Author's Note: I forgot to mention at the end of the previous chapter that the part about Tommy and Dil going off to play in Boris and Minca's attic will be revisited at a point in DemonAloisTrancy's ongoing story, Tommy Pickles: The Terrible Twos, when she gets to that story within the story. However, it will play out very differently from how it played out within mine, even though both, what I did, and what she'll be doing, were my ideas. Just thought I'd cover that, in the event somebody were to check out my story after that story within DemonAloisTrancy's story is released, which at this time, there's no telling when that will be, as she hasn't released a new chapter in that story in a great while for various reasons, writer's block being amongst them. I meant to put this at the end of the last chapter, but with receiving that phone call while writing it, I guess, I got somewhat distracted and lost my train of thought. Also, before we begin this chapter, I should warn you that we're approaching some darkness ahead in the story, and possibly some out of characterization at points, just, as an F Y I. With that out of the way, let's move on to the next chapter of this story here.
Chapter 9, Tommy Snaps
Tommy was doing just fine up to this point, that is, until he was put into the backyard with all of his friends.
"Now you play out here with your little friends sweetie while I go put Dil down for his nap." Didi said, giving Tommy a kiss on the forehead and sending him out to the backyard.
Once she closed the door behind her and headed off to put Dil, who was still sleeping in her arms down in his crib upstairs for a nap, Tommy approached his friends who were all playing in the sandbox at this point.
"Hi guys." Tommy greeted, still standing outside of the ssandbox.
"Hi Tommy." Chuckie greeted back.
"We're digging wholes, wanna join us?" Lil asked.
Tommy thought about it for a minute, as the fatigue was really starting to settle in. Sure, under normal circumstances he'd enjoy playing in the sandbox, a fun, sit down activity, but with how he was feeling at the moment, he knew if he sat down for too long, he might be more likely to fall asleep, ruining an opportunity to play with his friends. Glancing around the yard, he spotted the Reptar wagon over near the back of the wall that made up the back of the garage, and got a brilliant idea of a new game to play.
"Come on you guys, let's go play with Reptar." Tommy said, running over to the Reptar wagon.
The other toddlers all got out of the sandbox and came over to where Tommy was, to see what he had in mind.
"You wanna go for a ride in the Reptar wagon Tommy?" Chuckie asked.
"No, I gots a new idea of something we can do with it. You know how Reptar is always knocking down buildings and stuff to save peoples from the aliums and stuff? Well, using the Reptar wagon as Reptar, and pretending the house is a giant city, we can play out that scene from Reptar 2010." Tommy suggested.
"I don't know Tommy, that doesn't sound like such a good idea. What if you break the wagon, or the house." Chuckie said.
"Come on Chuckie, we're just playing. We're not gonna hurt nothing, you'll see." Tommy said, grabbing on the string like handle on the front of the wagon, and rolling it towards the house.
"I don't know about this." Chuckie muttered, as he and all of the other toddlers stood back, watching Tommy take his turn with the wagon.
There he was, running the wagon into the house, making the front of the wagon, which was Reptar's face, jam into the wall. In Tommy's imagination, he saw Reptar knocking down buildings, trying to get into the city to save everybody from the aliens and giant cockroaches. However, while Tommy thought this was a fun game, from inside the house, it sounded like a great deal of noise to the adults. While the babies were out in the backyard playing distructive Reptar, Peter had returned with a suitcase full of his inventions he was planning to show Mister Mucklehoney at the dinner that evening.
"Peter! Great to see you back! So did you have to put together that suitcase?" Stu asked, leading Peter into the kitchen and placing the suitcase down near the door to the living room so they wouldn't forget it.
"No, Frollo had it all ready to go, but he got a call from Italy that he had to take, keeping him tied up." Peter said, taking a seat at the kitchen table where Didi was looking at one of her Lipschitz books and writing down some questions she might want to ask him at the questions and answers session post his seminar.
"Hi Didi, welcome home. How was the trip to your parents?" Peter asked.
Didi looked up from her book and smiled at him.
