{ "submission_id": "3122392", "keywords": [ { "keyword_id": "9981", "keyword_name": "adolescent", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "811" }, { "keyword_id": "5292", "keyword_name": "bathroom", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "7827" }, { "keyword_id": "16009", "keyword_name": "bullies", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "179" }, { "keyword_id": "11882", "keyword_name": "bully", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1507" }, { "keyword_id": "128837", "keyword_name": "canid penis", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "180" }, { "keyword_id": "4659", "keyword_name": "crying", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "14107" }, { "keyword_id": "37", "keyword_name": "cub", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "285330" }, { "keyword_id": "8022", "keyword_name": "curiosity", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "456" }, { "keyword_id": "8033", "keyword_name": "daydream", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "216" }, { "keyword_id": "263", "keyword_name": "erection", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "67714" }, { "keyword_id": "7918", "keyword_name": "flashback", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "569" }, { "keyword_id": "33", "keyword_name": "fox", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "251343" }, { "keyword_id": "689", "keyword_name": "friends", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "8296" }, { "keyword_id": "4022", "keyword_name": "graffiti", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1068" }, { "keyword_id": "640", "keyword_name": "hare", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "11716" }, { "keyword_id": "229", "keyword_name": "knot", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "53514" }, { "keyword_id": "85603", "keyword_name": "lunchtime", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "32" }, { "keyword_id": "165", "keyword_name": "male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1214326" }, { "keyword_id": "2838", "keyword_name": "mystery", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1754" }, { "keyword_id": "473", "keyword_name": "otter", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "36569" }, { "keyword_id": "1134", "keyword_name": "peeing", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "12771" }, { "keyword_id": "7733", "keyword_name": "playground", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1122" }, { "keyword_id": "48242", "keyword_name": "puberty", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "495" }, { "keyword_id": "186", "keyword_name": "rabbit", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "140912" }, { "keyword_id": "152", "keyword_name": "raccoon", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "37396" }, { "keyword_id": "1031", "keyword_name": "red fox", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "9148" }, { "keyword_id": "26841", "keyword_name": "river otter", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1209" }, { "keyword_id": "449", "keyword_name": "school", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "9097" }, { "keyword_id": "49554", "keyword_name": "sexual curiosity", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "10" }, { "keyword_id": "17910", "keyword_name": "swearing", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "496" }, { "keyword_id": "216", "keyword_name": "teen", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "34752" }, { "keyword_id": "531", "keyword_name": "teenager", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "11339" }, { "keyword_id": "3350", "keyword_name": "video game", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "3317" }, { "keyword_id": "8524", "keyword_name": "wallaby", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1167" } ], "hidden": "f", "scraps": "f", "favorite": "f", "favorites_count": "93", "create_datetime": "2023-09-18 02:54:50.966467+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "18 Sep 2023 04:54 CEST", "last_file_update_datetime": "2023-09-18 02:37:37.447673+00", "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "18 Sep 2023 04:37 CEST", "username": "Stitch", "user_id": "8503", "user_icon_file_name": "286358_Stitch_pdvd056final.jpg", "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/286/286358_Stitch_pdvd056final.jpg", "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/286/286358_Stitch_pdvd056final.jpg", "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/286/286358_Stitch_pdvd056final.jpg", "file_name": "4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumb_huge_x": "300", "thumb_huge_y": "300", "thumb_large_x": "200", "thumb_large_y": "200", "thumb_medium_x": "120", "thumb_medium_y": "120", "files": [ { "file_id": "4685659", "file_name": "4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.doc", "mimetype": "application/msword", "submission_id": "3122392", "user_id": "8503", "submission_file_order": "0", "full_size_x": null, "full_size_y": null, "screen_size_x": null, "screen_size_y": null, "preview_size_x": null, "preview_size_y": null, "initial_file_md5": "f90cdd766bc0d810ee0933da03c66f32", "full_file_md5": "f90cdd766bc0d810ee0933da03c66f32", "large_file_md5": "", "small_file_md5": "", "thumbnail_md5": "8722b96ce820f11f4934091acb86d6d2", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2023-09-18 02:37:37.447673+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "18 Sep 2023 04:37 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/4685/4685659_Stitch_the_firefly_club_-_chapter_1.jpg", "thumb_huge_x": "300", "thumb_huge_y": "300", "thumb_large_x": "200", "thumb_large_y": "200", "thumb_medium_x": "120", "thumb_medium_y": "120" } ], "pools": [], "description": "Tristan is a young red fox on a mission: To get his lifelong raccoon bestie Berry to spill the beans about the mysterious and secretive Firefly Club. Much to Tristan’s frustration, Berry will offer only the vaguest and most tantalizing clues, which only adds to the confounding mystery… what could possibly be such an explosive and dangerous secret that Berry can’t even tell him anything about it? The puzzling enigma of Berry’s secret club may be driving Tristan crazy, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still math quizzes, homework and schoolground politics to deal with. Fortunately, Tristan’s got his friends Berry and young river otter Rocko to lean on as he navigates the daily challenges of being a young adolescent fox in an ever-changing world.\n\nIllustration done by the incredible and talented @Pux", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Tristan is a young red fox on a mission: To get his lifelong raccoon bestie Berry to spill the beans about the mysterious and secretive Firefly Club. Much to Tristan’s frustration, Berry will offer only the vaguest and most tantalizing clues, which only adds to the confounding mystery… what could possibly be such an explosive and dangerous secret that Berry can’t even tell him anything about it? The puzzling enigma of Berry’s secret club may be driving Tristan crazy, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still math quizzes, homework and schoolground politics to deal with. Fortunately, Tristan’s got his friends Berry and young river otter Rocko to lean on as he navigates the daily challenges of being a young adolescent fox in an ever-changing world.

