STAVE THREE - THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS
Though more than struck, it actually chimed the hour. Dakota sat up and was about to call Beauregard and order him to turn off the hourly chime so that it wouldn't go off an hour lat—
"DAUGHTER OF JACOB MARLEY."
Slowly, the teenager turned.
And then, she saw the ghost.
Her temporal disarray was further disarrayed when she examined him, however.
Standing next to her bed was a male ghost, quite muscular, yet middle-aged. He was at least two metres tall (6'6"), his long brown hair curling down to his shoulders, and his beard down to his chest. He wore a regal green robe with white furred borders, quite large, yet not enough to close on his muscular chest. His brown belt appeared to have a holster of some sort, perhaps a sword scabbard? A beautiful holly wreath, girded with diamond icicles, crowned his head. With his left hand, he held up an old lantern that shone so brightly it made the humanmaid's eyes hurt, to the point of making her want to blow it out with something—anything. And with his right, he had pulled back the orange silk bed curtain to address her. Like Dakota, he was currently barefoot.
Dakota didn't know what to make of him. Sure, he seemed friendly, perhaps even fatherly, but something here was quite amiss. "I thought I was first going to see the Ghost of Christmas Past," she stated.
"You're meeting him now," he replied, with a fatherly voice.
"No, you're Christmas Present," she insisted. "Aren't you supposed to be—um—well, shorter and dressed in white?"
"Oh, no," he explained. "That ghost was of Scrooge's past. What you see before you is the form that appeared to him and Marley as Christmas Present, but now, their present is your past."
She just looked at him. "And where's all the food that was brought to Scrooge?"
"That will come later."
She looked at him with haughtiness. "Okay, so you're Christmas Past. Now what?" Without a word, the ghost grabbed Dakota by the back of her shirt and hoisted her off the bed. "Ow! Hey, what are you doing!" she protested as he carried her to the balcony. With a swift kick, the doors fell outward, and he proceeded to walk off the balcony, as Howard Hughes had done earlier. "Whoa, wait! I may be a toon, but hitting the ground still stings! Put me down, you pathetic poltergeist! Put me—AAAAHHH!" They fell off the balcony, but landed on the snow an instant later as if they had stepped off a sidewalk. He dropped her on the snow rather indignantly, making her sit on it rather hard. Immediately she scrambled to her feet, not noticing that she didn't feel cold despite the fact that she was only wearing her pyjamas. Thrusting her finger to his face, or at least in its general direction, she bellowed, "You are in a LOT of trouble! I can call the Ghostbusters and they'll ship you off to—!"
Once again, she noticed something was amiss. Her mansion was gone, as was her yard, and even the entire estate. Instead, she was in another large estate. "What is the meaning of—hey, I know this place!"
"Do you now?"
"Of course", she replied, her scowl reappearing on her face. "This is Soho Junior Academy! How I hated this place!"
"You did? Why?"
"I never wanted to come here. I just wanted to go to the Looniversity and be funny, but 'nooooo,' said my dad, 'you must first learn how to behave like the rich!' Once Soho Prep opened an elementary, he decided to start a family tradition to send the kids here first. But I managed to survive." At this point, several boys and girls of various species, including human, approached them. Their uniforms were more like business suits, with charcoal jackets, pants or skirts, and a dark blue tie. The group dashed past them, apparently ignoring the two odd visitors.
"As Scrooge was in his visits, we are now invisible, inaudible, impalpable, and inolfactable."
"Somehow I knew that." More boys and girls ran past them, making Dakota squint as her memory overhauled itself.
"Trying to remember old friends? It wasn't that long ago, you know." said the apparition.
She scowled again and crossed her arms. "Bah. I hated everyone and everything here. No one was worth my time, or my memory space." The ghost looked sadly at her, and pulled down the scenery.
They were now in the library, watching a very sad little girl sitting all by herself at one of the tables. A book cart was beside her, and as she looked at it with teary eyes, a particular book caught her attention. She took it and examined it for a second, and then began reading. Several minutes later, her pout was replaced with a very evil smile.
