Hijinks By: Pent Ghelsburg
Disclaimer: The characters depicted in this work are purely fictional. Any resemblance to persons alive or dead is purely coincidental. They are the original and rightful intellectual property of their creators. I use them with permission and respect. Additionally, most characters are portrayed as underaged and there is some implied suggestive content. You have been warned.
“Life is too short not to do
a little bit of practical joking.”
-Krista Allen
Life is one of those things where sometimes it is a sweet madame which offers its embrace to carry you through to whatever pleasures you might enjoy. Other times she is a virile temptress who tries with all of her seduction to get you to do something that you shouldn't otherwise. Yet still, she has one final form, the evil saboteur whose sole purpose is to foil each and every day and otherwise ruin any sense of success. Of course, life is ultimately what we make it and each and every person must navigate the twists and turns of reality to come to terms with it.
This is even more true for our youth who often find themselves at the precipice of change. Not ever understanding oneself or even realize why you're doing things or feeling them lies at the very core of puberty. Often times acting out is the only thing that makes sense, other times it is blending in with the crowd to avoid being ostracized. Such is the way of things and eventually, even they figure it out and move on with life as normal.
Carson was a 12-year-old boy who lived near Huron. Right across the huge body of water was Canada. Many times he could see people boating on the lake, but only on clear days could he see directly across. It was on these days when people congregated on both sides. He lived with his family in a small suburb right on the lake itself. It was about an hour from the port town of Mackinaw and was considered an up and coming city in the Michigan area. It was all the boy knew and despite being so close to the border, he had never crossed it.
Carson lived with his parents and brother. Gustav was 3 years his senior and rarely home due to his obsession with hanging out with his friends. Carson was a little more of a digital boy, living his life primarily online. He was quite the gamer and enjoyed things titles ranging from Final Fantasy to Overwatch. So long as it included some sort of interaction with other people. His personal favorite was a game he spent a great deal amount of time on and that was Fortnite. He loved the competitive atmosphere of the game and hoped to compete in the esports competition later in the year.
The family was one of golden retrieves, all of which had their own distinct variation of brown, tan, blonde, and white fur. From afar you could tell they were related, especially the two boys who were quite similar in fur patterns. Their height and body form was the most obvious difference between them besides their distinct personality.
It was midway through the week and Gustav was having another one of his moods. The teen had occasional mood swings, especially when his love interest was being temperamental. This was one of those weeks. Carson was always the first one to get home since he was the youngest of the family. He was in 7th grade and the middle school usually let out about an hour before the high school did. This was in order to prevent congregating between the two groups of kids. Normally the older kids never wanted to associate with them, except for those who had questionable intent for their purpose.
Carson was busy doing his homework right when he got home as he wanted to play games with his brother. His intention was to try the newest release that had just come out. It was the newest Animal Crossing. He had never really bought into the series before but decided to have taken the dive since the game was getting rave reviews at school since the Nintendo Direct. Today was release day and he had gotten release day delivery to his house. It was already in his mailbox when he arrived home. To say he was excited was an understatement.
When Gustav finally arrived home, he did so with a calamitous bang of the front door. Carson knew it couldn't be his parents, so he rushed to see his older brother. The older retriever's head was slumped and looking down as if he'd been gravely disappointed. The younger cub couldn't be sure what was up and wasn't about to pretend he understood. Still, the naive nature of the more curious boy came into play and he couldn't help but want to be comforted his sibling.
“What's up, bro?” Carson asked with his tail wagging behind his legs happily, still wearing his school uniform.
“Nothing...don't worry about it.” Gustav didn't want to bother his brother with his problems.
“You can tell me anything. I won't tell anyone!” The younger boy reached in to hug his brother who wanted nothing to do him.
“I don't want to talk about it. Do you need help with homework or something?” The teen just wanted to take his mind off the issue.
“Sure...wanna try the new game I got?” The cub immediately defaulted to his favorite past time.
“You got another game? Don't you ever spend your allowance on anything else?” Unlike the younger boy, Gustav understood the value of a dollar.
“Nope! Let's go to play. Come on, loser!” The retriever took his brother by the paw and led him with all of his might to the living room where his switch was stored.
Gustav just sat there for a moment while his brother set the equipment up. It was difficult for him to think about it, but he wanted to get comfortable so he took his shoes off and plopped his socked paws up on the coffee table in order to relax. The multiplayer contest within the game was a fishing event. The idea was to reel in the most fish within a given time frame. Size and type of fish, including rarity, would also be considered for each fish they collected. Carson and Gustav watched the introduction for the event as the directions of the controls roll across the screen.
