TOBE GOES ON A CFS INVESTIGATION

For Father’s Day I received a delightful gift of a little stuffed hedgehog named Tobe.  My daughter has a similar one named Timmy.  (See picture below.) Tobe is his brother and came with excellent references. In keeping with our anthropomorphizing, Tobe and Timmy are as far as we are concerned REAL with personalities and the whole nine yards. Never mind that you can’t understand them’ my daughter and I do.  Anyway since animals stuffed and otherwise are a great way to get kids to open up I decided to take Tobe with me on an investigation.

Tobe wasn’t too certain about cruising the less fashionable parts of Richmond, but he doesn’t like seeing kids abused or neglected so he figured he’d do his part. This was a REAL face to face contact with a 5 year old boy. It was a general neglect complaint alleging that the house was filthy and uninhabitable. I saw the kid at the Y. Mom was at her sister's house since the city Red Tagged her house. (Spew.)

Me:        Hi. My name is *** and I’m from Children’s Services, but don’t worry

              you’re not going any where and no one is in trouble. We're just going to talk.

      
Kid:     What’s that? (Pointing to Tobe.)
          
Me:        This is my friend. His name is Tobe.
         
Kid:       Is he a rat?
   
Me:        No. He’s a hedgehog.
          
Kid:       Is they rats?

Me:        Well only the ones named Walter! (Ha, ha, ha.)

Kid:       He look like a rat!

Me:        Well he’s NOT a rat. Are you Tobe?

Kid:       We gots rats but they gots tails. Your rat ain’t got no tail.

Me:        That’s because he’s a hedgehog and NOT a rat.

Kid:     We gots roaches too! My momma say it not her fault. It the landlord fault.

            The rats they eats the roaches. Your rat eats the roaches.

Me:      We don’t have any roaches and Tobe is NOT a Rat. (aside) Feel free to jump
             in any time Tobe.

Tobe:  (Just smiles)

Kid:     Dem rats eats my momma’s weed and she got heckapissed and started
            hitting Deshaun with da strap ‘cause she think he do it. But I told her it was dem
            rats ‘cause I saw dem eating that big bag she gots in the closet. Your rat eats the
            weed?

Me:        Look HE’s NOT a FFFFrrrrrrr rat. For the last time Tobe is a hedgehog!

Kid:       Hedge Hog? He don’t look like no pig. He look like a rat!

Me:        Never mind the pig ....... the rat..... never mind Tobe! Who’s Deshaun?

Kid:       He my dog.

Me:        Does he have a tail?

Kid:       Yeah he have a tail.

Me:        You sure he ain’t no rat?

             

I think Tobe and I made our point! Who da hedgehog?

Below are Timmy (on the left) and Tobe Fredo on the right.

Tobe is Fredo the light and Timmy is Fredo the dark.