The title of the book was "The Life and Times of Howard Hughes".
"That was a sad turning point," sighed the ghost, pulling down the scenery to another point of Dakota's past at Soho.
When Dakota saw the next scene, she smiled and put her hands on her hips, "Sad? Why would you say that? I merely discovered a way to make my stay here worthwhile." In a polo court, several children were surrounding an eight-year-old Dakota, and all of them had money in their hands/paws/wings.
And the girl was smiling like never before.
"Fifty pounds for a doctor's note. Take it or leave it," she said.
The snobbish grey rabbit in front of her grunted with anger, and silently agreed with the price, shoving her a fifty-pound note while she gave him a falsified doctor's note which would excuse the buck from football. With his ears stiff behind him, he stomped away. "Now who was next? Oh yes, you needed three hall passes for tomorrow, here you go, it's a pleasure doing business with you as long as you give me money, hee hee, and you? Oh yes, 100 pounds for your report card: your parents are going to be so proud of you. Oh, and here's your report, that will be thirty pounds because I had to include misspellings. Okay, now you—hey, don't look at me like that! This little paper has YOUR handwriting in it, so I could throw the blame on YOU if I so choose! Now hand over the cash!"
The teenager was looking smugly at the child. "I learned how to do profitable business very early and very fast, don't you think?"
The ghost glared down, "You learned how to cheat, blackmail, and embezzle—very early and very fast! Many children feared you, and you enjoyed that, but that was simply to compensate for the attention your parents didn't give you." Dakota just humphed at that, and would have enjoyed watching more shady dealings continue, but the ghost pulled down the scenery to another time and place.
Now they were inside a dorm, where the young Dakota had just cleaned out another customer, and she was happily counting her money on her bed. Then, a relative of hers entered the room just as the now broke female red squirrel exited. "Dee?"
She didn't bother looking up. "Not now, Uncle Duncan. I have to make sure I have enough for my next investment."
The male walked up to the bed. "Dee, you're every bit like your father. But I have good news! Your mother finally convinced your father to have you attend school in Acme Acres! Your dad sent me to take you home!"
The child looked up. "No thanks, Uncle Duncan. I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I'm doing great business here, so I will stay here."
The teenager commented on this, "Heh. Only when my father saw that I was just as good a businesstoon as he was did he finally decide to send me home. He even sent someone to take over my little business here so that it wouldn't go to waste."
Duncan leaned down and stopped the money counting by placing his hand on Dakota's. "Dee, you have to come home with me, otherwise your dad will be very upset."
The child protested, "Oh? Then why didn't he or mom come and pick me up? Do they really want me home?"
"Now, now, Dee. You know your mom gets lost just going shopping, and your father is busy preparing your transfer. Now come on. I'll help you pack your stuff."
"But what about all the dealings that I still have pending?" she protested.
"Oh, don't worry. Your dad sent someone with me to deal with those. Trust me, he's the best!" Both looked at the door as Dakota's replacement strutted in, also wearing the school uniform.
"Buckawk!"
"I sure hope so," she scowled.
Somewhere out in the hall, a child exclaimed, "He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken!"
"And he's still doing business in Soho," quipped the teenager. "He sends his quarterly reports right on time!" As the ghost pulled down the scenery, she added, "Though I never was able to establish something similar at the Looney Elementary."
The next scene was precisely at the Looney Elementary, inside a classroom, Yosemite Sam's, to be exact. But there was no class in progress; instead, the Christmas party was in full swing. Here, she had no choice but to remember her classmates, since she still saw them practically every day. There was herself, slightly older than she was in England. She didn't have a uniform here, just a dark blue dress and white sneakers. Also in the class were Junior, Alexi, Miriam, Tex, Friz, Shotsy, The J, and several others.
"All right, you varmints! It's time to exchange presents!" Despite his normal rashness, Yosemite Sam seemed to be very happy, and appeared to be enjoying the party as well. "Now, sit down and don't twitch a whisker until I call your name! Then get yourself up here and take your present, is that clear!"
