Chapter 10
Forensic Interview
"You're pretty good at that." Chuck said lightly, noting that Blossom was nearly finished with her Rubik's Cube puzzle. "Do you like doing puzzles like that, Blossom?"
This was a part of the rapport-building phase.
"Yeah." She said a bit distractedly. Then she looked up at him with a smile. "It's fun."
"What other puzzles do you like to do?"
"Sudoku." She answered readily. "Do you know what that is?"
He did, but since he was practicing for their interview later where she would be the main one leading the conversation he said, "Why don't you tell me all about it?"
"Well, it's a number puzzle and the numbers you have to put in are on a grid. You have to avoid repeating any number in the same row or column. It's really challenging but also really fun. It's a Japanese math game."
"Nerd." Buttercup said from the floor, she herself too busy using her crayons on a blank picture out of a coloring book.
"Hmph!"
The man lightly chuckled. "Ignore your sister for now. What else do you like to do?"
"I like crossword puzzles. And I like riddles too."
"Ah, I see. Can you think of a riddle for me?"
"Hm." Blossom said, thinking it over.
Buttercup was actually looking forward to this too. "And it better be a good one." She said, putting pressure on her sister.
"Okay. What word in the English language does the following-"
"Aw, I should've known it would have something to do with the English language." Buttercup lightly interrupted.
"Wait until it's finished, Buttercup! Now, the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four letters signify a great, while the entire word signifies a great woman!"
He could see already from her speech that Blossom was quite intelligent for a five-year-old. Not many five-year-olds knew what the word "signify" meant for example and could use it accurately in a sentence. These were the things he was looking for. Getting a sense of the child's developmental level and their ability to use and understand language.
"Geez, what could it be?" Buttercup asked, genuinely feeling stumped. Then again, she never was really good with these types of riddles.
"What's the answer, young lady?" Chuck asked her with a smile.
"Heroine!" Blossom answered, and the pieces came together for everyone.
The first two letters "H-E" to signify the male. The first three letters "H-E-R" to signify the female, the first four letters "H-E-R-O" for the great, and the entire word "H-E-R-O-I-N-E" to signify a great woman.
"That was a splendid riddle, Blossom. Well done."
"I think Femme Fatale would like that one." Buttercup mused. "Of course she'd probably hate the part that included the first two letters for a man."
Blossom chuckled. "Yeah, what's her deal anyway? Men aren't so bad."
"Eh, who knows? She probably got her heart broken by her high school sweetheart or something."
"Or maybe it was something more traumatic, like her father never being at home or beating on his wife."
"Geez Blossom, way to go all dark!"
"Hey, I'm just brainstorming here! Every villain can have a tragic origin story."
Buttercup didn't know about that. There were some villains she felt were evil for little to no justifiable reason. Villains like the Rowdyruff Boys. They seemed like they were evil just because. Mojo and Him had made them that way so they were just evil.
Not wanting to be left out when it came to the riddle-making, Buttercup decided to offer one of her own. This would be a more simple one, but nonetheless pretty tricky for someone not really thinking about the answer.
"Hey I got a riddle too, you know!"
"You do?"
"Oh, this oughta be good." Blossom said, crossing her arms expectantly.
She hoped it wasn't anything too predictable like the "what's black and white and red all over" riddle which would be all too fitting for a character like Buttercup, with the answer either being a "newspaper" or a "penguin with a cold".
Instead, Buttercup surprised her with something that was totally original. "What's the one room you can't enter, huh?"
"A teenager's room." Blossom answered assertively, and she said it with so much certainty that it was actually really funny.
Even Officer Jones chuckled at her certainty. "You sure about that?"
"Yeah! You can never enter a teenager's room without permission!"
Buttercup made a wrong buzzer noise. "Well, that's wrong Pinky! Try again!"
Now Blossom was stumped. "Pandora's Box?" It was an answer that was out of left field for her but she truly found herself unable to come up with a more reasonable answer.
"That's a box, stupid! Not a room!" That was also something you weren't supposed to open, not something you couldn't physically enter.
"Well what is it, then?" The girl asked now somewhat more irritably, never liking having her intelligence called into question.
"A mushroom!" Buttercup revealed smugly, and Blossom had to say she was impressed. She would've never guessed that.
Chuck smiled at the green-clad girl this time. The two of them were certainly good at creating riddles.
"Aw shoot, a wordplay riddle! That one should've been easy when you really think about it..."
