Julia didn’t know what to say here. She knew that Kate was kind of (without knowing it) describing what Julia’s own experience with diapers was going to be like. One the one hand, this would be a great opportunity to create a lie that would someday very soon explain why she wasn’t wearing a diaper anymore. On the other hand, Julia didn’t really know what to say to help make it really believable, and she didn’t like the idea of lying to Kate. She decided to just keep quite.

“So, I guess” Kate continued “somebody who didn’t ever want anybody to know about their diapers got invited to the D club and had a fit. We never figured out who. We don’t even know when it happened. But I guess there was a whole investigation or something and she ended up losing her job. Mrs Bernard is her replacement.”

“So how do you find people for the D club now?” Julia asked.

“The same way I found you. I’m in Mrs Bernard’s office at least once a day, and I’m not the only D club member. Trust me, you will run into other people soon enough. You start to recognize the faces after a while you know?”

Julia was surprised to hear all of this, but as she thought about it she knew it made sense. “Yea, this kind of explains why Mrs Bernard was so emphatic about the whole privacy thing.”

“Did you really just use the word ‘emphatic’? I just saw that word on my SAT course.”

“Uh…” Julia started.

“No, it’s cool. Look you are obviously a really smart kid. I’m glad you came. The D club needs people like you. More than you might guess. We get a lot of people like that new guy today…. People who are just angry and stuff. We need people who have the self-confidence and decent social skills to help some of those people out. You seem like you could be one of those people.” She turned to Julia and must have recognized the surprise on her face. “I’m serious. You have the potential to be a real leader I think. You seem really well adjusted and I can you are the kind of person that people will start looking up to.”

Julia kind of blushed. Given how cool she thought Kate was, hearing this was possibly one of the biggest compliments she had ever gotten. “Wow, thanks. I never really thought of myself like that.”

“Yea, I didn’t either when I was a freshman. But you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age.” Kate paused then looked at her again. “You ever think about playing volleyball?”

Julia and Kate were soon back at the school. Lunch was over and people were heading back to class. Julia promised Kate she would think about trying out for the volleyball team (Julia learned that tryouts were in a few weeks) and thanked her for everything including an offer to show her some of the volleyball basics.

That night Julia told her parents at dinner about how lunch had gone. Her parents were both glad to hear it had gone well. Julia didn’t mention the things that Kate had told her about Mrs Lott, or what she had said about Julia possibly being a leader someday. She decided to keep that to herself for now.

Right before bed, when her Mother was changing her, Julia decided that going to the D club might have been one of the best decisions she had ever made.