Barry Sorrel was a real big man on campus. The stallion was a senior at my high school when I was a sophomore, and he definitely ruled the school. He was the captain of the football team and a shoe-in for prom king, since he was kind of devastatingly handsome and the most popular guy in school. He could hook up with any girl he wanted, and if you believed what people said, he frequently did. And that’s not all; he was in all honors classes and pretty much everyone knew that he was going to be valedictorian, too. 

He had pretty much everything going for him. He had a shiny copper-red pelt, and he was tall and muscular, but not overly so. He was strong and well-built, with nice definition without being too bulky. I mean, he had to be kind of trim to run as fast as he did, when he was playing football. And he had a winning smile and a perfect chestnut brown mane and tail.

Almost everybody in school worshipped the ground he walked on, teachers and administrators especially. Everybody either wanted to be him or be close to him. People would bend over backwards to give him what he wanted. He was the golden boy.

But that doesn’t mean he was a nice guy.

In fact, he was a total fraud. Well, okay, not a total fraud. I mean, he really was that handsome and charming and good at sports, yeah. But he was actually as dumb as a post, when it came to schoolwork. The only thing he was good at in school was cheating without getting caught. He had a handful of less sociable guys and girls that would do his homework for him and help him cheat on tests. Some of the time, he led them on with promises about hanging out later or introducing them to the person they had a crush on. But it never happened. And for the people who didn’t go along with that, he would just bully them until they did what he told them to - or else he made things very uncomfortable for them.

I know this, because after he had been getting me to do his math homework for a whole semester, I decided to stop. And that was when I learned how much of a jerk he could be.

By the way, my name’s Sigmund. I’m a skunk, and I was just starting my freshman year when Barry was a junior. I was kind of nerdy and naive, and I didn’t have many friends at the time. I was the perfect kind of person for Barry to take advantage of.

The first time I saw his true colors was just about a week after school started during my sophomore year. I had told Barry that I wasn’t going to do his math homework for him anymore, like I had last semester. When I was a freshman, I did it because I thought he was so cool, that maybe he’d help me be cool. He kept saying stuff like that, but then nothing happened, ever. Him and his friends would still make fun of me in the halls or during gym class and play pranks on me. I thought about it a lot over the summer, and I decided I had better things to do with my time than help out a guy like him. But Barry wasn’t very happy about that.

He started off joking with me, making promises about helping me out socially, just like he had done the year before. Once it became clear that approach wasn’t going to work, he started making these vague threats about how it would be better if I just stopped whining and did his homework for him. I ignored him, and that was when I got a visit from a couple of big, thuggish seniors (who I knew were Barry’s buddies) who roughed me up and left me stuffed in a trash can. If my buddy Spike hadn’t found me, I might have been there all night.

I tried to go to the school and tell them what Barry was doing to people, but nobody believed me. Well, I think the dean of students might have had an idea, but she said that there wasn’t any way to prove that he’d been involved. She was a really sharp lioness, and she was definitely sympathetic, but she told me that I needed to have some kind of proof for her to do anything.

She did suggest that I go and talk to the principal, but he was totally clueless. He was just a kind of dopey old woodchuck who heard someone talking bad about the school’s best (and his favorite) student. He told me I shouldn’t be jealous of Barry and sent me on my way.

So it looked like I was out of luck. I was either going to just have to shut up and help this jerk cheat his way through life or deal with his bullies all of the time. I’m not proud of it, but I just decided to go back to helping him while I tried to think of way to show everyone what he really was..

And it didn’t take me long to come up with my idea, either. See, since my family wouldn’t have been able to pay enough for me to go to this private high school normally, I was a part of a student-work program, where I would help out after school with the IT department, doing stuff with the school’s computers. And it turned out that they were starting a program to give some of the high-performing students at the school their own laptops. Of course, Barry was going to be getting one. So when I was preparing his laptop for him to pick it up, I installed a few special programs, just for him.

When he came to pick up his laptop, I was very friendly. I told him that I was sorry for the little misunderstanding we’d had before, and that I had installed a couple of the latest shooter games on his laptop. I also told him that I was already working on a really great project for his advanced placement psychology class. He probably should have guessed that I was up to something, but I think he was just so used to people doing stuff like that for him, he didn’t expect that someone like me would be playing a trick on him.

