Sabine walked into the nursery with the nest basket in her hand, the chick, now covered with the sweet, yellow, downy fuzz of pinfeathers, nestled inside, surrounded by blankets with a hot water bottle on the bottom of the basket. She held out the basket to the nursery teacher. "You have to take his baby."
"Hello, Sabine-san," the roe deer hybrid sang, "Today isn't your regular day."
The youngsters perked at the opening of the door, shouting, "Auntie Sabine, Auntie Sabine!"
The nursery teacher looked at the baby in the basket with a surprised look on her face , then back to the wolf-caribou.
"He's trying to kill me," Sabine said breathlessly.
The nursery teacher's smile disappeared as she stared at the basket in horror.
"He's never is quiet," Sabine continued, her voice shaky.
As if to punctuate her words, the chick cheeped, "Ichi! Ichi! Ichi!"
"He never sleeps. Sensei," she thrust the basket into the nursery teacher's arms. "I have to sleep. I haven't slept in 46 hours."
The roe deer gasped.
Without asking for an invitation, Sabine walked over to the reading nook and collapsed down with a heavy sigh onto the beanbag there. The beanbag squeaked under her weight, but its seams held true. An oryx-bear hybrid bounced up to her as she made herself comfortable. "Auntie Sabine," he said. "Read a story?"
"Are you going to take a nap?" she asked, opening her eyes half way.
"No!" the little boy announced, scandalized.
"Then go play," Sabine closed her eyes again, settling into the bean bag.
"I sleep Auntie Sabine," said a little anteater-camel hybrid.
Without opening her eyes, she reached out and took the toddler in her arms, hugging him to her like a stuffed animal and going limp.
The door to the nursery opened, and the attention of the nursery schoolers was brought to it, all of them singing, "Uncle Scaly!" at the old Komodo dragon that came in. His flannel shirt was rolled up at the sleeves to show muscled forearms, a pair of reading glasses dangled from a chain around his long neck. He laughed as he was inundated with hybrid children hugging at his long legs. Several of them held books in their little hands, waving them like banners to catch his attention.
"Ichi! Ichi, ichi, ichi!" The old komodo dragon looked over at the nursery teacher who held a nesting basket in her arms.
"A new pupil?" he asked in a jovial voice, smiling widely.
The roe deer shook her head. "Only for the day," she answered. "I think." She looked toward the reading corner of the nursery, her eyes resting on the wolf-caribou hybrid female that sprawled over a beanbag. She held a little boy in her arms, clutched to her ample chest tightly, who was also sleeping. A tiny lion-jeroba cub lay on the female's hip, a thin arm and leg dangling on each side of her amble curves.
"Oh my," the komodo dragon chuckled. "Mummy is sleep deprived?"
"Apparently, Gosha-san," the teacher said with a giggle. "I think she might be getting a little long in the tooth for this sort of thing."
Gosha raised an eye ridge. "We all know where babies come from."
The teacher laughed and shook her head. "This one is a shock egg," she explained. "Sabine has done it before, raised them and then found families for them. Except for one, that ended up being a hybrid. She kept her. She sent her and her sons here, and she came here when she was little, when my grandparents still ran the school."
Gosha looked back at the sleeping female, who was now depositing a stream of drool between the toddler's ears. She was built largely like a caribou, with strong arms and powerful thighs. She sported large, rounded antlers at the top of her head, flanked by ears that were too large and round to be canine and too pointed and skinny to be caribou. Her muzzle had the same issue, too round to be one species, but too skinny to be the other. Her fur was something between red and gold with black highlights scattered about, with a slight canine ruff at her neck, and a puffy, undeniably canine tail. She was a good looking female, and she's seemed vaguely familiar to him, though he couldn't place where he'd seen her before.
"Her brother came here, too, and his kids," the teacher went on. "She and her brother were instrumental in getting the hybrid marriage laws changed those years ago."
"Coronet Law?" Gosha asked, taking one of the two adult chairs in the room and putting it down in the middle of the room. "I remember that lawyer. He does a lot of pro bono work for hybrids."
"He is a hybrid," she laughed.
Gosha nodded in agreement, "I know." He took a book from one of the children and sat down. "She made some impressive speeches to the Diet, as I recall."
"The Coronet Law firm makes donations to the school to help keep us open. We also get one from her late husband's company." She looked fondly at the sleeping female. "Sabine and Samyueru have been good to us."
Gosha smiled, nodding. "This is a good place to be good to."
The nursery teacher herded the straggler children to the group, urging them to sit down. "And now you find her asleep in my school." She shook her head. "Strange how the world works."
Gosha sat down, opened the book and nodded his thin head once again. "Strange, indeed."