Opportunities for Developement: Chapter 4: Grim Revelations

Chapter 4: Grim Revelations

A lesson at Grimsby’s was supposed to be a fun learning experience. Structured play, managed routines that enabled kids to explore at their own pace, some reading and writing exercises to establish an understanding of the new world of education they’d soon be entering...

At least to the Amazons.

To us, the pre-school was a time loop. If you read the ridiculous nonsense of some Amazon philosophers, they’ve sometimes considered the idea of having to repeat our lives ad infinitum, a form of “eternal recurrence”, as the ultimate form of hell.

Maybe they should try being a Little here, the experience must be close.

“It’s wonderful to meet you all, I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better today” Grimsby headed over to a chart on the side of the whiteboard “This is our routine chart. There’s one of these in each classroom. You’ll be doing the thing that’s got this big arrow next to it”

In the fourteen years we’d been in this classroom that routine had never changed. The six hours of the day were split into three in the morning and two in the afternoon, five hours of activities that were tough for a pre-schooler but were just boring to us.

“Sensory Play” was always first. An opportunity for the fidgeters and growing kids to get some energy out by playing with simple instruments or puzzle toys before any educational content began. Then we had “Number Time”, the most basic exploration of numbers from one to sixteen you could imagine. The third hour was Grimsby reading to us, typically a moral tale about how not listening to authority will get you hurt or in trouble with adults. The Little Who Cried Wolf, Little Sucker-Thumb… you probably get the theme there.

Lunch time for the Amazons was them getting to go to the cafeteria. For us it was getting out our packed lunches and sitting in the classroom with Grimsby. Some of the Amazons did as well, but generally only if they were in trouble. We were always considered to be in trouble. To some degree we were the trouble. Sometimes we revelled in this, but generally it was just another way we were kept separated from the rest of the system. Church had, at one point, tried to argue we should be fed during this period to keep our uniforms clean. I imagine it was only Grimsby’s lack of interest in having to make airplane noises that saved us.

The last two hours were exercises. With us full of food and the energy levels of the pre-schoolers now plateauing, their focus was in the sweet spot where they could learn the alphabet and basic counting to finish up the day. Of course we knew all the answers to these questions by this point, and were generally just sitting at the back waiting for the day to end. We stayed quiet, drawing in notebooks and doing mental exercises we were taught by tutors at home.

Of course, today was a little different. Two of the tables were entirely empty, their chairs normally filled with different aged Littles. It was terrifying in a strange way. We didn’t know many of them, especially the younger ones, but a couple of teenagers had looked set to get as far as us. Now they were just… gone.

“So, let’s get out the sensory play toys!” She looked over at one of the red tables and selected a few of the pre-schoolers to collect some from a large toy chest at the side of the room. With some high pitched squealing the group made their way over, grabbing at whatever took their fancy before heading back to the table. Each group did this in turn until Grimsby turned to face us.

“Littles next, come on you three.”

We all quietly stood up and took a look at whatever toys were left. Normally there would be a small brawl, the Littles fighting over what was left to try and avoid the early sense of boredom that was a sure-fire way to get yourself into trouble. We’d all been mentally preparing ourselves for explaining this to newbies. Kids who were terrified of the world around them, who’d been desperately trying to avoid their massive Amazon classmates and just avoid bursting into tears because their Mommy’s and Daddy’s had to leave them here.

On a typical day it would be rare for us to get anything out of the sensory toy box. At least nothing good. When we’d joined the school the Littles before us had established a clique, a way of ensuring they got even the best scraps of play equipment before we had a chance. The group of us that had arrived that year had told ourselves we’d never do the same thing to those that came after us. Even as our numbers whittled down to the three of us, we always went last, always let the smaller ones take what they could and then, without complaint, we’d take the broken and discarded toys that remained. Rattles that were missing any noise, plush cubes that were worn down to the threads and plastic animal noise toys that were covered in the grime from the bottom of the box. So to have the opportunity to finally see a somewhat interesting selection was a strangely surreal experience. I couldn’t help but wonder what half of these things did. A small robot with arrows and numbers, its spherical shape strangely alluring, grabbed my attention and I pulled it free from the chest. Grub followed suit, taking a large cube with four small arm holes out of the box and holding it in front of body.

