The Three Muskeruffies - 31 Stories in 31 Days (January 2022)

It's 2022! I can tell some of my neighbors are excited still, as they are still letting off (entirely illegal) fireworks in the area. 

As for me, I'm trying to start the year gently, without making any sudden moves or anything that might make the year think I'm threatening it for dominance. I'm taking a little bit of time to write, which means you all get to see it - isn't that exciting? I'm doing the 31 stories in 31 days challenge again, giving myself an incentive to write every day and also a chance to build up a bit of momentum. This time, they aren't all necessarily going to be fiction - I may slip some memoir-type stuff in here, as I think of it. Today, for example, is about a small stuffed dog and my first experience with non-binary characters, which I didn't even think of in those terms until just today. 

As a reminder, this is always draft zero, no editing, take it as it comes. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. And now, let me introduce you to The Three Muskeruffies.

I was heartbroken when I realized that Samantha, my little stuffed dog, had gotten lost. She was the twin of my brother's dog Sammy, and they were the best of friends - how could we ever explain to him that his sister had gone missing? How would he ever get over the loss, the grief, of losing his twin sister and best friend? They did everything together, including running their detective agency out of the big cardboard Mansion where they (and all of the other animals in my house) lived. Could the agency of Samantha and Sammy survive if one of them was no longer around?

I was distraught, and naturally, I made that everyone's problem. In particular, my mother and father had to hear about how awful Sammy's life had to be, if Samantha wasn't around. And no, I didn't know where I'd left her! I didn't remember the last place I'd seen her! If I'd remembered that, then I would know where she was and she wouldn't be lost! It was probably a solid week before my mother finally came up with a solution. She came home after work and presented me with a new little dog. It was identical to Samantha and Sammy, and yet...not. The face was sewn slightly differently, so it was clear to everyone (meaning my brother and me) that this was not the same dog at all. Even my mother, who had a lot of patience for the imaginations of her children even if that imagination led to more arguments that she was not ever planning to have than she could ever count, understood that this wasn't a replacement dog.

"This is Robin," Mom said as she handed the little dog to me. "Samantha and Sammy had a cousin who needs a place to stay, and I thought Sammy might be lonely. Here you go!" And away she went, figuring she'd done enough to continue with the wild machinations of her children to keep them busy for another hour or three.

Robin was a good name for the dog, in part because my brother and I couldn't decide on a lot of things. For one thing, we couldn't decide who Robin belonged to, and since my dog was a girl and his dog was a boy, who knew if Robin was a boy or a girl? Not us, that's for sure, and Robin wasn't talking. We basically used whatever pronouns came to mind when they came up, but the fact that Robin was a cousin (another conveniently non-gendered word) meant that we didn't have to worry about it too much, and frankly, we didn't give it much thought.

Less than a week after Robin joined the family, my brother and I had Sammy and Robin investigating the disappearance of the hairbrush (a recurring mystery in our house), and upon spelunking under the couch, Robin encountered...Samantha! She'd been trapped under there for ages, and had quite the story to tell of fighting off pirates and hiding under the couch to keep herself safe, subsisting on nothing but dust bunnies and the occasional cookie crumb for survival. She had to go to the hospital in the Mansion for a little bit to get checked out; the resident doctor, Racky Sr. (a giant raccoon that would have taken up the majority of the real estate in the Mansion if he lived in it directly, which is why he built an annex for himself and his son), before she was allowed to rejoin the family business.

It wasn't enough for the family to have just Samantha and Sammy's names on the business anymore, though. Robin wasn't going anywhere. Together, they decided that they were stronger as three, and as the good fans of classic action movies and novels that we were, my brother and I came up with the best name possible for the new business - The Three Muskeruffies. (They even had a theme song. Sammy, sadly, didn't have the greatest of voices, but he tried, bless his little cotton heart.)

The Three Muskeruffies only had about another year to adventure together before my brother "outgrew" them, but I'll never forget the bond that they had, and how they helped us develop a bond stronger than I thought possible. We don't talk that much anymore, my brother and I, but there's still a little part of me that remembers the Muskeruffies and the other denizens of the Mansion, and how they helped a pair of kids who moved around a ton, and had nobody other than each other to rely on every time they became the new kids in school. Our parents helped, where they could, but they were in the world of adults; we weren't quite ready for that yet, and it was nice to have someone else in the world of kids to be with. I just wish we hadn't been in such a screaming hurry to grow up, but that always seems to be the way. 

Here's to the Three Muskeruffies, may they ever adventure together!