Summer came quickly and went even faster.  Caitlin turned eleven in June and spent the rest of the summer checking her chest to see if it’d grown any yet.  Cody freaked when one of her bras got mixed in with his underwear in the laundry.  Vince and I saw each other nearly every day in July and not at all in August since I was in Georgia.  My mother hadn’t changed any.  She cooked my favorite foods and took me shopping the first week I was home, and spend the next three weeks nagging me about how I should get my hair out of my eyes, go to church more, gain some weight, try to find a boyfriend who wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, turn my music down, get a job and earn money for college if I wanted to go, and stop wearing such low-cut shirts because men didn’t respect women who showed off their bodies and if I dressed like a whore I’d end up with a man like my father.  Then she cried when she said good-bye at the airport, kissed me and told me she was going to miss me.  She’d started dating a guy named Harold who pronounced my name “Daniel”, wore shorts that stopped way above his knees, and never talked about anything except gardening and what a wonderful politician Colin Powell was and how one day he would be president.  He answered the phone once when Jenny called to see how I was doing, and the first thing she wanted to know was if he was gay.  I told her probably. 

So I was glad to be back in Virginia Beach.  It felt more like home to me now than Georgia did, and even though I occasionally missed my mom I felt closer to my aunt and cousins.  It was fun seeing my old friends, but we’d grown in different directions.  I had lots of close friends in Virginia Beach, including Vince, whose constant presence sometimes got annoying but I missed it when I was gone. 

I started tenth grade and it wasn’t bad.  It was nice not to be a freshman anymore, but senior year still seemed a long way off and I had a hard time putting any serious thought into college or career plans.  Cody seemed thrilled by second grade and talked about it all the time.  This was a change since Caitlin used to be the one to chatter constantly about school and friends.  But ever since she’d started sixth grade and middle school, she was quiet at home.  When Aunt Jenny asked her how school was, she usually shrugged and said “fine.”  But we noticed that she didn’t seem to have friends over as much.

I got home late one afternoon a couple of days before Christmas break started and found Cody riding his bike around the street in circles.  “Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied.  “Caitlin’s home.”

This was unusual.  The middle school got out late and she was never home before four-fifteen.  “Is she sick?”

He shrugged.  “I think she got in trouble.”

I was only slightly surprised.  Although it hadn’t happened as much in recent years, Caitlin was prone to say things to her teachers or classmates that weren’t exactly respectful or appropriate, and her mom would get a call to come have a conference.  They would come home a little while later, Jenny would lecture her for awhile, Caitlin would nod and say “yes ma’am” when required but always look a little proud, and then Jenny would take away her TV privileges for a week or so.  I figured this was something similar but inside Caitlin was playing Playstation and Jenny wasn’t around.

“They called Mom to come pick me up from school,” she explained before I could ask anything.

“Why?”

“Cause I beat up a girl in my gym class,” she said calmly, never taking her eyes away from the screen.

I was both shocked and confused.  Cat fights happened all the time in middle school, but usually it was some girl trying to pretend she was from the ghetto and was therefore justified in kicking someone’s ass for staring at her.  Caitlin wasn’t like that.  Furthermore, she knew the consequences for fighting were severe.  Suspension was a given, and if the fight was bad enough you could even be expelled.  And it certainly seemed like if Caitlin was in that much trouble she wouldn’t be calmly playing Nintendo, and Jenny would certainly be making her presence known.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked, deciding that I probably wasn’t going to get any more information from Caitlin.

“I’m right here,” Jenny said, coming down the stairs.  She sat down beside Caitlin and put her hand on her shoulder.  “You feeling better, honey?”

“I guess.”

Jenny saw my puzzled look.  “I got a call from her school today around one to come talk to the principal because she’d been in a fight.  He said she punched another girl multiple times for no reason, and I get down there and find out…”

“They stole my clothes!” Caitlin burst in with sudden anger.  “I was taking a shower after gym because we played soccer and I got really sweaty, and I had my regular clothes and my school clothes sitting on the bench in my stall along with a clean diaper.  And I get out of the shower, and everything’s gone except the diaper!  Someone came in there when I was showering because the stupid locks are all broken!  I had to just put on the diaper and walk to where everyone was getting dressed, and I asked who took my clothes and they all started laughing at me.  Lindsey told me Odessa took them and that they were in her locker.  She and her friends are always picking on me.  And, and Lindsey loaned me her gym clothes to wear cause she’s the only friggin friend I have in that whole school, but you know how she’s like four feet tall so I had to put on these sweatpants that came like halfway down my calves and were really tight, and my diaper was sticking out.  I was so pissed but I didn’t even say anything to Odessa then.  I went and told the teacher like they tell us we’re supposed to do, and, and…”

“And the teacher told her he couldn’t search Odessa’s locker because there was no proof she’d stolen the clothes!” Jenny interrupted.

