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Unfair-Chapter 114: Through Windows Once Closed
🕑 Added 2023-01-08 00:35:10 +0000 UTCChapter 114: Through Windows Once Closed
I watched my reflection while Beouf tugged down the sides of my fresh diaper, making sure the fit was nice and snug without risking the tapes ripping. “Almost….done!” She smiled, satisfied at her work. I let out a small sigh now that I was no longer encased in my own pee.
A long tired yawn bellowed out of me. “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHW”
Beouf reciprocated the yawn while she boosted my hips and buttoned the snowflake onesie up between my legs. “Don’t start, baby, you’ll get me doing it.”
I frowned, the b-word still stinging despite the affection. “Okay, Granny.” I joked. “Do you want me to pull up your rocker and quilt for you?”
She stuffed the old balled up diaper down into the pail behind her. I’d needed the change since before the buses, but we were running behind so I volunteered to wait. No sense in Annie or Billy risking a rash because they were stuck in filthy pants for an extra forty five minutes to an hour when I could just wait ten and get relative privacy to boot.
“Don’t even joke, young master Grange,” Beouf said. “My granddaughter has been keeping me up the past two weeks. If I could fit, I might curl up in one of those cribs with ya.” She fiddled with my jeans, turning them this way and that, checking for leaks. “Pants on?”
I stared up at the ceiling mirror. I looked absolutely ridiculous and adorable. Putting some jeans over them wouldn’t alter that overmuch. That and Beouf still had the heat up to full blast. “Pass.”
“Deal.” She folded up the jeans. “Shoes and socks?”
I wiggled my toes. “Why? It’s Friday. Might as well start it right.”
Beouf shook her head but had the biggest glowing smile on her face. “Suit yourself.” She unfastened the strap across my chest and set me down off the changing table and onto the cool tile floor.
“Jealous?” I asked.
“Maybe a smidge,” she admitted. “I don’t think I could pull the look off like you can.” She tucked my grimy socks into my sneakers and placed them atop the folded up jeans. “More just really happy to see you like this.”
Turning down the jeans seemed like a really bad idea right then and there. “Like what?”
“Happy.” She made a gentle shooing motion towards me. “Now come on. I wanna get some coffee, not spend all afternoon in the bathroom.”
I crinkled out and around the classroom, approaching Beouf’s kidney table in a wide arc for no other reason than I felt like it. In contrast, Beouf made long rigid strides for the coffee pot, moving at right angles and letting her tree trunk limbs carry her past my meandering gait. The resulting differences in tempo made it so that I was sitting down right as she was finishing shaking up my bottle and placing it in front of me.
“To the end of another week,” I raised the bottle filled with mocha in a mock toast.
“To the end of another week,” Beouf parroted me. She gave a conspiratorial scan of the classroom as if searching for eavesdroppers. “And the end of Ambrose.”
For once I blushed and smiled yet felt no need to hide it and no shame in expressing it. We clinked glasses and sipped our drinks in a moment of comfortable, amicable silence. I exhaled and threw in, “Bonus points for Forrest.”
“Hmmm?” Beouf blinked and swallowed her drink. “Beg pardon?”
“Forrest quit,” I said.
“That’s what that was this morning during the buses? She quit?”
I took another pull from the bottle, feeling smug as anything. “Yup.”
Beouf covered her mouth and pounded the table top lightly in place of laughter. “Oh my gosh! That’s awesome!”
“You’re welcome.” I said. “She literally cited me being allowed back as the reason she was quitting. That and Ambrose getting canned.”
Beouf held her palm out and I slapped it. “Don’t you ever do anything like that ever again, though,” she quickly said. “Ever. I mean it. Scared the daylights out of me and everybody else.”
I tried using my superpower of not rolling my eyes, but it failed from lack of practice. “Yes Mrs. B.” Hadn’t we already had this talk? What did she think I was? Oh…oh yeah. She kinda did…
“I mean it, Clark.” Beouf said. “I was scared. We all were. Ivy was close to hysterics when she first got back here.”
I put the bottle down. “What?!”
“Zoge told me she kept mumbling something in Yamatoan about how it was her fault. Do you know how she would have felt if you’d have gotten expelled? How I would have felt?”
The mental image of poor delusional Ivy and poor delusional Mel crying because I got sent to New Beginnings was enough to shake even me. We’d just re-reached a place of understanding again. Ivy and I had even less time as friends. The fact that my exit from their worlds could affect them so; I hated to admit it, but it was touching.
