Chapter Thirty-One: Chopper

The first thing that Chopper could ever remember was being bottle fed by Hiluluk. It was his oldest memory and his fondest. Whenever Chopper had a bad day, he thought of that memory.

In the beginning, there were a lot of bad days.

Chopper was sure that there were memories from before the bottle feeding, but since that was when his brain had been augmented, that was as far back as he could go. There must have been something before it. He must have had a mother at some point. Maybe even siblings. But since he couldn't remember those things, Chopper didn't dwell on them.

Chopper didn't remember where he'd come from, either. Maybe he'd been just a regular reindeer once upon a time, wandering about with a herd, and had somehow gotten caught up by those scary figures in the blue jumpsuits. Maybe he'd been born in the experimentation facility.

It didn't matter.

Chopper now spent his days as a pet. He hid what his brain could do and just followed around Doctorine all day. No one paid him any mind. He liked that. He liked that he could have peaceful days with no one poking him with needles or trying to test his reaction to this or that. He could just be a little reindeer that was unrehabilitatable and stay with Doctorine forever.

Doctorine was a stern, yet kind lady. She never poked him with needles (except when he was due for his rabies shots) and she fed him good food. Like pancakes and apples and cookies and cheese. What humans would have termed 'people food.' Well, Doctorine treated him almost like he was a person, so who cared? Chopper could have that 'people food' all he wanted.

Doctorine had once been a brilliant surgeon who had saved hundreds upon hundreds of lives. She had been renowned throughout One Piece and sought after by many people. That had ultimately been what had pushed her to retire. Too many 'unsavories' had darkened her door.

Chopper was pretty sure that unsavories wasn't a real word, but he didn't care. He liked Doctorine's made-up words almost as much as the real ones.

See, Doctorine talked to him all of the time. Seriously, all of the time. She was one to explain what she was doing and why she was doing it to whoever would listen. And Chopper always listened. He especially liked it when Doctorine read to him from her medical studies books. She said she did it to keep her mind fresh.

Nowadays she was a simple school nurse. She had been one of the few staff not replaced when the new principal had taken over. Doctorine sometimes cursed the principal for having such 'shitty subordinates' when she had to send the occasional student to the hospital. And she would complain to Chopper for an hour or so before she would go back go reading medical books to him.

Chopper stayed out of sight at the school. He was a small reindeer; only thirty-odd kilos. Chopper knew from a documentary he watched with Doctorine on reindeer that he was tiny compared to them. He also had surmised that his growth had been stunted when his mind had been augmented. A reindeer his age would have been considered geriatric, but Chopper, being only fifteen years old, was still as spry as a spring foal.

When there weren't students in the nurse's office, Chopper hung out with Doctorine, watching her concoct medicines and such with rapt attention. The medical field absolutely fascinated him. Sometimes, when Doctorine was sleeping, Chopper would sit down with the medical books that she had read to him and try to read them himself.

He wasn't too good at reading the huge words like isocyanate and haloalkane, but boy, could he ever calculate their chemical equivalents. Chemistry was easy for Chopper. He'd even thought about borrowing some of Doctorine's chemicals to do some of his own experiments, but he was sure that the quick-minded Doctorine would notice.

Sometimes she gave him a look that made the fur on his back stand on end. It was a look that said that she knew that he was smarter than he acted. Chopper feared those looks; he didn't want his precious Doctorine to start experimenting on him, or worse, give him back to the people Hiluluk had rescued him from.

Today was one of those days that Doctorine had been giving him those looks. Chopper had hid from them, hiding underneath one of the sick beds while Doctorine read aloud from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. She was about half way through the book when the door opened and a grouping of several boys came in carrying a still body. They laid the body on top of the very sick bed that Chopper hid under.

"What's all this?" Doctorine asked grouchily.

"He was beaten with a baseball bat by our gym teacher," one of the panicked boys explained. "He hasn't moved since he lost consciousness and we can't wake him up."

Doctorine's feet approached Chopper and his acute ears could hear as she checked over the still body on the bed above him.

"No doubt, he has a concussion," Doctorine diagnosed. "Along with four broken bones. Ya happy?"

"Damn it!" cried one of the students. "Tsukasa isn't good with sports, and it was his turn to bat. He struck out and—"

"And nothing," a loud voice interrupted. Chopper spied from his hiding space a short woman with sunglasses and wild magenta hair. The older woman looked over the room and grinned in a decidedly not nice way. "Your teacher did nothing but defend himself against the abrasions of another student."

