Author's note: I received the idea to write this story from my friend, Celeste, known as celrock on this site. If you have not checked it out yet, I was inspired by her story "My Firstest Exposure to Sherry Berry." After a suggestion to write about my original character, Rosie's, introduction to her original character, Sherry Berry, I really liked the idea, which resulted in this story. I had thoughts about breaking this story into chapters, though I feel that this story would be more appropriate as a one-shot. After completing this story, I will return to finishing a few promised stories. While I still accept story ideas, they might come out a bit later than you'd hope. Another story that I'd like to finish in September is one that has been long since promised to my friend, lilnate03 – 'Rugrats: Review celebration.' That story will not only celebrate the authors with the most reviews, yet it's also an award ceremony (online, of course, as we all cannot meet up in real life,) congratulating authors for things like courage, excellent writing, best original characters, etc. In other words, I would refer to it as "Rugrats: September awards."
I also apologize for it taking forever to get to the actual plot.
This story eventually ends taking place from Rosie's POV.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rugrats. The series belongs, or belonged to, as it is now cancelled, Nickelodeon. As for original characters, I own Rosie while celrock owns Sherry Berry. A few other original characters might be mentioned, though Rosie still hasn't met Hannah, Skyler, and Natalie yet, as she's barely a year old, though Hazel will be mentioned. There was also a reference to the game show 'Baby races' at the beginning of this chapter, to which I also do not own.
Rosie's Introduction to Sherry Berry
It was not long after two-year old Rosie and her boyfriend, Tommy, had been on the show Baby races, along with eaten dinner at Piggy's Pizza Place that she chatted with him once again on face time.
Since Rosie lived in Boston and Tommy, along with his friends, lived in Yucaipa, the only way that they could chat without travel would be through a phone or an iPad. It made things easier, as the Pickles, nor the Halls, were the type of family who travelled every week just so that their toddler could see their respective date.
However, as Rosie was only two, she usually had her older sister, Mary, help her call Tommy. Mary had always been five years older than Rosie herself, and knew more things, especially whenever it came to phones and iPads.
That would explain why it was eleven in the morning and the two girls were awake while her older sister attempted to call Tommy through FaceTime for Rosie.
"Okay, they're here," Mary said after about one minute.
Rosie crawled over to the iPad, and smiled at the screen. Even though they hadn't seen each other in one day, to a baby, that would feel like forever.
"Hi, Rosie," Tommy said, flashing a smile himself. "Hey, Mary."
"Hey, baby," Rosie said. "Good morning, Peter."
At the pet name that his girlfriend had come up with from not only hearing her parents say it, yet hearing it on television numerous times, Tommy blushed. Peter simply glanced up from his novel, and waved at both Mary and Rosie.
"Hello, Tommy, and Peter," Mary stated. "I'm going to the other room to call my best friend, Krystal. Is that alright with you, Rosie?"
While Mary was not lying, she was also doing this to give the two toddlers privacy. Peter seemed to pick this up, as after waving, he smiled at them, before explaining that perhaps he needed to read his novel where it was quieter, and excused himself from the room. This did indeed give the two the privacy that they wanted and needed.
"Mornin', Rosie," Tommy said. "Wasn't Baby Races the coolest thing ever?"
"Yeah, I loved it, especially the toys that we gotted!" Rosie said happily. "And all those challenges really kept me going, but sometimes they were real tiring."
"Uh huh, and then going to eat dinner at the pizza place, was almost betterer," Tommy acknowledged. "They haded real good food, almost as good as the dinner I eat at home!"
"Oh yeah, I told you about my firstest slumber party there at that pizza place, right?" Rosie asked.
"Yep, that's right, and I thought that it was really, really, interesting, and I was glad to learn what a slumber party actually is," Tommy told her.
"Yeah, but sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference of things, and your mommy was saying it wrong, so I see why that happened," she acknowledged.
"I kinda wish that we could hang out like that more often," Tommy remarked, a bit sadly.
Rosie, hating to see him sad in any way, made a silly face, sticking her tongue out, which did manage to make him laugh. It was no lie that she loved to hear him laugh,
"Hey, guess what?" Tommy said.