He just smirked and made some comment about how he knew I’d come around. Then he picked up his laptop and went on his way. I’ll admit that for the whole rest of the day, I could hardly concentrate on my classes. I just couldn’t wait to get home and try things out with Barry. I wasn’t sure if things were going to work the way I had planned. There were plenty of ways for everything to go wrong, but for some reason, I had a really good feeling.

I was going to get revenge, for everybody that Barry had bullied or cheated or jerked around.

That night, I was at home, waiting eagerly by my computer. I had set up Barry’s laptop with a little program that would send an alert to my machine when he turned it on. It would also give me a remote picture of his desktop, so I could see what he was doing. It was impossible to keep from grinning as I watched him open up a web browser and check his e-mail. So far, everything was working perfectly! I probably could have figured out a way to get back at Barry with just this, but I had much bigger things in mind.

The next thing I did was to activate the webcam on Barry’s laptop. I had set it up so it would turn on when I sent the signal, and he wouldn’t even know it. So not only could I watch what he was doing on the screen, I could also watch - and listen to - him while he was doing it. That step went perfectly, too. Right next to my window showing what Barry was doing on the screen, I had a live video feed of his face while he was doing it. I was getting excited, now. But I still had to wait and see if the most important part of my plan was going to work.

After checking his e-mail and watching a couple of videos, Barry went to fire up one of the games I’d installed for him. I’d made sure they were prominently placed on his desktop, so he couldn’t miss them. I just sat back and watched while he plugged in his headphone and started to play. I waited for a few minutes, to make sure that nothing was going wrong.

When I saw that he was just playing the game normally, I pulled up my background diagnostic programs to see if the everything was working the way I had set it up. Sure enough, the hidden programs I’d configured to alter the video and sound of Barry’s game were performing perfectly. He was watching a perfectly interlaced dual-layer video without even knowing it. All that his conscious mind was seeing was the game he was playing, but he was simultaneously watching a complex, specially-calibrated pattern of moving shapes.

That pattern’s movements were set to coincide with a series of subtle harmonic pulses mixed into the game’s soundtrack. The result of all this was to help Barry gradually slip into an extremely relaxed and receptive state, primed and ready for instructions. He was being hypnotized.

I watched as his posture slumped in his chair, his eyelids drooped, and his actions in the game got more and more sluggish. He didn’t seem to be bothered by his declining performance, though, and when he finally respawned and then died again without even moving his character, I knew he was in deep.

I reached for my microphone and turned on the voice modulator, so it wouldn’t sound like me on the other end. “Can you hear me Barry? Nod if you can.”

He nodded. I was thrilled.

“Good job, Barry, that was very good. You like playing your new game, don’t you? It’s a very fun game. You’re going to try to play it every night before you go to bed, from now on. What are you going to, Barry?”

His voice was a soft monotone as he said, “I’m going to play my new game every night before bed.”

“That’s right, Barry. That’s very good, you’re doing a very good job. You’re a good boy, Barry, yes you are. But you’re not very smart, are you?”

He didn’t answer.

“No, no you’re not very smart. That’s why you need other people to do all of your homework for you. You’re going to go to bed, Barry. You’re going to have a good night’s sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll remember playing your game until you got tired and then going to bed like normal. You like your game, don’t you Barry?”

He nodded.

“When you wake up in the morning, you won’t remember anything else about tonight, except for how much you enjoyed playing your game. And you also won’t remember...”

I grinned, feeling giddy in spite of myself.

“How to tie your shoes.”

* * * * * 

I didn’t talk to Barry the next day, but I was thinking about him pretty much the whole time. I was wondering if my plan was working as well as it looked like it had, the night before. And if it really was working, what was I going to do next? I had lots of ideas about how to get back at him for what he’d done, but now that I might have actually had the chance to do something, I had to give it some serious thought. 

I saw him walking through the halls, and he seemed to be acting normally. Nothing was off or weird about him. He saw me, but he didn’t react in any unusual way. I did glance down and saw his sneakers.

His shoelaces were untied.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling for the rest of the day.

* * * * *

I spent pretty much the whole rest of the day thinking about what I could to Barry now. The possibilities were endless! My plan to get here had worked perfectly, and now I could get back at him for everything he’d done.

