Alvin Ever After:

Alvin in the Third

A novel by Danny

 

 

 

And So We Go...

So, you've come back for more, have you? Well that's good because I have more to tell about myself. For those that don't know who I am, my name is Alvin Colton Holloway. Up until several months ago I used to live in a beautiful California town known as Chula Vista which, when translated, means Heaven on Earth. OK, it doesn't really mean that, but don't you think it should, because I sure do! Anyway, in Chula Vista I had `normal' friends, went to a normal school and surfed nearly every day of the year. Not that I'm bragging or anything, but I was fairly good at surfing too and I'd even won the Junior Surfing Championship two years in a row. Okay, maybe I am bragging a bit, but heck, if I don't do it, who will? Everything I loved about life in California was taken from me, or more rightly said, I was taken from it, when my parents decided that we needed to move all the way across the country to Lewiston, Maine, where it's always too cold to surf and where I had no friends. I say `had' because after a while I did make a few friends here, but they are all — well, the only word I can use to accurately describe them is Abnormal with a capital-Weird!

Gee-whiz, how do I tell you about my new friends? I guess there is no other option then to come right out and tell you... I've become friends with six Maine residents and fellow students at Boyd Junior High who epitomize the term Abnormal. Four of those six are guys who are completely unusual because they all wear diapers of one kind of another. Then there are these two girls that both used to have a crush on me, but thankfully they both got over it. I'm a one girl kind of guy and my girl lives in Ohio. I'll give you the basics on each of my new friends and in no particular order either.

Stacks is a freshman girl at my school but that isn't her real name, it's just a nickname she picked up from playing hockey which she is really good at. Her real name is Hillary Thennings but so far I've only ever heard her being called that by her parents, everyone else just calls her Stacks. Her step dad, Mr. Rawnwe, runs a famous French restaurant here in Lewiston where Stacks sometimes works as a part-time parking vale'. Besides being one of the most popular girls in our school, she has another secret identity that only a handful of us know about. Those of us that have been trusted with this information also know Stacks by her online screen name of `Sissy4U', which she uses when she frequents a website known as ILD.com. ILD stands for I Like Diapers. I'll tell you more about that website later. Stacks doesn't wear diapers like I do, but she likes to think of herself as a surrogate big sister to all the diaper wearing guys and girls that frequent the site.

Stacks' has a younger step-sister named Bertha and let me tell you that... well, how does someone go about describing a girl like Bertha? She's a unique piece of work in her own right. Though Bertha says she isn't into Goth, she sure dresses and acts like she is. She's also very anti-bathing, anti-deodorant, and anti-anything else that might make her more palatable to the rest of the world. I found out recently that Bertha is a year older than I am, but she is in the same grade due to being held back way back in fifth grade like once or twice or something like that. It is honestly hard for me to keep it all straight in my head! Lots of people consider Bertha a bully and the leader of the worst bullies in our school, but there is so much more to her than that. Bertha, though cruel at times, has a tender and emotional side that only her closest friends get a glimpse of every so often. She's also madly in love with Larry. There was a time earlier this school year where Larry and I ended up competing for the right to call Bertha our girlfriend, which is really weird because I didn't then nor do I now have any of those sorts of lovey-dovey feelings toward Bertha. Actually, that idea is rather nauseating for me.

Larry is also my age but one grade ahead in school because he spent a year living with an Uncle and Aunt due to some trouble he got into in Maine when he was seven. His Aunt and Uncle had home schooled him for that year and he managed to get ahead of everyone else back here in Lewiston. During that year he also learned to speak Russian which I think is cool, but he never uses it mostly because he doesn't want people to think he is smart. When he came back to school, he was tested and got to skip a full grade. He is like the second in command of our schools bully gang; although, until recently he's not been doing a whole lot of bullying. You see, a while back he and I got into a fight. We both got banged up but he came out on the losing end with a badly broken leg. Oh that makes it sound like I beat the crap out of him; that wasn't the case at all. I had flipped him off me and when he landed; his leg managed to get caught between two trees and ended up twisted and badly broken. He was in a cast for the better part of the school year and has had two operations. He's got a metal plate and screws in his leg now and about a month ago he finally got rid of his wheelchair and is allowed to use crutches full time. When he was in the chair he seemed a lot more humble, or maybe the word should be pathetic, but now that he is up and about, he's back to his normal evil self. Then again, he wouldn't be Larry if he stayed a nice guy the rest of his life. It was shortly after our fight that I learned that Larry wears diapers at night too however he's not a member of ILD.com. Larry keeps his wetting problem very secretive. As a matter of fact, aside from Stacks and me, no one outside of his family knows and Larry doesn't even know that I know. However, Larry does know about me wearing them but he doesn't ever bring it up now that we're such good friends. Actually, there was this one day about two weeks ago when I had a diaper failure in English class. Larry helped smuggle me to the nurse's office without anyone finding out. That was one of his rare good moments.

I guess if I am telling you about Larry, then logic says I should tell you next about his twin brother Christian or Chris as he prefers to be called. Actually, Chris HATES being called by his real name. Although Larry and Chris are twins they look and act nothing alike. Whereas Larry is outgoing and always getting into trouble, Chris is quiet and most of the time goes unnoticed by everyone around him. The main reason Chris is so quiet is because he has a really bad stuttering problem and because of that, he almost never talks. Oddly though, Chris can sing like nobody's business and he's an amazingly good drummer too. He and his band `The Glass Gloves' played at my twelfth birthday party and boy can they rock. Chris and Larry were both born prematurely with underdeveloped organs. For Larry it's just his plumbing, I mean like his kidneys and bladder; but Chris, has a lot of other problems besides his plumbing such as his lungs and his guts and stuff like that. However, when Chris wasn't even one-year-old he had an operation that partially fixed his lungs. He's allergic to just about everything you can imagine; he sleeps in an oxygen tent at night and takes like a hundred different pills every day. Besides all that, he's basically a normal guy like me. There is one other thing about Chris; I'm sure you've already guessed that he wears diapers too, but unlike his twin brother he wears them all day, every day. Also unlike Larry, he is a member of ILD.com however he doesn't like people in the real world to know about it. Actually, only Stacks and I know that he is really Wet_Dwaggy on ILD.com; not even his brother knows about that site, which is amazing in and of itself. Besides the fact that they are twin brothers, Chris and Larry have very little to do with each other. Chris has become my best friend in the whole wide world, although we almost never were friends. When I first found out about his needing to wear diapers Chris was mortified and it took Stacks, forcing the two of us to talk one day after school to get us past that. She had locked the three of us inside the nurses' office at the end of the day and wouldn't let us leave until Chris and I were friends. From then on Chris and I have been best of buds. At school we don't hang together very much because he doesn't like being seen with his brother but when we are not at school we hang out together all the time. For obvious reasons he can't sleep over with me, but I've slept over at his place a few times. He and I had planned ahead and didn't tell his parents about my wetting problem at night; we kept that a secret just between the two of us. The few times I have slept over, I have made sure I got changed at home before going there and I just slept in my clothes in a sleeping bag on the floor. Then the last time I stayed over I took my stuff with me and after having my bath Chris helped me get diapered in the bathroom.

My other two friends who basically live in Larry's shadow are BB and Fish. BB, whose real name is Bruce Spawlding Junior, is actually the exact same age as me. We only discovered that about ourselves when I invited him to my birthday party. The party ended up being a double party, mostly because Bruce's parents hardly ever remember his birthday. However, we've since learned that I am older by thirteen hours and twenty-seven minutes, a fact that I remind him about every chance I get. BB is also a member of ILD.com and is known as BB-N2-TB-DL but also goes by the name Baby Bruce. And yes, you guessed it; he's a diaper wearer too. Although, unlike the rest of us he doesn't need to wear them; he only wears them because he likes them. I know... it took me a while to get used to that idea too.

Something else I should share about BB, ILD.com, and myself is that I got BB into some serious trouble on ILD the day after that big birthday party. A bunch of us were in the ILD Chat Room talking with Daddy_Phil and Mommy_Beth (I'll tell you more about them later) who run the site. Anyway, I let on that BB and I just turned twelve the day before and that we had the same birthday. Well, when BB registered for ILD.com he lied about his age, to make others think he was older. Daddy_Phil was not happy about this and was so angry that he almost band BB from ILD for life. For like two weeks BB would not talk to me. We've since made up and are cool now, but for a while there I thought I had lost a good friend. Another fact about BB is that he is gay and doesn't care who knows it. I guess he can get away with that because he hangs around with the likes of Bertha and Larry and no one is going to risk getting on their hit list.

And then there is Fish, whose real name is Dana McKaty and now you can see why he's called Fish. What boy would ever want to be known by a girly name like Dana? I mean, that is just asking to get teased by classmates. However, I guess the same argument can be used for having a name like Fish. Of course, upon learning Fish's real name and being the good friend that I am, I started calling him McCatfish. Boy, he really hates it too! For the most part Fish is a Xerox copy of BB as far as personality and the fact that he too is gay and a diaper wearer. Although, I guess that is where the similarities end because Fish has a legitimate reason for wearing diapers. For the first few months that I knew about Fish's diaper wearing I thought it was only because he has a problem with wetting like me, but I've since learned, and he doesn't know I know this about him, the reason he has a wetting problem is because his old man used to regularly beat the crap out of him. When he was something like two and a half his dad had kicked him so hard in the back that he nearly killed Fish. Fish spent almost a year in the hospital and he didn't start walking until he was over four-years-old. For all that, his old man only spent eighteen months in jail and I guess he still sometimes hits on Fish. Fish is also a member of ILD.com and goes by the screen name of PampersBoy. Oh and if you haven't guessed yet, BB and Fish are an item.

Those are the friends I've made here in Lewiston, Maine but they are not my only friends. I also made a couple other friends, Joey and Jacquelyn who both live outside of Maine. I keep in contact with them via email, letters, phone conversations, and I've even been to visit Joey a few times.

Joey, who is only eight-years-old, is probably my second best friend in the whole-wide-world next to Chris. You know something funny about him? When I first met him I thought he was only five or six. I guess that is because he is kind of on the short side and his mother dresses him like he's still that young. Joey's like the little brother I never had. And his Mom and dad are like my second set of parents. I even call them Mommy and Daddy now and Joey does the same with my parents as well. It gets kind of confusing when we're all together, but it is also kind of funny at the same time. Joey and his mom were just here to visit during spring break and boy I miss them so much already.

Something really weird about Joey and his mom is that I met them before I found out about ILD.com, however sometime after I met them I found out that it is Joey's Mom and dad that run the ILD.com website. They are known as Mommy_Beth and Daddy_Phil and Joey is known as LilPrince. However, I've been sworn to secrecy about their real world identities. About a month after I found out about ILD.com and about Joey and his parents I found out that my parents knew about them and their site long before I did. I'll tell you more about that later. As for Daddy_Phil, I actually only ever knew him online because he was in the military fighting in the war in the Middle East.

So are you wondering how I found out that Joey and his parents were LilPrince, Mommy_Beth and Daddy_Phil? Yeah well it's not such a big deal. I was alone in the ILD Chat Room with LilPrince. We were talking about stuff when he started telling me about a friend of his who surfs. Of course I put two and two together and broke one of the biggest rules of ILD; I told LilPrince my real name. Like the next day, Daddy_Phil demanded I speak with him privately online. That is when I was sworn to secrecy. It is also when he told me that my parents and Grandparents already knew about all this and that they'd talked at length.

So like, it was Grandfather that found out first about ILD.com due to my own stupidity. I'd left a scrap of paper with the website address written on it in my pants which ended up in the wash. He actually was all for it but then Grandmother, found out because she found it on her computer because I hadn't had time to clean the history off of it. She spoke with Grandfather who told her he was already looking into it. But Grandmother then told my mother, who played dumb with my grandparents as she already knew about ILD and in turn talked my father who also already knew and after a whole lot of talking everyone sat me down and we five talked. So now, everyone is completely cool with ILD.com, with me visiting it, with Joey and his folks and all that stuff that goes along with it.

Now I want to tell you about my sweetheart. Jacquelyn is my age and lives down in Ohio with her minister father and mother and their seven devils... uh... I mean sons, who all hate my guts. We met them on our way from California to Maine. They had taken us into their home for the night when Jacquelyn's father, Pastor Doleshire, had heard that, for most of the trip, we had been sleeping in our car and insisted on having us stay the night with his family. It was at their house that I was first reintroduced to life in diapers and for the remainder of our journey I was kept in diapers so that I wouldn't keep stinking up the backseat of our car with my pee. I didn't find out until later that the diapers had been Jacquelyn's mother's idea and man did Jacquelyn like that idea! She is just gaga over boys in diapers, but only I know that about her. She came right out one day on the phone and told me so and I was knocked for a loop. I'm the one that got her involved with ILD.com after she confessed that she liked boys in diapers, and she loves it! No one at ILD.com knows her real name except for me and of course Mommy_Beth and Daddy_Phil. Oh yeah, LilPrince, uh, I mean Joey knows to, but only because he is their son and my best friend. Everyone online knows her as Roo. I'm the one that picked that screen name for her. You see Jacquelyn loves kangaroos and I wanted her screen name to be Jackie_Legs like from that movie `Kangaroo Jack', but she didn't like it because she doesn't like being called Jackie. I then suggested `Roo' after the little kangaroo friend of `Winnie the Pooh'. Jacquelyn and Stacks have become best friends online which is sometimes good and sometimes bad because they talk about me constantly. They say they don't but I know they do because Jacquelyn knows stuff about me that I didn't tell her. Despite the distance between us, Jacquelyn and I are now going steady and plan to get together again this summer when my family and I go down to visit once school is out. That is when my parents are taking me and Joey to California so that I can compete in the Teen Surfing Competition. I tried to get Chris's parents to let Chris come too, but because of all his allergies and other problems they don't think it is a good idea.

 

Chapter 2

Okay, I have been ragging on my new friends for their oddities concerning diapers and I suppose it could be argued that I have lead you to believe that I am the only normal person in all of Lewiston, Maine. But I'm not... because as I just said in the paragraph above, I too wear diapers because I am a bedwetter. It started out as just a thing that my parents were making me do while we were on the road from California to Maine, but after we finally reached our destination the diapering didn't stop. Actually it got worse. I had a few daytime accidents and because of that my parents and my grandparents as well, all felt that I needed to be diapered day and night. At first I had been totally against it, but after a couple diaperless accidents at school, I surrendered to the idea. And well, frankly it is no big deal anymore. Okay, that isn't really true; it's still a big deal. If it weren't I wouldn't be scared every waking moment that someone at school will find out.

Each and every morning of this past school year I have awoke, walked to my armoire, stripped off my wet diaper or GoodNite (depending on which I had worn to bed) and placed it in the diaper pail within the armoire. I would then mark an X through another day on a calendar, which I had put on the inside of the left armoire door. I had made the calendar myself using the computer in my grandparents Media Room. Each day I marked off meant I was one more day closer to returning to California. Oh sure it was only going to be a temporary return so that I could compete in the Teen Surfing Competition, but I am just happy that I am able to go. After getting out of my wet diaper I would streak to the bathroom to shower off the stale pee smell before putting on a GoodNite, shorts, a t-shirt, socks and gym shoes. Only then would I leave my bedroom to head downstairs to exercise before school.

When I had found out that I was going to be able to complete in the Teen Surfing Competition this year I knew that I had to do something to be physically ready. Sitting on my butt watching the snow get deeper and deeper wasn't going to do it, so at breakfast one morning I happen to say something to John about wanting to figure out a way that I could make sure I was ready to compete. That is when Grandfather suggested that I use the weight room in the basement. Before then I didn't even know their house had a basement, let alone a weight room.

There hadn't been time that particular morning for Grandfather to show me the weight room, so I had to wait until after school. When the final bell had rung I launched myself from my desk, ran out of the classroom and the school before anyone could stop me. I didn't even bother to go back to my locker. I had run all the way home only to find that except for Micah, no one else was there.

Finding the basement turned out to be easier than I had expected. You see, my grandparent's home is huge and I've gotten lost in it on more than one occasion. When I arrived home and realized that yet again my parents and grandparents were both out, I raced to the kitchen where I found Micah. She was sitting on a stool eating Fish Balls and watching As the World Turns. And no, they were not the kind of Fish Balls you are thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter! Anyhow, I asked Micah how to get to the basement and she told me.

"Al-bin go to foyer, then past stairs like Al-bin go to garage only do not go to garage, go to basement."

I know what you are thinking, those directions were a bit lacking on actual directions. However, I had learned early on that Micah doesn't like it when I bug her during As the World Turns so I didn't press her for more details.

I did as she had instructed. I raced back to the foyer, dropping my bag at the bottom of the steps, then shot down the hall toward the garage. Instead of taking a right through the door that lead into the garage I went further down, something I had never done before, to the door at the end of the hall. Sure enough, when I opened that door there was a wide staircase just as beautiful as the one that lead from the foyer to the upstairs only this one lead down to the basement.

Now, calling my grandparents basement a basement is like calling the bathroom that is off of my bedroom an outhouse. The basement is decorated just as nicely as the rest of the house and except for the lack of windows, you'd never know that you were below ground-level.

The first two rooms I looked in were not what I was looking for. The first was completely void of furnishings, I mean not a stick of furniture only artwork lining every wall with lights above them that came on when I opened the door.

The second door opened to yet another fully furnished bedroom; I think that brings the count of bedrooms I have found up to twelve.

The third door I opened, which happened to be the only door on the left side of the hallway, turned out to be the weight room. Again, calling it a weight room was totally an understatement. Yes it had weight lifting equipment, but it also had a heck of a lot more. There were treadmills, stair machines, rowing machines, a large area with wood floors, mirrors and a long brass bar which I could only guess was for ballet dancers because that is the only thing I had ever seen that I could compare it too.

By the way, you might note that I put an `s' on each of those machines above because there were multiples of each machine. I suppose the idea was, that a family that exercises together, stays together.

And as blown away as I was by that fantastic weight room, what really caught my attention was what my nose was detecting...

"Chlorine?! Oh—my—goodness! We have a pool?!" I shouted even before I had physically seen it.

As it turned out, it wasn't a pool, per say, but what is known as a Lap Pool, which is kind of like a small pool where the water moves instead of the swimmer. Now a real pool would have been cool however a Lap Pool turned out to be the perfect thing for me. The minute I walked into the Lap Pool room, which was on the far side of where the stair machines were, the lights came on automatically and so did the Lap Pool.

Okay, I will confess that I nearly jumped out of my overly wet GoodNite when those water-jets came on. I'm not normally that skittish, but I hadn't expected that to happen so it startled me.

Anyway, when I saw all that water moving and frothing I knew I had just found the perfect indoor training place for surfing. If you had seen me running home from school that day and then seen me running from the weight room up to my room, you would have thought that my sprint home had been in slow motion. I mean, it was like I had a rocket attached to the back of my diapered butt as I ran up both flights of stairs and into my room. And just for the record, on my way up the second flight of steps, I had remembered to grab my backpack so I wouldn't get yelled at once again for leaving it where it didn't belong.

The first thing I did once I reached my room was to toss my backpack onto my bed, the second was to pull my surfboard off the wall; it was about to get its very first taste of water. I then ripped my clothes and wet GoodNite off, leaving them lying in the middle of the floor and then pulled on a pair of shorts that I'd got from the Doleshire's family.

Running back to the weight room, while carrying a long-board isn't exactly an easy thing to do. I had to slow down to navigate the turns and corners but eventually I got down to the Lap Pool which came to life once again as I walked in.

"Man that is too cool!" I exclaimed.

Without testing the water for temperature or anything I set my board beside the pool and jumped in feet first. It was a lot deeper than I had expected and the water was both cold and warm. The water in the pool was cold but the water coming out of those jets was quickly heating everything up. However, not fast enough for my poor balls which had crawled back inside of me for warmth.

Actually, the Lap Pool was so deep that when I had jumped in I didn't hit the bottom. I tried to tread water but the current was so strong that I was quickly washed to the back of the pool and had to swim like mad to get back to my board. Oh sure I could have just grabbed the side and pulled myself along the edge, but where's the fun in that? That dang current was so strong, that as I was trying to swim against it, it pulled my shorts right off of me. I guess the shorts I had picked out were too big for me when I didn't have a diaper on under them. Oddly enough, it was because of that rather humorous event, that from then on I only ever went in the Lap Pool when I was naked.

That first day surfing in the Lap Pool didn't work out quiet as well as I had expected. Each time I would try to put my board in the water and get on it the current would wash me and the board backward. When I later explained to John, and then showed him what I was doing, he had the brilliant idea of tying the leg rope my board to the front edge of the Lap Pool. After that, indoor surfing became an everyday thing. I would get up in the mornings, head down to surf and then John would join me later. We'd work on strength and balance training before school. I also trained most afternoons too, but not every afternoon because sometimes it took me all afternoon and evening to get my homework completed.

Actually, John and I have been getting along a lot better and those months we spent working in the weight room together really seemed to help the two of us mend the bad blood between us. I can't tell you the last time he yelled at me and we haven't butted heads in months, except for the whole hair thing, but I will tell you more about that in a minute. Oh and while I am on the subject of John... you will notice that I am still calling my dad by his first name. Well, you see a while back, I started feeling bad about that; I mean I really have been hard on him. How he has managed not to knock my block off at least a hundred times, I will never know. I tried calling him dad again but it just felt too weird. Even he seemed to act weird the few times I tried it. So I went back to calling him John and we both seem to be okay with it now.

 

Chapter 3

As the end of the school year neared I had no idea that something other than the competition was fast approaching that would change my life forever. When there was only three weeks of school left, and my excitement over returning to California had escalated to a fevered pitch, something horrible happened that nearly stole every bit of joy and yearning that had been building up inside of me.

I hate that I remember nearly everything from that dreadful day in extreme detail. I was sitting in second period. We had a substitute for the second day in a row because our regular teacher had a baby. Actually she had the baby at school and the school nurse had delivered the baby in the nurses' office; but that is a story for another time.

I think most of us were nearly falling asleep listening to our Sub going on and on about the improper use of commas when the distant sound of a low pitched, long lasting horn could be heard. And then a minute later the P.A. system came to life as our school Principal, Mr. Casting's voice rang out.

"Your attention please. Your attention please. To all school staff, this is a level four announcement. I repeat this is a level four announcement." There was a pause before he continued saying, "Until further notice all students are to remain in their present classrooms. No students are permitted to leave their classroom for any reason without being accompanied by a teacher, a hall monitor, or a member of the school staff."

Immediately following the announcement everyone in our class began whispering and buzzing until our Sub called for quiet.

"I am sure that there is nothing to be concerned about. We shall continue the lesson as normal." And then began lecturing again as if there had been no disturbance.

I leaned over to the girl sitting to my left and asked, "Nancy, what was that all about?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Shore alarm."

Of course that meant nothing to me and I didn't get to ask for further information because the P.A. system came back on.

"Your attention please." Our Principal said, "Would the following students please pack up your belongings. Someone will be by to escort you to the office momentarily. Rudy Gentry, June Carrington..."

Roughly twenty or more names were called, including my own. Out of those names I had recognized only a handful including the proper names for BB and Fish as well as those of Larry and Chris.

Within five minutes of the announcement Mr. Casting, our school Principal, walked into the classroom along with my friend Stacks, who is a hall monitor at our school. Along with them was another teacher whom I had seen in the halls before, but had never personally met. Before that day I didn't even know her name. I later found out that she was Mrs. Pilut and that she teaches eighth grade Biology. Mr. Casting and Mrs. Pilut looked right at our Sub while Stacks scanned the room and then locked eyes with me. As long as I live, I will never forget the pain and hopelessness I saw in her eyes that morning. I remember feeling an incredible emptiness deep inside of me and I didn't know why... but I would, very soon. Mr. Casting talked with our Sub in whispers and then the Sub's face sagged as she covered her mouth and gasped.

As Mr. Casting turned to face us, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement over by the door. I looked and saw a police officer standing in the hallway, just outside the classroom with another girl whom I didn't know. Mr. Casting cleared his throat as he looked at each of us and then glanced at Stacks. I guess he had expected to find me ready to go, but I hadn't even budged an inch. I also figured that he hadn't remembered what I had looked like from earlier in the year because he hadn't called on me until after Stacks pointed me out to him. Then again I suppose I had changed my look quite a bit that school year. I had grown nearly a full half inch and I was wearing my hair longer, actually I hadn't had it cut but the one time since coming to Maine. My bangs now hang over my eyebrows and would hang over my eyes if I didn't keep flipping my hair all the time, which was causing my bangs to grow in a curved sort of way. It also completely covered my ears unless I pulled it back and tucked it behind my ears the way I see girls do all the time. It had been a huge tension between me and both my parents and grandparents a couple of weeks ago when I had returned home one Saturday afternoon with my hair dyed purple. My friend Bertha had done it for me using a mixture of Kool-Aid. A couple years ago that was the big thing in California, everybody was coloring their hair using Kool-Aid. I never did it, but I'd seen it done at least twice by others I was friends with. One girl came to school with lime green hair. She looked like something from outer space. Grape and Fruit Punch mixed together produces a decent looking deep purple if your hair is normally black like mine. It had been Bertha's idea from the start and though I was hesitant, I went ahead and did it. I started to get kind of nervous after the first try because my hair had turned a very deep shade of reddish-pink. However, after the fifth application my hair was dark enough for Bertha's liking. I actually liked it too, in the end. The secret to using Kool-Aid as a hair coloring is that it washes out after three or four days. So to keep it purple I had two choices, either keep re-dyeing it or not wash my hair... ever! Guess which one I went with. Now that my hair is longer, most of the time the back is kept tucked into my shirt collar. I do that mostly to keep Larry and the guys from pulling on it and teasing me about how long and greasy it is.

"Mr. Holloway?" Mr. Casting called out and his voice sounded remarkably empty and void of happiness much the way Stack's eyes had been.

I guess I nodded my head in acknowledgement because he then said, "Alvin, you'll need to gather your things and come with us."

I was barely able to say, "A-a-am I in trouble sir?" however, as I was speaking Stacks was shaking her head ever so slightly and I got the message. I guess that's one of the perks of knowing your friends so well. You can speak volumes with just a look, a wink, or a nod of a head.

