Just a little beginning. This one is a short little fanfic featuring Lila.
Lila Sawyer was in a cheerful mood. Her pretty green dress with the the poofy sleeves was flawlessly starched and ironed. Her braids were immaculately wound and bound behind her head. Her tiny green hair ribbons were extra crisp with a bit of hairspray to keep them in place. Lila hummed to herself. She pranced ever-so delicately, ever-so-slowly in a restrained hop of joy down the steps of her front stairs. The front of her home was newly painted and there were singing birds on a street tree to regal her. With a satisfied sniff, Lila strolled down the street to the bus stop on small steps. The bus wheeled up next to her on squeaky brakes, but many smiling faces greeted her as she entered. She payed no mind to the the frowning, graver faces of those lurking in the middle of the bus, or Arnold and Helga whispering to one another while Gerald rolled eyes at them.
On the bus, Lila sat down with three other girls, two of whom had a math textbook with them as if it were a fashion accessory. They chatted until the bus reached the grand steps of P.S. 118, and they might descend as a knot of girls. As she walked, Lila held the book up across her chest and smiled a bright, femininely smile.
Lila stood by the lockers for a long while, chatting with her friends from the class across the hall. Past her and around her, Curly chased Brainy for this favorite pencil; Eugene walked past carrying a project made from cardboard and too much, dripping, oozing glue; and Wolfgang terrorized Toothless Joe. Gerald and Arnold past her to enter the class together. Phoebe followed after Helga, scribbling something down on her notepad as Helga dictated some new plan, nodding all the while. Lastly, Lila spotted Mr. Simmons coming into the hallway and the bell rang. She waved farewell for the day to her friends.
"Bye! See you at lunchtime!" She promised. Then she entered the class.
The lessons of the day progressed. A super-fat hamster with a hat like Harold's rolled around in the back as Harold tried to see where it hid in the straw. But the rest of the students had all splintered throughout the classroom to color in pages of buildings that are supposed to be important- whether architectually or historically. Arnold colored a page with a pyramid on it. Gerald colored in the skyscraper from King Kong. Sid did the same, but he added a giant gorilla to it. Gerald squinted and frowned at Sid but refrained from comment.
Phoebe colored in the Temple at Kyoto. Then all of a sudden, someone asked for a black crayon.
"Oh! I have one," Arnold spoke out, lifting up a crayon stub so small it might hardly be seen. It was half the length of his thumb. "But this is all I have left. Sorry!" He dropped the bit into Sid's palm. Sid looked at it sadly.
"Someone's gotta have a black crayon somewhere!" Sid grimaced. "Harold? What about you? Or Stinky?"
"Nah! I'm busy trying to use green and violet overlaid on one another to make some sort of shade of blue! We're out of blue crayons, too!"
"Hey, careful! That's the last of the green!" Rhonda scowled. She snatched the crayon away from Stinky's hand. Eugene looked in a box.
"That leaves all the weird colors left, you guys," Eugene explained mildly. "Like silver."
"I could use silver!" Phoebe chirped, raising a hand. Lila stood up gracefully on her feet.
"I'll go across the hall and ask the classroom if they have some more crayons. I am certain they would be ever-so glad to share!" Lila fluttered her lashes mildly. Mr. Simmons gave her permission to do so. Then she floated away out the door and across the hall. She knocked on the door there.
It was a much stricter, more orderly classroom there. But Lila eloquently expressed her wish to the teacher and the teacher called on one of her students to aid Lila in finding the supplies she needed. One of Lila's friends volunteered and they stood together in the rear of the class, whispering together in low voices.
"Oh, but there aren't any black crayons in any of these tubs, too!" her friend Gloria fret.
"Ohh! Hm, well how about this one over here?" Lila asked. She pointed to a rusty coffee can on the bottom shelf. She pulled it out from there and peered inside. "I see a number of black crayons!"
"Oh! But that is the cursed crayon can!" Gloria fret, a sweat drop nearly rolling down the side of her face. "No one ever touches that one! It's cursed!"
"Cursed how?"
"Cursed... well I forget how it's cursed but someone told me it is."
"Hm," Lila thought. "Well, I'm ever so certain it will be just fine. Thank you so much for helping me!" Lila repeated these words at the classroom door as she exited the room. With a soft, satisfied smile of triumph, Lila returned to her own classroom carrying the rusting, old coffee can full of crayons.
Hm. This story makes me wish for a Hey Arnold coloring book with a Crayola crayons pack bundled with it with exactly the right colors for shading all those figures in. It'd be fun. I think I'll print a random coloring page out from online! :) On an unrelated note, save the pangolins!