Experiment Bandicoot
Chapter 4:
Toddler
Year 2, Day 14
The full year of his first age passed by a lot quicker then I thought. He no longer crawled and gurgled. He was walking and running, smiling and giggling more often. He could understand basic English language (as well as some Japanese, after all, he's got Japanese blood in him). More importantly, he does a great job of eating the foods all three of us manage to make for him. Human foods seem to be absolutely no problem for him. We kept an eye on his digestive system to be sure and to see which food he was allergic to or not, but so far, all the cut up vegetables, milk, and candy had little affect on him other them him eating it and begging for more. Gin and Brio has gotten quite use to tying a bib around him and feeding him his main food." I guess you guys can be Hiroki's Godfathers." I proclaimed at one point. Gin and Brio thought it was fine, but they thought I was getting too attached to the boy.
"I am not!" I snorted back, Of course I was denying it…
Year 2, Day 34
Bath times were some of my most favorite moments with Hiroki. Him splashing the water with his hands, the bubbles on his head, the little rubber ducky that he enjoys chewing on (only for me to have to take it out of his mouth and then him sneaking up while I wasn't looking and chewing it again), and him generally squealing every time I get near him in utter happiness. I swear, many people complain how kids are terrible, but I think it's one of the greatest thing to have ever graced my life. The sheer joy of having one smiling and laughing at you was worth having one alone.
I was in my paranoid mode as usual during bath times; refusing to pick up the phone or leave the room lest I feel the child might drown. I've always had that fear, so until Hiroki can wash himself, you can forget about me ever leaving the bathroom. Hell, whenever the phone rang, the conversations were always, "GIN! BRIO! ONE OF YOU, GET THE DAMN PHONE!"
"Cortex, the kid's not gonna drown! It's 3 inches of water!"
"I don't care! Answer the phone or I'll…umm…cut off your payment!"
"You don't even pay me!"
"JUST ANSWER IT"
This was a normal conversation, although I tried to stop shouting so much. I didn't want Hiroki to learn such behaviors.
Year 2, Day 57
"I can say my "ABC." Hiroki seem to enjoy the gift of talking. We studied that one extra hard. You don't see many furries in this planet. A dying species, one would say. I would have loved to research one myself if Hiroki wasn't made, but I didn't dare think anyone would actually come up and volunteered to be probed and poked. Hiroki generally kept a cool face with me and always trusted me as far as I was concerned, but his smile turned into a frown every time I had to give him a shot. We had to make sure Hiroki lasted long as an average human being. As much as I didn't wanted to, sometimes an experiment was necessary, especially since I wanted him to live like a regular being.
Year 2, Day 200
We found out he's allergic to carrots. Poor child kept coughing so much and choking.
Year 2, Day 345
I was worried, Hiroki didn't run around like he usually did early in the morning. He didn't watch cartoons as he usually did early in the morning. He didn't even bother my cohorts in that cute childish manner early in the morning. So of course something felt wrong. He was still in bed when I got to his room, moaning and groaning.
"Daddy." He weakly coiled. Naturally, the fact that he was weak as a kitten had me worried a great deal some, especially since he was such a lively boy. I immediately took out a thermometer.
"Something is wrong." My friends entered.
"He's not running around." Gin gasped.
"No…he's not." I muttered slowly, "That's because he's sick."
"S-S-S-Sick of what?" Brio asked.
"He seems to be running a fever." I mumbled, touching his forehead.
"Well, don't worry, just keep him warm and give him medicine and in a few days, he'll be alright." Gin shrugged, obviously seeing this was no big deal.
"…Yea." I nodded.
Truth be told, he did get better in a few days and was once more lively again, but that one time when he was sick, I felt like butterflies had entered my stomach. An average person could get over a sickness like the fever, but the fact that he looked almost dead had such an impact on me. I felt like this wouldn't be the first time Hiroki would experience this…no, not the fever, but something more. Am I being paranoid as I write this? Why do I feel this way?
Year 3, Day 17
"Stop crashing into stuff on purpose, you'll get a brain tumor!" Gin cried, "Neo, do something about your kid!"
"He's just having fun." I muttered.
"He keeps crashing into things on purpose!" Gin cried.
"Why would he do that?" I gasped, and then I turned to Hiroki, "My son, why would you do such a thing?"
"Because it's fun." He smiled.
"it's fun until someone gets hurt." I spoke.
"I have a hard head." Hiroki smiled, and then he demonstrated by hitting himself repeatedly on the coffee table leg.
"HEY!" I immediately picked him and tried to see if he manage to get a bump on his head, "Don't you EVER do such a thing like that!"
"Okay." He was disappointed, but why would he purposely hurt himself?
Year 3, Day 22
Hiroki is a rambunctious boy, quite the daredevil: He'd jumped from one couch to another with a daring leap for a 3 year old, he'd steal all the pots from the kitchen and throw them around the house, trying to top his score to see how far he can chuck (usually, it hit a random vase, so we had to get him to stop), he even piled up all the toys he had, tied a rope to himself and then climbed to the, then he would leap down, bungee jumping style. Naturally to say, this was giving all three of us a tremendous amount of headaches. If I didn't knew any better, the boy would grow up to be a daredevil. Oh, have mercy on us all.
