Candy Candy manga was written by Kyoko Mizuki, Yumiko Igarashi.
This story is only *loosely based* on the original manga. I humbly share one alternative ending with my two favorite names as the leading characters.
Pouppe (Poppi): Some "children" part is written especially for Pouppe who I always think deserves a special attention for his loyalty and wit.
ooooOooooo
Story starts here
NOTE: In some translation his name is Pouppe, some is Poppi. He's no one else but Albert's most loyal intelligent cuddly skunk. I choose to use Pouppe in my story.
Chapter 1: Pouppe
There's a night fair closed to St. Paul, today. All students were excited and had counted down the days for the event. Candy and Terry were among the students who planned to go. That evening they visited Albert in the London zoo to invite him to come with them.
"I'd love to go, but I can't. I need to work extra tonight," said Albert. "Sorry, guys. But, take Pouppe. He loves night fair, aren't you Pouppe?"
Pouppe squeaked happily as a response.
Candy instantly agreed. "Come Pouppe, we go to a night fair tonight. We'll give you lots of good food to taste," said Candy.
She offered Pouppe her palms and happily he jumped to them. Candy put him on her shoulder.
"Bye Albert, don't work too hard," said Terry.
They waved to one another.
The night fair was a blast. They had circus, games, dancing, loud music, and plenty of good food. The firework was spectacular. The children were delighted by its buzzes and sparkles that almost turned the night into the day. The situation was merry jolly full of happy laughter from the visitors. Almost all students from St. Paul were there. Candy and Terry mingled with Stear, Archie, and their girls too briefly before they separated doing their own favorite activities.
Terry, who loved to play dart, took Candy to the dart booth to show off his throwing skill. He did it marvelously well! Round after round, he repeatedly made a perfect score one after another.
"You won again, Terry," cried Candy excitedly hugging her man.
Hurriedly she ran to collect the prize. It's a huge bear half of her size.
"This is for you, freckles," said Terry with a deep kiss in her lips which she gladly reciprocated.
They stayed in the fair until the end fully enjoying themselves. With pride she held the big bear with one hand and held Terry's hand with her other hand. On the way home, he bought another chocolate ice cream for his beloved girlfriend. Candy was very happy. She hugged Terry tightly with her one free arm while holding the teddy bear with her other hand. They kissed deeply, both tongues met entangled rhythmically dancing together in their mouths. She tasted the fresh vanilla ice cream in his mouth which aroused her even more. Fired up, she let go of the teddy bear to free her other hand. She clutched him with her two hands to bring him even closer to her and kissed him deeper.
"Love you, Terry," sighed Candy and crashed her mouth to his again.
"Love you too, freckles," said Terry. "Let's go home and continue in my room." He winked. She giggled.
Terry put his arm around her as they walked home together. Outside the gate, Candy realized that she forgot to take the teddy bear with her.
"Oh Terry, I left the teddy bear! It should be where we kissed."
"I go back to look for it, you wait here. It's less trouble to have one person re-enter the gate," said Terry.
Candy agreed. While waiting for Terry, she wandered to nearby bushes and took a seat on one bench. She ate the remaining ice cream. She put Pouppe on the bench and gave pieces of the ice cream cone to him. Pouppe finished every bit of piece eagerly. Suddenly, she heard some sound from behind the bush. Initially she ignored it, expecting it was only a mouse. But the noise grew louder, it couldn't be a mouse. She sat straight erectly trying to make out of the sound.
Suddenly she heard.
"Help! Hel..."
Then silence... It's like someone's mouth being closed to prevent him from uttering some more word. Always be daring, she right away jumped from her seat and went to investigate what's behind the bushes. Under the dim street light, she saw one boy being held by one man. From the torch light in one of the man's hand, she saw who he was.
"Neal?" said Candy.
Without thinking twice she got into the bushes to confront the men.
"Release him or you'll regret your conduct!" barked Candy.
Their attention immediately shifted to her. Seeing it was only a little girl who came, they laughed at her. But without hesitation, Candy kicked, hit, bit the two men. The man lost grip of Neal.
"Run Neal, run," shouted Candy.
But Neal was too stunt with the event and got frozen. He finally managed to run, but it's too late. He's recaptured.
Ohh... Neal! You are too slow, thought Candy.
Candy went back to save him. But this time the third man appeared. The third man meant business. He's bigger, more intelligent, aggressive, and didn't hesitate to use forces. After some fight, he managed to grip Candy tightly.
"Who are you?" asked the third man, which seemed to be the leader of the group. "How do you know his name?"
He examined her feature. Seeing the two buns of golden hair, he right away realized who she was. He said, "You must be Candy Ardlay."
He shouted to his men, "Take her. She's worth more than the boy. We can ask ransom directly from the Ardlay family."
They took them in a car and drove them outside London. After a while, the car stopped. They took them out and brought them to the basement.
"I will ask for a ransom from your families," said the big man. "Either we get it or not, more likely you won't see another day." He then looked at them menacingly, "But, if you try to go away, you are for sure dead! Instantly!"
"Enjoy your last night." He banged the door and locked it.
Candy and Neal both stiffened in absolute fear as they watched the door closed.
We'll be killed! This is our last night?, they thought.
"Mommy... Mommy..., " cried Neal, scared. "I want my mom!"
