“Clark! Look at me! I made a pony!” The block construction looked nothing like a horse. It was however sturdy enough to hold up the ragdoll. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have assumed the jutting in the back that propped the doll up was on purpose.

“That’s nice Ivy.” Was it just a regular kid cry? Like a routine being interrupted, or was he being scorned? A boy. I’m pretty sure it was one of the boys. Should I pee now? Would anyone notice? I felt the slight aching sensation, but that might have been a placebo effect. Having to go to the bathroom, because I was thinking about it.

Ivy poked me in the shoulder. “Why aren’t you playing?”
“Huh?”

“Do you want me to show you how? A lotta new kids don’t know how and they gotta learn. I’m really good with pretend food and playin’ kitchen!”

So much wrong with that statement. “No thanks, Ivy.”

The reading area was full of children’s stories. Decent reading level, but still easy reads. Lots of “classic” stories that have no doubt shaped Amazonian worldviews for generations. The Three Little Pigs. Little Red Riding Hood. The Brave Little Toaster. Anything that was personified as ‘Little’, eventually accepted that they needed somebody bigger, stronger, and more grown-up to protect and take care of them.

Not everything was pure propaganda: The Cat in the Spats, The Diggengest Hog, and an old copy of The Breeze In The Trees were shelved also. A couple books that might have been in my student library were there, too. The Shape Family, The King Learns to Count. Color Me Surprised.

Nostalgia and escapism tempted me. It might be nice to spend just a while just blocking out the nursery around me and forgetting about the world. That’s what Beouf and Zoge wanted though. And put stories like Dennis the Diesel Engine and Journey Into Imagination Land right next to Are You My Mommy? and I Wish I Was a Grown-Up presented the idea that all the stories were just as valid as one another.

“Clark? Can I read to you? I’m a good reader! My Mommy says so!”

“No thanks, Ivy.” I leaned back and pulled one of the beanbags over my legs like a blanket. “I’m just going to close my eyes.”

My mind was still whirring. Was that crying kid one of the three year olds or the four year olds? I’d barely gotten to know the three year olds. Were they being yelled at? Should I pee now? Would it be better to hold it in and let it go all at once? Or just in little spurts?

What would Cassie think of all this? Secretly, that was an answer I felt I already knew. But I kept the secret to myself. I needed what hope I could get.

“Some cats stay kittens,” Ivy read. “Some doggos stay pups. Just because you’re done growing doesn’t mean you’re grown up.” My eyes shot open.

“Ivy, I thought you said you weren’t going to read to me.”

“I’m not,” Ivy said. “I’m just readin’.” She looked down to her page and kept reading. “And that’s just fine. No one is quite the same. So be Little and giggle and have fun playing games.” I rolled my eyes. Because of course she didn’t know how to read to herself.

I turned my head and looked at the cover. An illustration of what must be a Little boy in just a T-shirt and diaper sitting on the bathroom floor grinning up at the reader, a pile of toilet paper pooled by his feet. The Title was “Done Growing Up: By Dr. Jerry Wolf.

I bit my tongue and swallowed any comment I was about to make. I wondered vaguely if I could rip pages out of a book discretely enough so that no one would notice. Maybe a page a day? I’d have to hope that Ivy wouldn’t be my shadow. She’d totally tattle on me.

“Some are born to be a mother, some are born to be a dad. Some are born to be a baby and that’s not at all bad.”

I’m not going to quote from that book further. I’m not afraid of copyright infringement, but I refuse to give that awful mess of mindfuck gaslighting any more publicity. It’s practically an Amazonian cartoon put on still paper.

Suffice it to say, Ivy read it…out loud…the whole thing…

Zoge’s station was with clay. “Teamwork clay,” Zoge called it. I had to guide Ivy’s hands to help her make what she wanted. Then she had to do the same for me. Another desensitization premise. Get used to people doing hand over hand with me and violating my personal space.

Zoge showed both of us. Naturally, she didn’t offer either of us to guide her hands.

“I wanna Octopus!” Ivy said. “Clark, can you help me make an octopus?”

I grabbed the top of Ivy’s hands and began to work her fingers for her, flattening out the clay and then making it into a ball.

Definitely couldn’t pee now. Too much sensory input. Too many people looking at me. Would I even get changed before lunch? Or was this just all another trick to getting me used to sitting in wet pants? What did Tracy tell the students who remembered me? Had she cried over me? At all?

