Cry Havoc

Chapter 18
Kittens

Chapter Description: the conclusion of Book Two: Submission

friday 25 october – 1:00 PM

One seldom knows when the lights will go up on a performance. But surprises are rarely unwelcome.

The Tupper High end-of-month assembly, held on the final Friday of each month, ultimately comprised the climax of Sheriff Brynner’s and Vice Principal Benes’s actions and the consequences thereof.

It hadn’t been easy for the three female pupils -- one of whom, to her own delight, was Shawna -- to sneak Impulse, Recon, and Loudmouth behind the enormous auditorium curtain just in time for the great reveal.

And, indeed, it was just that-- a revelation.

The curtain rose on three incomprehensibly undersized high schoolers. Two of them were entirely naked. To stage right was Recon, stripped perfectly bare, permitting the student audience to see what it looked like after a 17-year-old had gone backwards through puberty and had his genitals shrunk to analogize those of a toddler’s.

To stage left stood Loudmouth. He, too, lacked clothing, and it would have seemed less ridiculous for an actual toddler to be naked had not every student in the auditorium known that he was 17 years of age. His modesty (his extreme modesty) was at least partially concealed by the plastic duck head affixed to the potty chair upon which he sat. His tinkles had already been made, but his dual plops were audible all the way from the back.

The only member of the trio to have escaped from total nudity, Impulse, silently wished that he had been granted it, instead. All he wore was a crisp, white, disposable pair of Pampers, ironically -- and symbolically -- one of the very same pairs he had antagonistically given to his little brother Martin for his most recent birthday. Size-6... just right, considering what was inside.

He was sucking his thumb.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced one of the girls, “...the Tigers!”

A tsunami of laughter and applause filled the auditorium, whose acoustics only amplified it. The momentum of the sound, of the derision, of the deliciously pure humiliation, was something out of classical art. Many barely noticed when the other two girls went around to each of the gang members, gently tying bibs around their necks. Stitched upon the bibs were the faces of innocent, adorable kittens-- playful and in need of milk and attention.

“My mistake... the Kittens!!”

No mistake about it... the boots-and-chains gang members that had spent their adolescent years terrorizing the sensibilities of their neighborhoods had become something entirely different: Pathetic.

Recon was no longer Recon, but Rico, the silly kid with the finger always up his nose. Loudmouth was no longer Loudmouth, but Peter, the shy child who liked ponies and blueberry bubble gum.

And Impulse was no longer Impulse, but Troy, the little boy who once pooped his pants in reading class -- but was too shy to approach the teacher, leaving the escalating stench to betray his accident.

In reaction to the verve of the jeering crowd, Troy pooped again, this time fortunate for the comfortable, accommodating baby’s diaper he wore. While the feverishly-clapping crowd couldn’t notice the increasing brown girth of Troy’s diaper-seat, there was no hiding the slowly-spreading stain of terrified urine adulterating the teen’s Pampers.

All three Kittens burst into tears.

Bawling. Wailing. Behaving as upset little girls, if said upset little girls were they, themselves, immature.

Some would call it a thing of beauty-- others, a thing of justice.

But most of the good residents of Maker’s Point would have simply been content to sit back and watch.

...the end