How many times had the girls found riddles and puns like that at the bottom of their cereal boxes or under the flap of a piece of candy wrapper paper like a Laffy Taffy? They read jokes and puns like that all the time.
"How'd you girls get so good at telling riddles?"
"I think we got some practice from Him." Buttercup answered, remembering that day when the Professor would "pay" (yeah right!) if they did not solve all of Him's riddles in time.
"Oh yeah! Remember the boiling and freezing one? That was the one that finally tripped us up."
You will find your Professor when you solve this last rhyme. Where's boiling and freezing at the same time?
Boiling and freezing! Boiling and freezing!
What could that mean?
"I can't believe the Mayor ended up solving that for us! But we still made it to the wrong diner..."
It's coordinates... or it could just be that there's an ice cream truck on fire somewhere! Eh, have a nice day, girls!
"Only to find out that the only danger the Professor was ever in was paying a large sum of money for his breakfast."
That'll be $7.95 please.
Say wha—?
You see, I bet the Professor here a free breakfast if you girls could solve all of my riddles. But you failed… and now he has to pay full price!
While the girls were reminiscing on past adventures like this, Carly decided to make her grand entrance onto the scene, smiling at the two girls on the floor. Unbeknownst to either of them, she was actually another young officer but dressed in civilian clothes instead of a formal uniform with a gun attached to the hip and a badge on her chest.
"Well, hello! You two must be Blossom and Buttercup?"
Carley had shoulder length caramel brown hair, almond-shaped eyes, and hazel pupils. She was wearing a white blouse and black pants. She wouldn't be out of the place as a waiter at the Rite-on-Time Diner the kids had just been talking about moments before.
The girls looked up and smiled at her, set at ease by her genuinely friendly demeanor and Chuck looked at her too, confirming, "Siblings. That means separate interviews?"
"Right."
This separation needed to happen so that there wasn't a chance of any cross-contamination with the information given to each of them in the interviews. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to separate right now so that there wasn't a chance of them conspiring or coming up with some sort of plan to say anything biased or less than the truth.
"Well I think I'll take this lovely girl right here, Buttercup, and you'll stick with Blossom?"
"Sounds fine to me." Chuck answered.
So they had their plan then. Carley took her own client by the hand and Buttercup willingly followed her, the two of them chatting about favorite hobbies from the girl, television shows and so on to try to set up a rapport for her.
"So what school do you go to, Buttercup?"
"Pokey Oaks Kindergarten."
"Oh, I see. What's your favorite thing to do at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten?"
Buttercup grinned devilishly before readily answering, "Play dodgeball at recess! I'm pretty good."
She knew that Mitch had a few missing teeth and sizable shiners from their tough games they often played with each other.
"You are? Tell me all about dodgeball."
This 'Tell me more...' prompt would prove to be quite essential in their upcoming interview. It would mostly be used as an open-invitation for the girls to engage in free recall memory, this form of questioning leading itself to the least suggestible and coercive form of answering.
"Well I've got a fastball special that can't be beat, you know! Nobody outside of my sisters can stand up to it..."
Chuck continued to engage himself with Blossom. "So are there any other things you like to do for fun, Blossom?"
"Yeah. I like jigsaw puzzles."
"Jigsaw puzzles, huh?"
"Yeah, especially ones with lots and lots of pieces. I always consider a good warmup an 1000 piece puzzle and a challenge being at a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle."
Even though they were both across different sides of the same room, Buttercup's hearing was good enough for her to make a second cry of "Nerd!" and for Blossom to shout right back at her, "Shut up, Buttercup!"
"Never mind her. Are there other activities you like?"
"Reading. I like learning about different languages like conversational Chinese!"
"Sounds fascinating."
The two girls were asked about their favorite television program. Both of them said it was "Puppet Pals". They were asked who their favorite superheroes were, besides themselves of course. For Blossom, it was a toss-up between "Liberty Gal" and "Wonder Woman" but in the end, Wonder Woman won out. Buttercup claimed that her favorite superhero was "Spore" due to his dark and brooding nature. He even had scabs that never healed.
"And your favorite foods?"
"Cake!" was what Blossom answered and Buttercup favored "Corn dogs!"
As far as a food they held a mutual disdain for, "Broccoli!" was the agreed upon vegetable. There were more questions about things they didn't like. Buttercup didn't like taking baths (though now she knew she had to), sleeping at naptime at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, doing chores, or eating her vegetables. Blossom's dislikes were a little funny. She apparently didn't like being proven wrong or having her judgment called into question by her sisters or anyone else. She didn't like failing tests. She didn't like getting into trouble, breaking the law, or letting anybody down.
