The Tragedy of Cupcake, Part 4
You’re Cupcake! You’re a pink fluffy with a blue mane and tail. You have a human Mummah named Lilly and she lives with Miss Mary and Daddeh! And you live with all of them!
But right now you’re exhausted! You find yourself kind of dozing in your bed. You feel kind of hurty on your back and sides and leggies, but you’re too tired to care about that very much right now. So you kind of stretch and yawn, winding up bumping something that falls over on you! You’d normally be scared, but you’re way too tired to be scared right now. Taking a little while to open your eyes and find what it was that bumped you, you discover it’s your stuffy-friend! You light up and give your stuffy-friend the BIGGEST huggies you’ve ever given! You thought Stuffy-friend had gotten eaten by monsters last dark-time, but he must have found a place to hide from them!
But still, you’re sleepy. You stretch a little bit and hug Stuffy-friend, squirming in your bed a little bit to get comfortable before you go back to sleep for a while…
After a while you wake up again and stretch for a little while before you look around. Your litterbox is right next to your bed, and you feel like you need to make poopies and peepees, so you step into the litterbox and lift your tail so you don’t get poopies in it as you make good poopies in the litterbox! Mummah will be SO happy you made good poopies! You make peepees too, then take a look around your saferoom again.
It’s kind of dark but not REALLY dark. The big light from above seems to be gone, but there’s a less-bright light down below, close to the ground. You wander up to it, curious, sitting on your rump and looking at it. It’s kind of yellow and pretty, and it makes long shapes on the opposite wall, but you wiggle your front leggies a little bit and discover that they’re just shadows. Nothing to be scared of, fortunately. Not like all the monsters that have been attacking you ever since Daddeh adopted you!
You explore your saferoom a little, since you haven’t really done much of that, finding there are some toys to play with! There’s the pretty bouncy ball that you played with when you were first brought here, but there’s also some blockies! You spend a little time trying to learn to stack them up, and you can almost always get the stack of blockies two blockies high, and sometimes you can even get it three high, but your hoofsies aren’t very good for picking up blockies and they’re too big to pick up in your teeth, so it’s pretty hard to get it FOUR blockies high!
There are more than four blockies, but you don’t know how many really, because you can only count to four because that’s how many leggies you have! You remember you learned that at the place you were with your fluffy Mummah and your brothers and sisters before daddeh adopted you, from a ‘video’ that showed pictures of fluffies playing and singing songs. It’s fun trying to stack up the blockies though, and as you do you sing the song you learned that taught you to count to four. “Fwuffies am have WUN weggie, and dat mean just wun! Fwuffies am have TWO weggies, and dat mean wun and wun! Fwuffies am have FWEE weggies, and dat mean wun and wun and wun! Fwuffies am have FOUW weggies, and dat mean wun and wun and wun and wun!” you sing, giggling to yourself, pleased with how smarty you are for remembering! The idea of there being numbers bigger than four doesn’t ever cross your mind, except a hundred! You know that means LOTS and LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of fours! More than you could EVER count!
You’re so happy playing with your toys and singing to yourself that you don’t really notice the light getting brighter, so you’re surprised when you hear the door across the hall open and Mummah comes out! You hurry up to the baby gate across the doorway to your saferoom and sit back on your rump, sitting up and wiggling your front leggies in a dancie to show her how happy and what a good fluffy you are! “Hewwo Mummah! Cupcake miss yu Mummah!” you say, and Mummah comes up to you and leans over the baby gate to pet you and rub your ears. It feels super nice!
“Good morning, Cupcake. I missed you too,” Mummah says, but her voice sounds funny. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom then we can eat breakfast together, okay?” she says in that funny voice. It still sounds like Mummah, but kind of not? You don’t get a chance to ask about it because Mummah leaves and disappears through another door.
After a little bit Mummah comes back and scoops you up, causing you to squeal in surprise and delight, and you give her the BIGGEST huggies! She giggles and hugs you back, and you’re SO happy! You’ve practically completely forgotten about the terror of playing in the backyard yesterday.
Mummah says something about ‘breakfast’ and takes you to the kitchen, setting you on the floor and rustling with something for a little bit before setting a bowl of kibble and a bowl of water down on the floor for you. You happily devour the kibble and even some of the water, remembering it from yesterday. It’s kind of suspicious, wobbling back and forth threateningly as you nudge the bowl with one hoof, but after a little bit it settles down and lets you drink it without trying to jump out and GET you.
