Without a Care 2: Chapter 1
I had been meaning to upload this in early February, but got a job, distracting me enough to forget completely.
Seriously it took someone commenting on another of my submissions to remind me...
"What the hell mum? You can't just take away my stuff" "I can and will! Don't talk to me like that, I'm your mother and in this house what I say goes" The young fox could only stare back in frustration. He had only given a nerd a light hit, he hadn't hurt him that much. "I can't believe you got suspended Liam, that's the second time this year. I didn't bring you up to be a bully" "He was asking for it" Liam replied "No he wasn't!" his mum shouted back at him. "No one asks to be punched in the face Liam. No one!" "Oh come on, I never meant to..." His mum gave him a look of venomous proportions before picking up the game console on his desk and slamming the door behind her. He couldn't believe it, he'd be suspended for a little fight and she took his favourite console away. "Ah well" he thought. "I've got other stuff I can do". He reached down the side of bed and brought a handheld version of the console his mum had just removed. "Good thing she thinks this is still hidden from last time" Liam's mother couldn't contain her anger. She threw, with some force, the console she had just confiscated from her son into the back of the closet. She had noticed while opening it that the previous gaming device she had removed from Liam's possession appeared to have reclaimed. "What am I going to do with him?" she thought, "I need to get some air, maybe some shopping will do the trick". This, she realised, would require to leave Liam in the house on his own. He was fifteen though; there was no need to worry. He would probably try and sneak the console back to his room in the meantime. "No point in trying to hide it, I guess" a look of exasperation once again took over her otherwise good looks. It was at this point that the phone rang, running to the kitchen Liam's mother prepared herself for some sort of forced short conversation. "Hello?" "Hello Lara it's Jenny" that was a surprise, Jenny hadn't spoken to her since her son went to camp a month ago. "Hello Jen, how're you?" "I'm doing alright, Jimmy is being a right handful though" "Tell me about it, Liam just got suspended for getting in fight in school." "Oh no, is he alright?" Jenny asked concerned "I suppose I should rephrase that. He punched a poor kid at school" "Ah" Jenny sounded less than surprised. "I don't know what to do with him, he didn't used to be like this" "Well if you knew my situation, you'd be glad for having a rebellious teenager" "What do you mean?" Lara asked. "Well... Actually how about if you come over? I can put on a nice lunch and we can catch up. After all we haven't spoken since the summer." This put Lara in a better mood. It would get her out the house at least. "Yeah, that'll be great! I'll pop over in a few minutes" "Be prepared for a little surprise when you get here though." Jenny said "Jimmy had a very interesting experience in the summer" "I'm sure he did, Liam ignored everything he was told in camp and broke his wrist. Had to come home early." "Ouch! Anyway, I'll see you soon, we can chat more when you arrive." With that the two of them said their goodbyes. Five minutes later Lara had put on her coat, shouted to liam she was going out for a few hours, and had started her car. When she arrived she was met at the door by a fraught looking Jenny. "Hello Jen!" "Hello Lara, I'm sorry give me two minutes and I'll be with you, just take a seat on the couch in the living room" "Sure there's nothing I can help with?" Lara asked, concerned at her friends distressed nature. Jenny stopped for a second, realising she must sound completely stressed out. "I'm sorry I must sound completely mad," she breathed out deeply, turning back to face Lara. "I need to show you something" Lara was worried; she'd never seen Jenny this distressed. She followed her toward the back of the house. From what she could remember, they were headed towards Jimmy's room. What she saw when she got there made her mouth drop to the floor, Jimmy's room wasn't the room of a teenager just leaving secondary school. It was the room of a toddler, with a crib in the corner, a changing table on the right of the room and even a playpen all sized up to hold a sixteen year old. "What?" was all Lara could say. "Yeah you can say that again" Jenny said "I think you may want to sit down, I know I would" Before long the two of them were sitting down in the lounge with a cup of coffee each. Both had stayed silent since leaving Jimmy's room and it took Lara all of her courage to finally break it. "I'm going to have to ask. Why does Jimmy have