Illustration done by the incredible and talented \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPux\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t		\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPux\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
", "writing": "[b][center]The Firefly Club[/center][/b]\n\n[center]By Stitch[/center]\n\n[i][center]Chapter 1[/center][/i]\n\n``Come on, what's the big secret?''\n\nTristan slumped back into Berry's cushy blue sofa, his large, pointy, red and white fox ears drooping. He could already tell that his raccoon friend was once again [i]not[/i] going to share any juicy details, and it was driving him nuts. This wasn't just an annoying little itch, either. It was a gnawing, hungry curiosity that was only made worse by Berry's total nonchalance.\n\nBerry, the young raccoon, clicked his claw-tips on the video game controller clutched in his paw and deftly punched the buttons. On the screen, a little pixelated green kangaroo detonated a bomb and blew up a car. ``I told you, I can't tell you. P-towww!''\n\nTristan sighed heavily to emphasize the injustice of it all. He punched idly at the multicolored buttons on his own chunky gray controller, making it's thin black cable jiggle in the air between the couch and the game-box, but his heart wasn't in it. Glancing sideways, he contemplated a paper plate holding a half-eaten peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich that teetered precariously on the sofa arm. He thought about finishing it, but Berry's fridge was devoid of milk that day, and Tristan hated to eat peanut butter without milk. Besides, he'd already managed to dribble grape jelly down the front of his favorite t-shirt, the green one with a picture of a coiled viper wearing a silver beret on his flat, scaly head. Now it looked like the snake was drooling purple. He decided to try a different tactic with Berry.\n\n``Well, it's not like [i]I'd[/i] ever tell anybody or anything,'' he said while gazing hopefully at the back of Berry's gray-furred salt-and-pepper head. ``I'm [i]really[/i] good at keeping secrets.'' \n\n``Cool. So am I.''\n\nThe casual finality in the raccoon's voice told Tristan that the conversation thread had just been snipped. He gritted his pointy teeth and seethed quietly, pretending that he was enjoying the video game, pretending that he wasn't sulking, and above all pretending that he didn't really care about Berry's stupid secret club. \n\n``Dammit, out of lives.'' Berry dropped his controller onto the worn tan carpet and stood up, stretching his frizzy arms out. His ring-striped grey and black tail floofed out behind him as he arched his back. ``Want another pop?''\n\n``Sure,'' said Tristan with feigned casualness. \n\nBerry wandered over to the kitchen to grab another bright orange can of Whizz-Bang Mango Cola out of the fridge. \n\nTristan slumped even further into the sofa. He tilted his head back, exposing the creamy reddish-white fur that ran from the underside of his muzzle down his neck and chest. It was stupid, he knew, to get so worked up over something as silly as a secret club. [i]`They probably don't even do anything fun... just hang out and do funny paw-shakes and smoke and read dirty magazines.'[/i] Besides, he knew he was only annoyed because Berry wouldn't tell him anything.\n\nStill, he couldn't help but be curious. How could he not be? Ever since he'd recently and quite literally stumbled onto the club's existence, he'd been catching the word `firefly' in half-overheard snippets of conversations on the playground at school - always fleeting and ephemeral, like wispy rumors of a secret too cool to keep completely hidden. There were other, [i]official[/i] clubs at school, of course, but they all had dumb names like `Glee Club' and `Sports United' and `Gold Star Cubs'... yawn. \n\n`The Firefly Club', now... that sounded dark and mysterious, the kind of clandestine group that did [i]dangerous[/i] things. \n\nDespite months of wheedling at Berry for details, all he really knew about the club was that it was definitely [i]not[/i] an official school-sanctioned one, that members were never supposed to talk about it with non-members, and also that Berry and somebody named Andre (whoever he was) were in it. Beyond that, precious little. How had Berry managed to join, anyway? How had Berry even found out about this mysterious club, when Tristan had never been able to unearth anything but the vaguest tantalizing clues? And why couldn't Berry, one of his best friends in the whole world since all the way back in kindergarten, tell him anything about it?\n\nHis train of thought was derailed by the appearance of a pop can in front of his shiny black nose. Taking it from Berry, he popped it open with a snap and took a fizzy, sugary-sweet gulp.\n\nBerry gave him a wink and a click of his tongue, then picked up his controller once again and began punching the buttons like mad. Tristan watched the back of his head some more.\n\n<><><><><><><><><><>\n\nLater, they sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of double-spicy smoked salmon and cayenne nacho chips, more cans of fruity pop, and their open math books spread out before them. Tristan scribbled nonchalantly at an algebra problem, tracing little circles around it with his slender, white-furred chin propped on his paw. The whisper-gentle breeze from the six-bladed wooden ceiling fan that was whirring softly away overhead ruffled the silky, charcoal ash-colored fur that ran down the lengths of his forearms like a pair of sleeves, and he smiled thinly at the ticklish sensation. His bushy red-and-ivory tail swished lazily in the air behind him.\n\nTristan let his gaze wander to Berry's familiar fuzzy face... not for the first time in his life, he found himself envying the young raccoon's charcoal-colored mask, which was bordered by fuzzy streaks of creamy ivory that ran down the sides of his triangular muzzle. What would a vulpine look like with such a cool, suave natural facial feature, he wondered? Not that he really minded his own built-in red, white and black foxy style - but he'd always privately thought that Berry looked kind of like a secret agent, while he himself was just sorta... ordinary.\n\n``Did you get number eight yet?'' Berry asked.\n\n``Hmm?''\n\nBerry glanced up at him curiously, then down at Tristan's paper.\n\n``Sheesh. You're still only on number four? You've been at that one for, like, five whole minutes... how'n hell am [i]I[/i] this far ahead of [i]you?[/i]''\n\n``Eh, `cause I hate math, that's why.'' Tristan plucked a crispy bright-red chip out of the bowl and popped it into his muzzle, then defiantly crushed it against the roof of his mouth with a loud crunch.\n\nBerry sighed and shook his head. ``At least you're good at it. Look at me, I suck. I'm thirteen years old... that's what, half of a whole year older than you, and I'm still in pre-algebra.'' Berry leaned back and stretched, fanning his bristly black whiskers out. Behind him, Tristan could see out the kitchen window, which looked out over a vast, gentle slope dotted with hills, trees and suburban rooftops. Far below and far away, the heart of the city lay like a fancy grid in the middle of the sprawling valley, a cluster of little towers and grey blocks. At night, when the lights shone like gleaming white dewdrops and the highways pulsed with moving dots, Tristan liked to stare out of his own second story bedroom window and imagine that he was looking down onto a futuristic cityscape on Mars. \n\n``But you're going to be a chef, right?'' asked Tristan with a little shrug.\n\nBerry shrugged back. ``Yeah, but I've still got to know fractions and stuff. Half a teaspoon of this, eighth of a cup of that...'' They worked in silence for a few minutes more, scribbling and popping chips into their muzzles. \n\n``Hey, Berry?''\n\n``Hmmm?''\n\n``Can you at least tell me if it's a [i]good[/i] club?''\n\nBerry looked up at Tristan over the eraser on his pencil. Clearly embarrassed, one corner of his muzzle seemed to pinch up into something between a smile and a grimace. ``Well, yeah, I mean... it's pretty nice.''\n\n\tTristan folded his arms on the table. ``Do you think I could maybe... you know... join, sometime?''\n\nBerry looked back at Tristan with a peculiar expression, his mouth pursing up and his black eyes gleaming with some unreadable thought. The young raccoon opened his mouth as if to say something, but whatever it was seemed to die on the way out. Tristan found himself feeling awkward... had he said something wrong?\n\nBerry glanced down at the powdery nacho crumbs sprinkled on the tabletop beside his homework. ``Thing is,'' he mumbled at last, ``you kinda have to be invited.''\n\nTristan leaned back in his chair, puzzled. His pencil drooped in his fingers, momentarily forgotten. [i]Invited?[/i] The hurt feelings that were starting to blossom inside him must have shown on his face, because Berry suddenly leaned forward and ruffled his ears.\n\n``It's not that big of a deal, really it isn't,'' said Berry with a hopeful grin. ``It's just a dumb [i]club,[/i] you know? It's not like I care more about it than... you know...''\n\nTristan found himself smiling back in spite of himself, and he nodded. \n\n``Let's watch a movie after we're done,'' Berry suggested. ``Ooh, I finally got my copy of `Pitchfork Zombie Harvest'!''\n\nTristan couldn't help but grin happily in agreement. His raccoon bestie had always known his soft spots, and terrible horror flicks were definitely one of them.\n\nThat seemed to be the end of the matter, and were it not for something dreadful that would soon happen in the school's locker room, Tristan might never have found out anything more about the Firefly Club. As it happened, it would be another two months before things changed. \n\n<><><><><><><><><><>\n\nThe sound of cubs laughing and yelling melted together into a dull, chaotic roar that was ever-present on the cool early-April breeze. During lunch break, everyone's bottled-up inhibitions could be flung sky-high like paper airplanes thrown at the sun, and for a brief time all the young students became simply young cubs. Even within the confines of the school grounds, there was pure freedom to be savored. Broad stretches of black asphalt became vast landscapes streaked with white painted lines that seemed to go on for miles. Fields of green grass became unexplored verdant forests, the wooden planks that bordered beds of mulched tanbark in the playground became precarious bridges that criss-crossed high above lakes of boiling crimson lava - and naturally, the playground equipment took its rightful form as a cluster of spaceships, ready to launch skyward on interplanetary expeditions. \n\nOn this particular day, when the blue sky was spotted with poofy white clouds and summer was getting close enough to feel like static electricity in his fur, Tristan stood on the edge of the playground, teetering on the corner of the raised wooden border that separated the tanbark (lava) from the grass (jungle canopy). He clutched a peanut butter, tuna belly bacon and chocolate chip sandwich in one paw, his waxy black claw-tips punched delicately through the spongy white bread to hold it in place as he enthusiastically noshed the first bite. \n\nSuddenly there was a rapid tap-tap-tap on his left shoulder. This meant that Rocko, one of his longtime best friends in the whole world, was standing to his right, and was for the thousandth time trying to trick him into looking in the wrong direction. Tristan turned to his right, one side of his muzzle still crammed full of crunchy peanut butter, half-melted chocolate chips and salty fish bacon. Sure enough, there stood a tall cocoa-brown otter, his wide, blunt muzzle beaming a smile at him and a can of orange-persimmon soda clutched in one webbed paw. Rocko often wore strange clothing, and today was no exception, clad as he was in a black t-shirt with a picture of a giant strawberry on it. \n\n[i]``Bruuuup!''