Author's Notes: A bit of a rewrite on this chapter to incorporate the flashback of a 10-year-old Professor Utonium dealing with social services too a little better. That way it isn't as jarring to go from Buttercup and Blossom preparing for their interview at the child advocacy center to suddenly flashback! However much I love little Utonium by the way for being such a troublemaker!

Chapter 7

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child?

Ms. Hannah-Barbera had kept true to her word.

There really were forms and questions to fill out when the counselors arrived and he really did have to talk to more officers about what he had said happened to his daughter so that they could get more information.

None of the officers were aggressive and they were all courteous and polite, but the Professor couldn't really see himself feeling better until this whole thing was over and done with.

He was asked questions such as, "Was there any kind of foreign object, maybe sharp that the child could've fell onto with the beanbag?"

"No." The Professor had answered. There was none that he had seen there.

He was asked, "Are you sure that she was naked at the time of incident, or was there any form of clothing she was wearing while it happened?"

"No, she was naked." The Professor assured them. "And I think that was what caused such a bad tear. There was nothing she wore as far as padding to protect her down there."

Even now, he winced at he said it, only able to imagine his daughter's pain at the moment of impact.

The officer nodded his head at the information and stopped his interrogation briefly to jot down more notes. When he was finished, he asked about timing. When exactly did this incident occur?"

"Just before bedtime," Professor answered. "Which would happen to be at 7. I made up their bath 30 minutes before that, so the time of the incident would be around 6:30 pm."

The officer nodded again and took that down too. "And were you in the room or out of the room when it happened?"

"Out of the room." The Professor supplied. "I could hear my daughter screaming and the rest of my children calling for me because they said that Bubbles was bleeding."

"Got it. Now what form of aid did you give to the child before you took her to the hospital?"

"I took off the towel she was wearing around her neck and then gently pressed it in between her legs so it would help stop the blood. The towel was meant to staunch it until we could get proper help."

"Did the child ever have previous injuries to her genital area or trips to the hospital for a similar thing before?"

"No, this was the first. Bubbles never had any problems with or hurt her private parts before."

"Okay. I think I've got all the details for now. A counselor is going to come to help you fill out those forms."

To think that all of this got started around the time of a bath... just like a bath had set events into motion with Professor Utonium, when he was just a little boy...

Ten years of age, little Utonium had been playing in the bath. He was supposed to be washing up, but he had decided to goof off instead. He couldn't help himself really; he was so high off of his newfound independence, finally being old enough to take a bath on his own. No more of his mother helping him and washing him like a baby. He could play all kinds of games in here and his mother would be none the wiser.

Little Professor Utonium—not yet known as the "Professor" at his tender age—was 10 years old as he pretended to have a nautical adventure in the bathtub of his home late at night just before his bedtime. He was getting old enough now to where his mother no longer needed to help bathe him and he enjoyed the freedom as that meant he was free to play around to his heart's content in the water.

Well okay, maybe he should've been doing more bathing than playing, but he just couldn't help getting those final moments of fun in before he was forced to put on his nightclothes and turn in for the evening.

Currently he had a toy tug boat in his hands that reminded him of the steamboat that he'd seen Mickey Mouse driving in that famous cartoon, "Steamboat Willie".

"Oh man, look! We're about to hit an iceberg! There are women and children onboard!"

"But captain, this ship can't sink!"

"Too bad!" Little Utonium smiled. "We're on the Titanic!"

He proceeded to laugh at his own wicked sense of humor as he pushed the boat under the water and gleefully began drowning every last one of his imaginary, unfortunate passengers. "Oh God, this is horrible! Tell my wife and kids I love them! Bleugh!"

This morbid sense of humor of his often got him into trouble, especially at school, like that time he drew gory pictures of dinosaurs eating each other on the back of what was supposed to be a test paper.

"John!" His mother called out to him warningly from the hallway. "What's all that laughter I hear? Are you actually taking a bath or are you just playing around?"

"I'm taking a bath, mom!" Little Utonium called back to her faithfully, all before putting on a sneaky smile and snickering out the truth under his breath, "Not."

