Reform School (Patreon)

One foggy morning, Kayla Summers took a final long drag from her cigarette; holding the smoke in her lungs and closing her eyes before finally exhaling.  This was stupid.  So fucking stupid.  Kayla opened her eyes and stepped through the cloud of nicotine like a debutant applying expensive perfume. If she already smelled like smoke, it’d be harder to prove that she lit up in the school’s ladies’ room.

Fucking law change:  She’d smoked since she was fifteen, and now that she was nineteen, the law had changed again, upping the smoking age to twenty-one.  Just when she was getting used to being an adult, the world decided that she should be a kid again.

Kayla could join the military, vote for the president, and get fucked on camera for money, but she couldn’t have a beer or a cigarette.  ShE jUsT wAsN’t ReAdY fOr ThAt! Not that the law stopped her.  Definitely didn’t stop her from drinking.  Didn’t stop her from smoking other things, either.  

Things like laws and rules, Kayla had found, rarely stopped people from doing bad things.  Didn’t help people experience good things either.  They just tended to punish people who stepped out of line by withholding necessary things:  Freedom, licenses, diplomas.  Those sorts of things.

It was easier to just withhold necessities and privileges than to actually, y’know, help people.  A surprising, if hypocritical insight considering Kayla’s current situation.  Kayla was smart.  Everyone knew that.  Naturally bright.  Kayla was also kind of a badass.  Anyone who didn’t know that quickly learned it.  What Kayla wasn’t, unfortunately, was someone who gave a damn. That’s what all her teachers had said.

Not quite true, actually:  Most of them had said that she was “bright” but she was “unfocused”, or “unmotivated”, or “didn’t apply herself”, or “lazy”.

“Kayla, if you just apply yourself,” the endless parade of teachers had told her year after year, “you’d be capable of so much more!”

It wasn’t always “apply yourself”.  Sometimes it was “focus” or “pay attention”, or “practice self-discipline”, or just “grow up”.

Being in remedial classes and credit recovery classes and having electives withheld all throughout elementary, middle, and highschool had done nothing to motivate her.  Mostly because people underestimated how little Kayla truly cared.

She didn’t care that she couldn’t do arithmetic without a calculator.  That’s what calculators were for!  She didn’t care that she could still only read at a sixth grade level.  All the best stuff was on T.V. anyways and she didn’t need to read a whole lot of fancy words for Reddit.  Why sweep the floor when you have a vacuum cleaner?  Why vacuum when you had a maid?

Most of all, Kayla didn’t care that her complete lack of experience, skill sets, education, (and attitude) made her virtually unemployable.

Only Mr. Witherspoon, Junior Year, had come out and said that Kayla didn’t give a damn in so many words. Mr. Witherspoon tended to tell things like they were.  Kayla had respected that about Mr. Witherspoon.  Not enough to actually give a damn, but…

Kayla dropped the cigarette on the curb and put it out with her heel. She couldn’t stop swearing under her breath in the early morning fog.  It had finally come to this.  Mom was lowering the boom.  A week ago, Kayla had been given an ultimatum.  She could get a job, work towards getting her G.E.D. or get out of the house.

Sensibly, Kayla had chosen Option B.  It’s not that Kayla wanted to go back to school to finish up a senior year she’d never had.  It’s just that “school” was better than work and a helluva lot better than being homeless.  

She had experience in school. it was known to her.  Work wasn’t. This was just a band-aid on a bullet wound, Kayla knew; but at least she’d have her old bed in the meantime.  Could likely stretch out the goodwill from getting her G.E.D into a couple months of purposefully fruitless “job searching”.

Till then, Kayla had to actually look like she was making an effort.  This would be easy, she promised herself.  Alternative education schools and the like were geared toward getting results more than an education.  Unlike her previous schools, this place made money on getting people degrees and jobs; they were incentivized to take her money, train her up and kick her out instead of just holding her for eight hours a day.  

Glorified daycares, that’s all most schools really were..  Unlike her previous schools, at least the other kids would all be just as dumb and screwed up as her. Hard to be the dumb kid when everybody was more or less equal in their failure.

“Fuck!” The highschool dropout cursed under her breath for even thinking of herself as a kid.  Yeah, she was a skinny short woman, but she had made what felt like countless boys develop a fearful respect for short women. Big attitude and small package meant that all that energy was condensed.  More pure.  Mom was a short woman.

It was nerves, Kayla assured herself.  The last time she was in school, the words “student” and “kid” were synonyms.  She should feel proud of herself that she still knew what a synonym was, of all the useless information that had been crammed into her skull through the years.

Nerves weren’t the only factor for the mental slip up. Mrs.Cocker’s Reformation School for Adult Juveniles was a strange and slightly forced choice. What a weird fucking name! It sounded like something from Downtown Abbey where fancy ass rich people sent their daughters to learn how to sip tea and walk with books on their heads.

Adult Juveniles? As in grown-up kids?  Who the fuck talked like that?  Who the fuck called people that?  It was the cheapest of her options, though. Also, the only one that didn’t require a credit check or entrance exam; some people apparently WERE too stupid to learn. Lastly, it was the only one that Mom had agreed to pay for out of her own pocketbook.

Funny, too, how it was the only one that also required her to take a private bus to their facility.  Kayla would have thought that the cheapest school in the city wouldn’t have wasted money on transportation. Just take her money, give her an address and then tell her to show up on time.

Kayla didn’t even know where this place was.  She’d certainly never passed or driven by the place.  The young woman would have definitely remembered reading a sign with such a stuck-up and ridiculous sounding name.  

Telling her where the campus was would have shown too much trust in her.  It was why Mom approved of it.  “You can’t be irresponsible if they don’t give you the choice,” she said.  Mom even took the car, dropping her off at the bus stop and confiscating her cell phone and wallet.  It was either go to school or walk home.  It was all Kayla could do to stop Mom from waiting with her, holding her hand like she was a Kindergartener on the first day of school.

Whatever.

Kayla stood there on the curb in her black top, skinny jeans, and sandals waiting for the bus.  Her bra matched her top and her panties were nonexistent. Her pants were so form fitting  that panty lines would have looked like a cancerous bulge by comparison.    The stylish shimmering silver belt dangling from her hips was literally just for show.  

If this morning’s dry run was any indication, any bathroom breaks Kayla took were going to require at least an extra minute and a half to two minutes between yanking and shimmying her pants off and on her hips and down her legs.  In a perverse way, she was banking on it.  Longer bathroom breaks meant less boring ass lectures.

Kayla liked going to the bathroom during class.  It was weird to say, but there was more than a grain of simple truth to it.  She liked the quiet.  The escape.  The privacy.  The sense of autonomy.  Before she dropped out she went to the bathroom at least once a period whether she needed it or not.  Not even the most hardened teacher taskmasters dared stop her from exercising her most basic privacy and autonomy.     

A psychologist might say that Kayla used going and hanging out in the bathroom as a way to manipulate social moores to flee responsibility and rebel against authority while trapped in a system where she otherwise felt very little control.  Fortunately, Kayla had never taken a psychology course, and old habits died hard.

A light breeze brushed by her, carrying the scent of cigarette smoke with it.  Kayla couldn’t smell it of course. She was long since noseblind to it.  Her new backpack,empty save for the half a pack of cigarettes stuffed in the front pocket, drooped sadly over one shoulder.  That would no doubt change by the end of the day after she was overloaded with bullshit remedial textbooks and worksheets.  It’d probably smell like cigarette smoke by the end of the week, too.  

Did adult schools even give worksheets?  Kayla suspected they did.

Her waiting came to an end as the old yellow school bus rolled through the fog, it’s brakes squeaking slightly as it rolled to a stop.  Not quite a school bus, actually.  Not a proper one.  School buses were bigger. Longer.  This was a short bus. THE short bus.  The kind of bus that the REAL dumb kids rode back in the day; the ones who drooled all over themselves and pissed their pants on the regular.  The ones for whom school really was a daycare.

Kayla shook her head and clicked her tongue.  It figured.  She read the side of the bus, hoping it was some kind of mistake.  No such luck.  “Mrs.Cocker’s Reformation School for Adult Juveniles,” it read.  

The door opened.  Save for the driver, it looked empty.  The driver himself was so warped that he looked like he might be part of the vehicle, with  yellow clothes and yellow jaundiced skin.  His fat rolls had avalanched beneath the steering wheel and shorts that didn’t go nearly far enough down his knees.  The dark, uneven patches of stubble gave him a kind of troll-like appearance; the kind of monster that waited under bridges for unexpecting billy goats to trespass.  “Gettin’ on?”

