Here's the first chapter, and thanks for reviews, KittyKatBFF and your friend in the cold. Just so you know, this has a similar floating timeline to the show, so it moves with the times. So even though Stephanie was born in the early 80s, she could easily be thirteen in 2011. Mentions of episodes will probably be out of order. Kudos if you noticed "I Married Marge", "Lisa's First Word" and "And Maggie Makes Three" in the prologue! Reminder: This is from Steph's POV.
Hi. I'm Stephanie Simpson. I'm thirteen. My family is nuts.
OK, let me start by telling you my deal. I'm into goth. I dyed my hair black, and I wear net gloves and a diamante hairband. All my clothes are black. Let me see...my favourite subject is art. It's the only thing in school I get As for, unlike my sister Lisa, who's a total teacher's pet and gets straight As in her report and freaked when she got a B+ in Conduct on her last report. But I get mostly Cs, unlike my brother Bart who gets Fs when he doesn't try and Ds when he tries just enough to pass. He doesn't aim any higher. See? Like I said, my family is nuts. My sister is a teacher's pet and my brother doesn't try in school. Anyway, back to me for now.
When I'm not doing my homework or art, I'm either listening to music or going on the Internet. I'm just glad Mom and Dad finally decided to move with the times and got a computer. But still, I'm saving up for an iPad (I already got a cellphone last Christmas). So yeah, that's me. Now, my family.
I already said I had a brother, Bart (he's ten) and a sister, Lisa (eight). I also have another sister, Maggie, who's one. My parents are called Marge and Homer. Dad's kind of flaky, but I can pretty much get him to do whatever because of that. Mom's more grounded but she's kind of overprotective, and she hates my style.
"You were always such a sweet girl when you were little." she sometimes says.
"You mean I was a predictable Mary-Sue and now I'm cool but moody?" I always reply. "I'm a teenager now, Mom. Deal with it."
I share my room with Lisa. She doesn't understand my style either. "You look so depressed." she once said. "You're the one who says I'm the depressed one in the family."
"It's not depressing," I had scoffed. "Can't you see my headband? Little sister, you are unfamiliar with the gothic styles."
"All I know is that it looks like you're a suicide risk." Lisa had muttered under her breath, but I heard her.
"Oh really?" I had laughed bitterly. "Bart's the only one stupid enough to actually drive someone into letting him commit suicide."
"Bart didn't choose to have a mortal enemy." Lisa pointed out, as that was what I was referring to. "You really think he'll want to hear that?" Lisa knew that would beat me. I could easily win a verbal or physical fight against Lisa, but Bart, being the troublemaker in the family, was skilled in both, more so than I, even though I was three years older and already much taller.
Anyway, it was a Sunday morning when the story I'm going to tell began. We always go to church on Sundays, which I hate. Everyone except Mom hates it.
"Kids, come on!" Mom called. Lisa and Bart ran out of their rooms (Lisa ran out of the room that was also mine), dressed in their clothes. Bart was in blue, with his blonde hair neatly parted. Lisa was in her pink dress and hat. Me? I didn't bother to come out, and I hadn't bothered to get dressed, either. I was only up because Lisa had pulled the covers off me.
"Stephanie!" called Mom. I could hear Dad complaining as well.
I didn't answer Mom or bother to leave my room.
"Stephanie, out here right now!" I could tell Mom was getting annoyed, so I answered.
"I'm not going.!" I called out. "I'm not Christian! In fact, I'm going to convert to Judaism or something."
But Mom dragged me out the house anyway, although she couldn't force me to change my black clothes. At least it was a small victory. But it wasn't a fun church. Reverend Lovejoy was as droning and as boring as usual, and I was nervous that my family was going to embarrass me as they do. There was the time when Bart claimed that he had gotten the devil and got a man dressed in red with curly dark facial hair in a headlock. Or the time Dad actually said "Damn it" when he hit his head.
I stuck around after church to talk to my dragged-along atheist friend Tasha. "I hate all these little sermons and hymns." she sighed. "I've told my mom a million times that I don't believe in it."
"At least your family is somewhat sane." I pointed out. "My dad's a lazy weird guy, my mom treats me like a little kid, my brother makes trouble for everyone whenever he can, and my sister's a depressed teacher's pet. I have no hope that Maggie will grow up normal."
"Well, see you at school." Tasha said, as she walked off again with her family. I went to catch up with mine.
It was only later that afternoon when I heard Dad screaming. "OH MY GOD, SOMEONE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!" The whole family ran into the hall, then Dad said, calmer, "Oh wait, it's for Bart." He was holding a letter that read "Die Bart Die." It was written in blood.
"Gross!" I exclaimed. "Who'd write a letter in blood?"
