    PREP SCHOOL
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    Chapter One

    	I stood in the doorway of the great hall next to
    matron and waved goodbye to my mother and father. I was 7
    1/2 years old and had just been entered into St. Joseph's
    Preparatory School by my parents while my father and mother
    went to Japan for 2 years. They had done everything
    possible to prepare me for this for the last six weeks
    since my father had heard of his promotion within the
    company. We had all come to St. Joseph's together to view
    it, been shown around, had tea with the headmistress and
    all the things you do when choosing a place to dump your
    only child, but all I really wanted was to cuddle up to my
    mummy at home.
    	As they pulled out of the driveway the matron used her
    hanky to wipe my tears away and walked me back towards the
    room where we had left my suitcase. She swung the door to
    the room open. This was the reason why I liked this school
    more than the others we had seen. The room was neat and
    comfortable with two beds, a desk, TV set and wardrobes.
    There was a door to the bathroom which was shared by the
    room next door. The matron walked over to my suitcase,
    picked it up and turned around with me still holding her
    hand. "It will be a long while before you get to stay in
    this room," she said.
    	We walked back along the passage way and up another
    flight of stairs then along another passage until we
    arrived at another door. The matron swung it open and I
    followed her in. The room had six beds in it with bedside
    tables and six small wardrobes but nothing else. Along one
    end were 3 doors. The matron walked over to one of the beds
    and placed my suitcase on it.
    	"This will be your bed," she announced. "This is where
    all our boys start off." Then she undid my suitcase and
    started to go through the new things my mother had bought
    for me. "Lets just sort through this and take out the
    things you need," she said. She started to take out my new
    underpants, socks, pyjamas and shirts. She found Arnold, my
    teddy and put him to one side along with my toothbrush and
    a photo of my parents and put the rest of my things,
    including all my clothes, back in the case.
    	"We will put the case in the storeroom for when you
    need it," she said. "While you are here you will wear only
    school clothes." I didn't understand, but it didn't matter
    to me as long as I had Arnold. Then she said we would go
    down for tea with the other boys and she would show me
    around while they were doing prep after tea.
    	After we had juice and sandwiches in the dining room
    the matron took me back to the dormitory we had been in.
    She showed me through two of the doors at the end of the
    room. One was a bathroom with a huge bath tub like at a
    football stadium and three showers. It also had toilets and
    sinks with mirrors. The other room, she explained, was a
    changing room where we would go to get dressed. It had
    several large drawers and cupboards and a few other things
    that I did not recognize. It looked like a doctor's room, I
    thought.
    	As we went back into the dormitory some of the other
    boys appeared. They were all dressed in the same uniform of
    short grey trousers, white shirt with school tie, blue
    pull-over and black shoes, grey socks. The matron told them
    all to come over and meet their new classmate, which they
    all did. She introduced them all to me and me to them. Then
    she announced that they should all get changed for play
    time since it was such a nice day. All the boys started to
    undress and put away their clothes. The matron suggested I
    should do the same so that I could play with them and the
    matron could put my clothes away.
    	As I started to undress, not really knowing what was
    going on, I watched the boy next to me as he took of his
    sweater and folded it carefully, then his tie which he put
    away. He took off his shirt and placed it on his bed and
    then slipped of his shoes and finally, his shorts. It was
    as he was putting his shorts away that I realised he was
    not wearing underpants like the cotton ones my mother had
    bought for me, but his appeared to be made of plastic. All
    the boys than went into the changing room while wearing
    only their pants and socks. The matron scowled at me and
    helped me to undress down to my pants so that I could join
    the other boys.
    	We both went in to the room and found the other boys
    lined up waiting for the matron. She stood me at the end of
    the line and went to the front. I noticed that even though
    some of the boys were older all were wearing the same
    plastic underpants. The first boy pulled down his pants,
    stepped out of them and passed them to the matron. She
    turned them inside out as we all looked on, I could now see
    that these pants were lined with several layers of cloth.
    When she could see that the pants were dry she gave the boy
    a clean pair and the next boy took his pants off while the
    first slipped his on. Again the second was dry and the
    third, but the fourth boy was not so happy to remove his
    pants. The matron gave him a stern look and he slowly
    lowered his pants to the floor. It was obvious straight
    away that the pants were soaking wet. The matron stood the
    boy to one side as the fifth boy dropped his pants. His
    pants were dry but as he dropped them there was a large
    brown stain visible. The matron said that since he had not
    wiped his bottom he would get the same as the fourth boy.
    	I was the last one in the line. I didn't know what was
    expected of me. The matron told me to drop my pants. I was
    unsure since I had never done that with anyone else
    present, but I slowly slipped my y-fronts to the ground and
    passed them to her. She made a deal out of inspecting them,
    but of course there were no stains in them so she passed me
    a pair of the pants all the other boys had. As I slid them
    up my legs I could feel the cool plastic of the leg
    openings against my skin. They were warm cloth on the
    inside with white plastic outers.
    	Meanwhile, the matron had turned her attention on the
    other two boys. She opened one of the drawers and pulled
    out several items which she laid out on the bench down the
    middle of the room. She took a large cloth square and
    folded it into a triangle and lowered one of the boys on to
    it. I had never seen any child put in a cloth nappy before
    so it took a little while for me to realise what was
    happening. She brought one corner up between the boy's legs
    and another corner up from his side. She tucked this piece
    in between the layers of the first corner and then did the
    same with the other corner. It was easy to see that this
    nappy was on really tight as she fastened it with a single,
    large, safety pin through the front. Then she placed a pair
    of plastic pants over the boy's feet and pulled them up his
    legs before standing him up pulling them around his waist
    and tucking in any cloth of the nappy. As we all looked on,
    the second boy got the same treatment, but the matron
    stopped to clean his bottom with a wet wipe before pulling
    up the front of his nappy.
    	Once we were all in our pants or nappies we went
    through to the dormitory to get dressed. The matron took me
    over to the wardrobe next to my bed and opened it. All the
    clothes were laid out in exactly the same way that they
    were in all the other boys wardrobes. I watched to see what
    the other boys were wearing and selected a polo shirt and
    track pants to put on. As I dressed I watched the boy next
    to me trying to pull his track pants over his nappy. He had
    a huge bulge in them. Once I had my trainers on we all
    lined up near the door and were taken outside to play. It
    was only as we left the backdoor of the school that I
    remembered I had not been to the toilet yet since tea.

    Chapter Two follows very soon.