I dug my fingers into my face and dragged them down into an exasperated mask. “Fine, I promise!” I said. “Sheesh.”
“Ivy and you are not going to be allowed to be next to each other in line for the rest of the year,” Beouf said firmly.
“Calendar year or school year?”
“Clark!”
“Sorry! I just had to ask.” The joke did not land. My unexpected victory had been her emotional crisis.
The silence turned awkward. My gut grumbled from the coffee and I made a mental note not to start pushing right then and there. If I could I’d do it in Janet’s car right as she was pulling into the neighborhood so that nobody’s eyes were fixed on me while I did the deed. There was no urgency or feeling of strain save for lamenting that planning to void into my pants had become routine and that the presented (and expected) alternative was worse. I wasn’t that unpotty trained…
The awkwardness passed and Beouf resumed sipping her coffee. “How was your Friday?”
“Kind of boring, actually,” I admitted. “No arguing or yelling or drama or surprises.” The last thirty minutes has just been the A.L.L. lounging behind our usual oak tree. No one wanted to play or make fun of the others. It was fucking grating.
“Thank goodness,” Mel chuckled. “Monday was enough excitement for me.”
“No, seriously,” I said. “Maybe we could spice it up every once in a while. Have Fun Fridays or something. Change it up beyond just recess at the end of the day?”
“You want more recess?”
“Maybe,” I pondered. “Like free play inside before lunch or a special game after naps. Might be nice to have some structure.” My mind leapt to the silly yet creative games used to pass the time at Little Voices meetings. I’d own these losers at ‘Clark says’.
“I give you structure the entire day,” Beouf gestured comically to the visual schedule on the wall. “Now you want more structure during the one time of day when I cut you monsters loose?”
I leaned forward on my elbows. “When you put it like that…” I covered my lips and muttered. “Kinda…?”
“Are you trying to get under my skin, or do you genuinely want me to come up with games for you to play?”
“Two things can be true…” I grinned.
“Kids…” Beouf said into her mug.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” she said coyly. Before I could make a comeback, she piled on, “If you want to make a lesson plan and try to teach your classmates some things out there I have no objection.”
“Lesson plan?” I stopped blinking. “Seriously?”
“Nothing official,” Beouf said. “Just if you want to teach your friends some new games, I’ll be happy to learn with them so I can referee.” A wink sealed my fate. “But you have to put in the work and get me the rules first so I know you’re not just being silly.” She took a moment to wag her finger at me. “No battle tag, either. Too much diving and tackling. Not appropriate.”
A chance to teach! To lead and present! I pursed my lips together. “You’re playing me and I don’t even care.”
“Sign of a good mentor/mentee relationship,” Beouf finished her coffee. “Both parties walk away taking advantage of each other and not caring.” It meant everything to me that she called it mentor/mentee and not teacher/student just then. She put her mug down and let out another loud yawn.
“That grandbaby really keeping you up?” I asked. I got a tired nod in reply. “I thought Mom and Dad had to deal with the midnight feedings. Isn’t that what parents do?”
Beouf bellowed out another yawn. “Doesn’t mean I don’t get woken up,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll give her the bottle just because I know I”m not going back to sleep.” She smacked her lips and her eyes started to drop. “Two weeks now. That baby has the second worst case of colic I’ve ever seen.”
“What was the first?”
Her eyes opened back up and a wicked wry smile jotted itself across my friends lips. “You.”
“Oh you bi…” I sputtered and self-corrected. “You witch!”
Melony stuck her tongue out at me. “Walked into that one, bubba!” she tittered.
“I have so many swear words right now,” I grumbled. “All the swear words!”
Our back and forth was interrupted with the gentle clicking of a doorknob turning. For the first time since September I looked at the backdoor of Beouf’s room opening and my heart didn’t fill with dread.
The sound of two women laughing like school girls preceded Tracy’s head poking in the room. “Hey,” she said to the space between me and Beouf. “Mind if I come in?”
“Sure,” Beouf waved the teacher’s aide in. I did, too.
Tracy came all the way in, and the noise crescendoed with her entrance. “Janet and Jessica,” Tracy thumbed behind her. “You’d think they were long lost sisters who hadn’t seen each other in forever.”
