SOON MUMMAH SPECIALS
A FluffMart Anthology
Chapter Six: Elmo
Part Two
“Fankoo fow hewp Ewmo cwean aww da babbehs poopies, mummah!”
“Don’t mention it, sweetie,” Mel said, as she left the saferoom with her bucket of cleaning supplies. The kids were starting to slack off on their Elmo-related chores, and she knew that either she would have to pick up the slack, or she would end up cleaning Elmo’s vomit. The mare had “made sickies-wawa” each of the first two days after the foals were born from trying to consume all of their waste, which had only compounded the cleaning job. She had nearly thrown up herself while cleaning up yesterday’s mess.
Marv had all three kids out at soccer practice on the beautiful Sunday afternoon. With the house to herself until after sunset and all of the tasks on her checklist done for the day, it was time to kick back on the deck with a glass of Chardonnay and the latest issue of Southern Living.
Apart from the lack of sleep, Elmo’s life couldn’t be any better. All of her little chirpy-babies (too many for her to count) were healthy and drank lots of milkies. Her human family gave her lots of huggies and love, and made sure she had more than enough nummies so she could make milkies.
chirp**chirp
“Hewe babbeh, come dwink miwkies!” Elmo knew better than to have a “bestest baby”—her instincts told her that all her babies were good—but she did notice a couple of her foals had particularly pretty colors, including the little white unicorn who was crawling over to her available teat. He reminded her of a brother of hers from the farm, right down to the little green hairs that formed on both his head and his tail. If he turned out anything like her brother, he would one day give lots of mares good special huggies and make more pretty babies to run and play at mummah and daddeh’s house.
Another of her pretty foals was a light blue earthie. The colt, who was attempting to crawl across the old playmat after a ball, had the same pretty colors as her special friend (though he lacked his sire’s horns and wings). Elmo didn’t care. Just having one with the same colors provided her with a happy reminder of that nearly forgotten time.
None of the babies could see yet, but several of them (like the blue earthie colt) were very curious about their surroundings. She had already had to rescue the little yellow pegasus when it got its head stuck in the baby gate. Thankfully, none of them were big enough yet to fall into their mummah’s water bowl—water is bad for fluffies.
The salmon-colored dam lay peacefully on her bed, watching several of her foals as they learned to play near the gate. A few others were trying to make their very first fluffpile, and the one with her special friend’s colors chirped as he bopped the rubber ball with his nose.
mrow
“Oh, hewwo Fwuffy!” The mare giggled to herself. Kitty-monsters weren’t fluffies—they were kitty-monsters! Mummah and daddeh were awfully silly for giving her that name. “Am Fwuffy hewe fo see babbehs? Am aww gud babbehs!”
Effortlessly, the cat jumped over the gate and into the saferoom. She sat down, and her eyes betrayed just how overwhelmed she was by the technicolor vision before her. Her tail twitched, and she lay down, closely watching two of the foals that rolled around cheeping on the playmat.
The little white unicorn detached and crawled over to the foal fluffpile and went to sleep. Sensing a rare opportunity to do something other than feed foals, Elmo stood up. “Fwuffy wan pway baww? Ewmo haf nuva’ baww hewe somewhewe.” She turned around and rooted in the corner behind her bed, trying to find the extra ball that daddeh had given her.
“Whewe baww? Baww am hidin’?” She poked at her blanket with her hooves, but the ball didn’t come out. The mare decided to look in the cardboard box next.
“Hewe am baww! Baww am in da hidey-pwace. Hee hee. Wet’s pway!”
cheearp chirp**chirp
“Huh? Wha’ babbeh wan—” gasp
screeeeeeeee
As Elmo poked her head around the corner, she could see the little pegasus filly pinned by the neck under Fluffy’s paw. Tiny yellow wing feathers were strewn about the floor in front of the cat’s face, and the dam watched in horror as the Himalayan—with one quick bite—stripped the remainder of flesh and feathers from the foal’s right wing.
screeeeeeeee
“Nuuuuuu! Nu huwt babbeh, kitteh-fwend! Am gud babbeh!” Elmo rushed forward to stop the cat from giving her baby any more hurties.
hissssssss
The cat was too fast for the fluffy. Before the mare could react, Fluffy had made two quick slashes across her nose. Blood streamed out, and Elmo fell back to her haunches clutching her snout.
“Owwies! Huu huu…wai huwt Ewmo? Am gud fwuffy! Nu huwt Ewmo ow babbehs nu mowe!”
