Chapter 12: Alvin makes a U-turn
Theodore sat upstairs as the door to Alvin's room slammed shut, looking distraught. He had heard the commotion downstairs and he pretty sure Simon heard too and he stood in the corridor and saw Simon shake his head in disbelief.
"Unbelievable", Simon muttered as he returned to his room to work on research.
Theodore wasn't sure what to do at this moment, should he talk to Simon or Alvin? He curiously wandered to Simon's room and hesitantly knocked on the open door.
"Simon, what's going on between Alvin and Mom?"
"Come in Theodore, I need to talk to you about the situation", replied the spectacled brother, "Come sit".
"Ok", said Theodore as he sat on Simon's bed.
"The situation between them isn't looking good, but for once I'm on Alvin's side on this".
"Why is Mom being like this with him?"
"I wish I knew, Theodore, but the thing is that Alvin gained access to copies of stories about diapers and pictures that show kids in just a shirt and diapers. Now from what I can gather, Mom is looking at it from a close-minded point of view, she might be assuming that having the pictures makes him like a child pornographer, but I know that's not what Alvin is and the stories, to be honest I don't see any issue with them so I can't really understand it".
"This isn't a good situation, how did he get them?"
"Apparently Marvin copied some from his computer to some floppy disks which is simple enough to do, just drag and drop onto the disk and the computer does the work, but that's not all that happened".
"Why, what else happened?"
"I think I picked up a line that Alvin participated in baby like activities during the sleepover at Marvin and Max's".
"Did he enjoy it?"
"He appeared to have, so if that was the case then I can't figure out why Mom is being like this about it".
"What happens now?"
"Alvin can't see Marvin or Max anymore, not even at school".
"That's insane!" Theodore exclaimed.
"I know, but I don't have an option. She also mentioned that I would be monitoring who he interacts with too".
"Thanks for filling me in, I hate being left out of stuff", said Theodore.
"I know, but keep this between us, you know my stance on this, if however I get to breaking point, I'll pour my emotions out, but for now I can keep this quiet".
"Sure thing Simon, can I tell Alvin my stance?" asked Theodore.
"It would show we're in his corner sure, but only your stance", replied Simon.
"Ok Simon, thank you".
"You're welcome".
Theodore got up and wandered back to his room much more relaxed that he knows what's going on now.
He played with the few toys he had before he saw Alvin's door creak open a little, he put his teddy down on the floor and approached the door. He looked in through the tiny slither in the door and saw Alvin sitting on his bed in his overalls, writing in a pad. He sighed and knocked, expecting to be turned away or yelled at, but not this time.
"I know that's you, Theo, you can come in you know".
"Hi Alvin, um, is everything ok?"
"Well, yeah apart from being banned from seeing my only friend I made and basically being monitored on the Internet, yeah everything's fine", he replied sarcastically.
"There's no need to be sarcastic, I know about what happened, but before you get in a huff, I'm on your side".
"I don't need you to… what".
"Yeah, I think Mom has gone a bit far, I mean you read diaper stories, I don't have a problem with it and the pictures don't bother me either".
"Mom thinks that it portrays child pornography, I don't go round taking pictures of kids in sexual nature for sexual purposes, ugh I don't know, she's gone nuts and she monitors every site I go on now, well so much for getting an e-mail account now".
"Wait for it to cool down and perhaps she'll come round, just do what she asks for a few weeks and try talking to her again, perhaps do some research on it to show it doesn't directly link to child porn".
"Hmm ok, I guess it's worth a go, thanks Theo".
"You're welcome Alvin. I'll leave you to your writing".
Claire was in the kitchen sorting out some of the chores that needed to be done, since Alvin wouldn't be in the mood to do them, she decided to do them herself. It gave her some time to think about what she had done. She washed the dishes from dinner to which no-one spoke, she felt as if it is going back to how it was when her ex-husband left and divorced.
Everyone went to bed that night, while Claire lay awake in her bed, thinking about whether she made the right decision for Alvin. The next morning, Simon and Theodore woke up for school while Alvin slept deeply as usual, but he had a soaking diaper on.
"Alvin, wake up", said Simon.
"Ugh, why, so I can just be on my own at school, no thanks", Alvin mumbled in a sombre sleepy state.
"No, your diaper is soaking and needs changing, plus you need to get up for school anyway", said Simon.
"I don't care anymore, maybe I deserved this", said Alvin as he climbed out of bed and lay on the floor for Simon to initiate the changing process.
