Word Association Spawn

[Sweetcherrie]

Inspired by: Word Association.

 

Shanuki looked through the comic book, it seemed so exciting to be a real Ninja. He already liked their clothes, most of his own were black already, and he just knew that he could easily be one of them. He turned the page, and wrinkled his nose. Ninja girls all over the page, and all dressed in pink. Yugh, at least she had a floccinaucical role in this comic.

 

No, if ninja girls would also be allowed it would all get to complicated, well hey than even that Avril girl in his class could be one. He chuckled, no she couldn’t, she was more suitable to become a singstar than a ninja. He giggled at the though of her on stage though, she was denser than one of those Tetris blocks, and about just as rigid. He also didn’t see the girl dancing in the near future, in gymclasses she showed time and time again that she did not consider her body a temple. Shanuki thought that Avril was more likely to consider her body like a rubbish bin, with the amount of fat stuff she ate. Or well, he thought she did, her skin had more yellow in it than healthy pink. No way she could ever become a goddess of rock.

 

Shanuki read on, and cheered as Pagan, the hero of the book came into the story. Pagan was definitely the coolest ninja Shanuki had ever seen. Black clothes, of course, but on the back of his shirt there was a golden pentacle.

 

Quickly he read on, wanting to know how his hero would fight the girl ninjas, but then his geometry teacher suddenly stood in front of him.

 

“Shanuki, how will you ever learn about Pythagoras equations, if you don’t pay attention when I explain the theorem?”

 

Shanuki looked up and nodded shamefully. He hated Math, but was scared to death that he would flunk the course. It was simply too difficult to concentrate on all the numbers though. He would study but already after five minutes he would stare at the pages like a braindead zombie.

 

The teacher seemed satisfied when he put the comic away, but the moment the teacher turned his back to him, Shanuki quickly slipped his diary over his exercise book, the teacher would never notice what he was writing, as long as he was writing, and he really had to write down the thoughts and ideas he had just gotten for his own story as he had seen the actions of Pagan.

 

Already he knew what the reactions of the character he had created would be. He scribbled a bit, and then the bell rang. Next class would be philosophy, he gathered his books and joined his classmates who were already running out of the door.

 

“I hope that teach won’t give us too much homework.” He said to Mileay, his best friend.

 

“I don’t know,” Mileay replied, “I hear from some other who had him today that he was in a bad mood, and he gave them an enormous pile of homework to do.”

 

Shanuki thought about this, and they turned the corner towards the philosophy classroom. Just as Shanuki was starting to say something, the bullies of the school suddenly stood in front of the two boys.

 

“Hey woozes. Do you remember what day it is?”

 

Next to him he felt Mileay shudder. He now wished he was like Pagan, but that was only a dream, he could wish all he wanted at this point but that wouldn’t help him much.

 

The guys in front of them were from the football team, and the biggest one was the star quarterback. The bloke was as big as a bull, and because he had shaved his head, he looked even more threatening.

 

Shanuki felt a shiny pearl of sweat run down his forehead, and nodded. He knew well which day it was; it was collector day. Every Wednesday these guys would go round the school and collect valuables, people had already started to call them the packrats because of their large collection of weird items they had managed to collect like this.

 

He shuffled backwards a bit, “Please don’t hurt me.”

 

Captain Packrat grinned evilly, “I have no intention of hurting you myself, I wouldn’t want to get my hands dirty.”

 

The bull stepped aside and the rest of the football team took a step into their direction. He felt Mileay cower next to him, and felt much like running away himself. Oh, if only he could be a ninja, he would kick the shit out of them.

 

“Anything wrong?”

 

The voice sounded so lovely at this point that Shanuki almost wet himself out of relief.

 

“Nono, Miss Irene, we were just discussing football here, weren’t we?”

 

The bull slapped on Shanuki's shoulder as if they were lifelong comrades, and grinned at the philosophy teacher. Mileay shovelled away with an apologetic look, and Shanuki felt his face get hot as Captain Packrat’s hand squeezed so hard in his shoulder that it hurt.

 

“Right then. Shanuki, I think you’re in my next class, and you boys go outside. It’s a nice enough summer day, you shouldn’t be inside with this weather.”

 

The bull let him go with a scowl, but the group of boys turned around, and left. Quickly Shanuki shuffled into the class room. His shoulder felt as if it was burned where the bull’s hand had slapped him, but this was still better than the nosebleed he surely would’ve had if Miss Irene wouldn’t have shown up.

 

He sat down at his desk, and opened his philosophy book, shuffling the ninja comic under it. As he glanced aside him, he saw that Mileay had done the same, and that his friend was staring at a picture of a large wyvern. Where he was fond of ninjas, Mileay went more for the fantasy comics. The two friends grinned at each other, and then they both directed their attention back to the class and their comics.

