As Lee wandered the halls he began to see evidence that he and Carmen weren't the only ones who would be under pressure to start training this year. The changing stations in the restrooms, all but abandoned last year, now had a small but noticeable student activity.
They looked cleaner, too - the school clearly had had to step up the pail-changing and disinfecting regime as students in ever-higher grades retained diaper-wearing habits. Lee had been dribbling a little on the bus - something he hadn't done for a while - and considered changing, but decided against it in case he had another accident later and was left without a spare.
Students in the halls discretely adjusted thick white crinkly waistbands, easing them out of view behind their skirts and trousers. While they may have taken Lee and Carmen's advice to heart, they clearly didn't feel like announcing to the student body at large that they'd gone backwards potty-training wise.
Lee was surprised by how many people he saw in the toilets and halls who were wearing diapers - the percentage of younger kids 'wearing' was way up from last year; there had been three kids in Grade Three who had failed to make the transition to training pants last September - now it looked like a good third of those in the year below him were in diapers, and he'd bet his right arm that all but a handful of the rest were in trainers.
In his own year the fully trained regiment had increased, of course, but at least half had been in training pants last year and at least half of those had reverted to diapers this year. At a bare minimum, he thought, a quarter of my year's in diapers again!
Lee was shaken out of his reverie when he bumped into a boy of his own age, who rounded on him aggressively.
"Watch where you're going, dork!" he sneered. Lee recognised Christopher Brian, a tall, handsome kid who excelled in every sport and (of course) had been one of his first peers to come to class without the crutch of training pants. "You sure you can find your way to class, diaper-boy?" Lee slumped down on the floor, offering no resistance and prepared for humiliation or physical violence.
"Leave him alone, Chrissie," sighed Vanessa. Vanessa and Christopher spent so much time together they were generally considered an item - both were precocious and there was general speculation about how serious they were as boyfriend and girlfriend. They kissed - he sent roses - she let him see her first bra.
She was similarly well-advanced in the toilet training hierarchy. Or had been - as Christopher let go of Lee and stalked off, he was struck by the familiar blue-banded underwear he could clearly see under her skirt from his low vantage point; the super-absorbent training pants. She had reverted from grown-up pants to training pants - and thick, diaper-like ones at that! No wonder she felt ambivalent about her boyfriend's chest-thumping.
This was going to be an interesting year.