"You'll make new friends, I'm sure", said Simon as he unpinned the cloth surrounding Alvin's body.
"Yeah, just for Mom to flip out and ban me from seeing them too", said Alvin as he looked to the ceiling.
Simon stayed silent as he didn't want any bad blood to drive a wedge into their relationship. He pinned the last cloth diaper on him and left him to put his overalls on over the thickly stacked diapers with plastic pants.
"Why can't he just leave me alone?" thought Alvin as he shook his head and went into the bathroom to freshen up.
"Ugh, I can't believe I have to go to school and be ignored, again", said Alvin as he looked at himself in the mirror. He realised that he has been writing about his feelings about wearing diapers in his electronic journal on the computer, what if she tries to invade his privacy.
"No, she wouldn't, would she?" Alvin wondered.
He walked downstairs slowly and sighed as he silently went and made his breakfast without a word to his family. He wandered morbidly to the table and sat staring at his breakfast, memories surfaced in his mind of his abusive past and the quietness of the house after his adoptive father left the family returned. He picked up one half of a round of toast that was buttered, melted giving the bread more flavour. He put the corner of the triangle into his mouth and the butter did moisten the toast, but the flavour wasn't there, it was like eating soggy tasteless cardboard. He chewed slowly; he wasn't in any hurry to get to school this morning. After eating, he got up and slowly trudged upstairs to brush his teeth and pack his school bag.
After twenty minutes, everyone was ready for school, Claire took them and reminded Simon of his task of not allowing Alvin to talk to Marvin and Max at school. He looked at Alvin sadly as he watched him trudge to the front doors as their Mom drove to work.
"I hate this already", said Theodore.
"Trust me I don't like doing this either, but what can I do?" asked Simon rhetorically.
"Talk to Mom please, I don't want Alvin to regress into the depressed state he went in when Dad left", said Theodore.
"Even though that was meant to be a rhetorical question, I can't say you're wrong about talking to Mom, but I don't want to make things any worse so I'll just keep my distance for now".
Steve caught up to Simon, trying to start conversation, but he noticed his friends' mind was on other things than what topic of conversation they were currently having.
"Simon. Is everything ok?" asked Steve.
"Yeah, everything's fine", replied Simon, "Excuse me a moment", he went towards Alvin and led him to his class much to his irritation.
"I can get to class fine Simon! Stop treating me differently!" Alvin complained as he opened the door to the classroom with irritation.
Simon sighed, "This is going to be a long day".
Alvin walked with a despondent look on his face as he approached his desk, taking out his school work and waited quietly waiting for the teacher to come in.
Mrs Fleming walked in and approached Alvin.
"I have a partner task for this lesson, but I have been left with instructions not to let you work with Marvin", said Mrs Fleming.
"I know the situation, but he is still my friend even if we can't do anything together".
Marvin walked in next with more students; he looked at Alvin briefly before mentally scolding himself to stop trying to interact with him.
"Alvin, I know it'll be tough, but try to keep yourself busy, you'll be working with Jason".
"Ugh whatever", groaned Alvin.
Marvin also wore a despondent expression on his face as he sat on his own and took out his things, not caring that his diaper is showing above his pants. He waited patiently for Mrs Fleming to begin the lesson.
"Ok class, instead of me giving you a lecture and you take notes, I thought it would be a nice change to do something different, I would like you to make posters of a section of the maths syllabus, it can be anything you'd like, but here's the catch you can't do the same topic area as another pair, therefore I'm expecting ten different posters, any questions?" No-one said anything, "No? Right onto the pairs, if Jason and Alvin work together and Marvin and Kyle work together, I'm not going to assign anymore pairs for this activity".
Alvin and Marvin shook their heads in anguish, Kyle and Jason looked at each other in confusion, shrugged and took a seat next to their respected partners. Alvin just sighed and went to pick up a piece of card and a few pens and brought them back to Jason who was looking at the syllabus book for a topic they covered recently.
"So Alvin, what topic would you like to do?"
Alvin looked at Marvin and sighed, "Anything, I'm not too bothered".
"Ok, we can do brackets".
"Yay my favourite, not, in fact this whole subject is boring".
"Hmm I agree, so what happened between you and Marvin? Usually Kyle and I are partners, but we've been broken apart".
"Nothing really, I'm sorry that you were forced into this".
"It's cool; it's just for one assignment right?"
"Uh yeah", Alvin replied hesitantly.
Alvin and Jason were working on the poster and Alvin kept looking over at Marvin whilst looking distracted. Mentally slapping himself, he tried to blank out the fact that the punishment is torturing him.
