Chapter 1
“My best friend is dead,” Mimi said. “I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I will be the one to find out.”
“You’re just a kid,” Emma said, “Leave this to the police.”
“She was my friend,” Mimi continued, “so if anyone is going to find out who killed her it is going to be me!”
“Let it go!” Emma shouted.
“I CAN’T!!!” Mimi threw her hands in the air and then froze still. “And.... Uhm… Crap.”
“Language,” Mr. Davey said without looking up from his clipboard, where he had been putting all of his attention the entire time. “And you’re overdoing it again.”
Mimi looked at him, and then at Emma, and back at him. “Me or-”
“You,” he said and then looked up. “From the top. Remember, this is your best friend. Think about someone you want to spend the rest of your days with.”
Mimi watched Emma glance to the audience, where Izzy sat next to Lilly. They were sitting with the rest of the class on the floor in front of the desks that had been pushed back to make room for the two to rehearse.
“But,” Mimi said, “It’s hard to get emotional about… I mean... It’s a rock.”
“And someone murdered her,” Mr. Davey took off his glasses and said, “It doesn’t matter if she’s a flower or a sea otter.”
“Well,” Mimi thought about it. “If she was an otter I’d be able to get emotional about her.”
“Sit down,” Mr. Davey sighed. “Both of you.”
They did so and he took the center of the class.
“I don’t think you all understand the importance of this production,” Mr. Davey began. The rest of his speech was just as preposterous as his opening statement. The “production” was in fact a thirty minute short play that was shown to the kindergarten and the PTO and no one else. Each year the fourth grade class did one of these “science plays” that were directed by Mr. Davey, the science teacher. Fortunately/unfortunately Mr. Davey was a big fan of the theater.
Mr. Davey called up a group of kids who were playing “The Rockettes,” which were basically dancing rocks. Nicole was among the Rockettes and she was easily the most excited about the play.
Mimi sat down next to Lilly and Emma sat down next to Izzy as they watched Nicole literally step on everyone’s toes.
When the Rockettes were done with their number, they were dismissed. Mimi was once again on stage after that.
“This silk glove was found at the crime scene,” Mimi said with no emotion at all.
“What does that mean?” Courtney asked.
Mimi held up her hand, miming as if she was holding a magnifying glass, and shouted, “It’s sedimentary, my dear Watson!”
The two then walked in place as Rena walked up to them.
“What’s the meaning of this, Sherock Holmes?” Rena asked.
“Dina Diamond, I see you’re missing a glove,” Mimi said.
“I do declare,” Rena said in a monotone, “It was taken from my homestead by that rascal Rudy the Rock Rancher. Him and the Granite Gang like to walk off with what doesn’t belong to them.”
The bell rang.
“Oh thank Jesus,” Mimi sighed. She will never understand how or why she was chosen to play the lead of this travesty.
Lunch was next, and Mimi wanted to grab Lilly so they could stand in line together. But Lilly had already made her way toward the cafeteria. Mimi shrugged, figuring she would catch up, and joined the others.
Chapter 2
Mimi wanted to excise the play from her mind, but every second of lunch she was somehow reminded about it. Emma and Izzy looked like they thought she was going to snap and eat them, they were sitting closer than usual. Nicole wasn’t paying attention as she was busy carving a smile into her mashed potatoes.
“Mimi,” Rena said, approaching the table. While she was requesting the attention of one Miss Sherock Holmes, Izzy and Nicole looked up first.
“Hi,” Mimi moaned.
“You were very good today,” Rena said.
“Thanks,” Mimi stabbed a fork in her chicken nuggets, hoping they would bleed out her misery.
“Are you gonna sit with us?” Nicole asked, smiling like an idiot. Izzy looked up at Nicole as well, not with a smile but the kind of eyes you get when you really want someone to do something. The kind of eyes a puppy dog gets when it wants a treat.
“Uh, well,” Rena looked at the empty chair in front of her, but was quickly approached by Courtney and Brittany
“Come on, Dina Diamond,” Courtney said, “We have to go over the new shirt designs for the team.”
Rena hesitated at first, but eventually turned and joined the soccer team without saying goodbye.
“Oh, bummer,” Nicole said.
“Usually winter is when she has more time with us,” Izzy said. “But between basketball and indoor soccer we hardly ever see her anymore.”
“Who?” Lilly asked, sitting down next to Mimi with her tray.
“Lilly,” Mimi said, “Where’ve you been?”
“Had to stop at my locker,” Lilly explained. “I forgot my math book.”
That story did not add up. The fourth grade lockers were right outside of the fourth grade classroom, which is where the fourth grade teacher taught fourth grade math. There was no reason to stop during lunch to get a book that was easily obtained on the way back to class.
Mimi cursed herself for thinking like a detective and decided to move on. There were more pressing issues like whether or not Lilly wanted her mashed potatoes.
***
Mimi checked that the coast was clear and that all the stalls in the bathroom were empty. She turned around and tried to look at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t see any wet spots on her jeans, but she certainly felt wet
Inside of a stall, Mimi pulled down her jeans and took a look at her Pull-Up. It was completely socked from front to back and had expanded outward. And she felt cold. Because the packaging was in Japanese, Mimi had no idea if there were any special properties to them. Since the pictures on them weren’t fading, she figured they might be of the “cool alert” variety, or something similar.