"I'm glad you could talk to us about things you don't like either girls. It will be the same in that room. We can talk about good things and bad things that have happened today."
Once their 'getting to know' phase was over, it was finally time to lead both charges into their individual interview rooms for their subsequent questioning about the events most pertinent to today. Both the adults nodded their heads to each other before taking both their interviewees by the hand and leading them where they needed to go, Buttercup and Blossom communicating a telepathic understanding with each other too. All without having to make any overt gestures or move their mouths in a way that would make them seem openly suspicious.
'So you remember our plan?'
'Yeah. Follow the rules, tell the truth, and hope for the best.'
'Make sure our dad doesn't get in trouble. Protect him from any kind of harm.'
'Good. Good luck, Buttercup.'
"You too, Bloss.'
"You want me to lick that?" Bubbles asked as she sat on the padded examination room table and Ms. Green picked up an enclosed filter paper with her gloved hands, instructing her to moisten an area with her tongue.
"That's right, sweetie. You know how you lick an envelope to keep it sealed? It's kind of like that."
"Oh, okay!" Bubbles replied innocently. "Is it gonna get all sticky when I lick it?"
"No, it won't get sticky but we'll be able to keep an eye on it when we put the paper back into the envelope again."
Bubbles did as she told when the paper was held out closer to her, poking out her large pink tongue in order to moisten the part that Ms. Green, the nice dark lady with the cornrows had instructed her to. She hoped she wouldn't get a paper cut over her tongue from doing such a thing. Her tongue tended to bleed a lot when it got cuts over it and a paper cut would probably be excruciating. Luckily for her, she was in no danger of this happening, and the saliva sample she gave for the doctors was splendid.
"Good girl."
The interview room for each individual Puff was like a smaller version of the main suite they had previously been in. There were less distractions of course and the room was much more focused, but there was still a sense of a child-friendly air with the room being brightly lit, properly furnished, and splashed with soft, pastel colors. There was a tiny table in the middle of the room with a separate couch on either side of it, both of these chairs clearly being for the interviewer and the interviewee. A box of Kleenex tissues sat on the top of the table, along with a mug full of crayons and colored pencils. There was a standing diagram/chart in the background, probably for the purpose of visual aid if simple words weren't enough to convey what the girls were trying to say.
A single cuddly was also in each separate room to act as a comfort object for the child as they were telling their story. Blossom got to have a honey brown teddy bear with her and Buttercup got a dark chocolate bear. The bears also smelled pretty nice too, cinnamon and blackberry respectively.
"Would you like to take a seat in one of these chairs?"
It was a very comfortable fit for both girls when they did and they didn't feel stiff or tense in any way. Blossom allowed her eyes to take in the room as she sat down, finding nothing threatening or intimidating in the room with her.
They were both introduced to a separate man who would be working a camera and recording the interview on video so they could have it for later, just in case there ended up being a prosecution and they needed the evidence for a possible court case. This man would be hidden behind a screen and he would not otherwise interfere or make himself known throughout their interview.
...
"So you can basically pretend he's not even there, okay?"
"Okay."
...
Video recording wasn't the only thing that would be going on either. There would also be audio recording. Both girls were shown the device that would be used to record their words for the day.
...
"You see this little tape recorder, Buttercup?"
"Yeah."
"I'm going to be using this to record our little talk today so that I can go back to it later. Is that okay with you?"
"Yeah."
...
"This is Detective Mike and he's going to be watching us from behind that mirror."
"So it's a two-way mirror?" Blossom asked.
"That's right. He'll be able to see us but we won't see him. That way we won't be distracted while he makes his observations, okay?"
"Okay."
...
"Can you tell me what this is, Bubbles?" Ms. Green thought it would be best to introduce the child to every element of their examination before proceeding to use it on her. Currently she was holding up a cotton swab she had just got finished taking out of its packaging, always wearing clean dispensable gloves beforehand.
"That's a cotton swab!" Bubbles said with recognition. She gestured to the sides of her head. "That's for ears, right? But how are you gonna clean out my ears if... you know?"
"Well, did you know you can use cotton swabs for other things besides your ears, sweetie?"
"You can."
"Yes, like right now. We're going to rub these along the upper and lower edges of your gums. Kind of like brushing your teeth! But instead of your teeth, it's your gums, okay?"
