Summary: Ever wonder what kind of trouble the FFVIII gang got themselves into when they were kids? Well, here's a humorous collection of the adventures and mishaps that the Orphanage Gang had when they were little. Companion piece to A Picnic and Playful Banter.
CHAPTER TWO: THE INCREDIBLE, EDIBLE...EARMUFF?
"I want to be a puppy dog!" Selphie cried out enthusiastically, jumping up and down to make sure that everyone was paying attention to her.
"Okay, okay. So Sephie's a dog, Quisty is an owl, Irvine is a tiger, Squall's a lion, Zell is a chicken, and I am the ringleader," Seifer proclaimed, emphasizing his role as ringleader, seeing as it was the most important one (at least in his mind.)
"Hey! I am not a chicken! I told you I want to be a—" Zell began to whine before suddenly being cut off by an exasperated Seifer.
"I already told you, the only thing you can be is the chicken, so you can either be the chicken, or you can go back inside and play by yourself," Seifer declared, knowing full well that Zell would much rather be a circus chicken than stuck in the house all alone. He was right; although a sulky look was now plastered on Zell's face and his lips were turned downward in an exaggerated pout, he refrained from voicing any more complaints.
"Okay, now that we all know what we're going to be, it's time to start training for the big show. Since I am the ringleader, I get to tell you all what you have to do and you have to do it," Seifer stated knowledgably, smirking in triumph. Sometimes it really paid to be the oldest one out of the group.
Grabbing one of the large, plastic beach balls that was lying nearby, Seifer gestured Selphie over. "You have to balance on this," he informed her, nodding towards the ball he held in his hands before dropping it onto the lawn. "Okay, try it," he encouraged her, eager to get this show on the road so to speak.
Selphie hesitantly approached the ball, placing her hands on top of it before throwing a questioning look over her shoulder, one that was aimed at Seifer. "Like this?" she asked him uncertainly.
"No, you have to get all the way on, like with your knees too," Seifer responded, glaring at Selphie for her impudence as she continued to give him a wary look. "Here, I'll show you," Seifer announced pompously, certain that he could do it, even if Selphie could not.
He snatched the ball, placing it hastily in front of himself before attempting to scramble onto it...and promptly fell off, landing on his butt in the lush, green grass of the field they were playing in. Scowling angrily at the evil beach ball, Seifer promptly stood up and brushed himself off, glaring at Zell when he dared to laugh.
"Are you okay, Seifie?" Selphie asked, her dark green eyes full of concern. Seifer merely glared at her in response, before kicking the stupid ball that had made him fall across the yard as hard as he possibly could.
Turning to face the rest of the group once again, he glared at them all in warning to make sure that they got the hint that he would not put up with being made fun of for this incident before reaching over to the sizable pile of toys and grabbing a medium sized rubber ball that he then handed over to Selphie. "Here, you have to balance this on your nose," he stated, having decided to give up on the whole beach ball idea.
"I thought that's what seals do, but I'm a dog," Selphie protested mildly, holding the rubber ball tightly between her tiny hands.
"Well, you're a special dog," Seifer lied, not wanting to have to argue with Selphie, especially since he knew that he was right anyways (as always.)
"Woo-hoo! I get to be a special dog!" Selphie cried out joyously, before carefully placing the rubber ball on her nose. As soon as she let go of it, though, it immediately feel with a plop to the ground. Selphie stared at it in confusion for a moment, wondering why it wouldn't balance on her nose; she was a special dog, wasn't she?
But Seifer didn't seem too put off by her failure. "Keep practicing until you get it," he commanded Selphie, satisfied when she nodded her head eagerly up and down, then reached to pick up the ball and give it another go.
Leaving Selphie to practice her balancing act, he turned to assign Quistis the next task. He pondered for a moment what exactly a bird in the circus would typically do, before coming up with a brilliant plan, if he said so himself (which he often did.) "Quisty is going to be one of those talking birds. You know, like the one we saw out at Cactaur Island that one time. And she can tell jokes and stuff," Seifer proposed, waiting for the group to acclaim him for his ingenious idea before moving on to Zell's act.
Now, what could a chicken do? Although Seifer was the one who had forced Zell to be a chicken, he now had no idea what he could have him do. He had never heard of a circus chicken, nor any other amazing (or even interesting) chicken before, so he would have to think up something original. Well, that shouldn't be too hard, now should it?
'Let's see...chickens are about the same size as rabbits, maybe I can pull him out of a hat like a magic trick? Too bad we don't have a hat that big. Hmm...'
As Seifer sifted through various thoughts and ideas, taking longer than he had with either Selphie or Quistis, Zell began to fidget as his patience ran thin.
"So, what do I get to do?" Zell asked eagerly, hopping from one foot to the other, almost as if he had to pee.
"I'm thinking," Seifer replied irritatedly, frowning at the way Zell had just interrupted his thoughts so rudely. "And stop that," he added, as Zell's bouncing around started to get on his nerves.
