Chapter 4: Life in Exile
Thursday
3:55 PM
Centre of Free Country
Strong Sad and his friend were standing in a field, expecting Halloway and a demolition crew to show up soon. After a few minute's wait, a limousine pulled up, with a wrecking ball truck behind it. Halloway exited the limousine. Him and the guy driving the wrecking ball truck spoke with Strong Sad and his friend for a few minutes time, and soon, the guy in the truck knew all he had to do. Strong Sad watched as the wrecking ball demolished familiar buildings around Free Country.
He saw the wrecking ball smash away Bubs' Concession Stand.
He saw the wrecking ball tear down the goal posts at Coach Z's sports field.
He saw the wrecking ball crush Homestar, Marzipan, and Homsar's house.
He saw the wrecking ball crash through the King of Town's castle.
And he couldn't care less.
Thursday4:51 PM
Centre of Free Country
About two hours later, some other demolition crew members had arrived, and had carefully removed Strong Mad's room from the Strong residence house (Strong Bad's room didn't need to be removed—he always just slept in the basement), leaving it all just to him. He smiled.
He walked towards his house. He smiled. His house. It was finally his house. His house, where he could live alone, peacefully. He walked towards the door with the sound of his friend and Halloway discussing building the studio. He walked through the door, through the hallway, down into the basement. He looked around, and saw the couch, the television, and his brother's computer.
He observed his brother's computer. He didn't need anything to remind him of his family.
Outside, Strong Sad's friend stood with Halloway in between the various piles of wreckage.
"So, it's decided then. The studio construction will start as soon as we can get this wreckage cleaned up," said the friend.
"Yes, that sounds like a plan," clarified Halloway. He might have said something else just then, but he was suddenly interrupted by the loud crashing sound of a Compy 386 computer smashing against the ground after being hurled from a second story window. They saw Strong Sad's head poking out from the second-story window of his house.
"Oh, sorry about the noise!" he called to them.
Thursday10:36 PM
Somewhere in North California
After wandering aimlessly for hours through miles of desert, the Free Country townspeople eventually found themselves in the ghetto of some Californian metropolis. They had made camp at the wall behind a pizzeria, where they had found some discarded pizza boxes with some breadsticks and the crusts of cold thin-crust pizza. Needless to say, they were still very hungry. They sadly lay on the grimy alley. They were so cold. It had never been this cold in Free Country.
And just when they thought things couldn't get any worse, it starting to rain. The freezing drops of rain pelted against them like bullets.
"I WANT TO GO HOME!" roared Strong Mad to his best friend, The Cheat. The Cheat made strange Cheat noises. Translated into English, it meant something like, "I do, too."
Strong Bad heard them saying this, and he muttered under his breath, yet purposely loud enough for them to hear him, "Wusses."
Yet, in reality, he was as scared as the rest of them. They were homeless, money-less and shelter-less. They were all cold, hungry and very scared. And this was only their first day.
Friday11: 47 AM
Behind the Pizzeria
When Strong Bad woke up, he was surprised that he had even fell asleep. He then realised that he must have fallen asleep very late, because he was so tired that it took all of his strength to lift up his eyelids. And when he did, he looked around. He was still lying in the alley behind that pizzeria. He saw that several other people were already awake. He then looked around. He could not see Homestar or the King of Town in the group of people in the alley. He called over to Bubs.
"Hey, Bubs, where did Homestar and the King go?"
"Oh, hey Strong Bad," said Bubs. He then looked around. "Hey, where are Homestar and the King o' Town?"
"I'm in here!" came the metallic sound of the King's voice reverberating through the metal dumpster beside the group. Strong Bad looked at the dumpster. The King of Town was, indeed, in the dumpster. He poked his head over the edge and crawled out over the side and back onto the ground.
"What the...? King, what the crap were you doing in the dumpster?" said Strong Bad.
"I was looking for food," explained the dirt-covered King. "I didn't find anything in the dumpster except some pizza boxes."
"OK, that counts for the King," said Marzipan, who was also awake, "But where's Homestar?"
They looked around. He did not seem to be in the alley.
"Homestar!" called Marzipan.
"I'm right here!" came a faint sound from around the wall of the pizzeria. A few seconds later, Homestar walked back into the alley, holding ten bowls with spoons in it, the logo of the pizzeria on the side of each of them.
"Oh, there you are!" said Marzipan, as he handed bowls to everyone there.
They looked in the bowls. There was some sort of red soup in it.
"What the crap is this?" asked Strong Bad.
He then took a sip of it with the spoon. It was tomato soup. It tasted delicious.
"This is great soup, Homestar!" commented Marzipan.
"Yeah, nice job, Homestar!" agreed Bubs.
"But, how did you get this? We don't have any money!"
"I know we don't!" said Homestar. "But I did this thing I saw in a movie once."
"Here we go..." murmured Strong Bad.
"There are two things that restaurants usually give away for free—ketchup and water. So I just asked for nine bowls filled with water and a bunch of ketchup packets, and I put them together and I got tomato soup!"
There was a pause.
"That's...actually, a pretty good idea, Homestar..." said Strong Bad, kind of surprised of what he was saying.
"Oh, that's so thoughtful!" said Marzipan.
"I LIKE THIS SOUP!" yelled Strong Mad.
And they all ate their tomato soup. It wasn't the best thing they'd ever eaten, but if you haven't eaten for a day, it was delicious.
Later that day, Pom Pom had been looking up at the sky. He saw that far off on the horizon, clouds seemed to be getting darker. He had an idea. He told Homestar his idea, and Homestar had not wasted a moment hesitating. The two of them got up and grabbed hold up the edge of the dumpster. They slowly pulled it forward until the dumpster was sideways. They took the garbage bags out, so now the dumpster was completely empty. So then, whenever it would rain, they could crawl into the dumpster for shelter. Everyone had applauded Pom Pom's idea.
Later, everyone saw that Pom Pom had been right. It did rain, and they all squished into the dumpster for shelter. It was much easier to sleep that night.
Saturday1: 31 AM
Behind the Pizzeria
Sometime during the night, The Cheat was having a bad dream. It was something about graveyards. Homestar was in it, too. He woke up suddenly, not really remembering anything about the dream except those two things. He looked around, but before he could fall asleep again, he heard someone inside the pizzeria yelling nervously. His voice was muffled through the doors, and The Cheat couldn't hear what he was saying. The yelling stopped after a few minutes, and The Cheat was able to fall asleep again.
Saturday
11: 05 PM
Behind the Pizzeria
"Get up, you lousy hobos!" yelled a gruff voice. It woke up all of them. They looked around. There were large puddles from last night's rain. There was a man standing in front of the dumpster. He wore a sweatshirt with the word REPO on it.
"Wha...what's happening?" muttered Strong Bad as he woke up.
"We're from the Repossession Depot. We're here to take all of the pizzeria's stuff."
"Why is the pizzeria being repossessed?" asked Marzipan.
"The owner couldn't pay his bills," said the Repo guy. "We're here to take all of his stuff. Including that dumpster, so get out."Everyone uncomfortably moved out. Another Repo guy came up and the two of them picked up the dumpster and carried it around the side of the building. Within 30 minutes, everything in the pizzeria was gone.
No more food for them.