Don't Call Me Penelope 2: Swayne

Fang's POV

I hadn't slept a wink, but somehow I managed to wake up when Grandma knocked on the door and asked me if I was going to go to school.

"I don't know," I grumbled. I dragged myself out of bed and just stood for a moment, getting my bearings. Then I grabbed a paper wad from my bedside table and un-wadded it. It was a note I'd gotten on my second day of school from Marcus Small. It read, "Put sum makeup on u ugly bich." I giggled at the fact that he couldn't even spell "bitch" right, but overall, I felt pretty crappy. If people like him were all I would ever meet at school, I didn't want to go.

Then I began to ask myself what Tanya and Mallory would do if they were in my shoes. Mallory could make minced meat out of those bullies, and Tanya would refuse to let people like that cheat her out of an education. So, because of the Mighty Ducks, I decided to go. But I needed some energy, so I took Blades N' Flowers out of the CD player and put in a Lava CD.

Lava was our mayor's band. Moka the mayor happened to be a personal friend of mine and I was thrilled when he got elected. I thought maybe he could change things around here. Unfortunately, mayors in our county have little power. Even shapeshifting mayors (more on that later) are subject to mundane restrictions.

Distorted power chords and over-the-top vocals surged from the CD player as I searched for something to wear that wasn't against the dress code. My pants could not have holes (which I thought was classist. What about people who can't afford new pants?). I couldn't wear all-black, show any skin, or look too tomboyish. Finally I settled on some blue jeans and a red shirt that Grandma had gotten in exchange for donating money to the fire department. Hopefully Mrs. Gere wouldn't accuse me of being a Blood because of the red shirt.

Once I was dressed and I'd wrestled all of the tangles out of my coarse, black hair, I stepped out of our farmhouse into the moist Tennessee morning. With Loki tagging along to protect me, I walked down my steep, tree-lined driveway to meet the bus.

00000

In first period, we got a surprise.

"TODAY," announced Mrs. Gere, "Instead of having BIOLOGY, we're having a PROGRAM."

Just as I began to wonder what kind of program, in walked the school counselor, Mrs. Swayne. The woman I had mentally nicknamed Igor (not for Detroit's Igor, but for the hunchbacked dude in all the horror movies). Under Igor's arm were two books: a plain brown book and a manilla notebook. In her hand, she was carrying a basket containing one of those old-fashioned, country-style stuffed muslin rabbits. Silently, she put the basket on Mrs. Gere's desk and opened the book. It was a strange book with no picture on the cover. All it had was a title: The Handbook.

As Swayne stared at the book, Mrs. Gere lowered her voice and said to Swayne, "It's a good thing you're here, because after the program I'd like you to talk to one of my students, Alex Calloway. Yesterday, I found a paperwad with one of his drawings on it. George Washington as a washing machine. George Washingmachine."

I laughed. Since I sat in the front, I heard everything Mrs. Gere said. Even her whisper was quite loud. I wondered why a picture of George Washington as a washing machine merited a trip to the councilor's office.

Swayne quietly told Mrs. Gere that she would take care of the problem, and then, in a voice that sounded like someone on Thorazine, she said, "Hello, children." Everyone in the class grumbled simultaneously.

"My name is Mrs. Swayne," Igor continued, "and I have brought a very special guest. I want you to say hello to Respectful Rabbit." She sat down her books and picked up the rabbit.

As the councilor blathered on, I could only think of one thing: I needed to get my hands on that book. I knew that it had something to do with PPOF, the people who were taking over the government. I knew they were using the school system as a way to brainwash the country, destroy imagination and kill critical thinking. I also knew they were connected to the Texas Representative who was drafting the bill that would affect Tanya and Mallory. As Swayne continued to talk, I began to plot.

Meanwhile

All the Ducks were awake except for Duke. Wildwing, Grin, Mallory and Tanya were sitting around the kitchen table and Nosedive was getting in the shower.

They heard Nosedive curse from the bathroom. "I always get left with the cold water!" he complained.

