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And they all lived happily ever after! …
At least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Family bonding and togetherness. Vacations to the other islands. Days spent on David’s surfboards, riding the waves. Nights curled up together on the couch, eating popcorn and watching television. Everyone being happy and grateful and blessed. Growing up together. Growing older together. Just like it happens in the movies.
Except, well, that’s not exactly how this story goes.
It did for a while. Everyone, especially Stitch, was on their best behavior. He didn’t eat anything that didn’t specifically belong to him. He didn’t burn down the house or destroy the car or cause disruptions at Nani’s new job at the bakery.
He and Lilo sometimes did small — tiny, really — pranks. Turning on loud music just when David and Nani were about to kiss. Spraying them with water when they were having a romantic picnic on the beach. Throwing marshmallows at them when they were holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes in such a way that Lilo had to clutch her throat and gag, stumbling all over the room, as Snitch cackled and waggled his feet in the air. And then of course they had to break it up. Hench the marshmallows.
And Nani would glare, sometimes shout — “I know it was you!” — and David would laugh, and then Nani would laugh too, and Lilo and Stitch would peek their heads around the corner and they would be laughing, and they would join Nani and David and they would all laugh and have fun and nobody gazed into anybody’s eyes and everything was perfect.
But then something happened. Something bad.
A new family moved into their neighborhood. Not super close to them, but close enough that they saw them all the time. The new family had two kids. Boys. Both a few years older than Lilo but very, very big. They were so tall both Stitch and Lilo had to bend their heads all the way back to look up to see their faces. And they were very muscular too. Just like Agent Bubbles.
But Agent Bubbles was only pretend mean. He liked Lilo and Stitch a lot, even if he didn’t say so. He pretended he was only doing his job but sometimes he stayed for dinner, and a couple times Stitch even saw him smiling at Lilo and Nani and David. Stitch thought he wore the sunglasses so no one could see the fondness in his big eyes.
But these two new boys, they weren’t pretend mean. They were super mean, like Stitch had been before Lilo and Nani had brought him into their family and were nice to him. But Stitch hadn’t known better; these boys did.
Lilo and Stitch would be walking down the street, and the mean boys would always be there in front of them. They tried being nice, but it didn’t help. The boys would say mean things about Lilo, would try to grab her, would grab Stitch and toss him. And they would laugh cruelly.
Sometimes they would even demand Lilo’s lunch or her money or anything else she and Stitch had, threatening to hurt Nani if they didn’t hand it over, so Lilo would give it to them, even though Stitch would pull on her arm to try and restrain her.
“I can’t get Nani into trouble again!” Lilo would whisper when they were finally able to get away. She rubbed the tear stains from her face, so no one else would see. “We have to do what they say, Stitch! We have to! You remember what happened last time we didn’t listen to people!”
Stitch ducked his head and thought of the aliens coming back to try and get him, and of Agent Bubbles, before he was their friend, putting Lilo in the car to take her away from Nani forever.
“Okayyyy,” he said, “but why can’t I just bite them?” He imitated snapping at people like a real dog does, but Lilo shook her head.
“Too risky,” she said. “We can’t, Stitch. Promise?”
“Promise,” Stitch muttered, but he didn’t feel very good about it.
But the mean boys from their neighborhood just got worse. Until the day they took the sandwich right from Lilo’s hand, then pushed her. She skidded across the ground, leaving the bag she had been carrying still on the stoop where she had been sitting.
One of the boys — the bigger, uglier one — reached down and grabbed it.
“That’s mine!” Lilo shrieked, getting to her feet.
Stitch barked.
The ugly boy turned it upside down and let the contents fall out. Keys, a few coins and a photo. The same photo Lilo had carried around ever since Stitch had known her. Of her parents and her and Nani.
“Who is this?” the ugly boy asked her as he snatched it. “These ugly people didn’t want you?”
Lilo screamed and ran for them, but the ugly boy lifted the photo in his hand way above his head so she couldn’t reach.
“Give it back!” she yelled.
“Look at her,” the ugly boy with his hand raised said to the other. “What a dolt.” And then he kicked her, hitting her right in the stomach and sending her sliding backward again.
And that was it. Stitch had had enough. He didn’t care what Lilo said.
He sprang forward, all teeth and fangs and arms, landing right on the ugly bully’s head, snapping and biting and scratching.
The ugly bully screamed, high-pitched and non-stop, and tried pulling Stitch off, but Stitch wouldn’t budge. He dug his claws into the boy’s skin and took a chunk of skin from his head.
Blood started pouring down the boy’s face. Somewhere in the corner of his eye, Stitch saw Lilo climb to her feet and stare horrified and also impressed at Stitch.
Finally, the other boy grabbed Stitch and managed to pull him off. He fell to the ground, but quickly rose on to his back lags, glaring, bits of skin between his teeth.
“Leave her alone,” he hissed. “Or answer to me!”
The boys screamed like they had just seen a ghost, and Stitch laughed as they hurried away as fast as they could, screaming and stumbling and screaming some more.
Stitch turned around then to see Lilo wiping her eyes. He tucked his extra legs back in and lowered his eyes.