"Yes, Professor Sam!" hollered the entire class, instantly sitting down, eagerly watching the huge pile of presents on the teacher's desk.
Sam grabbed the first one and read the tag, "All right! This here's for Alexi!"
As the grey doe bounded up to get her present, two toons in the back, sitting next to each other, talked to themselves. "You know," said The J, "if the school picks up all of the leftover wrappings and shreds them, they could save a fortune on the confetti if they sell it for New Years."
"Or, we could pick that up, and sell it to individual suppliers and make some profits for ourselves," added the young Dakota.
J turned to her. "I hope my 'exchangee' likes what I bought. I really didn't want to buy the first thing I saw, so I looked around a bit and found something that could be very productive."
"Really—?" Dakota turned and looked at the feline's eyes, and was about to comment on bargain hunting and possible profit for herself on something she got somebody else, but her vocal chords appeared to have suddenly failed.
"Yes, really, Dee. You know, it's amazing what great prices you can find if you know where to look." The young Caucasian just stared at the Mexican-American, and kept on staring. "Dee?"
Finally, her speech powers returned, "Whoa, baby! Where have you been all my life?"
This brought confusion to him for a moment. "Huh? Well, for starters, I've lived here all my life, and from what I've heard, you were in England until last year—"
"J?" she asked, as femininely as she could muster for her young age, complete with eye flutter. "How would you like to be my business partner? With my money, and both of our brains, I think that we can go far. REALLY far," she leaned toward him.
J leaned toward her as well, quite interested in making a possible deal with her, but before he could say a word, a troop of younger furry toons entered the classroom. "Cake and ice cream! Cake and ice cream!" hollered a slightly less buff Morty Bunny, pulling a small refrigerated cart. Some of the younger classes had been assigned to hand out desserts to other classrooms, and to do it in a very jolly way. Among the toons in the troop were Nolan, Bekki, June, Hunni, and a reluctant and scowling blue doe with a yellow blouse and orange dress.
"Stupid teachers," murmured Anni, ears stiff behind her, as toons gathered up for dessert. "Each class should get its own food and not do something as ridiculous as this!" She was stomping and throwing scoops of ice cream on the student's plates, splattering a bit, and really didn't care for that, until she looked up and saw that The J was in front of her.
She froze in mid-throw.
"Well now, this is interesting," he purred, looking at her almond-brown eyes. "I wonder what the Local Bully did to deserve this?"
The angry lagomorph suddenly snapped out of whatever had taken over her, and threw the ice cream on his plate. "None of your beeswax, Blackie!"
Dakota, who was beside J, asked, "Pushed down one too many nerds, Barbara Anne?"
Anni stomped, "You'll be the one pushing up daisies if you don't watch your mouth, brat!" Both were about to jump at each other, but fortunately, the panther pulled the humanmaid away, while the semi-muscular pink buck pulled his sister away.
It was here that the teen Dakota noticed that as they padded away, J and Anni kept looking at each other.
Also, Bekki was looking at Nolan, whose attention was immersed in a Christmas card that he was preparing for The M, but no one noticed.
The ghost commented, "It was during this Christmas that you saw that The J had incredible business potential—potential that you wanted to exploit for yourself, but everyone thought that you had simply fallen in love with him, which you hadn't."
The teenager scoffed at him, "I really don't need that reminder, Casper."
"Do you now? Dee, you were so wrapped up in your own plans that you completely missed someone who had just laid their eyes on you." The pyjama-clad toon looked around but didn't see anyone that even remotely appeared to be doing what the ghost claimed to have been doing—
—until she saw Tex, way on the opposite side of the classroom. The herbivore followed the girl's every move, even as she sat down with the carnivore to discuss business.
"He has ogled you from the moment you stepped into his life, Dee. But you never noticed."
