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Eight Years Ago
The Belcher family were a happy family. They lived modestly in an apartment over a restaurant which made them just enough to get by, but they were happy all the same. Bob Belcher and his wife Linda Belcher had three beautiful children, the eldest a six year old girl named Tina, the middle child was a four year old boy named Gene, and the youngest and latest addition to the family was a one year old girl names Louise Belcher. Bob and Linda loved their kids more than life itself, and after agreeing to stop at three kids they made sure that their three babies would live the best lives they could possibly give them.
For the most part the Belcher children seemed like your average young children. Tina was polite but also quite shy and reserved while Gene like to make music out of anything and everything, Louise was a mischievous girl who loved to build pillow forts. But for how regular the family looked at a glance, Linda couldn’t help but notice something off about her youngest daughter.
“Louise! Look at Mommy!” Linda said in a playful voice. Despite her request Louise completely blanked her mother, choosing instead to continue playing. All Bob and Linda’s efforts to get her to respond to them went the same way, at first it was chalked up to Louise just being preoccupied with playing or being stubborn, but Louise was sixteen months old now and hadn’t even said her first word. It wasn’t like she didn’t acknowledge her parents, she often babbled incoherently at her Mom or Dad whenever she saw them yet she never listened to them. It wasn’t just that which Linda found odd, the other day Bob had dropped an oven tray on the floor, the loud bang startled both Gene and Tina, but Louise? She hardly reacted, just turned her head as if it were a normal sound. Linda thought these occurrences were strange, and went with her gut instinct to take Louise to the paediatrician.
The paediatrician did a few tests on Louise, playing some sounds in her ears and seeing how she responded. Louise sat there as if nothing was going on, not paying any notice to the sound until it was at a fairly high volume, the paediatrician saw this as a cause of concern and referred Bob and Linda to an audiologist.
The audiologist performed some more tests with Louise’s hearing and even looked in her ears to check if there were any blockages in the ear canal. Bob and Linda were nervous about their daughters health, fearing that it could be the signs of something being seriously wrong with her, and after a lot of testing had been done, the Audiologist came back with the unfortunate results of the hearing test. Louise Belcher had a birth defect and had severe hearing loss in both her ears, Bob and Linda were told that it was unlikely that Louise could hear people talking to her at a normal level much, if it all.
To say this revelation shocked Bob and Linda was an understatement, Louise had hearing loss? Suddenly every situation with her not responding made sense, she wasn’t ignoring them, she couldn’t hear them! And loud noises never startled her because to her they just sounded normal, Bob felt fearful at how this would effect Louise’s life.
“Is there anything we can do to help her?” Bob sputtered out nervously “Is she going to go deaf? Will she ever be able to hear?”
The audiologist looked thoughtfully at Bob, he had experienced this kind of reaction from parents many times before, “You said she’s been like this for months correct? Well her hearing should hopefully not get any worse than it already is.” He explained kindly “However, we will need to get her fitted with hearing aids, ideally as soon as we can if we don’t want her to avoid any potential development issues due to lack of hearing.”
Bob and Linda eventually went home with their shocking information. The family could not currently afford hearing aids, but Bob was determined, if his baby needed hearing aids then he would work until he had earned enough to pay for them. He worked in the restaurant overtime, with Linda going above and beyond to be as good a waitress as possible to make sure she earned a lot in tips. The journey wasn’t easy, especially with that jackass who had recently open up a restaurant across the street stealing his customers, but Bob and Linda had eventually raised enough money to afford the hearing aids.
As soon as the hearing aids were fitted, Louise’s life changed drastically. The sudden influx of sounds she couldn’t hear before rushing into her head startled her, it took awhile for Louise to calm down after the barrage of sounds but afterwards she was living her best life. With her new ability to hear she could interact with her parents more, no longer would she sit idly not hearing anyone around her. Bob and Linda took straight to catching her up on what she should have learned when she was younger, trying their hardest to get her to speak. And then one day, it happened.
“D- Da, Dada!” Louise babbled, a smile adorned on her face as she looked at Bob. Both Bob and Linda were shocked.
“Oh my god! Lin! She said her first word!” Bob cried out with joy.
“Aww Bobby that’s amazing!” She said before turning to Louise, “Who’s my smart little girl? Can you also say Mama?”
”Dada?” Louise replied back
“No, Mama.” Linda corrected. The mother and daughter went back and forth for a while.
“Dada”
“Mama!”
”Dada!”
”Ma- oh forget it.” Linda said defeated.
Six Years Ago
Bob Belcher was crying tears of joy, his little girl was growing up so quickly and was already on her way to preschool. Ever since she got her hearing aids years before, Louise had grown up like an ordinary girl and quickly got the hang of learning how to speak. Louise was currently stood outside her new preschool with Bob and Linda, a mixture of excitement and nervousness going through her mind.
