Happy Birthday Ash
It was Ash Redfern's birthday, and as he opened the door to the apartment he shared with James (his cousin) and Poppy (James' soulmate), he remembered the pile of presents on his bedroom floor. The fact that he himself had bought and wrapped them did not seem to filter through his bubble of happiness.
"James? Poppy? You two in?" Ash yelled down the hall. "I'm putting my bags in my room and then cooking Hawaiian pizza with double ham!" Hawaiian pizza with double ham was Ash's favourite food.
As he skipped up the stairs humming 'Happy Birthday' to himself, the house was otherwise silent. This didn't bother Ash as Poppy was probably asleep in the bath (a common occurrence) while James was a homework fanatic while not playing 'Super Mario 3' on the playstation2. The latter of these activities really annoyed Ash as it meant he didn't have much time in which to play 'Bloody Roar 3'.
When he opened his bedroom door he flung it open and sung a few bars of opera complete with elaborate hand gestures while standing in the doorway. He threw his bag on the bed, obscuring Dipsi's face on the telletubbie bedspread. This bedspread matched the wallpaper, curtains, ceiling, carpet and a rug covering a bloodstain from a rather less than willing meal. Changing quickly he swapped his pizza boy delivery uniform for a random selection from his completely black wardrobe. Black was a very good colour for hunting in at night and was also very vampire-ish.
Ash slid down the banister on his way downstairs. Although to look at he was a tall, good-looking, ash-blonde vampire, he was still a six-year-old at heart. He staggered across the hallway (he had forgotten to jump off before the raised part at the end of the banister) and opened the lounge door. A loud chorus of 'Surprise!' greeted him.
Ash's lower jawbone temporally dislocated itself as his mouth hung open in surprise. There gathered in his lounge were all his friends – good and not so good. Ash spotted one significantly short figure.
"Quinn! What are you doing here? Get out! Now!"
"Why should I?" Quinn said sulkily. " I'm your best friend!" Now tears were shining in his eyes.
"After what you did to Flipper?" Ash sneered scornfully.
"I bought you another goldfish. It might be plastic but it is still a fish!"
Ash turned, bored of the conversation, and spotted Rashel holding a limp goldfish. Quinn ran out of the room.
"What is that?" Ash yelled his mouth hanging over once more."
"It's Colin, Quinn's goldfish." Rashel explained. "I though you might like to torture it."
Ash took the goldfish from her. It flapped once in his hand. "It's still alive you fool! You great baboon!" Ash rushed across the room and dumped Colin in the fish bowl previously occupied by Flipper.
Quinn suddenly re-entered the room brandishing a very large wooden chopping board. This he used to whack Ash over the head with.
"What was that for?" Protested a rather dazed looking Ash. "I saved your fish! Look!" He pointed to a fish swimming happily around the fish bowl.
Quinn just sneered and stomped huffily out of the room to sulk in a cupboard. The cupboard under the stairs had spiders in it. He hated spiders. Quinn screamed and found another cupboard to sulk in.
Back in the lounge Rashel and Ash were fighting. It was supposed to be a friendly fight to determine the strongest, but neither of the pair was giving that impression. Rashel was brandishing a rather lethal looking fence picket while Ash was going at her with teeth and nails.
Mary – Lynette chose that moment to burst through the door. "Hi, folks! Sorry I'm late but my mascara ran out so I had to go and buy some more." She stopped and screamed. "Rashel! What are you doing to Ash? Get off him! Stop killing him!" In an effort to save Ash (which really wasn't needed as he was winning), Mary-Lynnette rushed between the two fighters and got a fence picket up her nose. It started to bleed.
Thea started to fuss over Mary-Lynnette and wanted to call an ambulance. Thierry halted this idea, however. Meanwhile James was fussing over the carpet.
"What are we going to do about this blood?" He moaned. "It will cost so much to have the carpet cleaned… I know! Ash, you are donating your teletubbie rug to the lounge floor!"
This last statement caused a large and violent argument over whether teletubbies was better than Tweenies, or vice versa. Instead of one bloodstain, the carpet ended up as the proud bearer of six. James ended up sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around knees and rocking back and forth muttering, "Oh, my poor carpet. What will we do? Oh, what will we do?"
The fight was stopped by a combined burst of blue fire from Jez and Iliana – Delos was hiding behind the sofa. Mary-Lynnette had been reduced to a quivering heap under the dinner table.
"The party is off!" Ash yelled. "I have a headache so I'm going to bed to open the presents that I bothered to get for myself."
Everyone kept respectively quiet until Ash's footsteps were heard on the stairs. Then they burst out laughing.