Annie LXXIX: Some people's kids

(Chronological index: Raymond in Middle School)

Annie was on the dashboard as they pulled up and parked beside the VFW hall. There were people everywhere. Tables of food were being set up, four men were lighting fires in six barbecues and there was a crowd milling about the door.

"We're going to a church picnic?" she asked. Raymond snorted in the back seat.

"Too much beer to be a church function," he said.

"You've never met the Catholic side of your family," Mom pointed out. She held out her hand and the sylph stepped up into it. "No, Annie, it's a family reunion."

"I can't wait to introduce you to Uncle Flay," Raymond said as he got out of the car.

Annie was staring at the crowd but heard a familiar gurgle. Dad had collared his son and slung him towards the back of the car.

"I'm the hot dog man for this reunion," Dad said cheerfully. "And they asked if I knew anyone that wanted to be the charcoal peon." He opened the trunk one handed.

"Charcoal?" Raymond protested. "I wanna-"

"I just thought," Dad said as he slung a bag of briquettes into his son's arms, "that since you set fire to a rose bush, you'd want to be around fire for a while."

Raymond was still whining as Mom walked into the hall. Annie sat in the giant hand and watched more giants move around and past them.

"Who are all these people?" she asked.

"Fosters," Mom said. "Our family." She paused and lifted the pet up closer to her mouth. "Your family, Annie."

She dodged around a few teens setting up tables and chairs and got to a corner. A table there was piled with coloring books and five boxes of crayons. A few young kids sat on the bench and passed the time coloring.

They looked up as Mom set Annie down on a shelf over the table. "Who's that?" one asked.

"This is Annie. She's a sylph."

"Ooooh," several said.

"I have to go help with the funnel cakes," Mom said to Annie. The sylph shivered at the thought of being near the burning-hot oil. "Yeah," Mom agreed. "I didn't think you'd want to help there.

"So you stay here and watch over the kids, okay?"

"Um, okay?" Annie agreed. A position of responsibility? As a pet? This was odd. But Mom was already gone.

She looked down at the big, wide faces staring up at her. "What are you looking at?" she asked.

"You're naked!" a boy said.

"So are you!" she replied. He glanced down at his t-shirt and jeans.

"Am not!" he said.

"Yes, you are," she insisted. "Under all those clothes, you're naked as a jaybird."

The other kids at the table giggled. "Jaybird!" a girl shouted. "Jaybird!" The others joined in. The noise rose.

Annie put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. "Hey! Hold it down!" They quieted a bit, but not entirely. "What's so funny?"

A boy poked the practically naked kid with his elbow. "Tell her, Jay."

"Jaybird," the girl repeated with a smile. Jay glared up at the shelf.

"Oops," Annie muttered.

--------

Raymond finally dumped the last bucket of ash and embers in the metal garbage can and he was free. He set out to find where Mom had his pet.

Mom found him first. After a few minutes and a significant amount of soap, he set out again on his pet quest.

Dad found him this time and took him back to the bathroom. After mopping and wiping up the soot-colored puddles he'd spread about the floor and counter he finally and for real set out to find Annie.

She was lording it over a gaggle of kids at a table in the corner of the hall. They were crowding a shelf that held her just out of reach and showed her the pages of coloring they'd produced.

"Okay, Jerry, okay!" she called. "Stop shaking the picture you're making me dizzy." Raymond paused as he watched an excitable cousin hold perfectly still. "Oooh, much better, Jerry. Inside all the lines. Have to wonder why the elephant is purple...?"

"Because Donny stole the black!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

The sylph's taxi whistle stilled the growing riot. "I told you guys, behave or I'll get my master to take me out in the sunshine for a tan."

Mumbled apologies bubbled through the group. Raymond glanced around the room. Parents and other relatives kept shooting approving glances over at the corner.

Older kids hovered, far enough to pretend they weren't in the little kids group, but close enough to hear.

"Okay, okay! Like I said! If someone's using the color you want, you wait or you color something else- Wait, black? What the felkerkarb did you want BLACK for an ELEPHANT for?"

"He's from Africa," Jerry explained. "So are blacks."

"So are you!" Annie shot back. "Thousands of years back, we were all in Africa."

"Really?" Jerry thought about that for a while. "Was there room for everyone to sit?"

"Barely," Annie said. "That's why we spread out, to get room. Anyway, you need to finish the elephant. What's the food in his trough?"

"I don't know, what do elephants eat?"

"They eat little boys that expect me to do all their work," the sylph shot back. "Next! Deana! What have you got?"

She saw Raymond out of the corner of her eye and shot him a smile. He nodded back and found a place to sit.

An hour later, she shot him a different look, one of desperation. He sauntered over and plucked her off the shelf.

