand on her arm before she did. "Right now I feel so badly about what you have done, I really don't want to even see you for a while. You are to spend the rest of the day in your room. This isn't a punishment, it’s just that the rest of the members of this family feel pretty miserable right now and we want to be alone. We'll discuss why you did this, and what we're going to do about this before you go to bed. Now, head up stairs please."

       Jonathan had been prepared for a lot of shouting and yelling, or maybe even getting beaten. But the calm quiet deeply sad tone of his foster father's voice frightened him far more, and he headed up to his room. From his room he could hear the Curleys talking in the kitchen together, and though his foster father raised his voice above its accustomed tone a few times, he couldn't make out the conversation. They were real upset. He realized after a while that he needed to be changed real bad. His plastic pants were leaking all over his bed. He got up and looked out the doorway down the hall. "Hey! I'm leaking, I need to be changed." To his surprise, no one came up the stairs. "Hey!" He cried again. "Oh-well, I don't need them anyway!" He headed over to his changing table and got out a couple of fresh diapers and a clean pair of plastic pants. He looked around the room for a place to lie down, but in the end decided he'd rather lie on the clean table than the dirty floor. He pulled his pants down, and took off his plastic pants. He had a little trouble with the pins and poked himself when one of them sprang open. "Shit!" he exclaimed angrily. He climbed up on the table and lay back. It felt strange up there by himself, Curley or his foster mother had always been there before tickling and hugging him. He realized that he'd really come to like his diaper changes. He looked around for his diapers, and had to sit up and pick them up off the end of the table. He opened them up, realizing that he didn't know how to fold them. They were way too big, he realized, unless they were folded properly. He tried several different ways but couldn't get them quite right, trying to put on his makeshift diapers he got tangled up, they bulged wrong and hung loosely, sliding down his legs when he tried to get off the table. He got up off the table and lay them flat, decided to just fold them in half and then take the top part and fold it partway back on itself. "That's what they call a soaker, I think." He got back up on the table, lay back, and tried to pin the makeshift diapers on himself. They seemed to be too thick at the sides for the pins. He jammed them in anyway and promptly drove one into his thumb. He swore again. He got up off the table. The diapers didn't feel right, and the pins popped open again and the diapers fell to the floor. At the same time his bladder let go and he started peeing. He'd been holding it for quite a while and couldn't stop. The urine went all over the place; he grabbed at the diapers and held them between his legs. "Wouldn't somebody please come and help me!" he yelled. There was no response. "Please!" He called in a more subdued tone.

       He gradually realized that he hadn't felt this alone since he'd left the JDC. He went over and sat on the bed. "They don't really care about me anyway!" He sat there. Several hours passed and no one came up the stairs. He didn't feel very good, he realized, and wondered why.

       At about 7:30 his foster parents came back into his room. Jonathan was lying on his bed, and he looked at them defiantly. Curley could see that his face was streaked with dried tears. He was sitting on a half folded bunch of obviously wet diapers, naked except for his shirt on his bed. He'd pulled off the corner of the linens and placed the diapers on top of the plastic sheet. He looked at them, "I couldn't get them on." Curley ignored the boy’s statement.

       "First we'd like to know why'd you do this Jonathan?" he said quietly. Both of them sat there waiting for a response.

       At first Jonathan just sat there silently. They waited and eventually the boy blurted out: "Why should you care anyway? You don't really love me. I'm not going to stay here forever anyway. You probably want to get rid of me." Curley and Kate just looked at him curiously. "Besides, I tried real hard, I really did, and they just laughed at me!"

       "Who laughed at you Jonathan - was it about your diapers?" Kate asked in a concerned voice.

       "No!! He shrieked at the top of his lungs. "It's because they think I'm so stupid! They all do. Everyone one does. They laugh at me all the time cause I fail every test and cause I can't read in class. It’s not fair. I tried hard. Why should I care about any of them?"

       "Did Sarah laugh?" Kate asked.

       "No - not her." He said in a sulky voice. But everyone else did.

       "'Does Terry laugh at you?, - or Tommy, or Billy or Jason or Timothy?"

       "Nooo. But they don't matter, they're really not in my class anyway."

       "Don't you think their opinion of you matters more than all the rest of those kids put together?" Curley responded. Jonathan didn't say anything. "What do you think all your friends will think of you when they hear that you’re a thief?"

       "I don't care what anyone thinks?"

       "What about us? Don't you care what we think about you?" Kate asked softly.

       "Why should I? You guys don't really care about me. I'm not your real son or nothing. Its not like you love me or anything. I'm not going to be here forever. They'll take me away like they did last time or something. You guys'll probably get rid of me eventually anyway. So why shouldn't I do what I feel like? Its none of your business anyway."

       "Jonathan, you don't really believe all that do you?" Kate’s voice was trembling.

       "Why shouldn't I. If you guys really loved me Curley would have chosen me instead of Tommy for his team. You guys really like Tommy."

       "That's not fair Jonathan, I would have chosen you if I could have. But your tryout went so badly, I couldn't without every kid in town resenting it."

       "You could too! That's a lie! All the kids told me! Coach’s prerogative. Any coach can have his son on his team if he wants to. If you'd wanted me I'd be on the team."

       "Jonathan, there are a lot of things that you can do in life if you want to. But the real question is would it be fair to the other kids - or to you. There are coaches who put their sons on their teams the first year they can, even though they can't play at all. All the other kids resent it, and they wind up hurting the teams performance all year. Is that fair. Maybe they can do it - but is it fair. More important nobody is very nice to those kids around the field. Don't you think that what your friends think of you is important? Do you really want everyone to go around saying he's only on the team just because he’s the coaches son?" In the heat of the discussion, Jonathan realized that Curley had called him his son by mistake. "Yes, I would like to be on the team just because I was your son. But I'm not - am I?" The boy said in a very quiet, very sad, little voice. "So I might as well leave here and get it over with."

       Curley and Kate looked at each other. They were just beginning to understand the problem. "Jonathan we love you. We don't want you to leave. We want you to stay here, and we want to do everything we can to help you. A lot of what you say just isn't true. Some of it's pretty unfair to yourself and to others. You'll just have to keep plugging on your schoolwork. We're sure you will eventually catch up. You may get set back for a while, but if you keep trying - you’ll succeed in the end. I know that you don't really believe all this now, but we hope you will someday. For now we have to decide what you are going to do about this theft - and the others you are suspected of, and what your punishment will be. Kate and I have talked about this for the last three hours and we have decided that first, tomorrow morning we are going over to the boy's house from whom you stole the Walkman, and you'll return it and apologize. You will also have to do extra work around the house to pay for the damage to the locker. In addition, you are grounded for the immediate future. You are to stay in this house, and not to leave it without permission. We are deeply ashamed of you. You have acted like a baby; only babies steal because they don't know any better. They don't know what it feels like to have somebody take what is yours away and they don't care. Just like you say you don't care. Accordingly for the weekend you are going to be treated just like a baby. You will have no say in what you're going to do, and you will be told where you can sit and when you can move. You may only speak when you are told to. The only toys you'll get will be the ones little kids play with. Is that clear! On Monday we'll discuss what happens next. You won't be going to school because Mr. Miller has put you under indefinite suspension. That, I'm afraid, means it’s very unlikely that you will be able to move ahead with your classmates this year. We're sorry about that - but maybe if you work hard over the summer and next year, you will be able to catch up."

       "Alright dear it's time to get you ready for bed, I called Tommy's mother and she brought over some extra clothing for you." As she was talking Curley left the room and went downstairs to bring up the bundle that Mrs. Coughlin had brought over. She lifted the near naked boy up and carried him over to the changing table. Jonathan lay back wondering what was going to happen to him. Mrs. Curley was very gentle; she showed a lot of concern. Jonathan thought maybe he'd been a little unfair. He noticed that she'd been crying and that made him feel not so good inside. "I don't think you're going to like the next two days very much Jonathan, but I do want you to realize that we do love you very very much." She kissed him on the forehead, and took a towlette and wiped his tear streaked cheeks. She gave him a hug. When Curley came in Jonathan looked at the bundle with both fear, and strangely, some anticipation. His stepfather handed his stepmother a washrag and she proceeded to wash him head to toe. She then proceeded to oil him up carefully with a bottle of baby magic instead of the usual baby oil. "I think this smells much nicer than plain old baby oil." she said. After she'd pulled on his plastic pants, his stepfather handed her Tommy's snap-waisted sleeper. Jonathan looked at it, "That's not so bad." he thought. He'd actually felt a little jealous of Tommy when he wore it, and all the extra special attention Tommy seemed to get.

       After he was dressed for bed, his father picked him up and carried him over to the freshly made bed, pulled back the covers and put him inside. "Under no circumstances are you to get out of this bed. If we find you out of it at anytime without permission we will tie you back in it." Jonathan knew his foster father wasn't kidding. Curley never said anything he didn't mean. He suddenly realized that he was hungry, and he started to say "No dinner?” but Curley put his finger to his lips. "Jonathan, you are not to open your mouth unless we tell you to. Otherwise we will put one of these in it and tie it there." He held up a pacifier that Tommy's mother had dropped off with the clothes. "Your foster mother is bringing you your dinner now. Jonathan looked up to see his mother coming in the room. She was carrying a baby bottle filled with milk! "That's for babies!" As he was speaking Curley stuck the pacifier in his mouth. "Don't take it out when we put it there unless you want to wear it tied there. Do you understand? Tommy nodded his head. He hated the thing. He looked over at his foster mother, and at the bottle she had with considerable distaste.

       Kate sprinkled some of the milk on her arm. "Seems the right temperature to me." She smiled at Jonathan. "You better drink up because this is all you're getting tonight. His foster father took the pacifier back out of his mouth and Kate stuck the nipple of the bottle in. "Drink it all down, and we'll let you out of bed in the morning to play a while before breakfast." They sat there and waited. Resignedly he began to suck on the nipple. Kate placed his hands on the bottle, "you may hold your bottle Jonathan." They left the room and turned off the lights.

       Jonathan lay there a while drinking the milk. He hated the bottle. He felt really stupid drinking out of it. After a while the bottle fell from the exhausted boys hands as he drifted off to sleep.

       In the morning the bird was singing at the window as his foster mother came in. She was singing a little lullaby. He stretched sleepily and yawned as she came over to him. "How's my little baby today?" She smiled and gave him a kiss.

       "Are you really going to treat me like a baby all weekend?"

       In answer she simply picked up his pacifier and put it to his lips. He groaned and took it in his mouth. Stupid thing - he had a feeling he was going to grow to really hate it! He was picked up and taken over to the table to be changed. She patted him on the fanny a few times while oiling him - and gave him the usual hugs. He felt a little better. Even if he were going to be treated like a little baby, at least he wouldn't have to try and change his own diapers! Jonathan sighed a little bit and relaxed a bit. Kate noticed the boy's tense body relax and she tickled him just a bit. He giggled. She smiled down "This doesn't have to be all bad you know." He nodded, the pacifier still in his mouth that he understood. She reached down under the table and brought out one of Tommy's onesies. He held up his arms while she pulled it on. He didn't mind this too much either, as he kinda liked onesies - even if they were a bit infantile for his taste. He always liked the feeling when she snapped him up at the crotch. She hoisted him off the table and took his hand and walked with him down to the breakfast table.

       They'd found a highchair somewhere. He didn't really fit in it but they managed to get him in it and pull him up to the table. He definitely didn't like the bib. A bowl of mush was put next to him, and he looked around for a spoon. His foster father laughed "Oh-no! Babies get fed." Kate picked up a small spoon off the sink and sat down next to him, "open up." The whole idea humiliated him, the reality was worse. Every so often Kate would deliberately miss with the spoon and soon his face and bib were covered by cereal. "I can see Jonathan's really getting into the part." Curley observed amiably.

       After breakfast, he was taken back upstairs to his room to be changed again. "Time out for a while." Curley said. "Its time to go over to the Boudreaux's and return the tape recorder. This will be your only break this weekend and we expect you to behave. We want you to take this as seriously young man." They changed him into light day diapers, which were barely noticeable under the plain elastic waisted trousers and neat striped polo shirt he was given to wear. The drive to the Boudreaux's took only about ten minutes. It was a neat ranch house on a quiet street. Jonathan could see that Curley was clearly embarrassed as they walked up to the front door. His foster mother stayed in the car. When they knocked the door opened immediately, Peter Boudreaux and his father George stepped out and looked hostilely at Jonathan. Curley handed him the Walkman.

       "Here!" Jonathan said, "I'm sorry I stole your old Walkman." The boy snatched it from him and scowled. "You just say that cause you got caught. I hope someone steals your stuff from you so you can see how it feels like. I never did anything to you!"

       Curley looked at Jonathan. "Yeah! You’re right. I am only giving it back cause I got caught. If it's any satisfaction to you they expelled me from school and I'm grounded forever. You guys shouldn't laugh at me all the time in school!"