But I realized that I only knew what he had done to me. I’d heard about plenty of other stuff that he’d done from other people, but how much of it was really true? Sure, I knew that Barry was a jerk and a cheat, but if I was going to go through with the stuff I was planning, I needed to know that he was really a bad guy.

That night, I waited by my computer until Barry got home and logged onto his laptop. The webcam fired up, just like before, as he started playing his new favorite game. Just like the last night, he gradually slipped into a daze. Once he was, I turned on my microphone, making sure the voice modulator was active again.

“Can you hear me, Barry? Nod if you can.”

He nodded.

“You don’t like doing homework very much, do you Barry?” He shook his head. “Or studying for tests? You don’t like any of that stuff, do you?” Again, he shook his head. 

“Have you gotten other students to do your work for you?” He nodded. “Good, Barry, you’re doing very well. Now, I’d like you to tell me about all the times you’ve gotten someone else to do your schoolwork for you. I’d also like you to tell me what you did to get them to do it, or what you did if they refused, and if you got them to do anything else for you. Can you manage all that, Barry?”

He nodded, and he started telling me about everything he had done to cut corners and get out of doing work himself. I knew that he was a jerk and a liar, but it turned out that I had no idea about the extent of what he was doing.

He’d been doing it since middle school, which might explain how he had gotten so good at it. He had been getting people to do all of his homework and help him cheat on his tests all through high school, and he would get some help for his friends, too. It definitely wasn’t just me he was getting help from, either. He mentioned almost twenty people who had done some assignments for him or helped him cheat.

That was bad enough by itself, but when he started telling me about the things he had done to people who stopped doing his work for him, I was shocked. He told me stories of students who got beaten up (usually by his buddies so it was harder to pin on him), humiliated at school, or even worse. A couple got expelled, and one kid even got arrested after he took the fall for something some of Barry’s buddies had done.

This guy wasn’t just a bully and a jerk. He was a criminal.

Once he had finished explaining his years of cheating (and worse) to me, I picked up my microphone again. I was going to have to figure out something appropriate for this guy. I wasn’t going to be able to do it all in one night, but I could at least get things started.

“You’ve been a very bad boy, Barry. All of those things you did were very naughty. Naughty boys need to get punished. Stand up, Barry. Now turn around.  That’s good. Now lower your shorts and underwear, and bend over.”

He did everything I told him to, without hesitation. He was presenting his bare backside to the screen in no time. He had a pretty nice, full, muscular rump, I’ve got to say.

“Remember, Barry. You’ve been bad. You’re in trouble, and you need to be punished. You’re going to spank yourself. Because bad boys get spanked. Reach around and give yourself twenty swats, Barry. On each cheek.”

I watched as the pompous, entitled, cheating, lying brute did as he was told. He was a strong guy, and he didn’t hold back, either. He reddened his own rump for me, just because I told him to. I can only imagine how much it must have stung by the time he was done.

“Good boy. Now it’s time for you to go to bed. I know you’ll go right to sleep, and you won’t remember any of this. Understand?”

I smiled when he nodded. “That’s right, it’s all in your head, now. You won’t forget. You’ll be a good boy. I know you want to be a good boy. When you wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll just remember playing video games tonight and going to bed like normal. That’s a good boy. Good night, Barry.”

* * * * *

I spent a lot of my time the next day thinking about Barry. He was even worse than I thought he was, and somebody had to stop him. I knew that I could do it, but I had to figure out what to do. I could just tell him to walk into the principal’s office the next day and tell him the truth, but I wasn’t sure that would be enough. And besides, I had a better idea.

The night before, when I’d told him to spank himself and wet the bed, I just wanted to humiliate him. But when I was thinking about a big, strong, confident guy like Barry waking up with a sore butt and imagining how helpless he must have felt, I started to realize that was exactly like a bully like Barry deserved. He was always using his power over people to get what he wanted, so I figured he needed to remember what it was like to be powerless again.

When he started playing his game again, the next night, I started to put my plan into action.

“Can you hear me, Barry?”

He nodded.

“I bet you’re excited about graduating this year, aren’t you? You’re going to be a grown-up soon, aren’t you?”

Even through his glazed, mostly blank expression, I could see a hint of a smile on his face as he nodded again.

“But you don’t really deserve to be a big grown-up. You’ve cheated, lied, and stolen your way to where you are now, haven’t you? Here’s what I want you to do for me, Barry. I want you to forget about being a big, strong, confident grown-up. Think back, as far back as you can, to before you started cheating to get ahead, back when you were just a sweet little innocent foal.”

