Chapter 6
The Child Advocacy Center
The Professor was horrified.
"A rape kit?!" The man nearly shouted, wanting to go to the nearest trash can so that he could throw up.
Hannah-Barbera gave him a truly regretful and apologetic look for this. "Unfortunately, that's what the doctor has ordered."
"But you can't do this!" Absolutely not! "I've been willing to cooperate with everything else but Bubbles is too young for something like that! Do you hear me? She'll be nothing but traumatized from something like that and I will NOT allow it! What kind of five-year-old child has a rape kit done on-?!"
"Professor." The woman sadly interrupted. "Unfortunately for us, what we've learned on this job is that there's no such thing as too young. We've had children as young as infants that have needed to be tested with rape kits. It's sickening and appalling, but it does need to be done when there's a reasonable enough concern for foul play to be suspected."
The Professor felt like throwing up. He even put a hand over his mouth, nearly retching on the spot. How sick were people in the world really? How far could the depths of insanity and depravity go for the human animal?
He wasn't sure before but now it was official. The Professor never even wanted to touch the field of social work or child protection in any foreseeable future of his. He could imagine his heart just breaking again and again. One could only imagine the kinds of things these people needed to see on a daily basis. Things that would probably leave a normal man practically shattered.
As the man clutched his head and shook it with despair, Ms. Hannah-Barbera tried to make the pill less bitter to swallow.
"What we're doing won't be invasive. She'll have her skin examined under a fluorescent light for stains like semen, a sample of her saliva taken from inside her mouth, her clothes collected and sealed in a bag for evidence-taking, and then she'll get a couple of swabs taken in her upper and lower gums before moving on to... down there. Barely even the tip of the cotton swab will have to go inside. If we're lucky, she won't even remember having to go through this when she's older."
Lucky, huh? What about this situation made one think of 'luck' at all? This was nothing but absolute horror. A nightmare, that's what it was.
"Will she... have somebody else there?"
"Of course. And the nurse is very good at soothing children when they have to go through this type of exam."
Suddenly a woman of color entered into the scene. A woman that went by the name Mrs. Green. She sported soft cornrows in her head.
"Make no mistake Professor, no one is going to take Bubbles by her arms and her legs and force her down for this exam. We're not going to cause her any amount of undue stress and duress. We're not going to use a speculum on her or any other crazy instrument like that. That's actually not even recommended for use on small, prepubescent children unless it's a VERY special circumstance and the child is ABSOLUTELY under sedation beforehand. We're going to make sure your daughter is safe and comfortable throughout the entire exam. We'll take it slow, go step by step, even take a few breaks if we have to, and if Bubbles does start to get a little worked up, we might consider giving her a mild sedative to help her relax. But we will not FORCE or BULLY her into doing anything. You have my word on that, Mr. Utonium."
Oh thank god for that. Thank god.
The Professor performed a deep bow, grateful for this level of sensitivity and care being applied to his daughter. "Thank you so much. I mean that from the bottom of my heart." This time he made no effort to hide his tears, wiping them as they flowed freely onto his cheeks.
"No child should have to go through a rape examination. This is just so...! So...!"
"I know, Professor." Ms. Green put a supportive hand on his shoulder. "No parent wants to have their child go through a rape examination like this either. It's the worst type of examination they could ever have and I know how crushing this must feel for you now. But I can assure you right now, you've done nothing wrong as a father and we're only doing this so we can make sure Bubbles is safe."
"I guess I don't have a choice then. I just hope she'll be alright..." But god, a rape kit?! He sorely doubted it.
It was a bit of chilly night when Buttercup and Blossom were taken out of the hospital they were now leaving their sister in and going with the social worker and the child protection officer Chuck to this so-called "child advocacy center".
They still weren't too sure about these people's intentions and once they made it to the white squad car, the two children hesitated about taking that next step and going in. Even though this car looked nothing like Hardly's that fateful day he rode up on the girls in his red muscle car, it still brought up some pretty bad memories of how they had been coerced into getting inside...
An unfamiliar vehicle pulled up to the girls in front of the Pokey Oaks Kindergarten building. It wasn't the Professor here to pick them up from school like he usually did. Instead it was a stranger with slicked back blonde hair, clear shades, and a white lab coat.
"Hey girls! Come here for a sec, I wanna talk to ya!"
Blossom placed her hands on her hips. "We're not allowed to talk to strangers!"
Dick Hardly smiled... an ugly, sleazy smile. "Stranger? I'm no stranger! I'm the Professor's buddy, remember?"
Blossom, like an idiot, had trusted these slick words from the lying Professor Dick Hardly and smiled with relief and proper recognition. "Oh yeah, you're Professor Dick! Cool car!"
"Thanks!" The man said. "You want a ride home?"
