3 – I’m Crawling B*****s

When it happened, Jonny was not with his mother, which he did feel a bit bad about. He knew she would have wanted to be present for his first crawls. However, apparently caring for a baby was tiring, and his father had some other duties managing something or other territory, so when neither of his parents were available, but he was still awake, he was handed off to two of the maids.

The maids were both fairly young. Jonny didn’t think either of them looked much older than 16. They acted like 16 year olds too. As soon as they were left alone, they immediately took to gossiping up a storm. It was through them that Jonny learned most of what he knew about his new world. Well, at least his new home. Their gossip usually didn’t extend much further than the palace’s grounds, but that was plenty for him.

The most important information he gleaned was that the palace was huge, and that his parents were richer and more powerful than he had originally thought. The maids used at least 30 different names he didn’t know on a regular basis during their gossip, and had probably mentioned another 50 in passing. There were at least 3 different kitchens, four gardens, and a whole three regiments of knights.

Jonny didn’t understand why there were knights, since he thought that was a European thing, while everyone around him sounded American. He still had no idea where he was though. Canadians sounded kind of like Americans. Maybe they had knights in Canada or something.

Wherever he was though, he would have to wait until he was older to find out. It was more important that he figure out how to crawl so he could gain at least some degree of independence. He hated being reliant on everyone else to take him places.

“…Oh, that reminds me, did you hear what happened in the kitchen last week?” asked one of the maids. Laura was her name, if Jonny remembered correctly.

“The thing with the cat?” said the other. Her name was May. Or maybe Martha?

“Yeah, that.”

“I heard a little about it.”

“Well, I was actually there when it happened.”

“Oooh, no way! Spill.”

“Okay, so basically, Jennie’s been raising some kittens in secret in the garden for the past week, and-”

“Oh yeah, she showed them to me the other day.”

“Ohmygod, aren’t they adorable?”

“I had to stop myself from taking one back with me.”

“Saaame. Anyway, they were too small to do much before, but now they’re starting to figure out their claws, so they’re able to climb a bit and…”

Jonny decided that their gossip wasn’t anything useful to him, so he tuned it out and focused more closely on himself. Crawling was tough work. His arms and legs were almost unresponsive. They could twitch when he told them to, but they never twitched in the same way twice in a row. Only in the past few days had he managed to get his knees under him and start rocking, but today, he was certain that he could finally move. His arms were getting just a little bit stronger every day, and the day before, he had managed to hold a steady turtle pose for almost a minute.

He did a quick roll onto his stomach, a motion that had become easy, and over the next minute, he worked his way back into the turtle pose.

“Oh, look, he’s trying to crawl again!” said one of the maids.

You’re goddamn right I am, thought Jonny.

“Go, Jonny!” said the other one.

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You don’t need to tell me twice.

With a mighty effort, he lifted himself up just a bit higher than usual. It couldn’t have been more than an inch, but it was enough to take some weight off his arms, letting him lift his right one up.

“He’s doing it!” said the first maid.

He set his hand down out in front of him. It didn’t make it as far as he had been aiming, but that didn’t matter. He was doing it!

Next, he tried leaning slightly to the left so he could move his right leg. He almost went too far, and for a split second, he was worried his balance wouldn’t hold, and he would fall onto his back, but he managed to stabilize himself, and a moment later, he set his right leg back down, just an inch further forward than it had been before.

At the same time, Laura scrambled around so that she was sitting in front of him. She spread her legs wide, and pat her dress against the ground, then beckoned to Jonny.

“Come here!” she said. “You can do it!”