Meet The Graysons

[Personalias]

MEET THE GRAYSONS

(An Episodic Novelization of the Ground-Breaking Animated Sitcom)

Season 1 Episode 2- “Making the Baby is the Best Part.”  Original Airdate, April 12^th

Bo Grayson ached.  Not just his back, or his neck, or the joints in his legs, or even the digits in his forepaws; everything ached.   Even his muzzled ached. Bo ached.  “AAaaaaaahyeeee….”  He let out a long half-groan, half-yawn, before sitting down at the breakfast table; the creaking of the chair echoing the creaking of his bones.  Damn, he wasn’t even thirty yet. How was it that he felt so old?

Across from the table sat Melinda, his loving bride.  She was an elephant, he was a wolf, but in this crazy mixed up world you loved who you loved.   Besides, in Bo’s mind, the correct response to the Jeopardy clue “A skinny girl can do this for you,” was “What is ‘Not a damn thing.’”   

Adorned in her flowing yellow dress and pearls, looking every bit the domestic goddess from a bygone era (save perhaps for her smartphone), Melinda sat at the breakfast table, looking at Bo expectantly.  “Morning, dear.” A veritable mountain of food sat between them. “Eat up”. Scrambled eggs, muffins, bagels, hot buttered pancakes, and heaps of bacon (mmmmm…bacon….) covered the table, just as it had every day since they came back from their honeymoon.   

But the honeymoon was over, and Bo couldn’t afford anymore time off at the lumber mill.  As was quickly becoming routine, he took a sip of coffee, crammed the bacon into his mouth, and rose up from his seat.   “Thish looksh great, but I gotta run. Full day at da mill.” The butter on the pancakes hadn’t even melted, his coffee was still hot, and his seat was still cold.  Such was life.

“It’s Saturday…”

Bo froze.  Bits of bacon crumbled out of his mouth, dusting his work shirt with fried brown meat crumbs.  “Shadurday?” He swallowed. “Saturday? That means I’m off.”

Melinda didn’t even look up from her phone.  “Mmmmmhmmmm….”

The timber wolf knew what that tone meant.  Gingerly he sat back down, making the old hand-me-down chair creak against his weight.  “Huh…I finally have time to enjoy all this.”

“Mmmmmhmmmm…..”

“Neat.”  Careful not to appear too ravenous as to not be appreciative, nor too slow as to seem picky, Bo filled up his plate.  “Are there little diced onions in the scrambled eggs?”

The young Mrs. Grayson put down her phone and daintily took a bite of her pancakes.  “Yep.”

“I love those!”

“I know.”

“And is that a plate of hash browns?”

Melinda took another bite.  “Yep.”

“With melted cheese?”

“Every day this week…”

“Those are my favorite!”

Melinda put down her fork and gazed oh so lovingly across the table at her husband.  “Gee, Bo, it’s almost like I’M YOUR WIFE!”

A tense silence engulfed the kitchen…

“Heh…”

“Heh-heh…”

“Heee-heee-heee-heee!”

And just as quickly it was broken as the two lovers laughed together.  Maybe the honeymoon wasn’t quite over after all. Bo kept filling his plate up, unable to stop himself from sampling a bit of everything before he put the rest on his plate.  “Good one, hon.”

“Thanks, babe.”  Melinda was back to her phone, obviously pleased with herself.

Once again, Bo couldn’t help but marvel at the heaps and heaps of food.  “Wow, this is a lot…!” That didn’t stop him from shoveling more eggs, pancakes, and cheesy hash browns into his muzzle.  “How can we afford all this? Is this like…leftovers from the check my dad wrote us?”

“Nope.”  Melinda took another bite of pancake.  “I learned how to coupon clip and shop in bulk.”

“Cuz you’re an elephant?”

Melinda Grayson rolled her eyes.  “Yes dear, I’m frugal and good with money because I’m an elephant.”

Bo swallowed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  “No, I mean all the-“

“I’m frugal and good with money…”

Time for another swig of coffee.  “Yup, frugal and good with money. That’s what I meant, all right.” Another forkful of syrup and butter soaked pancakes found its way to Bo’s mouth.  “Even so, we can’t keep THIS kind of breakfast routine up. How many times have you made this stuff this week?”

“Just one.”

“One?”

Bo’s wife was still looking at her phone.  “Tupperware and heat lamps, babe. Tupperware and heat lamps.  Our new fridge has gotten a heckuva workout.” Bo’s fork landed on the table with a clank of finality.  Melinda didn’t take her eyes off of her phone. “What? Did you think I made the same spread every day this week?”

“Um…yeah…”

“And what do you think I did when you just dashed off to the mill every morning?  Threw it all out?”

 

“No…”

“Then what?”

“I…thought you ate it…?”  If Bo’s reflexes had been just a little bit duller or the distance across the table just an inch or so shorter, he would have received a Grade-A concussion via an angry wife’s trunk.  “Yipe!” Ears full back and only the chair preventing his tail from going straight between his legs, the timber wolf was bracing himself for a second attack when-

“OH MY GOSH!”  Melinda’s gaze was now dead set on the screen of her phone; her eyes wide with shock.

Bo untensed.  “What is it?” Slowly, he unclenched his eyes and shuffled around the table so that he could try and look over Melinda’s shoulder.

His wife was just shaking her head in disbelief.  “It’s…it’s my Uncle Kent.” Her voice was trembling.

“The Colonel?”

“Yes.”

“The peanut oil baron of the South?”

“That one….”

“The obscenely rich relative with no direct heirs that you’ve managed to stay in good graces with since before we started dating?”

“The same…!”

“The one that has been in such poor health these last few years that he didn’t even make it to our wedding?”

“YES!”

Bo saw the tears in his wife’s eyes, and wagged his tail a little bit.  “Is he dead?”

Melinda hung her head.  “Worse. He’s made a full recovery, and he’s coming to visit. TODAY!”

The wolf’s ears shot up in surprise.  “THAT’S….THAT’S….that’s not so bad, actually.”  He looked around. “I mean, the house could use a little sprucing up, I guess, but it’s not that bad, if we’re looking to entertain.”

 

“NOOOOO-O-O-O.”  Melinda was on the verge of sobbing.  Her trunk was already moving for the nearest case of tissues.  The giant flaps of her ears were already trying to hide her face.  “THIS IS TERR-I-BLE.”

Bo tried to comfort his wife, leaning into her and nuzzling her shoulder.  “No honey, it’ll be fine. We’ll go to the grocery store, splurge on a couple of steaks…or maybe a recipe that involves peanut oil…rich people like it when you use their product ri-?”

“HE’S EXPECTING A BABY!”

Another sudden silence filled the air.  Bo could only blink, dumbfounded, as Melinda blew her nose with a resounding HONK.  “A what now?”

Melinda brushed her tears away and sniffed, regaining some of her composure.  “A baby. I told him I was having a baby, and that I was naming it after him. It was one of the ways I was able to keep on his good side.”

Confused, Bo cocked his head a bit.  “Wait…we’re not, are we…?

“No!”  A gray elbow almost knocked the wind out of Bo.  “And starting now wouldn’t help anything! Elephant pregnancies take two years!”

 

“Two years?”  Bo frowned. “How long ago did you tell him this little fib?”

“Three years ago…”

“Three…three…?”  The timber wolf was so surprised that his ears were almost touching the back of his neck.  “Three years ago?! But we’ve only been in a relationship for two years, AND WE JUST GOT MARRIED!”

A fresh wave of tears poured down Melinda’s face, trickling down to the edge of her trunk.  “IT WAS BEFORE I MET YOU! I WAS HOPING HE’D HAVE KICKED THE BUCKET BY NOWOW-OW-OW!”

“But now he’s planning to show up today-?”

 

“And he’s expecting a one year old ‘Lil’ Kent…!’”  Incredibly, an entire box’s worth of tissues lay used on the floor beneath Melinda’s feet.  “We’re gonna get cut out of the WI-I-I-IIILL!”

A rough, determined growl rumbled up from Bo’s throat.  “No, we’re not.” He smacked his fist into his open palm.  “We’ve got this.”

Melinda was already opening up a fresh box of tissues.  “We do?”

“We’ll wine him and dine him and make sure he has such a good visit, he won’t even think about asking about a ‘Lil’ Kent’.”  Melinda didn’t say anything to that. “How long is he staying?”

Floppy, leathery ears brushed away the last of the tears.  “Just for the night.”

Bo smiled.  “Great! We just gotta keep this act up for one night, and keep him occupied till we put him back on the plane.”

There was hope in her eyes.  “Do you think we could maybe start working on a Lil’ Kent after?  Just in case he wants to visit again in a couple of years?”

Bo’s snout crinkled up involuntarily.  “Yeah…but then we’d have a baby to take care of, and the Colonel might leave us a fortune before then.  So there’d be all that work for nothing…” He saw the look of hope and disappointment in his wife’s eyes.  “I mean…one thing at a time, honey. First let’s get through tonight, and then we can talk about making a baby.”

“Okay…”

“First thing’s first.  I bet I can find a good recipe for peanut chicken.  It’ll probably be cheaper than steak, anyways. What time is he due to arrive?”

Melinda looked at her phone.  “The email said seven o’clock.”

“That gives us plenty of time! To the grocery store!”

And just like that, Melinda was her old self again.  “To the grocery store!”

******************************************************************************

As usual, the air was uncomfortably chilly at the WALRUS-MART.  The constant thrumming of massive fans and air conditioners nearly drowned out the ever-buzzing announcements over the loudspeakers.  “Ink Spill In Aisle 8: Cephalopod Needs and Stationery. Ink Spill In Aisle 8.”

Bo’s head was on a swivel, his eyes darting from place to place, his nose constantly sniffing, trying to find a trail.  “I hate this place. I can never figure out how the layout works. Like, they’ve got Skunk and Polecat Hygiene right next to the Koala Products.  It makes no sense!” He sniffed again. “And all the free samples they keep giving out are driving me crazy!”

“I know, I know.”  Melinda gave her hubby a pat on the head.  “But if we’re going to cook a meal fit for the Colonel we’ve got to-.”

“Buy in bulk.”  Bo rolled his eyes.  “I just don’t see why we can’t buy in bulk at Winn-Dixie.”

Now it was Melinda’s turn to scoff and roll her eyes.  “You talk about things smelling weird to you and then you want to go to Winn-Dixie?  The entire store smells like the seafood aisle!”

“Yeah, but Winn-Dixie is special to me.  That’s where we met, remember? We met-“

“Because of Winn-Dixie; I know I know.”  The pair kept walking, looking for the right ingredients.  “But we’re here now and there’s a greater selection available, plus I have more coupons.”  She started scanning the aisles, reading each aloud. “Let’s see. Aisle 219 -Vegan substitutes for meat- nope.  Aisle 220 -Carnivorous substitutes for vegetables- nuh-uh. Aisle 221- greeting cards, birth through burial- not unless there’s a “Sorry I’ve Lied To You For Years card. Aisle 222- Baby supplies; sizes Kangaroo through Killer Whale.  Aisle 223, Décor and hooooold on.”

Already several steps ahead of his wife, Bo had to back up to Aisle 222 where Melinda had firmly planted her feet and was now gazing down it as though she were at the gates of Heaven itself.  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“It’s here.”  Melinda’s pupils were shrunken, a dumb, almost awestruck smile spread across her face.  “The answer to all our problems. It’s here.”

Bo snorted a bit and let out a huff from his nostrils.  “I don’t think the Colonel will appreciate chicken with a baby food peanut glaze, Melinda.”

“No Bo, you don’t understand.”  Melinda’s tone was almost dreamy as she pulled her husband closer to her, as some minor change in positioning would change his perspective.  “We don’t have to admit that there’s no baby. We can make one.”

“But you said elephant pregnancies last 2 years.  Even if we split the difference of a timber wolf pregnancy lasting 9 weeks, it’d still take-“

Melinda put her hand over Bo’s snout and squeezed it closed to keep him from talking.  “I didn’t say anything about getting pregnant. I said we could make a baby.”  She gave her husband a look he’d become all too familiar with.

The timber wolf swatted away his wife’s hand.  “What do you mea-?” He stopped as the lightbulb over her head fizzled and exploded above his.  “Oooooh no. No, no, no. We are not doing that! There is no way that we’re gonna do that. Absolutely no way!”

************************************************************************************

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”  Bo was beside himself with indignation in the living room as Melinda finished the last touches of the disguise she’d made.   Unfortunately, it was hard to look intimidating wearing a diaper. Bo could only pout and cross his blue mitten encased hands over his baby-bibbed chest while Melinda adjusted the matching bonnet over the fake ears and trunk she’d whipped up.

He glanced down at his feet, paws cleverly concealed in matching blue baby booties, and wiggled his toes to make sure they were still there.  Beside him, was a package of Calfies- the baby diaper sized specifically for bovines and pachyderms- ripped open with the next diaper poking out.  It was all Bo could do to not kick the darn thing across the floor.

Melinda finished fastening the disguise and favored him with a chaste smooch on the cheek.  “Just be glad your fur is the right color. Do you know how much dye it would take, otherwise?”

Trying to soothe himself and bring down the blush in his cheeks, the young wolf grabbed the pacifier dangling from around his neck and put it in his mouth. “So, explain the plan to me again.”

“When the Colonel comes, you’ll be wearing this.  You’ll just hop in bed, and pretend to be asleep. Colonel Kent will peak in, go ‘D’aaaaaw, isn’t he cute?’, and then I’ll have dinner with him, send him on his way, and then this whole thing will be over.”  Melinda punctuated her idea by giving her husband a light swat on the butt.

Wincing, Bo started looking for a way out.  “Won’t he be wondering where your husband is?”

A dry, almost knowing chuckle came from Melinda as she stepped back and looked Bo up and down.  “Naw. The Colonel is old school. Even married men don’t have much to do with child rearing. As far as he knows you’re a lumberjack who wires money every few weeks. ”

“I work at a mill!”

“He doesn’t know that!  We’ll be lucky if he remembers you work with wood at all! Now, all you have to do is pretend to be asleep…or just be asleep for real.”   She shrugged.

“At seven?” Bo was incredulous; he fancied himself the man of the house.

All of Bo’s attempts at protest were waved off.  “Seven is a perfectly reasonable bedtime for a baby.  And it’ll keep you out of the way so you don’t have to talk.  Can’t get caught in a lie if you don’t talk.”

“But you’re the one who’s lying.”

She nodded.  “That’s right, so let me do the talking.”

“Ugh…this is so ridiculous. He’s not gonna fall for this.”  Furry shoulders slumped a bit in worry and exasperation. This was such a bad plan!

Melinda had her hands on her hips.  “And why not?”

Why couldn’t she see the flaws in this?  “Our house isn’t even set up for a baby. Shouldn’t I be sleeping in a crib or something?”

“You think we have the money for a crib?  I’ll just say we co-sleep. It’s a perfectly hip and trendy modern Mommy thing.”  Her foot was tapping. She was getting impatient, for some reason.

“Won’t he notice the complete lack of baby furniture?”  Bo gestured around the room as if proving a point.

“Like what?”

“High chair?”

“I feed you in my lap.” Melinda cocked her head to the side, almost daring Bo to continue.

He obliged. “Playpen?”