"Tsukasa didn't attack him!" one of the students defended.

"Oh?" the older woman spoke up. Chopper thought she was the guidance counselor. "Would you like to go explain that to Principal Crocodile then?"

It was quiet for a long moment.

"No ma'am," a quiet voice spoke up.

"I thought not," the woman smirked. "Now get back to class before you're written up for skipping."

Several pairs of feet shuffled towards and out of the door. Doctorine's feet stayed where they were and the other woman approached.

"This one is going to my office when he wakes up," the woman said.

"This one is going to the hospital," Doctorine corrected. "Ya happy?"

The woman in the glasses was very much not happy. She frowned deeply and turned her attention to the boys who had brought the invalid into the nurse's office.

"You four! You all have detention this afternoon for skipping class!" she snapped. The boys stirred with dismay, but none of them said a word of protest. The crabby old woman smirked then, and left the room.

"Go back to class," Doctorine instructed the boys. "I will give you passes to class, but you'll still have to serve your detentions. Ya happy?"

The boys were not happy, but kept their complaining to a minimum as Doctorine wrote out passes for them to return to class. When the boys had left, Doctorine called for an ambulance to take the injured child to the hospital, followed by the boy's parents. She was in a particularly foul mood after that call.

"Chopper! Quit hiding under that damn bed and get out here and help me," she snapped. Chopper scrambled out from under the bed and to Doctorine's side. She placed a metal tray upon his head, balancing it on his antlers, and began concocting a menagerie of balms and salves to put on the injured student.

Chopper was Doctorine's assistant in this way. He didn't make the serums but he was at her side, holding that tray steady as she worked. He carried the tray over to the bed where the boy lay and Doctorine began treating the boy's superficial wounds.

Chopper could have helped Doctorine bind the boy's wounds; he had been practicing with bandaging with his hooves a couple times and had become pretty decent at it. But if he did, he would have revealed his brain to Doctorine, and he was still not okay with that. So Doctorine worked solitary on the boy and the job was done, though maybe not as quickly as it could have been done otherwise.

When the ambulance arrived to pick up the student, Chopper was obliged to stay in the nurse's office while Doctorine escorted the boy out of the school. Chopper had resumed hiding when the paramedics arrived and decided to stay hidden after Doctorine left. If someone came in, he wouldn't be seen.

With no Doctorine gone for the time being, Chopper succumbed to a nap. He had been up late the night before reading Neuroscience: Fundamentals for Rehabilitation and was quite tired. Figuring he'd be fine if he snoozed under the sick bed, he fell into slumber.

He awoke when the bed over top of him shifted. He nearly scrambled from beneath it in fright, but remembered himself and stayed hidden. He checked the clock and saw that he had been asleep for no more than twenty minutes. But somehow, someone had come in while he slept.

Doctorine entered then, stepping into the office and looking around.

"What have we here?" Doctorine asked. "A troublemaker? A runaway? A spy?"

"All of the above," a girl spoke up from above him. "Take your pick."

"What do you want?" Doctorine groused. "I've not the patience for little upstarts. Ya happy?"

"My leg is bleeding," the girl told Doctorine. "I was forced to participate in gym class today or be beaten by a baseball bat."

Doctorine approached the bed and began an examination. It was mostly quiet while Doctorine worked.

"Why is there a baby deer hiding under the bed?"

Chopper jumped.

"So you noticed," Doctorine commented. "Most people don't detect him."

"He was snoring," the girl explained. "He's cute."

Chopper squirmed underneath the bed. He didn't like her praise! He didn't want it at all! It was stupid!

"He's a coward," Doctorine corrected. "Or he'd come out from under that bed to greet you."

Chopper gulped. If he did come out, his secret would be out. If he didn't, he'd be a coward. He tried to convince himself that he was not a coward even though he hid underneath bed.

"I'm sure he's just wary," the girl said. "I doubt he's even been around kids who haven't tormented him."

"Kids are cruel," Doctorine agreed. "You busted a stitch. Ya happy?"

"Damn gym teacher," the girl cursed. "Fucker belongs behind bars."