Neal banged the door and kept screaming for his mother. The sound of his scream drove Candy crazy. Running out of patient, Candy grabbed him, and threw him to the floor.
"I want my mom," said Neal in tears. He felt so lost for not having his mother around when he needed her. Usually she never failed to come to him to comfort him and to protect him whenever he cried.
"So do I, but do I ever have one around? No!" yelled Candy.
She was really angry but gradually emotion overcame her. Seeing his attachment to his mom hit her, it reminded her of the mother she never had. How lucky he was to always have a mother who pampered and protected him.
"Lucky you to always your mother," said Candy. She started to cry. The pressure was too much for her to bear.
Now that he knew how it felt not to have a mother, for the first time, he felt for her.
"You never have a mom...!" murmured Neal, more like talking to himself.
"Of course I don't, you idiot!" said Candy.
"Must be hard...," said Neal instinctively.
"Your bad attitude makes it worse! When I came to your house, I thought I was going to have a family but instead I got enemies," she sobbed. "Useless rich kid. You could have done wonder and given hope to many little kids like me. Instead you always try to destroy and add hardship to a helpless orphan girl."
She thought her life was over, she felt tired of being strong. She just blatantly vented off anything that burdened her heart.
He listened to her long lecture silently with heart engulfed by more fear for each word she said. True, he had been bad for Candy. Given all the advantages he had, he could have done otherwise. But it was fun then. Now at the moment of death it scared him. He shuddered at the image of eternal suffering in hell, of all the endless purification and torments his soul needed to go trough in the purgatory.
"If I die what will happen to Ms. Pony and Sr. Lane?" lamented Candy continued talking to herself. "Who will take care of them when they're old? I plan to go to work when I grow up and to give them all my money. I want them and the children to never lack of money. But now...?"
She cried again in agony full of desperation.
He shuddered. He had never thought much of the future. He always believed that he's still young and had years ahead of him. But now, he only had a few hours to live and he found out that he had done nothing that he could be proud of.
"I always want to do big things when I grow up. I want to be a business man like dad. I want to make the Leagans enterprise bigger than the Ardlays. For generations people will be amazed by my achievement, fascinated by my business strategy. I don't want to be forgotten." He started to open up too, sharing his castle in the air.
"All these are just cloud in the sky. We only have a few hours to live, ... Who would've thought... ," said Candy forlornly. Before she could finish her sentence, she started to cry again. "Terry... Terry... You need to live without me. I am going soon."
At the same time, he buried his face in his palms thinking, I'll go to hell for being bad to Candy. I'll die without any achievement. People will soon forget me and I'll be remembered only as a mischievous kid. How awful!
Life was so wonderful. Compared to Candy, say, he had parents who loved him, sister, and never lacked of anything. For the first time the boy understood the meaning of live life to the fullest as if there's no tomorrow. He had wasted years of his life and now the mere few hours left seemed really precious that he wanted to shovel his entire dreams in it as much as possible. He shuddered at the thought of everyone, Archie, Stear, Terry, Patty, Annie,..., cursed on his grave blaming him for taking Candy's life. What a disgrace. He'd be remembered as a troublemaker eternally, that's hell enough. If only he could get a second chance.
Unless... unless... ! UNLESS... we could escape and get out alive!, he thought, full of hope.
Since the other option was death itself, he had nothing to lose. He'd take all the risk and whatever it took to escape. He got to find the way. Just in case his plan failed, he vowed to be good to Candy in his last hours to avoid the burning fire in hell or at least to get the punishment somewhat reduced.
"I apologize for all my wrong doing to you, Candy. I shouldn't do all those mean things to you," he said hurriedly to her. "You're brave, you fought them just now. Don't cry now. I'll try my best for you to see Terry again."
"You shut up, you won't let us out by saying that," said Candy still crying.
"Don't cry. Let me think. We can't just rely on force to fight them."
"Coward. All we need is some real action not a theoretical idea," said Candy kept crying. "Terry... Terry...!"
He then sank in silence thinking of the escape plan. For a while, silence engulfed the basement, only the occasion of her sobs was heard. Suddenly, he felt a hairy ball dashed trough his lap with a shrieking sound. He shrieked back, jumped in surprise at the same time. Almost right after that, he heard Candy cried excitedly.
"Pouppe, Pouppe..." said Candy. "My dearest friend, you'll accompany me to the end."
Pouppe's presence brought positive effect back to her. She felt so much better. She stopped crying instantly.
"Pouppe?" asked Neal.
"He's Albert's skunk," explained Candy.
"Albert's skunk?" asked Neal again.
"Albert is my friend. This is his skunk, yes, a very smart, loyal, handsome skunk," said Candy. She showed Pouppe to him.
"Pouppe is not an ordinary skunk. Albert traveled a lot by himself so he trained Pouppe to protect him from bad guys, to help him to go trough dangers... Just like a trained dog, you know. That's why he could follow and find us here, I guess. What a smart fellow!" said Candy.
Candy hugged Pouppe again. "I love you Pouppe, be with me until the end. After I die, tell Albert that I miss him... Tell Terry that I love him and ..."
A trained skunk?, thought Neal. He stopped listening the rest of her babble, instead he was thinking..., hard. After some lengthy silence when he immersed himself in a deep thought, he got an idea!
-To be continued-
Thanks for reading.