CHAPTER 23: A New Generation


"Let's see," Andy muttered, looking at a small piece of paper. "Next is... well! Next one to see is Bugs Bunny. How 'bout that. He still teaches Class Clowning 101?"
"Guess so," Slappy agreed. Next to the couple, and slightly behind, trudged their twelve year-old son, Anthony. It was parent/teacher conference week at Acme Looniversity, and just like all the other students in grades 7 through 12, Anthony's parents had come to talk with his teachers and find out how their child was doing in his classes. Rather than having the parents wandering lost throughout the Looniversity seeking out different classrooms, all of the professors had been assembled in the gymnasium at rows of tables. The large room buzzed with conversation.
"Aw," Anthony sighed. "Do we have to go see Bugs?"
"Why not?" Andy asked casually, knowing full well that Anthony had always been slightly intimidated by the famous rabbit. That, compounded by the fact that he wasn't doing very well in Bugs' class made Anthony lag further behind.
"Eh," Slappy muttered, taking Anthony's paw and ruffling his head fur. "C'mon. It'll be fun."
"Hey, Docs!" Bugs said cheerfully to Andy and Slappy, standing up and shaking their paws. As Andy and the two squirrels took their seats Bugs sat back down and donned a pair of reading glasses. He extracted a manila folder from a pile and gazed at it with all the airs of a concerned educator who was meeting a student's parents for the very first time.
"Ah, yes. Mr. and Mrs... em... Fox. Yes. It is a great joy to have your son Anthony in my class."
"Oh, geez!" Slappy half giggled, half groaned while Andy slumped down in his chair. Resting an elbow on the table he rested his chin on his paw, looking as if he was going to fall asleep. Meanwhile, Anthony sat petrified in his chair, awaiting the verdict from his professor.
"I must say, your son is a very gifted student," Bugs began, thumbing through the contents of the folder, extracting some papers and spreading them out on the table. "He's one of da brighter kids in his class. However, he does not seem to be applyin' himself as hard as he could be."
"Really?" said Slappy, clearly uninterested.
"Yes," Bugs went on. "It seems dat young Anthony here is having difficulties in da areas of slapstick comedy, particularly in da area of anvils and mallets."
"You don't say," Andy commented, also appearing bored out of his mind. Bugs eyed the two parents skeptically.
"Anthony seems to be having trouble understanding da basis for dis type of comedy," Bugs explained. "Frankly with a mother like Slappy I can't honestly see how dat can be possible."
"Perhaps he needs a... demonstration?" Andy asked dryly, looking over to Slappy, his head still resting in his hand.
"Yeah," Slappy agreed, perking up. In a flash of movement, she whipped out a giant mallet from her purse and delivered a solid strike to Bugs' head. The rabbit's eyes crossed and he immediately fell off his chair. Anthony's eyes went wide with shock, his face the picture of horror. "You... you knocked him out cold!" he gasped.
"Naw," Slappy said, patting his shoulder. "Luke warm maybe, but not cold. Heh ha."
Bugs' voice came from behind the table, a gloved paw rose above the chair pointing a finger up in defiance. "Now see here..." but before he could get further, he was again knocked to the ground, this time by a large Acme Anvil which had inexplicably appeared above him. Slappy eyed Andy who smiled innocently. "This is kinda fun."
Again Bugs rose to his feet, and shakily took to his chair. "I can see you two have no problems in dis area," he said, wavering. He turned to see Anthony bubbling with stifled laughter. "Ya see, kid?" he asked. "It ain't hard, and obviously you are now seein' the humor in it."
"Yes, professor Bugs," he said, trying to put on a serious expression and show his mentor the respect required, which at the moment was rather difficult with the ring of stars still floating around Bugs' head.
"Now," Bugs continued, regaining his poise and going through the papers on the table. "He's currently gettin' a C plus for a grade. Maybe if he applies himself for da rest of da trimester, he can raise it to an A."
"Whaddaya say, kid?" Slappy asked Anthony. "Think ya might get the hang of it?"
"Let me see," said Anthony, taking Slappy's mallet and giving his professor a terrific whack with it, sending Bugs back to the floor.
Andy couldn't help but grin. "Seems teacher/student formalities have gone completely out the window here."
Slappy broke into laugher. "Heh ha! That's my kid who did that."
"Well," Bugs said after Andy had pulled him off the floor and wrung him out to his normal self, "Dat's about all I can say about Anthony... except heaven help da world when he graduates."
Andy and Bugs shook paws. Bugs looked around for Slappy who had suddenly vanished. "So long, folks," he said finally. "Take care of dat kid of yours. He's a real spit-fire."
"Bu-bye," Slappy answered back, her head popping up from under the table. She gave Bugs a smug handshake and turned to depart with Andy. As the two walked away, a familiar *BOOM* thundered behind them, and a charred, smoking gray rabbit fizzled to the floor.