“You’ll be fine sweetie, you’ll make lots of new friends I’m sure!” Linda said before planting a kiss on Louise’s forehead. Louise smiled and hugged her parents before going into her preschool to start the next stage of her life.
Once she was in the preschool, she felt nervous looking around the place, she placed her backpack on the classes coat hanger and walked over to where all the other kids were sat around in a circle with the teacher. Sitting down in the circle Louise looked around at the other kids, they all seemed normal except for one girl that kept staring at her, a stare which quickly made Louise feel uneasy. Eventually the teacher came in and introduced herself before quickly getting the kids to do the same.
All the children in the group went around in the circle and introduced their name and stated one fact about themselves, the kids could then ask them any questions that they wanted to ask. The circle had just passed the girl who had been staring at Louise, who had introduced herself as Chloe Barbash, and after going past a few other kids it was Louise’s turn to introduce herself to her classmates. She stood up and gulped, feeling nervous.
“M-My name is Louise Belcher, and my family runs a burger restaurant!” She said, quickly finding her confidence.
“It’s nice to meet you Louise!” The teacher said kindly “Does anybody have any questions for Louise?”
The whole class was quiet with nobody feeling the need to ask any questions, but just as the circle was going to continue, a hand shot up.
”I have a question!” Chloe asked “What’s wrong with your ears? They look all weird!”
Louise was taken back by the sudden question, nobody had asked her about her hearing aids before.
“Umm, I was born with bad hearing…” Louise explained “These help me hear people, if I didn’t have them I wouldn’t be able to hear you unless you were shouting.”
The other kids in preschool murmured to themselves, most of them had never seen someone like Louise before. Louise could see Chloe’s face, it had a weird expression that she couldn’t quite decipher. Eventually the teacher hushed the class and continued with the introductions, but Louise couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
later on in the day Louise was sat at a desk as the class was practicing their spellings. As Louise wrote down the spellings she was given she couldn’t help be feel like she was being watched. After awhile she felt something hit her back, she turned around to see a scrunched up ball of paper near her with Chloe staring directly at her. Louise picked up the ball of paper and unscrewed it, inside was a crude drawing of herself with the words “weird ears” written underneath, Louise looked at the drawing sadly, why would Chloe draw something like this? Unfortunately for Louise that was only the beginning.
When it came to recess Louise wasn’t sure what to do, she saw some other kids playing with building blocks and decided to walk over and join them
“Excuse me?” Louise said politely “Can I join in your game?”
The other two kids looked at each other, one of them was about to say something before Chloe showed up and butted in.
“We don’t want YOU playing with us, do we guys?” She said, she looked at the other two kids who sheepishly nodded in agreement, “You see Louise? Why don’t you go do your own thing.”
Louise could feel herself starting to tear up, “But why can’t I play with you?” She said “I-I’ll tell the teacher that you’re being mean and not letting me play!”
Chloe face turned into a scowl, she walked up to Louise and grabbed her by the collar of her dress, “You’d better not tell on me you weirdo!” She threatened “Because if you do, having weird ears would be the last of your problems.” Chloe then shoved Louise away before going off to play with the blocks. Louise could feel a tear roll down her cheek.
The rest of the day went on like this, with Chloe passing rude notes to Louise and making sly remarks when the teacher wasn’t listening. At lunch she had sat down with some other kids, all of which got up and moved after she sat down, Louise felt miserable as she ate her lunch, she couldn’t wait to go home.
eventually the end of preschool came along, and Louise had been picked up by her parents, both of which were super excited to hear about her first day.
“So sweetie, how was your first day at preschool? Did you make any new friends?” Linda asked jovially. Louise gulped, she knew she couldn’t tell her Mom the truth, Chloe had warned her.
“Yeah it was a lot of fun Mom! I made some new friends.” Louise lied. Linda and Bob were overjoyed to hear about her supposed great first day at preschool and even treated her to her favourite dinner that evening. Louise forced a smile, maybe she could keep up the lie, maybe it would get better.
It didn’t get better, as days turned into weeks each day at preschool was the same for Louise. Chloe would torment her with mean notes and excluded her from everything, all the other kids who were too scared of Chloe would either join in the bullying or ignore Louise completely. Louise dreaded each day she had to go to preschool, as long as Chloe was there it was a living hell. So Louise did what she was warned to not do, she told the teacher.
At first telling the teacher seemed like a good thing to do, Chloe’s parents were called in and she was forced to apologise to Louise as well as made to sit out during recess. The other kids still ignored Louise but at the very least the notes had stopped, everything was looking ok until one day when they were playing outside. Louise was playing by herself away from the teacher when suddenly she heard Chloe’s voice.
“Hey weirdo!” Chloe shouted “I thought you said you wouldn’t tell! I got into trouble thanks to you!”