"Yeah, right, as if I would want to be romantically involved with a cream puff rabbit!" She turned to him, "And with all that my dad—AND Professors Sam and Fudd—went through before, I doubt he would allow it. Besides, I already had someone else in mind for me." The ghost said nothing, but instead pulled down the scenery.
Now, they were in the middle of Acme Forest, currently blanketed by snow. Dakota looked around, and saw herself, wearing black mittens, a dark blue winter jacket and matching pants; and J, wearing a white jacket and trousers. This time, however, they were in less than amiable spirits.
"No, Dakota."
She blinked. "What do you mean 'NO'? I'M DAKOTA DEE! NO ONE TELLS ME 'NO' ABOUT ANYTHING!"
Fangs flashed, ears flattened, and a tail twitched, "Dakota, don't get me wrong. I want to make tons of money just as much as you do, but I will NOT do it if it means breaking the law and committing fraud!"
The younger humanmaid's fists trembled with rage. "J, stop those nonsense morals of yours! Your parents just don't want you to have fun making money by bending the rules! And do you know why?" She stepped closer and said to his face, "Because they know that if you get rich faster than they did, and if your assets surpass theirs, then they'll know they are nothing but financial failures!"
The panther didn't buy that, and growled in her face, "Mom and Dad made money the RIGHT way, Dakota! And the reason why I'm saying NO to YOU is because of what they and I believe in!"
She flopped her arms. "Oh, great. Your religion again. You know, J, religion should be banned from business! It does nothing but block profits!"
"You wish this was about religion, Dakota. But this goes beyond a simple 'thou shalt not steal'. This is about what we BOTH know is right and wrong, and what you're asking me to do, by the simplest logic, is COMPLETELY WRONG!"
"WHO CARES!" she screamed back in his face.
The Mexican-American stood back, huffing; his breath condensing in his whiskers. "I care, Dakota. I care more than you can possibly imagine. And even if we could get away with it, and my parents never found out, I will not betray their trust, AND, I will not betray Him Who I wait for!" He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his gold chain with the Cross and Star, much like his father's.
The young Caucasian was even more furious now, so she dragged her foot across the snow, making a line, and gave him her ultimatum. "J, this is your last chance. Leave your pathetic religion, deny yourself and your parents, and follow me. If you do, we'll both become richer than Howard Hughes, The Rockefellers, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, AND my dad and grandpa combined! I made this line, and I dare you to cross it to come and follow me, but I will NOT cross it to follow you and your pathetic beliefs and ethics!"
"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" asked the ghost. The teenager said nothing, stunned at the parallel she had so long pushed into a suppressed memory. "Amazing how history repeats itself, don't you think?"
J looked at the line, and sadly looked up at her. After a moment, he calmly declared, "Good-bye, Dakota. You don't know how much it pains me to see you choose the Dark Side and the Wide Meandering Path, because I cannot walk it. I chose the Bright Side and the Straight and Narrow Path long ago, and I won't go back, because I know what waits for me at the end. I'll pray that you will see the Light someday." Wiping his eyes, the black panther turned and padded away.
Dakota watched as her younger self became stunned at having been denied something so huge so bluntly. The younger one called out, "J, wait!" The male stopped, but didn't turn around. "You know, it doesn't have to end like this! You know we've been though a lot together, right?" No reply. "Well, I know that we have trusted each other on many things, but you left out one thing that you were going to tell me." The cub still stood there, tail twitching. "Look, before you leave, just tell me your complete name, and then we'll go our separate ways, okay?" Tail still twitching, he resumed padding away from her. She insisted, "I'll pay you if you tell me your name! J? J! Stop! You won't believe how rich you can be if you just tell me your name! J?" He became smaller and smaller. Fists trembled again, "J! I will find out your name, J! One way or another, I WILL know! AND ON THAT DAY, I WILL CURSE YOUR REAL NAME AND YOUR RELIGION!" By the time Dakota finished screaming, the young onça was out of sight. "I WILL TAKE YOUR HIDE AND USE IT FOR PYJAMAS!"
The teenager turned, also with clenched fists, and hissed, "I've seen enough! Get me out of here!"