The dropout took a deep breath, wishing she had time for one last cigarette, and exhaled.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I guess so.”  She took those first treacherous steps up onto the bus.

The world blacked out for a moment after her feet planted themselves on the bus floor proper.  Her vision became a cat’s slow blink, just long enough to notice the blackness as her insides began to sting and itch and tingle like an inside out sunburn that was just starting to peel.

Sight rocketed back to her like a flickering bulb just before an iffy power outage.  Kayla couldn’t put her finger on it at first, but something looked...different.  It was the bus driver, Kayla realized.  

He was still fat, to be sure, but no longer nearly as grotesque. He was rounder, more pleasantly plump.  His face smoother, and skin cleaner.  His eyes brighter.  It was the difference between a man in a monster fat suit and an actual overweight person.  Even though he was still sitting, he looked like he carried the weight better.   She wouldn’t have ever dated him, but he was nowhere near as repulsive as he had first seemed.

A trick of the morning light and fog, perhaps.

The yellow uniform he  had on looked cleaner; less dirty and jaundiced and more the bright yellow of sunflowers and starshine. The legs were baggie and long enough to appear infinitely more flattering. He smelled better, too.  Not that the young lady had been close enough to sniff him out on the curb but she would have bet even money that he smelled of unwashed clothes and three day old body odor.  Now, her nose detected not so subtle hints of baby powder.  It was a clean and pleasant smell.

“Ya okay there, pumpkin?”  His voice was warm and friendly, like Santa’s younger cousin.

Kayla blinked again and rubbed her eyes afraid that the nicer, less trollish looking driver would dissipate with her morning eye gunk.  There he remained, smiling softly.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I think so.”  Then it occurred to her to repeat, “Pumpkin?!”

“Time to sit down, Kayla,” A woman’s voice coaxed. Kayla whipped her head around.  “The bus can’t move until all kids are buckled safely in.”  Standing in the aisle was a woman.  A foot taller than Kayla, she was black with dark eyes that sparkled and beautiful straightened hair that curled slightly and stylishly at the ends. Her red blouse buttoned neatly down the center and tucked into a dark skirt that traveled down to her ankles.  Her black flats were the epitomey of “sensible”.

She hadn’t been there a second ago.  Kayla was positive of that.

“Who are-?”  Kayla found herself unable to finish.      

“I’m Miss Jenkins,” the new lady chirped. “I’ll be one of your teachers.”  Gently, she grabbed Kayla by the wrist, tugging her forward. “Come on.”  

One step.  That’s all it took for Kayla to realize that something was very wrong: with her environment; with her clothes; possibly even her mind.  

Her gait was slightly off; more than slightly.  Her brain registered the slight papery crinkle sound when she took that first step but refused to give any kind of meaning to it; nor did it give significance to the way her legs now became not so slightly parted, an intruder inserted between them.  

What it did give away was how loose her pants felt around her legs brushing lightly against her knees and ankles like gently wafting curtains.  What it did give away was how she couldn’t wiggle her toes freely in the open air and how her ankles now felt covered.  What it did give away was her nipples brushing lightly against her shirt. What it did give away was how full (if not heavy) her backpack felt dangling from her shoulder.  Speaking of which, was something dangling from her shirt collar?

“Huh?”  Kayla planted her feet and looked down at herself. Her shirt was a faded pink, now instead of dark black.   Her sandals had been replaced with pink and white sneakers; velcro instead of laces. Her jeans were suddenly super baggie, around the legs anyhow.  The waist, though...  “What the fu-?”

“Oh,” another voice interrupted.  “Let me help, dear.”  Another thirty-something woman seemed to manifest just on the periphery of Kayla’s vision. She too wore jeans, but they were anything but skinny (she didn’t quite hve the figure for it).  Her sneakers had laces, and the thin sweater gave an air of professionality that Kayla’s ensemble sorely lacked. The red of her hair was the kind only available out of a bottle.  She took Kayla’s backpack, now bulging with SOMETHING and slid it behind a bus seat.

“Thank you Miss Stone,” Miss Jenkins said to the other adult.  “Say thank you, Kayla.”

Kayla was too dumbstruck to reply.

The feeling of the backpack sliding off her shoulder allerted Kayla to three other new pieces of information: Her bra had vanished; she had a silver studded chord clipped onto the collar of her pink shirt; and her panties...existed?

If panty lines had been a cancerous tumor, she now had something inoperable and terminal riding on her hips. Stupidly, she lifted the shirt up and stared down at her waist. No belt, either.  Peeking up at her from just above the elastic waistband was a thing papery line. What was that?  

A dia-?

“Ah-ah-ah.” Miss Jenkins’s hand gently slapped the top of Kayla’s.  Reflexively, Kayla opened her palms and let the hem of her shirt drop back down. “No playing with your clothes. Time to sit down.”  Kayla’s thought process was interrupted by a deceptively strong grip yanking her out of the bus aisle and forcing her into a seated position.  

More than just her clothes had changed.  She was positive that even short bus seats didn’t typically have roller coaster harnesses on them.  Quick, practiced hands pulled straps over her shoulders and buckled the disoriented Kayla in within seconds before she could react.  

“There we go!” the taller woman cooed.  “Comfy?”  She didn’t wait for Kayla to respond.  “Okay, driver!  Next stop!”

A sudden panic filled the young woman. She pulled at the straps keeping her pinned to the seat.  They didn’t budge.  She pressed and squeezed at the main buckle coming up between her legs positioned just above her belly button.  The red release tab might as well have been painted on; just for show.   No sounds of concern came from either of the two women who’d ambushed her.

The pair just watched her, light eerily pleasant smiles framing their faces as the girl began to kick her feet and futilely wriggle her shoulders.  The bus moved on regardless, the floor beneath Kayla vibrating as it did.  Kayla looked down at herself, back to the sparkling not-necklace dangling from her used-to-be black shirt.

Was that...was that a pacifier?  Why did she have a pacifier dangling from her shirt?  The fuck was going on?  Her struggling gave way to quiet contemplation  “Someone’s already tuckering themselves out,” the redhead chuckled.

Kayla didn’t have to wait long to get more answers to her questions.  The next stop made a few things abundantly clear.  The cheese wagon crawled to a stop with a creek. Soon after the doors swung open, Kayla heard a throaty “BYE MOMMY!”  Up the steps tramped yet another rider.

Like Kayla, the boy appeared to be around her age;  nineteen; twenty tops.   If only the similarities had stopped there. His t-shirt was baby blue, but had a large pacifier clipped to it.  His sneakers were also velcroed on and lit up whenever he took a step.  His backpack was stuffed.  His pants were non-existent.  

Kayla’s breath caught in her throat.  Dude was wearing a diaper.  Not an “adult diaper” like Depends.  A diaper.  White. Puffy.  Taped on and with cartoons plastered all over the front and back.  “Good morning Jimmy.”

“MORNING MISS JENKINS!” The man baby shouted back. “MORNING MISS STONE!!  Dude only had one volume, and that setting was loud.  He noisily crinkled past Kayla, handing off his backpack to the black lady while the artificial ginger scooted him into the row behind Kayla.

Crinkle?!  Gently Kayla pressed her thighs together and heard the same sound.  Felt it too. The sudden pillow like bulk suddenly made more sense.  No!  It couldn’t be!   She couldn’t be wearing a-!  Uh-oh.  That smell; the baby powder smell; it probably wasn’t coming from the bus driver.

“Oh Jimmy,” she heard Miss Stone say.  “One of these days you’re going to make it on the bus without being soaking wet.”  Jimmy just giggled back.  “Oh well.  We’ll change you when we get to school.”  More giggles and the metallic clicking sounds of a giant baby seat being secured.  

That’s what this was.  Kayla was dressed like a baby, wearing a diaper, and strapped into an honest to goodness baby seat.

Kayla felt a scratching, acidic burn in the back of her throat.  Her stomach was threatening to eject the morning gas station coffee she chugged before Mom had abandoned her on the curb. The name of the school she’d signed up for made a certain kind of sense now: Mrs.Cocker’s Reformation School for Adult Juveniles.  

Adult Juveniles.  This really WAS a short bus; and everyone who went to this school was so plainly deranged and deficient that they had to be treated like babies for their own good.  