       "Well you act pretty stupid all the time. Just cause you have to wear diapers doesn't mean that you’re special!"

       "Anyway, I guess I am really sorry. I never laughed at you, and you don't always get everything right either."

       Mr. Boudreaux was listening to the conversation between the two boys intently. "Peter, I think that it's time for you to accept Jonathan's apology."

       "Alright!" Peter said to Jonathan.

       "OK, Peter run into the house, I want to talk to Sergeant Curley alone. Peter disappeared and Curley motioned Jonathan back to the car where he went and sat behind his foster mother in the car. He could see Curley and Mr. Boudreaux talking on the front step while he waited. After a while his foster father came back to the car looking worried. "Mr. Boudreaux said that he was going to press charges against Jonathan. We talked a while and he said he'd think it over at least." He shook his head worriedly as they drove away.

       When they reached the Curley's house, it was back upstairs for a change for Jonathan. He was doubled diapered, just like at night, and to his horror, Tommy's stupid diaper cover with elastic at the legs and waist was put over his diaper with a matching little top with round collar trimmed in the baby blue to match the cover. He got to wear white socks on top of that. The diaper cover was real baby stuff, with little white lambs all over it. It pooched out all over.

       After being dressed, he was taken down to the backyard to play on a blanket since it was a beautiful late spring day. "I called your baseball coach and said that you were grounded for the day Jonathan. Of course you could go watch as you are." Jonathan shook his head furiously.

       "Hello Arthur." Jonathan looked up to see the gray haired old lady next door leaning over the fence looking at him. He blushed furiously. "My doesn't Jonathan look nice today. Is he going to be playing out here long. I'm sure my grandchildren would love to come over and play with him when they come by this afternoon. They're from out of town, and will be here only for the weekend. Caitlin loves babies. Anyway I brought down a toy for Jonathan." She handed a baby doll dressed in a diaper over the fence to Curley who took it and handed it to Jonathan. Jonathan was really disgusted, put it down like it would burn him, and moved to the furthest corner of the blanket away from the wretched thing. Both Curley and Mrs. Lyons chuckled at the boy's look of horror. "It won't bite Jonathan - all babies love their dollies you know.” Jonathan snorted around the pacifier that Curley had earlier put into his mouth. He desperately hoped that he'd be inside before the old ladies grandchildren got there.

       Mrs. Lyons thought that Jonathan was a cute boy, and she'd listen attentively that morning when Kate had come over and explained the whole situation. "We want to make it absolutely plain that such behavior is out of the question. He's been beaten all his life. We are only beginning to understand why he did it, and this is not a solution to the problem. The punishment is only to make it very clear to him what we think of stealing. We want to make sure that he never forgets this weekend. We think he's a good boy, and we love him a lot. He really got us thinking last night - the world can look pretty miserable from a child’s shoes, and its really not surprising that Jonathan wants to get back at it once in a while. We think that he's afraid we'll abandoned him because he's not our son, and underlying the stealing was the feeling that if he got caught, then he'd only be getting the separation over with sooner - perhaps before he could be even more hurt by it."

       Mrs. Lyons thought the punishment highly unusual, but agreed that a kid in Jonathan's position, called for unusual measures. "Besides," she laughed, "I really did enjoy Tommy and his baby fantasies. He was such a nice boy; he made me feel like a grandmother all over again. You must have hated giving him back to his mother."

       Mrs. Lyons grandchildren, all 4 of them, did arrive that morning, and played in the backyard next door until Jonathan was taken in to be fed lunch. It was mortifying for Jonathan. Particularly, when the little girl Caitlin came over and wanted to play dollies with him. She was only about 3 and kept giggling about the big baby boy. Mr. Curley made him play with her - surprisingly; he did so in fairly good grace. Mrs. Lyons could see that he hated the "dollies", and realized, impressed, that Jonathan was just being nice to the little girl. "That boy has a real gentle streak to him!" she thought approvingly. Jonathan felt incredibly babyish playing with her, and winced whenever one of the older children would stick his or her head over the fence to comment. The other kids thought the whole thing wildly amusing. "Thank God they don't live here!" Jonathan thought.

       For Jonathan, the low point came that afternoon. Mrs. Curley drove him out to a shopping mall some distance from Brookline. He was dressed in Tommy's light chocolate corduroy rompers. The legs were real short, and his plastic pants and diapers bulged out under the elastic at the back and were plainly visible through the leg holes every time Kate made him sit down. Which she did on a bench in the mall outside a Toys R Us. The worst was the leather harness. Where she'd gotten it (Sarah Jackoby) Jonathan didn't know, but he saw several toddlers wearing virtually identical devices. He had to walk down the crowded central corridor of the mall in front of his foster mother. A lot of kids snickered and stared at the big baby. One little boy, about 3, toddled up to him where they were standing in front of a fountain and wanted to share his teddy bear. Jonathan wished he could sink into the pavement. With the harness on he couldn't even run away. The whole performance lasted at least a lifetime as far as Jonathan was concerned. He was given a box of pampers to carry back to the car from Toys R Us. The extra large kind that really would fit him - it said fits up to a 28-inch waist right on the box. Several people stopped to ask why he was dressed the way he was, but were mollified by Kate who said that he was seriously retarded and hyperactive so that they had no choice about the diapers and harness.

       He was desperately relieved when they got home. He turned down Curley's offer of a trip to the movies. He was back in bed at six. - It was still broad daylight, and waited, bored out of his mind until he finally fell asleep at nine.

       The next morning, when Kate got him up, he looked at her with a note of urgency. "What is it Jonathan? She asked.

       "I gotta go number two."

       "So?"

       "So can I go to the bathroom."

       "If you can wait till Monday Jonathan, but this weekend you're a baby."

       "But I gotta go - bad."

       The urgency grew as he was changed for the morning and taken downstairs for breakfast. He was sitting in his onesie with a bib on when Sarah walked in. "Hi Mrs. Curley, how's baby Jonathan today?" She looked at Jonathan with a smug expression. Jonathan didn't like the way she was acting, but at the moment he had more urgent problems. "Why don't you finish feeding Jonathan for me Sarah, I've got to get the dishes washed up.”

       "I'd be pleased to”, she said taking the spoon and globbing cold cereal on it. "Open up Jonathan." She managed to miss putting half of it in his mouth, with the result that a big globbet ran down his chin and onto his bid. "Babies sure are messy! Baby Jonathan looks awfully red in the face Mrs. Curley."

       "Oh babies often do that just before they mess their diapers Sarah. In a few minutes he will be fine."

       Jonathan couldn't believe his ears - this wasn't happening. Tears ran down his face. Sarah laughed, "he looks real funny."

       He couldn't hold it and he felt his bowel movement forced out and into his diapers. The warm soft mass wouldn't stop coming, and it squeezed up the back between his cheeks, and down into his crotch, coming to rest warmly against the back of his testicles. He turned even a deeper shade of red. Sarah looked at him "Oh-my! I think you're right Mrs. Curley, he pooped his pants." Jonathan wanted to strangle her.

       "We'd better get him up for a change? Don't you think Sarah?"

Kate came round the table and pulled the highchair away, wiping spilt cereal off his face with his bib.

       Sarah followed them all the way into Jonathan's bedroom. She was secretly thrilled. She'd been dying to see Jonathan changed, and this might be her only chance. Besides, she thought, it’s his own fault and serves him right. She stood there watching with keen interest through the whole affair, Kate explaining all about how you changed babies as she took Jonathan's diaper and wiped him off, folding the mess into it and carrying it into the bathroom where she rinsed it in the toilet. Returning she finished cleaning Jonathan’s rectum, with his legs pulled back over his head and his behind fully exposed to Sarah's view. After oiling Jonathan, she placed fresh diapers under him, carefully instructing Sarah on how they were folded, and let Sarah pin him up. Jonathan was near to dying of humiliation.

       When Kate was done, she put the red-faced boy down on the carpet in his room. "Would you watch baby for me Sarah while I go put his dirty things in the laundry?" Sarah nodded, and Kate picked up Jonathans clothes and headed down the stairs.

       After she'd left Jonathan exploded at her. "That was real mean of you. I wouldn't have done that to you. I never want to see you again - I hate you."

       "That's too bad Jonathan. Besides it all your own fault. I wanted to watch, so I did, and it’s probably the last time I'll get to see you anyway!"

       Jonathan was startled by the anger in her voice. "What do you mean?"

       "My mother won't let me play with you anymore. She said she didn't want her daughter playing with a thief. She let me come over to say goodbye. Damn you! I liked you so much! Why'd you have to go and let everybody down? It's not like you have nobody that cares about you. How do you think all those little boys who looked up to you so much in the wet set are going to feel when they find out their hero's a thief. What do you think Terry's going to say. You think he wants to go around with a thief? But most of all how could you do it to Mr. and Mrs. Curley? How do you think Mr. Curley feels? He's a policeman; he supposed to protect everyone from crooks. Now he's got a foster son who’s a thief. How do you think that makes him feel down where he works?"

       "Why should I care about them anyway? I'm not their son. I bet they don't even really love me. The state just pays them money to keep me."

       "Jonathan you idiot! Don't you know why the Curleys are so upset? How can you be so stupid? They're scared that the court will take you away from them now. They love you. Don't you understand." She slapped him. He stood there stunned as she ran from the room crying.

       When Mrs. Curley came back, there was a very quiet little boy sitting on the rug. As she came in he got up and ran over to her and hugged her about the waist. She could see tears running down his face. She picked him up and carried him over to the bed and sat down with him on her lap and rocked him back and forth for an hour.

       That evening, Jonathan was brought down to dinner and was seated in his usual chair. The conversation was quiet and subdued and no one talked much. Mr. Curley carried him upstairs to bed. "What would you like to wear to bed tonight young fella - sleepers or superman?"

       "C-could I wear the sleepers again, I feel kinda bad."

       "Sure," Curly said, giving Jonathan a hug as he hefted the boy up onto the table to be changed.

       Curley sat with Jonathan for over an hour reading from A Boy and his Horse the fourth book in Narnia series. His foster mother sat with them as Curley read on in his big gentle voice. Eventually, the boy drifted off to sleep.

       During breakfast the next morning, his foster parents seemed worried. Jonathan had woken up in the middle of the night after a nightmare in which he was already back in the JDC and his real mother was beating him while the counselors watched and cheered. No one talked very much, until right at the end.

       "Jonathan," Curley began, "Mr. Struthers, your probation officer is coming over to talk to you. He wants to know how you feel about staying here, and he wants to talk to you about what’s been going on at school. As you are a ward of the court, he is effectively your guardian. Its up to him whether you stay here or go somewhere else. We want what is best for you, and he is not your enemy, so please be polite and tell him everything he asks as truthfully as you can. And what ever happens, make us proud of you."

       Jonathan's heart sank. They were going to take him away.

       Officer Struthers was coming at 9:00 AM and Jonathan waited in his room. He wondered if he should pack his things. There wasn't a lot that was really his. Curley had given him his son's old baseball mitt. He went over to his drawer and took it out and put it next to him as he sat on the bed. Fingering it as he waited, tears running down his little face. He bitterly regretted stealing the Walkman, and he wished, he really wished he could do something right to make the Curleys proud of him. If only he weren't so stupid. He was going to miss Sarah and Tommy and the whole wet set too. They wouldn't be there when he got back to his old school. A car drove up to the front of the house, and he heard the door open and then slam shut. Footsteps up the walk, and voices at the door. Finally, he heard someone climbing the stairs and a knock on his door.

       "Can I come in young master Jonathan?" "Y-yes sir." Jonathan responded in a quiet voice. Mr. Struthers entered the room, and taking a chair sat down opposite him. "Well I hear things haven't been going too well for you lately here. Why don't you tell me your version of events.” Jonathan blinked back tears. "I-I stole some stuff from school, and I guess I-I'm pretty dumb there too. Maybe I should try to w-work harder." He kept choking back tears. After a while he told Mark Struthers about the baseball tryouts, and how he'd thought that meant Mr. Curley didn't really want him cause all the other kids told him that coaches kids didn't even have to try out cause their fathers automatically put them on the team. M-Mr. Struthers p-please let me stay here. I don't want to go anywhere else. I promise I'll n-n-never do anything bad ever again. P-please. I-I'll try harder at school and everything."

       He heard Mr. Struthers talking to the Curleys downstairs for a while and then drive off. After a while the Curleys came upstairs and knocked on his bedroom door. They came in and sat down next to him. Jonathan could see that his foster mother's eyes were wet. The boy looked up at the two of them questioningly. "A-am I going to h-have to leave."