Fluffy didn’t respond. Instead, she picked up the chirping, writhing foal in her teeth. The cat shook her head, snapping the tiny fluff’s neck. With the baby dead, she lost interest and dropped the foal. The dam flew into a rage.
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
This attack proved to be a mistake, as the cat quickly wrapped both front legs around the fluffy’s neck and threw her on her side. She bit the mare’s ear between her teeth and chewed, while her powerful back legs scratched at Elmo’s abdomen. The dam likely would have been eviscerated had the cat not bitten off a small piece of her ear and disengaged.
hack haff
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Heaw-pwace huwties! Kitteh nu am fwend. Am munstah!”
Elmo writhed in pain as her ear and her snout bled from her injuries. Blood soaked the fluff on her side, as the damage from the cat’s claws seeped into her fur.
Having dislodged the bit of ear from her throat, Fluffy jumped back over the gate and slinked upstairs as though nothing had happened. Mel, who had come back inside for a second glass of wine, heard the commotion and rushed downstairs. She stifled back tears as she cradled the dead pegasus foal in her hands.
A family meeting was held that night after Ollie had gone to bed. The three year old didn’t know what had transpired that afternoon, and everyone agreed it was best that way.
“It’s settled, then,” Marv said, scratching the bristles of his mustache, “we’ll keep the door to Elmo’s saferoom closed, in addition to the baby gate. Fluffy’s not allowed in there anymore.”
The two older children nodded. Ava had burst into tears when her mother first explained what had happened, and her eyes were still red. Lucas merely sat quietly and looked away.
Then, Mel spoke. “There’s one more thing: one of the reasons your father and I decided to let you have Elmo in the first place was so that you would both learn some responsibility. For the past few days, I’ve been the one feeding her, cleaning up after her and her foals, and making sure she has water in her dish. That’s got to stop. If you’re going to keep a fluffy pony, you’re going to have to pull your weight.”
“From now on, one of you will clean her in the morning, and the other will feed her and scoop her litterbox in the morning. In the evening, you’ll switch tasks. I don’t care who does which—you can decide that yourselves.”
Lucas rolled his eyes and groaned as he headed to bed. Ava nodded, but continued to sniffle as she went to her room. Finally, the two adults were alone.
“Well, if that’s not an auspicious start to the week,” Marv said with a yawn. “Lucas needs to adjust his attitude. If I’d acted that way towards my parents, I’d have caught all kinds of hell.”
“Mmhmm.” Mel was done in for the day. As if the chores hadn’t worn her down, she had just spent two hours calming a mare that was nearly catatonic with grief as she applied “buwnies-wawa” to all of her cat scratches. For the first time in a week, she had regrets about bringing the pony into their home.
“Ahhh, I’m sure I’m overreacting. Every kid acts like that at his age. And I’m sure he and Ava will take care of their pet. But, you know, I’m wondering if we’ve got the space for so many fluffies.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I think…we may have to start thinking about homes for a few of the foals.”
Mel’s eyes widened. “What? You can’t be serious?”
“Why not? I mean, even if Lucas and Ava stay on top of things, can you imagine the manure? Look how much Elmo alone craps out!”
“No, no, no, I don’t think you understand—I spent two hours listening to Elmo wail over her foal. Two hours. I thought she was going to knock me down when I took the poor thing out of the saferoom to bury her. How do you think she’s going to react if she sees them all go out the door one by one, never coming back?”
Marv sighed. “Not well. But how are we supposed to feed ten—no, nine—fluffies? Even buying the cheap stuff with my employee discount, we’re looking at a substantial chunk of change.”
“I don’t know.” His wife looked down at her hands. She had washed them at least a half dozen times since she carried the dead foal to the backyard, but could still smell the blood and fluff. “Maybe that job interview you have on Tuesday will work out.”
“Maybe. I hope so.”
The closing of the saferoom door made Elmo feel closed off from the family. Sure, the kids still fed her, cleaned her, and (sometimes) played with her. But both daddy-Lucas and momma-Ava said something about “midterms”, and spent very little time with her apart from doing their chores. Even big-mummah and big-daddeh seemed busy with other things.
Still, she had her foals. While she was sad that one of her babies took forever sleepies, she still had lots of babies to give huggies, love, and milkies. A few days later, they all opened up their eyes! Just when Elmo thought she couldn’t love her babies any more, they got even prettier.
“Wook, mummah! Wook, daddeh! Aww babbehs see-pwaces am open! Babbehs can see nao!”