"Why don't I swap partners with Marvin? You clearly want to be with him".
"No, no it's fine, sorry, I do, but it's complicated, the reason we can't associate with one another".
"Who's stopping you?"
"Is it any of your business?"
"I'm just asking".
"Well don't, please would you just stop asking me about Marvin?"
Mrs Fleming looked on sympathetically at Alvin and decided that she should let him blow a little steam outside her room.
"Alvin, could you take five minutes outside the room please?"
Alvin stood and walked out and slid down the wall and sat dejected with his head in his paws. He sat out there for five minutes before coming back in. He sat next to Justin again.
"Sorry about that Justin, I can't say out loud why I can't associate with Marvin any more".
"So we have to be like this until further notice?" asked Justin.
Alvin sighed and nodded.
The day went slower than any other day in Alvin's mind, distracted by the circumstances of Marvin and Max getting in the way was on his mind. He walked out of class to his locker at the end of the lesson and stood watching Marvin walk by and he wore an expression of dismay as Max joined him and waved to Alvin only for Marvin to pull his hand down and stop him from doing so.
"Marvin, I want to be nice".
"Max, please I don't think it's ok to tease Alvin with affection, you know that meeting yesterday?" Max nodded. "Well that's why he can't see us anymore, I know you want to be with Theodore, but I'm certain that it applies to him too so let's just do what we normally do at recess. Play catch, just…the two of us", said Marvin sullenly.
"What's wrong with that? I am your brother, don't you like playing with me?"
"I do, but I really want to be playing with kids my age you know".
"I get it. You don't want to be the kid that is stuck to his younger brother. Fair enough I'll just sit over there until recess is over then".
"No I didn't mean it…" Max walked away, "… like that", he sighed, "This is ridiculous, a couple of lessons in, me and Max have fallen out", he thought to himself.
He walked to the canteen to grab something to eat before second guessing when his diaper would need changing. He figured that the diaper should hold out to lunch-time. He found the day a bit tiresome on his own without Alvin there to talk to. He sat at a table on his own as he ate his break-time snack thinking of a solution to the problem. He sat there in thought, "Alvin's Mom seems to object to how Max and I were raised, the stories and photos, maybe if I convince my parents to speak to his Mom again then it might come good again".
Meanwhile, at work, Roger is on the building site where he is looking at the foundations to an extension and taking down measurements to draw the drawings for the contractors to price the works. He decided to stop for a breakfast break and it gave him an opportunity to ring Claire again. He dialled the number and waited for an answer, it never came and went to answer machine. He decided that she was either at work or she was out somewhere.
"I'll ring her later to sort this out", he muttered to himself as he went to the sandwich van on the industrial estate to buy a bacon sandwich.
While he was waiting for the sandwich, he thought of what the type of day his boys were having without the interaction with their best friend, he shook his head and dug out a twenty dollar bill and paid for a soda and a bacon sandwich.
Claire was busy stacking shelves on her own pace and not really pushing the limit of doing her job right. One of her colleagues approached her with a concerned look on her face. The colleague's name is Rebecca, a very helpful woman and will cover any shift if need be.
"You seem down or distracted, you've been at these boxes for a couple hours, is everything alright?" she asked.
"Ok swear to me nothing leaves this conversation".
"I promise".
"Actually can we get a coffee or something? I'm sure it's unprofessional for us to discuss our private lives in front of customers".
"Sure, hold on", she said before talking into the intercom, "Floor staff to check-out, staff to check-out thank you".
Once the staff had been turned over, they went on break. They went to the local coffee shop to sit and chat about stuff.
"Right so what's on your mind?" asked Rebecca as she took a sip from her cappuccino.
"You know Alvin my son had been in that bike accident and messed his bladder up".
"Yeah, has he got worse?"
"No, no, he's fine physically apart from the bladder issue, two nights ago he was on the computer and he was downloading stuff from some floppy disks and they were… well", she leant in and whispered, "They contain diaper stories and photos of younger children in pull-ups or Pampers diapers".
"How old is Alvin?"
"He's ten now", replied Claire.
"Hmm", she rubbed her chin, "What action did you take against him?"
"I'm monitoring what he visits on the internet, I have disallowing any intermittent conversation between him and the other guilty party who gave him the disks".
"While I think it is questionable content, I think disallowing conversation is a bit far, don't you think?"
"I don't know, but I can't risk him getting any more disks and bringing them back home with him".
