Lucy had been peering up at the brilliant blue sky, attempting to find any sort of cloud to gaze at, although none appeared. It was a quintessential summer day as the ten-year-old mouse found herself at the local community pool, crowded as ever. She sat on a picnic rug on an expanse of lawn from the pool, alongside her mother, Cindy. It was noisy, energetic and full of screaming, Lucy hated it. Not helping matters was a group of local Scouts was nearby doing their activities in the water. Normally the only time Lucy found herself at a pool was when she was dragged along by her wolf friend, Misty, often with her dad, Rook. Despite being ‘too old’ for it, she felt comforted and appreciated when Rook held her in the water. It was the sort of thing she would not expect from her mother, whom Lucy wasn’t even sure could swim to save her own life. “Eck!” Lucy squeaked, she winced and wiggled her little mouse nose as her mother suddenly massaged the sun cream into her sensitive silky cub fur. “Mum!” she protested with a pout. “Settle down Lucy, I can’t have you get burnt up, what would your grandparents think of me?” Cindy kindly cooed. Once the woman was finished, she laid down on her front and pulled out a saucy romance novel, the mature mouse woman wore a mauve one-piece swimsuit laced with subtle rose patterns. She had been eyeing all the strong men around, kangaroos and lions in their tight speedos which outlined their manhood (Lucy suspected that’s why her mother wanted to come here today). “Why don’t you go play with the other cubs?” Cindy suggested, gesturing her head at a crowd in the middle of preteens, many of whom were using the communal rafts. “Will you… watch me?” Lucy asked, tentatively. Cindy didn’t answer for a moment, although made a movement which was bordering on the edge of an eye-roll. “I’ll keep an eye on you” she soothed, flipping a page of her book which gained her full attention. The woman often felt her daughter needed to assert herself a bit more, like Misty or Rosabeth. Perhaps though, not as wild Henna. “-Right” Lucy sighed and stood up, approaching the summertime pool of fun as if she had been asked to do defuse a bomb. The girl picked up a pink rubber raft that matched her pink one-piece swimsuit and she gingerly entered the water with it, clinging to it with a nervous expression as it wobbled. She was not a confident swimmer. Lucy paddled herself towards the fray of playful cubs, jumping and crawling all over each-other. The centrepiece of attention was this giant inflated crocodile, which thrashed like a real one from the motion. The water around it was a violent as a rapid. Within no time Lucy regretted his and attempted to turn herself around. “HEEEYYYA-“ a Quokka cub whacked Lucy straight off her raft and claimed it, with the attention straight back to the fray.
Lucy was fully submerged and out of her depth, the sound drowned out as water filled the ears and her tiny feet couldn’t touch the bottom. In panic she managed to weakly resurface with a shocked gasp. Face wet, hair covering half of it she struggled instantly. Head bobbing under the surface, a repeated cycle of submerges and gasping for air. She wanted to cry out, be it ‘MUM!’ ‘HELP!’ or ‘I’M DROWNING!’, yet she couldn’t muster anything other than drawing breath. She attempted to grab onto something in the fray, her tiny mouse paw groped the side of the slippery crocodile but couldn’t gain purchase. She was surrounded by cubs, but nobody noticed she was right there in dire need of assistance. Her own mother absorbed in romantic flights of fancy didn’t notice her only child drowning. Finally the slender, little and vulnerable mouse couldn’t fight any longer and she slipped straight under, not to resurface. The crushing sound of water filled her hears, cheeks weakly puffed with the precious remaining air and lungs began to burn. She flailed helplessly in panic, her tight one-piece swimsuit squeezes to her slender frame from the thrashing. Eyes shut, above her the sound of movement could be heard and finally some cub’s leg kicked the back of her head and… knockout. Bubbles gently trickled from her ajar mouth as she floated limp, when suddenly a skunk boy named Lemmy grabbed her limp body and swam her to the surface. He was a boy scout, wearing a green speedo and had been the only one who noticed Lucy’s perils. Not her mother, not the lifeguards, nor the crowd around her. As the boy began swimming her towards the nearest edge, her eyes opened a fraction of a centimeter as she made the faintest of moans. For some inexplicable reason, be it luck or a blessing from above, she hadn’t fully inhaled and drowned when knocked out. Lucy had just managed to cling to life and was saved thanks to Lemmy.
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What would you do if you saw a struggling mouse? Although any of my cubs though find themselves in need of your assistance! ;)
for last year's one-piece swimsuit week. You can find their uploads of it here & here (a story with Lemmy's). You can find Vio's commission information here.
You can find out more OPOW here, and check out my previous years entries for 2021, 2022 & 2023! If you haven't seen it, then be sure to find this year's original entry
