Hello! Ok, so I know that you've looked at the synopsis and are most likely confused. This was originally supposed to be an excerpt of Though I Knew Her, but it became too long so I scrapped it. I figured since it was around Christmas (and I'm having a writer's block with the story.) that I'd make it a little mini story. For those who aren't familiar with Though I Knew Her, I wrote a sub-story to the original story (don't ask) about the Authoress of the story (Alfabetsoop or Soop), her muse (MuseRyan), Lore (Data's brother that somehow got involved with the story) and Lilly (Soop's best friend and neighbor). The lair, where the story starts, is part of Soop's basement that she has redecorated and is where she and the others usually hang out. If I missed any explanations, I'm sorry, you could pm me or just read the other , I have to warn you there is no such thing as sanity in many of my works. Happy Holidays!
Disclaimer/The things I do not own, but want for Christmas:Dominick the Donkey, boom-box purses, Christmas lights, Phantom of the Opera Seussical, Frankenstein, Superman or anything or Star Trek in general.
"Please?"
"No."
"Pleeeeze?"
"No."
"PLEEEEEEEEE-" Soop dropped to the floor, wrapping her arms around Lore's ankles, "EEEEEEEEEEE-"
MuseRyan walked in hesitantly through the lair door. Due to the winter weather her bouts of insanity were a little more intense. Fortunately Lore had bought him a motorcycle helment for Christmas.
His eyes traveled from the center of the room where Lore was in the desperate clutches of the Authoress, to the swivel chair where Shadow, Soop's psychotic rabbit, began hissing and clawing at his ears. The computer on the desk began to tremble, and the books that decided to end this madness jumped off their high shelves.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
"What's her problem?" he asked Lore, though he wasn't sure Lore could hear is own thoughts due to the whining.
"Why is it that I'm the only one with an off switch?" Lore cried trying to pry off the Authoress's hands.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
The muse carefully approached the two, fearing to become Soop's next victim.
Lore gave up his attempts to free himself. He looked at the muse and then back to the pathetic slump clinging to his feet.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
"To be honest, I sorta want to see how long she can go before her lungs blow," a spark of amusement lit in Lore's eyes.
"I don't know," MuseRyan said crossing his arms staring at the Authoress in a bemused fashion, "She took singing lessons once; I think it might take a while."
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
"Damn it." Lore pressed his hands to his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.
"EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeze?" Soop gasped for breath, and with what energy she had left she gave an eager smile.
Silence graced the room, soothing their ears. Shadow calmly began grooming himself, and the computer retained its elegant posture.
Lore kept his eyes closed, but put his arms down; cherishing the moment, and trying to savor it as long as he could.
"So what's the problem?" MuseRyan frowned; he hated being left in the dark.
Lore punched him fiercely on the shoulder.
"Ow!"
"See?" Lore said gently. He looked at Soop's wide eyes and pointed her attention to MuseRyan, "Museboy will go with you!"
MuseRyan smiled, proud to be included.
'Wait a minute,' he thought, frowning.
"Where are we goin'?"
Soop scoffed, "Like his vote counts! He can't legally drive."
"Well neither can you, so I guess you made all that noise for nothing."
"Hey, I'm still confused here!" Ryan crossed his arms tighter, cutting off circulation due to the frustration.
During a moment of complete silence Soop looked at MuseRyan with an unfathomable expression.
"Your confusion isn't 'breaking news' sweetheart," she put blandly.
Lore rolled his eyes, "Soop wants me to bring her to the Christmas lights, which doesn't make sense seeing that it's not Christmas anymore!"
Soop put her hands on her hips,"Uhh, I believe there are twelve days of Christmas."
She began to sing in a childlike voice, "On the third day of Christmas my best friend gave to meeeeee....." She waved the Christmas lights flyer in his face.