a babies room?" Jenny sighed, "To cut a long story short, he enrolled at a day-care for a job. He couldn't go to camp because he got drunk and wet the bed a fortnight before. All the other places refused to take him." She looked down into her cup of coffee "Apparently within two days of working there he'd had an accident during the day. Rather than charge him, and therefore me, for the cost of the carpet the manager of the day-care decided to make him a kind of test subject" "That sounds less than legal." Lara said. "Well they phoned me as soon as it happened. I agreed, thinking it was better than paying out a few hundred quid for a new carpet for them. So it's all legal, that was never the issue" she breathed in heavily "When the two weeks were up, Jimmy wasn't a teenager anymore. He'd turned into a toddler, he sucked on a pacifier and he took naps. I was totally stunned." Lara couldn't believe what she was hearing "What about the day-care? They must have known they could have done that to him?" Jenny just sighed, "They were quite reasonable on their part, actually. They provided me with all the stuff for his room, a years supply of youth diapers and promised me they'd give me a small percentage of the profits from the programme they say Jimmy had allowed them to start." "Programme?" "Yeah they now take in older kids, around about Jimmy's age, and treat them like toddlers. Apparently it's a godsend to some parents, as it keeps kids out of a school environment that they can't adapt to because of a mental disability. I've also heard parents threaten it as a punishment now, they've seen their fare share of kids with no problems at all who are just being totally unreasonable" She looked up at Lara, and realised she was smiling. "I know what you're thinking" Jenny started "If you put Liam in there, he won't come out the same. He'll be like Jimmy; you'll have to re-teach him everything from the ground up. And changing a teenager's messy diaper is nothing like changing a baby. There's a lot..." "Yeah I think I get the picture Jen" Lara interrupted, "Sometimes you can have a little too much information". "Anyway, my point is you have no idea how stressful it is raising a teenager who one minute could get an A grade in mathematics and the next minute can't count to 10 without missing 7" "I don't know though, if there's one thing I think Liam could do with it's being taken down a few notches" Jenny got up and walked back towards the door, "Well, don't say I didn't warn you. I'm not going to stop you, I have a financial incentive for you to try it after all" Jen smiled weakly. It was at that point that the sound of the front door opening echoed down the hallway. "Ah, that'll be John picking up Jimmy from day-care. You'd better prepare yourself" as she finished the sound of a child running down the corridor greeted their ears. "MUMMY!" to Lara's shock, a teenage wolf, dressed in an oversized pair of kids dungarees, came through the lounge doorway. "Hey sweetie, how was day-care?" "Great! I got to play with the toy cars today!" "Did you learn anything?" Jenny sounded less than hopeful. "Yeah! I learnt that if there's an emergency you should call 999 because then the big fire-trucks come and the ambulance comes, and if they don't everyone dies!" "Well that's something I suppose" Jenny looked over at Lara. "This is what I mean, he's a little kid again, and his teenage self is non-existent." "Who's this mummy?" Jimmy asked, a little perturbed by the unexpected visitor. "This is Lara sweetie" "Hello Miss Lara!" Jimmy said, as though he was excited to meet someone new. "He's more polite than I remember him" Lara said. "Yeah that was drilled in at the day-care. The thing is, if he was an actual three year old, he'd be the nicest three year old in the world" Jenny sighed again. Lara was stunned. Jimmy had been a teenager who didn't really pay much attention to authority. They both knew he'd been drinking way before it was legal to do so and that he got in trouble from school to time to time. Now he was, in short, a little angel. "He's adorable!" Lara could hardly contain her motherly instincts. "If you say so," Jenny said, a little surprised "You won't say that when you're changing his diapers. Speaking of which..." She reached down to the gap in the side of Jimmy's dungarees and popped her finger inside it. "Yep, you need a change. Come on" "Hold on Mummy... I need... to..." Jimmy didn't need to finish, as it was quite clear what he was up to. He squatted down, grunting slightly as he filled his diaper. Jenny looked at Lara and rolled her eyes, "Adorable? He's hard work, but if that's what you're after, enrol Liam in the day-cares programme. As for me, I've got a messy diaper to change."