Lucas merely grunted in affirmation, as he was busy shoveling the massive pile that had accumulated in the litterbox overnight. Ava, on the other hand, cooed and cheered. She swept up a monochrome gray pegasus colt and flew him in the air, looking deep into his pale blue eyes.
chirp**chirp The foal chirped happily, fluttering his wings as the little girl waved him around.
“Kids! Come on, time for school!”
“Just a second, mom! Hurry up, Ava. You can play with the little crap factory later.”
gasp “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Don’t tell mom or dad, either. And get that last little poop smear off of the mat before we go. I’m not cleaning it tonight.”
“Goobai, mummah an’ daddeh! Ewmo wiww miss ‘oo!” The mare waved as the kids slammed the door and ran up the stairs. Something had changed, but the fluffy didn’t really understand what it was. Of course, it didn’t matter. Either way, her babies needed milkies, so she cheerfully scarfed down the nummies that Lucas left for her.
She napped for the better part of the morning, until mummah returned and daddeh left for another job interview. When she woke up from her nap, little Ollie had opened the door and was grinning at her from the other side of the baby gate.
“Hewwo, wittwe daddeh. Yu come fop way wif Ewmo?”
“Suwe!” The little boy undid the latch on the gate and let himself in. All eight of the little foals chirped and looked at him. “Wets pway…hoawsie!”
“What am ‘hoawsie’, daddeh?”
Three year olds are not naturally gentle creatures. This one in particular had kneecapped his older brother with a lacrosse stick recently, and frequently had to be told not to pull the cat’s fluffy tail. He was not what one would call a brat, per se—it’s just how little boys are.
Imagine Elmo’s shock when Ollie picked up her powder blue earthie colt, set it down in front of him, and then proceeded to ride it.
screeeeeeeeee screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
“Hee hee! Wide hoawsie! Widin’ hoawsie!” The boy bounced up and down on the tiny foal.
crack
screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
“NUUUUUUUUUUUU!” The dam barreled forward, trying to stop the toddler from breaking the foal. Unfortunately for her, two things were true: first, the foal’s soft bones had already shattered under the weight of the 35 pound child. Second, all she managed to accomplish was to knock the child on his rear.
ch-chearp
“Huu huu…babbeh nee’ huggies…huggies make aww fings bettah…”
sniff sniff
The mare looked up from her dying foal to see Ollie’s face turn red and his lower lip curl.
“uuuuuuaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
gasp “Am sowwy, daddeh! Haf huwties? Ewmo gif huggies…make daddeh aww bettah…” Elmo put her front hooves up on Ollie’s chest. The awkward three year old lost his balance trying to push her away and banged his head on the door frame.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“What?!? What’s going—oh my god!” Mel, who had just stepped out of the shower, burst into the saferoom in a towel. She knelt down next to her son, who was still screaming about how Elmo had “pushed” him.
“Shhhh…come on, let’s go upstairs. You wanna watch some cartoons?”
sniff sniff The little boy didn’t speak, but instead nodded and put his head on mommy’s shoulder. The woman turned to the fluffy and scowled.
“I’ll deal with you in a minute.”
She stomped up the stairs, and Elmo shuddered with each THUD. The mare clung to the gasping foal—the one that made her so proud for looking like her special friend—long after it choked out its final breaths.
Once Ollie was settled and she had dressed herself, Mel came back downstairs. Elmo looked up at her with tears welling in her eyes.
“Mummah…babbeh take foweva sweepies. Wai huggies nu make bettew?”
The mare didn’t get an answer to the question. What she got was a slap across the face, followed by several hard smacks on her rump.
“Screeeeeeee! Wai huwt Ewmo? Am gud fwuffy!”
“No! You are not a good fluffy. Why did you knock Ollie down?”
“Ewmo nu—”
SLAP
“SCREEEEEEEE!”
“You are lying! He’s three years old. You can’t be so rough with him—he could have gotten a concussion!”
The fluffy was confused. Didn’t mummah understand that she wasn’t trying to hurt her “little daddy”—she was just trying to keep him from hurting her baby? “Ewmo sowwy. Ewmo jus twying sabe babbeh, bu’ babbeh stiww haf wowsest huwties an foweva sweepies.”
“Oh,” Mel looked at the crushed foal for the first time. She could see that Ollie must have sat on it—it was practically flattened, and both of its eyes bulged. The left eye had popped out of the socket. “Oh, Elmo…I’m sorry about your foal. But do you see? This is why we can’t play so rough.”