"Oh, okay..." That sounded funny to her. Why would she need her gums brushed? Still, if this was what the doctors said she had to do, then it had to be for a good reason, right?
"Now, would you like to use the cotton swab on your gums or do you want us to do it?"
"I can do it!" Bubbles volunteered, grinning at an opportunity to show her independence.
"You can be a big girl and do it for us?"
"I sure can!"
And she took the swab and did just that, pretending to brush her teeth in front of an invisible bathroom mirror until the nurse told her that she was finished and had done a really good job. She had to do this again with another cotton swab and both of them were put into similar envelopes as the filter paper had earlier.
"So Buttercup, did you know that I'm actually a police officer, just like Officer Jones?"
Buttercup did not know this and it was actually quite a surprise to her. "Really? But you're not in uniform!"
"I know! Kids often tell me that I don't look like a police officer because I wear regular clothing when I talk to them. I do that so they don't have to feel scared or like they're in trouble when I talk to them."
That made sense.
"Now, can you tell me what my job is?"
"To talk to kids like me?"
"That's right. I talk to kids about all sorts of things, both good and bad, and my job is to make sure I get everything right."
Sounded simple enough.
...
"So how are you feeling, Blossom?" He noticed that she was looking quite pensive, like she was thinking over something quite hard. There was also a general look of... sadness on her face? Her arms were crossed in front of her chest again, seemingly in a guarded manner.
"Okay, I guess." The girl answered honestly, but she still had some questions. "There are just some things I don't really understand right now."
Any lack of understanding was important to address on his end. "What don't you understand, Blossom?"
She looked him directly in his eyes with her next piece of dialogue. "Why you weren't here before."
His eyebrows furrowed at her. "Can you tell me what you mean by that, sweetheart?"
So Blossom elaborated, shooting a question of her own at him. "You guys are supposed to protect kids, right? Look out for their general welfare?"
Chuck nodded with affirmation. "That's right. Part of my job is making sure kids are safe at home. Is there something you'd like to say, Blossom?"
Blossom gave him a truly hurt expression and then asked him, "Then why weren't any of you guys there when we were all stranded at that school and you locked up my dad for no reason?"
Chuck's eyes widened a fraction but he knew he couldn't give any other indicator of strong, overt emotion lest he be accused of swaying this case with his own feelings. Instead of making any comment on what he had heard, he simply allowed her to continue.
"We waited for the Professor to pick us up from school for hours and he never showed up! We didn't know he was in jail; nobody ever told us! We thought he had abandoned us because he hated us for destroying everything with our powers just like everybody else and nobody ever made sure we were safe!"
Chuck gave her a truly sympathetic look for this, even though he knew he wasn't supposed to show too much emotion.
"We were scared, hungry, lost, confused, and when we tried to walk home in the rain without our powers we got confronted by gangsters in an abandoned alleyway! Anything could've happened to us and no one would've cared or even noticed we were gone! We certainly wouldn't be missed!"
Blossom took a moment to wipe her wet eyes with her arm. "We had to rely on one of worst enemies, Mojo Jojo of all people to save us with a trash can lid to get us out of that situation! He may have been using us but at least he got us out of the rain and told us to get some rest back home! How messed up is it when a bad guy cares more about your welfare than people whose job it is to care?!"
The sad part was that she was right. She was absolutely right about everything. This system was broken, and Chuck wasn't shy about admitting it. Townsville had a lot of problems and their budding social services system was one of them.
The little girl started to cry in earnest now, her voice turning into a horrible, cracking mess. "N-Nobody c-cared about us back then, so why are y-you guys acting like you care so much now?! Why are you d-doing this to us?!"
Chuck reached across the table to offer Blossom a tissue, holding out the Kleenex box for her. That was why it was there after all. Breakdowns like this were common.
She took a liberal amount and then pressed the wadded up tissues miserably against her own face, sniffling as she did so, her nose clearly full of tears and mucus.
The man moved from his seat just adjacent to her and then placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Blossom... I am so, so sorry that you did not get the protection that you and your sisters deserved back then. It was a failure on all fronts and totally unacceptable from every officer involved in that case."
What were those guys even thinking? Even if they did think the children were nothing more than little "monsters" back then, wouldn't it have been in everyone's best interest to keep them contained where somebody else could keep an eye on them instead of leaving them to their own devices? He swore, the Townsville populace could just lack common sense at times.