“The whole living room is your playpen.  It’s not like we have anything valuable for you to break.”

“Changing table?”

“Who needs one of those?  I can change you anywhere there’s a flat and clean surface.”

Something in Melinda’s tone clicked for Bo.  “Would you stop talking about me as if I’m an actual pup?!  Err…calf? Err…baby?!”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”  She leaned over and looked at Bo’s backside, noticing the particularly canine appendage poking out the back of the diaper.  “Hmmm…your tail is awfully fluffy. What can we do about-?”

“Why do I have to wear this, anyways? Like, I get the head gear, but if I’m just going to be pretending to sleep, can’t I just hide under the covers au natural?”  Bo normally didn’t mind his wife thoughtfully staring at his backside, but this was decidedly a major exception.

Melinda didn’t seem to take notice of her husband’s rising blush, or the building anxiety in his voice.  “Because then the Colonel would know you weren’t wearing a diaper.”

“How?”

“He wouldn’t hear the crinkle.  One move, and it’d be all over.”

Bo’s ears flattened as he frowned.  “The Colonel would be able to hear me crinkle?  From across our bedroom? With me laying down? Pretending to sleep? HOW?”

Melinda pointed to her ears.  “HELLO?!”

“Point taken.”  Instant emotional deflation, punctuated by a sigh. “You could have at least let me put the diaper on myself…”

“Then it wouldn’t fit right, silly. You’d leak.”

“LEAK?!”

Melinda chuckled.  “I’m kidding…I’m kidding.”

Her husband was not amused.  He let the pacifier drop out of his mouth and dangle on the little ribbon around his neck.  “Why are you making me put this getup on now, anyhow? It’s not even 4 o’clock yet.”

 “I just wanted to make sure everything fits juuuuust right.  It’s like a dress rehearsal before the main perfor-“

THUNK THUNK THUNK!

Both heads whipped around in shock as the door took another pounding. “MELINDA!  MELINDA DARLIN’! OPEN, I SAY, OPEN UP! THIS IS, I SAY, THIS IS YOUR UNCLE KENT!”

Melinda peeked through the gap in the curtains and saw a bushy-browed old elephant, the white on his eyebrows almost perfectly matching the color of his all white suit; his eyes squinting behind a rounded pair of almost too small spectacles.  She let out a gasp. “It’s the Colonel!” Her voice was a low whisper.

“The Colonel?  You said he’s not supposed to be here until seven!”

“ I know….!”

THUNK THUNK THUNK!

“MELINDA, I SAY, MELLY!  I KNOW YOUR MAMA DIDN’T RAISE YOU TO BE A POOR HOSTESS!  I SAID, I SAY, I SAID THAT I’D BE HERE BY SEVEN AND MY OL’ POCKET WATCH SAYS IT IS SEVEN ON THE DOT!”  The last three words were punctuated with a brisk but thunderous tapping on the door.

With a whoosh, Melinda closed the curtains completely shut.  “His pocket watch!”

“What about it?” Bo was so confused.

 

“The Colonel lives on the East Coast.”

“So?”

“He doesn’t understand time zones!”

“HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND TIME ZO-?”  The pacifier was popped back into Bo’s mouth before his whiny yelp of a question could even be finished.

Holding the rubber bulb in place with her trunk, Melinda held up a finger to her lips.  Her voice was now a tense hiss of a whisper. “Will you be quiet?”

“NOW, I KNOW, I SAY I KNOW I HEARD SOMETHIN’!”

His fingers restricted by big baby blue mittens, Bo started pawing at the front of the diaper.  Alas, he couldn’t so much as grip the tapes.

Melinda glanced down at her husband’s waist.  “What are you doing?”

“I takin off da diafer.” Another round of pounding on the doors punctuated Melinda’s confused look.  Bo let the pacifier drop. “I’m taking off the diaper. We need a new plan.”

Again, the pacifier was shoved back into the wolf’s mouth.  “We do not need a new plan.  This is a good plan.  We’re sticking to it.”  Melinda stared, unblinkingly, into her husband’s eyes.  Bo whined a little, but looked away. Tail between his legs, he started waddling towards their bedroom.  He hadn’t realized just how hard it would be to walk in one of these things.

“I DIDN’T, I SAY, I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS, MELLY. BUT IF YOU DON’T, I SAY IF YOU DON’T LET ME IN BY THE TIME I COUNT TO THREE, I’M A CUTTIN’ YOU OUT OF THE WILL!”

A hand yanked Bo backwards by the arm, and whirled him back around.  “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the bedroom. I’m supposed to be sleeping, remember?”

“ONE!”

“You can’t be in bed!  It’s only four! That’s way too early, even for a one-year-old!”

“He thinks it’s seven!”

“TWO!”

Melinda’s eyes narrowed. “Just because Colonel Kent doesn’t understand time zones, doesn’t mean we don’t!”

“Then where am I supposed to be?  This wasn’t the plan!”

“THR-!“

The door opened to Colonel Kent just then.  Waiting on the other side of the threshold was, of course his darling niece, Melinda. Riding on her hip, legs wrapped almost all the way around her waist, was a rather bashful and embarrassed looking baby ‘elephant’, sucking on his pacifier.

The Colonel stepped in.  “Well, well, well, now that’s more like it!”  He and Melinda entwined trunks in greeting. “Melinda, darlin’ how are, I say, how are you?”

“I’m fine.  Sorry about the wait.  I was just getting the baby up from his nap. ”  Melinda was all big toothy, nervous smiles, her eyes looking nervously to her so-called-baby.  Bo was all reproachful stares and resentment. “How are you, Uncle Kent?”

“Oh, ‘Uncle Kent’, is so formal, Melly.  Please, call me ‘Colonel’!” The older elephant laughed at his own joke.  “Besides, you don’t, I say you don’t want the baby to get confused about who you’re talkin’ to, do ya?”  He laid eyes on Bo and adjusted his glasses. “Speakin’ of which…” Bo felt a kind of panic rising in his chest.  “This must be ‘lil Kent!”

Bo felt a sigh of relief as his wife exhaled.  Pacifier still in his mouth, he smiled as The Colonel reached over and jostled the fake ear flap tied to Bo’s baby bonnet.  “Oh he’s such a big boy! Yes he is! Yes he is!” The hat started to wiggle uncomfortably, and without thinking, the wolf swatted away his in-law’s hand.

Melinda’s trunk smacked Bo’s thigh just hard enough to make him wince.  “Lil’ Kent! Bad baby! No hit the Colonel! You know better!” He started to growl, but a warning look from his ‘Mommy’ made him think better of it.

The Colonel just chuckled.  “Oh it’s all, I say, it’s all right, Melinda m’dear. Just means the boy’s a fighter.  Ain’t ya, Lil’ Kent?” A big gray hand reached out to pinch “Lil’ Kent’s” cheeks; this time he did not flinch or swat at it.  “You gonna join the army when you grow up? You gonna be a fighter just like your ol’ Uncle? You gonna join the army? You gonna be a ‘Lil Colonel’ too?”  It was all Bo could do to grit his teeth as his check was flapped around. “A WUJIE-WUJIE! A WUJIE-WUJIE-WOO!”

Mercifully, Melinda broke the Colonel’s death grip on Bo’s cheek and stepped back.  “Uncle Ken-!”

“COLONEL!  We don’t want to be confusin’ the boy!”

“You do realize that you’re only a Colonel in Kentucky, right?“

“Only, I say, only because there weren’t any good wars to fight when I was of age.  But I am a fighter, have no doubt about that, dear Melly.”

“Whatever you say, Colonel.”  Melinda gestured for him to step further into the house.  “Now please, come on in and close the door. You’re letting the air conditioning out.”

From behind his trunk, the Colonel wriggled his big bushy mustache.  “Ah, but I brought a surprise for you, Melinda, dear. Or rather, I say, or rather a surprise for Lil’ Kent.”  He turned his head back around towards the outside. “BRING IT ALL ON IN, BOYS!”

 

Past the Colonel, clad in navy blue jumpsuits, was a seemingly endless parade of horses, donkeys, and mules.  But the pack animals did not come alone, no. In ones, twos, and threes, they were hoisting and carrying baby furniture; baby furniture which was obviously intended for a rather large baby.

“Uncle Kent…Colonel…what is all this?”    Boxes of toys, a tricycle, and a highchair all made their way past the trio.  A couple of jackasses were busy setting up the rigging for an oversized bouncer in the living room, their blinders keeping them heedless to the comings and goings of their peers.

Bo cocked his head as his eyes tracked some kind of fancy looking close-lidded trash can.  Unable to speak, lest he give the game away, he could only point a mitten encased hand at the hefty plastic cylinder being carted by with the words ‘In case of accident’ stenciled on the side.

The hefty shelf with the padded top that followed was a clue…but the boxes and boxes of diapers being carted in on a dolly was the real clincher. A changing table…a diaper pail…and diapers…all of them big enough to service Bo.  They weren’t going into he and Melinda’s room either, but the spare “Guest Room” that the newlyweds hadn’t had time to decorate yet. It was being decorated now, that’s for sure.

The Colonel must have taken Bo’s shock for a giddy delight.  He smiled and gave Bo another rough cheek-flapping pinch before looking to Melinda.  “Well I couldn’t, I say, I couldn’t help but notice in all of the pictures you posted on the interwebs of your new home, that you were in short supply…baby supplies, that is.  So I decided to help out and bring all of your old baby furniture in. I sprung for a fresh coat of blue paint, and a couple of boxes of Calfies of course. There’s frugal and bein’ good with money, and then there’s bein’ cheap.”

Both of them noticed the bars of an elephantine sized crib pass by.   Melinda tried to stop things from going too far, as if she wasn’t already too late.  “Oh, that’s really not necessary. Bo- I mean Lil’ Kent and I co-sleep. It’s the newest trend.”

By the time Melinda finished talking, the old pachyderm had already turned his back to newlywed Graysons and was continuing to direct his impromptu work crew.  “No, not that room, fellas, the baby’s room. The baby’s room!”  He turned to face them again.  “Melly, my dear niece. There’s ‘frugal’, and then there’s livin’ poor!  I don’t want you losin’ sleep on account of you frettin’ about rollin’ over and squashin’ poor Lil’ Kent.   A boy his age needs a crib to sleep in, anyways. He’s not a newborn.” He turned his back again. “Besides, I’m sure by now he’s leaked on you more than once.  It might be nice for you to wake up in a dry bed.”

“LEAKED?!”  The pacifier was in the young pup’s…err….wolf’s mouth before the ribbon even went taught.  Melinda’s hand clamped tightly over his muzzle, eliciting a whine.

Colonel Kent spun around.  “Em, What was that?”

Hand still clamping over Bo’s mouth, Melinda gave her uncle a nervous chuckle.  “I said that ‘Lil’ Kent has never leaked on me once in his life.” Bo smiled a bit with his eyes.  “His diapers are far too absorbent.” So much for that smile.

Colonel Kent seemed to wave off her concerns as the last of the supplies was unloaded, and the uninvited movers headed out as quickly and silently as they had arrived. “Whelp, time for supper.”  He clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. “Where the, I say, where’s the viddles?”

“It’s only four.  You didn’t adjust that old pocket watch for time zones.”  The younger elephant paused. “Again.”

Uncle Kent reached into his white jacket pocket and took out the expensive looking antique watch on a golden chain. “I didn’t?” He looked at the time on the watch.  Then the time on kitchen stove. Then he dug into his jacket pocket and took out a smartphone and compared those. “Well, I say, well whaddya know? I guess I didn’t.”  He slapped his knee and let out a big belly laugh, thinking the massive inconvenience he’d just caused was marvelously funny.

The young couple could only stare, not quite sure how to react.  “Yeah…that’s a hoot all right.”

“Yes it is!”  The older elephant’s thunderous laughter finally died down, and he even wiped a tear from his eye.  “That also, I say, that also explains why I haven’t met the third member of your family.”

“Third member?”

“The boy’s father.”  The couple’s uninvited house guest motioned over to the bedroom- Bo and Melinda’s bedroom, not the nursery he’d just created.  He readjusted his spectacles and squinted hard at ‘Lil Kent.’ “Where’s the boy’s daddy, speaking of co-sleeping?” He leaned, looking at Bo, but addressing Melinda.  “The uh…whittler right? Woodcarver? Not home from whittling, yet? What is he, a beaver or somethin’?” He scanned Bo’s babied body up and down. “Don’t see much beaver in you, though.”  Bo received a heavy pat on his bonneted, fake-elephant-eared head. “No, he’s aaaallll elephant.”

Bo stifled a growl and continued sucking on his paci to keep quiet, nevertheless doing his best to dig his claws into Melinda’s shoulder.  He was not happy. It was bad enough going through all this classist, speciesist nonsense before the wedding with Melinda’s (oddly non-accented) parents, but now he couldn’t even speak up for himself.  (And if he did, he’d still be wearing a diaper and riding on his wife’s hip.)

“He’s a lumberjack, and he’s off in Canada at the moment.”  It seemed his mittens were extra padded on the inside so that this claws could not penetrate; almost as if Melinda has planned on saying something that would irk her husband.  “Every week he wires me…us…Lil’ Kent and I, some money.”

Once again, Uncle Kent turned his back, slowly meandering towards the kitchen. “Well who needs, I say, who needs a lumberjack when you have rich elderly relatives?”

Melinda stood up a little straighter and adjusted Bo on her hip.  “Bo is a very devoted husband and he would do anything for me. Anything.”  The two shared a look and nuzzled each other’s forehead.

“Well, as long as he’s not some predator, like a wolf or somethin’.  Almost as bad as those lions; damn moonies.”

“UNCLE KENT!”  Melinda was so shocked, she dropped Bo, his padded posterior cushioning the landing, but not his pride.  Anger rising, but pacifier still in his mouth, he took to all fours, getting ready to pounce. It was only his wife’s hand on his back that made him remember that he was at home with another idiot in-law and not about to get into a bar fight.   “I WILL NOT HAVE THAT KIND OF…THAT KIND OF BIGOTRY IN MY HOUSE!”  Quickly, Bo backed off his haunches and put his knees to the floor, so that he was crawling.  His wife had this.

The Colonel was genuinely taken aback, looking hurt as he turned back around.  “Well, I say, well gosh, Melinda. I was only makin’ a little off-color humor. Nothin’ you haven’t heard before, and nothin’ your precious bundle can understand!”

Melinda put her foot down, literally, and the floor trembled with her fury.  “Lil’ Kent can understand far more than you realize, and I will not tolerate anything remotely resembling that kind of talk around my baby!”  She softened a bit and shot a look down at Bo. “One of the most wonderful people in the world I know happens to be a wolf.”

Melinda’s uncle paused and seemed to take this all in.  “Y’know, I say, y’know what? I’m far too old to be making new enemies out of good family.  And you’re right, I’m far too cultured and refined to keep talkin’ the same nonsense that my grandpappy did.  I’m sorry Melinda.” Then, without prompting, he bent over and looked Bo in the eye. “I’m sorry for that too, Lil’ Kent.  Will you ever forgive me?”

Both of the Grayson’s expressions softened. Bo had to resist the urge to pant.  

Melinda glanced back at the Colonel. “Uncle Kent…Colonel…of course we-“

“THEN LET’S GET ON WITH THE GRUB! IT’S STILL SUPPER TIME SOMEWHERE!”

