No Fair!
“That’s it!” Larry near threw the fluffy onto his workshop table, the wretched thing screeching in panic all the while. He had bought Bubbles, a marine blue pegasus, for his young daughter Linda for her birthday. That was a month ago and more than once the fluffy had broken out of its saferoom to cause trouble. Paint on the walls, chewed-up newspaper, and just now breaking a flowerpot.
Not a fancy or important one, mind you. The problem wasn’t with the pot itself, but with the sharp shards it left scattered around the floor - Larry would be damned if he let his beloved daughter step on them and get hurt from the actions of a fat toy pet. “I’ve warned you about this, you’re losing your leg privileges!”
“Nuuu!!” screeched the fluffy through a flow of tears. “Pwease nu take Bubbwes’ weggies!! Bubbwes need weggies fo’ wun an’ pway an’ hug mummah!!”
“Too late,” Larry hissed, grabbing his bone saw from the wall. Well it wasn’t a real bone saw, but rather a workshop saw for cutting up metal scrap - whatever, point was it worked fine on fluffy bones too. He strode right back over to Bubbles and snatched its tail before it could leap off the table, wings buzzing frantically as if it could fly away. “Now hold still-”
“Daddy?” came a curious yet apprehensive little voice from the doorway, and Larry stopped in his tracks. He looked over to see Linda - she was a precious little child, only six years old. As she watched him Larry became all too aware of what a terrible situation she had walked in on, but before he could get a word out her eyes widened in recognition and she gasped. “How could you?!”
“No um, honey, it-”
“I wanna de-leggify her!” Linda complained as she ran up to the table, making grabby hands for the not-bone saw. Bubbles, who had just began a plea for rescue, stared slack-jawed and Larry felt just as shocked.
“No!?” was all he could respond.
“You said I had to take care of her!” protested Linda. “You said! I gotta feed her and clean her and punish her, and you can’t punish her then! It’s my job!”
"You’re six!"
“I’m not a child!” whined Linda. “I’m big now! I can do it!”
“I’m not giving you a saw, you could cut yourself!”
“I won’t!”
“Absolutely not!” Larry hung the saw back on the wall just to make sure it would remain out of his daughter’s reach. “I am not giving you any… Any de-leggifying tools!”
“But bad fluffies lose their leggies! Fluff-TV said that!” argued Linda. “And Bubbles was bad again, right? So she has to! And you can’t do it, she’s my respons-i-bility!”
“No.” Realizing both the futility of this argument and the deep pit in his stomach caused by the thought of his daughter becoming an abuser, Larry picked the frozen Bubbles up in both hands and handed her to the child. “You’ll get to punish her, but you are not allowed to use any bad and sharp things to do it. Understand? You can use the sorry stick and sorry box and that’s it.”
“Okay daddy,” agreed Linda as she hugged the still-catatonic fluffy to herself. “As long as I’m the one to do it!”
“Of course you are. Run along now.”
In the end, Bubbles’s punishment was pitifully lenient compared to what Larry had attempted. She got a long night in the sorry box and had to eat yucky veggies instead of kibble (she and Linda shared an utter disdain for anything healthy), and that was it.
Despite that, Bubbles never caused trouble again. Rather she hugged Linda more than ever before and often made little mentions of how nice leggies were, pointing out how she wouldn’t be able to give nice hugs or play fun games if she had no leggies.
Nice to know she finally took his de-leggifying threat seriously, Larry supposed. Even if that particular punishment was impossible now; after all, there was no way he’d let his daughter de-limb a fluffy. She might get hurt!
