Annie LII: Gentling

(Chronological index: High School (1st time for Raymond, 2nd time for Annie))

Annie was wandering around the hamster cage, trying to find a place that didn't smell of hamster pee.

Thrud the Fluffinator watched her suspiciously from his corner. At least he'd stopped flinching whenever she moved.

There was the slightest of breezes in the corner closest to the window. She swept wood chips away from the plastic base and tried to get comfortable.

It looked to be a little overcast and cold outside, from what she could see between the curtains. Raymond would probably be home soon. While weather was no deterrent to any mischief he had his mind set on, the juvenile delinquent was less likely to ad lib anything if he was uncomfortable.

Cedar crunched as Thrud moved slowly across the cage to get a drink of water. She glanced over. That showed her the birdcage. Just beyond the cage she currently shared was her regular home.

The Mom had just given her some colored ribbons to decorate it. She was threading the purple one between the bars when Raymond had discovered her little 'gift' in his shoe.

She thought it was perfectly logical. She'd been lobbying for a more private place to tinkle, he'd been dismissive. So making it HIS problem should have spurred him to fixing THEIR problem.

Raymond, however, saw things differently. Apparently, if one is indiscreet in their leavings, one is no better than an animal. And should be treated as such.

And it wasn't enough that he kept her naked, that he kept her CAGED, that her toilet was a plastic cup of sawdust that smelled of tartar sauce from a seafood takeout, or that he ordered her about.

No, he thought all that was doing her the favor of treating her like a...a...a better than pet, pet, or something. Now she was in the doghouse.

She glanced over at Thrud. Metaphorical doghouse, anyway. She folded her arms on her knees and lay down her head.

-----

Footsteps on the stairs warned her of his arrival. She jumped up and scurried over to where Thrud lay. Just as the door opened, she wrapped her arms around his neck and made a big, loud kissing sound.

As the rodent shot to his feet and tried to scamper away, she rolled to her back and shouted, "Act innocent!"

Raymond paused as he stepped up to the table. Thrud was backed into a corner, eyes darting back and forth. Annie was examining her nails in the other corner. He shrugged and threw his backpack into the corner.

She stood and watched as he dove into his closet and moved boxes around. He came out with his old Erector set. "Guess what we learned about today in Psychology?"

"How to switch hands without losing a stroke?" she asked.

"Nah, Mr. Swithmore taught us how to do that last year," he said absently. "In the spring, he's promised to teach us how to gain a stroke in the transfer." He started assembling something. "We learned about Cox chairs."

She blinked a few times. "You wanna spell that, please? It seems just brimming with opportunity for farce."

He opened a notebook and made a quick sketch. It looked like a zombie in a swing set. Under that he wrote 'Cox Chair.' Then he propped it up on the birdcage so she could adore his efforts.

"All your people look like brain hungry zombies," she pointed out.

"It's supposed to be an early 19th century maniac in an asylum," he replied. He had what looked like the skeleton of an Annie-scaled gazebo on the table. Now he was tying her dollhouse table chair up to hang from the center.

"Yeah, that squiggly line for his mouth just screams 1812, maybe 1823." She was worried about some of the motion lines in the drawing. "What's a Cox chair?"

"Well, the asylums of yesteryear were real madhouses," he said.

"No pun intended?" she sneered.

"Hard to avoid," he said. He threaded a little strap through the back of the chair. Annie started to feel more than a little anxious. "Anyway, the treatments they used were all stabs in the dark.

"They tried things, some seemed to work, so they did it again." He fixed a plate under the chair and anchored the strings. "One thing that a Doctor Cox found to work was based on the work of a Doctor Darwin."

"Charles?"

"Erasmus."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Anyway, they noticed that some patients benefited from time spent in a swing. They experimented and found that a circulating swing had a very calming effect."

"What the hell," she asked, "does spinning around in a circle have to do with being calm?"

"Well," he said, reaching over to open the cage, "we discussed that in class." Thrud shot through one of the tubes and disappeared. Annie didn't bother to try to hide.

