Here's the next chapter. Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoy.
It was a beautiful day in Royal Woods, Michigan. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and the Royal Woods baseball field was roaring with cheers and applause. The reason for all this noisy praise and adoration was because thirteen year old middle school athlete, Lynn Loud Jr., had just won a big baseball game. This was a special game because it was the last game before the championship. It was a big day for everyone, especially Lynn, who had practiced, trained, and performed all the good luck rituals she knew to achieve victory this day. The cheering from her fans and family from the bleachers filled her with pride. She had suffered only one loss during these last few months, but was able to make a big comeback.
Lynn stood on the field proudly waving and blowing kisses to her adoring fans. She took notice of her family who were cheering hysterically. However, eleven year old only boy Lincoln was not as cheerful as the others. He sat in the bleachers with the rest of his family wearing an ugly-looking squirrel costume and applauding his sister's victory, but his applause was very dull and lacked emotion.
The last couple of weeks had not been very kind to Lincoln at all. He had to attend every event his sisters participated in and support them. After weeks of this, he was yearning for some quality time to himself but knew no one would ever listen to him if he told them. One day, Lynn forced him to attend one of her baseball games for the first time which ended with her team losing for the first time as well. Lynn, being the egotistical and superstitious person she is, blamed the whole thing on Lincoln and said he was bad luck. This gave Lincoln an idea, instead of denying such rubbish he thought if he played along his family would want him to come less and less to their events thus giving him the quality time he so desired. Unfortunately, as time went on and the family started banning him from even more events, like going to the movies, Lincoln found himself becoming very lonely. Things got even worse when the family started taking their superstitions too far and banned Lincoln from the house entirely. When Lincoln tried to confess to lying about being bad luck, Lynn refused to believe it and the rest of the family followed suit. In one last ditch effort to prove he was telling the truth, Lincoln snuck into one of Lynn's baseball games disguised as the Royal Woods Squirrels' mascot. After Lynn won the game, Lincoln revealed himself to his family. At first, it seemed that his family finally realized he was telling the truth and wasn't bad luck after all. However, it didn't take long for the family to go back to their overly superstitious ways and began to believe that the squirrel suit was a good luck charm that canceled out Lincoln's bad luck so they made him where it where they went. Once again, Lincoln found himself in a ridiculous and unfair predicament. He had gone from being an outcast to a prisoner and a tool. And as if things couldn't get any worse, these last few days of wearing that suit 24 hours a day was starting to make the poor boy feel sick.
After the game, the family all hopped into Vanzilla the family van. They were all congratulating and praising Lynn for her success.
"Good game today, LJ," Lynn Sr. congratulated his athletic fifth born.
"You did great, Lynn," Leni complimented.
"I'd say your performance was 99.99 % accurately coordinated," Lisa stated in her brainy calculative way.
"You literally had that game in the bag," Lori commended.
"Thanks guys, but I couldn't had won all on my own. I had these MASSIVE GUNS!" Lynn boasted while kissing her biceps causing her family to laugh except Lincoln.
"Well now that the game is over," The boy to let out a small cough. "Can I take this suit off?" Lincoln politely asked getting prepared to take the squirrel head off.
"NO!" all his sisters said aggressively at the same time.
"We're going to the mall right now and we don't want anything bad to happen," Lori told him.
"There's going to be a big sale at the Big Department Store," Leni said excitedly. "If you don't wear the good luck suit, all the good clothes could sell out."
"Or the Princess Store could run out of the prettiest tiaras," Lola added.
"Or the animals at the pet shop could be sold to people who might abuse them," Lana also added.
"Or the health food store could run out of those low-cal bean chips," Lori concluded.
"But guys, I don't feel so good!" Lincoln complained letting out another cough.
"Lincoln honey," Rita spoke to her son in a calm and encouraging voice. "Please be fair to your sisters."
"Fine," the irritated boy reluctantly agreed and kept the squirrel suit on.