Mimi ripped open the sides of the Pull-Up and rolled it into a ball before burying it at the bottom of the trashcan. Then, she pulled out a spare from inside her hoodie pocket and slid it up her legs. She had both her own and Nicole’s milk at lunch, so she just hopped it would last her through the day.
Someone came in, and Mimi sat back on the toilet and lifted her feet up. She couldn’t see who it was. They simply shuffled in for a minute and then left. Probably someone trying to fix their hair.
When Mimi exited the stall, she found a small crumpled up piece of paper, the tell tale sign of a note passed secretly between two girls. She picked it up and uncrumbled it.
It read: “Don’t tell anyone.”
Mimi read it over and over again. She was able to pick out a few details; the handwriting, the ink color, the paper type. Whether she wanted to admit it, whether she wanted it to be true, Mimi couldn’t help but come to a single conclusion:
“We have a mystery.”
Chapter 3
The note was written on normal notebook paper, nothing out of the ordinary. It was penned in a bright pink color. A standard pen comes in blue or black, while teachers had access to red ones. There was only one person Mimi knew to have a pen like that, someone with an entire set of neon, exotic colored pens.
Emma Shepard.
Mimi spent the entirety of math class watching Emma. Her pens were tucked away, as only pencils could be used for real school work. That part of the investigation would have to wait. Mimi instead focused on where Emma was looking.
Shockingly to Mimi, Emma spent much of the time actually paying attention to their math class. Emma rarely looked away from the teacher, the chalkboard, or her textbook.
This was going nowhere, and Mimi knew it. When the bell rang, Mimi had an idea. She walked up to her suspect and asked, “Hey, Emma. do you still have those pens? Like those neon glittery pens?”
Emma nodded and asked, “Why?”
“Can I see them?”
The two walked to art class and sat next to each other, where Emma displayed her pen collection. Six bright pens sat in a plastic case, each with their own color coded spot. All except for one.
“Where’s the pink one?” Mimi asked.
“Huh,” Emma dug through her pencil box and in her pockets. “I must’ve left it somewhere. Anyway, which one do you want?”
“What?” Mimi asked.
Emma said. “I thought you asked because you wanted to use them for your art project.”
Mimi nodded and took a pen. The pink one was missing. Now it was likely and unlikely that Emma was the one who wrote the note. She could have lent the pen to someone. Or it was lost. Or stolen. If she found the pen, she’d find the culprit for sure.
***
“You’re putting a lot in this pen,” Abigail said. Mimi sat in front of the vanity, once again receiving a makeover. “Just because you know Emma had one doesn’t even mean it was her pen.”
“Who else would have a pink pen?” Mimi asked.
Abigail quickly produced a pink pen from her pocket, a drawer in her desk, and one that was sitting on her nightstand.
“It must be a Shepard thing.” Mimi shrugged.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have soft hair?” Abigail asked as she ran her come through Mimi’s dark curls.
“Just you,” Mimi answered.
“What did the note say again?” Abigail asked.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Mimi repeated, having committed the three word message to memory.
“What you should be asking yourself,” Abigail proposed, “is what exactly does this person not want to be told. Who has a secret and who could’ve figured it out? Assuming all the little cliques in your school are full of friends who trust each other, it is possible it was an outside force.”
“A force?” Mimi asked, confused.
“One of the sporty girls is blackmailing a nerdy boy,” Abigail explained, “Or one of the jock guys knows the secret of a girly girl.”
Mimi suddenly realized something and asked, “Could someone have found out about all of us wearing diapers?”
Nicole suddenly burst in, wearing nothing but a fresh Pull-Up, and declared, “Dinner is going to be ready in five minutes. And if Mimi is joining us again she needs to call her mother. And don’t forget to go potty first.” And with that, Nicole left.
“On second thought,” Mimi said, “It’s not exactly a well kept secret right now.
Chapter 4
“All the clues have brought us to an end as dead as my friend,” Mimi said. “In fact we know much less than we did before we even started. But that won’t make me give up. I’ll find out who did the deed if it’s the last deed I do. For justice. For truth. For geology!”
Mr. Davey stood and began clapping, while everyone else sat and watched him on his spiral downward into insanity. And then he checked his phone, which no one heard ring or vibrate.
“Class,” he said, “I have to take this. Everyone listen to Mimi. She’s in charge.”
And suddenly the entire class was sitting on the floor, staring up at Mimi, who would rather be taking notes on rocks than rehearsing a play about the mystery of a murdered pet rock, which is in-of-itself a conundrum of how a rock can be a pet let alone murdered which, as it is revealed in the final scene of the play, was actually a faked death orchestrated by the pet rock itself so that it could go on an adventure while the world renowned detective Sherrock Holmes is solving the alleged murder, collecting an assortment of random objects accidentally dropped by the pet rock in the reverse order that Sherrock finds them resulting in the clues leading the detective in a loop that doesn’t make any feasible sense in the universe that straddles reality with dancing rocks, talking diamonds, singing stalagmites, and an entire restaurant for rocks run by a rock that Mr. Davey insisted be portrayed by Lilly’s brother Nick with an accent reminiscent of an old comedian that none of the children had ever heard of but their science teacher insisted all of their parents did and would think the character is hilarious as a result of that, bringing up further questions about whether this musical was supposed to educate the children or entertain their parents, either way resulting in an incredible waste of every involved party's time as well as the tax dollars of the people of Harmony Hills who were still recovering from the last public humiliation on stage, when Abigail Shepard wet herself and passed out in front of the entire town resulting in the embarrassment of herself and her mother both of whom eventually recovered and became better people because of it, bringing into question whether or such humiliating occurrences were in fact just another part of growing up, a possibility Mimi considered a better outcome for her current situation than to actually be expected to run a classroom for the unknown amount of time that Mr. Davey was going to be out in the hall answering a questionably real phone call.