After you finish eating, Mummah scoops you up again and takes you back to your saferoom, rubbing your ears and telling you what a pretty fluffy you are. You lean into her, rubbing your cheek against her. “Cupcake wub Mummah SUUU muchies, Mummah!”
“I love you too, Cupcake,” Mummah says, setting you down in your saferoom before turning and walking away. Bewildered, you standing up, trying to climb over the meany white thing between you and her, but you can’t make it over the baby gate!
“Mummah! MUMMAH! Nu weabe Cupcake 'wone! Wub Mummah!” you protest in desperation!
Mummah stops and turns back to you. “Cupcake, calm down. I’m not going away, okay? I’m just gonna get dressed, and then I’ll be right back to play with you okay? It’ll only be a second, I’ll be right back, promise!”
“Otay Mummah…” you say uncertainly, sitting down again. You don’t really understand what ‘get dressed’ means, but when Mummah comes back a little bit later she’s changed her not-fluff again. You don’t really understand how humans do that, but its neat! It might be kind of neat to be able to change your fluff, you think, but why would you ever want to? Your pink fluff and blue mane and tail are SUPER pretty, and they even got Mummah to give you a name!
Mummah steps over the baby gate into your saferoom, and you tell her about how happy you are that Stuffy-friend didn’t get eaten by monsters, and you tell her about the low pretty light that kept the monsters away last dark-time, and how you made good poopies and peepees, and how you stacked up blockies! Mummah just sits down on the floor and listens to you, giggling a bit as she listens and pets you and brushes your mane and tail a little bit, which feels funny, but nice.
After you’re done telling her about everything, she shows you how to play wih some of your toys, and she even shows you an easier to stack up your blockies even HIGHER! She starts with putting some blockies in a row, then she puts some more blocks on top of them, so the middle of blockies on top are where the space between the blockies on bottom are! Then she does it AGAIN, making a third row, and then puts one more on top of all that! You’ve NEVER seen anything so amazing in your life! You hug Mummah and tell her how smarty she is and how her Mummah must be SO proud of her! Mummah just laughs and tickles your sides, making you giggle too! She shows you LOTS more neat things, as well! Sometimes Mummah pulls out some funny flat black blocky and holds it up for a moment, where it makes a clicky sound and a bright flash of light! You don’t really understand what it is she’s doing, but maybe it’s just something the black blocky likes?
Before long Miss Mary shows up at the door. “Lilly? Did you not hear me? Dinner’s ready, we’re waiting for you. You can play with Cupcake some more before you go to bed, alright?”
Mummah sighs and looks sad, but she says “Okay, I’m coming,” and steps over the baby gate. You follow her, but bump your nose on the funny white lines keeping you in your saferoom! As Mummah starts to move away, you call after her! “Mummah!? MUMMAH!? Nu weave Cupcake, Mummah!! NU WEAVE FWUFFY AWW 'WONE MUMMAH! FWUFFY AMS GUD FWUFFY! FWUFFY AMS BE GUD FWUFFY FOW MUMMAH”
Mummah sighs again and comes back, leaning over the white lines-thingy between you and her, giving your hear-places rubbies. “Cupcake, didn’t you hear Mom telling me it’s time for dinner? That means I have to go to the kitchen to eat with Mom and Dad.” She stands up and looks over her shoulder. “Mom, can Cupcake eat in the kitchen with us?”
“No, sweetie,” you hear Miss Mary say from somewhere you can’t see. “Cupcake’s a pet, she doesn’t belong at the dinner table. You’ve spent all day with her, I think you can spare twenty minutes to have dinner with me and your father and talk to us. You can come back after dinner, alright?”
“Okay…” Mummah says, looking at you again. You sit up and wiggle your leggies, showing you’re a good dancie-babbeh! Mummah smiles and that makes you you think she’s going to stay! “I’ll be back in just a little bit, okay? I promise I’ll be back soon, okay Cupcake? I’m not going away forever, just for a little while. Understand?”
You pout and drop your front half back to the floor. “Otay Mummah…” you say sadly, but Mummah’s already leaving. You hear Daddeh say something you don’t understand, it sounds something like ‘obviously lying’ and ‘separation anxiety,’ but you have no idea what that means. Humans use lots of big, funny words you don’t know.
You try to go back to playing with your blockies, and your ball, and your 'splory-set, which is just some boxes with walls and holes you can go in and out through, and low-grade ramps you can easily walk up and down to get to different levels, and they’re still fun, but it’s not NEARLY as much fun without Mummah here to play with you. And even with how happy you are that Stuffy-friend didn’t get nummed and get forever-sleepies from monsters, and how pretty his fluff is, and how good he is for huggies and napping with, he’s not much fun to play with because he doesn’t really play back. He just kind of sits there.