She yelled to him again, "I hope I don't have to come in there to make sure you're getting behind your ears!"

"I'm gettin' behind my ears mom, honest!" In truth they were still filthy; being covered in wax and dirt.

Utonium put a hand to his chin though. Perhaps he could solve that problem with a little swim underwater? He picked up his snorkeling gear that was just outside the tub and situated his goggles and mask onto his face, prepared to make a dive that would submerge him far enough under water to where he could look for buried treasure.

"Next stop, the city of Atlantis!"

He was getting so caught up in his expedition that he never really heard his mother come in to make good on her word and check on him, nor did he notice her presence right in front of the tub until he finally came up for "air" and noticed her impatiently tapping her foot at him, giving him a raised eyebrow.

He had been laughing at first; now he found that sound rather nervous as he grinned up at his mother. "Oh uh, hi Mom..."

"You're getting behind your ears, huh?" She asked, challenging him on his previous false statement to reassure her he was really cleaning up.

"Well, yeah!" He twiddled his thumbs as he tried to defend himself. "Didn't you see how my whole body was submerged under water there? I'm sure they're plenty clean now!"

The woman crossed her arms, still giving him an unimpressed expression. "That's it." She finally decided. "I'm bathing you myself."

"Oh come on, mom!" The boy blushed, feeling his face heating up. "I'm too old for that!"

She began lathering soap into his hair and the boy pouted as she did this. "Well, you had your chance to do it on your own. But instead you decided to play these little games! When are you finally going to learn to get serious, John?"

...

The Professor sighed in the present for how silly he had been back then. He really should've learned to be more serious a long time ago, but he always had a penchant for making trouble, and one day it came back to bite him in the worst way possible.

Then again he was only a child, and Bubbles had gotten hurt simply playing too. She had no idea of the consequences of making such an ill-fated jump onto that beanbag just like the Professor didn't quite realize what his own silly actions would create as far as a ripple effect...

...

In the past the little boy replied smartly, "When I'm 30. Maybe."

She gave him a flick on the nose for this smart little comment, moving on to raising up one of his arms so she could get underneath his armpits with a brush. "I'd hope you'd learn to settle down quicker than that! Especially in school! How often has your teacher had to call me from home just to tell me you've been acting up in her classroom again?"

"Hmph!" Little Utonium pouted, pushing his fist up into his cheek. "It's not my fault everything's so stiff and boring! I mean, why we gotta learn about all that lame stuff like science and physics anyway?"

"Because it will help you to be smarter and to get a good career in life."

"Eh, whatever." The boy said crossing his arms as his mother washed his back.

"It won't be 'whatever' when you're stuck in the unemployment line!" She made one last go of his ears with her rag and then flicked off the dirt with her fingernail. "Now hurry up and unplug that drain before you turn into a prune! You've been in there far too long already."

She left him to go and get his dryer-warm jammies from the laundry room and the little boy was left to his own devices for a while. At first he had followed his mother's instructions, pulling the stopper out of the bathtub and watching in boredom as the water went down.

He laid down flat on his back across the length of the tub, thinking nothing of it, until the water had finally drained and he went to get up, only to experience a strange suction cup effect on his skin that released quite a rude and relatable sound—a sound that simulated flatulence. Being delighted at this noise, the young boy flexed his back and his shoulders in a particular way to create the effect again. And again. And again. Slowly breaking the vacuum.

Utonium started laughing the same as he did before and his mother who had been waiting on him patiently to come out and into his room dressed in a towel and ready to put on his pajamas marched her way back into the bathroom, addressing his tomfoolery.

"John J. Utonium! Get out of that bathtub this instant!"

She had had no idea what he had been doing before she walked in to cause so much laughter but she was quite ready for him to be done with it and finish his little games.

...

It was just a little prank, something to tickle his funny bone, and he didn't even feel any pain when he did it, certainly nothing that would set him off to the fact that such an action would have the side-effect of giving him such gigantic, ugly bruises...

