Orphan Petal

August 2023 - Part 2

Shirley must decide if he is brave enough to be like the girl in his dreams

Doctor Mary
Where do I start by summarizing the last part? I can start by saying that children can be so cruel to each other. Oh yes, I know that Shirley bullied others and even harmed his foster brother before he came to the orphanage and some think that this is just payback time or Karma. He is getting the same treatment that he gave. To some, this seems fair. I am not one of them. Shirley is trying to figure out his identity. He is acting in a way that he despised a few months ago, One has to admire his courage, that he will be the person he wants and not care what others think. I still think that it's strange no one is asking why he wants to be the girl in his dreams, and why he suddenly is regressing and acting more feminine.

Shirley:
I know that I have changed and I have accepted it. There is one thing that I cannot accept. I never cried before I came here. I did not even cry when my parents were buried. Now it seems like I cried all the time. Maybe this was because I was being called names all the time. It is not so much the names that they call me that bothers me. I can get used to being called a baby. The problem was the spirit that it was said in. It was said in a mean spirit. It was said just to hurt me. It did hurt me that everyone thought I was weird. They did not care if I was happy. They wanted me to be like them. This hatred made me cry more and more.

Aunty
I wanted to cheer Shirley up. So I searched the attic and found an old dollhouse, some Barbie dolls and a lot of stuffed animals. There were also some old boy toys but I left them there. Shirley was delighted that I gave him the new toys. He told me that Susan could play with them as well. Without thinking I commented that Susan may be too old for the toys and even the clothes. Shirley laughed when I said this and said that Susan and him are the same age. This made me think that he is not fully aware of how much he is changing. Could the regression be something mental? The important thing is that he is much happier now compared to what he had been.

Susan:
I am also starting to be bullied by others. It is because I am Shirley's friend. The other children here think that he is weird. I do not think this. Shirley is just different, but he does make me laugh and he is fun to be with. It's like he could be a sister. Well, It's wrong to consider him as a sister, as I am sure that I fancy Shirley. Being Shirley's Friend means that I will never be popular. Maybe I will never have friends. In a way, this should have bothered me. It did not. I consider myself lucky. Shirley is a good friend. I will always support him and do my best to understand him. Besides all this, I never had a friend. Shirley is the first good friend I ever had, so I am in a better place than where I was a few months ago.

Shirley:
Austin asked… Susan asked... Aunty asked… they all asked why was I using a pacifier more and more and why was I always carrying a stuffed unicorn. This was hard for me to answer. I have realized that I have been crying more and more. I cannot explain this. I never considered myself a crybaby and never cried much. Now I cry a lot. Susan thinks it's healthy for me to cry as it means I do not keep things bottled up. I do not know how using a pacifier has now become a habit. I found it weeks ago on my bed. Then I started sleeping with it. Now the pacifier calms me down and is soothing when I feel sad or cry. The girl in my dream also has one, so it can't be all that bad. Austin asked me do I felt embarrassed that I still use it. I told him I only use a pacifier when no one sees me. Then he pointed out that even when I do not use it, it's always in my pocket.

Austin:
We all have secrets. I have a big secret and it feels like a volcano in me at times. It's like at times, I think that it would be better that the whole world knows my secret. However, I am afraid of how people will react if they know my secret. In a way, Shirley and Susan have influenced me a lot. They are not afraid of what others think about them. Especially Shirley. Strangely, he is acting more and more like a baby, but he does not change who he is just because he gets called names and whatnot. It could mean that he is just stubborn or crazy, but it most likely meant that he was happy and content the way he was and was not going to be dictated by society how to be. I am not like him or Susan. I do not like being teased. I do not want to be different. I do not want to be weird.

Shirley:
Despite that I no longer share a room with Austin, I still visit him. He does not think that I am bugging him. Often we do not say anything to each other. I think that we are both sad at times. I know that Austin gets teased a lot because people think that he is gay. I think that is much worse than how they tease me. Being called gay is much worse than being called a baby. I feel very guilty about Austin being teased as I feel that is my fault. I was the one that told Jason that I thought that Austin was gay and now everyone thinks the same. Austin is a friend and he should know that this is all my fault. I should admit it to him. I am just afraid to do this. I do not care if Austin would beat me up. I am afraid that he will never forgive me or like me again.