Mimi peed a little.
She momentarily considered letting it all go, but as she felt a splash of warmth moisten her underwear, she realized that that morning she had decided to make her limited quantity of Pull-Ups last until the next shopping trip. It was her first time wetting herself was a proper accident, brought on by nerves instead of holding it for too long.
Could she relieve herself to use the bathroom? Would Mimi be expected to put someone else in charge?
“Okay,” Mimi said, the floodgates bursting. “We’re going to do… Uhm… A mystery exercise.” She pulled a tiny slip of paper out of her pocket and explained, “This piece of paper was found crumpled up in the girl’s room,” the mention of the location only reminded Mimi of how much she wanted to be there, “It says ‘don’t tell anyone’ in pink writing. So the mystery is: Who wrote the note?”
Nicole raised her hand and asked, “Was it the Pink Panther?”
“Huh?” Mimi was confused.
“How about the Pink Ranger?” one of the boys asked.
“Kirby?” another kid asked.
“Huh? No. Stop,” Mimi said, “This isn’t made up. I really did find this note. It sounds like it’s a piece of a long conversation. Someone found out someone else’s secret,” Mimi scanned the room and landed on Izzy, who looked suspiciously nervous, as if she too was undiapered and holding back a full bladder.
And then, Mimi saw Izzy suddenly let go of something. But when Mimi tried to see what it was, she just saw Emma’s hand in the same place on the floor. Was Emma covering up whatever Izzy was holding in her hand?
Izzy quickly moved her hands to her lap, which drew Mimi’s trail of vision to Izzy’s pants. There was no embarrassing bulge or stain, Izzy involvement in their inner circle’s biggest hobby rarely escaped the confines of her pajamas. But what was interesting was something poking out of Izzy’s pocket. It was a neon pink pen, the same one Emma once had.
“Maybe something was taken from the other?” Mimi suggested. And then she came to a new realization.“Or maybe the two shared a secret. They’re in it together and one doesn’t want the other to tell anyone, for both their sakes.”
“Uh, this is giving me such a headache!” Lilly declared.
Emma and Izzy inched away from each other.
“Because if the secret gets out,” Mimi thought aloud, “It might ruin… Uhm… The rest of their friendships? It would divide them up, make them choose sides. Some of them would stop being friends with the other.” Mimi turned to Rena, whom none of them had seen much of since diapers became their new favorite hobby. “It’s a secret because they don’t want it to change anything that’s already changed.”
“I wrote the note!”
Everyone’s eyes turned to one point in the room, where the student who was attached to that voice had stood and made their message clear.
Chapter 5
“It was you?” Mimi asked, now squeezing her legs together. “But… That’s impossible. That doesn’t make any sense. I mean. I just don’t believe it. I mean... First of all… Who are you?”
“My name is Zachary Weston,” boy with pale skin and red hair said. “I’ve been in this class since kindergarten.”
“Are you the kid who is always sick and in the hospital?” Mimi asked.
“Yes,” Zachary looked down, ashamed. “That is why I had to ask various friends to help me send these notes. Because though I could not deliver them to her myself, I wrote them with her name in my heart and her face on my mind. You see I don’t usually pack many books or games for my extended stays in the hospital, but when our old yearbook somehow made it with my all the way to pediatrics, I found myself remembering the one person who was always nice to me. The one person who always made me smile. The one person… Dare I say it… The one person that I love.”
“I love you too!”
Everyone turned again, this time to find Lilly standing up.
“I knew it was you,” she said. “Or at least I hoped it was you. I got all of your notes that you had sent to me on the playground and in my locker. But they’re all different pieces, right?”
Zachary started moving across the hoard of students sitting on the floor. “Piece of a poem,” he said. “I do not care. What the others say. About the shape of your rear. Or your chipmunk cheeks.”
“I know your secret,” Lilly took over, walking toward him as well. “But tell no one.”
He continued, “For I to must wear them. Though only at night.”
“And that is how I knew,” Lilly took over, “That you were for me.”
“And I am for you,” Zachary ended, now face to face with. And then they grabbed ahold of each other in an awkward embraced, and shared an awkward fourth grade first kiss.
Everyone stared in silence and awe, especially Mimi. She couldn’t take her eyes off the spectacle, unsure of what to make of it. And then things felt warm. Not the warm and fuzzy feeling you get in your heart at cheesy romantic moments like this one. It was the warm and wet feeling you get when your entire bladder is rushing into your pants.
The bell rang, startling Mimi into a shock that fully loosened any muscles that might have been keeping her accident inside. Everyone quickly filed out of the classroom, on to lunch. No one seemed to notice her accident. Soon, everyone was gone except for her.