At the Royal Woods Mall, each family member went to their own favorite store. However, the sisters took turns bringing Lincoln to each one of their favorite stores for good luck. Not only was he feeling embarrassed of being forced to walk around in public wearing a ridiculous rodent costume, but he was also not feeling good health wise. After a week of being forced to wear that squirrel suit 24 hours a day, Lincoln had begun to feel a lot weaker than usual. He started sniffling and coughing more and more, he had been getting less sun making contact with his skin, the heat was becoming extremely unbearable and the inside of the suit was beginning to smell like sweat and BO. Unfortunately, whenever he tried to tell his family his complaints fell on deaf ears.
Lincoln soon found himself accompanying Leni at the Big Department Store, or as mall experts call it an 'anchor store'. There they met up with Leni's closest friends. Together they all spent a little over a half hour chanting and shopping, but while Leni and her friends were having a blast looking at and picking out all sorts of new clothes and makeup products Lincoln was cooking inside his soft mobile prison cell. After they were all done they purchased their things from Morris, Leni's good friend and the store's stylist.
"There you go, Leni," Morris happily handed Leni the goods she purchased. "I know you will look ravishing in those. They're some of our store's best sellers."
"Thank you, Morris," the sixteen year old fashionista expressed her sweet gratitude. "I'll like be sure to come back to see what other new items you'll have on sale next time."
"Before you leave, is there anything I can get for your brother?" Morris asked noticing Lincoln in the squirrel costume. "Because it looks like he might've run out of new clothes to wear."
The rest of Leni's friends chuckled at Morris's joke which made the already miserable boy groan in embarrassment. It was bad enough Leni used him as a mannequin for her fashion ideas and showed him to her friends, but now he had to face them wearing such a ridiculous and ugly looking outfit.
"What's the deal, is he training to become a squirrel?" one of Leni's male friends asked chuckling.
"Actually, he brings us good luck when he wears that suit," Leni answered.
Her friends stared weirdly at her for a moment and then they all burst into laughter. Even though she didn't understand why they were laughing, Leni decided to join in.
"And he's bad luck when he doesn't wear the suit," Leni said still laughing. This caused her friends to laugh even harder.
"So what do you do when he isn't wearing the suit?" one of Leni's female friends asked trying to control herself.
"Oh, he never takes it off," Leni replied through her laughter. "Our family won't let him."
Hearing this, Leni's friends' laughter decreased to nervous chuckling.
"What?" another of her female friends asked nervously.
"Without that good luck suit, he'll have to live outside again," Leni continued while still laughing and thinking they were still having fun.
"What?!" Morris said shocked.
"Yeah, like after we discovered he was bad luck," Leni casually explained. "We banned him from all of our family activities, left him home most of the time, then boarded up his room to prevent him from sleeping on the same floor with us, sold all his stuff, and made him sleep outside in the yard."
After finishing her sentence, Leni burst into hysterical laughter still thinking they were all laughing at something funny for some reason. However, she was so busy laughing that she didn't notice that her friends weren't laughing anymore. Instead, they were all staring at her with shocked and horrified expressions. Lincoln didn't notice their expressions either because he was so embarrassed that he couldn't bear to look any of them in the eye.
"Well, I'd better get going," Leni said and stopped laughing. "Dad's making another special dinner tonight in honor of Lynn's victory today. Bye, I'll totes see you all tomorrow." With that, the fashionista left the store with her miserable brother still unaware of the horrified state she was leaving her friends in.
None of Leni's friends could believe what they just heard. They all knew Leni wasn't really a bad person, she was just naïve. Very, VERY naïve. This was a trait that made her easy to manipulate. However, to hear that her family would do something so horrible for such a ridiculous reason was more than any of them could bear. It was at that moment, Morris found himself in a serious situation as he looked over to a nearby telephone sitting on a nearby sales counter. The stylist knew that if he did what he was thinking of doing Leni would be in just as much trouble as her family. His sense of loyalty to his dear friend was conflicting with his sense of right and wrong. Finally, Morris made his decision. He reluctantly walked over to the phone, picked it up and dialed a number.
"Hello, this is Morris of the Big Department Store at the Royal Woods Mall," the stylist introduced himself when his call was answered. Small tears started welling up in his eyes. "I need you to get me the Children's Protective Services right away."
Well, it looks like the Loud family's luck is finally going to run out.