Husband and wife shared knowing, worried looks, before Melinda walked over to the kitchen.  “I’ll cook.”

(After These Messages….)

(…We’ll Be Right Back!)

“And I’ll play with Lil’ Kent!”  Bo found himself quickly scooped up, held by the armpits by an absolutely ecstatic looking Uncle Kent.  Even though his bootied feet were dangling only a few inches off the ground, it didn’t make him feel any less helpless.  “Are you, I say, are you ready to play with the Colonel? Are you?! I bet you are! I bet you are!”

“You two play nice while I’m cooking dinner!”  The sentiment had an edge of menace behind it. Little did Uncle Kent seem to realize that that warning likely applied to both of them.   “We’ll all be having peanut chicken for dinner.”

With Bo still dangling helplessly from his underarms, Uncle Kent turned to the kitchen. “Sounds, I say, sounds delicious.” A trunk twitched and a bushy mustache wrinkled.  “Uh, Melinda dear. Just curious. Would you mind checkin’ Lil Kent’s, d-i-a-p-e-r. I think he might need a new one.”

If the young wolf could have crossed his arms, he would have.  How dare this old fart say he smelled bad, never mind the implication of what, precisely, he smelled like!  He settled for a pouted lip and a muted ‘harumph’ through his nose.  That wouldn’t break character that much. Quite the opposite in fact, since the stubby little fake elephant nose took that air and channeled it out as an adorable little ‘toot’.  “D’awwwww…he tooted, I say, he tooted at me! And somewhere else, if you catch my meanin’.”

As though this were ever the most natural conversation in the world, Melinda didn’t even miss a beat.  “It’s fine.” Already the scent of peanut oil frying in pan was filling the room. “I had just changed him before you came.  His diaper should be fine until after dinner.”

The Colonel took a few mammoth steps, and Bo found himself seated on the couch.  Not directly on the couch, of course, his bottom crinkling on the Colonel’s knee.  “Now what shall,I say, what shall we play?” The old man stroked his chin for a moment.  “How about, ‘Peek-a-toot’?”

Without further preamble, two enormous ears obscured the elephant’s face. “PEEKA.” And then nothing….

Despite himself, Bo waited. And waited. And waited. Had the old guy fallen asleep?  Slowly, he reached his paw up to tap the Colonel on the forehead. He was almost being killed by the antici-….

“TOOT!”

-PATION!  Bo fell back off the couch in shock, almost braining himself on the new coffee table.  That had been a wedding present, too! Afraid to yip, bark, growl, or anything that might give away his lupinity, could only grit down on his pacifier and exhale through his nose again.

A comically loud honk, more like a toot, actually, erupted from the thing strapped to Bo’s nose.  He looked down his muzzle in horror at the monstrosity strapped to his schnoz. It sounded a little like those cheap noisemakers at kids parties. Come to think of it, it kind of looked like it too when he huffed and puffed through his schnoz.

Is this how other…errr…real baby elephants sounded like at first?  It didn’t sound anything like the noises Melinda made when she was especially angry (or when they were in bed).  Yet, it had to be! Otherwise, why would this old fool be falling for it? Then again, in the back of his mind, Bo was more than a little sure that baby elephants were at least not as tall as him, and yet that didn’t reassure him.  Maybe dementia had set in and the old fart was really close to kicking the bucket. That would make this whole humiliating experience worth it. Just get through tonight…

“Ha-ha-ha!  Kid’s a natural!”  Bo was dragged back onto his crazy in-law’s lap. “Let’s I say, let’s do it again!”

“Peeka!”

“Toot!”

“Peeka.”

“Toot.”

“Peeka…”

“toot.”

“Peeka…”

“toot…”

“Peeka…”

“Too…”

On and on it went.  Far too long, by Bo’s reckoning.  Pretending that his false trunk was a house made of straw (just like Mama Grayson told him when he was learning to use a tissue) might have been amusing at first, but each iteration was becoming more and more tedious.  Eventually, even the Colonel took the hint. “Maybe you’re a little too old for that, hmmm.”

Bo only nodded.  He figured that showing a little understanding wouldn’t break character.

“Um, Melinda dear.”

“Whaaaaat?”

“At what age, I say, at what age to children normally gain object permanence?”

“Cooking over here! Kinda busy!”

“It’s just a-”

“Colonel…do you want food or not?”

‘Lil’ Kent’ still in his lap, the Colonel slumped a bit and frowned.  It did Bo some good to know that at least Melinda had that effect on other people besides him.  Suddenly, a light shone in the codger’s eyes. “Oh, what about “Got yer nose?’”

A hand reached forward for the stunted little ‘trunk’ on the end of Bo’s nose.  Oh no! The ears were iffy at best, but there was no way that this cheap-o imitation trunk would hold up to such scrutiny!  “AAAAAAAAH!” Bo didn’t so much fall as much as he leapt off the couch, tumbling and rolling against a box of toys.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow….!”  The blocks in the giant toy chest, stuffed to the point of overflowing, spilled over the rim and toppled onto the diaper clad wolf’s head.  Plenty of heavier and harder things had landed on top of Bo Grayson’s head before this, but the sheer absurdity and degradation of the day’s events caused him to tear up slightly nonetheless.

The shadow of an overbearing and demented old man loomed over his son-in-law.  “D’awwww, did you hear that, Melly. I think, I say, I think Lil’ Kent just said his first word!”

“‘Ow’ isn’t a word, Colonel.”  The sound of a meat hammer pounding away and a blender whirring to life punctuated Melinda’s remark.  “And dinner’s ready!”

The Colonel forgot all about ‘Lil’ Kent’ and stampeded (was it even possible for a single elephant to stampede?) over to the dinner table.  Bo gathered his feet up underneath him and moved to stand, but a warning look from Melinda made him think twice. Doing his best not to whine, he still threw his wife a mournful look.  

Come on! He was supposed to be one!  Couldn’t one year olds walk?! Based on the rhythm of her tapping foot, Bo could tell that the answer- for him at least- was a resounding ‘No.’  So, reluctantly, the young wolf made do and started to crawl on all fours to the kitchen.

Crinkle-Crinkle-Crinkle.

Bo stopped.  He looked behind him, staring at his padded rump.  Now that he was moving, he really could hear the sound that his diaper (the diaper…the diaper…it didn’t belong to him) made, crinkling with every shimmy along the living room carpet that he made.  A body didn’t need elephant ears to hear that!

When he turned his head back around, Melinda had changed her posture and facade from an annoyed housewife tapping her foot to a doting mother, hands on her knees beckoning her little one forward.  “Come on, Lil’ Kent. Come on. Come to Mommy!” Her tone was saccharine sweet, as was her face, but there was something in her eyes that didn’t match. She was enjoying this, and in more ways than one.  Bo blushed. Honestly, hearing his wife talk like that was kind of hot. “You’re never going to get to grow up and be a big boy if you don’t eat your dinner…”

Bo blinked.  The meaning was clear:  The sooner this dinner thing was done and over with, the sooner he’d get back to being an adult.  As fast as his mittened hands and bare knees could propel him, Bo Grayson crinkle crawled all the way to the kitchen.  

Naturally, when he got there, the Colonel was already seated at the table…in Bo’s chair no less.  “Isn’t one, I say, isn’t one old enough to be walking yet?” From ‘Lil’ Kent’s’ spot on the kitchen floor, a silent I-told-you-so look was shot up to Melinda, which she promptly ignored.

For the third or fourth time that day (Bo had lost count) he found himself picked up off the ground and manhandled by an elephant.  “Bo’s-I mean ‘Lil Kent is a bit of a late bloomer.” She deposited him into the waiting highchair, positioned neatly between the two ‘grown-ups’.  “And I’ll have you know that he was walking a little bit just before you arrived. More of a waddle, really, but it’s a start. I just think he likes crawling better.”  

As the tray of the titanium reinforced plastic shelled chair was slid into place, locking him in, Bo gave his legs a bit of an experimental squeeze. His knees couldn’t even touch!  He let out a surprised gasp.

“Mmm-mmm-mmm.  Sounds like, I say, it sounds like Lil’ Kent is almost as hungry as I am.”  

The Colonel wasn’t wrong.  Even with his actual nose covered with a half-assed prosthetic, Bo could smell the chicken, and if it was one thing that this morning had reminded him of it was that his wife was a phenomenal cook.

Melinda set down an entire rotiserrie’s worth of chicken in front of her uncle.  Bo’s eyes widened, and the pacifier dropped from his mouth. A second plate, holding half a chicken was placed at Melinda’s seat.  Bo was starting to drool, the sound of his light panting was only being masked by the crinkle coming from this diaper as he unconsciously wagged his tail.  

They’d gotten two chickens!  That meant that the other half was for him!  When the meal came, sound from his mouth stopped.  All crinkling caused by his tail starting to wag stopped.  All sound, save for the thoughtless clinkling and scraping of metal as Colonel Kent started to devour his own meal, died out.

Bo did not have a chicken placed in front of him.  Instead, a steaming, almost burbling mess of beige mush was placed on his tray, a plastic throw away spoon sticking straight out of the morass.  “Mmmm…Lil’ Kent’s favorite. Chicken! Baby looooves his chicken.” Melinda’s eyes gestured over to the counter where she had been cooking.

He looked over to the counter.  By the sink he saw the blender, still dripping with mush and residue from just minutes ago.  She hadn’t…!  He looked back to her, now with a spoon all but dripping with pureed meat dangling in front of him.  “Heeeere coooomes the chicken choo-choo train! Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga!” She had!

“Eat up, Lil’ Kent.  It’ll make, I say, It’ll make ya big an’ strong!”  

The so-called ‘Lil’ Kent’ was not encouraged.  His mouth dried up and his jaw clamped down. He shook his head rapidly, as if trying to dodge the oncoming spoon.  Still, it chugga-chugga-chugged along on it’s invisible path through the air. No! No, no, no! Not going to happen.

A piece of yellow cloth fell across Bo’s chest.  Momentarily, he stopped and looked down at the alien garment.  The words ‘Mommy’s Messy Boy’ were stitched across it.

Suddenly, the front of cloth jumped up to his neckline, and with two ends being pulled back tight. “GAAAAAAACK!”  He was being choked! He was being garrotted! It was a mafia style execution, just like in the movies! Gasping for air, Bo gripped the edges of the highchair, and opened his mouth wide.

WOOOMPH!

Not-quite-liquid chicken was spooned into his waiting jaws, spreading out over his tongue.  ‘Mommy’ Melinda withdrew the spoon and smiled as the offending terry cloth slackened, now firmly tied around his neck.  “Awww, thank you Colonel. I knew I forgot something. His bib!” A knowing look passed between the two. “Wouldn’t want Lil’ Kent to get food all over himself.”  Bo grimaced and swallowed.

The plastic spoon was back in the meaty mush and was chugga-chugga-chugging back to his mouth before the young wolf had even to finish muscling down the first spoonful.  At least the Colonel had returned back to his seat at the table, though some territorial part of Bo couldn’t help but cast resentful looks at the old pachyderm. That was his chair!

Wordlessly, Bo opened his mouth for a second time, and allowed the chicken to be spooned in again.  Again, he swallowed and grimaced. What was wrong with this stuff? Bo normally liked chicken, but there was something off about this batch, and it wasn’t the peanut oil, either.

Maybe it was because his nose was covered.  Food always tasted funny when his nose was stuffed, and the faux trunk protruding out made his nose feel like he had a bizarre kind of cold.  Perhaps it was the texture. Being an adult wolf with a full set of teeth, Bo typically liked chewing and tearing his food with his teeth. He didn’t even like pudding for that very reason.  Who liked food that they couldn’t chew?

None of this pondering or navel gazing stopped the continuous refilling and chugga-chugga-chugging of the liquid chicken train constantly motoring towards his waiting mouth. He would open, get spoonfed, swallow hard as he tried not to gag, and just as he was about ready to come up for air, he’d be confronted by another spoonful.

Scam or not, Bo could tell that his wife was enjoying this a little bit. Melinda was going juuuuuust fast enough to make it so that he was constantly eating- always swallowing but never chewing- and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Just as the last spoonful was being scraped along the bowl, Melinda went to the refrigerator and produced another implement of gastronomical torture. “Can’t forget your ba-ba.  Baby looooves his ba-ba…” A tiny high pitched puppy-whine rose up in Bo’s throat, as he glanced over at the Colonel, who was only now gingerly wiping his lips.

WOOOMPH!

Thuck-thuck-thuck-thuck…

Glug-glug-glug-glug.  

It had been all the opening that Melinda had needed to stuff the bottle between Bo’s lips, and obediently the not-so-little baby nursed from it, even being so good as to hold it between his mittened forepaws without needing direction.  The milk certainly tasted better than the meal; at the very least this was something that was meant to be liquid. Yet, something still tasted off about the milk.  Bo could only assume that it was the aftertaste from the chicken pudding.

Dutifully, the cubbified wolf drank down the milk as quickly and as cleanly as he could, afraid to even spill a drop.  He could practically feel his belly expanding with each gulp. “Blech.” A gasp came out when he slammed the bottle down on his tray.  It was the closest he’d been to drowning since that one time at summer camp, back when he was an actual pup.

Melinda still didn’t let up.  The tray slid out of place, and Bo found himself back in his ‘Mommy’s’ arms, his legs wrapping around her waist and his body leaning forward over her right shoulder; her right hand supporting his bottom as the left one started patting him roughly on the back.

Bo didn’t have to wait long.  “URP!”

“Good baby!” She gave his diapered rump a playful little squeeze and a pat before resuming the burping.  Really?  Now she was feeling flirty?  

“URP!”

Another squeeze and pat, and more cooing followed.  “Such a good boy! Now one more.”

Bo took a deep breath, so that he might whisper something into his wife’s ear.  What came out instead was “UUUUUUUUUUUURP! Ugh…” He went limp, almost ragdolling with that last belch.  It felt good to get out, but it also felt like a little bit of his dignity was going with it.

“GOOD BABY!”  Far too soon, Bo was placed back in his highchair, the tray clicked in place, so that Melinda could eat her own dinner.  By the time that the entire vile meal had been finished, Bo had been beginning to feel overfull, uncomfortable and tired.  The burping had not helped that much.

 Finally, Melinda sat down and ate a few bites of her own dinner.  Uncle Kent, for his part, had voraciously devoured his meal (ironically, one might say that he’d “wolfed it down”) and was now watching T.V. in the living room.  

Feeling absolutely bloated, the so-called ‘man of the house’ slumped forward in his highchair and started panting a bit. Gosh, this was exhausting.  Melinda put her fork down, stood up and took her husband’s chin in her hand. “Quiet…you don’t want you-know-who to hear, do you?” She pointed to her enormous ears.

“Sorry…I can’t help it.” He tugged at the false ears and baby bonnet on his head.  “I’m starting to feel hot in this thing.”

Melinda twisted her mouth to one side. She leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “How about a bath, later?  Even Uncle Kent won’t barge in there. Then you can get dressed before bed and-”

“No!”  Bo’s voice was a hoarse whisper but he felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Please no!  It was hard enough getting into this outfit the first time. If I get out of it, I’m not going to be able to get back in.”

