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The stories I've put my greatest effort into. 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He's a halfbreed wolf/fox, his family makes the Mansons look charming, his teacher despises him, and his only place of solace is the city dump. His life is about to change forever though. He's about to meet a little ratgirl named Lena and her father. He's going to learn that happiness is possible. This is a tale of escape, of not being ashamed of who you are, and of having the courage to find beauty in imperfection. Oh, and there's also a bright green customized vintage garbage truck. Vroom vroom!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Justin's life is not exactly rosy. He's a halfbreed wolf/fox, his family makes the Mansons look charming, his teacher despises him, and his only place of solace is the city dump. His life is about to change forever though. He's about to meet a little ratgirl named Lena and her father. He's going to learn that happiness is possible. This is a tale of escape, of not being ashamed of who you are, and of having the courage to find beauty in imperfection. Oh, and there's also a bright green customized vintage garbage truck. Vroom vroom!", "writing": "Down In The Dumps\nby Alex Reynard\n\n\n ***\n Author's Introduction:\n\nWere you ever fascinated by trash as a kid? I definitely was. When I was little, I'd always wander around with my head down, checking out anything lying on the sidewalk. I'd peek in trash cans. I'd pass by dumpsters and wonder what was inside. Every now and then, I'd get lucky and find something truly interesting, some little toy that someone had either lost forever or just tossed away. I'd clean it up and cherish it. Oftentimes just the fact of finding the thing lying there for me to discover was what made it so special for me.\n\nI've also always loved flea markets, trade centers, resale shops and things like that. It's for largely the same reason. There's just something about rooting around in other people's junk that captivates me. I love used stuff. I love going to the flea market and finding some wonderful thing that catches my eye instantly and practically begs me to buy it.\n\nMy point is that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Our culture throws so much stuff away, and so much of it is something that might be beautiful and special to someone else if given the chance. I see people tossing toys out by the curb, and I always feel a slight pain in my heart from wondering if the kids in that house realize they're throwing away their memories. I once heard this feeling described as 'Velveteen Rabbit Complex'. I find that incredibly apt.\n\nI've looked around on the net to see if I could find anything else on this subject, and I've found rather a lot relating to people who enjoy trash, who make new things from it, who salvage old things from it, who play in it and even yiff in it! But more than merely a strange hobby or fetish, trash play can also be an act of rebellion against the unwritten rules of mundane society. We're all supposed to be clean and presentable all the time. We're supposed to scrub everything in our environments with painfully artificial-smelling chemicals, and then even paint our own bodies with the stuff. What about the sheer mindless joy we all felt as kids at making a big ol' mess? Can that feeling be recaptured?\n\nThis story came from thinking about questions like that. So be forewarned, the following tale is a little stinky. You might want to bring along a clothespin for your nose. Some rubber gloves couldn't hurt also. Though I hope that if you'll give this story a chance, you'll find that there's something worthwhile underneath its otherwise unhygienic surface. Brush off the dirt, and you'll find something I've put my whole heart into.\n\nIn essence, I think that sometimes stuff that just looks like ordinary garbage can hold amazing surprises if you don't mind getting your paws a bit dirty while digging through it.\n\nThis story goes out to anyone who's ever gleefully gone dumpster-diving or trash-picking.\n\nAnyone who's ever lovingly cuddled a stained, dirty, ripped up stuffed animal.\n\nAnyone who's ever found their heart's desire at a flea market for less than a buck.\n\nAnyone who's ever looked upon something, or someone, that everyone else considers ugly, and then decided for themselves that it's beautiful.\n\nAfter all, Charlie Brown's Christmas tree just needed a little love...\n\n\n *****\n\n\n*part 1*\n\n\n \"Hey fuckhead!\"\n Justin's eyes slammed shut. He gritted his teeth. His three huge brothers had just seconds ago barged into his room and surrounded him. He'd thought they'd be at football practice all day.\n \"What'cha doin', mutt?\"\n \"My homework,\" he lied.\n One of them snatched up the paper he'd been writing on. If any of them had had the slightest idea how to read, Justin might have been worried.\n \"What the hell is this?\"\n \"Lemme see it!\"\n \"It looks like some kinda poem!\"\n \"Poetry? You fucking fag!\"\n Justin felt like he was going to crush his own teeth to powder from grinding them so hard. His entire body was tense. It took every ounce of control to keep from snapping back at them. That would have been suicide.\n The three wolf jocks chuckled cruelly at their scrawny younger brother. He was getting mad again, which amused them to no end.\n \"You a poet, fag?\"\n \"Writing poems to yer boyfriend?\"\n \"It's for school!\" Justin finally burst out.\n \"Bullshit! They never make any of us write poems!\"\n He whipped around in his chair and glared at the one who'd last spoke. It was barely worth the trouble to tell them apart anymore. \"That's because you're all too stupid to write your own goddamn names, much less anything anyone else would want to read!!\" he snarled.\n Oh fuck. That was stupid. He was really in for it now.\n They grinned ferally.\n \"Whoa! The faggot strikes back!\"\n \"Someone's got a smart little mouth.\"\n \"Someone's gotta get punished for that smart mouth.\"\n \"Someone's gotta get that mouth washed out good!\"\n He scowled, mostly to himself for letting them get his temper up again. \"Please. Not again...\"\n \"Oh, I think he knows what we're gonna do!\"\n \"Little cocksucker probably likes it.\"\n Resigned to his fate, Justin gave no resistance as the three of them lifted him straight out of his chair and carried him roughly out of the room and onward down the hall. It was his own fault for letting them provoke him. The best thing now would be to just go limp and wait until it was over.\n Giggling like a pack of demented hyenas, the three wolves dragged their brother into the bathroom.\n \"Who's gotta go?\"\n \"Me! I drank a shitload of pop before the game!\"\n \"Go, man, go!\"\n The tall one, that was Royce, was grinning like a madman as he pulled down his fly. He whipped out his dork and started pissing into the toilet.\n Holding Justin's shoulders were Greg and Dave; the fat one and the thin one, respectively.\n Justin was, of course, the short little puny one. He sighed in mild annoyance. This wasn't the worst of his brothers' games, not by a long shot, but it was pretty damn humiliating.\n Royce finished up and forgot to zip himself up again, so caught up was he in the thrill of the moment.\n \"Now dunk 'im!\"\n On that signal, Greg and Dave easily upended their little brother and forced his head into the toilet bowl.\n It was filthy, cracked, and hadn't been washed in months. Justin kept his eyes and mouth shut as tightly as possible. One time he'd gasped for breath and some of the piss had gotten in his mouth. He'd had to brush five times before the taste was gone. He could hear the echoes of his three brothers laughing like this was the funniest thing ever to happen in the history of the world.\n One of them said something, distorted by the water, and then someone flushed. It was definitely a relief. Justin had always been somewhat worried that they'd be too dumb to remember that part one of these days. Then he'd drown to death in a toilet full of wolf piss. Wouldn't that be a fun thing to tell Saint Peter?\n When the water was gone, Justin sucked in a much-needed gulp of air. His brothers released him suddenly and he fell hard on the floor, bashing his chin on the rim of the toilet on the way down. It'd probably ache for the rest of the day now.\n The three wolves were laughing like they were on drugs. Justin wrung his fur out on the floor and thought of all the things he wished he could say to them if only he was bigger and stronger and crueller than them.\n Dave snatched him up by his collar.\n \"You learn your lesson, shitsucker?\"\n \"Didja have fun?\"\n \"Wasn't that hilarious?\"\n Justin rolled his eyes. \"Yes. Ha ha. You guys should have your own TV show.\"\n \"Yeah, we should!\"\n \"We could get someone to run a camera, and just torture you all day!\"\n \"We could call it the 'Punt The Mutt' show!\"\n \"We'd be rrrrrrich! Rrrrrrich beyond our wildest dreams!\"\n There followed another round of frenzied hysterical laughter.\n Dave let go of him, and Justin figured this was his best chance to make an escape. He ducked out of the bathroom and zipped as fast as possible down the hall.\n In the kitchen, he paused to catch his breath. He wiped off his fur as best as he could on a mostly-dry dishtowel. He poked around in the cupboards for a bit, searching for something to eat, but there was nothing appealing. As usual. 'Gee, I wonder where it could possibly have gone to,' he thought sarcastically. He walked out through the livingroom, kicking away the beer cans and snack food wrappers in his path.\n Mom was splayed out on the couch like a giant slug from a '50s horror movie. One fat arm was draped across her stomach, looking like it had melted there. She grimaced when Justin walked in front of the TV. \"Where the hell are you goin'?\" she demanded.\n \"Outside,\" he spat back, not even looking at her.\n \"Fine. Just get back before supper,\" she mumbled, then added loudly, \"And you and your brothers better stop making so much god-damn noise playing in there!\"\n \"Okay, Mom,\" Justin grunted as he slipped out the door. Under his breath he cursed bitterly, \"Thanks for coming to my rescue, you fat ugly bitch.\"\n He slammed the screen door behind him.\n\n\n\n Justin's family was, to put it mildly, fucked-up.\n They lived in a falling-down house in a rural little town called Flat Stone, somewhere in the lost shadows of the suburbs of some big famous city Justin had never been to. All around were trees and trailers and brown grass and rusted trucks. It was a town of poverty, where 90% of the people you ran into were either drunk, stupid or psychotic, or some lovely combination of the three. The weather never got anywhere colder than warm, not even in winter. Most of the time it was hot enough to nearly kill you. At least it felt that way, and sometimes you wished it would.\n Mom had been fat and ugly, and a bitch, for her entire life, Justin guessed. She was drunk approximately a hundred and ten percent of the time. Her life was her couch, her television and her snacks. She got up three or four times each day to fix a 'meal', or to go to the bathroom, and Justin suspected sometimes she didn't even get up for that. He knew for certain she'd never gotten up to defend him from his brothers. So long as they weren't actually murdering him with chainsaws, she made it clear through her attitude that she honestly didn't give a shit what they did.\n Dad was a shadow. He might as well have been a figment of Justin's imagination. There were only two places he ever went: The Factory and The Bar. If you noticed that 'the house' was not on that list, you are very observant. Justin's dad showed up at the house about as often as Santa Claus. When he did put in a surprise cameo appearance, most of the time it meant that at least one of them was going to be beaten up.\n Royce, Greg and Dave were basically the spawn of Hell. They were the result of vigorous fucking shortly after (and before) Mom and Dad's marriage. In fact, they were barely nine months apart. Justin guessed Mom must have been drinking at least as much as she did now when she'd been carrying them. Sometimes it seemed like they functioned as a single hive mind; one brain shared between the three (and maybe that was too generous). Their programming instructions were simple: Seek Out Little Brother. Destroy.\n Justin had wondered probably since birth if he was adopted. He was different from the rest of them in every way. Dad was a solid brick wall of muscle. Mom was an ocean of flab. All his brothers were big in some way or another. He, on the other hand, was small in almost every way. Short. Skinny. Scrawny. Runt. Pushover. Wimp. Chewtoy. Dirt.\n The other big difference between Justin and his family was, he was smart. Maybe not the kind of smart his teachers at school wanted him to be, but smart nonetheless. He was wise beyond his years in the ways of the grown-up world. He'd been taught by his cruel life hundreds of hard lessons in trust and pain. He was a flawless liar, a fairly decent escape artist, and not too bad of a thief either.\n At school he did his best to avoid trouble, though that was like Sisyphus pushing that bigass rock up the hill. The faculty all thought he was a little sociopath. Even when he wasn't cheating on tests, or sneaking food from the cafeteria, or taking paper and pencils and other school supplies out of the wastebaskets because his mother never bought him any, no one ever even gave him the chance to be good. If something broke, he was blamed. If something went missing, he was blamed. He was looked upon like some kind of vermin. A sewer rat. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd kept his grades up beyond anyone's expectations (mostly just to piss his teacher off), he was sure he would've been expelled a long time ago.\n What no one had ever bothered to realize was that he _had_ to be this way. It was a matter of survival. Natural selection, motherfucker. Living in a family as repulsively deranged as his was, the only way to stay sane was to outthink them. He had to be sneakier than all of them put together. More devious, more cunning, more alert, and more paranoid.\n Justin had given up on his family a long time ago. He remembered being a little pup, always picking dandelions for Mom, or asking Royce if he could play ball with him, or walking to school with Dave, or watching TV with Greg. And yet no matter how many times he tried to be a good boy, tried to win some tiny table scrap of attention or affection from them, he'd been kicked away. Tossed aside. Thrown away like trash.\n Nowadays he would spend recess sitting in a little crawlspace under the gymnasium stairs, watching his brothers play sports out on the field. He'd stare at them, wishing somehow he could achieve telekinesis just by wanting it hard enough. Just to make one of them drop the ball. Just to trip one of them up. Just to make one of them break their leg. Just a little...\n He didn't mind hating them; meaning he didn't feel guilty about it. They hated him even more, so at least it was fair. His father hated him even worse. Whenever his father turned up, Justin made himself as inconspicuous as possible. Otherwise, he'd show up at school the next morning with bruises so bad they showed through his fur. And his teacher would scowl at him because she thought he'd been fighting with the other kids.\n Why did his father hate him so much? That was an easy one to answer. Since he was so much younger than his brothers (the youngest, Dave, was still three years older than him), he figured that he was probably a mistake. Maybe Dad hadn't pulled out in time. Maybe Mom had mixed up her birth control pills with breath mints (Hah! Like she'd ever eaten a breath mint in her life!). Whatever the reason, his father had always glared at him, ever since he was little, like he was a stranger in the house. And his mother averted her eyes when he was in the room, as if she could make her youngest son go away forever if she could only ignore him long enough.\n But the truth of the matter was something far worse. A year ago, the secret had come to light. Justin didn't know how his father found out, but when he did, the whole family found out too. The man's drunk, roaring voice shook the walls of their flimsy little home.\n It seemed that Mom had not been entirely faithful to Dad. Several years before, she'd had an affair with a fox. They'd been sleeping around behind Dad's back for months. When she had found out she was pregnant, she'd called it off and hoped desperately that her husband would think the baby was his. The night the truth finally came out, Justin's father had beat the shit out of everyone in the house. And Justin had gotten it double.\n (Justin had wondered later why Dad hadn't just divorced Mom then and there. But the answer was laughably obvious. They were both too damn lazy for that. All the court dates and screwing around with lawyers? It was so much easier to just take out their anger on their bastard halfbreed son.)\n The news explained a lot. Justin really didn't look like a wolf anyway. He was not only skinnier than the rest of them, but also more lithe. His features were sharper. His arms and legs were more wiry. His scruffy grey fur had a brownish, rusty tinge to it, and his paws and feet were a deep dark brown.\n And, strangely, Justin even felt happy when he found out the truth. It meant that he was really only *partly* related to these people. His brothers were only half-brothers. His father was now just some guy. And somewhere out there there was a fox that had provided half of his blood. He obviously couldn't have been the sharpest knife in the drawer if he'd wanted to screw Mom in the first place. But maybe it explained Justin's intelligence, and the other parts of him he kept hidden away, guarded fiercely from his family.\n Out of all this small-town tragedy, the saddest part was that Justin simply didn't want to be like this; the way he was, and the way others perceived him. He didn't want to be seen as a sneaky, smelly little thief. He wanted friends. He wanted someone to talk to. He wanted someone to hold him, and kiss him, and tuck him into bed at night and tell him a story. He wanted all the things normal kids had.\n Sometimes just thinking about all this stuff would bring tears to his eyes. That was another reason he liked his secret place under the gym stairs. It stank, and was full of dirt and flakes of rust, but at least he knew no one could see him there. If he needed to, he could hide himself away in there and curl up into a ball to cry.\n Justin had another secret place though.\n\n\n\n Behind the house there was a patch of wild forest, a smoothly arcing strip of shady trees and cool, leafy greenery. And beyond that was the town dump.\n It was Justin's favorite place in the whole world.\n Every chance he got, Justin would slink away from the house, away from his crazy family, and head for the dump accompanied by his trusty backpack. He'd trek through the woods and come out on the edge of a massive valley filled almost to the rim with an incredible panorama of junk.\n Everyone in town came here to drop off their garbage. There was no regular garbage pickup in Flat Stone; it was far too small a town for that. So once a week, or sometimes once a month depending on each individual's comfort level of having reeking bags in the backyard, the various households in the community all piled their trash in the back of their pickups and trucked it on down to the dump.\n Once the little wolffox arrived at the dumping grounds, he delved in with the zeal of an archaeologist. To him, this wasn't just trash: it was buried treasure waiting to be unearthed.\n It was amazing some of the things he'd found. Mostly he looked for toys and other items that would interest a boy his age. But other things too. Surprisingly, there was usually quite a lot of perfectly good stuff tossed out with the trash every week. He'd rip open the big plastic bags and root carefully around inside. He'd learned long ago to get a feel for the bags first; it had only taken a couple of encounters with dirty diapers to teach him that. If instead he felt hard plastic corners at odd angles, that usually meant something interesting. He'd found plenty of toy cars, even a few that turned into robots. There were action figures and books and even stuffed animals, which Justin had a special affinity for.\n Years before, he had been out in the woods one day and tripped over a big black metal footlocker half-buried in the forest floor. After giving it a thorough cleaning-out, it now served as his treasure chest. After a full day's excursion to garbage paradise, the satisfied young canine would fill his backpack with his newfound prizes and hide them in the footlocker.\n Later on at night, when everyone else was asleep, he'd sneak out the window and go back to the woods for his latest discoveries. He'd smuggle them into the backyard and run the garden hose over them, washing them off gently and carefully. Often, the only thing wrong with his new toys was that they were a little dirty. Once they were cleaned up, they looked good as new.\n The next day, once they were dry, Justin would hide away his new discoveries in the footlocker and secure them inside with a big, sturdy combination lock he'd bought from the hardware store. He wasn't stupid. These things meant more to him than his own life. He wasn't about to chance someone else stumbling upon them and taking them away.\n There was a big reason he didn't dare keep his treasures in the house: his brothers. They'd smash everything he owned for the sheer pleasure of causing him pain. And if they ever found out that he still liked to play with stuffed animals, they'd beat him up even more than they already did (which would require rather a lot of effort, actually).\n But Justin _needed_ his plushies. They helped keep his softer side alive. Every now and then as he went through his neighbors' castouts, he'd tear open a bag and see a cute furry face looking back at him. He'd feel a connection forge in his heart; a kinship of sorts. He felt like he'd also been thrown away by those who should have loved him and taken care of him.\n One of his favorite toys was a plush mouse he'd named Rachel. He'd found her in amongst a bunch of baby things in a bag that had probably belonged to the Garrisons. (That was another thing about trash-spelunking; after a while you could make an educated guess as to which junk had been whose. If he'd been after blackmail material, Justin could have owned the whole town.) The small stuffed mouse was encrusted with old food and other stuff he didn't want to think too hard about. But as soon as he saw her, her shiny plastic eyes looked back at him and he felt a bond beginning to form. Those sad eyes seemed to call out to him, 'Save me. I don't want to be trash.'\n By the light of a crescent moon, he'd tenderly washed her off with the hose. He worked his fingers in deep, cleaning away years' worth of grime. He took her back to the footlocker and put her in a special hidden spot nearby where the sun would fall on her and dry her off.\n When he returned the next day after school, she was clean and soft. Her expression seemed much happier now. Under all that dirt was a pretty plush mouse with warm grey fur and a little red nose. Her paws, tummy and the inside of her ears were white. She was smiling now. Justin felt like maybe she was grateful to him.\n\n\n\n Branches snapped and leaves rustled under his paws as he made his way through the forest. He really, really needed to visit his plushies today.\n It was sunny and hot out as usual, which was good. His fur was already starting to dry off, but he'd probably still smell like pee later on. God, but his brothers were assholes.\n Off in the distance was his beloved treasure trunk. He hurried over and twisted in his combination. The lid creaked as he lifted it. Inside were all his toys, all patiently waiting for him to come and play with them. A sweet, happy smile came to Justin's face, and for a moment he felt perfectly content. Here were all the things he valued. All the things he had rescued.\n \"How are you today, Rachel?\" he whispered to his plushie. He picked her up, ran his fingers through her fur, and gave her a hug. \"Didja miss me?\" He kissed her on top of her head.\n The little wolffox gathered his other plushies in his arms. He sat down, leaning against the warm metal side of the box, and arranged his plushies in his lap. He sat them so that they were all facing him, looking like they were ready to listen to whatever he had to say.\n \"My brothers suck. They did that toilet thing again. Mom didn't get off the couch to help me out, of course. But I didn't get in any more trouble at school today at least. There was a quiz on the solar system. I aced it. That stuff's easy. Oh, and yesterday Jeri found that necklace she lost; the one she 'knew' I stole from her. Dumb girl! Like I want some little plastic necklace that probably came out of a gumball machine! She spent the whole day Monday crying to the teacher, telling her I stole it! Mrs. Robertson probably would have spanked me if she could've gotten away with it without losing her job. She sent me to the principal anyway. Then they tried to make me confess. Ha! I never broke! They threatened me with all sortsa stuff! Said they'd give me detention for a week. I told 'em I didn't do it and there was no way they could prove I did. And yesterday, Jeri looks in her desk and there it is! She never even lost it, it was just under some books! Man, did she get red! She told the teacher she found it. And Mrs. Robertson said I didn't have to do detention anymore. She didn't apologize to me though.\"\n He paused, and he sighed.\n \"That would've been nice. If she'd said she was sorry.\"\n He felt his eyes start to water. He hunched over and pulled all his stuffed animals closer. He buried his muzzle in their soft fur. They were always there for him.\n \"I love you guys,\" he said softly. His tears landed on their fur. \"I love you so much. Thanks for listening. I love you. I love you.\"\n He sat and rocked back and forth. He hugged his little friends tight, giving them all gentle kisses.\n This was the one time he was able to be tender. The one time he could let his guard down.\n He liked being gentle. He liked saying nice things to his plushies and giving them hugs and kisses. Whenever his family threw their worst at him, he'd come out here and vent his frustration on his plushies. But not by hitting or kicking them. Never! The very idea was disgusting to him! Why would he hurt his plushies? He loved them! He'd gone through so much trouble to rescue them and give them a new home. No, whenever he'd had a rotten day, he would come out here and talk to them. He would tell them all about it, getting everything off his chest while they listened silently. In fact, the worse he felt, the more loving he acted towards them. So what if they were only cloth and stuffing? Justin couldn't think of them like that. They were his friends, and they trusted him. He'd never do anything to hurt them.\n When he was feeling calmer, Justin put his plushies back in the trunk. He surveyed his collection once more. Then he leaned in and patted them on their heads. \"Goodbye, guys. I'll see you later. 'Bye. I love you.\" He hesitated a moment, then closed the lid and locked it.\n Justin turned away and walked off towards the dump. There was no way to know what would show up from day to day, so he'd learned not to bother expecting anything. Some days it'd be nothing but pizza boxes and used tissues. Sometimes he'd find neat stuff all over the place. One time he'd found an entire comic book collection that someone's mom had thrown out. Most of them were dumb 'steroid users in tights'-type titles, but there were certainly a few that deserved keeping. The rest he took to school and left by the littler kids' part of the playground. He put a small sign on top of the stack that said: 'Free! Take One!'. It had made him feel good. After all, he more than anyone knew that one fur's trash is another fur's treasure.\n Justin arrived at the lip of the valley that led down to the huge trash pile. He smiled and took in a deep breath. He'd never told anyone before, but he'd actually gotten to like the smell of the dump. Yeah, it was stinky. But it was an interesting, multi-faceted kind of stinky. A stinky that hinted at possibilities.\n The little wolffox started down the sandy slope, headed for the place where all the new stuff usually got dropped off.\n He had just climbed up the ridge by all the smashed cars when he saw something lying in the trash that he'd never seen before.\n He had no idea his life was about to change forever.\n Lying on a pile of garbage bags was a dead girl.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 2*\n\n\n Justin screamed.\n The girl sat straight up. \"Shit! What the hell!?\"\n Immense relief swept through Justin's soul. He felt like he was about to crumple like a paper doll. \"Oh my god!\" he panted. His heart was whizzing around like a racecar. \"I thought you were dead!\"\n The girl looked to be a little older than him, but not by much. She was a rat. Her fur was a very pale grey, nearly white. Her hair was chocolate-brown and messy. Her tail was long, furless, and looked like a worm. She was wearing a white T-shirt and dirty, scuffed blue denim overalls. Her muzzle was long and pointed, ending in a bubblegum-pink nose. She had prominent buckteeth that were actually kind of cute.\n \"Well why don't you check first before you scream like a grandmother and scare the poop out of people?\" the ratgirl asked curtly.\n Justin skidded down the side of the ridge towards her, kicking up sandy dust behind him. \"Well, geeze! You're laying there on a bunch of garbage bags. I thought someone killed you and dumped you here.\"\n She stood up. She yawned and scratched herself. \"Nope. Just taking a nap.\"\n \"On a bunch of garbage bags?\" Justin asked, puzzled.\n She looked at him as if that should have been obvious. \"Yeah. So? I like garbage.\"\n Justin smiled in a lopsided way. \"Actually, I do too. But not as a mattress.\"\n She grinned and laughed. It sounded like steam from a rusty teapot, but in a nice way. She waded carefully towards him through the pile of black plastic bags. She stopped in front of him and abruptly put out her paw.\n Up close, Justin realized she was about a head taller than him.\n \"I'm Lena.\"\n Justin arched an eyebrow, then hesitantly shook her hand. \"Uh, why were you sleeping on trash bags?\"\n \"Tell me why you're here first,\" she snapped crisply.\n Given that this girl seemed like she could probably beat him up if she felt like it, Justin decided to keep on her good side. \"Um, well, I like to come here every now and then and look through the junk. Sometimes I find toys 'n books and stuff...\" he confessed.\n She crossed her arms and 'hmph'ed at him like a queen unamused by a commoner's crime. \"You're stealing MY garbage?\"\n \"What do you mean _your_ garbage!?\" Justin spat back angrily. This was his one special place. He didn't care if this girl was bigger and tougher than him, he was _not_ going to let anyone take this away from him. \"I've never even seen you before! I've been coming here for years! And it's not stealing anyway. It's as much mine as anyone else's!\"\n She grinned smugly. \"It's my garbage 'cuz my dad owns the dump now,\" she said triumphantly.\n That kind of struck down any argument Justin could have come back with. \"Uh...\" He thought about it for a second. \"Wait, he bought the dump?\" he asked incredulously. \"Why?\"\n She smiled, showing off her ratty teeth in a 'wouldn't you like to know' kind of way. \"Doesn't matter. He owns it, and that means I do too. So no one gets to root through my garbage without my permission!\" she stated regally.\n Justin paused to reassess the situation. She was grinning too much. He suspected she was just playing with him. \"Okay then, Miss Trash Princess, may I have your permission?\" he asked cunningly.\n She burst out in a big smile. \"Sure!\" she squeaked. And with that, she grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him lightly onto the pile of trash.\n \"Waaaaah!\"\n A moment later, she jumped on the pile too. A bag burst, spraying TV dinner trays everywhere. \"Eeew!\" she said with a grin.\n Justin turned himself over and just stared at the weird girl. She was lying on her back, arms tucked behind her head, looking pleased as punch. \"You never did tell me your name,\" she said out of the blue.\n \"Justin,\" he replied quietly, as if ashamed of it.\n She smiled at him. He noticed she had long, silvery whiskers that bounced when she smiled. \"Hi Justin.\"\n \"Hi. Um, was it Lena?\"\n She nodded. \"So, are you gonna help me search through all these trash bags for fun stuff, or are you just gonna sit there?\"\n He stared at her. \"You really...? I mean, you want to look through garbage with me?\"\n \"Uh huh. I've never met anyone else who likes trash like I do. I'm pleased to meet you,\" she said in a sweet tone.\n Justin blushed. He'd been too busy being slightly frightened of this girl to realize that she was, in fact, a girl. \"Um... I'm glad to meet you too.\" And actually, he was. He'd never met anyone else who liked trash either.\n They smiled at each other for a moment, slowly coming to the realization that they were kindred spirits.\n Lena looked down. \"Oooh, I found something already!\"\n Justin looked over. \"What?\"\n She threw a wad of greasy paper towel at him.\n \"Hey!\"\n She giggled.\n And that was how Justin met Lena.\n\n\n * * *\n\n\n The two kids played in the trash for hours.\n They became friends almost instantly. It was bizarre, Justin thought. He _never_ made friends with anyone this quickly. Then again, he never really made friends, period.\n However, the fact that you enjoy trash-picking is something you don't usually divulge to others, not even someone you trust. It was a bad, dirty, shameful thing. At least, that was how others saw it.\n But the two of them openly shared an undeniable love for trash, so there was no way either of them could possibly ridicule the other for it.\n By having this strange secret interest in common, it put them on perfectly equal ground. Friendship came easily.\n And as the two of them wandered about through the pile of bags, ripping them open like christmas presents, chatting happily the whole time, they realized they had a lot of other stuff in common too. They were both smart, enjoyed the same type of books and movies, loved pizza, hated zucchini, and shared a dozen or so other small similarities.\n They were different in just as many ways too. Lena said she lived with her father, no mom or siblings, and that she loved him dearly. On the subject of family, Justin merely said that it was something he'd rather not talk about. And they left it at that.\n The brunette ratgirl said that her dad had bought the land the dump was on last week, and that he'd replaced the old guy who'd been running it for years. Justin was happy to hear it. The 'old guy', he knew, was an ancient, foul-tempered German Shepherd with no teeth and no heart. He had scowled like a bird of prey at everyone who came to the dump to drop off their stuff. He took the gate fee from everyone by snatching it roughly away, as if he thought the whole town was trying to cheat him. Justin was certain that if the old fart had ever caught him dump-diving he would have called the cops in a heartbeat, or simply chased him down and beat the crap out of him. Thankfully, the old dog was also lazy. Justin had never seen him leave his post at the front gates unless he had to take a whiz. The young wolffox made it quite clear to Lena that the thought of that old fart losing his job just tickled him pink.\n Lena had a similarly low opinion of the man. She said he'd fought with her father every step of the way over the property rights, and that her dad had been only too happy to give him the boot when the land became his. She said that she and her father were now living in a little cabin just on the other side of the dump's main gate, and that they'd moved in a few days ago.\n That explained why Justin hadn't seen her before. He asked again why her dad wanted the dump in the first place, but the little rat was tight-lipped. She merely smiled, as if she was keeping one hell of a secret. Maybe there was gold in them thar garbage mounds, Justin ventured. She said he was _way_ off base.\n As far as the garbage went, it was a pretty good day for both of them.\n Lena found three dolls, a few spotty paperback books, an unopened box of snack cakes (\"Hey, they're still in the plastic wrap! They'll be okay!\" she had insisted), a broken ceramic elephant, one tiny plastic shoe, and an assortment of bottletops, which she said she collected.