BB, who had transferred into our class earlier that year, was slouching in his seat and trying not to be noticed. He had got himself on Mr. Casting's bad side, which is saying something, when he and Fish were caught vandalizing the girls gym locker room. Actually, they were toilet papering it, but our gym teacher had called it vandalism; I guess because it sounded worse than saying they were TPing the locker-room.

"No son, you're not in any trouble." Mr. Casting said, "I just need you to come with me."

I glanced over to BB and I guess I gave him away because Mr. Casting then said in a less than kind tone, "Mr. Spawlding, you need to come along as well."

BB gave me a sarcastic expression which made it clear what he was thinking. I could hear his unspoken words, "Gee thanks a lot Alvin!"

I tried to express my apology using only my eyes but BB wasn't looking at me anymore. He was stuffing his textbook into his tattered canvas bag; I did likewise, putting my book in my backpack and clipping my mechanical pencil to the front collar of my wool sweater.

I think that police officer scared the crap out of BB because he was unusually quiet. BB walked with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, his bag hung from his left shoulder and he was keeping his head hung low. At any other time I would have laughed because I had noticed that there was a hole in the side of BB's canvas bag and I could clearly see the bright white plastic of an extra diaper. BB would die if he knew that it was visible, but I don't think anyone else had noticed it.

Stacks was walking behind us with that other girl and I wanted to turn around and ask what was happening but couldn't. That police officer had his hand resting on the back of my neck while Mr. Casting and that other teacher lead us down the hallway toward the office.

We walked into the office and I saw that Larry, Fish, Chris, and a few other students I didn't know were sitting there like a band of guilty looking desperados.

In the office, none of us spoke a word. There were a few nervous glances shared, but overall we were all to frighten to speak. I had tried to ask Fish what was going on but all I got from him was a shrug of his shoulders.

When my grandmother walked into the school office alone I think I nearly crapped myself. She didn't even look my way as she was greeted by the Vice Principal and then escorted to his office. No more than two minutes later she came out, motioned for me to come with her and we left.

"What's going on?" I asked even before we were out of the school.

"Not right now." Grandmother said.

As I was escorted out of the school I stopped, turned, looked my grandmother in the eye and was about to speak when she put a finger to my mouth.

"All in due time," was all she said.

I tried to ask more questions but she had taken hold of my arm and was in essence dragging me to the car while she sniffled into a lace handkerchief.

She opened the back door and pushed me in as another, much older rust bucket of a car pulled up behind ours. A woman emerged looking totally distraught, but I didn't have time to find out who she was because Grandmother closed the door, nearly hitting me with it in the process.

Finally, as we began moving she started to tell me what had happened. "There was an accident this morning at the shipyard." she said as though she were reading a newspaper headline to me.

To say I was confused would have been an understatement. Why would there be so much hoopla at school over something like that?

Then she told me why, "There is a fire; it has spread to several of the fishing boats."

The way Grandmother was speaking scared me. I sat silently and listened as she continued, "Your Grandfather left immediately after getting the call. We don't know yet how bad it is or if the fire is out, but we do know that at least two ships have already sunk and that a lot of crewmen are unaccounted for."

I sat there in the backseat very quietly thinking about what she had said. We were nearly home when I asked, "Does Mom and John know? Are they with Grandfather?"

At first she didn't answer me and I didn't really think anything about it at the time. When she did answer all she said was, "I spoke to your mother and she asked that I pick you up."

 

__________

 

About three hours later I was sitting in the media room with Grandmother, Micah, and Liam, the gardener, watching the news. It was bad, very bad. They said that five boats had sunk and three others were badly damaged by the fire. At first they said that three people had been found dead but every few minutes that number climbed higher and higher. At last count there were seventeen people that had been killed and there were still many more unaccounted for. At one point we even saw my own Mom on the news.

"There's Mom!" I shouted so incredibly loud, as I sprang from my seat toward the big screen.

We had only seen her for less than half a second as the camera panned past a crowd of people. She had been kneeling on the ground and another woman was hugging her as my mom cried hysterically.

I wish I had never seen that because in that very instant my entire world came crashing down around me. For maybe three seconds I stood before that enormous television screen, frozen and lifeless, as my brain began to understand why I had been singled out at school and brought to the office. I turned around; Grandmother, Micah, and Liam were all standing and looking at me with worried and anxious expressions.

I think I said it before I actually knew I had thought it. "My dad is dead isn't he?"

Micah rushed toward me, scooped me into her arms and pressed my head into her bosom. Then I lost it! I totally lost it. Micah and Grandmother were on the floor holding me and crying right along with me as Liam, who is a well-built Newfoundland immigrant, stood there crying over us.

It took forever before they were able to get me calm enough to understand that we didn't know for sure if my dad was dead or not. But that didn't really help. I had seen my own mom crying on TV and why else would she do that?

 

Chapter 4

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, we heard my mother call out, "Hello? Alvin? Are you home?"

I literally leaped over the furniture and flew from the media room. I found both Mom and a short lady police officer standing in the foyer. Mom looked horrible and when she saw me she began to cry again. I didn't even bother to acknowledge the presence of the officer as I threw my arms around my Mom and wailed.

When Mom had come home Liam had left us. I presume that he went to his own home. Micah on the other hand didn't leave, however she did vanish into the kitchen only to return soon after with hot tea and small cucumber sandwiches for all of us. But none of us could eat.

Mom, Grandmother, and I sat together praying, watching the news and waiting. Sometime during the late afternoon, while lying in my mother's arms, I had cried myself to sleep. They didn't put me to bed but instead left me to sleep right there. I suppose they didn't want to walk away from the TV for even an instant. I only awoke again when Mom was trying to change my overly soaked diaper.

"Ssshhhhh." She said when she saw my eyes open, "You are so wet that you are about to spring a leak."

I had been asleep for over two hours. During that time Grandfather had called to say that he wouldn't be home for a while and to say that we shouldn't give up hope. To me, that didn't sound like something Grandfather would say. I honestly think Grandmother made that up to try to make Mom and me feel a little better.

 

__________

 

It was after dark before Grandfather came home. We had just heard them announce on the news that the death count was up to twenty-seven and dozens more hurt or missing.

I had never seen my grandfather look as old as he did when he walked into the house that night. The lines in his face seemed to have been etched deeper and his shoes scrapped the floor as he walked. His clothes were covered in soot and filth and there was a rip in his left pant leg just below the knee. I don't know why, but it was his shoes that really stood out for me. They looked like something a hobo might be wearing; not something a multi-millionaire would have on.

After Grandmother and Grandfather started to head upstairs so that he could get out of his dirty clothes and get cleaned up, Mom took me up to my room. We didn't talk to one another; I think that if we did, we'd both begin to cry again. She helped me out of my school clothes, changed my diaper once again and then helped me into my pajamas.

Without being asked or told to do so, I went over to my bed pulled down the covers and climbed in. Mom sat on the side and petted my head until I fell asleep.

 

__________

 

Grandfather, after returning home had taken a shower, put on a fresh set of clothes and left again. He didn't return until breakfast time the following morning.

Grandmother, Mom, and I had been sitting at the table in silence. Two fried eggs, a strip of bacon, and a half slice of buttered toast lay on a plate before me. They had long since gone cold. There was no sound at all, but the clinking of my fork as I stabbed at the gelatinous yokes.

We hadn't heard him come back home so when he walked into the room we were all surprised. He stood in the doorway, his cheeks red from the cold and dried tracks of recently cried tears. I remember thinking how odd it seemed to see someone as solid as my grandfather appearing so fragile.

Grandfather opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then closed his mouth and licked his bottom lip. I remember the words he said exactly; they are etched into my mind forever. "Witnesses said that John had pulled two men from one of the burning boats and had gone back to help another when the fuel tank exploded."

I sat in my seat and sobbed but Mom completely came apart. She collapsed to the floor screaming. Micah had come from out of nowhere as did Liam who I was surprised to see back. I couldn't believe Liam's strength as I lifted my mother and carried her up to her and John's room. Before the doctor came and after the doctor left Micah stayed with Mom. I guess when you are rich, doctors still make house calls because one arrived shortly after Mom had collapsed and gave her a shot to make her sleep.

Later that day we found out that one of the two men my dad had saved was BB's father. Bertha and Stacks had come over and told us. I didn't see them because I had been upstairs taking a very long shower. Actually, I was sitting under the falling water weeping. Micah had been the one to talk with my two friends and then passed their news on to us.

I don't know how much my grandparents pay Micah, but they need to pay her a heck of a lot more! In the days to follow Micah pretty much took over the house, taking care of everyone, including me and you know what I mean when I say that right? Grandmother, who at first had been strong, appeared to have run out of strength after the first day and seemed as though she were almost hollow inside whenever I would see her. Grandfather was hardly ever home; if he wasn't at the hospital visiting those that survived the fire, then he was working and visiting families who had lost loved ones. He would only come home to shower, eat, sleep very little, and then he'd leave again.

 

Chapter 5

On the third day Mom finally got out of bed again because we all had to go to the funeral. There was no viewing as there was no body found to put into the casket. Instead, we went to the docks were the fire had happened and tossed a wreathe into the water when they said my dad's name.

It was after two names were read that I saw Larry and Chris toss wreaths into the water. Later, I found out that those two wreaths were for their father and uncle.

As we were heading back to the car a man came up to us. He was walking on crutches and at first I hadn't realized who he was, but then I saw BB walking behind him looking at the ground.

"BB!" I said, glad to see him.

When he looked up at me he smiled and then did something weird; he hugged and kissed me on the lips right there in front of everyone.

The man was BB's father. He took my mother's hand and said, "I am Bruce Spawlding, uh, senior. We've not met yet but I have heard a lot about you from my son Bruce here. You're husband save my life and the life of my brother."

Mom had already been crying, but when he said that she erupted with even more tears and fell on his neck.

BB finally stopped hugging me and said, "I am really sorry about your dad."

I couldn't respond. I just nodded my head but I do remember thinking about how fast word had spread about John. I'm not sure how the news got out, but the day after we had heard about it, flowers started arriving from so many people that after a while the house looked and smelled like a colorful garden. You know the one bad thing about that? I don't think I will ever be able to look at a flower again and see it as beautiful.

BB went on to say, "I finally got to talk to Fish this morning and one of his cousins was in the hospital because his leg was badly burned. I saw Larry for a minute yesterday too but I didn't get to talk with him."

Finally finding my voice I said, "I've not talked to him or Chris either."

BB screwed up his face, "Did you know their dad and uncle were killed?"

For some reason BB's words acted like a double edge sword cutting right through my heart and I began to cry again, which caused BB to respond by hugging me again, only tighter than before. I don't know why, but I didn't want BB to let go of me. I wrapped my arms around his back and locked my fingers together as my tears soaked his shirt.

BB's dad, crying now too, had continued to say something to my Mom and grandparents, which I hadn't heard most of until I picked up on him saying, "We tried to keep John from going back aboard that boat," his voice was really breaking up bad as he said, "but he wouldn't hear it."

Finally, it took Grandfather forcing my arms apart to pull me off BB. He then walked me to the car where I laid my head in my grandmother's lap and cried all the way home.

 

Chapter 6

Sometime during the night, while I was sleeping Grandmother and Grandfather had to call an ambulance and have my mom taken to the hospital. I hadn't heard anything and only found out about it the next morning when Micah came in to see if I wanted any breakfast.

"She is very tired and the doctors will take care of her for a while." Micah told me.

I am not supposed to know this, but I overheard Grandmother talking to someone on the phone and she said that my mom had taken a lot of sleeping pills and that is why they called the ambulance. Maybe that should be affecting me more than it is; then again maybe I am just overdosing on emotions and can't feel anymore right now.

Never in my life have I felt as lonely as I did the rest of that week. I tried to go online to ILD.com but I just didn't feel like chatting or answering emails. And television had become something to avoid because it was too depressing when I would see another news broadcast, talking about the accident. At one point I had thought that I'd be safe watching cartoons, but they even interrupted Tom and Jerry to do more news.

On Sunday afternoon however, something good finally happened. I was sitting in the kitchen with Micah watching her make something she called Haggis when Grandmother walked in. At first I hadn't noticed that for the first time since the wreath ceremony Grandmother had taken the time to put on makeup and do her hair up nicely.

"Alvin," she said, "you have visitors at the front door."

I figured that it was probably one of my school friends come to see how I was doing, but when I reached the foyer I got such a shock.

"JACQUELYN?!" I squealed loudly when I saw her standing there with a large suitcase beside her and a big piece of paper hanging from a string around her neck.

It felt so good when Jacquelyn gave me a hug. It was such a shock to see her finally after so many months.

"Why are you here?" I then shook my head, "No wait...How did you get here?"

"Your granny bought us a plane ticket." She said.

"She did?" I asked but then quickly said, "Wait, did you say US?"

I had a momentary panic attack at thinking that Jacquelyn's seven older brothers had come as well.

Boy when Jacquelyn smiled, I nearly melted on the spot. She took a step back, reached for the knob of the door and opened it. I had fully expected to see Jacquelyn's family, but instead, standing there smiling ear-to-ear was my young friend Joey as well as his Mom and dad. Up until that moment I had never seen Joey's dad; I had only talked to him online in the ILD.com chat room or on Instant Messenger. I knew that he had only recently returned from the Middle East and he was still sporting an excellent tan. Of course I'd long since lost my own and was rapidly turning a drab and pale olive green.

"JOEY!" I shouted and pounced on him, nearly causing him to fall over backward.

I started to cry, not sad tears but happy tears because I was so happy to see all of them. However, when Beth hugged me my tears turned from joy to tears of sorrow. I squeezed her as tight as I could and wailed like a baby. I felt as though if I could squeeze her tight enough it would make everything that had happened go away and bring my dad back.

We hugged and cried for the longest time there on the front stoop of the house in front of God, the neighbors and everyone. It never even occurred to me that all I was wearing was a white onsie and a pair of sweatpants which didn't really hide the fact that I was wearing a diaper beneath them. The onsie had been my grandfather's idea from earlier in the school year to help hide the fact that I was wearing a diaper under my clothes. It holds the diaper up tight to my bottom in the back and keeps it from sagging when wet. The onsies that Grandfather had made especially for me are made of heavier material than normal onsies you can get online and the leg openings are lower on the leg, kind of like boxer-briefs. Instead of snapping in the crotch like baby onsies do, most of mine have a flat zipper that goes from the left leg all the way up to my chin. I do have some with snaps but I don't like those as much as the zippered kind; Mom and John say the snapping ones are better for changing. Grandfather had them made in lots of colors and I even have some that have long legs and sleeves for the colder days and for those, the zipper goes from my left ankle to my chin. The one thing I like best about these onsies is that once I got them on, they look just like a real t-shirt that's been tucked into real underwear because they got a fake underwear waistband and even a fake Y-front to make them look more like real underwear. One of the things I like most about the zipper, is that once you have it zipped all the way up, you can hardly tell that there is a zipper at all. It like disappears beneath the fabric. It is so very cool!

"Alvin, let them come in." Grandmother said from inside the house.

I released my python like grip on Beth and pulled the three of them through the door.

"I take it our arrival is a surprise?" Phil, Joey's dad, said to me as he messed up my long greasy hair.

I wiped at my tears and nodded my head.

"I just wish we could have been here sooner." Beth said to Grandmother.

"The important thing is you are here now." Grandmother said to her.

However, Phil wasn't done with my hair just yet. He tousled it, and then tousled it some more before finally saying, "What on earth is this mess atop your head?" he didn't say it mean or nothing but he wasn't exactly joking either.

You see, like I said before, Phil and Beth are more like a second set of parents to me than anything else. Even though I had never actually met Daddy Phil in the real world, it felt like I had because I'd talked to him on the computer so much. Most of all the kids that come to ILD.com identify them as Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth but I don't, I mostly just call them Mommy and Daddy but for the sake of confusion as I tell you about this I will try to remember to call them Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth. Even my real Mom and John were totally cool with me calling them Daddy and Mommy because they had known all along about them and their website since the day we met Joey and his mom at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum in Canada.

I'm kind of getting off track, but I will take a minute here to tell you that when I first found out that Mom and John knew about ILD.com and about how Joey was what they call a Preteen Baby, I flipped out; but only for a day or so... then I was cool with it. I mean, I'd found ILD.com totally without my own parents telling me about it and I had begun to embrace the idea of wearing diapers before I learned that they already knew, so it didn't take me long to accept all that. Actually, once it was out, life got much easier and all the tension that the diapers had caused between me and my parents was gone. Now, let me get back to what I was saying.

Totally ignoring Daddy Phil's hair comment, I turned to Grandmother and hugged her, "Thank you!" I said with a sniffle and then pulled away and said reproachfully, "Why didn't you tell me they were coming?"

"What?" Grandmother said trying to play innocent, "Did I forget to tell you? Well you will have to forgive an old lady and her failing memory." Her mouth stretched into a tight, wicked grin, which made her lips go all white.

 

Chapter 7

Jacquelyn was given her own room at the other end of the hallway. I think that was probably Grandmothers idea because she knows how much in love we are and she wouldn't want us sneaking into each other's room at night. Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth were put in a room across from my Mom and John's bedroom, but I had insisted that Joey bunk with me.

"I have that totally huge bed Grandmother!" I complained when it was suggested that Joey would sleep in the same room as his parents.

After getting settled in, Grandfather returned and took Grandmother, Mommy Beth, and Daddy Phil to the hospital to visit Mom. Micah had agreed to keep an eye on Jacquelyn, Joey, and myself but we didn't see too much of her except to bring us a snack of fried, caramelized apple slices topped with crushed walnuts and vanilla ice-cream. Mostly Jacquelyn kept an eye on Joey and me; she sure had grown up a lot since I'd last seen her.

For over an hour I had forgot about all the horrors of that week and was once again happy. We sat at the table laughing and talking while eating our snack.

"Boy I still can't believe you guys came!" I told them with a mouth full of food; some of which was dribbling down my chin.

"Don't talk with your mouth full!" Joey said while giggling as ice-cream dripped from his chin too. We had only just started eating it and he already had the stuff all over his face like babies do with their food.

"What was that thing you were wearing when you got here?" I asked Jacquelyn.

"Huh?" she grunted and scrunched up her nose in thought. Boy she is so dang cute.

"He means your ticket." Joey said, spraying chewed bits of apple as he spoke.

"Oh yeah, it was my plane ticket." She said and then explained that her parents had put her on a plane at the Cincinnati, Ohio International Airport and she flew all the way to Auburn-Lewiston Airport all by herself.

"Were you scared?" Joey asked.

"Well," she said slowly, "Maybe a little at first but then they started a movie on the plane and I was fine after that."

"What movie?" I asked.

She laughed as she said, "Son of Rambow. It was the funniest movie I have ever seen in my life!"

"Son of Rambow?" I laughed, "You have got to be kidding me."

"I ain't allowed to watch war movies." Joey said.

Jacquelyn rolled her eyes as she said, "It wasn't a war movie. It was about two boys making a war movie. You guys would love it."

We continued talking and laughing for a while but eventually the conversation hit on a subject that forced me back to the reality of the moment.

"We got out of school yesterday for the summer." Joey announced.

"Really? We've been out since last Friday." Jacquelyn said and then she asked me, "Are you out of school yet?" and almost in the same breath she asked, "Did you pass?"

I had been shoveling a spoon full of ice-cream into my mouth as she asked and in that instant my mind flashed back to that dreadful morning, the same morning I had been dreaming about every night since it happened. Suddenly I was back in my English class and hearing the Shore alarm blaring off in the distance.

"Alvin?" Jacquelyn called my name when she saw that I had spaced out for a moment.

"Huh? Oh sorry. What did you say?" I asked apologetically.

She repeated her question, "Are you out of school for the summer?"

I shook my head, "Not yet but..."

"Oh that stinks!" Joey snorted before I could finish.

I hadn't even given any thought about having to finish the school year but thanks to my two friends, I was now. How could Grandmother torture me by bringing my friends to visit me when I won't be here to see them because I will be in school?! And then an even worse thought occurred to me.

"What's the matter?" Jacquelyn asked me and if you really want to know, what she said next could have gone without saying. "Did you poop your diaper?"

I couldn't do anything about the blood that had instantaneously rushed to my face but I did my best to pretend that she hadn't said what she said.

"The Surfing competition!" and even as I said it I could see that dream vanish before my very eyes like a puff of smoke.

I looked down at my bowl of half eaten apples and ice cream, most of the ice cream was gone already. Then I glanced over at Joey who was trying hard to not look at me.

"What?" I asked him.

Joey quickly stuffed his mouth to overflowing and looked at me with phony sincerity.

I pointed at him with my spoon, a drop of ice cream dripped onto the table. "Boy," I said, "you better talk or I will sick Jacquelyn on you!"

"Excuse me?! Sick Jacquelyn on him?" Jacquelyn said angrily, "What do you think I am? Some kind of dog for you to order around."

"Oh boy!" I mumbled under my breath, "Uh, I didn't mean it like that!" I said trying not to laugh. I'd set Jacquelyn off like that before while talking to her on the phone and even once in a letter I had wrote to her. She had wrote back with a five page letter telling me how dumb I was to say whatever it was I had said in my letter. I suppose I haven't actually said so, but it was during our phone calls and all the letters we wrote one another that I had realized that I was in love with her.

She waved her spoon as though she were dismissing my words before they could reach her ear.

I looked back to Joey and said, "You see what you did! Now my woman is mad at me!"

I should have quit while I was behind.

"Your woman?" Jacquelyn said now holding her spoon like a weapon.

Suddenly a blob of ice-cream splattered the right side of my face. I looked at Joey and he was sitting there, his spoon held up and obviously looking as guilty as anyone can look.

"Oh no you didn't!" Jacquelyn said to him but I was already scooping deeply into my bowl, preparing to return fire. However, I never got the chance to retaliate.

"FRIZ!" Micah shouted from the doorway.

In a calm but threatening tone Micah said, "You make mess and Micah hang all tree you from ceiling by toe nails."

The ice-cream that had hit me in the face slid off my cheek and went splat on the rug below. Micah then announced loudly as she took an aggressive step toward me, "Ah-ha! Mess! Now Micah get mean." But it was obvious that she was only pretending to be mad. All three of us decided to pretend to be scared, at least I think we were pretending as we screamed and ran from the room. Unfortunately Joey had tried to duck under the table but that only slowed him down long enough for Micah to capture him.

Joey squealed like a pig getting gutted as he tried to wiggle his way free.

"We have to save Joey!" Jacquelyn said in a commanding voice.

"Joey who?" I laughed and didn't even slow down until I reached the stairs.

I turned around and saw Micah coming out of the dining room holding Joey upside down by the ankles.

Jacquelyn screamed again and came running over to me, "She's going to eat him!"

Micah stopped and said, "No—No—No! Little boys to chewy! Taste like dirt!" and then the corners of her mouth curled up and I swear I saw horns sprout from her head as she said, "But little girls taste like pudding!"

Jacquelyn and I tore up the stairs screaming all the way and we didn't stop until we got to my room. We didn't hear Micah chasing us and we had no idea if Joey was being skinned and stuffed into the oven.

"Boy your cook can be scary!" Jacquelyn whispered.

"Oh believe me; you don't ever want to call her a cook to her face. Make sure you say Chef or she's libel to cook you too." I warned her.

"Good to know!" she said holding tightly to the back of my onsie.

After a minute or two we peeked out of the door; we didn't see anyone in either direction so we felt safe in venturing out in search of our captured comrade. We quietly crept down the stairs but we couldn't hear any sign of Joey or Micah.

"Do you think maybe she is already cooking him?" Jacquelyn giggled nervously.

"Better him then us." I quietly laughed too.

First we checked the dining room, the mess we'd left had already been cleaned up so next we moved on to the kitchen door. Ever so slowly we swung it open but still we didn't find Micah or Joey.

"Where do you think they went?" Jacquelyn asked.

Right then from behind us Joey asked, "Why did you guys leave me?"

I think I screamed louder than Jacquelyn did but she had shoved me out of her way and leapt into the kitchen. All three of us were laughing hysterically. Joey was on his butt just outside the kitchen door holding his stomach while Jacquelyn leaned against the counter to keep from falling over from laughter.

"Joey you scared the crap out of us!" I snorted.

"Good thing you are diapered then!" Jacquelyn said and despite the fact that I knew that she knew all about my diapers I still blushed again.

"Where did Micah go?" I asked Joey.

He was still laughing so hard that he couldn't answer so he shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh my stomach hurts!" Jacquelyn cried.

"OK-OK, no more please!" Joey pleaded as he fell backward and began to roll around on the floor, "You should have seen yourselves!" he roared.

Joey was laughing so hard that he farted, which only made the situation that much funnier.

The rest of the day the three of us talked and played together. I showed them where I had begun training for the surfing competition, which I knew I wouldn't be going to anymore.

 

Chapter 8

A couple hours after they had left, my grandparents and Joey's dad returned; they were all looking tired. Joey was the first to realize that his mom hadn't returned.

"She'll be back in the morning." was all the explanation Daddy Phil offered.

Now I had fully expected that my two friends and I would spend what remained of the day hanging out together but it seemed that Joey's daddy had other ideas.

The three of us were in the Media room when Daddy Phil came looking for me. I had been showing them the computer I used when I was chatting with them online and writing letters to them when Daddy Phil came in and asked if he could talk to me alone. It wasn't a big deal, he says stuff like that to me all the time online and then we go into a private chat and we talk. A few of those private chats were because he found out I was doing bad things online but most of the time it was just so that we could talk without other ILD.com members butting in.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Sure" And then looked at my two friends and said, "Be right back."

Little did I know that I wouldn't be right back.

Outside of the Media room Daddy Phil said, "Let's go up to your room."

Again I shrugged and lead the way. As we neared the top of the stairs, just to be sure, I asked him, "Am I in trouble again?"

Daddy Phil smiled and said, "You tell me."

I couldn't stop a chuckle from escaping as I remembered how he'd tricked me with that line once before.

"Oh no... you aren't getting me like that again." I said pointing up at him.

Daddy Phil smiled wider and gave me a playful push, "Get going smartly pants."

"Don't you mean `smarty pants'? I asked and he tried to give me a shoe in my backside but I was too quick for him.