Mr. Davey entered. Mimi knew where this was going, the humiliating admission of a pants wetting to a superior. However, the science teacher simply said, “I trust you handled everything,” before grabbing his things and heading out of the room.
Lastly, as if she wasn’t already saved from two embarrassments, Mimi spread her legs and found only a wet patch the size of her hand directly between her legs. Somewhere in the shock of it all she must have only emptied her bladder a tad and imagined a puddle happening at her feet. She shrugged. As far as peeing in your pants at school goes, Mimi had done pretty well.
***
Mimi finished her business in the bathroom. She examined the damage in the mirror. It was only noticeable to anyone who was staring directly at her crotch. If someone asked, she’d say her Pull-Up leaked or something. After that, she made her way to lunch.
Lilly was sitting at a separate table with Zachary, blushing and smiling and swapping treats from their lunch bags. Rena sat at the soccer girls’ table. Nicole was most likely off getting her Pull-Up changed by the nurse.
It was just Mimi, Emma, and Izzy at their usual spot. Mimi knew there was more to the mystery than a strange boy with a crush on Lilly. When they recited his poem, Lilly said, ‘but tell no one’ while the original note said, ‘don’t tell anyone’ and was written in a neon pink pen. Emma’s neon pink pen. Emma’s neon pink pen that ended up in Izzy’s pocket. That pen was already in Izzy’s pocket after the two moved their hands away from each other. One of them was holding on to something. Or they were both holding onto something. Something that each of them had.
Mimi grabbed her forked, but it slipped out of her hands. She knelt over you pick it up from the floor, and saw the last clue she needed. Under the table, out of sight from anyone else in the cafeteria, Emma and Izzy were holding hands.
Mimi sat back down and said, “There were two sets of notes. Right?
The two looked at each other, and then back at Mimi. And then they nodded together.
Everything was rushing back to her. The note, the pen, even the look on their faces when Mimi was presenting the mystery to the class. It made perfect sense in every way. Every single detail about it, all the clues and evidence added up. And there was only one resolution.
Mimi looked at them both and said, “Holy crap.”
Chapter 6
Nicole sat down and asked what everyone was talking about. Izzy said she didn’t feel good, and Emma offered to take her to the nurse. It sounded staged. Mimi had learned a few things about rehearsed lines that week. The two never returned to lunch or recess.
Mimi and Nicole didn’t talk much during lunch. Nicole seemed more lucid, more her old self, than usual. While she was often really proud discuss the details of her diaper changes, today she wanted none of it. Mimi wasn’t exactly close to Nicole before her father went to jail. She spent more time with her in the short month or so after she moved in with Abigail than she had the entire first half of the school year.
At recess, the two were joined by Lilly, who acted as if she was a princess who had been rescued by a knight in shining armor.
“Zachary is still recovering,” she explained. “So he can only stay for the first half of school this week. He’s so brave.” Lilly opened her eyes and looked down at Mimi and asked, “Did you pee your pants?”
“Only a little. Why exactly do you like him?” Mimi asked. “I never even noticed him until today.”
“He’s nice,” Lilly said, “He likes Monster Story and hates my brother. He’s perfect. He even wears Goodnites, same ones as me. But he only has to wear them for bed like… Hey, where’s Izzy? And Emma?”
“Izzy’s tummy hurts,” Nicole explained. “I mean stomach.”
“How long does it take for the nurse to stick a thermometer in her mouth and give her some Tylenol?” Lilly asked. “And what exactly does Emma need to be there for?”
Mimi knew the truth about them, but didn’t think it was right to tell the others their secret. “Hey, Lilly,” she asked, “Does Zach know you wear Goodnites like.. For fun?”
Lilly nodded. “We don’t keep any secrets,” she said. “He said he kinda likes them too. Sometimes on the weekends if he wakes up dry he’ll leave them on for a bit. Also his name is not Zach. It’s Zachary.”
“Aren’t you a little young for a boyfriend?” Nicole asked.
“Love doesn’t wait,” Lilly said. “Zachary is in and out of the hospital so much he could die at any minute. He wants to spend as much time with me as possible before it’s too late. Honestly if he left me now I’d be devastated.”
“What about us?” Mimi asked. “You left us at lunch. If he’s your boyfriend is that going to get in the way of us all still being friends.”
“You guys can have me at recess,” Lilly said, “And Zachary at lunch.”
“So we’re dividing our time now?” Mimi asked. “We’re all just gonna get split up until we never hang out again.”
“Relax, Mimi,” Nicole said. “There’s you and me. You’re not going to get a boyfriend walking around with pee in your pants.”
“It’s just a little bit,” Mimi reminded her.
“And I doubt there’s a guy who wants a girl like me,” Nicole continued, “And I don’t know about Emma but Izzy isn’t fit to be anyone’s girlfriend right now.”
Mimi dropped the subject. She wanted to tell them. She wanted to explain how things would be different, how things are already different. It was strange how everything was so obvious, and yet only she had seen it. It made sense. Nicole is a different person half the time and Lilly has spent a few weeks apparently falling in love with some sick boy.
That left it up to Mimi. She alone was able to solve the mystery. It was Izzy, in the bathroom, with the pen. But it wasn’t a murder story. It wasn’t a story of deception or villainy. It wasn’t even a horror story.