"Hello Peter, it was lovely! Though my father is a bit under the weather with that stomach flu that's been going around. I just hope Tommy and Dil didn't catch it." Didi said.
"Oh Didi, I wouldn't worry. I'm sure they'll be just…" Before Peter could finish his sentence, a loud crash from outside startled him.
"What was that?" Peter asked.
"What?" Stu asked.
Just then the noise sounded again.
"Oh my gosh! It sounds like something is hitting into the house! I'll just go outside and have a look. You two stay here." Stu said, heading out into the backyard where he saw Tommy running the Reptar wagon into the house.
"Tommy! What are you doing!" Stu said, coming up to his son and taking the Reptar wagon away from him.
"Tommy, we do not run our ride in toys into the house." Stu said, looking at where he had run the Reptar into the house to see a dent in the wall.
"And now, we have another wall to fix. I'm sorry, but Reptar is going to time out. You can have him back later." Stu said, taking the Reptar wagon out of the yard and unknown to the toddlers at this point, around the side of the house and into the garage.
Tired and upset by this course of actions, Tommy slumped down in the grass and started to cry. Out in the garage, Stu put the Reptar wagon into a corner, but forgot to close the garage door when heading back inside.
"What was all of the noise?" Didi asked upon seeing Stu return to the kitchen table.
"Tommy, running the Reptar wagon into the house. I put it in time out in the garage, to teach him that we do not play with our toys in that matter." Stu said.
"Well, Lipschitz does say that as parents, we do need to set limits, and someone Tommy's age is very tended to challenge these limits. If he or she does things that the parents don't approve of, he or she should face the consiquences." Didi read aloud from her Two-Year-Old Terrors Lipschitz book that she was looking through at that very moment, seeing that was going to be the subject of the seminar.
"Look, Peter and I have to get things ready for our business dinner tonight." Stu said, getting up from the table, Peter following behind him where they headed down to the basement to get together things Stu wanted to take to the dinner.
Outside, Zack approached Tommy.
"Come on Tommy, are you going to sit there and cry, or are you going to do something about this? I mean, you said it yourself, you were only playing. Your daddy shouldn't have taken Reptar away like that. If I were you, I'd be going and saving Reptar." Zack said.
Tommy wiped the tears away from his eyes and stared at his friend.
"You're right, sitting here crying doesn't fix nothing. I'm gonna save Reptar if it's the lastest thing I never do, cuz taking Reptar away from me was just, not, fair!" Tommy said, standing up and glancing around the yard.
He saw which direction his daddy took the Reptar wagon, and headed that way, though not without Chuckie coming towards him. It then hit him that his daddy must have taken it out of the yard via the gate that would lead him to the driveway in front. Tommy made a run for the gate, but Chuckie snuck past him and blocked his path.
"Come on Chuckie, I need to open the gate so we can rescue Reptar." Tommy said.
"Tommy, no. You know why Reptar was taken away. He was taken from you. I told you that playing with the wagon in that fashion wasn't such a good idea, but you didn't listen." Chuckie said.
"And you're gonna tell me that saving him isn't such a good idea neither. Like every other time you've turned my ideas down." Tommy said angrily, not up for this.
By this time, he was not only tired and angry, but a headache was coming on, and the urge to teethe, as he was getting more teeth. The combination of all of this made Tommy do the unthinkable at that moment. He reached in, and bit Chuckie's right arm.
"Outch!" Chuckie cried, bursting into tears and running off towards the house.
Jesse, Phil, Lil, Zack and Kimi all gasp as they were standing behind Tommy and saw the whole thing.
"I'm surprised at you Tommy." Kimi said.
The others nodded their heads in agreement.
"I'm going to save Reptar, anyone who don't think my idea's a bad one is welcome to come along." Tommy said.
Everyone left in the yard shook their heads no.
"All right then, looks like I'll be saving Reptar all by myself." Tommy said, putting a raddle he had in his pocket up around the lock of the gate to undo it, just like in the Destination, Moon episode, and heading out of the backyard.
