After they split up, Jared, the boy who'd snapped at Amanda, returned home and went to bed. He didn't even notice that his thumb had found its way into his mouth.
The next morning, he got up, took a shower, and went back to his room to get dressed. When he pulled out a pair of underwear, he was surprised to see that they were Winnie the Pooh briefs. He looked in his drawer, and saw that every pair of underwear he owned had some childish character on it. He went rummaging through his laundry, but there was no sign of even the boxers he'd work yesterday. In fact, there were dirty pairs of briefs in the laundry, as though he'd been wearing them all the time. Given no choice, and worried about being late for school, he was forced to wear the Winnie the Pooh briefs.
The school day was awful. Jared wasn't a top student during the best of times, but today it seemed like he couldn't do anything. In math class, he was asked to solve a problem involving percentages in front of the class, but couldn't get past the multiplication. As he walked back to his seat he heard students muttering that he should have been kept back, and he was beginning to agree. English class was even worse. They had a vocabulary quiz, and he didn't know a single word. He couldn't even figure out how to pronounce most of them.
And then, to his horror, he realized that he had gym class. He would have to change in front of everyone. He decided that he had to find a way to sneak out, but, as he reached the door out of the school, he had the misfortune to run into the gym teacher. She personally escorted him to the locker room. Given no recourse, he simply changed as quickly as possible, hoping no one would notice. It was clear, from the looks on their faces, that a few had.
Gym class began without a problem, but then they started a game of soccer. Early on, one of the other boys 'tripped' him and pulled off his shorts. The entire class started laughing as Jared tried to pull his shorts back up.
"Look at little Jerry in his Pooh undies!"
"What're doing in the seventh grade anyway?"
"You're just a baby!"
With each insult, Jared felt more and more out of place. He wanted to melt into the floor.
Suddenly he looked up. He was no longer in the gym, but on the playground of the elementary school, surrounded by second graders.
But he still had his pants down, and he was still wearing Winnie the Pooh underwear. And, somehow, he knew that he was going to spend the next ten years with the kids who were laughing at him now, and he had a feeling he was going to wear Winnie the Pooh underwear for most of that time.
He began to cry.