It was a love story.
“My best friend is dead,” Mimi said. “I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I will be the one to find out.”
“You’re just a kid,” Emma said, “Leave this to the police.”
“She was my friend,” Mimi continued, “so if anyone is going to find out who killed her it is going to be me!”
“Let it go!” Emma shouted.
“I CAN’T!!!” Mimi threw her hands in the air and then froze still. “And.... Uhm… Crap.”
“Language,” Mr. Davey said without looking up from his clipboard, where he had been putting all of his attention the entire time. “And you’re overdoing it again.”
Mimi looked at him, and then at Emma, and back at him. “Me or-”
“You,” he said and then looked up. “From the top. Remember, this is your best friend. Think about someone you want to spend the rest of your days with.”
Mimi watched Emma glance to the audience, where Izzy sat next to Lilly. They were sitting with the rest of the class on the floor in front of the desks that had been pushed back to make room for the two to rehearse.
“But,” Mimi said, “It’s hard to get emotional about… I mean... It’s a rock.”
“And someone murdered her,” Mr. Davey took off his glasses and said, “It doesn’t matter if she’s a flower or a sea otter.”
“Well,” Mimi thought about it. “If she was an otter I’d be able to get emotional about her.”
“Sit down,” Mr. Davey sighed. “Both of you.”
They did so and he took the center of the class.
“I don’t think you all understand the importance of this production,” Mr. Davey began. The rest of his speech was just as preposterous as his opening statement. The “production” was in fact a thirty minute short play that was shown to the kindergarten and the PTO and no one else. Each year the fourth grade class did one of these “science plays” that were directed by Mr. Davey, the science teacher. Fortunately/unfortunately Mr. Davey was a big fan of the theater.
Mr. Davey called up a group of kids who were playing “The Rockettes,” which were basically dancing rocks. Nicole was among the Rockettes and she was easily the most excited about the play.
Mimi sat down next to Lilly and Emma sat down next to Izzy as they watched Nicole literally step on everyone’s toes.
When the Rockettes were done with their number, they were dismissed. Mimi was once again on stage after that.
“This silk glove was found at the crime scene,” Mimi said with no emotion at all.
“What does that mean?” Courtney asked.
Mimi held up her hand, miming as if she was holding a magnifying glass, and shouted, “It’s sedimentary, my dear Watson!”
The two then walked in place as Rena walked up to them.
“What’s the meaning of this, Sherock Holmes?” Rena asked.
“Dina Diamond, I see you’re missing a glove,” Mimi said.
“I do declare,” Rena said in a monotone, “It was taken from my homestead by that rascal Rudy the Rock Rancher. Him and the Granite Gang like to walk off with what doesn’t belong to them.”
The bell rang.
“Oh thank Jesus,” Mimi sighed. She will never understand how or why she was chosen to play the lead of this travesty.
Lunch was next, and Mimi wanted to grab Lilly so they could stand in line together. But Lilly had already made her way toward the cafeteria. Mimi shrugged, figuring she would catch up, and joined the others.
Chapter 2
Mimi wanted to excise the play from her mind, but every second of lunch she was somehow reminded about it. Emma and Izzy looked like they thought she was going to snap and eat them, they were sitting closer than usual. Nicole wasn’t paying attention as she was busy carving a smile into her mashed potatoes.
“Mimi,” Rena said, approaching the table. While she was requesting the attention of one Miss Sherock Holmes, Izzy and Nicole looked up first.
“Hi,” Mimi moaned.
“You were very good today,” Rena said.
“Thanks,” Mimi stabbed a fork in her chicken nuggets, hoping they would bleed out her misery.
“Are you gonna sit with us?” Nicole asked, smiling like an idiot. Izzy looked up at Nicole as well, not with a smile but the kind of eyes you get when you really want someone to do something. The kind of eyes a puppy dog gets when it wants a treat.
“Uh, well,” Rena looked at the empty chair in front of her, but was quickly approached by Courtney and Brittany
“Come on, Dina Diamond,” Courtney said, “We have to go over the new shirt designs for the team.”
Rena hesitated at first, but eventually turned and joined the soccer team without saying goodbye.
“Oh, bummer,” Nicole said.
“Usually winter is when she has more time with us,” Izzy said. “But between basketball and indoor soccer we hardly ever see her anymore.”
“Who?” Lilly asked, sitting down next to Mimi with her tray.
“Lilly,” Mimi said, “Where’ve you been?”
“Had to stop at my locker,” Lilly explained. “I forgot my math book.”
That story did not add up. The fourth grade lockers were right outside of the fourth grade classroom, which is where the fourth grade teacher taught fourth grade math. There was no reason to stop during lunch to get a book that was easily obtained on the way back to class.
Mimi cursed herself for thinking like a detective and decided to move on. There were more pressing issues like whether or not Lilly wanted her mashed potatoes.
***
Mimi checked that the coast was clear and that all the stalls in the bathroom were empty. She turned around and tried to look at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t see any wet spots on her jeans, but she certainly felt wet
Inside of a stall, Mimi pulled down her jeans and took a look at her Pull-Up. It was completely socked from front to back and had expanded outward. And she felt cold. Because the packaging was in Japanese, Mimi had no idea if there were any special properties to them. Since the pictures on them weren’t fading, she figured they might be of the “cool alert” variety, or something similar.