       "That's up to you Jonathan." Curley looked at him with a smile; Mr. Struthers is willing, if you want him to, to ask the court to look favorably on a petition of adoption from us for you. How about it, do you think maybe you'd like to call us Mom and Dad?" Jonathan stared at them in astonishment. "Y-you mean it! I thought they were going to take me away? Can I really call you Dad?"

       "You sure can son."

       As Mark Struthers drove off he was shaking his head in bemusement. He was relieved that the Boudreauxs had withdrawn the charges against Jonathan. The guy was all right. Having heard the exchange between the two boys, he had grilled his own son and a few of his friends; it had been clear that a group of them had been giving Jonathan a pretty systematic hazing, and that the stealing had been partly in retaliation. Jonathan had been pretty selective in his victims. As a consequence, Peter had lost the Walkman again for a while, until he learned a little more compassion. Struthers had called the school and explained the full situation to Mr. Miller. They had agreed that a one-week suspension would be more appropriate than an indefinite. "So like it or not, Jonathan's back in school in a week. I hope his new parents don't let him take it as a vacation. It's astounding. Who would have ever think that boy and the vicious brat of three months ago were the same person. He's like an entirely new boy." Struthers was convinced that Jonathan had really changed - Jonathan had found a real family, and that was pretty rare in this day and age. He hadn't expected the boy to stay completely out of trouble in the best of circumstances, and hadn't been at all surprised by his performance in school or his petty thefts. But the underlying change in the boy's demeanor and attitude was incredible. In dealing with that kid for 4 years he hadn't once seen him show any emotion at all. If the kid hadn't been so rotten he could almost have been autistic as far as feelings were concerned. The Curleys and their rather strange treatment had clearly cracked the kid’s shell wide open. They've a long row to hoe, he thought, but in the end they’re going to get a pretty good plant. As he turned into the court house parking lot, he was still thinking of the Curleys bizarre approach to reformation of young incorrigibles."

       The, now, one week suspension flew by for Jonathan. His mother worked him to death, but he didn't mind, and arriving at school the following Monday morning, he had promptly walked into Mr. Millers office and handed him a fistful of grubby ones and fives to pay for the damaged locker. "I earned it all myself, Sir, it's the first money I ever made." He proudly said. Even Mr. Miller was amazed at his attitude, until Jonathan went on: "My father says a man always pays his debts."

       "Your father Jonathan?" Mr. Miller knew that Jonathan hadn't seen his father in at least 5 years. "My new dad, Sir, I'm being adopted by the Curleys!" the boy was bursting.

       "Jonathan! That's wonderful. Congratulations! You'll be the envy of half the kids in school; every boy in little league wants Curley as a coach and you get him as a father. Pretty good deal if you ask me."

       The news of Jonathan's adoption spread rapidly. Coming on the heels of a number of kids being disciplined for hazing, Jonathan's friends were willing to conditionally accept him back. Nurse Jackoby was somewhat more skeptical and Sarah remained interdicted, at least after school, but she greeted Jonathan back to the changing table with her usual warmth and cheer. Terry read him the riot act. But Terry often did that, and, Jonathan thought wryly, was often right. So things went back to an even if not particularly high, level for Jonathan at school.

       The week passed swiftly for Jonathan. He found that though he was not playing with the Majors, most of the kids in the minors were still his age. It wasn't a terribly serious league, and despite his admittedly abominable fielding and batting, there was a place for him there. Despite his continuous bobbles, the coach discovered that Jonathan had a remarkable throwing arm for a boy of 10. Thus, Jonathan found himself pitching on odd days and backing up the other outfielders for long throws to home. Minor league ball is more like a comedy of errors than serious baseball. Thus, his continuous striking out at bat was nothing really exceptional. He would have been an exceptional pitcher if he could have caught the ball, very good even for the majors, though he could be a little wild. He enjoyed it immensely, particularly as his parents came to every game. In the minors, the boys weren't issued real uniforms, only a team shirt and a hat. Thus, Jonathan opted for fairly loose trousers, and wore his shirt hanging out to avoid undue attention to his diapers. Most of the kids knew he wore them anyway, but at this level razing other players was discouraged, and most of the kids were to busy trying to pick up fundamentals to really be very competitive. Once in a while he got kidded, cause the diapers sometimes showed, but his good-natured acceptance of the teasing endeared him to his teammates more than anything else. The season was progressing pretty smoothly then, for Jonathan, and he'd made a number of new friends. Once he saw Tobin Wheeler hanging around the backstop when he was batting. He knew his diapers bulged unavoidably when he batted cause he had to push his hips out like the coach said. It seemed that inevitably, he'd get a pat on his padded butt every time he got instruction - which given his poor record, was fairly often. He always smiled at the coach when he did it. Coach Greenley always wondered about why Jonathan gave him that odd look.

       On a Saturday afternoon they were playing the Cubs down on the elementary school field (the minor league teams rarely got to use the elaborate little league field). Jonathan was pitching at the very end of a long game, and though winning didn't mean all that much, they were ahead by 1 run at the bottom of the sixth and last inning. It was down to the last batter, and Jonathan had gotten two strikes and 4 balls on him (it takes 6 balls for a walk in the minors). Curley, sitting on the lawn behind the Cubs bench couldn't help but notice that one of the fathers who didn't attend very often was getting pretty excited and a little out of control and had started yelling comments down at the other teams batters. Just as he was about to tell the guy to clam up, the boy at bat took a swak at one of Jonathan's pitches, catching on the bottom edge. The ball popped up into the air in an easy pop fly straight, it would appear, into the pitchers upraised glove: except that Jonathan's glove was in the wrong place and the ball dropped to the ground right at his feet, allowing a boy on third to run home and tie the game.

       "Sheeit! The man exclaimed. How could anybody miss that fly. Why doesn't someone give that stupid kid glasses?"

       "Glasses?" Curley thought - a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wondered why it hadn't occurred to him before, or to anyone else for that matter.

       After the game Curley drove Jonathan and a couple of his friends down to McDonalds for burger and a coke to celebrate the tie. As they were driving up, he pointed to a sign in the window of the restaurant that advertised a special in great large red letters. "Jonathan, what’s the special?" He asked casually.

       "Two big macs for a dollar." Jonathan said promptly, "with the special coupon."

       "Oh - who told you."

       "It says so on the sign Dad." Jonathan said baffled.

       "So it does, so it does,” Curley started to get a sick feeling about all the trouble Jonathan had been having in school. That evening he found the coupon in the mail. Casually he handed it to Jonathan - "what's this coupon for son?"

       Jonathan sat and stared at it a while. "I'm not sure, I think it’s from McDonalds." The coupon repeated almost word for word the sign in the window that afternoon.

       "Jonathan, when was the last time your eyes were tested?" Kate, cooking at the stove suddenly straightened and turned around to look at Jonathan.

       "I don't know." the boy replied.

       The doctor’s office was located down at a small office building. He welcomed Jonathan in and listened to his parents explain about Jonathan's problems in school and apparent lack of hand-eye co-ordination. Jonathan felt distinctly uncomfortable listening to this catalogue of his failings. The doctor looked down at the diapered boy, and said "Maybe we can find out what's the matter with you Jonathan, and led him into his examining room. He patted the seat on a big padded chair "Hop up here, and we'll check out those peepers of yours." He first asked Jonathan to read letters off a wall chart. Jonathan had no trouble making out the letters down to near the bottom line. The doctor went "Hmpf!" But didn't say anything else. He swung a big black thing in front of Jonathan and flipped through lenses to see if any made things on the wall clearer and found only a marginal difference. "Hmpf!" he went again. "Well, Jonathan your vision seems pretty normal so far. Hmm, hmm. Wait a minute. Here look at my finger". He held it right in front of Jonathan's nose. "What do you see?" "A finger?" Jonathan replied helpfully. "Do you see one or two fingers?" "Two of course, you always do when you look at them that close." "Alright, fair enough, now I want you to try and squeeze your eyes together and tell me when you can make it one finger." Jonathan was able to do so only when the doctor pulled his finger back about 3 feet from Jonathan's nose. "I'll be darned!" The doctor said quietly. He pulled down another arrangement of lenses and played with the black machine some more and repeated the tests. Then he peeled back Jonathan's eyelids and asked him to follow a light. He was looking at the muscles surrounding the eyes.

       "Jonathan has a very unusual vision problem, but fortunately easily surgically correctible. The muscles that control his close focusing are too big. That is they can't constrict enough to focus at close distances, and he always sees double if he tries to look at objects within a few feet. It's no wonder he drops balls and can't read. This should have been picked up years ago. Unfortunately, routine school eye tests almost never find it, and if his mother had never arranged for a private, more thorough eye examination it would explain how he's gotten so far without it being detected. I'm calling Doctor Barton, and I think we can set up an appointment down at the Children’s Surgery Clinic for this week.

       Jonathan looked at the Doctor, with sudden hope in his eyes, "Does that mean I'll be able to learn to read like the other kids?" According to your father Jonathan, and from what you read off the wall charts, you already can. You just can't read anything close up, and we're going to fix that up. You'll be in the hospital for about 4 days, and a week later you'll be back in school better'n new."

       Thus, it was that a on thursday of that week Jonathan found himself undressing in a small children’s ward at the local hospital. One of the nurses gave him a green gown to wear, and waited patiently for him to change. Jonathan blushed a little bit, but as she made no move to leave, he finally took off his shirt and pulled down his trousers. "You'll have to help me with my diapers," he blushed. "It's amazing!" he thought to himself, "how I feel more naked in diapers than if really had no clothes on."

       No, that's all right Jonathan; I think we better leave them on. Otherwise you’re likely to get that gown all wet when we you're put to sleep for surgery. Don't feel bad, we diaper a lot of kids after we put them out, because they often loose control under sedation. We take the diapers off before they wake up - so they usually never know. All the doctors and nurses around here are used to seeing kids your age in them." Jonathan wasn't at all sure this was true, and thought that maybe she was just trying to make him feel better.

       She had him get up on a sort of table on wheels. She called it a gurney, and a man came in a green gown a bit like his own. "Hello Jonathan, I'm Dr. Aspinwall, I'm going to give you a shot to put you to sleep, and when you wake up, it'll be all over. Dr. Thompson over here is going to operate on you. Now try to remember that when you wake up you'll have bandages on your eyes so you won't be able to see. You're going to have to wear them for about 4 days and then we'll take them off. You won't be allowed to read or watch TV for a while, but you can listen to the radio. Your mother is right here too, and she'll be with you when you wake up. You ready? OK. Now you're going to feel this needle a bit, it'll kinda burn at first, but it won't last long. Think you can be a brave boy? Lets see ---. Now I want you to count to ten Jonathan."

       "1, 2, 3, 4, - 5, -." Jonathan felt very groggy. He tried to look around, but couldn't see anything. He tried to move his arms, but the effort seemed too much. He was scared, where is everybody - where was he? Then he felt a voice and a reassuring touch on his shoulder. "Hello there Jonathan. How are you feeling? It's all over and Dr. Thompson said everything went just fine. You relax now and in a bit we'll take you back to your room. Your mother's right here." He felt her unmistakable touch on his shoulder and relaxed. She stayed there, and he could feel her holding his hand. After a bit he could feel the motion of the cart as the wheeled him out of the room, down a corridor and into another room. He felt groggy and dizzy, and called out, his voice faint and weak to his ears when he momentarily lost contact with his mother. "Its alright dear I'm right here, they're moving you into bed. "OK now, altogether, 1-2-3, and he felt several sets of hands lift him and slide him onto a bed." Another voice said, "He's a wetter, lets get him changed now. He could feel his gown being pulled up, the air cold against his skin. He heard tapes being pulled and felt a tugging at his waist, and realized that he was now wearing a disposable rather than his own diapers. It felt strange. He wanted his own diapers. He whimpered a little bit, as he tried to move on his own, but somebody put a gentle hand on him and held him down. "Just lie quiet Jonathan, and we'll get you all fixed up. He could feel them lift him up, and then a dry diaper being slid under him and being taped up. "There we go. All cozy and secure." Then they pulled the covers over him. He realized he'd just been changed in front of a whole crowd of people and blushed inside. He wondered if they all thought he was a big baby. He reached out for his mother’s hand. "Mommy?"

       "I'm here dear." Her reassuring touch. Comforted, the small boy drifted off to sleep. His mother stayed there for about an hour, sitting next to his bed, until the nurses came and checked him over. "He looks just fine, Mrs. Curley, the effects of anesthesia have completely worn off, and his pulse is normal. We'll be checking him every hour. Why don't you go home and get some sleep. He's not likely to wake up for quite a while. Children always sleep a long time after anesthesia, and he will want to see you first thing in the morning. Mr. Curley is here too, and he's ready to take you home. We'll take good care of Jonathan."