“All the way back, Barry, before you started to take unfair advantage of other people just so you could get ahead. Back before you thought about grades or homework or sports, back when all you had to worry about was whether your tummy was empty or your diaper was full.”

“I want you to take everything that you learned after you started being a cheat and a liar and a bully, and imagine putting it all in a box. Everything about Big Boy Barry is going into that box, okay? Now put the box away, for now. It’s gone. You’re just a sweet, silly little baby again, aren’t you, Baby Barry?”

It was fascinating to watch his posture change, as the big, teenaged, equine stud seemed to shrink as he stood there, dipping his head and hunching up his shoulders, drawing his arms in closer to his body. He was carrying himself like a shy little toddler.

“You’re a good little boy, aren’t you, Baby Barry? There’s something I’m going to ask you to do, and I know it’s going to be hard, but just try your best. Can you say your alphabet for me? Huh, can you do that for me? Can you say your ABC’s? Can you?”

He nodded his head, but from the way he scrunched up his face, I could tell he wasn’t exactly confident. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing that look on his suave, cocky face: overwhelmed, confused, and insecure. I bet that was what a lot of the bullied looked like while he was threatening them into doing his homework.

When he opened his mouth, instead of his normal voice, what came out was the hesitant, stuttering, clumsy voice of an insecure child, while he tried to repeat his alphabet. “A … B … C …” he stopped there, after the three that I’d given him. He frowned and bit his lower lip, clearly concentrating hard, but unable to get any farther.

I was grinning like crazy back in front of my computer, watching him struggle like that, with something so simple. I was used to seeing him unflappable in the face of anything, able to talk himself out of the worst messes or cover up for any lie or ignorance he had to hide. And here he was, unable to remember his alphabet.

“That’s okay, that’s okay, Baby Barry. Letters are hard, aren’t they? There sure are a bunch of them. How about counting? That should be a little easier, right? Can you count for me? Let’s see, what woud be easy enough? Can you count up to five, little guy? Just five, that’s all!”

He nodded and scrunched up his face, wrinkling his brow and pursing his lips and flaring his nostrils. He was clearly focusing as hard as he could, but he still wasn’t having much luck, even remembering where to start. He started getting antsy, because he couldn’t think of just one number. He mumbled, “Umm, umm...” and started to chew on his thumbnail. He was fidgeting in his seat, and he’d been stuck for long enough that I knew he was hopeless.

But there was something about the way he was squirming, some look on his face as he glanced bashfully away from his laptop, something about the blush showing on his cheeks that I straightened up in my chair.

“Baby Barry,” I said, very sternly. “Stand up and show me your pants.”

He slowly stood up from his chair, and when I saw his waist raise up above the edge of his desk and into the field of view of his webcam, I was shocked. There was a big, obvious dark patch all over the crotch of his khakis, running down the insides of his thighs. Barry had wet his pants!

It’s hard to describe the thrill I got, seeing him like that for the first time. I had wanted him to feel helpless, and it was hard to imagine how he could feel more powerless than he did like that, in drippy pants, unable to remember how to count or say his alphabet. At least, it took me a few moments before I realized how much more I could do.

“Uh-oh, it looks like you had an accident, Baby Barry. Turn around and show me your bottom.” 

He turned, and his backside was even wetter than his front. I tsked at him.

“That’s a bad boy, wetting yourself like that. Big boys don’t have accidents in their pants, do they? No, they don’t. Only babies wet their pants, Baby Barry. I guess we know what that makes you... but it’s still very naughty, piddling in your big boy pants and leaving a puddle on your chair.”

“I think you need another spanking, Baby Barry.”

As I guided him through giving himself another spanking, this one right over his drenched pants, I was also doing some quick research. Since he was in no condition to count for me, I just had him keep swatting his own rump until I was done. Actually, I waited a little bit after I was done, just because I enjoyed watching him punish himself and listening to him blubber and whimper.

“Okay, that’s enough, Baby Barry. I think you’ve learned your lesson. And I think it’s past bedtime for babies like you, but first, I have some instructions to give you.”

I pulled up a map on his computer to show him the address of a store in the neighborhood. 

