The After Party

Conner felt nervous as the group left the school and entered the courtyard. Sara pointed to a house which backs onto the school, it was surprisingly close to the school. The group quickly walked toward her place, leaving Conner to hurry behind them. He rushed as fast as he could however was having a great deal of trouble keeping up, he looked up and saw Emily standing and waiting for him.

“I figured I would walk with you Toto!” She told him as he caught up.

Conner took a moment to catch his breath after running after his fellow cast members. “Thanks.” He mumbled. She just reached down and patted his head.

The two slowly walked toward the house, Conner didn’t feel the need to hurry anymore as most of them had already disappeared inside. “I should have just taken this thing off after the play.” He complained.

“You make such a cute Toto! We can play together!” She suggested.

Conner wasn’t really sure what to do at a party like this, he was closer in age to Emily then the other cast members. “I don’t know about that.” He said.

Conner and Emily finally make it to the house, it’s a one storey house and luckily doesn’t have any steps up to the door. Emily holds the door open for Conner and they hear the loud teenagers chatting about the play, relationships and other school work. Conner follows Emily into the living room which had a large television at one end of the room and multiple couches and sofas for sitting. Pillows had also been laid out on the floor for people to sit on. On one end of the room Conner spotted a dejected and seemingly depressed Billy sitting at the end of a couch. Jessica was sitting next to Harvey, both of them looking flustered. Sara and Rayna were herding snacks and people into the room where Jamie was fiddling with the remote trying to get a recording of the play to appear on the television.

Conner followed Emily to the pillows on the floor and sat beside her, not wanting to clumsily try and get onto the couch. Tom who was awkwardly sitting in his Tinman getup looks at Conner. “It looks like our lost puppy finally made his way here.” He called out, and some of the others snickered “We should introduce him to Diamond and Sugar!”

Conner had no idea who Diamond and Sugar were and looked at Emily who was smiling. “Great idea, I’ll go get them!” Emily happily got up and ran out of the room.

Conner heard yapping from down the hall and Emily returned with two dogs, both of them excited about all the new people in the house. Conner got nervous when he saw the two large dogs one was a full grown saint bernard that rivaled even Emily’s standing height, the other was a regular golden retriever, who still stood taller then Conner while he was kneeling. The dogs bound into the room jumping from person to person until they spotted Conner, sitting there as the smallest dog in the room. “The big one is Diamond and the golden retriever is Sugar.” Emily told the crowd.

The dogs eyed Conner and started moving closer to him, they were clearly curious about the dog boy. Their posture changed quickly and they took an aggressive stance. Conner, not knowing what to do, started to slowly shuffle backwards away from them and further into the room, he really regretted not changing now. Diamond, who towered over Conner, then let out a loud ‘WOOF!’. Conner got legitimately scared, the bark was loud and rang in Conner’s ears, tears started to blur his vision, that’s when they lunged at him.

“Eeeek!” Conner squeaked, holding his paw clad hands in front of him. Lucky for Conner, the dogs never made it to him. He lowered his hands and saw that Diamond’s collar had been grabbed by Billy of all people and Sugar’s had been snagged by Harvey. The three boys looked at each other all breathing deeply with relief.

Jessica stood up and rushed over to Conner. “Hey Toto, it’s alright.” She knelt down and gave him a hug while Billy and Harvey quicked ushered the dog away. She wiped away the tears from his black eyes and stood up and looked at the rest of the cast members. “So Jaimie are we watching this play or what?” She asked, trying to move the focus away from her brother.

Jaimie fumbled with the remote for a few more seconds and a recording of the play started on the large television. Sara handed out some bowls of snacks and placed a lidded tumbler in front of Conner with a straw sticking out. He was thirsty after all the running and shuffling and happily drank from the straw, he had half expected them to give him a dog bowl to tease him further however Sara was nicer than that. Billy and Harvey stepped back into the room, both with flushed faces looking more miserable than before, Conner suspected that they had an argument while they stepped away. Emily sat down next to Conner and whispered in his ear. “Sorry about the dogs, I didn’t think they would get so mean.”

“Yeah, okay Emily” Conner whispered back, still upset from earlier. “Let’s just watch the play.”

The recording they were watching was from the afternoon in front of the student body, it had been filmed by one of the AV Club members for them. This was the first time Conner had seen himself perform on stage and he didn’t know how to feel. Objectively it was a decent performance, he didn’t mess up cues and he moved when needing to. The real issue is how embarrassed he was seeing himself on the screen, he wanted to cringe every time he heard himself bark at the other cast members. Emily on the other hand sang along to the songs, much to the other kids delight, she was clearly not as embarrassed as he was.

Different scenes brought comments from others, some laughed, others had their own moments of embarrassment and sometimes there were compliments, mostly aimed at his sister. Conner was kind of relieved when the play ended with the curtains closing, he could finally put the play behind him. The older kids started to chat amongst themselves and Conner needed to use the washroom. He turned to Emily “Um, where is the washroom in your house?”

“Couple doors down on the right .” Emily told him.