Andy and Slappy got through the rest of Anthony's professors with little incident, Making their way around the gym the two ran into none other than Plucky Duck and Shirley The Loon. Andy took Plucky's wing and shook it vigorously. "Plucky! Great to see you."
The green mallard grinned back. "Hey, Andy, Slappy. You two still hangin' 'round here?"
"Of course," Andy shrugged. The two clapped each other on the back like old friends.
"Like, nice to see you again, Andy," Shirley offered. "It's like, really good to see your karma is finally at peace." Andy took her wing and kissed it cordially, the wedding ring on her finger glittering in the room's light. The two waterfowl had matured well over the years, and looked like a winning couple. The two nodded warmly to Slappy.
"Hey, kids," Slappy greeted back. Plucky and Shirley scowled slightly.
"Kids?" they both grumbled.
"Don't worry," Andy said. "Anyone whose less than sixty is a kid to her."
Shirley turned her attention to the third toon across from her. "Hey, Anthony!" she waved. "Like, how's my favorite little squirrel?"
Anthony bounded over to Shirley and hugged her. "Okay! We just blew up Bugs Bunny."
Shirley frowned at this. "Oh, really?" she asked, eyeing Slappy.
"What?" Slappy asked, dispassionately.
"Same old Slappy," Plucky mused.
"Hey!" Slappy jabbed Plucky with her umbrella. "Watch it with that 'old' bit. Ehhh, these kids today."
"Glad to see you two are doing so well," Andy said to the couple, putting a restraining paw on Slappy's shoulder. "You know you Tiny Toons have become something of a legend here."
"Well, I'm not one to boast," Plucky began, puffing himself up. Shirley gave him a playful jab in his side.
"Deflate, dear," she said out of the side of her beak.
Plucky shrugged and smiled innocently. A voice suddenly piped up behind him. "Hey, dad. Professor Leghorn's ready for us now."
Andy turned and fixed his attention on the very lovely, blonde-haired green mallard that had spoken up. It was like looking at a female version of what Plucky had looked like during his years at studying at the Loo.
"Oh, my," Andy gasped. "Is that Melanie? Oh, crimany she's grown!"
"Yep," Plucky agreed, confidently. "She's in the 9th grade now. A regular spit-fire like her old man."
Andy and Melanie shook paw and wing, then Andy turned back to Plucky and Shirley. "Well, I guess you'd better go visit Foghorn. I hear he's got a lot of parents to see tonight."
"Like, it was totally great to see you three again," Shirley remarked. The two couples said their good-byes, then parted for their next meetings.

"I don't want him learnin' to blow stuff up like I do," Slappy demanded to Andy after they had arrived back home, where the two had since retired to an upstairs reading room. Andy was lounging in a large, burgundy rocking chair with Slappy lying contentedly in his lap, her back reclined against his chest. "I don't want him growin' up to be an old grouch like me. It's a different world, now. The years blowin' everybody up are comin' to an end, and I don't want him to be trapped in a fading world that he'll have to struggle to break away from."
"It's the same world, Slappy," said Andy, taking her paw in his.
Slappy's voice was flat and unconvinced. "Is it?"
"We're toons, Slappy," Andy said. "Toons are toons, no matter what the year. The world is what we make it."
Slappy looked down and ran a finger through Andy's fur. "Eeeh, I wish I could believe that. Maybe I'm too cynical, heh ha." She looked back up at Andy earnestly. "I want him to be happy. You'll... take care of him, won't you, Fox?"
Andy said nothing, but simply hugged Slappy to him and kissed her cheek softly.
"Fox?" Slappy spoke up after a while. "Do you... believe in soul mates?"
Andy's expression went blank. "What?"
"Soul mates," Slappy repeated.
"I... don't know," Andy admitted, turning away slightly. "Why?" he asked after a moment.
"You've always told me you were glad you found me," She said, a tiny tear forming in her eye. "But I've always felt, now more than ever since you took the rite, that maybe I found you, too. Maybe... we found each other. You... say can't remember your past, but I've always found it interesting that the day they say you came here, just happened to be on my birthday, and how we share the same thoughts and feelings... almost like there was just one soul between us."
Andy slowly nodded. Since he had first met Slappy, he too had been aware of a strange and unfamiliar sensation--some force that had drawn the unlikely coupling of a fox and a squirrel into existence, and had given both toons an unexplainably wonderful feeling of being whole and complete with the other's presence. The words spoken by the mysterious fox in the woods flitted about in his head: two halves, longing to be whole.
"Is... is being soul mates that bad then?" he asked, looking into Slappy's aqua eyes, but Slappy didn't answer. Deep in the recesses of Andy's mind, he heard an odd echo, a feeling, a sensation he had never had before. It said, faintly, but clearly, "It means we're tied to each other. We always have been, and we'll always find each other."