Zell immediately stopped, used to people getting agitated by his excessive energy, the likes of which only Selphie could match. But after a couple of seconds of holding still and waiting quietly, he began to grow impatient again. "Tell me what I get to do, Seifer...please?" Zell asked, being nicer to Seifer than usual.
Apparently it wasn't nice enough, though. Tired of Zell's inability to hold still and be quiet for more than two seconds, Seifer decided that he'd better get rid of the little pest before he did something that would end up getting him in trouble...again.
"Well, Zell, you are going to be...the Fantabulous Climbing Chicken. See that tree over there?" here Seifer paused to point to a tree not too far away that was a good size and had plenty of branches low enough for Zell to be able to climb it. Zell nodded his head up and down excitedly and, satisfied, Seifer continued. "Go over there and climb it," he ordered.
"I didn't know chickens could climb," Zell commented hesitantly, afraid of angering Seifer further.
"Well, that's what makes you fantabulous, stupid," Seifer explained with exasperation, rolling his eyes at the fact that Zell was unable to figure out that quite obvious answer on his own.
"Oh," was all that Zell could think of in reply, the insult hardly even registering.
Squall, however, picked up on it. "That wasn't very nice, Seifa," he commented quietly, unable to properly pronounce Seifer's name, as he hugged his stuffed lion Griever to his chest.
Seifer merely gave Squall a look of slight disbelief, as if asking why on earth Squall cares if Zell gets picked on. "Who said I was trying to be nice?" he remarked with the best smirk a five year old could hope to achieve.
Irvine crossed his arms nonchalantly over his chest, rolling his eyes, as if unimpressed by Seifer's attitude. Seifer chose not to acknowledge him as he pointed to the tree he had designated earlier, clearly signaling Zell to go practice his 'Fantabulous Climbing Chicken' routine.
Zell trotted off obediently, though the bounce in his steps made it appear more as if he was skipping, and to the tree he went.
Turning back towards the remaining two of his circus crew, Seifer decided to next assign Irvine a task, because (if he remembered correctly) the lion was always brought out last, for the grand finale.
Because Irvine was a tiger (at Seifer's insistence, he had wanted to be a horse), Seifer decided that his trick would be to jump through hoops. He thought about making them flaming hoops, to spice things up a bit, but he was certain that Matron had hidden the matches and would be very upset if he played with them again after the last incident. (How was he supposed to know that roasting marshmallows and then throwing them at Zell in a fit of rage would result in Zell's hair catching fire?)
"You're going to jump through hoops," Seifer announced aloud to Irvine before scrounging around in the toy pile once again, finding a couple ofhula hoops that would work well for the tiger act.
Now that that was done, Seifer was free to proceed to the final act. Yelling for everyone to gather around and listen up, Seifer proceeded to tell the group about Squall's act.
"For the last trick, the finale, I have to stick my head in the lion's mouth," Seifer explained dramatically to the group, gesturing for Squall (a.k.a. the lion) to step forward. "Now open you mouth," Seifer ordered.
But when the three-year-old Squall opened his mouth as wide as he possibly could, it soon became apparent to all of them that Seifer's head was way too big to fit. Thinking quickly, Seifer soon came up with a solution for the dilemma. "Well, since Squall's only a tiny lion, I only have to stick my finger in." With that said, he stuck his finger in the 'lion's' mouth, leaving it there for a couple moments, then removed the amazingly unharmed digit with a flourish and a loud "Tada!" The other four clapped (some more enthusiastically than others) and Selphie shouted out an excited "Woo-hoo!"
Now that the preparations were done, it was time to show off all of their hard work at the grand opening of their little show. They decided to invite Matron and Uncle Cid (as they had dubbed him) along with all of the stuffed animals they owned (Selphie just had to have her favorite teddy bear Smoochie there to watch her performance and Squall was adamant that Griever not be left out either.) They had set up all of the toys on the steps leading out to the flower field, which was, at the moment, nothing more than a large expanse of grass, and had left an empty space right in the middle of the steps for Matron and Uncle Cid to sit.
There was even somewhat of a stage set up. In truth it was nothing more than a sheet draped over a clothesline which was supposed to be the curtains of the stage (Matron and Cid weren't quite sure how the children had been able to reach up high enough to drape the sheet over the clothesline), but it was rather well done for a group of 3 to 5 year olds.
Cid and Edea took a seat amongst the stuffed animals, smiling slightly at the grand affair that the children had set up for them. Once they were seated, Seifer appeared form behind the curtain, whispering frantically to the rest of the children before turning his attention to the waiting audience and plastering a large smile onto his face.
"Welcome to Almasy's Amazing Super Special Circus Galore!" he began proudly, sweeping his hands out in a grand gesture to the audience. "For the first act, we'll be having Selphie the Amazing Balancing Dog!" he announce loudly, soaking up attention as Matron and Uncle Cid clapped before running around to the other side of the sheet and pushing Selphie onstage.
Despite all of Selphie's hard practice, she still managed to drop the ball several times, never balancing it for more than a few seconds at a time. But at the end of her act (with Seifer whispering loudly enough for all to hear for her to get off), Matron and Cid clapped loudly as Selphie curtsied clumsily, a large grin lighting up her face.
