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Prince of Penance	By : passionsnapey Category: +G through L > Gummi Bears Views: 1964 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the cartoons of Disney Studios, nor any of the characters from them. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Prince of Penance

pen·ance

–noun

1. a punishment undergone in token of penitence for sin.

Chapter One: Memories Boxed

Gruffi Gummi resolutely pounded away at the peg with his mallet, even though he knew the peg was probably the wrong size. There was no hope for it now, the peg was half way in and trying to remove it at this stage would definitely ruin his work. At worse the wood would split, and potentially ruin his work, but for the most part he wasn't concerned. The wood was doing what he wanted it to, and the form was taking shape. That is, until he banged his thumb with the hammer.

"OUCH! Darn fiddlin' peg! Gah! Gnnng!"

"Do you want me to get Grammi?" Cubbi jumped up immediately, as if he had been waiting all afternoon in the workroom with Gruffi for any excuse to leave it.

"Mmm, ow, no, I'm almost done, no blood, sssss," Gruffi bemoaned his banged thumb, stuck it
in his mouth, and picked up his hammer again, resolute that he wasn't going to show any weakness in front of the kid.

Years could change a person, man or Gummi, Gruffi knew this very well. As a child he had been as rambunctious and mischievous as Cubbi with absolutely no sense in his head. Liberal application of a switch to his hide had brought about change. Discipline and order where chaos had been. With proper application discipline could calm the unruliest of hearts and bend the most stubborn of wills. Discpline could teach order and order, in turn, gave stability.

These thoughts wound their way around his head as he observed Cubbi nearby, who was probably rather bored with having to help Gruffi today, but knowing that the rain outside prevented him from his usual play, or going to visit Calvin, had no other choice. Cubbi was undergoing a stage of life that must have been unbearable to the boy.

The friendless stage.

Sunni was going to soon be a young woman, of age to be courted and maybe married, if she could find a Gummi bear of suitable age around her to court her. She no longer felt the draw towards childish games that Cubbi still felt. And he had no other friends. Tummi would participate to a point, but mostly he worked along with the other adults, when not snacking on pies. Cubbi, in his small little way, reminded Gruffi painfully of his own turn as the 'only child left' and he decided he would make it less painful for the kid somehow.

"Can you hand me that box of nails kid? I should be done this soon, I just want to secure this with a nail or two..."

"Those nails you use to put pictures on the walls?"

"Yep, those are the ones."

"'Kay Gruffi..."

Gruffi really had to pity the boy, if he was so bored at being stuck in the rain that he was willing to help Gruffi with his work. Then an idea struck him.

"Do you want to help me paint it?" Gruffi asked the boy, holding out a clean brush. "I know I am not exactly an 'artiste'," he said largely, eliciting a giggle from the cub, "But since we can't ask our resident artistic genius for help in painting his own present, I think we'll have to do it."

"He's really going to like this box you've made for him. He can store all his art stuff in it..."

Gruffi didn't have the heart to tell Cubbi just how much 'art stuff' Gusto had stored all over Gummi Glen. It seemed to be in every place they looked. No matter where he went, signs of Gusto Gummi were there.

The chaos in my ordered world, Gruffi thought with a mental pang of pain. Somehow I doubt he'll be using this box to reorder his world. At most he'll store his brushes in it.

But Gruffi had to admit, he was feeling a little inspired himself right now, and very generous. He even made the effort to paint a few swirly designs on the box, and let Cubbi paint clouds and star shapes on it before starting with the sealant.

"This'll make it waterproof..."

"It's been a long time since Gusto first came to live in the Glen," Cubbi said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the varnish. "I think this party is really going to surprise him."

"Course it will," Gruffi said smartly. "Every year we throw him a party counting down the years since he came into our life, since he can't, for some reason I can't fathom, remember his own darned birthday! So we started doing this and he forgets every year when he throw him this darned party and is always late!"

Cubbi giggled.

"So we make it a surprise party this year, and then the surprise will be on purpose at least."

"Good idea!"

"You can go help Grammi bake the cake now if you want, maybe she'll let you lick the icing bowl. I've got to put this away somewhere safe until the party. And I have to find Tummy. I really hope Sunni didn't go out in this rain..."

"She has'nt been able to decide what to give him. I'm giving him those weird shells I found by the water."

"Good idea. Maybe she'll sew him a new darned hat!"

"I like his hat..."

"Its all holey and threadbare."

"Maybe cause he likes it so much, he wears it all the time."

"Yeah maybe. Certainly doesn't care about his clothes the way she does.

The Gummi girl in question swirled into the work room, already in her party clothes, but stopped dead in her tracks and wrinkled her nose.

"What is that smell?" Sunni asked in remorse. "Eww!"

"Its paint sealer, to make paint waterproof," Gruffi explained. "You best get out of here before you get any paint on your good clothes."

Sunni was quick to grab Cubbi and pull him resolutely from the room.

Gruffi sighed and watched his two fosterlings run down the hall, all a chatter about the 'surprise' party that Gusto, who was sleeping in the bedroom nearby, wasn't supposed to know about.

Or at least he thought Gusto was sleeping there. He hoped his hammering hadn't woken the bear if he was. It was hard to keep track of him lately. One day he decided he would sleep in Gummi Glen when it got cold, but other days he changed his mind and resolutely trekked back to his comfortable waterfall.

