Darcie was eleven years old and she had a crush on her neighbor, Eric Richardson. Eric was fourteen and the son of Darcie’s mom (Sandra)’s best friend (Eileen). The two of them had been hanging out since they were babies. Well, Darcie was a baby, Eric was a toddler. The Richardson’s had lived three houses down from the McCallister’s her whole life, but they were moving to Washington next week and Darcie and her mom were both eager to spend more time with them before they left.
After dinner Friday night, Darcie and her mom walked over to the Richardson’s house to see their friends. Darcie was feeling tired after a long week, but she was excited to see Eric and tell him all about cheerleading tryouts. She had tried out last year and didn’t make the squad, so she knew how happy for her Eric would be once he found out that she made the squad this year. When they got there, Sandra went to the living room to have a glass of wine with Eileen while Darcie headed down to the basement to hang out with Eric.
At the bottom of the stairs, Darcie was surprised to find out that Eric wasn’t alone. There were three other teens down in the basement with him, two boys and a girl. The boys weren’t anything special (unlike Eric, who had the prettiest eyes), and she didn’t think the girl was that pretty, either. All four of them turned to look at Darcie when she came in, and she smiled as she said, “Hi Eric. Hi Eric’s friends. I’m Darcie.”
One of the boys cocked an eyebrow at Eric when she introduced herself and asked, “That Darcie?”
Eric’s eyes got really wide as he shook his head, but it seemed like the answer was yes. Darcie felt like a hundred butterflies were fluttering around her stomach. Maybe they were talking about her because Eric had a crush on her too! She smiled, and the other teens introduced themselves to her (Brody, Will, and CJ) then turned on the xbox so they could play video games.
Darcie sat on the couch and curled her feet up underneath her. She would wait until later, when they were alone, to tell Eric about cheer tryouts, but she still wanted to spend as much time as possible with him before the move. CJ and Will sat with her on the couch, and Eric and Brody sat in front of them on the floor.
It wasn’t long before the sounds of the video game and the chatter of the teens mixed together with the exhaustion of the day, and Darcie’s eyelids began to flutter shut. A few minutes later, she was sound asleep.
As she slept, Darcie dreamed about kissing Eric. She had kissed a boy in her class at school last year, and it was nice, but nothing like this. Kissing Eric felt like summer sunshine on her face and warm water on her legs.
Wait.
Darcie woke up with a start, disoriented to find herself somewhere other than her bed. The reality of the situation came to her in pieces. First, she realized that she had wet the bed and wasn’t wearing a goodnite. Then she remembered where she was (Eric’s basement!!) and tried to cover her wet crotch with her hands. As she looked down at the giant wet spot that was on the couch underneath her and the basketball sized wet patch on her formerly light gray pants, she realized that there was no way to hide what she’d done. Next, her brain registered the hysterical laughter that surrounded her as all four teenagers cackled at her embarrassment. Only then did she feel the burning heat on her face, her blush such a deep red that it was almost purple.
Darcie closed her eyes and stood up. As she began to walk over to the stairs, a foot crept out and tripped her, sending her sprawling across the carpet.
“Oh no,” a voice said, “I don’t think you’re going anywhere, bedwetter.”
Someone grabbed her arm and rolled her over so she was looking up at the ceiling. She tried to get up, but they held onto her arms and pushed her back down.
One of the boys (Brody or Will, Darcie didn’t know which) was kneeling over her with a malicious grin on his face.
“You know, when Eric told us his eleven year old neighbor still wet the bed, I didn’t believe him. I thought he must be joking, because only babies wet the bed, and eleven is way too old to still be a baby. But look at you! You really are a bedwetter, aren’t you?”
Darcie felt tears burn in her eyes as he spoke. Eric had told them? Eric knew?
“Well? That wasn’t a rhetorical question. Are you a bedwetter? Are you?”
She scrunched her eyes closed and nodded.
“Say it. Say ‘I am a baby bedwetter.’”
Darcie swallowed and whispered, “I am a baby bedwetter.”
“Louder! Say ‘I am a baby bedwetter.’ Say it until I tell you to stop.”
She swallowed again and then said, as loud as she could (which was still quieter than she normally spoke), “I am a baby bedwetter. I am a baby bedwetter. I am a baby-”
Darcie gasped as she felt someone poke her side. She tried to move her arms to cover the vulnerable area, but whoever had grabbed them when she tripped still had control. Her eyes opened as she felt more hands reach under her shirt and start tickling her. She kicked out her legs as she began to giggle uncontrollably, and someone grabbed those too, holding them far enough apart that she couldn’t squeeze them closed.
Darcie tried to speak, to tell them to stop tickling her, but she was laughing too hard. She stopped laughing long enough to gasp at the first spurt of pee, but then she was laughing and peeing in equal measure. There was a growing wet patch under her as her pee stained the Richardson’s bleached white carpet yellow.
Even after they stopped tickling her and she stopped laughing, she continued peeing until the yellow area around her reached the bottom of the stairs, nine or ten feet away. Looking at Darcie’s pants, it was no longer possible to tell that they had once been light gray. They were now thoroughly soaked, and so dark they looked almost black. The back of her shirt was wet too, a hot pink in sharp contrast to the pastel color on the front.
Darcie was lying there, soaking wet from her own pee and with tears streaming down her face, thinking that she had never been so embarrassed, so humiliated, when CJ began taking pictures of her with her phone.
“Smile for the camera, bedwetter!”
Darcie closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Huh, no one was holding her down anymore. Once she realized that she could move, Darcie jumped up and ran up the stairs, then out the door and over to her own house. She opened the back door and raced upstairs before her parents saw her, grabbing a clean sleep shirt and goodnite from her bedroom before heading to the shower. Once she was wearing clean clothes, Darcie breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was over.
Her phone beeped with a text from an unknown number. She opened it and saw a picture of herself completely asleep, with a basketball sized wet patch on her pants and a growing wet patch on the couch beneath her. DARCIE MCCALLISTER: BEDWETTER was written in all caps in the next message. But it was the third message that made Darcie cover her mouth in shock. ‘Ready to send to [7TH GRADE INCOMING: ALL]?’ it asked. She typed out the message quickly and hit send before she could think of anything to add.
NO!
Darcie wouldn’t make the cheer squad if the whole seventh grade found out she wet the bed. She wouldn’t make the cheer squad if anyone found out she wet the bed!
The unknown number typed back: DO WHAT WE SAY AND THIS STAYS BETWEEN US. DISOBEY, OR TELL ANYONE, AND THIS GOES PUBLIC. UNDERSTOOD?
Darcie worried her lip, thinking. What would they want her to do? But then she realized… she would do anything to make sure that no one found out about her bedwetting. So she typed back…
OK.
THE END.
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