"Start getting up earlier!" Mallory shot back.

Nosedive ignored her and began singing loudly. The cold water didn't actually bother him that much. He just wanted the others to take him into consideration.

It was rare for Duke to sleep in later than Nosedive. The only time he ever slept in was when he had a hangover.

While Grin made some toast for everyone, Wildwing put some coffee on to brew. "Maybe he'll wake up when he smalls coffee," he said to the others.

"I donno," said Tanya. "He seems depressed ever since that failed attempt to break into LANL. I think he's afraid he's losing his skill."

"Maybe one of us should go poke him with a stick and see if he's alive," Mallory suggested. As soon as she said that, Duke walked through the doorway. He looked a little worse for wear. His feathers were matted and he hung his head low to avoid the bright kitchen light. He sat down at the table and rested his bill in his hand. His eyes were half closed.

"It's alright, friend," said Grin, who sat down beside the former thief. He put a hand on the older duck's shoulder. "It's not your fault you set off alarms and had to make a run for it when you tried to steal the gateway generator from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Failure is only opportunity in disguise."

This only made Duke feel worse.

"Don't be glum," said Wildwing. "You're a valuable member of this team no matter what."

"I'm not glum," Duke insisted. "I just need to let this headache go away."

"Hockey season is coming up," said Mallory. "Now's not the time to become an alcoholic."

"Relax, sweet'eart. I've known how to hold my booze since before you hatched."

"I hope you know, you really dated yourself just now."

Nosedive, who'd just walked in with a towel around his waist, caught the tail end of the conversation. "Take another look around, you're not goin' anywhere!" he sang at the top of his lungs. "You realize you're getting old, and no one seems to care! Tryin' to find you way again, YOU'RE TRYIN' TO-"

"Do you mind!?" growled Duke. "I have a headache."

"Aw, come on. What kind of partier doesn't like that song?" Nosedive

"I'm not becoming a drunk," Duke argued. He got up and fixed himself a cup of black coffee.

0000

After everyone had breakfast and did some stretches, the Ducks headed to the locker room to gear up for their morning drills. They'd only been there a minute when in walked Phil. He looked rough. He had big, red circles under his eyes and his ponytail was a mess.

"Are you alright?" asked Wildwing. "I guess Duke's not the only one who's under the weather."

"Babes, I've been up all night. I got this strange phone call in the middle of the night and then I couldn't go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried." Phil let out a huge yawn.

"There's always the couch if you want to take a nap," said Grin.

"I just might," said Phil.

"But first," Wildwing insisted, "tell us about that strange call."

"Right. Well, it was this guy who said he was from Puckworld. He said his name was Silverwing VonDrake, and he wants to meet you. So I told him he could, for a fee. Wanna fly out to Tennessee this weekend?"

"I donno about you guys," said Nosedive, "but to me, this sounds like a big, fat, trapola. I don't think we should go."

"It's probably some human who thinks he can replace me when I'm forced to quit," said Mallory. "Maybe I should go give him a piece of my mind."

"It's not that," said Phil. "he told me as much."

"You know," said Tanya, "If he really is from Puckworld, he might have some kind of dimensional gateway. Maybe he can help us get back home!"

"Tanya's right," said Wildwing. "I think we should go."

"Ok," said Nosedive. "Just remember, Evil Dead took place in Tennessee."

0000

Fang's POV

It was Friday before I got a chance to steal the mysterious handbook from Swayne. It wasn't that hard. All I had to do was let Mrs. Gere catch me drawing Pokémon. There's nothing my school hated more than a kid with an imagination. When Gere saw my drawings, she took me to Swayne's office to see what was wrong with me.