“Yeah.  She went in the locker room and talked to everyone and said whoever did this needed to give me back my clothes.  But she didn’t even yell, and Odessa wasn’t gonna say she did it cause she knew she couldn’t get caught.  Then my teacher told me to double-check my locker because I’d probably just misplaced my clothes and they would turn up.”

“Like it was all Caitlin’s fault that her clothes were missing!” Jenny burst in.

“So then the bell rang and I had to go to class wearing Lindsey’s clothes and by this time the whole sixth grade knew what had happened.  All through math I kept hearing people whispering my name but I didn’t know what they were saying, and I couldn’t concentrate knowing that my diaper was sticking out through my pants and my teacher yelled at me because I didn’t know what problem we were on.  Then I went to lunch and while I was standing in line Odessa came up and she laughed about stealing my clothes, and then asked why I even bothered wearing pants, since everyone could see my diaper anyway, and it must be a pain taking them off all the time to get changed, and I said” Caitlin grinned, remembering, “I asked her why she even bothered wearing a shirt, since everyone knew she was such a slut and it must be a pain taking it off all the time.”

I stifled my laughter. 

“Caitlin!” Jenny exclaimed.  It was obviously the first time she’d heard that little detail.  “We’re going to talk about that later.”

Caitlin looked rather proud.  “Then she told me to take that back, and I said no, and she said ‘take it back or you’ll be sorry,’ and I told her to make me and then she grabbed for my sweatpants.  Well, Lindsey’s sweatpants that I borrowed.  And I don’t know if she was going to rip them or just yank them down so everyone could see my diaper, but I didn’t let her.  It wasn’t even like something I thought about.  My arm just reached out and grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, and she fell back against the rail, and then she tried to push me away and we just started hitting each other and pulling each other’s hair, and I wasn’t thinking that it was wrong or that I would get into trouble.  I wasn’t thinking at all.  I just heard everyone yelling ‘fight, fight’ and I just kept hitting her.  It was like, you know that movie ‘A Christmas Story’ when the kid beats up that bully?  It was like that.  I just kept doing it and I felt like I wasn’t even myself, like I was standing beside me just watching it all and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”  Caitlin talked very rapidly and her face was getting red.  “I’m not trying to make an excuse.  That’s what it felt like to me.  I don’t know how long it lasted, probably only a few seconds, because there are tons of security guards in the cafeteria.  They pulled us away and suddenly I could think again, and I knew to stop punching and I was just thinking, oh my god, I’m gonna get kicked out and Mom’s gonna kill me.  I couldn’t stop shaking.

Then in the principal’s office, they made us write out these incident reports and called Mom and her parents.  Oh, and Odessa had a bloody nose and a split lip, and she went to the nurse for that.”  Caitlin appeared uninjured.

“The way her parents would tell you, she had internal bleeding,” Jenny said darkly.  “They threatened to sue me since Caitlin supposedly assaulted their daughter totally unprovoked.  I gave them my attorney’s card and said to give him a call, and they shut up about the lawsuit real quick after that.”

“You have an attorney?” I asked. 

“Oh, back from when I got my divorce.  I haven’t talked to him in years.  But they don’t know that.”

“Sweet.”

“Caitlin told the principal about how everyone picked on her, including what happened in the locker room today.  They had most of her and Odessa’s teachers in there at one point, including their gym teacher, and wouldn’t you know it, every single one of those people said they knew Caitlin was being teased.  Most of them said that Caitlin had told them at some point that the other kids were picking on her, and apparently they gave the other kids a talking-to and not much else.  Told them to be nice to Caitlin because it’s not easy having a disability.  Then the principal suggested that this never would’ve happened if I’d had her placed in a ‘special’ class with other ‘special’ students like her, where she belonged!  She does not belong in special education!  She is not mentally retarded, she has no learning disabilities, she’s not even in a wheelchair!  She wears diapers!  Since when does that affect her ability to learn math or even dress for physical education with a bunch of other girls her age!  Now they want to say she has behavior problems too, but she’s never been in trouble before.  She wants to be treated the same way as everyone else, but they try to single her out the same way the kids do and it ticks her off.  It ticks me off, too.  And maybe if instead of saying to the other kids ‘Caitlin’s different, we need to be really nice to her,’ they let Caitlin show them that she’s a normal sixth-grader capable of doing everything everyone else does, the other kids wouldn’t even notice she wears diapers.”