Well, with as lonely as you are, despite having Stuffy-friend, you go back to playing with your blocks, stacking them up as best you can and trying to remember how Mummah did it. You put two blockies next to each other, and with a little trial and error you figure out how to get a third on top of both of them, but when you try to put another on top of the third one you lose your balance and wind up falling forward, knocking your blockies over! It’s frustrating that you can’t stack blockies as well as Mummah, but you think that just proves how smarty and special Mummah is!
“Hi Cupcake!” Mummah says, and you look up in surprise to find she’s back!
“MUMMAH!” you cry in absolute delight! You run (waddle) up to her and hug her leggie as tight as you can! “Cupcake miss Mummah SUU muchies!”
Mummah giggles and sits down, gently removing you from her leg and holding you in her lap as she pets you, rubbing your back and your sides. It’s SO nice to have Mummah back! “I missed you too Cupcake! And while I was eating dinner I thought of a game we could play! Do you know how to play hide and seek?”
“Cupcake WUB hidey seekie, Mummah!” you say, even though you have no idea what it is. You don’t really care what it is, Mummah’s back and playing with you and everything’s great again!
“Well, your saferoom isn’t very big, so there’s not really anywhere for me or you to hide,” Mummah says, setting you on the floor beside her and petting your mane. “BUT! There’s plenty of places I can hide your rope! So you cover your eyes and count to ten, while I hide the rope, then you try to find it! Okay?”
“Otay Mummah! Cupcake be bestest wope-toy findie fwuffy fow Mummah!” you say.
“Good girl!” Mummah says. You’ve more or less stopped caring that Mummah and Daddeh and Miss Mary seem to think you’re a girl fluffy. Now that you think about it, you’re not really sure what the difference between boy fluffies and girl fluffies is. “Now close your eyes and count to ten!”
“Otay Mummah!” you say, laying down on the floor and covering your eyes with your front leggies as you start to count! “Wun, tu, fwee, fouw… um… wun, tu, fwee, fouw… Uuhmmmm… Wun! Tu! Fwee! Fouw!” you giggle, not really sure what the point of this is, but it’s fun!
“Okay, that’s good enough, Cupcake!” Mummah says, and you sit up and open your eyes.
“Am Cupcake pway hidey-seekies gud?” you ask, smiling up at Mummah.
Mummah giggles and shakes her head. “No, silly! We haven’t even really started!” She holds her not-hoofs out to you, you’re not really sure why. “See? I hid your rope toy, now you have to search for it and find it!”
“Oh!” you say as you suddenly understand what she meant earlier! “Otay Mummah! Cupcake be BESTEST wope-toy-findie-fwuffy fow Mummah!”
“Good girl!”
You sniff around for for a moment, not really able to smell it, but you KNOW you’d recognize that smell anywhere! It’s the BESTEST thing you’ve ever smelled! You look around for it, knowing it’s a pretty green and red and white, but you don’t see it anywhere! Wow, Mummah hid it really good! You look around the blockes you were playing with, and around your bed, and behind Stuffy-friend, but it’s not any of those places! You look behind your litterbox, but it’s not there either! You think that’s good, since you wouldn’t want it to smell like poopies!
“Cupcake nu can find wope-toy Mummah!” you say, looking up at her with a smile. “Mummah am BESTEST at pway hidey-seekie!”
Mummah giggles and leans down to pet you with one hand, the black blocky-thingy in the other. “Thank you Cupcake, but the game’s not over yet! You still have to find it! You haven’t checked the whole saferoom yet, where have you not looked before?”
“Oh! Otay Mummah!” you say, turning around in a circle a couple times as you try to look for your rope-toy even harder! You’d hate to disappoint Mummah by not being a good hidey-seekie player! “Umm… Cupcake wook in beddie and behind Stuffy-fwend and 'wound wittewboxie and 'wound bwockies! Dat ebewywhewe!”
“Ahhh, almost! That’s lots of places but it’s not quite everywhere! Where else is there to look?”
You plop your rump down on the floor as you look around, your gaze falling on the blocky 'splory-place! “Oh! Cupcake nu wook dewe yet!” you say, hurrying towards it! You waddle inside and look around, then you go up the ramp and look round up there, too! But it’s not anywhere! You pout and plop down again. “Cupcake nu can find wope-toy Mummah!” you say, disappointed.