       In the morning, it took Jonathan a little bit of time to realize that he was awake, and that it was daytime with his eyes completely covered. He gradually remembered what had occurred and he heard voices around him. Nurses moving back and forth. The sound of carts going down the hall. The clanging of breakfast trays. Children's voices. Some in his own room. "Mommy?" There was no answer. He wondered where she was. Probably at home. He heard footsteps near his bed, and stirred. "Good morning Jonathan, how are we feeling today?" He could feel a hand pick up his arm. "She's taking my pulse." he realized. She put his arm down. "Your mother will be here soon, she said she'd be back first thing this morning." Your mother, just hearing the nurse say that made him feel good. "Your father’s already been here, but you were sound asleep so he didn't disturb you. He's off at work, but said he'd be back at noon."

       "Now lets get you fixed up young man. He could feel her pull the sheets back. Diaper time again, he thought to himself. He wondered how many people were watching. The voices of the other children in the room, he could count two, suddenly stilled. They're watching, he thought. The nurse peeled the tapes off, and with long practice he lifted his fanny and she pulled the wet diaper out from underneath him and slid another in its place. "That's a good boy Jonathan, I can see your pretty experienced at this." He heard a boy giggle a little across the room. He bravely smiled back, again wondering how many people were watching this. She patted his shoulder and then he could feel her rubbing baby magic between his legs and over his genitals, and then the diaper was taped in place and his gown pulled back down. "Would you like to sit up Jonathan?" He nodded and was surprised when she pushed a button and the back of the bed lifted up. "There we go, now I'm going to take your hand and show you where some things are. That's a call button. If you need me, just push the button and I'll be in right away. Now over here is your Walkman radio with your earphones - your father left it for you. "Walkman? I don't have a Walkman.,” he thought. Then he realized that Curley must have given it to him as a surprise. The nurse showed him how to turn it on and how to adjust the stations. Now, before I go, the boy over to your right is Jason, he broke his leg yesterday and we had to put a pin in it, and over on the other side of the room is Bobby, he's had some surgery to fix his stomach. Bobby's seven and Jason is ten, same age as you. Now I've got to go.

       A few minutes later he heard her talking to Bobby. "Time for a change Bobby."

       "Aww I don't wanna wear these things. I don't hafta at home."

       "What does your mother do to stop you wetting the bed then?"

       "She doesn't do anything - just changes the sheets."

       "Judging from your performance here, that must be a lot of work. Maybe she'll decide that diapers might be better for both of you - they'll keep you warm and dry at night and save her a lot of work."

       "But only babies wear diapers! And everybody see me. If ya hafta can't you take me somewhere else?"

       "Jonathan over there certainly isn't a baby, and he's certainly a better sport than you are. I'm afraid we can't move you any more than absolutely necessary for a while, dear. As for everybody seeing you, well you seem to enjoy watching Jonathan get changed - now it’s your turn." Jonathan realized that he was thoroughly enjoying the boy's discomfort - not to mention his introduction to diapers. When the nurse came back to check on him - she could feel her fingers slide under at the leg opening of his diapers - he asked her: "Is this a special room just for bedwetters?" He heard her chuckle, "The tides flow here every night Jonathan, and a lot during the day as well - so you don't have to feel alone." Jonathan sighed in relief.

       His mother was soon in to see him, and was relieved to see that he was feeling much better. She sat and talked to him for an hour before leaving, promising to be back later. His dad came in at noon, and talked with him about baseball and school. As he was leaving he said, "Your friends want to come visit you too, is it alright?" The next day Terry, Sarah and Tommy all came to see him. It made him feel pretty good. Sarah was full of news. Her mother had finally relented and she was allowed to play over at his house again. Terry wanted to know if he wanted to sleep over when he got out of the hospital. Jonathan was very pleased to accept - he'd never done that before.

       By Saturday Jonathan was full of pep, he couldn't wait till Monday morning when they'd take the bandages off and he could go home. When Monday finally arrived he was dying with anticipation. He wondered whether he'd be able to read like they said, and what everybody would say when he got back to school. Most of all, he was tired of being in bed. He was scheduled to have his bandages removed at 1:00. At about 11 he heard a gurney being wheeled into the room and a boy being lifted into the bed across from his. Evidently he had been operated on and was just coming too. From the way the nurses were acting he knew it was minor surgery and that the boy had not been heavily sedated. Strangely, they tied him down. There seemed to be nobody staying with him. "I wonder where his parents are. It frightened him to think about what it was like when you didn't have any.

       After a while, he could hear the boy coming too. He clearly wasn't very groggy. Jonathan wondered what operation he'd had. Must not have been very much, he thought. The boy started to swear and pull at his bonds. "Let me the fuck up! What did you guys do to me anyway! You bastards! ---." There was something familiar about the voice. All of a sudden the sounds of struggling stopped abruptly. “Oh-shit!” He heard, “Nooo---.” Jonathan thought he could detect a familiar tang to the air. He reached over and pushed his call button. "Joe Kelly's gonna need a change pretty quick!" He grinned to himself.

       "Hi Joe."

Chapter 4

       Jonathan could hardly wait to get back to school, and when Monday came he was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. Arriving in class, he took his seat in the front row. When Mrs. Hanlin came in she welcomed him back and started the day's lesson. When reading period came around, she asked who would like to start first. Jonathan's hand shot up. As he stood there reading aloud from the now crystal clear text, he could sense the other kids astonishment. Mrs Hanlin felt great chagrin, not only had she failed to pick up his physical problem with reading - but after all the times he had been put down - he could actually read. Evidently, he must have learned from reading signs. Though he stammered a bit, and was hesitant at points, it was truly amazing. He must be a very bright youngster she realized.

       Jonathan was elated when he received his report card. He had a C in math. Most other subjects were marked Incomplete, with an annotation that due to physical disability, no grade would be entered for the year. That meant he had a C average. "Jonathan, you get to move ahead with the class. But remember, you've got a lot of catching up to do, so you're going to have to work hard." Mrs. Hanlin had congratulated him, and said she was sorry that he hadn't been treated better.

       The bad news was, at least for Jonathan, was that Sarah had gotten the extra promotion she'd craved. He'd congratulated her and said that he was real pleased for her, but it was unmistakable that he was upset. This bothered her a bit. "I-I guess I'm going to miss you a whole lot - now that you’re going into sixth grade you probably won't have much time for a fifth grader."

       "Don't count on it Jonathan."

He had rather mixed emotions when she'd leaned over and kissed him right on the mouth. She'd laughed at his shocked expression, "If I don't have time to hang around you anymore, I wouldn't be able to pat your cute little diapered butt anymore!" That had precipitated considerable rough housing. While Sarah was a bit young to be entering sixth grade, she was also a bit old for fifth, and in certain ways, not just academically, was clearly a bit ahead of Jonathan.

       By the end of school, there was only about two weeks of the regular little league season left. Jonathan wished it could last longer. All of a sudden he found himself the star of his team. In fact, there was considerable grumbling from parents on the other teams. His pitching accuracy was amazing for a ten year old. He didn't drop flys anymore, and he was starting to connect regularly with the ball at bat. On Saturday morning he was running around with the other members of the Cubs at the elementary school field, waiting for the rest of the kids to arrive for a game. They were tossing the ball back and forth, and boasting about how they were going to demolish the Yankees. Since Jonathan had returned to the team they had abruptly started to climb in the rankings. Burger King had a practice, so his dad wasn't there, but he was surprised to see Burt Phillips, the assistant Burger King Coach talking at the edge of the field to Mr. Samuels the Cub Coach.

       "Hey Jonathan! Front and center over here." All the kids looked up. "You've been drafted by Burger King."

       "Drafted?" Jonathan looked at the boy next to him. "What does that mean?"

       "It means we're gonna lose you. Didn't you know that we're the Burger King farm club? If they loose a kid, they get to choose whomever they want from their farm club to finish out the season. Your lucky, they're in second place this year. Hey! Your dad coaches Burger King, doesn't he? He's lucky to have a son like you who plays so well. He'd get first chance to have you anyway causa of that I guess." Jonathan suddenly realized that his dad had been right not to put him on the team just because he could. Now everybody knew he was going up cause he deserved it!"

       It was a bit of a come down when he'd arrived at the field. His father had given him a big grin, and he'd answered in kind. Sarah and Tommy had run up and congratulated him. But he felt a stranger. Burger King was one of the best teams in the league, and he suddenly realized that he wasn't a star anymore. The term rookie had new meaning to him. He was clearly expected to defer to the regulars while sitting on the bench, and on the field had to prove himself anew. He did all right fielding, but when it came to batting, he'd never had to face an older kid pitching. Tommy Clements was one of the best in the league, and Jonathan managed only to fan air. He retired feeling disgraced, but Mr. Phillips had given him a pat (on the fanny), and said that he'd do better when he got used to major league pitching - he'd mostly only be in the minimum two innings required for every player by the league anyway. Chagrined, he was still thrilled to be in the majors - and playing for his Dad!

       The following Friday was the last day of class. The whole school had a field day, and all the kids competed in running, high jump, hurdles and sack races for half the day. There were even arm wrestling contests, and Terry got blue ribbons, not only for their class, but for beating the best kid in fifth grade too. He nearly beat the kid in sixth grade as well. Jonathan got a white ribbon for third place in the boys and girls three-legged race with Sarah. By the end of the day, the children all met in the school auditorium for a brief farewell to the sixth graders who were graduating to junior high school. Nurse Jackoby had ice cream bars as a surprise for the entire wet set. She looked at them fondly, "I can't exactly say hope to see you next year, can I? But it’s been a good year, and you have all done well. Every one of you has passed, she smiled at Jonathan, and Terry made the honor roll. Maybe one or two of you won't need me next year - lets hope. But in any case, you're all my special kids, and I hope that you stop by for frequent visits.”

       Saturday afternoon was Jonathan’s first game in the majors. He'd been looking forward too it all week. His new uniform was hanging in the closet and he'd oiled his glove all week, working the leather. He'd even wrapped a baseball in it and slept on it to get the pocket 'just right'. After lunch, he went upstairs with his father to get ready. After Curley had changed his diapers, he pulled on the baseball pants. He'd never worn a uniform before and he thought the short legs a bit odd. Unlike the real major league uniforms these had elastic around the waist, but with the bright blue shirt with gold trim and Burger King emblazoned on the back in letters of the same color, he felt quite professional. He ran eagerly into the bathroom to see what he looked like. To his dismay, the elastic around the waist and the sharp taper of the trousers, which were designed to fit tightly around the mid-calf, made his diapers bulge out. In fact, the general effect was not too unlike that when he wore his superman flannel ski pajamas. He looked like a toddler in a dress up baseball outfit!

       Curley heard the groan from the bathroom. Looking in the bathroom, he saw the distraught boy staring glumly at the mirror. "Hmm. It won't be so bad if you pull your shirt tales out Jonathan and let them hang down over your waist, a lot of the kids do anyway." He walked over and helped him. "See, now it’s not so bad!"

       "Its terrible!" Jonathan moaned, “I look like a little kid." Curley had to admit that even with the shirtails down it was plain to see that the kid was diapered. He also had to admit that Jonathan did look quite a bit like a toddler dressed up in a toy uniform. Secretly, he thought it looked really cute, but suppressed his grin for Jonathan's benefit. "Its not how you look, Jonathan, its how you play." He tried to be as convincing as possible."

       When they got to the field, he felt like everyone was staring at the boy in diapers. Worse, Tommy's little cousin Luke was there and dressed up in a baseball outfit. The little three-year ran straight over to him - "Thee - thee, I look just like Jonathan!" He lisped. It was true and Jonathan could see a lot of barely suppressed smiles. He was mortified when the boy kept following him around, and insisted on having his picture taken with the older kid by Tommy's mother. Curley thought it was pretty funny, and asked if he could have a copy. Jonathan wanted to kill Sarah when she piped in and asked for one too. He glared at her, but she just grinned, "You do look pretty cute Jonathan!"

       Down on the field, he felt really conspicuous. He was grateful that he was playing out in right field, far from the stands. He ran out with the other kids on the team for warm-ups and tossed a ball back and forth and caught pop flys from Curley. After they were all called back in he headed for the dugout, but as he passed the other team heading out for their warm-up, the kids started pointing to him and sniggering: "Ha! Look at the baby - we're playing Baby Burger King - and there's their baby boy." He didn't think it was very funny, and he could see that it bothered his teammates. Two boys he sat down next to discreetly moved away from him. Fortunately Sarah and Tommy took their place so he didn't feel so bad. The game didn't go very well, the team kept getting razed by the Walters & Scranton Attorneys team: "Baby-baby Burger King. Baby-baby Burger King!" And the flustered Burger King players went 3 innings without a score, giving up three runs. This was an important game and meant a lot, Walters and Scranton was in first place and Burger King was one game behind. Jonathan could see that the opposing coach was actually encouraging the razing, sometimes even leading the chant. He could see his Dad looked disgusted. He felt awful.

