This is just the intro chapter, so please be patient... The really good stuff will start showing up in the next chapter! Of course this chapter is set in our totally not-exciting world. But it explains how they get to Ooo (kinda) and it shows their personalities and tells their back stories a bit. So, like I said... PLEASE BE PATIENT and enjoy!
Chapter One: Does This Hat Make Me Look Like A Cartoon Character?
I threw myself down onto my bed, wondering why I even bothered pretending to be having a good time. After all, it was my birthday. Shouldn't I have been having fun? Yes. I should have been. But I wasn't. Instead I was hiding in my room, trying not to cry.
You see, today is my sixteenth birthday. I've been looking forward to this day for my entire life! But my parent's have ruined it by not allowing me to spend it with my best friend.
My best friend, Sebastian Alexander Sanders- no one actually calls him that, every one knows him as 'Sandy'- and I share our birthday, September seventeenth. He's younger than me by three minutes. We were born in the same hospital; actually, the rooms we were born in were right next to each other. Our mothers became friends right after we were born because there was a mixup and the nurse accidentally switched us and gave us to the wrong moms... They thought that was hilarious. (Actually at the time they were pretty upset. But now they laugh about it all the time.)
Anyway, back to the reason our birthday has been awful for me this year. Our parents didn't want Sandy and I spending all day together. They literally let us go out for breakfast at IHOP (our favorite restaurant) and then told us that they thought we should spend the day separately, with our own families. Trying to explain to them that Sandy and I practically ARE family didn't work. Of course I have tried to have fun, or at least I've acted like I've been having fun... It would crush my parents if they knew that they have ruined my sixteenth birthday. They really only wanted to spend some quality time with me. I get that. It's just that our birthday has always been a day for me and Sandy TOGETHER.
That is why I was hiding in my room while my parents, brother, and sister are all in the other room laughing at a stupid movie, completely unaware of my absence. That's how it works. They all do things they like, and I go off to do things with Sandy. Like watch our favorite show, Adventure Time.
I sniffed and grabbed my favorite stuffed animal, a penguin that looks a lot like Ice King's penguin Gunther, and hugged it tight.
"Gunther," I whispered, "I wish Sandy were here..." Suddenly a person jumped in through my open window and I would have screamed if he hadn't clamped his hands over my mouth.
"Wish granted," said the young man with perfect shaggy blonde hair and icy blue eyes. He smiled at me. Then I bit him. "Ouch!" He grunted and pulled his hand away from my face. "Amantha Renee Jenkins, do not bite!" He took my hand and gently smacked it. "Bad! Bad, bad, bad Amantha!" I withdrew my hand and pushed him backwards.
"Sandy, what the lump are you doing here?" I whispered, "It's eleven thirty at night!" He smiled that funny crooked smile, showing me his totally not crooked pearly whites.
"Happy birthday?" He said, playfully holding up a gift box- at least I was pretty sure it was a gift box. It was kind of hard to tell what was underneath all the frilly ribbons. I reached out to receive my gift and he pulled it just out of my reach, and said, "Nope! You're going to have to wait. Get dressed, I'll be waiting outside." He climbed back out my window and let himself down on the trellis.
"Dummy, be careful, you'll ruin my mom's climbing roses!" I hissed. "And did you seriously just call me Amantha?"
"Are you coming or not?" He hissed back, baring his teeth and actually hissing like a cat. I giggled.
"Yes, just hold on! Gimme a second..." I tiptoed over to my door and carefully opened it. My family wasn't even halfway through with their movie, and hadn't noticed I was even gone. Good, I thought. They won't even know the difference!
I rummaged through my closet to find some clothes to wear; I was currently wearing a tank top and basketball shorts, which were definitely not going to keep out the autumn cold. I managed to find a clean bright purple v-neck tee shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. I grabbed a dark blue cardigan with purple and neon green stripes across the chest and pulled it on. Reaching under my bed, I felt around for my favorite yellow and purple converse but I couldn't find them anywhere.
That's when Sandy started throwing pebbles at my window, which was still open. Idiot. He didn't even throw just one at a time, he was chucking eight or nine each throw.
"AJ!" I heard him quietly call me by my preferred name. "Hurry up!"
"I can't find my converse," I said, leaning out the window. I looked down at him and he grinned, holding up my missing shoes. Face palm. "You're an idiot."
"I love you too!"
"Shut up," I couldn't help but smile as I carefully climbed down the trellis, skillfully avoiding the roses. Sandy and I had done this thousands of times... Sneak out late at night to go hang out in our hideout. Which is where I assumed he was taking me. So I asked, "Where to?"
"The hideout." I knew it!
Well, we walked through the woods behind my house until we came to a little clearing with a huge boulder in the middle of it. Hidden next to the boulder, partially obscured and camouflaged by blackberry bushes, was the trapdoor entrance to our secret hideout. Sandy lifted the door for me.