……………………
Today was a quiet day for him. He was busy playing with his blocks. I came over to see how he was doing after I finished the dishes, only to be amazed…he spelled words. Sure, they were simple words like "cats", "dogs", and such and such, but he SPELLED. The boy didn't even knew how to read yet, but he spelt words. This couldn't be coincidence.
I immediately called in my colleagues and we busied ourselves, scribbling on our clipboard on this stunning revelation.
"Most three years old can't read or write." Gin gasped, "Your kid, however…"
"Maybe he's g-g-g-got your brain, Neo." Brio explained.
"Maybe." I softly spoke.
Whatever the case was, this was certainly a step up. We had to make sure, so we asked him to read the words.
"Cat." He pointed to the blocks that said, "cat".
"Dog." He pointed to the block that said "dog".
What a discovery. What a trooper, that Hiroki is.
Year 3, Day 46
The boy had finished reading the entire picture books in his house. He had difficulties at first, but he managed to read on his own by the end. He refused any help, saying he'd do it himself. Instead, the three of us casually observed him from afar. I occasionally peeked over his shoulder to see if he was reading right and not making up words (he wasn't).
We tried to expand on other parts of education, but he wasn't interested in Math (he didn't so well), except the reading part, "What is 2 plus 2?". He read anything from social studies to science, but he couldn't understand what more then half the words were or what they mean, so we had him back to what he did best.
When he finished all the picture books, he came over to me and asked, "Can I read harder books? You know, the ones without pictures in them?"
I was shocked, yet not deeply surprised. I remember asking the same thing when I was about 3. I dug through my old books I had in the library section of my castle.
"So, what do you want to read?"
"I want to read a fun book." Hiroki implied, "Something kids can read and enjoy."
"Here, then." I handed him a book, a short, small chapter book.
"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." Hiroki read the cover, "What a silly name."
"I know, but it's a fun book and the movie's not half bad."
"Thank you, daddy."
I watched him as he would read every 3 hours each day, his eyes gazed onto the book. He finished it in about 3 day's time. He seemed to back flip a lot and I asked him why. He answered, "Some parts were more fun to read then others, so I wanted to read it again."
When he was done, he demanded more books, so I took out all the chapter books kids read and he started to read them all.
Year 3, Day 123
He became a lot less daring once he started to get more obsessed with books. That did bring us to a lesser stressing point, but he was still rambunctious. His energy wouldn't be disappearing anytime soon. These are some of the books he read:
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Secret Garden
James and the Giant Peach
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Grimm's Fairy Tales
And so on and on.
Year 3, 231
I found myself buying more books for him. Hiroki enjoyed reading as much as he loved crashing into things and coming off unscathed. That last part had me thinking. The boy seemed to be immune physically from harm. I had him double checked and found his skull to be rather thick. He surpassed quite a level of intelligence despite the thick skull. He easily healed from cuts and bruises faster then an average being, let along average human being. He could purposely cut himself and his wound would heal in a matter of days. Usually, cuts take weeks to mend over. This was truly mind blowing. He didn't even feel much pain when he crashed into things, let along cry. It's like he's been given one too many painkillers. I decided to keep an extra close eye on that or maybe I'm being too paranoid?
Year 4, Day 5
"I need bigger books, daddy." Hiroki had finished all the small, chapter books children normally read.
"Bigger books?" I gasped, "Where on Earth would I get a bigger book that a child could enjoy?" I dug around once again in my library and fished out a fat book.
"Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens." Hiroki read. The brown leather book was immensely huge, about half of Hiroki's size, and that edition was well over 400 something pages.
"Thank you, daddy." Hiroki smiled, "I'm going to go read it now."
I had doubts he's interest would hold out on that one giant book, along, but in a matter of weeks, as I observed, the boy had finished the entire book.
"It was a kind of questionable book, with a questionable ending, but still, I liked it better then the first ending the writer intended to give." Hiroki spoke, "At least with this ending currently, it's much more happier."
Year 4, Day 55
CRASH!
Again, he crashed into another random item while he was playing "Airplane".
"My gosh, you crash into a lot of things, do you know that?" Gin cried, slamming his coffee cup down.
"I think it's fun, Mr. Gin." Hiroki smiled, "Why don't you try?"
"I'm not in the mood to kill my brain." Gin stated.
Hiroki merely ignored him and kept running into things again. We had to pick up the stuff for him. We were all tired of him crashing into random things, but stopping him was like trying to stop a bullet train all by yourself.
"You need a nickname." Gin groaned, "Like Smashing Machine kid."
"That's too long." Hiroki giggled.
"How about just p-p-p-p-plain Smash?" Brio came in.
"Personally, his nickname should be Crash. He doesn't smash things, he just crashes into them." I came up.
"I like Crash." Hiroki smiled.
"Then I hereby nickname dub thee ye, "Crash." I smiled, lifting him up.
It was meant as a joke, but the name stuck and with the exception for myself (at times), he was refer to as "Crash".
Changes:
-Added dialogue on Crash's bath scene
-Expansion on Cortex and others trying to further educate Crash