Mimi ripped open the sides of the Pull-Up and rolled it into a ball before burying it at the bottom of the trashcan. Then, she pulled out a spare from inside her hoodie pocket and slid it up her legs. She had both her own and Nicole’s milk at lunch, so she just hopped it would last her through the day.
Someone came in, and Mimi sat back on the toilet and lifted her feet up. She couldn’t see who it was. They simply shuffled in for a minute and then left. Probably someone trying to fix their hair.
When Mimi exited the stall, she found a small crumpled up piece of paper, the tell tale sign of a note passed secretly between two girls. She picked it up and uncrumbled it.
It read: “Don’t tell anyone.”
Mimi read it over and over again. She was able to pick out a few details; the handwriting, the ink color, the paper type. Whether she wanted to admit it, whether she wanted it to be true, Mimi couldn’t help but come to a single conclusion:
“We have a mystery.”
Chapter 3
The note was written on normal notebook paper, nothing out of the ordinary. It was penned in a bright pink color. A standard pen comes in blue or black, while teachers had access to red ones. There was only one person Mimi knew to have a pen like that, someone with an entire set of neon, exotic colored pens.
Emma Shepard.
Mimi spent the entirety of math class watching Emma. Her pens were tucked away, as only pencils could be used for real school work. That part of the investigation would have to wait. Mimi instead focused on where Emma was looking.
Shockingly to Mimi, Emma spent much of the time actually paying attention to their math class. Emma rarely looked away from the teacher, the chalkboard, or her textbook.
This was going nowhere, and Mimi knew it. When the bell rang, Mimi had an idea. She walked up to her suspect and asked, “Hey, Emma. do you still have those pens? Like those neon glittery pens?”
Emma nodded and asked, “Why?”
“Can I see them?”
The two walked to art class and sat next to each other, where Emma displayed her pen collection. Six bright pens sat in a plastic case, each with their own color coded spot. All except for one.
“Where’s the pink one?” Mimi asked.
“Huh,” Emma dug through her pencil box and in her pockets. “I must’ve left it somewhere. Anyway, which one do you want?”
“What?” Mimi asked.
Emma said. “I thought you asked because you wanted to use them for your art project.”
Mimi nodded and took a pen. The pink one was missing. Now it was likely and unlikely that Emma was the one who wrote the note. She could have lent the pen to someone. Or it was lost. Or stolen. If she found the pen, she’d find the culprit for sure.
***
“You’re putting a lot in this pen,” Abigail said. Mimi sat in front of the vanity, once again receiving a makeover. “Just because you know Emma had one doesn’t even mean it was her pen.”
“Who else would have a pink pen?” Mimi asked.
Abigail quickly produced a pink pen from her pocket, a drawer in her desk, and one that was sitting on her nightstand.
“It must be a Shepard thing.” Mimi shrugged.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have soft hair?” Abigail asked as she ran her come through Mimi’s dark curls.
“Just you,” Mimi answered.
“What did the note say again?” Abigail asked.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Mimi repeated, having committed the three word message to memory.
“What you should be asking yourself,” Abigail proposed, “is what exactly does this person not want to be told. Who has a secret and who could’ve figured it out? Assuming all the little cliques in your school are full of friends who trust each other, it is possible it was an outside force.”
“A force?” Mimi asked, confused.
“One of the sporty girls is blackmailing a nerdy boy,” Abigail explained, “Or one of the jock guys knows the secret of a girly girl.”
Mimi suddenly realized something and asked, “Could someone have found out about all of us wearing diapers?”
Nicole suddenly burst in, wearing nothing but a fresh Pull-Up, and declared, “Dinner is going to be ready in five minutes. And if Mimi is joining us again she needs to call her mother. And don’t forget to go potty first.” And with that, Nicole left.
“On second thought,” Mimi said, “It’s not exactly a well kept secret right now.
Chapter 4
“All the clues have brought us to an end as dead as my friend,” Mimi said. “In fact we know much less than we did before we even started. But that won’t make me give up. I’ll find out who did the deed if it’s the last deed I do. For justice. For truth. For geology!”
Mr. Davey stood and began clapping, while everyone else sat and watched him on his spiral downward into insanity. And then he checked his phone, which no one heard ring or vibrate.
“Class,” he said, “I have to take this. Everyone listen to Mimi. She’s in charge.”
And suddenly the entire class was sitting on the floor, staring up at Mimi, who would rather be taking notes on rocks than rehearsing a play about the mystery of a murdered pet rock, which is in-of-itself a conundrum of how a rock can be a pet let alone murdered which, as it is revealed in the final scene of the play, was actually a faked death orchestrated by the pet rock itself so that it could go on an adventure while the world renowned detective Sherrock Holmes is solving the alleged murder, collecting an assortment of random objects accidentally dropped by the pet rock in the reverse order that Sherrock finds them resulting in the clues leading the detective in a loop that doesn’t make any feasible sense in the universe that straddles reality with dancing rocks, talking diamonds, singing stalagmites, and an entire restaurant for rocks run by a rock that Mr. Davey insisted be portrayed by Lilly’s brother Nick with an accent reminiscent of an old comedian that none of the children had ever heard of but their science teacher insisted all of their parents did and would think the character is hilarious as a result of that, bringing up further questions about whether this musical was supposed to educate the children or entertain their parents, either way resulting in an incredible waste of every involved party's time as well as the tax dollars of the people of Harmony Hills who were still recovering from the last public humiliation on stage, when Abigail Shepard wet herself and passed out in front of the entire town resulting in the embarrassment of herself and her mother both of whom eventually recovered and became better people because of it, bringing into question whether or such humiliating occurrences were in fact just another part of growing up, a possibility Mimi considered a better outcome for her current situation than to actually be expected to run a classroom for the unknown amount of time that Mr. Davey was going to be out in the hall answering a questionably real phone call.