“Tomorrow, after you have dinner, you’re going to say you need to go to the store, and you’re going to drive here. Ask for Mrs. Huggins, and then pick up the order placed for Baby Barry. Whether or not she asks, make sure you tell her that you’ve been having accidents. Then you can come home and start playing video games. Do you understand all that?”

“Good, Baby Barry. I know you’re going to be a good boy. I know you want to be good and do as you’re told. Now you’re going to go to bed, and when you wake up, you’re going to be Big Boy Barry again, and you can have everything that you put in a box back. But you won’t remember any of this. You’ll just remember being very tired after playing games and falling asleep in your clothes.”

“Oh, and one more thing. From now on, if you wake up in the middle of the night and need to go to the bathroom, you’re not going to get up. You’re just going to wet the bed and go right back to sleep. Understand, Baby Barry? Good boy. Nitey-nite.”

***

I’ll admit it, I was really anxious to see if he was going to do it, the next day. I’m still not exactly sure why, but something about seeing Barry in that state - so helpless and confused and small, the exact opposite of how he normally was - it was just perfect to me. But I had an idea about how to take it one step further, and I was anxious to try it out.

So anxious, in fact, that after school, I went to the coffee shop across the street from the store I had told Barry to go to, the night before. I sat there doing homework, waiting to see if he was going to come by and pick up the order I had placed in his name. It took a while, but just when I was finishing my last assignment, I saw the big equine stud walking through that door. I didn’t need to see anything else. I backed up my bookbag and hurried home, grinning from ear to ear.

I was ready for him when I saw my computer tell me he had turned on his laptop and started playing games. I could hardly wait for him to slip into his trance, just as he he had done the nights before.

“Can you hear me, Barry?” 

“Good. Do you have the bag you got from the store tonight, Barry? That’s good. I want you to take your laptop off your desk and put it on the end of your bed. Then, I want you to sit down on your bed and dump out the bag in front of you. Can you do that for me, Barry?”

I watched as the field of vision changed from the laptop’s webcam, until I was looking up at Barr as he sat on his bed. This perspective really emphasized what a big, strong guy he was. But I was more interested in the contents of that bag as he dumped it all out on the bed in front of him.

Everything I had ordered for him from the specialty adult baby shop was there: talcum powder, baby wipes, a small, plush skunk, and a package of large, extra-thick, equine diapers. It was perfect.

“Very good job, Barry. Very good. Now open that package and pull out one of what’s inside.”

The sensitive microphone on the pricey laptop was able to pick up every rustle and crinkle as he tore open the package and took out one of the folded, white plastic rectangles inside.

“Do you know what that is, Barry?”

“It’s a diaper,” he answered in monotone.

“Are diapers for babies or big boys?”

“Babies.”

“And are you a baby or a big boy?”

“A big boy.”

“Hmm. I see. Barry, did you wet you bed, last night?”

“Yes.”

“And do big boys wet their beds?”

“No.”

“So what does that make you?”

“A baby.”

“What a smart baby. We’d better get you in your diaper, right away. Take off all of your big boy clothes, Barry. You don’t need them, now. And for each piece of clothing you take off, I want you to imagine that they’re taking all of your big boy emotions and thoughts and memories with them. Just like when you put your big boy self in a box, once all of those clothes are gone, you’ll just be little Baby Barry again.”

I watched as he obediently pulled off his shirt, then unbuttoned his fly and wriggled them down his legs. His underwear went next, and before I knew it, he was naked. He was a fine specimen of a stallion, there’s no question about that. He was strong and lean and handsome, but I was only interested in what he looked like once he got that diaper on.

So I guided him through it, step by step, telling him to unfold the diaper and spread it out on the bed, then sit down on it the right way, then powder himself, then pull the diaper up between his legs and tape it into place. Once he had it on, I had him show me every angle.

The soft, smooth padding of the diaper was the perfect contrast to the muscle definition in his abs and legs. The way it bunched up between his thighs, bulged out from his butt, and hid his privates in a thick, swaddling layer of crinkly, infantile softness, I loved the way it looked on him. It was just so perfect to see him like that. It was exactly what he deserved, that overconfident, lying, cheating, abusive jerk being reduced to a helpless, embarrassed, adorable, overgrown baby.

This was how other people needed to see him. This was how I was going to punish him for everything that he’d done.