Those memories made the Girls much more wary about entering someone else's car, even if the Professor had actually given them his permission this time, something he hadn't done with Dick. In fact, he probably had no idea that his "old college buddy" Dick had pulled a stunt like that on his kids.
The girls hadn't really been any better in that instance, since they had gone behind the Professor's back...
"Come on, girls," Ms. Barbera said gently. "You don't have anything to worry about. Everything is going to be alright."
She held her hand out invitingly to them, even crouching down to them for good measure but the two Puffs clung to one another and backed away instead.
"We're not supposed to go in other people's car!" Buttercup voiced loudly, warily.
"Yeah! It's dangerous!" Blossom said.
Chuck crouched down to their level too, talking to them with understanding. "You're absolutely right, Girls. Under any other circumstance, it wouldn't be safe at all to get into a car with a stranger. The stranger could be a bad guy and they might want to hurt you. But you can rest assured that me and Ms. Barbera are definitely the good guys and we only want to help you. Will you allow us to help you now?"
They knew they had to phrase it like a request, not only because the girls had superpowers and could possibly turn violent or try to flee if they felt threatened, but also because it put more control in the children's hands.
Blossom and Buttercup took a moment where they looked at each other, both of them still holding on to one another before Buttercup finally poked her tongue out of her mouth to run it over her lips and then told her sister, "Come on, Bloss."
They were clearly still guarded though and stuck to one another like glue as they were both gently put into the back seat of the cop car and buckled in, the officer and the social worker giving them a reassuring expression before moving up to take their seats in the front.
Hannah-Barbera was in the front passenger side and Officer Jones was the main driver, the car taking only a moment to sputter to life before it was put into reverse and backed up out of the hospital's parking lot.
Blossom and Buttercup held hands with each other as this happened, preparing themselves for the best or the worst.
The further car traveled away from the hospital, the more defensive and angry the children found themselves getting.
"So where are you really taking us?" Blossom asked suspiciously from the backseat at a certain point.
"Yeah, what's the deal?" Buttercup coincided from beside her.
"You're going exactly where we said." Ms. Barbera said gently, smiling at them from the rearview mirror. She allowed herself to laugh at their suspicions. "Do you girls think you're being kidnapped?"
"Well! ... I don't know." Blossom admitted. "We've got a lot of enemies."
"I can understand that." Officer Jones, the current driver of the vehicle said to the children reasonably. "But you girls don't have anything to worry about it. We're not in the business of kidnapping kids."
"Well, you better not be!" Buttercup threatened anyway. "Because we'll kick both your butts if you are!"
The last thing she expected from her words was yet another sound of merriment, which Buttercup scowled at, but it didn't sound like she was being mocked. Rather, it was just an expression of genuine amusement.
"I'm sure you would, sweetie. You don't have to worry about that."
Buttercup and Blossom's guarded behavior dropped slightly at this and they began calming down. They shared a softening look. Maybe these people weren't so bad after all.
"So," Chuck spoke up now. "Since we're already on the road, are any of you girls hungry? We can stop at a Taco Bell or a McDonalds if you want."
The two girls made a silent assessment with each other again about their feelings on that and eventually it was decided between them that they were feeling much too nervous to really be able to stomach anything right now. Blossom was the one who ended up voicing this out loud.
"No thanks." The pink Puff now said politely. "We're not really hungry."
"Ok, kids."
There was now a more peaceful silence. The car ride went on in thoughtfulness instead of guarded tension. Blossom finally decided to make idle conversation instead of aggressive interrogation.
"So... what is this child advocacy center like?" She asked curiously.
"Yeah," Buttercup said. "What's all in it?"
"Oh, you're gonna love this building, girls." The officer assured him. "Kids go in there to talk with some very nice people about a whole variety of things and there's lots of things for them to play with in the waiting room, and there's toys and pictures and snacks. Everything's really colorful and child-friendly. It's got a nice comfy couch for you to sit on if you're feeling tired and there's some nice colorful little tables and chairs like the ones you probably have at school. There are books to read... everything. It's not scary at all."
That definitely sounded a lot better than what they had been picturing inside of their heads.
The kids looked at each other again. That didn't sound like some scary interrogation room with a single bright light hanging overhead like the girls had always pictured from the movies. It didn't sound like some place of punishment or confinement. Instead it sounded... relaxing. Casual. Something that a kid might feel pretty comfortable in.
They started to calm down even further, though they weren't ready to fully do so until they could see the reality of these words for themselves.
"So who's gonna be doing the interview with us?" Buttercup questioned further.
"Well, one of you will doing an interview with me," Chuck said kindly, "And the other will be doing an interview with another trained interviewer for children. She's a woman. A nice woman. Works with plenty of kids, just like you. Her name is Carly."
"Carly." Buttercup let the name roll off her tongue. That didn't sound too bad. At least it wasn't some lame alias like "Ima Goodlady" that telegraphed a façade of niceness way too blatantly.