[/i] Rocko burped by way of greeting. ``Hey, sly-butt.'' The sides of his muzzle were fanned out in an impressive spray of black whiskers, the sharp points of his incisors gleaming in the sunlight as he continued to grin at him.\n\n``Heya, rudder-butt. Oy, [i]sandwich?[/i] You know you want some.'' Tristan waved his lunch under Rocko's broad black pebbly nose, knowing full well that the young otter thought his taste buds were insane. \n\n``Grooooss.'' Rocko gave the sandwich a troubled sideways glance and stuck his tongue out. \n\n``Mmmm, delicious. PBB&C. My very own age-old recipe.'' Tristan took another large bite to emphasize his point. \n\n``You're a sick little foxy, you know that?'' Rocko let out another sharp belch to punctuate his point.\n\n``That's coming from you, who sucks down whole cans of sardines, and then drinks the slime at the bottom...''\n\nRocko clicked his tongue against his sharp teeth. ``It's not `slime', it's fish oil, and it's good for you. Gives your fur a nice sheen.'' He reached out and tapped Tristan's chest, as if to imply that his fox friend had an unacceptably un-shiny coat. \n\n``Mm, yes, and how is your [i]furrrrr[/i] doing this month?'' Tristan asked in a bland monotone that was meant to represent Professor Blackwell, the school's weirdo opossum health instructor. It was a poor imitation, Tristan knew, but then Rocko was easily amused, and he was gratified to see his otter friend break into a broad smile. ``Have you been noticing anything unusual happening to your bodyyy?'' Tristan continued, drooping his eyelids and letting his whiskers hang down toward the ground. ``Has miraculous adolescence kicked in? Puberty is nothing to be ashamed of. Puberty is the onset of maturity. Puberty is beauuuutiful.''\n\nRocko was laughing now, half doubled over and making high pitched snorting hiccups as he tried to restrain himself. So encouraged, Tristan straightened himself upright and arched the whiskers over his eyes, gesturing grandly as he spoke. ``You may have noticed physiological chaaanges happening between your legs, but this is something all of us go through as we mature. Cubs at the onset of puberty can expect their puuuuubic fur - that is, the fur around their goooonads, to become thicker and silkier. Your groin-thatch becomes a lovely pelt, and that is beauuuutiful. You will experience constant throbbing booooners, but do not be ashamed... your lovely organ stands before you as a shining beacon of matuuuurity. In fact, you should play gaaaaames with it. Wrap it in a tube sock like a sexy burrito to collect your enchanted sperrrrrms...'' \n\nOkay, Professor Blackwell had never actually said that last part about boners and sperm-socks, but it was close enough. Besides, it was having the desired effect on Rocko, who had lost all pretense of trying not to laugh and was hunched over, clutching his middle and braying out loud barks of mirth. Tristan beamed. For the next several days, he knew, all he would have to do was lean over and whisper ``goooonads'' at Rocko in health class, and his friend would break down in a fit of giggles.\n\n``Heyo, what's so funny?''\n\nTristan turned around to see Berry standing on the tanbark in a white t-shirt with a black outlined silhouette of a scorpion on it, a half-consumed plastic bottle of nuclear-green kiwi juice clutched in one paw. The raccoon smiled expectantly at Tristan and Rocko.\n\n``Hee hee heeeeee... [i]snurk![/i]'' was all Rocko could manage to get out.\n\nTristan replied: ``We're discussing our majestic goooonads,'' which brought a fresh burst of giggles from Rocko. \n\nBerry smirked and rolled his eyes. ``I see. And how are your goooonads today, Professor?''\n\n``Round and furry. Yours?''\n\n``The same. You ought to know,'' added Berry with a mock-lecherous grin. ``You've seen them plenty of times, you fuzzy little flirt.''\n\nThat was true. Many times over the seven years that they'd known each other, Tristan and Berry had seen each other clad only in their fur. Usually this was after a swim at the local pool, or late at night when they were sleeping over and slipping into their pajamas. Berry had always played his nakedness as a joke, dancing around and striking funny poses, and while Tristan was always properly amused, he sometimes found himself staring with open curiosity, too. Lately there seemed to be some feeling to go with the mirth, something deep-down and primal and tingly.\n\nOnly once had Tristan had the courage to actually touch Berry down there, cupping his raccoon friend's balls and gently squeezing late at night as they lay on the floor watching an old slasher movie. Tristan remembered feeling both nervous and excited, his elbow digging into the carpet and his trembling paw slid down the front of Berry's pajamas, his friend's fuzzy, warm testicles cradled tightly in his palm. Berry had only smiled and held still. When the brief encounter had stopped, it was Tristan who had ended it, certain that Berry's parents were about to come storming into the room to beat him with a rolled-up newspaper or something. Sometimes he remembered that gentle look on Berry's face and wondered if, some late night, his friend would let something like that happen again.\n\n``Earth to Tris.''\n\nTristan was startled by the sudden appearance of clawed grey fingers waving around in front of his nose. He blinked and leaned back, feeling his skin go hot under his fur. Berry was looking at him with an expression somewhere between perplexed and amused. Rocko was still beaming, clearly in a mood to be tickled by anything even remotely funny.\n\n``Helloooo... you were off on Pluto just then, or something,'' said Rocko.\n\n``Actually, I think he was planning a voyage to Uranus,'' said Berry with that same faux-lecherous grin as he gently nudged Tristan's ribs with the tip of his elbow. ``[i]Weren't[/i] you?''\n\nRocko rolled his eyes up and scratched thoughtfully at his fuzzy chin. ``As a fully pledged Intergalactic Space Commander, I believe I can green-light this secret back-door mission... `long as he properly lubes his sizzling red fox-rocket, of course. Safety first.''\n\nTristan blushed under his fur even harder and made a show of rolling his eyes. ``Riiiight. You [i]know[/i] I can't get enough of your private parts, guys.''\n\nRocko let out yet another loud snicker. Tristan smiled, hoping that he'd managed to keep the conversation from going too far into territory he wasn't comfortable getting into, even if it was just a lot of harmless joking around.\n\nRocko suddenly stopped laughing and leaned forward with a serious look on his face. He gently clapped a paw over Tristan's shoulder and arched his eye-whiskers. ``All jesting aside, you squishy little crimson fluffernutter, don't you think it's time we stopped pretending and finally made sweet, sugary love to each other's hot, naked bodies? Hmm?'' He leaned forward until his nose was only a couple inches away from Tristan's and bared his teeth in a rather dangerous-looking, pointy-fanged grin. [i]``Hmmmmm?''[/i]\n\nTristan leaned his head back an inch and forced out a chuckle, feeling more awkward than ever. ``Uh-huh,'' he replied as he opened his mouth wide and stuck his tongue out. ``I'm just begging for it, you salty little Blast-O-Pop.''\n\nThis time it was Berry's turn to break into a fit of giggles, while Rocko smiled and gently chucked Tristan in the shoulder. ``Yah, I got yer salty Blast-O-Pop right here on top of my goooonads,'' Rocko replied, and with that, the conversation mercifully drifted on to other, and as far as Tristan was concerned, safer subjects - they spent the next few minutes discussing with fervent interest the summer's upcoming movie releases, while Tristan hungrily scarfed the last of his lunch.\n\nAfter he was finished, he licked the peanut butter from his waxy black claw-tips, then held his finger up and grandly declared: ``Comrades, cohorts, [i]mis amigos[/i]... I've gotta take a leak.''\n\n<><><><><><><><><><>\n\nOn his way to the bathroom, Tristan looked out over the vast expanse of the playground. Mostly it was the younger cubs, the first-through-sixth graders, who were using the jungle gyms and swings. The older ones, like Tristan and his friends, usually spent the lunch hour wandering the grass fields, playing sports, pretending they knew karate, imitating favorite movie stars, cussing, burping, and doing other such sophisticated pastimes. As his feet crossed the grass border and slapped onto the black asphalt, he kicked a small rock and watched it skitter until it struck a metal light pole with a soft [i]sping![/i] \n\nAll around him was a constant sea of motion, little blurs of fur and t-shirts and baseball caps whirling by. There was shouting and laughing, fat red dodge-balls flew through the air, basketballs smacked loudly against the asphalt as they were clumsily dribbled, and the occasional frisbee zipped by like a green plastic UFO. Tristan breathed deep through his nose, taking in the hot air, with its rich scents of cut grass, dust and tanbark, cheap fish paste sausages with mustard and tater tots, and some unidentifiable electric tang that filled him with an incredible desire to be somewhere else... maybe the beach, or camping in the forest. Maybe hiding with his friends in the vast grassy stretch of hills beyond the strip of suburban homes where he lived. Maybe standing on Mars. Anywhere but school, with its endless snail's crawl of math, assigned reading, quizzes and homework.\n\nTo his left, the playground was full of cubs his own age, many of them leaning against the metal bars of the jungle gym on their elbows, desperately trying to look as cool as possible in their designer shirts and backwards baseball caps. Far down on the other side of the expanse of asphalt to his right was the little cubs' playground, full of small students swinging and climbing and generally having a good time. Tristan sighed, part of him wishing that he could go and join them. But really, a twelve-year-old fox playing on the swings? He'd be a laughing stock, no question. \n\nSome days he found himself aching with nostalgia for a cub-hood that seemed to be receding further away from him with every passing day - close enough for him to still feel the gentle whisper of its carefree days brushing past his fur like an inviting breeze, but distant enough to already seem like he was knee deep in an ocean, staring with longing at the shore of an enchanted island he could no longer safely set foot on.\n\nSomehow, last winter, something had changed inside him. It hadn't been overnight, at least not exactly, but it had happened all the same. At first he hadn't even been sure what it was, so subtly had it started. There would be mornings when he'd woken up trembling from strange dreams that made no sense but left him anxious in a way couldn't quite grasp. Bizarre stirrings kept bubbling up somewhere in the back of his mind, which seemed to want to pull him somewhere... but where? There were weird mood swings, too, that came out of nowhere and left him angry and frustrated for no good reason.