“Oh, they would too, Mom,” Caitlin said irritably.  “You don’t go to my school.  You don’t know what these people are like.”

“It hasn’t been THAT long since I was in school, you know,” Jenny said.  Caitlin and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  Whenever parents and teachers pointed out that it hadn’t been THAT long since they were in school, it did nothing but show that it had definitely been a long time since they were in school.

“The different isn’t the students, it’s the administration.”  Jenny launched into full-blown preaching mode.  “When I was your age, we knew what to do with bullies.  It was okay to show someone that they weren’t the biggest or smartest fish in the sea.  If someone picked on you, you either fought them yourself or got your older brother or your best friend to fight them if you couldn’t.  Danielle, your mother took care of a few bullies for me.”

“My mom?” I asked, shocked.  “She used to get into fights?”  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture my mother, who was rather short and stout and worried constantly about her hair and clothes, rolling around on the ground with the Odessas of the 1970s.

“Well, not physical fights, because she was usually a lot older than the bullies and there were rules about fair fights.  But she let it be known that they’d better not pick on her little sister again or they’d be sorry.  And they left me alone after that.  Nowdays, the school would see that as someone threatening a younger child.  But back then it was sort of a social Darwinism, and it worked.  Kids didn’t get teased then like they do now.  And the school didn’t really see fighting as inappropriate until high school unless someone really got hurt.  If a couple of eleven-year-olds got into a fight like you did today, it was just kids fooling around and the most you might get was a talking-to from the principal.”

“And you know what else,” she continued.  “Back then kids didn’t feel so isolated that they felt their only way to get revenge was to bring a gun to school and shoot everyone who ever picked on them.  We didn’t fear for our lives in schools.  And they try to say schools now are safer because fighting isn’t tolerated?  Now they tell kids they should go tell a teacher if someone looks at them cross-eyed, yet when you actually do what they tell her to do, they tell her she’s too sensitive.  And I don’t care if this person is just an eleven-year-old who thinks she’s better than you, who thinks she has the right to verbally abuse and humiliate my daughter because she has a disability, she’s still a bully and you have to stick up for yourself!  Who else is going to bring her down?”

“So what’s your sentence?” I asked Caitlin.  I figured she hadn’t been expelled or Jenny would be ranting and raving even more.

“Suspended until Christmas break.  Then after school starts again Mom has to bring me back and we have to meet with the principal and Odessa and her parents to talk about conflict resolution.”

“Well, enjoy your extra-long break,” Jenny told her.  “You earned it.”

“Don’t you think we could maybe avoid all this trouble if I didn’t have to wear diapers anymore?” Caitlin asked hopefully.

“Oh, Caitlin,” Jenny looked sad.  “We’ll see.”

“That’s what you always say.  I was hoping maybe this time something could actually change.”

The door opened.  “Mom?” Cody yelled.  “Mommy?”

“In the living room,” Jenny called.

“Mommy, I fell off my bike,” Cody said, limping in.  His right knee and elbow were all scraped up.

“Poor thing!”  Jenny jumped up.  “Come on, let’s take care of that.  Girls, go wash up for supper.”

“Lucky break,” Caitlin mumbled in the bathroom.  “Every time I bring up getting surgery, she finds some way to change the subject.”

“Right.  I’m sure she sent out telekinetic powers and made Cody fall off his bike.”

“I know she didn’t plan that, but it seems like she always finds some way to avoid talking about it.”  Caitlin dried her hands.  “Come on, I’m hungry.”

I was quiet during dinner and tried to think about what I could say to make her feel better.  Afterwards I went up to her room and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

“Hey,” I said.  “I wanted to tell you something.”

“Um, let me guess.  You broke up with Vince.”

“No!”

“You’re pregnant with his child!”

“No!” I laughed.  “I don’t think you would guess this.”

“Okay, tell me,” Caitlin said eagerly.  She seemed to be feeling better already.

I sat down on the bed next to her.  “Um…well this is really hard for me to say.  I mean, I’ve never told anyone this before.  But I’m telling you because I trust you and I think this might make you feel better.  I, uh, well I sort of wear diapers too.  I mean…”

“Damn, Danielle,” Caitlin interrupted.  “You don’t know me too well, do you?”  She looked sad.

“Huh?”