Cautiously, Chopper peeked his head out from under the bed. The girl on the bed was a first year with a pale complexion and bright orange hair. It was the brightness of the girl's hair that drew Chopper the rest of the way out from under the bed. He'd read all about the genetic anomaly that was the red haired gene but had never seen it for himself until today.

"That he does," Doctorine agreed again. "But such things don't happen in this school."

"It may happen sooner than you think," the redhead spoke quietly. Chopper watched mostly Doctorine, but spared an occasional look at the girl. Doctorine was using the same concoctions she had used on the boy before as she treated the girl's leg. Chopper noticed that she was out of bandages and before he even thought to stop himself, he had already brought a new roll to Doctorine.

He froze in terror when he realized he'd done it.

"That's a good boy, Chopper," Doctorine praised. "I knew you would learn that eventually."

Chopper unfroze and sat down next to Doctorine. He spared a few glances up at what she was doing now and then, but he already knew how to bind a wound so he tried to pretend that he was a dumb animal, but he was pretty sure his act was spoiled.

The redhead stared at him. It was a bit unnerving. He mostly avoided her gaze but it was hard to not want to look at her hair. It shimmered in the light from the window. Soon, he was staring back just as unabashedly.

"Your little pet is interesting," the girl commented. "He must be very intelligent. It's almost like he knows what's going on."

Oops. Chopper hadn't meant to give that away. The girl with the red hair had keen eyes if she could tell that.

"Smart as a whip, that one is," Doctorine agreed. "Though he plays it dumb. I don't know why. Maybe because he was mistreated when he was younger."

The redhead looked pained at that supposition. "People who hurt children and animals deserve to be crucified."

Chopper liked this girl, even though she knew more about him than he wished. He leaned his head forward and rested his chin on one of her hands. Her other hand scratched his head in between his antlers. Chopper sighed in contentment.

The door to the nurse's office slammed open and Chopper jumped. He dove under the bed but he was pretty sure it was too late. He must have been seen. By who, he didn't know until he turned around and peeked from beneath the bed.

It was the magenta haired old lady from before. Cripes, he was in trouble.

"What the hell is that thing doing in this school?" she demanded.

"He's tame," Doctorine said. "He's as meek as a house cat."

"But vermin infested no less," the woman accused. "That thing doesn't belong in a school."

"Neither does our so-called gym teacher but no one kicks him out," Doctorine replied coolly. The magenta haired woman bristled.

"Watch your mouth, old woman," she growled. "You can be dispatched in a heartbeat."

"Who you calling an old woman?" Doctorine complained. True, she was close to a hundred years old, but to call Doctorine old was sacrilege.

"You, old hag!" the magenta haired woman hollered, and then struck Doctorine. It wasn't all that much of a blow; Doctorine had taken worse hits from patients flailing appendages, but Chopper cringed nonetheless.

"That was assault, Miss Crisp," Doctorine spoke lowly.

"The hell it is!" Miss Crisp denied in agitation. "You forced me to—"

"Your pitiful mind games will do you no good, woman," Doctorine interrupted. "You best take your ridiculous bullshit elsewhere."

Miss Crisp sputtered a little bit and then looked at the red-haired girl. "You better—"

"I know, I know," the girl spoke up. "I'm partnered with Miss Wednesday."

Miss Crisp hissed through her teeth and gave them both an evil glare, and Chopper a loathsome one, then she finally turned and left the office. The door slammed shut in her wake.

Doctorine sighed deeply and sat down next to the redhead again.

"I should retire before these rotten people in this school put me in an early grave," Doctorine lamented.

"Early?" the girl muttered under her breath. Luckily, Doctorine did not hear her, but Chopper did. He snorted a laugh.

"Come out you little coward," Doctorine bade to Chopper. The little reindeer climbed back out from under the bed. The redhead put her hand out onto his head and stroked it lightly.

"So you're with that lot," Doctorine commented with distaste. She crossed her arms and glared at the redhead.

"Not by choice," the redhead assured the doctor. "I promise."

"Your promise isn't worth the breath you used to say it," Doctorine dismissed. "Consider yourself lucky. I should have let you bleed."

Doctorine glared at the hand that the redhead had on Chopper's head. The redhead didn't stop petting Chopper though.

"Just what did you hope to do with that little cell phone of yours?" Doctorine asked. "Don't think I didn't see you recording."