It took Lara a few days to decide on which course of action to take. Liam had gone back to school, and hadn't got into any trouble... for a few days anyway. He'd come home a week after his suspension to a double whammy of a poor report card and letter from his head teacher concerning "under-achieving". That had made up her mind for her. So, when Lara told Liam that she was enrolling him in a programme designed to improve his behaviour he hardly battered an eyelid. Lara had arranged to meet the owner of the establishment, a Miss Dart, the next day in order to discuss it. It was with a little sense of foreboding that Lara entered the nursery. Nothing about it was any different to any of the other day cares she had been to in the past. The smells were the same, a mix of disinfectant and baby powder. The entrance way was white walled, clean and sterile, ending in a desk where a young vixen was sitting behind a pine counter. Her blue eyes were seated behind a pair of round glasses that gave her an intellectual look and her hair was neatly tied behind her back. All things considered, she looked like a student. "Hello, my names Lara, I'm here to speak to Miss Dart" The vixen looked up, her gold name badge reflected the light above her and made the black writing upon it reveal the word "Keri" "What it is it concerning?" she asked, looking at the computer screen in front of her intensely, as if looking for the information before Lara could answer. "It's about enrolling my son here" Lara said. "I see... and how old is your son?" Keri asked, moving her glasses down her nose slightly, a curious look on her face. Lara felt rather perturbed by this "I spoke to Miss Dart on the phone about him, I'd rather keep that information between me and her" "Suit yourself, I'm guessing he's going to be part of our older kids programme then?" Lara was starting to feel a little nervous, as though she was doing something very wrong "Look if it's ok I'll just..." it was at that point the phone in front of Keri rang, and the receptionist picked it up with the speed only a fox could muster. "Reception speaking... Ah Miss Dart, yes she's here, arrived about two minutes ago... Yes I'll send her your way" Keri put the phone down and smiled at Lara "Miss Dart will see you now, she's waiting in the office just down that hallway", she pointed towards a plain brown door at the end of a corridor to the right of the reception desk. Even from a distance, it was clear that the room beyond it was the office of the proprietor. Lara smiled back weakly, having to summon up the strength of will to get her legs to move towards the hallway. Was she really ready to take this step? She knocked on the door. "Come in" came a firm female voice from the other side. Lara entered gingerly, keeping the door quiet as she opened it. A middle aged vixen was sat behind the desk, half moon spectacles were gently resting upon the end of her muzzle as she read through a pile of a documents and notes in front of her. A badge similar to Keri's read "Miss Dart" in bold black letters. "Please sit down, Mrs Parnell" Lara obeyed and took a seat in front of the desk. "I understand you're looking to place one of your children under our care. An older child..." She let the words travel a little before continuing, "Do you know how the programme works?" "Well the basics, I've met Jimmy Hall, so I've seen the results" Lara replied. "Ah, our first older charge. He's a much nicer toddler than he was as a teenager, answering back to me and arguing on only our second day, despite his own inability to stay dry...." "He had an accident on the second day?" Lara said perturbed by that revelation. "Yes, completely soaked his jeans and our carpet. Having said that the money we've made through the programme has paid for the carpet ten-fold, so he was helpful in that regard in at least." "That seems a little odd" Lara said "Not for me to say" Miss Dart returned with a sly smile "Even if he was continent when he arrived, he didn't seem to be once he was here." Lara felt a little disturbed by that "So what happens to Liam?" Miss Dart pulled out a booklet from underneath her desk and handed it to Lara. "All the relevant information regarding cost, benefits and expected costs of the results of the programme are in there. I've not had someone complain yet, so nothing should be out of order." She leaned forward and looked Lara straight in the eye "I will warn you now, Liam will be a different child after the programme. He'll have the intelligence of a