In my room Phil closed my bedroom door before going over and sitting on the side of my bed.

"Goodness, you sleep on this thing?" he commented when he felt how soft it was.

"I know! It's murder getting out of it in the mornings too." I said.

He then slid off the bed and sat himself on the floor, leaning backwards against the side of the mattress. He motioned for me to join him so I settled down directly in front of him.

"So what's up?" he started out saying.

"What's up with what?" I asked back.

Using his eyes he pointed to my greasy, stringy purple hair and I understood what this talk was going to be about.

Subconsciously I ran my fingers through my hair, which signaled that I got the message.

He didn't probe me or bombard me with a bunch of questions, instead he sat there looking at me and waiting. I had experienced that same thing in our private chats but I'd never had to endure it while he was looking at me. Up until this visit I had managed to keep my hair secret from him and Mommy Beth. Now I found myself telling him all about my reasons for letting my friend die it purple and why I had insisted on not getting it cut.

Now, I cannot tell you how he did it because frankly I haven't got a clue, but before we were done talking I had agreed to let him take me to a barber to get the purple washed out and get my hair cut.

I had figured that we'd go somewhere the next day but then he said to me, "If you don't need changed right now, why don't you put on some warmer clothes and we'll go."

"Right now?" I asked.

"Yeah right now." He said pushing me over as he stood up.

"Um," I mumbled as I realized that I definitely did need to be changed.

Daddy Phil and I had talked online at length about this very situation. Mommy Beth had changed me before at their place in Canada but until now I had never seen Daddy Phil so the question was, was I willing to let this man remove my wet diaper and see me naked? The answer was simply yes.

"You want me to get your grandmother?" He asked.

I rubbed my chin and pretended to be thinking really hard before jovially saying, "No, I think you'll do Daddy."

I got up and opened the armoire.

"Wow!" he exclaimed when he saw all the diapers and GoodNites.

"Yeah, Mom just bought a bunch right before..." I started to say but couldn't finish because I was going to say right before John died.

Daddy Phil then did something that caught me totally by surprise. He swept me into his arms and hugged me for a very long time. He didn't let me go until he was sure that I'd got all my tears out.

When he put me back on my feet I rubbed the tears away using the back of my arm. He put a single finger under my chin and made me look up at him as he said, "You can have as many of those as you want," meaning the hugs.

I won't lie, the first time having Daddy Phil change my wet diaper felt kind of weird but he was just as skilled at it as Mommy Beth and in no time I was changed and fully dressed. He had picked out a pair of blue jeans and a bright blue onsie with red around the collar and both the wrist and leg cuffs with a matching fake underwear band. Over that he pulled a blue sweatshirt over my head so fast that I hadn't had time to raise my arms.

With my arms trapped I laughed as he began to tickle me mercilessly.

"STOP!" I cried out while wrestling my arms up through the sweatshirt and down into the sleeves.

Once my arms were where they were supposed to be he stopped tickling and told me to sit on the floor so that he could get my shoes and socks on my feet.

I hadn't done any of the dressing myself, Daddy Phil had done it all. Once he had both of my shoes tied and helped me to my feet, only then did I realize that he'd tied my shoelaces together. I had tried to take a step and fell forward only to have him catch me.

"HEY!" I complained and laughed at the same time.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself." Daddy Phil laughed too as he flipped me over on my back and tied them right this time.

Before we were leaving I pulled an insulated blue denim jean jacket out of my armoire and pulled it on because I know that it was still nippy outside even though it was nearly summer time.

I guess he had already talked it over with Grandfather because when we went out to the garage, the two of us got into one of Grandfather's other cars.

It seems that, either Grandfather had already told Daddy Phil where the Barber shop was or he had showed him before they came back from seeing Mom, because we drove right there without getting lost even once. I found out when we walked in that they had conspired with the barber because he greeted us as we stepped through the door.

"Ah, this must be the mop you were telling me about." The barber joked as he shook Daddy Phil's hand as if they were old friends.

He must have been in his fifties I would guess, with a marine style haircut and a mustache that was trimmed so straight that he must have used a ruler.

I gave Daddy Phil the meanest look I could muster and all he did was laugh it off.

The Barber then turned his attention to me, "I think to start," he put a single finger to his lips in thought, "we had better wash your hair."

I looked up to Daddy Phil for reassurance.

"He's not going to bite." He said to me.

"I'm more worried about having an ear snipped off." I mumbled.

The barber washed my hair seven times before he sat me up and began cutting it. All the while my back was to the large mirror so I couldn't see what he was doing but it sure seemed like he was cutting an awful lot off.

"Don't cut it too short." I said but Daddy Phil was sitting across from me and told me to let the man do his job.

"I better not look like a goof when you're done!" I quietly said only loud enough for myself to hear; or so I thought.

The barber leaned down and whispered into my ear, "When I am done, every girl in town will want you."

After what seemed to be nearly forever the Barber asked Daddy Phil, "Well what do you think?"

I didn't think Daddy Phil's reply was at all funny.

"Do you think it is orange enough?" he had said straight faced.

"ORANGE!" I shouted but he started laughing and I knew he had been pulling my leg.

The Barber turned me around so that I could see myself in the mirror and I couldn't believe how totally cool my hair looked. It was back to my normal color, maybe a bit darker since it wasn't as sun-bleached anymore and he hadn't cut it as short as I had thought. Well, the back was a lot shorter and my bangs no longer hung in my eyes but I still had bangs and my ears were still covered. And it wasn't combed all neat and proper but instead looked somewhat like the messy windblown style. Kind of the way I used to come home looking like after spending an entire day surfing. My skin also didn't seem quiet as pale now that my hair was back to normal. It felt good knowing that I hadn't totally lost my tan yet.

"So does it meet with your approval?" The barber asked me.

I was still gawking at myself in the mirror so Daddy Phil answered for me, "I think he likes it."

"I more than like it! It's perfect!" I said.

"Can't get much better praise than that." One of the other Barbers commented.

When we got back home you should have seen the way everyone was carrying on when they saw my new haircut; especially Grandmother who just gushed all over me.

"Now he looks like the handsome grandson I remember." She had said.

Grandfather's reaction was less verbal. He just looked at me and wiggled his big, bushy mustache which I took as his approval.

"Alvin, you look like a Rock Star!" Jacquelyn said.

"Nooo!" Joey said dramatically, "He looks like my brother Alvin again." This was probably the best compliment anyone could have given me.

When it was time for bed I didn't want to go because I didn't want to mash my hair with a pillow which was sort of a goofy thing because it was kind of a messy sort of style. So what would sleeping on it matter anyway?

Jacquelyn said goodnight to us and even gave Joey and me a sweet little hug before skipping down the hallway to the room she would be sleeping in.

As he had done before Daddy Phil came in to change me and Joey too. However, I wasn't put back into one of my normal diapers from my armoire but instead Daddy Phil put a different kind of disposable diaper on me. I didn't know it until he was done and I tried to stand up. It was so very, very thick that I could hardly walk. As it was, I had to stand kind of like one of those big Samoan wrestlers with my feet apart and my knees bent.

When Joey was done being diapered he sat up and laughed at the way I was standing. "Daddy he looks funny." Joey said.

Joey was wearing the same kind of diaper only a size smaller. It was totally white except for the blue stripe on the front with small pictures of Elmo and Big Bird smiling back at me.

"Alright you two, you don't have to go to sleep right away but you do have to get into bed." Daddy Phil announced as he scooped up Joey and tossed him onto the pulled down bed. Joey was instantly lost in the fluff of the bedding.

"AAAaaahhhh! The bed is eating me!" Joey crowed.

I laughed as I too was lifted off my feet and pressed high into the air like Daddy Phil was lifting weights. He raised and lowered me several times, each time bonking his head with my tummy before he finally gave a grunt and launched me up into the air above the bed.

"YAAAHHOOOOOOOO!" I caroled!

I actually had some hang time before gravity pulled me down. When I hit the mattress there was a chain reaction effect which caused the bed to expel Joey back into the air.

"Whoa, that was fun!" Joey said when he had landed again.

Daddy Phil tucked us both in, kissed us both on the forehead and then said, "Try not to make a lot of racket and don't stay up talking all night."

"Oaky Daddy," Joey said.

"Night Daddy," I said too.

There is no way of knowing how long the two of us lay there talking before we both drifted off to sleep.

 

Chapter 9

A voice could be heard as if calling longingly for me from a great distance.

"Aaalllvvvviiinnn."

I gasped at the sound of my name and looked around for the source, finally squinting into the darkened crowd before me.

The voice became less sing-songy as it called my name again.

"Aaaallvinn."

I spotted a girl standing at the far end of the school hallways. Suddenly she and I were only a few yards apart and I was able to recognize that it was Stacks, although she looked younger and less sporty. She called me again though this time she sounded annoyed that I hadn't yet reacted to her beckoning.

"Alvin?!"

I took a step forward as I shouted, "Stacks?"

She was holding a sea creature known as a Southern California Solitary Anemone. The Solitary Anemone has a body that is shaped like a big can or cylinder that can be as much as a foot tall and ten inches across. Seeing Stacks holding this thing was odd since most Anemone, the Solitary Anemone included, have a ring of stinging tentacles which surrounds its mouth. These tentacles contain a toxin which can paralyze and have been known to even cause death.

Stacks gently blew across the tentacles and they became a glistening cloud of purple bubbles, drifting toward me and encompassing my head. She then leapt from atop a grassy mound, which I hadn't noticed before and glided gracefully toward me as if the wind was spiriting her to me. I attempted to catch her, but we ended up falling backward onto the ground landing on my back with her sitting on my stomach and reclining against my elevated knees. We giggled for a while and then looked deeply into each other's eyes. I sighed. Stacks puckered her lips and leaned forward; it was apparent that she intended to kiss me.

Suddenly the sky changed to overcast gray and the warm green grass around us became cold, white snow.

Stacks gasped again and drew away. A look of shock filled her face.

"What's wrong?" I mumbled to her unable to form the words properly.

It was me she was gasping at because suddenly I was lying on the icy ground wearing nothing but a diaper and fuzzy yellow slippers. Something else was happening... I was shrinking, becoming smaller.

Stacks gasped again.

I continued to shrink and change until I looked exactly like the baby pictures I'd seen of myself.

Stacks screamed a horrible life-wrenching scream like you hear in old-time Dracula movies.

I felt a puerile cry force its way out of my throat like the howl of a feral toddler. Lightning flashed all around us and then Stacks suddenly was gone and I was in my bedroom.

I took a deep panicked breath as I awoke. With my heart still racing I quickly checked my head, then checked that everything was the proper size. I finally let go a breath of relief when I realized it had all been a bad dream.

"Dang Alvin! What the heck was that all about?" I asked myself.

And then it occurred to me that this had been the first night that I did not dream about that horrible morning. Oddly, a part of me felt bad about that; almost like I was letting John down by not dreaming about it again.

I tried to move but couldn't. It was as if something was holding me down; then I remembered that Joey was in bed with me. We had gone to sleep with him curled into a ball to my left but now he was lying directly on top of me with his head resting on my chest and both of his hands wrapped around my boyhood. I tried to roll him off but my right arm was pinned under him. It was completely numb and lifeless. I dreaded the pain that would come once I was able to free my arm.

"Joey," I whispered but he didn't as much as stir.

"Joey," I said a little louder this time. He moved but not in a good way. He had brought his left leg up in an attempt to curl into a ball again but what he had done was to sink his left knee into my groin.

"OOOH!" I moaned and that woke up Joey for sure this time.

"What's the matter?" Joey asked with alarm as his hands released their hold on my groin.

"Oh get off!" was all I could manage to say as the pain pulsated throughout my entire body.

As Joey came off of me I reached down with my awake hand and cupped my balls. It was only then that I realized that my diaper was missing.

"Damn Joey you kneed me right in the balls!" I moaned.

"No I didn't!" he shot back defensively.

"Oh man, trust me! You did!" I told him.

My bedroom door swung open and the light from the hallway blinded us both.

"The light! The light!" Joey cried out as he thrust his head under a pillow to protect his eyes.

Grandfather had heard the commotion I had been making and came to see what was wrong.

"Joey moved in his sleep and kneed me right in the nuts!" I moaned still cupping my aching balls.

However, what Grandfather seemed to be more concerned about was the fact that I was lying completely nude in bed with another boy, "Boy, why aren't you wearing a diaper?!"

That is when my sleeping arm decided it was time for the pins and needles.

I moaned even louder than before, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Arm is walking up! Oh! Oh! PINS AND NEEDLES! OOOOOH!"

As if on cue the door to my bathroom opened suddenly and a blurry eyed Micah appeared. When Grandfather saw Micah emerging from my bathroom he became enraged and forgot about me for the time being. However I didn't like the way he was talking to Micah. After all it had been Micah who'd taken care of us all since John died and my mom ended up in the hospital and now he was yelling at her and accusing her of overstepping her role in the house. They were making so much noise that it woke up Grandmother, Daddy Phil, and even Jacquelyn too.

Micah tried to explain that she had been changing my diaper because I had wet so much that it had leaked out and started to get my pajamas wet too and she was using my bathroom to wash her hands when she had the need to use the facilities and then fell asleep on the toilet.

When I thought things couldn't get any worse Grandfather finally shouted at Micah, "My dear madam, your services in this household are no longer required. Please gather your belongings and leave at once!"

You need to remember that during this whole altercation Joey and I were in bed and I was naked. Of course I had pulled the covers over myself to hide my nudity from Jacquelyn; everyone else had already seen me naked.

When Grandfather had tried to sack Micah that is when Grandmother stepped in and stopped all this insanity.

"That is entirely enough from both of you!" Grandmother shouted.

She then began poking Grandfather in the chest with her finger as she explained to him just how dumb he was being, "And as for you firing Micah, it will be a cold day in hell before I let you do that! You should get down on your knees and thank this woman for all she has done for all of us in this house!"

Grandmother said some other things that I won't repeat here but the idea is that she made Grandfather see how he had jumped to conclusions, lost his temper, and said things that he should never have said. When she finished with Grandfather she turned to Micah, hugged her, kissed her cheeks, and told her that as long as she wanted, she was welcome to stay.

Without saying another word to anyone Grandfather stormed out of the room. After that everyone went back to bed because it was still very early and the sun wouldn't be up for a couple hours. Grandmother told Micah she could take the next day or two off if she wanted to but Micah said she would rather be with all of us. Before Grandmother left, she put me back into a dry diaper first then changed him.

Amazingly, within minutes, Joey was out cold again. Honestly I think that boy can sleep anywhere and anytime he feels like it. However, there was no chance at all that I would be able to sleep anymore. After lying there for about twenty minutes thinking about what had happened, I decided that I might as well get up and head down to the Lap Pool for some surfing practice.

 

Chapter 10

It was difficult to get out of my bed without shaking it too much and waking Joey again, nonetheless I somehow managed it. I got my swim trunks and robe from my armoire and decided I would change when I got down to the weight room. I made it as far as the second step before I heard someone whisper my name.

"Alvin!"

I turned and saw that it was Jacquelyn and she was walking on tiptoes toward me.

When she reached me she asked, "Where are you going?"

"To the basement to practice surfing." I told her.

"Can I come?" she asked in a cute sort of way that made it impossible for me to say anything but yes.

"Wait for me, I just need to change." She said as she tiptoed back to her room.

I don't know why people say it takes women forever to get dressed because it took less than two minutes for Jacquelyn to return wearing a robe and a two piece swim suit. I on the other hand was planning to change downstairs in the bathroom.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"I brought it with me silly!" she said and before I could ask her why she would bring a bikini to Maine she slipped past me and started down the stairs.

I quickly caught up to her and together we made our way down to the weight room and to the Lap Pool.

We decided to just sit beside the pool while the water heated up, which I knew wouldn't take very long at all. We were alone for the first time and spent the time talking about what had happened earlier and other stuff too. I even told her that I hated my grandfather. She told me that I shouldn't say that I hate anyone.

"Okay then, I don't hate him, but I don't really like him right now." I said.

"That's alright." She said with a slight shrug and a nod, "I think your grandmother was right. He was taking his emotions out on Micah and that wasn't right."

As we talked Jacquelyn moved her hand closer and rested it on top of mine. I looked at her and smiled my approval.

She smiled too and then asked me, "Got any plans for this summer?"

I took a moment to think about that before saying, "Don't know now."

"Because of your dad?" she said solemnly.

I nodded as a small lump tried to form in my throat.

Several minutes passed with neither saying anything but then Jacquelyn moved her hand under mine and we locked our fingers together.

"If that hadn't happened, I mean with your dad, what would you have done?" she asked.

I started to softly kick my feet in the water as I answered, "Well, you already know that we were going to California when school got out. I was going to compete in the Teen Surfing Competition."

"So you're not going anymore?" She asked.

That thought hurt so much that I couldn't verbally answer. All I could do was shake my head ever-so-slightly.

"That's too bad." She said.

I looked at her and nodded in agreement but once we made eye contact neither of us could look away. It felt like an electrical storm between us. Jacquelyn leaned toward me a little and I could feel the electricity building. I leaned forward too and tilted my head to one side as our lips made contact.

The kiss was short and gentle.

We both seemed to be feeling uncomfortable and nervous but she smiled and we kissed again only longer. As we kissed she pushed me backward until I was lying on the floor with my feet still in the water.

Jacquelyn then reached up and cupped the side of my face as we continued kissing.

"You're trembling." She commented.

"I-I know---can't help it." I softly replied.

She moved her hand from my face to my bare chest and said, "Relax," before kissing me again.

Her hand slid down my chest, tickling my ribs. It came to rest on the waistband of my swim trunks where she began to rub her fingers in tiny circles and boy that really tickled. I squirmed and she broke our kiss.

I giggled playfully as I told her, "Hey that tickles!"

She smiled, leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips before saying, "It's okay."

"Sorry, I'm kind of new at this." I confessed.

Her smile reassured me. It was clear that Jacquelyn is ever so much wiser than I am when it comes to... well; I am not sure what to call what we were doing.

She slid her hand from the waistband of my swim trunks back up to my nipple. My entire body shuttered as her finger traced around my right nipple.

In a soft breath-filled whisper she said, "We won't do anything you don't want to do."

She started to kiss me again when we both heard, "Are you guys in here?"

It was Joey coming into the weight room.

Jacquelyn and I panicked as we both quickly sat up and pretended that we hadn't been doing what we'd been doing.

"There you guys are!" Joey said when he saw us sitting with our feet in the lap pool.

"What do you mean there you guys are?" Jacquelyn said to him perhaps a little too quickly, "We've been right here."

Joey put his hands on his hips and said, "I thought you guys went outside without me."

"This early? Why would you think that?" I asked not really meaning for it to come out sounding so rude.

Joey shrugged his shoulders, "It's not early. It is almost eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock!" Jacquelyn and I said at the same time.

We'd been talking so long that we had completely lost track of time.

"Did you guys go swimming?" Joey sounded as though he was feeling left out.

"It's not swimming, it's surf training." I said to him.

"But why? You ain't going surfing no more." Joey said and I am sure he didn't mean for his words to be so hurtful. But they were. Actually, they cut me more than any sword ever could.

I didn't want Jacquelyn to see me cry so I quickly slid into the water and gripped my tethered surf board before the current could wash me to the back of the lap pool. Boy the water was sure warm too. I dunked my head under the water so that my face would be wet to hide any sign of tears. When I came back up I used my hand to wipe the water from my face. That is when I noticed a large wet spot on the floor where I had been sitting only seconds before. I wasn't wearing a diaper, only my swim suit. We had talked for such a long time that I must have peed my shorts.

"And Jacquelyn didn't even say anything about it." I thought to myself, "She had to have noticed."

And then it occurred to me that maybe she had noticed and liked it. I mean, I do know that she really liked seeing boys in diapers. Jacquelyn was looking right at me and for some reason I felt uncomfortable so I dunked my head under the water again. This time I stayed under as long as my lungs would allow me. When my lungs started to ache for fresh air I kicked the water hard, pulled myself up and straddled my board. A second later I was standing up and surfing with my back to Jacquelyn and Joey.

After another ten minutes or so, Joey's dad came in dressed in bright yellow slacks and a yellow, flowery, Hawaiian style shirt. He looked like a big banana with legs. Jacquelyn was the first to laugh.

"What?" Daddy Phil said, while standing there looking utterly clueless.

I was laughing so hard I lost my balance, fell into the pool and was quickly swept to the back by the current.

"Daddy you look like Big Bird from Sesame Street!" Joey snorted with laughter.

"Good thing King Kong isn't around," Jacquelyn began, "Or he might try to peal you." Apparently she had been thinking the exact same thing as I was. Boy I love that we think alike.

"Oh yeah?" Daddy Phil said making like he was going to get her. But before he could even get close she jumped into the Lap Pool. She had been smart enough to catch the side of my board when she did, otherwise the current would have swept her right down to Daddy Phil.

"Alright you three," he said playfully sounding adult-like, "breakfast is about ready." And then almost as if part of the same thought he asked, "Why are you three swimming so early?"

"It's not swimming, it's training!" Joey said to him.

Jacquelyn had already started to get out of the Lap Pool when I asked, "Five more minutes?"

"Alright, but then you need to come up and eat before it gets cold." But then he told Jacquelyn and Joey, "Why don't the two of you head on up and get changed now."

Joey stomped his foot and asked with irritation, "Why do I got to change? I ain't been swimming."

Daddy Phil pointed at Joey's pants which were showing signs on the front right pant leg that his diaper had sprung a leak.

Jacquelyn wrapped a towel around herself, took Joey by the hand and the two of them scampered off without saying another word.

I didn't watch them leave; instead using my feet against the side of the pool I pushed off, gripped either side of my board and pulled myself on.

Daddy Phil watched as I stood up and began surfing the current.

"Wow that looks hard." Daddy Phil commented.

"Nah, this is easy; the real ocean waves are tougher than this." I said.

He walked to the far end of the lap pool where the front of my board was tied on.

"Not much chance of catching real waves in Maine huh?" he observed.

"Even if I had a dry suit it is way too cold to surf around here." I said moving back on my board about half a step to bring the nose up more. This allowed me to have more control of the board in the Lap Pool.

He continued moving around the pool until he was behind me, "Well, if the weather wasn't a factor, would you be interested in surfing here?"

I didn't have to think about that before answering with, "You better believe it!" and for a split second I let myself be distracted. That was all it took for me to lose control of the board. It went one way and I did a belly flop into the pool where the current grabbed me and propelled me away from Daddy Phil.

When I reached the back wall I spun around and put my elbows over the side to support myself as I coughed.

Daddy Phil had rushed to where I was and squatted down in front of me as he said, "Nice wipeout."

"No it wasn't! It was a stupid mistake that shouldn't have happened!" I said chastising myself.

"Ah, don't beat yourself up." He then asked me, "Do you know why we fall?"

I couldn't believe Daddy Phil had just asked me that. I looked at him and said, "Oh come on! That is from Batman!"

He laughed, "That doesn't make it any less true, does it."

I smiled as a form of agreement and surrender.

He reached down into the water to help me out, "Come on; get out of there. We'll get you diapered and then get some food in your belly. Beth is cooking this morning. I convinced Micah to go ahead and take the day off. She's been working entirely too hard."

Daddy Phil put his hands into my arm pits and lifted me right out. He then wrapped a towel around me and dried my dripping hair.

"And while you guys are eating," he continued, "I am going to take care of a couple things."

He started looking for the controls for the pool and I had to tell him, "It will turn off automatically when we leave the room."

"Really?" he exclaimed, "Now that is fancy!"

We weren't even halfway through the weight room before it happened. I hadn't been wearing any diaper because I had been in the pool so my bladder emptied into my swim trunks and ran down my legs.

"Ah man!" I groaned and came to a stop.

For some reason I started to cry, which was really dumb because it's not like I haven't had accidents in the past few months. And besides I had just had an accident while sitting, talking with Jacquelyn, so I don't know what the big deal was about this particular time.

"Hey, hey, hey." Daddy Phil said as he squatted down so that he was at my eye level, "It's just a little salty water! It's nothing to get so upset about."

And I knew he was right but even still, I couldn't stop crying.

Daddy Phil then pulled me toward him, I buried my face in his chest and the two of us lowered to the floor. Daddy Phil didn't even complain or even comment on the fact that he was sitting in the puddle of my pee while cradling me in his arms and letting me cry.

"Go ahead! Let it out!" he said as he patted my back, "Just let it out!"

And boy did I ever let it out. We're talking a flood of snot and tears that would have rivaled Noah's flood.

"I want my Mom and dad back!" I sobbed.

"I know you do." He said.

I kept saying it and he kept holding me tighter and tighter.

I didn't hear Grandmother come in while I was crying. I guess she came to see what was taking us so long. When she seen and heard me carrying on like I was, she asked Daddy Phil to carry me up to my room and she would have my breakfast sent up to me but I objected.

"No, I am ok." I said while still huffing and wiping my face with a corner of the towel.

"You should rest a while child." Grandmother suggested.

I shook my head and wiped my snotty nose with my towel which smelled of pee and chlorine.

"We should at least get you cleaned up." Grandmother said taking my hand and helping me up.

"I'll clean up in here." Phil told her.

Grandmother led me out of the basement and up to my room. Thankfully Joey and Jacquelyn didn't see me carrying on the way I had. Grandmother wanted me to take a bath but I argued for a shower and she gave in. It was a quick shower after which she helped me get diapered and dressed. She was pulling out a pair of corduroys from the armoire as I was zipping up my onsie.

"No not those, they are too small." I told her.

She replaced them, pulled out a pair of black jeans and held them up for approval.

"How about these?" she asked.

I nodded my head, "Yeah those are good."

She helped me get dressed which I guess was an excuse to talk with me.

"The doctors said your mother will probably be staying with them for a week or so. Maybe in a day or two you will be allowed to go visit her."

It had been explained to me when Mom went into the hospital, that because of my age I wasn't allowed to visit her in there. It was something about kids carrying more germs than adults or some garbage excuse like that. At the time I bought it until I had overheard an earlier conversation as to why she was really in the hospital.

"Grandmother?" I said softly.

She was pulling a black and white striped shirt over my head. "Yes?" she said.

