Chapter Twenty-Four - Accident

I opened my eyes as a ray of light hit my face, feeling as if someone was shining a flashlight at my eye. I groaned a little and tried to roll over, but Laurie was practically laying right on top of me. I tried to reposition slightly and everything felt off - weird and uncomfortable. Was it the way I slept? I shifted again and felt gross, itchy and cold. My bleariness disappeared when I registered what had happened. My heart raced as I reached down to confirm it - my dalmatian costume was wet, the sheets were wet, even Laurie was wet!

“Eh…urgh!” I sputtered, sitting helplessly atop the soaked mattress not knowing what to think. Laurie’s eyes fluttered open as I quickly shifted, no longer caring about waking up the little beaver scout. “Oh no!” I shrieked and flicked the blanket off of us, which had a sizable stain on it, clearly having had a long time to soak it up.

“Cooper?” Laurie muttered in half asleep confusion as he opened his eyes.

When I looked down at the bed, I saw that Laurie’s red shorts had dampened into a deep dark red, while the Dalmatian costume’s lower half was stained a putrid yellow. I quickly tried to get away from the puddle I was lying in. I sat up and pulled away towards the headboard, completely distraught. “The bed!” I cried. “It’s wet!”

Laurie looked around, still confused - until it seemed to hit him like a truck. His face went pale and he stared at the puddle, then back to me, his eyes filled with tears. “Coop-” He tried to say but was interrupted by his own hiccuping sobs. He started to bawl right there beside me, driving his face into his pillow.

“Laurie!” I squealed half in concern of the tearful boy and half not knowing what to do. This wasn’t my house, or my room, or even my clothes.

I hadn’t even noticed Zach wake up, let alone travel across the room. We soon caught eyes however, and he winced at the stains all over us and the bed, but placed a comforting hand on Laurie’s exposed back while he rolled over onto his belly as if he was trying to hide his pee-drenched front. He rubbed small circles into his back and looked hesitantly between us.

“Umm.” He said, trying to break the unspoken words between us. “It’s okay, just an accident.” He said, rubbing Laurie’s back some more. “I’m sure Cooper’s sorry.” He told him.

“Me!” I exclaimed in a scandalized yelp, caught off guard. Did Zach think I wet the bed? He did see me at camp, wearing a pull up and all. I’d even admitted I had an accident in front of the whole group.

“You aren’t wearing a diaper.” Zach stated almost matter of factly. “You just went right to bed.” It was true. Kianna had suggested I put one right before bed, much to my embarrassment, but of course I had turned it down. I didn’t actually need them after all. I wasn’t wearing anything but my boxer briefs under the costume, but they are probably ruined now. How had Zach known I hadn’t put on a diaper? Had Kianna told him? I couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed. On a rational level it made sense. Why wouldn’t she keep her fellow babysitter updated about the status of her little kindergarten charges? But it still felt bad - like the older girl had been tattling on me.

“I don’t wear diapers!” I denied impotently, still feeling rather outraged by the accusation despite my mounting cascade of competing deceptions. I was also trying desperately to explain myself to Laurie, who was still sobbing inconsolably over the humiliating scene.

Zach rolled his eyes as if I was nothing more than a stubborn toddler telling absurd lies, and turned instead to Laurie for the truth. “Hey Laurie, you're wearing your night time protection, right?” He asked him while still rubbing his back. He was determined to get to the bottom of this.

“No!” Laurie moaned into his pillow, a fresh wave of hiccups and tears streaming forth.

Zach looked at us. While Laurie looked plainly distraught and upset by the whole situation, I realized I was coming across as merely stubborn and unreasonable. I could tell Zach didn’t believe me. He let out a deep sigh. “I thought you said you could do it yourself.” Zach said his sweet tone slowly fading away. He was swiftly running out of patience. It was pretty early in the day to be fair to him, and he had just woken up to yet more problems from the two little kids he’d been charged with watching for the weekend.

“I forgot!” Laurie moaned again, still not raising his head from the pillow.