In the office, I scoped out the area while Swayne asked me a myriad of prying questions. The book was on a shelf behind the councilor's desk. I knew exactly how to get it: I feigned a coughing fit and asked her to get me some cough drops. Luckily, she had none in her office, so she went to her car or the school nurse to retrieve them. While she was gone, I took the book from the shelf behind her desk and put it in my backpack. When she returned, she didn't even notice it was gone. She just continued asking me about whether or not I had ever had sex, done drugs, or listened to rock n' roll. I answered these questions truthfully: No to the drugs, no to the sex, and yes to the rock n' roll. She seemed to think my answers were peculiar, and told me that I needed to sign up for a class that could "fix" people like me. To her surprise, I agreed to go to the class (what better way to get intel on her?) Satisfied, she sent me out of the office so that she could meet with her next appointment: Marcus Small.

I was surprised to see him being sent to the councilor's office. He acted like a normal kid in this society: no imagination, no empathy. But I was happy to see him being sent to Swayne's office. I crossed my fingers that when Swayne found her book missing, she might suspect him instead of me.

When school was finally out, I went home and told Loki about stealing the Handbook.

"Well done," he said. "I'm impressed. But I hope you don't get in trouble!"

"I guess I'll find out Monday," I said.

"Would you and Loki like a snack?" my grandmother asked.

"Maybe later," I said. I was too excited to be hungry. "Let's go up to the barn and look at it," I told Loki. The upper floor of the family barn had become a headquarters of sorts for Loki, Doom, and me. There were tables, chairs, and even mattresses. There was a hole in one corner of the roof creating enough light to see by, but we also had lanterns for when we spent the night up there.

I took the book to the barn and plopped down on the floor so Loki could look at it too.

"It has a very plain cover," he remarked.

"That's one reason it's so suspicious," I said. I opened up to the title page, which said "The Handbook: PPOF Specifications for Instilling the Four C's."

I turned the page to find out exactly what the Four C's were.

"The four C's," I began reading, "'Are compliance, complacency, conformity, and complicity. In order to successfully influence the younger generations in a positive way, all three C's must be instilled.

"Children and teenagers must become Compliant, willing to follow the orders of adults without question. This helps them to become efficient employees when they enter the working world. In addition, compliant people seldom cause social unrest. If we want a peaceful world and a healthy economy, it is imperative that the next generation of workers be compliant and willing to yield to authority.

Secondly, children must learn to be complacent. People with high hopes and dreams only set themselves up for disappointment. Those who want too much out of life are likely to cause social unrest by trying to disrupt the natural order of things. A generation of workers that is compliant must also be complacent. The two go hand-in-hand. This book will teach PPOF-certified educators how to make children and teenagers accept the various roles assigned to them by society.

The third C is conformity. To ensure the preservation of America's values, youth should be encouraged to want to conform. In fact, mild bullying should be encouraged because it creates an environment in which those who are different face consequences. Parents should be told, of course, that bullying is looked down upon in PPOF schools. However, educators should actually only intervene if the bullying threatens a student's physical well-being.

Lastly, we have complicity. Once students have been successfully immersed in PPOF teachings, they will become helpers of the PPOF Cause whether they realize it or not. They will become collaborators, encouraging their peers to adopt PPOF values into their day-to-day life."

After reading all that, I stopped and took a breath. Loki looked at me. "These people are worse than the Saurians," he said, referring to the villains in the Mighty Ducks cartoon that I knew HAD to be real.

"That reminds me," I said, "I think Elijah Rutherford is a member of PPOF. We should go to the library and see if Lucian knows anything else about these people. What we've got is a brainwashing book. These psychos have to be stopped!"

"Elijah Rutherford? The despicable Texas Representative?"

"Yes. I think it's all connected."

"Seems likely… You're right. We should talk to Lucian about this. This seems like his area of expertise. Besides, he's got that vault in the library basement. We should probably see if he'll put the book there for safe keeping."

"Good idea."

Lucian the librarian had been a family friend for years, and he happened to share a secret with Loki and me. The secret of a land were stories are real, which just happened to be located in my field (this is where Loki met his cartoon wife). If anyone knew anything about a group that was damaging kids' imaginations and trying to take over the country, it would be him. He'd been dedicated to protecting imaginations since before I was born, and he was excellent at keeping and collecting secrets.