\n Justin found some books too, plus an action figure that looked like either a ninja or some kind of evil henchman, two metal cars that were only slightly stepped on, an activity pad with most of the pages un-crayoned, a baseball card, and a spool of white thread. (He wanted that to fix up some of his plushies with, but he didn't tell her that.)\n They also found plenty of other, smaller things. Stuff that deserved a second look but that they probably wouldn't keep. Candy wrappers with jokes printed on them, shiny pieces of unknown broken objects, paper with scribbled writing; stuff like that.\n Altogether, it was a happy, relaxed and fun way to spend an afternoon.\n\n\n\n When all the trash bags had been thoroughly searched, Justin and Lena looked up and noticed that the sun was going down.\n Both of them were rather smelly by now, but neither of them minded. Actually, Justin thought Lena's sweaty girl-smell was kind of interesting. (What he didn't know was that she felt the same way about his own wolfy boy-odor.)\n Their clothes had numerous spots and splotches, largely due to the fact that they'd been tossing icky stuff at one another for laughs all day. Nothing too gross though; they were only playing after all. An orange peel: fair game. A dirty diaper: hell no.\n Lena bent down and gathered her findings up into a convenient plastic grocery bag. \"So, do you come here every day?\" she asked.\n \"No, sometimes I can't get out of the house. I come here usually three or four times a week if I'm lucky.\"\n \"Well that's okay. I'll be here most of the time if you want to find me again.\"\n They stopped what they were doing, falling silent, and looked at one another for a moment.\n The sun was starting to set, painting the sky with candy pinks and savage oranges. The wind blew lightly through Lena's wild and uncombed brown hair. She looked at him with wide, dark-olive-green eyes.\n Justin realized that yes, he did want to find her again. He wanted to meet her here again and again, every day he came. He had finally found someone he could talk to. Someone who, much as he still loved his stuffed animals, could actually respond back.\n And she was cute, too.\n \"I'd like that,\" he said, and smiled.\n \"Me too,\" she said. She smiled too. Her whiskers bounced. \"Can you come here tomorrow after school?\"\n \"I'll try my best.\"\n \"Okay.\"\n The sky was growing darker now.\n \"Um, see you later,\" Justin mumbled, wanting to say something a bit more eloquent but not knowing how.\n \"Okay. 'Bye Justin.\" She turned away and gave him a little wave.\n \"'Bye Lena,\" he called back.\n He'd just turned around again when she shouted, \"Oh! I almost forgot!\"\n He turned around. \"What?\"\n A rolled-up dirty sock flew through the air and bonked right into his forehead.\n \"Bullseye!\" Lena said triumphantly.\n Justin grinned. \"You're a jerk!\"\n \"Thanks!\" she said back, and ran off for home.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 3*\n\n\n Justin had gotten home that night just as 'dinner' was being prepared. 'Dinner' could barely be called that. Reheated macaroni and cheese from the night before, milk that was starting to turn, and a pawful of pretzels. (Justin guessed that was supposed to be their vegetable.)\n His three asshole brothers were busy talking about some basketball game that was on later that night, so thankfully they didn't bother him much. Everyone had long since gotten used to Justin coming home smelling like trash, so they didn't even notice him now. And considering that Mom smelled like beer and farts, and his brothers all carried a stench that was a combination of sweat, underwear skidmarks and, occasionally, weed, the fact that they passed over a bit of dump-reek was hardly surprising.\n Immediately following 'dinner', Mom took back her eternal position on the couch: head lying on the armrest, right foot snug between the cushions, right arm dangling on the floor, left hand clutching the remote as if it were trying to escape. Sometimes Justin wondered how come she hadn't frozen like that permanently.\n His brothers sat on the floor in front of her, ready to watch some b-ball. Soon the livingroom was filled with the sounds of sneakers scooting, crowds shouting and announcers yammering, occasionally punctuated by cheers and boos from The Dipshit Trio.\n Justin had become very, very good at sneaking out of a room without being noticed. He did so as soon as he'd cleaned his plate and was soon back in the tentative safety of his room. Well, it wasn't actually his. He had to share it with the three neanderthals. But at least he had his own bed.\n He wriggled under the bed and pried up the loose floorboard there with a screwdriver. His family would be engrossed for hours, so it looked like he had some time alone.\n In a dusty little recess beneath the floor, Justin had hidden his few attempts at poetry. He had never actually set out to be a poet, since even he had to admit that his brothers were right about it being kinda faggy. Still, he hadn't yet managed to convince his brain to stop bugging him about it. Every now and then a poem would just come to him, out of the blue, and it would nag at him until he wrote it down.\n Sometimes it was just a page full of scribblings about how much he hated his family. But not that often. Usually inspiration came in the form of odd little moments and happenings that he thought were worthy of remembering.\n For instance, the one he'd been writing earlier, the one that had been so cruelly mocked and ripped to shreds by the three philistines, had been about something he'd seen on the school bus that morning. Despite the fact that the weather was sunny and clear, he'd seen a woman standing on the corner wearing a rain slicker and carrying an umbrella.\n She was standing beneath its dome, smiling, looking as if she knew exactly what she was doing. She seemed so confident, Justin half expected it to suddenly pour down rain before the bus reached school.\n The fact that it *didn't* start raining seemed almost more surprising than if it had.\n As soon as Justin got home, he scribbled a few lines down. His first draft was lying on the floor in tatters, so he got a fresh sheet and started again. It flowed a lot better this time. Justin actually found himself thanking his brothers for destroying his first effort.\n He knew he wasn't a good poet, but he didn't care much. It wasn't like he ever expected to get published, or even wanted to. This was something he did because something inside told him to. Some part of his soul wanted him to write out these little vignettes.\n Rhyme wasn't important to him, or number of lines. It was all about how the sentences _sounded_. They had to flow correctly before he was satisfied. He weighed each line like composing music. It had to sound right, and it had to describe how the event had felt. Not so much what had actually happened, but how it had felt.\n He finished up, titled it 'Invisible Shower' and hid it under the floorboard with the rest.\n Smiling, he got out his homework and lost himself in it until it was time for bed.\n\n\n * * *\n\n\n All through school the next day, Justin was in a daze.\n The schoolwork was easy as taking a crap, so that wasn't a problem. Justin finished the worksheets in swift contempt and set them aside while everyone elses' pencils were still scratching about.\n He kept thinking about Lena. He really hoped he'd get to meet her again later. He'd had a lot of fun with her the day before.\n The young ratfemme was different from every girl he'd ever met. For one thing, she wasn't afraid to act like a boy if she felt like it. She didn't mind swearing or play-fighting or getting dirty. Yet at the same time, she was still comfortable giggling over girl stuff. Justin would've passed over those dolls she'd found without a second thought, but she had gushed over them like they were made out of gold. And he didn't mind either. She was cool about the stuff he liked, so he felt it was only fair for him to be cool about the things she liked too.\n Another thing he liked about her was the fact that she didn't take one look at him and then decide to treat him like slime. That was the reaction he got from basically everyone else at school. Even when he'd meet someone for the first time and try to at least be polite, they'd take in his appearance, and his smell, and sneer at him like they wished he'd just hurry up and die already.\n So what if he only had two pairs of pants and he had to wear 'em each for a week until Mom made him do laundry? So what if every one of his T-shirts had a hole in it, or a stain or two? So what if he smelled exactly like someone whose hobby was scrutinizing the contents of trash bags? Was that any reason to treat him like he wasn't even alive?\n Apparently, he realized, it was. He'd overheard enough mumbled comments to know that he was the school's resident 'smelly kid'. He was the untouchable. Other kids didn't even make fun of him most of the time, they just left the room or tried to act like he wasn't there.\n But Lena had been friendly to him right from the start. He guessed she'd probably been the 'smelly kid' at her school too. As he'd noticed the day before, they were on perfectly equal ground, and they both knew it. They were two of a kind. Being jerks to each other wouldn't even have made sense.\n \"Mister Dalton!!!\"\n Justin's head snapped forward. The teacher was giving him one of those 'How dare you daydream in my class!' looks.\n \"I asked you a question!\" the trim, well-dressed marten said in her usual snippy tone.\n Mrs. Robertson did not like him. Which he supposed was forgivable, considering that he didn't have a shred of respect for her.\n He smiled blithely at her. \"I'm sorry, I was thinking about something more important than what you were talking about.\"\n If any other kid had had the balls to say that to a teacher's face, it would have gotten a full house of giggles hidden behind paws. Instead, the rest of the class just looked away in distaste.\n Mrs. Robertson was not pleased. \"I asked you how many moons Mars has,\" she said sharply, hoping to catch him off guard.\n \"Two: Phobos 'n Deimos. Got anything harder than that?\" he asked suavely, tossing her a shit-eating grin.\n The teacher was not about to lose face to a student she considered little better than a maggot. \"Allright then, Mister Dalton...\"\n He really didn't like being called by his last name. He suspected she knew that.\n \"...name all of Jupiter's moons.\" She grinned in triumph. She had his ass now.\n Justin grinned even wider. Without a trace of effort, he rattled off all sixteen at lightning speed. \"Io, Ganymede, Elara, Carme, Amalthea, Metis, Pasiphae, Europa, Leda, Sinope, Himalia, Adrastea, Ananke, Thebe, Lysithea and, drumroll please, Callisto!\"\n Mrs. Robertson's face went slack with disbelief, then turned into an ugly snarl. If looks could kill... She didn't even know half of those herself!\n He smiled innocently. It wasn't like she could punish him for giving a right answer. It was her own fault for not realizing he liked astronomy.\n She glared at him a bit more, daring him to make some smartass remark she could use to punish his little ass for.\n Justin said not a word. He'd thought about asking her if she wanted him to name all the asteroids in the Oort cloud, but that would have been pushing it. Never give your enemies anything they want, he'd learned. Never make it easy for them to punish you. Sometimes the best revenge is keeping your mouth shut and letting your adversary tear their hair out.\n Finally, Mrs. Robertson turned away with a little growl and went back to her lesson.\n He'd have to keep on his toes the rest of the day, but as long as he could keep from doing something dumb, he knew he'd won.\n He felt incredibly proud of himself.\n\n\n * * *\n\n\n \"Hi Lena!!\"\n \"Justin! Cool! Good to see you again!\"\n The little wolffox had zoomed off the bus, told Mom he was home, dropped off his homework and fled the house like it was on fire. He even bypassed his treasure chest. But he did remember to call out a hello to his plushies as he passed.\n He'd looked around the dump for a while, hoping she hadn't been just teasing him the day before. Eventually he'd spotted her in the Auto Graveyard, bent way over the open hood of the shell of some little foreign model.\n Justin rushed over to meet her. He was glad to see her twice over; glad just to see her of course, and also glad that she'd been telling the truth the other day. He'd been betrayed by a few other 'friends' in the past. But he was already mostly sure he didn't have to worry about that with Lena.\n Today she was dressed in jeans and a bright yellow shirt with some college sports team's logo on the front. \"I thought you said sports were boring,\" he said as he arrived by her side.\n She looked confused for a second, then realized he was talking about her shirt. \"Oh? Yeah, I just like the color of this one. Found it in a bag of old clothes back where I came from and it fit me, so I kept it,\" she explained. \"Maybe I should wear it inside out?\" she mused to herself.\n \"Where'd you used to live?\" Justin asked.\n \"Not far from here. Another city called Pine Bend. It was a lot bigger than this place. Dad worked at the landfill there.\"\n \"He must really like trash.\"\n She grinned, as if in on a secret. \"You have no idea.\" She turned back to what she'd been examining before he'd arrived. \"Oh, hey, lookit this.\"\n He stood beside her and tried to see what she was seeing. It was just a bunch of rusty car guts to him.\n \"What do you think the likelihood is of me being able to get this engine up and running again?\" she asked conversationally.\n \"Somewhere between zero and diddly-shit,\" he replied automatically. Then he winced. \"I mean, are you good with engines? I didn't know. I'm sorry-\"\n She smiled and gave him a little shove. \"You were right the first time, stoopid. This engine's dead as a doorknob. I might be able to save the flywheel and the transmission housing though. The rest's a buncha shit.\"\n He was rather impressed (though he thought the word she meant was 'doornail'). \"Do you know a lot about cars?\" he asked.\n The little rat nodded proudly. \"Dad and I have a car we fixed up called the Frankenmobile. He bought it for, like, a dollar off some guy's lawn and we spent about six months putting new parts in. I loved running around in the old dump too, so he gave me a list of parts to look for. I figured I'd start today scouting for any new stuff here.\"\n Justin chuckled. \"Good luck finding anything but truck parts. I swear, there's like a law around here that says people can only own pickups.\" He gestured towards the foreign model they were currently inspecting. \"The cops probably confiscated this one and torched it.\"\n Lena laughed. It was right in his ear and really loud, but he didn't mind. \"Naw, ours is some old four-door sedan. It's ugly as hell but it rides smooth.\" She brightened suddenly. \"Now, the Green Beast's the one that's really impressive! I've gotta show her off to you sometime!\"\n \"We've got a station wagon,\" Justin shamefully admitted. \"It stalls most of the time. We don't have a name for it.\"\n \"Maybe I could come over and fix it?\" she offered cheerfully, obviously excited by the idea.\n Justin paled. \"Are you kidding? If my dad ever saw a girl working on his car, he'd punch your lights out!\"\n Lena started to laugh, then realized he wasn't kidding. \"Seriously!?\"\n Justin nodded. \"He loves that stupid car. He won't let anyone else touch it. But he never tries to fix it! He just swears at it and calls it girls' names when it won't start.\"\n Lena looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or be horrified. She decided instead to change the subject. \"Anyway, that reminds me. I wanted you to meet my dad today.\"\n \"Okay,\" Justin said. From her description yesterday, he sounded like a nice enough guy.\n \"Come on! He's over at the front gate!\" She ran off, and Justin noticed that her jeans, and her overalls the day before, hid a pair of wiry, powerful legs. It was almost impossible to keep up with her. She scrambled and jumped over piles of trash like she'd been born for it. All Justin could see of her big furless feet were flashes of pink.\n She stopped every now and then to let him catch up. She grinned at him. He definitely wasn't a lazy couch potato like Greg, but she was sure making him look like one.\n \"You're acting like you've never run through a dump before!\" she called over her shoulder teasingly.\n \"Shut up!\"\n\n\n\n After having traversed a good deal of the dump, they finally made it to the front gate. Justin was a bit winded, but Lena looked peppy as ever. She jogged in place for a little bit. \"Slowpoke,\" she teased.\n Justin decided to wait until he got his breath back to reply to that.\n At the side of the main gate was a little shack that looked like a tollbooth. The incoming fursons gave the guy at the window three dollars and then they were let in to get rid of their trash. At the moment, Justin could see a little bit of the man sitting inside. Not much more than his pant legs, as he had his feet propped up on the desk, but enough to be sure that the old German Shepherd truly was gone for good. 'Bon voyage, you paranoid old poop', Justin thought.\n \"Hey _DAD_!!!\" Lena blasted out at an impressive volume. \"Come see what I found in the garbage the other day!!\" She turned around and blew a little raspberry at Justin.\n He shrugged. \"Well, it's true,\" he had to admit.\n The door of the little booth opened up, and the man who stepped out made Justin do a double take.\n For starters, he'd expected another rat, like Lena. This guy was a skunk! His glossy black and white fur shimmered in the hot afternoon sun. His giant bushy tail swayed lazily behind him as he walked.\n He was wearing an ocean-blue button-down shirt, khakis, and tan work boots. On his head was a cowboy hat that no one but a tourist or a newcomer would actually wear, and on his pink triangular nose was perched a pair of round wire-frame bifocals.\n He was tall like a saguaro; lanky and sun-hardened. His body looked like it was made entirely of vertical lines, except for his round, warm face. He smiled cheerfully when he saw the two kids. He looked like a perfect combination of intelligence and hard work.\n \"He's a skunk!\" Justin noted.\n Lena laughed at him. \"I'm adopted, ya fuckin' retard!\" she said playfully.\n Justin glared at her, but he was grinning. \"Asshole.\"\n \"Fuckface!\"\n \"Shitsucker!\"\n \"Nipplehead!\"\n Justin stopped cold. \"Nipplehead?! What the hell is a nipplehead!?\"\n Lena shrugged. \"I don't know! It just popped out!\"\n The skunk grinned as he loped up. \"Well, you two seem to be playing nicely.\"\n Lena jumped up on him and hugged him so hard she nearly toppled him over. \"Daddeeeee!\" she squealed. She pointed at her wolffox friend. \"This is Justin. He likes garbage too!\"\n That wasn't the best way in the world to be introduced to someone, but Justin figured that in this family it wouldn't matter. He put out his paw for a shake. \"Hello, sir,\" he said politely.\n \"Well 'hello, sir' back to you too,\" said the skunk. He took Justin's paw in both of his and gave it one strong up-and-down pump. \"Adam Tallevasco. Pleased to meet you.\"\n \"Justin Dalton. But I don't like my last name.\"\n \"Okay. Just Justin then.\"\n Justin nodded. He liked this guy already. Aside from seeming pretty cool, he was talking to him respectfully, like he was another adult. Justin couldn't remember the last time any other grown-up had treated him that way. And he was kind of a handsome skunk too. The little wolffox blushed a bit when he realized he'd thought that.\n Lena released her father and started making little patterns in the sand with her toeclaws. \"Anyone do any dumping today yet, Dad?\" she asked.\n \"A few people.\" He looked across the dump, pointing off to the side. \"Over there. Two guys so far. One of them had a whole truckload. Looked interesting.\"\n Lena grinned in delight. \"Cool!\"\n The tall skunk turned to Justin. \"Lena was telling me about you last night at dinner. You like looking through trash too?\" he asked, but in a very gentle voice so Justin would know he didn't disapprove of such activities.\n Justin was a bit embarrassed anyway. \"Well, yeah. Sometimes.\"\n Mr. Tallevasco patted him on the shoulder. \"Hey, nothing wrong with that! I've been stomping around in garbage most of my life. I'm an amateur garbologist.\"\n Justin arched an eyebrow in a 'you gotta be kidding me' way. \"That is _not_ a real word.\"\n Adam looked melodramatically offended. \"It is too!\"\n \"Really?\"\n Mr. Tallevasco made a little 'trust me' gesture with his paws. \"Swear to God. I'm a garbologist. I study garbage. You'd be surprised at what you can learn about a furson if you root through their trash.\"\n \"I bet I wouldn't,\" Justin said with a bit of pride. \"I've been dump-diving here for years now. I know plenty of stuff about people. Heck, if I wanted, I could probably rip a lot of people off. Dummies leave their bank numbers in plain sight sometimes.\"\n Adam was a tad startled. \"That's not exactly what I meant, but I'll acknowledge we're in the same field. I'm talking more about garbage as a form of sociology. Did you know that most of the stuff archaeologists have learned about ancient civilizations, they get from looking through dead people's trash?\"\n Justin thought that was kind of interesting. \"Really?\"\n Lena was off doing her own thing; she'd heard this plenty of times before.\n Adam crouched down in the dusty road beside Justin, his paw on the boy's shoulder. \"Believe it. When you think about it, it makes sense. People from past eras would throw their trash in big heaps, just like this dump here, and it'd get buried and preserved long after all their buildings and culture were gone. Hundreds of years later, some guy stumbles by, sees something sticking out of the ground, calls an archaeologist, and presto! Just like a time capsule!\"\n \"That's pretty cool!\" Justin said. \"So someday after we're all dead, a bunch of future fursons, of maybe their robots, will uncover all this junk?\"\n \"Exactly,\" the bespectacled skunk concurred.\n \"And they'll probably conclude we were all a bunch of drunken rednecks,\" Justin deadpanned.\n Adam snorted with laughter and nearly fell over. \"I hate to say it, but I think you're right, my lupine friend.\"\n Justin rather liked being referred to as 'my lupine friend'.\n Mr. Tallevasco stood back up. He removed his silly hat for a moment to scratch between his ears. Justin noticed that his hair was pure white, like his stripes. \"I also dabble a bit in the occult, but they're two completely different subjects.\"\n \"Oh yes, totally unrelated!\" Lena joined in.\n \"Indeed. Completely and utterly unrelated.\"\n The two of them grinned and chucked at one another, obviously enjoying some in-joke that Justin didn't get. Maybe he'd find out eventually, but he didn't want to be rude and pry into it now.\n \"You two want some snacks before you go off treasure hunting?\" Mr. Tallevasco asked.\n Snacks? He was actually being offered snacks? Now Justin knew he _really_ liked this guy! \"Sure! Thank you very much!\" he said enthusiastically.\n \"Me too, Dad!\" Lena added.\n \"Okee-doke. Come on in where it's cool and shady. I got some pop in the mini-fridge. I think there's some of those little cake things left over.\"\n Justin wondered if they were the allegedly-just-fine snack cakes Lena had found in the trash the day before. He followed the rat and the skunk into the little shack, noticing that this was the first time he'd ever been inside of it.\n It looked pretty much like a tiny little office. There was only one chair, so two of them would have to stand. There was a short wooden desk, clean and organized. Justin guessed it wouldn't stay that way much longer. At the back was a little fridge and above it was a corkboard covered in notes, schedules, and rather a lot of pictures of Adam and Lena together, always smiling brightly.\n The big skunk cracked open the fridge and it whined in protest. He tossed a can of cola to Justin. It was so chilly the wolffox nearly dropped it. Another can went to Lena. \"Cheers,\" said Adam. He bumped cans with the two kids and they all popped their pull-tabs.\n It was good and cold, which was a nice relief on such a hot day. Lena took a long gulp, then held the can to her forehead for a while before rubbing it up and down the length of her long, furless tail.\n \"Snack cake?\" Adam asked, holding out the box with a few slightly-squished ones still in the bottom. He took a seat in the big, broken-in leather desk chair.\n \"Are those...?\" Justin started.\n \"Yes, and I was right,\" Lena cut in. \"They're fine! As long as the wrapper's intact, it's not like any germs can get in. Besides, they cram these things fulla preservatives anyway.\"\n Adam nodded, already nibbling on one, which was melting a bit in his paw. \"That's true. I've heard these things have a shelf life of twenty years or so. Kind of strange, isn't it, to eat something that'll outlive most housepets?\"\n That was certainly a weird observation. \"Well, okay,\" Justin said bravely. \"You guys are eating 'em and you're not dropping dead.\"\n At that, the skunk and the rat could not resist making overdramatic gagging noises and slumping over.\n \"Ha ha ha,\" Justin said, and took the last one.\n They grinned at him. \n And actually, the cake was not bad.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 4*\n\n\n As the days progressed, Justin and Lena swiftly and effortlessly became best friends. Soon Justin couldn't imagine life without her. She gave him a reason to be happy. Life was no longer just hiding from his brothers, getting disgusted stares from his classmates and being picked on by his teacher. His secret, solitary act of pleasure; exploring the dump, had become something shared. Which made it so much better.\n Sure, they'd occasionally have squabbles. But never any fights. They called each other filthy names constantly, but that was only playing.\n About the only thing they ever got into any real arguments about was over trash finds. Sometimes they'd discover something that both of them wanted. Eventually it was decided that 'Whosoever touches it first shall become rightful owner' would be their ironclad rule; no bitching allowed.\n Although if the loser still wanted the disputed object badly enough, they could always try to barter for it. That became a fun activity all on its own. They found it was just as much fun looking for stuff the other furson would like as it was searching for their own goodies. It was like going Christmas shopping every day.\n One such situation came up out of the blue about a week after Lena and Justin first met.\n\n\n\n The black plastic bag ripped satisfyingly under her paws. Lena gasped in delight at what she'd uncovered. A goldmine! Some fed-up mother had gone through her kid's closet and thrown away everything in sight. The little ratgirl called her wolffox friend over to explore it with her.\n They both reached in grinning and pulled the bag wide open. \"Cool!\" Justin exclaimed, as he noticed a little robot figure. It looked quite sinister, with snapping pincers and a missile launcher on top of its head. Justin poked at it, and a little red piece of plastic shot out and bonked right into his forehead. \"Sweet! It's still got the missile!\" Finding a toy like this with all its parts and weapons was a miracle.\n Lena was looking through some stuffed animals. \"Oh, these are cute!\"\n Justin looked up and noticed Lena holding a medium-sized fox plush with carrot-colored fur and a green hat and sweater.\n For some reason, he felt his heart go out to the little vixen immediately. She was adorable, and he knew right away he wanted her to cuddle with. But Lena had touched it first. How could he get it back from her without looking like a big sissy?\n Lena noticed him staring at the fox. \"Um, I guess I'll keep these. If you don't mind,\" she said slowly, not sure if she was misreading his expression.\n Justin blushed. He trusted her, but this was still very conflicting. He was supposed to be a tough guy. Sneaky and devious. Cool and collected.\n And yet he still played with stuffed animals.\n 'Then again,' a little voice spoke up, 'Lena's comfortable with being boyish sometimes. Do you really think she'd make fun of you if you wanted to be a little girlish?'\n With great courage, Justin haltingly said, \"Actually, um... I'd kinda like that fox you're holding.\"\n Lena looked down at it. She'd seen in her friend's eyes that the plushie meant something to him. She kinda liked that. She'd had many experiences before where she'd find a stuffed animal and make an instant connection with it. Something would click, and she'd want to cuddle it right away, even if it was old and sticky and its seams were popping loose. She was happy to know that Justin could feel the same way too. \"Well, you know The Rule,\" she said with a little smile. \"You've gotta trade me something for her.\"\n Justin looked around, trying desperately to spot something good enough.\n She giggled. \"Oh, how 'bout that gum wrapper?\" she pointed out.\n Justin looked up and saw in her eyes that she knew how he felt about the plushie, and that she didn't mind. She was giving it to him to make him happy. He smiled warmly at her, passing along a silent 'thank you'. He picked up the wrapper and handed it to her.\n She gave him the fox and took the wrapper. \"Ooh, I'll treasure it forever!\" she gushed. They both laughed.\n Justin held the fluffy plush vixen in his arms. She was perfect. She was even in good condition; no stains, no missing patches of fur. Just one little loose seam he could easily sew up. The fox's shiny plastic eyes were happy, as if she knew she'd found the right owner. Justin gave her a little hug.\n \"Awwwww,\" said Lena.\n Justin blushed.\n She smiled at him. \"It's okay. I like plushies too. I don't think you're a baby or anything.\"\n Feeling a bit more confident, Justin gave his new fuzzy fox friend a kiss. He felt really happy. He looked up at Lena. \"Thanks. My life sucks a lot of the time, and it's nice to have something soft to hold, you know?\"\n She nodded, understanding perfectly. \"Do you give yours names?\" she asked.\n \"Oh, of course,\" he replied without hesitation. \"Who doesn't?\"\n \"I thought so. Only fursons who really care about their plushies name them,\" she said sagely.\n Justin froze. A terrifying, impossible thought had suddenly occurred to him. 'No. Never. Not in a million years...' It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. \"Do you wanna go see something in the woods?\"\n \"Mmmmmaybe. What is it?\" She noticed how nervous he looked. \"Is it something secret? Something special?\"\n Justin was trembling all over. He weakly managed to nod. A large part of him was screaming not to do this. It was his freakin' Treasure Chest, dammit! No one was supposed to know about it but him! Never ever ever!!!\n Lena got to her feet. \"Wanna go now?\" From the tremor in his eyes, she guessed that this was something he'd only have the courage for if they did it right away, while the idea was fresh. If she let it wait till later, it probably wouldn't happen at all.\n \"Um, I guess so.\" He gathered up all of the day's finds in his backpack, mindful to keep Lena's stuff separate in a plastic bag. He stood up and looked at her, feeling awkward.\n \"Where do we hafta go?\" she asked, her green eyes wide with curiosity.\n He pointed in the general direction. \"Over there, past all the cars. I know where it is. Just follow me.\"\n \"Okay.\"\n Justin shouldered his backpack and started leading the way.\n 'You colossal idiot!' part of him screamed. 'You can't show her the secret treasure chest! Turn back now before it's too late!'\n 'Shut up! I already told her I was gonna show her something,' another part replied.\n 'Show her a tree! Show her a rock! Anything but the footlocker!'\n 'Why not? She's not gonna laugh, or try to steal anything. She's my friend.'\n 'You *think* she's your friend! Are you really gonna trust her with the biggest secret you have?'\n \"Fuck you,\" he muttered under his breath. \"Lena's cool. I'm not gonna be a jerk about this.\"\n \"Did you say something?\" Lena called out from behind him.\n \"Just talking to myself!\" he shouted over his shoulder.\n Just from the look on his face, the young rat could tell that her new best friend was really worried about showing her whatever it was he was about to show her. It was probably something he'd never let anyone else know about before.\n Lena sighed sadly. It reminded her of the secret she was keeping from him. She honestly didn't know if she would ever feel comfortable telling him, even though she'd been considering the idea for a week now. Maybe she'd never find anyone she could tell...\n\n\n\n The two little ones walked along in silence for quite some time before they reached the slightly rusty black footlocker. It was partially buried in the dirt, and camouflaged by a pile of tree limbs.\n Lena was confused. \"It's a box. It's a big black box,\" she said flatly.\n \"Well, there's stuff inside it, ya moron,\" he kidded.\n \"Oh. That makes sense.\"\n Justin knelt down in the soft, cool earth. He tossed the tree branches to the side and was about to start fiddling with the combination lock. He stopped and looked uneasily at Lena. \"Hey. Um... Could you become really interested in something over there right now?\" he asked her.\n Lena understood. She turned around. \"Oh look! Some trees!\" she exclaimed.\n Justin was still too nervous to laugh, though the way she'd said it was pretty funny. He quickly spun in the combination and popped the lock off. \"Okay, you can look now,\" he said.\n Lena got down on the ground beside him. The forest around them was cool and calm. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the occasional tweet of a bird. \"What's in it?\" she asked in a hushed, eager tone.\n Justin put his paws on the sides of the lid. He hesitated and bit his lip. He turned to Lena, feeling almost like he was about to cry. \"Um... Look, this is really personal stuff. I've never shown anyone this before. This is like baring my soul to you, so be cool about it, okay?\"\n His slightly brusque tone did not offend her. Rather, she knew exactly what he was feeling. She leaned closer and gave him a sudden hug. \"It's okay. I won't laugh, or whatever you're worried I'll do. You're my best friend, Justin.\" And with that, she gave him a little kiss on the cheek.\n Justin looked at her with wide eyes. Surprise had completely replaced anxiety. \"You kissed me,\" he said flatly.\n She blushed, not sure if that had been the right thing to do. \"Yeah...\"\n He smiled suddenly. He touched his cheek where she'd kissed him. \"Thanks.\"\n She smiled too. \"You're welcome.\"\n Justin hesitated for a second, then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek too.\n Lena giggled. The little rat's tail flicked happily.\n Her whiskers had tickled! Justin gave her a beaming smile. All at once, he felt completely comfortable with showing her his treasures. \"Okay, here it is.\" He lifted up the lid.\n \"Oh wow!\" Lena took in the sight before her. The box was full of toys! All sorts of neat stuff, all of it cleaned up and well-cared for. Everything was organized into cardboard boxes. Action figures, Legos, trading cards, toy cars, robots, a stack of paperback books (one of which had a rather dirty-sounding title), and a small collection of stuffed animals.\n Justin felt his cheeks get hot when her gaze fell upon his plushies.\n \"They're cute!\" she squeaked. She reached in to pick one up, then abruptly stopped herself and looked to Justin to see if it was okay.\n He felt a little alarmed, but was relieved to see her stop and ask him for permission. \"It's okay.\"\n They both reached in and got out the plushies, sitting them on the ground beside the box or on their laps.\n \"What are their names?\" Lena asked.\n Justin pointed to the foot-tall purple skunk she was holding. \"That's Violet.\" He went in a circle, pointing out each of his beloved plushies in turn. A handsome brown fox with extremely lifelike eyes: \"Alex.\" A plump skunk that was actually a large hand puppet: \"Melissa.\" A seated squirrel the color of smoke: \"Sandy.\" Another fox, this one with yellowish fur and a happy smile: \"Kit.\" A black-furred mouse with blue eyes in a red top hat and vest: \"Sammy.\" A little black bat with velvety wings: \"Serena.\" A donut-shaped, lying down vixen with a white face: \"Amanda.\" A pudgy grey mouse with white paws and a red nose: \"Rachel. She's my favorite.\" And finally a white mouse in a slightly tattered adventurer's costume: \"And this is Ruthie.\"\n \"Wasn't she on some cartoon show?\" Lena asked.\n \"I think so. I found her at a flea market,\" Justin said.