The slight distance between the classrooms was just enough so that I couldn’t make out the individual words, but the patter was loud, boisterous, and above all happy. It was nice to hear happiness coming from that room. “Yeah,” I sighed. “They get like that, sometimes. I don’t get it.”
Janet was the last to find out about her bestie’s new job. When they saw each other at the bus loop after school she started squealing and jumping like she’d won the lottery. Jessica responded in kind. I was given a quick kiss and handed straight back to Beouf. I’d become an afterthought. After so long feeling like an obsession, being an afterthought was really cool.
In Tracy’s hand was something off-black, flat, and rectangular. She had it tucked under her arm, and positioned away from me like she was trying to hide something. The door shut behind her with an audible thud, but was punctuated by even more laughter pounding out behind her.
Beouf stood up out of her teacher chair. “Okay,” she said. “Now I gotta know what’s so darn funny.” She looked down at me. “Wanna come?”
Tracy and I exchanged glances. She fidgeted. Uncomfortably. “Not really,” I told Beouf. “I’ve got a feeling someone’s coming over for dinner. I only wanna hear the jokes once.”
“I don’t mind staying with him,” Tracy offered.
Beouf held her hand up and out. “Tag out.”
“Tag out.” Tracy agreed. They high fived and Tracy got out of the way so Beouf could go socialize with her fellow giants.
“Sup, Tracy?” I asked.
Tracy waltzed over to the kidney table and shifted the dark rectangle behind her back. “Hey, Boss. Got something for you.”
“What?” I asked.
“A present.” Tracy said. Then she tacked on. “And a thank you. And an apology.”
“An apology?” I asked. “For what?”
My old assistant pulled out a kids’ seat next to me. Even sitting down, she was bigger than me. “For this,” she gently brushed my cheek with her fingers. “And for not being honest with you.”
I turned my head with the graze of her finger tips, feeling the slap all over again. “It’s okay,” I told her. “You saved me from getting humiliated in front of our kids. We’re even.”
“You punched a bitch in the nose and took a beating!” Tracy exclaimed.
Our gazes met. “And you saved me.” When she didn’t reply, I took the initiative. “We’re even. We’re more than even.”
Even more awkward silence as we sat there. It was only broken when I remembered what I was wearing and shifted and crinkled uncomfortably in my seat.
“Anyways,” Tracy said, bringing the rectangle back around and laying it down in front of me. “I had an idea. Emiliano already went back to work in Elizabeton. I can’t scope out the daycares and whatnot like you wanted.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I get it.”
“But…” she brightened. “I can give you something almost as good.”
“Which is?”
Like a model on a daytime game show, she waved her hand over what she’d been hiding behind her back. It was a touch screen tablet, obviously well used. The screen still had smudges on it and there were tiny bits of brown gunk along the power and volume buttons where it had been pressed and dropped ad nauseam The paint on the home button was smudged to oblivion.
“This isn’t mine,” Tracy assured me. “Got it used from a friend.”
“Okay…” I said. “What is it?”
Tracy started the tablet up, and punched in a passcode of ‘1-3-5-7-9’. “It’s a gaming tablet,” she said. “Last night I downloaded a bunch of fun games on it. No hypno games or anything that’s gonna make you uh…you know.”
A weak smile muscled its way up over my skull. “Huh. Neat. Something to do over the weekend. Thanks, Tracy.”
“I already got Janet’s permission to give it to you,” Tracy said proudly. “She’s got no problem with you playing any of these games.”
I skimmed the icons that flooded the screen. None of them seemed particularly babyish. Nothing that was designed to teach me shapes or colors. One had a skull and crossbones. Another had a stick figure inside a sniper’s crosshairs. “Thanks.”
“Fair warning,” Tracy told me, “she can access the parental controls and change the passcode if she wants. I already showed her and Miss Starke how to put a timer on it to limit your screen time so you can’t stay up late or anything.”
“Ah,” I said. “That makes sense.” The small amount of satisfaction I was drawing from this was rapidly diminishing.
“Yeah,” the Tweener repeated herself. “The parental controls really sold it for her.” A subversive counter melody entered the cadence of her speech. “She was really happy about that feature.”
My eyes squinted up at her. “Is there anything my Mommy would be happier not knowing about?” I asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir. Officially no idea.”
Then my old partner in crime showed me exactly what she had no idea about.