My words came out so soft that I was surprised she could even understand me. "I know my Mom took a bunch of pills."

Grandmother stopped and looked at me as if she were trying to do a hands-free Vulcan Mind Meld with me. When she did speak her voice was strained and brittle sounding.

"Your mother is going to be just fine. Losing your father hit her hard." She swallowed before continuing, "But I promise you that she is going to be fine."

I didn't say anything after that because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

When I was fully dressed I looked down at myself and thought how cool I looked with a black and white shirt, black jeans, and white trainers.

Grandmother stood back and appraised my outfit. "You know what would go great with that outfit?" she said thoughtfully.

I looked down at myself again before asking, "What?" But she had already taken hold of my hand and was leading me out of the room.

"Come with me," was all she said.

I followed her down the hallway and soon realized that we were heading to the forbidden room; her and Grandfather's bedroom.

Not even once in all the time we have been living with my grandparents, had I stepped foot into their bedroom. It had been made completely clear that I wasn't allowed in there and I never questioned that rule.

When we reached the door and Grandmother opened it I stopped in my tracks and pulled my hand free from her grasp. I didn't even attempt to look inside but purposefully stayed a couple steps back.

"Alvin, come in here a minute." she called from inside.

After the way I had been warned to stay out of there I guess I'd imaged it to be something totally amazing or something top secret. Like maybe my grandparents were really Russian spies and their bedroom was where they hid all their high-tech spy surveillance stuff.

I hesitated for a moment before taking my first step into the holy of holies. As I walked in I felt disappointed because not only was it void of technical spy gear, it was completely un-amazing. It was just another bedroom like all the other bedrooms in this enormous home. Granted it was as lavishly decorated as the rest of the house but still there was nothing to warrant the strict KEEP OUT rule they had placed on their room.

At first Grandmother seemed to have vanished but then she emerged from a walk-in closet carrying a belt.

"I nearly forgot I had this." She told me.

It was a shiny white belt with a silver colored buckle and matching eyelets that went the entire length of the belt.

She had me stand by the closet door as she laced the belt through each loop in my pants, spinning me as she worked her way around. When finished she pulled me into the walk-in closet, which was HUGE and had me stand before the largest gold framed mirror I've ever seen in my life.

"Wow," I exclaimed softly; not at my reflection but at the overwhelming size of the mirror.

Grandmother leaned down and kissed my cheek; which was something totally out of character for her.

"So you approve?" she asked.

I nodded my head even though I hadn't really seen myself yet. I then contemplated my reflection and combed my hair with my fingers before giving myself a double thumbs-up.

She patted my cheek and said, "You are such a handsome young man."

I looked into the eyes of her reflection and said, "I get my good looks from my grandmother."

Boy was I surprised how much she blushed. Seriously, her apple cheeks turned as red as apples.

 

Chapter 11

When I arrived downstairs for breakfast, Joey, Jacquelyn, Mommy Beth, and Daddy Phil were already sitting at the table and nearly done eating. Mommy Beth had apparently only just got back and I was told that Grandfather had left early that morning. It wasn't unusual for him, but after what had happened this morning I was glad he was gone. You know, Grandfather can be so cool sometimes but the majority of the time he is a first class twit and a half! I've probably said that before but it's worth repeating.

When Jacquelyn and I made eye contact she gave me a meaningful wink and I may have blushed. I also think that I subconsciously reached up and touched my lips where she had kissed me only a short time ago.

I suppose all that crying before had caused me to work up an appetite because I ate three pancakes, two fried eggs, and two pieces of toast with butter and cinnamon-sugar on them. I also drank a tall glass of apple-juice and almost all of my milk before I was full.

Everyone else finished eating long before I did, in spite of this, they all stayed at the table and continued talking as I ate. When I had gulped down the last of my apple juice, Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth informed us that they were taking us somewhere special that day.

It turned out that the secret Joey had been keeping the previous evening while we had been eating our apples and ice cream was that his Mom and dad were taking us to this place called Aquaboggin Water Park.

I was more than a little miffed to find out that all this time, about an hour south of this frozen wasteland known as Lewiston, Maine, there is an indoor water park that's open year round. It has its very own indoor wave machine were you can surf some pretty awesome waves that reoccur every six and a half minutes.

Excited? Um, maybe just a LOT! The only downside to it was that Joey and I were made to wear swim diapers but at least I was allowed to wear my regular board shorts over them otherwise that would have been a Major-league case of embarrassment! Joey on the other hand, wore his swim diaper and nothing else.

Now, I have seen toddlers before wearing diapers and swim diapers on the beaches of Southern California, but I never really paid much attention to them. I mean, why would I?

Daddy Phil took Joey and me into the guys changing room at Aquaboggin Water Park while Mommy Beth and Jacquelyn disappeared into the girl's side.

There is one real gripe I have against Aquaboggin Water Park; their changing room! There is no place private to change at all! It is just one giant room with a continuous concrete bench that wraps around three of the four walls. In the center of the room, coming right out of the ceiling, there is a grid of pipes and shower heads that rain fresh water down for people to shower off after swimming. Even the toilets, which are located on the other side of a block wall, are open with no dividing walls or doors or anything.

Completely unceremoniously Daddy Phil handed me a blue swim diaper that was covered in red and yellow shooting stars. I just stood there glaring at it as though it were some totally alien object that my young mind could not comprehend. Quite the opposite, Joey was so excited that he practically ripped off his clothes unreservedly unmindful of anyone else in the changing room. Oh, and yes, there were others in there with us. Most of them seemed to be trying to masquerade themselves with the pretense that they hadn't noticing that someone Joeys size was wearing a very wet disposable diaper but I could tell that they had seen him. There were also a few younger guys that didn't have the couth to act like they hadn't noticed. They were staring right at him with big eyes and hanging jaws.

I suppose Joey is still small enough and young enough that seeing him in a wet diaper wasn't a total surprise for the strangers in the room. But I am twelve for pity-sake! For a split second I had thought of asking if I could go change in the car but then Joey said something and the thought was lost among the hundreds of other random fear fueled thoughts bouncing around in my head.

"You better hurry Alvin or I am going to beat you to the water." Joey teased as Daddy Phil knelt before him and released the tapes of his wet diaper one at a time. The ripping sound the tapes had made seemed to echo all around us and I felt myself blushing.

Finally I leaned my surfboard against the wall and started slowly pulling my shirt over my head all the while hoping that everyone else would vacate the changing room before I got to my pants. Unfortunately just the opposite happened. Four more boys about my age came in and loudly started undressing as they talked and laughed.

"You should have seen her! She was smoke'n!" One of the boys said.

"Yeah you could see right through her shirt!" another said.

The heavy set boy who'd come in with them added, "Still, she's not as hot as Angelina Jolie!"

They all agreed with him and carried on talking as they swapped their street clothes for swim trunks.

I was sunk, I had no other option then to undress in front of eleven strangers (I counted) and let them see that I too was wearing a diaper. As to whether mine was wet or not, that remained to be seen. Sadly, it was; and more so than Joeys seemed to have been.

I sat myself down on the concrete bench to untie my shoes and straight away felt my backside warming. At first I thought I was wetting my diaper again, but then I realized that the concrete benches and floor were heated. That actually distracted me from my fear of being seen in public wearing a diaper. I pulled off my left shoe and sock and let my feet rest against the warm floor. Boy that sure felt good. I did the same with my other shoe.

Daddy Phil saw me just sitting there and asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, it is just so warm," I said with a nod toward the floor.

Daddy Phil put his hand to the floor and remarked, "Beats bare tootsies on an icy-cold floor any day."

By the way, tootsies are what Daddy Phil calls toes. I think it is a Canadian thing or something. There is kind of a semi-funny story about the first time I heard him use that word. We had been chatting online at ILD.com with five or six others; actually it was the very first time I had chatted with Daddy Phil. Everyone else in the chat-room already knows about Daddy Phil's playful side but I hadn't yet learned that about him. He had said something about hanging someone up by their tootsies. Don't ask me why I did so, because I don't know, but immediately I had thought that tootsies was slang for testicles and said something quite derogatory. Daddy Phil had realized right away what I had been thinking and explained tootsies are toes. Boy, I was so dang embarrassed that I thought I was going to die.

Anyway, Joey was ready to go. He was hopping up and down almost on his tiptoes while chanting, "Come on! Come on! Come on!"

Daddy Phil turned his attention to me. I suppose he had assumed that I was waiting for him to help me get changed too but when he started to reach for my pants I pushed his hands away.

"I can do it myself!" I objected.

"Well then hurry up slowpoke!" He said as he tickled my naked ribs.

I laughed and squirmed, "Daddy stop!"

Daddy Phil then leaned close, put his mouth right next to my right ear and whispered, "Hook your thumbs under the waistband of your diaper and pants and pull them both down at the same time." He then pulled back and waited for me to acknowledge that I had understood his instructions.

There was nothing to be done about it other than to suck it up and drop my drawers, so I nodded to him that indeed I did understand. I swallowed dryly, stood up, loosened my belt, and unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans. As I was doing that Daddy Phil started to change too. I hadn't noticed right away because I was too focused on everyone else in the room, but he had positioned himself so that, for the most part, he was blocking the view of the others in the room. When I caught on to what he was doing for me I quickened up and did as he said. I hooked my thumbs under the waistband of the diaper and with a single quick movement I pulled down my pants and the wet diaper all the way down to my ankles. Don't think for a second that that trick was easy, because it wasn't. The diaper had been put on me pretty tightly but I was still able to muscle it off of me.

I stepped out of the bundle of diaper and jeans and just as quickly slipped on the swim diaper followed by my board shorts. When I had my shorts tied tightly around my waist Daddy Phil moved back over to the bench to finish pulling off his other shoe.

I looked over to him, smiled knowingly and whispered, "Thanks", to which he simply smiled and messed up my hair for me.

Once Daddy Phil had changed into his swim suit, we put all our stuff into a plastic basket and gave it to this geeky looking teenager who then gave Daddy Phil a round, blue token on a string. On the token was the number M-71 which corresponded to the cubbyhole which he had put our basket of clothes into. Daddy Phil put the string around his neck and we headed out of the changing room. On the way out he dropped both wet diapers into a plastic trashcan.

 

__________

 

When we stepped out of the changing room, it was like stepping into an altogether different world. In a weird sort of way, it felt as if I had come home, even though I had never been to Aquaboggin Water Park before.

There wasn't a strong scent of chlorine in the air like you normally get at public pools. Also, there wasn't a bunch of concrete everywhere. Instead, it was like a combination water park, beach and boardwalk all under one big roof. They even had a sandy beach area where you can lay out and soak up some of the artificial sun. I later discovered for myself that the sand was even artificial. It was designed to completely dissolve in the water which in my book, only added to the awesomeness of it all.

Boy we had such a great time and I loved the fact that I got a chance to see Jacquelyn in her two piece bikini again and let me tell you... she's HOT with a capital `S' for Sizzlin'!

Besides the wave pool, Aquaboggin Water Park also has three great water slides. One of the slides ends about ten feet above the pool and you go off the end like going over a waterfall. It is so totally breathtaking and Jacquelyn had said that it was her favorite!

One time, when I went down the big tube slide with Mommy Beth, we somehow ended up getting spun around so that when we came out we were upside down and on our backs. We hit the water and skimmed across the surface like two big skipping stones. Daddy Phil got a recording of that with his camcorder so that she and I got to see it. Boy was it funny!

In a lot of ways Surfing at Aquaboggin Water Park is actually better than surfing in the ocean because you don't have to wait for the perfect wave. Every six and a half minutes there is a new perfect wave. All you have to do is ride the wave, paddle yourself back into place and ride the next one.

It was so funny to watch Daddy Phil try to surf. He kept wiping out. Surprisingly, after two failed attempts to stand up, Jacquelyn actually stayed on the board her third try and rode that wave all the way. Yeah, her form sucked but heck she had never been surfing in her life so she was doing GREAT!

I so badly wanted Joey to get a chance to try it but he was too chicken after seeing his daddy wipe out. Mommy Beth didn't want to surf; instead she filmed all of us.

Okay, I will confess that the first wave I took caught me by surprise and I went down but after that I didn't fall any more.

There was an older guy there, maybe fourteen or fifteen but I am not sure. He was kind of lanky in build, lightly tanned and had kind of brownish and shortly cut hair, though it was difficult to be sure when it was wet. Around his neck he wore an all-white Puma shell choker and he could have passed as a California surfer had he not had a gold stud earring in each ear and been wearing a bright yellow Speedo which left very little to the imagination. A true California surfer would rather surf naked than be caught wearing a butt-hugging Speedo.

He paddled up beside me as I was about to take my last wave before lunch time. He politely introduced himself and asked for some surfing pointers. He said his name was Meek and I later learned that was short for Minkus. To me, the name Minkus sounded stupid, but I didn't tell him that. I can only imagine how bad it must have been for him growing up with a name like Minkus. I am sure he was beat-up on a regular basis in school. Naming a child Minkus? You might as well tattoo `Beat Me Up' on their forehead. Conversely, the name Meek sounded cool and was the perfect name for a surfer.

"We're about to have lunch," I told him as I got ready for the next wave, "but if you want we can catch-up afterward?"

He even sounded like a Cali-surfer when he said, "Righteous!" and gave me the hang loose hand gesture that only tourist and movie surfers use.

We both took the wave at the same time but he was tossed from his board almost instantly. I would have ridden the wave all the way had this stupid little girl not paddled herself right into my way.

Jacquelyn skipped over to me as I was hulling my board out of the water. She hugged me from behind, "That last one was so cool when you dove off your surf board to miss that little girl."

I looked at Meek who was paddling his board up to us and I asked, "See ya after lunch then?"

"Yeah man. That'll be choice!" He responded before heading for another wave.

"Who was that?" Jacquelyn asked.

"Just some guy asking for points." I told her.

"What are points?" She asked.

"Points is short for Pointers; you know, like tips on how to do stuff better. He wants me to give him some surfing points." I explained.

"Oh..." Jacquelyn said and I could tell that she wasn't really too interested. I guess she was more hungry, than anything else.

"We are over there," she pointed to a picnic table over on the boardwalk area.

"Well then, lead the way my beautiful princess!" I said trying to be overly dramatic.

 

Chapter 12

There were a number of food stands at the water park. From what we could tell, they all had the same food. I guess there was more than one so that there wouldn't be a long line. After a quick impromptu vote we opted to get our lunch from the Tiki Hut. Joey got two corndogs and Jacquelyn chose to have a tenderloin sandwich, which when she got it, turned out to be nearly as big as her head. I only had a regular cheese burger with nothing else on it. Joey's parents shared an order of Chicken Fingers and each of our orders came with a mountain of potato wedges, an assortment of dipping sauces and a 44 ounce soda. I hadn't heard how much it cost us to get into the park, but our lunch was a small fortune. All that food cost over fifty dollars. That was highway robbery; or maybe I should say Boardwalk robbery. I made sure to thank Joey's Parents no less than six times during our meal.

We had only just started eating lunch when Joey leaned over to his Mom and whispered something. Mommy Beth then nudged her husband and softly said, "Your son needs you."

Daddy Phil, with a chicken finger hanging out of his mouth, looked at Joey and started to get up. I guessed right; Joey had soiled himself and wanted to be changed. As he was standing up, Daddy Phil looked at me and I knew what he was thinking.

I rattled my head from side to side vigorously but tightly so as not to draw unnecessary attention my way.

The cool thing about swim diapers is that they don't act exactly like real disposable diapers. First off, they don't really keep the pee in. They are designed to keep your poop in and let fluids pass. I had figured this out on my own after the first time in the water and noticing that the diaper hadn't swelled up like disposables do when wet.

I suppose I should tell you how I know that disposable diapers swell up when you get into the water. Gosh, I really don't want to tell you this; but I will. You see, one weekend, sometime in the middle of the school year, John had only just put me into a fresh diaper when I went downstairs, sat at the table and promptly spilled a whole class of Coke down my front. Without being told to do so, I went to change my clothes and get washed so that I wouldn't be all sticky. However, since I was wearing a clean, dry diaper I didn't want to have to ask to have a new one put on me after I washed, so I decided to wear the diaper into the shower. Not one of my more brilliant ideas but hey, now I know; right? And now you know why I didn't want to bring it up. Anyway by the time I climbed out of the shower the diaper had swelled to at least twice its size and I ended up having to have John come back up to my room and re-diaper me yet again. Boy he sure teased me a lot about that, but I knew that he was only having a little fun with me.

 

__________

 

Jacquelyn, who was sitting right beside me, whispered into my ear, "Where are they going?"

With my mouth stuffed with potato wedges I whispered back, "Think he needs changed." although it didn't come out sounding anything like that. How she understood me I will never know.

It took her a couple seconds to process the information and then all she said was, "Okay" accompanied by a single shoulder shrug.

Joey and Daddy Phil soon returned with Joey now sporting a green swim diaper with a wide single red stripe that ran from the front through the crotch and up the backside. I'd never admit to it, at least not in public, but I kind of liked the ones with the shooting stars better.

As we finished our lunch we talked about what we had already done so far that day. It was fun recounting some of the more enjoyable events, such as when Joey had gone down one of the slides head first on his belly. When he hit the water at the bottom his swim diaper had come right off of him. He didn't even notice until he was out of the water and people were laughing. Joey didn't seem to care in the least that everyone got to see his pee-pee.

After everyone was dutifully stuffed, Mommy Beth wanted us to head over to the beach area to rest and let our food digest, but I objected. I knew that you shouldn't go swimming right after eating and I wasn't planning on it. Instead, I wanted to go talk with that guy, Meek, for a while. Once I had promised her that I wouldn't go in the water for at least a half hour, she let me go. I tried to get Jacquelyn to come too, but she said she was stuffed and just wanted to lie down.

I walked around for about fifteen minutes looking for Meek but couldn't find him anywhere. I had started to wonder if maybe he had left or something. Since he was nowhere to be found, I decided that I'd play with Joey in the artificial sand for a while.

I was making my way across the boardwalk when I started to feel the need to go number two. Also, a good portion of that 44 ounce soda had worked its way through me. Even though I was dreading using those open toilets, there was no other option, because I sure didn't want to end up soiling myself the way Joey had done. I don't think I could live down that sort of humiliation at such a public place.

When I walked into the changing room there were two boys, one about my age and another much younger sitting on the first two toilets. They looked a lot alike and though I didn't really think too much about it, I guess they must have been brothers. I noticed right away that they looked completely out of place in Maine. They appeared to be of Asian descent and I don't mean that to sound racist. I am just saying that in all the time that I have been in Maine, I have not seen a single Asian person. Practically the entire population of Lewiston, Maine is made up of white and really white people. Heck, I don't care where someone comes from or what they look like and I wouldn't have even thought to bring it up here if what happened shortly after seeing them hadn't happened. What really made me believe that they weren't native to the area was when I heard the two of them talking in really bad English.

They were sitting on adjacent toilets; the older one was loudly trying to explain to the younger boy why that old joke, `Is your refrigerator running?' wasn't funny. I don't think the younger boy had a clue what the older one was talking about; he just thought it was funny and that was all that mattered to him.

There were also three men, one on the can the other two at the sinks and then I finally found Meek! He was at the far end of the line of toilet bowls standing over a young naked boy who looked to be maybe four or five years of age; maybe even a bit younger. The young boy, who didn't look anything like Meek, seemed to be straining desperately to void his bowels. Meek had his back to me, showing me his nearly nonexistent rump tightly wrapped in that bright yellow Speedo.

"Don't try so hard." I heard Meek say to the boy.

The young boy whimpered and strained, "It won't come out!"

"Don't try to force it or you might blow your butt off. Then what will you use for sitting?"

I nearly laughed at the way Meek made that sound, but I didn't because the contents of my bowels were now paining for release. I knew that if I didn't pick a toilet and quickly, I would have a serious problem.

I took the first unoccupied toilet I came to, which happened to be right next to the two Asian boys. Counting the toilet that the man was using, there were exactly six toilets between Meek and myself.

Just as I had done before I hooked my thumbs under the waistband of the swim diaper and my board shorts. With a swift and fluid movement I pulled them both down to my ankles and quickly planted my backside on the toilet. Part of me wanted to try to hold it in until after Meek left. I don't know why, I just didn't want to poop with him right there. I squeezed my poop muscles but the pressure inside of me was too much for me to hold back any longer. There were three loud combination fart and splash sounds inside my bowl, followed by one long juicy fart.

Both of the boys next to me stopped talking and looked my way. I felt my head glowing red. All I could do was focus my eyes downward and pretend I didn't know they were looking at me. I was also hoping that Meek wouldn't turn around too.

As I was keeping my eyes directed toward the floor I realized that in my haste to sit down, the swim diaper had not stayed concealed within my board shorts. It was turned completely inside out and standing up between my calves. I might as well have been carrying a large neon arrow that blinked, `Watch the Funny Diaper Boy Poop!'

I almost reached down to stuff it into my shorts but that would have just made the two boys look down. Then they surely would have seen the pristinely white insides of the swim diaper.

As soon as I was sure they had looked away again, I took my left hand and punched the diaper down into my shorts. It wasn't completely out of sight, but at least it wasn't right out there for all to see.

As I sat there pooping I thought back to all of that dang food I had ate at breakfast time. At the time it had made me feel so good going in and now, several hours later, I wasn't feeling so happy with its loud exit.

When I thought I was done, I wiped myself clean and stood up to pull up my swim diaper and board shorts. At first I tried to do them at the same time, but the dang swim diaper rolled up in the back and I had to push my shorts back down to straighten it out.

Unfortunately, I hadn't double checked that Meek was still in the same spot, so when I bent over again to pull up my board shorts I bumped right into the younger boy that Meek was following out.

"Sorry," I mumbled as I tried to play it off while standing there with my shorts around my knees and my swim diaper out there for all to see.

"Oh hey Alvin! Done eating then?" Meek asked as if seeing me like that was no big deal.

That was when the boy said, "Meek look!" he pointed right at my swim diaper, "He gots one same as me."

Not meaning to, I looked down and saw that he too was wearing a swim diaper with yellow shooting stars.

"Sheller that isn't nice!" Meek snapped at the boy.

Oddly, Meek was the one to blush first, but I quickly followed up with my own impression of a red light bulb.

Meek tried to apologize, "Sorry man. He doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut."

When I didn't respond Meek said, "Uh, I have to take him back over to his mom. If you still want, maybe we can meet up at the..."

For the life of me I have no idea where he said, but it ended up not mattering because we found each other a short time later.

I don't remember doing so, but I must have nodded my head or responded in some manner, because Meek took the young boys hand and led him out. I was only like twelve feet from the door, but in that short distance Sheller never once stopped looking at me in my swim diaper.

Once they were gone I quickly became aware of the fact that the other two boys were staring at me too.

You would think that it couldn't get any more embarrassing than that, but it did. Slowly I turned my head until the older of the two boys and I made eye contact.

"Why are you wearing a diaper?" he asked.

Do you remember me telling you about the first time I met Joey and how I had passed out from embarrassment? Yeah well, that was nothing compared to how I was feeling at the instant the boy had asked me why I was wearing a diaper.

I am not sure what I might have done next, maybe run for my life or something, had not a large Asian man walked in, just as the boy had asked the question. When I say large, I mean HUGE! The guy was at least six foot tall and he had to weigh in excess of 350 pounds. He was so large that, when he walked in, his enormous bulk practically eclipsed the light from outside the changing room.

He was wearing matching flowery-blue Hawaiian shirt and shorts and was also Asian. The second I saw the man I felt that I knew him from somewhere, but couldn't place him right away. It was probably because of everything that had happened in those couple minutes before he had walked in.

"As a matter of fact," he started saying in extremely broken English. He spoke loud enough that the boys attention was drawn away from me and to him, "all the real professional surfers wear those, so they don't miss out on any of the good waves."

I couldn't believe my ears but still, the second the boys' attention was off of me, I had bent over and yanked my board shorts all the way up.

The large man continued talking to the two boys as he asked them, "Remember how I told you about Astronauts and Racecar drivers?"

Both boys nodded in obedient unison.

"It is the same thing for real surfers." He said and then thrust out a hand with five sausage-like fingers.

"Mr. Holloway, I've been hoping to meet you all day!" He said as he nearly shook my arm off at the shoulder.

It had been so long since someone had recognized me that to be honest, it caught me off guard. I was holding my shorts in place with one hand and had the mountain of a man trying to remove my other at the shoulder.

Finally, I found my own voice as I asked, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

The younger of the two boys rudely spouted off with, "Well you should; he's famous."

Before the boy even finished talking, the older boy almost knocked him off his toilet with an elbow to the chest.

The large man released my hand and bowed to me as he said, "Asashōryū Akinori."

I am sure you have no idea who Asashōryū Akinori is, but I sure did.

The instant I had heard his name I remembered where I had seen him before. It was my turn to gush, because I was standing almost toe-to-toe with one of the most famous Sumo wrestlers in the world.

"I-I-I," was all I was able to say as I was suddenly overcome with Star Shock.

He smiled.

I lost control of the volume of my voice as I began to shake all over and nearly lost my grip on my shorts.

"OH MY GOD! I SAW YOU WRESTLE LIKE THREE YEARS AGO!"

Mr. Akinori wasn't anything like I expected him to be. I guess I had always imagined that he would be this exceedingly disciplined and rigid man, but he behaved completely opposite of what you might expect a Sumo Champion to be. I guess that was because he was on semi-vacation; he and several other Sumo wrestlers were doing a worldwide tour to promote youth Sumo wrestling but on this particular day he was enjoying Aquaboggin Water Park with his family.

Now that I think back on it, it was actually kind of funny because the two of us were both acting star struck with the other. Come to find out, Mr. Akinori had been a fan of mine since he saw me win my first surfing title. That was also when I had become a fan of his, because he had wrestled and won in an exhibition match the night before.

Nothing more had been said about me wearing a swim diaper and frankly, after having met Mr. Akinori, I had forgotten that I was supposed to be embarrassed. It wasn't until we were driving home and I was thinking back on that meeting that it dawned on me just what he had done for me. It isn't true that real surfers wear swim diapers. He had lied to those two boys, who turned out to be his nephews. He knew who I was and how embarrassed I was feeling and came to my rescue. I ask you, how cool is it that someone so world famous and important, would do that for someone like me?