“You know those things are probably gonna screw with our heads right?” Leo said.

I sighed, looking down at what I’d grabbed. He was right of course, Amazon toys were seemingly designed for two purposes: Make Amazon kids happy and drive Littles insane. Tweeners were often lucky to keep their heads completely functional as well. Small sensory inputs that were made to give to an Amazon child a small tickle of enjoyment were turned up to eleven for a Little. A rush of adrenaline, muscle spasms and even complete loss of consciousness were possible if you didn’t act with the utmost care. Plush toys were safest, softness was thankfully not a feature Amazons had learned how to manipulate to our disadvantage and it was the one thing we could reliably sit and fidget with while talking.

Grub seemed to be more secure in his choice “Doesn’t it beat just having the same cuddly toys every day though?” he responded, sticking his right arm in the first hole.

A second or so passed before my friend’s eyes went wide with shock. He shook it about, terror replacing whatever unconscious happiness had previously been spread across his face.

“It just clamped on!”

Leo and I put down what we’d grabbed and took a look at what was happening. The cube looked exactly the same as before, nothing on the outside indicated that there was anything we could do to immediately release it.

“What the…” Leo looked inside one of the arm holes as Grub looked at me. His face was contorting, not in pain but in a clear state of panic that he was trying hard to keep under control.

“Don’t worry mate, we’ll get you out of this alright? Just stay calm and wait for Leo to…”

“Ah! It’s a motor puzzle box! I’ve seen these things online!”

Leo proceeded to shove his hands into the opposite holes, working his way around the various parts of the contraption.

“Grub, put your other hand in”

He followed the instruction, keeping his eyes facing Leo as I was left to watch the whole bizarre event unfold.

“Right, feel around, there should be a lever right at the back”

Grub nodded his arms moving around as he tried to find it as soon as possible.

“Got them both… I think!” his face lit up again.

“Great, pull on them on the count of three, ok?”

As Leo’s impromptu countdown finished we all watched with horror as the box dramatically opened with horrendous clicking noises. The contents of it tried to splay outwards, but the colourful interior that would have once been the pride and joy of an Amazon workshop was now a horrible, mangled mess of plastic that cracked as the arms of my friends manged to pull themselves free of the terrifying device.

“Fuck!” Leo cried as the box crashed to the floor, leaving me to grab Grub as he tried to move away from the object as soon as he could.

A gasp of air came from every single Amazon and Tweener child in the room, sucking all the previous noise out like a vacuum cleaner. Instantly the three of us knew what was about to happen, Leos face dropped as he immediately looked towards the thunderous face of Miss Grimsby.

“Leonard!”

“I’m sorry Miss! I didn’t mean to…”

With the commanding strides only an Amazon could manage, Grimsby made her way over to us and shoved a pacifier firmly into Leo’s open mouth. His cheeks bulged outwards as a shocked breath he’d taken in was suddenly met with an expanding bulb that would now be impossible to remove.

“That stays in. I don’t want to hear a peep from you for the rest of the day. Is that clear?”

Leo nodded, looking down at the floor as Grimsby went back to the other kids.

“You will not use the word you just heard. Ever. Understood?!”

The rest of class nodded silently in unison. They got the message just by looking at the Little with his mouth now full of inflated rubber latex. We wouldn’t be hearing it again from any of the Amazon kids in this classroom.

It’s funny how you can go from being on top of the world over simple things to crashing to its lowest ebb in mere moments. The joy of having some new stimuli in this dreary and depressing hell-hole of an educational facility had been a brief respite from the shocking realisation we’d be the only Littles here. But our status hadn’t changed, there was no sympathy for our position with Grimsby. We weren’t due any more pity for our position as the last remnants of her supposedly inclusive setup.