       Curley was strongly tempted to throttle Lou Harrison. This had gotten out of hand. "The bastard," he thought, "doesn't he give a damn about anything besides winning?" His glare was answered by a smug look from the third base coach’s square where Lou was urging on his runners. The fourth inning finally ended, again with no score for Burger King, and Curley had to send in Jonathan for his innings. Curley had hoped that they'd been on the boards by now. By luck of the rotation, Jonathan was first at bat. He was terrified. He just stood there looking scared.

       "Hey kid! Don't wet your pants!" He couldn't believe that the other coach had said that. He glanced back at his father - Curley looked like he was going to come across the field from where he stood by third base. "Ball one!" He suddenly realized that the pitcher had already thrown. He hadn't even seen it. He tried to pay attention. "Baby - baby - baby. Baby’s going to wet his pants." They chanted from the outfield. "Not going to - already has." - he thought glumly. By now the terrified boy had already soaked his diapers. "Ball two!" "Man! He thought, I gotta concentrate. He took a wild swing. "Stree-rike one!" He groaned. "Ball three!" He prayed for a walk. "Take your base." He sighed with relief, and headed out to first, tossing the bat to the side, where the next batter retrieved it. Standing on first, the boy there tried to distract him, commenting on his diapers. Jonathan, however, had started to settle down and ignored him.

       "Boy! Mr. Phillips, that was sure lucky - they walked Jonathan, he would have been an easy out for sure. Mr. Phillips chuckled, "Not surprising actually, their pitcher kept looking at Jonathan's diapers instead of his strike zone. That's a help, but a walk won't get us home here, we gotta get a run. Hop up; you’re next in the warm-up box. Tommy strode out to the practice circle. He could see that the runner ahead of him had also gotten a walk. Trying to pitch to a kid in diapers had really rattled the 11 year old pitcher." He suddenly realized. "Hey!" He shouted to Georgie Harrison, standing on the pitching mound, "If you can't even strike out a baby, you're going to get creamed by me!" His teammates caught on and started razing the pitcher. Lou Harrison yelled, "Shut up and play ball!" from the opposing dugout. He looked angry, Tommy was pleased to see. "Take your base!" He could see that it was working, Georgie was really rattled, and now the bases were loaded - no outs. He strode up to the plate. Firmed his feet in the turf, and grinned at Georgie - who glared back. Wop! He nailed the ball and it sailed out. Curley motioned an eager Joey to hold back on base. "Wait, it’s going to be caught. As soon as it hits his glove - you tag up and then run for home." Out by the fence the ball flew into the fielder’s mitt. Jonathan headed for home - his bench was cheering as he slid in followed by the kid from second. The score was 2 to 3. He felt a whole lot better as he headed back to the bench. His teammates grinned at him "not bad for a bunch of babies - boy is that pitcher rattled," one of the kids gloated. He finally felt like he belonged.

       They got one more run and went into the sixth and final inning with the game tied up 3-3. In the top of the sixth Walters & Scranton got one run to go ahead. As luck would have it Jonathan was last up to bat, with 2 outs and one boy on base. His teammates groaned. They knew coach Curley never used pinch hitters, and besides Jonathan had to play two full innings. Jonathan wasn't at all sure he wanted to go out to the plate.

       "Jonathan, tuck in your shirt."

       "But Mr. Phillips! That'll really make me look like a baby. Why?"

       "Because,” Mr. Phillips grinned, "that kid on the pitching mound will see nothing else - the more you look like a baby - the more its going to rattle him. You'll get a walk or a candy pitch for sure. Just keep cool and watch the ball. You'll do just fine."

       Jonathan tucked his shirt in and headed out to the plate. "Pretty cute baby pants!" The catcher sniggered. The plate umpire told the kid to shut up or he'd be out. Jonathan realized that the adults were rooting for him around the field. Lou Harrison hadn't caught on, and kept making loud remarks about Jonathan's baby pants. Georgie Harrison threw a wild pitch, and the runner on first made it to second. Rattled he threw two more balls in succession. His father yelled at him to get control of himself. He paused and carefully took aim and threw a gentle controlled pitch right across the plate - he figured that pants wetter couldn't hit the ball anyway. Swack! He stared in dismay as the ball sailed out over his head and the outfield fence.

       "I'll bet Jonathan's the first kid to ever run the bases in soggy diapers," Tommy exulted in the car on the way home. Jonathan blushed and grinned, "Well its lucky the game ended when it did - I'm starting to leak!" "Oh-no you don't Jonathan - not all over my car!" Curley tossed him a towel from the front seat. "You should have seen Lou Harrison's face when that ball went over the fence. He was screaming at Georgie when we left. Too bad. What a rotten coach. That, boys, is how a real baby behaves."

       School was out. When you're ten going on 11, that means lazy summer days with little to do, summer camp, or worse luck summer school. Jonathan was not thrilled to hear that that he would be attending the latter. Not one bit. Two months out the 12 short weeks of vacation. His summer was ruined. He kicked at the lawn where he was sitting having lunch with his parents. "Boy! some fun this summer gonna be!"

       Curley just smiled: "I don't blame you one little bit, but you've got a lot of catching up to do - or do you fancy another year in fourth grade. All your grades were incompletes except for one, and if you don't show that you can measure up in fifth - poof! Just like magic you'll be a fourth grader again with all those little nine year olds, my soon to be 11 son. Jonathan scowled and stuffed another mouthful of tuna salad sandwich into his mouth. "Besides, look on the bright side, much to my not-so-good friend Lou Harrison's dismay we tied for first place in the regular season. Now we can battle it out in the play-offs. That's sure to make your summer exciting - and who knows - maybe even the ten-year-old all-stars for you. The latter Jonathan seriously doubted, but it was a nice thought, and he really was looking forward to the play-offs. His mitt was all oiled and ready for tomorrow’s game.

       Tommy looked up; hey wanna go swimming this afternoon. Jonathan thought about getting changed in the municipal swimming pool locker room. "Nah!" "Oh you just don't want to hafta change in front of a bunch of strange kids." "Well, I'll go if you wear diapers too." That seemed to cool Tommy's jets a bit. The two boy's looked glum - "What should we do dad?"

       "How about an extra day of summer school if you’re so bored?" His father cheerfully volunteered. "Very funny Dad." "Well then, how about we launch the skiff down at the lake, I finished it last night while you guys were asleep."

       "Yeah!" The two boys cheered simultaneously. "And we could take some fishing rods." Jonathan added. "And we could go swimming!" Tommy piped in. So father and son(s) headed off together with the boat tied precariously on top of the car to a large lake about 30 minutes outside of Brookline.

       They had a great afternoon. Improbably, the caught a mess of bass, and both boys stripped down to diapers and had a long swim. Jonathan allowed as how his needed a rinse anyway. In the water the diapers felt real strange. "Not even I've gotten my diapers this wet before!" He yelled to his friend. The two boys laughed cheerfully as the water poured out of their sodden padding as they climbed out of the water. "Boy are these heavy." They ran around in the sun on the beach of a small cove where Curley had drawn up the boat, and drank sodas in the sun. Both were a fair shade of pink by the time Curley had them put their shorts back over their still sodden diapers. When they got back to the pier, both boys had half moons of wet stain on the back of their shorts where the leg openings of the plastic pants had leaked. Several older boys hanging around the dock made caustic comments, but both Jonathan and Tommy were in too good spirits to be embarrassed, and instead just laughed and said "You like em? We got an extra couple of sets in the car, and we'll let you have the ones we got on." The worst offender blushed a bit at this unexpected reply, but seeing Curley coming up behind the boys decided to head off. By the time they'd gotten home, both boys shorts, between the lake and the soda pop, were as soaked as the diapers underneath. It was evident that neither of them minded one bit.

       Dinner was fried fish. Tommy and Jonathan got to stay up late, roasting marshmallows over the barbecue and telling ghost stories. "Being able to really wet your pants at the scary parts really added something,” Jonathan thought to himself. Curley wound up carrying both upstairs to bed. In the morning both boys slept late.

       A week later, with the round of playoff games nearly complete, Burger King and Walters & Scranton were again tied for first place. Tied in the best out of three series at the end, both teams were nearly exhausted. Due to the rule that no kid could pitch more than six innings in a week, Burger King had run out of pitchers, having played six tough games in a week. Walters & Scranton was slightly better off, the tougher teams in their playoff round having unexpectedly folded in two games too much poorer teams. Georgie Harrison, their star pitcher still had two innings of pitching left, and they had a full four innings of pitching left in two of their backup pitchers.

       Curley knew that Burger King's back was to the wall, and from the way the other coaches were talking, so did they. Conversation around the refreshment stand that morning, while the minor leagues finished off their playoff, had not concerned itself very much with who was going to finish up the winner this season, but more about who was likely to be tough next season. Mentally he ran through his list of outfielders and basemen trying to figure out just who might be able to pitch. He looked at his son - Jonathan had an excellent arm for a ten year old, he was doing really well in the minors - but pitching in the majors was an entirely different matter. If it had been earlier in the season when he'd started, he would have had him pitch the occasional inning just for this eventuality. It was the way he started all his pitchers - unfortunately even Sarah who did an OK job of relief, was down to three innings. That left him with no one else with an arm at all.

       The game went improbably well. After 3 innings, they were actually ahead 1-0. Sarah had done remarkably well, and had had some lucky outs. At the bottom of the 4th he sent in Mike, a 12 year old playing his first and only year in the majors. The boy was strong - he just prayed that he could get it over the plate. By the bottom of the 5th they were down 1-4. When Mike hit a batter, he called over to Jonathan "Son get in the Bull Pen and warm up with Tommy." It was only 5 minutes latter, after Mike had nailed his second batter that a thoroughly stupefied Jonathan found himself heading out to the pitchers mound. "They're gonna murder me for sure!" He thought. "They've got some of the best batters in the league, and Dad says just get it over the plate. Boy!" He stood on the mound and looked at the first batter. The boy grinned at him and took a few mean swipes at the plate. "That kids staring at me like I'm the main course on his dinner menu." Just then he heard Lou Harrison in the Walters & Scranton bullpen yell out "Hey! They're gonna have Baby pitch. Baby Curley's gonna pitch." His team took up the chant. "Hmm,” Jonathan said to himself. The razing for some reason banished the butterflies from his stomach. He'd heard it before. He took a slow wind up and aimed the ball for the catchers mitt. It sailed lazily through the strike zone. Swap! The ball hit the ground near Jonathan's feet, bounced into the air and went by the second baseman. Fortunately the middle fielder snagged it and threw it hard to the plate, holding the lead runner on third. "Baby's gonna pitch." He heard from the other dugout again. "That's getting kinda boring," he said to himself looking down at the extra long tail of his baseball shirt. He'd insisted that his Dad get him an extra large after his first game. That made him think about how his diapers had really rattled the Burger King pitcher that time. Nobody could see them now. He grinned. Set the ball on the ground and slowly tucked the tails of the shirt into the elastic waistband of his baseball pants. The batter was staring at the pitching mound. "Yep! They bulge nicely, even out and down between my legs a bit." He smiled at the batter, who was looking dumbfounded at the thick diapers on the pitcher, and threw a pitch across the plate into the catcher’s glove. "Strike one!"

       After Jonathan retired the third batter in a row, Burt Phillips was stunned: "How come we didn't know he could pitch?" Curley who had instantly caught on to his son's little maneuver chuckled: "He can't really, not at this level. He's got accuracy all right, that's why he's getting strikes, but there isn't much speed there. Not yet anyway. Their problem is they're to busy looking at his diapers to pay attention to the ball.

       The next two innings were good ones for Burger King. Not only did Mike redeem himself by hitting his first and only home run in Little League - bases loaded of course, but by the time Jonathan retired his sixth straight batter in a row, he'd actually gained enough confidence to find that he could put a little speed on the ball. He might have actually struck out that last batter fairly.

 

Chapter 5

       When Tobin Wheeler walked into his first day of summer school, who should be seated in the desk next to him but Jonathan Curley. The kid from Mrs. Hanlin's room who had to wear diapers all the time. Tobin's heart pounded. He knew he was going to have a difficult time sitting by Jonathan all summer. If people noticed him looking at his neighbor all the time, everyone would think he was queer or something. He stared, fascinated, at Jonathan's pants and wondered what it felt like to wear diapers all the time. Real ones! Jonathan had let him feel them once through his plastic pants. He'd been too scared to ever talk to him again, though he still lay awake at night thinking about the way the plastic had felt over the wet diapers beneath. He dreamed about being old enough to have his own apartment. Then he'd get real diapers his size and wear them all the time in secret. Tobin knew just where he could get them too - he'd seen them advertised in the Sears Catalogue. Also, maybe he'd make a trip to another town and actually go into a medical supply store and get some plastic pants. He'd seen them in Morgan's Medical Supply last year when his mother and he had returned the crutches after he'd gotten out of his cast when he broke his leg. He'd wanted to hang around, but couldn't find any excuse, so had followed his mother promptly out of the store. The lady at the other counter had seen him staring enthralled at the display while his mother returned the crutches, and had given him a very knowing look. His heart had nearly stopped. He was terrified that she had guessed his secret. He could hear her telling everyone "Why that little boy wants to wear diapers!"