Mr. Akinori bowed to me and then shook my hand again while telling me that he was honored to have finally met me after all these years. He then asked if I was going to be competing again this year. I almost chose not to tell him the truth simply because I didn't want to disappoint him.

I reluctantly shook my head as I said, "I can't." then I told him the reason why.

His countenance fell when I told him about how my dad died and how my mom got sick afterward. I didn't actually tell him that Mom was in the mental ward at the hospital for trying to kill herself. He reached out with those two huge hands of his and placed them on my shoulders while saying something in a language I didn't understand.

"You would honor your fathers' memory by continuing the dream you shared." He told me; of course I cleaned it up because his English had suffered with his emotional empathy for me and Mom.

I guess I have Mr. Akinori to thank for planting the seed of hope inside of me which would quickly begin to grow into a full-fledged idea. The idea was that, somehow, I was going to find a way to get to California and compete in the surfing competition.

Mr. Akinori thanked me repeatedly and told me that he was truly honored to have met me.

"It was an honor to have met you too." I told him as we again shook hands.

As I slipped out of the changing room, I frantically tried to tie the string to my board shorts while running for Daddy Phil and the others to tell them about meeting Mr. Akinori. I found them all lying on a beach blanket on the sand.

"You guys are never going to believe who I just met in the bathroom!" I exclaimed as I ran up to them and nearly fell on top of Mommy Beth whom Jacquelyn and Joey had buried in the sand.

I told them all about Mr. Akinori and how he said he was a fan of mine. He said that he's going to be in California for another exhibition match at the same time that the surfing competition will be taking place.

After telling them about meeting Mr. Akinori, I picked up my surfboard and headed out in search of Meek. I found him talking to some older girls over by the biggest water slide. When he saw me coming he quickly waved me over and introduced me to his lady friends.

"Alvin this is Lacey, Trish, and Monica. Girls, this is the guy I was telling you about."

Lacey was the first to speak, "Wow, so you're really famous huh?"

I felt my face flushing and I tried to shrug off the adoration, but then Monica asked, "So are you going to compete again this year?"

I realized then that Meek had figured out who I was. I mean my name is plastered across my surfboard so it wouldn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to sniff out the clues.

I shrugged again, "Nah, probably not." And even as I said it, in the back of my mind, almost like an afterthought, a still small voice could be heard saying, "One way or another I'll be there!"

Although each of them had done so, Trish frowned the most, "That's too bad. Meek says you are really good." When she had said that, she reached out and ran a single finger over my right bicep, which was still clinched because I was holding my surfboard. A shot of electricity raced from my arm to my brain at her touch. I've no idea what that was all about, but dang it felt good!

At first Meek and I didn't get to do too much talking about surfing because those three girls were hanging all over us. Now I am not complaining; I'm simply making an observation, that's all. Actually, I was really enjoying the attention; that is until I saw Jacquelyn standing on the other side of the pool looking angrily my way. Even from that far away I could tell that she didn't like the fact that those girls were being so clingy.

I made up some excuse to get Meek and me away from the girls. He picked up on the hint and the two of us headed for the water with boards in hand.

Once in the water I told Meek, "I think I'm in the dog house with my girlfriend again."

"Why's that?" he asked.

"I saw her watching me and I don't think she liked me hanging around with the girls."

Meek laughed, "Don't sweat it. I know exactly how it is. See that guy over there?"

"The one with the green striped towel draped over his shoulders?" I asked.

"No, the one with the Black Speedo."

"Oh yeah! What about him?" I asked.

"That's my boyfriend and he gets incredibly jealous whenever I spend a little too much time talking to another guy." Meek said.

"Boyfriend?" I asked not really intending for it to come out the way it did. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I mean... uh... it's cool. I got a couple friends at school that are gay too."

"So I'm guessing since you have a girlfriend that you're not gay?" Meek asked and did I detect a hint of disappointment?

I didn't mean to laugh but I did, "Nah, I'm not, but I am totally cool with it if you are. I mean, I don't care who someone likes as long as they are happy."

"Wow, that's really a mature attitude to have." Meek commented.

During the time we spent surfing I found out that Meek wasn't just gay, he was the Student President of his schools chapter of something called Youth-Quest. I had no idea what that was and had to ask. It turned out to be an after school group for gay teens and straight teens with one or more gay parents.

"Yeah well..." I started to say but instead decided to ask a question. "Does your boyfriend mind me hanging with you right now?"

Meek reddened slightly but didn't answer.

"What?" I asked.

"Well, when I told him who you are he said that he really wanted to meet you but he doesn't want you to think he is a stalker or something."

"A stalker?" I laughed and was about to say something else, but there wasn't time because the next wave was coming, "Strike that! Catch this one so I can see what you got!" I said and I turned my board and got ready to duck-dive under the wave so that I could watch Meek surf it.

Meek took off paddling for all he was worth. I guess he hadn't had a chance to really prepare himself because as soon as he stood up I knew that he was going into the water.

"Your feet were all wrong," I said to him as he paddled back up to me.

"Yeah?" he grunted as he coughed up some water he had swallowed.

"You have to point your front foot in the direction you want to go. You also had all your weight on your back leg. You shouldn't have any weight on that leg at all. It is just for balance."

Meek looked at me as though he thought I was joking with him.

"You're not messing with me are you?" Meek asked.

"No way man! I wouldn't do that." I said just before sliding off my board.

I flipped my board over so that the fin was up in the air.

"In the early days of surfing, boards didn't have fins to keep the board going straight. The surfer had to drag his back foot in the water like a rudder."

"Really?" Meek asked with astonishment.

I popped the fin off my board and then flipped my board back over.

"Watch, I'll show you." I said as the next wave was heading toward us.

I rode the wave while dragging my foot through the water and even had to maneuver when some young kid I'd seen earlier, nearly crashed into me.

"Dude! That was righteous!" Meek said when I paddled back to him.

"Here get on my board and give it a try." I said.

"No way man! I could never do what you just did." Meek said while holding his hands up as if I were some Wild West bandit.

"Come on. You might eat it but you might not." I said.

Meek pulled himself up on my board and I got on his, which was one of the park rentals.

"I'm going to ride this next wave with you." I told him.

I am glad I did because I got to see that much of the problem Meek was having, was due to the cheap rental board he had been using.

"Man this board sucks." I told him when I came up after wiping out.

"You think so?" He asked.

"I know so! It's no wonder you keep falling!" I said and then asked, "I didn't see. How did you do without the fin?"

"It was tough, but not as hard as I thought it was going to be."

"Did you stay up?"

Meek was beaming, "Amazingly, I did."

I popped the fin back on my board and we surfed together for over an hour. By the end of that time Meek was doing great. I had also pretty much mastered that cheap rental board, although I seemed to wipe out about every third or fourth wave.

"So do you have any more points for me?" Meek asked as we both headed for our towels to dry off.

"Yeah, if you are serious about surfing, then I'd suggest you get your own board." I said rather dogmatically.

He dried his hair with his towel as he asked, "Got any idea where?"

I thought for a moment before I said, "If you want, I know this guy back in California who would make you one and ship it to you. It won't be cheap, but he's a wizard when it comes to shaping boards. He's the one that made mine."

"Really? That would be choice!" Meek said excitedly.

He then asked, "You got an email address? I could write you and then you could email his contact info."

"Contact info?" I thought to myself. Sheesh, he shifted from surfer to geek so fast I nearly got mental whiplash.

"Yeah, but can you remember my email?" I asked.

"Come with me to the changing room. I have something to write on with my clothes and things." He said and then asked, "Want me to carry your board?"

"Nah, I got it." I said heaving it under my arm and walking across the boardwalk with him.

As the two of us made our way to the changing room we continued talking.

"I have to confess something," Meek said, "The way I knew you were you; I saw on your board there..." he pointed to the bottom of my board which had, in huge fancy blue and white letter that covered the entire bottom, ALVIN HOLLOWAY and running through the middle of my name in gold was, 2X Jr. Surfing Champion.

Meek cocked his head to one side as he said, "I still can't believe that you are really THE Alvin Holloway."

"That reminds me," I started to say and I stopped to look around for the guy in the black Speedo.

I spotted him reclining in one of the deck chairs and watching the two of us intently. I waved at him and then motioned for him to come over. It looked like he nearly broke his leg trying to get out of that chair.

"HI!" he all but shouted, as he jogged up to us.

"Alvin, this here is Pepper. Pepper, this is..." Meek was saying but Pepper jumped in quickly.

"Oh my gosh! Are you really Alvin Holloway?" Pepper was almost drooling on me; that is how excited he was.

"You know me?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?!" Meek said for him, "He's got all the famous surfers tacked up all over his bedroom walls and ceiling."

"Huh?" I grunted.

Pepper was nervously twisting his towel. "I cut them out of magazines or print them off the Internet."

Pepper looked to be about the same age as Meek, but he was in a lot better physical shape. He looked like he exercised on a regular basis. He had neatly combed black hair, parted in the middle. His eyes were a light shade of brown and I must admit that I was kind of miffed that he had a deeper tan then I did. Unlike Meek, he had no piercing and wore no jewelry save for a single Dog Tag and a key on a braided twine and leather chocker about his neck. Upon closer inspection I saw that the Dog Tags were stamped with `Abercrombie and Fitch' and the key was stamped with `A&F'.

"Alvin's about to give me his email address so that he can email me the contact info for some guy he knows that makes surf boards." Meek told Pepper.

Pepper went nuts! "OH MY GOSH! YOU'RE GIVING US YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS?"

People around us were starting to stare.

"Uh Pepper, you're being a smidge embarrassing." Meek tried to say softly.

I would have said that he was being more than a smidge, but I remained polite. Then again, I was feeling generous and decided to put Pepper over the edge.

"I'll do you one better than that, I'll give you my autograph if you like."

Yep, I was right, that did it. Pepper started jumping up and down fanning himself with both hands.

"OH MY GOSH! OOOWWWWW! OH MY GOSH! OOOWWWWW!" he was alternating between screaming and making howling sounds.

Meek looked like he wanted to find somewhere to hide but I was getting a kick out of Pepper. He was like so out there with his excitement and didn't care that he was acting like a total goof. If you ask me, more people should feel free to be that open and natural.

Suddenly a massive shadow enveloped the three of us from behind me. I had still been looking at Meeks glowing red face when it suddenly went completely void of color. I looked to Pepper who wasn't bouncing anymore but was standing there looking up.

"Oh shit!" Pepper exclaimed in a high terror filled tone that reminded me of those two cartoon chipmunks, Chip and Dale.

"Are they your bodyguards?" Pepper asked.

I turned around and saw Mr. Akinori standing there looking all kinds of mean. On either side of him was an equally large Asian man both of whom looked younger than Mr. Akinori. Logic said that they had to be Sumo wrestlers as well.

"Ah man," I crowed at Mr. Akinori, "you scared the life out of me!"

He bowed respectfully and asked if I was okay. Apparently he had heard and seen Pepper carrying on. He had assumed that someone else had recognized me and was hounding me the way some diehard fans do at times.

"No, no!" I said to Mr. Akinori. I looked at Pepper and Meek who were both were standing stone still, "This is Meek, he's a surfer too. We just met today and this here," I pointed at Pepper, "is Meeks friend Pepper."

"Guys, this is Mr. Asashōryū Akinori."

Mr. Akinori bowed to Meek and then to Pepper.

Hesitantly they both bowed back.

Right then Daddy Phil appeared.

"Alvin? Is everything alright here?" he asked trying to put himself between me and the three Asian giants.

I then introduced Daddy Phil to Mr. Akinori. I didn't know the other two men so Mr. Akinori introduced them for me. He had said their names, but I am sorry to say that I cannot remember them. I also forget the word Mr. Akinori used to describe them; it was something like disciple but that isn't exactly right. Maybe later I will ask Daddy Phil if he remembers.

Mr. Akinori asked again if I was sure that everything was okay. When I reassured him that I really was fine, he smiled, bowed and apologized.

As they were walking away, Meek rumbled, "That was so cool!"

"Why don't you come spend some time with us for a while?" Daddy Phil more told me than asked, before heading back to the water slide where Joey and Jacquelyn were waiting.

"Okay, I will be right there." I said.

Meek, Pepper, and I went into the changing room. Meek presented his token and in return received his basket of clothes. He fished around until he found a small blue zippered pouch. It turned out to be a New Testament Bible inside a zippered cover. I would have never taken Meek as the Christian type, especially since he is gay, but then again I guess it doesn't matter either way. I know this much about Jesus, he used to hang out with thieves, prostitutes, and tax collectors; so I guess it is reasonable to believe that he wouldn't have a problem if someone was gay.

Besides containing a New Testament Bible, there was also a small ink pin and some scrap paper that I was able to write my email address on. I didn't really want to use one of the scrap pieces of paper to scribble my signature onto for Pepper, so I asked the guy that was in charge of guarding the rows and rows of baskets, if he had a nice piece of paper or a post-it note. All he had was an Aquaboggin Water Park flyer with the hours and dates for special events. Not having anything more suitable, I used that to apply my autograph for Pepper.

You would have thought that I had just given him a check for a million dollars the way he hugged it to his chest.

"Since we'll be able to swap emails, maybe we can arrange to meet up here again someday." Meek suggested.

"Hey yeah!" I agreed.

As Meek was returning his basket of clothes, the guy took it and asked me, "So are you someone famous or something?" I could tell the way he said it, that he was one of those kinds of people that only care about what they can get for something from a famous person. I guess Meek and Pepper picked up on it too, because they both had something to say back.

Pepper was the first to reply, "Don't you recognize the King of England when you see him?"

"Yeah, he's a right royal pain in the..." Meek started to say, but I gave him a playful shove.

"Hey!" I growled while laughing.

He continued as the three of us made a quick exit, "What did I say your majesty? Please don't have my head chopped off your majesty!"

And just before the three of us popped out the door, Pepper did a very fancy bow, waved his arm royally and said, "May God be with you on your noble quest for a clue!"

All three of us laughed however I had failed to take into account the fact that I had been carrying my board around with me, which had my name spelled out for all to see. Later in the day it would prove to have been a catalyst to something considerably unpleasant.

 

Chapter 13

I would have liked to have spent more time with Meek and Pepper. Despite Peppers initial excitement at meeting me, he turned out to be a really cool guy. I also wanted to spend more time playing with Joey and Jacquelyn. Besides, since they live closer, it was more likely that I would get to see more of Meek and Pepper than I would Joey and Jacquelyn.

It took some doing, but I managed to talk Joey into letting me take him on my surfboard. The way I got him to try surfing with me, was to tell him that if he would do it, then I'd help him build a big Sand Castle. However, he only agreed to try once and when I got him out there, he was so scared, that when the wave came, we wiped out while trying to stand up. After that, there was no chance of talking him into trying it again.

When Joey's head came back out of the water, he spat out a mouthful of water like a human water fountain, swam to the edge of the pool, pulled himself out, and said rather unyieldingly, "Now we got to build a castle."

"But we didn't surf, we just wiped out." I argued.

"Alvin!" He stomped his foot, "You promised!"

"Oh alright!" I surrendered and made my way out of the pool.

 

__________

 

What was so cool about building the sand castle was that at first it started out as just Joey and me, but after a while Jacquelyn came and joined us. Then some other kids started helping too and before long there were more than a dozen of us building, digging, and forming the castle. We had bridges, a huge moat, and lots of tall towers. Our castle got so big, that we were running some of the adults off, so that we could have the sand under them.

We played in the sand for nearly two hours, prior to deciding that we wanted to go swimming one more time before our wonderful day at Aquaboggin Water Park was over. I even got to surf a few more waves before Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth announced that it was time to leave. All three of us must have been tired, because not one of us objected in the least about having to go home. However, there were two more memorable events that were due to take place before we left the park.

Mommy Beth and Jacquelyn slipped away to the girls changing room while Daddy Phil and Joey stood by the pool holding my surfboard and waiting for me to come down the big slide one last time. In hindsight, I should have left without that one last trip down the slide.

When I reached the top I found that same little kid that I'd seen with Meek earlier. He was too scared to go down the slide by himself and was carrying on, making a scene. From that high perch I scanned the entire park for Meek but couldn't spot him among the throngs of people. I then turned my attention back to the boy. At first I couldn't remember his name and had to ask him.

"Do you remember me?" I asked.

Sobbing with a big snot bubble hanging out of his nose he nodded his head.

"What was your name again?"

"Sheller," he whimpered.

I looked up to the slide attendant who looked both irritated with the sobbing child and longingly hopeful that I might take him off his hands. I returned my attention back to Sheller.

"Sheller, would you like to go down the slide with me?"

Sheller hesitantly nodded and the snot bubble popped.

I looked back to the slide attendant whose eyes expressed genuine relief that someone was getting rid of the problem child for him.

I lowered myself into position and without telling him to do so Sheller jumped down onto my lap. For a dreadful split second, as he seemed to hang in the air, I feared that my poor balls were about to suffer from the sudden impact. Thankfully he missed them and instead my legs took the full brunt of his weight.

"Hold me tight!" he grunted and I wrapped both arms around his middle.

"Tighter!" he squalled as we started out decent.

I'm surprised his head didn't pop off, that is how tight I held him all the way down the slide.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" he squealed as we flew down the tube.

When we reached the corkscrew part of the slide we actually made a complete one-eighty spin so that we were going down backwards. Sheller screamed and I'm not sure if he was screaming because he was scared or if he was having fun. We emerged from the slide like a couple human cannonballs and went airborne. My back hit the water first in a sort of skimming backward flop. We had been going so fast that, when we entered the water, the force of it pulled Sheller out of my arms. Thankfully he was a good swimmer. The instant my head came out of the water I knew something was wrong.

My back was stinging almost the way it might if I'd scrapped it across a coral reef. That is when I noticed that floating all around me were fragments of something whitish. Have you ever tried to flush the toilet only to have it just swirl around and shred the toilet paper without sucking it down? Well that is what it was like; it was as if someone had tossed in wads of toilet paper or something. Others in the pool started panicking and swimming for the sides because they didn't know what the white stuff was either. Sheller pointed at me and exclaimed in a very loud voice, "Your diaper came apart!"

I became instantly aware that below the water's surface I was completely nude; both my board shorts and the swim diaper were gone. The force of the water had not only pulled Sheller out of my arms, it had also pulled off what little I had been wearing.

Back in Chula Vista, running around naked wouldn't have bothered me in the least and had I not just been identified as a diaper wearer, I probably wouldn't have cared that I'd lost my board shorts. But Sheller was laughing and pointing while those around me looked at me with a mixture of horror and disgust.

Someone else came down the slide and when they hit the water, it scattered the bits of what was left of the swim diaper.

I spun around while treading water, trying to find my board shorts. That's when yet another girl came out of the slide and nearly collided with me. Unfortunately it had caught me by surprises. The splash the girl made threw water over my head and I gasped in a lung full of water; I think maybe even some of the shredded diaper fill stuff had come in with the water.

"Alvin!" I heard someone shout my name.

I am so thankful that Daddy Phil had been there because I sure did swallow a lot of water. The instant he seen that I was in trouble he had dived in to help me. Once he had me at the side of the pool I coughed and choked up water in an attempt to clear my airway. It seemed like forever before I was able to get a halfway decent breath of air into my lungs again. By then a crowd had formed around us as well as several park attendants and two lifeguards had come over.

I don't know who had thought to cover me with a towel; it wasn't one of our towels but I am so glad someone thought to cover my shame. You know what is funny? I never did get my board shorts back. No kidding!

When I was able to get up, Daddy Phil had secured the towel around me and we walked to the changing room together with Joey worriedly holding my hand as I continued to cough and clear my throat.

"Thirsty?" Daddy Phil tried to tease me.

I gave him a dirty look as I coughed again followed by a small burp that tasted like pool water.

"That was so embarrassing!" I lamented.

He raked his fingers into the back of my hair and massaged my head, "Embarrassment is just a part of growing up."

"You should have got changed when I did!" Joey commented.

"I am sorry but I didn't even think about it." Daddy Phil began as we neared the changing room. "After about four or five hours the chemicals, which some pools use, begin to break down the glues used in the construction of disposable swim diapers."

Of course that had been news to me. I do, however remember that, when we had first entered the water park, I had noticed the distinct lack of chlorine in the air. I guess whatever Aquaboggin Water Park uses to keep the pool clean and germ free also dissolves swim diaper glues after several hours of continued exposure. I would think that the makers of swim diapers would be aware of this flaw in their design and come up with a solution for countering such potentially horrifyingly embarrassing situations for their customers. Or at the very least, put some kind of warning on the package. Then again, I have never in my life looked closely at the packing for swim diapers. For all I know there is just such a warning present. I will have to make it a point to check this out.

While Joey and I headed for the center of the changing room to shower off, Daddy Phil leaned my board against the far wall and then went to retrieve our clothes and things.

As soon as we finished washing, we both wrapped towels around ourselves and went over to sit by my board while we waited for Daddy Phil, who seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

"You feeling better?" Joey asked me.

"Yeah, I just forgot for a minute that I wasn't a fish." I joked while trying not to remember how embarrassing it was to have everyone looking at me and knowing that it had been my swim diaper that had disintegrated in the pool.

Joey made a weird sort of face, then asked, "Didn't you say you have a friend named that?"

"Named what?" I asked.

"Fish," Joey said while making a fish face.

Wow, Joey's mind sure works fast! I hadn't even picked up on that.

You know, I just had a disturbing thought. I wonder if they had to close the pool after my swim diaper fell apart, until they got the gunk cleaned up. Yeah, I bet that would make me a real popular guy if I were ever to return to the park. I can just hear them now. "Hey look, there goes the diaper boy who ruined our fun!"

Joey and I were sitting, minding our own business and talking about the sandcastle we and many other kids had made.

"Then two boys came and stomped it all." Joey said. His upper lip curled up like a snarling dog as he said it too.

I felt a twinge of irritation at hearing that.

"Really?" I replied.

Sure, it was only a sandcastle and I know they are supposed to be a temporary thing but even still, I hate jerks that stomp on sandcastles just for the fun of it. My good friend Gary back in Chula Vista, felt the same way and would chase off anyone he seen doing that sort of thing.

Speaking of Gary, I hadn't talked to him on the phone or wrote to him since before my dad passed away. I'd tried calling but hadn't got through. While sitting there on the heated concrete bench I decided that when we got home, I was going to try calling again.

While Joey and I continued talking, I noticed that Daddy Phil was talking animatedly to the guy in charge of guarding everyone's clothing and other personal effects. Though we couldn't hear any of the conversation, Daddy Phil's body language told us that he was upset about something. At the time, I wasn't sure why, but I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach.

My attention was suddenly diverted away from Daddy Phil when a frantic looking and winded Meek came skidding to a stop on the wet concrete floor after running into the changing room. He positioned himself near the middle of the room and bent over. With hands on knees he panted for air as he quickly scanned the room.

"Oh, there you are!" Meek wheezed when he spotted me. He crossed over to where I was sitting, still wearing nothing more than the towel.

"You alright?" I asked him.

"Me?" he grunted with mild shock, "Someone told me you nearly drowned."

"Drowned?" I laughed half amused, "I only choked on a little water is all."

Meek stood erect, sucked in a deep breath and punched a fist into his other hand. He groaned out the words through clenched teeth, "I am going to pound Sheller."

"Who's Sheller?" Joey asked.

"My lil' dweeb of a cousin." Meek churned while looking toward the doorway he'd only just entered through.

Meek then turned back to me and asked again, "So you are okay for real?"

"Yeah," I answered with a mild gesticulation.

"Little Gitt had me believing you were bad off. He even said that you lost your trunks and dia..." he stopped before finishing the word. He had seen me wince at even the near mentioning of that word. "Sorry," he said and continued, "that just slipped out. I mean the, `You know what'."

"Yeah, his diaper exploded all over the pool!" Joey said totally missing the whole idea that I didn't want that word blabbed out. I think I must have turned volcano red!

"Oh," Meek purred, showing the same signs of discomfort that I was feeling.

"Uh, is he your little brother?" Meek asked gesturing to Joey.

"Nah, Joey is my best friend, but we are almost like brothers." I said and Joey seemed to glow at this distinction.

I didn't notice Daddy Phil come back over until he was right there with us. He was holding his own clothes but that was it.

"What?" I asked when I saw how upset he looked.

"They seem to have misplaced your clothing!" he said and I could feel the fire inside of him as he spoke.

What he had said didn't register right away. Actually Joey and Meek got it before I did.

"We don't got no clothes?" Joey asked almost sounding glad of that fact.

"They lost someone else's clothes again?" Meek barked in disbelief.

Daddy Phil looked at Meek as if to say, "Who are you?" but he didn't actually say anything.

"Daddy, this is my new friend Meek. He's a surfer like me." I said.

"Ah yes, I saw you two surfing together today." Daddy Phil said while extending his hand to shake Meeks.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Holloway." Meek said politely.

"No—no!" I quickly interjected, "He's not my real dad. I just call him daddy."

Still shaking his hand Daddy Phil said, "I am Joey's dad.

"Oh ok, now I get it!" Meek said with a grin.

"So you said they have lost other peoples clothing?" Daddy Phil asked.

"Yeah they totally lost Peppers'... I mean my friends clothes last month." Meek said.

"Wait," I said finally realizing what we were talking about, "I don't have anything to wear home? I can't go home naked!"

"Don't be silly!" Daddy Phil said in a fatherly tone, "The attendant is getting the manager now. I am sure he'll find your things."

"I wouldn't bet on it." Meek said and I don't think he even knew that he had said anything at first.

All three of us looked at him concernedly.

"I mean, they didn't find my friends stuff. Instead they gave his mom a check to go buy him some new clothes."

Suddenly I became very concerned of the fact that all I had to wear was a towel. The idea of going shopping for clothing while wrapped in a towel when the weather was still not all that warm was not very appealing.

About then this short, brown-haired guy wearing a brown necktie, white shirt, pressed chocolate brown slacks, and scuffed black dress shoes walked up to us. The guy didn't look old enough to drive, let alone be the manager of the entire water park. One look at his name tag revealed that he was in fact not a full-fledged manager. He was only an Assistant Junior Manager — whatever the heck that means. His name tag read,

 

David Mauston

Asst. Jr. Manager

Aquaboggin Water Park, LLC.