\n\nThen, too, there were those daily erections that Professor Blackwell liked to bring up in health class, bright red and throbbing with a dull ache, his small canid knot swollen into a hard lump that wouldn't fit back into his sheath for ten whole minutes. Sometimes he would lay under his blankets in the morning, staring at his penis in pure puzzlement, his heart racing and his blood pumping hot through his veins. Whatever was happening to his body seemed beyond all hope of control, which honestly scared him a little. \n\nAnd it wasn't just at night that his genitals started acting up, either. Often in class he would suddenly feel the pointed tip of his penis poke up out of his sheath to press uncomfortably against his underwear, as if it were literally trying to escape. Worse, sometimes the whole shaft and knot would slide free too, then swell to what felt like immense proportions. On those occasions he would hunch over his desk, heart thudding in his chest, trying in vain to will his traitorous penis back into his sheath and hoping with all his might that he wouldn't get called up to the blackboard to do a problem in front of the class. No doubt about it - Professor Blackwell's infamous puberty had landed on him like a sack of bricks, and there was nothing much he could do about it but go along for the ride. \n\nNot that he was entirely against the idea, really. There definitely were some perks to be had. Late at night, for instance, when he was safely under his sheets with the lights off, or standing naked in the shower, he was free to explore himself with keen interest. One thing he'd noted with some satisfaction was that his penis was not only getting hard all the time, it was also definitely getting [i]bigger,[/i] too. His testicles, which had always been tucked tightly between his legs like a pointless little pair of peach-fuzzy hummingbird eggs, were likewise getting fuller, and had taken to dropping down low in their now silkily-furred sac. Careful study in the bathroom mirror had brought Tristan to the conclusion that his new grown-up look was, by and large, something to be welcomed. No longer Tristan the adorable fox cub, he was becoming Tristan the mature and dashing grownup.\n\nHowever, the other side effects were less enjoyable. His voice, for instance, had started making funny squeaks when he talked, as if he perpetually had a sore throat or something. Not only that, but his fur, which had always been feathery soft, was getting kinda... well, greasy. And there was that embarrassing and painful ear pimple he'd discovered one morning a few weeks back. Worse, he was finding more and more that whatever natural grace he'd once possessed had decided to up and abandon him. Hardly a day went by that he didn't stumble over his own feet, or accidentally whap his arm into a wall, or drop his books in front of everybody. And here foxes were supposed to be nimble... he must have gotten the defective version of those particular genes.\n\nTristan snapped out of his reminiscing as he realized he'd arrived at the bathroom, with it's heavy blue door and the word `MALE' stenciled in white on a cheap metal plaque. With a sigh, he pushed the door open and walked in. To his surprise, something heavy thudded into his shoulder, and he heard a loud `Oof!' Stumbling back, he thought for one horrifying moment that he wasn't going to be able to stop, that he'd pitch backwards and fall flat on his butt. But just as he felt his feet start to twist beneath him, his balance miraculously returned long enough for him to pinwheel his arms and steady himself. He was about to blurt out an apology to whomever he'd just bumped into when he heard a regrettably familiar voice snap: ``Hey, [i]watch[/i] it, dipshit!''\n\nTristan nearly groaned out loud. Yes indeed, standing before him was a tall, wiry chocolate-brown hare in a blue baseball shirt, his long ears folded back in anger. This hare's name was Eric, though he liked his friends and sycophants to call him `Twitch', because he apparently thought it sounded tough.\n\nEric's large brown eyes were wide with indignance as he quickly looked Tristan over and assessed the situation. Unfortunately for Tristan, one of Eric's buddies, some anonymous grey wallaby in an identical baseball shirt, was with him. If Eric had been alone, with nobody to posture in front of, he would probably have just called Tristan a dipshit and left it at that. But there was an audience to consider, and Tristan knew instinctively that he was in for a nice helping of school bully grandstanding. \n\nSure enough, the lanky hare puffed up with inflated fury, eyes flashing. His whiskers twitched up and down on the sides of his bony muzzle as he growled: ``The hell don't you look what you're doing, dumb-ass?'' Eric's reedy voice was even more fractured by the ravages of puberty than Tristan's, and it raked over the fox's ears like claw-tips on a blackboard. \n\nTrying to defuse the situation, though he knew it probably wouldn't work, Tristan put on an apologetic face. ``Sorry,'' he mumbled as casually as he could. \n\n``Oh, DUDE!'' said the anonymous charcoal-grey wallaby in what was practically a bark of delight. He was pointing down at Eric's baseball shirt... specifically, at a three inch black streak just below the large white number zero. For the first time, Tristan noticed that Eric had a yellow plastic mechanical pencil clutched in his paw. He must have pushed it against the hare when he'd bumped into him and marked up his shirt. [i]`Oh, great. Oh, joy.'[/i]\n\nEric studied the black graphite line on his chest with all the surprise and outrage of a socialite who had just discovered a booger on a tea cozy. Then he uttered, with great deliberation: ``What... the... [i]fuck?[/i]''\n\n``Oh, [i]dude,[/i]'' repeated the wallaby, his mouth curling up into an eager smile as his eyes flicked back and forth between Tristan and Eric.\n\n``Well, I'm really sorry,'' repeated Tristan weakly. ``I didn't see you coming...''\n\nEric looked back up at Tristan, eyes blazing. His mouth curled back over his long front teeth. Then, with alarming swiftness, Eric's free paw shot out and his fingers clenched around Tristan's right ear. ``You see [i]this?[/i]'' he asked, his voice shrill and hoarse. Tristan gasped in surprise, then again in pain as Eric squeezed hard, his fingertips grinding against the fox's tender, thin, triangular ear. \n\n``Ow, ow [i]ow,[/i]'' whimpered Tristan, and he hated himself for doing it, but the pain was all but unbearable. Eric pulled on his ear, forcing him to lower his head until his nose was a few inches away from the hare's shirt. \n\n``You see this? You wrecked my [i]shirt,[/i] you dumb-ass.'' Eric's voice quivered with raw indignance, as though he were the victim of a truly heinous crime. He squeezed Tristan's ear even harder, and for a sick moment Tristan could hear the gristle in his poor fuzzy red ear actually crunching. Tristan knew that he should hold still and wait for the storm to pass, but the pain was awful, and he began to squirm. \n\nAt last, Eric released Tristan's ear and stood glowering down at him. ``[i]Damn,[/i] you foxes are shit,'' he finally spat.\n\nTristan felt hot tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, which he blinked back furiously, his ear stinging as though a hornet had been using it for target practice. He couldn't force himself to look up at Eric and his wallaby lackey, so he stared down at their sneakers, still blinking desperately while his vision shimmered and swam wetly, as though he were gazing through the surface of a rippling pond. \n\nEric stood his ground for another few seconds, then pointed at Tristan accusingly. ``You just watch your back, dipshit. I ain't through with you.''\n\nWith that, Eric and his friend turned and headed for the open blacktop, the wallaby's thick grey tail pumping up and down in the air behind his thick haunches as he hopped. Tristan watched them go, swaggering and chatting amongst themselves in that pompous way that bullies have always had. There were a couple of adult yard monitors wandering around, though of course they hadn't seen anything, nor did they ever manage to. Tristan rubbed his tender ear. [i]'Next time I'm gonna punch you right in the nuts, dickhead,'[/i] he thought angrily, though deep down he knew that he probably wouldn't. \n\nA couple of cubs were approaching the bathroom. Not wanting to be seen standing there rubbing his ear and blinking back tears, Tristan spun around and darted inside. He quickly walked past the large white porcelain sinks and the ugly urinals, his shoes smacking loudly against the speckled mint-chip laminated floor. Somebody had kicked a pink urinal cake out into the middle of the room, and he stepped around it, grateful that there was nobody else there. He could feel the tears starting to flow again, and he angrily sniffed, wiping at the corners of his eyes. [i]`I will not cry!'[/i] he thought defiantly as he pushed open a toilet stall and stepped inside. After bolting the door behind him, he stood over the toilet and breathed hard, feeling hot tears squeeze their way past his eyelids and trickle down the sides of his muzzle. [i]`Dammit.'[/i]\n\nFor several minutes he stood there, until his heart slowed its jackhammer rhythm and the hiccuping little sobs stopped jerking at his chest. At last under control, he listened to the sounds of cubs wandering through the bathroom, the pouring of water in the sink and the loud spatter of pee streaming into the urinals. Gingerly, he touched his right ear and winced. He was still sore, but now it was more of a tingle than actual pain, like the feeling of a dental anesthetic wearing off. He didn't quite trust himself to head back out into the schoolyard just yet, so he continued to force himself to breathe deeply, and he read the graffiti in the grout lines between the wall's big white tiles to kill the time.\n\nScribbling in the grout lines was a particularly popular pass-time amongst the cubs at school. You were technically doing something bad, which was good, but more importantly, you had a vast forum on which to scrawl your thoughts for all to appreciate. Grout graffiti was a place for raw communication, an outpouring of one's uninhibited wit and wisdom. The bathroom wall was one of the few places that the cubs knew was theirs and theirs alone, and they made constant use of it... albeit in a brief and grammatically-questionable fashion. \n\n[i]`Chris is a dingleberry,'[/i] that was a new one. So was [i]`My Rodent Dick Rulz[/i] <==3' scribbled above what was apparently supposed to be a drawing of a female... woodchuck, perhaps? Whatever species she was supposed to be, she was bent over with her bushy tail sticking up, a little `x' and what looked like a pair of fuzzy parenthesis representing someone's idea of lady parts. \n\n[i]`I made some lemonade for you numnuts its in the bowl!'[/i], that one hadn't been there the other day, either... but the one that made Tristan actually smile was: [i]`Suck my rosy weasel pucker.'[/i] Clearly, somebody had been paying attention in Diction class.\n\nIt occurred to Tristan that he still needed to pee. Still smiling at the crude scrawlings in the grout, he undid his buttons, unzipped, and began to relieve himself. It was hard to read and pee at the same time, so he leaned forward and pressed one paw against the wall for stability. Just as he was shaking the last few drops out, his eyes went wide in surprise, and he nearly fumbled out of his own paw: Nestled amongst the usual [i]fuck yous[/i] and [i]eat shits[/i] was a tiny drawing of a circle with a `T', an `F', and a `C' interlocked. That, he knew for a fact, stood for `The Firefly Club'. \n\nHe had seen this little symbol several times before, hidden in secret places around the school... there was one carved into the wooden border surrounding the tanbark in the playground, one scratched into a shelf in the adventure section of the library, one drawn in blue ink on the corner of a random desktop in his science class, and one gracing the inside cover of Berry's math book. Were they a new thing, he wondered, or had they always been there, and he'd just never known to attach any significance to them before?\n\nTristan zipped himself up. Sighing softly, he reached a paw out and gently touched his fingertip to the little circle.\n\n[i]To be continued...[/i]\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "
The Firefly Club


