Year One: April


His mouth felt funny. Where earlier, there had been nothing but softness, now there were little bumps. It was very uncomfortable. The ladies seemed to be very excited though. They kept looking at him; smiling and cooing. It was terrible. One of them even tried to put a finger in his mouth. His little body shuddered.

One day, they gave him what seemed to be a rubber key. His could grasp things by now, so he held it in his hand, but what on earth was he supposed to do with it? He'd seen similar devices being used by the caretakers, but they were much smaller.

He brought the key up to his face and inspected it. This seemed to excite the ladies gathered around him even more. He let out something of a growl – at least that was what he intended to do – but it came out as an unpleasant high-pitched sort of sound. Tom didn't like it one bit. He mustered all the strength he had and threw the object in his hand at the person nearest to him. It hit the nose of the lady who had her face shoved against the cradle bars (this wasn't the lady who took him to the nice place, he noticed), and bounced back. The lady looked miffed. Tom giggled. There was at least one use for this object.