Goosebumps
Paintings & Puppets
Chapter One: "Just Six Little Words"
"Damn, I can never hit those high notes right," Gwendolyn grumbled, pushing a knot of ropes around with the toe of a doodled on sneaker. Voices were ringing and yelling through the whole gymnasium, running together like water.
Stand close enough and you could take in bits and pieces of conversations; about how to juggle properly, to cartwheel and finish off the act with a spinning twirl, to play the perfect violin, to tuning the piano, to trying not to accidentally hit anyone with bowling ball pins again, to finding a replacement dancer for the girl who sprained her ankle, and many more discussions on different topics. On the stage, front of the ginger curtains, were Silverstone High students of all grades, sitting or standing in chairs or on stage, practicing their talents or talking with their friends.
Behind the stage, cast members and stage workers helped and fixed different parts of the stage; the curtain ropes, the microphones, the speakers, backgrounds, lights, and a numerical amount of props imaginable.
"Hey!" J'klynn fussed, swatting at Gwendolyn's shoe. "Chickadee, you're tangling the ropes more when you poke 'em! Stop it before Ms. Stuart comes and yells at me again!" J'klynn Esdras and Gwendolyn Oleanders, two eleventh graders, were pondering in the back of the stage; J'klynn -known not only for being silent and odd to others- was mostly known as an artist, and was chosen to paint backgrounds sceneries on large cardboard cutouts. Gwendolyn -J'klynn's best female buddy- was taking five from her singing practice, watching J'klynn untie ropes for pulleys for her background paintings.
Totally unfair.
The two sixteen-year-old girls both knew that Ms. Stuart -the teacher who subjected plays, music and art HATED them, due to the fact that they were, indeed, trouble makers, EXCEPT when they worked on their own talents. Now the teacher-from-Hell is giving them a lot to do with their talents, even more than the regular portion of work shared that everyone got sometimes. As an example, J'klynn had to untie what looked like hundreds of knotted ropes (which they believed the hateful hag had something to do with that on purpose) AND paint. Gwendolyn was mercilessly criticized of her voice being too high or low keyed, and just about being everything under the sun that meant the opposite of "pretty". And since J'klynn just happens to be one of few to know how much Gwendolyn is keen on keeping her voice in check, Gwendolyn makes J'klynn practice with her every so often for good measure and where no one else but them and a few friends know, since Gwendolyn is aware of not only her best friend's hidden voice, but also her willpower to keep it secret.
"Ugh! This knot won't budge!" J'klynn growled, pulling at the ropes with long fingers, decorated with one plastic Halloween bat ring and black fingernails. Gwendolyn reached down and clutched another bundle of ropes from a pile between her thumb and pointing finger. "Here, Silent Night. Let me help," she said, plucking her nails at it, like a bird would try to peck at worms from soil. Just as the teens untied the knots they were working on (only to find out that it was from the same rope) and curled the rope up like a snake, someone -who's face was covered by a vase of flowers in one hand- tripped face first , their foot trapped in the coils.
"Hey, Gw-AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The figure started before it fell. An arm shot out to grab the vase before it crashed to the floor, like its carrier did. "Ow," Kaedzn groaned, setting down the package he held on to rub his knee cap.
"Not cool, Ashall. Not cool at all," Gwendolyn hissed, nudging the side of her heel into the boy's good knee. "Oh, yeah? Well, you wouldn't be saying that if I wasn't playing Messenger Boy with your BF! Here you are, Lovely Lady," he said in a proper fashion, bowing down while raising the vase towards Gwendolyn. "Daemy'n bought these overly-priced weeds for a demoness such as yourself," Kaedzn joked, straightening up. "He would have given them to you himself, but Ms. Stuart the Ms. Slut has him tuning all the violins and guitars for putting a pig dressed in a ballerina tutu and a sports bra in her spinney chair. Don't ask me where he got the oinker. OR the tutu and bra. Looooong story," he shuddered, handing Gwendolyn the vase and covering his ears for the future squeal that both he and J'klynn fore casted.