Everyone, that is but Kayla.

“Excuse me.  Excuse me!”  Kayla called out as the bus started rolling again.  

“Yes, Kayla?”  Miss Jenkins said.  “Is something wrong?”

A creeping dread came over the girl.  She didn’t remember giving anyone her name.  Never mind that.  “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”

“No there isn’t, hun.”  The response was immediate.  “You’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

“But I’m sitting in a baby seat,” Kayla said, doing her best to sound intelligent and reasonable.  If she could be articulate and reasonable, it’d be evident to anyone that this was the result of bad advertising and a fundamental understanding.

“Uh-huh,” The woman who’d put her in the seat said.  “Yes you ARE sitting in a baby seat! Very good!”  She tweaked Kayla’s nose. “So smart!”  Kayla genuinely couldn’t tell whether she was missing the point on purpose or not.

New tactic.  Babies knew about baby things.  What if she knew about adult stuff? “And I’ve not wearing a bra anym-”

She was interrupted again, “Don’t worry, you’ll get a bra.”  Miss Jenkins said. She paused a beat.  “When you’re a big girl...”

The dropout felt her face flush.  Was this happening?!  Was this really happening?!   

“I AM A BIG GIRL!”  Funnily enough, declaring that she was a big girl had the opposite effect.  It was one of those para-something...by saying she was a big girl, she seemed much littler.

Both of the thirty-somethings giggled behind their hands.  Jimmy laughed too, but it was the empty laughter of someone who didn’t rightly understand what was happening and was just going along with the crowd.  

“Big girls don’t wear diapers, do they?”  Miss Jenkins pointed out.  “And I can tell you’re wearing one.”

The highschool dropout felt something close to a tantrum well up.  “That’s not fair!” she cried out.  “I wasn’t wearing one a second go!  I didn’t put this on myself!  I didn’t put any of this on!  Just a second ago I was wear-”

“Of course not,” Miss Stone jumped in.  “Babies can’t dress themselves. Your Mommy changed you and dressed you when she got you up this morning.”

“No she didn’t!”

The two adults exchanged  knowing looks.  “So you’re saying you’re Mommy didn’t wake you up this morning?”

Kayla flushed.  “That’s not the point!  I’m supposed to be going to school!  Not a daycare for dummies!”

“We ARE going to school, Kayla” Miss Jenkins said. “A VERY SPECIAL school!  She seemed to be the higher ranked of the two adults...teachers...attendants?....whatever.  “But first we have to pick up all your classmates.  Oh you’ll make so many friends!  Then you’ll learn about shapes, and colors, and numbers, and letters.  So much fun!  So many wonderful things!”

The diapered girl’s outrage was only matched by her complete and total disbelief “I already know that stuff!”

“Sure you do!”  Miss Stone’s voice was high and condescending.  The kind reserved for not arguing with children and idiots who didn’t know any better.

“Seriously!” Kalya insisted.  “I’m an adult!”  That didn’t sound right for some reason.  “A grown-up!”  Nope.  “A big girl!”  Yeah, for some reason that felt appropriate.

It was nothing at all for Miss Stone to reach back behind the seat and pick up the backpack she’d stowed.  “Then why do you have these?” she asked.  The zipper came undone, and stacks and stacks of folded white rectangles practically burst out.  “That’s a lot of diapers for a big girl…”  She let the thought finish itself.

“FOR THE LAST TIME!” Kayla screamed. “I DIDN’T PACK THOSE DIAPERS!”

The head teacher nodded.  “Of course not, baby.”  she said.  “Your Mommy did.”

This was infuriating!  This was more than a mistake, this was straight up madness! This had to be a joke!  A hidden camera prank!  Something for Youtube!  Anything but what it seemed!   Anyone with half a brain could see that she and that freak in the wet diaper weren’t even in the same ballpark.  Anybody with eyes could see that she was far too old to be strapped in a baby seat or be wearing panties one could pee in!

Just as the young lady’s outrage was reaching a crescendo right as the bus engine was lowering to a dull purr. They’d reached the next stop. “I’M! NOT! A! BABY!”  The sudden quiet made Kayla’s shouting that much louder.

Miss Jenkins stood up and leaned over the shouting nineteen-year-old.  With surgical ease she picked up the pacifier with one hand and held Kayla’s nose with the other.  Kayla opened her mouth to breathe and had the pacifier rammed between her lips.  “Shush now.  Now more fussing.  Prove you can control that temper little lady, and then we’ll talk about the rest.”

The forcefulness and certainty!  No one ever talked to Kayla like that!  Not even Mom!  Meekly, Kayla averted eye contact and kept the pacifier in her mouth.  Miss Jenkins rewarded her with a pat on the head before stepping away to help the greet the next diapered dumb-dumb..

Shuddering, almost seething, Kayla kept herself under control by sucking on the rubber bulb in her mouth, shocked into silence as the next passenger came up the steps.

This new infantilized idiot had dark hair and frilly socks over Mary Jane shoes. She also had purple ribbons in her hair and a matching dress that just barely covered the top of her diaper. At least it was clean.

“Kitty! You look so pretty today!”  The girl just blushed, handing off her diaper filled backpack to the redhead while the head teacher buckled her in next to Kayla.  “Kitty, this is Kayla. She’s new to our class so be nice.  Kayla, you could learn a lot from Katie about how to be a good baby.”

Kayla held her temper this time.  She just took all of her fear and embarrassment and frustration and bit into the thick artificial teat wedged between her teeth.  The teacher took notice “Ooooh? No more tantrums?”

Slowly and deliberately, Kayla shook her head. Her nostrils flared and she had an odd instinctual desire to claw this woman’s eyes out, but she did not act on them.

The older woman stroked her chin and hemmed. “Maybe you really are a big girl if you can keep from fussing so well.”  Kayla felt an unusual amount of pride in that compliment.  “Even if you need a pacifier to help.”  

Nevermind on the pride. If her back wasn’t literally pinned to the back of the baby seat, Kayla would have slumped forward and placed her head in between her knees.  She opened her mouth and let the dummy fall out, caught by the sparkling tether that so resembled her belt.


“Tell ya what,” Miss Jenkins said as the bus started to pick up steam.  “If you can keep your diaper clean aaaall day,then maybe you ARE a big girl.  How does that sound?”

Kayla picked her head up a little straighter.  Not pee her pants?  Any non-idiot could do that, and Kayla was an exceptionally bright underachiever.  “Okay!” she said.  “That’ll be easy!”

“If you really are a big girl, yes.”  Miss Jenkins agreed.  “And if not, that’s okay too.  We’re happy to have you.”  She walked back to her (non-baby) seat as the bus started moving.  “You and Kitty make friends.”

“Hi!” The dark haired girl said to Kayla.  “I’m Kitty!  I’m a baby, too!”

“Good for you,” Kayla quipped. “I’m not.”

The girl with the non-functioning dress, cocked her head.  “No? But I thought I was supposed to teach you how to be a good baby…”  Poor thing.  Poor simple thing.

“That was a mistake.” Kayla said, trying to be polite to the woman-child.  “One that I’m fixing A.S.A.P.”

“Ay Ess Ay Pee?”

The smarter girl exhaled and crossed her arms, lest she smack someone outside the head.  “It means I’m going to fix thing.

“Oooooh.”  There was a hollowness in her voice.  GIrl did not get it.  “Are you s’posed to be a new teacher?”

Kayla almost scoffed, but then stopped herself.  “Yes,” she lied.  “Yes I am.”  If the only acceptable titles here were ‘teacher’ and ‘baby’, Kayla would choose ‘teacher’.  Kayla really was bright, after all. She could probably do these ladies’ job.  How much did she have to know to change diapers and feed bottles or whatever?

“What do you teach?” Kitty asked, seemingly completely oblivious to Kayla’s mounting distaste.  “Is it coloring? I love coloring! I always wanted a teacher to help me learn to color better!  Do you think green colors better than blue because I’ve always tho-”

Kayla interrupted her new seatmate. “Kitty, was it?”

“Yes teacher lady ma’am?”  The girl was all toothy smiles and blank, uncomprehending eyes.  

“How about we try and see if we can be quiet aaaallll the way to school?”

“Like a game?”

Kayla blinked.  It was literally like talking to a two year old. “Yes, Kitty.  Like a game.”

“Okie dokie!”  She popped her own pacifier into her mouth and started idly looking around.  Kayla fiddled with her own pacifier, but upon looking at the adults (the ones actually dressed for the part) decided against it.