By Stitch


Chapter 1


``Come on, what's the big secret?''

Tristan slumped back into Berry's cushy blue sofa, his large, pointy, red and white fox ears drooping. He could already tell that his raccoon friend was once again not going to share any juicy details, and it was driving him nuts. This wasn't just an annoying little itch, either. It was a gnawing, hungry curiosity that was only made worse by Berry's total nonchalance.

Berry, the young raccoon, clicked his claw-tips on the video game controller clutched in his paw and deftly punched the buttons. On the screen, a little pixelated green kangaroo detonated a bomb and blew up a car. ``I told you, I can't tell you. P-towww!''

Tristan sighed heavily to emphasize the injustice of it all. He punched idly at the multicolored buttons on his own chunky gray controller, making it's thin black cable jiggle in the air between the couch and the game-box, but his heart wasn't in it. Glancing sideways, he contemplated a paper plate holding a half-eaten peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich that teetered precariously on the sofa arm. He thought about finishing it, but Berry's fridge was devoid of milk that day, and Tristan hated to eat peanut butter without milk. Besides, he'd already managed to dribble grape jelly down the front of his favorite t-shirt, the green one with a picture of a coiled viper wearing a silver beret on his flat, scaly head. Now it looked like the snake was drooling purple. He decided to try a different tactic with Berry.

``Well, it's not like I'd ever tell anybody or anything,'' he said while gazing hopefully at the back of Berry's gray-furred salt-and-pepper head. ``I'm really good at keeping secrets.''

``Cool. So am I.''

The casual finality in the raccoon's voice told Tristan that the conversation thread had just been snipped. He gritted his pointy teeth and seethed quietly, pretending that he was enjoying the video game, pretending that he wasn't sulking, and above all pretending that he didn't really care about Berry's stupid secret club.

``Dammit, out of lives.'' Berry dropped his controller onto the worn tan carpet and stood up, stretching his frizzy arms out. His ring-striped grey and black tail floofed out behind him as he arched his back. ``Want another pop?''

``Sure,'' said Tristan with feigned casualness.

Berry wandered over to the kitchen to grab another bright orange can of Whizz-Bang Mango Cola out of the fridge.

Tristan slumped even further into the sofa. He tilted his head back, exposing the creamy reddish-white fur that ran from the underside of his muzzle down his neck and chest. It was stupid, he knew, to get so worked up over something as silly as a secret club. `They probably don't even do anything fun... just hang out and do funny paw-shakes and smoke and read dirty magazines.'  Besides, he knew he was only annoyed because Berry wouldn't tell him anything.

Still, he couldn't help but be curious. How could he not be? Ever since he'd recently and quite literally stumbled onto the club's existence, he'd been catching the word `firefly' in half-overheard snippets of conversations on the playground at school - always fleeting and ephemeral, like wispy rumors of a secret too cool to keep completely hidden. There were other, official clubs at school, of course, but they all had dumb names like `Glee Club' and `Sports United' and `Gold Star Cubs'... yawn.

`The Firefly Club', now... that sounded dark and mysterious, the kind of clandestine group that did dangerous things.

Despite months of wheedling at Berry for details, all he really knew about the club was that it was definitely not an official school-sanctioned one, that members were never supposed to talk about it with non-members, and also that Berry and somebody named Andre (whoever he was) were in it. Beyond that, precious little. How had Berry managed to join, anyway? How had Berry even found out about this mysterious club, when Tristan had never been able to unearth anything but the vaguest tantalizing clues? And why couldn't Berry, one of his best friends in the whole world since all the way back in kindergarten, tell him anything about it?

His train of thought was derailed by the appearance of a pop can in front of his shiny black nose. Taking it from Berry, he popped it open with a snap and took a fizzy, sugary-sweet gulp.

Berry gave him a wink and a click of his tongue, then picked up his controller once again and began punching the buttons like mad. Tristan watched the back of his head some more.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Later, they sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of double-spicy smoked salmon and cayenne nacho chips, more cans of fruity pop, and their open math books spread out before them. Tristan scribbled nonchalantly at an algebra problem, tracing little circles around it with his slender, white-furred chin propped on his paw. The whisper-gentle breeze from the six-bladed wooden ceiling fan that was whirring softly away overhead ruffled the silky, charcoal ash-colored fur that ran down the lengths of his forearms like a pair of sleeves, and he smiled thinly at the ticklish sensation. His bushy red-and-ivory tail swished lazily in the air behind him.

Tristan let his gaze wander to Berry's familiar fuzzy face... not for the first time in his life, he found himself envying the young raccoon's charcoal-colored mask, which was bordered by fuzzy streaks of creamy ivory that ran down the sides of his triangular muzzle. What would a vulpine look like with such a cool, suave natural facial feature, he wondered? Not that he really minded his own built-in red, white and black foxy style - but he'd always privately thought that Berry looked kind of like a secret agent, while he himself was just sorta... ordinary.