\n Lena noticed that all the plushies but Ruthie and Sammy were nonevs, meaning 'non-evolved': they looked more like wild animals instead of civilized fursons. She noticed two things that all of them had in common though. One, they all had very expressive faces. Some of them had gentle smiles. Some of them looked a little sad, as if they needed someone to come pick them up and give them a hug. And two, they were all obviously very well taken care of. They all had clean, fluffy fur, and she even noticed a few that showed clumsy but loving attempts to patch up their ripped seams.\n The little ratgirl smiled warmly. She gathered all of Justin's plushies up in her arms and gave them a great big hug. \"I'm very pleased to meet you all!\" she said with a giggle.\n Justin felt something wondrous in his heart. He'd shared his most closely guarded secret with someone, and it hadn't been scary at all. It hadn't backfired. In fact, seeing Lena cuddling the plushies that he loved so much, seeing them all sitting on her lap getting hugged, made Justin feel happy and content inside. He was glad she was enjoying his plushies. He liked being able to share them.\n \"Remember the one in your backpack,\" Lena noted.\n \"Oh,\" said Justin. He slipped his pack off and unzipped it. He fumbled around inside for a bit before bringing out his new little vixen in her green sweater and hat. He gave her a happy hug.\n \"And what's her name?\" Lena asked. \"A lot of times when I get a new plushie, even if they don't have a tag, they'll tell me their names right away. I'll just look at them, and I'll know.\"\n Justin grinned. \"Hey, that happens to me too!\" He looked into the pretty green eyes of his new fox. \"Felicia,\" he said at last, and with finality. \"Her name's Felicia.\"\n Lena reached over to pat the little fox on the head. \"Hello, Felicia. I'm sure Justin will take good care of you.\"\n \"I will,\" the wolffox boy assured. He gave Felicia a kiss, and then sniffed her. \"Hey, neat. I won't have to wash her off. She doesn't smell bad at all.\"\n Out of curiosity, Lena sniffed the plushies she was holding. \"These ones are all stinky,\" she declared.\n Justin looked worried for a second. \"What do you mean? Did something spill on them?\" he asked worriedly.\n She giggled. \"No, silly! They smell like you! Stinky puppy smell!\"\n Justin grinned and gave her a little foxish bark. \"I do not stink!\" Then he thought about it. \"Well, okay. I guess I do. But you stink too,\" he said playfully.\n \"Really? Oh goody! Do I smell like stinky trash?\"\n Justin nodded. \"Uh huh. And you have your own special smelly rat smell.\"\n She grinned brightly and hugged his plushies. \"Thank you! You smell like stinky garbage too, Justin!\"\n He chuckled. \"Thank you too.\" Among the both of them, that was certainly not an insult in any way. In fact, the more he thought about it, calling each other stinky like garbage was kind of a compliment.\n \"You stink, Lena,\" he said tenderly.\n \"You stink too, Justin.\"\n And oddly enough, they'd both said it exactly like saying 'I love you'.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 5*\n\n\n The screen door slammed behind him with a loud clatter. \"I'm home!\" Justin called out.\n \"Don't slam the goddam door,\" his mother groused from the couch.\n \"Sorry,\" he said automatically without meaning it. \"Um, I'm gonna be going over to a friend's house for dinner tonight, is that okay?\" His voice was guarded and hesitant.\n She looked up from the television. Her sagging, puffy face held nothing but suspicion. \"Since when do you have friends?\" she asked cruelly.\n Justin winced. 'Ouch.' He straightened up. \"A new kid moved in. I've known him for a while now.\" He'd decided it would be a lot better if no one knew his new friend was a girl. His brothers would undoubtedly call him a fag, but at least they wouldn't really mean it. God knew what kind of sick mind games they'd think up if they found out he had a girlfriend-of-sorts. \"He invited me over to his place tonight.\"\n The whale of a wolf regarded her son with beady eyes like broken bottle shards pressed into bread dough.\n Justin kept his mouth shut. She was waiting for him to crack, to admit that he wasn't telling her the whole truth. He wasn't going to let her intimidate him this time. Knowing that Lena was waiting for him gave him strength. It was interesting for him to realize that it was easier to stand firm when you were doing it for someone else that you cared about.\n Finally she grunted and looked away, starting to stare again at whatever insipid talk show was on at the moment. \"Fine. Go off and do whatever. You're probably going to go get in trouble, aren't you? Well, don't expect me to bail you out if you do something stupid and get caught.\"\n \"Thank you,\" he said with a little nod. \"And I'm not gonna do anything bad,\" he added softly. He wished she could just maybe try a little bit, just once, to not think the worst of him.\n She was silent as stone.\n Justin turned to leave, when she spoke up suddenly.\n \"I'm lockin' the doors before I go to bed. So if you're not home by then, you're out of luck,\" she mumbled.\n \"Okay,\" said Justin. Normally her attitude would piss him off, but today it just saddened him. He shut the screen door gently behind him as he left.\n\n\n\n Lena was waiting for him in the woods behind the house. \"Did she say yes?\" she asked, not sounding very hopeful.\n Justin shrugged and smiled. \"Stop the presses. The lard-beast actually didn't give me too much shit about it.\"\n Lena did a little jump of happiness. \"Great!\" She was dressed in her overalls again today, this time with a powder-blue T-shirt that read \"Fuck Everything\" in dainty cursive script. (She told Justin it was the only shirt she'd ever bought in store, because she liked the philosophy so much.) She also had a pink scrunchie in her hair, making a kind of almost-ponytail out of her terminally messy locks.\n Justin was clad in jeans and a black shirt with \"AH BOO DEE BOO DAH\" printed on it in red block letters. Neither he nor anyone at school knew what it meant. He suspected it was a band name.\n With warm afternoon sunshine on their shoulders, the two friends wandered off unhurriedly, talking casually about whatever popped into their heads. They planned to take a while to partake in their favorite pastime at the dump, then head over to Lena's house afterwards for dinner. Justin was looking forward to finally seeing where she lived, and getting the chance to find out what actual home-cooked food tasted like.\n\n\n * * *\n\n\n A few hours later, they both had sweaty fur, dirty pants and not much to show for it. Justin had made out better than Lena, but overall it was a mediocre trash day. A nicely-painted rubber pencil topper shaped like a dinosaur was the most exciting thing he'd found.\n It didn't matter though. He was happy enough just to spend time with Lena. He felt a sort of giddy pleasure at just knowing that she liked him enough to invite him over. He'd never been asked over to a friend's house before. He really had no idea what the procedure was. He just hoped he'd have a good time and not do anything embarrassing.\n Brushing the schmutz from their paws and pant legs, he and Lena headed out of the dump. The front gates were chained and padlocked when they finally reached the edge. The collection booth was empty. Adam had quit for the day and was already home starting on dinner.\n \"So, what's your dad gonna cook?\" Justin asked as they turned left at the gates and headed into a patch of trees.\n \"I dunno. Something tasty. He's a good cook,\" Lena said, sounding quite proud of him.\n \"My mom's never cooked anything tasty in her life,\" Justin replied with a wry grin. \"At my house, if it doesn't come out of a box, it doesn't end up on the table.\"\n Lena chuckled. She did not have to ask why Justin had never invited her over to his house. The fact didn't bother her at all. In fact, it made her glad. It showed her that he cared about her enough to want to keep her hidden and protected from his family, like his footlocker full of treasures.\n The two of them stepped out of a cluster of trees and came upon a small, modest wooden house. Two stories plus a front porch and an expansive yard. The walls were painted cola-at-the-bottom-of-the-glass brown, with sky blue window shutters. Justin thought the place looked cozy and friendly.\n There were various bits of trash and toys littering the front yard, along with an ugly brown four-door sedan. One of its doors was orange. \"The Frankenmobile?\" he guessed.\n Lena nodded. \"Good, you remembered!\" Then she grinned from ear to ear and tugged on his arm. \"Come on back behind the house! You've gotta meet the Green Beast!\" she said excitedly.\n Lena had never exactly explained what kind of car the Green Beast was. Justin had guessed it was probably A: green and B: rather large. He was rather curious about it, since she'd always sounded so proud of it. He followed her to the backyard through a grove of tall, tickly weeds on the side of the house.\n And then he stopped dead in his tracks.\n \"Holy shit!!\" he shouted with a grin.\n Sitting there, basking in the sun, was a garbage truck! An _enormous_ garbage truck! A nifty older model too; probably several decades old. It looked like it had been fully restored. It was painted a bright, sparkling kelly green. It had loads of personality. The round headlights and broad grille seemed to smile at Justin and say, 'Howdy!'\n \"You _own_ a garbage truck?! Sweet Jesus, that's cool!\" he exploded.\n Lena giggled, bounced over and gave the truck's front wheel cover a hug. \"Meet the Beast! Dad bought her at a public auction years back when he was still working at the landfill. She really looked awful back then! He was the only bidder and we got her for a tenth what she's worth. We've been fixing her guts and spiffing up her paint job ever since. We've even done some custom work. Dad's got a crystal skull for the gear shift knob.\"\n Justin walked slowly around the truck, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. His gaze was reverent, as if in the presence of a great work of art. \"She's beautiful!\" he finally sputtered.\n Lena seemed to really appreciate him saying that. \"Thanks! I just love her to bits. Dad's trying to work out a deal with city hall to set up a weekly trash collection. The Beast wants to get out on the road and do her job.\"\n Justin seemed sad to hear that. \"But then all the trash'll get crushed before we get a chance to go through it!\" he protested.\n She laughed at him like that was the stupidest thing he'd ever said. \"You total dumbass! Dad would never do that! You know he knows I love trash-picking. The Beast's collection bin's so big and this city's so small, Dad won't have to compact the stuff at all. It'll be like getting the stuff delivered right to our doorstep! And we'll never have to worry about being spied on while we trash-pick ever again!\"\n Justin's frown turned upside down. \"That's great!!\" he said excitedly.\n \"Wanna look in the back?\" Lena asked.\n \"Sure!\"\n The two of them raced around to the Green Beast's backside. Lena was right, the place where the garbage would go was cavernous. \"Heloooo!\" he shouted, and indeed there was an echo.\n \"She's an extra-huge model,\" Lena explained. \"Made for some big city's trash collection, so she can hold a lot. She could hold a month's worth of this town's garbage. Dad could probably do two weeks' worth of rounds without having to compact anything!\"\n Justin looked around inside, scrutinizing all the moving parts, wondering how that huge blade came down and scooped up its cargo.\n \"Wanna hop inside?\" she dared.\n \"In this heat?\" he said incredulously. \"Fuck you! I'd burn my feet off!\"\n She gave him a sly 'you have no idea what you're talking about' look. \"Trust me. Hop up inside. I'll even give you a push.\"\n Intrigued now, and mostly certain that she wouldn't ask him to if it wasn't safe, Justin took hold of the edge of the collection bin and hoisted himself up. \"No thanks, I can do it myself.\"\n In a flash, Lena had jumped up beside him. \"Me too,\" she said smugly.\n He stuck his tongue out at her, then lifted one leg over the side and stepped into the garbage truck's interior. He lowered his paw carefully, expecting the metal to be searing hot considering it'd been sitting in the sun all day long.\n To his surprise, the metal floor was nice and cool. He gingerly stepped all the way in, mindful not to bash his skull on the low-hanging blade. \"Wow! It's cool in here. How'd you do it?\"\n Lena followed him inside. She walked around, her arms spread wide as if showing off a new house. The truck actually seemed even bigger now that they were inside of it. It looked like they could host a party in here. \"A thin sheet of insulating foamy stuff over the old walls, and some new low-heat-conducting panels over top of that,\" she described. \"She's like a fuckin' huge Thermos on wheels! In the summer, it's always nice 'n cool inside. When it gets really hot out, it's nice to come in here and lay down, have some lemonade, and read a good book.\"\n Justin looked around in wonder. \"I didn't think it was possible...\" he started, craning his neck around to get a good look up inside the turtle-shell-shaped roof, \"...but I'm actually even _more_ ashamed of my dad's station wagon now.\"\n Lena giggled.\n All of a sudden, Justin heard a loud 'thunk', and then a deafening whirring filled the truck's interior.\n Startled, the young wolffox looked towards where he'd come in ...and realized the blade was moving! Someone had started up the truck's compactor!\n He whirled around to Lena, panic in his eyes, and was further perplexed by the fact that she seemed totally calm! She walked over and took hold of his arm. She gazed at him with a very wicked smile.\n \"Lena! The blade! We're gonna get crushed!!\" he shouted.\n \"Exactly,\" she purred, then let out a long villainous laugh.\n The blade was coming closer and closer. The whine of the hydraulics made the floor vibrate. The sunlight shrank to just a thin blinding line under the edge of the blade.\n \"What the hell is going on here!?\" he howled.\n \"You're trapped!\" Lena said melodramatically. \"Trapped in my Garbage Truck Of Doom, and there's no escape!\"\n Justin flattened himself against the back of the bin, watching that gigantic heavy wall of metal inch closer, closing in on him like a venus flytrap...\n And all of a sudden it just stopped.\n There was at least four feet of room left between him and the blade.\n Lena fell over on the floor laughing.\n Justin finally realized that they'd been completely safe the entire time. \"You bitch!\" he screamed at her, starting to laugh too. \"You complete bitch! You almost gave me a fuckin' heart attack!\"\n Lena was laughing so hard she could barely talk. \"Th-the look on your f-f-face!!\" she sputtered. She rolled over on her back, cackling wildly, her legs kicking in the air. \"Her bin's so big, the blade doesn't go all the way back. Did you even stop to think that I'd get squished too?\"\n Okay, yeah, on hindsight that was kinda obvious. Justin tried to look furious at her, but it was hard to bite back giggles. He'd been had, and there was no use denying it. \"Allright, it was funny. You scared me so bad I'm gonna have to wash my pants now. Ha ha,\" he deadpanned.\n Lena sat up and grinned like a hyena. \"Number one or two?\" she asked cutely.\n \"Both. And a little of number three,\" he replied.\n That totally knocked her out. She fell over laughing again.\n By now the blade had begun to return to its original position. As it lifted, Justin could make out a figure standing there at the opening.\n Once the hydraulics stopped and the Beast was once again dormant, Lena's dad crawled up inside. \"Hello, Justin!\" he called out with a smile. \"Sorry if I scared you too bad. Lena made me do it.\"\n \"It's true,\" she said matter-of-factly. \"I held a gun to his head 'n everything,\" she kidded.\n 'Of course,' Justin thought. 'Someone had to have been operating it from inside the cab.' \"You have a really strange way of welcoming guests, Mr. Tallevasco,\" he said, putting out his paw for a shake.\n Another hearty up-and-down pump. \"Actually, you're the first one besides me and th' ratgirl here to see the Beast's interior. Ain't she a beaut?\"\n \"She is pretty damn cool,\" Justin admitted.\n \"Did Lena tell you about my plan to start up a weekly trash collection?\" Adam asked.\n \"Mm-hmm. Sounds like a good idea.\"\n \"If you like, once the city commissioner makes his decision, which should be any day now by the way, I'll let you ride with me in the cab sometime,\" he offered.\n Justin perked up. \"Really? Sweet! Thank you!\" He gave the lanky skunk another, much more vigorous handshake.\n \"How's dinner coming?\" Lena piped up. \"I'm hungry.\"\n \"A few more minutes, sweetie,\" her father said. He tussled her already-ruffled hair. \"You two can come on inside the house if you like.\"\n \"Okay. 'Bye Beast!\" Lena said, and gave the side of her beloved trash truck another hug.\n Adam suddenly scooped her up under one arm and carried her with him out of the truck, making noises like a hungry bear carrying off a tasty lost Girl Scout. Lena giggled riotously and her tail swished about behind her.\n Justin paused a bit, watching them leave.\n The moment struck him rather forcefully. Seeing Lena and her dad playing together like that was like looking into an alternate dimension. He didn't think either of his parents had *ever* called him sweetie.\n \"Geeze, what a difference!\" he muttered in wonderment, then scrambled to hop out of the truck and catch up to them.\n\n\n\n A wall of smell nearly knocked Justin over as he entered the house.\n Food! Actual, home-cooked, not store-bought, FOOD! It was like uncovering the Holy Grail!\n He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway and just inhaled the magnificent odor. He had no idea what it was. Some kind of meat maybe. He simply did not have any point of reference to compare this wonderful, mouthwatering aroma to!\n As he stood there, he was eventually able to wrench his attention away from the cooking smells to take a look inside the house. It looked tidy and clean inside. Someone else had probably lived here before, but Lena and her dad had already done a great job of making it distinctly their own. The furniture definitely looked lived-in, but everything was arranged nicely. He noted the wide grey sofa, two tall bookshelves and a curio cabinet which was almost certainly filled with fascinating knickknacks. There was a great big rug on the floor with what looked like Indian designs woven into it.\n Justin was about to step inside, when he caught his reflection in the plexiglass middle section of the screen door.\n He was a mess. He'd never really noticed it so acutely before. His clothes were dirty and worn-out. His fur was matted, scruffy, and encrusted with sweat and grime. He looked, and probably smelled, like he hadn't taken a bath in weeks.\n The young wolffox felt suddenly very ashamed of himself. His tail hung down between his legs. He didn't want to taint this pretty house with his filthy presence.\n Mr. Tallevasco walked by and saw him standing there. \"You want milk or soda with...\" He stopped in midsentence, noticing the pain in his young guest's eyes. \"What's wrong?\" he asked gently.\n Justin didn't know how to respond. \"Um...\" He averted his eyes. \"Your house looks really nice,\" he said finally, almost in a whisper.\n Mr. Tallevasco was about to thank him, when he realized that the little wolffox had really meant something more: 'It's too pretty for a smelly loser like me to deserve to set foot in'.\n Justin closed his eyes and looked like he was trying hard not to look like he was about to cry.\n Frowning with concern, the tall skunk knew he couldn't just let Justin feel this way. He reached out, grabbed the little wolffox under his armpits, and bodily lifted him into the room. \"There,\" he said happily.\n Justin looked about in surprise. \"Why did you...?\"\n Adam kneeled down to the boy's eye level. \"Justin, I'll bet a lot of people treat you like dirt because of how you look, huh?\" he said softly.\n Justin nodded.\n \"I'm not going to treat you like that. I promise. I look at you and I see a smart, friendly, polite kid who makes my daughter smile when she talks about you.\"\n Justin's lip trembled.\n \"I look at you the same way I look at that big gorgeous dump I spent so much time and energy to purchase. Everyone else sees a huge pile of smelly trash. They don't give it a second's thought. I see something wonderful. I see acres of free stuff to wade through and explore. Lena sees an everlasting source of interesting bags and boxes to root through to find all sorts of cool stuff. Hidden, special stuff. So what if it's a little smelly, or dirty? Wash it off, give it some care, and it'll sparkle.\"\n Justin could not keep his stony composure a second longer. He let out a sob and fell forward into Mr. Tallevasco's open arms. He shuddered and cried on the skunk's broad shoulder.\n Adam patted the boy on the back and held him tight. \"It's okay, Justin. Lena's been telling me about your family. She said she didn't think you'd mind. I think it's just horrible that you have to come home to a place like that every day. You're a good kid, Justin. Anyone who says different is a blind idiot.\"\n The little wolffox's whole body shook as he cried even harder. The fabric of Mr. Tallevasco's shirt was getting soaked with tears.\n \"And considering that I'm a skunk, and that I grew up in a small town like this where the other kids would throw rocks at me and call me the most awful names you can imagine, you can believe me when I say I'll never, ever make fun of you or look down on you because of how you look or smell. I would be the worst hypocrite in the world if I did.\"\n Justin smiled warmly. He felt like he was having a heartquake. He barely knew how to respond to this. Being treated with respect was one thing. Having all these nice things said to him, things no one had ever said to him before, and all of them at once, he had no idea how to handle it. He felt like he was about to shatter like glass.\n Adam gave him a strong pat on the back. \"Come on. I made some meatloaf and mashed potatoes. You can have as much as you like. I'm happy to welcome you into my house, Justin. You're my guest.\"\n He stood up and took Justin's paw in his own.\n Justin managed to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his trembling arm. He looked up to Mr. Tallevasco. \"Thank you so much.\"\n \"It's okay,\" he said warmly. \"You looked like you were way overdue for someone to say something nice to you.\"\n Justin smiled weakly, his heart still fluttering, as the two of them walked inside to where dinner was waiting.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 6*\n\n\n Lena abruptly belched the word 'fuck'.\n Adam and Justin both laughed out loud.\n The meal was over, and Justin considered it to be the single greatest feast he had ever eaten. He'd had four slices of Mr. Tallevasco's meatloaf and had to work really hard to keep himself from just devouring it like he was starving. It was so _good_! Hot, meaty and juicy! Seasoned perfectly, with little green olives on top for decoration. (Mr. Tallevasco said that slices of green pepper were a more traditional garnish, but that Lena loathed them.)\n The mashed potatoes were amazing too. They were _actual_ potatoes! Potatoes that had Come Out Of The Ground and were then Peeled and Mashed and Cooked! Not From A Box!! The concept alone was astonishing to Justin. He was sure he'd probably never be able to eat that instant crap again for the rest of his life.\n Heck, even the green beans, which he normally hated as much as Lena hated green peppers, were tasty. Apparently it had something to do with the fact that Mr. Tallevasco actually knew how to *cook* them, whereas his mother just tossed the frozen kind in a pan and proceeded to burn the shit out of them without fail.\n More than anything though, what affected Justin most was the simple fact that he was sitting at a table eating dinner and nobody was fighting or scowling or threatening one another. They were all just talking pleasantly and enjoying their food. Justin knew for certain that they really were glad to have him here; they weren't just doing this out of pity.\n It reminded him conversely of the time when he'd been in second grade and his teacher had decided to make him her 'fixer-upper' project.\n She had told him how very, very sorry she was that he had to come to school in such raggedy clothes, and how his mother obviously didn't know how to properly bathe him, and other 'you poor baby' crap like that.\n Even at that young age, Justin knew better than to put up with that kind of attitude for long. Her compassion was all sticky-sweet and substanceless. She didn't care about him as a furson. She wanted him to be her little pet. She wanted to give him a good scrubbing and turn him into a perfect gentleman. It was all about her own wants.\n One morning, she'd been in his face, smothering him in baby talk, and he'd simply decided that enough was enough. With no warning, he lashed out and bit her nose as hard as he could. Being just a seven-year-old, he really didn't have much jaw power, but the sheer shock value of the act was more than enough to do the trick. His teacher had screamed and shoved him away, calling him a horrid little monster.\n After that, she'd watched him like he was a rabid dog off its leash. He'd certainly put a stop to her little mind games.\n Justin stopped his thoughts, and pushed that memory aside.\n That was then and now was now. Now he was sitting here with a belly full of delicious food. Now he was sitting across from his best friend, who he'd trusted enough to show her his Treasure Chest. Now he was in the home of a man who'd showed him more genuine kindness in five minutes than he had ever received in the entire rest of his life.\n Adam noticed that Justin was staring down at his plate with a cloudy expression. He worried that the young canine might be mentally beating himself up again. \"Justin? Yoo hoo?\" he cautiously spoke.\n The wolffox's head sprang up. \"Wha? Oh, sorry. Just thinkin' about stuff.\" He smiled brightly. \"That was the best meal I've ever eaten!\" he declared forcefully.\n The bespectacled skunk smiled. It looked like the kid was doing okay after all. \"You're very much welcome!\"\n \"Told'ja my dad knows how to cook,\" Lena bragged proudly.\n \"Hey, after the junk I gotta eat day after day, I wouldn't mind eating some escaped mental patient's cooking. Eating stuff that's actually well-made is almost too much!\" Justin kidded.\n \"I'll take that as a compliment, I think,\" Adam said with a lopsided smile.\n \"It is, Mr. Tallevasco!\" he assured. \"I really am impressed. Thank you again for having me over.\" He turned to Lena. \"And thank you too for inviting me.\"\n \"You're welcome,\" they said in stereo.\n \"So, do you want me to help clean up the dishes?\" Justin asked.\n Mr. Tallevasco waved it away. \"Naw, that's okay. You kids go play or something. I'll handle the mess.\"\n Justin got up and started stacking his dirty dishes anyway. \"No, really, I wanna help! Please!\"\n The skunk gave him a warm smile, then he turned to Lena. \"How come you never beg me to do chores?\" he asked rhetorically.\n She giggled. She turned to Justin, who was already gathering up her dishes as well. \"'Cuz I'm not that stoopid,\" she kidded, crossing her eyes at him.\n \"I'm not stoopid, I'm just a heck of a lot more polite than you,\" he countered smartly with a little 'so there' grin.\n Out of the blue, she leaned over in her seat and smooched him on the cheek. \"I know. I'm just a total jerk, aren't I?\"\n \"Oh, absolutely!\" he readily agreed.\n Adam hid his chortles behind his paw as the two of them continued to gleefully insult each other while they cleaned up the table together.\n\n\n\n After the dishes had all been washed and put away through a cheerful team effort, Lena showed Justin her room. Despite having moved in less than a month ago, the place was already a complete pigsty. It was the total opposite of the serene, tidy livingroom. She'd even made a little sign to hang on the door: 'BEWARE OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE'.\n Justin, of course, thought the place looked great. There was neat stuff strewn all over the floor and overflowing out of the closets. You could hardly walk anywhere without stepping on something. Rude posters adorned the walls. Dirty underwear and socks could be seen laying about shamelessly.\n Lena bounded across the room, instinctually knowing where to step, and jumped up onto her bed. She bounced a bit and told him to come join her. She chuckled at his valiant, but ultimately doomed, quest to cross the room without stepping on anything hard and pointy.\n Once they were both on the bed, Lena pointed out a huge mound of plushies that was almost as big as she was. She said that she'd found nearly all of them in the trash, and all the rest were from flea markets and yard sales. She said the town that she'd left had flea markets everywhere. Being the packrat that she was (no pun intended), she adored places like that, and so did her father. They went to three or four every week. Lena said that pretty much everything in the house was either used or garbage-picked, and she sounded very proud of that fact. \"It's good for the environment, too,\" she noted. \"We're recycling.\"\n Justin was content to just sit and listen as she gave him the grand tour of her room. He sat and hugged her plushies as she showed him all sorts of strange and interesting things she'd collected over the years. She seemed to remember flawlessly where absolutely everything in the room had come from. Many of her possessions held fascinating stories of how they'd come into the young ratgirl's possession. She told of amazing coincidences, lucky finds, and valuable collectibles that she'd bought from clueless flea market vendors for fractions of their true worth.\n Lena noticed that Justin seemed to have a particular fondness for a little brown bat plushie she said she'd found years ago at a yard sale for a quarter. As she talked, he petted the bat's fur and caressed her wings.\n \"You can have her if you like,\" she said suddenly.\n He frowned. \"No way! She's one of yours. I couldn't take her!\"\n Lena smiled a strange, serene smile. \"Do you realize that out of all my plushies, she's about the only one I don't have a real connection with? All the other ones I clicked with right away, like we were talking about before. Her, I just saw her lying there and bought her because she was cheap and cute.\"\n \"Really?\" Justin asked in disbelief.\n Lena nodded. \"I've looked in her eyes a dozen times, and she's never told me her name. I should have known it was because I'm not sposto have her. You are.\"\n The coincidence of it was powerful. Justin had felt drawn to the little bat the second he'd seen her lying amongst the other plushies. Her fur was the color of chocolate milk. She had a little pink plastic nose and felt feet. \"I think she likes me, Lena. She's smiling.\"\n Now it was Lena's turn to be surprised. \"You're kidding!\" She came closer and studied the plushie. The little bat's mouth had been stitched in such a way that it eternally resembled a sad frown.\n But Justin had noticed that, if he held her at just the right angle, he could see just the tiniest trace of a smile. \"See? Look.\"\n Lena could see it. \"Wow... I never noticed that before. That's it; you _totally_ have to keep her now. She's chosen you.\"\n Justin smiled. He looked into the little bat's calm dark plastic eyes.\n \"What's her name?\" Lena asked softly.\n Justin waited a second for it to come, and it did. \"Cleo,\" he said at last, and with finality. \"Her name's Cleo.\"\n\n\n\n Once the sun had set and the stars came out, Justin, Lena and Mr. Tallevasco retired to the porch. They sat in well-worn lawn chairs and slurped popsicles. Cleo was tucked snugly in Justin's shirt pocket.\n The night was quiet, but not silent. Dozens of night noises surrounded them, becoming clearer if they listened closely. Crickets chirruped. Frogs peeped and burped. The wind made the high grass sing. Somewhere in the distance, a lonely pickup truck was heading home.\n \"Thank you again,\" Justin said softly to Mr. Tallevasco.\n The skunk smiled. He reached over and ruffled Justin's hair a little. \"You're welcome. And don't worry. I'm glad you came. You're one of the most polite kids I've ever met.\"\n Justin chuckled. \"That's funny. My teachers have all thought I was the son of the devil.\"\n \"That's 'cuz you are,\" Lena whispered with a giggle.\n He smiled casually back at her. \"With my dad, you're probably right,\" he whispered back.\n She snickered. \"Popsicle!\" she suddenly warned.\n Justin caught it in his mouth just before it would have fallen off the stick and stained his jeans. He crunched it up and swallowed, feeling the artificially-flavored goodness cool his throat and trickle through his chinfur. \"Thanks.\"\n Mr. Tallevasco seemed deep in thought. \"Your teachers, Justin...\" he started, thinking about some of the rather unsettling school stories Justin had related while they were eating. Unsettling not for how they portrayed Justin, but how they portrayed the people who were in charge of his education.\n \"Hmm?\" Justin perked up.\n \"Have any of them ever really treated you with any respect?\"\n He shook his head. \"Not really.\"\n \"Have you at least tried to give them a reason to?\"\n \"Oh sure,\" he said immediately. \"Every year, I tell myself I'm gonna be a good boy this time. I try to start out just sitting in the back, doing the work and keeping my mouth shut. But by now everybody knows about me and I'm sure they spread rumors about me in the teacher's lounge.\"\n The skunk nodded, expecting that. \"And can you honestly say that your respect for them has only vanished when they showed they had none for you?\"\n Justin thought this guy must be a mind reader. \"Yeah. I try not to get in trouble. I try not to start fights. But they always happen anyway. My temper gets out of control sometimes. I get someone up in my face acting like I'm the scum of the earth, blaming me for stuff I didn't do, calling me names, and I can't take it anymore. It's not like I get into fistfights or anything. I've punched a few other kids, yeah, but never a teacher. Mostly I just insult them. I'm good at it. I'm good at finding whatever'll piss them off the most and just stabbing at it.\" He felt a little ashamed to be admitting all this, but he thought that Lena and her dad had both demonstrated aptly that they were trustworthy, and that they deserved his honesty.\n Mr. Tallevasco was quiet for a while. \"So, basically, your teachers don't respect you, then when you treat them exactly as they're treating you, they call you the son of the devil,\" he said slowly, as if piecing together a complex philosophical riddle.\n \"Well, none of them have ever called me _that_, but they've called me loads of other stuff. Monster. Sociopath. That Dirty Kid. Walking Disaster. I actually kinda like that last one,\" he said, trying to sound as if those names really didn't hurt as much as they did.\n \"So they treat you like that, and they expect you to just take it with a happy smile on your face? And then they're shocked and outraged when you don't. Hm...\" He stood up, stretched his arms, and lapped up the last of his popsicle.\n Justin looked up at him.\n Mr. Tallevasco leaned in closer, gave him a caring, wise smile, and patted him on the shoulder. \"That doesn't sound very fair to me, now does it?\"\n With that, he turned and walked back into the house. \"G'night you two,\" he said before the screen door squeaked shut behind him.\n Justin sat quietly, slightly stunned.\n Lena scootched her chair a little closer to him, the metal legs thumping hollowly on the wooden porch. She put her arms around the little wolffox in a loose hug. \"My dad's a nice guy, huh?\"\n Justin nodded silently. He looked up at the starry sky, a quivering, peaceful smile on his face.\n \"He's really good at making people feel better about stuff.\"\n Justin turned to Lena. \"I envy you so much,\" he said suddenly, softly, and with all the sincerity in his heart. \"I'd give anything if your dad could adopt me too and I could be your brother and we could be a family.\"\n Lena hugged him tighter. \"I'd like that too. You'd make a good brother.\"\n Justin put his paw on her cheek, feeling the cottony-soft, almost-white fur.\n She looked up into his eyes. Her whiskers bounced.\n Justin leaned closer and softly kissed her on the lips.\n Lena flowed into the kiss with him.\n The night made soft noises all around them.\n Lena's popsicle was dripping onto her fingers, and she didn't care a bit. She didn't even notice.