...

The boy let out one final mean-spirited chuckle at his own potty humor and then did what he was told and got himself out of the bath, wrapping himself in a towel and scampering over to his mother. She gave him a cuff behind his ear for his impudence.

"That's enough, young man! I'd hate to have to spank you before your own bedtime!"

"Aw come on mom, I was just funnin'! That's all!"

Yes, yes. This was the same line he often used on his teacher too.

She shook her head at him and then gave him a light warning pop on his bottom anyway as he passed her by, simply out of frustration for his nonstop antics.

What the little boy didn't know was what he had done to his skin by pulling that little trick back there. The side-effects of which would show themselves much later, the following morning...

Once things had settled down and the boy had appropriately gotten into his Nascar pit crew pajamas, he snuggled himself comfortably into his Mach Five bed and allowed his mother to tuck him in under the thick comforter blankets.

"Alright my little man, would you like me to tell you a story?"

The little boy stuck out his tongue. "Ew, no! I'm not a little kid anymore, mom!"

She lowered her eyes at him. "You're not a little kid, and yet you still sleep in a racecar bed."

"Uh, yeah! Racecars are cool! I'm never giving those up!"

Chuckling at his logic, the older woman gave him a kiss goodnight on his forehead and said, "Alright, sleep tight."

"And don't let the bed bugs bite!" He finished for her, closing his eyes.

When he finally started snoring, she tiptoed out of his room and shut the door closed tight. Then she sighed at the one member of the family who was still quite awake in the living room, still reading a newspaper and said, "That boy really is more trouble than he's worth."

"No more than I was when I was his same age." The boy's father shrugged, keeping his face obscured behind that large news heading. "He'll straighten himself out eventually."

"Well 'eventually' can't get here fast enough!"

First question on the form, "Does the child have any form of vaginal discharge?"

The Professor knew he couldn't afford to be squeamish about these things so he answered honestly, putting a firm "X" on the Yes or No checklist boxes for no.

There were similar questions like,

"Has the vaginal area ever been itchy?"

"Has it ever been red, swollen, or blistered?"

"Were there ever tears before?"

"Are there lesions?"

"Have there ever been any sores, blisters, or white thrush spots in the mouth?" All of these would be signs of a sexually transmitted disease.

The Professor put "No" for everything and then moved on to things like behavior, sleep patterns, and eating.

He wrote down for behavior that Bubbles was a bright, sweet, and happy child who could also be sensitive. She was emotional and quick to tears at times, but no more than your average emotional kid at times. She had a big, empathetic heart and cared about animals and people. She made friends easily and she was very sociable and outgoing, though sometimes also shy and reserved.

She ate well and she slept well, as long as she hadn't watched anything scary before bedtime or gone through something upsetting, like Buttercup scaring her with stories. She never suffered from night terrors or intense, worrying nightmares that were frequent or disruptive.

Moving on to neglect, the Professor wrote that she and the girls were always provided for. They always had clean clothes, plenty of food, and a comfortable, safe environment for the three of them to grow up in. The house was never dirty, full of bugs or anything like that. The girls never had any lice, or an odor, or tattered clothing. They weren't neglected emotionally either as the Professor always went out of his way to make time for them, even with his stay-at-home job as a scientist and the work that he got up to in his lab.

As far as abuse, there were no suspicions or concerns for that either. The man didn't drink. He didn't smoke or do drugs. He didn't have mental health issues like anger or bipolar disorder and he never disciplined the girls physically. If he felt they were acting undesirably, then he usually put them in timeout or if push came to shove... he grounded them.

His parents had definitely been spankers though. He remembered that readily. The worst spanking he got was by far during the time he made his science project explode by using too many chemicals and pretending his clay model volcano was a monster trying to eat him...

"Ow! What was that for, mom?" The boy whined, biting his lip just hard enough to prevent himself from crying after her harsh spanking was over.

"Because you could've gotten yourself seriously injured or even killed blowing up the science lab like that!" She shouted at him furiously. "What were you thinking messing around with dangerous chemicals like that while you were in the middle of a science experiment and not following your teacher's safety instructions?!"