Loki and I strolled to the library at a leisurely pace. Slightly resembling a medieval fortress, that library seemed to have a life of its own. When we finally entered the musty stone building, we were greeted by a bright-eyed Lucian the Librarian.

"Hello, dear friends," he said, adjusting his glasses and brushing his long black hair out of his face.

"Hey," I replied. "I've got something to show you." I handed Lucian the book.

"The Handbook," he uttered and began looking through the pages. "My," he said. "This is not good. Not good at all. Where did you find this?"

"At school. I kinda…took it from the councilor. I'm not done looking at it. I thought we could look through it together. Maybe you know something about it…perhaps?"

"This is the PPOF Educator's Handbook," he said. "I have never seen it before, but I have heard of it. It is the standard manual in classes K through twelve now."

"How do they get away with it?" I asked. "This is a book about brainwashing and control!"

"These are bad times," said Lucian. "Come, have some coffee. I will explain what I can." Lucian led Loki and me to a table in the back of the library. Loki jumped up on top of the table so he could see the book and Lucian retrieved some coffee. Then the tall librarian joined us at the table.

"PPOF," he began. "People Protecting our Future. They are a not-so-secret secret society and their name is deceiving. But most of what I know about them is speculative. Basically, they are closely aligned with big business. They are trying to wipe out our youth's imaginations so that they are easier led my corporations. PPOF gets many followers by acting as if they have a religious or moral agenda, but in the upper echelons, it's known that it's all about money and power."

"So they are like the Illuminati?" asked Loki.

"Yes," said Lucian. "Some of them ARE Illuminati. There are many societies within societies, you know. The first government institution to be infiltrated by them is the school system. That is why the Literary Treasures books are no longer part of the curriculum. The Literary Treasures books encourage creativity and the PPOFers don't like that."

"I figured it might be something like that. Mind if I look them up on the computer?"

"That might not be a good idea," said Lucian. "They can monitor the internet. Look at this." He showed us a page completely dedicated to classical conditioning. "They know how to completely change you if they want to," he explained.

I shuddered. That's probably what they would try to do if I went to that special class Swayne had told me about.

"So," asked Loki, "Is anybody trying to stop PPOF?"

"PPOF has plenty of critics," said Lucian. "But they have been filling up government positions for some time now. The best way to stop them would be to run non-PPOF candidates. But even that is difficult. Both of the main parties have PPOFers in their ranks."

"And nobody votes for third parties," I said.

"Precisely. But do not lose hope. There are people out there dedicated to exposing the PPOF agenda. Knowledge is power, so let's learn all that we can about them and expose them for what they are. I do not like them any more than you do."

"I don't think anyone can hate them as much as I do," said Loki.

"Oh?" asked Lucian.

"I have my reasons," said the Chihuahua. "Let's leave it at that. Be sure and get in touch if you learn anything new."

"Same to you," said Lucian.

"Also," I said, "I was wondering if you would store this in your vault for us."

"Why of course," said the librarian. "It is very dangerous for you to have this."

"Thanks for helping us out," I told him.

"Thank YOU. You two have a good day and be safe. It's dangerous being anti-PPOF. That's why I've never attempted to drag you two into it. But now that you've seen the book, it's too late. You're already involved. But I'm glad to have you join the fight."

A/N: I'm trying something new with this story. I don't usually go back and forth between 1st person and 3rd person POV, but I'm hoping it might actually work in this story. In the original version, it is all told from either Fang or Loki's POV. Also,I hope this chapter doesn't seem rushed in some places. As I've said, this is a new version of a story I've already written. In the original version, I spend a lot more time introducing my OC, showing instead of telling, etc. But the result was that the Ducks didn't come into the story until the 6th chapter. Since this is fanfiction, I thought I should probably rewrite it so that the canon characters can be introduced sooner. However, if some readers feel like they needed more time to get to know my OC, I suggest reading the original when I post it. I spend several chapters describing her life at school painting a picture f the society she lives in.

In case anyone's wondering, the "getting old" song that Nosedive sings to Duke is "Victim of Changes" by Judas Priest.