The next two stops were uneventful- if by “uneventful” one meant trying not to gawk at a twenty something crinkling in pink shortalls, and a man and a woman in complementing sailor outfits. Twins? Fuckin’ twins?

Kayla just shook her head, flabbergasted at the circus unfolding in front of her.  Adult Juveniles?  Even IF someone was so damaged that they needed diapers and preschool level education, why dress them like THAT?  It was cute when they were knee high; it was kind of gross after puberty had done its job.

Speaking of gross, the sound of grunting and straining distracted her long enough to look at her seatmate. “Kitty?”

Her dress bunched up above her diaper by the restraints, Kitty did not look at Kayla.  She just kept sucking on her pacifier; staring at an invisible dot somewhere in the middle distance past the plump bus driver’s head.  Staring.  Squinting.  Grunting.

“Kitty?”  Kayla repeated herself.  Shit! That was her name right?  Had she already forgotten the freak’s name and that’s why she wasn’t responding?  Girl was responding to something, though.  Staring.  Squinting.  Grunting.

What the-?  

Another sound, faint, almost imagined, wormed its way into Kayla’s inner ear.  More crinkling.  A diaper shifting and rustling.  That and something else.  Something muted.  Suppressed.  Low.

It was Kayla’s nose that finally clued her in.  Girl was pooping! Holy shit, (a poor choice of words), she was really going right there in her lack-of-pants!  When the guy in the t-shirt and diaper tromped on, Kayla wasn’t entirely surprised to hear he’d peed himself.  Men were gross!  

But the girl next to her had straight up shit herself!  Shamelessly, too! Kayla felt bowled over!  This was impossible!  Why would anyone over the age of two do that to themselves? “Kitty?” Kayla said.  “Kitty?” Kayla waited until a bit of light seeped back into her seatmate’s eyes; the unconscious sigh, a tell that the other girl had finished with her disgusting business.  “Kitty?!”

Calmly, too calmly, Kitty took the pacifier out of her mouth and turned her head.  “Huh?  Are we all done playin’ the quiet game?”

“Did you just poop yourself?”

Kitty’s mouth twisted, deep in thought. Perplexed. “I dunno,” she said.  “Maybe? How would I tell?” Kayla felt her mouth go dry.  She had no answer.  It was such a preposterously simple question that she didn’t know how to. It was like someone asking how to eat, or walk.  “A grown-up will just check me when I need changed.”  WIth that, Kitty popped her pacifier back in her mouth.  Just like that, like a turd being flushed down the toilet, the matter seemed resolved and forgotten.

A new wrinkle folded itself deep into Kayla’s brain. How was she going to prove to the people who chartered this bus that her diaper was actually clean and dry?  There really was only one surefire way to check.  She pictured either of the two women, pulling back her waistband and staring down at her ass to see if she’d taken a dump in her pants; or pulling down her pants to squeeze between her legs and stick fingers past the leak guards to check for wetness.

Yeah, they could ask her, but people like Kitty didn’t even know when they’d shit themselves...and they thought Kayla was one of them!



Her stomach threatened to upheave its contents into her lap.  The thought that such a “school” existed repulsed the young woman on a near existential level. The idea that she’d need to attend was ludicrous.  And the notion of her, a grown-ass woman, highschool dropout or not having to get her pants checked throughout the day to prove that she wasn’t as brain dead as the others was nothing short of obscene to her.  Whatever happened to the honor system?

All while she was fuming, her nostrils flaring with indignation with every breath, the not-so-subtle aroma of Kitty’s mess continued to invade her sinuses.  It was gross.  It was disgusting.  It was...not nearly as bad as Kayla thought at first.  Oddly familiar in a way.

Everybody started out shitting themselves, Kayla realized.  That was literally just life.  The girl just didn’t cotton to the idea of people thinking she still did that.  The thought was almost too mortifying to fully process.  

The bus slowed down and came to one last stop.  Kayla looked out her window, and the teachers confirmed what she already knew.  “We’re heeeeeeere!”  

Kayla felt a knot form up in her throat.  It really was a school.  It wasn’t a massive campus like her old highschool, but it was definitely a school.  Its bricks were bright fire engine red; its roof a pleasing gray slanting down. Up on the roof a large bell tower cast a shadow that reached down to the bus.  A not-so-little-red schoolhouse.

A giant announcement board by the side of the road had mentions of picture day retakes on it.  She looked out to the road and didn’t recognize it.  Stupidly, she’d been so in shock that she hadn’t thought to look for street signs to track the path the bus took.  She really was well and truly lost.

A nearby playground to the side of the main building was abuzz with activity, though the little tykes weren’t nearly so little. It was hard to tell from afar, but the equipment looked bigger too.  Bigger diapers.  Bigger baby clothes.  Bigger playground.  And Kayla couldn’t help but feel small just looking at it.

“You’ll get to play there later,” Miss Jenkins said, having watched and misinterpreted Kayla’s gaze.  “Our class’s playground time is just after lunch.”  Miss Jenkins pressed on the button to Kayla’s seat harness and the straps slackened and released her as easy as anything.  The little read circle just below her breasts wouldn’t have so much as budged when Kayla had tried it.

Everyone was handed their backpacks and then shooed out of the bus with one teacher leading the way and the other bringing up the rear.  No opportunity to go unnoticed or escape.  The now pleasantly plump bus driver just sat in his seat and waved bye-bye to the babified adults exiting.

All of this crazy started the moment she got on the bus, Kayla realized.  Maybe it would stop the moment they got off.  No such luck.  Her childish sneakers remained sneakers.  Her jeans still had an elastic waistband and increased room to accommodate the diaper still taped snuggly around her nips.

Kitty grabbed one hand.  Jimmy grabbed the other.  The six not-quite adults formed a handholding chain and walked single file like parading elephants towards the main building.. “Can I speak to the Principal?”  Kayla called out.  Speaking to the manager. Yeah, it was the ultimate Karen Move, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Miss Jenkins at the front of the line turned her head enough to call back.  “Mrs. Cocker is very busy. We don’t want to interrupt her.  We’ve got a full day of learning and play ahead of us.”  She emphasized the word ‘play’ like it was a special carrot to dangle in front of Kayla.

Another idea bubbled up in Kayla’s mind.  She really was bright!  “I have to go to the bathroom!” she announced.  Her new classmates didn’t even know if they were pissing or shitting in their pants.  Even the tiniest tinkle into a potty could prove that she was head and shoulders above these feebs and that she didn’t really belong here!

“As soon as we get in and get everything put away,” Miss Stone called from the back.  

The toddler line was just crossing the threshold into main school building when the bell started to ring.

DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!

Loud would be an understatement. The giant bell at the top of the building reverberated, sending ripples through the air that Kayla could almost see.  Any louder and there would need to be a hunchback near the top shouting “SANCTUARY!”

“Ooops!” Miss Stone shouted over the clanging.  “We’re running a little late.  Double time kids!”

That’s when things started to fall apart.  The vibrations from the bell did more than cause Kayla to wince and wish she had a free hand to cover her ears.  That’s when she realized that the diaper between her legs was starting to dampen.

She was peeing!  Something in the vibrations traveling through the air had caused her bladder to start spasming uncontrollable.  Every step she took she could feel her formerly fresh diaper start to sag and swell and droop about with added weight.  Whether it was adrenaline, humiliation, or something else, Kayla failed to feel even the minor relief of an empty bladder; only the spreading warmth and increasing squish of a diaper that was now anything but pristine.

Biting the sides of her tongue and breathing through her mouth, Kayla did her best to keep her cool.  It was okay.  No big deal.  So she’d wet herself?  So what?  Not that she’d wanted or meant to pee her pants, but it’s not like anyone noticed.  She glanced down past her waist.  The diaper hadn’t swollen up THAT much, had it?  No. Of course it hadn’t.

And it wasn’t like anyone could tell.  No one knew.  No one but her.  She’d wet her pants and just disqualified herself from “big girl” status but she still had a chance to pull this off.  Yes, she had a wet diaper on, but she could still pull this off.  All she had to do was get to a bathroom, change herself, and then ditch the offending padding.  Maybe in a trash can already filled with offending diapers, maybe in her backpack.  It didn’t matter that she had absolutely zero experience in changing diapers-hers or anyone else’s- it was still a plan.  She could do this.