 

His face was literally covered in pimples and blackheads and was so greasy, that it looked like someone had smeared Vaseline all over his mug. I wanted to ask him if he had ever heard of this cool invention they call `SOAP', but there was no way I would ever say something like that out loud.

"I am Mr. Mauston, how can I help you today?" The guy asked and he sounded as young as he looked.

I was sure Daddy Phil was going to bust out laughing when he saw that Assistant Junior Manager guy. How he managed to hold it together, I will never know.

Daddy Phil explained the situation and then they went back over to the... What do they call that room anyway? I mean shouldn't it have an official title like "Clothing Booth" or `Clothing Keep' or something clever like that. Okay, so anyway, they went to that place where people's clothes are kept to talk to the guy in charge of guarding the clothes. That was when Meek had an idea.

"You know what?" He said in a half whisper, "I bet that one guy that was in there before took your stuff. Remember he thought you might be someone famous?"

Before the thought had time to settle in my brain he added, "Maybe he figured out who you really are and is going to try to sell your clothes on eBay or Craigslist or something like that."

As ridiculous as that sounded, it was the only explanation that seemed to make sense. The three of us dashed over to Daddy Phil where Meek repeated his allegations. The Assistant Junior Manager asked the guy currently in charge of guarding peoples belongings who had been working before him. With that information the Pimple faced Manager left the changing room with Daddy Phil following after him. Before he left, Daddy Phil told Joey to go out front and tell his mom what was taking us so long.

 

__________

 

I was glad that I didn't have to sit and wait by myself. Meek kept me company, talking about surfing stuff which really helped to keep my mind off the violated emotions I was experiencing.

While we sat there several guys came and went, but one stood out because of his t-shirt. I don't know why we thought it was so funny, because it really wasn't; yet we still laughed a lot over it. The guy's shirt read, "Just because you have one doesn't mean you have to act like one."

"That sounds like something Pepper would say." Meek mused comically.

"Seriously?" I posed.

"For sure; he's crazy like that."

"You know something?" I pondered thoughtfully.

Meek pulled his left knee to his chest, wrapped both arms around his leg and rested his chin on his knee.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I like Pepper. I think you are lucky to have a boyfriend like him." I told him.

"You really think so?"

I nodded, "Yeah."

"It must be tough; living so far away from your girlfriend." He said sympathetically after I told him that Jacqueline living in Ohio.

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"With my Pepper," he began and I thought it was cute how he called him `my Pepper', "I get hugs and kisses anytime I want..." he faltered for an instant, "Well, not anytime, but you know what I mean, right?"

I nodded without making a sound because in that ever so brief instant an image had formed in my mind of him and Pepper, lying side by side, locked in a passionate embrace. Their lips pressed tightly together, their arms and legs wrapped around each other like two intertwined octopods.

Meek continued, "That's because he only lives ten blocks away."

"Oh," I said as I began to understand what it was he was trying to tell me, "Yeah, that part is hard." I confessed, "But we get to talk online almost every day and sometimes for hours and hours. I like that a lot; but you are right. It isn't the same."

The erotic mental image of Meek and Pepper abruptly vanished only to be replaced by another piece of erotic imagery. This time it was an image of Jacquelyn and me, sitting beside the Lap Pool in the basement of my grandparents' home. However, this time neither of us was wearing any clothes and like Meek and Pepper, we held each other passionately kissing and exploring one-another's bodies with our hands.

Thankfully my mental sexcapade was interrupted before Meek had realized I wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Joey had returned only a minute or two before the pimple faced Assistant Junior Manager came back with Daddy Phil.

"What took you so long?" I asked when I saw Joey strolling back in as though he was simply walking along some beach on a sunny afternoon.

"Wha?" Joey said and I realize he had a mouth full of something.

"Are you serious? Someone stole our clothes and you stopped to eat?" I said accusingly.

"Ith noth fud!" he tried to say.

"What is it then?" Meek and I asked at the same time.

"Gaum"

"Wow! How many pieces of gum do you have in your mouth?" Meek asked with a chuckle.

Joey held up seven fingers and tried to smile.

Right then the Assistant Junior Manager and Daddy Phil walked in and somehow I had expected them to be dragging that attendant guy back with them, but they were alone. However, it didn't go unnoticed that in Daddy Phil's arms were all of our missing things.

"You found them!" Meek exclaimed.

"Thanks to you." Daddy Phil told Meek.

"So it was that guy?" I asked.

The Assistant Junior Manager nodded and said, "He has been fired. I wanted to call the police but your father here wouldn't let me.

He sounded upset that Daddy Phil had done that. To be honest I didn't see why he hadn't tried to press charges.

That manager guy turned out to be a pretty decent guy. He gave us a ton of free passes to the park and a fist full of Aquaboggin Bucks that can be used for food or at the souvenir shop.

After the manager guy left us Daddy Phil gave half the passes and Aquaboggin Bucks to Meek. At first Meek wouldn't take them but Daddy Phil has a way with people.

"If it hadn't been for you, we may never have got the boys clothes back." He had told Meek.

Reluctantly Meek took it but not without saying, "If you ask me, that guy should have been put in jail."

"No, he is just a young kid who did something stupidly impulsive." Daddy Phil said, "We all make mistakes."

"I don't know," Meek said, "I bet Jesus would have slapped the crap out of him.

Meek again thanked me for the surfing points I had given him before running out of the changing room. Daddy Phil gave Joey and me both a pair of Pull-Up diapers to put on before we got dressed.

 

Chapter 14

Back in the car and headed home Daddy Phil told us the funniest joke. Let me see if I can remember how it went;

 

"Deep in the back woods of Tennessee, a hillbilly's wife went into labor in the middle of the night and the doctor was called out to assist in the delivery. Since there was no electricity, the doctor handed the father-to-be a lantern and said, "Here. You hold this high so I can see what I am doing."

Soon, a baby boy was brought into the world.

"Whoa there!" said the doctor, "Don't be in such a rush to put that lantern down. I think there's another one coming."

Sure enough, within minutes he had delivered a baby girl.

"Hold that lantern up, don't set it down there's another one!" said the doctor.

Within a few minutes he had delivered a third baby.

"No, don't be in a hurry to put down that lantern, it seems there's yet another one coming!" cried the doctor.

The redneck scratched his head in bewilderment and asked the doctor, "You reckon it might be the light that's attractin' `em?"

 

Jacquelyn and I got it right away and laughed like crazy, but Jacquelyn had to explain it to Joey before he got the joke.

Daddy Phil told a bunch more jokes. However, that was the only one I remember, probably because it was the funniest.

 

__________

 

"So did you have fun?" Grandmother asked as we arrived back home.

"No, we had a great time!" Joey squealed with delight.

"Best ever!" I agreed as I took my surf board from Daddy Phil so I could carry it up to my room.

Jacquelyn and Mommy Beth came in behind us carrying our wet towels and chatting among themselves. I never actually confirmed it, but I think Mommy Beth liked having another girl around for a while.

Joey and I started to head up the stairs as Grandmother called after me, "Alvin, your grandfather needs to see you in his study as soon as you put your surf board in your room."

I stopped and looked back.

"We both need a change first." I said as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for me to say.

"I will see to them." Mommy Beth offered.

And to that, Grandmother informed her, "I think I will give you a hand my dear."

 

__________

 

After a quick change by Grandmother while Mommy Beth tended to her son, she ushered me out of my bedroom and to Grandfathers study. We reached the door but that is all the farther she went.

"I will see you downstairs for dinner." She said and walked back toward the steps.

All the excitement from the day seemed to evaporate, leaving me feeling nervous. Only one other time had I been summoned to my grandfather's study and that was when I had gotten into some trouble about three and a half months into the school year. My friends and I had decided that we wanted the day off from school. Playing hooky was something I had become quite good at back in California, but Maine is a totally different world all together. Not even an hour had passed when the local Truant Officer found us and drug us all back to school. All of us got 2 days in school suspension and I don't know about the others, but after getting chewed out by the Vice Principal, I got chewed out by Grandmother, then both of my parents, and finally Grandfather, who told me that if I did something like that again he'd have me shipped off to an all-boys boarding school in Europe.

With my heart pounding and my ears ringing I raised my hand to the door knob and turned it. The door silently opened and I looked in to see, that aside from the fire in the fire place and some music quietly playing, it didn't seem like there was anyone inside.

"Grandfather?" I called into the dimly lit study.

At first there was no response, just the gentle crackling of the fire and the pleasant playing of what I took to be some kind of soft jazz.

"Grandfather?" I called louder.

"Ah good," Grandfather said when he heard me, "Come in boy; come in. What-What!" it sounded like he might have said something else after that, but I wasn't sure.

While still standing outside of the door, with only my head inside his study I asked, "Grandmother said you wanted to see me?"

He made a sound, which I took to be him clearing his throat. "I did? Oh yes right! I did!"

My eyes tracked the direction of his voice to a large, high-backed brown leather chair sitting to the left of a small orange glowing fire.

"Well don't stand there half in and half out." He said as his hand and arm came into view beckoning me to enter. "Come in, come in."

Don't ask me why, but for some odd reason I was feeling very uncomfortable, like I was trying to sneak up on a sleeping lion.

I crept into his study, almost on tip-toe as I slowly advanced toward the fireplace.

"Come join me here." He said pointing with a smoldering cigar at an identical chair to the right of the fireplace.

When I lowered my freshly diapered bottom into the chair, both my diaper and the shiny leather sang out a mingled chorus of crinkles and squeaks.

I looked up at him and that is when I noticed Grandfather was talking on the phone. Without looking at me he offered me the phone.

"Would you like to talk to your mother?" He asked.

Now you might think that I would have pounced on that phone like a hungry leopard would a wounded gazelle, but I didn't. Instead, I hesitated while considering the small bit of electronics wrapped in a handsome black plastic covering.

"Come on boy. She doesn't have a lot of time. What-What!" Grandfather said while jiggling the phone at me.

He then stood up and placed the phone to my ear.

Mechanically I said, "Hello?" and then took hold of the phone for myself.

"Oh sweetheart! It is so wonderful to hear your voice again!" came my mother's voice, "I have missed you so very much."

I didn't know what else to say, so I said the only thing that came to mind. "Grandmother said that the hospital won't let me come see you because I might spread germs."

Mom was quiet for a moment and then she started to weep, but only for a brief moment.

"Alvin," she started to say with a dejected voice, "Your father loved you so very much. He told me the night before..."

Mom's voice trailed off. I felt an uneasy comfort in knowing that like me, she was still finding it difficult to draw reference to that horrible day.

She sniffled, coughed and then started again, "He told me that some of his happiest memories were of the two of you surfing in the dawn of morning."

I was crying as I listened to her and was glad that, after giving me the phone, Grandfather had returned to his chair and wasn't looking toward me. Still, I turned away from him, in case he turned back around again.

After a long pause in our conversation, where the two of us listened to the other crying, Mom spoke and said what I already believed to be true.

"Alvin, I don't think I am going to be well enough to take you to California."

I sighed, "I know. It's okay."

But then Mom's voice became stern. "No!" she snapped, "No, it is not okay! Your father and I wanted you to compete again! Your father wanted so desperately for you to try for the teen championship."

She was yelling into the phone now, "IT ISN'T OKAY!"

I guess Grandfather could hear Mom yelling into my ear because he had turned around. Though I couldn't see him I knew his eyes were on the side of my head.

"Mom really, it's okay." I wept.

I heard Mom say something away from the phone and then the call went dead. I just sat there looking at the receiver in my hand and hoping that Mom's voice would return.

I heard a sound behind me; I think Grandfather had cleared his throat in an attempt to get my attention. I pressed the red button on the phone and without looking, I handed it to him.

There was a long drawn out silence in the room while Grandfather let me stare at the fire and get all my tears out.

"How was your day?" he finally asked while smoke swirled around his head.

"It was good." I said sheepishly looking around as though I were expecting something or someone to jump out and grab me.

"Get all that surfing nonsense out of your system did you? What-What!" He said while shifting in his chair. His words had been partially masked by the groaning of the leather.

"Excuse me?" I asked not sure I had heard him right.

Instead of repeating himself he said something completely different.

"Had a visit from Carl..." he fumbled briefly, then recovered, "your school principal. Yes, that's right."

My only response to this news was to raise a single eyebrow. For a wonderful day I had forgot that the school year wasn't over yet, at least not here in Maine. I dreaded the idea of having to go back to school; not just because of everything that had happened, but because my friends where here and I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could.

"I am sure you will be glad to know that you have been transferred into the next grade." Grandfather said with nearly no pageantry.

"What?" I grunted confusedly.

Grandfather puffed on his cigar, blew smoke at the fire and then added, "They have elected to close the school early this year. Skip all that end of year testing and whatnot. What-What!"

"So I don't have to go back at all?" Even though I said it, I don't think the idea had fully sunk in just yet.

"Well don't sound so happy. What-What!" Grandfather scoffed at my lack of excitement.

"Huh? No...I mean, yeah... uh... I am... I mean... Well." I couldn't seem to get a single thought to complete.

"I'm afraid that isn't all I have to share with you." He said as he tossed what was more than three-quarters of a cigar into the fire. Before continuing he leaned forward in his chair, took up the fire poker and stabbed at the dwindling fire several times until the flames began to dance once more.

"Thing is, your mother will be coming home in a few days." He said as though this were bad news.

I started to speak but he held up a hand to silence me.

"She is still not wholly well; but I believe it will do her better to be here with her family than inside..." his words trailed off, except I knew what he was about to say.

"She will have a nurse here to look after her day-and-night until she snaps out of this depression that has hold of her."

"Snaps out?" I thought, "She lost her husband and he says it like that?"

Despite him trying to silence me once again I managed to ask, "What day is she coming home?"

I am not certain what I was feeling for sure. Mostly excitement to have Mom coming back home, but also something else that I couldn't identify; then Grandfather named it for me.

"Your grandmother has told me that you know why your mother was sent to the hospital in the first place." He said as he raised his fingers to his mouth and then remembered he had already discarded his cigar. He looked at the fireplace remorsefully before continuing.

"It will be important that you not let your mother know how embittered you are with her."

"What's embittered mean?" I asked.

For the first time since I had entered his study and sat across from him he looked at me. I mean really looked at me. He cleared his throat again, brushed his chin with his thumb thoughtfully and then said, "It means angry and unhappy."

My only reply was to look at the lavish rug beneath my feet and burble out a single, "Oh."

He told me what to expect in the coming days, such as when my friends were scheduled to leave, when he thought Mom would be home. Then he dropped a bombshell on me.

"There is one bit of unpleasant business I need to discuss with you." Grandfather said with more emotion than he had thus far shown during our little chat.

With no idea what to expect I leaned back into the leather backed chair and braced myself for anything.

"What can you tell me about the broken vase from the third floor hallway?"

For several moments I sat looking dumbly. I had no idea what he was talking about at first; then like a flash it all came back to me. More than a month back I had been amusing myself one boring Sunday afternoon with a game of Frisbee football. I had made a Frisbee from an old cardboard box I had found. I had been tossing it inside the house and chasing after it while I tried my best to dodge the make-believe opponents. I pretended to be going back for a long pass when I bumped into the table at the end of the hallway. The only thing on that table had been a tall, top-heavy green and white vase. I hadn't even realized that I had sent it tumbling to the floor until I heard the crash of glass. I think I would have confessed to breaking it then and there, had I not been told at least four times earlier that day to stop playing rough in the house. To keep from getting into trouble, I had collected all the shards of glass, taken them to my bathroom and spent the remainder of that day gluing them back together. I guess I must have done a pretty good job of rebuilding the vase because it had taken this long for anyone to figure it out.

OK, Grandfather had me dead to rights and we both knew it. I should have come clean but I guess I was scared. Instead I lied like a rug.

"What vase?" I asked, trying to sound innocent and clueless.

He pointed across the room. There, sitting in the middle of his desk, were the remains of the green and white vase in question; it was once again in several pieces.

Now, on more than one occasion Grandfather has given me his speech about how much he detests lying. Evidentially, he felt that I needed to hear it once more. The painful thing about this speech, it lasts from anywhere between twenty minutes to over an hour. This time I had no idea how long it took, but it felt like the long version. I think that the speech is his way of torturing me into spilling my guts, because in the end I always seem to tell him the truth. This time was no different. I told him I had broken the vase and then attempted to mend it using Elmer's Glue, which in hindsight probably wasn't the best glue to use on a container that is sometimes filled with water and flowers.

I wasn't punished; at least not right then. Grandfather said he would talk with me later. Boy I hate when he does that. It means I get to sweat bullets until he decides what sort of punishment I will be forced to endure. I suppose that in itself is part of the punishment.

With our conversation at an end, I knew this because Grandfather had stood up and was moving toward the door, I quickly blurted out, "I want to go to California and compete in the surfing competition."

Almost immediately he began shaking his head. "My boy, I think it is time you gave up on foolish ideas such as those. It is time for you to accept that your life is here now and get on with living. What-What!"

I couldn't believe my ears. No, that's not true, I could believe them. It was just like Grandfather to be so cold-blooded. Yeah, he has his moments where I actually think there is a human heart beating in that old wrinkled shell of a man, but those are few and far between.

"My dad wants me to compete." I said with tears in my eyes, though they were not tears of sorrow but of anger.

Like an inhuman machine he said, "Your father is not here anymore; I am. What-What!" His voice was cold and business like, "I have to start looking after your future. With that in mind; after your friends have left..."

I tried to cut him off but he quickly squelched anything I had to say by exclaiming loudly, "Excuse me! I am talking and you will listen! What-What!"

Grandfather made eye contact with me one last time, "Indeed they are." He cleared his throat, straightened the collar of his smoking jacket, smoothed his eyebrows and continued, "After your guests have left, you and I will have another talk."

And that was it. He left me sitting alone in his study, shaking with anger as enormous tears flowed down my face.

 

__________

 

Lord knows how long I sat alone in the dark. The only light in the room came from the quickly dying fire. I am sure it was at least half an hour, maybe more before Grandmother came looking for me. I had stopped crying but one look at me and she knew I was madder than she had ever seen me. Without saying a single word she reached down, took hold of my wrist and pulled me to my feet. She then led me out of the study, down the hallway to my bedroom and into my bathroom where she washed my face and neck with a cold washcloth.

After depositing the washcloth into the laundry chute she took hold of my left hand and the two of us walked out of my room and down to the dining room.

 

Once again Mommy Beth cooked and though Grandmother at first turned her nose up at the plate set before her, she did taste it. You should have seen her face light up.

"What is this astounding sandwich?" Grandmother asked as Mommy Beth sat down with us.

"Sloppy Charlies," Mommy Beth answered with a prideful smile.

"You mean Sloppy Joes," Jacquelyn corrected.

Mommy Beth replied with a slightly cheesed off titter, "I most certainly do not. They are Sloppy Charlies."

Though I didn't feel much like eating, I took a bite of my sandwich and the wonderful flavors filled my mouth. Try as I might, I could not place the unique flavor of the meet. It for sure wasn't beef.

Jacquelyn poked at her bun with her finger, "What's in it?"

I could tell by the sound of Jacquelyn's voice that she wasn't too keen on the red stuff that was oozing out of her bun.

Joey was the one to answer with a cute little giggle, "It's tuna fish!"

"TUNA?!" Jacquelyn shrieked loudly and made a gagging face, "That's just sick!"

Grandmother adopted a stern expression by forcing the corners of her mouth down.

"Young lady! Please use your inside voice!"

She replaced her sandwich on her plate before continuing to verbally instruct Jacquelyn on the proper way for someone to act.

"You should taste it before deciding whether you like it or not."

Effectively rebuked, Jacquelyn grudgingly picked up her sandwich and nibbled off a small bite. We all waited with fevered expectation to see if she was going to spit it out or not. After a pensive pause, which seemed to last an eternity, Jacquelyn's eyes grew wide and she announced, "Hey, this isn't half bad. Actually, it's more than that, it's really good."

Grandmother's expression softened, "Now see. After all that fuss and it turns out you do like it."

Grandmother smiled as she complimented Mommy Beth with, "My dear, I will have to insist that you share the recipe with Micah."

Mommy Beth wiped a drip of mustard from Joey's chin as she said, "Well it couldn't be easier. You dump a can of Hormel Sloppy Joe mix into a sauce pan along with six cans of drained tuna fish and heat it up."

"Fascinating!" Grandmother commented as she took another bite of her sandwich.

"This is delicious Mommy." I said revealing the partially chewed contents of my mouth.

Grandmother leaned over and tried to poke me with her boney finger, except I had instinctively flinched away thinking she was trying to tickle me or something. I don't know why I thought that because that wasn't something Grandmother was inclined to do.

"Swallow before speaking please." She said.

Grandmother made a thoughtful sound as she savored another bite. "Is this something you came up with?" she asked.

Mommy Beth humbly told the story, "A couple years ago there was a mix up with Phil's military pay and we had to go over two months without a paycheck. Our cupboards were getting in every respect bare. I had a can of Sloppy Joe sauce and several cans of Tuna fish. With a momentary hesitation I decided to give it a try." Mommy Beth smiled, "And well, it turned out to be so good that they ask me to make it almost every week since."

Grandmother sat what was left of her sandwich down before saying, "Even the name is catchy. Sloppy Charlies." She said it several times before asking, "I get the Sloppy part, but why Charlies?"

Daddy Phil was the one to explain that it was named after the StarKist Tuna fish mascot."

"It sounds perfect!" Grandmother said, "We should look at getting these sandwiches into our restaurants."

"Really?" Daddy Phil said nearly choking on his water.

Grandmother seemed to be beaming with excitement as she said, "I think we might have something here that could be a popular lunchwich."

"Oh my!" Mommy Beth exclaimed, "Do you really think so?"

"What's a lunchwich?" Joey asked loudly.

Grandmother smiled, "Inside voice please."

"Sorry," He said and asked again in a softer tone, "What is a lunchwich?"

"Thank you." Grandmother said as she smiled across the table at Joey. "That is an expression we use here in Maine to refer to a sandwich typically served during lunch."

"Is there a dinnerwich?" Jacquelyn asked.

Before Grandmother could reply Joey piped off with, "Or a breakfastwich?"

She smiled with amusement and said, "No, I'm afraid not but we do have snackwiches. However, those are typically only finger foods served at parties or small gatherings.

With that Grandmother scooted her chair away from the table and excused herself momentarily by saying, "Let me make a quick phone call."

While she was gone everyone was buzzing with the idea that Mommy Beth's sandwich was going to become famous in Lewiston, Maine.

She returned with an unreservedly aberrant smile splitting her face horizontally.

"If you are willing to, tomorrow morning we'll go meet with the gentleman that is in charge of what is served at our restaurants."

Mommy Beth and Daddy Phil were keen on this idea and for the remainder of our meal it was all that everyone talked about. Well mostly anyway. Joey wanted to know more about snackwiches and Grandmother was all too happy to explain it to him.

 

Chapter 15

After dinner, while everyone else had gathered in the media room to watch Shrek the Third on DVD, I managed to slip away to the kitchen where I grabbed the cordless phone and hid myself away in the pantry. I knew that with the time difference between Maine and California, I would have a really good chance of catching Gary at work. At least that was my sincere hope!

Amazingly, my call to California went through and someone picked up on the first ring.

"Thank you for calling The Shack. How might I help you?" Came the unfamiliar voice of some young sounding lady.

After recovering from the shock of not hearing Gary answer the phone, I asked, "Uh, is Gary there?"

"May I ask who is calling?" the lady politely asked.

"Tell him it is Alvin!" I said.

"Alvin who?" she asked and my heart sank a bit.

"Alvin Holloway." I said.

"You mean Alvin Holloway the Junior Surfing Champion?" she asked.

"Yeah that's the one." I said feeling slightly annoyed now.

"I am sorry, but I think Alvin Holloway moved away or something like that. Besides, I don't think he ever really worked here. He just sort of hung around maybe." She said.

"No! I am Alvin! I am trying to call my friend Gary who owns and runs THE SHACK!" I said virtually snarling.

"Oh!" she said and for a full second I thought that was all she was going to say, but then she said something that totally blew me away.

"Um... yeah... Gary doesn't work here anymore. I'm not sure, but I think I remember Becky telling David that Cindy said, that Gary met this one lady and they ran off to Mexico to get married or some junk like that."

"WHAT? MARRIED?" I shouted into the phone.

"Like oh my gawd! You like totally yelled in my ear!" she whined and I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her.

"But-but-but, did he leave a number or an address where he could be reached?" I pleaded.

"No, sorry! Hey I got to go now! Thanks for calling. Bubye!" she said and hung up just like that.

I sat, stunned with the phone still to my ear. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. At first I was so exceedingly mad that she had hung up on me the way she did. I then wondered if maybe someone was playing a dirty trick on me.

The phone started making that really annoying beeping sound indicating that it was still off the hook. I quickly yanked the phone from my ear and turned it off, but I didn't climb out of the pantry. Instead, I sat down on a large overturned cooking pot and stared down at the lifeless phone in my hands. I had no idea I had been in there as long as I had until Jacquelyn opened the pantry door and said to me.

"There you are! You've missed half the movie already! What are you doing in here anyway?"

"Gary is getting married." I mumbled.

"You mean that old surfing guy you told me about?" she asked.

I simply nodded my head, stood up, handed the phone to her and drug myself all the way to my room. I was probably in my room all of five minutes before Jacquelyn came in.

"You okay?" she asked in a very sweet sort of way.

When she had come in I had been inside my armoire getting out my pajamas. I shook my head to indicate that I wasn't okay. She then did something I hadn't expected.

She walked up to me, took my pajamas and things away from me, laid them on the bed then returned and gave me the biggest hug. I hated that I did it, but I started to cry there in her arms.

"He sold The Shack and everything." I mumbled not really to her, but just sort of thinking aloud, "I can't believe he sold it. And he didn't write to me or call or anything to tell me he was getting married. And what's he doing getting married? He's too old to get married!"

"I know it is shocking news and more so that you had to hear it from a stranger." She started saying though I don't know how she knew I had heard it from a stranger.