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Lilly was faintly disappointed too, but remembering the debacle of trying to play in the backyard yesterday, and how Cupcake seemed to forget every time she left that she’d be coming back, she figured she shouldn’t be TOO surprised that Cupcake wasn’t exactly the Einstein of fluffies… She’d hoped to get a cute video of Cupcake to post, but it looked like it wasn’t shaping up that way. Trying to avoid being too obvious about it, Lilly leaned over the structure made of the interlocking plastic panels that she’d built for Cupcake to explore, nudging the rop from the top of it to dangle a little further down inside it. She hadn’t expected Cupcake wouldn’t even think of looking on top of it. Maybe next time she could put it in the same place and get a video of Cupcake finding it immediately, making her look super smart!
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“Oh! Cupcake find wope-toy Mummah!” you say as it suddenly appears from above and drops in front of you! You’re not really sure how exactly you found it, but you’re super happy you did anyway! This means you’re a good hidey-seekie player and Mummah will want to play with you more! You pick it up in your teeth and hurry out of the 'splory-blocks to show her! “Wook Mummah!”
“That’s great, Cupcake! Good job!” Mummah says.
“Cupcake ams gud at pway hidey-seekie?”
“Yeah, you did great, Cupcake!” Mummah says, sitting down and petting you again. “You’re such a sweet and smart and pretty fluffy, I love you Cupcake!”
“Cupcake wub Mummah tu!” you say, leaning into the pets.
“Lilly?” you hear Miss Mary say from somewhere you can’t see. “It’s almost bedtime, you should be getting ready for bed.”
Mummah sighs. “Okay, Mom,” she says, sounding sad. “Come on, Cupcake, it’s getting late. Let’s get you tucked in to bed.”
You pout. “Cupcake nu wan’ go beddies! Cupcake wanna pway!”
“I know, I don’t wanna go to bed either, but I have school tomorrow and that means I HAVE to go to bed soon,” Mummah says. You don’t really understand, but before you can protest further, she scoops you up and sets you in your bed with Stuffy-friend, draping a small blanket over you and stroking your pretty blue mane. “I promise we’ll play some more tomorrow, as soon as I get home from school.”
You huff, not liking that you’re being forced to go to bed, but now that you’re here you can’t help but notice how soft your bed is and how soft Stuffy-friend is as you hug him. You want to protest more, but before you even realize it you’re falling asleep.
The next day you wake up, dozing in bed for a little while before realizing it’s bright-time again, and you sit up and climb out of bed. You thought you heard Mummah say something a little while ago, but when you look around she isn’t here. You look everywhere you can think of for her, but she’s not anywhere! Even looking out through the stange white lines blocking you off from the hall, you can’t see Mummah or Miss Mary or even Daddeh!
“Mummah?” you call, more confused than anything. “MUMMAH?” you call again, louder. It’s bright-time, so she should be here, but she isn’t! You don’t know why they all disappeared!
Well, Stuffy-friend is still here at least, and you climb back into bed with him and hug him, hoping he doesn’t disappear too! “MUMMAH!” you call as loud as you can, listening carefully, but there’s no answer!
You don’t understand! Everything was so wonderful last bright-time! You and Mummah spent ALL BRIGHT-TIME playing together! (Except for the little bit near the end when she left, but that was only for a little bit!) You think hard, trying to understand where Mummah could have gone, when you remember that she told you she has to ‘go to school!’ You have no idea what that means, but humans do LOTS of things that you don’t understand at all.
Well, Mummah’s only ever been away for a little while, so maybe this time it’ll only be for a little while too? You’re pretty sure she said it’ll only be for a little while… Huffing, sad and disappointed, because you wanted to play with Mummah more today, you climb out of bed again and look around your saferoom for something to play with. You discover a bowl on the floor with some kibble, which you eat because your tummy feels funny, but after you eat the funny feeling goes away.
Next to your kibble bowl is something you don’t recognize. It’s bigger than you, and you’re not really sure what it is, but it’s kind of a pretty light blue color. You walk around it a couple times to see if maybe you can discover what it is or what it does, but that doesn’t help. You sniff at it a little and discover it smells like water! The smell reminds you of the ‘baths’ you survived, and the scary roary black monster with the hot breath that tried to eat you afterward.
