Vanellope Gets Put In Her Place
A nine-year-old girl woke up under a candy cane tree. There was a chocolate pond and some gumdrops. She didn't know how she had ended up there, but it felt wrong for some reason. She looked around for a while, trying to get a handle on what was going on. She knew what things were called, but that didn't seem to help.
She began to walk, in no particular direction and then after a long time heard something interesting, cheers and applause and something else the roar of engines. That roar spurred her to run as fast as she could and she soon found herself looking over a frosting covered hill at the start of a race.
There were little girls just like her getting into karts and driving really fast. She knew she was a driver like them, but she felt a little different, too. She looked at herself. She wasn't wearing clothes like they were, she just had on ...underwear, she was pretty sure it was called. That was wrong, she needed clothes.
She could see a landfill, somehow she knew it would have things she could use and she walked all around the town until she got there. There she fashioned a hoodie from some leftover green apple fruit leather and licorice whips, a skirt from some peanut butter cup candy wrappers and boots from some hollowed-out licorice gumdrops. It wasn't great but she had done it herself and she was proud of her creation.
She then hiked over to the finish line. She saw a sparkly white race car drive away.
She tentatively approached one of the girls. "Hello."
"Oh, Hello. Who are you?" said a girl in white and pink, pulling a lollipop out of her mouth.
"I'm Vanellope Von Schweetz." she remembered, slightly surprised, that she did, though something seemed to be missing.
"Hi. I'm Taffyta Muttonfudge. You're new here. Aren't you?"
"Yes, I am."
"That's cool. We'll be having another race soon. Where's you're kart?" asked Taffyta looking around.
"I don't know." Vanellope said, uncertainly.
"Oh, maybe you don't have a default kart. You'll have to go to the minigame first and make one."
"And where is that?"
"Over there, in the bakery." Taffyta pointed.
"Hey, thanks." Vanellope said, running off.
"No problem."
Vanellope ran off to the bakery and found the minigame of making a kart. She started the minigame but isn't very good at it, she's not exactly sure what to do and doesn't really get enough good stuff into the right bowl. She was also too small to pump the oven enough to get the temperature right. The minigame failed her out as her kart didn't bake right, it was just a lumpy pile of partially coagulated dough.
Vanellope was so sad that she hadn't been able to make a kart. She was thinking how she could do the minigame right when a man in a sparkly white kart raced up, as did two donuts.
"Who are you?" asked the man with the crown.
"Please, I'm Vanellope."
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm trying to make a kart."
"Silly girl. You can't make a kart yourself. You need a player to do it for you."
"Oh," said Vanellope, dissapointed. "Who are you?"
"I... I'm King Candy. I rule this game."
"Oh, okay," said Vanellope, but something felt wrong about this racer. "How do I get a player to make a kart for me?"
"Well, you need to go into the Character Carousel. If a player picks you then they'll make you a kart, but if not then you'll be dropped from the Carousel."
"How many chances do I get on the Carousel?" asked Venellope eagerly.
King Candy eyes shifted back and forth. "Just one. Then you'll have to wait until another spot opens and that takes a long time."
"Oh," Vanellope was beginning to worry. How would she ever race if she only had one chance at a player picking her?
"Come along, the arcade is about the open." They go to the Carousel and there is a line of drivers.
"Here. I'll put you in the good spot," lied King Candy.
"Thank you, sir."
"No, problem. Remember to smile."
"Okay," Said Vanellope nervously, seeing how the other drivers were practicing their poses.
The Carousel spun and Venellope put on her biggest smile and put her hands behind her back to keep her hands from showing how badly they were shaking.
The player paused on her, she was going to be chosen! She was so excited and surprised.
But then the player spun past her to Taffyta and chose her instead. Venellope was crushed. She was dumped back with the other unchosen players.
"Oh too bad kid. Maybe next time," said King Candy.
Venellope was crying so hard she pixelated.
"What was that?" shouted Snowanna. Everyone backed away.
"You-you're a glitch!" shouted King Candy.
"A what?"
"A glitch, a leftover bit of code, you're not supposed to be here at all." King Candy said angrily. "You're a danger to us all!"
The other drivers ran away from her and after watching for a moment, the pain was too much. She ran away. King Candy smirked as she ran.
It wasn't fair. She wandered the background of the game for some time, eventually she got lonely and went back to the track. She ran crying from the terrible things they said about her.
After a while she went back to watch the races, they were so exciting. She wanted, needed to drive, but without a kart there was no way. She tried to get back to the Carousel. She endured the terrible, hurtful words the other racers threw at her. She fired back with her own sharp words, but she knew that her words didn't hurt them as much as their words hurt her. It wasn't fair. Eventually, she couldn't go back anymore, it hurt too much and they wouldn't let her on anyway. She was just a glitch and didn't belong.
She went back to the bakery, maybe she could figure out a way to make a kart. But she found there was now a gate and watchman guarding it, that was new. This put her off a bit. But the guard was asleep and she was able to get past him. But she couldn't get past the heavily locked door that even had her image on it with a line through it. It wasn't fair! She beat at the door, but she couldn't get through. She snuck back out and wandered in a daze for a long time, just wandering the candy cane forest.
One day, she found the door where people could leave the game. She watched and waited, hide and listened, looked and thought. She wanted to race, but she couldn't do it here. If she left, maybe she could somewhere else. At least games out there wouldn't be mean to her, maybe.
Then it was all quiet, no one was around. She dashed for the exit. Just as she got to it she was bounced back. She shook her head and walked to it and ran into a barrier again.
"No, no, please, no!" She beat at the barrier, she couldn't even leave this place. It wasn't fair. She was a glitch, she wasn't supposed to be here and she wasn't even here enough to leave. She slid down and wept her predicament into the powdered sugar dusting the ground.
Venellope wandered the background of the game in despair. It wasn't fair. Was there nothing she could do to get a kart to try and race? She went to the biggest feature on the landscape, the cola mountain. She explored for a long time and found an unfinished bonus level. It was a rather nice place; warm and quiet. A place no one knew about, a good place for a glitch. The occasional falling Mentos made it interesting, keeping her on her toes, so she wasn't splashed by hot diet soda. She found a few discarded bits and began to make a home. Someplace hers at least.
Then came a big break, she found the junk yard filled with the bits of destroyed karts. She had no idea how to build a kart, but she was a racer, she would find a way. There were wheels here. A kart needed wheels, and so she began by collecting wheels.
It took a long time, trying to fit wheels onto a base that seemed to work. Once she had a four wheels and a platform to connect them all she called it the Lickety Split. It wasn't nearly as good as what she could see of the other karts, but it was hers. She made it herself, and that made it good, even though in her heart she knew it wasn't good enough. She scrounged some frosting to hold the bits she was finding together. Still it was the best she knew how to make, that made it good to her and she loved it.
She still needed to win a coin to earn a play to qualify, but one thing at a time. She could do something now. There was hope, now. Someday her luck would change and she would get a coin, and she would race.
She would win.
Author's Note: It looks like Disney a princess (president) for the severely bullied. Thank you. That movie was very hard to watch in places.