Lore ripped the flyer out of her hand and let its crumpled corpse drop to the floor
Soop gave him an innocent pout, one that reminded Lore of a little child that didn't get what they wanted from Santa on their first Christmas, though they used their best 1st grade spelling to explain to him why they really needed it.
"No." He said once more, trying to run a self-diagnosis seeing if Soop had permanently fried any of his circuitry.
Soop's eyes gleamed in the light like Christmas ornaments, as her bottom lip quivered.
"I can't believe she suckered me into doing this!" Lore muttered to himself, choking 10 and 2 on the steering wheel. Black ice hid among the regular pigment of the pavement, so he drove very carefully. It wasn't that he was afraid of an accident; he'd be ok, and the muse probably would be too, Soop was being a pest so at the moment he didn't care what happened to her, but he didn't know the other one too well to feel comfortable bringing her to her doom, "Remind me why we brought Kate Moss along for the ride?"
Lilly glared at him through the rear-view mirror, hugging her fashionably exceptional trench coat.
"Geez Lil, we were only going to drive around a park to see lights," Soop, the epitome of unfashionable, laughed from the seat across. She eyed Lilly's high heels, the shine of it was so bright, Soop feared one perfectly aimed reflection of light, and she'd be permanently blind.
"Well it never hurts to look nice," Lilly replied awkwardly, tugging nervously at her gold boom box purse.
Soop cocked her head, "But I thought beauty was pain."
"So's a punch in the face," Lilly growled, "but you're still askin' for one."
Soop grinned innocently.
Lore paid the toll, scowling at the woman in the booth wishing him a happy holiday.
Within minutes, the gang was swallowed by a world of tacky illumination and belated holiday cheer.
Soop smudged the window with her face, gaping at the lights as Lilly watched both Soop and the lights with equal amusement.
"Lore, we might have to visit the car-wash too," She laughed.
"Soooop!" Lore growled
"Yes, dear?" She asked dryly.
"Knock it off!" He tried reach behind his seat and swat her.
Soop pulled her legs on to her seat to safety and exchanged childish facial expressions with Lilly, the tattletale.
MuseRyan ignored the madness, for his muse intuition told him a conflict was about to arise.
A red light began to flash on the dashboard and it was accompanied by a repetitive and annoying beep.
"Shit!" Lore exclaimed, "I should've gotten more gas."
Lilly frowned"Why didn't you check it before?"
"All of Lore's mistakes are because of glitches caused by Soop and her annoying high-pitched whining," Soop recited proudly.
Smog swallowed the car within seconds. Lore looked up and immediately switched to low beams; no luck. The car began to roll down a hill, he tried put on the breaks, but the ice made the car spin out of control. Lore tried to maneuver down the hill as well as he could, but the fog was too thick to see through.
Out of the mysterious mist came a little red light and then the rest of the Christmas light skeleton.
"RUUUDOLPH!!!" MuseRyan pointed to the two dimensional creature ahead of them. Lore tried to swerve the car away from it, and crashed into a large oak tree.
"Everyone ok?" Lore asked shutting off the car.
"Everyone 'cept Ruldolph," Soop jumped out of the car and pointed to the reindeer who was even more two dimensional than before.
Lilly took her winter hat and put it over her heart, "That brave, brave reindeer."
She and Soop stood respectfully for a moment of silence.
Lore turned the keys in the ignition. The noise it made as it attempted to start didn't sound too hopeful. Lore silently swore, and got out of the car.
"Does either of you have a cell phone?" He looked hopefully more at Lilly than Soop.
"I do!" Lilly she exclaimed digging through her purse, "I just got an upgrade. It's really cool and it has unlimited texting and-"
She pulled it out and flipped it open, "It's dead."
Soop burst out laughing, "Wow, how inconvenient."
"What you don't have one?" Lore looked at Soop disbelievingly.
"It doesn't make sense when you have no friends."
Lilly cleared her throat loudly.