“First, don’t think you shocked me with your little confession.  You must need mental help if you honestly believe nobody around here knows you like wearing diapers!  I’ve known for forever.  I mean, even if nobody saw your empty Attends bags, size small, in the garbage can, squished up in a little ball, we all know that there’s no way you could be studying all that time you say you are, when you’re in the bedroom with the door closed.  Nobody thinks you’re doing drugs, either, even though whenever one of us knocks you lunge to hide stuff in the closet.  Jeez, Ariel and I talk about you and your little diaper fetish all the time.  Fetish.  I learned that word on the internet, trying to research why you’re so weird!  Isn’t it cool?” Caitlin asked bitterly.  “It definitely doesn’t describe my problems.  Anyway, Cody figured it out somewhere along the line.  He asked me once to be sure, and I told him yes.  You freakin told Ariel!  Do you think she forgets that easy?  Yeah, I think her mom knows too, and it would really, really surprise me if my mom didn’t.”

“What about Ryan?” I asked quietly.  Ryan’s more like an older friend than family. 

“Well, if Jessica hasn’t told him, Ariel probably has.  Heck, maybe Joey did, you probably steal his diapers.”

“I do not.”  I turned my face towards the wall to cover up the tears that were on the brink of falling. 

“Don’t worry.  Nobody’s told your mom, and nobody’s told your boyfriend.  If you’re so anxious for him not to find out, you know there’s one way to make sure!  You don’t have to wear diapers, Danielle!  You could wake up tomorrow and say ‘I’m never gonna wear another diaper again,’ and Vince would never know.  None of your friends would know.  Mom would probably attribute it to some phase you went through, and heck, we’re all family, we don’t judge, right?  Why do you think it would make me feel better to know you enjoy wearing diapers and can stop at any time?  Don’t you get it?  I wake up wearing a diaper, I go to school wearing a diaper, and when I come home, I wear a diaper!  Everyone knows!  There is not a person in the world who knows me who does not know I wear diapers, and that’s the most humiliating thing for me in the world, and I have no choice!  I can’t stop wearing them.  When I meet guys I like, I don’t have to worry about when I’m going to tell them, because if they don’t see it sticking out of my pants, they hear about it from someone else, and then it’s all they can think about.  Everyone in the family, and all your friends, and probably everyone else you go to school with, they all talk about how smart you are and how pretty you are and blah blah blah, but nobody except Mom ever says anything about me except that I wear diapers.  And even Mom acts like I’m four years old, and have to be protected because I can’t handle my own problems.  I don’t think I’m butt ugly, and I don’t think I’m stupid either, but it’s not like anyone notices.  Maybe if I could take off my diaper they might, but nobody does.  And you bitch because you wish you had more time to wear these things?  Why would you ever choose to wear them?  I smell like pee all the time, except when I smell like shit, and I get rashes all over me, and sometime in the next couple of years that beautiful thing called puberty is supposed to happen and then that’s another bodily fluid I get to have smeared all over my butt until I can find a couple of minutes to go get changed.  Ever try telling your teacher that the reason why you’re late for class is because you were changing your diaper?  God, you and Ariel just have no idea.”

“Ariel?”

“Oh, she still likes diapers.  She just hides it because she thinks her mom doesn’t like her to wear them.  I wish we could trade moms, because my mom sure doesn’t seem to mind having a kid in diapers.”

I turned around again.  I thought my tears had subsided enough that I could save them for my own bedroom.  “Maybe when you grow up a little you’ll figure out that your mom would rather have a kid in diapers than a dead kid.  And maybe you’ll figure out that there are better things in life than getting to sit at the ‘cool’ lunch table and all the little popular girls calling you at night so you can all sit around and diss the class misfits.  And any decent guy doesn’t care if you wear diapers anyway, but you’re only in the sixth grade.  You have the rest of your life to have friends and a boyfriend.”

“Oh, you think that’s what this is all about.  Well, then, I’ve been ranting to a wall, and I’m tired and my throat hurts, so get out of my room, and don’t come back for awhile.”

I stood up and walked out but turned around in the doorway.  “Once in awhile you say something that makes me think you’re much more mature than most eleven-year-olds.  But since I only think of you as someone who wears diapers anyway I guess I still treat you like you’re four.  And then you kick me out of your room, and I realize there’s a reason why everyone still treats you like you’re four years old, and it has nothing to do with diapers!”

“Go to hell,” Caitlin said, shutting the door in my face.

“Tis the season to be jolly!” I yelled at the closed door.  I stormed off to my own bedroom and automatically went for the Attends bag in the closet.  After pulling one out and staring at it for a few moments, I put it back in the bag, shoved the bag to the back of my closet, opened my door and started my homework.