Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

chapter 6

Benny had taken the group to the movie theater where there were some Goofy cartoons showing. Many children in the audience laughed. Cherry sketched some Goofy characters while Atticus watched with interest and Roger was laughing so hard he was throwing popcorn almost everywhere. To hide away from the many people, they hid in the balcony. 

"Boy, did you see that?" Roger asked Eddie in between laughs who was just as stoic as ever. "Nobody takes a wallop like Goofy! What timing, what finesse, what a genius!"

Eddie yanked Roger by the ears once again. "We're supposed to be hidin'. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with YOU?" Roger glared at Eddie. "At least Cherry knows a good joke when she hears one, and Atticus has even made me laugh a few times, and you're the only person in this theater that isn't laughing! Is there nothing that can permeate your impervious puss?"

Eddie flinched and wiped the spit from Roger's speech.

"Hey, Eddie!" Roger made a goofy face, but snapped back quickly. "Boy, nothin'. What could have possibly happened to you that turned you into such a sourpuss?"

Cherry and Atticus then moved away a couple of seats while Eddie told Roger the story of what happened to Teddy Valiant.

"A death in the family can really change a person," Cherry said as she sketched a possible child betweenJessica and Roger, whether a human boy or a rabbit girl. "When my 'grandmother' died, it changed me deeply."

"What?" Atticus looked at her.

"You remember Dorothy?"

"Yeah, you told me she was your grandmother."

"Well, Atticus, Dorothy's not exactly my grandmother," Cherry explained. "She was a distant cousin of mine, but she always treated me like a granddaughter to her in her house because, well, my grandparents died before I was born, I only knew one of my grandmothers, but she died when I was a baby. Then we met Dorothy, and she became the grandmother I never had. She always loved feeding me, she gave me money for my birthday, and she even said in her house, I'm her granddaughter. She was such a sweet old woman and even though I had some darkness, she made me feel better, because she was always happy."

"Oh..." Atticus looked grave. "Is that why you're so dark nowadays?"

"Well, yeah, I was dark before I met her and before she died, but with her sweetness and optimism, it kind of died down and she could calm me down, but now that she's dead like Teddy, I kinda grew obsessed with death because I now understood what it was like to lose a grandparent."

Atticus looked at her and away quickly. Eddie had finished his story and Roger broke down crying. 

"I never did find out who that guy was," Eddie mentioned the Toon. "I'll never forget this though. He was standing over me, laughin', with those burnin' red eyes, and that high, squeaky voice. He disappeared into Toon Town after that."

Atticus had never heard the full story of how Teddy died, but now he started crying with Roger.

"No wonder you hate me," Roger bawled. "If a Toon killed my brother, I'd hate me too..." 

"Come on, don't cry, I don't hate ya." Eddie tried to calm him down.

"Yes you do."

"No, I don't."

"You do hate me. Otherwise you wouldn't have yanked my ears all those times."

"Alright, I-I'm sorry I yanked your ears."

"All the times you yanked my ears?" Roger turned to him, fluttering his eyes.

"All the times I yanked your ears." Eddie clarified.