"Mr Pauls did what?" Lee's mother took off her reading glasses and pursed her lips angrily. She was a beautiful woman in her early forties with long wavy auburn hair - a lawyer by profession, but with looks that could have sustained a career in modelling. Today she wore a light grey pant suit with a frontage cut to expose only the most inobjectionable hint of cleavage.
"Well, that's not on, is it dear?" Lee's father, a broad-shouldered distinguished man with greying temples, wandered over and put his hand on Lee's shoulder in what he probably intended to be a reassuring fatherly gesture. "I remember even when I was at school teachers weren't supposed to stop students using the bathrooms. And we were all toilet-trained by your age." He added it as an absent-minded aside.
Lee flushed and turned away. His mother, noticing the gesture, reached forward. Lee tried to avoid looking down her top, which at this angle showed slightly more than a social acceptable amount of her large, tightly packed breasts.
"Oh, Lee, don't let it get you down. Lots of people your age are in just the same boat."
"So you'll talk to Mr Pauls?" Lee felt a faint whisper of hope.
His mother frowned and turned to her husband.
"Well, we do understand how difficult it must be for teachers this days trying to cope with children with a wide range of toiletary needs. I don't think it would really help if I went marching in there asking for special treatment for my son, would it?"
Lee found himself shaking his head, even though that's exactly what he wanted.
"Look skipper, you've had a rough day. Is there anything we can do or get you to make up for it?" asked Lee's father earnestly. He leaned down and kissed the top of his head.
Lee remembered Carmen's bright smile and the feeling of her hand, and felt something welling up inside him that he would later identify as courage.
"Mom, dad. I know you want what's best for me, and that includes ... potty training. But I don't think I'm ready, not yet. What happened today kind of shows that. So if you won't talk to my teachers, please can I go back to the thicker brand of diaper? And can you hold off trying to get me onto trainers, even the special absorbent ones?"
His parents looked at each other, then exchanged a couple of whispered comments. His dad shrugged. His mother didn't look happy when she responded.
"Lee, of course we won't move faster than you want. But at the same time we don't want you to fall behind. That's not good for your self-esteem, or your health." Lee's heart sank. "So, next time I go to the store, I'm going to get a bumper-sized packet of Huggies, 6-8s. But when they're gone, they're gone, OK? I'm not going to get any more. After that, you really try to pick up the potty training. Do we have a deal?"
Of course we had a deal. Lee shook her hand solemnly. The gravity of the moment was somewhat undermined insofar as his joy let to him dribbling just a little into the cheap diapers, but no-one seemed to notice. His mother pressed him tight against her full chest and his dad gathered them both up in a bear hug. He felt safe, secure. Why would I ever want to give this up, he thought?