The redhead finally stopped petting Chopper. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

"I was recording Miss Crisp," the redhead told her. "Not that I expect you to believe me."

"And why would you want to record her?" Doctorine asked.

"Insurance," the redhead answered. "You don't have dealings with this lot without your own bit of insurance. And you were right. What she did can be construed as assault."

Doctorine assessed the redhead again for a long moment.

"I do not think that you are quite as bad as the miscreants that inhabit this school," Doctorine assessed. "But you're still not what I would call good."

"I can live with that," the redhead agreed.

"What's your name?" Doctorine asked the girl.

"Nami," she answered. "Do you remember me? I was here about two months ago. Right before exams."

"You seem like a different girl from then," Doctorine replied.

"I am, in some ways," Nami agreed. "Listen, I don't expect you to heed my words, but you really shouldn't bring this little guy to school for awhile."

"Chopper is unrehabilitatible," Doctorine explained. "He needs constant supervision. I've got no choice but to bring him with me."

"Then maybe take a couple of days off?" Nami suggested. "Point is, it may get hairy around here in the next few days. You probably don't want to be around for it."

Doctorine studied Nami for a few moments. "I appreciate the advice. But I'll stick around. Someone has to be here for the youngins. Ya happy?"

Nami shrugged and got up from the sick bed. She gave Chopper a final pat before she left the nurse's office. Chopper watched the door long after it shut.

"So what do you think, Chopper?" Doctorine asked. "Is that girl the same kind of bad news as the other shitheads in this school?"

No, Chopper didn't think so. He liked her. She was gentle and kind, and just like Doctorine, used a wall of an abrasive attitude to hide how much she cared. He sighed heavily and walked over to Doctorine, nuzzling the side of her leg.

"One day, Chopper," Doctorine said, reaching down to pat his head softly, "one day you will stop being afraid and show me what kind of reindeer you really are."

Maybe someday, but not today. Chopper heard more footsteps headed their way and he clamored under the bed again to hide from the world.

.o0o.

Doctorine actually lived in All Blue, just across the border on Drum Avenue. It took Doctorine about an hour each way to get to and from work, but seeing as she was one of the few people in all of One Piece to own a vehicle, she didn't have much traffic to contend with. Chopper usually rode in the back of her pickup truck, unless the weather was bad. Today, it was a clear sky as the sun set and Chopper relaxed in the bed of the truck.

At Doctorine's home, Chopper had run of the house. There was even a little flap covering a hole in the back door for him to come and go outside as he pleased, but Chopper had long since learned how to use the door handle. Still, he never did it in front of Doctorine.

Doctorine read to him from one of her medical books until close to midnight before retiring to bed. Chopper waited until he heard her soft snores and got up from his little bed and wandered down to the library to read some books himself. He could never turn on a light, so he brought the books over to the window where the light from a street lamp shone in. There, he sat for a few hours poring over the book.

At close to three o'clock in the morning, the light to the library flicked on. Chopper had been so absorbed in what he was reading that he hadn't noticed that Doctorine's snoring had stopped, nor the sounds of her approach. Now, Chopper looked guiltily up at Doctorine as she stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"Now that I've caught you in the act," Doctorine spoke, "can we drop this ignorant animal charade and face one another as equals?"

Chopper was quaking with fear.

"Come now, Chopper," Doctorine went on, "do you really think that after all these years, I would do something terrible to you, just because you're a little smarter than the average beastie?"

Still, Chopper said nothing.

"Have you ever thought about why Hiluluk brought you to me?" Doctorine posed. Chopper had thought about it. A lot. But still, the fear of humans had been put into him quite young, and it was going to take a lot to get him to be able to get over it.

Doctorine sighed. "I suppose you have your reasons for your secrecy, but I am not going to pretend to ignore this anymore. Until you decide it is okay to come to me and drop this façade, you are forbidden from reading my books. And I will no longer be reading aloud to you either."

No! Chopper felt his heart sink. He positively did not want her to take away the books! They were his favorite thing in the world.

"Please," he squeaked out before he could stop himself.

Doctoring raised an eyebrow at him. "Please, what?"

Chopper drew up his courage and spoke again. "Please, don't take away the books."

Doctorine smiled at him. "All you had to do was ask."

