Boing Boing Pokémon

Boing Boing Pokémon
by Hazirah M

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Saya (also known as Haze, Saya-238 and Hazirah M) argued with her sister (let us call her ZQ) over the kangaroos in the computer game "Boing Boing and Roger".
"You're always yellow!" she argued. "And you always use the name 'Pikachu' for yellow! I'll bet that yellow kangaroo is sick of being called Pikachu!"
"Well, you're always green, aren't you?"
"No."
"Yes, you are!"
"YOU'RE the one who always gets first pick. I get whatever's left over."
"Oh yeah." ZQ shrugged and typed in 'Pikachu' to be the yellow kangaroo's name anyway.
Saya groaned and sulked behind ZQ even though she was the older one.
ZQ typed in 'Articuno' to be the blue kangaroo's name.
"Since when do you use 'Articuno'?" asked Saya from behind ZQ's chair.
"Don't I always?" said ZQ, puzzled.
"Get on with it," Saya hissed.
"Alright, alright," ZQ replied, crossed and getting impatient herself. She moved away from the keyboard so that Saya could type in HER chosen names.
Now Saya was at the keyboard, but she couldn't think of any names.
"What about 'Ninetales', like last time?" ZQ suggested.
"Nah..." Saya typed in 'Gary' to be the purple kangaroo's name. "Gary's shirt is purple, isn't it?"
"No, it's not, it's blue!" ZQ argued.
"Purplish-blue," Saya replied, trying to avoid any more arguments. Now for the last kangaroo, the green one. Saya remembered the name she used before, which was 'Grass'. It seemed pretty corny now. What Pokémon is green? she thought to herself.
"Well?" said ZQ leaning forward to see what Saya was going to type.
"I'm thinking of a name," replied Saya, waving her hand in front of ZQ's face. She was imagining the Bust A Groove (I have to use 'Groove' now) characters and wondering which one of them was green. The first BAG character that came into her mind was McLoad. Shrugging to herself, she typed the name 'McLoad' into the computer.
"Who's McLoad?" asked ZQ.
"He's from Bust A Move," Saya replied, and clicked on 'Start'.
The game began.

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"Hey, what now?!" yelled Gary Oak. Suddenly he found himself spinning around on a circle with three kangaroos, one yellow, one green and one blue. "What the heck is this?" he said to them.
"You got me," shrugged the yellow kangaroo. "Hey, I know your voice. You're Gary, aren't ya?"
"What?!" exclaimed Gary. "You know me? I've never met coloured kangaroos before in my life!"
"Well, I've never seen you dressed as a purple kangaroo."
Gary looked down at his feet and saw that he had no shoes on. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. "I'm a kangaroo!"
"You noticed," said the kangaroo, raising its eyebrow. (Do kangaroos have eyebrows?) "Well, it's me, Pikachu, and I have no idea what the heck I'm doing here."
"Pikachu as a kangaroo... scary..." Gary shivered.
All four kangaroos spun around for awhile then each of them landed on top of different numbers. Pikachu landed on 1, Gary on 4, the green kangaroo on 2 and the blue kangaroo on 3. There was the sound of an electronic mouse clicking...
Then all the kangaroos fell and fell and fell... and landed at the front of what looked like a running track, only the track was not at all smooth and they were no lines. The track was divided into different squares.
Then a brown-haired guy came up to them. He wore glasses and had a yellow pencil behind his right ear.
"You're on 'Boing Boing and Roger' and I'm Roger," he said. He pointed to a sign where there was a picture of a kangaroo (not yellow, purple, blue or green) and the words 'Boing Boing and Roger'. "Let's start!
"It's your turn yellow," he continued, and this time what he said appeared in a huge speech bubble. "Click the spinner."
"How??" moaned Pikachu (as the yellow kangaroo, of course). "I can't reach it..."
Someone clicked the mouse again. The name 'Pikachu' appeared in a small box above the yellow kangaroo's head then disappeared. The spinner... well, spinned. It went around the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 and spinned and spinned then stopped at the number 1.
"Oh no...!" screamed Pikachu. "I have a sudden urge to hop to this square over here!"
And he hopped to the first square, which had a huge leaf on it. Roger then said, "Sorry, there's no question for this square!"
"...I'll bet..." mumbled Pikachu.
Roger spoke again, "It's your turn green. Click the spinner."
There was that clicking sound again, then the name 'McLoad' appeared in a small box above the green kangaroo's head and the spinner spinned to 3.
In that time, the kangaroos had time to talk.
"McLoad?" said Gary (as the purple kangaroo). "Who the heck are you supposed to be?"
"I'm a dinosaur," whined McLoad. "...A big green dinosaur..."
Pikachu and Gary looked at each other and shrugged.
"I'm Articuno," said the blue kangaroo. "I wanna fly!"
"An Articuno!" exclaimed Gary, eyes gleaming. "Oh, if only I had my pokéballs with me now..."
Pikachu stepped on Gary's foot. "We're in a computer game, and we have to get through this first."
Anyway, after the spinner spinned to 3, McLoad found a great urge to hop to the next three squares. And he did. He landed on a grassy square with a tree next to it.
"Let's see what you know about History!" chirped Roger. "Who was the 39th president (formerly governor of Georgia) who bought the peace process to the Middle East between Israel and Egypt?"
"Eurgh!" they all heard a faraway voice say. "I'm not American! I wouldn't know!"
"'Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford'," a younger voice said, and the kangaroos noticed these were the choices for the questions as seen in Roger's speech bubble. "Choose one, sis!"
Someone clicked on 'Richard Nixon'.
"That's not it! Sorry, I have to send you back," said Roger.
"I DON'T KNOW AMERICAN HISTORY!" screeched the first faraway voice they heard.
McLoad found himself hopping backwards towards the start line.
"It's your turn blue. Click the spinner."
The person clicked the spinner spinned to 2.
Articuno hopped his way two squares ahead to a blue square.
"Let's test your knowledge of literature," said Roger. "Who wrote THE CAT IN THE HAT?"
"Easy," said one of the faraway voices. Someone clicked on the choice 'Dr. Seuss'.
"You are correct!" said Roger.
"Who's 'Dr. Pepper'?" said the other voice.
And so went on the game.

