The nurse laid me down on a little cot and then helped me out of my jeans. I then lay down with my eyes closed wishing I was somewhere else. I felt the now familiar rustling of plastic, the too-cool cleansing of the wipe, and then the dry paper feeling of the diaper pulled between my legs. Four tapes held it on my and then I was on my feet, bending over to pull my pants up. I buckled and then frowned at the nurse. “Thanks for the help. I am just overwhelmed by all this.”
“No problems. Come to the office any time you need to. Your driver left me a whole bag of incontinence pants for you. I don’t mind helping you. And don’t you think this is better than having to wear your gym shorts as pants three times last week?”
I looked down at the floor. Three times in a week? What had happened?
She handed me a pink hall pass. “Give this to Mrs. Sullivan so she’ll let you in class.”
I grabbed it and let Clara guide me to class.
- Discovery
“What did you get yourself into, Bailey?” I asked as I looked through the lab manual.
The boy next to me wore a football jersey with the school colors on it. He looked at me like I was strange. “Who is Bailey? I’m Robbie.”
“Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. I am just confused by this lab experiment. I am not even sure where to start.”
“Well, we start on the roof.” He picked up a box that was on the table and motioned me to proceed him into the hall. No one else left the classroom. The others had ramps and blocks, springs, pendulums, and balances.
I looked at Clara and she nodded. “While you were absorbed in the lab book, the teacher was giving each team their instructions.”
“So why do we need to climb up to the roof? Do you remember what happened on that bridge?”
“You are talking out loud,” she warned.
“You read the experiment,” said Robbie. “We need to throw various objects off the roof and time their decent. Like Galileo did? I didn’t know he threw things off a bridge.”
We went to the stairs until they got to the third floor landing. At the top was a ladder set into the wall. The first step was about four feet above the floor. Above, was a trapdoor that was opened. “Are you sure students are supposed to climb up here?” I asked.
“We got special permission from the teacher. Go on. I will be behind you to catch you if you fall.” He made his hands into a step and I put a foot in them and stepped up. I caught the stair and his hand touched my butt as I struggled to get to the first step. I got a hold of the step and started to climb. I hoped he didn’t feel the diaper through my pants. We got to the top and then he pulled up the box from a rope behind us.
Inside was a giant bell hanging from the center of the room. We walked to an opening and could see quite a bit of the grounds of the school. He took a stopwatch and his notebook and handed me the first object. It was a small metal ball about the size of a baseball.
“Is that a cannonball?” ask Clara.
“Yes, Maria. Galileo threw cannonballs from the bell tower when he did this experiment. Throw it down and we will time it’s decent.”
I shrugged. This was unreal. Schools don’t normally allow such cool things like this. I was so excited I missed that he heard Clara and answered her. I threw the ball from the bell tower.
“Two point five seconds,” he said and wrote it down. He handed me a golfball.
“Two point five seconds.” A whiffle ball.
“Two point five seconds.” A paratrooper toy. I threw down the paratrooper toy. It was just like a regular GI Joe toy, but this one had a plastic parachute. The parachute filled and it went to the ground.
“Ten seconds.” He handed me an ostrich feather.
“Twenty seconds. That’s the last thing.”
“I wish we could through Amy from this tower,” I said.
“Bailey, don’t,” said Clara.