A quick story blurb to go along with some awesome gift art. It's based on a scene from a furry town called Wildwood Ridge. The town was invented by Carotte and myself, and is populated with, among others, younger versions of characters we've created for other roleplays. The roleplays we do for the town and school are meant to be light-hearted, though we also explore what life might be like for young anthros growing up, coming to term with their instincts, and what happens when you put predators and prey together mixed in with some artificial selection. Sprinkled liberally with some rather odd but fun logic from Carotte and me.

Gift from  carotte666

Art by  Reva_the_Scarf

Wildwood Ridge cast picture at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2432345/

Silly story fragment by me.

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"Is Simplex some other language for 'slow'?" the skunk wondered, reading the label on the face of the wall clock. The red hand crawled around its circular track minute by minute, each one of which the young student figured had to have been at least three. 9:54, 9:55, 9:56. Ten o'clock was never going to arrive.

School had the power to do many things, including warp the perception of time, but stopping it utterly was beyond even the power of Ms. Bear or any of her assistants. The bell rang and a cheer went up from some of the younger students in the room as they raced for the door leading to the playground, while a few others calmly rose from their seats and walked out the classroom's main door toward the main hall.

For the skunk it was much the same, but a pair of paws lowered onto his shoulders to settle him back into his seat. "I noticed you weren't really paying attention to that last worksheet. Let's just check your work, shall we?" said the smiling teacher's assistant, eliciting a groan and a roll of eyes from the trapped skunk. One of the last out the door, a white lioness, pointed and laughed silently at the skunk before racing outside, in case she was noticed.

A few minutes later and a magical red check-plus applied to his multiple-choice worksheet, and he was out the door at last. Sadly for him, the door in question was the inside door rather than the one leading to the playground, the skunk on his way to the Nurse's Office. Most days this early in the morning he was heading down to find out if he'd be allowed to have an escort out onto the playground, but today there was another reason the clock had been slower than usual. He'd been sitting in a wet diaper for the better part of an hour.

"Hello, Blacktop," said the bovine nurse with a little smile as he stepped into the office. "Go ahead and step into the side room there and we'll check on you in a moment," she said. "Er, maybe a bit longer, I kind of have my hands full," she amended, attempting to guide a fussing squirming vixen onto a bed. The skunk nodded and stepped into the room, pacing around a bit, wondering a touch why Carola was having an episode. It didn't look like there was any hope of getting playground time at this recess without any of the older cubs to escort him today, so it would likely be nap time again.

For now, there was nothing to do but wait, as he couldn't change himself. The straitjacket he wore saw to that, as well as seeing to it that he couldn't get his paws in or on anything that would cause trouble such as what he'd caused himself at home. Most of the time he was as any cub or kit, learning concepts like cause and effect. Unfortunately, that particular concept simply eluded his brain a fraction of the time, with near-disastrous results. As a result, drastic measures were required, and the only known drug to fix the disorder had side effects of destroyed creativity, listlessness, curtailed cognitive ability, and in some cases hypertension or stroke. His parents chose the much-maligned-but-safe method of constant supervision and restraint.

Looking out the window, he saw a technician climbing a phone pole. Smiling a bit, he started thinking of ways he could find his way up there, unconsciously rubbing his hip against the side of one of the beds, wriggling out of his shorts while he waited for the nurse to come in and help him with the change. Perhaps if he could hide in the bucket on one of those trucks, maybe they wouldn't notice...

"Hiya Blackie!" said a familiar voice, shattering his daydream and bringing him back to stark reality. "Theresa's out sick so I'm helping the Nurse today, isn't that neat? Mom even made me an outfit, and let me use one of her sister's old nurse hats she found in the attic!" The skunk peeked back over his shoulder, developing an instant blush as he realized Carotte had walked in on him, of course after he'd cleverly already taken his pants off, now clad only in a diaper from the waist down. Sure enough, though, she was dressed in an old-style nurse's outfit in shades of lilac and purple to contrast with her marmalade fur color.

"Oh uh, hi there," he managed to get out before she started talking right over him.

"I noticed Mr. Halleck forgot to put your muzzle on after snack time, so let's get that fixed, and then we'll get that diaper changed, okay! You need one, right? Sure you do," she went on, before he could even begin to suggest that maybe the Nurse should handle this one, flashing him a bright smile. The headstrong kitten was not going to be argued with, and the skunk found himself feeling a little bit like the catnip mouse.