Leo was so scared. His mommy and daddy wouldn't say anything to him, no matter how much he asked. They each held one of his hands, and they were walking down a corridor, a scary movie corridor, dingy, with flickering lights. His mommy and daddy were talking to each other, over his head, but they were ignoring him, or worse, they just couldn't hear him. Leo was wearing his Winnie the Pooh pajamas, which he thought was weird, because Mommy and Daddy were wearing their regular clothes.

Everyone around them was speaking some other language, and Leo didn't know what they were saying. It looked like a hospital, sort of, but also like a huge airport. He could see into some of the rooms they were passing, and they were filled with children. Not happy, playing children, either. All of them were wearing hospital gowns, and they were sitting in chairs, solemn and silent.

Leo tugged on his parents' hands, trying to get their attention, but nothing was working. They just kept leading him down the scary corridor, until they finally came to a huge room, filled with children, all of whom had signs with numbers on them. They were behind a glass partition, like at the zoo. As soon as Leo and his mommy and daddy walked in, all of the kids frantically began holding their signs up, waving them in the air, calling desperately, trying to get their attention. Some of the kids started to cry, sobbing while they sat in their chairs.

Leo just stood at the front of the huge room, holding his parents' hands, looking at the sad, weeping children, wanting to leave, just leave, so badly. He couldn't understand what any of the wailing children were saying, either, just that they wanted Leo's parents to notice them, for some reason.

Over his head, he heard Mommy say, "What about that one?" as she pointed.

"Where?" Daddy questioned, looking out into the room.

"Right there, with the long hair," Mommy replied.

"Number 237?" Daddy asked. "The girl with the braids?"

"Yes," Mommy answered, and Leo could see her nodding energetically out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't look away from the sea of crying children. Some of them had left their plastic chairs and were shuffling toward the glass, walking slowly, like they were zombies or something.

"Okay," his daddy agreed.

At his word, a woman in a white lab coat entered the room and approached them, holding a clipboard.

"Have we decided?" she asked. She, too, looked and spoke only to Leo's parents. It was like he wasn't even there. She had an accent, like the man at the deli.

"Yes, number 237," his mommy told her.

"Excellent choice," the woman said, smiling.

Then, to Leo's horror, his mommy and daddy released his hands, and the woman in the lab coat grasped one of them and led him away, toward a door in the partition.

Was he going to have to go into that scary room, with the crying zombie kids and their signs?

He turned to look at his parents, but again, they weren't even looking at him. They had their arms around each other and were smiling and waving to the girl with the braids.

The lab coat lady opened the door, and Leo was hit with a horrible smell, a smell like when he walked by the dumpsters at his school. She shooed the crying kids away, and made them go back to their chairs, except for the girl with the braids, who was holding the sign with "237" on it.

The girl looked at Leo with huge eyes, her gown hanging off her gaunt frame.

Leo wanted to scream, but he couldn't.

The lab coat lady took the numbered sign from the girl and handed it to Leo. Then she pointed to the empty plastic chair.

"No!" Leo cried. "I don't want to!"

But, like his parents on the other side of the partition, the lab coat lady didn't seem to hear him. She kept pointing, her expression stern.

Leo finally walked to the chair and sat in it. It was cold on his bottom, really cold, and felt kind of wet, too.

Leo turned to look at his parents. He knew that he was crying a lot, like a baby, but he was too scared not to.

They weren't even looking at him. They were smiling and talking to the girl with the braids, who was laughing with them. They nodded their thanks at the lady in the lab coat, and turned and left, each holding one of the little girl's hands, like they had been to him when they came in.

Leo looked around. The kids around him were really scary, and looked like they might grab him and hurt him. He looked back at the door his parents had left from, hoping they'd come back for him.

But he knew they weren't going to. He was going to have to sit in this room with these terrifying kids, and hold his sign up when other parents came in, hoping someone would choose him.

His mommy and daddy didn't want him anymore. He didn't belong to them.

He hoped the girl with the braids would be nice to Happy, and to Beanie...

Leo sat straight up in bed, feeling like he was choking. Happy lifted her head from near his feet, looking right at him. She looked so normal, her expression so curious, that she made Leo feel better for a second. It was dark, and the clock next to his bed, said that it was 12:35.