“Sorry Leo” Grub walked over and pulled his head down to try and make eye-contact “I didn’t think…”

“Isth othay” the garbled words whispered out of Leo’s mouth, quiet enough to ensure only we could hear them.

I breathed out and looked back towards the sensory toys. Grabbing the small robot again I started pressing the buttons that were positioned on top of it.

Nothing happened. The small thing was a husk, probably as broken as the horrible puzzle box we’d just had to deal with. A lot of the labels on top of it were worn away. None of the Amazon or Tweener pre-schoolers were left with stuff like this, they were happily playing away with working toys, most of them purchased by Grimsby in the last few years.

“Anything else look good in there?” I asked Grub, who had tentatively returned to the toy box.

“A few plushies… Some dolls… Oh gosh…”

What he pulled out made us visibly recoil. It was a plastic baby, a toy clearly designed for Amazons to play silly parenting games with. We’d obviously seen these around in stores before but this one was something to behold. It was nearly devoid of clothing, a parody of a cloth diaper pinned round its waist. Its eyes were worn down to white plastic circles, their irises long since rubbed off.

It was also nearly as big as Grub.

“That’s so disturbing” the words felt like an understatement at that moment, but it was all I could manage.

Grub dropped it back into the box “I don’t think I’m sleeping tonight…”

Leo joined him in looking through the contents and eventually picked out a plush bumblebee. It was missing both its antenna, but otherwise it simply looked well loved. Relatively clean, even repaired. As with most of the toys it was large enough that he needed two hands to carry it. He took it back to the table and sat down, playing with its little arms as me and Grub both looked at each other and sighed.

“Think he’ll be ok?”

“Yeah” Grub replied “I don’t think he really minds the pacifier sometimes.”

I chuckled, “I mean, he certainly never learned to avoid it.”

Eventually we both just found the toys we liked from last year. I had a grey cube, a little felt circle that may once have been a more complex shape was printed on the side, its bright pink slowly being worn away. I used it either as a stress ball or safe pillow to rest on should things get so boring I felt like taking a brief nap.

Grub had a long, plush caterpillar he always managed to get. It was threadbare, no Amazon or Tweener would’ve touched it, but to him it was a companion of over a decade. Even Grimsby in her most stern moods seemed to have been touched by the image over the years. Church had found it positively delightful, to the point where she’d sometimes taken it out for him before he’d even reached the box. He wrapped it round his neck as we headed back to the table, Leo apparently having settled into just suckling on the pacifier and lying on the belly of the bee he’d picked out.

The rest of the hour passed by with us all just sitting there in near silence. We’d all been expecting to be sitting here telling new arrivals they’d be ok, that we’d look out for them. For the last few years we’d been feeling like mentors, guides or teachers of a different sort. Get our Little comrades streetwise as fast as possible, get them learning the right ways to avoid leaving St Benedicts with their minds intact.

“Hey Eddy?” Grub looked at me from behind the tail of the plush “We’re gonna be ok right?”

I wanted to smile. I really did. But even with the greatest will in the world all I could do was sigh and shrug.

“I dunno man. I just… don’t know”

Grub seemed to deflate at that response, breathing out heavily and cuddling back into the plush.

“I… I’m scared Eddy”

I wasn’t sure whether admitting it openly made Grub stronger or weaker than me in that moment. Fear was clenching at my chest like a vice around my heart, its beat noticeable and heavy. Despite all the noise of the classroom, of clacking toys, beeping electronics and loud kids, the silence at our table felt oppressive and deeply wrong. For the next forty minutes we sat waiting for play-time to be over, Grimsby apparently more than happy that her three remaining Littles were keeping themselves and making nary a peep of fuss. As the hour concluded Grimsby made her way to the front of the class and clapped twice, allowing the silence to cover the whole room.