Since Tommy's news was usually fascinating, Rosie smiled even wider, not wanting to wait to hear what her boyfriend had to say.
"What?" Rosie asked.
"The singer, Sherry Berry has another concert in a place called Lost Angeles," Tommy explained, still not completely aware of how to say 'Los Angeles.' "One time, me and my friends' mommies and daddies took us there."
At this comment, Rosie had to refrain from frowning. She knew that 'Lost Angeles' was around the place that Tommy lived, as her mother had mentioned before, and she and Tommy lived far away from each other. This meant that Rosie most likely wouldn't be able to see Sherry Berry's concert live, though she didn't frown, as not only had she performed with Sherry Berry herself, yet there were other resources for her to see the concert.
"Ooh, really?" Rosie asked. "Are you going to see it?"
"I dunno, I really hope that Taffy will take us," Tommy told her. "Sorry that you won't be able to see the concert, though. You know I'd fly you over here to Lost Angeles if I could, but, toddlers can't fly and I don't have wings. I really wish I did at moments like this, though."
Rosie giggled, thinking that her boyfriend was silly.
"Tommy, I'll be fine," Rosie assured him. "I can just watch it on TV or ask my daddy to buy me a DVD. Besides, didn't I tell you on our Washington D.C. trip that I metted Sherry Berry?"
"Yeah, and you sang with her, right?" Tommy said with a smile.
Rosie, happy to have pleased him, nodded in return.
"I sang the lyrics to you on the train before you fell asleep," Rosie reminded him. "You looked really cute like that, and ya still do."
Once again, he blushed, trying to cover it, but Rosie could tell, and this made her smile even wider.
"Thanks," he mumbled.
"Welcome, Tommy," she responded.
Deciding that it was time to change the subject, Tommy finally asked the big question.
"Hey, how were you exposure to the wonderful, beautiful, Sherry Berry anyway?" Tommy asked her.
While she was a bit jealous that her boyfriend had referred to the singer Sherry Berry as beautiful,
"Huh?" Rosie asked.
'Oh, yeah, Rosie probably hasn't ever hearded that word before,' Tommy thought. 'It's not used a lot, it seems.'
"Exposure is like a growed up word for saying introduced to," he explained.
Rosie sighed in relief at this, as she had assumed that the word would be much more difficult than it sounded.
"Phew, Tommy, well, why didn't ya just say so?" Rosie asked. "So, you wanna hear the story about how I learned of the awesome singer, Sherry Berry, right?"
"Uh huh," Tommy said. "Cuz it already sounds real interesting, just like your stories always do."
This time Rosie herself was the one that blushed, nearly as pink as her hair.
"Well, then, I'll tell you, but, it might take a while to explain the whole thing," Rosie told him.
"I can be patient," Tommy assured her.
"Okay."
Rosie's POV
The day that I learned about Sherry Berry's very existence was not the best of days for me at first. It started out real bad.
It started with me and my olderer sister, Mary, playing with some of her dolls. At this time, she was supposed to be going to school, but I wanted to play, since back then I didn't understand that she has to go to school if she wants to have a job like mommy and daddy do someday. Me and Mary were playing with her old Cynthia doll and my flashlight that looks like a dolly.
"Mary, you have to go to school now!" Mommy reminded her.
I didn't want her going to school, though, because, and you might not get this since you don't have an older sister or brother, I didn't wanna feel all lonely when she left. I could've gone on an adventure, but since all my friends were either taking their nappy or just somewhere else with their mommy and daddy, an adventure wouldn't feel as fun.
"Mama, can't I finish playing with Rosie first?" Mary asked.
But Mama didn't want Mary being late to school at all, since 'parently, it doesn't leave too good of an impression on your teacher when you're late to your first day.
"I'm sorry, Mary, but no, we only have five minutes left, now get in the car," Mama ordered. "We can't have you late for your first day of first-grade. Rosie will be fine, and today is half a day, which means that you'll be coming home at 12:30. That's not even five hours of school! Now, c'mon, sweetie."
Mary gave me a large frown, before hugging me.
"Love you, baby sis, but I have to head off to school now," Mary told me, picking up her backpack.