Tommy headed around the side of the house and into the front yard, where he found the garage open. He went inside the garage, which in his imagination, was a cave, and in his imagination, he spotted Reptar behind a huge bolder, which in reality, he was on the opposite side of the car parked in the garage.
"Don't worry Reptar, I'll save you." Tommy said, running for the Reptar wagon, but with where it was placed, he had a hard time pulling it out all by himself.
He then pulled really hard on the handle, until he got the wagon to move, causing it to knock into several boxes, which fell over. Hearing the loud crash from inside alerted Didi to come out to the garage and see what was going on.
"Tommy? How did you get out here? And sorry, but your Reptar wagon is still timed out." Didi said, picking up Tommy, who started yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I think you need to go to your room for a while." Didi said, carrying the screaming purple haired two-year-old toddler inside, through the kitchen and up the stairs to his room.
Not realizing that Dil was still taking a nap, Tommy's screaming woke his brother, who also started crying. Didi put Tommy down on his bed, then went over to Dil's crib, where she picked him up and comforted him.
"Come on sweetie, your brother needs to have a time out." Didi said, carrying her youngest son downstairs, just as Stu and Peter came up from the basement.
Didi closed the bedroom door behind her to Tommy and Dil's room, and at this point, Tommy stopped crying, when he slumped back against his pillows on his bed, and glanced over to his left to find his stuffed Reptar doll sitting nearby on the bed. He picked it up and stared down into Reptar's face, feeling just awful.
"Oh no Reptar, what have I done? I tried to save you, and mommy stopped me. And as for getting you trapped in the firstest place, I didn't mean to, I was only playing. I'm so sorry. And worstest of all, I hurted Chuckie. Oh why can't I get back to normen? Why do I stay up all night? Cuz I wanna be a growed up and watch Nigel Strawberry on TV. Well if being a growed up means mommy and daddy take my stuff away when I'm only playing, then, I'd rather be a baby-baby. Yeah, before I turndid two, they might get mad, but except for Henry and some lipstick, they never tooked stuff away from me." Tommy said to his toy, as he started to cry again, feeling just awful about everything that had happened as of late.
Worst of all, as he lay there, crying his eyes out over all of the pain and frustration he felt as of late, he ended up crying himself to sleep.
Meanwhile, back downstairs, when Stu and Peter came up from the basement, they heard Chuckie crying outside. Peter went out back to see what was going on. He found Chuckie covering the spot on his arm where Tommy bit him. Worried, he went over to him to see what was wrong.
"Chuckie, what's the matter?" Peter asked.
Chuckie slowly removed his hand from the bite and showed it to Peter.
"T't'Tommy, bi'bi'bit, m'm'me." Chuckie stuttered in between his tears.
Peter stood there in shock. He couldn't believe that Tommy would do such a thing.
"Are you serious Chuckie?" Peter asked.
"Uh huh. He bit my arm when I tried to stop him from leaving the yard to go rescue the Reptar wagon." Chuckie said.
Peter went around to the side of the yard to see the gate that Tommy had opened, and latched it shut.
"Gosh! Tommy sure has been getting stubborn lately hasn't he." Peter said.
"I'll say, ever since he slept over at Zack's place, he's turndid into a different person, and while I was worried, right now, I'm worried and ascared." Chuckie said.
"Well, I think you and Tommy just, need a break for the rest of the day. First though, let's head inside and treat the wound before it becomes infected." Peter said, leading Chuckie into the house, where he saw to applying some medicine and a bandage to the three-year-old's bite.
Tired of playing outside, Kimi, Jesse, Zack, Phil and Lil also came inside as well, and Didi placed them into the playpen along with Dil. Nobody felt like talking much, as everybody played separately and quietly with different toys. No sooner had she put the toddlers down in the playpen, when the doorbell rang. Didi went to answer the door to find Kira and Celeste standing there.
"My, you guys are early." Didi said, letting them into the house.
"Chas and Betty asked me to come pick up Chuckie, Kimi, Phil and Lil early, and take them back to the Java Lava with me, where they're seeing to closing up for the night. Chas is going to the Lipschitz seminar, and Betty is having a friend of her's over for dinner." Kira said.
