Wilf and Fluffy

A short story I wrote, thought you might like to read it.

It was a dark and stormy night, no not that kind of dark and stormy, not the kind with big, billowing clouds and thunder that rumbles and growls like the voice of a god. The kind where the clouds rush headlong across the sky offering flashes of the moon above. The type where the thunder cracks and the lightning twists the shape of things as it lights them up. The type where the rain comes in squalls and the wind screams, whipping through every crack.
It was exactly the kind of night Wilfred was hoping for, even if he was going to harness power from the electricity outlet in the shed rather than try to shepherd a bolt of lightning. The mains were more reliable and far more manageable. Never-the-less there was a lot of symbolism to a night like tonight.
Wilfred Albert Chaos Treacle couldn’t help but appreciate the symbolism of the obliging weather conditions. Appreciating that sort of thing came naturally to a boy like Wilfred. He added the final element to the plasma solution on the workbench and examined it under the microscope. Everything seemed as he expected. He looked over at the now rather pitiful Fluffy, who no longer lived up to his name.
Wilf had so hoped to be able to have Fluffy back to his original state in time to waylay some of his brother’s grief at the loss of his pet. Alas whilst Wilf was still convinced his theory was sound, the practice was not as straight forward. It was the story of Wilf’s life really, he excelled when it came to the theory, but trying to apply what he knew to the real world, often tripped him up, on the occasion of Fluffy’s demise quite literally.
Wilf knew that if he could have just mastered the angle of lift, he could easily have achieved the world record for the greatest distance flown by a paper aeroplane. The way in which one launched the craft, was as important as the type of paper and accuracy of the folds used. Unfortunately whilst Wilfred knew what the movement should be, his body, as usual, would not co-operate. A subtle but powerful flick of the wrist translated into a peculiar type of body spasm, which had sent him careering into and over the coffee table and heavily down on to the living room floor, or to be more accurate Fluffy and then the floor.
It was hardly Wilf’s fault, but his brother didn’t see it that way and was inconsolable at the loss of his beloved Fluffy. The situation was not helped by the fact that this wasn’t the first time Olly has suffered at the hands of Wilf’s difficulties with the physical world.
“He’s always destroying my stuff” the distraught Olly had wailed to their Mum, “now he’s killed Fluffy, I don’t care if he can’t help it, it’s not fair, I hate him.”
Wilfred hadn’t even waited to be told; he’d taken himself off to his room and sat glumly on his bed. Poor Olly, Wilf’s brother did seem to bear the brunt of Wilf’s accident prone nature and it seemed the more Wilf tried to make things better, the worse they actually got.
Wilf had only been undertaking the paper aeroplane experiment because he had heard that if a record attempt was made, the previous record holders would be invited to watch and ensure fair play. The current joint holders of the record included Olly’s favourite American Football Quarterback James Mulhony. If Wilf could arrange a genuine record breaking attempt, Olly might get the chance to meet Mulhony and then Olly might forgive Wilf for the incident with the remote controlled Optimus Prime.
Wilf sat at his desk, the night of Fluffy’s death, thumbing through the molecular cell biology text book he had been reading before bed, when the idea struck him. In theory, he knew that there had to be a way to restart cellular regeneration, if he could figure that out he could reanimate Fluffy and Olly couldn’t be cross with him anymore. Moreover if Wilf worked on fixing the problem directly rather than creating a distraction from it, surely that would break the ever expanding mishap loop he and Olly seemed to be stuck in.
He had to dig Fluffy up post-burial, and then bury him when Olly had seen the disturbed earth around the grave, and finally re-exhume him again, for once fortune had favoured Wilf and Mum had explained the disturbance as “foxes investigating”. After that Olly had stayed away from the grave, however Fluffy was no longer in the best state, his fur was matted with soil, his eyes were distinctly cloudy and due to careless digging on Wilf’s part, there was a bit of ear missing. None of that was enough to defer Wilf’s enthusiasm however. He pursued the hunt for exactly the right serum to revive the deceased Fluffy with unbridled enthusiasm. His confidence only took a knock, when three weeks after Fluffy had shuffled, or in this case suddenly dropped without warning from the mortal coil, he was replaced with Snuggles, a silky yet temperamentally bitey Chinchilla.
At first Wilf considered giving up on Project Fluffy, but his vigour was renewed when it occurred to him that given his luck there was every chance Snuggles was destined for the same fate as Fluffy. Also although Wilf’s mother could best be described as, a bit daft, even she wasn’t daft enough to allow Wilf to have his own pet. In theory Olly and Wilf shared the family pets, in reality Wilf was kept as far away from said creatures as possible, owing to what was known in the family as the Wilf effect. Fluffy was the first pet whose passing could be directly tied to Wilf, but there was a definite correlation between Wilf being left alone in the room with a pet and its subsequent demise. So if Wilf could bring Fluffy back it would mean he could keep a pet of his own, of course he would keep him in the shed. Wilf felt that Fluffy rejoining the family might be a bit much for his mother and brother to take, not least owing to a mysteriously missing back leg.
Another fork of lightning flashed across the turbulent sky. Wilf held his breath as he administered the serum in the correct proportions. As quickly and carefully as he could, he charged up the modified home made defibrillator. He had attached it to Fluffy at strategic locations, using the ECG dots he had liberated the last time the ambulance had come, the day of the disastrous cake. Once fully charged, he double checked the readings on the device, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and pushed the plunger hard.
He heard the little spit the contraption made as it discharged the energy built up inside it. Wilf kept his eyes closed, then he heard a faint cough, with his heart racing in excitement he opened his eyes and peered at the guinea pig on the table, he peered closer, he held his finger out in front of the creature’s nose, he poked at it gently with a pencil, he felt for a heart beat, nothing. Wilf flung the pencil across the room in frustration, accidentally knocking over and smashing a vial containing the last of the current batch of serum.
“Great!” he said out loud, to no-one in particular, “Now I’ll have to start from scratch.”
He sighed heavily and left the shed, carefully turning out the lights and locking the door behind him despite the fact he was in a huff.  That was the sort of boy Wilfred Albert Chaos Treacle was. As he closed up, he thought he heard a faint little cough, but one last glance around the shed revealed nothing untoward, so he headed off to bed, a head full of frustration and a heart full of disappointment.
He awoke the next morning and ruminated over his toast about what could have gone wrong. A good night’s sleep and the bright fresh morning, after the storm, had renewed his enthusiasm for the project. He whistled totally out of tune as he made his way down to the shed. He unlocked the door and was a little surprised not to see Fluffy on the workbench. He was sure he had left the experiment set up last night when he had dejectedly departed. The ECG dots were still on the table and it would be unlike him to have disconnected them without putting them away. He had locked the door and anyway neither Mum nor Olly would venture into his shed, let alone removed the rather decrypted looking Fluffy. Wilf hunted high and low, he even examined the perimeter of the shed for spaces foxes, or the like, might have got in. Eventually when he had exhausted all other options he was resigned to hunting further a field. He was about to head back to the house the check whether his Mum had been in the shed afterall, when out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something fluffy and orangeish scuttle under the fence. He climbed up on the raised bed to look over into Mrs Cullins garden next door. There at the far side of her vegetable patch was something that look suspiciously like Fluffy, up and running about. Wilf nearly fell out of the flower bed in surprise. Mrs Cullins was pottering about the garden, so Wilf called out to her. Mrs Cullins turned slowly toward him, it took Wilf a moment to register something was amiss, but the groan the old, seemingly recently deceased, woman let out somewhat sealed the deal.
“Oh bugger” Wilf muttered, just as his Mother’s distant screams reached his ears.