"I was just trying to have a little fun, mom!" Little Utonium whined at her again. It was getting harder and harder for him not to cry. He hadn't meant to blow up the stupid science lab—all he had been trying to do was make his project more interesting! Wasn't creativity supposed to be rewarded? It just wasn't fair!

"Well you can't have fun at the expense of other people!" His mother shouted. "You especially can't have fun at the expense of your own health and safety! You could've hurt your classmates and you REALLY could've hurt yourself! And then what would James and I do, huh? We'd die of the heartbreak! Is that what you want John? For your poor mother to die of a broken heart?"

"No..." Little John Utonium whined; she always used this guilt trip card on him. Of course he didn't want her to die! She was his whole world! If Mother ended up dying, then who would end up taking care of him? Maybe Father, if he hadn't "died" from the heartbreak, but then he'd be so sad and lost without his partner...

He rubbed his bottom as she finally let him up and then pointed sternly to the kitchen.

"Now you get in there and have your dinner and as soon as you're finished, you're going to write an apology letter to both your classmates and your poor teacher!"

"Oh come on, mom!"

"'Oh come on mom', nothing! You need to learn how to have respect for others, including your teacher!"

As the boy trudged his way grumpily into the kitchen and made a point to be careful how he sat down in his chair so he wouldn't be putting too much pressure on his bottom his mother continued to reprimand him.

"You better hope your father doesn't feel like giving you another spanking for your reckless behavior when he gets home!"

"Oh man..." Little Utonium ran his hands along his bottom again. He was already so sore from his mother's. He didn't think he could deal with his father's... even though he doubted the man would actually spank him. He tended to be much more hesitant about it than his mother, stating that he didn't want to hurt his son.

"You won't hurt him if you only use your hand, James!"

"I know but with a guy like me being so much bigger than him, I feel like I'd only be abusing him-"

"You're not abusing him by giving him a simple spanking, James! Don't ever say that word again when it comes to disciplining our son! We've never ever done a single thing to harm him and we're not about to start now simply by trying to teach him what's right and what's wrong!"

The Professor sighed fondly at the memories, knowing he wouldn't change anything about his upbringing, even if it did happen to be harsh sometimes. His mother was never trying to hurt him when she gave him those spankings. She was simply trying to teach him in the best way she knew how.

He really had been a brat back then and his goofing off finally came to a head after that fateful morning at school after he'd discovered those "funny" bathtub noises he could make with his back last night.

...

The following morning had the boy zipping down the steps at the sound of "toaster strudel" faster than a speeding bullet. Pillsbury Toaster Strudel was his favorite thing to have for breakfast and he was so excited to get to it, he didn't even wait for it to cool off before making a grab for it straight from the toaster itself while it was hot.

Of course he ended up scorching his fingers due to his impatience and as his mother scolded him for this, "This is why I tell you that good things come to those that wait!" she reached to put on a proper pair of oven mitts and said, "Here, let me try." The task ended up being much less painful when proper safety precautions were taken and she picked up the two pastries without incident, setting them down on a plate of fine china.

As soon as they were, the boy set upon them like a man who had been starved and she had to remind him not to stuff his face several times lest he make himself sick.

"Eat slowly or you'll choke, John! That's plenty of time before the school bus arrives so you don't have to rush."

His father was sitting at the kitchen table too, newspaper always in hand as he had a steaming mug of coffee with him and asked of his son, "Are you going to be a good boy for us today while you're at school?"

"Yep!" Utonium answered easily. "I'll be the best kid in the whole class! Honest."

He could've been sporting a halo as he said this and his mother couldn't help but express her cynicism at that. "Well I don't know about that, but at least try not to make us get another phone call about any of your bad behavior today, will you?"

John nodded his head. "I'll be good mom, honest."

"Okay sweetie." After a kiss of his cheek, she showed him his packed lunch sack.

"Now there's plenty of bologna sandwiches and pudding snacks in there so I don't want to hear anything about the teacher catching you stealing any desserts from the rest of your peers!"