Louise started shaking, “B-But I had no choice! You kept saying so many mean things to me and never let me join in your games!”
Chloe harshly grabbed Louise by her hair and dragged her towards her, Louise yelping in pain from the sudden action, “So? Those were just jokes, and why should we have to play with a weirdo like you anyway?” She shoved Louise back a bit before walking right up to her face, “You know what, I just had a great idea!” Chloe said sadistically “You don’t want to hear me say mean things to you anymore? Well I know just how to help you!”
Before Louise could even properly register what Chloe had said, everything around her went silent. Shocked at the sudden quietness, she looked over at Chloe only to see her hearing aids in her hands after she had ripped them out.
“There you go! Now you won’t hear me!” Chloe said, knowing full well that Louise couldn’t hear a thing she said.
Louise started panicking, “Wha- Chloe! Give them back!” She attempted to shout, the lack of being able to hear her own voice making it hard to speak.
Chloe laughed at Louise’s attempts to speak, “Whoops!” She said, throwing Louise’s hearing aids to the floor. Louise then looked in horror as Chloe proceeded to stomp on her hearing aids repeatedly, smashing them to pieces, Tears ran from Louise’s eyes as she saw the only things that let her hear properly get destroyed. Thankfully Chloe had gotten careless and hadn’t noticed the teacher approaching from behind. Chloe was quickly scolded and Louise’s parents were called to come pick her up.
Louise had been given time off from preschool until she had been fitted with a new set of hearing aids which Chloe’s family had been made to pay for. The days she had to wait for her new hearing aids had been extremely hard on Louise, having to spend a full five days hardly being able to hear. When the new hearing aids eventually arrived Louise was overjoyed, but when the time came to go back to preschool, she refused.
“Louise, sweetie, you gotta go to preschool.” Bob gently tried to explain.
“No! I’m never going back there ever!” Louise protested, “They’re so mean!”
Bob slung an arm over her shoulder and brought her in for a hug, “Louise, Chloe has been punished, she won’t bully you again.” He explained softly
Louise began to cry “But, it’s not just Chloe, they all hate me! They never let me play with them at recess and they always ignore me!” She cried.
Bob looked at Louise solemnly, “Ok Louise, if you don’t want to go back you don’t have to, we can send you to a new preschool.” He offered.
Louise sniffled as she wiped the tears from her eyes, “But, what if they bully me too?” She asked.
Bob smiled and hugged his daughter, “Don’t worry, I promise you they won’t.” He said gently.
Eventually the day came for Louise to start her new preschool, she was shaking nervously as she sat in her parents car.
“I don’t want to do this, they’ll just all hate me again!” Louise cried. Bob quickly turned to face his daughter and wiped the tear from her eye.
“Shh, don’t worry Louise, it will be fine.” Bob said calmly “In fact, I’ve even got you a present that will help you until your ready.”
Louise perked up at this, she loved presents after all. She watched as her Dad reached into a bag and produced a bright pink hat with bunny ears on top. At first sight Louise immediately loved the hat and knew she would wear it wherever she went, she thanked her Dad profusely as she was handed it and immediately put them on her head.
“And have you noticed the best part?” Bob asked “The hat covers your ears, so until your ready to show everyone your hearing aids, nobody will see them.”
Louise had a wide smile as she gave her Dad the biggest hug ever, “Thank you Dad! I love you!” She said excitedly, before leaving the car to go join her new preschool, she turned and waved goodbye as she walked into the school, this time feeling a new spark of hope. She felt like this preschool would be different, and that she would make a great new beginning here and make a lot of new friends. And she was correct.
Present Day
Regular-Sized Rudy had been best friends with Louise Belcher for ages now, ever since that trip to the museum the pair had been inseparable, and since then the two had shared many great memories together. The time they stole the chocolate from that train, he always felt kind of bad for the allergic reaction prank he pulled though, he had never heard Louise so scared. He also remembered things like detonating the toy bridge or the time they ran a counterfeit coin operation to protest the history teacher never picking them. He even kept the time she had kissed him on Valentines day as a pleasant memory he kept at the back of his mind, a memory which he had promised to never tell another soul.
But despite their long standing friendship, the mystery of her Bunny hat had always been a mystery to him, much like everyone else. He noticed that she literally never took the thing off, not even to sleep during the overnight stay at the aquarium, she even wore them when they went swimming, although oddly enough he did always note that she never seemed to listen to anyone as much whenever she was swimming or at a water park.
He respected Louise’s privacy of course, it was the least he could do for the first person that didn’t coddle him as if he was made of glass. But he couldn’t help but wonder why the hat was so important to her, so one day he asked the question.
“Hey Louise,” he asked politely “I’m sorry if this question is pushing a boundary, but I’ve always wondered, why do you never take your hat off?”