"And I was off work early so wanted to spend some extra time with my nephew, and, I spoke with Laura on the phone earlier, agreeing to let Jesse stay at my place until she got off around supper time." Celeste said.
"Well, there's another hour until I have to leave for the seminar, mind coming in for a few minutes? I've been meaning to talk to you." Didi said.
"Not at all." Celeste and Kira both said, following Didi into the kitchen where they all took a seat at the table.
"So, how are things?" Celeste asked.
"Well, I'm concerned about Tommy. He hasn't been himself since he slept over at your place with Zack. I'm especially worried that he's not getting enough sleep." Didi said.
"Oh I wouldn't worry about it. Zack and I fall asleep whenever we're ready to do so, and he does just fine." Celeste said.
"So that's it. You don't have Zack on any type of nighttime routine?" Didi asked.
"Well, no. You should know Didi that I'm quite new at being his guardian, and I just, want my nephew to be happy." Celeste replied.
"Well, I should point out that according to Lipschitz, children between the ages of birth to five do better if they have routines set in place. Spoil those routines, and you're only asking for troublesome children who may grow fussy, aggressive, and difficult to control when they need to follow set routines, like when they start going to school." Didi said.
"Yes, Chas and I make sure Chuckie and Kimi have a set bedtime schedule every night." Kira added.
"I see." Celeste said.
"You know, Lipschitz is giving a talk at the public library tonight that's free and open to the public. I'm planning to attend. Perhaps you ought to attend too. It might be beneficial and educational." Didi suggested.
"Well, I am fairly new to this whole parenting thing, it couldn't hurt. But what about Zack and Jesse?" Celeste asked.
"The kids are all welcome to stay here. Stu has some place to go this evening, but he told me he gave Taffy and Pop a call earlier." Didi said.
"I wasn't planning to go, but I might go with Chas then." Kira said, just as the phone rang.
Didi got up from her place at the table to go answer it.
"Pickles' residence." Didi said into the phone.
"Hi Mrs. Pickles, it's me, Taffy. Stu called me while I was in school, leaving a voicemail on my cell, asking if I could babysit." Taffy said into the phone.
"Great! When will you be getting here?" Didi asked.
"That's why I'm calling. Look, I'd love to babysit the minis tonight, but I have a huge test in my history class tomorrow, and I'm not doing too well in that subject. Progress reports will be coming out soon, and if I don't pass this test, my parents say I can't go to anymore gigs with my band for the rest of the quarter. I'd rather be watching the minis, but I unfortunately, have to stay home and study." Taffy said with disappointment.
"Well, I'm sorry you can't make it, but good luck with the studying, and we'll catch you the next time around." Didi said.
"Thank you so much, and tell the minis hi for me." Taffy replied.
"I sure will." Didi said, about ready to disconnect the call when she got a call waiting beep.
She clicked over to the other call.
"Pickle's residence." Didi said.
"It is me." Lou said into the phone.
"Oh hi pop, I take it you're returning Stu's call." Didi said.
"Yes, once I finally figured out how to check messages on this dag nabbid voicemail contraption. Took me fifteen minutes just to figure out how to listen to a message on this thing. Anyway, the reason why we weren't home is because I had to take Lulu to the doctor's this morning. We waited for fifteen minutes to see the doctor, as Lulu's throat has been bothering her. The poor thing has Strep, and she hasn't been on the medicine for twenty-four hours yet. We don't wish to expose the sprouts to the virus." Lou said.
"Gosh, I'm very sorry. Hope Lulu feels better." Didi said.
"Thank you. Well, bye." Lou said, followed by a click.
Didi hung up the phone and sighed.
"Something wrong Deed?" Stu asked, getting a glass of water and sitting back down at the table.
"Well, Taffy and Pop returned our phone calls. Taffy can't babysit because she has a huge test in school for her history class tomorrow that she needs to study for, and pop can't babysit because Lulu has Strep and he's been exposed to it." Didi said.
"Well, I'll take the kids." Kira said.
"I'm not so sure about that. Chuckie was bitten by Tommy today." Peter said.