Here we come to what Lisa and I discussed earlier-Bart's mortal enemy. Last year, Bart's hero, Krusty the Clown (a TV star who is, yes, a clown. How'd you know?) was convicted of armed robbery. Bart persuaded Lisa to help him find out that Krusty was framed, which he was. It turned out that Krusty's sidekick character, full name Robert Terwilliger, better known under the name Sideshow Bob, had done it to get revenge on Krusty for the abuse he'd suffered on the show. Ever since then, he'd hated Bart for working it out. There was another time, at the beginning of this year, when he got out of jail. He had been seeing my Aunt Selma, one of Mom's sisters, and they got married. On their honeymoon, he tried to kill her, but it was Bart who worked it out. But anyway, for the short time that Bob had been with Aunt Selma, I'd gotten to know him pretty well. Bart had never trusted him to have reformed from the start, but I'd actually gone out of my way to talk to him. I actually liked him a lot more than anyone in my family. I mean, genuinely. He interested me.
But back to here and now. I didn't work out who was writing the letters yet. It was only later that we found out that Bob was writing the letters and fully intended to kill Bart.
We had a look at the letters for the handwriting. After "Die Bart Die" there were things like "You're dead Bart", "Death Bart Death", "Die! Die!", "Die! Die! Die!", "Bart will die!", "You are going to die", "Death Bart death", and before, Bart got a letter saying "I'm going to kill you."
Dad wrote a letter too, saying "I kill you scum." Bart had played one of his tricks on Dad, again, tattooing him with "Wide Load".
But enough of us trying to work out who it was. We actually met Bob at a movie theatre a week after the final letter "See you soon Bart". He was in front of us, smoking and laughing. Not that I realized it was him. After all, I was trying to watch the film. It was a family film, meaning I got dragged along with the family. Anyway, just as Dad was about to snap, he started laughing himself at something on the screen, and finally Bob turned around. "Oh, really now, that's too much!"
"Hypocritical." I muttered as Bart and Lisa screamed their lungs out.
"You wrote me those letters." Bart accused.
"In blood." I added teasingly. "Morbid much?"
"Stay away from my son!" Mom cried.
"Oh I'll stay away from your son alright." Bob said in a low tone. "Stay away – forever!" Then he realized. "Wait a minute, that's no good." and then, suddenly, "Wait, I've got a good one now! Marge, say 'stay away from my son' again."
"No!" Mom snapped.
"Knock knock." I said as I walked into Bart's room that evening. He didn't answer me, just glanced up.
"You're a bundle of laughs tonight." I said sarcastically. "You gonna let a dreadlocked guy who hates you get you down?" I smiled a little at that line. "Actually," I added. "I genuinely like him. He's interesting to talk to."
"And he's going to kill me." Bart muttered. "Leave me alone, Stephanie."
I was really and truly saddened to see Bart had lost his fighting side in the face of death. "OK, Bart." I said, and then I actually said something that was stereotypical of a big sister. "But don't lose the spark you've lost now. I want my real brother back sometime this week."
This actually made Bart smile faintly, but it didn't help with the situation that Bart was still being stalked.
We eventually went to some people who relocated us and gave us a new surname: Thompson. For some reason, Dad didn't seem to be able to answer to Mr Thompson.
Finally, I got bored after about ten times and said "Try me instead. I could answer to Miss Thompson."
The man sighed. "OK, when I say 'Hello Miss Thompson' you say 'hi.'"
I nodded. "Hello Miss Thompson."
"Hi." I answered. Then I smirked at Dad, knowing he wouldn't notice.
Finally, the day arrived when we would go to live on a houseboat in Terror Lake. We came to a cactus patch soon enough.
"Hey, kids," said Dad. "Wanna drive through that cactus patch?"
"Yeah!" Bart, Lisa and I chorused. I couldn't resist the excitement.
"No!" called a voice from underneath the car.
"Well, three against one!" Dad said.
"But who was the one?" I asked.
"Uh..." Dad said.
"I think you're still in danger, Bart." I said. "I guess I better act like a Thompson now."
Mom turned around to speak to me. "Stephanie, leave your brother alone."
"I'd prefer it if you actually acted like a sister." Lisa remarked. "Right now you're just a detached sibling who doesn't seem to want us as a family."
"Well, little sis, most of the time I don't." I snapped. "But I have to stick with you guys and I truthfully don't want Bart to die."
I know a lot of this is from the episode "Cape Feare", but that's because my favourite character overall is Sideshow Bob. I might put some more interaction between him and Stephanie, and I will write the end of this episode, but there'll be a lot of original stuff too. By the way, I'm putting a poll up on my profile to say which episodes I should do. It'll change each time I finish an episode in this story, so look out for that.
