Hi guys. My first POM fanfict which, as I said in the summary, is based on the ghost story craze in my class recently. It all started when my geog teacher told us ghost stories about our school in exchange for our cooperation and silence. Then we got spooked and addicted at the same time (okay, I wasn't spooked, but all my other friends got spooked and didn't dare go to the toilet alone) so we started asking other teachers for their own ghost stories. There isn't any in this story, but it will come. Note: remember the girls. Whoooooo~
There was a bunch of girls in the Central Park zoo, having a picnic and conversing at the otter habitat. Marlene was nearby, and could not help but overhear what they were saying.
"Did I tell you we were leeching ghost stories from our teachers about our school before from renovated?" asked one girl with a short ponytail. They sat at the bench nearby Marlene could not help but inch closer to the group.
And so the girl told several stories about the school, which sounded quite old, with feeling and a tense atmosphere generated as they ate their lunch. She not only told them about the school; there were other stories, some personal experiences of the teachers she managed to get ghost stories from. Marlene listened and filed all the stories she heard that afternoon, and waited for one night when she would trot it out and spook all the animals. They were amusing, she found, not scary as she did not believe the stories.
But others were paranoid. Far more paranoid.
One week later, Skipper and his crew managed to hijack a truck full of pizzas, and they snagged the lot along with the drinks and side dishes. They sat together, enjoying the food under the moonlight. "They" being the lemurs, Marlene and the penguins.
"Aaah," Skipper sighed. He stood up. "This calls for a good story. I remember the time when Manfreedy and Johnson..."
Marlene rolled her eyes. King Julian also had the same idea, but tainted with a little self absorbedness. "Why," he said, "are we
talking about your penguiny thingies and not about my kingly king self?" He stood up, looming above Skipper. "Now I remember the first time-"
"Back off, Ringtail," Skipper snarled.
"You do not tell the king what to do because the king is supposed to tell you what to do and not you tell me what to do," Julian said.
Marlene stepped forward. "Now, people," she said, coming between lemur and penguin. "Why don't we just step back and enjoy the pizza while I share my story." The last sentence sounded sinister enough for both parties to agree.
"It better be good, Marlene," Skipper said. "I won't let Manfreedy and Johnson be forgotten. The sacrifice that they had made!"
Marlene cleared her throat, her mind pulling out the ghost stories from her mind drawer. Then, she put down her piece of pizza, took a drink of soda to wash down the food and paused. "The stories I'm going to tell you," she said in a grave tone perfect for ghost story telling, "I have heard from a group of girls last week, about their school, and other things."
And the night went on, penguins and lemurs listening attentively to the otter and her stories, one after the other, complete with
exaggerated hand gestures. She reminded herself of the girl with the short ponytail, capturing the attention, adding drama and tension to the atmosphere. Pauses, change of tone of voice and sound effects were all that needed to illustrate the stories in her listeners' minds, and it was that night she found out she was a wonderful story teller. The only thing missing was a flashlight so she could it to flash at her audience and at her face for the effect.
It was that night that one penguin got spooked. And it all started from that night, that penguin, and the paranoia spread.