       He'd avoided going near that store ever since, and when his mother had driven there to pick up a new steam kettle, he'd stayed in the car and waited - just in case that lady was still there. So Tobin had had to rely on folded up towels, and makeshift combinations of plastic from old dry cleaning bags. Once he'd bought some gripper snaps at the 5&10, and had used an old shower curtain to try and manufacture plastic pants. His excitement making them was so great his hands had shook, but the results didn't work at all, and he'd buried them in the backyard. Once, overnight at a friend’s house, he'd snuck one of his friends little brothers diapers and wore it stuffed under his underwear all night. He'd been both so excited, as well as terrified that his friend would find out, or that his mother would notice it was missing, that he hadn't slept a wink.

       Jonathan couldn't help but notice over the next week Tobin's constant infatuation and many guilty glances towards his diapers. He was really curious about the kid. He seemed nice. Thus, he was pleased that Tobin gradually got over (or used to) his nervousness about being around Jonathan. As Tobin gradually realized that his careful avoidance of the boy sitting next to him was attracting more attention than actually talking to him or going out to recess with him occasionally, he gradually warmed up. Eventually Jonathan asked him if he'd like to come over and play, and maybe spend the night since his friend Tommy was out of town visiting his grandparents.

       Tobin wanted to accept so bad that he thought he was going to wet his pants right there, but he was so scared, that at first he refused, but when Jonathan pressed "Hey you bothered about spending the night at my house cause I wear diapers?" He didn't want to admit that either, and had finally accepted. When the day came he was intensely excited. He was going to spend the night at home with a boy who not only wet his bed every night, but also wore diapers all the time. He couldn't wait to see what Jonathan looked like in his pajamas. Tobin lay awake half the night before he was to go over, imagining what Jonathan looked like when he went to bed, and fantasizing about seeing him getting changed. In all his fantasies somehow he always wound up taking Jonathan's place. He even thought about telling Jonathan's mother that he still wet the bed in hopes that she would insist that he too be diapered for the night. The thought made him shudder with anticipation, though he knew he'd never get up the courage to do it.

       His worst fear was that Jonathan's mother might talk about it to his, and boy would he be in for it then. He remembered still the time his mother had caught him when he was seven playing with an old pair of diapers from the dustbin. He'd pinned them on with a couple of small safety pins from his mother's sewing kit - they didn't work very well - and had wet the diaper. Because he didn't have plastic pants he was doing this little experiment in the bathtub, and there was a little trail of pee running from between his legs onto the white enamel of the bathtub from where it made a little yellow stream to the drain. He'd tried sitting in it once or twice to soak it back up cause he wanted it all to be in his diaper, but it just ran back down his legs or dripped from the diaper back into the bathtub. When his mother walked in on him, she'd been extremely angry, she'd yanked the diaper off him and given him a hard spanking right on his wet butt. It hurt like hell. Then she'd given him a long lecture about what a disgusting thing it was he'd done, winding up telling him that only babies wore diapers - not boys - and that if she ever caught him doing it again he'd get a belt spanking. All the old diapers that had been set aside for cleaning rags had gone into the trash that same day.

       He didn't know why he liked diapers, or why he wanted to wet them, or even sometimes mess in them (he only whispered this even in his thoughts) but the compulsion was intense and undeniable. Every time he saw a toddler in diapers, the 11-year-old boy got a boner.

       So when Friday afternoon Jonathan's mother picked them both up from school for the weekend, he was nearly beside himself with anticipation and fear. On arriving at Jonathan's house, the first thing to happen was Jonathan's mother asking her son if he needed a change. Tobin hung back when the two of them headed upstairs; he was dying to follow them, but figured he'd hardly be welcome at this little soiree.

       "Tobin, you might as well bring your bag on up to Jonathan's room and settle in while I change him. No point in your just hanging around downstairs."

       "Err - ah - OK." Tobin, surprised, eagerly headed up to Jonathan's room carrying his overnight bag. Jonathan and his mother, whom Jonathan had fully briefed on his suspicions about Tobin, exchange smiles at Tobin's obvious confusion and guilty look. They both waited until Tobin entered, and then, as the wide-eyed boy gaped at the changing table, with its pile of neatly folded diapers and plastic pants on the shelf beneath, proceeded to explain it's function in detail. Tobin was riveted. He couldn't have moved from the spot by the changing table where they'd maneuvered him if the house had burned down. He watched with intense interest as Jonathan's pants were pulled down, and the plastic baby pants were stripped off.

       "Here, Tobin, would you hold these for me while I get Jonathan's wet dipes off." Kate handed the plastic pants, smelling faintly of Jonathan's urine to the dumbfounded boy. She smiled as he took them from her like they were the crown jewels. His face flushed with excitement as he looked at them and his fingers moved lovingly over them feeling their texture. "From the way he's looking at Jonathan's baby pants," she thought to herself, "Its a miracle he hasn't passed out. Jonathan sure got his number right." As she unpinned Jonathan, washed and oiled him, and finally pinned him back up, Tobin stared in unconcealed fascination.

       In his wildest fantasies Tobin had never imagined that he would actually get to see a kid his own age being diapered, much less get to hold a pair of real plastic pants his own size that were going to be put on the boy right in front of him! Jonathan's mother, highly amused, had to actually tug at the plastic pants to get the dazed boy to release his grip. When Jonathan was back down from the table, he looked at his mother: "Its real hot today Mom, would it be OK if I just wore diapers and plastic pants." Tobin almost did pass out.

       Tobin was even more startled when they were playing in the backyard, and the old lady next door greeted Jonathan as though he were wearing nothing at all unusual. She and Jonathan had chatted briefly, Jonathan completely unfazed at being see by his neighbor wearing nothing but diapers and plastic pants. Jonathan, for his part was thoroughly enjoying himself, and made a point of hamming up his diapers, poking out his fanny and walking around to the front of the house and in the front door. Every kid and adult on the street already knew he had to wear diapers, and had seen him in them, so he wasn't in the slightest bothered about being seen wearing them in his parents yard. Tobin's reaction was one of dumbstruck amazement. He acted as though he was being dragged out in diapers in front of the world. Jonathan figured that Tobin didn't even know that there were other kids just like him, and that he wasn't alone. In his situation, Jonathan could understand that in Tobin's shoes he would probably have died before doing anything that would let anybody know he was interested in diapers.

       Jonathan figured it was time to let his new friend in on the secret. He and his parents had discussed how they should do this in detail. Arriving back up in his room, Jonathan suggested that they play with the new Leggo set that he'd been given for his birthday the week before. In pulling it out of the closet, he sort of accidentally also pulled down a diaper cover that he'd placed there for that specific purpose earlier. It was made like a little pair of Levi shorts from dark blue denim cloth, with a big cross-stitched pocket at the back; but with elastic around the waist and leg holes and a plastic lining. He picked them up and handed them casually to Tobin to put back on the shelf, while he opened the Leggo box.

       "Th-these are baby pants! You don't really wear these do you?" Jonathan looked at him with a look of total innocence: "Sure." He reached over and took them back from the dazed boy, bent over and stepping into the leg openings, he pulled them up over his plastic pants and diapers. Jonathan stood there in a little denim diaper cover would have charmed the socks off any diaper boy's heart. For Tobin, it was overwhelming. Jonathan enjoyed the stunned expression on his friends face; he could also see the obvious reaction in his friend’s shorts as well. "I think they make me look like a real little kid - don't you? Actually I don't wear these all that often, I'm not really into baby clothes nearly as much as Tommy is. His mother gave them to me along with some Leggo for my birthday - she thinks that every kid that likes diapers also likes baby clothes as much as Tommy does."

       "Y-you mean that there are other kids who like to wear diapers too!" Tobin hadn't meant to add that "too' - he realized belatedly. "Sure! Me and Tommy, - and my Dad too a bit when he was a little boy. Dad's told me all about a club in California just for people who like to wear diapers. Most of them don't even need to."

       "Geee!" Tobin face showed a cascade of emotions - principle among them overwhelming relief. He also looked totally flustered. "You know, I ah - never told anybody this before, but ah - well you know." He turned beet red. "Yeah! I do - ever since that day in the gym - remember?" Jonathan replied straightforwardly. Tobin had hoped that Jonathan would of thought he was just curious, - he hadn't counted on that boner. "My mother knows too - and she won't tell anyone - that's a promise." Jonathan was sure his friend was going to keel over he look so stunned by these revelations. "She even said it was alright with her if you'd like to wear them to bed tonight."

       Tobin was overwhelmed. Jonathan was startled to see tears running down his face. "She - you won't really tell anybody." All of a sudden the greatest fear of the boy's life had been exposed. He was scared. At the same time he felt an incredible weight lift almost physically from his body. Overwhelmed, he actually broke down and cried. Jonathan's mother, hearing Tobin from the stairs where she was carrying up a load of laundry, hurried into the room, a look of deep concern on her face. She reached out and took Tobin in her arms, and as the boy sobbed, she patted him gently on the back. "What did you do?" She looked sharply at Jonathan, "nothing." he shrugged, I just told him about all us kids who like to wear diapers, and that we'd figured out that he wanted to too. I told him we wouldn't tell anyone."

       "I-I'm sorry," the boy in her arms gasped out, "I've been so scared and everything. Y-y-you really w-won't tell on me? My mother said she'd kill me if she ever caught me in diapers again. She caught me once playing with them when I was little and I got punished real bad." Kate looked down at the gasping terrified boy. "This is a lot more than we bargained for," she thought to herself. She'd never realized how terrible a secret like this could be for a child. "It's alright dear, now you have a place you can go where everyone knows, and its safe. We can talk all about it, and we won't breathe a word to anyone. Besides, everyone around here likes you, you’re a good boy, and we hope you'll like us."

       Gradually Tobin calmed down, and as he did so, he began to feel really excited. They'd really let him wear diapers here! He thought. "Jonathan said that I could wear diapers to bed if I wanted to?" "Of course you can dear, I think you'll look really cute in them, and I bet they'd feel really good too! We know you don't wet the bed ordinarily, but it would be perfectly alright if they just happened to get wet overnight. In fact, I think Jonathan would be disappointed if they weren't: he always appreciates a little company in the morning. Actually, you don't have to wait until this evening, if you want, I can diaper you right now. You'd really like that, wouldn't you?"

       Tobin's nod was almost imperceptible, but the next thing he knew he was lifted gently up onto the same changing table where he'd seen Jonathan only an hour before, and his shorts were being pulled down. It was like he was floating in a dream. He would never forget how wonderful it felt the first time after all those years of waiting. When he was lifted back down to the ground, he looked up at her shyly, "Th-thanks Mrs. Curley."

       "As long as we're on such intimate terms, why don't you just call me Aunt Kate, like Tommy does when he's here."

       "O-OK Aunt Kate." the boy finally smiled, and his whole face seemed to open up, infused with joy.

       "Why don't you go with Jonathan and look at yourself in the bathroom mirror?" she said.

       "He and Jonathan ran across the hall, and he stood in wonderment looking at himself. He turned sideways. He turned backwards. He bent over and looked at his reflection through his legs. He loved the way he looked. "They were real! He was really wearing diapers! Baby diapers! And real baby pants!" "Neat! Aren't they”? Jonathan said. Even he was impressed by how happy his friend was.

       "Not neat - wonderful!" the boy said turning backwards and forwards to look at his reflection. "I could stand here forever," he thought. He looked at the way the diapers bunched and hung down between his legs, and felt a little shudder of pleasure go through him as he squeezed his legs together and felt their thickness in his crotch.

       "You can wet them anytime you like." Jonathan said.

       "He looked in the mirror, at first a little shy - he'd never thought about doing this in front of other people. He always figured that it would be in secret. He didn't want to wait." Both boys's watched intently as the dark stain appeared under the boys cloudy white plastic pants. Tobin could feel the wet wonderful warmth of it as it spread out in front and then was drawn down into his crotch between his legs. He gave an enormous sigh of pure pleasure.

       "C'mon, lets show mother!"

       "S-show your m-mother?"

       "C'mon silly, she'll be pleased to see that you've wet them already. Besides you won't have to take them off for quite a while anyway cause babies and toddlers are really wet most of the time. Nobody changes kids diapers until they’re really wet."