She caressed the side of his face, her voice full of sympathy.  “I know, baby, I know. But the bathroom has something else in it too.  Something you might need soon.  We run a little water in the tubby and no one will hear the p-o-t-t-y flushing.”

The offer was tempting.  The need to void one’s waste, like the need to consume, was something that was often forgotten until it was pressing, but became ever more pressing the more one thought about it. Now, Bo needed to go.  

And a bath might be nice…sensual even…maybe even adult depending on how much privacy the newlyweds were afforded, after a trip to the loo, of course.  Unconsciously, Bo tried to close his legs, only to have the thick padding of his diaper cut him off, reminding him, gently reminding him that he was already wearing his toilet.

Images of himself having to sit on an oversized child’s potty, a cooing Melinda towering over him, and a bubble bath complete with rubber ducky flashed in his mind’s eye.  Then him having to lay back down on a bathmat so that Melinda could slip another diaper under him. No. Just no. “I’ll hold it…”

“But…”

“I’ll hold it…”  Bo flashed his gritted teeth.

Melinda only shrugged.  “Okay…”

Bo allowed himself to be picked up again and carried to the living room. This time, the pacifier was back in his mouth without instruction or coercion.  The young couple positioned themselves between the Colonel and the television. “It’s still a little early, but I was thinking of putting Lil’ Kent to bed in his new crib.  It’s really been an exciting afternoon for him.”

“Capital, I say, capital idea, Melly.”  The Colonel stood up and rustled Bo’s baby bonnet, not seeming to notice that the floppy elephant ears moved with the head piece.  “Sweet dreams, Lil’ Kent. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“The morning?”

The Colonel arched an eyebrow.  “Oh, I didn’t tell you?

Completely forgetting themselves, both of the Graysons shook their heads.  The building pressure was in more than just Bo’s diaper area, all of a sudden.

“I’M MOVIN’!”  Two sets of jaws plummeted forward while a third set of eyes didn’t seem to notice.  “I managed to snatch up that empty lot next to your house and I’m movin’ my new retirement trailer right in!”  Neither Bo nor Melinda could find the words. “I’ve got, I say I’ve got only a few good years left in me, and I wanna spend as many of them watchin’ my Lil’ nephew grow up!  We’re gonna be neighbors!”

It was Melinda who found her wits first.  “That’s…great Uncle Kent. I’m so happy to hear it. Buuut like I said..Lil’ Kent needs his rest.”

“Of course, of course!  Night night, Lil’ Kent!”

It was all Bo could do to keep from screaming as he buried his muzzle into Melinda’s shoulder. “He’s feeling shy…it’s because he’s tired.”

Pivoting on a dime, she rushed towards the nursery.  Bo angled his mouth towards Melinda’s ear. “What are we gonna do, Mel?  I can’t pretend to be a baby elephant this long!”

Melinda stroked the back of his head with her trunk.  “I don’t know, baby…I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”

“Just a sec, I say just a second there, Melinda!”  The lady elephant froze. She whirled around. “Somethin’ just occurred to me and I’m miiiiighty suspicious all of a sudden.”

“Oh?”

The Colonel narrowed his eyes.  “It just occurred to me that there wasn’t a single, I say a single baby toy when I first got here.”

Melinda was curling her trunk, doing her best to not chew on it, as she did on the few occasions when she got nervous. It was her one tell. “Oh…really?”  

“No crib?  No highchair?  No playpen? I could see all of that being a matter of financial hardship.  But not a single toy?”

“Um…you see…it’s like this…”

“Somethin, I say somethin’s wrong here!”

The two elephants stared at each other across the room.  Melinda was visibly shaking. Bo held his breath.

“You’re not just rottin’ the boy’s brain with cartoons, are ya?”

From Bo’s vantage point, the ceiling got a little closer as Melinda stood up a little straighter.  “I certainly do not!”

“Oh really? No ploppin’ him down in front of the ol’ boob tube and lettin’ Tom Injury or Garfunkle do the heavy liftin’?”

“Absolutely not!”  Yikes! Melinda sounded like she was genuinely offended.  “I play with him all the time!”

“You do, I say you do, do ya?”

“As a matter of fact I do.”  WIth incredible strength, she held out her baby/husband, dangling him from his armpits.  “Just watch.”

Bo let out a near terrified yelp as Melinda tossed him into the air.  “Whoops…!” Just as quickly, he fell back down into her waiting arms. He let out a little giggle in relief.  “A-daisy.”

“Whoops!”  A little harder this time.  Bo’s legs rose up parallel to him.  For a fraction of a second, the young man felt as though he might be skydiving, before plummeting back down into the safety net that was his makeshift Mommy’s arms. “A-DAISY!”  A giggle became a yip of excitement

“WHOOPS!”  

He skyrocketed ceilingwards, a dumb, almost giddy grin breaking out.  He was on top of the wor-!

WHAM!

Pain shot up him, first up in his back, and then shooting to the back of his head before yo-yoing down to his heels. Just as quickly the floor came up at him.  Melinda, her face a mask of shock; her hands gripping her ears in panic, failed to catch him.

WHAM!

The world went starry for a second. Then red.  Then blurry.

Bo hurt.  His back. His head.  His belly. His nose. Everything.  It was all Bo could do to roll over.  His chest ached as he drew a few ragged breaths, and the warm hot pain of bruises and lumps beginning to form filled him up.  

Another kind of warmth invaded it’s Bo’s space.  Bo’s body wasn’t the only thing that was being filled up.  So was his diaper. The liquid warmth sloshed around his front before rushing to the back and then being quickly and quietly absorbed; causing the diaper to swell and expand outward.

Never before had Bo so genuinely hoped to be peeing blood, but even through blurry star-filled eyes, Bo could see the distinctly yellow discoloration of the thing between his legs. That’s when Bo started to cry.  “AWOOOOOOOOOO!” It was a mix of hurt and humiliation, his pride buckling under everything he’d endured. More importantly, the mournful and miserable howl could never be mistaken as anything elephantine.

Melinda was over him.  “Bo! Baby, are you okay?!”

“Bo?  Why are, I say, why are you callin’ Lil’ Kent that?  And why’s he makin’ that noise?”

Melinda ignored the Colonel’s question, instead ripping the flimsy pachyderm disguise off of her husband’s head.  “It’s okay, Baby. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“I’m so so sorry.  I didn’t mean to. I’d never mean to.”  His sense of smell was still diluted but damn, did it feel good to have fresh air on his face again, all the same!  The feeling of even this minor freedom, only allowed the tears to flow more freely, however, and soon Bo was crying into his wife’s lap, not sure where the pain ended and the embarrassment began.

This moment of respite was short lived, however.  “MELINDA! WHAT IS, I SAY, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?

Bo couldn’t see what was happening, buried as he was in Melinda’s lap, but he could certainly hear it.  “The meaning, Colonel, is that I lied to you!” She was so mad she was practically spitting. “I don’t have a little elephant baby!”  Their not-so-carefully constructed plan was falling apart, just as they were approaching the finish line.

There was a long silence.  Only Bo’s quiet sobs, still not dying down, made a sound.  “It all makes sense now…” The Colonel’s voice was even, low, and even tinged with a bit of sadness.

‘Mommy’ Melinda stroked her ‘baby’s’ back.  It helped, if only a little. “Yeah…I guess it does.”

“So… you adopted?” Bo looked up to his wife, then rolled over to look at her uncle.  “And that’s why you didn’t want me talking about wolves like I was?”

Melinda seemed uncertain.  She looked to Bo, then back up to her Uncle “…Yes.”  Apparently, it was time to double down on the crazy.

“And you named him Bo?”

“…Yes?”

“After your husband, the lumberjack?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

“But you’ve been hiding him from me.”  This wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“And that whole namin’ him after me was just tryin’ to butter me up?  So I’d accept him?”

This wasn’t entirely a lie.  “Yeeeeeah…”

Carefully, the Colonel came over to their spot on the floor and looked his niece in the eye.  “Melinda. Melly darlin’. I’m hurt.” He looked down at Bo. “Your little cub might not be blood, but that doesn’t mean he’s not family.”

“Really?”  Melinda’s voice was full of hope.

“Of course.”  The Colonel rose, his voice gaining volume as he spoke. “It wouldn’t matter if your baby was an elephant, or a wolf, or even a lion.”  A thick gray finger pointed towards the wolf. “As long as he’s your baby boy, then he’s my nephew, too, and I wanna spend some time gettin’ to know him.”  

Bo gulped.  How was it possible to be relieved and terrified at the same time?

“Okay….I think I…I think we’d like that.”

“Good.  Now, we’ll talk about this more, later.  Get your boy to bed.”

Still sniffling, Bo was carried into the adult sized nursery that had been designated as ‘Lil’ Kent’s room’.  Now, so it seemed, it was simply Bo’s room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to almost ruin it…” His voice was hoarse from crying.  The wolf had a frog in his throat.

Like a mother shushing a scared and confused child, Melinda did her best to calm him down.  “Shhhh….it’s okay. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She laid him down on the padded mat of the nursery’s new changing table.  “You couldn’t help it. You did everything right. I messed up.”

“But now he knows that we lied to him.”  He didn’t struggle or flinch as Melinda tugged at the tapes to his soggy diaper.  He yawned, instead. His adrenaline cooling, the pain and embarrassment were subsiding into an almost unnatural sleepiness.  The gentle, cool caress of the baby wipes against his most sensitive areas wasn’t doing much to keep him awake. It was soothing, really.

“Up we go.”  Melinda hoisted her hubby’s hind quarters into the air and slid out the soiled diaper.  Quickly, she slipped a new one beneath him before setting him back down. She was really good at this!  “And no, he only knows that I fibbed to him. He still thinks you’re a cute lil’ adopted wolf cub. His mind must be going, but it works in our favor.”

It might have been a sudden case of life imitating art, so to speak, but the young wolf had a sudden urge to suck his thumb. “But he’s moving next door.  How are we have to keep it up?”

His wife ignored him, briefly.  “A little powder, just in case.”  Her trunk sprinkled on what might have been considered a little powder, were he an elephant.  Bo was left coughing, engulfed in a white cloud of lavender cornstarch as the diaper was pulled up between his legs and fastened on with little tapes.  “We’ll find a way. It’ll be more than worth it in the end. I promise.”

The room was starting to get hazy.  Bo was grateful when Melinda helped him to a sitting position.  “But what if I goof it up again? How am I gonna go to work?” A loan moan escaped his lips while his new Mommy tugged a pajama shirt over his head, this one decorated with rocket ships and planets.  He had always wanted to be an astronaut when he was a little kid.

Melinda, ever the doting Mommy, reached for a matching pair of pajama bottoms.  “Legs through here, that’s right.” She picked a suddenly exhausted-looking Bo back onto her hip. “You don’t have to be an elephant; just your adorable wolfish self.”   She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “And you’re doing wonderfully at that.” He didn’t have the energy to even comment as she laid him down in the crib, raising the railing.  “Just hang in there for a little while longer, and everything is gonna be juuuuust fine.”

Eyelids getting heavy, the world seemed to start to gently sway for Bo, like the mobile dangling above his crib.  “Juuuuust fine. Can I have more eggs tomorrow? With onions? But not from a blender?”

“Sure, baby.  I think I can sneak that by the Colonel.”  Melinda leaned over the rail and brushed her hubby’s hair with her trunk.  “Night Bo-bo.” She walked to the edge of the nursery, her finger on the lightswitch.

He yawned, squeaking a bit as he did.  “Night Mommy…”

Melinda let out a chirping little squeal of her own, just before turning out the lights.
**********************************************************************************************************

The sun had long set when Melinda cracked back open the door to the adult sized nursery.  “Bo? Are you up?” He was not. Still clad in his new jammies, waistband of the diaper poking out, her husband was snoring up a storm.  “Oh this is just too cute.” Carefully, she inched her phone in and snapped a pic.

She smiled to herself.  She wasn’t experienced enough to know if a diaper needed changing based on the swelling, yet, but her nose told her that it had definitely been used.  She tiptoed back over to the couch, Uncle Kent sipping patiently on a glass of red wine.

“How is he?”

Melinda took her own glass.  “Sleeping like a, well… you know.”

The Colonel chuckled.  “I suspect, I say, I suspect he would after all the stuff you mixed in with his dinner.”   

“It’s just to help ease him into things.”  The two elephants shared a knowing look. “Thanks for doing this for me, Uncle Kent.”  She took a sip.

“Melly, I say, Melly my dear; the difference between crazy and eccentric is measured in dollar signs. If you want your baby and your hubby to be the same person, then it makes no difference to me.”

“Thank you, Uncle Kent.”

“You always were my favorite niece.”  He looked back to the nursery door, and then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.  “So, what’s the next step?”

“Try to get him through the day as a baby.”  Melinda thought about the eggs and chuckled. “It should be easier to get him to eat if we switch to some less disgusting food.”

Uncle Kent grinned.  “Ah, the art of the hard sell.  One night of liquid chicken, and a lifetime of peanut, I say, peanut butter and jelly will seem like a feast.”  He waggled his finger at her. You really are my heir apparent.”

Melinda rocked back.  “HA!” She covered her mouth, waiting to make sure that her new baby hadn’t been distrubed.  “Anyways, getting to hear his own name, and some better food should help him keep up the act a little bit longer, at least until it’s not an act.”

“There’s no con like a long con.  By the time I decide to pull up stakes, your hubby child will be well adjusted to his new role in the family.”  He drained his glass and moved to refill it. “How are you going to keep him from going back to work, though?”

The new ‘Mommy’ pulled up the picture on her phone and pressed a few buttons.  “Baby boy probably won’t be welcomed back when I email this to his boss.”

Her eccentric uncle nodded in approval. “Devious…devious.  But how are you gonna pay the bills now? I’m rich, but I’m, I say, I’m not a bottomless wallet.”

Now it was Melinda’s turn drain her glass.  “A few webcams, a few videos, and a decent web-design, and baby boy can start paying for his own diapers.  The internet is a wonderful thing.”

“You don’t mean?”  The Colonel’s question was answered by his niece pantomiming with her fist rhythmically shaking up and down.  It only took a moment for him to understand the meaning. “Ahhhh that’s a gasser! Just like them ol’ penny arcades but from the comfort of your own phone!”

Melinda refilled her glass.  “And you’d be surprised how much people will pay for ‘playdates’ and ‘adult baby sitting’.  I play this right and I won’t need any inheritance.”

They clinked glasses.  “This was, I say, this was a real hoot.  I didn’t know I could have this much fun.”

“Well, you know what they say.  Making the baby is the best part.”

(The End)

[Pierry Louys]

I loved this story when I read in cushypen! I was hoping someday you make a sequel showing his life ! 

[kerry]

Cute!

[Shade_Koopa]

Heha, classic cartoon humor in this story. Reminds of the "Baby Barney" episode in Flintstones. : P

I'd love to see a follow up of this story or something related to it. ^^

[Personalias]

1 hour ago, Shade_Koopa said:

Heha, classic cartoon humor in this story. Reminds of the "Baby Barney" episode in Flintstones. : P

I'd love to see a follow up of this story or something related to it. ^^

The "Baby Barney" episode of the Flintstones is EXACTLY what gave me the idea for this.