"So stop him going over to his house then, don't flat out say no interaction whatsoever, you'll just push him away otherwise".
"I'll think about it, but in the meantime my rule stands".
"Fair enough you're the parent not me".
Claire put her head in her hands, "Ugh what a mess, I don't know how to deal with this, I mean I went over to his friends' house yesterday and they weren't shocked by it at all. I voiced my opinion and I let them have theirs, but it feels like I'm the bad parent here by denying my son to explore friendship".
Rebecca placed a hand on her colleagues' hand on the table, "Trust me, it's not easy being a single parent, it sure couldn't have been easy watching your ex doing the things he did to Alvin, whatever you decide to pursue, I'll support one hundred percent".
Claire smiled weakly, "Thanks, we better get back to work otherwise I'm going to be job hunting on top of all this".
"Sure anytime you need a chat, I'm just a phone call away", said Rebecca as she walked back to the supermarket to resume their shift.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Alvin went onto the bus with his brothers where he sat looking out of the window and sighed sadly. Simon looked over with guilt as his brother face twisted with internal pain of sadness as his eyes watered and threatened to spill over the under-tray of his eyes. He blinked them away and wiped them with his sleeve sniffling. Simon walked over to his empty seat next to him to keep him company.
"What do you want?" asked Alvin as he sniffled and turned away in defiance.
"I come to comfort you, Alvin, seeing you like this breaks me", Simon replied as he placed a paw on Alvin's shoulder.
"If it breaks you to see me like this why don't you do something about it!?"
Simon sat in silence for a moment and realised how dumb he had been, "Ok Alvin, I'll do something about it".
"Thank you, I'll accept you trying for now, but don't stop until you resolve it".
"Don't worry, I won't give up and neither will Theodore", Simon smiled as the expression on his brothers' face changed to a slight smile.
His expression quickly faded to one of nervousness to which Simon picked up on.
"What's the matter Alvin?"
"I need to be changed when we get home", he whispered in response.
"Ok Alvin, no worries".
When they got home, Alvin hopped off the bus to the house followed by Simon and Theodore. They saw that their brothers' diaper is sagging at the front with the weight of his uncontrollable wettings. As soon as they went into the house Alvin went to his changing mat in the living room and stripped to his sagging yellow diaper. Simon walked into the living room with the supplies and saw how much his brother had used his diaper.
"My goodness Alvin, did you even go to the nurses' office today?"
"No, I didn't actually".
Simon tutted at this shaking his head, "Alvin, you need to in future, you'll get diaper rash if you stay in a wet diaper for ages".
Alvin merely shrugged as he lay down making an audible squish and a crinkle from his diaper.
"You can't keep doing this Alvin".
"Doing what exactly?" asked Alvin suspiciously.
"You do care that your diaper is beyond soggy and you're pretending it doesn't bother you".
"Do you want it to Simon? I'm going to be getting used to being soaked all my life".
"Well no, I don't, but you do need to care about getting a rash which can cause health problems if untreated".
"Fine, fine change me and get this over with", Alvin sighed.
After Alvin was changed, he sat upstairs in his room throwing his only teddy in the air like a tennis ball since he had no homework to get on with and he couldn't go on the internet without supervision. Alvin sighed as he sat back up making his diaper crinkle, he wanted to type more into his electronic journal, but Simon has been given strict instructions by their Mom to not let Alvin on the computer until she got back from work.
"Only ten more minutes until she comes home", he thought to himself.
As soon as Alvin heard the front door open, she looked around to a quiet house.
"Boys are you home?" she called.
"Yeah Mom we are", Simon come down.
"Ok good so is everyone doing homework?"
"Well Alvin has none, I have a little bit and Theodore hasn't got any either".
"Right, ok", Claire put her handbag down on the counter in the kitchen, "So how was school?"
"You're really going to ask that".
"You knew the instructions, Simon".
"Yes I know the instructions and don't worry, Alvin kept his distance".
"Ok good".
"Good? You practically terminated a friendship which I thought was going swimmingly and Alvin is miserable without Marvin to keep him company".
Claire frowned, "Are you questioning my parenting skills?"
"Alvin had pictures, big deal and the stories are a lot better than what you'll find in PlayBoy I can tell you that".
"You think I was being unreasonable with how I handled things?"
"All I'm going to say is that I don't think you handled it very well".
"I did speak with my colleague and you echoed what she thought".
"So lift the sanction then".
Claire shook her head, "I can't. I mean he could turn into a child pornographer or something".
