A/N – This was originally posted as a separate story, but I took it down and reposted it here. If you've read last week's installment ("Indigenous Peoples") you'll have a whole new perspective on this.
The New Kid
Candace Petersen was head over heels in love. The object of her affection was sitting in the kitchen sink, gazing up at her with those big, trusting eyes. His cute, round face smiled in response to her smile, and he happily smacked his tiny palms on the surface of the shallow water.
"Who's my snoogy woogums?" she prattled goofily to her baby boy. "Does he like his bath? Yes," she affirmed with an exaggerated nod . "Yes, he does! We're gonna get you all clean and handsome for Grammy and Grampy." Candace didn't know if this was intentional or a happy coincidence, but the baby clapped his hands together and made an attempt at a laugh when she mentioned his grandparents. "Oh, you love Grammy and Grampy, don't you? I know you do! They are going to be so happy to see you! Yes, they are!" It was the same silly baby-talk voice Candace had used when Amanda was tiny, and she was glad she had an excuse to use it again on the New Kid.
They had called him that for so long before his birth – before they had even known that he was a he – Candace still found herself mentally referring to him that way now and then. But, the New Kid had a name, and it wasn't Snoogy Oogums. It was Fred Xavier Petersen. When Candace and Ambrose had first agreed on this, she had hoped that when their son was old enough to decide for himself, he would want to be called by his middle name. But in the three months since his birth, she had changed her mind. The New Kid was Fred, and she hoped he would stay Fred. It just suited him.
It was late August and another summer was nearly over. This time next week, Amanda would be starting first grade. She really was growing up so fast, thought Candace, observing from the window over the sink as her daughter played in the backyard, enacting some epic princess adventure with her Darcie dolls. Candace had to give Ambrose credit – his New Year's Resolution to move the family to Meadowcrest had been a good decision. Their quaint brick cottage was one of the smaller houses in the quiet, refined old neighborhood, but the 1930s plan allowed for three bedrooms and a formal dining room. The yard was not nearly as big as the Flynn-Fletchers', and instead of one landmark shade tree, the back of the lot was lined with evergreens. But there was enough space for a swingset and a wading pool, and to Amanda, it was a vast kingdom.
Now Candace had Fred out of the bath and was wrapping him in a yellow hooded towel that made him look like a duck. Not Ducky Momo, exactly, but close enough, and she started crooning the old cartoon theme song to him as she dried him off. "Who's the happy time toy toy, for every girl and boy boy…"
"Trixie, no! Drop it!" Ambrose's voice carried from another room, in the sternest tone he could ever bear to use with the dog. Candace heard the scribble-scrabble of little canine toenails on the tile floor of the kitchen and looked over her shoulder to see the black and white tzudle come stumbling by at full speed, taking refuge under Fred's high chair. In her mouth she carried something more than half her size, and Ambrose was in hot pursuit of her. "Trixie's got the cat again," he informed his wife with exasperation.
Scooping up her bright yellow bundle of joy, Candace came to see what her husband was fretting about and recognized the powder blue toy held prisoner by courageous paws and teeth. "Oh, no, not Mister Snuggles!" she lamented. The soft stuffed kitty had been given to baby Fred by the Mayor, himself (as Ambrose never missed a chance to tell people), but Trixie had developed some savage fascination with it.
On hands and knees, Ambrose got a grip on the cat's leg and tugged at it. Trixie gave a brave, never-surrender growl and with a vigorous shake of her head clamped her jaws tighter on the toy. "Trixie! This is not tug of war!" Ambrose pulled at the toy and Trixie came sliding out from under the chair. "This is not tug of war!"
Fred was actually amused watching Daddy play with the Puppy, but Ambrose at last rescued Mister Snuggles and inspected the cat for injuries. Luckily, it was a quality toy and very well made. "I'd hate to see what she'd do to a real cat," Ambrose was chuckling now that the crisis was over.
"A real cat would beat her up," said Candace.
"Here you go, Freddo," Ambrose consoled his son, dancing the blue cat playfully toward him. Fred looked uneasily at the toy and warded it off with a hand. "It's all right," Daddy assured him. "Good as new."
Fred buried his face in Mommy's shoulder and made an unhappy noise, and Candace pointed out, "It probably smells like doggie breath. Don't worry, Snookums," she cooed to her son. "Mommy will get the smelly old kitty clean for her widdle man."
"I'll put him in the laundry," Ambrose sighed. "And you," he addressed Trixie in a voice more coddling than scolding, "can go outside and play with your sister until you're ready to behave."