I'd question his sanity, if I hadn't installed that fireplace in his old place myself. Why has he kept switching places all week? Artistic streak run amok?

Gruffi chuckled and started cleaning up his work room. A polite cough at his door signalled that his hammer pounding had indeed woken up his next door neighbour and he sighed and rolled his eyes, turning to look at the blue furred bear around which everything else seemed to turn.

"I'm sorry, Gruffi, but could you help me out? I've got a serious problem."

Gusto looked dreadful. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, none of them had really. The storms, the rain, the constant pouding of water on the roof, it was enough to drive anyone batty. Gusto might have been better off at the waterfall, if he hadn't also caught that cold that had laid up Zummi and Sunni for more than a week. Grammi wanted all potential sick patients living here at the Glen where she could care for them with ease. Gruffi had the feeling that Gusto was currently suffering a four alarm headache that his own hammering had probably not helped in the least.

But it couldn't be helped. The party was today and that gift had to be finished. Just in time too, for Gusto leaned upon the door jamb and heaved a dramatic sigh.

"Sure, what can I do for you..."

"Well, you see," the blue bear minced around his words for about a second then sighed. "I already know about the party...and I really don't want to ruin the surprise but...I don't think I'll be able to handle it."

Gruffi looked at Gusto directly, no sympathy or remorse in his bones.

Well maybe a little. His furry blue friend looked like a dead bear walking with the ice pack on his head and the quilt around his body. Gruffi didn't for all the world want to catch this virus and kept his distance as he made himself perfectly clear.

"Every year for the last three years we've thrown you a party, and you always try to find an excuse to skip it. Well you aren't skipping it. Sunni and Zummi have been just as sick as you and they're going. And furthermore everybody has been working very very hard to make sure this is a surprise for you..." he stalked forward a foot per word. "So...you...aren't going to ruin it, are you?"

Gusto shook his head and laughed.

"No, guess you're right. Its just...I hate being this old..."

"Old? You're a young scamp!" Grammi said, poking her nose into the work room. "If I ever hear anybody younger than me call themselves old again I'll take a spoon to their heads!"

"Sorry Grammi," Gusto said. "I must be pushing thirty. I swear I must be. I wish I could...remember when...but the years just sort of..."

"Yeah, we know, you forgot when your birthday was. You were on an island for twelve years!"

"Just go back to bed," Grammi put a hand to his forhead and shook her own head with a sigh. "We'll call you out when its time for dinner. Nothing extreme, just the normal gifts and cake and you can go back to bed."

Gusto thanked her profusely, commented brightly on the paint stain pattern on Gruffi's work clothes, then went back to his room. The two bears could hear him sneezing, coughing and groaning in the next room.

Why he had to have the room next to me is beyond me...He's kept me up all night with that racket!

"Grammi," Gruffi said, following her to the kitchen annoyed. "Why did you say that? After I went to all the trouble of promising him to come to his own party, you practically let him off with a song!"

"I'm worried about him," Grammi said, grabbing a spoon and slapping it into the bowl cookie batter on the counter. "He's pale, he's healing more slowly than Sunni or Zummi, and he's got those sneezes. Neither of them sneezed. I think that waterfall of his is colder than he's letting on!"

"Maybe..." Gruffi said. "Artie and I can go check the fireplace, so he can stretch his feathers..."

"Oh blast it," Grammi ran to the stove just in time to keep her pot of soup from boiling over. "Every year you try to convince him that the waterfall is just too cold for him to sleep in through winter, and every year he argues with you, and ends up coming here of his own accord, without any help from us. Dissappears for most of fall and then just shows up one day in the dead of winter. You think he was hiding from the world in that place!"

Gruffi shrugged, and moved out of the doorway, which he hadn't realized he'd been standing in, to make way for Zummi.

"So lets see," Zummi said, clearly ignoring whatever argument Grammi and Gruffi were involved in as if on habit. "Grammi is making a cake for Gusto, like every year, Tummi is making a model boat, like every year, Cubbi is giving him something he found, like every year. Sunni is taking her time, like always. You've built him yet another box..."

"You want to put it that way, its a storage chest, and he needs them..."

"...Like every year. Who am I missing?"

Gruffi coughed.

"You?"

Zummi went cross eyed.

"Oh right! The paints I always make for him!"

"Which always explode!" Grammi complained, and took his list right from his hands. "Well get to it! I haven't got all day and all you bears pounding around in my kitchen will flatten my poor cake more than it already is no thanks to Tummi opening the door every ten minutes to look at it!"

"But it smells so wonderful Grammi," Tummi said, suddenly having appeared seemingly out of nowhere already at the stove in question. "Just one more peek?"

Gruffi decided that it was better to make a hasty exit. Grammi's kitchen was her domain, and his workshop was his, and he resolutely returned to it. Though he finally closed the door to the work, he couldn't shut out the noise from the kitchen of arguments, or the sounds of the rain pounding over head making its migraine inducing presence known. Nor could he shut out the pained moans of the bear in the bedroom next to his workshop, or the sneezing and coughing of Gusto, Zummi in the hallway, and Sunni in her bedroom.

He sighed.

This is going to be one hell of a party.
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Prince of Penance