The Idealists: Part VIII

The Idealists – Part VIII


Naming the Animals

​The dining room table looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic children’s movie. It’s covered with towels and empty cardboard boxes on their sides interspersed with nauseatingly brightly colored tubes. Two rats, one brown and husky and the other white, roam the surface, exploring each item. They approach the edge and peer at the floor below. A nervous gasp erupts from the crowd of teenage girls watching them. The rats look at the floor below and dart back to the safety of the bunched towels and cardboard boxes.

​Derick and Ruthie stand behind the other students, watching, as one girl, Jenny, approaches the table. She holds out a yogurt treat.

​“Daisy! Come here, Daisy!” she says, offering it to the white rat. It creeps closer and takes the pink treat cautiously. “See?” Jenny says.

​“She doesn’t know her name,” Ruthie says, “she just knows she wants a yogurt treat.”

​Jenny ignores her, stroking the rats soft fur as it chews. The other students all “ohh” and lean in, but keep their distance. Jenny picks the rat up carefully. It continues eating in her hand. The other girls crowd in. Jenny clutches the rat to herself.

​“You’ll scare her,” she says.

​Later, Derick calls Ruthie to the bedroom. He’s stripped the bed and covered it with old quilts. The rats scamper on top. He hands Ruthie a yogurt treat and directs her to go to one side of the bed.

​“What are you doing?” she asks.

​“We’re going to teach them their names.”

​They take turns calling the rats’ names.

​“This is going to teach us to be parents?” Ruthie says.

​“We’ve got to crawl before we can fly,” Derick says, “Effie, Effie, Effie! Come here!” Effie, the brown one, wanders over to Derick, and he gives it a treat. “Good girl, Effie,” he says. The white one runs up. “Good girl, Daisy,” he says and gives her a treat.

​“Cheater,” Ruthie says.

​That night, in bed, Ruthie is restless. “You’re sure we should wait until May to start the fertility treatments? You’re sure we shouldn’t just start now?”

​“What do you want to do?” Derick asks.

​Ruthie is silent for a long time until she hears Derick’s breathing change, replaced by snoring.

​The next morning, there’s a knock on the door as Derick is eating oatmeal. It’s Jenny.

​“What are you doing here so early?” Derick asks.

​She scowls, her face and hair a dark mess. “Can I feed the rats?” she asks.

​“I already did, and they’re asleep right now,” Derick says.

​“Can I watch them sleep?” Jenny asks.

​Derick studies her for a moment then steps aside.

​She brushes past and he catches a whiff of unwashed flesh. The rats are sleeping inside a purple, plastic igloo. Jenny opens the cage, picks up a piece of food, and offers it into the igloo. She holds it there until a brown nose carefully takes it.

​Derick puts his empty breakfast bowl into the sink and calls out to Jenny, “I’m going to run upstairs and grab my tie.” When he returns, Jenny is gone.

​Later that day, she is absent at class.

​At the weekly faculty meeting, Jenny’s advisor speaks about her. One teacher mentions her distant attitude; several mention her plummeting grades Derick relates the events of the morning.

​“Her roommate can’t handle the mood swings. She’s dropping classes left and right. I don’t know of any problems at home,” Jenny’s advisor says, “she won’t talk about it. She says everything is fine.”

​As soon as Derick and Ruthie get home after the meeting, there’s a knock on the door.

​“What do you think?” Derick says.

​“Ignore it,” Ruthie says.

​“If it’s Jenny, maybe the rats will do her some good”

​Ruthie shakes her head and opens the door.

​“What’s up?” she asks.

​“Can I play with the rats?” Jenny asks. Her face is greasy and sullen. Derick puts his hand on Ruthie’s shoulder.

​“For a little while,” Ruthie says.

​Jenny plops in front of the cage. An hour passes and Ruthie calls out, “Okay, kid; time to head out.”

​Jenny ignores her.

​Ruthie goes over to the cage where Jenny cradles Daisy.

​“Time to go back to your room, Jenny. Mr. Stone and I need some downtime.”

​Jenny says, “No,” and clutches the rat to her chest.

​Ruthie holds out her hand, “Jenny…” she says.

​“No!” Jenny yells, turning away. The rat squeaks.

​“You’re hurting her, Jenny,” Ruthie says.

​Jenny looks like she’s been slapped. She drops Daisy to the floor and runs out. Ruthie picks the stunned animal up and places it back in the cage.

​Later, they put the rats on the stripped bed again. This time, both rats run up to Derick, but he holds his hands up, empty.

​“Effie, Effie, Effie,” Ruthie says. Finally, Effie wanders over and Ruthie gives her a treat. Daisy soon follows, but Ruthie has no treat.

​“Daisy, Daisy, Daisy,” Derick says. Daisy runs over to him, and he gives her a treat.

​“The key, I think,” Ruthie says, “is going to be perseverance. Patience. Kindness.”

​“Can we do that?”

​Ruthie is playing with the rats, getting them to chase a feather. “What?” she asks.

​“Never mind,” Derick says.

​That night, as they get into bed, Ruthie says, “What if our kid came out like Jenny?”

​Derick climbs into bed and pulls the covers up before he speaks. “I don’t think that would happen. It takes a lot of work to mess a kid up like that.”

​“But what if we do it?”

​“We just have to pay attention,” Derick says.

​They drift into sleep until the phone rings at 5 a.m., jerking them both awake.



C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Troubadour 21