"Are we going to get a grade by the end of it?" Blossom asked, feeling like this might be a pass or fail kind of thing.
Ms. Barbera quickly assured her otherwise. "No sweetie, you won't be graded. There is no right or wrong way to do this interview and you don't have to worry about saying the "right" things. Only the accurate things, okay?"
"Okay." Sounded simple enough.
Another lengthy period of silence of followed. All before the green Puff started talking to her sister lowly again.
"Blossom." Buttercup whispered to her.
Blossom leaned in closer to hear her better, trying not to take off her seatbelt so she could comply with the safety laws.
"Did you catch the Professor crying? When he thought we weren't looking?"
"Yeah." Blossom whispered back sadly. "I did."
The sisters reached for each other's hands at this, offering each other silent physical comfort. They leaned in further and rested their heads gently against each other.
"I sure hope he'll be okay."
"Yeah, me too."
The building didn't look too bad from the outside when they finally arrived. It was a quaint little brickhouse with the words "Children's Advocacy Center" printed in a pretty large black font on top of the clinic. The girls saw an illustration of two tall stick figures holding hands, presumably adults, with a small stick figure in the middle of them, presumably a child. One of the windows had a rainbow painted across it with hearts in the colors of pink, orange, yellow, green, and blue.
It looked... nice. The doors they had to go through were made of glass and automatic and Ms. Barbera had to scan her personal ID first that she wore around her neck on a lanyard.
The adults took the kids by the hand as they led them into the main lounging area and the girls gasped at the inviting nature of the room. It was exactly how it had been described. There were little chairs and tables, a shelf for picture books, illustrations painted over the walls that reminded the girls of the things that the kids in Pokey Oaks Kindergarten drew and hung over the yellow cream walls, and a very beautiful "handprint" art tree in particular that caught their fancy. All of the "leaves" of the tree were made out of all those little handprints and it looked like something Bubbles would've loved if she could be here.
"Well, here we are." The officer smiled at the kid's awe, seeing that they were no longer wary or scared of what they were seeing.
"Wow!"
"See? It's not scary."
They weren't even the only kids here. There was a little boy playing with a choo-choo train on the puzzle piece carpet and he took a moment to pause in his play to wave at the girls. The girls shyly waved back, flashing him a friendly smile.
"So what can we get into first?" Buttercup asked.
"Anything you want, sweetie. This is your playroom. Kids can do whatever they like in here while they wait."
And so the first place they flew off to streaks of pink and green was a corner in the room where an orange couch and a shelf for books were. Buttercup decided to work on a Jenga set and Blossom picked up an incomplete Rubik's cube.
"Comfortable?" Ms. Barbera asked.
"Yes." The children chorused truthfully... for the most part.
"So where are you going to go, Ms. Barbera?" Buttercup wondered.
"I'm going to go back to the hospital so that I can have a little chat with your sister. We're going to get to know each other better and then we'll have a nice friendly conversation that won't be threatening or scary at all so I can make sure she's doing well. Does that sound good?"
"Yes." The girls said in unison again.
"Alright, I'll leave you two ladies to it then." The woman got up to make her exit, leaving the kids in the trusted care of her partner, Officer Jones.
"Good luck, Hannah." Chuck called out to her before she went out the front doors.
"Any of you girls want a snack or some juice whiele we take some time to get things set up?"
"No-" Buttercup began to say, but then Blossom gave her a bit of a nudge and said in blatant contradiction to this, "Actually yeah, I think we can have a little something."
"Wha-" Blossom gave her a look that was basically saying "Go along with it" to her sister and it didn't take long for Buttercup to understand and agree to play along.
"Oh uh yeah, I think we can have a little bite to eat." This was a distraction and diversion tactic. Buttercup could figure it out without Blossom telling her.
"What would you like?"
"Maybe some cookies?" Blossom requested.
"Yeah, and a glass of milk!"
Just like what the Mayor would give them back at his office in City Hall...
"Consider it done." Chuck said, and by the time he finally disappeared into the main kitchen area of the advocacy center, Buttercup's full attention was on her sister.
"Buttercup," Blossom began to talk quietly again as she sat on the floor of the playroom and started turning different sides of the Rubik's cube to manipulate. "I don't want the Professor to have to go to jail again."
Buttercup knew exactly what she meant. Way back when they had been first created, the Professor had been briefly arrested for the manufacturing of superpowered children, especially after the girls had caused so much property damage to the city playing tag with their powers.
They knew they couldn't afford to make that same kind of mistake again.
"Me neither." Buttercup whispered back.
Blossom started to tear up as she thought about her own guilt in that situation. "I don't want to be the reason he has to g-go back to jail again either..."
Buttercup was shocked to see her tears and immediately stood up on top of her knees to give Blossom a hug, something she didn't usually go out of her way to do.