"They're oleanders. That's ironic," J'klynn, who uncovered her ears, complimented.
"I know, right? They are sooooo beautiful!" Gwendolyn's usual pessimistic form went to down right optimistic.
Ew.
But J'klynn kind of liked it when Gwendolyn got happy. Of course, J'klynn always got her to be this way whenever they were together, doing something destructive, or just telling each other jokes until they held onto their guts from laughing too hard. But J'klynn liked that Gwendolyn had found herself someone, besides herself and Kaedzn, that makes her this happy. J'klynn and Kaedzn loved her as a sister, while Daemy'n just plain ol' loved her. They made an adorable couple, when she was not wearing her bored face, that is.
"Omigod, D-Bear is SOOOOOO sweet! Where could he have gotten them from? He is AMAZING! Oh, and they smell so good! Wait, they're poisonous. I shouldn't really be inhaling 'em. BUT THAT MAKES THEM EVEN COOLER!"
As Gwendolyn kept up to her rambling of the flowers, Daemy'n, and to whom she could send to the hospital with the poisonous petaled beauties of doom, Kaedzn picked his package up off the floor and after flicking off nonexistent dust particles, he turned toward J'klynn, who was getting a little eardrum-numbed by the egoistic chatterbox that was the ever-so-lovely Gwendolyn Oleanders.
"And this," he rattled the big paper wrapped mystery, "is for you, my Lordess."
J'klynn turned to him, looking at it, back at him, and raised a questionable eyebrow. Due to the fact that her bangs covered her face down to her lips, no one could read her facial expressions; so she asked, "What is it?"
"Your payment, my home girl."
"For?"
"Dad's Mustang, honey. I had to repay you back somehow, you know. I don't like it when you help me out for nuthin', darlin'. You know I do."
"Damn it, Ashall! I TOLD you I'd do it for free!"
Three months ago back in July, Kaedzn -being the stubborn cheap-scape he was- refused to turn up the air on his father's new Mustang because he'd hafta pay for more gas, since the air conditioner took up a quarter of gas when put to use. So he rolled down all windows, which didn't help worth a shit. While driving to pick up J'klynn for a Friday night basketball game (that was forced upon her by the power of puppy eyes and a pouting lip), he finally had a hot flash bigger than Texas and ran into a tree off the road.
Kaedzn was fine, luckily, but neither of the teenagers could say that the car had the same fate as he. Fortunately, he was pretty much a half-mile away from the Esdras residence, and J'klynn towed the poor vehicle in her garage with the help of a cable cord and her dad's truck. After buffing the dents out to perfection, she not only painted the scraped-off paint, but painted the whole Mustang, washed the windows 'till they gleamed, and changed the tires. J'klynn didn't want Kaedzn to tell that she had done it, so she told him to say HE did it, since his dad already was disappointed at his son for being gay, which she hated more than anything.
So, now his father was happy that his son "did something manly -for a change", Kaedzn didn't get sent to a military school, and no one knew that J'klynn had done it (and had demanded that he not even think about paying her).
It was a win-win for everybody. But there he was, paying her back.
Which she hated.
A lot.
"Damn it, Esdras! You KNOW I'd pay you back weather you like it or not! BESIDES! I think you'd might like what I've got in here, anywayssssss . . . . c'mooooooooon. . . open it!"
"No," she instantly shot out in monotone.
"Please?"
"The word 'no' usually means something like 'not gonna fuckin' happen'."
"It's creeeeeeeepyyyyyy, and just how you liiiiiiiiiike iiiiiiiiiit."
"I don't caaaaaaaarrrrrrrrre."
"It's creepy enough to fit in with your fuckin' spooky-as-Hell rooooooooooom."
"Here, if you don't understand 'no' in English, then let me say it in Spanish: 'no'."
"Good Gods, woman, just open it already!" Gwendolyn, finally finished with her ranting, had oh, so generously butted in once she realized that her two trusty companions weren't listening.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
They both looked at each other, a "knowing" look passing through Kaedzn's amber orbs to Gwendolyn's gray/green's. They then got on either side of the irritated raven-haired girl, and evilly added on the dreadful puppy eyes and pouted lips. A single thought ran through J'klynn's mind as they threw on the merciless faces.
