The Unlikely Daddy

• 25 •

Alfie then sat himself down on the grass, attempting to gather his thoughts. He couldn't understand how he could manage to go the whole night without having an accident, but he couldn't control himself at all during the day. Of course he was still impressed by his achievement of staying dry last night, but it was starting to become overshadowed by his inability to not wet himself through the day time.

Faintly, Alfie heard the school bell ring, signalling to the students that they should start heading to their next lessons, but Alfie didn't move. He didn't feel like he was in any mood to learn, and he felt like Mr Preston would only exacerbate his negative emotions. Since their relationship had gotten off on the wrong foot, his didn't see anyway that it could be turned around.

Inside school Mr Preston was eagerly waiting to Alfie to come back to his classroom so they could start his chemistry lesson. But, after over ten minutes of waiting he became concerned about where Alfie was.

Mr Preston decided he would go and check in with Mr Bentley, as he knew Alfie often went to see him when he was having a hard day.

"Oh, hi Connor, I was just looking for Alfie" Mr Preston announced when he arrived at the office and realised Alfie wasn't there either.

"Isn't he with you?" Mr Bentley asked. He too was now worried about where Alfie was.

Mr Bentley thought that they had had a positive conversation that morning, so he expected Alfie's day to go relatively smoothly. So, when he heard that Alfie hadn't turned up to his lesson after morning break he couldn't help but start to worry.

"He went out for break and then never came back" Mr Preston explained.

"Did he leave upset?" Mr Bentley continued to question.  

"No, not really" Mr Preston thought back to earlier that morning. Alfie had been in quite a good mood, so he couldn't understand what could have happened at break to change that.

Just as the men were talking, Mr Dylan knocked on the office door and came inside.

"I just thought I'd mention that I've just seen Alfie out on the field. He didn't look too happy, but he didn't want to talk about it with me" Mr Dylan said helpfully.

"Thanks, Freddie. We were just looking for him" Mr Bentley replied gratefully.

Before leaving for the field, Mr Bentley grabbed Alfie's backpack. Knowing Alfie for a little while now, he knew that Alfie would often become upset and reserved when he'd had an accident and needed changed.

Mr Preston and Mr Bentley then went in search of Alfie.

As Mr Dylan had said, they found Alfie sat on the football field, staring mindlessly off into the distance.

"Alfie, buddy, are you alright?" Mr Bentley asked softly as he approached him.

Alfie was startled when Mr Bentley spoke, letting out a small gasp.

Immediately, he started to panic, thinking he was in big trouble, as he saw Mr Preston looming behind Mr Bentley.

"Hey, don't worry, we're just coming to check on you. Mr Preston and I were worried when you didn't come back to class after break time" Mr Bentley spoke calmly as to not inflame the situation that he could already tell was volatile.

"I just needed some space to think" Alfie admitted.

"That's okay. Do you think you could tell me what you needed to think about?" Mr Bentley asked.

"Lots of things" Alfie didn't really answer the question.

"Which things?" Mr Bentley pressed gently.