Diaper U, Chapter 9

Contains: Messing, Mild Teasing/Embarrassment 

...

Slinking down the back hall, Daniel Aster kept his eyes wide open for traps, tricks, for anyone who might slink in and catch him. At one moment, he thought he heard a janitor whistling somewhere down the hall, but the sound turned and began meandering away before the whistler came into eyeshot.

He had the corridor to himself.

Counting the doors, Daniel ducked into the abandoned classroom he’d met his ghost in before, glancing around, speaking in a stage whisper. “Ismella? Are you there?”

A couple seconds passed, and then–a giggle. “Do you always have poopy pants? You smell as bad as last time.”

He flushed. “It’s–a long story.”

“How long has it been?” she asked. Her voice was a sound without source, but he kept casting his eyes about the room, as though he might spot her from the corner of his eye.

He almost lied, claiming he’d come back the next day, but he put the thought out of his mind. “A week. I’ve still got detention, I had to sneak out to come see you.”

A pause. “Are you going to get in trouble for me?”

Daniel smiled at the corner of his mouth and shook his head. “No, nobody knows I’m gone. It’s okay.”

“Okay, good.” Another pause. “So why the stinky butt?”

“I, um–needed an excuse to leave,” Daniel offered, blushing. “It was a whole scheme. My study group thinks I’m in my room right now waiting to get a change, but my prefect thinks I’m with my study group, so I’ve got a little time to talk.”

Ismella giggled again, but caught herself. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, say what’s on your mind.” Daniel slid into one of the seats in the old classroom and tossed his study group homework onto the chair next to him. His diaper squelched, a little, an uncomfortably banal sensation.

“You don’t know how to change your own diapers?” Ismella asked.

“I’m forbidden to,” he clarified. “There’s a curse on them, in fact. Part of being in detention.”

“Oooh.”

Daniel felt a chill, and an icy tickling sensation that echoed up from between his legs–“Hey! What’re you doing?”

“Just taking a look,” she snickered.

He stumbled back, almost falling out of his chair in the hurry to cover his crotch with his hands. “That’s–not cool!”

“At the curse,” Ismella explained, her eye roll audible. “I’m not interested in what you’ve got down there, dummy.”

“Oh. Uh–oh, okay, that’s fine. Just tell me first,” Daniel stammered, getting back into the seat.

“That’s a pretty weak spell. I might be able to break it for you, if you wanted.”

“No.” Daniel shook his head. “Then I’d just have to explain how I was able to change myself, and I’d get in more trouble. I’m just going to have to put up with it.”

“If you say so,” she said. Another pause. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

“Did you have any luck remembering what we talked about before?” Daniel asked. “The teacher who was arguing? Or, um–do you remember what we talked about before?”

“I remember,” she said. “I…I don’t forget things, I just forget when they happened, and it’s a lot. You smell really bad, so it’s easy to remember you, but people come here to argue all the time because it’s out of the way and…well, I guess just because it’s out of the way. I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

He closed his eyes, sighing. “That’s…that’s fine, Ismella. I shouldn’t have expected you to just magically remember exactly what I needed.”

“But…but I can keep trying!” she said. “I can sometimes remember things easier if I think about them a lot. I mostly know the order that Jordan came to visit, since I spent so much time piecing it all together–maybe, um, maybe we could still figure it out?”

Daniel nodded. “Sure. It’s worth a shot. The main thing I remember is they were saying that there was some kind of power in the school, and that they didn’t want to ‘humanize’ us. I don’t know what’s up with that.”

“A lot of the teachers here don’t like their students,” Ismella said. “Or…they didn’t. They might not? When I hear them talking, they’re rude about it.”

“Maybe they’re blowing off steam,” Daniel said, feeling the need to play devil’s advocate. “It’s not like they can talk that way publicly.”

“I guess,” Ismella conceded. “They gripe about everything, really. Budget cuts. Supply shortages. I think–I’m not certain, but I think the past couple years they’ve been having more trouble. They changed their dress code in…um…Ninety eight, I think? And most of the complaints about funding have been in the new outfits.”

“That’d make sense,” Daniel said. “A lot of supplies are getting redirected towards dealing with the warlock crisis. Mundane stuff is still easy to come by, but the price of magical reagents have skyrocketed.”

“What’s the ‘warlock crisis’? I’ve heard a couple teachers mention it, but nobody’s brought me a newspaper or anything,” Ismella inquired.

“It’s…kind of hard to explain,” Daniel admitted. “Basically, there’s a lot of unsanctioned magic going on right now on the east coast. It wasn’t quite a rebellion, but normal law and order kind of…exploded. They’re trying to curtail the worst of it, but it’s a mess, and it’s not going anywhere fast. The only people buying up magical supplies faster than law enforcement are the warlocks themselves, getting it shipped in on the black market. I don’t know the specifics, though, it’s not really been a problem where I live other than the prices.”

