FICTION: THE NEW ANIMAL By Lee Nagle

Little Julie crawls around the backyard, her palms getting owwies from the dried Jessie doo- doos that surrounds her play area. She’s already played all the animals she knows—meow-meow, cluck-cluck, woof-woof, and moo-moo. She wonders what she can play next.

Mommy tells Little Julie they are going to the mall. Little Julie’s face sprouts a smile because every time Little Julie goes to the mall, mommy buys Little Julie a yummy treat before they leave.

At the mall a man that smells like potty and walks wobbly, like a teeter- totter, he teeter totters up to Mommy and Little Julie. He yells at mommy three times a word that is new to Little Julie. It sounds like how she talks when she plays “cluck-cluck”, but with a “fuh” sound at the beginning instead of a “cluh” sound. Little Julie thinks it is how a super-duper, special chicken talks. Mommy doesn’t say anything to the man who smells like potty and he teeter-totters away.
 
Mommy drags Little Julie to all kinds of grown-up shops that don’t have toys or treats or woof-woofs or meow-meows. Little Julie is ready for her yummy treat, now. Mommy tells Little Julie to hold on, “just one more minute,” she says. A minute goes by. Little Julie asks Mommy when she’ll get her yummy treat. Mommy says she will in another minute. A lot more minutes than Little Julie can count on her two fingers goes by. Mommy tells Little Julie they’re running late, too late for Little Julie to have her yummy treat. Little Julie tries hard not to cry, to be a “good girl” as they leave the place that smells like cinnamon and Chuckie Cheeses.


In the parking lot three polices are talking to the man who smells like potty, putting pretty silver bracelets on his wrists. Like a super-duper, special chicken he yells at the polices.

“He’s bad,” Mommy tells Little Julie. “They’re going to put him in a grown-up time-out until he learns to be nice.”

Little Julie thinks the polices put him in grown-up time-out because the man who smells like potty wouldn’t let them play super-duper, special chicken with him. Little Julie thinks Mommy says he’s bad because when Little Julie went to go potty Mommy asked if she could play “super-duper, special chicken” with him and he told her no. Little Julie thinks the man who smells like potty is good, but likes to play super-duper, special chicken alone, like Little Julie likes to play alone.
 
At home, Mommy grabs a can of red and white adult pop and sits down on the wooden porch that gives Little Julie owwies when she slides her barefeet on it. Mommy tells Little Julie to play in the yard where she can see Little Julie while Mommy waits for Mommy’s “special friend”, Billy.


Little Julie runs across the yard, her cheeks glowing a less ripe apple red the closer she gets to the spot surrounded by Jessie doo-doos. Little Julie takes a deep breath, and loud as she can, plays super-duper, special chicken. Mommy slaps Little Julie across her mallow face. Now, every time Little Julie thinks of playing super-duper, special chicken she ends up playing a new animal that tastes like warm ocean. Mommy tells Little Julie this new animal is called “guilt.”