[Shade_Koopa]

Heha, I figured as much. XD

[Panther Cub]

On 9/3/2020 at 9:20 AM, Personalias said:

MEET THE GRAYSONS

(An Episodic Novelization of the Ground-Breaking Animated Sitcom)

Season 1 Episode 2- “Making the Baby is the Best Part.”  Original Airdate, April 12^th

Bo Grayson ached.  Not just his back, or his neck, or the joints in his legs, or even the digits in his forepaws; everything ached.   Even his muzzled ached. Bo ached.  “AAaaaaaahyeeee….”  He let out a long half-groan, half-yawn, before sitting down at the breakfast table; the creaking of the chair echoing the creaking of his bones.  Damn, he wasn’t even thirty yet. How was it that he felt so old?

Across from the table sat Melinda, his loving bride.  She was an elephant, he was a wolf, but in this crazy mixed up world you loved who you loved.   Besides, in Bo’s mind, the correct response to the Jeopardy clue “A skinny girl can do this for you,” was “What is ‘Not a damn thing.’”   

Adorned in her flowing yellow dress and pearls, looking every bit the domestic goddess from a bygone era (save perhaps for her smartphone), Melinda sat at the breakfast table, looking at Bo expectantly.  “Morning, dear.” A veritable mountain of food sat between them. “Eat up”. Scrambled eggs, muffins, bagels, hot buttered pancakes, and heaps of bacon (mmmmm…bacon….) covered the table, just as it had every day since they came back from their honeymoon.   

But the honeymoon was over, and Bo couldn’t afford anymore time off at the lumber mill.  As was quickly becoming routine, he took a sip of coffee, crammed the bacon into his mouth, and rose up from his seat.   “Thish looksh great, but I gotta run. Full day at da mill.” The butter on the pancakes hadn’t even melted, his coffee was still hot, and his seat was still cold.  Such was life.

“It’s Saturday…”

Bo froze.  Bits of bacon crumbled out of his mouth, dusting his work shirt with fried brown meat crumbs.  “Shadurday?” He swallowed. “Saturday? That means I’m off.”

Melinda didn’t even look up from her phone.  “Mmmmmhmmmm….”

The timber wolf knew what that tone meant.  Gingerly he sat back down, making the old hand-me-down chair creak against his weight.  “Huh…I finally have time to enjoy all this.”

“Mmmmmhmmmm…..”

“Neat.”  Careful not to appear too ravenous as to not be appreciative, nor too slow as to seem picky, Bo filled up his plate.  “Are there little diced onions in the scrambled eggs?”

The young Mrs. Grayson put down her phone and daintily took a bite of her pancakes.  “Yep.”

“I love those!”

“I know.”

“And is that a plate of hash browns?”

Melinda took another bite.  “Yep.”

“With melted cheese?”

“Every day this week…”

“Those are my favorite!”

Melinda put down her fork and gazed oh so lovingly across the table at her husband.  “Gee, Bo, it’s almost like I’M YOUR WIFE!”

A tense silence engulfed the kitchen…

“Heh…”

“Heh-heh…”

“Heee-heee-heee-heee!”

And just as quickly it was broken as the two lovers laughed together.  Maybe the honeymoon wasn’t quite over after all. Bo kept filling his plate up, unable to stop himself from sampling a bit of everything before he put the rest on his plate.  “Good one, hon.”

“Thanks, babe.”  Melinda was back to her phone, obviously pleased with herself.

Once again, Bo couldn’t help but marvel at the heaps and heaps of food.  “Wow, this is a lot…!” That didn’t stop him from shoveling more eggs, pancakes, and cheesy hash browns into his muzzle.  “How can we afford all this? Is this like…leftovers from the check my dad wrote us?”

“Nope.”  Melinda took another bite of pancake.  “I learned how to coupon clip and shop in bulk.”

“Cuz you’re an elephant?”

Melinda Grayson rolled her eyes.  “Yes dear, I’m frugal and good with money because I’m an elephant.”

Bo swallowed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  “No, I mean all the-“

“I’m frugal and good with money…”

Time for another swig of coffee.  “Yup, frugal and good with money. That’s what I meant, all right.” Another forkful of syrup and butter soaked pancakes found its way to Bo’s mouth.  “Even so, we can’t keep THIS kind of breakfast routine up. How many times have you made this stuff this week?”

“Just one.”

“One?”

Bo’s wife was still looking at her phone.  “Tupperware and heat lamps, babe. Tupperware and heat lamps.  Our new fridge has gotten a heckuva workout.” Bo’s fork landed on the table with a clank of finality.  Melinda didn’t take her eyes off of her phone. “What? Did you think I made the same spread every day this week?”

“Um…yeah…”

“And what do you think I did when you just dashed off to the mill every morning?  Threw it all out?”

 

“No…”

“Then what?”

“I…thought you ate it…?”  If Bo’s reflexes had been just a little bit duller or the distance across the table just an inch or so shorter, he would have received a Grade-A concussion via an angry wife’s trunk.  “Yipe!” Ears full back and only the chair preventing his tail from going straight between his legs, the timber wolf was bracing himself for a second attack when-

“OH MY GOSH!”  Melinda’s gaze was now dead set on the screen of her phone; her eyes wide with shock.

Bo untensed.  “What is it?” Slowly, he unclenched his eyes and shuffled around the table so that he could try and look over Melinda’s shoulder.

His wife was just shaking her head in disbelief.  “It’s…it’s my Uncle Kent.” Her voice was trembling.

“The Colonel?”

“Yes.”

“The peanut oil baron of the South?”

“That one….”

“The obscenely rich relative with no direct heirs that you’ve managed to stay in good graces with since before we started dating?”

“The same…!”

“The one that has been in such poor health these last few years that he didn’t even make it to our wedding?”

“YES!”

Bo saw the tears in his wife’s eyes, and wagged his tail a little bit.  “Is he dead?”

Melinda hung her head.  “Worse. He’s made a full recovery, and he’s coming to visit. TODAY!”

The wolf’s ears shot up in surprise.  “THAT’S….THAT’S….that’s not so bad, actually.”  He looked around. “I mean, the house could use a little sprucing up, I guess, but it’s not that bad, if we’re looking to entertain.”

 

“NOOOOO-O-O-O.”  Melinda was on the verge of sobbing.  Her trunk was already moving for the nearest case of tissues.  The giant flaps of her ears were already trying to hide her face.  “THIS IS TERR-I-BLE.”

Bo tried to comfort his wife, leaning into her and nuzzling her shoulder.  “No honey, it’ll be fine. We’ll go to the grocery store, splurge on a couple of steaks…or maybe a recipe that involves peanut oil…rich people like it when you use their product ri-?”

“HE’S EXPECTING A BABY!”

Another sudden silence filled the air.  Bo could only blink, dumbfounded, as Melinda blew her nose with a resounding HONK.  “A what now?”

Melinda brushed her tears away and sniffed, regaining some of her composure.  “A baby. I told him I was having a baby, and that I was naming it after him. It was one of the ways I was able to keep on his good side.”

Confused, Bo cocked his head a bit.  “Wait…we’re not, are we…?

“No!”  A gray elbow almost knocked the wind out of Bo.  “And starting now wouldn’t help anything! Elephant pregnancies take two years!”

 

“Two years?”  Bo frowned. “How long ago did you tell him this little fib?”

“Three years ago…”

“Three…three…?”  The timber wolf was so surprised that his ears were almost touching the back of his neck.  “Three years ago?! But we’ve only been in a relationship for two years, AND WE JUST GOT MARRIED!”

A fresh wave of tears poured down Melinda’s face, trickling down to the edge of her trunk.  “IT WAS BEFORE I MET YOU! I WAS HOPING HE’D HAVE KICKED THE BUCKET BY NOWOW-OW-OW!”

“But now he’s planning to show up today-?”

 

“And he’s expecting a one year old ‘Lil’ Kent…!’”  Incredibly, an entire box’s worth of tissues lay used on the floor beneath Melinda’s feet.  “We’re gonna get cut out of the WI-I-I-IIILL!”

A rough, determined growl rumbled up from Bo’s throat.  “No, we’re not.” He smacked his fist into his open palm.  “We’ve got this.”

Melinda was already opening up a fresh box of tissues.  “We do?”

“We’ll wine him and dine him and make sure he has such a good visit, he won’t even think about asking about a ‘Lil’ Kent’.”  Melinda didn’t say anything to that. “How long is he staying?”

Floppy, leathery ears brushed away the last of the tears.  “Just for the night.”

Bo smiled.  “Great! We just gotta keep this act up for one night, and keep him occupied till we put him back on the plane.”

There was hope in her eyes.  “Do you think we could maybe start working on a Lil’ Kent after?  Just in case he wants to visit again in a couple of years?”

Bo’s snout crinkled up involuntarily.  “Yeah…but then we’d have a baby to take care of, and the Colonel might leave us a fortune before then.  So there’d be all that work for nothing…” He saw the look of hope and disappointment in his wife’s eyes.  “I mean…one thing at a time, honey. First let’s get through tonight, and then we can talk about making a baby.”

“Okay…”

“First thing’s first.  I bet I can find a good recipe for peanut chicken.  It’ll probably be cheaper than steak, anyways. What time is he due to arrive?”

Melinda looked at her phone.  “The email said seven o’clock.”

“That gives us plenty of time! To the grocery store!”

And just like that, Melinda was her old self again.  “To the grocery store!”

******************************************************************************

As usual, the air was uncomfortably chilly at the WALRUS-MART.  The constant thrumming of massive fans and air conditioners nearly drowned out the ever-buzzing announcements over the loudspeakers.  “Ink Spill In Aisle 8: Cephalopod Needs and Stationery. Ink Spill In Aisle 8.”

Bo’s head was on a swivel, his eyes darting from place to place, his nose constantly sniffing, trying to find a trail.  “I hate this place. I can never figure out how the layout works. Like, they’ve got Skunk and Polecat Hygiene right next to the Koala Products.  It makes no sense!” He sniffed again. “And all the free samples they keep giving out are driving me crazy!”

“I know, I know.”  Melinda gave her hubby a pat on the head.  “But if we’re going to cook a meal fit for the Colonel we’ve got to-.”

“Buy in bulk.”  Bo rolled his eyes.  “I just don’t see why we can’t buy in bulk at Winn-Dixie.”

Now it was Melinda’s turn to scoff and roll her eyes.  “You talk about things smelling weird to you and then you want to go to Winn-Dixie?  The entire store smells like the seafood aisle!”

“Yeah, but Winn-Dixie is special to me.  That’s where we met, remember? We met-“

“Because of Winn-Dixie; I know I know.”  The pair kept walking, looking for the right ingredients.  “But we’re here now and there’s a greater selection available, plus I have more coupons.”  She started scanning the aisles, reading each aloud. “Let’s see. Aisle 219 -Vegan substitutes for meat- nope.  Aisle 220 -Carnivorous substitutes for vegetables- nuh-uh. Aisle 221- greeting cards, birth through burial- not unless there’s a “Sorry I’ve Lied To You For Years card. Aisle 222- Baby supplies; sizes Kangaroo through Killer Whale.  Aisle 223, Décor and hooooold on.”

Already several steps ahead of his wife, Bo had to back up to Aisle 222 where Melinda had firmly planted her feet and was now gazing down it as though she were at the gates of Heaven itself.  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“It’s here.”  Melinda’s pupils were shrunken, a dumb, almost awestruck smile spread across her face.  “The answer to all our problems. It’s here.”

Bo snorted a bit and let out a huff from his nostrils.  “I don’t think the Colonel will appreciate chicken with a baby food peanut glaze, Melinda.”

“No Bo, you don’t understand.”  Melinda’s tone was almost dreamy as she pulled her husband closer to her, as some minor change in positioning would change his perspective.  “We don’t have to admit that there’s no baby. We can make one.”

“But you said elephant pregnancies last 2 years.  Even if we split the difference of a timber wolf pregnancy lasting 9 weeks, it’d still take-“

Melinda put her hand over Bo’s snout and squeezed it closed to keep him from talking.  “I didn’t say anything about getting pregnant. I said we could make a baby.”  She gave her husband a look he’d become all too familiar with.

The timber wolf swatted away his wife’s hand.  “What do you mea-?” He stopped as the lightbulb over her head fizzled and exploded above his.  “Oooooh no. No, no, no. We are not doing that! There is no way that we’re gonna do that. Absolutely no way!”

************************************************************************************

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”  Bo was beside himself with indignation in the living room as Melinda finished the last touches of the disguise she’d made.   Unfortunately, it was hard to look intimidating wearing a diaper. Bo could only pout and cross his blue mitten encased hands over his baby-bibbed chest while Melinda adjusted the matching bonnet over the fake ears and trunk she’d whipped up.

He glanced down at his feet, paws cleverly concealed in matching blue baby booties, and wiggled his toes to make sure they were still there.  Beside him, was a package of Calfies- the baby diaper sized specifically for bovines and pachyderms- ripped open with the next diaper poking out.  It was all Bo could do to not kick the darn thing across the floor.

Melinda finished fastening the disguise and favored him with a chaste smooch on the cheek.  “Just be glad your fur is the right color. Do you know how much dye it would take, otherwise?”

Trying to soothe himself and bring down the blush in his cheeks, the young wolf grabbed the pacifier dangling from around his neck and put it in his mouth. “So, explain the plan to me again.”

“When the Colonel comes, you’ll be wearing this.  You’ll just hop in bed, and pretend to be asleep. Colonel Kent will peak in, go ‘D’aaaaaw, isn’t he cute?’, and then I’ll have dinner with him, send him on his way, and then this whole thing will be over.”  Melinda punctuated her idea by giving her husband a light swat on the butt.

Wincing, Bo started looking for a way out.  “Won’t he be wondering where your husband is?”

A dry, almost knowing chuckle came from Melinda as she stepped back and looked Bo up and down.  “Naw. The Colonel is old school. Even married men don’t have much to do with child rearing. As far as he knows you’re a lumberjack who wires money every few weeks. ”

“I work at a mill!”

“He doesn’t know that!  We’ll be lucky if he remembers you work with wood at all! Now, all you have to do is pretend to be asleep…or just be asleep for real.”   She shrugged.

“At seven?” Bo was incredulous; he fancied himself the man of the house.

All of Bo’s attempts at protest were waved off.  “Seven is a perfectly reasonable bedtime for a baby.  And it’ll keep you out of the way so you don’t have to talk.  Can’t get caught in a lie if you don’t talk.”

“But you’re the one who’s lying.”

She nodded.  “That’s right, so let me do the talking.”

“Ugh…this is so ridiculous. He’s not gonna fall for this.”  Furry shoulders slumped a bit in worry and exasperation. This was such a bad plan!

Melinda had her hands on her hips.  “And why not?”

Why couldn’t she see the flaws in this?  “Our house isn’t even set up for a baby. Shouldn’t I be sleeping in a crib or something?”

“You think we have the money for a crib?  I’ll just say we co-sleep. It’s a perfectly hip and trendy modern Mommy thing.”  Her foot was tapping. She was getting impatient, for some reason.

“Won’t he notice the complete lack of baby furniture?”  Bo gestured around the room as if proving a point.

“Like what?”

“High chair?”