Mimi peed a little.
She momentarily considered letting it all go, but as she felt a splash of warmth moisten her underwear, she realized that that morning she had decided to make her limited quantity of Pull-Ups last until the next shopping trip. It was her first time wetting herself was a proper accident, brought on by nerves instead of holding it for too long.
Could she relieve herself to use the bathroom? Would Mimi be expected to put someone else in charge?
“Okay,” Mimi said, the floodgates bursting. “We’re going to do… Uhm… A mystery exercise.” She pulled a tiny slip of paper out of her pocket and explained, “This piece of paper was found crumpled up in the girl’s room,” the mention of the location only reminded Mimi of how much she wanted to be there, “It says ‘don’t tell anyone’ in pink writing. So the mystery is: Who wrote the note?”
Nicole raised her hand and asked, “Was it the Pink Panther?”
“Huh?” Mimi was confused.
“How about the Pink Ranger?” one of the boys asked.
“Kirby?” another kid asked.
“Huh? No. Stop,” Mimi said, “This isn’t made up. I really did find this note. It sounds like it’s a piece of a long conversation. Someone found out someone else’s secret,” Mimi scanned the room and landed on Izzy, who looked suspiciously nervous, as if she too was undiapered and holding back a full bladder.
And then, Mimi saw Izzy suddenly let go of something. But when Mimi tried to see what it was, she just saw Emma’s hand in the same place on the floor. Was Emma covering up whatever Izzy was holding in her hand?
Izzy quickly moved her hands to her lap, which drew Mimi’s trail of vision to Izzy’s pants. There was no embarrassing bulge or stain, Izzy involvement in their inner circle’s biggest hobby rarely escaped the confines of her pajamas. But what was interesting was something poking out of Izzy’s pocket. It was a neon pink pen, the same one Emma once had.
“Maybe something was taken from the other?” Mimi suggested. And then she came to a new realization.“Or maybe the two shared a secret. They’re in it together and one doesn’t want the other to tell anyone, for both their sakes.”
“Uh, this is giving me such a headache!” Lilly declared.
Emma and Izzy inched away from each other.
“Because if the secret gets out,” Mimi thought aloud, “It might ruin… Uhm… The rest of their friendships? It would divide them up, make them choose sides. Some of them would stop being friends with the other.” Mimi turned to Rena, whom none of them had seen much of since diapers became their new favorite hobby. “It’s a secret because they don’t want it to change anything that’s already changed.”
“I wrote the note!”
Everyone’s eyes turned to one point in the room, where the student who was attached to that voice had stood and made their message clear.
Chapter 5
“It was you?” Mimi asked, now squeezing her legs together. “But… That’s impossible. That doesn’t make any sense. I mean. I just don’t believe it. I mean... First of all… Who are you?”
“My name is Zachary Weston,” boy with pale skin and red hair said. “I’ve been in this class since kindergarten.”
“Are you the kid who is always sick and in the hospital?” Mimi asked.
“Yes,” Zachary looked down, ashamed. “That is why I had to ask various friends to help me send these notes. Because though I could not deliver them to her myself, I wrote them with her name in my heart and her face on my mind. You see I don’t usually pack many books or games for my extended stays in the hospital, but when our old yearbook somehow made it with my all the way to pediatrics, I found myself remembering the one person who was always nice to me. The one person who always made me smile. The one person… Dare I say it… The one person that I love.”
“I love you too!”
Everyone turned again, this time to find Lilly standing up.
“I knew it was you,” she said. “Or at least I hoped it was you. I got all of your notes that you had sent to me on the playground and in my locker. But they’re all different pieces, right?”
Zachary started moving across the hoard of students sitting on the floor. “Piece of a poem,” he said. “I do not care. What the others say. About the shape of your rear. Or your chipmunk cheeks.”
“I know your secret,” Lilly took over, walking toward him as well. “But tell no one.”
He continued, “For I to must wear them. Though only at night.”
“And that is how I knew,” Lilly took over, “That you were for me.”
“And I am for you,” Zachary ended, now face to face with. And then they grabbed ahold of each other in an awkward embraced, and shared an awkward fourth grade first kiss.
Everyone stared in silence and awe, especially Mimi. She couldn’t take her eyes off the spectacle, unsure of what to make of it. And then things felt warm. Not the warm and fuzzy feeling you get in your heart at cheesy romantic moments like this one. It was the warm and wet feeling you get when your entire bladder is rushing into your pants.
The bell rang, startling Mimi into a shock that fully loosened any muscles that might have been keeping her accident inside. Everyone quickly filed out of the classroom, on to lunch. No one seemed to notice her accident. Soon, everyone was gone except for her.
