DuckTales: As We Grow Older...

7

Louie wasn't feeling well the day after Anise's disappearance. He felt like he was on fire.

"Louie, get up," Dewey said, poking Louie's arm. "Unca Donald's taking us to Funso's today."

Louie simply moaned. Huey placed a hand against his forehead.

"I don't think Louie's feeling well," he said.

Donald walked into the room.

"Come on, boys," he said.

"Louie's sick, though."

Donald held his own hand against Louie's forehead.

"You're right, he's very hot right now. His fever must be really high. We'll just have to go to Funso's another day."

Huey and Dewey noticed that Donald looked very tired and about as sick as Louie. Looks like Louie wasn't the only one Anise's disappearance affected.

"Unca Donald, you don't look so good, either," Huey said worriedly.

"I know, but I don't think I'm sick. I don't feel very hot."

Donald walked out to call a doctor to check out Louie. Huey and Dewey could hear him sniffling and sneezing from their room.

"It's only a cold," the doctor said. "A very bad one, though. His fever is very high."

"He'll be okay, right?" Dewey asked.

"Yes, little boy," the doctor's assistant said. "Your brother will be fine. He just needs rest and a little bit of medicine."

"How about our Unca Donald?"

The assistant shrugged. It hadn't been her job to check the children's guardian, the doctors weren't here for that.

Donald came in with soup. He began feeding Louie, who was now constantly sniffling.

"Has he been exposed to freezing temperatures lately?" the doctor asked.

"No."

"How about excessive emotional stress?"

"He lost a friend recently, if that counts. He was crying an awful lot."

"You cried, too, Unca Donald," Louie said. "You said Anise was like family to you."

The doctor froze in her spot and dropped the cold medicine she had been holding.

"Dr. Ferrell, is something wrong?" the assistant asked.

"You knew Anise?" the doctor asked Louie, ignoring her assistant.

"You knew her?" Huey asked.

"She was my niece. I hadn't seen her since last Christmas. If I had known that would be the last time I would ever see her...I'd have hugged her for longer than I did."

"She was my friend," Louie said.

"I know. She talked about you a lot. I'm sure she's mentioned me, her Aunt Patty?"

"Yeah."

Dr. Ferrell sat next to Louie.

"You poor child, losing a friend at such an early age. She was gone too quickly."

Dewey couldn't sleep that night. It wasn't because of Louie's snoring from being stuffed up, but because he was thinking about what Dr. Ferrell said.

Anise was gone. Often, in movies, when a character died, someone said they were gone. Their mom was gone, was she dead?

"Hey, Huey, are you awake?" he whispered.

"I can't sleep, because Louie's snoring," Huey responded grumpily. "Why?"

"Where do you think Mom's gone?"

"Maybe she has a job somewhere else, like Dad. Maybe she's an animator, or an actor. Maybe she's working with Dad right now on cartoons."

"What if she's dead? When someone says someone else is gone...it means they're dead."

"Not always. It just means they're somewhere else."

"Should we ask Unca Donald in the morning?"

"Do what you want," Huey said, his voice now muffled; he was putting a pillow over his head to drown out Louie's snoring. "Just try to sleep right now, I'm tired."