\n\n\n\n When Justin came out of the woods hours later and walked up to his house, he found the doors really were locked.\n So he just climbed in through his open window.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 7*\n\n\n \"Oh, what now?\" Justin's mother grumbled.\n He was eating breakfast and she'd just gotten up to get the mail. It was Saturday, so he didn't have school. His brothers had all left early for some sports practice thing though. \n The immensely fat wolfess waddled painfully back into the kitchen, ground out her morning cigarette in the sink, then sat down heavily in one of the little metal chairs. She was clutching an official-looking letter in her fist.\n \"What is it, Mom?\" Justin asked quietly. Then he scolded himself. It was always better to just keep his mouth shut, head down, and finish his cereal as soon as possible. If Mom was mad, she could easily turn it on him at the drop of a hat.\n \"Some letter from the city,\" she said. \"God knows what they want from me this time...\" She roughly tore the envelope open with her pudgy fingers, shredding it as if punishing it for bearing bad news. She extracted the letter inside and perused it with a deep, disapproving squint.\n Justin kept a close eye on her over the rim of his juice glass.\n \"God _damn_!\" Mom shouted suddenly. She slammed her fist down on the table, causing milk and cereal bits to splash out onto the plastic tablecloth.\n Justin didn't know whether to ask her what was wrong or just sit there with his mouth shut and hope the news wasn't too bad.\n She looked up at him and pointed at the letter. \"Says here they're gonna start up weekly trash collection next Saturday.\"\n Justin tried desperately to hide a smile. Allright! Mr. Tallevasco had won! The Green Beast would soon be on the prowl, and he'd get to ride in her! \"So... why's that bad?\" he asked his mother cautiously.\n She snorted derisively at him. \"Don't you got any brains, boy? This means they're probably gonna raise the taxes now! I'd rather just hand that old dog at the dump my three dollars and be done with it.\"\n \"You'll save some money on gas,\" he noted, trying to look on the bright side.\n Mom sat back in her chair, pondering that angle. She looked at him with a little sneer.\n Justin knew that look. It meant that he'd made a good point, but she was having too much fun complaining to concede it.\n \"When'd you get in last night?\" she asked, changing the subject.\n \"About ten thirty. I'm sorry. I was having a good time.\" He slurped his breakfast faster. He wanted to get the hell out of the room as quickly as possible before this turned ugly.\n \"You and your new 'friend'?\" she said with a mirthless chuckle. \"I know you, boy. You don't make friends. You make trouble. If I hear you were out last night slashin' car tires or something like that, I'll get your father to whup the shit out'you,\" she threatened, waggling her fat finger at him.\n Justin kept his head down, not meeting her gaze, trying to look submissive. \"I wasn't. I promise. We had some dinner and we sat on the porch talking about stuff.\"\n \"What's his parents like?\" She asked, thinking she might trip him up on the details.\n \"He's adopted.\" He caught himself just in time. He'd almost said *she* was adopted. \"It's just him and his dad.\"\n \"What's his name?\"\n \"Adam Tallevasco.\" That was true, considering that she hadn't specified which 'he' she was talking about.\n \"He's in your class at school?\"\n \"Nope.\" Actually, he'd never seen Lena at school. Maybe she just hadn't had the time to enroll yet.\n \"Then where'd you meet him?\" she asked, sure she was about to catch him.\n \"In the woods behind the house. We play there sometimes,\" he replied without hesitation. He was thankful he was such a good liar. He tipped his bowl up to his lips and sipped down the last of the milk. He wiped off the table and went to wash his dishes in the sink.\n Mom finally backed off. She still didn't fully believe him, but he was at least sticking to his story. \"Allright then. If you do have a friend, good. Maybe he'll keep you out of my hair in the afternoons so I can watch my shows in peace.\"\n Justin paused. Had that been a heavily disguised bit of motherly approval? Well, probably not. But Justin decided to look at it that way anyway. \"I'm gonna go play outside now, mom.\"\n \"Allright. Don't get in trouble.\"\n He walked past her, and on a wild whim, gave her a small hug.\n She looked up at him like he was on drugs.\n \"See you later,\" he said over his shoulder as he bounced out the door.\n\n\n\n The news in the mail had perked the little wolffox up dramatically. He ran all the way through the woods, grinning widely. He made it across the dump in record time, leaping gracefully over piles of refuse like a wild gazelle.\n Through the window of the front gate booth, Justin spotted two pink-padded bare feet propped up on the desk. \"Mr. Tallevasco!\" he called out.\n A moment later the side door opened. The tall, handsome skunk came out with his thumb marking his place in a thick paperback novel. \"Justin! Hi! You're looking chipper today.\"\n \"I got the news about the trash collection,\" he said as he was ushered into the little office. Adam offered him the chair, but he politely declined with a shake of his head.\n \"That's good! They called me early this morning and said they'd already sent out the notices. They agreed to just about everything I suggested! I wanted to contact you about that, but I had no idea how to go about doing so.\"\n Justin chuckled. \"Yeah, I can just see you knocking on the door: 'Hi! I'm a strange man who wants to know if it's okay for your son to ride around in a garbage truck with me all day long!'\"\n Adam chortled. \"That would be rather awkward, wouldn't it? But you're here now, and so it's a moot point.\"\n \"*Can* I ride with you in the Green Beast...?\" Justin asked sweetly, turning on the cute-puppy-eyes and wagging his tail.\n He fuzzled the boy's hair. \"Sure! I already told you you could. My first round's this coming-up Saturday morning. I'll be starting at about seven A. M.. I worked out my route so your house is the first stop. If you get up early, you can ride along the whole way with me and Lena. You don't even have to worry about missing school.\"\n \"Awesome!\" Justin beamed and rushed over to give the skunk a hug. \"Thank you so much!\"\n Adam grinned. He liked seeing Justin so excited over something so simple. \"Actually, I've got even more good news for you... Oh, wait a minute. Duck under the desk, will you?\" he said abruptly.\n Justin was confused for a second before he noticed the sound of a pickup truck approaching. The dump _was_ open for business, after all. The lean young wolffox quickly scooted under the desk and listened.\n Tires crunched on gravel as the truck skidded to a stop.\n Footsteps.\n A plump male voice. \"Where's Mr. Roland?\"\n \"Oh, he retired,\" Mr. Tallevasco replied. Justin was getting an up-close-and-personal look at his pant legs. \"I'm the new trash guy.\"\n \"It's the same price as before, right?\" whoever it was asked cautiously.\n \"Oh sure. Three dollars, please.\"\n Rustle of bills in a wallet. \"There ya go. Well, welcome to town, Mister...\"\n \"Tallevasco.\"\n \"Tabasco?\"\n Chuckle. \"Ta-luh-VASS-co. I get that all the time.\"\n Another chuckle. \"Allright then. I'll just get this dropped off and be on my way.\"\n \"Have a good day!\"\n \"You too!\"\n Footsteps walking away. Engine starting up. Axles whining as they pulled the truck forward.\n Mr. Tallevasco bent over and peeked his pink nose under the desk. \"Now, where were we?\"\n Justin crawled out. \"You said you had some more good news for me.\"\n \"That's right.\" The skunk was still thumbing his place in his book, and holding three wrinkled bills in his other hand. He looked about for something to do with them, then applied some Gordian Knot thinking and just marked his place with the three dollars.\n \"Whatcha reading?\" Justin asked.\n Mr Tallevasco held the cover up. \"It's some scary novel. More of a thriller. I've read other books by this author, and this one isn't his most impressive. Good characters though.\" He sat down in his chair again and put his feet up. He sighed contentedly. \"I love this job. I get to sit on my butt for seven hours every day, just reading, or making out the grocery list, or playing with Lena...\" He tossed Justin a smile. \"...or talking with friends.\"\n It was a small thing, but Justin felt rather pleased to be called a friend.\n \"Okay, the good news. Back to that. Important stuff,\" said Adam.\n Justin listened eagerly, tail wagging.\n Adam took his feet off the desk and swiveled his chair to face the little wolffox. \"I was thinking last night. You want to ride with me in the Beast, right?\"\n \"Right.\"\n \"And you don't mind playing in stinky garbage, right?\"\n \"Not at all!\" Justin said with a smile.\n The skunk gave him an appraising look. \"Do you mind a little hard work?\"\n \"No sir. I do most of the chores around the house.\" He flexed his bicep. \"I look small, but I've got good endurance,\" he boasted. He wondered if this was leading up to what he thought it might be leading up to.\n Adam smiled. \"How would you like to be my Assistant Trash Collector? You have to admit, it'd be a bit boring just sitting in the passenger seat while I go about my rounds. Lena always helps out too. Before we came here, she used to help me unload the trucks at the landfill. You could help me out slinging the bags in the back and lifting heavy stuff.\"\n Justin was about to give him a very enthusiastic yes.\n \"Hold on a second there,\" Adam stopped him with an extended index finger. \"Let me sweeten the pot. You help me out for the day, and do a good job, and I'll pay you ten dollars.\"\n Justin nearly fainted. \"You're shitting me!\" he said with a look like he'd just won the lottery.\n \"I shit you not,\" the skunk said with a straight face.\n \"Ten bucks a week! Wow!\" Justin shouted, obviously thrilled. \"I've never even gotten an allowance! I don't know what I'd even spend that much money on!\"\n Mr. Tallevasco clapped a sturdy paw on the boy's shoulder. \"Don't get too excited. You'll earn that money if you accept my proposal. A lot of those bags are heavy as heck, and you'll have to be heaving them all day in the hot sun. I guarantee you'll sweat more than you've ever sweated in your life. Take my word for it; I started out driving a truck to pay for college.\"\n \"You went to college? That's cool. I'm not sure if anyone in my family even knows where one is,\" Justin joked. \"Wait, I take that back; my brothers watch college football all the time.\"\n Mr. Tallevasco grinned. \"Yup. Got a master's degree in the biological sciences, and I ended up teaching classes alongside my old prof.\"\n Justin was really impressed. \"You were a professor? Damn! That's really cool. And it explains why you're so smart.\"\n Adam was highly pleased by the compliment. \"Well, thanks, but merely being a teacher is no guarantee of intelligence,\" he said modestly. \"We had some old farts there that were totally out of their minds and no one could fire them because they had tenure. And I'm sure some of your own teachers are not exactly founts of wisdom either.\"\n Justin grinned and rolled his eyes in a 'tell me about it!' fashion.\n \"So, will you accept the job? I'll even put you down as 'Vice President In Charge Of Waste Material Removal Services'.\"\n Justin laughed. \"I'd rather just be your assistant. But yeah, I'd love to help you out! I'll really work hard. You'll see! I promise!\"\n Adam ruffled the boy's hair again. \"Great! Glad to have you on the team. And don't worry; it's not all bad. It won't be anywhere near as gruelling as my old route in the city. And it'll be the three of us working together. Just be sure to bring a water bottle; you'll need it.\"\n \"Do I get a uniform?\"\n \"I don't think the city would be too happy paying for one,\" Adam said. \"But you can have some of my old gloves. And I'll see if I can find you a hat. Do we have a deal?\"\n \"Hell yeah!\" the little wolffox said brightly.\n \"Then let's shake on it.\" Adam put out his paw, the colors of his fur making him look like he was forever wearing white gloves.\n Justin clasped his grey-brown paw to Mr. Tallevasco's and gave a firm shake. He was grinning ear to ear.\n \"Oh, and I've got some more good news for you!\" the skunk said suddenly.\n More!? Justin could hardly believe it! \"Really? What now? You're gonna adopt me and take me away from my dumb family forever?\"\n Behind his glasses, Adam's eyes looked bittersweetly at him for a moment, as if to say 'If I could, Justin, I would without hesitation'. \"Well, it's not _that_ exciting,\" he admitted. \"I just thought that a little celebration was in order, what with the city agreeing to my proposal. Me and Lena were going to go out to eat tonight and then take in a movie. You're perfectly welcome to join us.\"\n Justin stood there speechless. He didn't know if he could possibly keep smiling for so long. He was worried his lips would just fall off after a while. \"...I don't know what to say! Thank you! I'd love to come along.\"\n Mr. Tallevasco rolled his chair a little closer and leaned over to give Justin a very paternal hug. \"Glad to hear it. You know, Justin, I'm really glad we met. Honestly, Lena talks about you all the time. She was really worried and depressed when we first moved here. She _loved_ our old hometown. Sometimes she'd just go out in the dump and lie on the trash bags for hours.\"\n 'Well, that explains that,' Justin thought, thinking back to how he'd first met her.\n \"I'm grateful to you for being such a good friend to her, Justin,\" Adam said sincerely. \"I love my daughter more than anything, and I love seeing her happy. For all the happiness you've given her, and me, I'm so very grateful to you.\"\n \"Thank you, or you're welcome, or whatever,\" the young canine said quietly, a warm smile on his face. He gave the big skunk an extra squeeze. He realized that if Mr. Tallevasco really could become his new dad somehow, that he couldn't think of anything that would make him happier.\n Adam eventually broke off the hug with a series of macho pats on the back, just to keep the tender moment from spoiling their masculine image.\n \"So, um, where is Lena?\" Justin asked.\n \"She's in the house, probably watching cartoons. Why don't you go give her the news? Tell her about your new job.\"\n \"Okay!\"\n \"Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you like.\"\n \"I already had breakfast, but thanks.\"\n Adam picked up his novel again. \"Righty-o then. I'll get back to my book. I was at a good part when you showed up. We'll probably leave for the restaurant around five. Do you want to just stay over here until then?\"\n \"Yeah, I...\" A thick dread suddenly descended upon him. \"Oh crap! At some point I'll have to tell my mom I'll be gone for the evening!\"\n Justin looked so suddenly scared, Adam knew he had to do something about it. He leaned in closer again, lowering his voice as if revealing a dark secret. \"Justin, call her up and lie to her,\" he said firmly.\n The little wolffox was rather shocked. \"What!?\"\n \"Lie. Tell her you're invited over for dinner again. Tell her you're going to hitchhike to the mountains. Anything. Just make sure you're free and clear for tonight.\"\n \"Why?\"\n \"Because, Justin,\" Adam said seriously, \"you deserve this. You deserve for something nice to happen to you. And your mother sounds like someone who'd snatch that away if she knew, just to spite you. Don't let her. Now, normally I'd never advise someone to lie to anyone else, especially a family member, but in your case I feel comfortable making an exception.\"\n Again, there was that concern for him that felt so different and new, Justin had no idea how to handle it. \"Allright, Mr. Tallevasco. I will. Thank you.\"\n Adam leaned back in his chair again. \"It's allright. I'm just looking out for you. It seems that post's been vacant for too long. Now go keep Lena company. She'll be happy to see you.\"\n Justin nodded and gave him a little salute. \"Aye aye.\" He gave the skunk a last grateful smile and darted off for the house.\n Mr. Tallevasco returned to his novel, but he could no longer concentrate on it. He was smiling sadly, wondering how in the world life could be so mean to a nice little kid like that...\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 8*\n\n\n Justin had an absolute blast that night.\n He'd watched cartoons with Lena until noon, chatting with her and drinking pop and nibbling on toaster pastries. Then they went out and played in the backyard for a while. They played a predator-and-prey version of hide and seek, with Justin chasing Lena through the trees, growling menacingly, then pouncing on her and tickling her senseless. Then it was her turn, and she'd growl and chase him for a while.\n Around three, Justin finally got up the courage to call him mom. He kept it as simple as possible. In a casual tone, he said he was at his friend's house and wanted to stay for supper again. To his surprise, Mom allowed it right away. She said his brothers were all going to a birthday party for one of their football teammates, so she was glad to have the house to herself for an evening. Justin thanked fate, thanked his mom, hung up the phone, and tackled Lena to the floor in an explosively happy hug.\n Afterwards, they went to the dump for a while and scouted around. Among other things, Lena found some little plastic circus people, and Justin found several handfuls of trading cards and a baseball cap with 'Plumber's Union' stitched on it (which he thought he'd have fun thinking up filthy euphemisms for later on).\n There was an hour to go before dinner, so they decided to clean up a bit and make themselves presentable. Lena went in the house to take a shower. Justin went to the backyard, made sure no one was watching, then stripped down to his tighty-whities and stood under the garden hose for a while. He found that amusing when he thought about it for a bit; usually after a successful dump-run, it was his latest finds that he'd wash off with the hose.\n He dried himself off with a huge fluffy beach towel hanging on a nearby clothesline (Lena had assured him it was there for just such a purpose). Then he put his clothes back on and went to admire the Green Beast for a bit while he waited on Lena.\n Since the dump closed an hour early on Saturday anyway, Mr. Tallevasco was ready and rarin' to go promptly at five. He found the kids sitting in the back of the garbage truck, admiring the day's spoils from the dump.\n Then they all piled in the Frankenmobile and headed off. Justin was rather surprised at how smoothly the ugly thing ran. Lena was right about her and her dad having fixed up the engine good as new. He also thought it was apt that he was riding in a car that looked like a pile of crap on the outside, but had a good strong engine under the hood. He thought it made a nice metaphor for himself.\n They got on the interstate and drove for quite some time. Justin hadn't been out this way in a long while. He and Lena made fun of some of the billboards they passed.\n Lena had chosen the restaurant. It was a slightly classier than average fast food franchise called Arnie's. She said there were bunches of them where she came from. Justin had never even heard of them before.\n He scanned the menu for a while, not sure what to get and what might be too much. Mr. Tallevasco told him he could feel free to order anything he wanted. So eventually he decided on a mushroom and swiss burger with curly fries and a chocolate milkshake. Lena got a huge order of onion rings with her burger, and threatened to waft her bad breath at him all through the movie. He told her if she did, he'd wait till she wasn't looking and pee in her popcorn. The guy behind the counter looked rather grossed-out. Mr. Tallevasco bit his tongue to keep from laughing.\n The food was hot, messy and delicious. There were only three burger joints in close proximity to Justin's house, and Arnie's beat them all hands down. And, to make the evening even better, Justin had noticed that one of the kids in the family sitting across from them had discarded his kid's meal toy in disgust, and when the family left they forgot to throw out their garbage. When no one was looking, Justin casually snatched up the toy. It was some character off a girl's cartoon show, but he was perfectly aware of that beforehand. Lena had been watching the same show earlier that morning, so Justin offered her the toy as a friendly gift. She liked it a lot and gave him a big hug in return.\n As they drove to the theater, they took a wrong turn and ended up having to go down a side street and come around from the back way. As they did, Lena and Justin immediately spotted two huge dumpsters enclosed in their own little walled-off nook. They both admitted to each other that it would be fun to go jump in them.\n The theater was the size of a small country. It seemed to have eight thousand million screens. The ceiling was ridiculously high. The air was redolent with popcorn. There were so many people milling around, buying tickets and snacks, Justin thought that if he got separated from Lena and Mr. Tallevasco he'd probably wander around looking for them until he died of starvation.\n Since the only movies he'd ever been taken to were sports flicks his brothers had wanted to see, Justin was really looking forward to seeing something that was more up his alley. Mr. Tallevasco informed him that they were here to see a great big bombastic sci-fi adventure flick. He said he'd seen a review for it the day before that had called it 'the most entertainingly trashy film of the year'. The skunk had taken it as an omen.\n They got a huge popcorn to share between them and went to find their seats. Justin looked at all the movie posers they passed, noticing that almost all of them were for sequels and remakes.\n The theater had stadium seating, which Justin had never encountered before. The trio easily found three seats together, near the middle, not too far and not too close to the screen.\n They all settled in, sounds of popcorn-chewing-people all around them, and got ready for the movie.\n\n\n\n Two and a quarter hours later, Justin walked out feeling like he'd just been spun around in an industrial clothes drier and then punched in the head.\n \"That movie kicked _ass_!\" he declared.\n \"Yeah!\" Lena agreed. \"I didn't think they could fit that many special effects in one movie!\"\n \"Those robots were so cool! I hope they make toys out of 'em.\"\n \"They make toys out of every movie that comes out anymore,\" Mr. Tallevasco said.\n \"What'd you think of it, Dad?\" Lena asked.\n \"Ehh... It was exciting and well-directed, but the script borrowed heavily from a lot of other films. And the main character was badly miscast.\"\n Justin thought that was a fair critique. Even though, in his limited experience, he thought it was the best movie he'd ever seen in a theater.\n \"I liked the alien with all the tentacles,\" Lena said. \"He was actually kinda cute.\"\n \"Was he computer animated, or a big puppet?\" Justin asked.\n \"It's impossible to tell anymore,\" Adam remarked.\n Lena dug around in her mouth, trying to extract a particularly tenacious popcorn hull that had decided to take up residence.\n They all hopped back in the Frankenmobile to head on home. Mr. Tallevasco, however, had one more stop in mind.\n He drove out the same way they'd come in, past the back of the theater. He looked around cautiously, checking to see if anyone at all was watching. Then he pulled slowly over alongside the two dumpsters and came to a stop. He turned around to the backseat, where Justin and Lena were already giving him puzzled looks. \"Okay, quick, jump out.\"\n \"What!?\" Lena squeaked.\n \"I heard you say you wanted to play in the dumpsters. Go on, before someone sees us!\" he said with a wild grin.\n \"You're kidding!\" the ratgirl said in disbelief.\n \"Nope. I saw a hardware store a few blocks down. I'm going to go get some lightbulbs and stuff. I'll be back in ten minutes tops and I'll give the horn a little honk as I pass by. Go, quick!\"\n \"Daddy, you're a total nut!\" she said happily. She leaned over the seat and kissed him. \"Thank you!\" She popped open the door and she and Justin skedaddled out.\n \"Ten minutes. I promise,\" Adam whispered to them. \"Have fun!\" he called out the window as he drove off.\n Justin turned to Lena. \"Your dad is insane.\"\n \"Yeah? Who's the one that wanted to play in a trash dumpster in the first place?\"\n He grinned. \"Okay, you got a point.\"\n With that, the two veteran garbage-explorers hoisted themselves up and slid into the lesser-full of the two dumpsters.\n Justin landed on a pile of bags filled with popcorn and drink cups. They were crinkly and sticky, and smelled like a carnival food court baked in a giant oven. \"Eeew!\" he whispered, but he was grinning. \"This is the most disgusting thing I've ever done!\"\n Lena started bouncing up and down on the big clear trash bags. They were very colorful; you could see all the candy wrappers and popcorn bags and nacho trays snuggled inside. \"Yeah, but it's fun! It's messy and dirty and stinky and naughty and fun!\"\n Justin had to agree. The very fact that this was so wrong was what made it exciting. He dug his claws into a bag and scooped up a handful of popcorn to toss at her. \"It is fun!\"\n \"I'll give you a quarter if you eat some of that popcorn,\" she said with an incredibly devilish grin.\n Justin could not pass up the challenge. \"Make it fifty cents.\"\n \"Allright, but you have to eat five whole kernels,\" she negotiated.\n That was fair. He gathered five good-sized popcorn pieces in his paw. His rational brain insisted that this was incredibly stupid. The more childlike part of him was by now just spinning around saying, 'Wheeee!'.\n He popped the corn in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. \"Ta daaa! Now pay up!\"\n She grinned sweetly. Her little ratty buckteeth glinted in the moonlight. \"I don't have any money!\"\n He slugged her on the arm, but not too hard. \"You are such an asshole! I can't believe it!\"\n \"Ouch!\" she said while giggling. \"It's your own fault! You knew I was an asshole and you trusted me anyway!\"\n They giggled together, then immediately stopped when they heard the sound of a door creaking open.\n \"Oh shit! Hide!\" Lena squeaked in a whisper.\n As fast as they could without making any noise, they grabbed up bags of trash and piled them on top of themselves. It was stinky and sticky, but a lot better than having to explain to a theater employee why they were in here.\n An acne-ridden teenage fox dragged another full bag of cinema snack remnants behind him on the concrete, leaving a gleaming soda trail. He was singing some pop song to himself, and his voice was terrible.\n Lena and Justin were completely terrified, yet at the same time they were clasping their paws to their muzzles to stifle hysterical laughter.\n The teen lifted the lid and slung the garbage bag inside, never even looking in the hidden kids' direction. The bag landed on the two of them with a 'whumph'. The fox let the plastic lid slam shut and then walked back inside.\n \"I think my heart just stopped,\" Justin deadpanned.\n Lena let out her suppressed laughter as they both crawled out from under the trash bags. Both of them now had soda running down their legs. \"Oh, hey, I wanted to ask you something,\" she said abruptly.\n \"If I know why you're such a spaz?\" Justin supplied.\n She tossed an empty box of Jujubes at him. \"No, you fuckbrains! This is serious!\"\n Justin sat up. \"Allright. I'm listening.\"\n Lena hesitated. \"Um... It's about your Treasure Chest.\"\n Justin cocked an eyebrow. \"Yeah? And...?\"\n Lena tried to muster all the sincerity she could while standing waist-deep in garbage under a three-quarter moon. \"Well, I keep thinking of it sitting out there in the woods. I know you've got it padlocked, but I keep worrying that someday some hiker or a camper or just some guy's gonna come along, dig it out and take it with him. All your stuff will be gone forever! All your plushies!\"\n The fact that she was obviously truly worried about his stuff made him decide that she really was serious about this. They kidded each other so much that occasionally it was hard to tell. \"Okay, yeah. That could happen. What do you think we should do about it?\"\n Her eyes were wide with worry that he'd freak out at her suggestion. \"I was thinking that... maybe tomorrow, me and Dad could come over and we'd all dig it up and take it over to my house. So I could take care of it and keep it safe, you know?\"\n Far from being freaked out, Justin was floored by the thoughtfulness of her suggestion. He stood up, as much as that was possible in their current location, and gave her a sudden hug. \"That's a great idea! Thank you! I've always wished I had a safer place to keep my stuff!\"\n Lena was very relieved. \"Oh good! I was really worried you would think it was a bad idea.\"\n \"Why would I think that?\"\n \"I dunno. Maybe if it was important to you to keep it there in the woods for some sentimental reason?\" she guessed.\n \"When it comes to my plushies, I'd never let sentimental stuff get in the way of protecting them,\" he assured.\n Lena was glad to hear it. \"There's a little toolshed out behind the house. We could put it in there, and then you wouldn't even have to come inside to check up on it. Even if we were asleep, or not home or something.\"\n \"You'd trust me that much?\" he said with surprise.\n \"Of course,\" she replied, as if that was obvious. \"It's your stuff.\" She grinned. \"And I know you wouldn't just hop in the Green Beast and take her for a joyride while you were there.\"\n Justin thought that made for an interesting mental picture. \"I can see the headlines! 'Local Boy Goes On Mad Garbage Truck Rampage!' Actually, wouldn't it be cool to see a garbage truck in a high-speed police chase?\"\n She laughed so hard she snorted. \"An ice cream truck would be even better! Can't you just see some guy hangin' out the window, pelting the cop cars with popsicles?\"\n At that, both of them snickered like idiots.\n \"Hey, we haven't looked in the other dumpster yet!\" Justin realized.\n \"Well, what are we waiting for?\"\n\n\n\n And so the two of them had lots of fun and got extremely messy until they heard a car pull up and a soft horn toot.\n Adam had planned ahead and had bought a plastic tarp for the backseat. \"You kids have fun?\" he asked, as two grinning furry heads popped up over the side of the dumpster's mouth.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n*part 9*\n\n\n The next morning, Justin had the good fortune of waking up before everyone else. The sun was barely up. His brothers were still conked out from the night before. And if his suspicions were correct, judging from their breath, they'd all be waking up with hangovers soon. Like he was going to stick around for that. Hell naw.\n The little wolffox slipped gracefully out the bedroom window with a pencil in his pocket and some paper in his backpack.\n Deep in the woods, he came across his beloved Treasure Chest. He gave it a pat. \"Guess what? You're going to be moved someplace safe!\" he said to his plushies as he undid the lock and lifted the lid.\n Justin cleared away some leaves and sat down beside the footlocker. He reached in and gave each of his plushies a kiss.\n He took Cleo out of his pocket. He hadn't gotten a chance to bring her here since Friday night. It had been nerve-wracking, keeping her literally at his side the entire time since then. He shuddered at the thought of what his brothers would do to the little plush bat if they found her. They'd probably snatch her from him and flush her down the toilet!\n But no, that hadn't happened. He had successfully hidden her from them. He had protected her. \"This is Cleo, everyone,\" he whispered to his other plushies. He petted her soft fur tenderly as he laid her beside Rachel and Felicia. \"Welcome to my little family, Cleo. You're such a pretty bat. I love you. I promise I'll always keep you safe, all of you.\"\n He got into a comfortable position, leaning against the side of the footlocker. He opened his backpack and got out the paper. He laid it on top of a hardcover book from inside his Treasure Chest. He felt inspired this morning, and thought he'd try a little poetry.\n Morning dew sparkled on the leaves and grass. Birds called out their melodic warnings to one another. As the new morning came alive all around him, Justin was not surprised that his pencil wanted to talk about Lena. His composition was exceptionally free-flowing today. There was no structure at all. He just wrote down everything he could think of about her. Her hair, her feet, her ears, her tail. Her eyes, her smile, her laugh. Her kindness, her loyalty, her wit, her energy and her tenderness.\n 'I love you, Lena', he wrote.\n\n\n * * *\n\n\n Several hours later, he'd filled a few pages, read most of a paperback, and was now bored out of his skull.\n On the drive home last night, Lena had told her dad all about her idea to move Justin's secret hiding place, and he'd been all for it. Adam said there were shovels in the shed and plenty of room there for a footlocker. He'd told Justin to come by the house around noon and they'd all march off into the woods together to rescue his stuff to its new location.\n He glanced at his watch. It was nowhere near noon, but he was sure they'd be up by now. They wouldn't mind if he came a little early, he thought.\n Justin packed up his poetry, said goodbye to all his plushies, and secured the footlocker's lid. Then he set off across the dump to Lena's house.\n The dump was calm and silent. A few birds flitted around, pecking at the bags. But otherwise everything could have been a postcard. Justin didn't think he'd ever seen it so peaceful.\n The front gate was locked when he got there, since the dump was closed on Sundays. Justin followed the chain-link fence for awhile until it petered out in the trees. Soon he could see the top of the Green Beast in the distance.\n He heard Lena laugh. As he got closer, he peeked around a tree and saw that she and her father were having a picnic breakfast in the backyard.\n But when he looked closer, he noticed that the only food they had was placed in front of Mr. Tallevasco. Lena was sitting in front of a pile of nasty-looking garbage.\n That was odd.\n Lena and her father were talking, but he was too far away to catch what they were saying.\n Then Mr. Tallevasco reached into the pile of trash and pulled out a broken up, headless plastic doll. He held it out to Lena. With a smile, she opened her mouth, and he slid the doll in. He pushed it all the way inside. Lena swallowed it in one gulp.\n The fur on the back of Justin's neck stood straight up.\n He had _not_ seen that.\n Lena's paw hovered over the small pile of trash, deciding what to choose next. She selected a sardine can. She gave it a long lick, inside and out, then slid it into her open mouth and easily down her throat.\n Oh fuck, he was _not_ seeing this!\n Next up was a squashed milk carton. Lena chewed on it a bit and then gulped it down as well. Her father watched, smiling pleasantly, as he sipped his coffee and took bites from a bagel. Then Lena ate some filthy, raggedy beanbag plush with most of its stuffing spilling out. She sucked out the tiny plastic pellets like jelly from a donut.\n Justin was biting his knuckles to keep from screaming. He was biting them so hard they bled. His mind could not comprehend this sight. His brain would not believe his eyes.\n Lena held up a dirty sock and slurped it down like a strand of spaghetti.\n There were no words for the horror, the surreality, the disgust that Justin was feeling. And it was all made so much worse by the fact that she was *smiling* while she was doing these incomprehensible things! Her father was sitting there smiling too, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening!\n Then Lena picked up a used diaper that was practically dripping with filth. She opened her mouth wide.\n Justin wanted to look away more than anything else in the world. He wanted someone to hit him in the head with a baseball bat. Anything at all to make his eyes stop watching this.\n The little ratgirl happily chewed the plastic of the disposable diaper, nibbling it into her mouth bit by bit. Then she swallowed it whole and sighed with satisfaction.\n Justin tore himself away and ran off in the opposite direction. He stopped by a tree, sunk to his knees and got the dry heaves. If he'd had anything for breakfast, it would have been coming up right now. He retched and retched until his throat burned and he could taste blood.\n What the fuck had he just seen?!?\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Down In The Dumps
by Alex Reynard