"Aw," moaned the kids at the table, a few in the corners and at least three adults.

"Sorry, but she's had enough," he said. "Any more excitement and she won't sleep until Labor Day."

"Buzz kill," she shouted in a hoarse voice, still playing to her audience. But her hand stroked the finger wrapped around her waist, grateful.

He dropped her gently into his shirt pocket. "I guess you worked up an appetite?"

"Water," she croaked.

"Right next to the food table," he promised. People were watching so he made something of a production in getting some ice water for his sylph. He scraped an ice cube to a cup her size, drilled a hole with a fork tine and dipped it in the water cooling the soda cans.

She sucked it down and held the cube to her forehead for a bit. "Nice kids," she said, "but they're on you every minute."

"You're good with them," he said. "If I ever breed you, you'll be good with your litter." He picked up a paper plate and started assembling a hamburger for them.

She stared up at his jaw. "Litter? BREED ME?"

"It's a thought," he shrugged. "Not exactly quick cash, but it's a thought."

Annie tossed the ice cube up and inside the collar of his shirt, then hung on tight as he danced around. As he wiggled free of the ice, she got a thoughtful expression.

-------

On the ride home, Raymond lay across the back seat and slept. Annie stole out of his pocket and climbed the seat belt up to Mom's shoulder.

"Mom?"

"Oh, hey, Annie. Did you have fun at the reunion?"

"Yeah, I... I did, ma'am. Um."

"Yes?"

"Well."

"I always love," Dad said, eyes on the road in the headlights, "how she feels comfortable around us and can talk openly and honestly."

"Shush, dear, this may be girl talk."

"Girl talk!?" he said with mock terror. "Should I throw myself from the car? We're only doing forty."

"That's up to Annie. Do you want privacy, dear."

"I dunno. I guess he's a grown man and everything."

"Technically," Mom allowed.

"Well... Today? Raymond mentioned having me...bred." She had to grab Mom's collar as the car swerved suddenly. Dad made an odd noise as he wrestled the steering wheel back into place.

"Does...he have someone in mind?" Mom asked.

"No, no, no. Idle speculation," Annie said. "It's just... Just..."

"You don't want to?"

"Mom, it's...since I shrank... I haven't had a period." She lunged for Mom's collar once more.

--------

"What do you mean she's going with you today?" Raymond asked.

"She has an appointment," Mom said. She put the pet carrier down on the floor and beckoned. The sylph ran up to and inside it.

"An appointment where?" he persisted.

"It's a girl appointment," Mom started to explain.

Annie grabbed the netting in the front of the carrier. "Just stay here and watch TV knowing I won't be criticizing your choice."

"Oh. Cool." He flopped down on the sofa. "And no one gets a bite of my Tollhouse."

"Hey! Wait! Put a hold on the cookie order until I get back!"

"I'll get you a cookie, Annie," Mom promised.

Then they were out the door.

---------

Annie started to pace in the carrier as the Mom headed for the vet's. Mom couldn't see inside but she saw the case rock back and forth.

"It'll be okay, Annie," she said. "Raymond won't love you any less if he finds out he'll never have to hold your hand during childbirth."

"Oh, he's the last of my concern," Annie said. She came to the mesh and stuck her head out. "I just keep imagining the vet using the regular stirrups."

Mom apologized as she drove back off the shoulder. Annie had a death grip on the carrier. She hadn't fallen, but the carrier had slid towards the door at a pretty good rate.

"It's alright, Mom. Really. NO harm..." She peeled her fingers off the nylon. "Urg! ...Done. And, sorry."

"Don't be. It's a valid concern." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "A horrible image, but a valid concern."

------

Yvette, the vet's assistant, recognized Annie. "And how's our sweet little patient, today?"

Annie blinked up at the woman. "Have we been introduced?"

She giggled and took up a clipboard. "Step up onto the scale, please? Um...twenty seven point eight grams." She adjusted the height. "Fourteen and a half centimeters." She held up a thermometer probe.

"I hate this part," Annie said.

"I know," Yvette said far too cheerfully. "Spread your little legs." Annie complied, then clenched the probe between her thighs.

"Cold! Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold!"

Mom pet her hair. "Hang in there, Annie. We'll get ice cream after." The sylph rose up on tip toe and persevered.

Then she turned to look up at Mom. "Are we going to go home and get Raymond first?" Mom shook her head. "Wicked."

When all the vitals were collected, the assistant carried the patient back to the exam room. Mom followed along and took the chair.

Yvette set Annie down on the exam table. "We've got a new veterinary school graduate working with us this month." She leaned down close. "He thinks it's funny to show female sylphs a human speculum. If you scream in holy terror at the sight, he won't play any more tricks on you this visit."

"I love you, Yvette," Annie said.