“Isn’t that so much better, Baby Barry? You love your diapers, don’t you? They make you feel so comfortable and safe. It doesn’t matter if you’re just a silly little baby, as long as you’re in diapers.”

“When you wake up tomorrow and you’re Big Boy Barry again, you’re going to remember that you went out to buy diapers because you’ve been wetting the bed. You’ll know that you have to wear diapers every night, now, but you’ll be embarrassed about it because only babies have accidents and need diapers.”

“But for now, I want you to snuggle your new plushie, suck on your thumbie, and go to sleep. It’s past your bedtime, Baby Barry.”

I watched him curl up, hugging that stuffed skunk to his chest and sucking on his thumb, like the sweetest little foal you’d ever seen. As I watched him drift off and admired the curve of his diapered rear, I decided that I definitely liked him much better like that. I remotely shut down his computer and started making plans.

* * * 

I took my time with it. I spent weeks carefully rearranging Barry’s psyche, splitting it into two pieces. I was separating all of Barry’s conniving, self-serving, sociopathic tendencies, along with all of the experience and knowledge he gained from acting that way, into a special section of his mind. When I started, he was pretending to be Baby Barry when I would chat with him via his webcam. But the time I was finished, he really was Baby Barry on the inside, and he was just pretending to be Big Boy Barry during the day.

I had sent him on several trips back to the Adult Baby store, to pick up some necessary outfits and accessories. I encouraged him to embrace his adorably helpless infantile side, which was as sweet and innocent and naive as his old self was a lying, cheating jerk. I decided I liked him a lot better in a onesie, nursing on a pacifier and enjoying his wet diapers while he struggled with any word over two syllables. And I figured everyone else would prefer him that way, too.

Finally, the day came. It was almost too perfect, really. While I was working on conditioning Barry, he had coincidentally needed a paper for his AP Psychology class on a very similar topic. I went ahead and wrote it for him, and I guess I did a better job than I meant to, because it turned out that paper won an award. At first, I was upset that Barry was going to get credit for something that I’d done, but when I found out there was going to be an all-school assembly where they were going to give him his award, I realized that was the perfect opportunity. 

I was making preparations for a week before, making sure that everything was set. I drilled the commands and triggers into his head night after night, because I had to be sure that they were going to stick. By the time the day of the assembly came around, I was pretty sure I’d done everything I could. All I could do was wait and see.

At the assembly, I was sitting in the back row of the bleachers with my best friend Spike. He was also the only other person I’d told about what I was doing to Barry. When we finally got to his part of the awards ceremony, Spike just shot me a wolfish grin and whispered, “Well, here it goes.”

The principal was standing up at the microphone on stage, starting to introduce Barry. Other teachers had introduced the other awards, and they were still sitting at the back of the stage, but the principal himself was doing this one. I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to him list off Barry’s accomplishments, as if he’d really earned them.

When Barry’s name was finally called and the student body started clapping for him, he came on from backstage and waddled up to the microphone, wearing the outfit I’d told him to put on before the assembly.

The big, athletic, handsome stallion, the most admired and feared student in the whole school, was standing in front of everybody wearing primary-colored velcro sneakers, a comically-small (on him) Sesame Street backpack, and a striped t-shirt underneath a pair of denim, bib-front shortalls, which were bulging obviously around his crotch and rear from the huge, puffy diaper he was wearing underneath it all. 

He had a red pacifier clipped to his shortalls, dangling around the level of his belly. He also had a little stuffed skunk in his pocket and a note pinned to his chest. I had made him write it a few nights before, while in a mostly regressed state, so the printed characters were shaky and sometimes backwards, and some of the words were spelled wrong. It read: “I have been a bad boy, and I need to be punished.”

The applause from the crowd slowly died down as people stared up at him in shock and confusion, while they were realizing, one by one, what he was wearing. Nobody knew what to say or what to do. The teachers sitting behind him, the dean of students, even the principal all stood there with their mouths hanging open, staring at the oversized foal in front of them.

In the middle of that stunned silence, Spike yelled out, “Nice outfit, you big baby!” Immediately after that, two things happened. The first is that the trigger phrase snapped Barry out of the trance he was in from the time he started getting dressed for the assembly. But he woke up from his hypnotized state as Baby Barry, and that was his new default personality. Big Boy Barry had gone bye-bye.