****************************************************************************************
I felt like a million bucks that night. A nice hot shower. Fresh fuzzy pajamas and powder to minimize chafing. New sheets in the crib and a freshly laundered Lion. It was a wonder what a few minor creature comforts could do after a long and dreary day.
Janet leaned over the crib railing, her curvaceous form still wrapped in a towel, her hair lightly dripping. Both of our heads smelled of sweet honey shampoo. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in Mommy’s bed tonight?” she coaxed. “I could lay with you until you fell asleep and then move you to the cot until I came back.”
“I’m okay,” I replied as politely as I could. “Thank you, though.” I was doing everything I could not to stare at the object of my desire.
Subtlety was hardly my strong point and Janet knew it. “You just want to stay up and play with your new toy.” This was neither a question, nor an accusation.
I sucked on my lips. “Kinda,” I admitted. “Snuggle tomorrow night? Stay up late tomorrow and sleep in Sunday morning?”
“Oh, so we’re staying up late, now?” Janet taunted. “Someone has gotten very used to being suspended.”
“It’s very easy to stay up late with an extra source of developmentally appropriate stimulation,” I offered. “If you’d like to negotiate it so that I take an extra long nap tomorrow, I’m amenable to that discussion.”
Janet tilted her head and crossed her arms. “You just want to stay up and play with your new toy, don’t you?”
I immediately averted my gaze and pretended to be interested in the dinosaur crib sheets. “Yes ma’am.”
My Amazon caregiver feigned exasperation in her sigh, but she was radiant. “It’s a good thing you’re cute.” She moved Lion out of the way and grabbed the tablet from its hiding place and punched a code in. “We’re going to have to go over some of these games this weekend. I do not like how some of these icons look.”
I stood up and flashed her full puppy dog eyes. “But tonight?”
Janet handed me the tablet back. “I’ve got a timer set for thirty minutes,” she said. “After that it’s locking you out and changing the code. Then it’s right to slumber town with you.”
“But I can play?” I asked.
She sighed. “Only because it’s a weekend.”
Good enough for me. “Yay! Thank you, Mommy!”
My Mommy shuddered in delight at hearing her self-given title come out of my mouth so earnestly. She’d conditioned herself far more than she’d conditioned me. “You’re welcome, baby boy.”
I leaned forward and accepted the kiss so that she’d hurry out of the room. “Good night, Clark. I love you.”
“Good night, Mommy,” I called back. There was a pause, but she flicked off the lights and closed the door.
Half an hour. I had half an hour to do what needed to be done. Not because I’d be locked out of the device, but because Janet would surely double back to take it out of my hands once I’d had my playtime.
I pressed the home key and backed all the way to the locked screen. Thanks to the parental controls, in half an hour the code would go from ‘1-3-5-7-9’ to a secret permutation that only Janet knew.
Fine by me. I didn’t need it. There was a special code that Tracy hadn’t divulged to my teacher, my Auntie, or even my Mommy. One that only I knew.
With deliberate slowness I pressed in the secret sequence. ‘1-0-5-6-5’. Alpha-numerically, if 1 and 0 were read as ‘10’, I would have just spelled out ‘J-E-F-E’. Tracy had wanted it to be B-O-S-S, but it was too many digits.
The screen blinked, and then the tablet booted back up. This time, all of the games were gone and only three heretofore invisible insignias remained: In my hands, I had an internet browser and a VPN and a settings app to turn my tablet into a wireless hotspot.
I held my breath as I tapped on the icons and saw the spinning loading signal. A second later, the browser opened. Fingers trembling I typed in the web address. ‘Mistuhgwiffin.net.’ It loaded!
For several seconds I just stared at the glowing screen, gazing in happy disbelief. No longer would my sources of information, my knowledge, or my voice be confined to what Janet or the others shared with me or decided what was worth listening to.
Now I could communicate incognito with Littles on the other side of the crib bars. Listen to rumors. Give warnings. I could do more than just wish and hope and plan. I could do more than wait for openings and opportunities. I could coordinate. I could create my own opportunities. I could stretch myself out so much farther than the Oakshire Elementary Maturosis and Developmental Plateau Class or the local Little Voices meetings.
I was back!
Comments
Damnit you've done it again, 😭I once again have my hopes up for Clark to escape. Please, I'm begging you, let this poor man be free.
The Slavin
I can see the buildup here. I don't think this will end well.