They walked through a hallway and stopped at a door.  “Miss Jenkins and Miss Stone,” the sign on the door read, with large headshots of each woman on the door.  Beneath them were smaller print names and photos of each of the adult babies.

The newest student felt her mouth go as dry as she wished her diaper had been.  How did they get her picture?  More concerningly, why did her face in the picture have such a vacant carefree look?  Kayla never looked like that.  She looked high.  She looked like a brainless twit.  She looked...babyish.  

Her face paled.  Was that another spurt of pee she’d just let loose into her pants?

The teacher at the head of the line looked past Kayla and to her cohort.  “My turn for morning diaper duty, right?”

MIss Stone grinned.  “Your words, not mine.”

Miss Jenkins nodded and opened the door up; turning on the lights and then walking out of sight.  None of the others rushed past her. Stuck in the line as she was, Kayla felt paralyzed; hemmed in by babied idiots who she now sadly had something in common with.

While Jenkins lurked behind the door, her co-worker made her way to the head of the line.  “Okay class!” she chirped.  “Let us end our morning drive-”

The other five dimwits responded in unison. “WITH A HUG, A HANDSHAKE, OR A HIGH FIVE!”  They dopped their hands back down to their sides and stood single handed. Finally, Kayla found her hands free.  If she had had any idea where she could go, or wasn’t afraid that she might fall on her face in a clumsy toddling escape; Kayla might have dashed off.

But she didn’t and she was.

“Hello Kitty,” the teacher said to the lead ‘Adult Juvenile’.  “Do you want a handshake, a hug or a high five?”  Kitty opened her arms wide and leaned in for the kind of hug normally only reserved for close family and lovers; at least in Kayla’s estimation. The sight of Kayla getting her backside patted and felt up like a ten dollar hooker didn’t get.  “I thought that was either you or Kayla,” she said.

Kitty whirled around and looked at Kayla.  “You were right!”  she said.  “I did poopie!”  She sounded astonished, as if the dropout had predicted the future or something.  

“Kitty’s coming!” Miss Stone called into the room.  “Code red!”

“Got it!  Come on Kitty!”

With small and rabid steps, Kitty toddled in, not seeming to notice the extra butt pat the adult gave her through all the padding and mush.

Kayla was next, and even though she’d never admit to being afraid, her knees started to shake slightly.  It’s just that her knees were lonely and wanted to touch.  Yeah.  That was it.  The sponge like expanding of her soggy padding wasn’t doing them either favors.

“She doesn’t know,” Kayla said to herself below even a whisper.  “It’s okay. No one knows. It’s impossible.”

“Hi Kayla!” Miss Stone said.  “Do you want a hug, a handshake, or a high five?”  Even if she hadn’t just seen the thirty-something feel the last girl up, Kayla wouldn’t have chosen a hug.  Even a high-five seemed like more than this psycho deserved.

Another brilliant idea:  Balling her hand up, Kayla timidly offered her hand forward.  “Fist bump?”

The light in the thirty-something’s eyes shown even more radiantly.  “A fist bump?!  Oh my goodness that’s so cute!  Kayla you are so cute! Such a bright little girl!”  The woman radiated insane ‘soccer mom’ energy; chuckling to herself as she lightly tapped knuckles with the wet nineteen year old.

For her part, Kayla used the opportunity to dig her own fingernails into the palm of her hand and relish in the sobering pain.  She watched as Stone’s nostrils expanded and listened as the woman sniffed.

“Do you need changed?” she asked point blank.  Kayla watched her new adversary’s eyes travel down to the bulge beneath her jeans.  They hadn’t swelled up that much they hadn’t swelled up that much they hadn’t swelled up that much.  Kayla’s eyes darted down to the woman’s hands and her feet ready to jump back in case Stone attempted to check her.  “Or can you go potty like a big girl?”

A throbbing sound of her own heartbeat rang on inside Kayla’s ears. “Big girl.” Not technically a lie.  Kayla COULD go potty like a big girl.  She just hadn’t.  She’d fix that soon enough.

Stone stepped aside and thumbed to Kayla’s right. “Bathroom is on the right as soon as you go in.”    Kayla darted past her, looking behind her to avoid the dreaded back pat.  That was when Kayla found out that there was a large pink teddy bear pattern sewn into the butt of her pants.  “Kayla’s coming in.  CODE YELLOW!”

Code yellow?  Did that mean that the grown-up knew that Kayla had peed herself?  Or did that mean she suspected it? Or was she announcing Kayla’s intent to go to the bathroom?

This was an instance, Kayla decided, where she was better off not overthinking it.  Plunging through the door, she practically contorted her head searching for the bathroom door.  

There, she’d wait by it for Miss Jenkins to get done changing Kitty and then slip in and demand privacy. Then she’d just change herself and cram the offending diaper down to the bottom of the trashcan.  Kayla stopped at the open door, the toilet and sink in plain view.

Leaning in and looking around, she realized she’d made a fundamental miscalculation.  The bathroom was empty and clean as a whistle.  The tiny waste basket by the sink was barely big enough to hold a handful of paper towels; never mind a sopping wet grown-up Pampers!

If she ditched the diaper there, the grown-ups know.

There in the shadow dim glow of the bathroom light, Kayla started to formulate a different plan. Her mind started to race; run through different imaginary scenarios. She had a backpack full of diapers.  If she changed herself in the bathroom and then shoved the wet thing deep down in her backpack, she could still conceivably make it through the day without another accident.

In her mind, she heard the disapproving tone of dozens of teachers. “If you put this much effort into your school work,” they said in unison, “then you wouldn’t be wearing diapers right now.”

“Kayla?” Miss Jenkins called out from nowhere.  “Are you okay?”  

The bathroom was still in a kind of bottleneck.  The dropout couldn’t see her new teacher or idiot classmate.  “Yeah...?” she lied. Looking back away from the bathroom she saw the beginnings of a preschool classroom.  A whiteboard and a plush, quilted rug were easily seen; but no desks.  No teacher either.  

“You said you needed to go potty,” Miss Jenkins called from out of line of sight.  Kitty’s childish giggling added to the strangely eerie soundtrack.  “Do you need help getting your diaper off?”

If her diaper came off in front of any of the teachers, her goose would be cooked! Miss Jenkins would know!  EVERYONE would know!  “NO!” she yelped a half second before she regained composure.  “I mean...I’m fine.”

“You can take your diaper off by yourself?” Miss Jenkins asked.  “Hold still, Kitty.”

The little woman said a quiet half-prayer and then said.  “Yes, but I don’t need to anymore.”  Then she tacked on.  “False alarm.”

“Okay…” Jenkins said.  She wasn’t buying it.  “Well don’t just stand there, come in.”

It was worse than Kayla might have imagined.  She stepped out of the narrow bottleneck and into the room proper, taking everything into view.  Alphabet letter and numbers were plastered along the ceiling’s borders. Colorful rainbow calendars and charts emphasizing the day of the week were hot glued to portions of the wall directly in front of her next to the white board.

To the far left looked like a children’s activity table, the kind that went out of style in middle school except all the chairs were sized to fit someone who had grown-up.  To the far right was a low shelf stacked with toys: Dump trucks, racecars, plushies, plastic rings, wooden blocks, Mr. Potato Heads, doll houses.  The kinds of toys that people who hadn’t figured sex out loved.

“Put your diapers up.”

Kayla pivoted clockwise and felt true despair.  Behind her and to the right was a tall bookshelf and a the biggest fucking changing table Kayla had ever seen.  Kitty laid there getting her ass wiped by another adult as if it were the most normal and natural thing in the world; nomming on her fingers and giggling as the cold rags caressed her most sensitive parts.

Miss Jenkins repeated herself.  “Put your diapers up, Kayla.”  The older of the three women diverted her gaze just long enough to ball up Kitty’s soiled diaper and toss it into an equally large diaper genie.  “Oh,” she said as she started to unfold the new diaper  “I forgot that this is your first day.”

“Jimmy’s coming in,” Miss Stone called out.  “You already know he needs it!”

“Got it!” Miss Jenkins called back.  Jimmy waddled in.  His diaper sagging and swinging between his legs like a sack of garbage.  “Jimmy, will you teach Kayla how to put her diapers away?”

Like a good boy, Jimmy reached into his backpack and took out a stack of diapers. He slid the whitish cartoon printed rectangles onto a shelf that likewise had a headshot of him.  “YOU’VE GOTTA PUT THEM WITH YER PICTURE!” He spoke-shouted.  “THEN YOU GO HANG YOUR BACKPACK ON THE HOOK BUT IT DON’T MATTER WHERE YOU PUT THAT!”  On the other side of the changing table, half a dozen little wall hooks protruded offensively.