The ghost spoke, "This is when you ratified your decision of walking the path of evil. You couldn't buy The J's love, loyalty, or talent, much less his real name."
She grabbed his robe and tried to pull him down, but instead lifted herself up to his face, "I SAID I HAD ENOUGH!"
He just smiled, "You never loved him, Dee, because you couldn't be happy with the choice he had made, nor with the female he chose." With the humanmaid hanging from his robe, he pulled down the scenery.
"What do you mean you refuse!"
Back inside the halls of the Loony Elementary, Dakota saw an angry blue doe getting very much into J's face.
The black panther just stood there, ears back, glaring at her. "You heard me. I don't have to prove anything to you or anyone, Anni. But if you don't like me not letting you push me around, that's just too bad for you. Any fight would prove nothing. Now, excuse me, I have to get to class."
This wasn't looking good for the female, if she wanted to keep her bully image. "Why do you refuse, J? Are you afraid you're going to get beat up by a little girl?"
Onlookers "ooh'ed" at that, but the male returned, "Or, maybe I'm afraid of putting you in the hospital, but I guess you'll never know, will you?" The doe fumed at that. "But why do you want to fight to prove dominance? You know that even the teachers outrank you."
She pointed at him, "The problem is that YOU think YOU outrank ME! Why else would you back down from my challenges? Why else would you defy me?"
"Because I'm trying to ignore you? Because I don't want to take part of this silly ranking system of yours?"
Anni didn't know how to counter that, so she watched him pad off to class. But then, a white LED lit above her, and a very sly smile exhibited her dental work to the world. "Okay, it doesn't have to be for ranks, J!"
He stopped and turned, "Oh?"
Smiling, but still with her ears stiff behind her, she explained, "Let's say that I don't want to fight you in order to prove who's the alpha around here. Let's say that I simply want some—well—some 'competition', if you will. You wouldn't be my enemy, adversary, or nemesis; you'd simply be my opponent: someone to measure up against."
His tail curled with curiosity, and he straightened his ears. "Like a sparring partner?"
"Or more, if you wish, but now that you mention it, I kinda do need a new sparring partner. Morty has been getting rather sore lately."
"Sounds interesting, but if you want to—compete—then we'll compete in everything else, not just in boxing. Would you also go against me in chess, karate, and other disciplines?"
She stiffly stomped up to him, smiling, "Anything, anytime, anyplace, cat."
He smiled too, showing his carnivorous dental work, making her heart jump with fear, despite her efforts to maintain a fearsome face. "Then you have a deal, doe." And both shook paws.
The female teenager watched this scene with boredom, but then stood back as the next scenes were actually a montage played with the "War" theme from "Rocky IV". The scenes included J moving a black bishop to set a checkmate, and then it changed to him moving a white knight again for the checkmate, causing the lagomorph to angrily throw the game board and the pieces in the air. The same thing happened after taking the final checker, and making the last move in Backgammon. The scenes continued with him shoving her arm down, winning at arm wrestling, shoving down her other arm, and then pinning her down in Greco-roman wrestling. Finally, they were in a boxing ring, with full protective gear; The J clad in white shorts, and Anni in orange shorts and top. At first, they appeared to be doing some very intense boxing, and suddenly Anni fell to her side in a technical knockout. Then they were fighting Judo with gi's, with J in white and Anni in yellow, and the jaguar cub back flipped the doe to the mat; then some scenes with karate, where J kicked her legs under her and she dropped to the mat again; and finally, with a large audience, they were now kickboxing.
Dakota watched as they bounced around the ring, punching and kicking, but the cub was moving too fast for the doe to land any hard blows. The bout went on and on, with Anni barely scoring a hit, and J having problems getting past her defence, and blocking her fierce kicks, for she had apparently inherited her mother's legs. Finally, the herbivore had the carnivore cornered, and with a final swing, she threw an uppercut to his chin.
(WARPUNWARP!)
And made a complete miss.
And the panther was no longer in front of her?