Aww, shiut.
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaa
(A/N: this is where, in the background of this, most bystanders turn to give the trio odd looks, while others shrug it off, since it is very usual from this unusual group)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa-"
"DAMN IT TO FUCKIN' HELL!" J'klynn exploded, ripping off the brown paper with as much speed as humanly possible, and looked down at the trunk below her.
"YAY!"
They cried, hopping up and down in undeserved (J'klynn thought, anyway) victory.
The word 'SLAPPY' was carved thickly into the trunk's top. (A/N: it's not like I stare at Slappy's trunk, so I don't know what it looks like, so this is what my story's version of it, okay?) The trunk was a deep red with a silver lock on it.
Wait.
What?
J'klynn squatted to examine the lock closely. Yeah, one would figure a trunk would have little clasps to keep the shit inside to stay in there.
Duh.
This one had two clasps on it, too.
But the lock was a a bit too much.
Sure, there are a few trunks out there still with locks, as well.
But did those other locks look so bashed as THIS one?
The lock looked very old and rusty, saying that it had seen better days long ago. It appeared broken, too; as if whatever it kept shut -like a door or cage- had something inside it that REALLY wanted out.
And abused the lock to a pulp.
Through the hazy fuzz that clouded around J'klynn's mind, she could faintly and barely hear her friends talking to her, even though they stood mere inches from her.
She felt that something was off and very wrong about the trunk.
Very off.
Terribly wrong.
"I got this at a yard sale. Some kid was straightening up some stuff she got from her room and this was with her room stuff. She seemed happy at first, before I asked about the trunk, 'cuz everythin' else seemed too girly for my girly. And I figured it was something that scared her, and I instantly thought of you, since you're the one obsessed with oddball typed shit to have around your room. And so, being your awesome-handsome-ultra-mega-super man, I asked her what's inside it, and I saw her twitch before sayin' that it's a dummy. And so I asked 'Can you open it?', and she was like Kid Flash to scream out 'No!', and then I just wanted to make sure it was scary-lookin', and she said 'Oh, yeah'. She gave me the key to the lock after I bought the little fella', and said 'Only let the owner open it. Do NOT open this trunk if you aren't the possible future owner of him'. I dunno why," Kaedzn's voice barely reached her, it felt so far off in the distance that she almost missed his words.
J'klynn felt said young man cup her hand and place something cool in it, closing her long fingers over it to keep it from falling out. She didn't have to look down and see that this (supposed) key had fucked up teeth.
"Mr. Ashall! Get your derriere front-and-center! You have music sheets to organize!" Screamed Ms. Stuart from the front stage
Kaedzn, groaning, said his good-byes to the females and "slugged" toward the dreaded voice. "And tell me what he looks like later!" he called out over his shoulder before he completely vanished behind the curtains.
"Oleanders! Your five minutes were over FOUR MINUTES AGO!"
Gwendolyn huffed, and replied to that with something that daringly rhymed with "Ducking Glass Mole of a Ditching Runt", said adios to J'klynn, and took the wrath of verbal lashings.
But J'klynn was barely aware of their presences' being absent, for she was too transfixed with the deep red trunk as she slowly connected the key with the lock's insides. Unlocking and throwing the lock and key to the wooden floor beneath her Converses, she quietly undid the clasps, each letting go with a noticeable cuh-chink! Finally, taking a deep breath to sooth the dreading feeling in her gut, J'klynn raised the trunk's top. And inside was what laid resembled the corpse of a buiseness guy who looked as if he use to be sarcastic out-the-ass.
(A/N: my story's Slappy is going to be based kind of both the book AND the Cartoon Network Goosebump's version's looks. I'm basically changing a few of his looks, so if he seems different then the last time you've checked him, there's your answer.)
The ventriloquist dummy had on a black/gray looking suit with it's chest painted to look like a white shirt beneath it. A red bow tie was underneath his neck.