Just one time being shaken out of a dismantled tunnel was enough. She raised her arms and waited for him to pick her up.

He put her in the Cox Chair and strapped her to it.

"What did you conclude?"

"Darwin had a theory that encouraging sleep was important in mania therapy. And the swing tended to make patients sleepy." He started to wind the chair around, twisting the strings that held it.

Annie pulled her knees up to her chest and closed her eyes. "It's not sleepy," she said. "It's making them so dizzy they lay down. There's a difference!"

"Yeah, but you still have to think that there's a remarkable change in undesired behavior." He had the string so tight he had to use two hands to wind it any further. He did.

"Please," she pleaded.

"Now, if I just SAY I'm going to put you in the Cox chair if you don't settle down, you're going to judge the threat, and judge my anger, and decide if being an ungrateful brat is worth it.

"If I put you through it a time or two, you'll think twice, maybe more, before you misbehave."

"Please, no," she repeated.

"Now, the paper said you'd get dizzy. Well, they said 'vertigo.' And you'd get pale, nauseous, probably vomit. Oh, and you may wet yourself.

"Which made me think of you and my shoe. It's appropriate, since an inability to control yourself is the behavior we wish to discourage...."

He let go and she screamed. The chair was a little off center, her head was outside the axis of her spin. The vertigo came on strong.

Nothing supported her head so it started to move, dipping further from the axis, increasing the dizziness. There was a sort of thump, like a speed bump, where the chair was fully unwound, then started to wind back up again.

Annie was sure she felt her heart stretching the aorta like a bungee cord, pushing her lung aside to lean on her ribs. Her stomach was somewhere behind her, running hard to catch up. When it did, there would be hell to pay. But at least she didn't wet herself.

Things did not improve as the chair slowed. Her heart returned to the proper place but her stomach seemed to move through her and out the other side.

She dreaded the return spin. But just as the chair slowed to a stop, Raymond pinched the chair back and held it.

"Now, one time's probably not so bad, but imagine-"

She puked. There was an explosion, spongy millet spraying across his hand and desk. Then another and another. She sort of knew he was undoing the strap but all she could really be sure of was misery.

Long after the stomach was empty, she was still retching. Her revered Master held her face down across his palm, stroking her back and keeping her hair clear with a thumb.

Raymond's string of apologies kept pace with her barfing. And, yes, she did wet herself. But when the kid noticed it, HE apologized to HER.

She smiled a bit at that. It was humiliating, but at least she peed on his hand.

There was the wavy, rocking sensation of being carried, then warm water sluiced over her. Raymond cleaned her as gently as he ever had, still offering apologies.

"I never thought it'd hit you that hard, Annie. Three or four times around, maybe, but not the once. I'm sorry, so sorry, ...."

Not yet, she thought to herself. But you will be. If his guilt wasn't enough, The Mom could be invoked. Annie took up the pencil lead and marked another I on the sheet. "Twelve," she shouted.

Raymond raised his face from the grass and looked blearily over at his pet. She sat on the folded towel behind the sheet of Plexiglas. He felt glad that he'd thought of that. A few spatters had marked the shield, proving its worth.

Annie pointed a finger up in the air and made a twirling motion. He nodded and rose to his knees. "Are you sure that's only twelve?" he asked. "I thought we did twelve once already?"

She shrugged and showed him the tally sheet. Two fives and two I's were marked at the top. Down at the bottom, way down, she'd written 'Parity.' He had a ways to go.

He stood and reached for the swing. "Ah, ah, ah!" she said. "Every sixth one?"

Raymond's shoulders sagged. But he reached down obediently to pick up the bottle of RC. It was warm from the sun and flat. Just the way she liked it... He swigged, taking the opportunity to swill out his mouth.

Then he shut his eyes and swallowed. He took a marshmallow from the bag and chewed it carefully, washing it down with another sip.

Then there was nothing to do but sit in the swing and start turning himself around. The chains clinked as they met. He kept on twisting.

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