“Mrs. Zoge,” I asked. “Can you fill up my bottle again?”

“It’s almost snack time, Little one. You can wait.” It wasn’t mean. Just the patient retort of someone used to teaching delayed gratification. And as always her speech had that vaguely musical quality to it. “I’ll fill your bottle first thing at snack time.”

Ivy made her eyes into saucers. “Pleeease, Mommy. He’s been super good!”

Zoge’s mouth twisted. “Alright,” she sighed. She took my bottle and went over to the sink.

“Thanks.” I said.

“Welcome.” A beat. “Instead of an octopus you could help me make a jar.”

“A jar?”

“One time, a long time ago, Mommy and Daddy were watching a movie on T.V. Two grown-ups did this and made a jar instead of octopus. But it was on a spinny table thing. Would that make you feel better?”

I rattled my head. “Huh?”

“Yeah, but the boy was standing behind the lady, and the lady seemed to be really really liking it, and this pretty music was playing. Mommy said it was just pretend. That’s when I learned that grown-ups play pretend too.”

The reference clicked. “Oh oh. Um…no.”

Ivy nodded. “Okay. I just thought maybe if we did this more like the grown-ups you might like it better.” I didn’t say anything. So close and yet so far away. “Clark?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like pretending to be a grown-up?”

I had no idea how to answer that or why it had even been asked. Ivy was more messed up than I thought. Her Mommy came back with my bottle, and Ivy took the opportunity to pop her pacifier back into her mouth. Coincidental? Or asking me to keep a secret? I didn’t know.

I stalled through the rest of that center and chugged the water bottle down. Ivy made do using just my one hand. Apparently, we were making a flower together.

“Why do you get the octopus and I get the flower?”

“Do you want the octopus?”

“No.”

And on it went.

I let out a belch, but covered my mouth with the crook of my elbow

“Need help?” Zoge asked.

I pictured myself being picked up and burped. “No, thank you!”

“Okay,” Zoge said easily enough. “Just let me know. It’s okay to ask for help.”

I finally managed to pee just before snack time. Ivy and I were at the independent center working on a strange puzzle: Three dimensional. Stuck together without the usual grooves of jigsaws. But no idea of what it was supposed to be. And the puzzle moved itself everytime a new piece was put in.

“The trick is to not build it as you want it, but as it could be.” She put a piece onto a standing oval and it fell down into a prism. I added a piece and it just collapsed into a broken pile. Wrong piece I guess.

“What does that even mean?”

Ivy grinned. “I don’t know. I just think it sounds cool! I’ve never finished it but I can get it pretty high before it breaks.” If Ivy the Lifer wasn’t sure how to work this, what hope did I have? How did this puzzle even work? Magnets?

But at least she kept quiet. No reading. No. “Look at this”. No odd questions. This was genuinely challenging for her. Everyone else seemed preoccupied too. Alone…or as close to it as I was likely to get. Relatively quiet.

I let go, and hoped it’d be enough to get me back into white sailor shorts.

“Pee-pee?”

I jumped at Ivy’s voice. “How could you tell?” I whispered.

“Your breathing changed. Also your eyes were looking down like you were tryin’ to aim. Lotta boys do it before they get unpotty trained. Don’t worry. I don’t think the grown-ups notice as much.”

“I’m an adult.” I hissed.

Ivy managed to get the puzzle into a tower shape. She had to stand up from her seat and raise her arms to reach the top. Showed just how useless the hem of her dress was. “I know,” she said. “So am I. But done growing doesn’t mean grown-up.”

I closed my eyes and shuddered to suppress my rage.

“Poo-poo?”

“No!”

Snack time finally happened. There was no snack table, proper. Even in Beouf’s class there was only so much real estate. Instead, the activity table and the two kidney tables were repurposed.

Beouf passed out paper towels to stand in for plates and Zoge was right behind her with a box. Me? I couldn’t find a place to sit.

“Sorry,” Shauna said. “I’m saving this seat.”

I looked around. “Who? Ivy?” She was the only besides me not seated.

“I just…am.”

“Nope.” Billy said at the other kidney table. “Just nope.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Chaz whispered. He was the only one that was buckled into a booster seat. He was still strapped into his seat. People had come to him. Chaz was the only one who needed strapping in. It was only just then that I realized I hadn’t seen the guy walk in, I don’t know how long.

“No way. I’m not a dick!” Billy whispered. “He is!”