"Ladies first," he put on a cheesy British accent. "After you, my lady."
"Forget ladies first," I quipped. "Age before beauty!" I entered the hideout, hearing him sigh behind me. He hates it when I mention these two things: One, the fact that I'm older than him, and two, the fact that he's much more attractive than me.
Really, he is though. He's got the gorgeous blonde, perfectly styled-yet-messy hair and blue eyes, fair complexion, and sculpted physique. I'm just a plain, boring brunette. I'm not pretty at all, really. I have fairly normal grayish-greenish eyes, nothing spectacular. And I could stand to lose a little weight. (Sandy teases me and says stuff like "you're not fat, you're foxy" and I just hit him and tell him to shut up.)
The truth is I'm just the average, boring girl who hangs out with the popular cute guy. Lucky me. Too bad Sandy's practically my brother. I could never go out with him, it'd just be too weird. Not that he'd ask me out anyway. That'd be too weird too.
I nestled myself in the worn red beanbag chair we had set up in our hideout, which was honestly just a big, cave-like hole in the ground. It was furnished with the beanbag chair, a small picnic table, a lantern, and various crates filled with keepsakes, games, and books. His electric guitar, a funky looking white one with silver and gold flames painted onto it, was there too, leaned up against the earthy wall.
When I had gotten comfortable, I held my arms up.
"Okay," I said. "Give it up! I want my present now, thanks." Sandy chuckled at me and tossed the box at me. I caught it, and proceeded the process of tearing off all the ribbons to discover that the box was completely covered in duck tape. "Oh, come on!" I shouted.
"Hahahaha!" He laughed at me. "It serves you right. Do you recall this morning?" Oh yeah... I gave him his birthday gift this morning at the IHOP. I bought him a fancy music history book for country and rock music and I had doodled mustaches on all the guitarists' pictures.
Anyway, after about five tortuous minutes I managed to get the box open and squealed when I saw what was in it.
"YOU GOT ME AN ANIMAL HAT!" I jumped up and tackled him, hugging both him and my present. He laughed at me in my excitement.
"Well, try it on!" He ordered me. I was all to glad to oblige. I put the black crocheted hat on my head, relishing the feel of the soft yarn brushing my cheeks. The hat had pointy ears and long ear flaps with fluffy black pompoms on the ends. I giggled maniacally.
"Hehehehehehehe... I'm a black cat!" I loved my present. I have collected animal hats my whole life! I had at least twenty others at home already. "Oh, this reminds me..." I said, getting up and opening one of the various boxes stacked in a corner. I pulled out a gift bag and handed it to Sandy. "Here you go, I got this for you ages ago and forgot about it. So you get two presents from me this year!"
He opened the gift and almost died laughing. He fastened the belt around his waist and struck a pose, modeling the Superman belt.
"Awesome," he said. Then he pulled out his laptop. "Wanna watch-"
"Adventure Time? Duh," I finished his sentence for him and we sat down together on the bean bag chair and started up the laptop. We watched three different episodes before my stomach began to growl.
"Ugh, I am so hungry right now," I complained. "Did you bring any-"
"Snacks? Yeah," Sandy said. "Pause it. I have some stuff in my backpack, let's go check it out." So we paused the show near the end of the episode "Dream of Love" and set the laptop down on the beanbag facing the table.
"Whatcha got in here?" I said as we started rummaging through his bag. After a few moments, we heard a quiet whispering coming from the laptop.
"Didn't you pause that?" Sandy asked me, staring over at the screen, which was playing an unfamiliar scene. "Wait," he said, "Which episode is that?" He moved up closer to the screen and I followed, still holding his backpack.
"Whoa," I said. "What on earth is Peppermint Butler doing?" I watched as the candy citizen drew weird markings on the ground and chanted in an unknown language. It was kind of creepy.
"I dunno," Sandy said, staring at the screen. "Looks like black magic." I had to agree with him there. A scary looking black hole began to form in the center of the screen, and-
"WHAT THE HECK!?" I screamed when a gust of wind nearly knocked me over. I clutched the backpack to my chest as I turned around to see an identical black hole getting bigger and bigger behind me.
Chaos followed as everything in the room, including Sandy and me, began to get tossed around by the wind created by the black hole. Suddenly Sandy's laptop flew out of his hands and crashed against the wall, exploding when it did. At that same moment Sandy and I were sucked into the black hole.
The following thirty seconds was the most frightening experience in all of my sixteen years. I was thrown around by invisible forces and had the wind knocked out of me several times. My heart was about to beat out of my chest and I could hardly breathe. I was screaming at the top of my lungs the entire time, until Sandy and I collided and bonked heads. We both passed out.
When we woke up we found ourselves in the Land of Ooo.
DRAMA BOMB! No, really, this is just the introductory chapter. It gets so much better from here, I promise! I will have the next chapter up in less than a week. Thanks for reading, and please leave a review! I'd like to know what ya'll think of my work! :)