Yvette left and closed the door. "Great minds think alike," Mom said.

Annie shook her head. "I have to get into character. I have to be ready to scream when-"

There was a brief knock and the door opened. A young man in a doctor's coat entered. He smiled down at the sylph and nodded to Gwen. "You're her owner?"

"Mother of her owner," Mom said.

"Ah. Well," he checked the records in his hand. "Annie. How are you?"

"I feel fine," she said. "But I worry that I haven't had a period since I shrank."

"Ah," he said. "You shrank," he consulted the record again. Annie wondered if he was unable to trust the patient's answer or just unwilling. "On the Day. You were..."

"Seventeen."

"I see. Well, there's a simple explanation." He fished a pistol gripped arrangement of duckbilled metal and waved it before her. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

Annie had no problem coming up with a convincing sounding scream of terror and dismay.

After that, the aural speculum was something of an anticlimax. Her examination was uncomfortable, but not a candidate plot for a horror movie.

She held onto the little restraining cords and thought of ice cream. He did a few test, probed a few places, checked her up and down and finally sat back.

Mom reached down to squeeze Annie's hand between two fingers as the vet searched through a rack of pamphlets.

"Alright," he said. "There's an observed phenomenon with women who sylphed during puberty."

"I was sixteen!" Annie protested. Doc shrugged.

"The very end of the average range of puberty, then. Anyway, they've discovered that in some cases, the walls of the uterus harden. They become leathery. They stop functioning as they're supposed to."

"She's infertile?" Mom asked.

"I’m inside out luggage?" Annie asked.

He handed a pamphlet over. "It's called vegrandis uterofibrocis."

"Oh!" Mom said, hand to her mouth as she read the title. "There's an article in this month's Cosmopolitan! I never even connected it with you, Annie."

"That's either a compliment, that you don't think of me as a sylph, or a serious slight as you don't think of me at all," Annie said. She regretted it instantly. Mom didn't deserve that sort of treatment.

But Mom just smiled and pet her hair. "I don't think of you as recently being teen aged," she said. "You're ever so mature."

"Standing next to Raymond? I can only benefit in comparison." She closed her eyes and held her legs together. The Vaseline from the probe felt weird and reminded her of the examination. "A towel?" she asked. Mom handed her a tissue.

"So, anyway," Doc said, "you have the information. It's not life-threatening in any way. There are no complications anyone's observed. You can't breed her, but intercourse will be safe."

He recoiled from Mom's glare. "When, that is, I mean, if, you plan, or if you and she agree or... I, uh, have to go."

Annie rolled to her feet and crumpled up the tissue. Mom plucked it out of her hands and dropped it into a wastecan. Then she offered her hand and Annie stepped aboard.

"I'm sorry I snarked at you, Mom. You don't deserve-"

"Oh, never mind that, Annie," she assured the sylph. "Anyone would be touchy and probably queasy after that man's manhandling." She kept the sylph in her hand and gathered the carrier. "Let's go get some ice cream."

"Oh, Mom, I love you."

"That's what all my sylphs say." Annie had to grip the thumb tight as the woman opened the door with both hands full, but she wouldn't complain.

---------

Annie was used to eating directly from Raymond's plate, bowl or pizza when they were out of the house. Mom preferred a little bit of privacy with respect to her food.

All the Fosters carried a full set of Annie-sized dishes at all times so there was a bowl to scoop up a serving with and a spoon to eat.

They ate in a pleasant silence for a while. Mom figured the infertility was a bit of a shock. She gave the young woman room to figure out how she felt about that.

"Mom?" Annie finally asked. "Do we have to tell Raymond I'm...imperfect?"

"You're plenty perfect dear, just unable to get morning sickness, vaginal tearing or-"

"Eugh! I know, I know. I just... It's not like Raymond has his heart set on an Annie Breeding Program... But... I don't want..."

"Are you honestly afraid he'll think less of you?" Mom asked, shocked. "I don't. Dad won't. If anything, you could probably sniffle a bit and work enough sympathy from Victor to get a new 8-track player."

"Really?" Annie asked. She thought about that. Dad was kind of seeing the pet sylph as a grandchild. It might work.

She shook her head. "No. No, I'd rather not try that. Raymond'd ask where it came from. I just... Please? Keep it a secret?"

"Well, I support a woman's right to choose in reproductive options," Mom said with a sigh. "I guess that would include secrets about your reproductive parts."

"Thanks," she said. "For, you know, everything." She rose and walked over to hug the woman's wrist.

"If he asks, though," Mom went on, "I won't lie."

"That's fine," Annie said. "How many male youths ask about female plumbing? Ask their MOM about female plumbing?"

Mom sighed and nodded. Annie's secret was safe for the foreseeable.





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