PREP SCHOOL
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Chapter One

	I stood in the doorway of the great hall next to 
matron and waved goodbye to my mother and father. I was 7 
1/2 years old and had just been entered into St. Joseph's 
Preparatory School by my parents while my father and mother 
went to Japan for 2 years. They had done everything 
possible to prepare me for this for the last six weeks 
since my father had heard of his promotion within the 
company. We had all come to St. Joseph's together to view 
it, been shown around, had tea with the headmistress and 
all the things you do when choosing a place to dump your 
only child, but all I really wanted was to cuddle up to my 
mummy at home.
	As they pulled out of the driveway the matron used her 
hanky to wipe my tears away and walked me back towards the 
room where we had left my suitcase. She swung the door to 
the room open. This was the reason why I liked this school 
more than the others we had seen. The room was neat and 
comfortable with two beds, a desk, TV set and wardrobes. 
There was a door to the bathroom which was shared by the 
room next door. The matron walked over to my suitcase, 
picked it up and turned around with me still holding her 
hand. "It will be a long while before you get to stay in 
this room," she said.
	We walked back along the passage way and up another 
flight of stairs then along another passage until we 
arrived at another door. The matron swung it open and I 
followed her in. The room had six beds in it with bedside 
tables and six small wardrobes but nothing else. Along one 
end were 3 doors. The matron walked over to one of the beds 
and placed my suitcase on it.
	"This will be your bed," she announced. "This is where 
all our boys start off." Then she undid my suitcase and 
started to go through the new things my mother had bought 
for me. "Lets just sort through this and take out the 
things you need," she said. She started to take out my new 
underpants, socks, pyjamas and shirts. She found Arnold, my 
teddy and put him to one side along with my toothbrush and 
a photo of my parents and put the rest of my things, 
including all my clothes, back in the case.
	"We will put the case in the storeroom for when you 
need it," she said. "While you are here you will wear only 
school clothes." I didn't understand, but it didn't matter 
to me as long as I had Arnold. Then she said we would go 
down for tea with the other boys and she would show me 
around while they were doing prep after tea.
	After we had juice and sandwiches in the dining room 
the matron took me back to the dormitory we had been in. 
She showed me through two of the doors at the end of the 
room. One was a bathroom with a huge bath tub like at a 
football stadium and three showers. It also had toilets and 
sinks with mirrors. The other room, she explained, was a 
changing room where we would go to get dressed. It had 
several large drawers and cupboards and a few other things 
that I did not recognize. It looked like a doctor's room, I 
thought.
	As we went back into the dormitory some of the other 
boys appeared. They were all dressed in the same uniform of 
short grey trousers, white shirt with school tie, blue 
pull-over and black shoes, grey socks. The matron told them 
all to come over and meet their new classmate, which they 
all did. She introduced them all to me and me to them. Then 
she announced that they should all get changed for play 
time since it was such a nice day. All the boys started to 
undress and put away their clothes. The matron suggested I 
should do the same so that I could play with them and the 
matron could put my clothes away.
	As I started to undress, not really knowing what was 
going on, I watched the boy next to me as he took of his 
sweater and folded it carefully, then his tie which he put 
away. He took off his shirt and placed it on his bed and 
then slipped of his shoes and finally, his shorts. It was 
as he was putting his shorts away that I realised he was 
not wearing underpants like the cotton ones my mother had 
bought for me, but his appeared to be made of plastic. All 
the boys than went into the changing room while wearing 
only their pants and socks. The matron scowled at me and 
helped me to undress down to my pants so that I could join 
the other boys.
	We both went in to the room and found the other boys 
lined up waiting for the matron. She stood me at the end of 
the line and went to the front. I noticed that even though 
some of the boys were older all were wearing the same 
plastic underpants. The first boy pulled down his pants, 
stepped out of them and passed them to the matron. She 
turned them inside out as we all looked on, I could now see 
that these pants were lined with several layers of cloth. 
When she could see that the pants were dry she gave the boy 
a clean pair and the next boy took his pants off while the 
first slipped his on. Again the second was dry and the 
third, but the fourth boy was not so happy to remove his 
pants. The matron gave him a stern look and he slowly 
lowered his pants to the floor. It was obvious straight 
away that the pants were soaking wet. The matron stood the 
boy to one side as the fifth boy dropped his pants. His 
pants were dry but as he dropped them there was a large 
brown stain visible. The matron said that since he had not 
wiped his bottom he would get the same as the fourth boy.
	I was the last one in the line. I didn't know what was 
expected of me. The matron told me to drop my pants. I was 
unsure since I had never done that with anyone else 
present, but I slowly slipped my y-fronts to the ground and 
passed them to her. She made a deal out of inspecting them, 
but of course there were no stains in them so she passed me 
a pair of the pants all the other boys had. As I slid them 
up my legs I could feel the cool plastic of the leg 
openings against my skin. They were warm cloth on the 
inside with white plastic outers.
	Meanwhile, the matron had turned her attention on the 
other two boys. She opened one of the drawers and pulled 
out several items which she laid out on the bench down the 
middle of the room. She took a large cloth square and 
folded it into a triangle and lowered one of the boys on to 
it. I had never seen any child put in a cloth nappy before 
so it took a little while for me to realise what was 
happening. She brought one corner up between the boy's legs 
and another corner up from his side. She tucked this piece 
in between the layers of the first corner and then did the 
same with the other corner. It was easy to see that this 
nappy was on really tight as she fastened it with a single, 
large, safety pin through the front. Then she placed a pair 
of plastic pants over the boy's feet and pulled them up his 
legs before standing him up pulling them around his waist 
and tucking in any cloth of the nappy. As we all looked on, 
the second boy got the same treatment, but the matron 
stopped to clean his bottom with a wet wipe before pulling 
up the front of his nappy.
	Once we were all in our pants or nappies we went 
through to the dormitory to get dressed. The matron took me 
over to the wardrobe next to my bed and opened it. All the 
clothes were laid out in exactly the same way that they 
were in all the other boys wardrobes. I watched to see what 
the other boys were wearing and selected a polo shirt and 
track pants to put on. As I dressed I watched the boy next 
to me trying to pull his track pants over his nappy. He had 
a huge bulge in them. Once I had my trainers on we all 
lined up near the door and were taken outside to play. It 
was only as we left the backdoor of the school that I 
remembered I had not been to the toilet yet since tea. 

Chapter Two follows very soon.