Lee Cross felt a lot more confident getting on the bus to school for his first day in fourth grade.
He was no longer new to the school and had made some friends. He felt a twinge of nervousness, however, at the thought of the soft diapers still hugging his waist below his school uniform.
At the beginning of third grade he'd been the only kid in diapers in his class - and one of only three in his year. And though he'd known for sure that Carmen and later other kids had rejoined the diapers brigade, surely they would have given them up again now.
Even his own parents had begun to make encouraging noises towards trying him in training pants - there was a new super-absorbent line intended to help bridge the gap between diapers and trainers, just as trainers had once bridged the gap between diapers and full toilet training, and they had pointed him towards the ads on several occasions and asked whether he might want to try them out. The experts had just recently set eight years old as the target age for starting training; Lee would be expected to make progress towards potty training this year.
A flashing pinball smile surrounded by curly brown hair caught his eye.
"Lee! Seat over here!" Carmen waved her arm and he went over to join her. As he sat down, he noticed an edge of puffy whiteness poking out from under her skirt. After chatting a little about new teachers and what they'd done over the summer he nervously broached the question.
"So - you still wearing?"
"Sure am. Guess you heard they want all eight year olds to start training, right?"
"Uh huh. My parents want to put me in the new training pants," he replied sullenly, twisting the edge of his own diapers below the band of his trousers.
"Well, I'm gonna keep with what you said. I'm not gonna change until I'm ready. You?" Her words resolved the dilemma - simply, easily. Of course, he needn't start training until he felt ready. Wasn't that what the shrinks had been saying all this time? He would tell his parents he wasn't ready for pants, no matter how absorbent.
"Yeah. You know if anyone else is still in these things?" he asked, looking around. He'd seem a couple of unusually puffy midriffs, but that could mean anything - extra padded training pants for those not quite ready to give up their stabilisers, even weight gain.
"You better believe it. After you spoke to me, I passed on what you said. There are lots of kids who were being forced to move faster than they wanted; I told them they should go back to diapers if they wanted. I reckon most kids in trainers in our class went back to 'Ds'. They can't all have moved on already."
"I guess not." He reached out for her hand, expecting her to withdraw it - instead, she opened it and clasped his. It was a good feeling, he decided.