       Somehow, Tobin found himself standing in front of Mrs. Curley. She looked down at his diapers and smiled at him gently, "that’s nice Tobin, I'm glad you were brave enough to wet them so soon and show me. They feel nice that way don't they?" Tobin nodded shyly. "Well whenever you feel like a change - or if you begin to leak, you come to me or Mr. Curley when he's here and we'll give you a nice dry pair. Besides, we always enjoy seeing a boy in wet diapers." Somehow, he realized, he'd come home, he felt like this was the way he belonged. He thought he'd never been so happy in his entire life.

       When Curley arrived home his enthusiastic son at the door greeted him and, he was pleased to see, a second diapered boy tagging along behind somewhat timidly. "Well! How's my little pants wetter today. I see you've got a friend!" He smiled at Tobin, hoisted Jonathan up for a hug, patted his wet little bottom, and set him down. Come over here and let me see you, I've heard a lot about you young Tobin." Tobin sheepishly went and stood in front of Mr. Curley, intensely feeling the Jonathan's father's gaze go over his nearly naked body and linger on his thickly diapered bottom. "From the way those are hanging, I'd say you were one wet little hombre! I'll bet those feel good - don't they?" The boy nodded his head. "I would also say that both you cowboys are starting to leak a bit. What's been going on around here - a wetting contest"?

       Jonathan giggled. That was exactly what they'd been doing. They'd trooped into the kitchen 3 or 4 times for glasses of milk, and had each gone and drunk directly from the tap at the bathroom sink equally as many times. They'd decided they'd see who could get the wettest before Jonathan's Dad came home. Kate had been greatly amused by the whole performance and the rather ineffective innocent looks the boys tried to put on whenever they'd headed towards bathroom or kitchen. She'd called a halt to the milk part of the routine once she caught on to what they were up to, but saw no particular harm in their continuing their game via the kitchen and bathroom faucet.

       The two boys slogged upstairs, their soaking diapers squishing between their legs as they walked, and Curley kidding them all the way. After he'd been "outfitted in new duds" Tobin decided that Jonathan had a really neat dad. Curley had changed them both standing in the bathtub.

       By the end of the summer Tobin was a regular visitor to the Curley household, and frequently stayed the night. Tommy's mother was working late as a waitress Friday and Saturday nights and the Curley's were charmed to have him as a regular resident on the weekends as well. At first, Tobin would take the guest bedroom, but since he'd rather be with the other boys, he eventually moved onto Jonathan's floor in a sleeping bag. After a while, he would just share the upper bunk with Tommy. It seemed convenient, and neither boy seemed to mind. Curley often joked how he couldn't see how they could fit all those diapers into one small bunk bed "Jonathan, you better hope they don't spring a leak up there. You could wind up getting washed down the hall."

       As it turned out, Tobin had an affection for baby clothes that rivaled Tommy's. Since Tobin's mother knew nothing about this whole affair, he shared Tommy's baby wear at first, but eventually Kate made him a few outfits and onesies of his own. Jonathan was less interested in baby things than his two friends, but would wear his snap-waisted footed sleeper. Generally, he saw himself as an older kid who had to wear diapers. As he grew older he would come to have a fantasy where he was the age he first came to the Curley's - maybe a year or two younger, who was dressed as a little boy cause he needed diapers.

       By Christmas of that year, the school moved him up to the sixth grade. His progress had astounded the teachers. More and more they came to recognize him as one of their brightest pupils. Jonathan had been elated. As it turned out, he greatly missed his friend Sarah in class, and a few strings were pulled so that he could be in the same room. Sarah for her part never stopped coming over after school to play. As time went on she and Jonathan, except for normal spats between adolescents, developed a deep friendship. It became a standard joke between the two families that you always got two for the price of one. It wasn't at all unusual to see Sarah playing catch in the Curley's backyard with three boys in diapers and plastic pants. She still loved to see them dressed that way, and by that time they'd become entirely accustomed to her being around when they played baby.

       Curley and Kate found that they developed quite an affection for little Tobin. He was always small for his age, and in many ways reminded them more of little Billy than either Tommy or Jonathan. Jonathan was rapidly growing into an independent young man, full of self-confidence, with a growing circle of friends. Not only didn't Tobin have as large a circle of friends, it didn't extend much beyond Sarah, Tommy and Jonathan, but he seemed to need more attention from the two of them. It was not unusual, when Tommy wasn't around for Tobin to hang around Curley, while Jonathan and Sarah were charging off by themselves somewhere.

       "You know Curley, I'm concerned about Tobin. I don't think it's normal for a boy of 12 to want to hang around with adults so much. He always seems so happy to get over here, but he seems sad and moody a lot of the time. He spends so much time over here; I'm amazed that his parents don't object. I'm also surprised that Jonathan or Tommy have never been invited to his house."

       Their puzzlement was short-lived. Curley was called down to assist in an arrest at the shopping mall a mile from their house. A boy had thrown rocks through 3 huge plate-glass windows. When he pulled up in his patrol car, there was little Tobin sitting motionless in the back of the arresting officers car. Curley was stunned. He asked the other officer to let him take the boy to the station. On the way he knew better than to chew the boy out. Tobin's attitude was strange - one of resignation, almost relief. Moreover, the arresting officer had been baffled as well. "He just walked up and threw rocks at the windows in front of a group of passerby's. When I got here he was just standing in front of the store waiting. It looks like he wanted to be arrested."

       "Tobin, do you want to tell me why you broke those windows." Curley asked. It took some time for Curley, and eventually the social worker to piece together what was going on. Tobin's father had taken off when he was 8. Up until then he'd had a pretty normal childhood, but afterward, as her only child, the boy became the focus of his mother's attention. He was her golden child. Shortly after he first came to the Curley's, however, her mother started dating Mark Brass, the manager, it turned out, of the store that Tobin had vandalized. After a short courtship, Tobin's mother had remarried. Tobin's life underwent a rather abrupt turn. While Mark now became the focus of his mother's life, displacing him, Mark showed absolutely no interest in Tobin. Rejecting an early advanced on Tobin's part, he had bluntly told Tobin: "I'm not your father, we're totally unrelated, we just live in the same house, and I don't want you to call me Dad or Father ever. I'm not, and I'm not going to be." Worse, Mark made it clear to Tobin's mother that he didn't want the boy around when he was home. "I don't like that kid hanging around staring at me. He gets on my nerves." Strangely, his mother reacted by following suite. Tobin was told that, except at dinnertime, he could stay in his room, or he could be outside. Otherwise everything in the house was off-limits besides the extra bathroom. When the new baby came, Tobin was told to stay out of its room. Both parents fussed over the baby interminably. Endless pictures; the family Christmas card with the baby and his parents didn't include Tobin; visits to relatives with the baby and Tobin left behind; his birthday came and passed - no one even remarked on it. Tobin had become an unwelcome border in his own home.

       Tobin was desperate. He couldn't bring himself to tell anyone what was occurring - he really didn't quite understand what was happening to him anyway. "It's pretty simple," the court psychiatrist had said, "the boy was in an intolerable situation, and the misery was so intense that he couldn't bear it anymore. When he broke those windows, he was simply asking for somebody to get him out of it. Breaking the windows of his so-called stepfather's store simply guaranteed that he wouldn't be going back to his old home. The fact that the miserable bastard would have to pay the $3500 for them was just a plus."

       Tobin's stepfather made it clear, that, far from asking for leniency from the court for Tobin, his parents wanted him to be prosecuted to the full. The stepfather also wasted no time in telling Tobin that he wasn't coming back home. The mother went along with Mark, with astoundingly little concern as far as the social worker was concerned. "A totally dysfunctional parent - children are simply toys you play with, and when you get bored, or it gets broke, or you don't want it anymore, you toss it away. If I had my way, I'd get the other child out of the house too. That's why she married Brass in the first place - they're two peas in a pod. Mark wanted nothing to do with Tobin because he was some other man's toy - not his."

       Mark Brass got his way. Tobin was given the works. To Mark's chagrin, however, he found that Judge Moore had chosen a rarely used option of a rather heavy fine, instead of a sentence to Juvenile Detention - in addition to restitution to the store - which he levied against the parents. The court had hardly been impressed by the parents behavior, and rightly figured the punishment belonged where the blame was. Not only the parents refusing to accept any compromises on Tobin's behalf, but Mark's egging the store owners into demanding prosecution of a young juvenile first offender had bothered even the prosecutor. In fact, Tobin's conviction was a technicality, both prosecutor and the court appointed defense attorney basically putting the parents on trial instead - they had walked out toward the end. The judge, sympathetically - but gravely, assured the boy that if he stayed out of any more trouble for the next three years his record would be expunged.

       The state taking Tobin was simply a formality, completed shortly after the trial. Since Tobin was a ward of the court, on probation - but technically only living at the JDC before foster placement, he was allowed to visit the Curley's whenever they invited him. At Jonathan's suggestion, who'd been horror struck by the whole affair - it touched some very deep old wounds, the arrangement became permanent. "And after all, Tobin's only 11 so he'd be my younger brother."

       "Hold it right there young man, just who do you think gets to adopt him anyway? You or us? Weeell fight'cha for him!" He said grinning at Tobin who'd been sitting on the edge of his seat throughout Jonathan's entire rendition (The whole proposal had been a conspiracy planned between them). "How about we all adopt him then?" Jonathan grinned back. "OK. Tobin,” Curly said with a grand air, "consider yourself adopted."

       Kate was a good sport about the extra laundry. Actually the diapers started to tail off. The effects of Jonathan's treatment were slowly healing after all, and he had an increasing degree of control during the daytime. He even found himself sleeping through the night to wake up dry in the morning. Though he'd often lie in bed and wet them anyway, during the day he tended to keep his pants dry just to keep the rash down. When he moved on to Junior high that year, he went back to the training pants abandoned earlier - with the addition of plastic pants. He was getting older, and more self conscious about strange adults seeing him naked, and while getting changed by Sarah's mother at elementary school had been OK, he'd hadn't wanted to be changed or seen naked by some new lady. Diapers at night, however, lasted for a considerable time, even after he really was dry most of the time. The changing table eventually moved into Tobin’s room, but a few diapers remained in his bottom bureau drawer for those "special times". Right up till he headed off for college, if there was a lot of stress at school, on the playing field, or if adolescence just got him down, he'd spend a night, or a day, or a weekend running around the house in diapers.

       Tobin moved into his own room at the Curley's, and Tommy opted to stay there when he spent the night on weekends. Both wore diapers to bed every night by choice, a decision that they saw as permanent. Their wardrobe of baby clothes expanded, as did their interest, if that was possible, on through through puberty. The two boys spent hours playing together in their baby outfits. They particularly liked playing around with baby toys in the bathtub together. Sarah and Jonathan took to referring to his room as the baby clubhouse, due to the rather unusual decor for a 14 year old, and the odd clothing that was always left around. Kate despaired of every getting that boy to keep his room neat. Tobin remained an average student, though Tommy did a little better.

       By the time Tobin turned 14, both Kate and Curley began to notice that Tobin and Tommy were becoming more and more inseparable. "The two of them are just like Jonathan and Sarah," Kate wryly observed one day. The casual remark suddenly had them both looking at each other. "You know Kate, both those boys fathers deserted them, and both had domineering mothers for quite a while. Maybe we aren't seeing the obvious?" It had bothered Curley when he'd found the two fourteen year olds sharing the shower one night. "Aren't you two a little old to be bathing together?"

       From the day the two boys had laid eyes on each other they'd been mutually fascinated. Tobin thought Tommy was the neatest, and Tommy had thought his somewhat smaller friend the cutest kid he'd ever seen. Tobin had always had an appreciative audience at his diaper changes in Tommy. Boys that age are not interested in girls at all, but are generally interested in each other. Neither boy had seen much different in the way they looked at each other from the way their friends acted. It was only now that they were beginning to realize that their interests weren't quite the same as their friends anymore. "I don't know why all those guys can talk about anymore are those dumb girls. Hey did you check out the Bryan Moore - he's quite a hunk." Somehow they'd begun to realize that the other kids wouldn't be interested, but since they were so close, it never occurred to them not to talk the way they felt to each other.

       Neither wanted to think of himself as different from the rest of the guys, and they tended to think of themselves as "just not ready for girls yet." Hadn't that been what Tommy's grandfather had said to them last year anyway. The diaper games they played became increasingly affectionate, and Tommy would often come down to the lower bunk in the mornings for a tickle fight, which often turned into them rubbing themselves through their diapers against the mattress side by side. Eventually the game proved to be more exciting if they did it against each other’s diapers instead of the mattress. Changing each other was a new game they also enjoyed. They justified it on the grounds that they didn't want to bother Kate, but the amount of time spent with the bottle of baby oil was considerably more than required. The boys discovered that it was just nice to lie in bed together, and Tommy would often climb down in the middle of the night. Thus, it was that Kate found them sound asleep with their arms around each other one morning. She tiptoed out.