Zach let out a small grunt of frustration and motioned to the messy sheets and clothes. It was only now that the puddle had been exposed that I realized how smelly it was, the acrid stench of urine starting to fill the boys’ bedroom.

“The bed is so messy.” Zach complained, the smell hitting his own nostrils. “You probably both had an accident.”

I couldn’t believe the accusation. He’d phrased it almost like a compromise, as if it was the most obvious answer - as if it hadn’t been me who wet the bed, then it must have been both of us! But that wasn't the case at all! I couldn’t have had an accident. I simply couldn’t have!

I looked down at the groin of the costume, frowning to see that it really did look like I had peed my own pants, or onesie in this case I supposed. I gulped. Was I wrong? Did I have an accident? I looked over to the tumbler of water sitting on the bedside table, half empty - wondering if it was true.

“Get up Laurie, no more tears.” Zach told him. He reached under his armpits and heaved the boy off the soiled bed, settling him onto his feet.

Laurie wiped his tears away, his eyes bloodshot as he took off running into the bathroom. “Laurie!” Zach called, but he slammed the door - shutting out his older brother’s scolding voice.

“I wanna shower!” He screeched through the door. The squidging sound of wet clothes hitting the bathroom tiles could be heard even in the bedroom. Laurie must have thrown his soiled pajamas against the ground as hard as he could.

“Cooper is a guest!” Zach told him through the door. “He should go first - or I guess you could have one together...”

My face was already red with embarrassment, and the idea of having a shared shower was too much. “Can I have my own?” I asked Zach - feeling thoroughly like a little kid. It felt absurd that I even had to ask for permission, but it was clear by this point that for all intents and purposes Zach was the adult and I was the kid.

Zach just threw his hands up in frustration. “Whatever!” He decided and marched back to Laurie’s bed, ushering me off of it with an exaggerated hand gesture. I stood to the side as Zach started to strip the sheets, bundling everything up and holding it out at arms length. “This is going to the laundry room right now! It reeks.” he declared dramatically, leaving the room with a theatrical blow of air out his flustered cheeks.

It felt awkward and uncomfortable to just stand there in a peed covered dalmatian costume, but I didn't have much of a choice. If I sat down I would soil or stain even more furniture. So I just stood there, waiting for Laurie to finish his shower.

I let out a frustrated moan, looking down again at the tell-tale yellow stain on my crotch. I wasn’t sure what was more gross - the prospect that it was Laurie’s accident, or the slim chance it was my own. After Zach’s dressing down, I wasn’t so sure of my own innocence. Either way, I just wanted to get the horrible wet material off of me - but I didn’t want to stand around naked, and I didn’t want to get my clothes all covered in pee too. I’d only brought one spare pair of underwear.

Deciding I would at least strip down to my boxer briefs, I groped around for the zipper - eventually locating it amidst the thickets of fluffy white and black spotted fur on my chest. To my frustration however, I could only manage to tug it down half an inch before it got wedged in a wad of fluff. I let out a guttural growl, growing more and more frustrated and making the zipper more and more jammed as I stamped and hissed and squirmed like a teeny tiny puppy runt trying to catch its own tail. Eventually, I lost my balance, slipping on the loose playmat and falling back painfully on my bottom against the hardwood floor.

“Yowww…” I whimpered in a tiny voice, feeling a single tear finally crystallize in the corner of my eye. I clenched my eyelids closed, taking in a deep defiant sniff through my nostrils and scrunching up my face as if trying to suck the unwanted tear back up from where it had come.

It wasn’t like I was afraid to cry - I seemed to do it plenty, after all, especially in the last few months - but I knew if I started up now I wouldn’t be able to stop. Then Zach would come back, and he would see, and he would make assumptions. I let out the deep breath through my mouth. Why would I cry, after all, unless I was just as little as his baby brother - unless I’d been the one to have the accident? The one who’d made that big disgusting mess that he had to clean up. No. It wasn’t that I was afraid to cry, I just didn’t want Zach to assume something that was so untrue! It hadn’t been me. I was eleven years old! It simply couldn’t have been me. At least, I didn’t think it could.