``Did you get number eight yet?'' Berry asked.

``Hmm?''

Berry glanced up at him curiously, then down at Tristan's paper.

``Sheesh. You're still only on number four? You've been at that one for, like, five whole minutes... how'n hell am I this far ahead of you?''

``Eh, `cause I hate math, that's why.'' Tristan plucked a crispy bright-red chip out of the bowl and popped it into his muzzle, then defiantly crushed it against the roof of his mouth with a loud crunch.

Berry sighed and shook his head. ``At least you're good at it. Look at me, I suck. I'm thirteen years old... that's what, half of a whole year older than you, and I'm still in pre-algebra.'' Berry leaned back and stretched, fanning his bristly black whiskers out. Behind him, Tristan could see out the kitchen window, which looked out over a vast, gentle slope dotted with hills, trees and suburban rooftops. Far below and far away, the heart of the city lay like a fancy grid in the middle of the sprawling valley, a cluster of little towers and grey blocks. At night, when the lights shone like gleaming white dewdrops and the highways pulsed with moving dots, Tristan liked to stare out of his own second story bedroom window and imagine that he was looking down onto a futuristic cityscape on Mars.

``But you're going to be a chef, right?'' asked Tristan with a little shrug.

Berry shrugged back. ``Yeah, but I've still got to know fractions and stuff. Half a teaspoon of this, eighth of a cup of that...'' They worked in silence for a few minutes more, scribbling and popping chips into their muzzles.

``Hey, Berry?''

``Hmmm?''

``Can you at least tell me if it's a good club?''

Berry looked up at Tristan over the eraser on his pencil. Clearly embarrassed, one corner of his muzzle seemed to pinch up into something between a smile and a grimace. ``Well, yeah, I mean... it's pretty nice.''

\tTristan folded his arms on the table. ``Do you think I could maybe... you know... join, sometime?''

Berry looked back at Tristan with a peculiar expression, his mouth pursing up and his black eyes gleaming with some unreadable thought. The young raccoon opened his mouth as if to say something, but whatever it was seemed to die on the way out. Tristan found himself feeling awkward... had he said something wrong?

Berry glanced down at the powdery nacho crumbs sprinkled on the tabletop beside his homework. ``Thing is,'' he mumbled at last, ``you kinda have to be invited.''

Tristan leaned back in his chair, puzzled. His pencil drooped in his fingers, momentarily forgotten. Invited? The hurt feelings that were starting to blossom inside him must have shown on his face, because Berry suddenly leaned forward and ruffled his ears.

``It's not that big of a deal, really it isn't,'' said Berry with a hopeful grin. ``It's just a dumb club, you know? It's not like I care more about it than... you know...''

Tristan found himself smiling back in spite of himself, and he nodded.

``Let's watch a movie after we're done,'' Berry suggested. ``Ooh, I finally got my copy of `Pitchfork Zombie Harvest'!''

Tristan couldn't help but grin happily in agreement. His raccoon bestie had always known his soft spots, and terrible horror flicks were definitely one of them.

That seemed to be the end of the matter, and were it not for something dreadful that would soon happen in the school's locker room, Tristan might never have found out anything more about the Firefly Club. As it happened, it would be another two months before things changed.

<><><><><><><><><><>

The sound of cubs laughing and yelling melted together into a dull, chaotic roar that was ever-present on the cool early-April breeze. During lunch break, everyone's bottled-up inhibitions could be flung sky-high like paper airplanes thrown at the sun, and for a brief time all the young students became simply young cubs. Even within the confines of the school grounds, there was pure freedom to be savored. Broad stretches of black asphalt became vast landscapes streaked with white painted lines that seemed to go on for miles. Fields of green grass became unexplored verdant forests, the wooden planks that bordered beds of mulched tanbark in the playground became precarious bridges that criss-crossed high above lakes of boiling crimson lava - and naturally, the playground equipment took its rightful form as a cluster of spaceships, ready to launch skyward on interplanetary expeditions.

On this particular day, when the blue sky was spotted with poofy white clouds and summer was getting close enough to feel like static electricity in his fur, Tristan stood on the edge of the playground, teetering on the corner of the raised wooden border that separated the tanbark (lava) from the grass (jungle canopy). He clutched a peanut butter, tuna belly bacon and chocolate chip sandwich in one paw, his waxy black claw-tips punched delicately through the spongy white bread to hold it in place as he enthusiastically noshed the first bite.

Suddenly there was a rapid tap-tap-tap on his left shoulder. This meant that Rocko, one of his longtime best friends in the whole world, was standing to his right, and was for the thousandth time trying to trick him into looking in the wrong direction. Tristan turned to his right, one side of his muzzle still crammed full of crunchy peanut butter, half-melted chocolate chips and salty fish bacon. Sure enough, there stood a tall cocoa-brown otter, his wide, blunt muzzle beaming a smile at him and a can of orange-persimmon soda clutched in one webbed paw. Rocko often wore strange clothing, and today was no exception, clad as he was in a black t-shirt with a picture of a giant strawberry on it.

``Bruuuup!'' Rocko burped by way of greeting. ``Hey, sly-butt.'' The sides of his muzzle were fanned out in an impressive spray of black whiskers, the sharp points of his incisors gleaming in the sunlight as he continued to grin at him.

``Heya, rudder-butt. Oy, sandwich? You know you want some.'' Tristan waved his lunch under Rocko's broad black pebbly nose, knowing full well that the young otter thought his taste buds were insane.

``Grooooss.'' Rocko gave the sandwich a troubled sideways glance and stuck his tongue out.

``Mmmm, delicious. PBB&C. My very own age-old recipe.'' Tristan took another large bite to emphasize his point.

``You're a sick little foxy, you know that?'' Rocko let out another sharp belch to punctuate his point.

``That's coming from you, who sucks down whole cans of sardines, and then drinks the slime at the bottom...''

Rocko clicked his tongue against his sharp teeth. ``It's not `slime', it's fish oil, and it's good for you. Gives your fur a nice sheen.'' He reached out and tapped Tristan's chest, as if to imply that his fox friend had an unacceptably un-shiny coat.

``Mm, yes, and how is your furrrrr doing this month?'' Tristan asked in a bland monotone that was meant to represent Professor Blackwell, the school's weirdo opossum health instructor. It was a poor imitation, Tristan knew, but then Rocko was easily amused, and he was gratified to see his otter friend break into a broad smile. ``Have you been noticing anything unusual happening to your bodyyy?'' Tristan continued, drooping his eyelids and letting his whiskers hang down toward the ground. ``Has miraculous adolescence kicked in? Puberty is nothing to be ashamed of. Puberty is the onset of maturity. Puberty is beauuuutiful.''

Rocko was laughing now, half doubled over and making high pitched snorting hiccups as he tried to restrain himself. So encouraged, Tristan straightened himself upright and arched the whiskers over his eyes, gesturing grandly as he spoke. ``You may have noticed physiological chaaanges happening between your legs, but this is something all of us go through as we mature. Cubs at the onset of puberty can expect their puuuuubic fur - that is, the fur around their goooonads, to become thicker and silkier. Your groin-thatch becomes a lovely pelt, and that is beauuuutiful. You will experience constant throbbing booooners, but do not be ashamed... your lovely organ stands before you as a shining beacon of matuuuurity. In fact, you should play gaaaaames with it. Wrap it in a tube sock like a sexy burrito to collect your enchanted sperrrrrms...''

Okay, Professor Blackwell had never actually said that last part about boners and sperm-socks, but it was close enough. Besides, it was having the desired effect on Rocko, who had lost all pretense of trying not to laugh and was hunched over, clutching his middle and braying out loud barks of mirth. Tristan beamed. For the next several days, he knew, all he would have to do was lean over and whisper ``goooonads'' at Rocko in health class, and his friend would break down in a fit of giggles.

``Heyo, what's so funny?''

Tristan turned around to see Berry standing on the tanbark in a white t-shirt with a black outlined silhouette of a scorpion on it, a half-consumed plastic bottle of nuclear-green kiwi juice clutched in one paw. The raccoon smiled expectantly at Tristan and Rocko.

``Hee hee heeeeee... snurk!'' was all Rocko could manage to get out.

Tristan replied: ``We're discussing our majestic goooonads,'' which brought a fresh burst of giggles from Rocko.  