Soop looked over at Lilly and rolled her eyes, "Except you. And we live so close that the best service we need is two tin cans and string."
"Just great," Lore slammed his fist on the hood of the car.
"Well we might as well walk through the lights," Lilly suggested, putting her cold hands into her pockets, "We'll just ask someone at the end to lend us a phone."
"It's 15 degrees out!" Lore exclaimed.
"Ok, you don't get cold so your vote doesn't count," Soop made a face, "all endothermic beings who want to walk through the freezing cold to see the lights say 'aye'."
"Aye!" said Lilly with vigor and Muse Ryan with indifference.
Lore looked at the muse with surprise.
MuseRyan leaned close to him, "if I didn't say it, they'd kill me."
Lore gave him a sympathetic look.
Soop gave a triumphant smile as she took the car keys from Lore and locked the car. She started skipping down the road. Lilly followed behind Soop, attempting to skip with high heels while Lore and MuseRyan trudged behind them.
"Lilly," Soop starting skipping backwards, "Will you do the honors?"
Lilly grinned, "Gladly."
She pulled out her ipod from her purse after pressing a couple buttons, the riff of electric guitar sounded from the speakers of her purse.
Lore looked disbelievingly at the purse, shaking his head. He couldn't understand why humans spent their technology on stupid things.
"Don't you have anything Christmas-y?" MuseRyan asked. He on the other hand, was very intrigued.
Lilly glanced at her ipod screen, "Nope."
Lore grimaced, as the singer, who sounded like a monster with post-nasal drip, screamed incoherent words.
Soop ran over to Lore and looped her arm through his, "At least it's not my ipod. We'd be listening to Phantom of the Opera, and Seussical."
Lore went to say something sarcastic, but all he could do was shake his head.
"Hey," Lilly exclaimed, "I do have a Christmas song!"
Her ipod clicked as she scrolled down.
It took Lore and MuseRyan a while to realize which song it was. But Soop immediately laughed.
'Hey, Chingedy ching,
(Hee-haw,hee-haw)
It's Dominick the donkey!'
Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
The Italian Christmas Donkey!'
"Lilly," Lore put a hand on her shoulder, and tried to take away the purse, but Lilly moved away, "I know you haven't been in the group for very long, so let's make some things clear: 1. only one person at a time can loose their sanity, which is usually Soop, and 2. we don't provoke it."
Lilly nodded, "Yeah I knew that before, it's called common sense."
The only noise was the annoying- and yet strangely catchy- Dominick the Donkey song as they made their way through the deer lights.
Lilly was starting to shiver, she tried to adjust her high heeled shoes and skirt, but she felt just as cold. Lore gave her his coat.
"And whose idea was this?" Lilly asked through chattering teeth.
"Yours," Lore laughed.
Lilly frowned, the cold was making it hard for her brain to function, "Oh,yeah."
Soop was a little ahead of the group, skipping along to the music when she stopped and cocked her head to the side.
"What do dinosaurs have to do with Christmas?" She nodded to the green T-Rex light past the last of the reindeer.
"Maybe because it's not Christmas," Lore muttered.
Soop spun around and glared at Lore, "Ryan would you be so kind as to smack Lore in the face for me?"
She frowned looking at MuseRyan's spaced out look, "What's wrong?"
The muse shrugged, and played with his coat zipper, "I don't know, something just doesn't seem right."
"It never does." Lore said.
"No," the muse seemed a little frustrated, "it's just that we normally can't do anything without some big disaster."
"We'll maybe it's a Christmas present," Soop suggested, "Maybe this is our one day of semi-sanity."
The muse acquiesced, but the uncertainty still churned within him. He dug his hands lower in his pockets, trying to get them away from the pestering cold.
The gang observed the dino-lights which like the original dinosaurs, shouldn't have been there. They skeptically stared at the big volcano that spewed bright red lava that looked like fireworks.