"What, from a few photos that show no explicit features? Come on there is no evidence of that happening at all; he only has those to make himself feel better about wearing them. You haven't asked him how he feels in them".
Alvin slowly crept down hearing an argument on his behalf between Simon and his Mom, he listened into the conversation.
"Well I …" Claire drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter in thought, "… well how does he feel about wearing them?"
"You need to ask him because doing this to him won't help and quite frankly this is ridiculous".
"Right, well I see your point of view and perhaps, Alvin and I should have another talk about a way forward on this".
"That's all I'm asking Mom".
Claire and Simon went off to do their own things. Claire made herself a cup of coffee and sat at the dining room table and sat there on her own thinking over their argument.
Alvin appeared from behind a partition to his Mom line of sight as he approached her calmly and sat opposite her making his diaper crinkle.
"Well school was pretty rubbish today", Alvin merely said to thin air.
"You say that every school day what's the difference?"
Alvin's eyes locked on his Mom, "Huh, I'll tell you, but I'll give you a hint, his name has six letters and he was my best friend".
His Mom remained silent as he watched the lack of interaction from her, he shook his head, "Nothing to say or are you too stubborn that his name is banned from the household?"
"Alright I get it, stop hinting and get to the point".
"I apparently was labelled a child pornographer eh no not on my career list, I wanted to be something that is legal, having photos of preteens in diapers is like me. On that logic, in theory it would make me feel better about wearing them. Also the stories, I liked the content because I read different peoples' experiences about wearing diapers for my therapeutic needs. Mom, why would I go into something taboo when it can be rationally explained as not?"
Claire's eyebrows rose up at the explanation and put her hand to her chin in thought as Alvin continued, "Well that was my reasoning so if that's not enough to convince you otherwise then…" Alvin got up and slowly made his way to the dining room door, "I guess that'll be it for our immediate relation-"
"Wait Alvin!" he stopped and turned to face her, "I don't want that to happen, never. I-I must've jumped to the wrong conclusion about you and the floppy disks".
"Yeah you did, why did you think I was in it for well the questionable antics?"
Claire sighed, "I don't know, I'm sorry Alvin. I shouldn't have judged you so harshly. Can you forgive me?"
Alvin closed his eyes and breathed in thought, "Right, I will, on a few conditions", she nodded, "Number one: I can see and speak to Marvin and his family again, number two: I get privacy back on the internet, I don't use chat-rooms and I don't partake in any malicious act on the web and lastly: I want you to ask me the most prominent question on your mind right now, how do I feel about my situation?"
"I agree to all those conditions and I will ask that and I want an honest answer, how do you feel about your situation and wearing diapers?"
"Right, I forgive you now", Alvin paused and sat back down opposite Claire, "Ok, where do I start? Stupid question really, at first I hated it, I hated the fact that my younger brother had to check if I was wet and needed changing. That was until I met Marvin and it isn't so bad, wasn't until you wrecked my friendship a few days ago. I think I want to move on with the fact I can't use a bathroom anymore apart from to shower and when I throw up when I'm ill. I already have looked past that, going anywhere apart from Marvin's, our family, here and school is still beyond me. I must ask why did you come out and talk to me?"
"Thank Simon for that, I'm just stubborn as old boots, I won't listen to reason and fighting you would push you away so I decided to not take that chance".
"I'm glad it's out in the open and resolved".
"To be honest so am I and if there is anything bothering you at all, then please speak up and talk to me, I promise I'll listen", Claire smiled.
"My journal, did you read any of it?"
"No, I still respected your privacy, unless you want to share it with me", Claire reached out and touched Alvin's paw.
"I'd like to keep it that way".
"Fair enough, it's none of my business".
Alvin walked off to go do something; he walked upstairs and sat on his bed.
"Wow, that wasn't real, was it?" he thought as Simon come to the door.
"Everything ok Alvin?" Alvin turned to face Simon and he practically leaped at him hugging him.
"Whatever you told Mom, it worked I'm allowed everything again, I am so happy, thank you bro".
"You're welcome Alvin, I'm glad I can be of service", Simon smiled at his older brother.
A couple hours later their Mom called them for dinner however when they come down, they found no plates on the table. Confused, Theodore scratched his head.
"Where's dinner Mommy?"
"I decided we should go out for dinner, why not?"
"Yay, thanks Mommy!" Theodore cheered.
Alvin fiddled with his paws, "Alvin is something wrong?"
"Can I um call you Mommy again too?"
"Sure Alvin, you can call me anything you feel like, come on lets have some fun!"