Little Utonium shifted his eyes at that. "I just did that because they had all the good stuff..."

"I don't care whether they had all the 'good stuff' or not. Stealing is unacceptable and we will not be doing it in this household, understand?" She pointed a finger at him, shifting it up and down. "I didn't raise a little thief!"

"Yes ma'am." The boy finally replied, hanging his head with a good amount of sullenness.

"I know we can't always afford the things you like John," His father spoke up now, "But that doesn't mean you can go around stealing what you want instead. This city is already corrupt enough as it is and the last thing we need is to add another shade of ugliness to it. We're hardworking people and we can always be so much better than that."

Little Utonium always had just that tad bit more respect for his father and took his words seriously now. "Okay dad. I'll try not to." He finally huffed in agreement.

By the time his parents were finished with their lecturing, there was the familiar sound of a big yellow school bus pulling up to the bus stop right in front of their single-family home, just outside the white picket fence surrounding the structure.

"Well, that's the school bus, kiddo! Let's get your backpack on—without a whoopie cushion or stink bomb in it this time." His mother was too familiar with his pranks and she wanted to make sure his school bag was full of books and tools for learning instead.

John let her go through her search of his bag without too much complaint, knowing that she wasn't smart enough to get everything. She'd missed his shock pens for one thing, pens he'd mixed in and hidden along with the regular ones for taking notes in class.

"Ok! You're all good to go, soldier. Now hurry up and catch that school bus!"

The boy practically ran out the door at his mother's command and then stopped to make one quick wave at his parents before boarding himself onto the school bus, ready to get as much entertainment out of these next 7 mind-numbing hours of boredom spent sitting quietly at a desk as he could.

The school bell rang for class to start at 8:30 am and the students filed themselves in, including the girl who would one day work for Townsville City Hall as secretary to the Mayor himself, Sara Bellum and a girl who later go on to become a teacher for Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, Sandy Keane.

John Utonium already came through the door wearing an impish smile on his face and his teacher was watching him warningly even before he had really had the chance to do anything, wary to any foolishness he might try to stir up today.

"Mornin' Ms. White." The little boy said casually, playing the part of the innocent party pretty convincingly if not for the track record he currently held with the woman for trouble.

"Yes, good morning, Mr. Utonium. I hope there won't be any more disruptive shenanigans today like there were from last week."

She pointedly adjusted her rimmed glasses with her remark, remembering how the boy had folded a sheet that was supposed to show the periodic table of elements into a paper airplane that ended up flying right into the back of her head while her body was facing the chalk board to write down formulas for different substances.

"Nah, I'm done with all that junk today, Mrs. W. I've gone sober. You can believe that."

"Pfft." A boy with red curly hair and a huge pug nose scoffed disbelievingly. "Yeah right! I say we check him for weapons!"

Ms. White shook her head at these antics before turning away from the kids for a moment to walk towards her desk and get her lesson plans and binders for the day. She happened to hear snippets of conversation as she was roaming around, at first uneventful, and then more... interesting.

"Hey! That tickles!" Little Utonium laughed as some of the classmates had made good on that little threat on searching him for so-called "weapons" and at one point happened to lift up the back of his shirt.

"I ain't got nothin', alright?" He continued to chortle until he suddenly noticed that something was off. Whoever was holding his shirt up wasn't bringing it back down again. In fact, he had now attracted quite a crowd who stopped to take a look at what had just been uncovered.

"Dude, gross! What are these, like liver spots or something?" The same carrot top from before said with disgust.

"No," Miss Keane said, taking a look up close for herself. "Liver spots are for old people! Those look like bruises!"

"Bruises?" John was dumbfounded. "Since when?"

"Why the heck are they so big?" Carrot top questioned in reply. "You fall out of a tree or something?"

"Yes, those contusions do look rather sizable." The brainy boy Matthew acknowledged using his own academic language. "Painful as well."

"Do they hurt, John?" Miss Keane asked in a concerned tone. She frowned at the large area of discoloration.