I don't know why I am so lucky to have a girlfriend like Jacquelyn. I mean, how many girls out there would not care that their boyfriend wets his pants and bed?

The two of us sat on the floor leaning against the wall. We didn't really talk; we only sat quietly while holding onto one another. She softly kissed my cheek and rubbed my chest through my shirt until I stopped crying.

After a while I said, "I'm sorry."

"What for?" She asked almost in a whisper.

I shrugged, "For everything."

"What do you mean?"

"You came up here to visit but everything here sucks right now. I wish everything wasn't so sucky!"

She placed her hand on my right cheek and pulled my face around so that we were looking into each other's eyes.

"Alvin," she began, "I came up here because everything is so sucky right now. I wanted to be able to help you."

I think I might have smiled back at that.

She leaned in closer, never closing her eyes. I leaned in to. Our lips touched and we began to kiss; at first soft but soon it had developed into passionate kissing. Unlike before when we had been making out down in the basement by the Lap Pool, this time we both seemed a lot more comfortable with what we were doing.

Jacquelyn's hand, which had been rubbing my chest through my shirt started to move lower. Her fingers found the hem of my shirt and slipped underneath. They felt warm and soft as they slid across my belly; stopping momentarily to trace a circle around my bellybutton. Suddenly, realizing what she was doing she stopped and pulled away. But I took hold of Jacquelyn's hand and placed it back on my stomach. That was all the prodding she needed to keep going. We kissed again, only longer and more passionately than before.

I wanted so desperately to touch her but feared she might not like me to. You know, it is funny how you can be thinking about something like that while at the same time be thinking about how wonderful all of it felt. I decided to try touching her. While still kissing I slowly lifted my right hand and soft as I could, I allowed it to come to rest on her left thigh. Unbelievably she moaned her approval. I began to slide it up and down; each time moving my hand further and further up her hip, then her side until my hand came to rest beside her small breast.

I had been so focused on getting my hand to her breast that I hadn't noticed she had been working her fingers under the waistband of my pants. She nearly had her whole hand inside when I had finally got up the nerve to cup my hand over her left breast. At that same moment she had pushed her hand into my shorts and squeezed the front of my diaper directly above my rigid penis. We were both breathing hard through our noses, as our tongues wrestled together. She continued to squeeze and massage the front of my diaper while my hand explored her wonderful chest through her shirt. I was just starting to build up my courage to try to put my hand under her shirt when she suddenly pushed me away so forcefully that we both slid across the wooden floor a couple inches.

Before I had a chance to ask why she had done that my bedroom door swung opened and in walked Grandfather.

"Busted!" I thought.

"What are you two doing alone in here?" He asked.

Jacquelyn answered, "Alvin was upset and crying. I was keeping him company."

He pointed out of the room and said, "You two need to get downstairs."

Jacquelyn jumped to her feet and flew from the room but I didn't as much as budge.

I looked at Grandfather with every fiber of my being loathing him.

What I said next was probably the meanest thing I have ever said to anyone. "I wish you had died instead of my dad!"

Grandfather was visibly stunned as though I had hit him upside the head with an aluminum baseball bat. One look into his cold eyes and I could tell I had struck a lethal blow.

Anger and raw emotions boiled out of me. I rose to my feet as if a great hand had come out of the sky and lifted me. My hands, balled up into rock solid fists, hung to my side.

With a tongue of fire I lashed out again, "I hate you! I hate you and I wish you were dead!"

As he seemed to stagger from my verbal thrashing I took a bold step toward him.

"I wish we had never come here and I wish you weren't my grandfather! You ruined everything! You made us come here! Because of you my dad is dead and my mom almost was too!"

Fueled by rage I took another step, cocked my right arm back ready to strike out in violence.

I hadn't seen it coming. Actually, I was on the floor holding my right cheek before I even knew he had slapped me across the face. He had hit me so hard that I had gone down with a single swing of his old wrinkled hand.

With tears flooding from my eyes I looked up into his eyes and this demonic voice came out of me.

"If I were bigger I'd kill you!"

Surprisingly, Grandfather is a lot stronger than he looks. With the same speed he'd used when hitting me, he reached down, grabbed me by my right arm near my bicep and jerked me to my feet.

"I think that is about enough from you!" Grandfather said through thin white lips and clenched teeth.

I shook my head and that same devil voice came out of me only about ten times more powerful, "Everyone would be happier if you would just die!"

Grandfather grabbed my other arm and shook me.

"That is enough!" he hissed.

I shook my head again but didn't have a chance to say anything else because he lifted me by my upper arms and tossed me face first onto the bed. Before I knew what was happening he had pulled down my pants and tore away my diaper.

He said something but I honestly cannot remember what it had been. His left hand was pressing down on the middle of my back and he must have somehow also had my legs pinned down because I tried to kick but couldn't.

The first blow landed square on my left butt cheek and felt as though he had struck me with red-hot metal. I screamed and struggled but it was useless. The second blow struck higher and centered. It hurt just as much as the first had.

All in all I received ten hard swats with his hand before he stopped. Well I think it was ten, I lost count after the sixth hit. I was hurting so badly that I didn't get up right away. My hands found my burning bottom as I turned my head and with tear swollen eyes I saw him from the back only briefly as he was walking out of my room and leaving my bedroom door open.

It wasn't until later that night, after everyone had gone to bed that I noticed my surfboard was missing from the wall across from the foot of my bed.

After Grandfather had left my room I pushed myself off the bed and staggered to the bathroom with my pants still around my ankles. My tattered diaper was still fastened around one leg and trailed behind me. I was relieved when I looked in the mirror and did not see any lasting mark despite the side of my face still feeling hot from the slap. I twisted my body so I could see my bright red backside in the mirror. My butt looked like I had sat in fresh red paint.

I washed my face with cold water and splashed water all down my front in the process. Still crying a little I pulled off my shirt and tossed it down the laundry chute. With a little frustration I finally got my shoes off and my feet freed from my bunched up pants. I didn't really think about it at the time but I tossed everything down the laundry chute, torn diaper and all.

Without turning on the water before climbing into the shower stall. I closed the glass door and didn't even bother with the hot water. All I was interested in was the soothing effects of cold water. The first blast of cold water hit me in the chest and it felt like someone had punched me.

By the time I came back out I was nearly blue all over. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my limbs struggled to obey my brains commands. I stood before the mirror once again and chuckled to myself at how small my package was after suffering from what seemed to of been a twenty minute long ice shower. Another quick inspection of my backside in the mirror showed very little signs of redness. When I was satisfied that my bottom and face no longer looked red or swollen I flipped off the light switch.

I was walking out of the bathroom when I received a small shock. Standing in the middle of my room was Mommy Beth.

She smiled, "Didn't mean to give you a start."

I was standing there still wet because I hadn't dried myself. My arms were wrapped around my chest trying to get warm and my dang teeth were still chattering away.

"Alvin you look positively frozen stiff!" she exclaimed as she began rubbing and hugging me to try and warm me up.

Due to shivering and my teeth chattering so much my response came out sounding something like this, "C-c-can y-you h-help-p m-m-me g-get r-ready f-f-f-for b-b-bed?"

"Wasn't there any hot water?" She asked but I didn't reply.

Looking at her nearly caused me to start crying again. As it was, I couldn't talk anymore. I gazed at her longingly.

She held out her arms and said, "Come lie down on the bed."

I nearly tripped over my own feet as I tried to walk to the bed and fell into her waiting arms. She helped me onto the bed while saying something about never understanding why little boys are always doing silly stuff like taking a shower with no hot water or taking a bath with all their clothes on. I supposed that last part was something Joey had done before.

She quickly diapered me and then helped me into my pajamas before she put me under the covers and tucked me in good and tight. I was still very cold but my teeth had stopped chattering.

"I'm going to go get you some hot milk to help warm you up inside." She had said but by the time she had returned I was already sound-asleep.

I guess I was really tired because I don't even remember waking up when Joey was put into bed with me.

 

Chapter 16

I didn't see my grandfather for the remainder of the week and if you ask me, I couldn't have been happier about that. I never told anyone what had happened between us. Perhaps it would have been better not to have bottled it up, as my dad used to say, but even after nearly a week I was still fuming mad!

As for my surfboard, amazingly no one asked me about it. I was sure that at least Joey or Jacquelyn would have noticed, but even if they had, they didn't let on. Maybe they knew everything that had transpired but were kind enough not to bring it up? Nah that couldn't be the case.

 

__________

 

The following morning Joey was the first one to wake up. He said I had had been talking in my sleep and kicked him. Apparently I was having a bad dream and was really mad about something in my dream. I don't remember anything about the dream, but I believed Joey when he told me about it.

It was still really early in the morning and neither of us thought that anyone else would be up yet. Joey suggested that we go take a bath together like we do at his house.

"Didn't you get enough of playing in the water yesterday?" I teased while rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

Joey pulled on my left arm, "Come on, it will be fun!"

"I got a better idea." I said sitting up in bed. "Why don't we go downstairs to the Lap Pool instead?"

Granted I didn't have my surfboard, because Grandfather had confiscated it, but that wasn't why I wanted to go down. The Lap Pool is bigger than a bathtub and would be a lot more fun. Plus there would be less chance of us waking anyone else up if we got too loud. Joey was all for my idea and jumped out of bed.

We didn't bother changing into swim trunks or putting on robes and slippers or anything. We went down dressed exactly the way we had been put to bed, wearing our diapers and pajamas. I had been right in my assumptions that no one was up. It wasn't even four in the morning yet and the house was still quiet, dark, and foreboding. Joey clung tightly to my right hand as the two of us crept down the stairs to the front foyer, across the cold marble tiled floor, and down into the dark basement. When we walked into the weight room all the lights came on automatically. Joey and I both quickly covered our eyes and moaned about how bright the light was. I found the light controls on the wall next to the door and slid the control knob all the way to the bottom. The lights went out again.

"Now it is too dark." Joey said with a hint of fear in his voice.

"It's ok; we'll only need the lights in the Lap Pool room." I said while reassuringly putting my arm around him and guiding him through the darkness.

Before stepping foot inside the other room we stopped and covered our eyes. Once inside I did as before and turned the lights off because the lights under the water were more than enough for the two of us.

"Whoa that is cool!" Joey gasped at seeing the steady glow of blue light coming from beneath the water that began to flow.

While Joey pulled his shirt off, I went around and turned the pool controls way down so that the water was hardly flowing at all.

Joey had got his head stuck inside his shirt and I had to help him.

"Alvin help!" he yelped when he couldn't get his pajama shirt off. I ended up totally undressing him, diaper and all before I did likewise.

"Are we going to go skinning dipping?" he asked me while dancing on his tiptoes with anticipation.

I stuck my left foot into the water to see if it was warm enough yet, it wasn't because I had turned the flow down so far. I went back around to the pool and cranked that sucker all the way to maximum.

"Should be nice and warm in a few seconds," I said.

I had barely got the words out before Joey leapt into the air and did a cannonball into the pool. When he reemerged he had already been swept to the far end of the pool.

"Whoa buddy!" he exclaimed as he tried to pull himself back out, "that was totally the coolest!"

I started to walk around to help him, but stopped when I saw that he was able to get out on his own.

"You are insane!" I said as I returned to turn the flow back down again.

"No leave it fast! It's more fun!" Joey said.

"Alright," I said right before I launched myself into the air, did a midair summersault and then cannonballed into the pool.

Now I hadn't figured on it hurting as much as it did. When I resurfaced I exclaimed, "Oh my butt!"

Joey giggled when he said, "Did you crack it?"

Chuckling I said, "Shut up shark bate!" and splashed him.

It took a minute or two for me to realize the reason it had hurt was because my backside was still tender from last night's whipping. I started to get mad all over again until Joey managed to dislodge my thinking. He had jumped over my head and into the water again. He came up right behind me, clutching tightly to my ribs and then started tickling me. I quickly spun around.

"Hey! No fair tickling!" I laughed.

Joey squealed when I poked him in the belly. He tried to swim away, but the current was much too strong for either of us to swim against. I caught him by the foot, pulled him back to me and then dunked him.

He came back up laughing, "Do it again!"

"I got a better idea." I said, "Let's get out and go to the other end. We'll get in real slow and see who can hold on to the side the longest."

"That isn't fair!" Joey griped, "You are bigger and stronger."

"Okay, then I will go in first and see how long I can hang on for. Then you try and however longer I was then I will go in that many seconds before you on the second try."

Joey scrunched up his nose and grunted, "Huh?"

I started pulling myself out of the water, "Come on let's just do it!"

As I was coming out of the water Joey poked me in the butt with his finger and I felt a tiny twinge of pain. Actually it felt exactly like getting a shot with a needle in the butt.

"You got a bad diaper rash on your butt!" he announced playfully.

At first I argued, "No I don't." but then realized that my backside must be showing some redness again which the warm water had brought back to the surface of my skin.

I decided to play it off by saying, "Guess I will just have to tell Mommy to use lots more cream when she gets up."

I acted like I was helping him out of the water, but when he was almost all the way out I pushed him back in.

He resurfaced complaining, "You did that on purpose!"

Laughing I said, "Uh, yeah what was your first clue?"

The two of us played in the water until we both looked like a couple of raisons.

"What time do you think it is?" Joey asked.

"Don't know." I answered, "Want to go back up to my room and play for a while?"

We didn't bother drying ourselves off. We slipped our pajamas on and I carried our two diapers back up with us. We had ascended the basement stairs and were heading for the main staircase when I noticed that Joey was walking strange. He was walking bowlegged and had a double fisted death grip on the front of his pajama pants.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a strong whisper.

"I got to goooooooo and I ain't got no diaper on!" he whined almost as though he was pleading for me to make the pressure within his bladder suddenly go away.

"You do not have a diaper on." I corrected him.

He started dancing from one foot to the other and back again, "That's what I said!"

"Why didn't you just pee in the Lap Pool like I was doing?"

"I didn't need to g... wait you peed in the water?" Joey said with a sickly face, "I swollered some of that water!"

"Then you also SWALLOWED some of my pee." I said teasing him about the way he had said `swollered' like he was some back woods country bumpkin.

"Well come on, let's hurry!" I said as I quickened my pace, skipping every other step on the way up and dragging Joey by the elbow.

Joey nearly made it back to my room. He only needed to go another twenty feet or so to have reached the bathroom, but he lost the battle and flooded his pajamas. He peed all over himself, the floor and even got pee on the area rug that ran the entire length of the hallway.

"Joey!" I sighed.

"I didn't mean too!" Joey whimpered and I had to hush him because he was making too much noise.

"Ssshhhh! You are going to wake someone up and get us in trouble!"

He was still holding the front of his pants despite the fact that he had peed a puddle on the floor.

"Run to my bathroom in case you are not done." I told him and I took off running after him. His wet bare feet slapped the wooden floor so loud I feared that Grandfather might wake up and spank Joey like he had me.

I had been about two strides behind Joey. It had been enough of a delay in my arrival at the bathroom that Joey had already pushed the door closed. I turned the knob and went in only to find Joey was standing inside the shower stall.

"Why are you in there?" I asked.

"I didn't want to drip all over!" he whined.

"Okay. Then, um, stay there while I get the hallway floor wiped up.

Armed with a small arsenal of towels I ran back to the hallway and did my best to soak up all traces of pee. As for the wet spot on the ridiculously long rug? Well, all I could do was to throw down a towel and step on it until I couldn't get any more moisture to come out. To my horror, when I pulled the towel back up the bottom of it had some of the colors of the rug on it.

Upon returning to the bathroom with the now wet towels I found Joey still standing in the shower anxiously awaiting my return.

"Are you going to stay in there all day?" I asked while stuffing the towels down the laundry chute.

"I'm sorry." He softly moaned.

"What?" I asked from across the bathroom.

"I tried to hold it in." he whimpered softly.

"It's alright, I got it all cleaned up. I don't think anyone will know now."

"Maybe we better put our pajamas down the laundry chute too and get a shower now." I suggested.

As I was stuffing our things down the chute Joey commented, "I wonder what it is like going down that."

"Want to see if you can fit?" I asked not even remotely serious.

"YEAH!" Joey said way too willingly and again too loud.

"Would you stop making so much noise?" I stoutly whispered.

Joey fastened his hands over his mouth and for a brief instant I thought about the fact that his hands were still covered with his own pee.

 

__________

 

It was twenty minutes after six when we walked out of the bathroom. Since Joey liked playing with the automatic diaper pail thing inside my armoire, I let him deposit both diapers into it. We were closing the armoire doors when we heard a soft tapping on my bedroom door. It swung open and in walked his mom wrapped in a warm looking olive-green sweater and wearing a tartan skirt.

"You boys are certainly up early." She started to say then noticed that we had wet hair and were butt-naked.

"Where are your diapers?" she asked.

I was the first to tell her, "We went swimming downstairs."

The information I had shared didn't seem to sit too well with her, but thankfully she didn't get mad at us. She did however order the two of us to lie down, side by side, on my unmade bed.

This turned out to be the first time I ever experienced a simultaneous diapering. I mean Mommy Beth diapered Joey and me at the very same time. She first slid a fresh diaper under each of us and then did each following step, first to one and then the other.

When she was applying the diaper cream to Joey he told him mom, "Mommy, Alvin gots a rash on his bum."

"He does?" she asked while looking lovingly into my eyes.

I was a little nervous that she would realize while applying the cream that it wasn't a rash at all, but if she did, she didn't let on about it. However she did apply a lot of that white diaper cream, which made my room smell like a baby's nursery.

While she was powdering Joey he was playfully poking me in the side.

"Joooooey stoooop!" I giggled and tried to wiggle away from him.

Mommy Beth pulled his hand away from me and told him to stop or she would tickle him until he peed. Knowing Joey, I expected him to keep it up just so she would tickle him, but he didn't.

With each diapering step, Mommy Beth had first done Joey and then me but after she came back from the bathroom where she had been washing the cream and powder from her hands, she pulled my diaper up between my legs first.

Joey protested, "Mommy you were supposed to do me first!"

But she had already finished taping my diaper into place before he even finished whining.

It wasn't until we stood back up that I realized, that for some reason, my diaper felt extra thick on me. I looked down and it appeared to be the normal white disposable diaper except it looked thicker and I had trouble standing because my legs wouldn't go all the way together.

Reading my mind, Joey told me after his mom had left us alone to play, "Sometimes Mommy and Daddy uses stuffers."

I had to ask what a stuffer was and he explained that it was like extra diaper padding so that the diaper could hold more pee.

 

__________

 

About an hour or so later Daddy Phil came in and gave us both big good morning hugs and he even sat on the floor to play with us for a while. Joey and I had been making a house of cards, but it kept falling when we would try to do the floor for the second level. Daddy Phil helped us get it all the way to almost having the third layer done before it fell again. After that he got us both dressed; of course getting dressed was even fun because we wrestled and played at the same time. It wasn't until Jacquelyn seen us at breakfast and said something, that Joey and I realized that his dad had dressed us alike with blue jeans and white button up shirts.

 

Chapter 17

The remaining days we had together were packed with loads of fun spent with Jacquelyn, Joey, and me having the best time of our lives. We played inside and out, driving the adults crazy. We even had time to hang around online, visiting with our ILD.com friends. Boy were they envious, that I got to see and play with LilPrince and Roo in real life. I could only imagine how they would all act if they also found out that I was real life friends with Sissy4U a.k.a. Stacks.

I also made sure to email Meek. Through email we swapped phone numbers, addresses, and were able to talk on the phone several times. I didn't send him the info about The Shack, basically because Gary wasn't there anymore and I didn't know what was going on out there. Instead Meek and I both did some online searching and found a cool lady down in Florida that was willing to make a board for Meek. What was so cool about this lady you might ask? Well she had no arms! That is right, she was born with no arms, but that didn't stop her from learning to surf and eventually learning to make her own surfboards. She does it all with her feet. She even had a video on her website showing her surfing and making boards.

I even talked with Pepper on the phone because he was sleeping over at Meeks. As you might expect, Pepper went just as nuts at getting to talk with me on the phone as he had when he met me at the water park. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the attention a little.

 

__________

 

At the dinner table the night after Grandfather had spanked me, everyone was present except for Grandfather. I was glad I didn't have to ask where he was, Daddy Phil had been the one to bring it up.

"Will Alastair not be joining us this evening?" he asked Grandmother.

"I'm sorry to say, he was called away on business this morning and won't be back until late." Was her initial answer, but then her countenance fell and she added, "Alastair doesn't handle loss well. When our son passed away back in `78 Alastair did the same thing he is doing now. He became withdrawn, short tempered and poured himself into his work."

Mommy Beth then said, "Everyone deals with it in their own way."

"My mom never told me she had a baby brother that died." I said.

Grandmother leaned back in her chair and played with her pearl necklace. "Oh darling, Henry wasn't a baby when he passed away and he was older than your mother as well. I am not surprised that she never spoke of him. The two of them never got along."

She paused a moment to take a sip of water, "It happened in the spring on his seventeenth birthday when we lost him."

God knows I shouldn't have asked but I did. "What happened?"

Grandmother didn't answer at first and Mommy Beth said, "Alvin let's not talk about that okay."

But Grandmother spoke up, "Oh no, it is alright." She said to Mommy Beth and then directed her words to me, "Henry went surfing one afternoon with his friends from school and never came home again."

"He was surfing? Here? In Maine?" I asked and the way I said it, really wasn't proper; I mean not at that moment but I couldn't help myself. The idea of surfing in Maine? I mean it is too dang cold for that. The only way someone could surf here would be to wear a heavy wetsuit and even then... I mean, dang it would be cold!

"Alvin!" was all that Daddy Phil had to say to me to let me know I was being an insensitive jerk.

Jacquelyn who had been sitting as quiet as a church mouse beside me and holding my hand under the table finally found her voice. She asked, "Did he drown?"

I looked back to Grandmother to see her softly shaking her head.

"No one really knows for sure what happened. Henry's friends were not able to join him so Henry went surfing alone."

"So he died while he was surfing?" Joey asked but it was the way he asked. Like he was almost going to cry.

Again Grandmother was shaking her head and fidgeting with her pearls to the point that I was expecting them to break. "The Coast Guard searched for three days before calling it off."

"Oh that is so sad." Mommy Beth said tearfully.

I sat back in my chair; suddenly I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

"Henry?" I said to myself.

Everyone else continued the conversation, but not me. My mind had gone off on its own. I don't even remember eating my dinner or anything else up until bedtime. I kept thinking about what Grandmother had said; playing it over and over in my mind.

It had been Meek who, when we were later talking on the phone, figured out that perhaps the reason my grandfather was so against me surfing was because of what happened to Henry.

 

__________

 

I forget which day it was that two of my friends from school came to visit. I think maybe it was Wednesday or was it Thursday? Oh, it doesn't matter either way. Stacks and BB had come over to meet Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth in person. You know something that is funny, tall and tough Stacks cried when she first met Mommy Beth. I think she cried because she was so excited to finally get to meet them and hug them in real life. Once she got over her initial exhilaration she, Jacquelyn, and Mommy Beth went off alone for some `Girl Talk' is what they called it.

BB who is normally not shy started out quiet but after Daddy Phil got a hold of him and held him on his lap for a while he totally came out of it.

I wish there weren't so many secrets between us all as to who is a member of ILD.com and who knows what about whom. It would have been so cool to have everyone come over to meet the creators of ILD.com. We could have had an awesome sleepover.

Joey was over the moon with excitement at meeting Stacks in person. He kept hanging all over her, but when Mommy Beth and Stacks went off alone he started hanging all over me. I'm not sure why, but he seemed to keep his distance from BB. I wasn't having that so I picked him up and dropped him right on top of BB. After that there was no separating them.

BB and Joey turned out to be like long lost Brothers. They acted the same and kept saying the same things. Boy we sure laughed a lot because one would start saying something and the other would then finish it. Then they would yell at that person to stop it.

I didn't get to talk with BB or Stacks too much; they were too interested in talking with their online Mommy and Daddy. Anyway I can talk to them anytime I want. I did however get to ask Stacks two things before she left.

"What do you think of Jacquelyn?" I asked her while sitting in the media room.

Stacks leaned close and whispered into my ear, "I think she is perfect for you."

"Really?" I said almost giggling over the idea that Stacks, someone I care for and whose opinion I strongly value, thinks my girlfriend and I are perfect for each other.

The other thing I asked was whether she had seen any of our other friends. She said that except for BB and her half-sister Bertha, she hadn't seen Larry, Chris or Fish since the wreath service.

"I heard that Larry and Chris's mom sent them to stay with their aunt for the summer somewhere in New York." She said.

 

__________

 

One evening, while I was hiding in the pantry once again, I was talking with Meek and Pepper. I told them how my grandfather was trying to get me to stop surfing, how he had taken my surfboard away from me and how I wanted so badly to go to California to compete. I suppose deep inside, all three of us knew that we'd never be able to pull it off, but we began making plans to hitchhike all the way to California. Amazingly enough, Pepper turned out to be the level headed one and toward the end of the week he had convinced Meek and I just how dangerous hitchhiking would be.

 

__________

 

Regrettably, the inevitable day came when it was time for Jacquelyn and Joey and his parents to fly home. Boy I was super bummed out about that. I didn't want them to leave. I even tried to talk Daddy Phil into staying an extra week, but he said his vacation time was all used up and he had to get back to work. I made the mistake of telling him he didn't have a job because he was in the military. I got tickle tortured for ten minutes due to that little comment.

I suppose it was a good thing that their flights were so early in the morning. We didn't have time to get all depressed and brood. From the moment Mommy Beth woke us up, everything went super-fast. Joey and I took one last shower together and even one last towel fight in the bathroom afterward.

Jacquelyn came into my room fully dressed and ready for breakfast. Mommy Beth had just finished diapering Joey and me but we weren't even dressed yet. I suppose for Jacquelyn, it was the icing on her cake. It was the one thing she had so desperately wanted to see during her visit; me in nothing but a diaper.

"Jacquelyn!" I squealed and tried to hide my diaper with my inadequate hands.

"Oh hush up you big baby!" she teased.

I acted like I was going to fight her and she adopted a threatening pose.

"Oh you want some of this again?" she said, referring to the other day when she and I were roughhousing. I like to think that I let her, but truth be told, she overpowered me, pinned me to the floor and partially stripped me to get to see my diaper. She had done the same thing at her place when I had first met her.