"Blossom, that was my fault back then, okay? Not yours. I'm the one who pushed Bubbles into that school and I'm the one who got the Professor locked up for smashing up the city. I messed up real bad back then but I'm not gonna do it again. I know how serious this is."
Blossom shook her head. "T-That's not true, Buttercup. I'm sorry that I said that. I just said it because I was mad and... I wanted to pass blame." She sniffled softly. "I didn't mean a word of what I said back then on that asteroid. We were all responsible."
"Don't be. You were right. I know I can be a boneheaded idiot at times, but I'm not about to let our dad down like that ever again. I know better now. We all do. Our actions have consequences."
"I'm just scared that-" Blossom stopped to make a sniffle. "If they lock him up this time, they won't let him out!"
"That's not gonna happen Bloss, okay? We're not gonna LET it happen. We're going to do everything in our power to PROTECT our dad and if any of those rotten cops have anything to say about it this time, we'll go down to that stupid penitentiary and break him out ourselves if we have to, okay? What can they do to stop us? We're the Powerpuff Girls, right? What we say goes!"
"Hopefully it doesn't have to come to that." Blossom said, taking a moment to wipe her eyes with her arm. "The Professor said we just have to tell the truth, right? So all we have to do is ace this interview and we'll be fine, right?"
"Right. But just in case we don't, remember we always have our superpowers."
The pink Puff nodded. So, they had a plan then. Tell the truth, hope for the best, and if that doesn't work out, break out the big guns. It seemed pretty sound.
Buttercup finished her speech of conviction by kissing the top of Blossom's hair, holding both sides of her head as she did so, then backed off to sit back down on the floor.
"So what do you think about these guys?" Buttercup asked once the two of them had their plan, trying to feel them out. "Do you think we can trust them?"
"I honestly don't know, Buttercup." Blossom replied truthfully. "I want to trust them... but I just don't know if they're good. I know there's lots of good people in the world but there's also a lot of bad people who we've met who have only pretended to be good so they could get something out of us."
People like Dick...
Well, here we are. Well, I guess I'll see you later, girls. But, boy...I sure wish I had some of that Chemical X. I mean...for the good of the world and all.
People like Mojo...
That's right, Bubbles, do not listen. All of you deafen yourselves to their heartless words. They do not know that it is their saviors they are speaking to. They are unaware that your actions will have helped change their world forever! Because we have helped the town and made it a better place.
Do you think they'll be surprised?
Oh yeah.
You think they'll still be mad at us for playing tag?
No, they'll have forgotten all about that.
Will they love us?
Yes.
Really?
Would I lie to you?
"What about the cop?" Buttercup asked next. "Do you think he's a good guy?"
"He seems like it." Blossom admitted. "But we've met our fair share of bad ones too, like that crazy Mike Brikowski guy who released a gas on us while we were in a patrol car with him and tried to dip us in a vat of acid to kill us while were chained up."
"Yeah." The less said about that guy, the better. "Can you imagine running into him again?"
"Hopefully not. I mean I think it's okay if we assume the best but also be on guard for-"
"Oh girls," Chuck was back. "I've got your milk and cookies. What were you two whispering about just now?" He asked lightly.
Blossom and Buttercup whirled around quickly to face him and immediately panicked, starting to babble out excuses.
"Oh well, we were just uh-!" Blossom stuttered.
"We weren't-!" Buttercup began.
But then Blossom remembered the Professor's words and took a deep breath, prepared to tell the truth. "We were talking about how we didn't know if we could trust you guys and how we don't want you to lock up our dad."
"Blossom!" Buttercup shouted irritably, but Blossom tried to talk some sense into her.
"No! The Professor said we need to tell the truth. So we have to be honest about our feelings."
"... right." Buttercup hung her head. She lifted it back up to look into the kind man's eyes again. "My sister's right, sir. We were worried about how what we say could effect what happens to our dad."
The officer placed the plate of cookies and milk down gently on the kiddie table next to them and sat down in front of the kids, beckoning them closer. They got close enough for him to take them in his arms.
"Girls, I want you to understand something. No matter what you say to me or Carly in that interview room today, you don't have to worry about putting your dad in any kind of danger. He will not face any kind of legal action or criminal charges AT ALL unless the evidence STRONGLY points to something we can get him for, and that would have to be beyond a shadow of a doubt. Otherwise we don't even have a case. So you don't have to worry about saying or doing anything wrong at all when it comes to this interview today, okay?"
He told no lies. It took a lot to get a case to go on trial. They needed quite a bit of evidence before things got that far.
His words helped the girls feel at least a smidgeon better and a great weight was lifted off of their shoulders with this information.
"Okay." The girls said softly, even though they were still determined to give the best impression of their father as they could for their upcoming interview.