While Kitty got her ass powdered, Jimmy walked around his teacher and hung his backpack on the wall.  Kayla reached into her backpack.  Six diapers had been crammed in there.  They all had the same cutesy print on them, too.  Identical. Good. No way to differentiate between an old diaper and a new one save for the state and saturation of it.  Maybe she could find a way to sneak the thing around her waist into the backpack...ditch it later.

Carefully, Kayla grabbed five and slid them onto the shelf above her picture.

“All of them Kayla,” Miss Jenkins said.  She hadn’t even looked up from securing the tapes on Kitty’s new diaper.  “Or do big girls need help counting to six?” Uncanny! Dang it!  So much for her backpack plan.  “And Jimmy, don’t go far. You’re next after Kitty, little boy”

The newest classmate felt a strange kind of relief.  Jimmy was next!  That HAD to mean that she was safe for the moment; her privacy still secure.  They didn’t know.  They might suspect, but hadn’t confirmed.  Kayla took a moment and examined the picture above her diapers.

(Well...not HER diapers but…)  

If she was so new here, how did they already have her picture?  It was a different picture than the one of her just outside the classroom.  Her expression was different.  Her shirt was an annoying lime green outside.  Here on the shelf, it was dandelion yellow.  It wasn’t a portrait either, strictly speaking.  She had the same doofy look as all the other ‘adult juveniles’, but she could tell that another body had been cropped out. A familiar arm draped over her shoulder in the picture.

Mom?

“Tyler’s clean!” Miss Stone called out.  “Taylor? Not so much!”

“Do you need to be changed, Kayla?” Miss Jenkins asked.  Kitty was helped off the table.  A second later, Jimmy was being boosted up onto the changing table.  In that time Kayla had shook her head approximately thirty-eight times.  “Then hang up your backpack and go sit down.  Kitty can show you where.”  

Kayla’s feet moved faster than she thought possible. The paranoid part of her brain caused her to hum tunelessly as she walked by the adult to hang up her backpack.  Did a wet diaper crinkle more or less than a dry one and could someone experienced in such things hear the difference?  Kayla was determined not to find out.

Kitty grabbed her by the wrist the millisecond her hands were free.  “This way! Over here!”  Kayla didn’t allow herself to be led as much as she was just too overwhelmed to resist.  “Everybody gets their own color!”  

Kitty plopped down on a purple spot, and Kayla swore she saw a fine white mist poof out the leg holes of her not-underwear. Kayla found a pink patch and lowered herself down to the floor; wincing as her pants squished warmly beneath her.  

This would take some getting used to.  CORRECTION! MAJOR CORRECTION! This was something she hoped to never have to get used to.  NEVER!

“Criss cross applesauce!” With her Mary Janes folded under her bare legs, Kitty’s diaper was now the most concealed it had been since they’d met.  Kayla followed suit. Thanks to the bulk wrapped around her loins, it was much harder than she remembered.  How did real kids sit like this?

The sound of Jimmy cooing as he was wiped and changed behind her helped Kayla sit up a bit straighter.  Fuck sitting.  How did real kids learn any sense of modesty or privacy if daycares like this one constantly had them getting their diapers changed in broad daylight.

Shit!  Was she starting to think of this as a real daycare?  Had she just lumped herself in with these kids?  No! They weren’t real kids!  Neither was she!

One of the twins, the boy in sailor suit shorts came and took a seat.  Curiosity got the better of Kayla.  She turned her head around and looked over her shoulder.  So much for privacy.  Thankfully Jimmy’s privates were in the midst of being covered by the front of a new nappy.

Sailor boy’s twin- the girl with a skirt almost as short as Kitty’s was lining up for a change, too.  Someone needed their poop deck swabbed.  The girl in the pink shortalls apparently didn’t need fresh crinkling underpants either and came to join the group on the carpet.

A new, stranger secret started to bubble to the forefront of Kayla’s mind.  She was now good and surrounded by what were effectively giant babies; but she was the only one sitting in a wet diaper.  What did that say about her?  How should she feel about that?

A shudder of self-loathing worked its way through Kayla’s psyche. Miss Stone worked her way to the front of the class as Velcro.  Only Kayla flinched.  To the others, it was just white noise; no better or worse or more remarkable than the sound of a toilet flushing.

Shit!  Kayla could have tried flushing the damn thing down the toilet!  Might’ve clocked. Still would’ve been worth a shot….too late now.

 Miss Stone took out a CD player with speakers. “Okay everyone!  Let’s start our singing time with the Alphabet Song!”  This, so it seemed, was cause for much celebration amongst the others.  A fan favorite.

It became obvious that this rendition wasn’t just the same old twinkle-twinkle rendition.  That would have resembled merciful.  No such luck.  “Come along sing the alphabet song,” They sang.  “Sing it loud and sing it strong!  Sing it high and sing it low!  Sing it proud wherever you go!  Apple begins with a-a-ay! Ball begins with b-b-bee!”

Kayla didn’t know the words to this!  Yeah, she knew that apple began with a-a-ay, and so on, but she couldn’t guess what the next object named in the song would be.  There weren’t even any visual aids!  How was she supposed to know that the dee-word was going to be ‘door’ or the gee-word was ‘gate’?  This wasn’t fair!  This wasn’t fair at all!

All she could do was sit there in squishy pants while a bunch of other babies all sang along by heart.   Then came another half-a-dozen songs: Days of the week crossed with the Addams Family theme; a months of the year song with a macarena-ish dance: a color song that was a cross between Old Mac Donald and B-I-N-G-O (with ASL no less); a weather song that ripped off Clementine, and a shape song that had no rhyme or reason (literally).

“Circle! Circle!  I wanna be a square! I wanna be a triangle, and have three sides, one-two-three! Triangle! I wanna be a rectangle, and have two sides longer than the other two! Oooooh yeah!”

And everyone but her knew the words.  Not a great feeling.

By the time the sing-a-long ended, everyone who had needed changing was down on the carpet and singing along.  Everyone save Kayla, that is...on both counts.

“Okay, class,” Miss Jenkins said.  “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s take a moment to welcome our new friend, Kayla.”

“HIIIIIIII KAYLA!”  Kayla almost shrieked from the volume.  

“Since it’s Kayla’s first day, I thought she could come up to the front and share something with everyone.”  Kayla didn’t have time to object.  She felt two deceptively strong hands snake under her armpit and hoister her to her feet.  How had Miss Stone gotten behind her.  

After sitting for a solid ten minutes, Kayla was more acutely aware of her soaked padding starting to droop and sag from her waist.  What if Miss Stone got a good look?!  The teacher hadn’t had time to give her a swat on her puffy back side, but Kayla scurried to the white board as if she’d been prodded with a red hot poker.

They couldn’t see.  Her baggie jeans were doing a marvelous job of hiding everything.  Enough.  They were doing an okay job of hiding enough.  The inseam of her jeans was acting as a kind of diaper bra, holding the undergarment up and keeping it from drooping too far down her knees.

“Hi!” Kayla tried not to shriek.  “I’m Kayla.”

“HIIIII KAYLA!”  It was just as loud.  Just as stressful.  Silently, Kayla cursed and wished she had a cigarette.

“Tell us about yourself, Kayla.” Miss Jenkins urged, her tone gentle and downright motherly.

Even before she’d stepped on the bus that morning, the young lady had been shit at these kind of lackluster ice breakers.  “Um...I’m nineteen.”

Kitty’s hand shut up.  “Me too!”

The others started echoing.  “Me too!”

“Me too!”

“I’M TWENTY!”

“Me too!”

“I LIKE MICKEY MOUSE!”

“This is Kayla’s time,” Miss Jenkins said gently to the girl in the pink shortalls.

That’s when Kayla had started to poop herself.  She hadn’t meant to.  Of course she hadn’t.  Who meant to do that kind of thing? But just like with her bladder, she felt herself filling the back of her pants.  It was as if her sphincter learned to tense and close.

It was like she’d had a colostomy, save none of her plumbing had been moved around.  But just like those poor bastards with holes next to their belly buttons and bags taped taped over them, as soon as she felt a slight cramp, her body started ejecting the stuff in a steady and solid loaf into her crinkling panties.