       "Curley, I don't think we should just ignore Tommy and Tobin anymore." Curley sighed, "I know, but I've had a little bit of trouble accepting it, and now I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it. I guess what you saw this morning kinda eliminates any doubts. Boy! My old man would have had a stroke. What do you think we ought to tell Jonathan."

       "I think that he should know the truth - but we better find out what that is before we tell him anything."

       Thus, it was that about a month latter Curley had a chat with his youngest son. They were driving up to a baseball tournament together that Jonathan's freshman baseball team was playing in New Hampshire. It was a three-hour drive, Jonathan had gone up in the team bus, and there was plenty of time for a long quiet talk about the world.

       "You really like Tommy a lot, don't you son?"

       "Sure. He's my best friend."

       "You know Tobin, my best friend is your mother?" He smiled. "When we're together, it just feels right. You know I just love lying there in bed with her - not doing anything - just lying there. You ever feel that way about Tommy."

       "Yeah. Sometimes. I guess so? Why? Shouldn't I feel that way about him?" Tobin was suddenly growing suspicious. He had a funny cold feeling in his stomach that something was wrong with him.

       "No, actually Tobin I think it's pretty natural for you to feel that way about Tommy."

       "Oh." The boy said obviously relieved.

       "Have you noticed how Jonathan and Sarah have been acting lately?"

       "Yeah! Kinda goofy. They are always sneaking off and hugging and kissing each other."

       "Sorta reminds me of you and Tommy a bit - whata ya think?"

       "Well - sorta I suppose."

       "You known Sarah's really Jonathan's girlfriend now so that's pretty natural too. Seems to me just like you and Tommy."

       "Tommy can't be my girlfriend - that's silly."

       "Not really - lots of boys have boyfriends just like lots of boys have girl friends."

       "Is that really true Dad? - Isn’t that - I mean aren't guys like that ah - " Tobin was suddenly realizing where this conversation was going, and he looked extremely worried and was obviously getting upset.

       "Well, some people do call boys and men like that names, but generally we refer to them as gay. People only do that cause they're different. But really different isn't bad - it's just different. And there are just as many nice gay people as there are straight people."

       "What if I'm gay - would that be bad?"

       "Tobin I love you, your mother loves you and Jonathan loves you. Just as you are. It doesn't matter to us whether you're gay or your straight. For that matter we really love Tommy too, he's more or less been our foster son for 5 years now. Whether you're really gay or straight is something that you can't fully know for many years. It isn't very simple actually; a lot of people, including many gays tend to stereotype themselves as totally gay or totally straight. In truth, most people can have sexual feelings and attachments to members of both sexes. For the majority of people, these feelings are strongest towards members of the opposite sex. This is reasonable because that’s where kids come from and our species survives. At the same time, however, it is not unusual for a straight to have deep affection for another guy, and this sometimes becomes a relationship that extends far beyond simple friendship. In some cases a largely straight man or boy may find that he is strongly attracted to a specific individual of the same sex. He may even live a gay lifestyle for a while. I would think the reverse is probably true for many gays as well. Most boys go through a period of homoeroticism when they grow up, usually just before and during puberty. In more relaxed cultures it's perfectly normal for boys to be seen holding hands or even kissing. For many, if not most boys, their first sexual experience is with another boy, this may be no more than beating off together or it can go as far as making love like a man and a woman. Truth is, my best friend and I did a lot of experimenting together when we were 12 and 13. It was fun and we both found it exciting, but as we grew older we simply got more interested in girls."

       "You did?"

       "Sure. You’re the only one I've ever told though. I thought I should share it with you so you'd know that I understand your feelings about Tommy. Your mother and I have discussed this whole thing quite a bit. We feel that you and Tommy have a lot in common: and just like we approve of Sarah and Jonathan's relationship, we approve of yours too. So Tommy is welcome anytime, and he can still spend the night in your room."

       But there are things I want you to remember, the first is that you should not stereotype yourself as an individual. Always be open to new possibilities in life. It is entirely possible that your relationship with Tommy may last a lifetime, on the other hand, as you get older it may turn to friendship instead and you will find a relationship with another man or woman. Don't be down on yourself because you're different. Except yourself as you are - not as others tell you you should be. Just remember that the most important thing in life - is to have someone to share it with, and if that's another guy - so be it."

       Curley noticed that Tobin was starting to get a little bored with the lecturing at this point. It was time to add the extra kicker. "How would you like to take Karate?" Tobin's interested perked right up: "Wow! You serious?" "Sure am, your mother and I thought we'd give you and Tommy lesson's for late birthday presents."

       Tobin and Tommy, who'd avoided team sports like the plague, took to karate like fish to water. Everybody in the house got a little tired of karate this and karate that. When Halloween arrived, the two boys announced that they were going to go trick or treating for UNICEF instead of candy that year cause they were getting too old for regular trick'r treat. This made the Curley's wonder if the two boys were loosing their baby interests. They needn't have worried. "Hah!" Tobin shouted, striking his best karate pose. "Eee-Ya!" Yelled Tommy, dancing around doing a series of hand movements and kicks. The boys were dressed as Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles - more or less - with plastic masks and torsos, headbands and various strange eastern karate weapons. The effect on the two 14 year olds could not be fully appreciated without, however, noting the kelly green died diapers and plastic pants. "Mutant Baby Ninja Turtles!" Jonathan squawked laughing uncontrollably. "Wrong again! - Round eye!" The two boys responded, pointing to their pink headbands "We're Gay Mutant Baby Ninja Turtles." They had a great time parading around the neighborhood. The parents thought they were hysterical, and a lot of little kids kept asking: "Are those REAL diapers?"

       One weekend, shortly after Jonathan's 15th birthday, Sarah was over and the two of them were upstairs in his room. Jonathan was in diapers when Sarah arrived. They were petting on the bed, an occupation that had started the year before. Both the Curleys and the Jackobys had made a point over the years of providing them with a steady stream of reliable information on their sexuality - in small doses, and never made much of a deal out of it. When it had become obvious that the two were getting to be a whole lot more than friends, both parents had sat them down and had laid down the law. They could have their privacy - so long as intercourse remained off limits. Anything else was their concern, though they were expected to be discrete. Both children had readily agreed. Sarah had discovered that they were both aroused by the mention of Jonathan's diapers, and they had taken to appearing on Jonathan, when his parents weren't around, whenever she came over. Today was a little different in that he actually hadn't expected her - he'd just been in the mood for diapers.

       "My goodness!" Sarah exclaimed sliding her hand down the front of Jonathan's diapers, "aren't we wet today!" Jonathan looked embarrassed. "Maybe mommy ought to change her little boy?" Jonathan looked startled; his mother rarely did that for him anymore, now that he really didn't need them. In fact, it had been quite a while. He didn't have much time to agree or disagree because Sarah was already unbuckling his trousers - she at least had no intention of "letting her little boy stay in those wet diapers." "My! Jonathan's little thing is poking way up in the air." She teased. "I think mommy can make it feel nice and good - we don't want little Jonathan to get any diaper rash do we?" She rubbed baby oil on him, enjoying the feel of his strong member in her hand, and then moved down and oiled his balls. Tickling him a little bit between the legs, she had him roll over so she could do his fanny - adding a back rub in for good measure, and then poured extra oil all over his "little pink hole” and rubbing it in. By the time she'd pulled the diapers between his legs, Jonathan was squirming with pleasure, and after he was diapered up she put her hand back down and gave him release into the flannel. "Soo convenient, mommy can wait to clean up her little boy while her little boy makes mommy feel good."

       Jonathan smiled sweetly, "Maybe mommy wants to be Jonathan's little girl for a little while?" Sarah looked even more startled than Jonathan. Jonathan's hand was already stroking her between the legs, but to her surprise the implicit suggestion made waves of pleasure surge through her at his touch. Jonathan noted the change and grinned at his blushing girlfriend. "Goodness, what do you know! After all these years! I thought you just liked to look at little boys in diapers - I didn't know you were jealous too!" Neither had Sarah. Jonathan's performance rivaled Sarah's, and spent, the two of them had lain there in each others arms for over an hour when he suddenly noticed a rather guilty look on her face. "Hmm!" he looked her in the eye, "My little girl doesn't need a change does she?" Sarah blushed again, "I always did wonder what it felt like." The changing routine was just as fun the second time.

       After that diapers became a standard part of their routine. Sarah never wore them much other than when they were on, and eventually, in bed together. One such afternoon they were both lying naked on Sarah's bed. Her parents had gone for the weekend with the other children and she was home alone. She was gently stroking Jonathan's member and teasing him. "My what a hairy big pole for such a little little boy. It sure was a lot smoother the first time I saw it." Jonathan did blush at that particular memory. "That was really rotten of you - you know - it was really humiliating having you there when mom cleaned me up." She grinned, "I know. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Besides, it was the only time I ever got to see you when you were really a little boy. You looked really cute with your smooth little peter. I thought it looked very nice, and it still turns me on just to think about it. You don't look very much like a little boy now - I'm afraid."

       "Yeh. I know." He smiled wistfully, "sometimes I kinda wish all that fur had never grown, I sometimes imagine what it would be like to be that way again. For that matter, I never got to see you that way at all - not very fair."

       "You really want to see me smooth?"

       "I guess I would. Besides I bet it'd make diapering you a whole lot more fun."

       Sarah grinned wickedly, jumped up and left the room, to return a few minutes later holding a pair of electric clippers in her hand. "They're really for clipping our dog, but I'm sure they'll work just fine on us."

       "Us?"

       "Us." she said pushing him back on the bed, "you get to see me - I get to see you. Fair and square baby buddy boy of mine."

       Jonathan didn't look to sure about this, and felt a little panic. "I wonder how long it'll take to grow back?" He thought to himself. He didn't have much choice since Sarah had quickly plugged in the clippers while she straddled him. She grinned as his penis shot up into the air as the fur started to fly. Afterwards she spent a long time oiling him. He returned the favor. "Now you really look like a little boy!" She smiled as she diapered him up a little later. She kinda liked the way she looked too. Jonathan never did get to find out exactly "how long it would take to grow back." In fact, he started to wear trainers again - it was pretty chilly down there in the winter with the fur gone.

       The last time Jonathan's mother changed him was shortly thereafter. "Sarah's idea or yours?" She smiled gently. "Well kinda both of ours. I did her too. It kinda reminds us of what we were like when we were little."

       "I think it looks nice," she smiled. "Seems to me though that from here on out Sarah's taking over the diaper changes for you kid." she gave him an extra little squeeze where a mother isn't supposed to, and pulled the diapers up between his legs. It gave Jonathan a start. "I'm going to miss my little boy, but he's kinda turning into a big guy now."

       Sarah and Jonathan got married after college. Both went to Harvard, and afterwards into pediatric medicine at Tufts. It was said that they seemed to always have a special feeling for kids. Tobin and Tommy moved in together permanently when they both went off to U. Mass together. Tobin finished a degree in library science while Tommy managed to complete a law degree at B.U. They "officially" moved in together during law school, while Tobin got a job working in B.U.'s library. The Curleys threw them a housewarming and bought them a new couch and dining room table. They'd done the same for Sarah and Jonathan the year before.

       When Tobin and Tommy had headed off for U Mass, the big house on Spring Street seemed very empty. Curley and Kate kind of rattled around in it. They missed the constant commotion of boys running in and out. It had been 9 years since little Jonathan had come into their lives.

       Kate was sitting in the kitchen when Curley answered the phone.

       "Mark Struthers! Well how are you? Haven't heard from you in ages. Jonathan? Yep he and Sarah just started their second year at Harvard. Tobin's over at U. Mass now. Yes. Everythings great. Yes. Proud as punch. Kinda rattles around here now. OK - take care - bye."

       "What was all that about Curley?"

       "I'm not sure, just said he was checking in."

       Six weeks later Kate was standing by the front porch as Curley escorted a little boy through the door in wet pants, a defiant and confused look on his face.

THE END

 

List of Characters

Adults

Mrs. Coughlin - Tommy's mother, single parent, formerly emotionally abusive mother.

Arthur Curley - his foster father

Kate Curley - Jonathan's foster mother

Marylin Jackoby - Sarah's mother - the school nurse

Joseph Miller - Vice principal of Brookline elementary

Burt Phillips - Burger King assistant coach

Mark Struthers - juvenile probation officer

Lou Harrison - coach of Walters & Scranton Little League Team

Children

Jonathan Allen - our hero, and a thoroughly rotten kid at the start of this tale

Tommy Coughlin - young diaper fetishist & former foster son of the Curley’s

Mikey, Timothy & Billy - 1st & Jason 2cnd graders in the wet set

Sarah Jackoby- spunky girl and whizz at baseball.

Joe Kelly - another rotten kid

Terry Smith 4th grader in wet set. Wears leg braces

Tobin Wheeler, 4th grade repressed diaper fetishist.