I chuckled and waved her off by saying, "Not a chance."

"That's because you know I would whoop your diapered butt again!" she said and then softened.

 

__________

 

Breakfast was only cold cereal and juice. And as soon as we were done eating we headed for the airport. Grandmother and I tagged along to see them off and I am glad of that. It gave me that much more time with my friends.

We arrived at the airport and surprisingly we didn't have to carry the bags all the way inside. There was a nice guy right there on the sidewalk that checked the luggage in, took care of their tickets and told them which gate they needed to go to.

Due to security reasons, Grandmother and I had to say our goodbyes inside the lobby area. Since we didn't have tickets, we weren't allowed past the security checkpoint.

I didn't think the airport would be so crowded that early in the morning but it was. There were people rushing all over the place.

Saying goodbye was hard and I cried. Mommy Beth promised to let me come up and visit later in the summer. Jacquelyn surprised me and everyone else when she gave me a goodbye kiss on the lips right there in front of everyone.

Joey first made a groaning sound and then teased us about it. "Jacquelyn and Alvin sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love; then comes marriage; then comes baby Alvin in a baby carriage! Sucking his thumb, peeing his pants, doing the Hula-Hula dance!"

I tried to chase Joey, but Daddy Phil told us we weren't allowed to run around in the airport. I had to settle with threatening to get him back some other time.

 

Chapter 18

I sat quietly in the backseat staring out the passenger side window while Grandmother drove use back home. At one point she had tried to strike up a conversation with me, but I wasn't in the mood to talk. The past few days had been unreal. For the better part of six whole days I was happy again; now that my best friend and my girlfriend had gone I again felt lost in the blackness of pain. I felt transfixed by the gloom of a gray world that once again finds itself caught between post-winter melting and pre-spring promises. It had been my first real winter and I must say I much more prefer a sandy Christmas.

After staring out the window for a good long time it suddenly dawned on me that we were not going home the same way we had come.

"Are we going home?" I asked, speaking for the first time since getting into the car.

"I want to stop and see your mother." She said.

"Do you think they will let me see her this time?" I asked even though I already knew they wouldn't and I was right.

I sat in a waiting room watching the morning news while Grandmother went in to see her daughter. The news ended and unbelievably they hadn't once talked about the accident. It's amazing that after only a week and a half the dock tragedy had become old news.

While I sat there several people came and went but for the most part I was alone. I was staring off into the abyss of my own sorrow when these two emo looking teens came into the waiting room. The shorter of the two had his right arm in a sling and was wearing a blue hospital gown and hospital footie-slippers. Apparently he was a patient. The taller of the two was in full emo uniform, black torn jeans, heavy metal t-shirt, heavily gelled hair that hung over one eye, and dull-black combat boots.

I will also add here that there was something about the taller guy that was oddly familiar and it wasn't until they left that I realized why. He looked almost exactly like a picture I'd seen of one of the ILD.com members. I wish I had made that connection before he left so I would have thought to have looked to see if I could tell if he was wearing a diaper then or not.

They sat directly diagonal from me on the opposite side of the room with their backs to me. I thought nothing of them and they probably wouldn't have warranted remembering had they not sat down and commenced to make out. They were all over each other.

We were the only three in the waiting room while this was going on and I wondered if they knew I was there at all.

They stopped trying to devour one-another's face long enough to check their surroundings before the taller guy dove down into the shorter ones lap. From my vantage point it was perfectly clear that he was giving his injured friend a blowjob. The one still sitting up kept looking around and even made eye contact with me twice. Both times he smiled and winked at me.

For some reason I couldn't keep my eyes off the two of them either. It wasn't long before the guy getting sucked off blew his load into the other's mouth. I knew this had happened because he'd thrown his head back and groaned. They were just finishing up when I saw a lady walking toward the waiting room. I loudly cleared my throat.

They suddenly sat up straight and acted innocent. The lady did come in, picked up a magazine and sat several seats away from me. The two emo guys looked back to me and both gave me a silent nod of thanks for the warning. I smiled and blushed back.

A minute later they got up and left but not before the taller guy, the one who had been doing the sucking gave me a wave and a wink and then mouthed, "Thank you!"

I nodded back and gave him the universal sign of a single thumb up and mouthed, "Anytime" which earned me a wide smile.

I wasn't interested in what was on the television but sat staring at it and thinking about those two. That is when I realized who that taller teen reminded me of. I actually got up and walked out of the waiting room for a moment to see if they were still around but I couldn't see them at all.

I went back to my same seat, leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling tiles. I wasn't really thinking about anything when the strangest thought popped into my head. I don't know where it came from or why it was suddenly in my head but none the less, there it was. Like I said, the thought was strange; it had occurred to me that when someone tries to kill themselves they always leave a note. I believe it is known as a suicide note. But Mom didn't leave one, at least not one that I knew about. Perhaps one of my grandparents found the note and either hid it or threw it away so that I wouldn't see it. Then again, maybe Mom never cared enough to write a letter or even a short note for me. I forced myself not to think about it anymore.

A young man, 18 or 19 maybe, walked into the waiting area with a small child who was frantically trying to free herself from the confines of a thick yellow sweater.

"Willie help me!" came the sweetest sounding little girls voice from somewhere within the sweater.

Her head finally emerged from the confines of the knitted apparel. She had the biggest, roundest cheeks I'd ever seen on a little girl. I'd say she was no more than five. As her head came free from the sweater long curly brown locks of hair fell about her shoulders. Her smiling green eyes landed on me and she raced over, put both hands on my knees and pulled herself up onto my lap.

"Lucie!" the young man charged after her and pulled her from my lap.

"Sorry about that." He told me.

"That's ok." I said.

He sat her on the floor in front of a small children's play table and pulled a coloring book out of a canvas shoulder bag. He gave her a small box of crayons and she started coloring right away.

"Want to color with me?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Huh?" I grunted while looking to the young man who was lost in some sports news wrap-up show on the television.

I slid out of my seat and sat myself across from the little girl.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Alvin."

"My Daddy gots a booboo in his head." She told me while coloring a dog green.

For a small child she was doing quite well with staying inside the lines.

"My mommy is here too." I told her as I picked up a blue crayon and started coloring a balloon that the dog was holding.

"I gots this many dollies." She held up seven fingers.

"I had this many," she put down one finger, "but now I got this many." The seventh finger rose again.

"How many dollies you gots?" she asked.

I chuckled, "I don't have any dollies."

"You want to play with one of my dollies?" she asked and before I could say no she was up and pulling at the canvas bag.

"Willie I need my dolly!" she whined.

Willie's attention was pulled away from the TV for a moment while he reached into the bag and pulled out a naked Barbie doll.

Lucie handed the doll to me and said, "You can play with it but you can't keep it."

"Thank you." I said as I pretended to hug it.

"How come she doesn't have any clothes on?" I asked.

Lucie shrugged and went back to coloring.

I held the doll to my chest with one hand like I was holding a baby and Lucie smiled her approval. We continued coloring until my grandmother came back to get me.

When Grandmother came out she was smiling but when she saw me with the doll she almost broke out laughing. I narrowed my eyes at her warningly which only seemed to make her want to laugh all the more. As it was she had to cover her mouth with a lacy hanky to hide her smile.

I handed the doll back to Lucie and said, "I have to go now."

"Okay!" Lucie said while still coloring.

Grandmother had made her way over to where I was sitting with Lucie and said, "The doctor said your mother will be able to coming home tomorrow."

She seemed upset that I hadn't got excited over that bit of news.

"Thank you for letting me color with you." I told Lucie.

She waved with those big round cheeks of hers, "Bye Alwin."

"Goodbye Lucie," I said as I pulled on my coat and walked out with Grandmother.

 

__________

 

Once we were home I went to my room where Grandmother had followed me in, changed me and then left me alone for the rest of the day.

However, before she walked out she said, "I think I enjoyed it better when the house was filled with your friend's laughter."

I nodded my agreement.

And sounding as though her mind had drifted off to some long ago period, she added, "It has been far too long since this house has been filled with the laughter of children."

 

__________

 

I hadn't even gone down to eat lunch and no one bothered to come get me either; so when I thought it must be about dinner time I was more than a little ravenous. I was starting to think about heading downstairs when I heard a sound behind me. I had been sitting on the floor reading a surfing magazine and spun around on my diapered butt to see who or what had made the noise. Standing there framed by the open doorway was Grandfather.

"I see your friends have gone home." He said in a low, dry tone.

I didn't respond; not even a nod.

And then as if Mom had only been away on vacation he added, "Your mother shall be returning tomorrow."

Again I did not respond.

After a moment of silence he asked, "I take it you are still mad at me?"

I didn't even blink.

For a full minute he didn't say anything else. He stood there looking at me as though he were trying to decide his next words.

"Micah is back as well." He said.

I finally spoke, "Good!"

That single word came out almost like I had spit it at him.

"And you and I have some unfinished business." He said still in that low, dry tone.

My eyes narrowed as though focusing two laser beams onto his forehead. It was only then that I remembered about the vase incident.

The thought crossed my mind like a line from a movie, "What more can you take from me?" and had I actually said it, I probably would have had to pick my teeth up off the floor. No, I didn't say it; instead jumped up, and stood motionless while saying nothing.

"I am not mad that you broke the vase, but that you tried to hide it." He said and when I didn't seem to react he added, "Your punishment starts now."

Through clenched teeth I asked, "What punishment?"

"You are not allowed to use the weight room for the remainder of the summer. That includes the Lap Pool."

Completely ignoring what he had just said I asked, "When do I get my surfboard back?"

He seemed to hesitate for half a second, as though he hadn't expected me to ask that.

Abandoning his low, dry tone, his voice raised a couple octaves as he answered "You don't."

His words felt like a knife had been thrust into my gut.

Now I lost my cool. I leapt to my feet and screamed at the top of my lungs, "YOU CANNOT DO THAT! IT IS MINE! MY FRIEND MADE IT ESPECIALLY FOR ME!"

"Young man, you had best get control of that temper." Grandfather said in his same cold tone.

I didn't lower my volume at all. "IF YOU DON'T GIVE IT BACK..."

Grandfather's voice returned to the previous Low, dry controlled tone, "You will do what boy?"

Suddenly something occurred to me. It was like a cool breeze had blown across the back of my neck. A chill ran down my spine causing me to tremble.

"I'm not Henry." The words came out of me nearly inaudibly.

"What?"

"I am not Henry!" I said at an almost normal level.

Like had happened a few nights before Grandfather seemed to stagger and sway.

"Excuse me?" he asked his voice cracking.

But I didn't say another word. I stood there unresponsive still staring into his dull eyes until he looked away. That is when I knew I had got to him.

Nothing else was said. Grandfather turned and walked back out of my room and wasn't seen the rest of the night. However, that wasn't the end of it.

 

__________

 

Feeling high as a kite for having stood up to my grandfather I made my way downstairs to the dining room, but found that it was dark and the table hadn't been set. I didn't really know the exact time so I decided that I'd go to the kitchen and see Micah. Maybe if I gave her my puppy dog eyes, she would make me something to eat. Sure enough Micah was there and boy was she happy to see me.

"Micah you are crushing me!" I struggled for breath as she tried to hug me to death.

"Ooooooh Micah missed Al-bin sooooooooo much!" She said and still hugging the stuffing out of me she began to shake me back and forth like a rag doll.

"Micah I can't breathe!" I wheezed.

Finally she released me from her bear hug.

"Hey, how come you haven't made dinner yet?" I panted.

She gave me a funny look.

"What?" I asked.

Without saying anything she went over to the oven, opened the door and pulled out a plate covered with aluminum foil.

"I missed dinner?" I asked with amazement.

"Al-bin, it is after seben." She said.

"What?" I asked while looking at the clock on the wall and then running my hands through my hair I exclaimed loudly, "Wow!"

I was disappointed when Micah uncovered the dish. With her return I somehow had been expecting something exotic, but what she had for me was ordinary meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and brussel-sprouts. Oh because I was so hungry I still ate everything, except for those vial sprouts and it was delicious. While I ate I told Micah about everything I'd done with my friends while she had been away.

As soon as I finished eating I started to take my plate to the sink but Micah, thinking I was leaving snapped at me.

"Al-Bin!?"

I jumped at least a foot in the air and dropped the plate. Thank goodness it didn't break, but it sure was loud.

"Micah you scared the shit out of me!" I said and no sooner was the words out of my mouth then I quickly covered my mouth with my hands as I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

She stood with hands on her hips looking at me the same way my mother looks at me right before she is about to go off on me.

I lowered my hands from my mouth only long enough to say, "Oh Micah, I am so very sorry! I didn't mean to say that."

"Al-bin got dirty mouth! Maybe Micah shouldn't give Al-bin Lamingtons."

I had no idea what Lamingtons were, but after what I had just let slip out of my mouth, I wouldn't have been surprised if it were Austrian for a swift boot to the backside!

"Please don't be mad at me!" I pleaded.

Micah stepped toward me raising both hands and I flinched, thinking she was going to brain me, but instead she hugged me again, only this time she lifted me off my feet while smothering me.

"Al-bin is mostly good boy." She said.

When she released me, and as my feet hit the cold tiles, I gasped in a desperate breath and nearly collapsed to the floor.

Micah thrust both hands into my armpits and hoisted me into the air. For a fear filled second, I worried that she was going to toss me out of her kitchen for cussing but then she literally dropped me on the counter. I felt the diaper squish under my weight and knew that I was in need of another change. Sitting on the counter like that made me feel as if I was a child half my age.

She stuck her head into the refrigerator and pulled out a silver tray of...

"Uh, Micah what is that?" I asked while eyeing the cube shaped brown and white things on the tray that she was holding under my nose.

"Lamingtons!" she said as if I should know what a Lamington was.

"Those are called... Lamingtons?" I asked just to be sure I understood her.

She explained that they are delicious moist cake, coated with chocolate, then tossed in dried coconut. Of course I Englished it up, because the way she said it wasn't as easy to understand with her heavy Austrian accent.

I started to reach out for one but she swatted my hand away; and not gently either. Dang it hurt! She went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a small red bottle. With two fingers Micah held the bottle in front of my face so I could read the label. I knew the bottle instantly. John used to use Tabasco Sauce on his eggs in the morning.

"Stick out tongue." she ordered.

Instinctively I slammed my hands over my mouth and shook my head from side to side.

With one strong hand she pulled my hands away from my face and forced them into my lap. Holding the bottle in front of my face she also brought up a single Lamington so that they were both right in front of my nose.

"Stick out tongue." She repeated.

I tried to shake my head again.

She brought her face to within inches of my own. Her eyebrows were close together and her eyes squinted.

"Stick out tongue!" she said in such a way that I feared what might happen if I didn't obey.

Reluctantly my lips parted but only enough for the tip of my tongue to come out.

"More." She said.

I reluctantly obeyed.

Again she held the bottle of Tabasco Sauce and the Lamington in front of my now extended tongue.

Still looking like she wanted to chop off my head she asked, "Al-bin want hot on tongue or sweet Lamington on tongue?"

I pointed to the Lamington.

"Then Al-bin never say naughty words again?" she asked while shaking her head.

With my tongue hanging out of my head I answered, "Ah pomuth."

She smiled and put the Lamington on my tongue. Boy was I relieved when she returned the bottle of Tabasco Sauce to the refrigerator.

All in all, I ate three Lamingtons and boy were they yummy. I also suggested that the same sort of thing would be good with a white cake covered in pineapples and coconut. She promised to try to make me something like that soon.

 

__________

 

It was really weird going to bed that first night without Joey beside me. The bed felt empty and bigger than ever. It took forever for me to be able to fall asleep. I tried counting sheep and when that didn't work I tried counting dolphins. After a while I gave up on sleep and went to the bathroom to splash my face with warm water. When I returned to bed and was back under the , I realized I had left the bathroom light on. I almost got back up to turn it off but then my eyes landed on the bare spot on the wall where my surfboard was supposed to be. It was while I was focusing on that blank wall that I finally fell asleep.

 

Chapter 19

I would love to tell you that Mom's homecoming was a wonderful and joyous reunion; but it was neither of those. Grandfather and Grandmother left for the hospital at exactly 8:07 a.m. and didn't return again until 11:56 a.m. I know the exact times because I sat staring at the clock on the kitchen wall watching every second tick by.

Micah was there with me, but we didn't talk. Well she tried to get me to interact with her, but despite her best efforts to engage me, I stayed religiously focused on the clock.

From all the way in the kitchen I heard the motor of the garage door whining as it came to life.

"Their home!" I shouted to Micah and ran from the kitchen.

I didn't know how angry I was with her until Mom stepped through the door from the garage. She held out her arms longingly for me; I didn't move.

"Did you leave a note?" I blurted out.

"What?" she asked, her arms still outstretched.

"Did you forgot to write a suicide letter or did you just not think to leave me one?"

Grandfather started to move past Mom to intercept me. He was building up to charge me down and stop me from saying another word, but Mom reached out and took hold of his arm to stop him.

"I didn't think..." she started to say but changed her mind, "Alvin I love you so very much."

"Really?" I don't really believe that I was thinking at this point. Anger had taken over all controls.

What came out of my mouth next was nothing short of poison but it needed said... I needed to say it!

"It's a bit hard for you to love me when you're dead, isn't it?"

Grandmother and a nurse were holding Mom; Mom was holding onto Grandfather and they all were looking at me with complete unbelief twisting their faces.

Mom whimpered out what I am sure she thought was a heartfelt apology, "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" I asked as if spitting on her.

"Alvin? Why are you so angry." she asked me.

I know I said something to her but for the life of me I cannot recall what I said.

Whatever it had been, they must not have heard me either because Mom said, "What?"

I shook my head both to indicate that it didn't matter and that I was so disappointed in her.

"It's different now?" she said.

She had me with that one. I had to ask, "How's it different?"

"I feel better." She offered as though it were supposed to make everything I was feeling just go away.

"Maybe at the moment!" I said.

"Alvin that is enough!" Grandfather said firmly.

"No Dad, it's alright." Mom told him.

I don't know where it came from, but a power I didn't know was in me expelled the following words with deadly force. "Feeling better right now doesn't help me!"

Grandfather and Grandmother recoiled but Mom didn't as much as flinch. I think she had been expecting it and had been ready for it. Either that or she was so medicated that she hadn't felt a single thing.

I'm sure that the Premier of China had called up the President of the United States to ask what the heck was going on in Maine. That should give you an idea how loud I was shouting.

"What happens tomorrow or next week when you don't feel so good? What happens if the next time you do it right? What happens when I am alone?"

The instant those last six words were out of my mouth all the anger in me turned to tears. I ran to Mom and threw my arms around her. The two of us crumpled to the floor and wept for the longest time.

"Mom, please don't ever leave me!" I hysterically wept within her arms.

 

__________

 

Later that afternoon while sitting at the table and eating a late lunch alone, Micah came in and handed me a postcard which had just arrived in the mail. On the front of the postcard was a picture of the California coastline with an X drawn in blue ink. I instantly recognized the area beneath the X as the same stretch of beach I used to haunt. I flipped it over and to my delight I saw it was from none other than Gary himself. On the back were a phone number and a single sentence instructing me to call the number right away.

 

Dear Alvin,

Call this number A.S.A.P.

and be sure to call collect.

0-1-619-555-4279

 

"Eddie would go",

Gary

 

Someone else might have read that note and thought that the only message contained was to call that number but being a lifelong surfer I also picked up on Gary's closing line, "Eddie would go". If you were to ask any regular surfer what it meant they would tell you that it was basically a way of calling someone a big chicken but to those that live and die by the wave, it means a whole lot more.

"Oh my goodness! Micah, thank you so very much!" I said while jumping up from the table, hugging her around the waist and running from the room.

I nearly collided with the wall as my stocking feet slid across the kitchen tiles while attempting to retrieve the phone. It took three tries to dial the number because I kept hitting the wrong buttons.

 

"This is the Operator, how might I help you?"

Still breathing hard I said, "I'd like to make a collect call."

"One moment sir."

The line went quiet for what felt like an eon. Then I heard the operator say, "I've connected you with your party. Have a nice day."

"Hello Gary?" I shouted.

"ALVIN!!!"

Oh it sounded so good to hear Gary's voice again.

"I just got your post card like two minutes ago." I said still shouting.

"You don't have to yell. I can hear you fine." Gary said while laughing.

"You sound good." He said.

"I am. Well not really, but are you really getting married?" I said very quickly.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! Slow down Alvin. One thing at a time."

"Sorry! I am just so glad to talk to you again." I said.

"Alright, I am glad to hear from you too. Now for starters, are you alright?" Gary asked.

"Yes and No." I said and then went on to tell him what has happened and I do mean everything. I told him about Dad, about Mom and about how Grandfather had been treating me.

"Oh Alvin I am so terribly sorry about your father." he said with a shaky voice, "Despite everything he put you and your mom through, I really liked him."

All I could think to say was, "Yeah."

"Your mom's back home then?" he asked.

"Yeah, just this morning but she has been sleeping since she got here." I told him.

We talked a bit about Mom and then he switched the subject to Grandfather.

"Now what is this crap about your granddad?"

I repeated again how Grandfather had been treating me, how he had taken my surfboard, and how he said I wasn't allowed to surf anymore. I wanted Gary to somehow make Grandfather stop being so mean to me, to make him give me back my board and to allow me to go to the competition in California. But what could Gary do from all the way out there.

"Where are you anyway?" I asked abruptly.

"Manzanillo." He said.

"So you are in Mexico?" I asked and explained about how I had called trying to talk to him and instead found out he had sold The Shack.

"Are you really getting married?" I asked again.

"Not getting... got." He said.

I didn't understand what it was he had just said and had to ask, "What?"

"I am not GETTING married. I GOT married." He said while making sure he emphasized the right words.

"YOU GOT MARRIED?" I shouted.

"Sure did."

"TO WHO?" I exclaimed.

The line was quiet for a second then Gary said, "Alvin my cell phone battery is nearly dead. We'll have to put a pin in this conversation. Try to stay clear of your Granddad for a while and try not to worry. Everything has a way of working ou..."

Right in the middle of what Gary was saying the call went dead. I tried calling back both collect and just dialing straight through but neither attempt was successful.

After hanging up the phone I turned around and suddenly realized that Micah had been there the whole time I had been talking.

I watched as her lips parted and was ready for her to comment somehow on one or more things I had said to Gary but that isn't what she asked, "What is Sloppy Tuna?"

"Huh?" I asked back.

"The lil' boy's mother," she started out saying.

"You mean Joey's mom? Her name is Mommy Beth... Uh... I mean Beth" I said.

"Ah yes. Beth gave recipe for Sloppy Tuna. She say you like; No?" Micah said.

"Um, it is..." I went on to explain it to her all the while watching her closely to see if she was going to react in any way to what she had overheard. The instant I got the feeling that she was placated, I ran out of the room.

 

__________

 

After spending the remainder of my evening on the computer, I eventually made my way up to my room where I once again found Micah. He was turning down my bed and quietly humming to herself.

Don't ask me why I did what I did next. Perhaps the devil inside of me wanted to have a little fun. With her back to me, I crept up behind her quiet as a church mouse.

When I was directly behind her I shouted, "HI MICAH!"

But she didn't scream, jump, or nothing. She kept pulling down the covers and fluffing the pillows.

I started to reach out and touch her with a single finger. Right before I actually made contact she spun around and said, "BOO!"

I fell backward onto my butt laughing.

"Micah that isn't fair! I was trying to scare you!" I giggled.

"Al-bin too loud." She said while bending over and grabbing me by the ankle. "Micah hears you coming from all the way downstairs."

She pulled on my leg until I was from the middle of my back to my toes off the floor. She then proceeded to tickle the bottom of my stocking foot.

"AAAAAAAaaaahhhhh! I squealed and thrashed about trying to get free.

"Al-bin need laugh more."

Unable to get away from her and her not letting up on the tickling I started to cry out, "UNCLE! UNCLE!"

When she finally let me go I found out that she didn't know what saying `Uncle' means and had to explain it to her.

She helped get me ready for bed and tucked me in good and tight. She even gave me a kiss on my forehead and told me that she loved me. When she was about to turn off the light and close my door I saw something that caused me to exhale as though I had just seen a ghost.

"Al-bin okay?" Micah asked.

For a second I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had to blink twice to be sure.

"Al-bin?" Micah had come back into the room and was standing next to the bed, "Al-bin alright?"

I nodded to her and asked if she would leave the light on for me. After she left I lay there looking at my surfboard hanging on the wall where it belonged. I fell asleep wondering if it had been Grandfathers idea to put it back or if Mom had something to do with it.

 

The End

 

Note from the Author:

Thank you to all that have taken the time to write to tell me how much they have enjoyed Alvin's stories thus far. I hope that now that this third story is complete you will drop me a note at m12@thedoghousemail.com and let me know what you thought of it.

If you haven't got your fill of Alvin's stories then rest assured that Alvin Ever After: Alvin in the Fourth will be coming. For the latest news on Alvin and all my stories visit my website at www.talkhard.5u.com.

In the meantime be sure to check out my other stories...

Simon's Journal – Ever read someone's secret diary? Well here is your chance to read the private journal of a young boy named Simon David Leonard. Simon is just a mild American boy...that is until someone threatens his friends or family, then watch out! He has a secret problem which to him feels all consuming. When he decided to go in search for others who share the same secret problem, he sets off a series of events that will change his life, and the lives of those he encounters, forever. As you lose yourself within the pages of his journal, you will laugh, cry, scream, and cheer your way through adventures that will take you halfway around the world and back again.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/simons-journal/)

 

 

Goodbye Normal Jeans – Meet Nevada, the middle child of a country families seven children. Nevada, prematurely born, lives the life of a simple country boy. His biggest concerns in life are dealing with his physical inadequacies related to his early birth, and making sure the pigs don't get loose. All of that changes when it is discovered that Nevada is exceptionally intelligent and is awarded a scholarship to a prestigious school for gifted young minds. There he must learn new ways of coping with his bodies limitations while trying to cope with life back on the farm.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/goodbye-normal-jeans/)

 

And be sure to keep a watchful eye for `Close Encounters' coming soon!