Claire spent most of the next few days playing with her new Fluffies. At first her mother and
father were surprised and concerned about her new pets. Fluffies are hard to take care of, her father would tell her. They were delicate, and not very smart, and could have accidents he’d said. They would poop everywhere, and escape, or get pregnant by some nasty feral fluffy, her mother had told her. But Claire knew they were wrong. She would take care of Jelly and Snowflake and be the bestest mummah in the whole world, as the fluffies seemed to think she would be.
On their first night, Jelly and Snowflake slept in an old cardboard box by the side of Claire’s bed. They had an old towel to snuggle up in, and they cuddled each other for warmth. Claire gave them a bowl of muesli and a bowl of water, and fed them grapes as treats. The fluffies cooed and giggled, and told Claire how much they loved her. They cuddled her fingers and sucked on her fingertips, trying to get “miwkies”. Claire thought they were the most adorable things ever. She took pictures of them with her iPhone and put them online for all her friends to see. Everyone thought they were amazing.
The next day, Claire’s father took her back to the store. He had a bit of an argument about selling fluffies to children, but the owner said that as Claire was twelve, she was allowed to buy them by law. He then haggled with the store owner, and bought a fluffy pen, with a water bottle, bedding, a litterbox, water bottle, dishes for food, foal-kibble and a bunch of toys for them to play with.
The fluffies loved their new home. Claire added poster tubes and kitchen towel tubes to make tunnels for them, and they ran around exploring, chasing each other and making nests. They ate the foal kibble and played with the balls and plushy toys that “nyu daddeh” had bought for them, even though they were bigger than the fluffies. Apart from a few accidents, they made good poopies in the litterbox, and slept snuggled up in a nest of tissues which Claire helped them make. At night, they needed a night light to be left on, as they couldn’t handle the “scawy dawk time”. Claire would laugh as she heard them argue with each other about who was the “bestest babbeh” when they thought she couldn’t hear them, and she went to sleep to the sounds of them chirping and chatting to each other.
Snowflake was by far the prettiest fluffy. Claire looked online, and saw that pure white unicorns were worth hundreds of dollars! A blue mane and tale would reduce the price a little, but she would still be worth over $150 once she was fully grown. Claire couldn’t believe the bargain she had gotten, getting both foals for $20. Snowflake seemed smart and brave, and settled in much more quickly than Jelly, learning to use the litterbox easily, and being less shocked or afraid than Jelly.
Jelly on the other hand, was really cute, but not very clever. Jelly would wander off, chew electrical wires, and see “munstahs!” everywhere. She was terrified of shadows, the doors slamming, teddy bears (clearly munstahs), food she had not seen before, strange lumps in the litterbox, strange poops in the litterbox, worring that she might not make it to the litterbox, and that Claire would secretly have a sorry stick, if she were a bad fluffy.
Although she used to laugh at how stupid Jelly was, eventually Claire came to realise that the fluffies might actually be quite traumatised from their time in the store. She did all she could to reassure them that her bedroom was safe (but that they were not to chew electrical wires) and that there was no sorry stick anywhere, and that they were good fluffies. In spite of this, Jelly still seemed afraid.
“Jelly you silly beast, there is no sorry stick, I keep telling you that,” Claire exclaimed one day, as she cleaned up another one of Jelly’s accidents.
“You get scared and you poop, and then you get scared because you’ve pooped”
“Am sowwee mummah, it was a haxidunt, jewwy no mean make bad poopies, it was meanie munstah dog next daw bawking, it scawe jewwy.”
“The dog next door doesn’t mean to scare you,” sighed Claire, thinking about Abbie for a moment, “Its just barking at the mail man.”
“Is weawy no sowwee stick?” asked Jelly.
“Yes, there is no sowwee stick here. Did the pet shop man have a sowwee stick?”
“Yes! And Jewwy was a bad fwuffy… used to get sowwee stick aww da time… hu hu huuuuu…” Jelly began to cry, and started to tell Claire about how horrible the pet shop had been.