  ***
     Author's Introduction:

Were you ever fascinated by trash as a kid? I definitely was. When I was little, I'd always wander around with my head down, checking out anything lying on the sidewalk. I'd peek in trash cans. I'd pass by dumpsters and wonder what was inside. Every now and then, I'd get lucky and find something truly interesting, some little toy that someone had either lost forever or just tossed away. I'd clean it up and cherish it. Oftentimes just the fact of finding the thing lying there for me to discover was what made it so special for me.

I've also always loved flea markets, trade centers, resale shops and things like that. It's for largely the same reason. There's just something about rooting around in other people's junk that captivates me. I love used stuff. I love going to the flea market and finding some wonderful thing that catches my eye instantly and practically begs me to buy it.

My point is that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Our culture throws so much stuff away, and so much of it is something that might be beautiful and special to someone else if given the chance. I see people tossing toys out by the curb, and I always feel a slight pain in my heart from wondering if the kids in that house realize they're throwing away their memories. I once heard this feeling described as 'Velveteen Rabbit Complex'. I find that incredibly apt.

I've looked around on the net to see if I could find anything else on this subject, and I've found rather a lot relating to people who enjoy trash, who make new things from it, who salvage old things from it, who play in it and even yiff in it! But more than merely a strange hobby or fetish, trash play can also be an act of rebellion against the unwritten rules of mundane society. We're all supposed to be clean and presentable all the time. We're supposed to scrub everything in our environments with painfully artificial-smelling chemicals, and then even paint our own bodies with the stuff. What about the sheer mindless joy we all felt as kids at making a big ol' mess? Can that feeling be recaptured?

This story came from thinking about questions like that. So be forewarned, the following tale is a little stinky. You might want to bring along a clothespin for your nose. Some rubber gloves couldn't hurt also. Though I hope that if you'll give this story a chance, you'll find that there's something worthwhile underneath its otherwise unhygienic surface. Brush off the dirt, and you'll find something I've put my whole heart into.

In essence, I think that sometimes stuff that just looks like ordinary garbage can hold amazing surprises if you don't mind getting your paws a bit dirty while digging through it.

This story goes out to anyone who's ever gleefully gone dumpster-diving or trash-picking.

Anyone who's ever lovingly cuddled a stained, dirty, ripped up stuffed animal.

Anyone who's ever found their heart's desire at a flea market for less than a buck.

Anyone who's ever looked upon something, or someone, that everyone else considers ugly, and then decided for themselves that it's beautiful.

After all, Charlie Brown's Christmas tree just needed a little love...


  *****


*part 1*


     "Hey fuckhead!"
     Justin's eyes slammed shut. He gritted his teeth. His three huge brothers had just seconds ago barged into his room and surrounded him. He'd thought they'd be at football practice all day.
     "What'cha doin', mutt?"
     "My homework," he lied.
     One of them snatched up the paper he'd been writing on. If any of them had had the slightest idea how to read, Justin might have been worried.
     "What the hell is this?"
     "Lemme see it!"
     "It looks like some kinda poem!"
     "Poetry? You fucking fag!"
     Justin felt like he was going to crush his own teeth to powder from grinding them so hard. His entire body was tense. It took every ounce of control to keep from snapping back at them. That would have been suicide.
     The three wolf jocks chuckled cruelly at their scrawny younger brother. He was getting mad again, which amused them to no end.
     "You a poet, fag?"
     "Writing poems to yer boyfriend?"
     "It's for school!" Justin finally burst out.
     "Bullshit! They never make any of us write poems!"
     He whipped around in his chair and glared at the one who'd last spoke. It was barely worth the trouble to tell them apart anymore. "That's because you're all too stupid to write your own goddamn names, much less anything anyone else would want to read!!" he snarled.
     Oh fuck. That was stupid. He was really in for it now.
     They grinned ferally.
     "Whoa! The faggot strikes back!"
     "Someone's got a smart little mouth."
     "Someone's gotta get punished for that smart mouth."
     "Someone's gotta get that mouth washed out good!"
     He scowled, mostly to himself for letting them get his temper up again. "Please. Not again..."
     "Oh, I think he knows what we're gonna do!"
     "Little cocksucker probably likes it."
     Resigned to his fate, Justin gave no resistance as the three of them lifted him straight out of his chair and carried him roughly out of the room and onward down the hall. It was his own fault for letting them provoke him. The best thing now would be to just go limp and wait until it was over.
     Giggling like a pack of demented hyenas, the three wolves dragged their brother into the bathroom.
     "Who's gotta go?"
     "Me! I drank a shitload of pop before the game!"
     "Go, man, go!"
     The tall one, that was Royce, was grinning like a madman as he pulled down his fly. He whipped out his dork and started pissing into the toilet.
     Holding Justin's shoulders were Greg and Dave; the fat one and the thin one, respectively.
     Justin was, of course, the short little puny one. He sighed in mild annoyance. This wasn't the worst of his brothers' games, not by a long shot, but it was pretty damn humiliating.
     Royce finished up and forgot to zip himself up again, so caught up was he in the thrill of the moment.
     "Now dunk 'im!"
     On that signal, Greg and Dave easily upended their little brother and forced his head into the toilet bowl.
     It was filthy, cracked, and hadn't been washed in months. Justin kept his eyes and mouth shut as tightly as possible. One time he'd gasped for breath and some of the piss had gotten in his mouth. He'd had to brush five times before the taste was gone. He could hear the echoes of his three brothers laughing like this was the funniest thing ever to happen in the history of the world.
     One of them said something, distorted by the water, and then someone flushed. It was definitely a relief. Justin had always been somewhat worried that they'd be too dumb to remember that part one of these days. Then he'd drown to death in a toilet full of wolf piss. Wouldn't that be a fun thing to tell Saint Peter?
     When the water was gone, Justin sucked in a much-needed gulp of air. His brothers released him suddenly and he fell hard on the floor, bashing his chin on the rim of the toilet on the way down. It'd probably ache for the rest of the day now.
     The three wolves were laughing like they were on drugs. Justin wrung his fur out on the floor and thought of all the things he wished he could say to them if only he was bigger and stronger and crueller than them.
     Dave snatched him up by his collar.
     "You learn your lesson, shitsucker?"
     "Didja have fun?"
     "Wasn't that hilarious?"
     Justin rolled his eyes. "Yes. Ha ha. You guys should have your own TV show."
     "Yeah, we should!"
     "We could get someone to run a camera, and just torture you all day!"
     "We could call it the 'Punt The Mutt' show!"
     "We'd be rrrrrrich! Rrrrrrich beyond our wildest dreams!"
     There followed another round of frenzied hysterical laughter.
     Dave let go of him, and Justin figured this was his best chance to make an escape. He ducked out of the bathroom and zipped as fast as possible down the hall.
     In the kitchen, he paused to catch his breath. He wiped off his fur as best as he could on a mostly-dry dishtowel. He poked around in the cupboards for a bit, searching for something to eat, but there was nothing appealing. As usual. 'Gee, I wonder where it could possibly have gone to,' he thought sarcastically. He walked out through the livingroom, kicking away the beer cans and snack food wrappers in his path.
     Mom was splayed out on the couch like a giant slug from a '50s horror movie. One fat arm was draped across her stomach, looking like it had melted there. She grimaced when Justin walked in front of the TV. "Where the hell are you goin'?" she demanded.
     "Outside," he spat back, not even looking at her.
     "Fine. Just get back before supper," she mumbled, then added loudly, "And you and your brothers better stop making so much god-damn noise playing in there!"
     "Okay, Mom," Justin grunted as he slipped out the door. Under his breath he cursed bitterly, "Thanks for coming to my rescue, you fat ugly bitch."
     He slammed the screen door behind him.



     Justin's family was, to put it mildly, fucked-up.
     They lived in a falling-down house in a rural little town called Flat Stone, somewhere in the lost shadows of the suburbs of some big famous city Justin had never been to. All around were trees and trailers and brown grass and rusted trucks. It was a town of poverty, where 90% of the people you ran into were either drunk, stupid or psychotic, or some lovely combination of the three. The weather never got anywhere colder than warm, not even in winter. Most of the time it was hot enough to nearly kill you. At least it felt that way, and sometimes you wished it would.
     Mom had been fat and ugly, and a bitch, for her entire life, Justin guessed. She was drunk approximately a hundred and ten percent of the time. Her life was her couch, her television and her snacks. She got up three or four times each day to fix a 'meal', or to go to the bathroom, and Justin suspected sometimes she didn't even get up for that. He knew for certain she'd never gotten up to defend him from his brothers. So long as they weren't actually murdering him with chainsaws, she made it clear through her attitude that she honestly didn't give a shit what they did.
     Dad was a shadow. He might as well have been a figment of Justin's imagination. There were only two places he ever went: The Factory and The Bar. If you noticed that 'the house' was not on that list, you are very observant. Justin's dad showed up at the house about as often as Santa Claus. When he did put in a surprise cameo appearance, most of the time it meant that at least one of them was going to be beaten up.
     Royce, Greg and Dave were basically the spawn of Hell. They were the result of vigorous fucking shortly after (and before) Mom and Dad's marriage. In fact, they were barely nine months apart. Justin guessed Mom must have been drinking at least as much as she did now when she'd been carrying them. Sometimes it seemed like they functioned as a single hive mind; one brain shared between the three (and maybe that was too generous). Their programming instructions were simple: Seek Out Little Brother. Destroy.
     Justin had wondered probably since birth if he was adopted. He was different from the rest of them in every way. Dad was a solid brick wall of muscle. Mom was an ocean of flab. All his brothers were big in some way or another. He, on the other hand, was small in almost every way. Short. Skinny. Scrawny. Runt. Pushover. Wimp. Chewtoy. Dirt.
     The other big difference between Justin and his family was, he was smart. Maybe not the kind of smart his teachers at school wanted him to be, but smart nonetheless. He was wise beyond his years in the ways of the grown-up world. He'd been taught by his cruel life hundreds of hard lessons in trust and pain. He was a flawless liar, a fairly decent escape artist, and not too bad of a thief either.
     At school he did his best to avoid trouble, though that was like Sisyphus pushing that bigass rock up the hill. The faculty all thought he was a little sociopath. Even when he wasn't cheating on tests, or sneaking food from the cafeteria, or taking paper and pencils and other school supplies out of the wastebaskets because his mother never bought him any, no one ever even gave him the chance to be good. If something broke, he was blamed. If something went missing, he was blamed. He was looked upon like some kind of vermin. A sewer rat. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd kept his grades up beyond anyone's expectations (mostly just to piss his teacher off), he was sure he would've been expelled a long time ago.
     What no one had ever bothered to realize was that he _had_ to be this way. It was a matter of survival. Natural selection, motherfucker. Living in a family as repulsively deranged as his was, the only way to stay sane was to outthink them. He had to be sneakier than all of them put together. More devious, more cunning, more alert, and more paranoid.
     Justin had given up on his family a long time ago. He remembered being a little pup, always picking dandelions for Mom, or asking Royce if he could play ball with him, or walking to school with Dave, or watching TV with Greg. And yet no matter how many times he tried to be a good boy, tried to win some tiny table scrap of attention or affection from them, he'd been kicked away. Tossed aside. Thrown away like trash.
     Nowadays he would spend recess sitting in a little crawlspace under the gymnasium stairs, watching his brothers play sports out on the field. He'd stare at them, wishing somehow he could achieve telekinesis just by wanting it hard enough. Just to make one of them drop the ball. Just to trip one of them up. Just to make one of them break their leg. Just a little...
     He didn't mind hating them; meaning he didn't feel guilty about it. They hated him even more, so at least it was fair. His father hated him even worse. Whenever his father turned up, Justin made himself as inconspicuous as possible. Otherwise, he'd show up at school the next morning with bruises so bad they showed through his fur. And his teacher would scowl at him because she thought he'd been fighting with the other kids.
     Why did his father hate him so much? That was an easy one to answer. Since he was so much younger than his brothers (the youngest, Dave, was still three years older than him), he figured that he was probably a mistake. Maybe Dad hadn't pulled out in time. Maybe Mom had mixed up her birth control pills with breath mints (Hah! Like she'd ever eaten a breath mint in her life!). Whatever the reason, his father had always glared at him, ever since he was little, like he was a stranger in the house. And his mother averted her eyes when he was in the room, as if she could make her youngest son go away forever if she could only ignore him long enough.
     But the truth of the matter was something far worse. A year ago, the secret had come to light. Justin didn't know how his father found out, but when he did, the whole family found out too. The man's drunk, roaring voice shook the walls of their flimsy little home.
     It seemed that Mom had not been entirely faithful to Dad. Several years before, she'd had an affair with a fox. They'd been sleeping around behind Dad's back for months. When she had found out she was pregnant, she'd called it off and hoped desperately that her husband would think the baby was his. The night the truth finally came out, Justin's father had beat the shit out of everyone in the house. And Justin had gotten it double.
     (Justin had wondered later why Dad hadn't just divorced Mom then and there. But the answer was laughably obvious. They were both too damn lazy for that. All the court dates and screwing around with lawyers? It was so much easier to just take out their anger on their bastard halfbreed son.)
     The news explained a lot. Justin really didn't look like a wolf anyway. He was not only skinnier than the rest of them, but also more lithe. His features were sharper. His arms and legs were more wiry. His scruffy grey fur had a brownish, rusty tinge to it, and his paws and feet were a deep dark brown.
     And, strangely, Justin even felt happy when he found out the truth. It meant that he was really only *partly* related to these people. His brothers were only half-brothers. His father was now just some guy. And somewhere out there there was a fox that had provided half of his blood. He obviously couldn't have been the sharpest knife in the drawer if he'd wanted to screw Mom in the first place. But maybe it explained Justin's intelligence, and the other parts of him he kept hidden away, guarded fiercely from his family.
     Out of all this small-town tragedy, the saddest part was that Justin simply didn't want to be like this; the way he was, and the way others perceived him. He didn't want to be seen as a sneaky, smelly little thief. He wanted friends. He wanted someone to talk to. He wanted someone to hold him, and kiss him, and tuck him into bed at night and tell him a story. He wanted all the things normal kids had.
     Sometimes just thinking about all this stuff would bring tears to his eyes. That was another reason he liked his secret place under the gym stairs. It stank, and was full of dirt and flakes of rust, but at least he knew no one could see him there. If he needed to, he could hide himself away in there and curl up into a ball to cry.
     Justin had another secret place though.



     Behind the house there was a patch of wild forest, a smoothly arcing strip of shady trees and cool, leafy greenery. And beyond that was the town dump.
     It was Justin's favorite place in the whole world.
     Every chance he got, Justin would slink away from the house, away from his crazy family, and head for the dump accompanied by his trusty backpack. He'd trek through the woods and come out on the edge of a massive valley filled almost to the rim with an incredible panorama of junk.
     Everyone in town came here to drop off their garbage. There was no regular garbage pickup in Flat Stone; it was far too small a town for that. So once a week, or sometimes once a month depending on each individual's comfort level of having reeking bags in the backyard, the various households in the community all piled their trash in the back of their pickups and trucked it on down to the dump.
     Once the little wolffox arrived at the dumping grounds, he delved in with the zeal of an archaeologist. To him, this wasn't just trash: it was buried treasure waiting to be unearthed.
     It was amazing some of the things he'd found. Mostly he looked for toys and other items that would interest a boy his age. But other things too. Surprisingly, there was usually quite a lot of perfectly good stuff tossed out with the trash every week. He'd rip open the big plastic bags and root carefully around inside. He'd learned long ago to get a feel for the bags first; it had only taken a couple of encounters with dirty diapers to teach him that. If instead he felt hard plastic corners at odd angles, that usually meant something interesting. He'd found plenty of toy cars, even a few that turned into robots. There were action figures and books and even stuffed animals, which Justin had a special affinity for.
     Years before, he had been out in the woods one day and tripped over a big black metal footlocker half-buried in the forest floor. After giving it a thorough cleaning-out, it now served as his treasure chest. After a full day's excursion to garbage paradise, the satisfied young canine would fill his backpack with his newfound prizes and hide them in the footlocker.
     Later on at night, when everyone else was asleep, he'd sneak out the window and go back to the woods for his latest discoveries. He'd smuggle them into the backyard and run the garden hose over them, washing them off gently and carefully. Often, the only thing wrong with his new toys was that they were a little dirty. Once they were cleaned up, they looked good as new.
     The next day, once they were dry, Justin would hide away his new discoveries in the footlocker and secure them inside with a big, sturdy combination lock he'd bought from the hardware store. He wasn't stupid. These things meant more to him than his own life. He wasn't about to chance someone else stumbling upon them and taking them away.
     There was a big reason he didn't dare keep his treasures in the house: his brothers. They'd smash everything he owned for the sheer pleasure of causing him pain. And if they ever found out that he still liked to play with stuffed animals, they'd beat him up even more than they already did (which would require rather a lot of effort, actually).
     But Justin _needed_ his plushies. They helped keep his softer side alive. Every now and then as he went through his neighbors' castouts, he'd tear open a bag and see a cute furry face looking back at him. He'd feel a connection forge in his heart; a kinship of sorts. He felt like he'd also been thrown away by those who should have loved him and taken care of him.
     One of his favorite toys was a plush mouse he'd named Rachel. He'd found her in amongst a bunch of baby things in a bag that had probably belonged to the Garrisons. (That was another thing about trash-spelunking; after a while you could make an educated guess as to which junk had been whose. If he'd been after blackmail material, Justin could have owned the whole town.) The small stuffed mouse was encrusted with old food and other stuff he didn't want to think too hard about. But as soon as he saw her, her shiny plastic eyes looked back at him and he felt a bond beginning to form. Those sad eyes seemed to call out to him, 'Save me. I don't want to be trash.'
     By the light of a crescent moon, he'd tenderly washed her off with the hose. He worked his fingers in deep, cleaning away years' worth of grime. He took her back to the footlocker and put her in a special hidden spot nearby where the sun would fall on her and dry her off.
     When he returned the next day after school, she was clean and soft. Her expression seemed much happier now. Under all that dirt was a pretty plush mouse with warm grey fur and a little red nose. Her paws, tummy and the inside of her ears were white. She was smiling now. Justin felt like maybe she was grateful to him.



     Branches snapped and leaves rustled under his paws as he made his way through the forest. He really, really needed to visit his plushies today.
     It was sunny and hot out as usual, which was good. His fur was already starting to dry off, but he'd probably still smell like pee later on. God, but his brothers were assholes.
     Off in the distance was his beloved treasure trunk. He hurried over and twisted in his combination. The lid creaked as he lifted it. Inside were all his toys, all patiently waiting for him to come and play with them. A sweet, happy smile came to Justin's face, and for a moment he felt perfectly content. Here were all the things he valued. All the things he had rescued.
     "How are you today, Rachel?" he whispered to his plushie. He picked her up, ran his fingers through her fur, and gave her a hug. "Didja miss me?" He kissed her on top of her head.
     The little wolffox gathered his other plushies in his arms. He sat down, leaning against the warm metal side of the box, and arranged his plushies in his lap. He sat them so that they were all facing him, looking like they were ready to listen to whatever he had to say.
     "My brothers suck. They did that toilet thing again. Mom didn't get off the couch to help me out, of course. But I didn't get in any more trouble at school today at least. There was a quiz on the solar system. I aced it. That stuff's easy. Oh, and yesterday Jeri found that necklace she lost; the one she 'knew' I stole from her. Dumb girl! Like I want some little plastic necklace that probably came out of a gumball machine! She spent the whole day Monday crying to the teacher, telling her I stole it! Mrs. Robertson probably would have spanked me if she could've gotten away with it without losing her job. She sent me to the principal anyway. Then they tried to make me confess. Ha! I never broke! They threatened me with all sortsa stuff! Said they'd give me detention for a week. I told 'em I didn't do it and there was no way they could prove I did. And yesterday, Jeri looks in her desk and there it is! She never even lost it, it was just under some books! Man, did she get red! She told the teacher she found it. And Mrs. Robertson said I didn't have to do detention anymore. She didn't apologize to me though."
     He paused, and he sighed.
     "That would've been nice. If she'd said she was sorry."
     He felt his eyes start to water. He hunched over and pulled all his stuffed animals closer. He buried his muzzle in their soft fur. They were always there for him.
     "I love you guys," he said softly. His tears landed on their fur. "I love you so much. Thanks for listening. I love you. I love you."
     He sat and rocked back and forth. He hugged his little friends tight, giving them all gentle kisses.
     This was the one time he was able to be tender. The one time he could let his guard down.
     He liked being gentle. He liked saying nice things to his plushies and giving them hugs and kisses. Whenever his family threw their worst at him, he'd come out here and vent his frustration on his plushies. But not by hitting or kicking them. Never! The very idea was disgusting to him! Why would he hurt his plushies? He loved them! He'd gone through so much trouble to rescue them and give them a new home. No, whenever he'd had a rotten day, he would come out here and talk to them. He would tell them all about it, getting everything off his chest while they listened silently. In fact, the worse he felt, the more loving he acted towards them. So what if they were only cloth and stuffing? Justin couldn't think of them like that. They were his friends, and they trusted him. He'd never do anything to hurt them.
     When he was feeling calmer, Justin put his plushies back in the trunk. He surveyed his collection once more. Then he leaned in and patted them on their heads. "Goodbye, guys. I'll see you later. 'Bye. I love you." He hesitated a moment, then closed the lid and locked it.
     Justin turned away and walked off towards the dump. There was no way to know what would show up from day to day, so he'd learned not to bother expecting anything. Some days it'd be nothing but pizza boxes and used tissues. Sometimes he'd find neat stuff all over the place. One time he'd found an entire comic book collection that someone's mom had thrown out. Most of them were dumb 'steroid users in tights'-type titles, but there were certainly a few that deserved keeping. The rest he took to school and left by the littler kids' part of the playground. He put a small sign on top of the stack that said: 'Free! Take One!'. It had made him feel good. After all, he more than anyone knew that one fur's trash is another fur's treasure.
     Justin arrived at the lip of the valley that led down to the huge trash pile. He smiled and took in a deep breath. He'd never told anyone before, but he'd actually gotten to like the smell of the dump. Yeah, it was stinky. But it was an interesting, multi-faceted kind of stinky. A stinky that hinted at possibilities.
     The little wolffox started down the sandy slope, headed for the place where all the new stuff usually got dropped off.
     He had just climbed up the ridge by all the smashed cars when he saw something lying in the trash that he'd never seen before.
     He had no idea his life was about to change forever.
     Lying on a pile of garbage bags was a dead girl.


~~~~~


*part 2*


     Justin screamed.
     The girl sat straight up. "Shit! What the hell!?"
     Immense relief swept through Justin's soul. He felt like he was about to crumple like a paper doll. "Oh my god!" he panted. His heart was whizzing around like a racecar. "I thought you were dead!"
     The girl looked to be a little older than him, but not by much. She was a rat. Her fur was a very pale grey, nearly white. Her hair was chocolate-brown and messy. Her tail was long, furless, and looked like a worm. She was wearing a white T-shirt and dirty, scuffed blue denim overalls. Her muzzle was long and pointed, ending in a bubblegum-pink nose. She had prominent buckteeth that were actually kind of cute.
     "Well why don't you check first before you scream like a grandmother and scare the poop out of people?" the ratgirl asked curtly.
     Justin skidded down the side of the ridge towards her, kicking up sandy dust behind him. "Well, geeze! You're laying there on a bunch of garbage bags. I thought someone killed you and dumped you here."
     She stood up. She yawned and scratched herself. "Nope. Just taking a nap."
     "On a bunch of garbage bags?" Justin asked, puzzled.
     She looked at him as if that should have been obvious. "Yeah. So? I like garbage."
     Justin smiled in a lopsided way. "Actually, I do too. But not as a mattress."
     She grinned and laughed. It sounded like steam from a rusty teapot, but in a nice way. She waded carefully towards him through the pile of black plastic bags. She stopped in front of him and abruptly put out her paw.
     Up close, Justin realized she was about a head taller than him.
     "I'm Lena."
     Justin arched an eyebrow, then hesitantly shook her hand. "Uh, why were you sleeping on trash bags?"
     "Tell me why you're here first," she snapped crisply.
     Given that this girl seemed like she could probably beat him up if she felt like it, Justin decided to keep on her good side. "Um, well, I like to come here every now and then and look through the junk. Sometimes I find toys 'n books and stuff..." he confessed.
     She crossed her arms and 'hmph'ed at him like a queen unamused by a commoner's crime. "You're stealing MY garbage?"
     "What do you mean _your_ garbage!?" Justin spat back angrily. This was his one special place. He didn't care if this girl was bigger and tougher than him, he was _not_ going to let anyone take this away from him. "I've never even seen you before! I've been coming here for years! And it's not stealing anyway. It's as much mine as anyone else's!"
     She grinned smugly. "It's my garbage 'cuz my dad owns the dump now," she said triumphantly.
     That kind of struck down any argument Justin could have come back with. "Uh..." He thought about it for a second. "Wait, he bought the dump?" he asked incredulously. "Why?"
     She smiled, showing off her ratty teeth in a 'wouldn't you like to know' kind of way. "Doesn't matter. He owns it, and that means I do too. So no one gets to root through my garbage without my permission!" she stated regally.
     Justin paused to reassess the situation. She was grinning too much. He suspected she was just playing with him. "Okay then, Miss Trash Princess, may I have your permission?" he asked cunningly.
     She burst out in a big smile. "Sure!" she squeaked. And with that, she grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him lightly onto the pile of trash.
     "Waaaaah!"
     A moment later, she jumped on the pile too. A bag burst, spraying TV dinner trays everywhere. "Eeew!" she said with a grin.
     Justin turned himself over and just stared at the weird girl. She was lying on her back, arms tucked behind her head, looking pleased as punch. "You never did tell me your name," she said out of the blue.
     "Justin," he replied quietly, as if ashamed of it.
     She smiled at him. He noticed she had long, silvery whiskers that bounced when she smiled. "Hi Justin."
     "Hi. Um, was it Lena?"
     She nodded. "So, are you gonna help me search through all these trash bags for fun stuff, or are you just gonna sit there?"
     He stared at her. "You really...? I mean, you want to look through garbage with me?"
     "Uh huh. I've never met anyone else who likes trash like I do. I'm pleased to meet you," she said in a sweet tone.
     Justin blushed. He'd been too busy being slightly frightened of this girl to realize that she was, in fact, a girl. "Um... I'm glad to meet you too." And actually, he was. He'd never met anyone else who liked trash either.
     They smiled at each other for a moment, slowly coming to the realization that they were kindred spirits.
     Lena looked down. "Oooh, I found something already!"
     Justin looked over. "What?"
     She threw a wad of greasy paper towel at him.
     "Hey!"
     She giggled.
     And that was how Justin met Lena.


          * * *


     The two kids played in the trash for hours.
     They became friends almost instantly. It was bizarre, Justin thought. He _never_ made friends with anyone this quickly. Then again, he never really made friends, period.
     However, the fact that you enjoy trash-picking is something you don't usually divulge to others, not even someone you trust. It was a bad, dirty, shameful thing. At least, that was how others saw it.
     But the two of them openly shared an undeniable love for trash, so there was no way either of them could possibly ridicule the other for it.
     By having this strange secret interest in common, it put them on perfectly equal ground. Friendship came easily.
     And as the two of them wandered about through the pile of bags, ripping them open like christmas presents, chatting happily the whole time, they realized they had a lot of other stuff in common too. They were both smart, enjoyed the same type of books and movies, loved pizza, hated zucchini, and shared a dozen or so other small similarities.
     They were different in just as many ways too. Lena said she lived with her father, no mom or siblings, and that she loved him dearly. On the subject of family, Justin merely said that it was something he'd rather not talk about. And they left it at that.
     The brunette ratgirl said that her dad had bought the land the dump was on last week, and that he'd replaced the old guy who'd been running it for years. Justin was happy to hear it. The 'old guy', he knew, was an ancient, foul-tempered German Shepherd with no teeth and no heart. He had scowled like a bird of prey at everyone who came to the dump to drop off their stuff. He took the gate fee from everyone by snatching it roughly away, as if he thought the whole town was trying to cheat him. Justin was certain that if the old fart had ever caught him dump-diving he would have called the cops in a heartbeat, or simply chased him down and beat the crap out of him. Thankfully, the old dog was also lazy. Justin had never seen him leave his post at the front gates unless he had to take a whiz. The young wolffox made it quite clear to Lena that the thought of that old fart losing his job just tickled him pink.
     Lena had a similarly low opinion of the man. She said he'd fought with her father every step of the way over the property rights, and that her dad had been only too happy to give him the boot when the land became his. She said that she and her father were now living in a little cabin just on the other side of the dump's main gate, and that they'd moved in a few days ago.
     That explained why Justin hadn't seen her before. He asked again why her dad wanted the dump in the first place, but the little rat was tight-lipped. She merely smiled, as if she was keeping one hell of a secret. Maybe there was gold in them thar garbage mounds, Justin ventured. She said he was _way_ off base.
     As far as the garbage went, it was a pretty good day for both of them.
     Lena found three dolls, a few spotty paperback books, an unopened box of snack cakes ("Hey, they're still in the plastic wrap! They'll be okay!" she had insisted), a broken ceramic elephant, one tiny plastic shoe, and an assortment of bottletops, which she said she collected.
     Justin found some books too, plus an action figure that looked like either a ninja or some kind of evil henchman, two metal cars that were only slightly stepped on, an activity pad with most of the pages un-crayoned, a baseball card, and a spool of white thread. (He wanted that to fix up some of his plushies with, but he didn't tell her that.)
     They also found plenty of other, smaller things. Stuff that deserved a second look but that they probably wouldn't keep. Candy wrappers with jokes printed on them, shiny pieces of unknown broken objects, paper with scribbled writing; stuff like that.
     Altogether, it was a happy, relaxed and fun way to spend an afternoon.



     When all the trash bags had been thoroughly searched, Justin and Lena looked up and noticed that the sun was going down.
     Both of them were rather smelly by now, but neither of them minded. Actually, Justin thought Lena's sweaty girl-smell was kind of interesting. (What he didn't know was that she felt the same way about his own wolfy boy-odor.)
     Their clothes had numerous spots and splotches, largely due to the fact that they'd been tossing icky stuff at one another for laughs all day. Nothing too gross though; they were only playing after all. An orange peel: fair game. A dirty diaper: hell no.
     Lena bent down and gathered her findings up into a convenient plastic grocery bag. "So, do you come here every day?" she asked.
     "No, sometimes I can't get out of the house. I come here usually three or four times a week if I'm lucky."
     "Well that's okay. I'll be here most of the time if you want to find me again."
     They stopped what they were doing, falling silent, and looked at one another for a moment.
     The sun was starting to set, painting the sky with candy pinks and savage oranges. The wind blew lightly through Lena's wild and uncombed brown hair. She looked at him with wide, dark-olive-green eyes.
     Justin realized that yes, he did want to find her again. He wanted to meet her here again and again, every day he came. He had finally found someone he could talk to. Someone who, much as he still loved his stuffed animals, could actually respond back.
     And she was cute, too.
     "I'd like that," he said, and smiled.
     "Me too," she said. She smiled too. Her whiskers bounced. "Can you come here tomorrow after school?"
     "I'll try my best."
     "Okay."
     The sky was growing darker now.
     "Um, see you later," Justin mumbled, wanting to say something a bit more eloquent but not knowing how.
     "Okay. 'Bye Justin." She turned away and gave him a little wave.
     "'Bye Lena," he called back.
     He'd just turned around again when she shouted, "Oh! I almost forgot!"
     He turned around. "What?"
     A rolled-up dirty sock flew through the air and bonked right into his forehead.
     "Bullseye!" Lena said triumphantly.
     Justin grinned. "You're a jerk!"
     "Thanks!" she said back, and ran off for home.