"What?" Stu and Didi asked with surprise.
"Yes. It's obvious that something is going on with Tommy." Peter said.
"Guess we'll have to take the boys to dinner. It's not like I haven't done it before. Tommy went to my last meeting with Mr. Mucklehoney." Stu said.
"What about leaving them with Betty and Howard Deville?" Celeste asked.
"Betty is having company for dinner tonight. Some friend of her's named Lolanna. I wouldn't feel right with us imposing on their guests." Kira said.
"You're right." Celeste said.
"I'd be happy to watch Zack, even let him sleep over with Chuckie and Kimi tonight. And I'll let Laura know to pick up Jesse at my place. It's not like I was all that interested in going to the seminar anyway, since Chas was already going." Kira said.
"And Didi's right, I could benefit from going. Okay, it's settled then." Celeste said.
"Great! Well, the seminar starts in half an hour. We probably ought to get going so we can get a good parking space and a good seat inside." Didi said, standing up from the table.
"We need to leave soon too." Stu said.
"Tell you what, you go get Dil ready, and I'll help get Tommy ready." Peter said, the two men getting up from the table.
A short while later, Kira had all of the kids rounded up and saw to leaving, while Celeste and Didi got ready to go.
"Kira, we pass by your place on the way to the library, want me to drop off a bag of Zack's things on your front porch?" Celeste asked.
"Sure, go right ahead." Kira said.
Didi and Celeste went to leave for the seminar, while Stu and Peter went to get Dil and Tommy ready to go to the business dinner. Stu approached the playpen and picked up his youngest son.
"Come on Dil, time to get ready to go." Stu said, carrying his son upstairs, Peter following behind him.
Meanwhile, during all of this, when Tommy fell asleep, he had a dream where he was inside a giant cage, trying to pull Reptar out by tying a rope around his waste and drag him out.
"Don't worry Reptar, I'll save you." Tommy said, just as a Police officer came up to the two-year-old.
"Put the rope down and put your hands in the air." The cop called.
Tommy did what he was instructed to do, but not looking all that amused.
"No!" Tommy cried.
"I'm sorry young man, but Reptar is in trouble for destroying the city. He's in Jail for life. Now, it's your turn." The officer said, shoving Tommy into the prison cell with Reptar and closing the gate.
"No! Reptar's a hero! Please! Let us out!" Tommy cried, but it was no use.
The guards left, nobody hearing him. While Tommy looked for a way out, he heard an all-too familiar voice in the distance.
"Tommy!" Peter's voice called in the distance.
"Peter!" Tommy called.
"Tommy!" Peter's voice called again, but Tommy looked around, unable to spot him anywhere.
At that moment, Tommy opened his eyes, finding himself back in his bed, tears streaked on his cheeks and pillow, glaring up at Peter who stood over him.
Upon entering the bedroom, noticing that Tommy was still asleep, Stu got out some nice clothes for Dil to change into, and took him back to his room to get him changed, while Peter saw to waking up Tommy and doing the same.
"Come on Tommy, time to wake up and get dressed." Peter said.
"What's going on? Where are we going?" Tommy asked.
"You and Dil are going with me and your father to our dinner tonight." Peter said.
"Nah, that's where you're wrong. I'm sure Taffy or my grandpa will come watch me and Dilly." Tommy said.
"Nope, nobody can babysit you two tonight." Peter said.
"Then why don't I stay at Chuckie's then. I need to talk to him anyways." Tommy said, sitting up in bed and tossing his Reptar doll he was still hugging aside.
"Uh, I think you and Chuckie need a break tonight. Tommy what were you thinking! Chuckie's your best friend. Why did you bite him?" Peter asked.
"I was mad. Chuckie tried to stop me from rescuing Reptar, and I'm sick and tired of him trying to stop me." Tommy said.
"Well that's no reason to bite anybody." Peter said sternly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." Tommy said.
"Don't apologize to me, you can apologize to Chuckie the next time you see him, granted, he's not scared to death to go near you." Peter said.
Tommy gasp, about ready to start crying again, as a tear rolled silently down his cheek.