“Now, time for the toys to go away.” She picked up the box started walking around the room, the kids placing their toys into the box with varying degrees of care. Most had picked out loud plastic devices so at some points the crashing was deafening evidence of why so much of the boxes contents were broken and abused. Eventually she reached our table and placed the box down on top of it.

“Stand up boys”

We all stood as instructed, placing the toys back into the box as Grimsby walked behind us. Even as we’d all reached the age of adulthood, there was no stopping her cold fingers from pulling back the waistband of our shorts and diapers and checking us.

“Any of you need to go potty?”

Giggles came from our classmates as she asked the question. This was designed to cause embarrassment, to intimidate us into giving a negative answer to save face. We’d have been telling new kids this over and over, that saying yes and getting laughed at for a few moments was better than saying no and having to explain a wet diaper later. Whatever Amazons wanted Littles to be, our parents kept us up to the same speed if we could. We were potty trained when we arrived, all of us, and it was up to us to make sure Grimsby didn’t have a say in reversing it.

“I do miss.” Grub responded, carefully putting his plush back in the box.

“Ok Robby, you know the way to the bathroom?” she smiled as she pulled back Leo’s diaper and gave his front a small squeeze, satisfied that he was dry.

“I do miss, but I can’t take off my diaper”

This was met with more giggles from the room. Grub was unfazed, his eyes locked onto Grimsby’s.

“Well, would you like some help going to the potty then Robby?”

“Yes Miss, I’d like some help going potty”

The entire exchange was scripted. Both Grimsby and Grub knew what the other was capable of, Grub knew that Grimsby was responsible for taking him to the toilet at his request and Grimsby knew Grub could only use it if she helped him. Both needed the other, even if neither wanted the resulting task.

“I’ll ask Miss Addison to take you. Let me call her”

All of us raised our eyebrows. That was unusual, normally the response was Grimsby begrudgingly informing the class she’d be back in five minutes while she “Took a Little to go potty”. Every single part of this was supposed to make us feel like the losers, the ones that are here because they need the help rather than who can succeed on their own.

Asking the newbie teacher to help us had not been something we’d been expecting. Grimsby grabbed the phone on her desk and pressed a speed dial button, almost immediately getting a response.

“Grace, could you come and take Robby to the potty for me?... He’s one of the Littles so… No he can’t go himself, he can’t get his diaper off…”

Grub was now unavoidably blushing furiously. There is something very distinctly different about being talked about rather than to and while normally this might make someone feel a little uneasy, it was positively humiliating when it was about your ability to use the bathroom.

“Thank you, I’ll start my lesson, feel free to come in and collect him when you’re ready”

Grimsby put the phone down and looked back towards Grub “Robby, can you hold it for a few minutes while Miss Addison gets ready to take you?”

He nodded as she returned to our table, heading behind me as she gave me one last look “And do you need to go Eddy?”

I shook my head “No miss”. Her hand gave my diaper waistband a firm pull before reaching to the front, a quick squeeze around my groin reminding me of its thickness and, thankfully, of its current state of dryness.

“Good boys” she stood back up straight “Now then we’re going to start our first lesson of the year. I know many of you will already know this, but let’s make sure we’re all starting at the same speed shall we?”

She brought up a huge poster with every number from one to sixteen given its own special little character. We’d seen this literally thousands of times. Whatever stories were written about these inane characters we’d now developed substantially better – and often ruder – ones in our heads. A knock on the door interrupted Grimsby just before she could start.

“Come in”

In stepped Miss Addison, quietly but assertively walking towards our table “I’m here for Robby, Miss Grimsby”

“Of course, make sure he wipes”

Another set of giggles, another round of blushing from Grub.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine” Miss Addison took him by the hand “Come on Robby, no need to be shy”

He followed her calmly, her strides reducing to match his as they left the classroom. Leo looked at me with a look of confusion, I returned it with a shrug and looked back to towards the poster.

This day was just getting weirder.