Chapter Text
James was avoiding Matt. It was Wednesday, James was in grade two and he had been trying to avoid Matt since Monday when Matt had made fun of him. James wasn’t even sure what he did to deserve the wrath of Matt. All he did was look into the part of the school yard where Matt and his friends were hanging out when he was looking for a friend.
James had turned eight just last month. He had lighting brown hair, green eyes, a skinny build and was average height for a kid in grade two.
James wasn't keen to repeat the encounter. Matt and his friends liked to hang out in a part of the yard that was mostly hidden from view and the patrolling teacher had to actually enter the area to see what was going on.
Matt was also eight, but had been for several months longer than James. He had dirty blond hair, brown eyes, a slightly chubby build and was fairly tall for a grade two kid.
The bell rang signalling the end of lunch, James said goodbye to the friends he had been playing with and headed for his classroom. As he came around a corner he ran straight into someone and was knocked backwards, so were they.
"Watch it shit-head!". It took James a moment to realise he had run into Matt. It also took Matt a moment too.
"You!", He bellowed, "I thought I told you to keep away from me or I would hurt you."
"I…I…", James stammered, while trying to scramble to his feet. As he was getting to his feet he kept his eyes on Matt and as Matt twisted while getting up he could see the top of what looked like a nappy poking above his shorts.
As soon as he was on his feet he turned and ran the rest of the way to class, not turning back to look.
James couldn’t stop thinking about what he had just seen, was the bullying just a way to hide his own issue? How had no-one ever noticed before? Or had they and he had made they keep their mouth closed.
James was still thinking about it the next morning back at school, so much so that when the bell for play time rang he felt drawn to find out if what he had seen the day before had been correct and his eyes weren’t just mistaken. Instead of joining his friends he felt his feet take him directly to where Matt and his friends hung out, before he got to the corner around from which they were, he stopped. He couldn’t just walk around there, they would see him. What should he do now? He couldn’t just walk around there and ask him. Maybe this was a mistake. Feelling a pit start to form in his stomach he realised that there were some bushes he could probably slide behind adjacent to the corner and get a clear view of the hang out spot.
James managed to slide behind the bush, it wasn’t very comfortable, he was between the bush and the wall of a classroom but he was confident he couldn’t be seen. He could see Matt, four other boys, two of which he recognised, Simon, and Thomas and a girl from his class Marnie. He was surprised to see Marnie here, she seemed out of place here. He realised the other guys weren’t really the tough kind like Matt, he hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to Matt’s possie until now. Infact now that he thought about it they were kind of dorky kids, but that didn’t really make sense for Marnie to be here, she seemed too girly. The more he thought about it as he watched them James couldn’t find a common thread between all of them. They were mostly sitting around chatting at this point, one of the boys James didn’t recognise had a gameboy and was playing it while Thomas watched over his shoulder.
The kid with the Gameboy had black hair and looked Chinese to James, but he would laugh and correct James many years later when James told him this and explain that his dad is Vietnamese and his mum Malaysian.
Thomas was still seven, his birthday was next month he had pale blond hair, a cheerful face and a build similar to James.
Marnie was also eight, she had straight brown hair tied into a pony tail, a few freckles across her nose, studs in her ears and was shorter than the boys.
The other kid James didn't know had blazing red hair, many freckles and place skin. A year or so later, after he started reading the books, James would describe him as Ron Weasley.
All the kids were in the school uniform. A pale green polo shirt emblazoned with the school logo on the left breast side, grey shorts and black shoes for the boys and a pale green summer dress for Marnie.
James could hear some of what they were saying but it wasn’t anything exciting, mostly just talking about TV shows, he was starting to think this was a waste of time, he was getting quite uncomfortable, he hadn’t seen anything to suggest Matt was actually wearing a nappy, and worst of all the flowers in the bush were starting to irritate his hay fever, he would need to get out of here soon or he risked sneezing and giving himself away.
Just as james was about to start sliding out from behind the bush he heard Matt proclaim, “I really need to do a poo.”
He froze, did Matt just say that? He watched with amazement as Matt squatted where he was and strained slightly in exactly the way a toddler does when they are pooing themselves and then he just stood back up as though nothing had happened.
“Nice.”, He heard one of the unknown boys say with a smile before adding, “I don’t need to yet.”
James was now even more confused. It looked as though Matt had just pooed in his pants, I guess this does mean he is wearing a nappy then, thought James. But the other kids either didn’t care or seemed happy about it. And that other kid… what did he mean by he doesn’t need to yet? Was he also in nappies? Surely not. It also seemed like Matt had control, he had decided to poo, surely he didn’t need the nappy for that?
Suddenly James needed to sneeze, he couldn’t hold it and he wouldn’t be able to get out of the bush quick enough. He tried to keep it quiet behind his hand but when he opened his eyes all of Matt’s group were looking at his bush.
“What was that?” asked Simon?
James was horrified when Matt replied, “I’ll check it out.”
James held his breath as Matt walked away from the group towards him. He first looked around the corner and seeing no-one there he turned towards the bush.
James’ heart was thumping in his chest. Matt pulled the branches of the bush appart and saw James, “What the hell?”
“I… I...’m playing hide and seek with my friends.”, James managed to get out, quietly proud of the lie.
“Uh huh sure you were. What did you see?”, Matt seemed to be his usual angry self and didn’t seem to be worried that James might have seen him poo in his pants.
“What? I didn’t see anything.”
“Sure ya didn’t.”, Matt didn’t look very believing, “What were you really doing there.”
“Nothing…”
Matt was looking livid, “Tell me what you were doing or I punch you in the face.”
James thought for a moment, Matt balled up his fist, one hand keeping the bushes apart and raised the ballled up fist level with James’ face, “Fine, I was wondering something.”
“Oh is that so…”, Matt replied as the rest of his group started to gather around, “And what could a dweeb like you wonder about us?”
“I… I…”, it was hard to admit why he was there, “I thought you were wearing a nappy yesterday.”
“And why would you think that?”, asked Matt relaxing slightly.
James didn’t answer.
Well if you want to know the answer just come out here and ask me.
James hesitated a moment.
“Well…”, prompted Matt.
James moved out from the bush, as he was clear of it and clear of Matt, for a moment the urge to run and get away clutched him, but the need to find out kept him from doing it.