~~~~~


*part 3*


     Justin had gotten home that night just as 'dinner' was being prepared. 'Dinner' could barely be called that. Reheated macaroni and cheese from the night before, milk that was starting to turn, and a pawful of pretzels. (Justin guessed that was supposed to be their vegetable.)
     His three asshole brothers were busy talking about some basketball game that was on later that night, so thankfully they didn't bother him much. Everyone had long since gotten used to Justin coming home smelling like trash, so they didn't even notice him now. And considering that Mom smelled like beer and farts, and his brothers all carried a stench that was a combination of sweat, underwear skidmarks and, occasionally, weed, the fact that they passed over a bit of dump-reek was hardly surprising.
     Immediately following 'dinner', Mom took back her eternal position on the couch: head lying on the armrest, right foot snug between the cushions, right arm dangling on the floor, left hand clutching the remote as if it were trying to escape. Sometimes Justin wondered how come she hadn't frozen like that permanently.
     His brothers sat on the floor in front of her, ready to watch some b-ball. Soon the livingroom was filled with the sounds of sneakers scooting, crowds shouting and announcers yammering, occasionally punctuated by cheers and boos from The Dipshit Trio.
     Justin had become very, very good at sneaking out of a room without being noticed. He did so as soon as he'd cleaned his plate and was soon back in the tentative safety of his room. Well, it wasn't actually his. He had to share it with the three neanderthals. But at least he had his own bed.
     He wriggled under the bed and pried up the loose floorboard there with a screwdriver. His family would be engrossed for hours, so it looked like he had some time alone.
     In a dusty little recess beneath the floor, Justin had hidden his few attempts at poetry. He had never actually set out to be a poet, since even he had to admit that his brothers were right about it being kinda faggy. Still, he hadn't yet managed to convince his brain to stop bugging him about it. Every now and then a poem would just come to him, out of the blue, and it would nag at him until he wrote it down.
     Sometimes it was just a page full of scribblings about how much he hated his family. But not that often. Usually inspiration came in the form of odd little moments and happenings that he thought were worthy of remembering.
     For instance, the one he'd been writing earlier, the one that had been so cruelly mocked and ripped to shreds by the three philistines, had been about something he'd seen on the school bus that morning. Despite the fact that the weather was sunny and clear, he'd seen a woman standing on the corner wearing a rain slicker and carrying an umbrella.
     She was standing beneath its dome, smiling, looking as if she knew exactly what she was doing. She seemed so confident, Justin half expected it to suddenly pour down rain before the bus reached school.
     The fact that it *didn't* start raining seemed almost more surprising than if it had.
     As soon as Justin got home, he scribbled a few lines down. His first draft was lying on the floor in tatters, so he got a fresh sheet and started again. It flowed a lot better this time. Justin actually found himself thanking his brothers for destroying his first effort.
     He knew he wasn't a good poet, but he didn't care much. It wasn't like he ever expected to get published, or even wanted to. This was something he did because something inside told him to. Some part of his soul wanted him to write out these little vignettes.
     Rhyme wasn't important to him, or number of lines. It was all about how the sentences _sounded_. They had to flow correctly before he was satisfied. He weighed each line like composing music. It had to sound right, and it had to describe how the event had felt. Not so much what had actually happened, but how it had felt.
     He finished up, titled it 'Invisible Shower' and hid it under the floorboard with the rest.
     Smiling, he got out his homework and lost himself in it until it was time for bed.


          * * *


     All through school the next day, Justin was in a daze.
     The schoolwork was easy as taking a crap, so that wasn't a problem. Justin finished the worksheets in swift contempt and set them aside while everyone elses' pencils were still scratching about.
     He kept thinking about Lena. He really hoped he'd get to meet her again later. He'd had a lot of fun with her the day before.
     The young ratfemme was different from every girl he'd ever met. For one thing, she wasn't afraid to act like a boy if she felt like it. She didn't mind swearing or play-fighting or getting dirty. Yet at the same time, she was still comfortable giggling over girl stuff. Justin would've passed over those dolls she'd found without a second thought, but she had gushed over them like they were made out of gold. And he didn't mind either. She was cool about the stuff he liked, so he felt it was only fair for him to be cool about the things she liked too.
     Another thing he liked about her was the fact that she didn't take one look at him and then decide to treat him like slime. That was the reaction he got from basically everyone else at school. Even when he'd meet someone for the first time and try to at least be polite, they'd take in his appearance, and his smell, and sneer at him like they wished he'd just hurry up and die already.
     So what if he only had two pairs of pants and he had to wear 'em each for a week until Mom made him do laundry? So what if every one of his T-shirts had a hole in it, or a stain or two? So what if he smelled exactly like someone whose hobby was scrutinizing the contents of trash bags? Was that any reason to treat him like he wasn't even alive?
     Apparently, he realized, it was. He'd overheard enough mumbled comments to know that he was the school's resident 'smelly kid'. He was the untouchable. Other kids didn't even make fun of him most of the time, they just left the room or tried to act like he wasn't there.
     But Lena had been friendly to him right from the start. He guessed she'd probably been the 'smelly kid' at her school too. As he'd noticed the day before, they were on perfectly equal ground, and they both knew it. They were two of a kind. Being jerks to each other wouldn't even have made sense.
     "Mister Dalton!!!"
     Justin's head snapped forward. The teacher was giving him one of those 'How dare you daydream in my class!' looks.
     "I asked you a question!" the trim, well-dressed marten said in her usual snippy tone.
     Mrs. Robertson did not like him. Which he supposed was forgivable, considering that he didn't have a shred of respect for her.
     He smiled blithely at her. "I'm sorry, I was thinking about something more important than what you were talking about."
     If any other kid had had the balls to say that to a teacher's face, it would have gotten a full house of giggles hidden behind paws. Instead, the rest of the class just looked away in distaste.
     Mrs. Robertson was not pleased. "I asked you how many moons Mars has," she said sharply, hoping to catch him off guard.
     "Two: Phobos 'n Deimos. Got anything harder than that?" he asked suavely, tossing her a shit-eating grin.
     The teacher was not about to lose face to a student she considered little better than a maggot. "Allright then, Mister Dalton..."
     He really didn't like being called by his last name. He suspected she knew that.
     "...name all of Jupiter's moons." She grinned in triumph. She had his ass now.
     Justin grinned even wider. Without a trace of effort, he rattled off all sixteen at lightning speed. "Io, Ganymede, Elara, Carme, Amalthea, Metis, Pasiphae, Europa, Leda, Sinope, Himalia, Adrastea, Ananke, Thebe, Lysithea and, drumroll please, Callisto!"
     Mrs. Robertson's face went slack with disbelief, then turned into an ugly snarl. If looks could kill... She didn't even know half of those herself!
     He smiled innocently. It wasn't like she could punish him for giving a right answer. It was her own fault for not realizing he liked astronomy.
     She glared at him a bit more, daring him to make some smartass remark she could use to punish his little ass for.
     Justin said not a word. He'd thought about asking her if she wanted him to name all the asteroids in the Oort cloud, but that would have been pushing it. Never give your enemies anything they want, he'd learned. Never make it easy for them to punish you. Sometimes the best revenge is keeping your mouth shut and letting your adversary tear their hair out.
     Finally, Mrs. Robertson turned away with a little growl and went back to her lesson.
     He'd have to keep on his toes the rest of the day, but as long as he could keep from doing something dumb, he knew he'd won.
     He felt incredibly proud of himself.


          * * *


     "Hi Lena!!"
     "Justin! Cool! Good to see you again!"
     The little wolffox had zoomed off the bus, told Mom he was home, dropped off his homework and fled the house like it was on fire. He even bypassed his treasure chest. But he did remember to call out a hello to his plushies as he passed.
     He'd looked around the dump for a while, hoping she hadn't been just teasing him the day before. Eventually he'd spotted her in the Auto Graveyard, bent way over the open hood of the shell of some little foreign model.
     Justin rushed over to meet her. He was glad to see her twice over; glad just to see her of course, and also glad that she'd been telling the truth the other day. He'd been betrayed by a few other 'friends' in the past. But he was already mostly sure he didn't have to worry about that with Lena.
     Today she was dressed in jeans and a bright yellow shirt with some college sports team's logo on the front. "I thought you said sports were boring," he said as he arrived by her side.
     She looked confused for a second, then realized he was talking about her shirt. "Oh? Yeah, I just like the color of this one. Found it in a bag of old clothes back where I came from and it fit me, so I kept it," she explained. "Maybe I should wear it inside out?" she mused to herself.
     "Where'd you used to live?" Justin asked.
     "Not far from here. Another city called Pine Bend. It was a lot bigger than this place. Dad worked at the landfill there."
     "He must really like trash."
     She grinned, as if in on a secret. "You have no idea." She turned back to what she'd been examining before he'd arrived. "Oh, hey, lookit this."
     He stood beside her and tried to see what she was seeing. It was just a bunch of rusty car guts to him.
     "What do you think the likelihood is of me being able to get this engine up and running again?" she asked conversationally.
     "Somewhere between zero and diddly-shit," he replied automatically. Then he winced. "I mean, are you good with engines? I didn't know. I'm sorry-"
     She smiled and gave him a little shove. "You were right the first time, stoopid. This engine's dead as a doorknob. I might be able to save the flywheel and the transmission housing though. The rest's a buncha shit."
     He was rather impressed (though he thought the word she meant was 'doornail'). "Do you know a lot about cars?" he asked.
     The little rat nodded proudly. "Dad and I have a car we fixed up called the Frankenmobile. He bought it for, like, a dollar off some guy's lawn and we spent about six months putting new parts in. I loved running around in the old dump too, so he gave me a list of parts to look for. I figured I'd start today scouting for any new stuff here."
     Justin chuckled. "Good luck finding anything but truck parts. I swear, there's like a law around here that says people can only own pickups." He gestured towards the foreign model they were currently inspecting. "The cops probably confiscated this one and torched it."
     Lena laughed. It was right in his ear and really loud, but he didn't mind. "Naw, ours is some old four-door sedan. It's ugly as hell but it rides smooth." She brightened suddenly. "Now, the Green Beast's the one that's really impressive! I've gotta show her off to you sometime!"
     "We've got a station wagon," Justin shamefully admitted. "It stalls most of the time. We don't have a name for it."
     "Maybe I could come over and fix it?" she offered cheerfully, obviously excited by the idea.
     Justin paled. "Are you kidding? If my dad ever saw a girl working on his car, he'd punch your lights out!"
     Lena started to laugh, then realized he wasn't kidding. "Seriously!?"
     Justin nodded. "He loves that stupid car. He won't let anyone else touch it. But he never tries to fix it! He just swears at it and calls it girls' names when it won't start."
     Lena looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or be horrified. She decided instead to change the subject. "Anyway, that reminds me. I wanted you to meet my dad today."
     "Okay," Justin said. From her description yesterday, he sounded like a nice enough guy.
     "Come on! He's over at the front gate!" She ran off, and Justin noticed that her jeans, and her overalls the day before, hid a pair of wiry, powerful legs. It was almost impossible to keep up with her. She scrambled and jumped over piles of trash like she'd been born for it. All Justin could see of her big furless feet were flashes of pink.
     She stopped every now and then to let him catch up. She grinned at him. He definitely wasn't a lazy couch potato like Greg, but she was sure making him look like one.
     "You're acting like you've never run through a dump before!" she called over her shoulder teasingly.
     "Shut up!"



     After having traversed a good deal of the dump, they finally made it to the front gate. Justin was a bit winded, but Lena looked peppy as ever. She jogged in place for a little bit. "Slowpoke," she teased.
     Justin decided to wait until he got his breath back to reply to that.
     At the side of the main gate was a little shack that looked like a tollbooth. The incoming fursons gave the guy at the window three dollars and then they were let in to get rid of their trash. At the moment, Justin could see a little bit of the man sitting inside. Not much more than his pant legs, as he had his feet propped up on the desk, but enough to be sure that the old German Shepherd truly was gone for good. 'Bon voyage, you paranoid old poop', Justin thought.
     "Hey _DAD_!!!" Lena blasted out at an impressive volume. "Come see what I found in the garbage the other day!!" She turned around and blew a little raspberry at Justin.
     He shrugged. "Well, it's true," he had to admit.
     The door of the little booth opened up, and the man who stepped out made Justin do a double take.
     For starters, he'd expected another rat, like Lena. This guy was a skunk! His glossy black and white fur shimmered in the hot afternoon sun. His giant bushy tail swayed lazily behind him as he walked.
     He was wearing an ocean-blue button-down shirt, khakis, and tan work boots. On his head was a cowboy hat that no one but a tourist or a newcomer would actually wear, and on his pink triangular nose was perched a pair of round wire-frame bifocals.
     He was tall like a saguaro; lanky and sun-hardened. His body looked like it was made entirely of vertical lines, except for his round, warm face. He smiled cheerfully when he saw the two kids. He looked like a perfect combination of intelligence and hard work.
     "He's a skunk!" Justin noted.
     Lena laughed at him. "I'm adopted, ya fuckin' retard!" she said playfully.
     Justin glared at her, but he was grinning. "Asshole."
     "Fuckface!"
     "Shitsucker!"
     "Nipplehead!"
     Justin stopped cold. "Nipplehead?! What the hell is a nipplehead!?"
     Lena shrugged. "I don't know! It just popped out!"
     The skunk grinned as he loped up. "Well, you two seem to be playing nicely."
     Lena jumped up on him and hugged him so hard she nearly toppled him over. "Daddeeeee!" she squealed. She pointed at her wolffox friend. "This is Justin. He likes garbage too!"
     That wasn't the best way in the world to be introduced to someone, but Justin figured that in this family it wouldn't matter. He put out his paw for a shake. "Hello, sir," he said politely.
     "Well 'hello, sir' back to you too," said the skunk. He took Justin's paw in both of his and gave it one strong up-and-down pump. "Adam Tallevasco. Pleased to meet you."
     "Justin Dalton. But I don't like my last name."
     "Okay. Just Justin then."
     Justin nodded. He liked this guy already. Aside from seeming pretty cool, he was talking to him respectfully, like he was another adult. Justin couldn't remember the last time any other grown-up had treated him that way. And he was kind of a handsome skunk too. The little wolffox blushed a bit when he realized he'd thought that.
     Lena released her father and started making little patterns in the sand with her toeclaws. "Anyone do any dumping today yet, Dad?" she asked.
     "A few people." He looked across the dump, pointing off to the side. "Over there. Two guys so far. One of them had a whole truckload. Looked interesting."
     Lena grinned in delight. "Cool!"
     The tall skunk turned to Justin. "Lena was telling me about you last night at dinner. You like looking through trash too?" he asked, but in a very gentle voice so Justin would know he didn't disapprove of such activities.
     Justin was a bit embarrassed anyway. "Well, yeah. Sometimes."
     Mr. Tallevasco patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, nothing wrong with that! I've been stomping around in garbage most of my life. I'm an amateur garbologist."
     Justin arched an eyebrow in a 'you gotta be kidding me' way. "That is _not_ a real word."
     Adam looked melodramatically offended. "It is too!"
     "Really?"
     Mr. Tallevasco made a little 'trust me' gesture with his paws. "Swear to God. I'm a garbologist. I study garbage. You'd be surprised at what you can learn about a furson if you root through their trash."
     "I bet I wouldn't," Justin said with a bit of pride. "I've been dump-diving here for years now. I know plenty of stuff about people. Heck, if I wanted, I could probably rip a lot of people off. Dummies leave their bank numbers in plain sight sometimes."
     Adam was a tad startled. "That's not exactly what I meant, but I'll acknowledge we're in the same field. I'm talking more about garbage as a form of sociology. Did you know that most of the stuff archaeologists have learned about ancient civilizations, they get from looking through dead people's trash?"
     Justin thought that was kind of interesting. "Really?"
     Lena was off doing her own thing; she'd heard this plenty of times before.
     Adam crouched down in the dusty road beside Justin, his paw on the boy's shoulder. "Believe it. When you think about it, it makes sense. People from past eras would throw their trash in big heaps, just like this dump here, and it'd get buried and preserved long after all their buildings and culture were gone. Hundreds of years later, some guy stumbles by, sees something sticking out of the ground, calls an archaeologist, and presto! Just like a time capsule!"
     "That's pretty cool!" Justin said. "So someday after we're all dead, a bunch of future fursons, of maybe their robots, will uncover all this junk?"
     "Exactly," the bespectacled skunk concurred.
     "And they'll probably conclude we were all a bunch of drunken rednecks," Justin deadpanned.
     Adam snorted with laughter and nearly fell over. "I hate to say it, but I think you're right, my lupine friend."
     Justin rather liked being referred to as 'my lupine friend'.
     Mr. Tallevasco stood back up. He removed his silly hat for a moment to scratch between his ears. Justin noticed that his hair was pure white, like his stripes. "I also dabble a bit in the occult, but they're two completely different subjects."
     "Oh yes, totally unrelated!" Lena joined in.
     "Indeed. Completely and utterly unrelated."
     The two of them grinned and chucked at one another, obviously enjoying some in-joke that Justin didn't get. Maybe he'd find out eventually, but he didn't want to be rude and pry into it now.
     "You two want some snacks before you go off treasure hunting?" Mr. Tallevasco asked.
     Snacks? He was actually being offered snacks? Now Justin knew he _really_ liked this guy! "Sure! Thank you very much!" he said enthusiastically.
     "Me too, Dad!" Lena added.
     "Okee-doke. Come on in where it's cool and shady. I got some pop in the mini-fridge. I think there's some of those little cake things left over."
     Justin wondered if they were the allegedly-just-fine snack cakes Lena had found in the trash the day before. He followed the rat and the skunk into the little shack, noticing that this was the first time he'd ever been inside of it.
     It looked pretty much like a tiny little office. There was only one chair, so two of them would have to stand. There was a short wooden desk, clean and organized. Justin guessed it wouldn't stay that way much longer. At the back was a little fridge and above it was a corkboard covered in notes, schedules, and rather a lot of pictures of Adam and Lena together, always smiling brightly.
     The big skunk cracked open the fridge and it whined in protest. He tossed a can of cola to Justin. It was so chilly the wolffox nearly dropped it. Another can went to Lena. "Cheers," said Adam. He bumped cans with the two kids and they all popped their pull-tabs.
     It was good and cold, which was a nice relief on such a hot day. Lena took a long gulp, then held the can to her forehead for a while before rubbing it up and down the length of her long, furless tail.
     "Snack cake?" Adam asked, holding out the box with a few slightly-squished ones still in the bottom. He took a seat in the big, broken-in leather desk chair.
     "Are those...?" Justin started.
     "Yes, and I was right," Lena cut in. "They're fine! As long as the wrapper's intact, it's not like any germs can get in. Besides, they cram these things fulla preservatives anyway."
     Adam nodded, already nibbling on one, which was melting a bit in his paw. "That's true. I've heard these things have a shelf life of twenty years or so. Kind of strange, isn't it, to eat something that'll outlive most housepets?"
     That was certainly a weird observation. "Well, okay," Justin said bravely. "You guys are eating 'em and you're not dropping dead."
     At that, the skunk and the rat could not resist making overdramatic gagging noises and slumping over.
     "Ha ha ha," Justin said, and took the last one.
     They grinned at him.    
     And actually, the cake was not bad.


~~~~~


*part 4*


     As the days progressed, Justin and Lena swiftly and effortlessly became best friends. Soon Justin couldn't imagine life without her. She gave him a reason to be happy. Life was no longer just hiding from his brothers, getting disgusted stares from his classmates and being picked on by his teacher. His secret, solitary act of pleasure; exploring the dump, had become something shared. Which made it so much better.
     Sure, they'd occasionally have squabbles. But never any fights. They called each other filthy names constantly, but that was only playing.
     About the only thing they ever got into any real arguments about was over trash finds. Sometimes they'd discover something that both of them wanted. Eventually it was decided that 'Whosoever touches it first shall become rightful owner' would be their ironclad rule; no bitching allowed.
     Although if the loser still wanted the disputed object badly enough, they could always try to barter for it. That became a fun activity all on its own. They found it was just as much fun looking for stuff the other furson would like as it was searching for their own goodies. It was like going Christmas shopping every day.
     One such situation came up out of the blue about a week after Lena and Justin first met.



     The black plastic bag ripped satisfyingly under her paws. Lena gasped in delight at what she'd uncovered. A goldmine! Some fed-up mother had gone through her kid's closet and thrown away everything in sight. The little ratgirl called her wolffox friend over to explore it with her.
     They both reached in grinning and pulled the bag wide open. "Cool!" Justin exclaimed, as he noticed a little robot figure. It looked quite sinister, with snapping pincers and a missile launcher on top of its head. Justin poked at it, and a little red piece of plastic shot out and bonked right into his forehead. "Sweet! It's still got the missile!" Finding a toy like this with all its parts and weapons was a miracle.
     Lena was looking through some stuffed animals. "Oh, these are cute!"
     Justin looked up and noticed Lena holding a medium-sized fox plush with carrot-colored fur and a green hat and sweater.
     For some reason, he felt his heart go out to the little vixen immediately. She was adorable, and he knew right away he wanted her to cuddle with. But Lena had touched it first. How could he get it back from her without looking like a big sissy?
     Lena noticed him staring at the fox. "Um, I guess I'll keep these. If you don't mind," she said slowly, not sure if she was misreading his expression.
     Justin blushed. He trusted her, but this was still very conflicting. He was supposed to be a tough guy. Sneaky and devious. Cool and collected.
     And yet he still played with stuffed animals.
     'Then again,' a little voice spoke up, 'Lena's comfortable with being boyish sometimes. Do you really think she'd make fun of you if you wanted to be a little girlish?'
     With great courage, Justin haltingly said, "Actually, um... I'd kinda like that fox you're holding."
     Lena looked down at it. She'd seen in her friend's eyes that the plushie meant something to him. She kinda liked that. She'd had many experiences before where she'd find a stuffed animal and make an instant connection with it. Something would click, and she'd want to cuddle it right away, even if it was old and sticky and its seams were popping loose. She was happy to know that Justin could feel the same way too. "Well, you know The Rule," she said with a little smile. "You've gotta trade me something for her."
     Justin looked around, trying desperately to spot something good enough.
     She giggled. "Oh, how 'bout that gum wrapper?" she pointed out.
     Justin looked up and saw in her eyes that she knew how he felt about the plushie, and that she didn't mind. She was giving it to him to make him happy. He smiled warmly at her, passing along a silent 'thank you'. He picked up the wrapper and handed it to her.
     She gave him the fox and took the wrapper. "Ooh, I'll treasure it forever!" she gushed. They both laughed.
     Justin held the fluffy plush vixen in his arms. She was perfect. She was even in good condition; no stains, no missing patches of fur. Just one little loose seam he could easily sew up. The fox's shiny plastic eyes were happy, as if she knew she'd found the right owner. Justin gave her a little hug.
     "Awwwww," said Lena.
     Justin blushed.
     She smiled at him. "It's okay. I like plushies too. I don't think you're a baby or anything."
     Feeling a bit more confident, Justin gave his new fuzzy fox friend a kiss. He felt really happy. He looked up at Lena. "Thanks. My life sucks a lot of the time, and it's nice to have something soft to hold, you know?"
     She nodded, understanding perfectly. "Do you give yours names?" she asked.
     "Oh, of course," he replied without hesitation. "Who doesn't?"
     "I thought so. Only fursons who really care about their plushies name them," she said sagely.
     Justin froze. A terrifying, impossible thought had suddenly occurred to him. 'No. Never. Not in a million years...' It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Do you wanna go see something in the woods?"
     "Mmmmmaybe. What is it?" She noticed how nervous he looked. "Is it something secret? Something special?"
     Justin was trembling all over. He weakly managed to nod. A large part of him was screaming not to do this. It was his freakin' Treasure Chest, dammit! No one was supposed to know about it but him! Never ever ever!!!
     Lena got to her feet. "Wanna go now?" From the tremor in his eyes, she guessed that this was something he'd only have the courage for if they did it right away, while the idea was fresh. If she let it wait till later, it probably wouldn't happen at all.
     "Um, I guess so." He gathered up all of the day's finds in his backpack, mindful to keep Lena's stuff separate in a plastic bag. He stood up and looked at her, feeling awkward.
     "Where do we hafta go?" she asked, her green eyes wide with curiosity.
     He pointed in the general direction. "Over there, past all the cars. I know where it is. Just follow me."
     "Okay."
     Justin shouldered his backpack and started leading the way.
     'You colossal idiot!' part of him screamed. 'You can't show her the secret treasure chest! Turn back now before it's too late!'
     'Shut up! I already told her I was gonna show her something,' another part replied.
     'Show her a tree! Show her a rock! Anything but the footlocker!'
     'Why not? She's not gonna laugh, or try to steal anything. She's my friend.'
     'You *think* she's your friend! Are you really gonna trust her with the biggest secret you have?'
     "Fuck you," he muttered under his breath. "Lena's cool. I'm not gonna be a jerk about this."
     "Did you say something?" Lena called out from behind him.
     "Just talking to myself!" he shouted over his shoulder.
     Just from the look on his face, the young rat could tell that her new best friend was really worried about showing her whatever it was he was about to show her. It was probably something he'd never let anyone else know about before.
     Lena sighed sadly. It reminded her of the secret she was keeping from him. She honestly didn't know if she would ever feel comfortable telling him, even though she'd been considering the idea for a week now. Maybe she'd never find anyone she could tell...



     The two little ones walked along in silence for quite some time before they reached the slightly rusty black footlocker. It was partially buried in the dirt, and camouflaged by a pile of tree limbs.
     Lena was confused. "It's a box. It's a big black box," she said flatly.
     "Well, there's stuff inside it, ya moron," he kidded.
     "Oh. That makes sense."
     Justin knelt down in the soft, cool earth. He tossed the tree branches to the side and was about to start fiddling with the combination lock. He stopped and looked uneasily at Lena. "Hey. Um... Could you become really interested in something over there right now?" he asked her.
     Lena understood. She turned around. "Oh look! Some trees!" she exclaimed.
     Justin was still too nervous to laugh, though the way she'd said it was pretty funny. He quickly spun in the combination and popped the lock off. "Okay, you can look now," he said.
     Lena got down on the ground beside him. The forest around them was cool and calm. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the occasional tweet of a bird. "What's in it?" she asked in a hushed, eager tone.
     Justin put his paws on the sides of the lid. He hesitated and bit his lip. He turned to Lena, feeling almost like he was about to cry. "Um... Look, this is really personal stuff. I've never shown anyone this before. This is like baring my soul to you, so be cool about it, okay?"
     His slightly brusque tone did not offend her. Rather, she knew exactly what he was feeling. She leaned closer and gave him a sudden hug. "It's okay. I won't laugh, or whatever you're worried I'll do. You're my best friend, Justin." And with that, she gave him a little kiss on the cheek.
     Justin looked at her with wide eyes. Surprise had completely replaced anxiety. "You kissed me," he said flatly.
     She blushed, not sure if that had been the right thing to do. "Yeah..."
     He smiled suddenly. He touched his cheek where she'd kissed him. "Thanks."
     She smiled too. "You're welcome."
     Justin hesitated for a second, then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek too.
     Lena giggled. The little rat's tail flicked happily.
     Her whiskers had tickled! Justin gave her a beaming smile. All at once, he felt completely comfortable with showing her his treasures. "Okay, here it is." He lifted up the lid.
     "Oh wow!" Lena took in the sight before her. The box was full of toys! All sorts of neat stuff, all of it cleaned up and well-cared for. Everything was organized into cardboard boxes. Action figures, Legos, trading cards, toy cars, robots, a stack of paperback books (one of which had a rather dirty-sounding title), and a small collection of stuffed animals.
     Justin felt his cheeks get hot when her gaze fell upon his plushies.
     "They're cute!" she squeaked. She reached in to pick one up, then abruptly stopped herself and looked to Justin to see if it was okay.
     He felt a little alarmed, but was relieved to see her stop and ask him for permission. "It's okay."
     They both reached in and got out the plushies, sitting them on the ground beside the box or on their laps.
     "What are their names?" Lena asked.
     Justin pointed to the foot-tall purple skunk she was holding. "That's Violet." He went in a circle, pointing out each of his beloved plushies in turn. A handsome brown fox with extremely lifelike eyes: "Alex." A plump skunk that was actually a large hand puppet: "Melissa." A seated squirrel the color of smoke: "Sandy." Another fox, this one with yellowish fur and a happy smile: "Kit." A black-furred mouse with blue eyes in a red top hat and vest: "Sammy." A little black bat with velvety wings: "Serena." A donut-shaped, lying down vixen with a white face: "Amanda." A pudgy grey mouse with white paws and a red nose: "Rachel. She's my favorite." And finally a white mouse in a slightly tattered adventurer's costume: "And this is Ruthie."
     "Wasn't she on some cartoon show?" Lena asked.
     "I think so. I found her at a flea market," Justin said.
     Lena noticed that all the plushies but Ruthie and Sammy were nonevs, meaning 'non-evolved': they looked more like wild animals instead of civilized fursons. She noticed two things that all of them had in common though. One, they all had very expressive faces. Some of them had gentle smiles. Some of them looked a little sad, as if they needed someone to come pick them up and give them a hug. And two, they were all obviously very well taken care of. They all had clean, fluffy fur, and she even noticed a few that showed clumsy but loving attempts to patch up their ripped seams.
     The little ratgirl smiled warmly. She gathered all of Justin's plushies up in her arms and gave them a great big hug. "I'm very pleased to meet you all!" she said with a giggle.
     Justin felt something wondrous in his heart. He'd shared his most closely guarded secret with someone, and it hadn't been scary at all. It hadn't backfired. In fact, seeing Lena cuddling the plushies that he loved so much, seeing them all sitting on her lap getting hugged, made Justin feel happy and content inside. He was glad she was enjoying his plushies. He liked being able to share them.
     "Remember the one in your backpack," Lena noted.
     "Oh," said Justin. He slipped his pack off and unzipped it. He fumbled around inside for a bit before bringing out his new little vixen in her green sweater and hat. He gave her a happy hug.
     "And what's her name?" Lena asked. "A lot of times when I get a new plushie, even if they don't have a tag, they'll tell me their names right away. I'll just look at them, and I'll know."
     Justin grinned. "Hey, that happens to me too!" He looked into the pretty green eyes of his new fox. "Felicia," he said at last, and with finality. "Her name's Felicia."
     Lena reached over to pat the little fox on the head. "Hello, Felicia. I'm sure Justin will take good care of you."
     "I will," the wolffox boy assured. He gave Felicia a kiss, and then sniffed her. "Hey, neat. I won't have to wash her off. She doesn't smell bad at all."
     Out of curiosity, Lena sniffed the plushies she was holding. "These ones are all stinky," she declared.
     Justin looked worried for a second. "What do you mean? Did something spill on them?" he asked worriedly.
     She giggled. "No, silly! They smell like you! Stinky puppy smell!"
     Justin grinned and gave her a little foxish bark. "I do not stink!" Then he thought about it. "Well, okay. I guess I do. But you stink too," he said playfully.
     "Really? Oh goody! Do I smell like stinky trash?"
     Justin nodded. "Uh huh. And you have your own special smelly rat smell."
     She grinned brightly and hugged his plushies. "Thank you! You smell like stinky garbage too, Justin!"
     He chuckled. "Thank you too." Among the both of them, that was certainly not an insult in any way. In fact, the more he thought about it, calling each other stinky like garbage was kind of a compliment.
     "You stink, Lena," he said tenderly.
     "You stink too, Justin."
     And oddly enough, they'd both said it exactly like saying 'I love you'.