“Nu, mummah! Ewmo nu gif babbeh huwties! Wittow daddeh gif—”
SLAP
“Don’t you dare blame Ollie for this! You played too rough with him, knocked him over, and he fell on one of your babies! Is that why you were attacking him?”
“Bu’ mummah, Ewmo nu ‘tack—”
SLAP
SLAP**SLAP
“SCREEEEEEEE!”
“I’ve had enough of your lies!”
SLAP**SLAP
Elmo’s legs scrabbled against the playmat, trying to get away. But her escape attempt seemed to only make mummah get more angry. She swatted and swatted at the mare’s hindquarters, while all Elmo could do was cry and make scaredy-poopies. When mummah was done, she stormed out and slammed the door, leaving the dam sobbing on the shit-stained playmat.
chirp**chirp
chirp
chirpchirpchirp
“Babbehs?” She felt terrible. In her confusion and terror, she had forgotten her babies. One by one, they all came over to her and nuzzled her fluff, giving her huggies. Soon, the little white unicorn settled down for more milkies. She still had more foals than she could count, and they made her happier than anything else in the world.
“What? I can’t believe that! Elmo wouldn’t do anything like that!”
sigh Another day, another family meeting about the ponies. Marv rubbed his temples, hoping that this would all blow over quickly.
“Believe it, Ava. I saw her myself. She was attacking Ollie, and pushed him over on one of her foals. Then, she tried to lie to me about it. Your little brother is afraid to go back down there.”
The toddler huddled on the corner of the couch holding a pillow. His face was red, and he appeared on the verge of tears.
Ava, who looked like she was about to cry herself, asked, “What’re you gonna do?”
Wanting to make sure his wife didn’t seem to be entirely the “bad guy”, Marv answered, “I think you all are going to have to stop playing with Elmo for a while. If you want to play with her foals, you take them out of the saferoom and into the playroom. You can leave the saferoom door open while you do—it may keep Elmo calm. But no one plays in the saferoom, at least for the time being. Got it?”
Both older kids nodded. Ollie, who wasn’t going in the saferoom anytime soon, remained silent.
“Hewwo, mummah! Hewwo, daddeh! Ewmo haf missed ‘oo! Wai nu pway wif Ewmo nu mowe?”
Several more days had passed. The family had gone away camping for the weekend, leaving enough kibble and water for the dam. Their absence had given her heart-hurties, but for them the absence couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Shut up, Elmo,” Lucas said. “We’re just here to clean your litterbox and give you more food.”
“Lucas! Just because we can’t spend time with her doesn’t mean we have to be mean to her.”
“That’s a bonus. After the way she treated Ollie, it’s the least she deserves.”
Once the chores were done, the kids left Elmo and her brood closed in the saferoom again. No play. No huggies.
No love.
“Huu huu…Ewmo nu eben teww mummah an daddeh dat pwetty pointie-babbeh am tawkie-babbeh nao…”
It was true. The precocious little white unicorn had called her “mummah” and asked for “miwkies” while the family was away. Not that they really would have cared, anyway. No one seemed to care about Elmo anymore.
Over the next couple of days, all seven of Elmo’s foals started talking. The mare was as proud as she could be—maybe now her human family would start to love her again. She hadn’t seen her big mummah or little daddeh since the “hoawsie” incident, nor had she seen her big daddeh.
The next morning, she resolved to get a word in edgewise. “Mummah! Daddeh! Babbehs am—”
“Shut up, Elmo.”
“Bu’ daddeh—”
“I said shut up. No one cares,” Lucas said, shoveling another scoop of kibble into Elmo’s food dish.
Ava started to clean the floor—the foals weren’t litter trained yet, so accidents were to be expected—when the little red earthie filly walked up to her and said, “Mum-mah?”
gasp “That’s right, baby! I’m mummah!” She picked up the foal and held it close to her chest.
“Mummah!”
“Mummah!”
“Mummah! Mummah!”
The little girl giggled as foals surrounded her, giving huggies and calling her mummah. Just one foal, the little white unicorn with the green mane, shuffled over to Lucas.
“Dad-deh?”
Lucas just shook his head and dug more poop out of the litterbox.
“Huuuuu…wai pway wif babbehs an nu pway wif Ewmo? Ewmo wan pway.”
The kids ignored her as they rolled a ball around for the foals. Both the children and the fluffies giggled as the latter bounded and stumbled to be the first to the rubber ball. Two of the foals—the gray pegasus and the white unicorn—slept in Ava’s lap.
