Fallen From Grace

The Stammering Begins

If anyone knew my character at home a lot of children would have seen a whole different transformation of me at school because what any children witnessed was a whole lot different than I was around my neighbourhood and in my household.
I was this loud funny, adventurous, bold little girl who did anything for a laugh and then became this small, timid shy little person which was nothing like who I really was within the school. I can tell anyone what it was. My confidence that I started with because I had bags of it at first began to get squished until at an ultimate low I felt just a shell of myself because unfortunately I started getting unfairly treated all the way back in preschool.

The dreaded age of humiliation came when I was about four. I asked a teacher if I could go to the toilet, she said no, I couldn't, and even though I wanted nothing more than to run to the toilet and relieve myself I did what any obedient child would do, stay, and then wet myself. As soon as I saw the puddle of my wee by my shoes my eyes widened at how much I had done because I really was desperate and because I'd done so much my shoes were wet from standing in it and then I did what any self respecting child would do, move away like that wasn't me. To my horror because I didn't own up when a teacher sharply demanded "who did this?" their methods to find out who it was were unorthodox. Now, because they wanted to find the girl with the wet knickers as they decided it couldn't be a boy as there would be an obvious wet patch. So they had us girls form a line around the room and we each had to lift up our skirts to show the teacher. Oh yeah being told to lift up my skirt was mortifying, I didn't think they could do that. I didn't know how it was happening I thought if I didn't own up they'd have to give up and with no one to blame, move on.
Oh no! No such luck!
This teacher with another nursery support teacher started from one end of the room and really got her head in there and into other girls crotches. I knew this because of some comments.

"There's some wet here," says the support teacher.

"No," the teacher said firmly. "It's a few spots."

I knew she would have had to get her head right in there to be able to see just a few spots.

'A few spots doesn't mean that she's weed. You're looking for a girl with fully wet knickers and wet shoes."

She wasn't wrong - I was wet! I was soaking and hated the feeling of wet knickers sticking against my lower region. It was horrible. I just wanted them off.
The teachers still carried down this long line because there were a lot of us but then they skipped another load and started getting closer. At the beginning I was thankful I was the girl all the way on the other end but now my knees were knocking together quivering from fright and in-between wondering what was going to happen to me once they knew it was me. My punishment, once they realised it was me, was to stand facing the corner of a wall but this was well into the next lesson and from the corner of my eye watching all the children jump around on trampolines for enjoyment, I held my head down as it was something I would have very much loved to have been a part of. A teacher caught sight of me watching and then sharply demanded in front of everyone I should be facing the wall. Mortified she publicly scolded me I sharply turned back around. However my family cottoned on their way something was wrong.
Mom kept asking teachers if everything was alright and they kept saying yes, yes it was and Mom this one morning found herself having to drag me in there kicking and screaming so much so it upset her for leaving me. So when they told her I had wet myself that particular day Mom replied with "the last time she did that was when she was two."
So I was toilet trained, she knew it so she didn't understand this. My Nan came to see me after preschool and I was taking a bath upstairs and I was filling up my plastic bottle with a silly face on full of water and she said smiling "how was school?" And by that immediate comment she was so worried that I just got straight up and shoved my head into the bathroom corner because that's how I was being punished. So eventually Mom got me out of there and placed me in another preschool and she spoke of my transformation and how happy I was to go there.