~~~~~


*part 5*


     The screen door slammed behind him with a loud clatter. "I'm home!" Justin called out.
     "Don't slam the goddam door," his mother groused from the couch.
     "Sorry," he said automatically without meaning it. "Um, I'm gonna be going over to a friend's house for dinner tonight, is that okay?" His voice was guarded and hesitant.
     She looked up from the television. Her sagging, puffy face held nothing but suspicion. "Since when do you have friends?" she asked cruelly.
     Justin winced. 'Ouch.' He straightened up. "A new kid moved in. I've known him for a while now." He'd decided it would be a lot better if no one knew his new friend was a girl. His brothers would undoubtedly call him a fag, but at least they wouldn't really mean it. God knew what kind of sick mind games they'd think up if they found out he had a girlfriend-of-sorts. "He invited me over to his place tonight."
     The whale of a wolf regarded her son with beady eyes like broken bottle shards pressed into bread dough.
     Justin kept his mouth shut. She was waiting for him to crack, to admit that he wasn't telling her the whole truth. He wasn't going to let her intimidate him this time. Knowing that Lena was waiting for him gave him strength. It was interesting for him to realize that it was easier to stand firm when you were doing it for someone else that you cared about.
     Finally she grunted and looked away, starting to stare again at whatever insipid talk show was on at the moment. "Fine. Go off and do whatever. You're probably going to go get in trouble, aren't you? Well, don't expect me to bail you out if you do something stupid and get caught."
     "Thank you," he said with a little nod. "And I'm not gonna do anything bad," he added softly. He wished she could just maybe try a little bit, just once, to not think the worst of him.
     She was silent as stone.
     Justin turned to leave, when she spoke up suddenly.
     "I'm lockin' the doors before I go to bed. So if you're not home by then, you're out of luck," she mumbled.
     "Okay," said Justin. Normally her attitude would piss him off, but today it just saddened him. He shut the screen door gently behind him as he left.



     Lena was waiting for him in the woods behind the house. "Did she say yes?" she asked, not sounding very hopeful.
     Justin shrugged and smiled. "Stop the presses. The lard-beast actually didn't give me too much shit about it."
     Lena did a little jump of happiness. "Great!" She was dressed in her overalls again today, this time with a powder-blue T-shirt that read "Fuck Everything" in dainty cursive script. (She told Justin it was the only shirt she'd ever bought in store, because she liked the philosophy so much.) She also had a pink scrunchie in her hair, making a kind of almost-ponytail out of her terminally messy locks.
     Justin was clad in jeans and a black shirt with "AH BOO DEE BOO DAH" printed on it in red block letters. Neither he nor anyone at school knew what it meant. He suspected it was a band name.
     With warm afternoon sunshine on their shoulders, the two friends wandered off unhurriedly, talking casually about whatever popped into their heads. They planned to take a while to partake in their favorite pastime at the dump, then head over to Lena's house afterwards for dinner. Justin was looking forward to finally seeing where she lived, and getting the chance to find out what actual home-cooked food tasted like.


          * * *


     A few hours later, they both had sweaty fur, dirty pants and not much to show for it. Justin had made out better than Lena, but overall it was a mediocre trash day. A nicely-painted rubber pencil topper shaped like a dinosaur was the most exciting thing he'd found.
     It didn't matter though. He was happy enough just to spend time with Lena. He felt a sort of giddy pleasure at just knowing that she liked him enough to invite him over. He'd never been asked over to a friend's house before. He really had no idea what the procedure was. He just hoped he'd have a good time and not do anything embarrassing.
     Brushing the schmutz from their paws and pant legs, he and Lena headed out of the dump. The front gates were chained and padlocked when they finally reached the edge. The collection booth was empty. Adam had quit for the day and was already home starting on dinner.
     "So, what's your dad gonna cook?" Justin asked as they turned left at the gates and headed into a patch of trees.
     "I dunno. Something tasty. He's a good cook," Lena said, sounding quite proud of him.
     "My mom's never cooked anything tasty in her life," Justin replied with a wry grin. "At my house, if it doesn't come out of a box, it doesn't end up on the table."
     Lena chuckled. She did not have to ask why Justin had never invited her over to his house. The fact didn't bother her at all. In fact, it made her glad. It showed her that he cared about her enough to want to keep her hidden and protected from his family, like his footlocker full of treasures.
     The two of them stepped out of a cluster of trees and came upon a small, modest wooden house. Two stories plus a front porch and an expansive yard. The walls were painted cola-at-the-bottom-of-the-glass brown, with sky blue window shutters. Justin thought the place looked cozy and friendly.
     There were various bits of trash and toys littering the front yard, along with an ugly brown four-door sedan. One of its doors was orange. "The Frankenmobile?" he guessed.
     Lena nodded. "Good, you remembered!" Then she grinned from ear to ear and tugged on his arm. "Come on back behind the house! You've gotta meet the Green Beast!" she said excitedly.
     Lena had never exactly explained what kind of car the Green Beast was. Justin had guessed it was probably A: green and B: rather large. He was rather curious about it, since she'd always sounded so proud of it. He followed her to the backyard through a grove of tall, tickly weeds on the side of the house.
     And then he stopped dead in his tracks.
     "Holy shit!!" he shouted with a grin.
     Sitting there, basking in the sun, was a garbage truck! An _enormous_ garbage truck! A nifty older model too; probably several decades old. It looked like it had been fully restored. It was painted a bright, sparkling kelly green. It had loads of personality. The round headlights and broad grille seemed to smile at Justin and say, 'Howdy!'
     "You _own_ a garbage truck?! Sweet Jesus, that's cool!" he exploded.
     Lena giggled, bounced over and gave the truck's front wheel cover a hug. "Meet the Beast! Dad bought her at a public auction years back when he was still working at the landfill. She really looked awful back then! He was the only bidder and we got her for a tenth what she's worth. We've been fixing her guts and spiffing up her paint job ever since. We've even done some custom work. Dad's got a crystal skull for the gear shift knob."
     Justin walked slowly around the truck, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. His gaze was reverent, as if in the presence of a great work of art. "She's beautiful!" he finally sputtered.
     Lena seemed to really appreciate him saying that. "Thanks! I just love her to bits. Dad's trying to work out a deal with city hall to set up a weekly trash collection. The Beast wants to get out on the road and do her job."
     Justin seemed sad to hear that. "But then all the trash'll get crushed before we get a chance to go through it!" he protested.
     She laughed at him like that was the stupidest thing he'd ever said. "You total dumbass! Dad would never do that! You know he knows I love trash-picking. The Beast's collection bin's so big and this city's so small, Dad won't have to compact the stuff at all. It'll be like getting the stuff delivered right to our doorstep! And we'll never have to worry about being spied on while we trash-pick ever again!"
     Justin's frown turned upside down. "That's great!!" he said excitedly.
     "Wanna look in the back?" Lena asked.
     "Sure!"
     The two of them raced around to the Green Beast's backside. Lena was right, the place where the garbage would go was cavernous. "Heloooo!" he shouted, and indeed there was an echo.
     "She's an extra-huge model," Lena explained. "Made for some big city's trash collection, so she can hold a lot. She could hold a month's worth of this town's garbage. Dad could probably do two weeks' worth of rounds without having to compact anything!"
     Justin looked around inside, scrutinizing all the moving parts, wondering how that huge blade came down and scooped up its cargo.
     "Wanna hop inside?" she dared.
     "In this heat?" he said incredulously. "Fuck you! I'd burn my feet off!"
     She gave him a sly 'you have no idea what you're talking about' look. "Trust me. Hop up inside. I'll even give you a push."
     Intrigued now, and mostly certain that she wouldn't ask him to if it wasn't safe, Justin took hold of the edge of the collection bin and hoisted himself up. "No thanks, I can do it myself."
     In a flash, Lena had jumped up beside him. "Me too," she said smugly.
     He stuck his tongue out at her, then lifted one leg over the side and stepped into the garbage truck's interior. He lowered his paw carefully, expecting the metal to be searing hot considering it'd been sitting in the sun all day long.
     To his surprise, the metal floor was nice and cool. He gingerly stepped all the way in, mindful not to bash his skull on the low-hanging blade. "Wow! It's cool in here. How'd you do it?"
     Lena followed him inside. She walked around, her arms spread wide as if showing off a new house. The truck actually seemed even bigger now that they were inside of it. It looked like they could host a party in here. "A thin sheet of insulating foamy stuff over the old walls, and some new low-heat-conducting panels over top of that," she described. "She's like a fuckin' huge Thermos on wheels! In the summer, it's always nice 'n cool inside. When it gets really hot out, it's nice to come in here and lay down, have some lemonade, and read a good book."
     Justin looked around in wonder. "I didn't think it was possible..." he started, craning his neck around to get a good look up inside the turtle-shell-shaped roof, "...but I'm actually even _more_ ashamed of my dad's station wagon now."
     Lena giggled.
     All of a sudden, Justin heard a loud 'thunk', and then a deafening whirring filled the truck's interior.
     Startled, the young wolffox looked towards where he'd come in ...and realized the blade was moving! Someone had started up the truck's compactor!
     He whirled around to Lena, panic in his eyes, and was further perplexed by the fact that she seemed totally calm! She walked over and took hold of his arm. She gazed at him with a very wicked smile.
     "Lena! The blade! We're gonna get crushed!!" he shouted.
     "Exactly," she purred, then let out a long villainous laugh.
     The blade was coming closer and closer. The whine of the hydraulics made the floor vibrate. The sunlight shrank to just a thin blinding line under the edge of the blade.
     "What the hell is going on here!?" he howled.
     "You're trapped!" Lena said melodramatically. "Trapped in my Garbage Truck Of Doom, and there's no escape!"
     Justin flattened himself against the back of the bin, watching that gigantic heavy wall of metal inch closer, closing in on him like a venus flytrap...
     And all of a sudden it just stopped.
     There was at least four feet of room left between him and the blade.
     Lena fell over on the floor laughing.
     Justin finally realized that they'd been completely safe the entire time. "You bitch!" he screamed at her, starting to laugh too. "You complete bitch! You almost gave me a fuckin' heart attack!"
     Lena was laughing so hard she could barely talk. "Th-the look on your f-f-face!!" she sputtered. She rolled over on her back, cackling wildly, her legs kicking in the air. "Her bin's so big, the blade doesn't go all the way back. Did you even stop to think that I'd get squished too?"
     Okay, yeah, on hindsight that was kinda obvious. Justin tried to look furious at her, but it was hard to bite back giggles. He'd been had, and there was no use denying it. "Allright, it was funny. You scared me so bad I'm gonna have to wash my pants now. Ha ha," he deadpanned.
     Lena sat up and grinned like a hyena. "Number one or two?" she asked cutely.
     "Both. And a little of number three," he replied.
     That totally knocked her out. She fell over laughing again.
     By now the blade had begun to return to its original position. As it lifted, Justin could make out a figure standing there at the opening.
     Once the hydraulics stopped and the Beast was once again dormant, Lena's dad crawled up inside. "Hello, Justin!" he called out with a smile. "Sorry if I scared you too bad. Lena made me do it."
     "It's true," she said matter-of-factly. "I held a gun to his head 'n everything," she kidded.
     'Of course,' Justin thought. 'Someone had to have been operating it from inside the cab.' "You have a really strange way of welcoming guests, Mr. Tallevasco," he said, putting out his paw for a shake.
     Another hearty up-and-down pump. "Actually, you're the first one besides me and th' ratgirl here to see the Beast's interior. Ain't she a beaut?"
     "She is pretty damn cool," Justin admitted.
     "Did Lena tell you about my plan to start up a weekly trash collection?" Adam asked.
     "Mm-hmm. Sounds like a good idea."
     "If you like, once the city commissioner makes his decision, which should be any day now by the way, I'll let you ride with me in the cab sometime," he offered.
     Justin perked up. "Really? Sweet! Thank you!" He gave the lanky skunk another, much more vigorous handshake.
     "How's dinner coming?" Lena piped up. "I'm hungry."
     "A few more minutes, sweetie," her father said. He tussled her already-ruffled hair. "You two can come on inside the house if you like."
     "Okay. 'Bye Beast!" Lena said, and gave the side of her beloved trash truck another hug.
     Adam suddenly scooped her up under one arm and carried her with him out of the truck, making noises like a hungry bear carrying off a tasty lost Girl Scout. Lena giggled riotously and her tail swished about behind her.
     Justin paused a bit, watching them leave.
     The moment struck him rather forcefully. Seeing Lena and her dad playing together like that was like looking into an alternate dimension. He didn't think either of his parents had *ever* called him sweetie.
     "Geeze, what a difference!" he muttered in wonderment, then scrambled to hop out of the truck and catch up to them.



     A wall of smell nearly knocked Justin over as he entered the house.
     Food! Actual, home-cooked, not store-bought, FOOD! It was like uncovering the Holy Grail!
     He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway and just inhaled the magnificent odor. He had no idea what it was. Some kind of meat maybe. He simply did not have any point of reference to compare this wonderful, mouthwatering aroma to!
     As he stood there, he was eventually able to wrench his attention away from the cooking smells to take a look inside the house. It looked tidy and clean inside. Someone else had probably lived here before, but Lena and her dad had already done a great job of making it distinctly their own. The furniture definitely looked lived-in, but everything was arranged nicely. He noted the wide grey sofa, two tall bookshelves and a curio cabinet which was almost certainly filled with fascinating knickknacks. There was a great big rug on the floor with what looked like Indian designs woven into it.
     Justin was about to step inside, when he caught his reflection in the plexiglass middle section of the screen door.
     He was a mess. He'd never really noticed it so acutely before. His clothes were dirty and worn-out. His fur was matted, scruffy, and encrusted with sweat and grime. He looked, and probably smelled, like he hadn't taken a bath in weeks.
     The young wolffox felt suddenly very ashamed of himself. His tail hung down between his legs. He didn't want to taint this pretty house with his filthy presence.
     Mr. Tallevasco walked by and saw him standing there. "You want milk or soda with..." He stopped in midsentence, noticing the pain in his young guest's eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked gently.
     Justin didn't know how to respond. "Um..." He averted his eyes. "Your house looks really nice," he said finally, almost in a whisper.
     Mr. Tallevasco was about to thank him, when he realized that the little wolffox had really meant something more: 'It's too pretty for a smelly loser like me to deserve to set foot in'.
     Justin closed his eyes and looked like he was trying hard not to look like he was about to cry.
     Frowning with concern, the tall skunk knew he couldn't just let Justin feel this way. He reached out, grabbed the little wolffox under his armpits, and bodily lifted him into the room. "There," he said happily.
     Justin looked about in surprise. "Why did you...?"
     Adam kneeled down to the boy's eye level. "Justin, I'll bet a lot of people treat you like dirt because of how you look, huh?" he said softly.
     Justin nodded.
     "I'm not going to treat you like that. I promise. I look at you and I see a smart, friendly, polite kid who makes my daughter smile when she talks about you."
     Justin's lip trembled.
     "I look at you the same way I look at that big gorgeous dump I spent so much time and energy to purchase. Everyone else sees a huge pile of smelly trash. They don't give it a second's thought. I see something wonderful. I see acres of free stuff to wade through and explore. Lena sees an everlasting source of interesting bags and boxes to root through to find all sorts of cool stuff. Hidden, special stuff. So what if it's a little smelly, or dirty? Wash it off, give it some care, and it'll sparkle."
     Justin could not keep his stony composure a second longer. He let out a sob and fell forward into Mr. Tallevasco's open arms. He shuddered and cried on the skunk's broad shoulder.
     Adam patted the boy on the back and held him tight. "It's okay, Justin. Lena's been telling me about your family. She said she didn't think you'd mind. I think it's just horrible that you have to come home to a place like that every day. You're a good kid, Justin. Anyone who says different is a blind idiot."
     The little wolffox's whole body shook as he cried even harder. The fabric of Mr. Tallevasco's shirt was getting soaked with tears.
     "And considering that I'm a skunk, and that I grew up in a small town like this where the other kids would throw rocks at me and call me the most awful names you can imagine, you can believe me when I say I'll never, ever make fun of you or look down on you because of how you look or smell. I would be the worst hypocrite in the world if I did."
     Justin smiled warmly. He felt like he was having a heartquake. He barely knew how to respond to this. Being treated with respect was one thing. Having all these nice things said to him, things no one had ever said to him before, and all of them at once, he had no idea how to handle it. He felt like he was about to shatter like glass.
     Adam gave him a strong pat on the back. "Come on. I made some meatloaf and mashed potatoes. You can have as much as you like. I'm happy to welcome you into my house, Justin. You're my guest."
     He stood up and took Justin's paw in his own.
     Justin managed to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his trembling arm. He looked up to Mr. Tallevasco. "Thank you so much."
     "It's okay," he said warmly. "You looked like you were way overdue for someone to say something nice to you."
     Justin smiled weakly, his heart still fluttering, as the two of them walked inside to where dinner was waiting.


~~~~~


*part 6*


     Lena abruptly belched the word 'fuck'.
     Adam and Justin both laughed out loud.
     The meal was over, and Justin considered it to be the single greatest feast he had ever eaten. He'd had four slices of Mr. Tallevasco's meatloaf and had to work really hard to keep himself from just devouring it like he was starving. It was so _good_! Hot, meaty and juicy! Seasoned perfectly, with little green olives on top for decoration. (Mr. Tallevasco said that slices of green pepper were a more traditional garnish, but that Lena loathed them.)
     The mashed potatoes were amazing too. They were _actual_ potatoes! Potatoes that had Come Out Of The Ground and were then Peeled and Mashed and Cooked! Not From A Box!! The concept alone was astonishing to Justin. He was sure he'd probably never be able to eat that instant crap again for the rest of his life.
     Heck, even the green beans, which he normally hated as much as Lena hated green peppers, were tasty. Apparently it had something to do with the fact that Mr. Tallevasco actually knew how to *cook* them, whereas his mother just tossed the frozen kind in a pan and proceeded to burn the shit out of them without fail.
     More than anything though, what affected Justin most was the simple fact that he was sitting at a table eating dinner and nobody was fighting or scowling or threatening one another. They were all just talking pleasantly and enjoying their food. Justin knew for certain that they really were glad to have him here; they weren't just doing this out of pity.
     It reminded him conversely of the time when he'd been in second grade and his teacher had decided to make him her 'fixer-upper' project.
     She had told him how very, very sorry she was that he had to come to school in such raggedy clothes, and how his mother obviously didn't know how to properly bathe him, and other 'you poor baby' crap like that.
     Even at that young age, Justin knew better than to put up with that kind of attitude for long. Her compassion was all sticky-sweet and substanceless. She didn't care about him as a furson. She wanted him to be her little pet. She wanted to give him a good scrubbing and turn him into a perfect gentleman. It was all about her own wants.
     One morning, she'd been in his face, smothering him in baby talk, and he'd simply decided that enough was enough. With no warning, he lashed out and bit her nose as hard as he could. Being just a seven-year-old, he really didn't have much jaw power, but the sheer shock value of the act was more than enough to do the trick. His teacher had screamed and shoved him away, calling him a horrid little monster.
     After that, she'd watched him like he was a rabid dog off its leash. He'd certainly put a stop to her little mind games.
     Justin stopped his thoughts, and pushed that memory aside.
     That was then and now was now. Now he was sitting here with a belly full of delicious food. Now he was sitting across from his best friend, who he'd trusted enough to show her his Treasure Chest. Now he was in the home of a man who'd showed him more genuine kindness in five minutes than he had ever received in the entire rest of his life.
     Adam noticed that Justin was staring down at his plate with a cloudy expression. He worried that the young canine might be mentally beating himself up again. "Justin? Yoo hoo?" he cautiously spoke.
     The wolffox's head sprang up. "Wha? Oh, sorry. Just thinkin' about stuff." He smiled brightly. "That was the best meal I've ever eaten!" he declared forcefully.
     The bespectacled skunk smiled. It looked like the kid was doing okay after all. "You're very much welcome!"
     "Told'ja my dad knows how to cook," Lena bragged proudly.
     "Hey, after the junk I gotta eat day after day, I wouldn't mind eating some escaped mental patient's cooking. Eating stuff that's actually well-made is almost too much!" Justin kidded.
     "I'll take that as a compliment, I think," Adam said with a lopsided smile.
     "It is, Mr. Tallevasco!" he assured. "I really am impressed. Thank you again for having me over." He turned to Lena. "And thank you too for inviting me."
     "You're welcome," they said in stereo.
     "So, do you want me to help clean up the dishes?" Justin asked.
     Mr. Tallevasco waved it away. "Naw, that's okay. You kids go play or something. I'll handle the mess."
     Justin got up and started stacking his dirty dishes anyway. "No, really, I wanna help! Please!"
     The skunk gave him a warm smile, then he turned to Lena. "How come you never beg me to do chores?" he asked rhetorically.
     She giggled. She turned to Justin, who was already gathering up her dishes as well. "'Cuz I'm not that stoopid," she kidded, crossing her eyes at him.
     "I'm not stoopid, I'm just a heck of a lot more polite than you," he countered smartly with a little 'so there' grin.
     Out of the blue, she leaned over in her seat and smooched him on the cheek. "I know. I'm just a total jerk, aren't I?"
     "Oh, absolutely!" he readily agreed.
     Adam hid his chortles behind his paw as the two of them continued to gleefully insult each other while they cleaned up the table together.



     After the dishes had all been washed and put away through a cheerful team effort, Lena showed Justin her room. Despite having moved in less than a month ago, the place was already a complete pigsty. It was the total opposite of the serene, tidy livingroom. She'd even made a little sign to hang on the door: 'BEWARE OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE'.
     Justin, of course, thought the place looked great. There was neat stuff strewn all over the floor and overflowing out of the closets. You could hardly walk anywhere without stepping on something. Rude posters adorned the walls. Dirty underwear and socks could be seen laying about shamelessly.
     Lena bounded across the room, instinctually knowing where to step, and jumped up onto her bed. She bounced a bit and told him to come join her. She chuckled at his valiant, but ultimately doomed, quest to cross the room without stepping on anything hard and pointy.
     Once they were both on the bed, Lena pointed out a huge mound of plushies that was almost as big as she was. She said that she'd found nearly all of them in the trash, and all the rest were from flea markets and yard sales. She said the town that she'd left had flea markets everywhere. Being the packrat that she was (no pun intended), she adored places like that, and so did her father. They went to three or four every week. Lena said that pretty much everything in the house was either used or garbage-picked, and she sounded very proud of that fact. "It's good for the environment, too," she noted. "We're recycling."
     Justin was content to just sit and listen as she gave him the grand tour of her room. He sat and hugged her plushies as she showed him all sorts of strange and interesting things she'd collected over the years. She seemed to remember flawlessly where absolutely everything in the room had come from. Many of her possessions held fascinating stories of how they'd come into the young ratgirl's possession. She told of amazing coincidences, lucky finds, and valuable collectibles that she'd bought from clueless flea market vendors for fractions of their true worth.
     Lena noticed that Justin seemed to have a particular fondness for a little brown bat plushie she said she'd found years ago at a yard sale for a quarter. As she talked, he petted the bat's fur and caressed her wings.
     "You can have her if you like," she said suddenly.
     He frowned. "No way! She's one of yours. I couldn't take her!"
     Lena smiled a strange, serene smile. "Do you realize that out of all my plushies, she's about the only one I don't have a real connection with? All the other ones I clicked with right away, like we were talking about before. Her, I just saw her lying there and bought her because she was cheap and cute."
     "Really?" Justin asked in disbelief.
     Lena nodded. "I've looked in her eyes a dozen times, and she's never told me her name. I should have known it was because I'm not sposto have her. You are."
     The coincidence of it was powerful. Justin had felt drawn to the little bat the second he'd seen her lying amongst the other plushies. Her fur was the color of chocolate milk. She had a little pink plastic nose and felt feet. "I think she likes me, Lena. She's smiling."
     Now it was Lena's turn to be surprised. "You're kidding!" She came closer and studied the plushie. The little bat's mouth had been stitched in such a way that it eternally resembled a sad frown.
     But Justin had noticed that, if he held her at just the right angle, he could see just the tiniest trace of a smile. "See? Look."
     Lena could see it. "Wow... I never noticed that before. That's it; you _totally_ have to keep her now. She's chosen you."
     Justin smiled. He looked into the little bat's calm dark plastic eyes.
     "What's her name?" Lena asked softly.
     Justin waited a second for it to come, and it did. "Cleo," he said at last, and with finality. "Her name's Cleo."



     Once the sun had set and the stars came out, Justin, Lena and Mr. Tallevasco retired to the porch. They sat in well-worn lawn chairs and slurped popsicles. Cleo was tucked snugly in Justin's shirt pocket.
     The night was quiet, but not silent. Dozens of night noises surrounded them, becoming clearer if they listened closely. Crickets chirruped. Frogs peeped and burped. The wind made the high grass sing. Somewhere in the distance, a lonely pickup truck was heading home.
     "Thank you again," Justin said softly to Mr. Tallevasco.
     The skunk smiled. He reached over and ruffled Justin's hair a little. "You're welcome. And don't worry. I'm glad you came. You're one of the most polite kids I've ever met."
     Justin chuckled. "That's funny. My teachers have all thought I was the son of the devil."
     "That's 'cuz you are," Lena whispered with a giggle.
     He smiled casually back at her. "With my dad, you're probably right," he whispered back.
     She snickered. "Popsicle!" she suddenly warned.
     Justin caught it in his mouth just before it would have fallen off the stick and stained his jeans. He crunched it up and swallowed, feeling the artificially-flavored goodness cool his throat and trickle through his chinfur. "Thanks."
     Mr. Tallevasco seemed deep in thought. "Your teachers, Justin..." he started, thinking about some of the rather unsettling school stories Justin had related while they were eating. Unsettling not for how they portrayed Justin, but how they portrayed the people who were in charge of his education.
     "Hmm?" Justin perked up.
     "Have any of them ever really treated you with any respect?"
     He shook his head. "Not really."
     "Have you at least tried to give them a reason to?"
     "Oh sure," he said immediately. "Every year, I tell myself I'm gonna be a good boy this time. I try to start out just sitting in the back, doing the work and keeping my mouth shut. But by now everybody knows about me and I'm sure they spread rumors about me in the teacher's lounge."
     The skunk nodded, expecting that. "And can you honestly say that your respect for them has only vanished when they showed they had none for you?"
     Justin thought this guy must be a mind reader. "Yeah. I try not to get in trouble. I try not to start fights. But they always happen anyway. My temper gets out of control sometimes. I get someone up in my face acting like I'm the scum of the earth, blaming me for stuff I didn't do, calling me names, and I can't take it anymore. It's not like I get into fistfights or anything. I've punched a few other kids, yeah, but never a teacher. Mostly I just insult them. I'm good at it. I'm good at finding whatever'll piss them off the most and just stabbing at it." He felt a little ashamed to be admitting all this, but he thought that Lena and her dad had both demonstrated aptly that they were trustworthy, and that they deserved his honesty.
     Mr. Tallevasco was quiet for a while. "So, basically, your teachers don't respect you, then when you treat them exactly as they're treating you, they call you the son of the devil," he said slowly, as if piecing together a complex philosophical riddle.
     "Well, none of them have ever called me _that_, but they've called me loads of other stuff. Monster. Sociopath. That Dirty Kid. Walking Disaster. I actually kinda like that last one," he said, trying to sound as if those names really didn't hurt as much as they did.
     "So they treat you like that, and they expect you to just take it with a happy smile on your face? And then they're shocked and outraged when you don't. Hm..." He stood up, stretched his arms, and lapped up the last of his popsicle.
     Justin looked up at him.
     Mr. Tallevasco leaned in closer, gave him a caring, wise smile, and patted him on the shoulder. "That doesn't sound very fair to me, now does it?"
     With that, he turned and walked back into the house. "G'night you two," he said before the screen door squeaked shut behind him.
     Justin sat quietly, slightly stunned.
     Lena scootched her chair a little closer to him, the metal legs thumping hollowly on the wooden porch. She put her arms around the little wolffox in a loose hug. "My dad's a nice guy, huh?"
     Justin nodded silently. He looked up at the starry sky, a quivering, peaceful smile on his face.
     "He's really good at making people feel better about stuff."
     Justin turned to Lena. "I envy you so much," he said suddenly, softly, and with all the sincerity in his heart. "I'd give anything if your dad could adopt me too and I could be your brother and we could be a family."
     Lena hugged him tighter. "I'd like that too. You'd make a good brother."
     Justin put his paw on her cheek, feeling the cottony-soft, almost-white fur.
     She looked up into his eyes. Her whiskers bounced.
     Justin leaned closer and softly kissed her on the lips.
     Lena flowed into the kiss with him.
     The night made soft noises all around them.
     Lena's popsicle was dripping onto her fingers, and she didn't care a bit. She didn't even notice.



     When Justin came out of the woods hours later and walked up to his house, he found the doors really were locked.
     So he just climbed in through his open window.