“Babbehs am tu wittwe fo pway wifowt mummah! Gif babbehs back, ow wet mummah owt!”
Finally, Elmo’s screaming got the girl’s attention. Ava decided to take the two sleeping foals back to the saferoom to placate her. She got up and opened the gate.
“Mummah, put babbehs down nao, an wet mummah owt.”
“No, Elmo. You have to stay in here. I’m going to put these two on your bed—you can make a fluffpile together!”
“Nu, mummah! Aww babbehs in safewoom wif mummah, ow aww babbehs nu in safewoom an mummah gu tuu!”
“Elmo, you said you wanted your babies, so I’m giving you the slee—OW!”
Lucas looked up from the ball game. “What happened?”
“She bit me! She bit me on the ankle!” Surely enough, Elmo had left teeth marks on the back of Ava’s leg.
“Dat’s ENUFF! Gif aww babbehs tu Ewmo, NAO!”
Lucas ran over and gave the dam a firm WHACK on her left hindquarter with his closed fist.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“No, Lucas! Don’t hurt her!”
“Why not? She comes after Ollie, then you…BAD fluffy! BAD!”
WHACK WHACK
It was fortunate for Elmo that Mel and Ollie were in the backyard, and that Marv was at work—had they heard the cacophony of the mare’s screaming, Ava’s protests, and the foals’ crying, she would have been off to a shelter that day. As it was, she was beaten and battered, and any hope she had of regaining the children’s trust was gone.
“Hey, Marv.”
“Morning, Jen. How’s the little one?”
“Doing great! How are your kids liking their foals? They having fun?”
Marv hesitated. Besides it being unprofessional to air dirty laundry in the workplace, he didn’t want his coworkers at the fluffy store which sold fluffies to think he was failing at fluffy ownership. It would have given a bad impression.
“They’re loving the foals. It’s definitely an adjustment having that many fluffies running around the house, though. I think we may have to give some of them away once they’ve grown—they’re kind of a handful! Any chance your son—“
“Nope.”
Wow. No hesitation. “Ok. Just thought I’d offer.”
That day’s shift was a busy one, as was usually the case with Saturdays. Foals went out the door left and right, and even though the “Soon-Mummah” craze had slowed down a bit, a few of them found loving homes that day.
Just after Marv returned from lunch, a woman about his age came in to the store to buy some high-end kibble for pregnant mares and some medical supplies. He recognized her as a local designer fluffy breeder whom Jack had pointed out one day. Apparently, the eccentric lady had a prejudice against online and mail-orders, and so she bought all of her supplies in store (with coupons, of course).
“Hello, Ms. Alderson. Find everything you needed today?”
“I did…Marv. Thank you. Oh, I almost forgot! Can I go ahead and renew my breeder’s license today?”
“Ah, I’m sure you can. Hang on for just a minute—Allie’s got more experience than I do with those, so she’ll be able to help you faster than I could.” The bubbly college student had come in to work from noon until close, and while she was half of Marv’s age, she was more familiar with all of the store processes.
While the blonde sales clerk processed the breeder’s license renewal, Marv made small talk with the customer.
“So, how long have you been breeding fluffies?”
“I got in at the rock bottom of the market—right after Cleveland. It was rough going for a couple of years, but I was selling fluffies to anyone who wanted them at the time. Fortunately, I’ve since been able to breed for quality over quantity. The garden could only handle so much manure.”
Marv nodded. “I’m still not sure how the whole licensing process works here. At what point does North Carolina consider a person a breeder, so that they require a license?”
“It’s entirely based on possession. See, you have to buy the $600 license if you have more than five fully grown fluffy ponies—“
Oh, shit.
The woman kept talking, but Marv’s attention (and his stomach) bottomed out at “more than five fully grown fluffy ponies”. Right now, only Elmo was fully grown. But in a matter of a couple of weeks, he would have eight fully grown fluffy ponies running around his house. He had thought of the poop. He had thought of the cost of kibble. Surely, he would have vet bills in the future—so far, they had dodged that bullet, but for how long? The creatures were notoriously accident prone.
But $600, all at once? While he was working part-time in retail? Underemployment was fostering a slow bleed of his and Mel’s savings. They really didn’t need an unexpected line item like a fluffy breeder’s license. And he knew that there were classes you had to take, which added to the expense…
Soon, the woman was ready to leave, and both Allie and Marv politely waved goodbye to her. It was going to be a long afternoon.