Louise stopped dead in her tracks, the memories of preschool flashing in her head. But she thought back to her father’s words on the day she received her bunny ears, that they were to hide her hearing aids until she felt ready to show them to other people. She thought about Rudy, they had been best friends for ages, and she did really like him, maybe even more than she liked to admit, if anyone deserved to know it was him. She took a deep breath.
“Rudy, I’m about to show you something that I haven’t shown a single soul outside my family since I was three…” she said in a serious tone “Do you promise you’ll keep it a secret?”
Rudy was intrigued, she hadn’t been this adamant about keeping a secret since the “Valentine’s Incident” as she dubbed it, what could she be hiding?
”I promise Louise, I won’t tell a soul.” He replied firmly.
Louise nodded a looked around to make sure the coast was clear, after making sure nobody else was in sight she lowered her head slightly and lifted her hands to the pink fabric, and to Rudy’s amazement she started to remove her iconic bunny ears, as Louise tugged off the bunny ears more of her black hair became visible, it looked just like her mothers albeit in her pigtails and a bit frizzy due to wearing a hat all day, Rudy had to admit it looked kind of cute. But what immediately grasped Rudy’s attention was her ears, and the two hearing aids placed inside them.
“Woah…” Rudy thought out loud.
Louise started to become nervous “Well, there’s my secret, I wear hearing aids…” she muttered “Do you… do you think I’m weirdo?”
Rudy was shocked at this question, who would find someone a weirdo foe wearing hearing aids?
”No, why would I think you’re a weirdo Louise?” Rudy asked
Louise let out a sigh of relief, but also felt a tad bit of sadness thinking back on her past “Back in preschool, I was bullied a lot for my hearing aids. This one girl would always pass me mean notes and exclude me from everything, one day I told on her and she destroyed my hearing aids as revenge.”
Rudy felt awful, being an asthmatic he knew all about the awful feeling of being excluded for things, it’s part of the reason why he got along with Louise so well, she always included him in everything despite his ailments.
“I refused to go to preschool anymore and transferred to a new one.” Louise continued “But I was still too nervous to go in, that’s when my dad gave me my hat, so my hearing aids would go unseen.”
Reflecting on her hard past clearly distressed Louise as Rudy could see a tear forming in her eye. Before he could even think about what he was doing, Rudy walked up to Louise and embraced her, which Louise surprisingly returned.
“I’m sorry, that must have been awful for you.” Rudy said sincerely “I know what it’s like, when I was younger kids used to always insult me and call me wheezy, and they never let me join in their games because they thought I would hold them back with my asthma. That’s why I like hanging out with you so much Louise, you never leave me out despite my ailments.”
The two stood there for a few seconds before Rudy finally realised what he was doing.
“Umm, I’m sorry for hugging you without permission.” He said while quickly letting go of Louise.
Louise chuckled “It’s fine.” She said “By the way, you’ll never guess who the girl that bullied me in preschool was.”
Rudy was curious, “Huh, Who was it?” He asked
“Chloe freaking Barbash!” She said angrily.
Rudy was shocked, he had since learned that Chloe wasn’t a very good person, but he didn’t think she was this bad, “Wait what?” He said dumbfounded.
“Yep, now you know why I hate her so much.” Louise replied
“Wow, what a jerk…” Rudy said, “Wait, how come she’s never said anything.”
Louise rolled her eyes “When I first joined Wagstaff and saw her in my class I was concerned but decided that maybe she might have changed, I went up to talk to her and get this, she didn’t even remember who I was despite everything she did to me!” She said irritated “It’s like I always say, she’s all fluff, nothing in her brain.”
Rudy was still amazed by this revelation. “Man, no wonder you didn’t want me asked her out on Valentine’s day, I always thought you were just jealous to be honest.” He said. The two sat down and the hill that they were on and looked over at the surroundings “Say, if you don’t mind me why do you need hearing aids anyway? Were you in an accident or something?”
Louise laughed “Nah it’s nothing exciting, I was just born with bad hearing.” She explained “And when I say bad hearing I mean baaaaad, without them I can hardly hear anyone say a thing unless they’re shouting at he top of their lungs. Although I must say it is useful when Gene subjects us to some of his especially bad music.”
The pair laughed at the joke as the continued to sit on the hill and just hang out together.
”Maybe I don’t need to hide my ears from everyone.” Louise thought to herself “I’ll stick to just Rudy for now, but maybe I should try and spend some time with it off around others, I mean I won’t give it up entirely, hearing aids or not I love the thing. But maybe I shouldn’t let other peoples judgement get to me.”
From that day onwards, whenever Rudy and Louise hung out without anyone around, she kept her hat off, eventually practicing until she felt comfortable sharing the truth with her other friends like the Pesto twins or Jessica. Because after all, it’s her friends that matter most, and if it doesn’t bother them then why should she care what others think?