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Pikachu and Gary look pained somehow, thought Saya to herself as she observed the two kangaroos on the screen.
"History again!" said ZQ.
"I DON'T KNOW!" screeched Saya.
"Please, I'm right next to you," whimpered ZQ.
"Sorry."

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So you can guess that the game goes as follows: Click the spinner, your kangaroo hops to a number of squares (following the number pointed to by the spinner), Roger asks questions (depending what square you landed on) and you answer them. If you answer correctly, your kangaroos stays on that square, but if you answer incorrectly your kangaroo hops back to its previous square. Simple, no?
In this time, there were questions about history, literature, geography, science and also mystery questions as well as 'cheesy' questions.
The kangaroos found themselves hopping into ponds, huge chunks of cheese, squishy ground, on top of a giraffe's head, on a bridge, next to cactus, next to a huge apple with a worm in it, and Articuno and Gary were thrown into a hole at one time each.
The first one to cross the finish line was Pikachu (not surprising, isn't it?). But he wasn't considered the winner yet. The winner was determined by which kangaroo had the most correct answers.
Gary (or rather Saya, who played as Gary) won the game with 11 correct answers and got to have a victory lap and hopped around the track all over again. (Even though privately Gary felt there was no point to that.) The cactus came alive and danced, then Gary had his picture taken with the words 'Outstanding!' (but only in his kangaroo form).
Saya and ZQ got tired of the game so they quit and so Articuno, McLoad, Pikachu and Gary bid their good-byes and were never sorry to return to their original forms.
Yes, that was rather short, I know, but to make up for it we'll take you to see what happened after.

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"A kangaroo!" moaned McLoad to Shorty in Shorty's level at Jungle Tours. "A little bright green one and I was forced to hop to these squares and I didn't even win the game!"
"There, there, next time that crazy Saya-238 girl won't choose you to be a kangaroo," Shorty comforted him, knowing somehow that the crazy person to turn McLoad into a kangaroo was Saya-238.
"However, I would have LOVED to be dancing with that cactus you were speaking about..." fantasized James Suneoka.
"I'M yellow, in a way," Robo-Z Gold commented.
Robo-Z Gold had a nightmare that night about being turned into the yellow kangaroo. He fell off his bed and couldn't get back to sleep for ages.

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"It was a nightmare!" Pikachu recounted. "Hopping around with these huge feet and not able to thundershock anyone!"
Everyone who was listening to his tale shivered at the thought, even Team Rocket who were eavesdropping nearby.

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"Never again will I see a kangaroo," Gary muttered to himself in his sleep.

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Articuno flew around with Zapdos and Moltres, glad for his life that he wasn't a kangaroo.

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Saya wrote this in her journal:

It's very strange, you know. All of a sudden I feel as if I am going to have nightmares
about Gary, McLoad, Pikachu and Articuno glaring at me. Maybe it was because I played
"Boing Boing and Roger" today. Ridiculous. Yet the image haunts me...


THE END


DISCLAIMER:
McLoad, Shorty, James Suneoka, Robo-Z Gold and Bust A Move/Groove are © Enix, Frame Graphics, East West Japan and whoever else.
Pikachu, Gary, Articuno, Team Rocket, Zapdos, Moltres and Pokémon are © Nintendo, Game Freak and whoever else.
Boing Boing and Roger is © Multi Dimensional Communications, Inc. and whoever else.

AND ALSO...
Based on a true story, obviously not the part about Gary, Pikachu, McLoad and Articuno becoming kangaroos, and the arguments between me and my sister are a bit exaggerated.

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TITLE: Boing Boing Pokémon
FOUND AT: http://www.chickpages.com/journaljunkies/saya-238/bbp.txt
AUTHOR: Hazirah M
E-MAIL: hazirah@hotmail.com