toddler but because he's a teenager everything is a little harder for the parents. In fact the only thing that's different is that you won't have the "terrible two's"..." She smiled again. Lara smiled back nervously as she quickly scanned through the various sheets of paper in front of her. Spreadsheets concerning cost of equipment, cost of the care, cost of diapers and supplies and a long list of testimonials from other clients were the main things that caught her eye. "How do you manage to do all this" she said asked, without really thinking about it. "Well, according to psychologists we've hired to ensure it's medically safe, it's a combination of environmental factors, change of stimulation methods and humiliation. Eventually the rebellious part of the teenager breaks down, resulting in a much more charming individual. There are side effects, such as incontinence from the diaper wearing, a couple of people have had to see dentists afterwards because of the oral fixation some kids get from pacifiers, but nothing serious. Just be aware that both of those involve additional costs, though those are all listed in the booklet. Most parents find their monthly family budget has to increase by approximately £600 to accommodate the additional supplies and care." Lara thought that sounded reasonable enough, taking care of Liam when he was a toddler had cost about half that, so she wasn't surprised. She was unsure how to proceed, but felt sure that Liam needed something. This would certainly take him down to a level she could deal with. "When can he start?' She said, with genuine enthusiasm. Miss Dart smiled at her "By the sounds of it, you'd like him to start quickly?" Lara nodded, "He's quite a handful at the moment..." "Well we can take him in from the beginning of next week. That gives us time to sort out the necessary equipment and supplies" She stood up and walked towards a set of drawers at the back of the room. "I'll pop a folder in here to keep track of his progress. That will allow us to assess when we believe he's ready to return. Jimmy took about a week, but we he was an easy case. Others have taken a month, some have taken three days" She paused for a moment "But we don't know how long it will take at first, so we charge a flat rate for the programme and make a loss on the hard ones." Lara stood up and put her hand out "So I'll see you next week with Liam then?" Miss Dart gave another smile and shook her hand "Certainly" The next few days went by a in a blur. Lara told Liam where he was going, only for him to claim that he was "not a baby". That had been expected, she just hoped he would be co-operative on Monday. She'd prepared by ensuring that he didn't know he was going on Monday, she told him it started on Wednesday. If not, she thought, he might refuse to get in or out the car. So when she told him they needed to go shopping to pick up some new shirts, with the promise of his games consoles back if he did, she wasn't surprised when he came out to the car without a fuss. It was even less surprising that, when they arrived at the daycare centre, he was more than a little confused. "What are we doing parking here, the shops are miles away?" he asked. "I just need to ask something in here for a friend, come on hop out, I've heard stuff about you kids hijacking cars..." Lara replied. "That's ridiculous!" Liam said angrily "If not, no consoles" Lara tilted her head, knowing she'd won. "Fine," Liam sounded more than a little frustrated. Once they entered the nursery, Lara noticed Miss Dart was there waiting with two other members of staff. "Morning Lara, this must be Liam" Miss Dart looked at the teenager with a sly smile. Liam felt a very distinct sense of unease. "Yep that's him" Lara said, "He's ready to start the programme" "What? What programme" Liam's concern was evident on his voice "I thought you said that didn't start till Wednesday?" "I distinctly said Monday dear" Lara replied "Now Miss Dart will take you to your room and get you sorted out. You'll be staying here for a little while until you learn to behave yourself" "But... But...." Liam couldn't argue as he still had the promise of games consoles in the back of his head. Hopefully he'd get them back after all this, he thought. "Fine" he said, moving towards the staff members. "There's a good boy" Lara said, aware that she sounded like she was talking to a toddler. "We'll take good care of him Mrs Parnell," Miss Dart motioned Liam towards her and took his hand. "Now lets take you to your new room".