Janine's Final draft

 It was just another hot summer’s day in the Pickle’s backyard, where the whole extended family and their friends were once again gathered; the adults were lounging about and chatting while the children played.  

The only one who wasn’t enjoying herself was Angelica; she was just sitting over by the adults playing with her doll ‘Cynthia’ when she overheard her Aunt Didi and Chas Finster talking about Chuckie’s recent growth spurt. They had decided that instead of giving all his outgrown clothes and toys away they could hand them down so that Tommy could get some use out of them.

“Hmmm” she mused deciding that she could have some fun with this. So abandoning her doll she went off in search of the babies.

She found them over by the tree, playing with Spike, the dog, who was running round and round under the sprinkler in an attempt to cool down. Tommy, Phil and Lil were taking it in turns riding on his back. Meanwhile, Chuckie, who was always the cautious one, was sitting out of the way playing with his ball.

“Hey, dumb babies!” she yelled to get their attention. “I just heard aunt Didi sayin’ she did’t want Tommy no more, and ‘stead wants a baby juuust like Chuckie!”

“That’s not true!” Tommy yelled back after finishing his turn with Spike.

“Yea!” Phil and Lil backed him up. “His mommy and daddy love him too much”

“How would you know? I just heard ‘em! They even said they gunna give Tommy some of Chuckie’s things sos he will look like ‘him aaaaand hasta play like him!” she retorted.

“Don’t listen to her guys” Chuckie butted in. “She’s always making up lies!”

To this, the babies decided to ignore her and went back to playing, while Angelica stormed back to her doll.

The rest of the day went quickly and smoothly with no more mention of Angelica’s ploy. However, the next day when Chas brought Chuckie round to play, he also brought with him a handful of Chuckie’s old things.

As Chuckie was being placed in the play pen with the others he yelled out “Tommy!! Tommy!! I think Angelica was right…”

“What’s wrong, Chuckie? What is Angelica right about?” Tommy calmly asked. 

However, Chuckie didn’t get a chance to reply before Didi came in and took Tommy with the pile of Chuckie’s things.

“Oh, no!” Phil and Lil exclaimed at the same time. “Is it really true?” They asked of Chuckie, realizing what was happening.  “I dunno” he stated. “Alls I know is that my daddy brought heaps of my things with us today… he said that they’re going to be Tommy’s now… That I need to get more.”

“Oh,” the twins gasped “this is not good.”

Meanwhile, Didi had taken Tommy to the changing table in his room. “Here we go Tommy.” “Now you will be a big boy just like Chuckie,” gushed Didi proudly, while fitting one of the shirts over his head and then following with a pair of Chuckie’s outgrown shorts.

“Oh, no, maybe Angelica was right!" thought Tommy. “It sounds like mommy really does want me to be more like Chuckie…” This hypothesis seemed more plausible when Didi returned him back to his friends and handed over some of the toys Chas had dropped off with the clothes.

“Tommy!!” Lil, Phil and Chuckie all exclaimed as he was placed back in with them.

“What happened!?” “Why are you wearing Chuckie’s clothes?” “Was Angelica right?” they asked all at once.

“I dunno, guys,” Tommy glumly replied “maybe everything Angelica said was right… Maybe she does want me to be more like Chuckie.”

Chuckie, Phil and Lil all gathered around him offering him words of sympathy.
"How would I be like you Chuckie?" Tommy asked.

“Don’t worry Tommy you can learn,” Lil commented.

“Yea, I can teach you!” Chuckie offered.

“Yea… alls you would needa do is copy what he does!” Phil chimed in.

 “Ok then, I guess it won’t be too hard. What do we start with?” Tommy asked.

So the rest of that day was spent teaching Tommy how to be like Chuckie. They played all his favorite games and Tommy was shown how Chuckie uses each toy. Eventually it was time for all the others to leave and Tommy could try out all he had learnt. But he soon realized he wasn’t getting any more (or less) attention than usual by being Chuckie. He didn’t even think they noticed a difference.

Pretty soon it was Tommy’s bedtime but instead of his mom dressing him in Chuckie’s old clothes like he thought would happen, she dressed him in his favorite ‘Reptar’ pajamas. She even gave him his favorite soft toy to sleep with. “That’s strange” he thought to himself, “she could have dressed me like Chuckie but she didn’t… and I get Reptar.”

The next morning was even stranger; his mommy didn’t dress him like Chuckie again like the day before. Nothing happened, even though he was dressed like himself. So he decided to play normally today and see if anything changed. But nothing did. They others came; they played, had the usual adventures until the others left again and still nothing happened. “Maybe mommy decided she didn’t want me to be Chuckie after all!” Tommy decided happily.