You don’t like water, but you ARE thirsty… You tap the blue thingy with a hoof, gently at first, then a little harder, but it doesn’t care. You don’t understand what it is. Why would a water-monster be here? Well, you’re not sure it’s a monster, but it STILL smells like water, so it might as well be a monster! Still, you’re thirsty… Veeeeeery carefully, you sniff around the blue thingy a little before suddenly your nose gets wet! You let out a little “Eeek!” of surprise and terror, jumping back and puffing your cheeks out to look bigger and meaner, giving it your meanest, scariest look for a while, but the blue water-monster-thingy doesn’t react. Stasified that you’ve scared it into submission, you carefully approach and sniff at it again, your nose getting wet a second time! But this time you’re prepared for it and you aren’t scared (as much,) so you carefully begin to drink from the water-monster-thingy, watching it closely in case it tries to GET you again.
Once you’re not thirsty anymore, you step back and watch the water-monster for a moment, puffing your cheeks out at it and giving it a meanie scary look as a warning, before you go back to the strange white lines of the baby gate keeping you in your room. You’re worried about Mummah and Miss Mary, and maybe even Daddeh too a tiny little bit. Did some monster get them? You huff as you think about it, puffing your cheeks out again and taking a deep breath, shouting as loud as your little fluffy lungs allow! “MEANY MUNSTAHS NU TAKE MUMMAH AN’ MISS MAWY! MUNSTAHS GIB MUMMAH AN’ MISS MAWY BACKIES WIGHT NAOW!” you cry! SURELY any monsters who hear you yelling THAT loud will be terrified into giving them back! “BUT MUNSTAHS CAN NUM DADDEH, DAT OTAY!”
There’s no response. That’s bad… Maybe the monsters AREN’T scared of you? But they must be, since even though you’ve seen LOTS of monsters, none of them have ever been able to GET you! In fact, you’ve survived LOTS of monster attacks! Even the monster that appeared in your saferoom is too scared of you to try to GET you! Feeling brave, you decide that if the monsters won’t GIVE your family back, you’ll have to go TAKE them back! That’s right, you’ve NEVER lost a fight to a monster!
But there’s a problem: The baby gate. The strange white crisscrossing lines make shapes that are too small for you to fit through, so you’re stuck in your saferoom! You stand up on your back leggies, trying to reach over it, but you can’t even reach the top of it, even when you stretch your front leggies up ALL the way, as far as you can!
“Meany white wine bettew wet Cupcake out to gu sabe Mummah an’ Miss Mawy!” you threaten them, puffing your cheeks out and giving them your meaniest, scariest look! (It worked on the blue water-monster-thingy, after all!) After a moment you push at them a bit, but they push back! Getting angry now, you raise your leggy and give the meany white lines sorry hoofsies! “DUMMEH WHITE TING GU’ WAY!” you say, hitting it again and again! But it doesn’t!
But after you hit it a few times, suddenly it grabs your hoof! You tug a little and free yourself, puffing your cheeks out and taking a deep breath to yell at it as LOUD as you can! That doesn’t work either, but then!
You remember!
You’re a wingie-babbeh!
You can just FLY over the meany white lines thingy!
Giggling to yourself because of how smarty you are, you back up to get a running start, remembering how you flew over the sandy-thingy a long time ago! That was bad and scary, because you almost got nummed by a monster, but this is an EMERGENCY! Monsters have taken Mummah and Miss Mary (and maybe Daddeh too, but he’s meanie so maybe they made him go somewhere far away…) and YOU are the ONLY fluffy who can save them! Flapping your little wings as hard as you can, you run towards the dummeh white-lines thingy that’s the only thing keeping you from saving the people you love (and maybe Daddeh too, if there’s time,) and LEAP as HIGH as you can over it!
…
Almost!
You’re not COMPLETELY over it, but you did get pretty high! There’s a stick-thingy going sideways about halfway up, and you managed to reach it! Scrambling for a bit to pull yourself up, you manage to get your back leggies up and onto it, pushing yourself up further! You can just barely get your front hooves over the top of the baby gate, and you struggle hard to pull yourself up, deciding you’ll have to risk jumping even further! Crouching down, you JUMP as HIGH as you can and make it over the top of the baby gate, hitting your tummy painfully as you crest it and tipping yourself over the edge of it, your eyes widening as you find yourself suddenly plummeting headfirst towards the floor!
Suddenly, you feel a jerk and stop falling, and a second later you feel a funny pinch! Kind of under your tail! Not your poopie-place, but lower than that! But it’s not your nono-stick, it’s kind of in between! Your stomach sinks as you realize that the meany white-lines-monster IS ATTACKING YOU! IT CAUGHT YOU AND NOW
THE MONSTER
IS EATING
YOUR
SPECIAL
LUMPS!!!