Suddenly, she whirled—
(KAWHAMSLASH!)
—right onto a double flying kick to the jaw, with a tail lash to top it off.
At that moment, everything and everyone hushed and moved in slow motion.
Anni fell back and bounced on the ropes. For a moment, as she bounced forward, Anni looked at The J's eyes, expressing mute resignation and disappointment. Finally, her eyes rolled up, and she fell on her face.
The J weakly raised his right fist in victory.
All of Anni's brothers and sisters, and her parents, cried in mute agony. The J's parents and sister stood, threw their fists up, and screamed/roared in mute victory. The rest of the audience, especially all the weaklings, nerds, and geeks, also joined in the mute celebration.
At this, Dakota also felt quite satisfied that a Bunny had finally been defeated and humiliated in such a manner, but a sudden change of scenery halted the smugness like a brick wall.
The celebrations were over, the audience had gone home, and the combatants were in their orange and white winter gear as they painfully padded through the snowed forest. Swollen portions of their faces and a band-aid here and there proclaimed it to have been a gruelling fight. Anni had her head slightly downcast, and her ears were bent back a bit, now displaying slight fear toward her companion.
For the first time in her life, she feared someone.
Also, her nervousness was quite evident in her speech. "You—you know, J—those were—um—really good workouts we had—especially today."
The J's tail dragged behind him. "I know. But we're going to be as sore as bleep in the morning, I tell you that!"
The doe remained quiet for a moment, and then asked, "J?"
"Yes?"
"I—um—if you want to—well—I'd like—to continue the workouts—and—and all the competition. I know—I know now that you're—you're—(grunting)—better than me—but—but—that doesn't mean—well—that we can't—we can't—um—train—with each other."
"Sounds fine to me. I never knew you could take so much, and I'll tell you, I had to pull a lot of advanced stuff on you! I'm really impressed!"
"Impressed? J, you—you—you really impressed me! I mean—well—I never—never fought—anyone—who could take all that I could dish out, and man did I dish out everything I had! Well, what I'm trying to say is—is—that I—um—need someone like you—to help me—" She suddenly stopped and held the panther's arm, halting him as well. She leaned closer, leaning her ears toward him, "You—you can—um—can you be my sparring?"
He leaned closer too, suddenly seeing something in her almond-brown eyes he had not seen before. "Better—better yet—Anni—you can be mine—"
The moment their furry muzzles pressed together, Dakota screamed at the apparition, "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!"
He looked down at her, smiling, and as he replied, his torch grew brighter and brighter, "You still can't accept the fact that you never loved him, otherwise you would be happy for him now."
"GET ME THE (CENSORED) OUTTA HERE, YOU PATHETIC POLTERGEIST!"
The torch shone brighter, "By the way, you burned the Book, but there is one segment you need to read. It's not in red, but it's important anyway." He handed her a note, but she refused to take it.
The torch was so bright that it made her eyes hurt. "SHUUUUUUUT UUUUUPPPP!"
His smile was lost in the light. "'Search your feelings; you know it to be true'."
"SHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTT UUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPP!" With a final scream, she pulled out a fire extinguisher and blasted the torch.
When the carbon dioxide cloud cleared, she saw that she had just emptied an extinguisher on her chandelier, and that she was panting with spent rage.
The sudden quiet scared her; making her wonder if her screams had awakened her parents, despite the fact that their bedroom was on the opposite side of the mansion, but no one came to the door. For a moment, she thought about calling them and telling them about this, but the fact that she was a teenager, and a proud one at that, reminded her that it would not look good for her to go crying to mommy and/or daddy because of a nightmare.
Was that what she had just now? A nightmare?
She looked around her room, and saw that it was still the same way she left it. No chilly air hinted that the balcony had been opened, the fireplace was still out, and there was no one else around but her.
She was scared, though. Something was making her shiver, and it wasn't any memories of cold air. But still, her previous display of emotion had taken a lot out of her, and scared as she was, she flopped on her bed and instantly fell asleep.