A dream. It was just a dream. Leo let out a huge breath of relief, and shifted in bed.

That was when he noticed something felt funny. His bottom felt warm, and sticky. He flipped back the covers, knowing what he would find. He could already smell it.

He, Leo, had wet the bed, like a little baby.

Oh no.

As far as he could remember, he'd never, ever wet the bed before. He knew there were some kids at school who did that, and he always felt bad for them when they had to tell Ms. Abby after nap time.

Leo started to cry, even though he was so glad to be in his own room, in their wonderful apartment, and not in the scary room with the zombie kids, where his dream parents had left him.

He didn't want to tell, he didn't want his parents to know.

He got out of bed. Happy jumped down, wondering what her boy was doing now, in the middle of the night, but prepared for whatever was going to happen.

Leo grimly pulled the corners of the fitted sheet off his bed, though it was hard to do. He made a face as he smelled what he'd done, and tried to stop crying. He pulled his soiled pajama bottoms off, too, along with his underwear, and took the whole, messy pile to the laundry room, on the other side of the kitchen, after first grabbing some clean undies from his drawer and pulling them on.

The apartment was scary, dark and silent, but Leo knew he had to be brave. Besides, Happy was next to him, padding agreeably along to wherever her boy was going.

Leo turned the light on in the laundry room and wondered how to work the giant washing machine. He couldn't even see the controls, let alone reach them.

He had to try, though. He couldn't let Mommy and Daddy find out what a disgusting, awful thing he'd done. They for sure wouldn't want a boy who wet the bed; who would? Any parent would need a break from a stupid little kid like that.

Leo shoved everything into the top of the washing machine, then stood on pile of dirty clothes that was next to it so he could climb on top of it. He looked at all of the buttons, and wondered if he could break it if he pushed the wrong thing.

He did the best he could, and finally pushed the start button, after dropping a pod cleanser into the machine. It started vibrating and filling with water, so maybe he'd done an okay job.

He went back to his room, and realized that he'd have to put a clean sheet on the bed, or his mommy would know. The clean linens were in the big closet in the hallway, so he'd have to be really quiet.

He opened the door, and looked at the stacks of sheets and towels. He could see the sheets for his twin-sized bed; they were easy to spot, even in the dark, because most of them had a design on them, like Toy Story or race cars.

They were really high, though. Leo looked in the darkened closet for something to stand on, but there wasn't anything.

He looked over at Happy, who was watching everything he did. Even Merry and Chrissy had come to stare at him, and seeing all three of them, sitting in a row, like an audience, made Leo smile, in spite of the scary circumstances.

Could he stand on Happy's back to reach?

Leo discarded this idea. He'd been told before that, even though Happy was a pretty big dog, he wasn't supposed to ride her, that he could hurt her, and he definitely didn't want to do that.

Leo looked up at his sheets.

Maybe he could just climb up, using the shelves themselves?

"I have to try," he said softly to himself. "I'm a big boy, and I'm not even scared."

He thought he heard a noise, and looked.

Amya was at the end of the hallway, peering at him from the living room. She, too, had her tail curled neatly around herself, like the cats. She blinked her beautiful, amber eyes at him, and nodded encouragingly.

Leo nodded back, and grasped one of the shelves while stepping on to the lowest one. He looked up and grabbed the next one while cautiously raising his foot.

"I'm not even scared," he repeated. "I'm as brave as a lion, as brave as a lion," he whispered.

He had to do this, he just had to. He couldn't let his mommy and daddy know what a bad boy he was, that he was a bed-wetting baby.

Then he felt everything start to wobble, and realized that the shelves might not be attached in the back.

Oh no.

He didn't even hear himself crying as he reached desperately for the smooth shelf, trying to steady his body. The animals backed up in alarm at the noises he was making. He felt his feet sliding on some towels as his hands scrabbled for purchase over his head.

Leo did everything he could, but the shelving, which was never meant to be climbed, came away from the wall, and the whole thing came crashing down on top of him, towels and pillowcases falling everywhere. There was a clatter as shelves and linens alike went everywhere, with Leo in their midst.