“This sucks!”
I got up from my kidney table and walked over to Chazz. “Will you please be quiet?” I hissed. “I have children. Actual children, and I don’t want them hearing that kind of language.”
The diapered Little stared at me from his spot in my time out corner. “THIS! SUCKS!”
I looked back over my shoulder at my students. “You guys have some leisure time,” I called back. “Go play”. The kids didn’t need to be told a second time.
I ignored Chazz’s swearing as I went over to Mickey’s cubbie and took out his naptime blanket. Mickey was absent today. He wouldn’t miss it.
I walked back over to the time out corner and tossed it to the diapered Little; still not allowed to wear anything but a T-shirt and his crinkling shame. “Here.”
The blanket was back in my face in less than a second. “DAMN you! I’m not taking a nap!”
I caught the blanket and bit my tongue. Dude was going through a lot right now. Breaking his nose wouldn’t help either of us. I sat down cross legged on the floor across from him. “It’s so you can cover yourself if you want.” I told him. I was tempted, really tempted to add in “unless you want me to see your diaper…”, but that would have been an Amazon move. I held the blanket back out and he snatched it from me, spreading it out over his lap so that his diaper was concealed.
Now we were something close to equals, superficially, if not societally. I thumbed back at my class. “Those kids, they’re three and four. I’m thirty-one. How about you?”
“Old enough…” Chazz crossed his arms and pouted his lip out.
I shook my head. “I’m not doing what you think I’m doing, dude,” I said. “I literally want to know how old you are.” I rubbed my chin and my forearms for emphasis. “When they catch us and zap our hair off, it gets kind of hard to tell.”
“Us?” Chazz returned his his and glared at me. Were he a gun there’d have been a little red dot pointed right between my eyes. “There is no ‘us’, Helper!” I didn’t even blink. I’d been expecting that little slur to come whizzing out of the guy’s mouth the second that Beouf brought him into my room.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked. “Do you know why you’re in my room right now?” I interrupted him before he could sass me some more. “Because it hasn’t even been a week and you’re starting to get on Beouf’s nerves. That’s why you’re here.”
Chazz crossed his arms. “Like I care.”
“You should,” I said. “Beouf is an Amazon. She’s a monster. But she’s the nicest monster you’re likely to meet here. You’re in Hell, but she’s the demon that runs the first circle. Do you want to go deeper?”
The dude’s chest puffed out, like he had something to prove; like he wasn’t wearing his toilet around his waist. “They’re not gonna break me!”
I paused. I had to phrase this right and get through all that anger. “Yes,” I told him. “Yes they will. They’ll break you. They always do. Unless you smarten up.”
A flicker of hope. I had his attention. He was hoping that I’d give him tips. Maybe smuggle him out. He really was new. “Yeah?”
“Beouf thinks that you’re in here with me reading you the riot act,” I told him. “She thinks that I’m dressing you down and making you feel super childish or whatever. That maybe someone your own height talking to you like you’re a two year old is going to make you accept their worldview.”
“It’s not…”
I could practically feel my own nostrils flaring. Dumbfuck. “I know it’s not and you know it’s not. Beouf? I’ve known her for a decade and I promise you she thinks you’re a child, so she’s punishing you like one. Banishment and time-out in another teacher’s room. And that’s the worst that will happen. She doesn’t spank. I don’t think she does enemas or suppositories. She doesn’t purposefully leave you stewing in your own mess.This-!” I pointed to the floor for emphasis. “This is the worst thing that’s going to happen to you here, but only if you stay at this school!”
I could see Chazz get red all over. Not from embarrassment but pure adolescent rage. How old was this kid? Did he really not know how bad it could get? Beyond diapers? Beyond cribs? “It’s bad enough.” From under the blanket I saw him stomp his bare food a little bit.
Deep breath. “You’re not from around here, are you, Chazz?” That didn’t get a response, so I took it as a “no”. Figures. A Little sets out in the world and comes to the podunk piece of suburbia that is Oakshire; and they get sloppy. Littles can’t get sloppy. If we get sloppy, we tend to stay that way. Even white-bread podunk is risky when you’re knee high to an Amazon. “Anybody ever tell you about New Beginnings?” I asked.