“I will take the punishment,” he said softly.
“No,” Lilo said. “You saved me.” She smiled. “You are my hero.”
“Ohana,” Stitch said proudly.
They told Nani and David that night what had happened. Nani was very disappointed — but only because they had kept it a secret.
“No one is allowed to get away with doing that to you!” she yelled, and the next morning, bright and early, Lilo and Stitch peeked out a window to watch her walk forcefully to her car and then take off down the drive in a plume of smoke.
She returned an hour later, when Lilo and Stitch were eating breakfast.
“Those boys are claiming that an alien attacked them.” She shook her head. “Can you imagine that?” She picked up an extra piece of toast from the center of the table and popped it into her mouth. “Needless to say, I don’t think they will be a problem anymore.”
•••
Things went back to normal again after that. Mostly. Sometimes Lilo and Nani fought. Some weeks they fought more than others. Sometimes Lilo and Stitch fought. Sometimes David and Nani fought. Sometimes Agent Bubbles told Stitch he was not doing a good job of convincing the tourists he was just a sweet dog, and when he laughed hysterically at that, Agent Bubbles did not seem pleased.
But for the most part, it was a good life. It was a happy life.
And then, once again, things changed. And once again, it was due to a boy.
His name was Miguel and he was one year older than Lilo, but unlike the two bullies, this one was nice. Too nice. Stitch didn’t trust how nice he was. He thought maybe he was really an alien in disguise.
“No one is that nice,” he would grumble, when Miguel and Lilo spent time together — without Stitch! — doing their homework in the living room where Nani and David could “keep an eye on them”.
“She’s growing up, Stitch,” Nani said, when she noticed him staring intently at the two. “She’s becoming interested in boys.”
“I am the only boy she should be interested in,” he said stubbornly and Nani laughed and then, worse, gave him a pet on the head.
“Yes, I know,” she said, “but it’s just something we are both going to have to get used to.”
But Stitch knew that he was never going to get used to it.
And he didn’t. Especially when the whole entire situation kept getting worse.
At first, he was just a boy that rode the bus with Lilo and went to her school. Stitch would watch as she boarded the bus and cast Miguel a shy look that made her whole face turn red as she sat beside her friends and giggled.
But then came the homework study sessions. She would giggle and study with him and cast him those same looks that should have been completely embarrassing, but Miguel seemed oblivious.
Until Stitch started noticing that suddenly Miguel wasn’t so oblivious. He was looking at Lilo and sitting next to her on the bus and accidentally brushing his hand over hers when they were studying and …
“What is happening?” he demanded of Nani during another one of the study sessions, hoping she would see it and immediately stop it, because that is what she was here for, right?
“Lilo has a boyfriend, Stitch,” she said instead.
“I don’t like him.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
Stitch scowled and bared his teeth. Nani was supposed to be on his side. What was she doing?
“You’re happy with this boy friend thing?” he grumbled.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” Nani bent down beside him. “No,” she said. “I’m not. But there are worse boys she could choose.”
Stitch did not see how. This one seemed to be coming around more and more often, and stealing Lilo away from him even more often than that. Stitch was beginning to wonder if Lilo would even have remembered he existed if he didn’t sleep in the same room as her every night.
Sometimes, just to ensure she didn’t forget him, he would jump up on the bed beside her and snuggle in, rubbing his face across her chest and her head, so hopefully she would smell like him in the morning.
“Stitch, whatreyou doing?” she would mumble sleepily, waving her hands as if to push him off, but she didn’t and he didn’t stop.
“Ohana means family,” he would mumble sometimes in response, but if she heard him, she didn’t reply.
But then it happened. On one bright sunny day. A gorgeous day. A more gorgeous day than any day he had ever seen before in his life, Lilo, who was supposed to be having another one of her way too long study sessions with Miguel, came home alone. No one next to her or behind her. Alone.
Stitch peered out the door, making sure he wasn’t hiding in the trees.
“Where is he?” he asked Lilo.
“Not coming,” she said. “Ever.” And she walked into her room and slammed the door.
“Someone’s grumpy,” Stitch said.
But then he heard it. The noise he most hated hearing. The noise of crying. Lilo’s crying.
He almost broke down the door trying to get inside to her.
He stared around. “What’s happening? Who did it? Who hurt you?” He peered around wildly.
Lilo was lying on her bed, a pillow over her face. She pushed it off and looked at Stitch. Her eyes were so watery.
“He doesn’t like me anymore,” she said sadly.
“Who doesn’’t?”
“Miguel.” Her voice broke on his name, and Stitch felt his heart drop.
This was a new development. She wasn’t supposed to be sad about this guy. And this guy wasn’t the one who was supposed to kick her out of his life. Stitch was supposed to kick him out of her life!
“I’ll kick his ass! Right now!” Stitch said, and to his surprise, Lilo smiled and then she laughed.
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe you can.”
That night, Stitch sat beside her on the couch, back in his rightful spot.
“Next time you meet a boy,” he told her, “I get to weigh in too.”
Lilo laughed and reached for his hand.
“Alright,” she said. “You’ve got a deal.”