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Now aside from the Backstreet Boys performing, business went on as usual at Disneyland that day. The Disney characters were out in full force to shake hands and take pictures with the park guests. But not all of the Disney characters were being social.

Flower the Skunk had retired from making appearances in the park and now spent his days skulking backstage. He had always been shy, but now the skunk had an additional reason to stay out of sight. He had just become the not-so-proud papa of what could only be described as an abomination.

“Whatcha gonna call him?” his old friend Thumper had asked, on the day his son was born.

“Satan’s Spawn,” spat Flower, taking another swipe at his streaming eyes. It had only been an hour since his wife, Bluebelle, had died in childbirth, her small body split wide open by the baby’s oversized head as it crowned.

“Satan’s Spawn?” Thumper wrinkled his wiggly, pink nose. “Ya know, buddy, I don’t think that’s such a good name for a baby.”

“Oh really?” Flower replied sarcastically. “And what would you call him?”

Thumper thumped his foot thoughtfully. “I’d call him Patches,” he decided finally. “’Cause he looks like he’s got parts of two different animals all pieced together.”

“Patches,” Flower repeated, glaring at the rabbit.

Thumper nodded. “Yep, I guess that’ll do alright.”

Flower didn’t care enough to argue, and so it came to be that his son was christened Patches. Disney park officials apologized profusely for the mix-up that had resulted in Patches’ unusual appearance, blaming it on a semen switch with the San Diego Zoo’s panda breeding program. “Somehow, we were sent frozen panda sperm, and they got your skunk spunk. We’re sorry, Mr. Flower, sir.”

Flower was sorry, too, sorry that he was now a widower, stuck raising a pandaskunk that wasn’t even his genetic offspring all on his own. His friends had offered to help, of course, but Flower found their unwavering optimism downright annoying. “It’ll be alright, Flower,” Bambi was quick to assure him. “I grew up without a mom, and I turned out okay. Little Patches will be just fine.”

At the sound of his name, Patches lifted his large, furry head from the ground.

“See!” Bambi exclaimed. “He knows his name already!”

“Mama?” asked Patches, looking from Bambi to Flower. “Papa?”

Thumper started to giggle, stomping his foot uproariously. “No, no, no… Bambi’s not your mama! Bambi’s a boy!”

Patches laughed right along with him, and as the sound of his laughter filled the air, the pandaskunk seemed to became lighter than the air itself. All at once, he floated upward and hovered a few feet off the ground.

Thumper’s eyes widened. “He can fly!” he exclaimed.

Flower felt faint. “He can fly?!”

“HE CAN FLY!” shouted Peter Pan as he soared by.

Flower rolled his eyes. “Oh great. Like it wasn’t enough for this freak of nature to be infused with panda DNA. He had to get his paws on the pixie dust too?!”

“Well… you’ll simply have to overlook it,” said Bambi.

“Now how can you overlook that?!” exploded Flower. “He flies like a fucking fairy!”

Still, for the first year, Flower did a pretty fair job of hiding his… “non-conformity.” He kept Patches confined to the bowels of the backstage area, away from the other Disney characters and out of sight of the park guests, not wanting him to be confused with a certain Dreamworks panda known for his kung-fu prowess.

But Patches wasn’t happy staying hidden. And the day the Backstreet Boys came to perform at the park was the day the pandaskunk decided to do something about it.

***