Then MuseRyan saw it out of the corner of his eye, an animal figure that slipped from the faint glow of the volcano light to the darkness of the trees.
"Did you see that?"
"Yeah, it looks like that dinosaur's taking a crap," Soop giggled.
"No," MuseRyan pointed into the woods, "that."
Suddenly the creature bolted from the darkened woods, and pounced on the muse. MuseRyan screamed as he slipped on the ice and slid down the hill past the dinosaurs into the florescent Seuss-land below.
Immediately, Soop and Lore ran after him and Lilly trotted behind in her heels. Halfway down, Soop tripped herself and slid to the bottom knocking MuseRyan and the creature off the road. Lore rolled his eyes and turned to Lilly, who was slowly making her way down the hill.
"You coming?"
She grabbed the leg of a raptor for support but withdrew her hand and squeaked in pain.
"Yeah, I'm coming" she said softly.
Lore grabbed Lilly's hand to help her down, feeling bad that she had been sucked into the insanity with high heels and a skirt. They casually made their way down,even though for all they knew Soop and MuseRyan were being mauled by a Bengal tiger.
Well, ok, maybe not a Bengal tiger;there was no roaring coming from the entrance of Seuss-land.
"Get it off me!" The muse was laughing.
"He's too heavy," Soop cried, "I can't."
Now, Lore could see that MuseRyan was being sat on by a black dog licked MuseRyan's face while hitting Soop with his tail.
"Awww, a puppy." Lilly clapped her hands together, and the dog ran over to her.
"There's no tags." Lore said patting the dog on the head, "I wonder where he came from."
The dog began to run off down the road,and then stopped. His eyes pleaded the others to follow.
"He has that Lassie look in his eyes," Soop said, pulling MuseRyan up, "I think we should follow him."
"Well he seems to be going our way, so why not," Lore said.
They continued at their own pace, looking at the lights which left the dog impatiently waiting for the most part.
Soon after the Seuss-lights, they saw the dog who was sitting right next to a sign that said 'Skating Rink'.
"Maybe they're will still be people there, we can ask them to use their cellphone." MuseRyan suggested.
Lilly nodded, "Yeah, it's the city's skating rink, so there should be people there."
"But, we didn't see all the lights!" Soop frowned, "They're only a couple more."
She looked at Lilly who was still shivering, even though Lore's coat covered her to her knees.
"Never mind," Soop muttered.
Like Lilly said, many families were skating together on the small one side,little kids clung to each other in packs to keep balance...it didn't work. Parents were clustered together as well. They stood on the opposite edge of the ice,sipping steaming drinks out of their thermoses. Once every couple minutes they'd throw a glance to make sure their kids were still alive, but their main focus was an ice competition that took up most of the rink where a girl about 10 years old was preforming. Her pink sequined leotard sparkled and her light blond hair whipped around her face as she skated backwards with grace.
As the gang stood at the edge of the ice and looked at the picturesque scene,the dog bolted out on the ice. He lost control and started to slide at the pack of children.
It took a minute for the kids to realize what was happening, but when they finally figured it out, they only had time to widen their eyes to the size of saucers.
For a brief moment, some of the kids got to live their fantasy of flying like Superman, but sadly for them this dream was short lived and those who didn't land in trees landed back on the pile of children. Fortunately for them all, their marshmallow-like coats and snow-pants cushioned their fall.
But the madness didn't stop there. The dog began running over to the competition side where the girl with blond hair was too busy concentrating on her preformance to be aware of anything else. The dog slid right under her feet as she jumped to do a full spin.
The judges and the big shiny trophies behind the girl were less fortunate.
"Oh my god!" Soop cried, as there judges, medals and trophies flew through the air.
The dog stood up, unscathed by the collision, and bolted over to MuseRyan and sat right at his feet.
"Why don't you leash your dog!" cried one of the many adults making their way onto the ice.
"What? No! This isn't our dog," MuseRyan cried over the commotion.