Berry smirked and rolled his eyes. ``I see. And how are your goooonads today, Professor?''

``Round and furry. Yours?''

``The same. You ought to know,'' added Berry with a mock-lecherous grin. ``You've seen them plenty of times, you fuzzy little flirt.''

That was true. Many times over the seven years that they'd known each other, Tristan and Berry had seen each other clad only in their fur. Usually this was after a swim at the local pool, or late at night when they were sleeping over and slipping into their pajamas. Berry had always played his nakedness as a joke, dancing around and striking funny poses, and while Tristan was always properly amused, he sometimes found himself staring with open curiosity, too. Lately there seemed to be some feeling to go with the mirth, something deep-down and primal and tingly.

Only once had Tristan had the courage to actually touch Berry down there, cupping his raccoon friend's balls and gently squeezing late at night as they lay on the floor watching an old slasher movie. Tristan remembered feeling both nervous and excited, his elbow digging into the carpet and his trembling paw slid down the front of Berry's pajamas, his friend's fuzzy, warm testicles cradled tightly in his palm. Berry had only smiled and held still. When the brief encounter had stopped, it was Tristan who had ended it, certain that Berry's parents were about to come storming into the room to beat him with a rolled-up newspaper or something. Sometimes he remembered that gentle look on Berry's face and wondered if, some late night, his friend would let something like that happen again.

``Earth to Tris.''

Tristan was startled by the sudden appearance of clawed grey fingers waving around in front of his nose. He blinked and leaned back, feeling his skin go hot under his fur. Berry was looking at him with an expression somewhere between perplexed and amused. Rocko was still beaming, clearly in a mood to be tickled by anything even remotely funny.

``Helloooo... you were off on Pluto just then, or something,'' said Rocko.

``Actually, I think he was planning a voyage to Uranus,'' said Berry with that same faux-lecherous grin as he gently nudged Tristan's ribs with the tip of his elbow. ``Weren't you?''

Rocko rolled his eyes up and scratched thoughtfully at his fuzzy chin. ``As a fully pledged Intergalactic Space Commander, I believe I can green-light this secret back-door mission... `long as he properly lubes his sizzling red fox-rocket, of course. Safety first.''

Tristan blushed under his fur even harder and made a show of rolling his eyes. ``Riiiight. You know I can't get enough of your private parts, guys.''

Rocko let out yet another loud snicker. Tristan smiled, hoping that he'd managed to keep the conversation from going too far into territory he wasn't comfortable getting into, even if it was just a lot of harmless joking around.

Rocko suddenly stopped laughing and leaned forward with a serious look on his face. He gently clapped a paw over Tristan's shoulder and arched his eye-whiskers. ``All jesting aside, you squishy little crimson fluffernutter, don't you think it's time we stopped pretending and finally made sweet, sugary love to each other's hot, naked bodies? Hmm?'' He leaned forward until his nose was only a couple inches away from Tristan's and bared his teeth in a rather dangerous-looking, pointy-fanged grin. ``Hmmmmm?''

Tristan leaned his head back an inch and forced out a chuckle, feeling more awkward than ever. ``Uh-huh,'' he replied as he opened his mouth wide and stuck his tongue out. ``I'm just begging for it, you salty little Blast-O-Pop.''

This time it was Berry's turn to break into a fit of giggles, while Rocko smiled and gently chucked Tristan in the shoulder. ``Yah, I got yer salty Blast-O-Pop right here on top of my goooonads,'' Rocko replied, and with that, the conversation mercifully drifted on to other, and as far as Tristan was concerned, safer subjects - they spent the next few minutes discussing with fervent interest the summer's upcoming movie releases, while Tristan hungrily scarfed the last of his lunch.

After he was finished, he licked the peanut butter from his waxy black claw-tips, then held his finger up and grandly declared: ``Comrades, cohorts, mis amigos... I've gotta take a leak.''

<><><><><><><><><><>

On his way to the bathroom, Tristan looked out over the vast expanse of the playground. Mostly it was the younger cubs, the first-through-sixth graders, who were using the jungle gyms and swings. The older ones, like Tristan and his friends, usually spent the lunch hour wandering the grass fields, playing sports, pretending they knew karate, imitating favorite movie stars, cussing, burping, and doing other such sophisticated pastimes. As his feet crossed the grass border and slapped onto the black asphalt, he kicked a small rock and watched it skitter until it struck a metal light pole with a soft sping!

All around him was a constant sea of motion, little blurs of fur and t-shirts and baseball caps whirling by. There was shouting and laughing, fat red dodge-balls flew through the air, basketballs smacked loudly against the asphalt as they were clumsily dribbled, and the occasional frisbee zipped by like a green plastic UFO. Tristan breathed deep through his nose, taking in the hot air, with its rich scents of cut grass, dust and tanbark, cheap fish paste sausages with mustard and tater tots, and some unidentifiable electric tang that filled him with an incredible desire to be somewhere else... maybe the beach, or camping in the forest. Maybe hiding with his friends in the vast grassy stretch of hills beyond the strip of suburban homes where he lived. Maybe standing on Mars. Anywhere but school, with its endless snail's crawl of math, assigned reading, quizzes and homework.

To his left, the playground was full of cubs his own age, many of them leaning against the metal bars of the jungle gym on their elbows, desperately trying to look as cool as possible in their designer shirts and backwards baseball caps. Far down on the other side of the expanse of asphalt to his right was the little cubs' playground, full of small students swinging and climbing and generally having a good time. Tristan sighed, part of him wishing that he could go and join them. But really, a twelve-year-old fox playing on the swings? He'd be a laughing stock, no question.

Some days he found himself aching with nostalgia for a cub-hood that seemed to be receding further away from him with every passing day - close enough for him to still feel the gentle whisper of its carefree days brushing past his fur like an inviting breeze, but distant enough to already seem like he was knee deep in an ocean, staring with longing at the shore of an enchanted island he could no longer safely set foot on.

Somehow, last winter, something had changed inside him. It hadn't been overnight, at least not exactly, but it had happened all the same. At first he hadn't even been sure what it was, so subtly had it started. There would be mornings when he'd woken up trembling from strange dreams that made no sense but left him anxious in a way couldn't quite grasp. Bizarre stirrings kept bubbling up somewhere in the back of his mind, which seemed to want to pull him somewhere... but where? There were weird mood swings, too, that came out of nowhere and left him angry and frustrated for no good reason.

Then, too, there were those daily erections that Professor Blackwell liked to bring up in health class, bright red and throbbing with a dull ache, his small canid knot swollen into a hard lump that wouldn't fit back into his sheath for ten whole minutes. Sometimes he would lay under his blankets in the morning, staring at his penis in pure puzzlement, his heart racing and his blood pumping hot through his veins. Whatever was happening to his body seemed beyond all hope of control, which honestly scared him a little.

And it wasn't just at night that his genitals started acting up, either. Often in class he would suddenly feel the pointed tip of his penis poke up out of his sheath to press uncomfortably against his underwear, as if it were literally trying to escape. Worse, sometimes the whole shaft and knot would slide free too, then swell to what felt like immense proportions. On those occasions he would hunch over his desk, heart thudding in his chest, trying in vain to will his traitorous penis back into his sheath and hoping with all his might that he wouldn't get called up to the blackboard to do a problem in front of the class. No doubt about it - Professor Blackwell's infamous puberty had landed on him like a sack of bricks, and there was nothing much he could do about it but go along for the ride.

Not that he was entirely against the idea, really. There definitely were some perks to be had. Late at night, for instance, when he was safely under his sheets with the lights off, or standing naked in the shower, he was free to explore himself with keen interest. One thing he'd noted with some satisfaction was that his penis was not only getting hard all the time, it was also definitely getting bigger, too. His testicles, which had always been tucked tightly between his legs like a pointless little pair of peach-fuzzy hummingbird eggs, were likewise getting fuller, and had taken to dropping down low in their now silkily-furred sac. Careful study in the bathroom mirror had brought Tristan to the conclusion that his new grown-up look was, by and large, something to be welcomed. No longer Tristan the adorable fox cub, he was becoming Tristan the mature and dashing grownup.

However, the other side effects were less enjoyable. His voice, for instance, had started making funny squeaks when he talked, as if he perpetually had a sore throat or something. Not only that, but his fur, which had always been feathery soft, was getting kinda... well, greasy. And there was that embarrassing and painful ear pimple he'd discovered one morning a few weeks back. Worse, he was finding more and more that whatever natural grace he'd once possessed had decided to up and abandon him. Hardly a day went by that he didn't stumble over his own feet, or accidentally whap his arm into a wall, or drop his books in front of everybody. And here foxes were supposed to be nimble... he must have gotten the defective version of those particular genes.

