Chapter 9

A Good Secret and a Bad Secret

Bubbles had enjoyed picking out the hospital clothes she wanted to wear for her operation.

"Now, would you like the pink Hello Kitty pajamas or a nice blue nightgown with pretty winged unicorns?" A different nurse than the one before offered, this one wearing a white hat with a red cross on it. She was a much older lady and had dirty blonde hair, nearly like Bubbles's in a darker shade.

"Unicorns!" Bubbles had immediately squealed, always loving the mythical creatures before stopping to remember her manners. "I mean, I would like the gown with the unicorns, please!"

"Alright, honey. All yours then."

Bubbles just barely restrained herself from snatching the clothes out of her hands with glee, fangirling over them all over again.

"Now, do you need any help?" The nurse offered before Bubbles shook her head.

"No! I'll be fine, miss!"

So with that, she had been allowed her privacy from behind a curtain to try the gown on. After she was finished with that and came out with a smile on her face, the nurse showed her exactly where she would be putting her old clothes.

Her soiled, bloody original nightgown would be placed inside a separate bag that usually held a child's personal belongings. This one would be a little different though. Bubbles read the word "EVIDENCE" on it in big black letters. She wondered what the word "evidence" meant.

"Miss, what does the word ev-ih-dense mean?"

"It means we're going to take a special look at your clothes to make sure they're okay."

This was probably the gentlest way for the nurse to explain to Bubbles that she would have her clothes examined for possible signs of foul play. Whether her clothes turned up DNA, hair, or semen, especially in her blood stains.

"Oh," Bubbles said innocently. "Does that mean you're gonna wash them?" She put on a little frown. "I heard it's really hard to wash out blood stains."

She worried over this, as she really liked her blue nightgown and hoped that the doctors and nurses would be able to find a way to save them.

"Oh no sweetie, not quite washing them." In fact, that would be the very opposite of what they wanted to do. That would end up getting rid of any possible evidence they wanted to preserve for this upcoming examination. "Just checking up on them. Looking for certain things. Kind of like how you check your clothes at home for things like lint."

"Oh yeah!" Bubbles remembered, knowing about this pastime of the Professor and the Girls back home when they were working on their chores quite well. "I hate lint. Well I hope if you find anything like that, you're able to get rid of it!"

"I'll try, sweetie." She was grateful for a child's unquestioning innocence. It made it a little easier to explain things in a non-upsetting way.

After that she had another one of the staff come in to read her a story. A story about Franklin the turtle who also had to go to hospital so the doctors could fix his broken shell. The staff member had her arm around Bubbles and Bubbles listened intently, enraptured by the words as well as the pictures and the similar feelings that poor Franklin felt about going into surgery.

"... but I haven't finished counting, he said in a wobbly voice. 'But I've finished operating', said Doctor Bear with a laugh."

Around the time she was telling this story, the social worker Hannah-Barbera was just re-arriving back on the hospital premises. Currently she was taking her first steps just outside her little client's door.

"Wow, it was really so easy?" Bubbles asked.

"Just like that." The nurse assured her.

"Will I have to count too?"

"You can count if you want to, darling."

Bubbles lightly bragged. "Well I can count way past ten! Higher than Franklin."

The nurse put a hand on her head. "Well, you're a very smart girl then."

"And a very good patient." Ms. Barbera added on, making her grand entrance with a little knock on the door before she opened it.

"Wow!" Bubbles said at the smartly-dressed woman who had just entered the room.

She looked just like Ms. Bellum except without red hair covering her face and her main color of clothes being beige instead of apple red.

"Hello, Bubbles."

"Hey, you knew my name! Does that mean you're my social worker?"

Barbara was pleased that she had already been briefed on this beforehand. "That's right, sweetie. Did the nurse tell you about me before I came in here?"

"Yeah she did! She said that you were nice and that you were gonna talk to me about some things."

So far, so good. "That's right. Now do you know what I'm here to make sure that you are?"

"Safe?" The girl answered.

Barbara sat beside her on her bedside, clipboard in hand. "That's right. I'm here to make sure you're safe, happy, and healthy, especially at home. I'm also here because I heard you got a little hurt today. More specifically, in that area between your legs where your private parts are?"

Bubbles nodded with a rueful expression. "Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing..."

Barbara wrapped an arm around her. "Oh, it's nothing be embarrassed about, sweetie. I've talked to lots of kids who have gotten hurt down there and it happens. Our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what happens to them." Or, she thought darkly. No matter what anybody else has done to them.

"You know when I've talked to kids Bubbles, some of them were scared? Some of them were embarrassed. Some were confused. But no matter how they felt, I always made sure to tell them that they could talk to people like me about anything."

"Anything?" Bubbles asked.

"Anything. No matter what it is. Even if it was something they had previously wanted to keep a secret."