Leaving her husband to carry out this sentence, Candace took her little Ducky Momo to his nursery to be diapered and dressed. His wardrobe of onesies could have clothed a whole cabbage patch full of infants, but with Grampy coming to see him, the costume choice was easy. By the time Ambrose joined them, Fred was sporting the official green and yellow team colors of the Sniffleton Nostrils.
Ambrose chuckled as he ruffled the little thatch of brown hair on his son's head. "Your dad's going to make a soccer fan out of him one way or another."
"I think you mean football enthusiast," Candace corrected him teasingly, combing Fred's hair back into place with her fingers. "Such a cutie patootie!" She hoisted the baby in her hands, lifting him high, then brought him down to her eye level and nuzzled his cheek, pretending to gobble up her little sugar pie with a "Numnumnumnum" that made him smile and coo.
"You ready to show Grammy and Gramps your new house, Fredmeister?" Ambrose took the tiny hand extended toward him and jiggled it playfully.
"We can't wait," Candace slid back into the baby talk voice. "No, we can't!" The baby talk was admittedly more deliberate than sincere when she added, as if on Fred's behalf, "We still want Uncle Ferb and Auntie Vanessa to come see us, too, though."
"I know, I know," Ambrose was at least making an effort not to grumble. "I'm not trying to keep them out. I just want the house to be presentable. Get everything fixed up first."
"It's presentable now," she insisted, in her normal voice. Candace knew perfectly well what the real problem was. Ambrose didn't mind hosting her parents, he wouldn't have cared if she'd invited Vanessa down from Ackerton for coffee. He just didn't want her stepbrother near the house because he had some crazy dread that Ferb wouldn't approve of the place and would be full of ideas on how to make it better. It was a stupid argument that she was getting tired of. "Seriously, I don't know why you still have this hangup about Ferb and the house. What do you think he's going to say?"
"It's not what he says," retorted Ambrose, "it's how he doesn't say it."
"Uuurgh," Candace vented her frustration. She knew the distaste was a two-way street; Ferb was always a model of proper manners around her husband, but she could tell that he was no fonder of Ambrose than Ambrose was of him. Honestly, they were two grown men! Why was it so hard for them to get along?
Mercifully, the current round of this debate was cut short by the sound of the back door slamming and Amanda and Trixie running through the house. "Grammy and Grampy are here!" their daughter called out. Candace hadn't even noticed the sound of her parents' car pulling up the drive.
Amanda had the front door open before they could get there, and Candace heard her Dad's voice addressing the child in a tone of polite surprise, "Well, hello there, Miss. Can you tell me if Amanda is at home?"
It was not the first time Candace had heard this exchange between them. Right on cue, the little girl laughed, "I'm Amanda, Grampy!"
The rest of the Petersens came into the living room in time for Lawrence's response. "I say! Why, so you are!" This prompted hugs and kisses as if they hadn't seen each other in years, even though they'd all been at the Flynn-Fletcher house just last Sunday. Next came a general crush of hugging and baby-passing as Grampy Lawrence exclaimed, "There's my favorite defensive midfielder!" and took possession of Fred. Grammy Linda was juggling a couple of food containers as she got her arms around the rest of them in turn, and Candace relieved her of her burden.
Once her hands were free, Linda went straight for the baby. "Come here, Cuddlebug," she said sweetly, and Lawrence wisely surrendered Fred to her.
"So," Grampy addressed Amanda again, "I suppose you'll tell me you're starting high school next week."
"Noooo," Amanda laughed. "First grade."
Linda asked, "Are you ready for your new school, honey?"
"Uh-huh! It's a magnet school," the first-grader informed them proudly. Candace still suspected her daughter was going to be surprised when the school wasn't filled with metal objects sticking to each other. "Gracie's going there, too. We're in the same class."
"Well, isn't that lucky," said Lawrence.
"I know." Ambrose replied to this with a grin. "What are the odds?"
Pretty good when you have friends at City Hall, thought Candace. Her husband had never admitted to it, but she was fairly certain that he'd been discussing the move at work and the Mayor had pulled some strings to keep the girls together. The odds of Amanda and her best friend both winning the lottery to attend Danville's most coveted elementary school were too high to make it a coincidence.
"Ready for the nickel tour?" Ambrose now invited, with a gesture that generally encompassed the whole cottage. "We've just moved in, of course; still some sprucing up to do."
"Not at all," Lawrence assured him graciously. "It's delightful."