Tristan snapped out of his reminiscing as he realized he'd arrived at the bathroom, with it's heavy blue door and the word `MALE' stenciled in white on a cheap metal plaque. With a sigh, he pushed the door open and walked in. To his surprise, something heavy thudded into his shoulder, and he heard a loud `Oof!' Stumbling back, he thought for one horrifying moment that he wasn't going to be able to stop, that he'd pitch backwards and fall flat on his butt. But just as he felt his feet start to twist beneath him, his balance miraculously returned long enough for him to pinwheel his arms and steady himself. He was about to blurt out an apology to whomever he'd just bumped into when he heard a regrettably familiar voice snap: ``Hey, watch it, dipshit!''

Tristan nearly groaned out loud. Yes indeed, standing before him was a tall, wiry chocolate-brown hare in a blue baseball shirt, his long ears folded back in anger. This hare's name was Eric, though he liked his friends and sycophants to call him `Twitch', because he apparently thought it sounded tough.

Eric's large brown eyes were wide with indignance as he quickly looked Tristan over and assessed the situation. Unfortunately for Tristan, one of Eric's buddies, some anonymous grey wallaby in an identical baseball shirt, was with him. If Eric had been alone, with nobody to posture in front of, he would probably have just called Tristan a dipshit and left it at that. But there was an audience to consider, and Tristan knew instinctively that he was in for a nice helping of school bully grandstanding.

Sure enough, the lanky hare puffed up with inflated fury, eyes flashing. His whiskers twitched up and down on the sides of his bony muzzle as he growled: ``The hell don't you look what you're doing, dumb-ass?'' Eric's reedy voice was even more fractured by the ravages of puberty than Tristan's, and it raked over the fox's ears like claw-tips on a blackboard.

Trying to defuse the situation, though he knew it probably wouldn't work, Tristan put on an apologetic face. ``Sorry,'' he mumbled as casually as he could.

``Oh, DUDE!'' said the anonymous charcoal-grey wallaby in what was practically a bark of delight. He was pointing down at Eric's baseball shirt... specifically, at a three inch black streak just below the large white number zero. For the first time, Tristan noticed that Eric had a yellow plastic mechanical pencil clutched in his paw. He must have pushed it against the hare when he'd bumped into him and marked up his shirt. `Oh, great. Oh, joy.'

Eric studied the black graphite line on his chest with all the surprise and outrage of a socialite who had just discovered a booger on a tea cozy. Then he uttered, with great deliberation: ``What... the... fuck?''

``Oh, dude,'' repeated the wallaby, his mouth curling up into an eager smile as his eyes flicked back and forth between Tristan and Eric.

``Well, I'm really sorry,'' repeated Tristan weakly. ``I didn't see you coming...''

Eric looked back up at Tristan, eyes blazing. His mouth curled back over his long front teeth. Then, with alarming swiftness, Eric's free paw shot out and his fingers clenched around Tristan's right ear. ``You see this?'' he asked, his voice shrill and hoarse. Tristan gasped in surprise, then again in pain as Eric squeezed hard, his fingertips grinding against the fox's tender, thin, triangular ear.

``Ow, ow ow,'' whimpered Tristan, and he hated himself for doing it, but the pain was all but unbearable. Eric pulled on his ear, forcing him to lower his head until his nose was a few inches away from the hare's shirt.

``You see this? You wrecked my shirt, you dumb-ass.'' Eric's voice quivered with raw indignance, as though he were the victim of a truly heinous crime. He squeezed Tristan's ear even harder, and for a sick moment Tristan could hear the gristle in his poor fuzzy red ear actually crunching. Tristan knew that he should hold still and wait for the storm to pass, but the pain was awful, and he began to squirm.

At last, Eric released Tristan's ear and stood glowering down at him. ``Damn, you foxes are shit,'' he finally spat.

Tristan felt hot tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, which he blinked back furiously, his ear stinging as though a hornet had been using it for target practice. He couldn't force himself to look up at Eric and his wallaby lackey, so he stared down at their sneakers, still blinking desperately while his vision shimmered and swam wetly, as though he were gazing through the surface of a rippling pond.

Eric stood his ground for another few seconds, then pointed at Tristan accusingly. ``You just watch your back, dipshit. I ain't through with you.''

With that, Eric and his friend turned and headed for the open blacktop, the wallaby's thick grey tail pumping up and down in the air behind his thick haunches as he hopped. Tristan watched them go, swaggering and chatting amongst themselves in that pompous way that bullies have always had. There were a couple of adult yard monitors wandering around, though of course they hadn't seen anything, nor did they ever manage to. Tristan rubbed his tender ear. 'Next time I'm gonna punch you right in the nuts, dickhead,' he thought angrily, though deep down he knew that he probably wouldn't.

A couple of cubs were approaching the bathroom. Not wanting to be seen standing there rubbing his ear and blinking back tears, Tristan spun around and darted inside. He quickly walked past the large white porcelain sinks and the ugly urinals, his shoes smacking loudly against the speckled mint-chip laminated floor. Somebody had kicked a pink urinal cake out into the middle of the room, and he stepped around it, grateful that there was nobody else there. He could feel the tears starting to flow again, and he angrily sniffed, wiping at the corners of his eyes. `I will not cry!' he thought defiantly as he pushed open a toilet stall and stepped inside. After bolting the door behind him, he stood over the toilet and breathed hard, feeling hot tears squeeze their way past his eyelids and trickle down the sides of his muzzle. `Dammit.'

For several minutes he stood there, until his heart slowed its jackhammer rhythm and the hiccuping little sobs stopped jerking at his chest. At last under control, he listened to the sounds of cubs wandering through the bathroom, the pouring of water in the sink and the loud spatter of pee streaming into the urinals. Gingerly, he touched his right ear and winced. He was still sore, but now it was more of a tingle than actual pain, like the feeling of a dental anesthetic wearing off. He didn't quite trust himself to head back out into the schoolyard just yet, so he continued to force himself to breathe deeply, and he read the graffiti in the grout lines between the wall's big white tiles to kill the time.

Scribbling in the grout lines was a particularly popular pass-time amongst the cubs at school. You were technically doing something bad, which was good, but more importantly, you had a vast forum on which to scrawl your thoughts for all to appreciate. Grout graffiti was a place for raw communication, an outpouring of one's uninhibited wit and wisdom. The bathroom wall was one of the few places that the cubs knew was theirs and theirs alone, and they made constant use of it... albeit in a brief and grammatically-questionable fashion.

`Chris is a dingleberry,' that was a new one. So was `My Rodent Dick Rulz <==3' scribbled above what was apparently supposed to be a drawing of a female... woodchuck, perhaps? Whatever species she was supposed to be, she was bent over with her bushy tail sticking up, a little `x' and what looked like a pair of fuzzy parenthesis representing someone's idea of lady parts.

`I made some lemonade for you numnuts its in the bowl!', that one hadn't been there the other day, either... but the one that made Tristan actually smile was: `Suck my rosy weasel pucker.' Clearly, somebody had been paying attention in Diction class.

It occurred to Tristan that he still needed to pee. Still smiling at the crude scrawlings in the grout, he undid his buttons, unzipped, and began to relieve himself. It was hard to read and pee at the same time, so he leaned forward and pressed one paw against the wall for stability. Just as he was shaking the last few drops out, his eyes went wide in surprise, and he nearly fumbled out of his own paw: Nestled amongst the usual fuck yous and eat shits was a tiny drawing of a circle with a `T', an `F', and a `C' interlocked. That, he knew for a fact, stood for `The Firefly Club'.

He had seen this little symbol several times before, hidden in secret places around the school... there was one carved into the wooden border surrounding the tanbark in the playground, one scratched into a shelf in the adventure section of the library, one drawn in blue ink on the corner of a random desktop in his science class, and one gracing the inside cover of Berry's math book. Were they a new thing, he wondered, or had they always been there, and he'd just never known to attach any significance to them before?

Tristan zipped himself up. Sighing softly, he reached a paw out and gently touched his fingertip to the little circle.

To be continued...

", "pools_count": 0, "title": "The Firefly Club - Chapter 1", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "12", "views": "2445" }