J'klynn gasped in awe at the dummy's face.
He was with high cheekbones, giving his face a daring aura/shadow. It's movable mouth had chipped-painted lips, with a small chip at the bottom lip. A narrow nose rested above those lips. Wooden hair was painted a reddish/orange, complimenting the freckles dotted on his cheeks. But what got J'klynn the best was its eyes.
They were the most dashing moss-green volumes she had ever seen - painted or not. Though lifeless, the eyes looked calculating and mischievous.
And angry.
Oh, were they angry.
Scanning over the dummy with her own eyes (left being so light blue people think it's white, and right being so brown people think it's black), J'klynn saw a slight peak of a yellow piece of paper in the breast pocket. She curiously pulled it out.
"Karu . . . Mari . . . Odanna . . . Loma . . . Molonu . . . Karrano. Hmm. Well, at least we know that you aren't from America, Doll Face." She said, looking back at the ventriloquist dummy.
Her eyes widened as she sensed a drastic change in the atmosphere, not being able to decide weather it's bad (like from before she opened the trunk), or calming, in a way.
Soothing, even.
J'klynn felt at ease.
"J'KLYNN ESDRAS! Finish those ropes RIGHT NOW and GET BACK TO WORK!" Screamed Ms. Stuart from behind a student who she was yelling at from before.
Turning her face sideways, J'klynn put on a bright, fake smile and sarcastically hollered back, "Right away!" and muttered "your Ass-holiness" after turning back to the dummy, eyes still trained on the wrench.
Pushing the ropes around and curling the one Kaedzn had fallen over briefly, she chuckled quietly to the dummy.
"He-he, no wonder that woman is a MS. instead of a MRS.. I'd feel sorry for the poor, innocent man who'd been set up in the wedding," she snorted scornfully, slipping the paper back into the ventriloquist dummy's breast pocket. Looking the dummy over, J'klynn dropped her hands back down to straighten his jacket and fix his uneven bow tie, unaware of the so-called dashing eyes watching her as she did so.
"ESDRAS-"
J'klynn snapped.
"I'm coming, damn!" She shouted behind her shoulder at the aged crow.
"What was that, young lady?!"
"Ya heard me! I. Didn't. Stutter! Besides, if you think that was the worst thing you've ever heard, then maybe you should try opening up your fuckin' ears and listen more to the shit everyone else says about you, ma'am," she said happily, ending it rather politely for the red-faced teacher behind her.
"DENTION THIS THURSDAY!"
"Ooh, I'm scared."
"TWICE!"
"I'm shaking in my Converses."
"THRICE!"
"What is this, a cheesy replay of the Breakfast Club?"
"I'M CALLING YOUR PARENTS TO TELL THEM WHAT YOU SAID!"
"I'm calling the hospital to see if your blood type had expired yet."
"SUSPENTION!"
"Transfusion!"
Ms. Stuart, unable to think of anymore good discipline threats, stuttered with anger.
J'klynn, smirking, leaned against the trunk, looking pleased.
Neither females aware of the silently laughing moss-green orbs flashing back and forth from each woman when them argued.
"Give up, mutant?"
Practically spitting fire, Red Face bent down to lean her mouth next to J'klynn's ear, and hissed, "Suspension for a week, starting tomorrow. This will be added on to the rest of your permanent record that you and the three of your friends have already buried underfoot." She then spun on the ball of her heal to stomp away, J'klynn still smirking after the witch.
She then broke out giggling.
"He-he-ha (snort), thrills and kills," she snorted/laughed, grinning at the puppet as if they were sharing a private joke. She didn't see the eyes twinkle with humor and mischief.
J'klynn calmed down her fits as some fellow high school students walked by, giving her ignorant and questionable glares. She sighed, looking down, a little defeated.
"But I am sooooo dead."
She closed the trunk slowly, as to not to disturb the puppet inside it, and placed the lock back on it, and left to get more bundles of ropes to untie and coil up.
J'klynn had missed the barely audible, dreamy sigh that left the deep red trunk.