“Kayla?”

Kayla swallowed. Hard.  The teacher was looking right at her.  Both of them!  Her classmates too!  “Um...um…”  She reached behind her, pretending to scratch her back.  She felt the lump forming beneath her.  It was so big!  And the edge of her diaper was still sticking out of her pants!

“Kayla?”

She almost slammed the back of her head against the whiteboard.  Kayla found herself paralyzed with the fear that this strange woman beside her might decide to hook her fingers into the back of her waistband and see just how much Kayla had disgraced herself.  No one could see!  No one could know!  No one could check!

“Do you have anything else you’d like to share, baby?”

Musn’t bend her knees!  That was key. Babies always bent their knees when they booped.  She tried to keep her knees locked.  Musn’t squat.  Musn’t sit. She prayed to whatever god would listen that she wouldn’t fart.  That would just end her.

“Kayla?”

Kayla felt the mess stop.  Safe!  No one knew!  So far so good!  She had to think quick however. “I don’t have anything else to say right now, can we learn now?”  The words were clipped and fast.  She might as well have been saying name and serial number to an interrogator.

“Alright,” Miss Jenkins said.  “Let’s break out into centers.  Jimmy, Kitty, Taylor.  You can go play with the toys with me.  Kayla, Tyler, McKenzie, you go to the teacher table.” Massive sighs and pouts were had by Kayla, sailor suit boy, and shortalls girl.  Kitty, Jimmy, and the sailor skirt girl were practically jumping.

As half the class went to the toy shelves, and the other waddled to a the table, Miss Stone included, Miss Jenkins gave Kayla a suspicious glance. “After you, ma’am.”  Kayla wasn’t being polite, of course.  She just didn’t want to have her back to the woman.

Miss Jenkins arched an eyebrow, but walked past Kayla without further challenge.  “Come on, sweetie! This way!”  Miss Stone was waving her over.  So were the other non-adults.  The dropout trudged over to the table, feeling a delayed bounce with each step as what had dropped out of her bobbed up and down.

“Sit down!” Tyler patted the seat next to him.  “It’s coloring time!”

Kayla sized the situation up.  She didn’t have much of a choice.  If she was going to make it through this, she’d have to go along with it.

One. Two. Three.

Kayla’s face was a mask of placidity as she sat down and spread the mush out in the back of her pants.  “What are we coloring?”  She inhaled through her nose and didn’t even wince when she caught a whiff of herself.  It wasn’t that bad.  That and everybody liked their own brand.

A worksheet and a pack of crayons was slid in front of Kayla. Ha!  She knew that adults did worksheets in school! As promised, it was a coloring sheet; a busy park scene. Dogs playing catch.  People eating donuts as ducks waddled buy and little girls played with dolls.  

She still couldn’t tell what the title of the sheet was. Kayla looked down at the sheet, but couldn’t make heads or tales of the scribbled mess printed at top.  Someone had reprinted the directions in nothing but wing-dings!

Miss Stone started to explain.  “Today we’re talking about D-words.  Can anyone think of any words that start with D-d-dee?”  The look on her face was hopeful and coaxing. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, Kayla kept her mouth closed.

“DIAPERS!”  McKenzie blurted out. It took a superhuman bit of willpower to keep Kayla’s face from matching her shirt.

Miss Stone deflated a bit.  “Yes, diapers, do start with D.  So do words like d-d-dog, or d-d-dolly, or d-d-door!

“OOOOH! Like in our song!”  

Miss Stone nodded.  “Yes, Tyler, like our song.  For our worksheet today, we’re going to color, but we’re only going to color the pictures whose word starts with the letter D.”

Kayla felt a sparkle of hope.  The letter D?  That’d be easy!  She could do that!  She’d do it in record time, before anyone even had an idea that she’d had (more than) one little accident in her diaper. That’d prove that she was a big girl!  

Desperation really could do many things in a little girl’s mind.

Kayla was the first to open her pack.  With wild abandon, she began to scribble and color.  If she drenched the entire page in crayon, then surely she’d get all the D-word pictures.  “Careful Kayla.  You ONLY want to color the-”

“I know! I know!” Kayla said.  “Color all the D-words! I’m on it!”

She bent her head over and became engrossed in her work.  Hurry!  Hurry before she was noticed.  Just on the edge of her vision.  She saw Miss Stone waving in the air.  Signalling to someone watching.  It wasn’t until Miss Jenkins’s shadow fell over the coloring page that Kayla connected the dots. (Gosh she wished she could be doing connect the dots)  Someone had smelled her!

“Tyler,” Miss Jenkins said.  “Please stand up.”  


Good, Kayla thought.  Neither of her classmates had been changed yet.  They were just as suspect as her.  If they needed fresh diapers, then she’d buy herself more time to finish this and prove how she didn’t really belong in this place.

Still coloring, probing the coloring sheet with sniper-like precision, the little boy stood up.  It was an easy thing for Miss Jenkins to pull open the back of his pants and peek down.  

“You’re clean,” she told him and gave him a light pat on the butt.  Tyler sat back down, completely unfazed that his privacy and adulthood had been so casually violated.

A bead of sweat started to form on Kayla’s forehead, as Miss Jenkins’s shadow passed over her.  

“McKenzie?”

The little girl in shortalls (not so little, actually, she had a couple inches on Kayla in fact) stood up.  Kayla scribbled with all her might. Had to get this done.  Had to get this done! As Kayla colored with reckless abandon, Miss Jenkins checked her classmate.

It was thorough, to be sure.  The teacher patted the girl’s bottom, feeling for lumps.  When none were found, she went so far as to unbutton the snaps on the shortalls and hiking them up.  McKenzie’s diaper was pulled back and inspected.  Miss Jenkins reached around and gave the fron a squeeze, even going so far as to stick her fingers past the leg gathers.  “Clean AND dry, McKenzie.  Good girl!  You might almost be ready for Pull-Ups.”

McKenzie, for her part, just kept coloring in slow gentle strokes; barely noticing as she was half-stripped and fingers probed into her baby pants.  Kayla did her best to scoot in and put as little space between her backside and the chair as possible.  

Miss Jenkins took her time, buttoning McKenzie’s pants back up.  Kayla still felt no closer to coloring in all the G-words. (it was G, right? Right.)  Oh for a call from the Principal!  Or the Governor!

Process of elimination determined that only one one of them might need a trip to the dreaded changing table. “Kayla?

Kayla did not look up from her worksheet. “Hmmm?” she said trying to sound innocent.  Trying to feign ignorance.

“Could you please stand up dear?”

“In a second…” Kayla said.  Had to stall.
From across the table, Miss Stone’s hand laid over Kayla’s.  Kayla stopped coloring.  She had to.  There might as well have been an elephant on her fingers.  “Kayla,” she said.  “Miss Jenkins wants to check your diaper.”

“No thank you.”  That got a genuine bark of laughter for the adults.  The idea that one of their “Adult Juveniles” might refuse having their personal bubble popped was ridiculous enough to be cute.  What they didn’t know was just how much Kayla Summers didn’t give a damn.

“Kayla, sweetie,” Miss Jenkins said.  “Just stand up, baby.  It’ll only take a minute.”  Her tone was slow and patient.

Kayla kept coloring “No.”  

“It’ll only take moment, and if you don’t need changing you can keep coloring.”

“No.”

“And even if you do need a change,” Miss Jenkins tried to coax, “you can get right back to coloring after I change you.”

“No.”

“You won’t be in trouble.”  Miss Stone said. “You’re not in trouble, now.”

“No.”

“No one will laugh at you,” Miss Jenkins promised.  “I just changed a bunch of your little friends.”

“No.”

“I’ll have to change everyone at some point today.”

“No.”

“Looks like someone is going through that phase where they don’t want to stop and get changed,” Stone clucked.

“They all do at this age,” Jenkins clucked back.

Kayla would have slammed the crayons down if her hands weren’t pinned.  “I’M NINETEEN!”

“That’s right,” Miss Jenkins said too calmly.  “You’re nineteen.  Now come be a big girl and get your diaper changed.  Only babies lay in their poopy pants all day without complaining.”

“I DON’T NEED A DIAPER CHANGE!”  

The other kids stopped playing and coloring.  She could hear the stillness.  She could hear the lie in her own voice.

The grown-ups went on undeterred.  “If you sit in your poopy diaper too long, you’ll get a rash and your butt will get all itchy.”