With that, she turned and left the library, and by the sound of her footsteps, went back to bed. Chopper still felt turrets of fear running through him, but seeing as Doctorine hadn't immediately gone for the medical bag and was actually back to snoring again, Chopper deemed himself safe.

.o0o.

Doctorine was a persistent lady, to say the least.

At breakfast the next morning, she wouldn't give Chopper his food until he asked for it. And said please. Because he needed to show some manners, she said. When they were getting ready to leave for school, she asked Chopper if he wished to ride in the front or the back.

At school, Doctorine asked him question after question about how much he had read, how much he understood, what he hoped to accomplish from learning about medicine, and so on. Chopper had never talked so much in his entire life. And aside from the bartering for a meal at breakfast, Chopper spoke voluntarily, rather than have something or someone trying to prod it out of him.

Around lunch time, there was a strange announcement from the principal saying that afternoon classes were being cancelled. All students were to head home immediately and faculty were to head to the west gym.

"That young girl wasn't kidding, was she?" Doctoring asked rhetorically. "To think that there would be problems the very next day…"

Doctorine began gathering her things while Chopper waited. He watched from the window as the students filed out of the school.

"I've a bad feeling about this, Chopper," Doctorine confided. "If the students had not been ordered to go home, I would not be going. But likely, all that will be left in this school is going to be the shady shitheads that work for the principal. I don't care for them in the slightest. That's the only reason we're leaving."

A thought struck Chopper.

"Do you think the girl from yesterday will still be here?" he asked timidly. Doctorine gave him a brief look of smugness before nodding.

"I believe so," she confirmed. "She admitted to being one of his brood, so it seems likely."

"Can we stay for her?" Chopper asked. Now Doctorine looked irritated.

"She's no good," Doctorine diagnosed. "It's best if we keep our noses out of this business. We should go home. After all, if we're here after the bad stuff goes down, there might be no leaving. Ya happy?"

Chopper sulked. "I don't want to go."

"Well tough shit," Doctorine spat. "Now get your furry butt moving. We should leave before someone comes in and makes us stay. It will be more pleasant if we leave on our own."

Slowly, Chopper tracked towards the door. He paused half way, though, when he heard footsteps and the sound of something dragging coming towards them. He backpedaled and hid under the bed.

"Chopper!" Doctorine snapped in annoyance. "What are you—"

"We need a nurse!" a girl's voice cried as she snapped open the door to the infirmary. Chopper peaked out from under the bed to see a teal haired girl in a state of panic while a tall dark haired boy and the orange haired girl from the day before carrying an unconscious blonde boy. "Please, help him!"

The blonde boy was put on the very bed that Chopper hid underneath. Doctorine came over and looked over the patient. She hummed deep in her throat.

"This is worse than yesterday," she muttered. "This one is lucky to be alive. Ya happy?"

"Can you help him?" the teal haired girl asked desperately.

"I can make sure he survives," Doctorine confirmed. "But he'll be in rough condition for several weeks."

Some of the panic fled from the eyes of the teal haired girl. She fell limply into a chair and let her face drop into her hands.

"You there!" Doctorine snapped. "You're Water's boy, aren't you? Give me a hand. Get some bandages and peroxide and start cleaning the superficial wounds."

The feet of the other male in the room sauntered off, not very hastily, in the direction of the supply closet. The last pair of feet, the pair that had to belong to Nami, went over to the next bed over and sat down. Chopper wiggled under the bed until he could see her. She smiled at him when she saw him. She patted the bed next to her.

"Why is there a deer under the bed?" the other male asked as he came back with some bandages.

Chopper jumped out from under the bed and over onto the bed that Nami sat on. He crowded behind her, peeking from behind her left shoulder.

"Your butt is showing," Nami giggled, poking him in the rear for emphasis. Chopper plodded on the bed until his other half was better hidden. Nami reached her hand up and patted Chopper's head. "He's tame. Don't worry about him. What about Kohza?"

"He's got some internal bleeding that I can't take care of here," Doctorine told them. "He'll either have to go to a hospital or a clinic. Other than that, he's mostly just gotten the shit beaten out of him."

The silence hung heavy in the room.

"I don't suppose I should ask what happened to him," Doctorine guessed.

"No, you shouldn't," Nami agreed. "We'll take him to Flevance Water Clinic. Trafalgar's father will take care of Kohza. Just how we're supposed to get him there is a huge problem. Any idea's Vivi?"