He went on. "You're right to feel angry about it. You were children back then and you are still children now, even if you were created in a lab. Children have RIGHTS, no matter where they come from or who they are. Those officers were wrong to do that and I will make sure that each and every last one of them faces proper consequences for pulling a stunt like that on you AND your father."
This promise surprised Blossom. She looked up at him with shocked, teary eyes. Did he really have the authority to do that?
"Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry you were failed before but we're here to help you now. We're not here to try to make you miserable or to hurt anybody in your family."
"But I thought you said I didn't need to take a shot!" Bubbles cried, now hearing a piece of contradictory information that involved her having a blood sample taken from her arm.
This would be a blood test done to test for syphilis, a bacterial infection usually spread by sexual contact. Luckily Bubbles didn't seem to have any type of those sores over her body but they still had to do the testing so that they could be better safe than sorry.
"I know sweetie but this is just to make sure you're healthy and it will be over very quickly."
The older nurse from before who had read her the story of Franklin the turtle going to the hospital for his own form of surgery held the little girl now, offering her emotional support. Bubbles willingly snuggled up to her and Ms. Green offered a compromise.
"Tell you what honey, why don't I put a bit of numbing cream on your arm first before I put the needle in? That way it won't hurt so much."
"Yes please." Bubbles requested, having a single tear wiped from her closed eyes as she miserably held out her left arm for the doctors to do what they pleased with it.
When it was finally time to have the injection, the numbing cream helped a little but she still didn't like the poke, yelping a bit at the sharp point penetrating her skin. The elderly nurse made sure to have the girl's head turned away so she wouldn't be able to see the blood being taken out of her arm and filled inside a tube. A tube that would be taken to a lab for testing.
"All done!" Ms. Green said when it was all over, putting an adhesive little bandage with Sesame Street characters over the injection site. Bubbles's arm felt a little sore when she tried it out, but she guessed it could've been worse. She just hoped that this was the worst of the exam.
Unfortunately for her, it wasn't quite over yet...
"Now before we get started with our little talk today, there are some things I think you should know, Buttercup." Carly said to her client. "I don't know the answers to my questions."
"So when we talk today, I need you to tell me everything that happened in your own words." Chuck told Blossom.
"Because I wasn't there and I don't know what happened, okay?" Carly continued to her interviewee, Buttercup.
Both girls agreed with this, understanding that the ball was in their court when it came to recalling the events that had happened to their sister today.
Next they set up some ground rules for their interviewees...
"If I make a mistake or get something wrong, tell me."
They both provided an example.
"So if I told you, 'Buttercup, you're a 40 year old man', what would you say?"
Buttercup scoffed. "That's wrong! I'm five."
Carly nodded at her. "I was wrong, wasn't I? Thank you for correcting me. You can do that all throughout this interview if I happen to get something wrong, okay?"
"Okay."
"If I told you, 'Blossom, I see you're wearing a green dress with a black stripe,' what would you say?"
"That's wrong! I wear a pink dress with a black stripe..."
"Good. I happened to be wrong in that instance so you corrected me. Please correct any mistake I make just like that if I happen to make another one in our interview today, okay?"
"Okay."
Sounded easy enough.
"Now Blossom, if I ask you a question and you don't know the answer, it's okay for you say 'I don't know the answer' instead of guessing or trying to make it up, alright?"
"Alright."
That was a new concept for her; freely admitting her own ignorance to a subject, but if that was what she had to do to make for a more accurate interview, that was what she would do.
Again, examples were provided.
"So if I ask you, 'Buttercup, what's my dog name?' what would you say?"
"Uh..." At first Buttercup racked her brain and truly tried to guess before Carly gently intervened and said, "Well, you don't quite know my dog's name do you? You don't even know if I really have a dog. So what do you think you should say?"
"Oh!" Buttercup felt like an idiot. "I don't know. Sorry." She punched herself in the head once as punishment for her ignorance. She couldn't afford to make mistakes like that, dang it!
"That's okay, sweetheart. Just remember that you don't have to guess. I don't want you to guess. I want you to tell me that you don't know."
"Right! I'll remember for next time..."
"Now, if I said, 'Buttercup, what's the name of YOUR dog?' what would you say?"
"I don't have a dog!" The girl answered more readily.
"That's right. You knew the answer to that one, so you didn't have to say 'I don't know.'"
Now both of them moved on to the next step of addressing a lack of understanding.
"If I ask you a question and you don't know what I mean, I want you to tell me 'I don't get it' or 'I don't know what you mean', okay? So if I ask you, "Blossom, what is your gender?", what would you say?"