Conner walked through the halls and saw Jessica and Harvey waiting for something. “Hey Jessica, I just need to go to the washroom. Can you unzip this costume?” He asked.

Jessica looked down. “Okay Toto, we are just waiting for Billy to meet us in one of the bedrooms.” She stepped into the washroom with Conner and unzipped the outfit. Conner stood up and stretched out a bit, finally being able to stand. Jessica left to give him some privacy. After going to the washroom and washing his hands Conner attempted to put the costume back on, he was having difficulty with it. The bathroom door shot open, he had forgotten to lock it, and yelped in surprise. Billy was standing before him, he was still wearing the monkey suit, but the makeup had been streaked with tears. Conner was still sitting in his briefs on the ground.

“What are you doing here?” Billy said angrily.

“I was going to the washroom, I’m almost done.” Conner said meekly, embarrassed about the situation.

“You’re Jessica’s kid brother aren’t you Toto?” He questioned him, his eyes still red.

“Yeah, why do you care?” Conner asked.

Billy’s eyes twitched in anger and then softened a little and he grinned. “Do you need a hand with that thing?” He asked.

Conner looked around, he didn’t understand why Billy would offer to help him. “Yeah, that would be nice.” He mumbled, thinking back to how Billy saved him from Diamond.

Billy stepped behind him and roughly zipped up the costume for him, he felt him pull extra hard at the zipper and then he let go. “There now the doggy is back, I know you prefer it this way.” he said angrily.

Conner stumbled back into a sitting position. “Thanks Billy.” He said meekly.

“You don’t even deny it anymore.” He scoffed. “I’m heading home, good luck with the rest of the party.” Billy ushered Conner out of the bathroom and closed the door.

Conner paced back to the living room where all the kids were speaking, he spotted his sister and Harvey holding hands on the couch and the other cast member just chatting. Rayna held up a bottle and announced. “Okay let’s play ‘spin the bottle’”. This was met with a few laughs and a few groans but it seemed to be the next thing people were going to do.

Conner had no interest in playing kissing games with a bunch of teenagers and just looked around, is this really what they did at parties, just watch movies and play stupid games? Sara knelt down in front of Conner and Emily. “Hey, why don’t you two play in Emily’s room?” she suggested, clearly trying to get rid of them.

“Yes! Toto let’s play in my room!” Emily cried.

Conner looked around, Jessica just shrugged. “Okay, that works I guess.” He said, not knowing what else to do.

Emily led Conner through the house, it was mostly on the same floor with no stairs, just a few steps for specific rooms. When she opened a door that had colorful letters that spelt out Emily he was greeted with a fairly normal looking room. He had expected Emily’s wall to be a bright pink with a lot of dolls but that wasn’t the case, she had a desk and bed, large play area and plenty of toys, dolls included. One thing he did notice was the amount of stuffed animals, she had all kinds. Across from her bed, hanging on the wall was a TV, he was a little envious since he didn’t even have a TV in his room.

“Welcome to my room Toto!” Emily said, as Conner stumbled into the room, still looking around. “We can play all sorts of games, who needs all the big kids anyway.”

Conner felt a little guilty for leaving all his cast members behind and could hear laughter coming from somewhere else in the house, another part of him knew that this had been Sara’s plan to get both of them out of her and Jessica’s way.

Emily closed her door and sat in front of Conner so they were eye level. “You look so much like Toto, can you bark again?” she asked.

Conner felt embarrassed, did she just want him to pretend to be a dog? “The play is over Emily.”

She pouted and stared at him. “Come on, you were so good at it, you look just like a dog too.”

Conner figured he would just give her what she wanted, rather than argue. “Arf.” he let out softly.

Emily giggled happily. “You’re such a good boy!”, she then patted his head. “Do you know any tricks?” She continued.

“I’m not a dog, I’m a boy.” Conner complained.

“During the play you were wagging your tail! How did you do that?” Emily questioned him, ignoring his previous statement.

Conner was getting annoyed. “It’s just how the costume works.” He then used his feet to make the tail wag back back and forth in order to prove it to her.

Emily giggled and was smiling ear to ear. “Okay fine you're a boy, what do you want to do then?” Emily conceded. “We could watch another movie or play, I have a bunch of them.”

“Sure, let’s watch a play then.” Conner agreed. “What do you have?”

Emily got up and opened a drawer, she pulled out a disc that had ‘Peter Pan’ written on it. “This is a good one, it’s old and from a few years ago.” She put the disc into the player and went over to her bed. “Do you need some help getting up?” She asked.

Conner walked over to her bed and realized how high up it was. “Yeah, a little.” He said bashfully. Emily stood behind him and gave him a boost while he clambered onto the top of it. “Thanks,'' he said and moved to a comfortable viewing position.

The play started, to his surprise it looked like it had been recorded at the community theater. Emily turned off the lights and sat beside him on the bed and would occasionally run her fingers through the fur of Conner’s costume, to his annoyance it felt kind of nice. While watching the screen Conner laid down on his stomach and put his head on his padded paws. His body was tired from the two performances and running around on his knees, his eyes felt heavy and he yawned, eventually he dozed off on Emily’s bed.