“I feed you in my lap.” Melinda cocked her head to the side, almost daring Bo to continue.

He obliged. “Playpen?”

“The whole living room is your playpen.  It’s not like we have anything valuable for you to break.”

“Changing table?”

“Who needs one of those?  I can change you anywhere there’s a flat and clean surface.”

Something in Melinda’s tone clicked for Bo.  “Would you stop talking about me as if I’m an actual pup?!  Err…calf? Err…baby?!”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”  She leaned over and looked at Bo’s backside, noticing the particularly canine appendage poking out the back of the diaper.  “Hmmm…your tail is awfully fluffy. What can we do about-?”

“Why do I have to wear this, anyways? Like, I get the head gear, but if I’m just going to be pretending to sleep, can’t I just hide under the covers au natural?”  Bo normally didn’t mind his wife thoughtfully staring at his backside, but this was decidedly a major exception.

Melinda didn’t seem to take notice of her husband’s rising blush, or the building anxiety in his voice.  “Because then the Colonel would know you weren’t wearing a diaper.”

“How?”

“He wouldn’t hear the crinkle.  One move, and it’d be all over.”

Bo’s ears flattened as he frowned.  “The Colonel would be able to hear me crinkle?  From across our bedroom? With me laying down? Pretending to sleep? HOW?”

Melinda pointed to her ears.  “HELLO?!”

“Point taken.”  Instant emotional deflation, punctuated by a sigh. “You could have at least let me put the diaper on myself…”

“Then it wouldn’t fit right, silly. You’d leak.”

“LEAK?!”

Melinda chuckled.  “I’m kidding…I’m kidding.”

Her husband was not amused.  He let the pacifier drop out of his mouth and dangle on the little ribbon around his neck.  “Why are you making me put this getup on now, anyhow? It’s not even 4 o’clock yet.”

 “I just wanted to make sure everything fits juuuuust right.  It’s like a dress rehearsal before the main perfor-“

THUNK THUNK THUNK!

Both heads whipped around in shock as the door took another pounding. “MELINDA!  MELINDA DARLIN’! OPEN, I SAY, OPEN UP! THIS IS, I SAY, THIS IS YOUR UNCLE KENT!”

Melinda peeked through the gap in the curtains and saw a bushy-browed old elephant, the white on his eyebrows almost perfectly matching the color of his all white suit; his eyes squinting behind a rounded pair of almost too small spectacles.  She let out a gasp. “It’s the Colonel!” Her voice was a low whisper.

“The Colonel?  You said he’s not supposed to be here until seven!”

“ I know….!”

THUNK THUNK THUNK!

“MELINDA, I SAY, MELLY!  I KNOW YOUR MAMA DIDN’T RAISE YOU TO BE A POOR HOSTESS!  I SAID, I SAY, I SAID THAT I’D BE HERE BY SEVEN AND MY OL’ POCKET WATCH SAYS IT IS SEVEN ON THE DOT!”  The last three words were punctuated with a brisk but thunderous tapping on the door.

With a whoosh, Melinda closed the curtains completely shut.  “His pocket watch!”

“What about it?” Bo was so confused.

 

“The Colonel lives on the East Coast.”

“So?”

“He doesn’t understand time zones!”

“HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND TIME ZO-?”  The pacifier was popped back into Bo’s mouth before his whiny yelp of a question could even be finished.

Holding the rubber bulb in place with her trunk, Melinda held up a finger to her lips.  Her voice was now a tense hiss of a whisper. “Will you be quiet?”

“NOW, I KNOW, I SAY I KNOW I HEARD SOMETHIN’!”

His fingers restricted by big baby blue mittens, Bo started pawing at the front of the diaper.  Alas, he couldn’t so much as grip the tapes.

Melinda glanced down at her husband’s waist.  “What are you doing?”

“I takin off da diafer.” Another round of pounding on the doors punctuated Melinda’s confused look.  Bo let the pacifier drop. “I’m taking off the diaper. We need a new plan.”

Again, the pacifier was shoved back into the wolf’s mouth.  “We do not need a new plan.  This is a good plan.  We’re sticking to it.”  Melinda stared, unblinkingly, into her husband’s eyes.  Bo whined a little, but looked away. Tail between his legs, he started waddling towards their bedroom.  He hadn’t realized just how hard it would be to walk in one of these things.

“I DIDN’T, I SAY, I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS, MELLY. BUT IF YOU DON’T, I SAY IF YOU DON’T LET ME IN BY THE TIME I COUNT TO THREE, I’M A CUTTIN’ YOU OUT OF THE WILL!”

A hand yanked Bo backwards by the arm, and whirled him back around.  “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the bedroom. I’m supposed to be sleeping, remember?”

“ONE!”

“You can’t be in bed!  It’s only four! That’s way too early, even for a one-year-old!”

“He thinks it’s seven!”

“TWO!”

Melinda’s eyes narrowed. “Just because Colonel Kent doesn’t understand time zones, doesn’t mean we don’t!”

“Then where am I supposed to be?  This wasn’t the plan!”

“THR-!“

The door opened to Colonel Kent just then.  Waiting on the other side of the threshold was, of course his darling niece, Melinda. Riding on her hip, legs wrapped almost all the way around her waist, was a rather bashful and embarrassed looking baby ‘elephant’, sucking on his pacifier.

The Colonel stepped in.  “Well, well, well, now that’s more like it!”  He and Melinda entwined trunks in greeting. “Melinda, darlin’ how are, I say, how are you?”

“I’m fine.  Sorry about the wait.  I was just getting the baby up from his nap. ”  Melinda was all big toothy, nervous smiles, her eyes looking nervously to her so-called-baby.  Bo was all reproachful stares and resentment. “How are you, Uncle Kent?”

“Oh, ‘Uncle Kent’, is so formal, Melly.  Please, call me ‘Colonel’!” The older elephant laughed at his own joke.  “Besides, you don’t, I say you don’t want the baby to get confused about who you’re talkin’ to, do ya?”  He laid eyes on Bo and adjusted his glasses. “Speakin’ of which…” Bo felt a kind of panic rising in his chest.  “This must be ‘lil Kent!”

Bo felt a sigh of relief as his wife exhaled.  Pacifier still in his mouth, he smiled as The Colonel reached over and jostled the fake ear flap tied to Bo’s baby bonnet.  “Oh he’s such a big boy! Yes he is! Yes he is!” The hat started to wiggle uncomfortably, and without thinking, the wolf swatted away his in-law’s hand.

Melinda’s trunk smacked Bo’s thigh just hard enough to make him wince.  “Lil’ Kent! Bad baby! No hit the Colonel! You know better!” He started to growl, but a warning look from his ‘Mommy’ made him think better of it.

The Colonel just chuckled.  “Oh it’s all, I say, it’s all right, Melinda m’dear. Just means the boy’s a fighter.  Ain’t ya, Lil’ Kent?” A big gray hand reached out to pinch “Lil’ Kent’s” cheeks; this time he did not flinch or swat at it.  “You gonna join the army when you grow up? You gonna be a fighter just like your ol’ Uncle? You gonna join the army? You gonna be a ‘Lil Colonel’ too?”  It was all Bo could do to grit his teeth as his check was flapped around. “A WUJIE-WUJIE! A WUJIE-WUJIE-WOO!”

Mercifully, Melinda broke the Colonel’s death grip on Bo’s cheek and stepped back.  “Uncle Ken-!”

“COLONEL!  We don’t want to be confusin’ the boy!”

“You do realize that you’re only a Colonel in Kentucky, right?“

“Only, I say, only because there weren’t any good wars to fight when I was of age.  But I am a fighter, have no doubt about that, dear Melly.”

“Whatever you say, Colonel.”  Melinda gestured for him to step further into the house.  “Now please, come on in and close the door. You’re letting the air conditioning out.”

From behind his trunk, the Colonel wriggled his big bushy mustache.  “Ah, but I brought a surprise for you, Melinda, dear. Or rather, I say, or rather a surprise for Lil’ Kent.”  He turned his head back around towards the outside. “BRING IT ALL ON IN, BOYS!”

 

Past the Colonel, clad in navy blue jumpsuits, was a seemingly endless parade of horses, donkeys, and mules.  But the pack animals did not come alone, no. In ones, twos, and threes, they were hoisting and carrying baby furniture; baby furniture which was obviously intended for a rather large baby.

“Uncle Kent…Colonel…what is all this?”    Boxes of toys, a tricycle, and a highchair all made their way past the trio.  A couple of jackasses were busy setting up the rigging for an oversized bouncer in the living room, their blinders keeping them heedless to the comings and goings of their peers.

Bo cocked his head as his eyes tracked some kind of fancy looking close-lidded trash can.  Unable to speak, lest he give the game away, he could only point a mitten encased hand at the hefty plastic cylinder being carted by with the words ‘In case of accident’ stenciled on the side.

The hefty shelf with the padded top that followed was a clue…but the boxes and boxes of diapers being carted in on a dolly was the real clincher. A changing table…a diaper pail…and diapers…all of them big enough to service Bo.  They weren’t going into he and Melinda’s room either, but the spare “Guest Room” that the newlyweds hadn’t had time to decorate yet. It was being decorated now, that’s for sure.

The Colonel must have taken Bo’s shock for a giddy delight.  He smiled and gave Bo another rough cheek-flapping pinch before looking to Melinda.  “Well I couldn’t, I say, I couldn’t help but notice in all of the pictures you posted on the interwebs of your new home, that you were in short supply…baby supplies, that is.  So I decided to help out and bring all of your old baby furniture in. I sprung for a fresh coat of blue paint, and a couple of boxes of Calfies of course. There’s frugal and bein’ good with money, and then there’s bein’ cheap.”

Both of them noticed the bars of an elephantine sized crib pass by.   Melinda tried to stop things from going too far, as if she wasn’t already too late.  “Oh, that’s really not necessary. Bo- I mean Lil’ Kent and I co-sleep. It’s the newest trend.”

By the time Melinda finished talking, the old pachyderm had already turned his back to newlywed Graysons and was continuing to direct his impromptu work crew.  “No, not that room, fellas, the baby’s room. The baby’s room!”  He turned to face them again.  “Melly, my dear niece. There’s ‘frugal’, and then there’s livin’ poor!  I don’t want you losin’ sleep on account of you frettin’ about rollin’ over and squashin’ poor Lil’ Kent.   A boy his age needs a crib to sleep in, anyways. He’s not a newborn.” He turned his back again. “Besides, I’m sure by now he’s leaked on you more than once.  It might be nice for you to wake up in a dry bed.”

“LEAKED?!”  The pacifier was in the young pup’s…err….wolf’s mouth before the ribbon even went taught.  Melinda’s hand clamped tightly over his muzzle, eliciting a whine.

Colonel Kent spun around.  “Em, What was that?”

Hand still clamping over Bo’s mouth, Melinda gave her uncle a nervous chuckle.  “I said that ‘Lil’ Kent has never leaked on me once in his life.” Bo smiled a bit with his eyes.  “His diapers are far too absorbent.” So much for that smile.

Colonel Kent seemed to wave off her concerns as the last of the supplies was unloaded, and the uninvited movers headed out as quickly and silently as they had arrived. “Whelp, time for supper.”  He clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. “Where the, I say, where’s the viddles?”

“It’s only four.  You didn’t adjust that old pocket watch for time zones.”  The younger elephant paused. “Again.”

Uncle Kent reached into his white jacket pocket and took out the expensive looking antique watch on a golden chain. “I didn’t?” He looked at the time on the watch.  Then the time on kitchen stove. Then he dug into his jacket pocket and took out a smartphone and compared those. “Well, I say, well whaddya know? I guess I didn’t.”  He slapped his knee and let out a big belly laugh, thinking the massive inconvenience he’d just caused was marvelously funny.

The young couple could only stare, not quite sure how to react.  “Yeah…that’s a hoot all right.”

“Yes it is!”  The older elephant’s thunderous laughter finally died down, and he even wiped a tear from his eye.  “That also, I say, that also explains why I haven’t met the third member of your family.”

“Third member?”

“The boy’s father.”  The couple’s uninvited house guest motioned over to the bedroom- Bo and Melinda’s bedroom, not the nursery he’d just created.  He readjusted his spectacles and squinted hard at ‘Lil Kent.’ “Where’s the boy’s daddy, speaking of co-sleeping?” He leaned, looking at Bo, but addressing Melinda.  “The uh…whittler right? Woodcarver? Not home from whittling, yet? What is he, a beaver or somethin’?” He scanned Bo’s babied body up and down. “Don’t see much beaver in you, though.”  Bo received a heavy pat on his bonneted, fake-elephant-eared head. “No, he’s aaaallll elephant.”

Bo stifled a growl and continued sucking on his paci to keep quiet, nevertheless doing his best to dig his claws into Melinda’s shoulder.  He was not happy. It was bad enough going through all this classist, speciesist nonsense before the wedding with Melinda’s (oddly non-accented) parents, but now he couldn’t even speak up for himself.  (And if he did, he’d still be wearing a diaper and riding on his wife’s hip.)

“He’s a lumberjack, and he’s off in Canada at the moment.”  It seemed his mittens were extra padded on the inside so that this claws could not penetrate; almost as if Melinda has planned on saying something that would irk her husband.  “Every week he wires me…us…Lil’ Kent and I, some money.”

Once again, Uncle Kent turned his back, slowly meandering towards the kitchen. “Well who needs, I say, who needs a lumberjack when you have rich elderly relatives?”

Melinda stood up a little straighter and adjusted Bo on her hip.  “Bo is a very devoted husband and he would do anything for me. Anything.”  The two shared a look and nuzzled each other’s forehead.

“Well, as long as he’s not some predator, like a wolf or somethin’.  Almost as bad as those lions; damn moonies.”

“UNCLE KENT!”  Melinda was so shocked, she dropped Bo, his padded posterior cushioning the landing, but not his pride.  Anger rising, but pacifier still in his mouth, he took to all fours, getting ready to pounce. It was only his wife’s hand on his back that made him remember that he was at home with another idiot in-law and not about to get into a bar fight.   “I WILL NOT HAVE THAT KIND OF…THAT KIND OF BIGOTRY IN MY HOUSE!”  Quickly, Bo backed off his haunches and put his knees to the floor, so that he was crawling.  His wife had this.

The Colonel was genuinely taken aback, looking hurt as he turned back around.  “Well, I say, well gosh, Melinda. I was only makin’ a little off-color humor. Nothin’ you haven’t heard before, and nothin’ your precious bundle can understand!”

Melinda put her foot down, literally, and the floor trembled with her fury.  “Lil’ Kent can understand far more than you realize, and I will not tolerate anything remotely resembling that kind of talk around my baby!”  She softened a bit and shot a look down at Bo. “One of the most wonderful people in the world I know happens to be a wolf.”

Melinda’s uncle paused and seemed to take this all in.  “Y’know, I say, y’know what? I’m far too old to be making new enemies out of good family.  And you’re right, I’m far too cultured and refined to keep talkin’ the same nonsense that my grandpappy did.  I’m sorry Melinda.” Then, without prompting, he bent over and looked Bo in the eye. “I’m sorry for that too, Lil’ Kent.  Will you ever forgive me?”

Both of the Grayson’s expressions softened. Bo had to resist the urge to pant.  