This was the second time someone had brought up Bubbles possibly keeping a secret, possibly withholding information.

"Well, I don't have any secrets!" The girl said, before thinking it over and considering that she possibly did.

"Except I guess that time when I used to wet the bed. That was really embarrassing and I didn't want anybody to know about that. I felt really embarrassed when the Professor shared it in front of everybody. I wore a paper bag over my head because I was so ashamed."

Hannah nodded her head, thinking over that disclosure about Bubbles previously wetting the bed. That information could've meant nothing since bedwetting was a common problem with young children her age. But since this was also an investigation into the possibility of abuse, specifically sexual abuse, Bubbles experiencing symptoms like nocturnal enuresis would sadly fit an alternate diagnosis like this.

So it made Hannah ask the question, "That doesn't like fun. Do you know what used to make you wet the bed, Bubbles?"

Bubbles blushed before answering, "Not always waking up to make it in time. Also, I had a small bladder." She bit her lip and scowled before adding, "Buttercup made fun of me for a while because I even had to wear diapers... so I wouldn't make a mess on the covers."

Hannah gave her a pat while she held her. "Oh, that doesn't very nice of her, does it? Was there any other thing you can think of that could've made you wet the bed?"

"Maybe getting up in the middle of the night for water? Sometimes I got thirsty... and I paid for it in the morning. Other than that, I can't think of anything!"

If that was the case, she wouldn't prod. Bubbles's words were pretty much law. After jotting down some notes, Barbara thanked her. "Well I'm glad you could share that with me, sweetie! Even though you felt embarrassed. These are the sort of things you can talk about me with, even if they're about things that may make you feel bad."

Bubbles smiled a little at this, relieved at the fact that she really could share anything with her social worker. She thought about something though, "Do I have to share other secrets too? Like about how I drew on the wall once even though I told the Professor I didn't and tried to hide it with a plant?"

Hannah-Barbera smiled at her and decided to focus her disclosures a bit. "Well Bubbles, there are all kinds of secrets we can keep to ourselves sometimes. Secrets that can be either good or bad."

"Good and bad secrets?" Bubbles asked, putting a fist to her mouth again.

"Uh-huh." Hannah kindly explained it for her. "A good secret is something that can make you and somebody else feel very happy. These secrets are usually fun and they have a good outcome. Like keeping the secret of a gift on a birthday present until it's time for the big day!"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot! I've got something good for you, Bubbles!"

Bubbles grinned wide. "Yeah, I know what you mean! Like when Buttercup surprised me by bringing Octi to the hospital for me!"

"Exactly." Barbara was pleased. She already had a real-world example of a good secret. "Now how did you feel when Buttercup did that for you?"

"Happy!"

"That's right. That makes it a good secret for her to keep for a while, because she made you happy when she finally revealed what it was."

Now she provided an example of that other type of secret. "But you see Bubbles, there are bad secrets too. Did you know that a bad secret is any kind of secret that makes us feel uncomfortable? It can make us feel worried inside and very, very unhappy. These kinds of secrets don't make us feel happy to keep and good things don't usually happen from keeping these types of secrets."

Bubbles thought about a secret she could remember like that. Suddenly, it all came back to her. That deal she had made with Mojo, back then only known as Jojo, to keep their work of making the "Help-the-Town-and-Make-It-a-Better-Place" machine a secret from everyone else.

"We did good?" Blossom asked, after they had successfully put in a device at the bottom of the volcano to harness the Earth's power.

Mojo looked off to the side with a shifty smile. "You did very good. Very good indeed."

"Now what do we do?" Buttercup excitedly asked.

"Go home. It will be morning soon and you should get some rest. But girls, you must promise me that you will not speak a word of our plan to anyone! Do you understand?"

"Not really!" Blossom said, feeling pretty confused at these strict stipulations.

"Yeah, what's the big secret?" Buttercup demanded.

But Bubbles, oh-so-innocent, tried to explain things for them. "Girls, it's not a secret! It's a surprise! Right, Jojo?"

"Uh, that's right!" Jojo said, clearly rolling with Bubbles's innocuous explanation. "It's an extra special, funtastical, super-duper surprise so big that when Townsville sees it, they won't know what hit 'em!"

"Yay!"

Bubbles narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at the memory. "A bad secret is like the type of secret that Mojo tried to make us keep when we helped him build his 'Help-the-World-and-Make-It-a-Better-Place' machine. Only it wasn't a Help-the-Town-and-Make-it-a-Better-Place machine! It was an evil laboratory on top of a volcano that he used to create an army of evil monkeys from the Townsville zoo!"

Bubbles hung her head in shame. "He made it sound like a good secret but it was a really, really bad one. Lots of people got hurt from the secret, just like you said and it was all our fault..." She started to tear up and she criticized her own actions further. "We never should've trusted a bad monkey like him, but we were only born just yesterday so we didn't know."