~~~~~


*part 7*


     "Oh, what now?" Justin's mother grumbled.
     He was eating breakfast and she'd just gotten up to get the mail. It was Saturday, so he didn't have school. His brothers had all left early for some sports practice thing though.
     The immensely fat wolfess waddled painfully back into the kitchen, ground out her morning cigarette in the sink, then sat down heavily in one of the little metal chairs. She was clutching an official-looking letter in her fist.
     "What is it, Mom?" Justin asked quietly. Then he scolded himself. It was always better to just keep his mouth shut, head down, and finish his cereal as soon as possible. If Mom was mad, she could easily turn it on him at the drop of a hat.
     "Some letter from the city," she said. "God knows what they want from me this time..." She roughly tore the envelope open with her pudgy fingers, shredding it as if punishing it for bearing bad news. She extracted the letter inside and perused it with a deep, disapproving squint.
     Justin kept a close eye on her over the rim of his juice glass.
     "God _damn_!" Mom shouted suddenly. She slammed her fist down on the table, causing milk and cereal bits to splash out onto the plastic tablecloth.
     Justin didn't know whether to ask her what was wrong or just sit there with his mouth shut and hope the news wasn't too bad.
     She looked up at him and pointed at the letter. "Says here they're gonna start up weekly trash collection next Saturday."
     Justin tried desperately to hide a smile. Allright! Mr. Tallevasco had won! The Green Beast would soon be on the prowl, and he'd get to ride in her! "So... why's that bad?" he asked his mother cautiously.
     She snorted derisively at him. "Don't you got any brains, boy? This means they're probably gonna raise the taxes now! I'd rather just hand that old dog at the dump my three dollars and be done with it."
     "You'll save some money on gas," he noted, trying to look on the bright side.
     Mom sat back in her chair, pondering that angle. She looked at him with a little sneer.
     Justin knew that look. It meant that he'd made a good point, but she was having too much fun complaining to concede it.
     "When'd you get in last night?" she asked, changing the subject.
     "About ten thirty. I'm sorry. I was having a good time." He slurped his breakfast faster. He wanted to get the hell out of the room as quickly as possible before this turned ugly.
     "You and your new 'friend'?" she said with a mirthless chuckle. "I know you, boy. You don't make friends. You make trouble. If I hear you were out last night slashin' car tires or something like that, I'll get your father to whup the shit out'you," she threatened, waggling her fat finger at him.
     Justin kept his head down, not meeting her gaze, trying to look submissive. "I wasn't. I promise. We had some dinner and we sat on the porch talking about stuff."
     "What's his parents like?" She asked, thinking she might trip him up on the details.
     "He's adopted." He caught himself just in time. He'd almost said *she* was adopted. "It's just him and his dad."
     "What's his name?"
     "Adam Tallevasco." That was true, considering that she hadn't specified which 'he' she was talking about.
     "He's in your class at school?"
     "Nope." Actually, he'd never seen Lena at school. Maybe she just hadn't had the time to enroll yet.
     "Then where'd you meet him?" she asked, sure she was about to catch him.
     "In the woods behind the house. We play there sometimes," he replied without hesitation. He was thankful he was such a good liar. He tipped his bowl up to his lips and sipped down the last of the milk. He wiped off the table and went to wash his dishes in the sink.
     Mom finally backed off. She still didn't fully believe him, but he was at least sticking to his story. "Allright then. If you do have a friend, good. Maybe he'll keep you out of my hair in the afternoons so I can watch my shows in peace."
     Justin paused. Had that been a heavily disguised bit of motherly approval? Well, probably not. But Justin decided to look at it that way anyway. "I'm gonna go play outside now, mom."
     "Allright. Don't get in trouble."
     He walked past her, and on a wild whim, gave her a small hug.
     She looked up at him like he was on drugs.
     "See you later," he said over his shoulder as he bounced out the door.



     The news in the mail had perked the little wolffox up dramatically. He ran all the way through the woods, grinning widely. He made it across the dump in record time, leaping gracefully over piles of refuse like a wild gazelle.
     Through the window of the front gate booth, Justin spotted two pink-padded bare feet propped up on the desk. "Mr. Tallevasco!" he called out.
     A moment later the side door opened. The tall, handsome skunk came out with his thumb marking his place in a thick paperback novel. "Justin! Hi! You're looking chipper today."
     "I got the news about the trash collection," he said as he was ushered into the little office. Adam offered him the chair, but he politely declined with a shake of his head.
     "That's good! They called me early this morning and said they'd already sent out the notices. They agreed to just about everything I suggested! I wanted to contact you about that, but I had no idea how to go about doing so."
     Justin chuckled. "Yeah, I can just see you knocking on the door: 'Hi! I'm a strange man who wants to know if it's okay for your son to ride around in a garbage truck with me all day long!'"
     Adam chortled. "That would be rather awkward, wouldn't it? But you're here now, and so it's a moot point."
     "*Can* I ride with you in the Green Beast...?" Justin asked sweetly, turning on the cute-puppy-eyes and wagging his tail.
     He fuzzled the boy's hair. "Sure! I already told you you could. My first round's this coming-up Saturday morning. I'll be starting at about seven A. M.. I worked out my route so your house is the first stop. If you get up early, you can ride along the whole way with me and Lena. You don't even have to worry about missing school."
     "Awesome!" Justin beamed and rushed over to give the skunk a hug. "Thank you so much!"
     Adam grinned. He liked seeing Justin so excited over something so simple. "Actually, I've got even more good news for you... Oh, wait a minute. Duck under the desk, will you?" he said abruptly.
     Justin was confused for a second before he noticed the sound of a pickup truck approaching. The dump _was_ open for business, after all. The lean young wolffox quickly scooted under the desk and listened.
     Tires crunched on gravel as the truck skidded to a stop.
     Footsteps.
     A plump male voice. "Where's Mr. Roland?"
     "Oh, he retired," Mr. Tallevasco replied. Justin was getting an up-close-and-personal look at his pant legs. "I'm the new trash guy."
     "It's the same price as before, right?" whoever it was asked cautiously.
     "Oh sure. Three dollars, please."
     Rustle of bills in a wallet. "There ya go. Well, welcome to town, Mister..."
     "Tallevasco."
     "Tabasco?"
     Chuckle. "Ta-luh-VASS-co. I get that all the time."
     Another chuckle. "Allright then. I'll just get this dropped off and be on my way."
     "Have a good day!"
     "You too!"
     Footsteps walking away. Engine starting up. Axles whining as they pulled the truck forward.
     Mr. Tallevasco bent over and peeked his pink nose under the desk. "Now, where were we?"
     Justin crawled out. "You said you had some more good news for me."
     "That's right." The skunk was still thumbing his place in his book, and holding three wrinkled bills in his other hand. He looked about for something to do with them, then applied some Gordian Knot thinking and just marked his place with the three dollars.
     "Whatcha reading?" Justin asked.
     Mr Tallevasco held the cover up. "It's some scary novel. More of a thriller. I've read other books by this author, and this one isn't his most impressive. Good characters though." He sat down in his chair again and put his feet up. He sighed contentedly. "I love this job. I get to sit on my butt for seven hours every day, just reading, or making out the grocery list, or playing with Lena..." He tossed Justin a smile. "...or talking with friends."
     It was a small thing, but Justin felt rather pleased to be called a friend.
     "Okay, the good news. Back to that. Important stuff," said Adam.
     Justin listened eagerly, tail wagging.
     Adam took his feet off the desk and swiveled his chair to face the little wolffox. "I was thinking last night. You want to ride with me in the Beast, right?"
     "Right."
     "And you don't mind playing in stinky garbage, right?"
     "Not at all!" Justin said with a smile.
     The skunk gave him an appraising look. "Do you mind a little hard work?"
     "No sir. I do most of the chores around the house." He flexed his bicep. "I look small, but I've got good endurance," he boasted. He wondered if this was leading up to what he thought it might be leading up to.
     Adam smiled. "How would you like to be my Assistant Trash Collector? You have to admit, it'd be a bit boring just sitting in the passenger seat while I go about my rounds. Lena always helps out too. Before we came here, she used to help me unload the trucks at the landfill. You could help me out slinging the bags in the back and lifting heavy stuff."
     Justin was about to give him a very enthusiastic yes.
     "Hold on a second there," Adam stopped him with an extended index finger. "Let me sweeten the pot. You help me out for the day, and do a good job, and I'll pay you ten dollars."
     Justin nearly fainted. "You're shitting me!" he said with a look like he'd just won the lottery.
     "I shit you not," the skunk said with a straight face.
     "Ten bucks a week! Wow!" Justin shouted, obviously thrilled. "I've never even gotten an allowance! I don't know what I'd even spend that much money on!"
     Mr. Tallevasco clapped a sturdy paw on the boy's shoulder. "Don't get too excited. You'll earn that money if you accept my proposal. A lot of those bags are heavy as heck, and you'll have to be heaving them all day in the hot sun. I guarantee you'll sweat more than you've ever sweated in your life. Take my word for it; I started out driving a truck to pay for college."
     "You went to college? That's cool. I'm not sure if anyone in my family even knows where one is," Justin joked. "Wait, I take that back; my brothers watch college football all the time."
     Mr. Tallevasco grinned. "Yup. Got a master's degree in the biological sciences, and I ended up teaching classes alongside my old prof."
     Justin was really impressed. "You were a professor? Damn! That's really cool. And it explains why you're so smart."
     Adam was highly pleased by the compliment. "Well, thanks, but merely being a teacher is no guarantee of intelligence," he said modestly. "We had some old farts there that were totally out of their minds and no one could fire them because they had tenure. And I'm sure some of your own teachers are not exactly founts of wisdom either."
     Justin grinned and rolled his eyes in a 'tell me about it!' fashion.
     "So, will you accept the job? I'll even put you down as 'Vice President In Charge Of Waste Material Removal Services'."
     Justin laughed. "I'd rather just be your assistant. But yeah, I'd love to help you out! I'll really work hard. You'll see! I promise!"
     Adam ruffled the boy's hair again. "Great! Glad to have you on the team. And don't worry; it's not all bad. It won't be anywhere near as gruelling as my old route in the city. And it'll be the three of us working together. Just be sure to bring a water bottle; you'll need it."
     "Do I get a uniform?"
     "I don't think the city would be too happy paying for one," Adam said. "But you can have some of my old gloves. And I'll see if I can find you a hat. Do we have a deal?"
     "Hell yeah!" the little wolffox said brightly.
     "Then let's shake on it." Adam put out his paw, the colors of his fur making him look like he was forever wearing white gloves.
     Justin clasped his grey-brown paw to Mr. Tallevasco's and gave a firm shake. He was grinning ear to ear.
     "Oh, and I've got some more good news for you!" the skunk said suddenly.
     More!? Justin could hardly believe it! "Really? What now? You're gonna adopt me and take me away from my dumb family forever?"
     Behind his glasses, Adam's eyes looked bittersweetly at him for a moment, as if to say 'If I could, Justin, I would without hesitation'. "Well, it's not _that_ exciting," he admitted. "I just thought that a little celebration was in order, what with the city agreeing to my proposal. Me and Lena were going to go out to eat tonight and then take in a movie. You're perfectly welcome to join us."
     Justin stood there speechless. He didn't know if he could possibly keep smiling for so long. He was worried his lips would just fall off after a while. "...I don't know what to say! Thank you! I'd love to come along."
     Mr. Tallevasco rolled his chair a little closer and leaned over to give Justin a very paternal hug. "Glad to hear it. You know, Justin, I'm really glad we met. Honestly, Lena talks about you all the time. She was really worried and depressed when we first moved here. She _loved_ our old hometown. Sometimes she'd just go out in the dump and lie on the trash bags for hours."
     'Well, that explains that,' Justin thought, thinking back to how he'd first met her.
     "I'm grateful to you for being such a good friend to her, Justin," Adam said sincerely. "I love my daughter more than anything, and I love seeing her happy. For all the happiness you've given her, and me, I'm so very grateful to you."
     "Thank you, or you're welcome, or whatever," the young canine said quietly, a warm smile on his face. He gave the big skunk an extra squeeze. He realized that if Mr. Tallevasco really could become his new dad somehow, that he couldn't think of anything that would make him happier.
     Adam eventually broke off the hug with a series of macho pats on the back, just to keep the tender moment from spoiling their masculine image.
     "So, um, where is Lena?" Justin asked.
     "She's in the house, probably watching cartoons. Why don't you go give her the news? Tell her about your new job."
     "Okay!"
     "Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you like."
     "I already had breakfast, but thanks."
     Adam picked up his novel again. "Righty-o then. I'll get back to my book. I was at a good part when you showed up. We'll probably leave for the restaurant around five. Do you want to just stay over here until then?"
     "Yeah, I..." A thick dread suddenly descended upon him. "Oh crap! At some point I'll have to tell my mom I'll be gone for the evening!"
     Justin looked so suddenly scared, Adam knew he had to do something about it. He leaned in closer again, lowering his voice as if revealing a dark secret. "Justin, call her up and lie to her," he said firmly.
     The little wolffox was rather shocked. "What!?"
     "Lie. Tell her you're invited over for dinner again. Tell her you're going to hitchhike to the mountains. Anything. Just make sure you're free and clear for tonight."
     "Why?"
     "Because, Justin," Adam said seriously, "you deserve this. You deserve for something nice to happen to you. And your mother sounds like someone who'd snatch that away if she knew, just to spite you. Don't let her. Now, normally I'd never advise someone to lie to anyone else, especially a family member, but in your case I feel comfortable making an exception."
     Again, there was that concern for him that felt so different and new, Justin had no idea how to handle it. "Allright, Mr. Tallevasco. I will. Thank you."
     Adam leaned back in his chair again. "It's allright. I'm just looking out for you. It seems that post's been vacant for too long. Now go keep Lena company. She'll be happy to see you."
     Justin nodded and gave him a little salute. "Aye aye." He gave the skunk a last grateful smile and darted off for the house.
     Mr. Tallevasco returned to his novel, but he could no longer concentrate on it. He was smiling sadly, wondering how in the world life could be so mean to a nice little kid like that...


~~~~~


*part 8*


     Justin had an absolute blast that night.
     He'd watched cartoons with Lena until noon, chatting with her and drinking pop and nibbling on toaster pastries. Then they went out and played in the backyard for a while. They played a predator-and-prey version of hide and seek, with Justin chasing Lena through the trees, growling menacingly, then pouncing on her and tickling her senseless. Then it was her turn, and she'd growl and chase him for a while.
     Around three, Justin finally got up the courage to call him mom. He kept it as simple as possible. In a casual tone, he said he was at his friend's house and wanted to stay for supper again. To his surprise, Mom allowed it right away. She said his brothers were all going to a birthday party for one of their football teammates, so she was glad to have the house to herself for an evening. Justin thanked fate, thanked his mom, hung up the phone, and tackled Lena to the floor in an explosively happy hug.
     Afterwards, they went to the dump for a while and scouted around. Among other things, Lena found some little plastic circus people, and Justin found several handfuls of trading cards and a baseball cap with 'Plumber's Union' stitched on it (which he thought he'd have fun thinking up filthy euphemisms for later on).
     There was an hour to go before dinner, so they decided to clean up a bit and make themselves presentable. Lena went in the house to take a shower. Justin went to the backyard, made sure no one was watching, then stripped down to his tighty-whities and stood under the garden hose for a while. He found that amusing when he thought about it for a bit; usually after a successful dump-run, it was his latest finds that he'd wash off with the hose.
     He dried himself off with a huge fluffy beach towel hanging on a nearby clothesline (Lena had assured him it was there for just such a purpose). Then he put his clothes back on and went to admire the Green Beast for a bit while he waited on Lena.
     Since the dump closed an hour early on Saturday anyway, Mr. Tallevasco was ready and rarin' to go promptly at five. He found the kids sitting in the back of the garbage truck, admiring the day's spoils from the dump.
     Then they all piled in the Frankenmobile and headed off. Justin was rather surprised at how smoothly the ugly thing ran. Lena was right about her and her dad having fixed up the engine good as new. He also thought it was apt that he was riding in a car that looked like a pile of crap on the outside, but had a good strong engine under the hood. He thought it made a nice metaphor for himself.
     They got on the interstate and drove for quite some time. Justin hadn't been out this way in a long while. He and Lena made fun of some of the billboards they passed.
     Lena had chosen the restaurant. It was a slightly classier than average fast food franchise called Arnie's. She said there were bunches of them where she came from. Justin had never even heard of them before.
     He scanned the menu for a while, not sure what to get and what might be too much. Mr. Tallevasco told him he could feel free to order anything he wanted. So eventually he decided on a mushroom and swiss burger with curly fries and a chocolate milkshake. Lena got a huge order of onion rings with her burger, and threatened to waft her bad breath at him all through the movie. He told her if she did, he'd wait till she wasn't looking and pee in her popcorn. The guy behind the counter looked rather grossed-out. Mr. Tallevasco bit his tongue to keep from laughing.
     The food was hot, messy and delicious. There were only three burger joints in close proximity to Justin's house, and Arnie's beat them all hands down. And, to make the evening even better, Justin had noticed that one of the kids in the family sitting across from them had discarded his kid's meal toy in disgust, and when the family left they forgot to throw out their garbage. When no one was looking, Justin casually snatched up the toy. It was some character off a girl's cartoon show, but he was perfectly aware of that beforehand. Lena had been watching the same show earlier that morning, so Justin offered her the toy as a friendly gift. She liked it a lot and gave him a big hug in return.
     As they drove to the theater, they took a wrong turn and ended up having to go down a side street and come around from the back way. As they did, Lena and Justin immediately spotted two huge dumpsters enclosed in their own little walled-off nook. They both admitted to each other that it would be fun to go jump in them.
     The theater was the size of a small country. It seemed to have eight thousand million screens. The ceiling was ridiculously high. The air was redolent with popcorn. There were so many people milling around, buying tickets and snacks, Justin thought that if he got separated from Lena and Mr. Tallevasco he'd probably wander around looking for them until he died of starvation.
     Since the only movies he'd ever been taken to were sports flicks his brothers had wanted to see, Justin was really looking forward to seeing something that was more up his alley. Mr. Tallevasco informed him that they were here to see a great big bombastic sci-fi adventure flick. He said he'd seen a review for it the day before that had called it 'the most entertainingly trashy film of the year'. The skunk had taken it as an omen.
     They got a huge popcorn to share between them and went to find their seats. Justin looked at all the movie posers they passed, noticing that almost all of them were for sequels and remakes.
     The theater had stadium seating, which Justin had never encountered before. The trio easily found three seats together, near the middle, not too far and not too close to the screen.
     They all settled in, sounds of popcorn-chewing-people all around them, and got ready for the movie.



     Two and a quarter hours later, Justin walked out feeling like he'd just been spun around in an industrial clothes drier and then punched in the head.
     "That movie kicked _ass_!" he declared.
     "Yeah!" Lena agreed. "I didn't think they could fit that many special effects in one movie!"
     "Those robots were so cool! I hope they make toys out of 'em."
     "They make toys out of every movie that comes out anymore," Mr. Tallevasco said.
     "What'd you think of it, Dad?" Lena asked.
     "Ehh... It was exciting and well-directed, but the script borrowed heavily from a lot of other films. And the main character was badly miscast."
     Justin thought that was a fair critique. Even though, in his limited experience, he thought it was the best movie he'd ever seen in a theater.
     "I liked the alien with all the tentacles," Lena said. "He was actually kinda cute."
     "Was he computer animated, or a big puppet?" Justin asked.
     "It's impossible to tell anymore," Adam remarked.
     Lena dug around in her mouth, trying to extract a particularly tenacious popcorn hull that had decided to take up residence.
     They all hopped back in the Frankenmobile to head on home. Mr. Tallevasco, however, had one more stop in mind.
     He drove out the same way they'd come in, past the back of the theater. He looked around cautiously, checking to see if anyone at all was watching. Then he pulled slowly over alongside the two dumpsters and came to a stop. He turned around to the backseat, where Justin and Lena were already giving him puzzled looks. "Okay, quick, jump out."
     "What!?" Lena squeaked.
     "I heard you say you wanted to play in the dumpsters. Go on, before someone sees us!" he said with a wild grin.
     "You're kidding!" the ratgirl said in disbelief.
     "Nope. I saw a hardware store a few blocks down. I'm going to go get some lightbulbs and stuff. I'll be back in ten minutes tops and I'll give the horn a little honk as I pass by. Go, quick!"
     "Daddy, you're a total nut!" she said happily. She leaned over the seat and kissed him. "Thank you!" She popped open the door and she and Justin skedaddled out.
     "Ten minutes. I promise," Adam whispered to them. "Have fun!" he called out the window as he drove off.
     Justin turned to Lena. "Your dad is insane."
     "Yeah? Who's the one that wanted to play in a trash dumpster in the first place?"
     He grinned. "Okay, you got a point."
     With that, the two veteran garbage-explorers hoisted themselves up and slid into the lesser-full of the two dumpsters.
     Justin landed on a pile of bags filled with popcorn and drink cups. They were crinkly and sticky, and smelled like a carnival food court baked in a giant oven. "Eeew!" he whispered, but he was grinning. "This is the most disgusting thing I've ever done!"
     Lena started bouncing up and down on the big clear trash bags. They were very colorful; you could see all the candy wrappers and popcorn bags and nacho trays snuggled inside. "Yeah, but it's fun! It's messy and dirty and stinky and naughty and fun!"
     Justin had to agree. The very fact that this was so wrong was what made it exciting. He dug his claws into a bag and scooped up a handful of popcorn to toss at her. "It is fun!"
     "I'll give you a quarter if you eat some of that popcorn," she said with an incredibly devilish grin.
     Justin could not pass up the challenge. "Make it fifty cents."
     "Allright, but you have to eat five whole kernels," she negotiated.
     That was fair. He gathered five good-sized popcorn pieces in his paw. His rational brain insisted that this was incredibly stupid. The more childlike part of him was by now just spinning around saying, 'Wheeee!'.
     He popped the corn in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "Ta daaa! Now pay up!"
     She grinned sweetly. Her little ratty buckteeth glinted in the moonlight. "I don't have any money!"
     He slugged her on the arm, but not too hard. "You are such an asshole! I can't believe it!"
     "Ouch!" she said while giggling. "It's your own fault! You knew I was an asshole and you trusted me anyway!"
     They giggled together, then immediately stopped when they heard the sound of a door creaking open.
     "Oh shit! Hide!" Lena squeaked in a whisper.
     As fast as they could without making any noise, they grabbed up bags of trash and piled them on top of themselves. It was stinky and sticky, but a lot better than having to explain to a theater employee why they were in here.
     An acne-ridden teenage fox dragged another full bag of cinema snack remnants behind him on the concrete, leaving a gleaming soda trail. He was singing some pop song to himself, and his voice was terrible.
     Lena and Justin were completely terrified, yet at the same time they were clasping their paws to their muzzles to stifle hysterical laughter.
     The teen lifted the lid and slung the garbage bag inside, never even looking in the hidden kids' direction. The bag landed on the two of them with a 'whumph'. The fox let the plastic lid slam shut and then walked back inside.
     "I think my heart just stopped," Justin deadpanned.
     Lena let out her suppressed laughter as they both crawled out from under the trash bags. Both of them now had soda running down their legs. "Oh, hey, I wanted to ask you something," she said abruptly.
     "If I know why you're such a spaz?" Justin supplied.
     She tossed an empty box of Jujubes at him. "No, you fuckbrains! This is serious!"
     Justin sat up. "Allright. I'm listening."
     Lena hesitated. "Um... It's about your Treasure Chest."
     Justin cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah? And...?"
     Lena tried to muster all the sincerity she could while standing waist-deep in garbage under a three-quarter moon. "Well, I keep thinking of it sitting out there in the woods. I know you've got it padlocked, but I keep worrying that someday some hiker or a camper or just some guy's gonna come along, dig it out and take it with him. All your stuff will be gone forever! All your plushies!"
     The fact that she was obviously truly worried about his stuff made him decide that she really was serious about this. They kidded each other so much that occasionally it was hard to tell. "Okay, yeah. That could happen. What do you think we should do about it?"
     Her eyes were wide with worry that he'd freak out at her suggestion. "I was thinking that... maybe tomorrow, me and Dad could come over and we'd all dig it up and take it over to my house. So I could take care of it and keep it safe, you know?"
     Far from being freaked out, Justin was floored by the thoughtfulness of her suggestion. He stood up, as much as that was possible in their current location, and gave her a sudden hug. "That's a great idea! Thank you! I've always wished I had a safer place to keep my stuff!"
     Lena was very relieved. "Oh good! I was really worried you would think it was a bad idea."
     "Why would I think that?"
     "I dunno. Maybe if it was important to you to keep it there in the woods for some sentimental reason?" she guessed.
     "When it comes to my plushies, I'd never let sentimental stuff get in the way of protecting them," he assured.
     Lena was glad to hear it. "There's a little toolshed out behind the house. We could put it in there, and then you wouldn't even have to come inside to check up on it. Even if we were asleep, or not home or something."
     "You'd trust me that much?" he said with surprise.
     "Of course," she replied, as if that was obvious. "It's your stuff." She grinned. "And I know you wouldn't just hop in the Green Beast and take her for a joyride while you were there."
     Justin thought that made for an interesting mental picture. "I can see the headlines! 'Local Boy Goes On Mad Garbage Truck Rampage!' Actually, wouldn't it be cool to see a garbage truck in a high-speed police chase?"
     She laughed so hard she snorted. "An ice cream truck would be even better! Can't you just see some guy hangin' out the window, pelting the cop cars with popsicles?"
     At that, both of them snickered like idiots.
     "Hey, we haven't looked in the other dumpster yet!" Justin realized.
     "Well, what are we waiting for?"



     And so the two of them had lots of fun and got extremely messy until they heard a car pull up and a soft horn toot.
     Adam had planned ahead and had bought a plastic tarp for the backseat. "You kids have fun?" he asked, as two grinning furry heads popped up over the side of the dumpster's mouth.


~~~~~


*part 9*


     The next morning, Justin had the good fortune of waking up before everyone else. The sun was barely up. His brothers were still conked out from the night before. And if his suspicions were correct, judging from their breath, they'd all be waking up with hangovers soon. Like he was going to stick around for that. Hell naw.
     The little wolffox slipped gracefully out the bedroom window with a pencil in his pocket and some paper in his backpack.
     Deep in the woods, he came across his beloved Treasure Chest. He gave it a pat. "Guess what? You're going to be moved someplace safe!" he said to his plushies as he undid the lock and lifted the lid.
     Justin cleared away some leaves and sat down beside the footlocker. He reached in and gave each of his plushies a kiss.
     He took Cleo out of his pocket. He hadn't gotten a chance to bring her here since Friday night. It had been nerve-wracking, keeping her literally at his side the entire time since then. He shuddered at the thought of what his brothers would do to the little plush bat if they found her. They'd probably snatch her from him and flush her down the toilet!
     But no, that hadn't happened. He had successfully hidden her from them. He had protected her. "This is Cleo, everyone," he whispered to his other plushies. He petted her soft fur tenderly as he laid her beside Rachel and Felicia. "Welcome to my little family, Cleo. You're such a pretty bat. I love you. I promise I'll always keep you safe, all of you."
     He got into a comfortable position, leaning against the side of the footlocker. He opened his backpack and got out the paper. He laid it on top of a hardcover book from inside his Treasure Chest. He felt inspired this morning, and thought he'd try a little poetry.
     Morning dew sparkled on the leaves and grass. Birds called out their melodic warnings to one another. As the new morning came alive all around him, Justin was not surprised that his pencil wanted to talk about Lena. His composition was exceptionally free-flowing today. There was no structure at all. He just wrote down everything he could think of about her. Her hair, her feet, her ears, her tail. Her eyes, her smile, her laugh. Her kindness, her loyalty, her wit, her energy and her tenderness.
     'I love you, Lena', he wrote.


          * * *


     Several hours later, he'd filled a few pages, read most of a paperback, and was now bored out of his skull.
     On the drive home last night, Lena had told her dad all about her idea to move Justin's secret hiding place, and he'd been all for it. Adam said there were shovels in the shed and plenty of room there for a footlocker. He'd told Justin to come by the house around noon and they'd all march off into the woods together to rescue his stuff to its new location.
     He glanced at his watch. It was nowhere near noon, but he was sure they'd be up by now. They wouldn't mind if he came a little early, he thought.
     Justin packed up his poetry, said goodbye to all his plushies, and secured the footlocker's lid. Then he set off across the dump to Lena's house.
     The dump was calm and silent. A few birds flitted around, pecking at the bags. But otherwise everything could have been a postcard. Justin didn't think he'd ever seen it so peaceful.
     The front gate was locked when he got there, since the dump was closed on Sundays. Justin followed the chain-link fence for awhile until it petered out in the trees. Soon he could see the top of the Green Beast in the distance.
     He heard Lena laugh. As he got closer, he peeked around a tree and saw that she and her father were having a picnic breakfast in the backyard.
     But when he looked closer, he noticed that the only food they had was placed in front of Mr. Tallevasco. Lena was sitting in front of a pile of nasty-looking garbage.
     That was odd.
     Lena and her father were talking, but he was too far away to catch what they were saying.
     Then Mr. Tallevasco reached into the pile of trash and pulled out a broken up, headless plastic doll. He held it out to Lena. With a smile, she opened her mouth, and he slid the doll in. He pushed it all the way inside. Lena swallowed it in one gulp.
     The fur on the back of Justin's neck stood straight up.
     He had _not_ seen that.
     Lena's paw hovered over the small pile of trash, deciding what to choose next. She selected a sardine can. She gave it a long lick, inside and out, then slid it into her open mouth and easily down her throat.
     Oh fuck, he was _not_ seeing this!
     Next up was a squashed milk carton. Lena chewed on it a bit and then gulped it down as well. Her father watched, smiling pleasantly, as he sipped his coffee and took bites from a bagel. Then Lena ate some filthy, raggedy beanbag plush with most of its stuffing spilling out. She sucked out the tiny plastic pellets like jelly from a donut.
     Justin was biting his knuckles to keep from screaming. He was biting them so hard they bled. His mind could not comprehend this sight. His brain would not believe his eyes.
     Lena held up a dirty sock and slurped it down like a strand of spaghetti.
     There were no words for the horror, the surreality, the disgust that Justin was feeling. And it was all made so much worse by the fact that she was *smiling* while she was doing these incomprehensible things! Her father was sitting there smiling too, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening!
     Then Lena picked up a used diaper that was practically dripping with filth. She opened her mouth wide.
     Justin wanted to look away more than anything else in the world. He wanted someone to hit him in the head with a baseball bat. Anything at all to make his eyes stop watching this.
     The little ratgirl happily chewed the plastic of the disposable diaper, nibbling it into her mouth bit by bit. Then she swallowed it whole and sighed with satisfaction.
     Justin tore himself away and ran off in the opposite direction. He stopped by a tree, sunk to his knees and got the dry heaves. If he'd had anything for breakfast, it would have been coming up right now. He retched and retched until his throat burned and he could taste blood.
     What the fuck had he just seen?!?


~~~~~


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