Melinda glanced back at the Colonel. “Uncle Kent…Colonel…of course we-“

“THEN LET’S GET ON WITH THE GRUB! IT’S STILL SUPPER TIME SOMEWHERE!”

Husband and wife shared knowing, worried looks, before Melinda walked over to the kitchen.  “I’ll cook.”

(After These Messages….)

(…We’ll Be Right Back!)

“And I’ll play with Lil’ Kent!”  Bo found himself quickly scooped up, held by the armpits by an absolutely ecstatic looking Uncle Kent.  Even though his bootied feet were dangling only a few inches off the ground, it didn’t make him feel any less helpless.  “Are you, I say, are you ready to play with the Colonel? Are you?! I bet you are! I bet you are!”

“You two play nice while I’m cooking dinner!”  The sentiment had an edge of menace behind it. Little did Uncle Kent seem to realize that that warning likely applied to both of them.   “We’ll all be having peanut chicken for dinner.”

With Bo still dangling helplessly from his underarms, Uncle Kent turned to the kitchen. “Sounds, I say, sounds delicious.” A trunk twitched and a bushy mustache wrinkled.  “Uh, Melinda dear. Just curious. Would you mind checkin’ Lil Kent’s, d-i-a-p-e-r. I think he might need a new one.”

If the young wolf could have crossed his arms, he would have.  How dare this old fart say he smelled bad, never mind the implication of what, precisely, he smelled like!  He settled for a pouted lip and a muted ‘harumph’ through his nose.  That wouldn’t break character that much. Quite the opposite in fact, since the stubby little fake elephant nose took that air and channeled it out as an adorable little ‘toot’.  “D’awwwww…he tooted, I say, he tooted at me! And somewhere else, if you catch my meanin’.”

As though this were ever the most natural conversation in the world, Melinda didn’t even miss a beat.  “It’s fine.” Already the scent of peanut oil frying in pan was filling the room. “I had just changed him before you came.  His diaper should be fine until after dinner.”

The Colonel took a few mammoth steps, and Bo found himself seated on the couch.  Not directly on the couch, of course, his bottom crinkling on the Colonel’s knee.  “Now what shall,I say, what shall we play?” The old man stroked his chin for a moment.  “How about, ‘Peek-a-toot’?”

Without further preamble, two enormous ears obscured the elephant’s face. “PEEKA.” And then nothing….

Despite himself, Bo waited. And waited. And waited. Had the old guy fallen asleep?  Slowly, he reached his paw up to tap the Colonel on the forehead. He was almost being killed by the antici-….

“TOOT!”

-PATION!  Bo fell back off the couch in shock, almost braining himself on the new coffee table.  That had been a wedding present, too! Afraid to yip, bark, growl, or anything that might give away his lupinity, could only grit down on his pacifier and exhale through his nose again.

A comically loud honk, more like a toot, actually, erupted from the thing strapped to Bo’s nose.  He looked down his muzzle in horror at the monstrosity strapped to his schnoz. It sounded a little like those cheap noisemakers at kids parties. Come to think of it, it kind of looked like it too when he huffed and puffed through his schnoz.

Is this how other…errr…real baby elephants sounded like at first?  It didn’t sound anything like the noises Melinda made when she was especially angry (or when they were in bed).  Yet, it had to be! Otherwise, why would this old fool be falling for it? Then again, in the back of his mind, Bo was more than a little sure that baby elephants were at least not as tall as him, and yet that didn’t reassure him.  Maybe dementia had set in and the old fart was really close to kicking the bucket. That would make this whole humiliating experience worth it. Just get through tonight…

“Ha-ha-ha!  Kid’s a natural!”  Bo was dragged back onto his crazy in-law’s lap. “Let’s I say, let’s do it again!”

“Peeka!”

“Toot!”

“Peeka.”

“Toot.”

“Peeka…”

“toot.”

“Peeka…”

“toot…”

“Peeka…”

“Too…”

On and on it went.  Far too long, by Bo’s reckoning.  Pretending that his false trunk was a house made of straw (just like Mama Grayson told him when he was learning to use a tissue) might have been amusing at first, but each iteration was becoming more and more tedious.  Eventually, even the Colonel took the hint. “Maybe you’re a little too old for that, hmmm.”

Bo only nodded.  He figured that showing a little understanding wouldn’t break character.

“Um, Melinda dear.”

“Whaaaaat?”

“At what age, I say, at what age to children normally gain object permanence?”

“Cooking over here! Kinda busy!”

“It’s just a-”

“Colonel…do you want food or not?”

‘Lil’ Kent’ still in his lap, the Colonel slumped a bit and frowned.  It did Bo some good to know that at least Melinda had that effect on other people besides him.  Suddenly, a light shone in the codger’s eyes. “Oh, what about “Got yer nose?’”

A hand reached forward for the stunted little ‘trunk’ on the end of Bo’s nose.  Oh no! The ears were iffy at best, but there was no way that this cheap-o imitation trunk would hold up to such scrutiny!  “AAAAAAAAH!” Bo didn’t so much fall as much as he leapt off the couch, tumbling and rolling against a box of toys.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow….!”  The blocks in the giant toy chest, stuffed to the point of overflowing, spilled over the rim and toppled onto the diaper clad wolf’s head.  Plenty of heavier and harder things had landed on top of Bo Grayson’s head before this, but the sheer absurdity and degradation of the day’s events caused him to tear up slightly nonetheless.

The shadow of an overbearing and demented old man loomed over his son-in-law.  “D’awwww, did you hear that, Melly. I think, I say, I think Lil’ Kent just said his first word!”

“‘Ow’ isn’t a word, Colonel.”  The sound of a meat hammer pounding away and a blender whirring to life punctuated Melinda’s remark.  “And dinner’s ready!”

The Colonel forgot all about ‘Lil’ Kent’ and stampeded (was it even possible for a single elephant to stampede?) over to the dinner table.  Bo gathered his feet up underneath him and moved to stand, but a warning look from Melinda made him think twice. Doing his best not to whine, he still threw his wife a mournful look.  

Come on! He was supposed to be one!  Couldn’t one year olds walk?! Based on the rhythm of her tapping foot, Bo could tell that the answer- for him at least- was a resounding ‘No.’  So, reluctantly, the young wolf made do and started to crawl on all fours to the kitchen.

Crinkle-Crinkle-Crinkle.

Bo stopped.  He looked behind him, staring at his padded rump.  Now that he was moving, he really could hear the sound that his diaper (the diaper…the diaper…it didn’t belong to him) made, crinkling with every shimmy along the living room carpet that he made.  A body didn’t need elephant ears to hear that!

When he turned his head back around, Melinda had changed her posture and facade from an annoyed housewife tapping her foot to a doting mother, hands on her knees beckoning her little one forward.  “Come on, Lil’ Kent. Come on. Come to Mommy!” Her tone was saccharine sweet, as was her face, but there was something in her eyes that didn’t match. She was enjoying this, and in more ways than one.  Bo blushed. Honestly, hearing his wife talk like that was kind of hot. “You’re never going to get to grow up and be a big boy if you don’t eat your dinner…”

Bo blinked.  The meaning was clear:  The sooner this dinner thing was done and over with, the sooner he’d get back to being an adult.  As fast as his mittened hands and bare knees could propel him, Bo Grayson crinkle crawled all the way to the kitchen.  

Naturally, when he got there, the Colonel was already seated at the table…in Bo’s chair no less.  “Isn’t one, I say, isn’t one old enough to be walking yet?” From ‘Lil’ Kent’s’ spot on the kitchen floor, a silent I-told-you-so look was shot up to Melinda, which she promptly ignored.

For the third or fourth time that day (Bo had lost count) he found himself picked up off the ground and manhandled by an elephant.  “Bo’s-I mean ‘Lil Kent is a bit of a late bloomer.” She deposited him into the waiting highchair, positioned neatly between the two ‘grown-ups’.  “And I’ll have you know that he was walking a little bit just before you arrived. More of a waddle, really, but it’s a start. I just think he likes crawling better.”  

As the tray of the titanium reinforced plastic shelled chair was slid into place, locking him in, Bo gave his legs a bit of an experimental squeeze. His knees couldn’t even touch!  He let out a surprised gasp.

“Mmm-mmm-mmm.  Sounds like, I say, it sounds like Lil’ Kent is almost as hungry as I am.”  

The Colonel wasn’t wrong.  Even with his actual nose covered with a half-assed prosthetic, Bo could smell the chicken, and if it was one thing that this morning had reminded him of it was that his wife was a phenomenal cook.

Melinda set down an entire rotiserrie’s worth of chicken in front of her uncle.  Bo’s eyes widened, and the pacifier dropped from his mouth. A second plate, holding half a chicken was placed at Melinda’s seat.  Bo was starting to drool, the sound of his light panting was only being masked by the crinkle coming from this diaper as he unconsciously wagged his tail.  

They’d gotten two chickens!  That meant that the other half was for him!  When the meal came, sound from his mouth stopped.  All crinkling caused by his tail starting to wag stopped.  All sound, save for the thoughtless clinkling and scraping of metal as Colonel Kent started to devour his own meal, died out.

Bo did not have a chicken placed in front of him.  Instead, a steaming, almost burbling mess of beige mush was placed on his tray, a plastic throw away spoon sticking straight out of the morass.  “Mmmm…Lil’ Kent’s favorite. Chicken! Baby looooves his chicken.” Melinda’s eyes gestured over to the counter where she had been cooking.

He looked over to the counter.  By the sink he saw the blender, still dripping with mush and residue from just minutes ago.  She hadn’t…!  He looked back to her, now with a spoon all but dripping with pureed meat dangling in front of him.  “Heeeere coooomes the chicken choo-choo train! Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga!” She had!

“Eat up, Lil’ Kent.  It’ll make, I say, It’ll make ya big an’ strong!”  

The so-called ‘Lil’ Kent’ was not encouraged.  His mouth dried up and his jaw clamped down. He shook his head rapidly, as if trying to dodge the oncoming spoon.  Still, it chugga-chugga-chugged along on it’s invisible path through the air. No! No, no, no! Not going to happen.

A piece of yellow cloth fell across Bo’s chest.  Momentarily, he stopped and looked down at the alien garment.  The words ‘Mommy’s Messy Boy’ were stitched across it.

Suddenly, the front of cloth jumped up to his neckline, and with two ends being pulled back tight. “GAAAAAAACK!”  He was being choked! He was being garrotted! It was a mafia style execution, just like in the movies! Gasping for air, Bo gripped the edges of the highchair, and opened his mouth wide.

WOOOMPH!

Not-quite-liquid chicken was spooned into his waiting jaws, spreading out over his tongue.  ‘Mommy’ Melinda withdrew the spoon and smiled as the offending terry cloth slackened, now firmly tied around his neck.  “Awww, thank you Colonel. I knew I forgot something. His bib!” A knowing look passed between the two. “Wouldn’t want Lil’ Kent to get food all over himself.”  Bo grimaced and swallowed.

The plastic spoon was back in the meaty mush and was chugga-chugga-chugging back to his mouth before the young wolf had even to finish muscling down the first spoonful.  At least the Colonel had returned back to his seat at the table, though some territorial part of Bo couldn’t help but cast resentful looks at the old pachyderm. That was his chair!

Wordlessly, Bo opened his mouth for a second time, and allowed the chicken to be spooned in again.  Again, he swallowed and grimaced. What was wrong with this stuff? Bo normally liked chicken, but there was something off about this batch, and it wasn’t the peanut oil, either.

Maybe it was because his nose was covered.  Food always tasted funny when his nose was stuffed, and the faux trunk protruding out made his nose feel like he had a bizarre kind of cold.  Perhaps it was the texture. Being an adult wolf with a full set of teeth, Bo typically liked chewing and tearing his food with his teeth. He didn’t even like pudding for that very reason.  Who liked food that they couldn’t chew?

None of this pondering or navel gazing stopped the continuous refilling and chugga-chugga-chugging of the liquid chicken train constantly motoring towards his waiting mouth. He would open, get spoonfed, swallow hard as he tried not to gag, and just as he was about ready to come up for air, he’d be confronted by another spoonful.

Scam or not, Bo could tell that his wife was enjoying this a little bit. Melinda was going juuuuuust fast enough to make it so that he was constantly eating- always swallowing but never chewing- and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Just as the last spoonful was being scraped along the bowl, Melinda went to the refrigerator and produced another implement of gastronomical torture. “Can’t forget your ba-ba.  Baby looooves his ba-ba…” A tiny high pitched puppy-whine rose up in Bo’s throat, as he glanced over at the Colonel, who was only now gingerly wiping his lips.

WOOOMPH!

Thuck-thuck-thuck-thuck…

Glug-glug-glug-glug.  

It had been all the opening that Melinda had needed to stuff the bottle between Bo’s lips, and obediently the not-so-little baby nursed from it, even being so good as to hold it between his mittened forepaws without needing direction.  The milk certainly tasted better than the meal; at the very least this was something that was meant to be liquid. Yet, something still tasted off about the milk.  Bo could only assume that it was the aftertaste from the chicken pudding.

Dutifully, the cubbified wolf drank down the milk as quickly and as cleanly as he could, afraid to even spill a drop.  He could practically feel his belly expanding with each gulp. “Blech.” A gasp came out when he slammed the bottle down on his tray.  It was the closest he’d been to drowning since that one time at summer camp, back when he was an actual pup.

Melinda still didn’t let up.  The tray slid out of place, and Bo found himself back in his ‘Mommy’s’ arms, his legs wrapping around her waist and his body leaning forward over her right shoulder; her right hand supporting his bottom as the left one started patting him roughly on the back.

Bo didn’t have to wait long.  “URP!”

“Good baby!” She gave his diapered rump a playful little squeeze and a pat before resuming the burping.  Really?  Now she was feeling flirty?  

“URP!”

Another squeeze and pat, and more cooing followed.  “Such a good boy! Now one more.”

Bo took a deep breath, so that he might whisper something into his wife’s ear.  What came out instead was “UUUUUUUUUUUURP! Ugh…” He went limp, almost ragdolling with that last belch.  It felt good to get out, but it also felt like a little bit of his dignity was going with it.

“GOOD BABY!”  Far too soon, Bo was placed back in his highchair, the tray clicked in place, so that Melinda could eat her own dinner.  By the time that the entire vile meal had been finished, Bo had been beginning to feel overfull, uncomfortable and tired.  The burping had not helped that much.

 Finally, Melinda sat down and ate a few bites of her own dinner.  Uncle Kent, for his part, had voraciously devoured his meal (ironically, one might say that he’d “wolfed it down”) and was now watching T.V. in the living room.  

Feeling absolutely bloated, the so-called ‘man of the house’ slumped forward in his highchair and started panting a bit. Gosh, this was exhausting.  Melinda put her fork down, stood up and took her husband’s chin in her hand. “Quiet…you don’t want you-know-who to hear, do you?” She pointed to her enormous ears.

“Sorry…I can’t help it.” He tugged at the false ears and baby bonnet on his head.  “I’m starting to feel hot in this thing.”

Melinda twisted her mouth to one side. She leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “How about a bath, later?  Even Uncle Kent won’t barge in there. Then you can get dressed before bed and-”

“No!”  Bo’s voice was a hoarse whisper but he felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Please no!  It was hard enough getting into this outfit the first time. If I get out of it, I’m not going to be able to get back in.”

