Pumble suffers from a sweet tooth

*For more about the Land of the Flowered Bed, go here.



Pumble hadn't left his bed in three days. He lay tangled in his sheets, moaning and clutching his stomach. The other animals were terrified. They stood in play kitchen normally filled with cupcakes, pies, cookies and cream eclairs. Now, all that remained was a single banana.

"What are we going to do?" Hairy fretted, pacing around the empty kitchen. "It's been three days!"

"Did you call the doctor?" Cookies asked. For once, there was sarcasm missing from his tone.

"The doctor!" Hairy smacked his hand to his forehead. "Of course! Someone call the doctor immediately!"

The ducks in the Spa began thrashing about. They loved a good drama, being addicted to the soaps.

"Call the doctor!" the first duck cried.

"Pumble is in desperate need of a doctor!" the second seal cried.

"Would you mind running and getting him?" the third duck said kindly, pointing to the seals. Nodding, they hopped on their bellies as fast as they could to where the doctor lived. Deep in a corner past the trunk at the foot of the Blond Duck's bed, tucked away so high that not even the dust mites could reach it, lived the Doctor in his enormous web.

By the time the seals had reached him and brought the tiny doctor back riding on their backs as fast as they could belly surf across the carpet, Pumble's skin had faded from a pale gold to the faintest yellow.

"Oh Doctor!" Hairy cried, rushing towards him. "You have to hurry! Something is terribly wrong with Pumble!"

When Cookies refrained from making a snide remark, the seals whimpered and trembled. The doctor scuttled over the Pumble's bedside, his eight legs fluttering across the carpet. He reached into his tiny black bag and pulled out a stethoscope he used to listen to Pumble's chest. Keeping his face completely neutral, he checked Pumble's mouth, peeled open his eyelids and looked in his antennae.

"Well, Doctor?" Pumble asked faintly. "How am I?"

The Doctor plastered a smile on his face and patted his shoulder. "Don't you worry, Pumble!" he murmured. "I'll take the others outside and give them your medicine schedule."

"Can I have pie?" Pumble asked, a dreamy look coming over his face. "I've been begging for pie, but they won't let me have any." He scowled.

"We'll see," the Doctor said, smiling when Pumble's scowl grew deeper. He scurried into the kitchen with Hairy, Cookies, the seals and Miss Moose McKinley right behind him.

"So how is he?" Miss Moose McKinley asked.

"What's wrong with him?" Hairy asked at the same time.

"Is he dying?" the first duck shouted, so eager to hear the diagnosis he was hanging to the edge of the bathtub by his webbed toes.

"Is he going to the loony bin?" the second duck shouted, peering around the edge of the door.

"I'm sorry for the interruption," the third duck apologized, herding her brothers into the bathtub.

The Doctor shook his head and blinked his large eyes. "I'm afraid your friend has been attacked by a Sweet Tooth."

The animals stared at him in confusion.

"Of course he's got a sweet tooth!" Cookies bellowed. "He's enormous! He's the size of the Taj Mahal. All the bee does is eat pie and cookies. You went to medical school and that's all you can figure out?"

The seals looked annoyed. They had carpet burn for nothing.

"No, no, no," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "You misunderstand me. A Sweet Tooth is an actual creature. He has bitten Pumble, who is now suffering from a sugar delirium. All he wants is sugar. All his body wants is sugar. Without sugar, he will die. But with too much sugar, he will die as well since his body can't process it."

The seals whimpered and curled into small balls. This wasn't worth carpet burn either.

"What does a Sweet Tooth look like?" Miss Moose McKinley said, looking around nervously. "And how does one get bit?"

"They're nasty little creatures," the Doctor said, rubbing all eight lenses of his glasses. "But they look quite cute. They're very tiny, about the size of a small chocolate chip. They are coated in white sugary fur that is so gentle it looks like spun cotton candy. Sweet Tooths are very round and dense and bounce along large feet made of cookie dough. They have tiny little black eyes, but extremely large front teeth. If you didn't know any better, you'd think they were a big fat deformed rabbit."

"They sound adorable," Miss Moose McKinley cooed, clapping her hooves together. Cookies rolled his eyes and clapped his forehead to his head.

"They may sound adorable," the Doctor said sternly, placing his glasses back on his tiny face, "But they're not. They hide in cakes and pies and cookies--anything sweet. They like to roll themselves up in sprinkles and swim in icing. When the unsuspecting person takes a bite out of the sweet they're on, they hop into his mouth and bite his tongue. After that moment, all the person wants is sugar. It's all they can think about or eat."

"That's terrible," Hairy said. The seals nodded, vowing never to eat another cupcake again.

"That's terrifying!" the first duck shouted, ducking under the water.

"That's horrifying!" the second duck shouted, hiding under the bathroom rug.

"For once, I must agree with my brothers," the third duck admitted.

"Of all diseases for that hedonistic bee to get, this one is perfect," Cookies mumbled.

"So what do we do now?" Hairy asked the Doctor.

"You have to find the Sweet Tooth and capture it," the Doctor said. "Once captured, all the Sweet Tooth has to do is drop a single drop of their magic elixir on the patients tongue. But they're very tricky to find. They can fly and they hide in the kitchens.

Everyone turned and looked at Pumble's empty play kitchen. Hairy gulped.

"Let's go find a Sweet Tooth," he said.

To be continued...