Tale #115: Playing Dumb:

Tale #115: Playing Dumb: (Content Tags: Pretending to be a mushbrain, talk of messy diapers, training pants, humiliation, manipulative 'ally') He hated school. He hated math, he hated science, he hated reading, he hated all of it. He wasn't necessarily an idiot, but he was lazy and he was extremely disinterested. Adding to that, he was also terrified of the fact that he'd soon be moving up to something even worse. Middle school was supposed to be even worse than elementary, and there would be *teenagers* there too. He'd go right back to the bottom of the food chain, after taking so many years to get to fifth grade, where he at least only felt afraid of some of his own classmates. He'd expressed these feelings in confidence to a peer. The boy didn't have a lot of friends, and this other boy wasn't necessarily one of them, but he was someone who could at least relate to these struggles. "You could always just flunk." Willis had suggested. Sure, he could flunk, but to what end? Repeating a grade that he had hated? While also getting in trouble at home for his failure? It would only delay the inevitability of what came next. He'd explained as much, though not as succinctly. Willis had shrugged, "Sorry, Taylor. Too bad you're not in the idiot classroom. I bet school is super easy for them, since nobody really expects anything out of them. People just feel bad for them and do whatever they can to help them." That 'idiot' class, as Willis had put it, was better know as the SPED room. Or 'Special Education' if one looked for the whole name. It was a classroom that was fully self-contained; where only the lowest of the low ended up. Well, there were *two* classrooms like that, but one was more focused on 'extremely maladaptive behaviors' and the other was the more traditional 'retard room'. For the intellect-based room, it sounded both good and bad. The good thing was that the work would be easy, if non-existent, and that he'd be praised for the most minimal effort. The bad was a little easier to imagine: it would be embarrassing and he'd be stuck around stupid kids all day. Besides the pros and cons, how would he even get in there? Failing every assignment for the rest of the year would only have him repeat the grade. How could you do worse than failure? At the start, he'd only been vaguely humoring the premise. It got caught in his head though, and he was left thinking about it more and more. If he could somehow use the classification of a student in there to both make the rest of this year easy, and then possibly get out and repeat fifth grade next year, then he could at least enter middle school at a size that was bigger than his peers. It didn't fix everything, and he would still have to take fifth grade, but it would delay things. Maybe with a year away from all the malaise of academia would let him refresh, so that school didn't feel like such a monotonous chore. Maybe an extra year to let his brain grow would also make things even easier; it would be like lowering the difficulty level for every grade after! Taylor didn't know the odds and ends of any of it, only what seemed to make sense for him. He shared his musings with Willis during recess one day, and the dorky boy looked intrigued by the hypothetical scenario that Taylor had lovingly sculpted. "So, you go to the idiot class for this year..." "Right." "And then you prove you don't need to be there at the end of the year, so that you'll retake fifth grade the next year..." "Yes." "...So that school will be easier later?" "Yep! Look, think of it like this: if you're playing a game, and things aren't too hard, but you want them to be easier, then you over-level. Getting it? Fifth grade will be easier when I'm twelve. Middle school will be less scary if I'm going into it older than the other sixth graders." Taylor used a lot of hand gestures and he sounded pretty confident about his theory. "Okay...But how do you get put with the dumb-dumbs? Only kid I remember getting put in there was Seth Darrow, back in third grade, do you remember him?" It'd only been two years ago, if that, but that was an eternity to someone so young. Taylor thought backwards and remembered that Seth had been a very rambunctious kid, the kind that would take any dare for a nickel, just to chase the rush. From what he'd remembered-- "--Oh, yeah! And then we had that whole thing about helmet safety, huh? He went off that ramp that they made in that kid's driveway." Seth had been out of school for the rest of that semester. Taylor's parents had known Seth's parents somewhat, since they'd gone to high school together, so Taylor had heard some secondhand information about it. 'He has to relearn pretty much everything. How to walk, how to talk, how to use the toilet or feed himself...' It'd been a terrifying tidbit at the time, that the resident daredevil had been taken back to mental infancy, but Taylor hadn't thought about it in a while. Seth hadn't been in their class the next half of third grade either, but he knew that he'd returned to school, to be in the SPED room. Thinking about it now, he must still be in there. "I heard a rumor that he has to wear diapers. Like, they won't let him wear underwear, because he's too stupid now. Probably big ones too, with like, Big Bird on them or something." Willis had a smile that looked far too genuine. "They don't really make diapers that big, do they? For like, ten year olds? That's gotta be made up." Willis shook his head, "They definitely make them. You don't have