The teen figured he would have the upper hand since he actually fished rather regularly in real life. But of course, that isn’t how things translate into the digital world. Carson used his amiibo and received a purple fishing rod while his brother got a random sheep character with a yellow rod. They would be given 3 minutes to retrieve as many fish as they could get. The screen split as both characters were placed in front of the pond with a count down from 5 seconds. The event began as they both sent out their line with bait and hook which dipped into the blue water on the screen. Every few seconds one or the other would get a hit on their line.
The points began to stack up bit by bit, increasing after each fish was rolled into a bucket. At the halfway mark, the game gave them a warning announcing the lead to be Carson’s characters with an announcer's voice sounding over the game's soundtrack. Gustav knew he needed to speed up, so he activated a boost power-up which increased the rate at which he could reel in fish. Slowly he began to creep up ever closer to Carson’s standing. At it neared the end, both were neck and neck as they frantically tried to reel in a few more fish.
Once it was over, Gustav surprisingly was able to catch up and exceed the younger cub in points.
“Looks like I win, Ron.” The teen felt better now that his mind had been taken off the previous issue.
“Nice job big bro. What do I gotta do?” The cub wasn’t a bad sport and accepted his loss in a respectful manner.
“This’.” The older boy took the younger one between his arms and proceeded to give him a noogie.
“No fair!” The smaller boy tried to pull himself out but was much too weak to do so.
Eventually, Gustav let him out and Carson couldn’t help but straighten up his hair in an effort to restore his boyish pride.
“So what do you want to do now? You can pick if you want.” The younger cub was glad his brother was in a better mood now.
“Want to go take a swim?” The teen was in the mood for taking a dip.
“Sure, that sounds good.” Carson took the controller from his brother and placed it back in the cabinet.
Gustav got up from the floor and stretched as he was a bit sore from the awkward position. While he wasn’t paying attention, Carson quickly circled around him and depantsed him from behind.
“Gotcha!” The younger cub began laughing uncontrollably.
The teen covered himself in an effort to maintain some level of vanity. Almost immediately he bent down to bring back up the slacks around his waist.
“Haha…very funny. Let’s go get changed.” Gustav exits from the living room back into his own room to change.
Both boys disappeared for a moment into their room to change into their suits. Carson was the first one out of his room as he rocketed to the pool in the back yard. He wasted no time in cannonballing into the water. It was cold but with the amount of fur on his body, he didn’t care. Gustav was much slower about going to the pool. The teen showed his face before long and soon joined his brother in the pool, diving into the deep end of the pool. He began doggy paddling back and forth from one end of the pool to the other.
Once Gustav was within range, Carson began to try to tug him further into the water. Even with the perceived weightlessness of his brother, he was unable to drag him down much. The teen stood up and didn’t even try to ward off his brother, as the cub tried to sweep him off his feet. Eventually, the boy had to surface for air.
“Silly boy.” Gustav rubbed his brother's head and messed up his hair.
The smaller boy rolled his eyes while trying to catch his breath. Just then Carson began splashing his brother in an attempt to be playful.
The teen guarded his face before giving in and returning fire with his own waves of water flushed towards the smaller boy. Gradually it erupted into a full blow war of the water with both boys laughing and giggling as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
“Want to race?” Carson wanted to get even at his brother for winning the gaming contest earlier.
“Sure. Same stakes?” Gustav was just as competitive as his brother was.
“Sounds good…on 3?” The cub and his brother went back to the shallow end of the water in preparation for the second round of the game.
After the counting was over, both boys made a streamline towards the other side. Gustav decided midway that he would throw the race in order to appease the cub.
They bulleted back and forth and as planned, Carson came in a close first place. The cub let out a joyous cheer of success as he jumped up and down. It didn’t even enter into his mind that Gustav could have thrown the race.
“Looks like you win, bud. What would you like me to do?” The teen was genuinely curious about what his brother had in mind for him.
“This!” The smaller boy dove into the water and depantsed his brother again.
It caught the teen off guard a bit as Carson had never gone as far as to take anything off more than his pants. It was the first time he had been left naked in front of the other boy except when they were very young.
Gustav wasted no time in pulling his suit back up and popped his brother on the nose in disapproval. Carson’s eyes took a more sullen look as he knew he crossed the line.
“Don’t do that again, alright?” The teen didn’t want to hurt the boy but he had to establish his boundaries.
“Okay…sorry.” Carson still had a smile on his face despite disappointing his brother.
“What do you want to do now? My fur is getting matted.” Gustav asked, feeling they had spent enough time in the water.
“Can you help me with my homework?” The younger cub started making his way out of the pool, his tail wagging slowly behind his back.
“Sure, but I need to work on mine too eventually.” The older boy was always willing to help his brother when he had time.
