TO GRANDMA'S HOUSE WE GO
A Superman/Wonder Woman/Project A-ko
fanfic by David Schock and Atana
Chapter 1 – Amazon Party
"Haaaaap-py birth-day, A-laaana
Hap-py birth-day to you-u-u-u!"
The twenty-five classmates sitting around Hikaru Daitokuji's huge dining room table burst into applause as Captain Napolipolita-Daitokuji's Daughter Number Two, Alana, blew out the candles on her cake. There were eleven of them, with one to grow on. Curious Terran custom, the birthday girl thought, a flush of happiness on her pretty face. She had originally wanted to invite a few boys to her party as well, but her sister Akana had pitched a fit, exclaiming that boys were pigs. Their Majesty Princess C-ko Kotobuki had then nodded her assent, agreeing that boys were icky stupidheads. Thus, it was an all-girl party for a girl from a (nearly) all-girl planet who attended an all-girl school.
"So what did you wish for?" shouted Yuki Hagana, one of Alana's fellow students at the elite Graviton City Middle School for Girls.
"She's not supposed to tell!" shouted another in return. "That will wreck it!"
Alana smiled, her slanted green eyes sparkling, as she looked over the gathering of her friends and her sisters. Do you all want to know what I wished for? she thought to herself. You'd never believe it if I told you. I wished that B-ko would give us a chance. She's so mean to us - "
Cut the cake! Cut the cake!" yelled her little sister Akana, Daughter Number Five. This alien child's life had been turned upside down after the birth of her half-Terran sister Shiiko (Daughter Number Six, and named for Her Majesty!). Until that time, she had also been proud holder of the title Baby of the Family. The imp drummed ceaselessly on the tabletop with her fists. "Cut it! It's chocolate cherry!"
"Hold on, you oinker," Arisa Napolipolita-Daitokuji (Daughter Number Four) snapped, giving her a sisterly little shove.
"You kakamatandula!" the precocious four-year-old shot back.
"Stop it, girls! And Aki - if you called someone that on the Homeworld, she could challenge you to a Mortaspuk, or a fight to the death!" their mother growled, standing up to her full height and gesturing for the servants to begin cutting the cake. It was an enormous thing, a perfect replica of the old Spaceship Hotel. She looked down just in time to catch Akana pulling off one of its chocolate anti-personnel guns, and smacked her on the head smartly with the spoon she was holding.
"MAAAAAAAAAAA!" the child shrieked in outrage. Her lower lip pouched out, although she would rather die than cry in front of these silly Terran females. It was just that until recently she had fancied herself her Mama's Little Baby, and it was considered very bad form to whack your Little Baby on the head with a teaspoon.
The young guests looked at up at "The Captain" with awe. Alana's mama was real tall and slim and had long green hair and these cool dark glasses and wore huge diamond rings and bracelets and necklaces and really expensive clothes, and she had been the Captain of the alien ship that had smooshed the Army people's headquarters, or something. Then she had married that snotty Biko Daitokuji's daddy in the soccer stadium, or somewhere.
The girls gazed at her, transfixed. They also gazed at her diamond ring, a massive thing full of quadrillion-cut diamonds and - the capper - the fabled 23-carat mega-sparkler at its center. It had been widely rumored among their parents to have cost Alana's new papa more than their own daddies made in ten years.
Really? It cost that much? The guests continued to stare at the alien, whispering behind their cupped hands to one another.
"Hadn't my mama told your mama that she actually worked for Alana's new papa? What that would be like, I wonder, considering how those big ol' aliens act when men tell them what to do? I wonder if she'd punch Alana's new papa in the mouth if she got mad!"
"No, probably not. But my daddy once said at dinner that Alana's mama had a "Drinking Problem", but I wasn't sure what he was talking about. And did you see the shoes she has on? They have high heels that are as clear as ice, with sparkles in them! Too cool!"
It was also universally believed among the attendees that Alana's mama's finest hour - her coup de grace, as it were - had been when that snotty Biko Daitokuji's daddy had actually adopted Alana and her sisters.
And oh boy, had that made ol' Beekers mad! You bet it had! The girls giggled and ate as much ice cream and cake as they liked.
The upshot among their schoolgirl community was that everyone now had to listen to Ol' Beekers whine about her new sisters. The heiress had already possessed the reputation as the stinking meanest student in the entire history of the Graviton City High School for Girls. And she was, all right. Everybody said so. None of them could understand how she could be mad about Alana and her sisters joining their family, since being lonely was all she whined about. It didn't make any sense! To a girl, they were all happy that Ol' Beekers had graduated and was out of there. But today was a birthday party day, and there they were, right in Ol' Beeker's dining room!
"Open your presents, Alalita!" her green-haired sisters hollered. The other girls joined in, clamoring for more excitement as they made vast inroads into their cake and ice cream.
"Why don't you use a magnolift to pack it in, Pigface?" Atina (Daughter Number Three) hissed at Akana.
SMACK! went the spoon. "AAAWWWWW, MAAAAAA!" Atina whined.
"Aw Ma nothing," the Captain intoned in her strangely deep voice. She had grown used to Terrans making fun of her for it, saying she sounded like a man. Her response was invariably that Terran men sounded like her, and whose fault was that? Not hers, surely. Besides, the ex-soldier thought. These people have no idea what an insult it is for a Cygnan to be called a man. If they did, they would run screaming into the night.
Alana - who had completed several years of military training herself at the CygniCity Space Academy on the Homeworld, like her older sister Alia - now picked up a large envelope with a shiny pink bow around it from the huge pile of gaily-wrapped gifts.
"Who's that from?" one of her classmates asked.
"Ma and Daddy," she replied, opening it. She gasped.
"WHAT? WHAT IS IT?" the girls shrieked in frustration.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Ma and Daddy bought me the Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska!"
"The what?"
"That's the place in America with first-strike nuclear capability - "
" - and it's all yours, baby," her mother said, dreamy-eyed. Not that anyone could see them. None of the girls had ever seen her without those dark glasses. The Cygnan shades! Alana had even worn hers to class. And that was one of the coolest things about her! When her English teacher, Pettigrew Sensei, had threatened to send her to the Headmistress's Office for wearing them in class, she had calmly explained that they were part of her alien cultural heritage. That had shut him up in a hurry! Ha Ha on old Mr. Poopygoo! From that time on, Alana could just sit upright in her seat and take a little snoozette when Mr. Poopygoo's lessons got boring, which they guessed was practically always. All the girls had thought this was just great, and the Cygnettes had already been elevated to the Panoply of Legends at their stodgy old private school.
"What does first-strike nuclear capability mean, Yana?" said one of its students to another.
"Don't worry about it. It must be one of those alien things," Yana replied, licking icing from her fingers.
"I wonder what Ol' Beekers got her?" the girl whispered.
"Probably a ticket to the Lepton Kingdom of Alpha Cygni. One-way."