As she walked out of the door with Mommy, she was carrying her Dummi Bears backpack that she gotted on sale during the last few days of summer.
Usually, my mommy and daddy would be at work, painting houses and all, but today was one of those special days. Since you might not know about this day, I'll explain it to you.
Every year, after summer ends, usually on Mary's first day of school during a new year, my mommy and daddy are given a day off to spend time with me and Mary. It really is sad and ironic that this always happens when Mary has to go to school, when we could be going to the park, but at least I get to spend time with my parents. Besides, it's not like it's the only day of the year when this happens. We also have Christmas and any other important holiday.
While mommy drived Mary to school, daddy stayed in the house with me. He took me out of my baby walker and tried to feed me the worstest food of them all… spinach.
Spinach is just such a horrible type of food. It smells bad and it sure doesn't taste good to me! I sure don't know how anyone can like it. It's poison to the mouth. Trust me, if I ever become queen, any spinach will be banned from my castle!
Since I didn't really have anything else to do and I didn't wanna swallow the nasty spinach, I spit it out on daddy. His reaction to this wasn't positive, obliviously. He groaned, his face turning from a smile to a look of annoyance. My daddy is a good one, though, and he doesn't let annoyance get the best of him. He never has. He continued to try to feed me.
"Well, what about broccoli, then?" he asked.
I smiled and clapped in my seat, jumping up and down.
Daddy made a noise that's called a sigh, and then turned to me with a smile.
"Well then, my little bundle of roses, broccoli coming right up!"
This might surprise you, but as compared to spinach, I actually like broccoli. It looks good, it doesn't smell bad, and it just tastes good. Sometimes, if it's cooked bad, then it, as expected, tastes terrible, but overall, broccoli manages to taste great.
I could tell that daddy was planning on cooking the broccoli, but I was getting annoyed by the wait, so he just fed it to me cold. He also did that airplane thing, which interests me every time. I ate the broccoli and smiled while my daddy grabbed a cloth and wiped the nasty spinach off his face.
A long time after that, mommy finally came home, and she looked tired. Since I was, once again, beginning to get fussy, I wasn't helping much, either. She did giggle when she saw daddy wiping his face, though.
"Rosie spat spinach on you?" she asked, covering her mouth as she laughed.
"Yep," he answered. "Looks like she doesn't like spinach, and like we can't really get her too."
"She did eat the broccoli though, right?"
Daddy laughed.
"Of course she did, broccoli, along with peas, seems to be the only healthy food that she'll eat without much convincing," my Daddy replied. "Our girl will always be a broccoli lover."
About an hour or two after that, my mommy sent me off for a nap. I didn't wanna go to bed, though, because I truthfully wasn't all that sleepy.
"Rosie, please," Mama said. "I have to pick up Mary in an hour, please just take your nap."
I didn't stop crying, though. While I like my mommy, I'm a baby, and I'm going to feel what I feel sometimes. That's how I see it.
"Terry, could you help me here?"
My daddy, who was making he and mommy breakfast (when I was younger, sometimes they would eat breakfast later than they should,) walked in.
"Need help with Rosie, Shannon?"
Without letting her respond, daddy tried to make me sleepy, by singing a lullaby. It seems that, my body was just refusing to be tired though, and since they were trying to make me nap, I continued crying.
"It looks like she's just not tired, Terry," Mama said, groaning. "We can't give up now, though. Our baby needs her beauty rest, and just because she's a bit stubborn doesn't mean that she's going to miss it."
"Well, one of our last resorts would be you trying to sing her a lullaby," Daddy suggested.
Mama smiled sadly, sat me down, and tried to sing me that popular lullaby that has the lines 'rock a bye baby.' While my mother's singing voice is pretty, she's not a superstar like Sherry Berry is, so it's not exactly the best you can find. It's not terrible, but her voice is too soft sometimes.
When they noticed that I was still crying, daddy took what he usually calls 'the last resort.' He picked me up and put me in my crib while I was still crying.
"Terry, what are you doing?" Mama asked.
"I'm sure that this will please Rosie," Daddy told her. "Can you watch her for a second? I'll be right back!"