“That’s horrible,” Ismella said. “When did it start?”

“I think technically a year ago, but it was brewing before that,” Daniel shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, it’s mostly a bunch of crackpots. Folks who forgot why magic has rules to begin with. They’ll probably burn out before too long, after one too many spells goes haywire. Point is, that’s probably why there’s been cuts around the school.”

“Maybe that’s it, then,” Ismella said.

A thought struck Daniel. “Wait–how often do teachers come over here to complain? Am I going to get caught if I stick around?”

“I don’t know,” she pointed out. “It might have been a bunch of times in a few weeks, or it might have been occasionally throughout the year. I can’t remember.”

“Right,” Daniel said. “Well…you’d be able to see and tell if anyone was coming, right? So I could get out of here?”

“Mhmm, don’t worry.”

He checked the clock on the wall. Sneaking here had taken time, and more seconds were slipping past as they spoke.

“I’m thinking,” Ismella said. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m not doubting you,” Daniel replied. “But I need to go soon.”

“Do you know what color clothes they were wearing? That might help!”

“One was a teacher, so…school uniform, probably, but…I think we went over this last time I was here,” he pointed out. “I think this conversation would have stood out. They were talking like stage villains.”

“I just–I’m sorry. I don’t know. I can’t remember clearly, and, and…” A ghostly sniffle interrupted her words.

Part of Daniel wondered what mechanism would compel a ghost without physical form to sniffle, but the rest of him felt only empathy. “Hey, Ismella–it’s okay. I’m glad you’re helping, we don’t need to figure this out right away, and even if you never remember that’s fine.”

“I just don’t want to be useless.” Sniffling again, her voice sounded close to cracking.

“You’re not,” Daniel insisted. “I really need to go before anyone notices I haven’t come back to my room. I’ll be back as soon as I can–our study group meets twice a week, I can probably sneak out one or two more times using this trick before anyone gets suspicious.”

“O-okay,” Ismella sniffled.

“And no comments on the smell next time,” he added, half-smirking. “If I’d figured out a more rosy scented way to sneak off, I’d be doing that.”

“I make no promises,” she snickered back at him. “Daniel?”

“What?” he asked, getting to his feet and collecting his homework papers.

“Thanks.”

He smiled, and before he snuck out the door, he said, “Thank you too, Ismella.”

…

“So?” Jen asked, leaning curiously across the table. “How’d it go?”

“Shh,” Daniel replied, whispering over his dinner. “The plan worked. I didn’t have a bunch of time, but the sneaking out was good. Rachel didn’t notice a thing.”

“Great!” Jen said, with a little too much volume for comfort. Daniel winced, and she added more softly, “Sorry. But that’s great, right?”

“Ismella couldn’t remember anything,” he said. “I told her I’d come back in a few days and we’d try again.”

Jen turned pink, sympathetically embarrassed. “Does that mean you’ll have to…”

“Mhmm,” he said. Self-conscious and admitting it, he added, “Did the other girls say anything? Once I was gone?”

“Hazel did,” Jen said. “No surprise there, she’s…”

“Abrasive?” Daniel suggested. “A pre-Rachel, bossy prefect in the making.”

“Yeah,” Jen shrugged. “She made a joke about you, um, going in your diaper.”

He sighed. “Of course she did.”

“Nobody laughed, if that helps,” Jen added quickly.

Daniel squirmed. It did help, a little, but he didn’t want to admit to it–mainly, he didn’t want to admit to caring about what they thought of him. The study group was a means to an end…and, maybe, a chance to actually study as well. He’d made a name for himself as a solid student, but he wasn’t the top student, not yet–he had room for improvement.

“Well, no matter,” he said. “As long as nobody sounded like they thought I was up to something, I don’t really care. Did anything else interesting happen in the group after I left?”

“Shh,” Jen said, eyes opening a crack.

At first, he expected Rachel to be looming behind him, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Soga, nodding to the seat next to him. “Anyone here?”

“I guess, you,” Daniel replied with a half smile. “Sorry I had to bail on the study group earlier. I felt like we were really making some good progress.”

“It’s okay.” Soga sat by him, setting down her plate stacked high with dinner. “But I had a question about some of the formulas you wrote up.”

“Oh, sure. Always happy to chat magic,” Daniel said. “What’s the question?”

“So, with applying thermodynamics to the spells…”

They settled into a talk about alchemical formulas, drawing the focus away from his escapade. If Soga had heard him say ‘up to something’, she didn’t let on. A minute into the talk, Manju pulled up to the seat opposite him.

It took Daniel a second to realize what was going on.

These girls were being…

Nice.

He almost didn’t know how to react.