Mr. Davey entered. Mimi knew where this was going, the humiliating admission of a pants wetting to a superior. However, the science teacher simply said, “I trust you handled everything,” before grabbing his things and heading out of the room.
Lastly, as if she wasn’t already saved from two embarrassments, Mimi spread her legs and found only a wet patch the size of her hand directly between her legs. Somewhere in the shock of it all she must have only emptied her bladder a tad and imagined a puddle happening at her feet. She shrugged. As far as peeing in your pants at school goes, Mimi had done pretty well.
***
Mimi finished her business in the bathroom. She examined the damage in the mirror. It was only noticeable to anyone who was staring directly at her crotch. If someone asked, she’d say her Pull-Up leaked or something. After that, she made her way to lunch.
Lilly was sitting at a separate table with Zachary, blushing and smiling and swapping treats from their lunch bags. Rena sat at the soccer girls’ table. Nicole was most likely off getting her Pull-Up changed by the nurse.
It was just Mimi, Emma, and Izzy at their usual spot. Mimi knew there was more to the mystery than a strange boy with a crush on Lilly. When they recited his poem, Lilly said, ‘but tell no one’ while the original note said, ‘don’t tell anyone’ and was written in a neon pink pen. Emma’s neon pink pen. Emma’s neon pink pen that ended up in Izzy’s pocket. That pen was already in Izzy’s pocket after the two moved their hands away from each other. One of them was holding on to something. Or they were both holding onto something. Something that each of them had.
Mimi grabbed her forked, but it slipped out of her hands. She knelt over you pick it up from the floor, and saw the last clue she needed. Under the table, out of sight from anyone else in the cafeteria, Emma and Izzy were holding hands.
Mimi sat back down and said, “There were two sets of notes. Right?
The two looked at each other, and then back at Mimi. And then they nodded together.
Everything was rushing back to her. The note, the pen, even the look on their faces when Mimi was presenting the mystery to the class. It made perfect sense in every way. Every single detail about it, all the clues and evidence added up. And there was only one resolution.
Mimi looked at them both and said, “Holy crap.”
Chapter 6
Nicole sat down and asked what everyone was talking about. Izzy said she didn’t feel good, and Emma offered to take her to the nurse. It sounded staged. Mimi had learned a few things about rehearsed lines that week. The two never returned to lunch or recess.
Mimi and Nicole didn’t talk much during lunch. Nicole seemed more lucid, more her old self, than usual. While she was often really proud discuss the details of her diaper changes, today she wanted none of it. Mimi wasn’t exactly close to Nicole before her father went to jail. She spent more time with her in the short month or so after she moved in with Abigail than she had the entire first half of the school year.
At recess, the two were joined by Lilly, who acted as if she was a princess who had been rescued by a knight in shining armor.
“Zachary is still recovering,” she explained. “So he can only stay for the first half of school this week. He’s so brave.” Lilly opened her eyes and looked down at Mimi and asked, “Did you pee your pants?”
“Only a little. Why exactly do you like him?” Mimi asked. “I never even noticed him until today.”
“He’s nice,” Lilly said, “He likes Monster Story and hates my brother. He’s perfect. He even wears Goodnites, same ones as me. But he only has to wear them for bed like… Hey, where’s Izzy? And Emma?”
“Izzy’s tummy hurts,” Nicole explained. “I mean stomach.”
“How long does it take for the nurse to stick a thermometer in her mouth and give her some Tylenol?” Lilly asked. “And what exactly does Emma need to be there for?”
Mimi knew the truth about them, but didn’t think it was right to tell the others their secret. “Hey, Lilly,” she asked, “Does Zach know you wear Goodnites like.. For fun?”
Lilly nodded. “We don’t keep any secrets,” she said. “He said he kinda likes them too. Sometimes on the weekends if he wakes up dry he’ll leave them on for a bit. Also his name is not Zach. It’s Zachary.”
“Aren’t you a little young for a boyfriend?” Nicole asked.
“Love doesn’t wait,” Lilly said. “Zachary is in and out of the hospital so much he could die at any minute. He wants to spend as much time with me as possible before it’s too late. Honestly if he left me now I’d be devastated.”
“What about us?” Mimi asked. “You left us at lunch. If he’s your boyfriend is that going to get in the way of us all still being friends.”
“You guys can have me at recess,” Lilly said, “And Zachary at lunch.”
“So we’re dividing our time now?” Mimi asked. “We’re all just gonna get split up until we never hang out again.”
“Relax, Mimi,” Nicole said. “There’s you and me. You’re not going to get a boyfriend walking around with pee in your pants.”
“It’s just a little bit,” Mimi reminded her.
“And I doubt there’s a guy who wants a girl like me,” Nicole continued, “And I don’t know about Emma but Izzy isn’t fit to be anyone’s girlfriend right now.”
Mimi dropped the subject. She wanted to tell them. She wanted to explain how things would be different, how things are already different. It was strange how everything was so obvious, and yet only she had seen it. It made sense. Nicole is a different person half the time and Lilly has spent a few weeks apparently falling in love with some sick boy.
That left it up to Mimi. She alone was able to solve the mystery. It was Izzy, in the bathroom, with the pen. But it wasn’t a murder story. It wasn’t a story of deception or villainy. It wasn’t even a horror story.
It was a love story.