"I bet he got them being a complete idiot." Sarah Bellum said flatly, always the sassy and sarcastic one.

All this converse was strange to Ms. White and she was just about to tell the children to settle down, "Alright kids, let's stop crowding around Mr. Utonium and..." before she stopped herself to get a good look at what they were talking about.

There were bruises over his back. Gigantic, ugly ones. They looked vicious and most of all, unsettling. It made her stop cold in her tracks and she adopted a brief wide-eyed expression before shaking herself out of it.

During her momentary lapse in speech, Mr. Utonium had successfully managed to pull his shirt back down, covering up that horrible area of bruising like it had never been there in the first place.

"Next time take a picture, why don't ya?"

Ms. White directed her attention solely to him now. "Mr. Utonium, could I see you out in the hall for a second, please?"

The boy was shocked. How had he managed to get himself into trouble with his teacher without the day having even fully started yet?

"Aw come on, I was just kiddin'!" The little boy started to say in his usual slick fashion before she stopped to interrupt him with a gentle rebuttal.

"You're not in any trouble, John."

John, huh? It wasn't often that she used his first name like that. Still though, he was surprised to hear that he wasn't in trouble this time. "I'm not?"

"No, honey. Just come outside, please?"

Honey? Geez, was Ms. White sick today or something?

He did as she asked simply for the fact that her behavior was so strange while she requested for the rest of her homeroom to take out their chemistry textbooks and turn to page 35. She told them that she would be coming back into the homeroom to guide them shortly.

"So what's wrong, Ms. White?" The tiny youth asked her curiously once they were out in the hallway, away from anyone who would be able to hear the two of them talking.

She didn't answer him at first, simply standing there looking troubled. She stared out straight ahead, putting the tips of her fingers to her mouth for a moment before finally crouching down at his level to give him what looked like a strained smile.

"John, do you think you can answer a bit of a question for me, sweetheart?"

"Yes?"

What was this all about?

"Does your mother ever... spank you?"

"Spank me?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, she spanks me sometimes." He didn't really think this was a huge deal. Weren't lots of kids spanked by their parents?

"What does she typically use?" The educating woman asked fretfully.

"Her hand." Utonium answered easily.

"Does she ever use anything else?"

"No."

"And where on your body does she usually spank you?"

"On my butt."

"Do you know how many times she usually spanks you?"

Hm, that was a bit of a toughie. He never bothered counting before. But it was never really anything that reached past the single digits.

"Like once? Maybe twice. Maybe three times if I did something really bad like blow up the science lab that one time..."

John didn't think there was anything wrong with being given a spanking every now and then if he happened to do something wrong. He never liked it, but what kid ever liked being disciplined?

"I see." His teacher nodded. "And John, do you think you can tell me how it is you got those bruises over your back?"

Wait, did she think those two things were related? No way! His mother would NEVER hit him hard enough to bruise him and she certainly never hit him over his back. That sounded like too strange of a place to hit a kid.

"I honestly don't know." He replied truthfully, before his mind suddenly remembered a little something from the end of his bath last night.

"Oh wait! I think I know."

"You do?"

"Yeah! Did you know you could make farting noises in the bottom of the tub with your back?"

"Uh..." Ms. White didn't know what to say to that.

"Because you can! I did it over and over again at the end of my bath until my mom told me to stop, then when I woke up in the morning, I guess I ended up getting the bruises!"

He shared this information delightfully but his teacher looked at him with a bit of a grimace and unease. She never did like his potty humor but perhaps it was something more than that because she then said, "Well that all certainly sounds... interesting, John. But do you think you could go to the school nurse for me so she can check out the bruises? They look pretty bad, honey."

"But they don't hurt at all!" The boy objected. "Why I gotta go to the school nurse?"

She placed her hand on his shoulders, imploring him to do as she asked him to. "John."

Just a simple utterance of his name and the way she uttered it—not exactly stern or angry, but more insistent and desperate—had him following her commands.

He sighed. "Yeah, teach. I'll go."