a little cousin or anything that wets the bed? Has to wear those big kid Pull-Ups? Pretty much the same thing." Taylor thought about it and slowly nodded. He'd seen them in the grocery store, whenever his mom or dad had to cut through the diaper aisle. They had pictures of boys around his age on them, but for some reason, he hadn't really thought as deeply about them. "Oh, yeah...I guess so. Those aren't really diapers though, not like what toddlers wear, unless you count during pottytraining..." Willis grinned, "Yeah, well, Seth wasn't wearing Pull-Ups when Cody saw him. Cody said that he's neighbors with Seth, and that he's seen him in his yard before, wearing a big diaper and **POOPING** in it." The mental image was both grotesque and amusing. Thinking about seeing Seth, the daredevil of the school, squatting in his front yard in nothing but a diaper and a dopey smile. Imagining him looking like a big toddler, as his face got red and he spread his stance; the giant Pampers bulging with his hot stool as he repeatedly farted and drooled on himself. That didn't sound like it could be right, but only because it sounded like such a degrading state to be devolved into. Had Seth really not had his brain 'grow back up' in the last two years? He'd remembered what his parents said, about relearning everything, but still no pottytraining after two years? Either way, Taylor thought the conversation was getting derailed by focusing on what Seth wore under his pants. "Whatever, so point is, that getting put into that class is hard, right? Only person that we know went into it was someone who became all baby-brained. How does that help *me?*" Willis looked down at Taylor's butt for a moment, as if imagining how he might look in Seth's shoes. "You could hurt your head like he did." The blunt suggestion made Taylor blush and recoil, "I'm not gonna intentionally make myself stupid to get out of school work! You just said that Seth is pooing himself like a giant baby because of that!" "You could always just fake it, right? And then pretend to get better at the end of the year. You just have to play dumb for a while." Taylor's expression softened and he considered it. Fake messing up his brain, act dumb enough for the SPED class, and then miraculously 'recover' whenever he was ready to leave. The only problem was that he didn't know how to 'act' like he had brain damage. At most, he'd seen cartoons where characters got bonked on the head and temporarily seemed to be in a dump stupor. "If you're serious about it, then I could help you. I have an older cousin that's like Seth, so I can tell you how you should act. I can help you stage an 'accident'. You'll probably have to get hurt at least a little though, to make it convincing." Willis almost seemed giddy at the thought of helping Taylor turn himself into a 'retard', but Taylor thought the excitement was merely from being able to be so helpful. Taylor made little effort to make a lot of close friends, but Willis was a dork that got picked on and who seemed really bad at proving himself worthy of people's friendship. "...Okay. We can meet this weekend, I guess, and we can make a plan. You can tell me all about your cousin too." A couple of days later, Taylor would find himself biking over to the boy's house, which was only a couple of blocks away. Ringing the doorbell, Taylor was greeted by the suspicious eyes of Willis' younger brother, who was in first grade. Taylor had never met the kid, but he'd heard Willis mention him before. "Hi, I'm here to see your big brother. My name is Taylor." "...Kay. I'm Chris." The smaller boy replied, opening the door more fully to let him in. "Willie is downstairs in his room." Downstairs? Like in the basement? A little odd, but not unheard of. They lived in an area where basements were commonplace, and some of them did get repurposed into bedrooms. It just felt odd to Taylor, because he had always considered his own basement to be an eerie, unsettling place. Going down into the one in this house was different though. He could quickly tell that a good deal of work had gone into renovating this place. He was cautious on the stairs and he heard the clacking of a keyboard from down below. Willis soon came into view, or at least the back of him, as the front was facing his computer while he sat at his chair. "Hey, Willis! Came a little early, thought we might need more time..." Willis just about jumped in his seat; he reached over and turned the computer monitor off, before swiveling his chair around to look at Taylor with a nervous smile. " Oh! Hey, man... Yeah, that's probably a good idea." Taylor considered asking what he was looking at, but decided it was probably just something embarrassing and dorky. The vast amount of geeky collectibles on the walls gave testament to that being likely. He wandered over and took his shoes off, "So, I guess you should give me the run-down." Willis nodded, "Right. So, you need to be able to act dumb enough to get put in that class. Failing tests and stuff won't be enough; that'll take too long and you'll probably just flunk. You gotta do stuff that'll make them think you're one of those mushbrain kids, like Seth is." "Or your cousin." "Huh? Oh, right, my cousin. Yeah, or like him." Taylor leaned against the wall, his eyes still scanning the room. "So, how does someone like that act? Like a baby?" "Sort of, but not completely. If you try just acting like a baby, then they'll think you're faking it. You gotta think more 'dumb'. That means pickin' your nose