Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 47

There was an awkward moment. Jamie decided to fill it with a little fun on his part. “It’s a bear, by the way, on my shirt.”

“Every little says that. So weird.” Jamie laughed on the inside. “Anyway, welcome to the Guppies.”

“Guppies?”

“We’re the Guppies. Jordan has the Kangaroos. Jean has the Bluebirds. Carrie has the Hedgehogs.”

“We’re on teams?”

“Not really, just for organizing.”

“So how does this work? Is there like a schedule or something?”

“Well, lunch time, story time and nap time, but otherwise, no schedule. Carrie does the art. The rest of us just float.”

“If we want to go outside?”

“Just ask. Usually a few people want to go when someone asks. Anything you want to do?”

“Can I … just read my book?”

“Sure. Let me know if you need anything.”

Jamie sat himself down in a beanbag chair and immediately regretted it. I may be at daycare, he told himself, but my back is too old to sit in a beanbag chair. After trying to stand up, he decided flopping  of it was the easiest way out and rolled to the floor. He popped back to his knees and looked around to see if anyone had seen his embarrassing performance, as if anyone would think a little rolling making a game of a chair was unusual. Didn’t seem like noticed. He gathered up a couple of cushions and pillows and made himself comfortable on the floor. The carpet must have had especially dense padding, all the more comfortable for littles to sit.

As he read, occasionally a little would walk past him to the bookshelf and give him the side eye. After about an hour he looked over the pages and saw a couple of littles watching him. He rolled over on to his stomach and kept reading. After only a few more pages, he sensed something was very close. Several somethings. Several somethings that didn’t have the same boundaries when it came to personal space. He rolled back over.

“Do you know how to read,” a little girl with brown hair asked him. She had a board book in her hands. Her voice was inquisitive, and she had just the slightest lisp to her r. Two other littles were on either side of her, and each of them had a book too.

Jamie sighed and closed his book, not feeling quite ready to engage with his peers, if regressed littles were his peers, but not about to be rude to them. “I do know how to read. Would you like me to read to you?”

“Yes, please.” She handed him her book and sat down cross legged next to him. Jamie pulled himself into a sitting position. The other two littles formed a half circle around him.

Jamie opened the book to find it was about a baby elephant who got lost on her way home from the peanut store. It was well illustrated and had a pleasant meter. Jamie wasn’t sure what a baby elephant sounded like, but his plaintive trunk trumpet got peals of laughter. He had a good audience. A raccoon, a squirrel and a plain brown bird turned out to be instrumental in helping Patrick the Pachyderm find his way home. Jamie noted the irony of an elephant forgetting how to get home, but he was the only little to chuckle as his joke.

The next book was about a farmer who kept losing his sheep. That’s what a lazy sheep dog bear will get ya. What the lazy dog bear needed was a young sheep puppy cub to help him. The old dog bear taught the young puppy cub how to be a sheep dog bear, and the farmer stopped whinging so much. Jamie turned the book around before turning each page so his audience could see the pictures.

The last was about a cider maker whose apples were going bad before he could press them. He tried every trick he knew, but they kept going bad. He even got apples from a different orchard, and those went bad. Ready to sell the distillery, the cider maker laid down on his mushy apples and cried. The sound of his sobs was heard by a little green worm, who came out to see what the matter was.

When he heard the man lament his mushy apples, the worm was ashamed. He’d been eating a little bit of this one, a little bit of that one, reasoning eating just a little from each was ethically better than eating whole apples. He didn’t mean to make them go bad.

“Don’t cry,” said the worm. Jamie knew how to cry like a sobbing cyder maker (who in Jamie’s mind had tied one on), but he didn’t know what an apologetic worm sounded like. He asked his audience, and they didn’t know either, but they each made a good try, and Jamie told them so. The worm apologized from his heart, and the man forgave him and promised to give the worm his best apple every day, so long as the worm left the other apples alone. They both lived up to their word.

Jamie wanted to write an epilogue: the worm was later found floating in a vat of cider; he couldn’t hold his liquor. But he decided it wasn’t age appropriate, and anyway, one the bigs called out, “Who wants to go outside?”

Three sets of eyes lit up in front of him, and they bounced up like they were on springs.

“You’re welcome!” He called out after them, smiling. He’d had fun.

He got up to follow them. Jordan and April were outside along with most of the littles, who were playing on a swing set and in a sand box. Billy and Bobby chased each other, and it looked like they were almost fast enough for him to play with them, but he sensed they weren’t exactly playing.

The field was larger than he had been able to see from the parking lot, and it rose and fell a little in the middle. Another fence, with a gate in it, separated the two halves of the field. At the far end of the field, on the other side of a fence between the two buildings, was a third, smaller building.

Walking the length of the field and turning back, he saw that the small rise in the field was high enough that he couldn’t see anyone on the other side of it, except the bigs’. Them, he could see from the waist up. He liked that, thinking if he wanted to that he could have this area to himself, so long as no one played at the far end of the field.

He rejoined the others. His little book club insisted he climb up onto the swing set. It was big, like the one at the park, with lots to climb on. He followed them up and through a tunnel between the slide platform and another platform. As he was coming out the other end, a foot stepped on his hand. It wasn’t a stomp, but when Jamie drew his hand back and looked up, he saw it wasn’t an accident either. A smiling Billy (or Bobby, he didn’t know who was which yet), looked down at him and then ran off.

Jamie rubbed his hurt hand with the other and flexed his fingers. “That little shit,” he cursed. The book club collectively gasped. He looked from his hand to them. “It’s okay. I’m not hurt.”

“You said a swear.” She said it so quietly, as if saying it was tantamount to swearing herself.

Jamie hadn’t been around littles very much, and though he knew they lived and thought as toddlers, his eyes saw adults. Oddly dressed adults, but adults, and he hadn’t thought to watch his language around them the same he would with actual children. Her expression was that of a preacher’s wife having just heard the choir leader blaspheme. Jamie actually felt an unexpected bit of regret.

Not that he ever minded swearing; he always thought it was kind of silly how worked up people get about kids swearing. He once got called to a school because one of his kids got suspended for calling a teacher an asshole. He couldn’t stand that kind of pettiness; suspensions were one of the main reasons his kids dropped out, and the pettier the reason, the more likely they wouldn’t come back. He listened to the self-righteous principal talk about the importance of respect until he had repeated himself twice and the lump of ego sat there smiling under his “Your Principal is Your Pal” banner. When the principal was done, the former Eric turned his eyes upward and shook his head in a dismissive roll. “Was the teacher being an asshole,” he asked. Did she learn it from you, you fucking asshole, he wanted to add. He got an earful from his boss, but he did get the suspension reversed.

But he hadn’t offended an asshole. He’d offended a little who, by heart or by conditioning, was genuinely upset to hear what he’d said.

“I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. “I promise I won’t do it again.”

“It’s okay. I won’t tell on you.” She said it like she was giving him a gift and that it was the best gift she could give. Jamie was a little touched, and wondered just how much trouble she thought he’d get in trouble for swearing.

“I’m Jamie. What’s your name?”

“Jenny.”

“Thanks for not telling on me, Jenny.” She smiled and scurried off.

He scooted the rest of the way out of the tunnel and climbed back down to the ground.

Bobby or Billy or whichever was waiting for him. Jamie wasn’t even sure what to say. He didn’t especially care; he wasn’t hurt. He was happy to let it go. That’s not how bullies work though.

“What’s your name?”

“Jamie. What’s yours?”

“Bobby. I don’t like you.”