The rest of the acts were executed in much the same manner as the first; what with Quistis telling silly jokes that they had all heard before, Zell scrapping his knee in the middle of climbing the tree and ending up having his performance cut short in order to get a Band-Aid, Irvine tripping on one of the hula hoops and falling flat on his face in the grass, and Squall sneezing on a very pissed off Seifer during the grand finale.
The audience didn't seem to mind too much, though; Cid and Edea clapped loudly and the stuffed animals merely sat there with little sewn on grins.
Everyone was fairly well pleased, Selphie especially. In fact, she had had so much fun being a dog, that she had decided that she would like to be one on a permanent basis. When she had informed Matron of this, she had been told that she was a little girl, and not a dog and always would be so, but Selphie had stubbornly chosen not to believe her.
She wasn't a little girl; she was a dog. And not just any dog, but a special one at that. She had gone around for the next hour or so on her hands and knees, barking every once in a while and rolling around in the grass.
Seeing that words would do no good at dissuading Selphie and finding it necessary to stop Selphie's admittedly harmless game before it became a problem and got on everyone's nerves, Matron decided to try a different tactic. That night at dinner, when Selphie went to sit down at her usual place at the table, she decided to take action. "What are you doing, Selphie?" she asked curiously, as if Selphie was doing something unexpected.
Selphie looked at her with confusion, tilting her head to the side as she pondered what Matron was asking. "I'm just sitting down for dinner," she replied hesitantly, wondering why Matron was unable to see that herself.
"Well, dogs aren't aloud to eat at the table," Matron stated seriously, hoping that this new approach would work. "I guess that means that you'll have to eat on the floor, then," she added.
"Edea, dear, is this really ne—" Cid began, before being cut off by the glare Edea was sending his way. While he didn't really agree with what she was doing at the moment, nor see how it was necessary, he assumed that his wife knew best and therefore left it for her to decide how deal with it.
Seifer seemed to be getting a big kick out of the whole ordeal. Turning toward Selphie, he pointed to the corner of the room. "Go over there and sit, Scruffy," he ordered her, making up a name that seemed fit for a dog.
Selphie pouted, but, surprisingly, complied. Although Edea hadn't actually planned on going through with it, hoping Selphie would give up being a dog in order to eat dinner at the table, she brought a bowl of stew and set it down in front of Selphie. Selphie stared at it somewhat glumly; she didn't even like stew; before bending down and lapping it up like a dog would.
"You know, Selphie, little girls are allowed to eat at the table. If you'll just be a little girl again, then you can come join the rest of us for dinner," Matron tried to reason with four-year-old.
"I don't want to be a little girl! I want to be a puppy dog!" Selphie cried out stubbornly, before continuing to lap at her stew. After a couple more sips, she declared that she was done with dinner and ran out the screen door to play.
It seemed that the rest of the children had a similar idea, as they all hurriedly ate a few more spoonfuls of stew before rushing out the door in Selphie's footsteps. Matron let out a long suffering sigh, finding that this whole parenting thing was much harder than she'd imagined it to be. "What do you think we should do?" she asked imploringly of her husband.
"We? Don't look at me," he replied, dropping his spoon and raising his hands as if in surrender. "This was your idea, after all," he reminded, shoving a bite of stew into his mouth as an excuse to not have to say any more. His wife merely gave him a withering look, shaking her head at the stew he had just spilled down the front of his white shirt, idly wondering if it would come out in the wash.
Oblivious to the conversation the adults were having inside, the children were plopped down on the lawn trying to come up with something they could do, something fun that is. Various ideas were brought up before promptly being discarded, until Zell brought up a game that they had never played before and was therefore found appealing by most of the group.
"How about we play fetch with Scruffy?" he proposed, using the new name Seifer had given the 'dog.' The rest of the group eventually agreed, before Seifer dove into the toy pile to find a suitable ball to play with.
He come up victorious a few seconds later, holding the dilapidated remains of an old earmuff, now only a fluffy, roundish, pink furball. "Here we go; we can use this!" he announced, throwing it as far as he could, expecting Selphie to immediately chase it.
Although Selphie was now growing uncertain as to whether she really wanted to be a dog any longer, she chased the 'ball' as was expected, picking it up in her mouth when she reached it. It tasted funny and it was getting hair all in her mouth.
She decided that she definitely did not like this part of being a dog. Wanting to get rid of it as soon as possible, she promptly spit it out into the grass, though even after doing so fur still coated the inside of her mouth. "Ucky!" she squealed, wiping her tongue with her hands, desperately trying to get the nasty stuff out.
The rest of the group was laughing at the sight that Selphie made, all of them except for Squall, who had a small, confused frown on his face. "I don't think you were supposed to eat it, Selphie," he commented sincerely.
Author's Note: Wow! This chapter was long! I hope you guys like it. Thanks for all of the wonderful reviews! I'll try and update again soon.