"Come on, it's time to get ready to go." Peter said.
"I'm not going!" Tommy snapped.
"Tommy, you don't have a choice. You have to go." Peter said.
"No! I'm two-years-old, I'm nearly all growed up, I don't gotta go nowhere with you, daddy and Dilly." Tommy said.
"Tommy, you may think you're growed up, but you're far from it. You're only two, and you can't stay here by yourself." Peter said.
"Sure I can. Besides, I wanna go back to sleep, wake up after the sun goes down and watch Nigel Strawberry." Tommy said.
It then hit Peter what was going on. Why Tommy had been acting so strange.
"Tommy, did you see Nigel Thornberry on TV very late at night at Zack's place?" Peter asked.
"Yeah how did you know I saw him?" Tommy asked.
"Oh, just a lucky guess. Anyway, you need to get dressed and ready for us to go." Peter said, grabbing Tommy's hand and standing up from the bed.
"No!" Tommy screamed, throwing himself down on to the carpet like a typical two-year-old.
"Tommy, you can't go in those clothes, this is a formal business dinner." Peter said.
At that moment, Stu returned to the room with Dil, all dressed in his very best. He was wearing a black tuxedo with a red clip on tie with Goober on it and some black dress shoes, while Stu was in his regular attire, minus his shoes and socks.
"Wow! Dil looks nice. Now, to get Tommy dressed so we can leave. And Stu, your shoes and socks are missing." Peter said.
"I know. I'm off to look for the socks I wanted to wear tonight." Stu said, as he left the room to go look for them.
Just then, Dil giggled and smiled, pulling the socks out of his pants pockets, and crawling off to the bathroom, where he found the toilet seat up. Meanwhile, Peter looked through the closet to see what he could find for Tommy to wear that might excite him about getting dressed to go to the restaurant.
Suddenly, he saw it! A black tuxedo identical to Dil's, only it was in Tommy's size, and the blue clip on neck tie with Reptar on it that Peter had given Tommy for his second birthday.
"Hey Tommy, it's a tuxedo that looks just like your brother's, and the Reptar tie you got for your birthday. You've been wanting to wear this. Come on, you'll look great." Peter said, showing the tuxedo to Tommy.
While he really wasn't up to going anywhere, as he had a headache, still felt tired, and upset, getting to wear the Reptar tie did cheer him up a little, so he let out a small smile and let Peter get him dressed in the tuxedo, black dress shoes, and Reptar tie. No sooner did Peter have him in a fresh diaper and in his clothes for dinner, when they heard Stu shout from the bathroom.
"Dil no!" Stu shouted from the bathroom.
And this, ends chapter 9. What's going on? And how will the business dinner go? Find out, come the next chapter!
Author's Note: The part where Tommy runs his Reptar wagon into the house, getting it timed out, was inspired by my nephew, who use to play with his ride on toys in the kitchen at my folks place, running them into the appliances on purpose. I'm not quite sure what his motive was, but because of doing that, he's now banned from playing with those things in the kitchen, and while I couldn't figure out my nephew's motive, I thought about how Reptar knocks down buildings, and this inspiring Tommy to do something similar, wanting to do something different. I also thought it might be interesting to have him talk to his Reptar doll, like how Angelica talks to Cynthia, though I sort of had writer's block on that bit of dialogue, I hope it came out okay. Also, the part where Tommy bites Chuckie was also inspired by real life, though in real life, it was my nephew who got bitten by another kid at daycare, not Zack doing the biting thankfully. Also, the line where Stu mentioned how Tommy went with him to his last meeting with Mr. Mucklehoney was a reference to the season 1 Rugrats episode, Waiter, there's a Baby in my Soup, and the lady, Lolana who's coming over for dinner at Betty and Howard's place is the same lady from the Acorn Nuts and Diapied Butts special, the first woman that Betty tried to set up Chas with on a date. No wonder he and Kira don't feel comfortable with his kids going over there. Still though, I hope the chapter came out okay, and I assure you all, there's plenty more to come, which I hope to get released, very soon.