I refused to think over the issue any further, forcing myself up from my bum and onto all fours before rising awkwardly up into a pained squatting position. I took a few deep breaths before I got up on my feet again, padding out of the bedroom and into the hall if only so that I didn’t have to stare at the stripped back bed anymore. I clung to the stairway banister on the landing outside the bathroom door, quickly wiping the evidence of my few measly tears away on the fluffy felt material of my costume.

From the sound of it, Laurie was already feeling better - belting out the first few bars of Paw Patrol theme on repeat in a high pitched childish treble, competing for volume against the thunderous echoey sound of the water pounding down onto ceramic bathtub. The sound of the water elicited a familiar tugging feeling in the bottom of my tummy, and I quickly registered that I needed to pee - the sensation once again reminding me of the yucky soggy feeling of the fabric clinging to my legs. I furrowed my eyebrows in thought. It couldn’t have been me, right? If I needed to pee again already? There was no way I would need to go so badly twice in one night. Then again however, my mom had always said I had a small bladder.

“Are you still wearing that?” Zach demanded in a disapproving tone, appearing at the top of the stairs.

“Huh?” I blinked, unsticking my fuzzy dalmatian-eared hood from the place it had found resting wearily against the top of the banister. “Oh. No.” I admitted in embarrassment. “I um, couldn’t do the zip.”

Zach tutted in annoyance, ushering me forward with a demanding flick of his finger. I traipsed over, letting him take hold firmly of my shoulder with one hand and start to tinker dexterously with the jammed zip with his other. Eventually, he managed to get it unstuck, stripping down the top part of my costume to reveal my bare tummy and just the top part of my apple tree boxer briefs. They were soaked even worse than I had suspected, a prominent yellow stain fully discoloring the white background. I frowned, struck with a sudden doubt. Was it possible that so much pee had soaked through the costume, or was there a simpler explanation?

Zach was well past playing the blame game. “I can probably salvage the costume.” he informed me, crouching down and starting to shimmy the bottom half down my legs. “But those are ruined.” he added, pointing at my boxer briefs. “There’s a trash can in the bathroom, just throw them in there. Foot up!” he instructed, and I obeyed at once, letting him pop the leg cuffs of the soggy costume off from around my ankles. He stood up straight again, looking down at me sternly with the costume held out to his side at a distance. “Do you want to borrow a pair of Laurie’s underwear? You wear the same size pull-ups. So they should fit you…” he speculated.

“Err - no thanks.” I interrupted quickly before Zach could take his logic any further. As embarrassing as my wardrobe could be sometimes, and as humiliating as my situation was already, the idea of strutting around in a pair of Laurie’s cartoon briefs struck a little too close to home. I’d only convinced Mom to let me swap out my own sets of underoos a couple of months ago. I shuddered, remembering how a particular superhero pair peeking out in Gym class had earned me the nickname ‘Spidey’ at one of the several schools I’d attended in California. “I brought a spare.” I assured Zach.

“Alright.” the bigger boy shrugged uncaringly, going over to the bathroom and knocking impatiently on the wooden panel. “Laurie! Time to give Cooper a turn!”

The water shut off almost immediately, a few heavy pounding sounds echoing through the house before the door swung open to reveal the first grader in a orange squirrel-themed hooded towel, little locks of wet golden hair drooping down over his forehead and an excitable gap-toothed grin on his face - his earlier tears all washed away. “We still need to play nerf guns!” he told me, either totally oblivious or simply uninterested in the fact that I was standing in front of him in only a pair of pee-drenched boxer briefs.

“Later.” Zach answered for me, pushing against the small of my back to propel me forward. “First Cooper needs to clean up, and we all need breakfast.”

“Okay!” Laurie sang, dancing out of the way to let me stumble into the bathroom.

“You don’t need help, do you?” Zach asked, though he seemed to wrinkle his nose a bit at the idea.

“N…no!” I stammered, cheeks going as red as the apples on my soggy underwear.

“Good.” Zach replied, firmly closing the door and leaving me alone in the bathroom.