"It's in the English style," Ambrose cited the realtor's description proudly.
"Is it really?" said Lawrence pleasantly. "Jolly good." He nodded with approval, but Candace could guess from the hint of puzzlement in his expression that this was an English style with which he was unfamiliar.
Amanda had been hovering at her mother's elbow, craning to see what was in the containers Candace was still holding. "Grammy, what did you bring us?" she asked eagerly.
"Doonkelberry pies," said Linda. "I made two because I know they're someone's favorite," she cast a teasing look in Ambrose's direction.
"Well, they are kind of addictive," he replied, with an awkward chuckle and a self-conscious blush. He'd become quite the doonkelberry fiend this year, Candace knew, although she'd have thought he'd be sick of the things, considering how much the Doonkenol power project dominated his work at City Hall. It was probably a good thing Mom had brought two, because Candace knew from experience that Ambrose would end up sneaking hunks of the pie to Trixie under the table.
Amanda was on tiptoe trying to see through the clear plastic lid of the top pie plate. "Are the little blue men coming?"
"What little blue men are those?" Lawrence asked, happily playing along. Candace could have told him, they were Amanda's newest imaginary friends she'd dreamt up from who knew where, sometime earlier this summer.
"They're little blue men who wear leaves and live in the ground. They eat lots and lots of doonkelberries," the girl explained. "They love doonkelberries. Nomnomnomnom," she pantomimed scarfing down piles of invisible fruit. "Are they coming for pie?"
She directed this question to her father, who chuckled and said, "Not today, Manda Panda." He gave Candace a wink.
"Should we save some for them?" Amanda asked him.
"Oh, I'll bet they have enough pie already," he assured her. "Here, honey," he reached out to take the pies from Candace and summoned Amanda, "Why don't you come help me with these?"
"Come on, Grampy," she reached for Lawrence's hand. "You can see our kitchen."
"You know," said Grampy as she led him from the room, "I think those little blue men of yours might be pygmy Ornithorincans."
"What are Ortho-reecans?" asked Amanda, as Candace and Linda watched them head through the dining room toward the kitchen. "Do they like doonkelberries?"
Candace and her mother exchanged a look of sympathetic amusement as Lawrence launched into an anthropoligical lecture, his voice fading as they walked away. "Little blue men?" Linda chuckled. She spoke to the baby, but cast a teasing, sidelong peek at Candace as she said, "Well, Fred, I think we know where your sister gets her imagination."
Candace gave a good humored roll of her eyes at this dig, but before she said anything, Fred began to fuss and squirm and reached out toward her. "Come here, sweet-patootie," Candace took him back from her mother and cuddled him soothingly. "I think someone's getting tired." She sat down in the rocking recliner and got the baby situated comfortably, crooning softly to him.
Linda took a seat on the sofa and smiled, watching her daughter and grandson. "You've really got this mom thing down," she said.
"I learned from the best," Candace smiled back at her. She cooed and hummed to her baby boy as he began to relax and let his eyelids droop.
Linda spoke quietly. "Are you still taking off the rest of the year?"
"Mm-hm," Candace answered, also keeping her voice down. "At least. Honestly, I'd love to stay home until Fred's about two. I've got the rest of my life to do TV news; I'd like to be a full-time Mom for a while."
"What does Ambrose think about that?"
"Oh, he's all for it. You know, Amanda wasn't three months old when I went back to school. I'm still a little sorry I didn't wait longer with her. Now I can have more time for her, too. And Ambrose says we'll be fine with me not working for a while. Actually," Candace confided, "I think he was a little unsure at first, with the new house and all. But then the Mayor gave him a big talk about how much his mother loved him and was always there for him, and how he wouldn't be where he is today without her. She passed away a couple of years ago," Candace explained of Mrs. Doofenshmirtz. "Apparently the Mayor says there's nothing more important to a boy than his mother's devotion." She looked at her dozing infant. "I think Ambrose is convinced we've got a future President here."
"Well, you know he'd have my vote," Fred's Grammy replied fondly.
"Yeah," Candace smiled. "Mine, too."
THE END
A/N – I've always loved the line from "It's No Picnic" about Ferb: "It's not what he says, it's how he doesn't say it," and I loved the excuse to use it here. And I hope you noticed the lines lifted from "Across the 2nd Dimension."
YOUR NEXT MISSION is to go read my story "Dinner Date." I didn't want to move it, but it really belongs next in this sequence, and it's important to next week's new installment.