Barbara rubbed her shoulder as she held her. "That's okay, Bubbles. You didn't understand. That was not your fault at all and you're right. Mojo tried to make you keep a bad secret that did end up hurting a lot of people and that was also something that was entirely his fault. Never you girls."

"Really?" Bubbles asked, looking at her with shimmering blue eyes.

"Really. It's never our fault if a bad person tries to make us keep a bad secret."

"Mojo really is a bad, bad monkey."

"I think he is too, honey. Now here's a bit of a pop quiz for you. If you kept a secret about a person who hurt you, because they hit, kicked, or even punched you, do you think that would be a good secret or a bad secret?"

"That would be bad." Bubbles said. "Like when Buttercup was teasing me one day and pulled on my hair. That really hurt so I told the Professor."

"You're right, that's a bad secret. Because it's not okay for your sister or anyone else to hurt you. It's wrong and you should tell an adult about it that you trust right away when it happens."

Bubbles nodded. That all sounded reasonable. But why were they talking about something like this now, after she had hurt her private parts in her bedroom? Either way, Bubbles started to put the pieces together of who it was okay to tell when things like that happened.

"Someone like you?" She inquired.

"Yes, like me. Or it can also be your teacher. Or a policeman. Or your parents... as long as they're not the ones hurting you."

As long as they're not the ones hurting me?

"Do you know what else is a bad secret, Bubbles?"

"What else?"

"When someone tries to touch you in a place or in a way that might make you feel all yucky or sad inside. Anyone outside of a doctor trying to keep you safe or healthy-" Since unfortunately, she would soon be having a rape exam... "Or a mommy and a daddy who's doing the same or also trying to keep you clean with a bath. They might tell you to keep it a secret, but that's what we call a bad secret."

Bubbles frowned at this, remembering how the Professor had had talks with the Girls about this. It was often in the bath or sometimes when he was changing them, mainly into their nighties. He would educate them about the privacy and the sanctity of their bodies, teaching about boundaries, consent, and respect.

"Who do your bodies belong to, Girls?" He would ask them all in an expectant manner.

"Nobody!" They would all chorus, gleeful to give him the answer.

"Nobody but?" He would probe.

And they'd all elaborate with, "Ourselves!"

"And if anyone tries to touch you in a place that doesn't feel right or where they know they shouldn't touch you, what should you do?"

Buttercup always loved answering this part. "Bam! Pow! We beat 'em up!"

"Then you run and get an adult as quickly as you can, especially me! And I promise you, once I find out, I will make sure that person stops IMMEDIATELY and never does it again!"

They would all cheer after that part and have a good time. And they were sure that nobody would dare try to touch any one of the Powerpuff Girls like that, or else they'd have to eat their food through a straw and find a different way to write their own name.

"The Professor taught us about that. He said if anyone tried to touch us in our no-no spots or when we didn't want them to, then it was bad and we shouldn't trust them."

"That's right, Bubbles. I'm so glad your father educated you on this. And where do you think our no-no spots are?"

She pointed between her legs, liberally covered by her gown. "Right here. Or our chest or our bottom."

"That's right. Anything covered by a bathing suit is not okay for other people to touch outside of our mommies or daddies or a doctor trying to keep us healthy, safe, or clean."

"Well, the Professor only touched me in a no-no spot to put a towel between my legs. I was bleeding pretty bad after I fell on the beanbag and he was just trying to get it to stop before we got to the hospital. Is that okay?" She asked shyly.

"That's perfectly okay, sweetheart. That was exactly what he should've done if that was how it happened."

"That's how it happened." Bubbles was firm on this. Her dad hadn't done anything wrong and she wasn't about to say that he did.

"Well then that's good. How did it feel when you got hurt?"

"It felt really bad. I really hurt my tummy."

"You hurt your tummy?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"Right here." Bubbles pointed. "The bottom part."

"So, you hurt the bottom part of your tummy. I bet that didn't feel good at all."

"No. It felt like I was gonna throw up. The spot between my legs hurt a lot too. I was screaming and it hurt really really bad. There was so much blood I thought I was gonna die."

After jotting all of this down, the social worker gave her a side hug again. "Well luckily for us all, you didn't die on us today. In fact, you weren't even close. You've got plenty of blood left in your body."

She enjoyed having this chat with Bubbles and so far her suspicions were low, but they still weren't done and she was still dreading this next part. She looked out with a concealed sadness to the people who were waiting right outside that door.

"So has the child had a chance to defecate, douche, shower, bathe, change clothes, or urinate before we proceed with this procedure?"

"She's only had a chance to change clothes but we made sure to put them in an evidence bag as she did so. Everything else she hasn't done yet."

"Good. It would tamper with the possible evidence if she did."