Blossom actually did know what the word 'gender' meant so she answered, "I'm a girl."
Buttercup didn't though and she expressed more confusion at the unfamiliar word. "Huh?"
"Gender's a hard word isn't it? So what do you think you should say when you don't understand?"
God dang it, why did she keep forgetting? "I don't know what you mean!"
"So let me try asking it in a different way. Buttercup, are you a boy or a girl?"
Familiarity now flooded the girl's face. "Okay, I'm a girl. That's what gender means."
Carley nodded. "Exactly. So if I happen to ask you something else and you don't quite know what I mean, you can say, 'I don't know what you mean!'"
"Got it."
Meanwhile on Chuck's end, "Okay, so you actually knew what the word gender meant. Let's try a different example. If I were to ask you, 'Blossom, what is my orientation?' what would you say?"
If she knew what this word meant, he would just have to call her one of the smartest five-year-olds he had ever interviewed. Luckily for him, this word actually did trip her up and the appropriate amount of confusion entered her face.
"Um... I don't know what that means, sir!"
"Okay, so let's ask it in a different way. Blossom, am I standing up or sitting down?"
"Sitting down." Easy. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
The last instruction given to the girls was along the same lines of memory. If they were asked a question and they couldn't quite remember, it was okay for them to say, "I don't remember" and always never to guess.
Bubbles had a sheet put over yet again for the more... intimate parts of the exam with the Wood lamp and the cotton swabs being swabbed over her external genitalia. She needed to be in more than one position this time since they were now covering other areas like her thighs and buttocks and each time there was someone on hand to try to distract and sooth her with various objects of entertainment.
Primarily bubbles. Blowing bubbles for Bubbles. It was enough to bring at least a small smile on her face during this otherwise uncomfortable procedure. There were still moments where she flushed, whimpered, and bit her lip, but it still wasn't as bad as it could have been...
The final thing the interviewers had to get from the girls was a competency assessment as to rather they knew the difference between a truth and a lie and once they got that, they would then need to get a promise from the girls that they would only tell the truth.
"Blossom, when we say that someone is telling us the 'truth', what would the 'truth' be?"
"Things that really happened." Blossom answered.
"And when we say that someone is telling us a 'lie', what would a 'lie' be, Buttercup?" Carly asked.
"Things that didn't really happen." Buttercup answered in her own separate interview to Carly.
"So if a boy called Joe ate all the cookies in the kitchen but then told his mother that he didn't eat any cookies, what would Joe be doing?"
"He'd be telling lies." Both girls answered.
"Is it good to tell the truth?"
"Yes."
"Is it bad to tell a lie?"
"Yes."
"What happens when someone tells a lie?"
"A little white monster appears in your home." Blossom told him specifically, actually speaking from experience on that front.
Buttercup shared the same (true) story. "And he'll only get bigger in size the more lies you tell. You can only get rid of him by telling the truth."
Carly's eyes widened fractionally. That was certainly a specific example. Too specific to be a coincidence. Since she was interviewing one of the Powerpuff Girls, she could bet that this truly did happen and the little girl was speaking from experience.
"True story by the way! If you can believe it..."
"I believe you. It's important today that you tell me only the things that really happened. Only the things that you saw with your own two eyes, heard with your own two ears, and felt with your own body. Do you promise to tell me only the things that really happened, Buttercup?"
"Yes." She promised, and the woman smiled at her.
"Will you promise to tell me the truth, Blossom?"
"Yes sir."
"Are you going to tell me any lies, Blossom?"
"No sir."
"Good girl."
"Do I have to pee?" Bubbles whined, sure that this would be a painful, unpleasant experience.
"It's just to see if it hurts you, sweetie. And we're also going to take a sample of your urine too."
Bubbles was shocked. "You can check people's health in pee too?"
"Yes. It's called a urinalysis."
This urine test would be used to check the child for gonorrhea or chlamydia. Bubbles ended up peeing while she was still standing up, held in place by her armpits by the elderly nurse from before and whimpering at the expected pain. It wasn't excruciating but it was enough to make Bubbles cry that the bottom of her stomach hurt again.
The bedpan placed under her was filled with more blood than it was urine, further proving the need for surgery.
"Don't look at that, sweetie." The woman lightly warned, making sure to cover her eyes as the pan was taken away just to make sure she didn't.
Now the hard part was over. The only thing left to do was the operation itself.