Susan:
I may only be 11 but in many ways I think like a teenager already. Sometimes it can be hard to live in an orphanage. Some can be so mean. This is not just the orphanage. The whole world is mean. So many people in the world suffer. There are famines, shootings, war, terror and discrimination. Shirley and I had a long talk about this. This is when I found out that Shirley may act like a baby, but his mind does not. His reaction to all this was that someone always is worse off than we were. This is probably one of the wisest things that I ever heard.

Shirley:
Something happened today that I did not want or plan. I was playing with a dollhouse when suddenly I wet myself. I never wet during the day time. The more I thought of it, I realized that I no longer was aware of when I wet the bed at night. This scared me as it meant I was losing control of my bladder. This probably meant that I no longer would know when I had to pee. I would have to wear diapers all the time. I wet the bed on purpose but now I wet without even knowing it. It was just like the girl in my dreams. She wore diapers because she was an 11-year-old baby. Was this my destiny?

Aunty:
Shirley talked with me today. He told me that he wet the bed at night time without knowing it and even wet himself during the day. This made me think that his bedwetting did not start as an accident. I did not comment on this. He looked worried. He started something that he could no longer control. I think it was his mind or his body telling him what he was. This is what I told him. He thinks the girl in his dreams is him. He wants to be the diaper girl in his dreams. His body is helping her to become the girl in his dreams. I advised Shirley to think if he wants to be this girl in his dreams or if he wants to be more like a boy. If Shirley is the girl in the dreams, then he would be transgendered. This means he would be a girl with a boy's body. I told Shirley to think of who he is. Then it will be easier for me to help and support him. It would also be easier for Shirley not to be confused about his identity.

Shirley:
Aunty thinks that I could be transgender. She thinks I am a girl in a boy's body. This made me think a lot. I always thought that maybe the diapers and dressing up were just pretending or like a game. Even the baby nursery was a game. Now I think that this is more than a game. I am so happy when I am dressed as a girl. I was even happy when I was a baby. This may sound weird. I thought Logan was weird because he thinks he is a girl, now I can understand him. Being transgender is who Logan is. It makes him happy. God must have made a mistake in giving Logan a boy's body. God also made a mistake in giving me a boy's body. Before I came here, I was always bitter, angry and mean. Now I had friends and was happy except when I was being teased. The diaper girl in my dreams showed me who I was and Aunty and Sarah have supported me.

Austin:
I miss having Shirley in my room. Yes, he was annoying and he was as strange as they came. However, he is like a little brother. Since he changed, he has been so vulnerable. It's as if he is a china doll that can easily break. This is the total opposite of the moronic selfish idiot of a bully that he was when he first came here. I just want to protect him. I consider him more than a friend. Shirley is like a brother.

Susan:
Aunty surprised Shirley, Austin and me today. She said we were going on a field trip. I wondered why the other children were not invited. Maybe it was to give us three a good experience. Aunty knows how hard it has been for us lately. She took us to a lake where we could swim. Austin had swimming trunks on and I had a one-piece swimming costume on. Shirley changed and had a huge smile on his face. He told me that Aunty gave him a swimming costume. It was a one-piece just like the one that I was wearing. Austin and I were silent as Shirley kept on asking us if we thought it was pretty. I wanted to ask him if he realized that he was wearing something girls wear and boys would never want to be seen dead in. I kept quiet. Austin could not keep quiet. He told Shirley that no one would ever guess that he was a boy. This made Shirley smile as he hugged Austin and said thank you. We quickly started splashing around in the water, which was a bit cold. We were having so much fun. It was as if time stopped. I wish we could have stayed here forever!

Miss Hawthorne:
Aunty seems to be spending a lot of time with Shirley. It's no surprise as Shirley must remind her of her nephew. She feminized her nephew and I am sure she is doing her best to feminize this poor boy. I will sit back and let Aunty dig a hole for herself. If she wanted to take my position here, then what she is doing with Shirley will end up haunting her. I could have put a stop to this nonsense, but I also wanted to make my position stronger here at the orphanage. If Aunty tried to cause trouble, I would use this against her.

Shirley:
I have been thinking a lot about what Aunty told me. The trip to the lake helped me make up my mind. When Austin said that I looked like a girl, it was the best compliment I ever got. I felt like a girl. I was a girl at that moment and I liked it. I know who I am now. It will make my life harder, but I will be happy. I went to Aunty and thanked her for the trip to the lake. I also asked her if I could have some dresses.

Victoria Temple
Thanks for reading this part. I hope you will comment. If you were Aunty, would you give Shirley a dress? I hope to see you in the next part of “Orphan Petal"