“I DIDN’T POOP MY PANTS! I’M NOT A BABY!”  Kayla’s feet were stomping mad. “I’M AN ADULT! A GROWN-UP! A BIG GIRL!  I’M NINETEEN!”

“Do you have a job?” Miss Stone asked.

That caught the dropout off guard.“What?”

“Or a car?” Miss Jenkins pressed. “Or a phone?”

“My Mommy took it away...I mean my Mom...my Mother…-”

“What about degree?” Miss Stone asked.  “Or a house?  Who do you live with.”

Kayla sulked. “I’m not a baaaaaby!”

With the perfect patience of the most adulty of adults, Miss Jenkins took a deep breath.  “Kayla.  Baby.  Sweetie.  Darling.  Hon.  I’ve checked and changed everybody in the room.  You’re the only one who hasn’t-”

“I can explain!” Kayla yelped, her brain grasping for straws.

“Oh?”

“I farted.” A devilish grin spread over Kayla’s mug.  “I just farted and I was embarrassed about it. The smell will go away in a few minutes.’  In that time, one of the other babies would likely poop their pants again.  Checkmate!

The adults chuckled a bit and then groaned. “Okay, Skunky,” Miss Jenkins teased,  “have it your way.”  Kayla flushed.  She’d been called worse (a lot worse) in her life; but that one hit a buttonThe two adults made purposeful eye contact.  “Maneuver two?”

“Ready.”   Miss Stone let go of Kayla’s hands and  got up.  From her end of the table, the teacher picked up her own chair and passed it over the others’ heads to Miss Jenkins.

Kayla would have run just then, her mess sagging behind her, but Miss Jenkins had positioned herself right behind Kayla’s student chair. Jenkins was the immovable object; wedging the poor girl into the activity table.

For all the nineteen year old could do, she might as well be pinned in one of those old-fashioned highchairs with the tray slammed down; like in the cartoons.

By the time Jenkins put the teacher chair down and took a seat Kaykla’s hands had been re-pinned to the table, leaving her trapped as Jenkins sat, readying herself.  She watched, comprehending but powerless as the adults counted.

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

Kayla was yanked out of her seat and over her teacher’s knee.  It did’t matter how staunchly she sat if she was yanked out of it and across the grown-up’s lap.  “NO!” she screamed.  “Don’t spank me!  Please!”  If they could do all this to her with a few simple movements, Kayla couldn’t begin to imagine what they could do by hitting her.  “I’ll be good. I’LL BE GOOOOOOD!”

“Spank you?” Miss Jenkins left.  “Silly girl.  I’m not spanking you.”  Kayla felt a hand gently patted her bottom, feeling the poopy lumps in her diaper.  The sudden rush of fresh air hitting her ass when Miss Jenkins pulled back her waistband and took a gander was freezing by comparison.  “Thought so.”

“NOOOOOOOO!”  Kayla slammed her eyes shut, even as she was picked up and carried across the room.  “NOT LIKE THIS! NOT LIKE THIS!”  

She knew what the flat padded surface was when she was laid on it.  Still she did not open her eyes.  She knew what the strap being pulled across her chest was.  Still she did not open her eyes.  She recognized the crinkling sound coming from the shelf.  Still she did not open her eyes.

She was crying so hard she was giving herself hiccups when two impossibly strong hands grabbed the waistband of her pants and yanked them down to her ankles. What had taken a solid ninety seconds this morning to get down her legs took less than one on the changing table.

Kayla was almost hyperventilating. “Oh Kayla,” Miss Jenkins clicked her tongue. “So nervous about something so silly.  Here, let’s take these off.”

“I’ll put this in her backpack,” Miss Stone stage whispered over Kayla’s whimpering.  Still, Kayla didn’t open her eyes.  She couldn’t bring herself to look and acknowledge the truth.  THEY COULD ALL SEE! EVERYONE COULD SEE!

“NOOOOOOOO!”

“Kayla”

“DON’T LOOK AT ME!”

“Kayla!”

“DON’T LOOK AT ME!”

“KAYLA!”  Kayla opened her eyes.  “Look around,” Miss Jenkins said. She popped the pacifier back in Kayla’s mouth.  Kayla suckled and looked around.

Her wish was not granted.  She was not in bed staring up at her mother..  She was still in the nursery pre-school style classroom. Hovering above her was the same dark skinned stranger that had pinned her on the bus. She was still very much on a changing table and in a very wet and messy diaper that desperately needed changing; and based on the intensity of the smell, not everything had been contained in the diaper.

But the other kids, the other nineteen and twenty somethings weren’t looking.  Three were playing with toys and the other two were busy coloring in worksheets.  It wasn’t even the purposeful lack of looking that people did when they were avoiding a sight.  Her new classmates weren’t avoiding anything.  They just didn’t care that she needed to be changed.  They just didn’t give a damn.

Just like her.

The velcro ripped off the front of the diaper and Kayla’s pee and muck smeared privates met open aired. Miss Jenkins went to work.  

Gently, the girl was wiped from front to back, and in between all the folds. Like Kitty before her, Kayla sucked on her pacifier and let out barely suppressed giggles as cold wipes removed warm poop from sensitive and vulnerable areas.  Other things seemed to be getting wiped away, too.

It couldn’t have been worries or cares, though.  Not giving a damn meant she never really had those; not in any particularly great amount.  Her toes were lifted to the sky and the old diaper was slid out.  

The weight of the world was being balled up and tossed away with her poop, pee, and the dirty wipes.

The fresh diaper that was unfolded and slipped beneath her was the promise of a new start. The unspoken knowledge that it’d be ruined again and again only to be replaced and change a covenant of almost infinite forgiveness.

Miss Jenkins even went the extra mile and took the time to rub a special butt cream all over Kayla’s bottom.  “Can’t have you getting a rash on your first day,” she cooed.  The cream had a strange almost medical smell to it, but it was more than covered up by the lavender scent of her new diaper.  That, and it felt amazing on her skin.

Not so secretly, she hoped Mommy had some of this on her changing table when she got home.  Looking forward to Mommy taking care of her instead of fights and ultimatums.  That was a nice feeling: A feeling Kayla couldn’t remember having since before report cards had become a part of her life.

Last, a cloud of baby powder was sprinkled all over her front and back, it’s lavender scent pleasant in her nostrils.  It’s cold dryness refreshing to her skin after having spent a small eternity in something wet and clammy and mushy and swampy.

Still her new friends didn’t watch.  Diapers could be changed out in the open like this because everyone big enough to care understood and was there to meet her needs, and everyone and everyone who was smaller just didn’t care enough to be embarrassed either by her or for her.

The perfect arrangement.

She really did belong here.

It felt like her first diaper change when the fresh padding was gently pulled up between her thighs and Miss Jenkins started to gently fasten the fresh diaper over her hips.  It felt like a dream.  Brand new. Even a fresh pair of panties straight out of the wash didn’t feel this good.  Had she ever worn big girl panties?  She was starting to wonder why she’d ever want to when she could have these.  Everything in life should be so simple and uniform.  Everything in life COULD be, Kayla realized.

Her new diaper secured, and the safety strap removed, Kayla let herself be pulled into a sitting position.  She wriggled her seat and marveled at how it felt. The crisp crinkling of the outer layer!  The feeling of the powder still slifting around, and the cream being rubbed into her skin!  All cushioned luxuriously by the soft puffy padding!

She didn’t even want her pants back.  It was too warm for pants when she could just run around the playground in her t-shirt and diaper.  Oooooh! She’d get to go to the playground after lunch!

Miss Jenkins gave that knowing laugh that grown-ups did when they thought something was funny but couldn’t explain it to little kids.  Kayla laughed too but she wasn’t sure why.  She just wanted to go along.  

Miss Stone got out her phone and held it up like a camera.“Say Cheese!”

Kayla was feeling cheeky, and so tried to do her best to pout, even if she wasn’t feeling it.  Miss Jenkins beat her to it by digging out a tootsie roll out of Kayla’s backpack where the cigarettes used to be.  A treat Mommy had sent along just in case.

“CHEEEEEEEESE!”

And that’s how Kayla Summers’s changing shelf picture became one of her sitting proudly on the changing table in just a t-shirt and a diaper.  Later that day her photo on the outside door would be cropped from a candid shot on the playground.  

Thus Kayla became yet another success story at Mrs.Cocker’s Reformation School for Adult Juveniles. Her Mommy was very happy.  Best money she’d ever spent.