The second thing that happened is that the students all burst out in fits of cackling laughter. It seemed like everyone who had been tormented by Barry and his goons felt this amazing release, and people who were terrified of being stuffed in lockers or shaken down for lunch money started hurling catcalls, teasing Barry for his new choice of outfit. Even his most loyal friends were guffawing at his condition - I guess it didn’t take much for them to turn their backs on him.

Meanwhile, Barry was starting to look very flustered and embarrassed. He was starting to fidget and shift his weight from side to side, until he drew his knees together and reached both of his hands down to grab at his crotch. He whimpered softly, but loud enough for the microphone to pick it up clearly, “I ... I ... I’ve gotta go potty!”

He tried to turn and waddle off the stage, but he only managed the turn before he stopped in his tracks. He was facing away from the audience, but his posture was unmistakeable. He leaned forward at the waist, bent his knees slightly, stuck his butt out, and flagged his tail. Then, in front of the entire school, he started messing his diaper like a baby.

Even from the very back of the bleachers, I could see the back of his diaper bulge and droop, starting to sag heavily against the seat of his shortalls. A collective gasp went up from the crowd, and then they started laughing harder than ever, calling out crueler insults about what a stinky, helpless baby he was. 

He was wetting his diapers while he was messing himself, too, since I’d made him drink most of a gallon of water that morning and hold it this whole time. In fact, he was wetting so much that it was more than his diaper could handle, all at once. Barry’s diaper started leaking, starting with small wet patches on his inner thighs, but quickly turning into little streams of liquid, running down his inner thighs and splashing on floor around his feet.

At this point, the principal stumbled up to take the microphone and tried to calm down the crowd. But even with the loudspeakers behind him, his stammering pleas for calm couldn’t compete with the caterwauling student body. And when Barry finally finished using his diapers and tried to take a step, only to slip on the puddle he’d just made and fall back on his puffy, saggy rear with a loud squelching sound, the derisive laughter from the audience only got worse, even as Barry started to bawl.

Having given up on calming down the crowd, the principal turned his attention Barry, trying to tug on his arm to get him to stand back up. He even called for a few other teachers to help. But Barry was in the midst of a full-on tantrum at this point. Who could blame him, really? He needed a diaper change, badly, and he’d just fallen on his bottom.

When the principal and the other teachers couldn’t console him or get him to move, the dean of students finally stood up from her chair and pushed everyone else out of the way. Without any hesitation, she took the plush skunk out of Barry’s pocket and pushed it into his arms, then grabbed his pacifier and pushed it in between his lips. Then she wriggled the backpack he was wearing off his shoulders and opened it up.

Inside, she found exactly what I had told Barry to put in there that morning: talcum powder, baby wipes, and a fresh diaper. Everything you could need for a diaper change. So she pushed Barry onto his back and knelt down between his legs so she could undo the snaps on his shortalls. In no time, she had his diaper open and his legs lifted, so she could start wiping his messy butt clean. Barry was getting his dirty, leaky diaper changed right in front of everyone.

It was pandemonium in the crowd.

* * * 

Eventually, the teachers did get the students to leave, but it was so crazy at that point that it’s hard to keep track of exactly what happened. Barry did eventually get changed and helped to the nurse’s office while his parents were called and everyone else went home. The rumors were flying for the next couple days about what had happened, but nobody really knew the truth. Well, almost nobody.

A week later, I heard the official story from Spike - at least, what people thought the official story was.

“So, they think that Barry had some kind of a nervous breakdown. From the stress of having to work so hard to keep up all his grades and everything. That he’d been doing that for so long that he just couldn’t take it anymore, so he kind of snapped... and regressed, like that. His parents said that they’d found out he’d been having some problems with wetting the bed lately, but they never would have guessed it was a sign of anything this serious.”

“Right now, Barry can’t tie his shoes, count his fingers, or spell his name. He can barely feed himself, and he really needs those diapers, now. ‘Potty-training’ doesn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. But other than that, he seems to be perfectly happy and healthy. His parents are looking into sending him back to nursery school for the time being, just to wait and see if he recovers.”

“So it looks like no one will ever guess what really happened, will they?”

I smiled. “It doesn’t look like it, Spike. And that’s probably okay. Maybe Barry will grow up right, this time around. In a way, he’s kind of lucky to get another chance. But meanwhile, I wonder if his parents are going to need a babysitter...”