 

~~~

 

“Shanuki! Are you coming downstairs soon? I have baked cake”

 

With a sigh Shanuki put his computer game on pause and walk down the stairs. He loved his mom’s cake, unfortunately she also expected that he would talk about his day at school, and since he didn’t want to tell her about what really happened, it normally turned to useless chitchat.

 

As he arrived downstairs he heard the voice of his aunt, and suppressed a shiver. They were schmoozeing on soft tone, probably about him, but as soon as his aunt saw him she got up and with a girlish cry she gave Shanuki a smooch on his cheek. His mom, who knew how much he hated his aunt’s wet kisses, only cuddled him quickly, and pointed him to the kitchen, where the cake was.

 

Shanuki grinned at his mom, thankful that she let him escape the women’s company, and sauntered into the kitchen. His aunt apparently had brought the baby, since he saw a big bag of huggies on the kitchen counter, and the smell of dirty diapers was overpowering the smell of cake.

 

He cut himself a piece of cake, bigger than he would normally get, and listened at the door to what his mom and aunt were talking about. He grinned to himself as he noticed they were talking about his grandma. The woman was senile and as old as Methusalem himself, but he loved her to bits.

 

It was the only grandma he had left, since all the others were dead already long time before he was born. And of course, if he would follow the ninja religion they would, by now, all be reborn already, but Shanuki didn’t believe to much in that.

 

With the cake in his hands, he sat down at the kitchen table, and the words floated in from the living room.

“What will we do Livvy? The building mom lives in is condemned. She will be thrown out on the streets, and then what?”

 

His aunt had always been a bit on the melodramatic side, and his mom answered in a calmer tone of voice that it would all be ok.

 

“But Livvy, the whole neighbourhood will be swarming with criminals.”

 

Shanuki grinned, next to being melodramatic his aunt also had a very active imagination. He shut out the conversation, and the diaper smell, and took the ninja comic he had been reading in class earlier.

 

He had just arrived at the part where Pagan discovered that he had been framed and he quickly read on to see what would happen on the next page. Caught up in his storey he turned the page, and stared blankly at it.

 

The page was empty and matted. All the pages in this comic were shiny, and this one looked more like drawing paper. He turned another page, and found that the rest of the comic was empty as well. All the pages were blank! He leafed feverishly through to the end, and his mouth fell open at what he saw on the last page.

 

In the middle of the page a large lock of dark hair was stuck in the middle of the page. He stroked the hair softly, and was not over his surprise yet when the phone rang.

 

“I’ll get it mom!” He shouted to the living room, and picked up the phone in the kitchen. It was Mileay.

 

“Heya Shanuki, I was wondering, have you seen the hat I was wearing today at school?”

 

Shanuki shook his head, “No.”

 

“Oh,” his friend’s voice sounded disappointed through the phone, “Might have been the packrats playing tricks on me then.”

 

“I’m sorry Mileay, I know you liked the hat.” Shanuki stared at the lock of hair in the comic book as he was talking to his friend.

 

“Oh well, I’ll get my mom to get me a new one.”

 

Mileay’s parents were rich, he probably didn’t care about the loss of a hat at all.

 

“Wanna go for a game of soccer at the square tonight?”

 

Shanuki thought of the strange comic, and hesitated. What he really wanted was try and find out what it meant, and where the hair had come from like this.

 

“You know I’m no good at football,” He replied.

 

Mileay chuckled, “I know, but the French girl you like so much will be there as well, and we’re all going out to eat fries after.”

 

Shanuki coloured slightly red, lately he seemed to do this whenever someone managed Avril, and however hard he tried to tell himself that he didn’t like her, and that she was ugly, it wasn’t working too much yet.

 

“Err…sure, what time?”

 

The comic lay forgotten on the kitchen counter.

 

“Eight, and oh, we’ll be playing the guys from block a, it’ll be peanuts to win from them.”

 

OOC: For now I’m a bit stuck….if anybody else sees how to continue this with Snoopy…..more than welcome

[Katzaniel]

I haven't checked out the word association thread, but this is really neat. An interesting story, to spawn from just a list of words. And you better have some plan for that blank comic book, because I want to find out the answer eventually!

 

As for "Snoopy"... perhaps he could compare his comic to newspaper comics like Snoopy and Calvin & Hobbes... or accuse someone of being snoopy... or incorrectly mention "snoopy doggy dog"

[Gwaihir]

Is this just me or does it remind one of an excellent carnival activity?

 

That and a very cute story. Enjoyed reading it!

[madhatter]

Amazing Sweet!

Truly... haha bravo

 

It was a great read, and it exemplifies the creative thinking that the Word Association game was supposed to help stir up hehe