I guess that my mother believed in him, because she nodded and tried to calm me down by doing a lot of stuff. She even made a silly face, which I did smile at for a second, but that didn't stop me from being upset. Either way, I still wasn't sleepy and I just wanted to hear more of Sherry Berry's voice.
To my luck and surprise, my daddy brought in this old device that had a whole playlist of Sherry Berry songs.
"Rosie, this artist is called Sherry Berry," Daddy explained. "I loved her when I was older. An excellent singer who keeps what she does innocent, rather unlike what many pop singers are subjecting themselves to these days. I'd like you to be around positive influences such as her. I'm going to skip a bit ahead through the playlist to begin with a song that I believe will make you tired."
With that, he skipped ahead to that song that always can make me really, really, tired. A few seconds into that song, her soothing voice just made me really sleepy. I don't know how that works, but it was almost like a lullaby from the perfect voice. Gee, Tommy, I wish I had a voice like that.
I actually fell asleep to her voice. No 'fense to my mommy and daddy or Mary, but her voice could top all of theirs, even if they had singing lessons! I've never fell asleep to any of their voices.
That was also the day when I figured out what a playlist was, because apparently, the songs played back and forth while I took my nap.
I didn't wake up until about an hour or two after Mary came home. Once mama had taken me out of my crib, me and Mary got back to playing with toys, and she told me about her day. Apparently, school is really fun.
"It was almost better than kindergarten!" Mary said with excitement. "Our teacher was a bit boring, but, she still did let us play with Legos! I also learned a few new addition problems. I think first grade is turning out to be just fine. How was your day here?"
I explained to her everything that I just told you. When I got to the Sherry Berry part, boy, was she surprised and happy.
"Whoa, so you finally heard about Sherry Berry!"
"Wait, you already knew about her?"
This was a surprise to me, but now that I think about it, it shouldn't have been, because Mary has been alive for longer than I've been. Mary giggled about it.
"OF course I have, silly, I first heard Sherry Berry's voice on DVD," Mary explained. "Grandma got it for mama before I myself was born!"
"Really?" I asked, interested.
"Uh huh, and maybe I can even show you a concert on DVD!" Mary said. "Ooh! I can show it to you right before lunch!"
I did end up seeing Sherry Berry's concert on DVD. Trust me, if you haven't seen it, which I bet you have, it was awesome!
And, Tommy, that's the story of how I was introduced to wonderful singer, Sherry Berry.
End of Rosie's POV
"Wow, Rosie that was just as interesting as I thought it would be!" Tommy exclaimed.
"Thanks for listening, and, I hope that you have a great time with Taffy and the others going to Lost Angeles – or, maybe it was Los Angeles, and seeing Sherry Berry perform!"
"Yeah, and maybe I can bring my daddy's camcorder and tape it for you," Tommy suggested.
"Awe, baby, that'd be great!"
As expected, the three-year old boy blushed at this again.
"Tommy, we must be going," Peter told him. "I have an important message that I need to send one of my servants, so could you perhaps say goodbye to Rosie?"
"Okay, Peter," Tommy said, before turning back to his girlfriend. "Sorry, Rosie, but Peter says that he has a real important message that he needs to send to a servant. I'll try to bring the camcorder to Sherry Berry's concert, though, and next time we talk, which might not be for a few days, I'll tell you about my first exposure to her."
Rosie, though upset to leave her boyfriend, said goodbye before 'hanging up' with him.
"Mary, I'm done with your iPad!" Rosie shouted.
"Coming, Rosie, I'm just finishing up my call with Krystal!" Mary shouted back.
Later that night, when it was time for Rosie and Mary to go to bed, their father, Terry, crept into the room and put on Sherry Berry. Ever since Rosie was younger, he had been doing this, and watched with a smile as they fell asleep to the charming voice of Sherry Berry.
That is the story of how Rosalind Louise Hall was introduced to popular singer, Sherry Berry, and how Sherry Berry's voice came with generations to come.
RUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATS
I give credit to celrock for this idea. I apologize if you thought this story was poorly written, as well as for uploading it so late at night. Thank you for reading, and, if you end up doing so, reviewing.