What If They Were Competent?

by Mr. Chaos

The Stipulation: One chapter a day. 500 words or less. Every episode of Rugrats. The Challenge: What if the adults on Rugrats were actually good parents? Watched their kids? Thought ahead? DIDN'T think it was fine for babies to nearly die every 5 days? Tommy is about to have a very different life with Stu and Didi actually using their brains.

40. Family Reunion

Family Reunion

"And this must be Tommy! Such a cute little guy, isn't it?"

Those words echoed in Tommy's head as rode on the weird car thingie. "Angelica? What's a Family Union?"

"Family Reunion, melonhead."

"But… what is it?" Tommy asked nervously. "Is it… a place where they make big babies into little babies?"

Angelica opened her mouth. She SO wanted to mess with her cousin. Tell him that yes, that is exactly what would happen. Make the annoying baby who kept stealing attention away from her frightened that he was going to become a itty bitty baby again.

But Dr. Jasper's voice kept ringing in her head.

"We don't make ourselves feel good by making others feel bad."

So instead she sighed and huffed out, "No you dumb baby! It's a big person version of you coming over to my house to play."

"Oh!" Tommy said, perking up. "So they don't turn big babies into little babies so they are helpless and never get to go on adventures again?"

"The last thing anyone wants is YOU being smaller and more annoying," Angelica snarked.

Tommy didn't know about that but he was glad the Family Union wasn't some trick to make him into a baby baby again. "Okay." He paused. "Angelica?"

"What?"

"Thanks for telling me. You're so smart."

"Well… yeah, of course I am!" She perked up at the praise.

Later, to her annoyance and Tommy's delight, the two of them were put in a large play area to meet their other cousins. They all kind of talked funny but they seemed really nice and Tommy was excited to say hello.

"Hi! I'm Tommy and this is Angelica!"

Angelica nodded. "Yeah, and I'm in charge now!"

"Nope, Emmett is!" Timmy said, pointing to a HUGE kid who dwarfed Angelica. She gulped but Tommy quickly stepped in front of her.

"Hi Emmett! I'm Tommy and this is Angelica! She's really smart and knows lots of stuff!"

All the other kids OOOOOOHHHED at that.

"What… what kind of stuff?" Tammy asked.

"Everythings!" Tommy said, throwing his arms out wide.

Angelica quickly nodded at that. "Yup, that's right! I know everything. So if you got a question…"

And that's how Angelica found herself educating all the dumb babies for the entire reunion. And she had to admit… it was fun being the one all the babies turned to.