Wag the Finger

"...what the hell?" Abruptly the voice stopped. Well, not so much stopped as was interrupted by...something. As Sheila moaned with pleasure on top of her, Jessica felt something small and furry scurry past her leg.

"Hey! Get the fuck away! Stop that! Stop that at ONCE!"

Suddenly, Jess felt a weight lifted from her...literally. With one final moan, her mother rolled over on her side and put both hands to her head.

Jess lifted her head and looked to the base of the stairs.

And looked again, just to be sure.

At the bottom of the grand staircase of the Pittman household, a great battle of life and unlife, between good and evil, between real and fake fur was being waged. The magic red teddy bear was laying on his back where Jessica had dropped him and little Doodles the hamster was busily tearing at his little red crotch with a set of razor-sharp hamster teeth.

"OWWWWWW!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! STOP THAT!!!!!! OOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!

Bits of red fabric were being thrown here and there about the steps as Doodles the Fierce maintained his frenetic onslaught. Since magic teddy bears (even red ones) aren't terribly mobile, it wasn't really much of a fight. Within the span of five minutes, the brave little rodent had parts of his nemesis scattered all over the main hallway and even in part of the den.

Finally recovering her strength (and recovering from the shock), Jessica peered down to see Doodles hopping up the steps one at a time. Inside each hamster cheek pouch was a trophy of his conquest -- two black beady eyes from a newly slain rival.

"There's only room in this house for ONE cute and fuzzy, beady-eyed critter and I got first dibs," came the voice in her head as it passed her, headed back up to her room. It sounded a lot like Justin Timberlake.

Her nightshirt drenched in sweat, Jessica Pittman sprang upright in her bed.

"A dream?" she asked out loud, to no one in particular. "All that and it was nothing but a fucking DREAM?"

She glanced for a second up to her bookshelf at the line of horror books and sighed. "You know, for a kid with a great imagination, you'd think I'd have better nightmares." Then she noticed the little red teddy bear laying next to her "Granny Pillow." "Hmm..." she thought as she felt the wetness flowing down her legs. "I guess maybe it wasn't so bad after all," she smiled.

In his cage, Doodles looked at her sideways from his wheel, but kept on running. She bounded over to him and stared at him through the clear plastic. "Thanks, Doodles," she said, quite seriously, then waited patiently for a second before she laughed out loud. He stopped for a moment and looked up at her, then started running again.

Walking over to her bed again, she looked down at the teddy bear. It looked up at her with its beady black eyes. And its smile seemed to get wider the longer she stared down. Shuddering, she picked it up, walked over to the large, plastic hamster habitrail "living room," opened the top and plopped the fuzzy bear in it. Doodles looked up from his wheel again and his whiskers bent back along his face. "Look out for him, Doodles, he's tricky."

Standing there looking at the bear and hamster in the cage, she suddenly got a thought. Taking a deep breath, she ran down the hallway and into her mother's bedroom. Yawning and stretching, Sheila Pittman rolled over in her bed. Jessica immediately jumped right in and gave her a hug.

"What was that for," her mother asked, her eyes now firmly open and full of curiosity.

"Just wanted to let you know how much I love you," Jess beamed, and she reached out to hold her mother's hands. All ten fingers, even.

"Well, thanks, honey, I love you too," her mother smiled mischievously.

"But you're still grounded."