As the angry mob (that now comprised of screaming children) moved in closer.
"Leash your dog!"
"You crazy hooligans!"
"...horrible pet owners...."
By then the skaters and the judges added their cries to the noise, so it was pointless trying to explain anything.
One man grabbed Soop by her sleeve, "What's wrong with you people?!"
"It's not our dog!" Soop yanked her sleeve away, "It's some random dog that followed us!"
"What did she say?" a frizzy haired lady with a pouting child on each arm asked.
"She said the dog's name's Random," said the man.
Soop gave up talking. She and her friends took a step back from the mob.
The dog, 'Random', ran off again. He grabbed the dented first place trophy and wagged his tail as if it were all a game.
"The dog has the trophy!" someone cried.
The crowd turned around in shock, and suddenly the mob started chasing the dog.
"Random!"
"Random, come here boy!"
"Let's get out of here," Lore muttered, but some of the mob began to turn around.
"How about the owners get their dog!" one cried.
"Oh crap, " Lilly muttered, "now what?"
MuseRyan looked around, "There, Santa's Workshop!"
He pointed to a small little hut nearby.
The gang bolted to the workshop, while avoiding the snowballs that flew like missiles towards them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The door to 'Santa's Workshop' was unlocked, but fortunately for MuseRyan,Lilly, Soop and Lore, no one was there.
Christmas decorations were still set up for the most part, some of it was put in boxes.
"Would anyone like to explain to me what just happened?" Lilly panted.
"Easy," Soop huffed, "the muse jinxed us."
"You were the one who wanted to come here in the first-"
"Guys, just drop it," Lore said sternly. He looked out the window to see the approaching figures that gleamed in the lamp light of the rink.
"We can sneak out the back door, and then go back up the road to the lights."
"But I can't run!" Lilly pried her high-heels off her blistering feet.
Soop beamed and ran over to the chimney, and took two stockings off the fireplace. She waved the two fuzzy red and white stockings and threw them at Lilly.
Lilly looked at her blandly, "You've got to be kidding me."
Lore began barricading the door with a desk, a small bookshelf and a Christmas tree.
From the frosted window they could see the group getting closer.
"It won't take them long to get in," Lore looked around, "We should go now."
"Geez, I feel like we're Frankenstein and they're the angry villagers," Soop crawled up to the window for a closer look, "'Cept these guys will probably do worse than burning us at the stake."
Soop ducked as a skate flew through the window and hit the opposite wall.
Lilly, without protest,pulled the stockings on her feet . Lore opened the back door, ushering everyone out.
"Soop, wait," Lore closed the door and pulled her aside, "sit in here and I'll pull you up."
He gestured to the the plastic orange toboggan he pulled out of the shed.
"Why not Lilly?" she asked, "she doesn't have shoes."
"We need to cover our tracks, and and she's so light I think she'd blow off." He spoke quickly eying the door.
"We'll that's a subtle way to call me fat," Soop rolled her eyes, Lore gave her a deadly glare.
"Just let me give her my shoes," Soop jumped in the sled and exchanged one of her shoes for one of the stockings.
They heard people banging on the front of the shed door.
"Come out here!" one person shouted, "Just come see what your mutt did!"
"Come on!" MuseRyan hissed.
Lilly hopped on one foot, still trying to get Soop's shoe on. Lore, without warning, pulled the toboggan nearly throwing Soop out of it. They made it safely into the darkness of the woods without being followed. Within a couple minutes they were back at the hill with the dinosaur lights.
They all stood there trying to catch their breath, figuratively speaking. There was complete silence. From that spot they overlooked the rest of the lights, and the rest of the glowing city lights beyond it. Snow began to softly fall onto their hair and began melting within seconds.
"It's so pretty," soft puffs of cold air formed as Lilly spoke. The rest nodded staring quietly at the scene.