After Gustav emerged from the water, they took a towel and attempted to dry themselves off. It was never a failsafe as they never spend a great deal of time drying themselves. When they entered back inside, their fur was still dripping wet. Watching Carson in front of him, Gustav was glad his parents weren’t home or they might have yelled at them for bringing water inside. Still, he thought they wouldn’t be home for some time but he knew he would have to clean up eventually.
Carson shivered a bit as he walked and Gustav felt a slight chill to his body. It was colder inside due to the combination of the dampness of their fur and the frigid nature of the empty house.
“Let’s get some clothes on and then we can work on your homework.” The teen suggested in an effort to be helpful.
The two parted for a moment and went into their own rooms to undress and dry off before they gathered a change of clothes. After they redressed, Gustav rejoined his brother in his room.
Despite the time of day the silly cub decided to get his pajamas. They were rather large on him, especially the shirt which draped down to the boy's knees. The only thing he was wearing underneath was his polka-dotted boxers. He was always casual about how he dressed around the house
“So what do you need help with?” The older teen showed himself inside the younger boy’s room.
“I need help with my math. It confuses me.” The cub was in pre-algebra and was having trouble understanding variables.
“Sure, that’s easy enough. Show me what you got.” Gustav walked over to the desk where the boy's books were.
Over the next hour, the two worked on math together. Eventually, they were able to finish the 30 question assignment and show all the necessary work on the paper.
Once they were done with the task, the teen got an idea.
“Come on, let’s go surprise them by making some dinner.” The older boy suggested in order to be a good son.
“Sure, that sounds like a good idea.” Carson didn’t mind helping out.
The two exited the younger cubs room and headed towards the kitchen. It was right down the hall. Gustav began to think about what they could easily make without risking any sort of injury. He decided he would have to look at what was in the freezer.
After they entered the kitchen, the two of them separated from each other.
“How can I help?” Carson wanted to be sure that he did something meaningful.
“You can set the table. I will see what we can make.” Gustav went over to where the fridge was and opened the door
The cold air of the freezer released as it was opened. Inside was an assortment of items ranging from raw meat to boxes of pre-prepared meals, for the days when the parents were not able to come home on time. Gustav reviewed his options and saw a box of breaded fish sticks. Though they were not his favorite, he figured it would be easy enough to cook.
Pulling it out of the freezer, he verified that there were instructions and shut the door.
“Grab a cooking pan and some tin foil,” Gustav instructed his brother once he saw he was done setting the table.
Carson wasn’t sure where that was so he began looking through a few cabinets and eventually found a flat saucer pan and a roll of foil. He handed it over to his brother who covered the pan in foil and dumped some fish sticks onto it.
He heated the oven up and waited before it reached the desired temperature. Once it did, he popped it inside.
“What kind of veggies do you want? Corn, peas, or mixed?” The teen asked since the younger cub was rather picky with what he ate.
“Hmm? Whatever you think mom and dad will like.” The puppy didn’t want to be selfish about what he wanted.
Gustav re-opened the freezer and picked out the mixed vegetables and let them sit to defrost a bit. All that was left now was to flip the fingers halfway through and put the veggies in the microwave.
Soon after they finished, their parents returned home. They both walked in at about the same time. The two brothers knew it since shutting the heard reverberated around the entire home.
“Come on hurry up and serve it.” The cub rushed his brother.
It was just in time as the oven beeped. Gustav fished out the pan out of the oven and served up the fish sticks and veggies onto plates. Meanwhile, Carson served up some milk in some glasses before putting one at each placemat.
The mother and father smelt the food once they arrived and suspected mischief, finding themselves rushed into the kitchen. By the time they reached it, the two boys were ready. Both of them were rather surprised that their two sons had come up with such a thoughtful action. They couldn’t help but come over to their boys and hug each of them. Soon the family joined each other at the table. However, when Gustav sat down a loud farting sound was overheard.
Carson laughed uncontrollably as the two elder dogs looked at him in disapproval. Gustav’s face, beneath his fur, beat red.
“Apologize to your brother…now!” The father bellowed at the youngest boy whom he assumed was responsible.
“Sorry…” Carson said beneath a constant state of chuckling.
Eventually, they returned to eating and recounted their days. Gustav finally sharing the issue he’d been harboring all day and feeling much better about it. When the ordeal was over the father winked at the teen who perfectly understood his intention. The older boy went to the fridge and fetched a cream pie that had been uneaten for a few days. Returning to the table, he peeled off the top and smashed it in Carson’s face.
The whole family laughed in unison, even Carson. The boy sharing the cream by peeling it off with a finger and sticking it into Gustav’s mouth. It was a sweet moment of repose and relief for the otherwise stressed teen. The father even taking a moment to set up his phone to take a family photo as they clung together in a family huddle.
“Cheese!” The camera went off and the photograph was taken with pie slipping off Ronnies face and him licking it rather eagerly.