The teal haired girl looked up, her eyes seeming on the verge of tears. "I don't know."

"Ambulance?" the tall male suggested.

"Crocodile said no waves," Nami disagreed. "We've got to find someone with a vehicle."

Doctorine sighed heavily. "I won't ask, and you kids probably don't deserve my help, but you can put him in the back of my truck. Ya happy?"

Relief filled the room. Doctorine finished gathering up her things and led the way down to the faculty parking lot. They put the unconscious boy Kohza in the back of the truck and the two girls rode in the back with him along with Chopper. The tall male rode in the truck to give directions.

At the clinic, the tall boy and the teal haired girl Vivi carried Kohza into the clinic while Nami stood outside and thanked Doctorine.

"Don't thank me," Doctorine insisted. "Just don't come to me when you're in trouble again. I won't help you. You lot deserve what's coming to you for your dealings with Crocodile."

"I suppose we do," Nami lamented. "But thank you anyway. Kohza may not be guiltless, but in this particular case, he was the innocent party."

Chopper leaned over the side of the truck bed and poked Nami with his muzzle. Nami turned to him and scratched his head affectionately. Chopper unconsciously leaned further into her touch.

"It's strange," Doctorine said, watching them. "Chopper usually doesn't like anybody. But he seems to like you."

"The feeling is mutual," Nami replied. "I think he's adorable. And quite smart. You can see it in his eyes that he's intelligent."

Chopper stiffened underneath Nami's hand. Was he really that obvious? Both Doctorine and Nami seemed (well, Doctorine for sure) to be able to see his intelligence so easily.

"Aye, that he is," Doctorine agreed. "But not smart enough to know better than to like a yankee girl like you."

Nami chuckled. "Even the best of us have faults."

Doctorine didn't seem satisfied with that answer and turned away to get back into her truck. Nami gave Chopper one last affectionate pat before stepping away from the truck. Doctorine pulled away while Chopper lay down in the back. All the way back home he thought about the girl Nami and the people she associated with.

The tall boy was scary. Chopper could feel something off about him. The blonde boy, well, he was unconscious the entire time but he had to have done something really bad to get beaten up that badly. The teal haired girl, Vivi, seemed normal enough. She grieved for her friend whereas the tall boy had shown contempt.

So what to make of Nami? Doctorine sure thought of her as bad news. But Chopper, like most animals, could detect the intentions of the people around him, and Nami felt like she was a good person. He wondered why a person like Nami associated with the 'shitheads' that the principal Crocodile employed. Chopper began to wonder if there were more people in the school that were like Nami: good, but stuck in a bad situation.

"So Chopper," Doctorine said as she exited her truck and stirred him from his reverie, "what would you like to do tonight?"

Chopper was distracted by the idea that he could do whatever he wanted, without fear of consequences now that Doctorine knew (though technically she'd probably always known) the truth about him. Chopper thought hard to focus on the one thing he had wanted to do for a long time.

"Can we mix medicines?" he asked eagerly as he trotted after her into her home.

"Can we mix medicines—what?" Doctorine asked.

"Can we mix medicines please!" Chopper corrected himself.

"I suppose we can," Doctorine relented. "As long as you help me clean up dinner, you little freeloader."

Chopper practically pranced around in delight at the night to come.

.o0o.

Chopper discovered very quickly that he disliked chores.

Doctorine was very adamant that Chopper earn his keep now, and so he was forced to participate in everything. When he gave the excuse of not knowing how to cook when she made him help out with dinner, Doctorine said that if he didn't know how to control the chemical reactions of cooking dinner, there was no way he was going to be allowed to work with the chemical reactions needed to create medicines. When Chopper said his hooves were not good at holding onto wet dishes, Doctorine said he better figure that out quickly because medicines were very rarely ever all dry mixtures and ones hands (hooves) would inevitably get wet.

In short, chores sucked.

But Chopper got to experiment! It was awesome!

Doctorine started with something simple: a salve to treat superficial wounds. It was something she went through the quickest so she didn't mind that there was an excess of it. Chopper couldn't wait for her to run out of the other items in her stores.

They worked deep into the night and Chopper was surprised to see that it was nearly two in the morning when Doctorine suggested they call it a night. But Chopper was too buzzed to sleep. He went into the library to read while Doctorine went to bed. He paid the price for staying up late, though. Doctorine woke him up at six in the morning to cook breakfast.