She caressed the side of his face, her voice full of sympathy.  “I know, baby, I know. But the bathroom has something else in it too.  Something you might need soon.  We run a little water in the tubby and no one will hear the p-o-t-t-y flushing.”

The offer was tempting.  The need to void one’s waste, like the need to consume, was something that was often forgotten until it was pressing, but became ever more pressing the more one thought about it. Now, Bo needed to go.  

And a bath might be nice…sensual even…maybe even adult depending on how much privacy the newlyweds were afforded, after a trip to the loo, of course.  Unconsciously, Bo tried to close his legs, only to have the thick padding of his diaper cut him off, reminding him, gently reminding him that he was already wearing his toilet.

Images of himself having to sit on an oversized child’s potty, a cooing Melinda towering over him, and a bubble bath complete with rubber ducky flashed in his mind’s eye.  Then him having to lay back down on a bathmat so that Melinda could slip another diaper under him. No. Just no. “I’ll hold it…”

“But…”

“I’ll hold it…”  Bo flashed his gritted teeth.

Melinda only shrugged.  “Okay…”

Bo allowed himself to be picked up again and carried to the living room. This time, the pacifier was back in his mouth without instruction or coercion.  The young couple positioned themselves between the Colonel and the television. “It’s still a little early, but I was thinking of putting Lil’ Kent to bed in his new crib.  It’s really been an exciting afternoon for him.”

“Capital, I say, capital idea, Melly.”  The Colonel stood up and rustled Bo’s baby bonnet, not seeming to notice that the floppy elephant ears moved with the head piece.  “Sweet dreams, Lil’ Kent. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“The morning?”

The Colonel arched an eyebrow.  “Oh, I didn’t tell you?

Completely forgetting themselves, both of the Graysons shook their heads.  The building pressure was in more than just Bo’s diaper area, all of a sudden.

“I’M MOVIN’!”  Two sets of jaws plummeted forward while a third set of eyes didn’t seem to notice.  “I managed to snatch up that empty lot next to your house and I’m movin’ my new retirement trailer right in!”  Neither Bo nor Melinda could find the words. “I’ve got, I say I’ve got only a few good years left in me, and I wanna spend as many of them watchin’ my Lil’ nephew grow up!  We’re gonna be neighbors!”

It was Melinda who found her wits first.  “That’s…great Uncle Kent. I’m so happy to hear it. Buuut like I said..Lil’ Kent needs his rest.”

“Of course, of course!  Night night, Lil’ Kent!”

It was all Bo could do to keep from screaming as he buried his muzzle into Melinda’s shoulder. “He’s feeling shy…it’s because he’s tired.”

Pivoting on a dime, she rushed towards the nursery.  Bo angled his mouth towards Melinda’s ear. “What are we gonna do, Mel?  I can’t pretend to be a baby elephant this long!”

Melinda stroked the back of his head with her trunk.  “I don’t know, baby…I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”

“Just a sec, I say just a second there, Melinda!”  The lady elephant froze. She whirled around. “Somethin’ just occurred to me and I’m miiiiighty suspicious all of a sudden.”

“Oh?”

The Colonel narrowed his eyes.  “It just occurred to me that there wasn’t a single, I say a single baby toy when I first got here.”

Melinda was curling her trunk, doing her best to not chew on it, as she did on the few occasions when she got nervous. It was her one tell. “Oh…really?”  

“No crib?  No highchair?  No playpen? I could see all of that being a matter of financial hardship.  But not a single toy?”

“Um…you see…it’s like this…”

“Somethin, I say somethin’s wrong here!”

The two elephants stared at each other across the room.  Melinda was visibly shaking. Bo held his breath.

“You’re not just rottin’ the boy’s brain with cartoons, are ya?”

From Bo’s vantage point, the ceiling got a little closer as Melinda stood up a little straighter.  “I certainly do not!”

“Oh really? No ploppin’ him down in front of the ol’ boob tube and lettin’ Tom Injury or Garfunkle do the heavy liftin’?”

“Absolutely not!”  Yikes! Melinda sounded like she was genuinely offended.  “I play with him all the time!”

“You do, I say you do, do ya?”

“As a matter of fact I do.”  WIth incredible strength, she held out her baby/husband, dangling him from his armpits.  “Just watch.”

Bo let out a near terrified yelp as Melinda tossed him into the air.  “Whoops…!” Just as quickly, he fell back down into her waiting arms. He let out a little giggle in relief.  “A-daisy.”

“Whoops!”  A little harder this time.  Bo’s legs rose up parallel to him.  For a fraction of a second, the young man felt as though he might be skydiving, before plummeting back down into the safety net that was his makeshift Mommy’s arms. “A-DAISY!”  A giggle became a yip of excitement

“WHOOPS!”  

He skyrocketed ceilingwards, a dumb, almost giddy grin breaking out.  He was on top of the wor-!

WHAM!

Pain shot up him, first up in his back, and then shooting to the back of his head before yo-yoing down to his heels. Just as quickly the floor came up at him.  Melinda, her face a mask of shock; her hands gripping her ears in panic, failed to catch him.

WHAM!

The world went starry for a second. Then red.  Then blurry.

Bo hurt.  His back. His head.  His belly. His nose. Everything.  It was all Bo could do to roll over.  His chest ached as he drew a few ragged breaths, and the warm hot pain of bruises and lumps beginning to form filled him up.  

Another kind of warmth invaded it’s Bo’s space.  Bo’s body wasn’t the only thing that was being filled up.  So was his diaper. The liquid warmth sloshed around his front before rushing to the back and then being quickly and quietly absorbed; causing the diaper to swell and expand outward.

Never before had Bo so genuinely hoped to be peeing blood, but even through blurry star-filled eyes, Bo could see the distinctly yellow discoloration of the thing between his legs. That’s when Bo started to cry.  “AWOOOOOOOOOO!” It was a mix of hurt and humiliation, his pride buckling under everything he’d endured. More importantly, the mournful and miserable howl could never be mistaken as anything elephantine.

Melinda was over him.  “Bo! Baby, are you okay?!”

“Bo?  Why are, I say, why are you callin’ Lil’ Kent that?  And why’s he makin’ that noise?”

Melinda ignored the Colonel’s question, instead ripping the flimsy pachyderm disguise off of her husband’s head.  “It’s okay, Baby. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“I’m so so sorry.  I didn’t mean to. I’d never mean to.”  His sense of smell was still diluted but damn, did it feel good to have fresh air on his face again, all the same!  The feeling of even this minor freedom, only allowed the tears to flow more freely, however, and soon Bo was crying into his wife’s lap, not sure where the pain ended and the embarrassment began.

This moment of respite was short lived, however.  “MELINDA! WHAT IS, I SAY, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?

Bo couldn’t see what was happening, buried as he was in Melinda’s lap, but he could certainly hear it.  “The meaning, Colonel, is that I lied to you!” She was so mad she was practically spitting. “I don’t have a little elephant baby!”  Their not-so-carefully constructed plan was falling apart, just as they were approaching the finish line.

There was a long silence.  Only Bo’s quiet sobs, still not dying down, made a sound.  “It all makes sense now…” The Colonel’s voice was even, low, and even tinged with a bit of sadness.

‘Mommy’ Melinda stroked her ‘baby’s’ back.  It helped, if only a little. “Yeah…I guess it does.”

“So… you adopted?” Bo looked up to his wife, then rolled over to look at her uncle.  “And that’s why you didn’t want me talking about wolves like I was?”

Melinda seemed uncertain.  She looked to Bo, then back up to her Uncle “…Yes.”  Apparently, it was time to double down on the crazy.

“And you named him Bo?”

“…Yes?”

“After your husband, the lumberjack?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

“But you’ve been hiding him from me.”  This wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“And that whole namin’ him after me was just tryin’ to butter me up?  So I’d accept him?”

This wasn’t entirely a lie.  “Yeeeeeah…”

Carefully, the Colonel came over to their spot on the floor and looked his niece in the eye.  “Melinda. Melly darlin’. I’m hurt.” He looked down at Bo. “Your little cub might not be blood, but that doesn’t mean he’s not family.”

“Really?”  Melinda’s voice was full of hope.

“Of course.”  The Colonel rose, his voice gaining volume as he spoke. “It wouldn’t matter if your baby was an elephant, or a wolf, or even a lion.”  A thick gray finger pointed towards the wolf. “As long as he’s your baby boy, then he’s my nephew, too, and I wanna spend some time gettin’ to know him.”  

Bo gulped.  How was it possible to be relieved and terrified at the same time?

“Okay….I think I…I think we’d like that.”

“Good.  Now, we’ll talk about this more, later.  Get your boy to bed.”

Still sniffling, Bo was carried into the adult sized nursery that had been designated as ‘Lil’ Kent’s room’.  Now, so it seemed, it was simply Bo’s room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to almost ruin it…” His voice was hoarse from crying.  The wolf had a frog in his throat.

Like a mother shushing a scared and confused child, Melinda did her best to calm him down.  “Shhhh….it’s okay. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She laid him down on the padded mat of the nursery’s new changing table.  “You couldn’t help it. You did everything right. I messed up.”

“But now he knows that we lied to him.”  He didn’t struggle or flinch as Melinda tugged at the tapes to his soggy diaper.  He yawned, instead. His adrenaline cooling, the pain and embarrassment were subsiding into an almost unnatural sleepiness.  The gentle, cool caress of the baby wipes against his most sensitive areas wasn’t doing much to keep him awake. It was soothing, really.

“Up we go.”  Melinda hoisted her hubby’s hind quarters into the air and slid out the soiled diaper.  Quickly, she slipped a new one beneath him before setting him back down. She was really good at this!  “And no, he only knows that I fibbed to him. He still thinks you’re a cute lil’ adopted wolf cub. His mind must be going, but it works in our favor.”

It might have been a sudden case of life imitating art, so to speak, but the young wolf had a sudden urge to suck his thumb. “But he’s moving next door.  How are we have to keep it up?”

His wife ignored him, briefly.  “A little powder, just in case.”  Her trunk sprinkled on what might have been considered a little powder, were he an elephant.  Bo was left coughing, engulfed in a white cloud of lavender cornstarch as the diaper was pulled up between his legs and fastened on with little tapes.  “We’ll find a way. It’ll be more than worth it in the end. I promise.”

The room was starting to get hazy.  Bo was grateful when Melinda helped him to a sitting position.  “But what if I goof it up again? How am I gonna go to work?” A loan moan escaped his lips while his new Mommy tugged a pajama shirt over his head, this one decorated with rocket ships and planets.  He had always wanted to be an astronaut when he was a little kid.

Melinda, ever the doting Mommy, reached for a matching pair of pajama bottoms.  “Legs through here, that’s right.” She picked a suddenly exhausted-looking Bo back onto her hip. “You don’t have to be an elephant; just your adorable wolfish self.”   She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “And you’re doing wonderfully at that.” He didn’t have the energy to even comment as she laid him down in the crib, raising the railing.  “Just hang in there for a little while longer, and everything is gonna be juuuuust fine.”

Eyelids getting heavy, the world seemed to start to gently sway for Bo, like the mobile dangling above his crib.  “Juuuuust fine. Can I have more eggs tomorrow? With onions? But not from a blender?”

“Sure, baby.  I think I can sneak that by the Colonel.”  Melinda leaned over the rail and brushed her hubby’s hair with her trunk.  “Night Bo-bo.” She walked to the edge of the nursery, her finger on the lightswitch.

He yawned, squeaking a bit as he did.  “Night Mommy…”

Melinda let out a chirping little squeal of her own, just before turning out the lights.
**********************************************************************************************************

The sun had long set when Melinda cracked back open the door to the adult sized nursery.  “Bo? Are you up?” He was not. Still clad in his new jammies, waistband of the diaper poking out, her husband was snoring up a storm.  “Oh this is just too cute.” Carefully, she inched her phone in and snapped a pic.

She smiled to herself.  She wasn’t experienced enough to know if a diaper needed changing based on the swelling, yet, but her nose told her that it had definitely been used.  She tiptoed back over to the couch, Uncle Kent sipping patiently on a glass of red wine.

“How is he?”

Melinda took her own glass.  “Sleeping like a, well… you know.”

The Colonel chuckled.  “I suspect, I say, I suspect he would after all the stuff you mixed in with his dinner.”   

“It’s just to help ease him into things.”  The two elephants shared a knowing look. “Thanks for doing this for me, Uncle Kent.”  She took a sip.

“Melly, I say, Melly my dear; the difference between crazy and eccentric is measured in dollar signs. If you want your baby and your hubby to be the same person, then it makes no difference to me.”

“Thank you, Uncle Kent.”

“You always were my favorite niece.”  He looked back to the nursery door, and then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.  “So, what’s the next step?”

“Try to get him through the day as a baby.”  Melinda thought about the eggs and chuckled. “It should be easier to get him to eat if we switch to some less disgusting food.”

Uncle Kent grinned.  “Ah, the art of the hard sell.  One night of liquid chicken, and a lifetime of peanut, I say, peanut butter and jelly will seem like a feast.”  He waggled his finger at her. You really are my heir apparent.”

Melinda rocked back.  “HA!” She covered her mouth, waiting to make sure that her new baby hadn’t been distrubed.  “Anyways, getting to hear his own name, and some better food should help him keep up the act a little bit longer, at least until it’s not an act.”

“There’s no con like a long con.  By the time I decide to pull up stakes, your hubby child will be well adjusted to his new role in the family.”  He drained his glass and moved to refill it. “How are you going to keep him from going back to work, though?”

The new ‘Mommy’ pulled up the picture on her phone and pressed a few buttons.  “Baby boy probably won’t be welcomed back when I email this to his boss.”

Her eccentric uncle nodded in approval. “Devious…devious.  But how are you gonna pay the bills now? I’m rich, but I’m, I say, I’m not a bottomless wallet.”

Now it was Melinda’s turn drain her glass.  “A few webcams, a few videos, and a decent web-design, and baby boy can start paying for his own diapers.  The internet is a wonderful thing.”

“You don’t mean?”  The Colonel’s question was answered by his niece pantomiming with her fist rhythmically shaking up and down.  It only took a moment for him to understand the meaning. “Ahhhh that’s a gasser! Just like them ol’ penny arcades but from the comfort of your own phone!”

Melinda refilled her glass.  “And you’d be surprised how much people will pay for ‘playdates’ and ‘adult baby sitting’.  I play this right and I won’t need any inheritance.”

They clinked glasses.  “This was, I say, this was a real hoot.  I didn’t know I could have this much fun.”

“Well, you know what they say.  Making the baby is the best part.”

(The End)

OMG! I just read this story for the first time and DEVOURED it! I know I would LOVE to read a sequel if you ever feel that you got one in you!   

[Personalias]

26 minutes ago, Panther Cub said:

OMG! I just read this story for the first time and DEVOURED it! I know I would LOVE to read a sequel if you ever feel that you got one in you!   

I could be persuaded to take a commission for a short story.  Either late this year or early the next one.

[Panther Cub]

57 minutes ago, Personalias said:

I could be persuaded to take a commission for a short story.  Either late this year or early the next one.

Cool!