Soop smiled taking the toboggan from Lore, "It's pretty icy on this road." She placed the sled on the ground and sat in it. She looked to the others and grinned.
They all piled in behind her and pushed off down the hill.
The ice, like Soop said was very slippery. It flew down the hill and passed the Seuss lights passed in a blur of colors and within seconds they passed the path to the skating rink. Soop and Lilly threw their hands up in the air and laughed. Lore smiled, but MuseRyan clung to the handles of the sled with his eyes shut.
The sled slowed to a stop before the last of the lights. Everyone, including the muse, laughed as they climbed out of the toboggan.
Soop dusted the snow off her pants, "What, what now?"
Lore was looking at her and shaking his head .
"You can't go anywhere without causing a big catastrophe can't you?" He grinned.
"I don't do anything!" Soop protested, dragging the sled behind her as they began to walk again, "bad things just follow me."
They spent the rest of the time talking about what had happened, stopping a few times because someone would always keel over with laughter and have a hard time getting up.
"So, how do we explain this to the person in the booth?" MuseRyan asked. His face got serious, "How are you going to explain this to your parent's Soop?"
"Easy,"Soop said casually, " I'll use the same excuse I use for all our mishaps : 'Aren't you just happy that I'm still physically intact, mentally stable, and not pregnant?'"
Lilly frowned, "That works?"
Soop shook her head, "Kind of; they're too afraid to ask anymore questions."
"Well, I don't think it will work on them, " Lore nodded to the booth a few feet in front of them as they passed the last light, a waving Santa on his sleigh.
MuseRyan stopped walking, "Hey, isn't that the van right there?"
He pointed to the familiar silver van, that was hooked to a blue rusty tow-truck parked on the side of the road.
They all began to run towards the tow truck, waving frantically at the driver who anxiously pacing next to his truck.
"Wait," Soop stopped Lilly at the booth. She took off the stocking and handed it the bemused teenage girl sitting in the booth.
Lilly pulled off hers as well and casually handed it to the girl.
"Merry Christmas!" Soop beamed, as she and Lilly limped after MuseRyan and Lore with only one shoe each.
"Excuse me," Lore called to a man standing next to the tow truck.
The man jumped back. His grey eyes widened and his messy brown hair seemed to stand on end.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he relaxed, "how may I help you?"
"That's our car," Soop pointed to the van, "It ran out of gas, and we didn't have a cellphone so we had to walk all the way to here."
The tow-truck man furrowed his brow that laughed, "Huh,I've never heard that one before"
"Believe me, it gets worse," Soop groaned.
"Well, I'll bring you all to the shop. Sorry, but it might be first things first;I have to find my 's ben gone for a while."
"Dog?" Lore and MuseRyan asked through gritted teeth.
The man looked surprised, "Yes, my black labrador, Angel. I just picked him up from the groomers, I forgot to put his collar on. I didn't expect him to bolt out of the car and run off into the woods when I got here. He always comes back though, hopefully soon."
The sound of the angry mob neared them. Without turning around, they all-minus the tower-knew what was happening.
"Yeah, he's commin'," Lilly frowned, "If I were you I'd start up the car."
Without any questions, the tower started up the truck as they all piled in.
The dog came more visible as it ran onto the street and bounded towards the car. He jumped into the car and sat on Lore's lap in the front.
The tower frowned squinting into the darkness, "Huh, I guess there was a big turn out at the skating rink."
He smiled, " I love how events like that bring people together.
"Don't let their togetherness deceive you!" Soop cried.
Lore reached his leg over and stomped on the gas peddle.
Once the man recovered from shock, he quickly maneuvered the truck onto the road, and onto the highway; putting distance between them,Seuss-land, the misfit dinos and the psycotic mob.
Yes, very random. I just needed to get that out of my system. I hope it was still enjoyable. Hopefully I'll be able to post the next real chapter of Thought I Knew Her in a couple of weeks. Please R&R! Happy Holidays!!-Soop