“Come in,” Mr Allen called when Ben knocked on the door. Ben went in, and was pleased to see that Mr Allen was joined only by Mrs Clarke this time.
“Right Ben,” Mr Allen said, ” I think we need to have a proper chat, and you need to be honest with us. If you have a medical problem then we need to know about it.”
“I don’t have a medical problem.” Ben said adamantly.
“Okay, we’re not here to accuse you Ben. But we’re responsible for you whilst you’re on this trip, and so it’s important you keep us well informed. If we have an idea regarding the sorts of problems we might face then we can hopefully deal with them before they actually become problems.” Said Mr Allen.
“I don’t have a problem.”
“That’s not what Mr Allen said, Ben. We don’t want to embarrass you now, but equally we don’t want you to be embarrassed later either. And what happened earlier can’t have been nice for you? So we need to try and avoid it happening again.”
“It won’t happen again, it’s never happened before. It was just a one off.” Ben, who was having to try hard to keep back the tears, knew he wasn’t putting across a very good argument.
“Okay, but what about last night?” Mr Allen asked, “Do you wet the bed every night?”
Ben looked from Mr Allen to Mrs Clarke, and nodded, wiping a single tear from his eyes.
“But you have nappies to protect the bed here?”