Why did he have to get up so early on the weekend?

The only good part was that Chopper got to pick what to cook. He loved waffles. They were his absolute favorite.

Waffles were good, but chores were not. Chopper was stuck washing a ton of dishes that were used to make the waffles. And then, outside chores.

Doctorine had a decent sized back yard and it needed to be weeded. Doctorine set Chopper onto the task with the promise that if he got the whole yard weeded by the afternoon, they could do an hour of experimenting spend the rest of the day reading. Chopper didn't know what the alternative was if he didn't do the weeding, and didn't bother to ask. Doctorine had him at experimenting.

The yard was huge. Monstrous. Ginormous. Chopper had barely made a dent in the weeds by noon. He knew at this rate that there would be no experimentation and reading this afternoon. When Doctorine came to get him for lunch, she observed his work.

"Not bad," she commented. "I expected you to be farther along, but also that you wouldn't have done such a thorough job. I'm proud of you, Chopper, for exceeding my expectations."

"Silly!" Chopper squealed as he squirmed happily. "I don't need your praise!"

Doctorine chuckled. "Of course you don't. Now, eat your lunch. I want you back at work soon."

Doctorine was a bit of a slave driver, Chopper realized. He pondered that as he ate his lunch. Doctorine couldn't be making him do chores just to do them. There had to be a reason behind it.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon, Doctorine came out to inspect his work again. She scrutinized one area for over half a minute. Chopper didn't know what was so interesting in that area, but he went on weeding. Finally Doctorine called him over.

"What do you see, Chopper?" she asked, waving her hand over the area she'd examined so closely.

Chopper looked it over himself. He saw grass. A lot of it, too. Still, he figured that was not the answer she was looking for, so he kept on looking. Finally, in the corner of the yard near the tall fence that enclosed it, he saw a little white and purple flower. He remembered reaching out a hoof to pick it, but hesitating because of its beauty.

"A flower," he relayed. "Over there in the corner."

"Right you are," Doctorine agreed. "Why did you not pick it with the rest of the weeds?"

"It's pretty," he answered lamely.

"It's a weed called Slender Speedwell that is sucking the nutrients from the area around it, starving out the grass," Doctorine informed him.

Chopper looked at the grass around the little flower. It was in fact a little duller than the rest of the grass, as though the small flower was slowly choking the life out of the grass.

"There are two lessons to be learned here," Doctorine told him. "First, not everything that is pretty is good. Sometimes it's actually very harmful to the life around it. Second, deviating from your instructions so willy nilly can cause a great deal of unintended harm."

Chopper nodded in understanding and went over to the flower. He pulled on it, and then tugged harder, surprised at the hold the weed had in the ground. He dug around with his hooves a little bit to loosen the weed and pulled again. Finally, the flower uprooted, having trailing roots over a foot long. No wonder the grass around it was slowly dying.

"Good boy," Doctorine praised. "Now, you can be done for today. Let's go inside and do some fun stuff."

Chopper pranced happily into the house. They were no more than a few steps inside when the doorbell rang. Doctorine sent Chopper off to wash up while she answered the door. Chopper was drying his hooves when he heard the raised voice of Doctorine.

"I will not go with you," she was saying. "I have no business with any of you outside of school hours, let alone going to some orphanage run by that bastard Crocodile. Now beat it."

Chopper snuck to take a peek at who was causing a commotion. To his surprise and horror, he saw the evil woman Miss Crisp at the door with two men that Doctorine would have surely called unsavory.

"Oh, you're coming with us, whether you want to or not," Miss Crisp replied smugly. Her gaze shifted to Chopper himself and she smiled cruelly. "That thing is coming too. We need a good dinner tonight."

Chopper realized belatedly that his back half was sticking out from his hiding place again. He yipped in fear and ran for the back yard. He was out the back door at full speed and running for the fence. He'd never tried to jump it, but he was pretty sure he could. He didn't bother to wait and see if the unsavories were following him. As soon as he was within range, he put all the strength he could muster into his back legs and jumped.

He made it with inches to spare. He landed somewhat awkwardly in the neighbor's yard, but Chopper kept on sprinting. Luckily, this yard had no fence. He was running out down the sidewalk to the one place he hoped he'd find help.