I perched on a stool and threaded my feet through the frilly leg holes, then stood and pulled them all the way up. In the quick skuffle, I realised that the lady had not only fitted my nappy but also pulled a pair milky see through rubber knickers over it which left the pastel coloured design on the front of the nappy perfectly visible. It’s a butterfly and I felt physically sick just looking at it. I wasted no time pulling my big baggy knickers over it and realised that they’re not knickers, they’re a nappy cover! Mother led me out of the changing room and the next boy was called inside.
We entered the main hall again where the children and parents/guardians loitered… all the kids wore similar but not identical white dresses with either white tights, knee or ankle socks and carried a small white handbag, slung over their shoulder. Mother began to faff with the bow on my back. “You actually look quite nice considering.” she said. “Hopefully this experience will do you good.”
“How can this do me any good?” I asked.
“Well… if you’d known that vandalising Cooper’s Quarry would put you in a dress every Sunday, would you have done it?” Mother asked. I shook my head and hung it. “There you go.” she said.
“Do I have to wear a… er… every Sunday too?” I glumly asked.
Mother nodded.
“All day?!”
She nodded again.
“But… what if I need the toilet?”
“You do know what a nappy is for, don’t you?” she said. I gulped and hung my head.
A loud clap grabbed my attention and that of everyone else in the hall. “Is everybody present?” A lady said, before asking the boys and girls to assemble. Mother shoved me forward and I did what the others did; stood in one of several rows facing forward. The lady welcomed us to Sunday school and told us that we’ve got lots of fun activities to look forward to, and for the benefits of those of us who are here for the first time, she listed some of the activities. The book group didn’t sound so bad, and ‘games’ was too ambiguous to draw a conclusion. The group discussion on morality and misbehaviour sounded both serious and complicated, but when she said “…and before we break for lunch we’ll do some dancing.” a shiver went down my spine. She told us to assemble ourselves into three groups of seven and one group of six. I glanced around nervously, as did all the others before hesitantly gravitating towards each other. I joined the group that had assembled closest to me. “Hi.” I timidly said. The others muttered similar, unenthusiastic greetings.
At first I presumed all the others were boys like me, in spite of the fact we’re all wearing white ‘Sunday’ dresses. There’s twenty-seven of us in total, but only four girls, one of whom is in my group. She looks as shy and as timid as the rest of us, but at least she looks normal in her dress, even if it is a big ‘young’ for her. I wonder if she’s wearing a nappy too, and the same of the others. Maybe it’s just some us… I really don’t know. I cast my eyes to the edge of the hall where my mother and other grown ups stood, but they’d all gone. Whether they were in another room or had gone home, I didn’t know.
One of the staff attended our group and asked a couple of the kids if they’d enjoyed Saturday Club yesterday. “Yes Miss.” they humbly replied. They didn’t sound very convincing.
“And I understand you’ll be joining our after school club next week James.” she said to one in particular. He gulped and nodded. “Right.” she said. “Why doesn’t our new boy introduce himself by telling us how he came to join Sunday School.”
“Er…” I croaked as all eyes fell upon me. I wasn’t prepared and in a nerve induced stammer, I confessed to being part of the gang that vandalised Cooper’s Quarry. I was asked why he rest of the gang weren’t here, and I stuck to my story and claimed that I didn’t know them, adding that I was only one caught at the scene.
“You mean you didn’t reveal their names.” the woman said. “That’s very different to not knowing their names, and we don’t tolerate lies here.”