in public and eating your own boogers, or drooling on yourself and having less words you know how to use; definitely no big words and no grammar." Cheekily, Taylor wondered if he should have brought a pen and paper to take notes on being an idiot. "Okay...Be a drooly, nosepicker that can't speak good. That doesn't sound so hard." "Also maybe suck your thumb and work on having a blank stare, like you don't understand much. You'll also need to work on the way you walk, so you don't look like you have great control of your legs." "Sounds like you're saying I should just act like a baby." Taylor accused with a wry grin, "Just like I first said." Willis scoffed, "There's a difference! If you think you're acting like a baby, then you'll screw up and make it obvious that you're pretending. You just gotta think what being really dumb would be like. No saying 'goo-goo' or 'ba-ba'." Taylor rolled his eyes and put his finger in his nose, "Am I doing it right?" The heavier boy looked irritated, but seemed to regain his composure pretty quickly. "Anyways. The big one is going to be having... Accidents." "Like the accident we're going to fake?" "No, like, potty accidents. In your pants accidents." That made Taylor immediately reel back in disgust. "I...Don't know about that part. Isn't all the other stuff enough?" Willis furrowed his brow, "No, it's the most important part. Nobody is gonna believe you're retarded if you're not going in your pants like one. That's your foot in the door, the ace in the hole." "I guess I could start pretending to wet the bed...Just pour lemonade on my sheets in the morning." "No!" Willis was quick to exclaim, sounding genuinely upset at what Taylor was considering. "You can't just do that. It w-won't be enough! You need to go in your pants for real." Taylor frowned, "I can't just pee in my pants! That'd be so embarrassing...and super gross." "You gotta do it, at least for a little while, so they put you in the class. You can pretend to recover from that part once you've settled in." The boy looked conflicted, but nodded his head weakly. He didn't like the idea of wetting his trousers, but maybe he could just do it a little bit. "Okay, okay..." Willis calmed down and turned to go into his closet. "Alright. We're going to do a little practice run, okay? Like, a roleplay, like you'd do at the counselor's office." The term was familiar enough from having to do a version of it to learn 'empathy', whenever two students got into a scuffle of some sort. It was basically playing pretend, where you'd each take on a role to act as. Willis dug around in his closet for a moment and then came back out, holding something white in his hand. At first, Taylor thought it was some kind of folded towel or pair of shorts. "You're going to put this on and show me everything that you've got." Willis smiled widely as he began to unfurl the object. Within moments, Taylor felt his stomach sink and it became clear what Willis was holding. It was a big diaper. Well, sort of. It looked like a diaper, but it had no tapes and the sides had that thin look of a Pull-Up. Plain white, bulky looking, and with a wetness strip. There was a repeating line of 'M' on the wetness strip too, which Taylor took to mean as 'medium'. "I can't wear that! That's a *diaper*!" "You need to be able to wear them. At least long enough to be kept in the dummy class. Now take it and put it on." Willis was sounding more and more authoritative, like he was done giving Taylor the illusion of choice. It went into Taylor's hands and he cringed as he felt the material. "...Okay, well, I'll just put it on over my pants, or my underwear..." "No. Put it on for real. You need to get used to it." Willis sounded impatient. "Ugh...Okay, okay. I'll go put it on." He sighed and went into the bathroom that was connected to the basement. Off went his jeans, and then down went his briefs. Taylor looked at the garment for a few moments, as if deliberating if any of this was worth it. Slowly, he started to put his leg through, and then his other, before tugging the disposable up like any other pair of undies. It was on the cheaper end, so it wasn't the most comfortable in all the areas that it hugged, but it was surprisingly soft in the front and back. Taylor checked himself out in the mirror and he looked ridiculous. He pulled his briefs back up, and then his jeans, which was a little more of a struggle. It was like he was walking around with a couple of hand towels stuffed in his underwear, or an entire roll of toilet paper. He walked back out and Willis, who had been tinkering with something at the computer, stared at him, seemingly in disapproval. "Did you put it on?" Taylor nodded, "Yeah, it kinda itches a little. I don't think I like it." "That one was just really cheap. Your parents would probably buy you more comfy ones. Why'd you put your pants back on?" "...Because it's embarrassing to walk around half-naked? Stupid kids still wear pants, don't they?" Willis frowned, "Not always. Stupid kids don't get embarrassed about walking around with their diaper hanging out. You should probably take the pants off, because of what you'll have to do next though." "And what's that?" "You need to practice going on yourself. Like, using the toilet, but in your pants." Willis sounded really, really happy to say that. If Taylor was a little less naive, then he may have recognized that Willis' attitude in this whole situation thus far had been suspect as heck. He'd come to discover just *how* suspect it was in time though.