Hey people, I'm back again! (Isn't this awesome?) I'm still having trouble with the end of Chicken-Kel and the Beanstalk but I decided to split it up yet again (who knows how many parts this will have by the time I'm done…) … so here we are…with Part II of the story…finally we meet "Jack" … not to mention the Beanstalk… ^__^ Hopefully I'll have some inspiration during some random class where I usually fall asleep anyway and will decide to use my time productively and finish the darn thing… but no promises. Its spirit week at my school and Homecoming is on Saturday (in other words: don't expect any new updates for another week at least….because I'm definitely not working on it this weekend!!) Well…I guess that's it for now… enjoy! (that's an order…)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'd think by now that you would realize this and not make me write a stupid disclaimer over and over and over… is that too much to ask?
Chicken-Kel and the Beanstalk: Part II
Chicken-Kel passed by a small farmhouse and continued strolling in the dust toward the tiny town in the distance. As she walked, she came upon an oddly familiar-looking man leading a cow. She drew closer and recognized him.
"Dom!" she yelled gleefully. "You wouldn't believe the weird things that have been happening to me!!!"
His gaze took in her wings and yellow feathers. "Yeah…I can see that. Maybe today is just an unbelievably weird day for everyone." He pointed to the farmhouse behind them. "The woman in there swears she's my mother. She calls me 'Jack' and ordered me to sell this cow in town."
They both looked at the cow. The cow stared back soulfully out of its big, brown eyes. "MOOOOOOOOOOOO!" it bellowed.
Chicken-Kel and Dom laughed and headed off toward the town again, leading the woeful cow behind them.
The duo finally arrived at the village and Dom went in search of a butcher or somebody who would want to buy his cow. His cow trailed behind him looking dejected. Then Chicken-Kel spotted a sign that read, "Cows wanted. Apply within."
"Hey Dom!" she yelled across the crowd. "I think I found it!!"
Dom walked over and glanced at the sign. "Sure…I don't think its quite what I was looking for, but it'll do," his blue eyes sparkled mischievously. "After all…all she said was that I had to sell the cow."
So they walked inside the shady looking building and peered around for the owner. Suddenly a tall, redheaded man slunk out from the back room.
"Cleon?!" whispered Chicken-Kel incredulously. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh…uh…hi, Kel…what a…pleasant surprise," stuttered Cleon, laughing nervously.
Silence filled the little room as they waited for him to continue.
…
The cow mooed.
…
Suddenly Cleon brightened. "Oh! You have a cow! Would you consider selling her to me?" he smiled hopefully at them, discretely sneaking peaks at the beautiful specimen of bovine goodness behind them.
"Umm, yeah, Cleon, Dom wants to sell his cow…err…do you mind if we ask – what do you want with her?" Chicken-Kel inquired.
"Yeah, well…you remember all those problems I've been having with my fief?" Cleon looked glum. "Well we're pretty broke right now so I decided to go into the cow business to raise a little money.
"You became a butcher," clarified Dom.
Cleon looked horrified at the thought. "Kill them? NO! They're much more valuable to me alive."
Chicken-Kel and Dom eyed at him questioningly.
"I started an All Cow Singing, Dancing and Performing Troupe. I plan to test them at this village to see what kind of reaction they get and then take them on the road with me," he explained.
Chicken-Kel and Dom just stared at him.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" said the cow.
"Oh!" exclaimed Cleon. "That was wonderful. You would make a terrific lead singer."
The cow nodded and beamed at him and they both stared at Chicken-Kel and Dom expectantly.
Dom sighed. "Oh well…I suppose I'll have to sell her to you now." He turned to the cow. "As long as you're sure you'll be happy here…"
The cow mooed enthusiastically, prancing about the room
"Now about the matter of payment…" Dom trailed off as Cleon's face fell. (A/N: *Thunk!* It landed unharmed on the grimy floor, dusted itself off and walked away.)
He fished through his pockets and came up with some lint and three strangely shaped, extra large, neon pink beans. He looked at them sheepishly. (A/N: baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!) "You know how I said I was broke?"
"Ummm…" started Dom.
"We'll take the beans (A/N: Dom: We will?) ," Chicken-Kel interrupted. "You can pay us back after you've made some money with the shows."
Cleon handed over the beans and led the cow to the back room, saying, "You look very athletic. I think I've finally found the perfect cow to do the jumping-over-moon scene…"
Dom and Chicken-Kel looked at each other, shook their heads and walked out, beans in hand.
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
"I can't believe you sold my cow to that idiot for nothing but a handful of really weird beans!!!!!" ranted Dom's 'mother'. She grabbed the strange, pink beans from his hand and threw them out the open window (along with the lint). About .571428 seconds (which is 4/7, which happens to be a very cool number) passed and then *WHOOOOOOSH!!!* a giant beanstalk sprouted outside the window. The two people and the Chicken-lady ran out to see what was going on. Standing there, his leafy hands on his hips, was a very…green-looking … Neal. He looked down at himself: at his feet, planted and immovable, firmly rooted in the ground. Above his head, the beanstalk continued reaching up into the sky, its top somewhere above the clouds.
"Gaaaaaaaah! I'm a VEGETABLE!!!!" he shrieked, waving viney arms wildly. Neal-the-Beanstalk glared at Chicken-Kel. "This is all your fault. I TOLD you vegetables were bad. But noooooo – 'Eat your vegetables, Neal,' … and so I did … and NOW look at me!!!!!"
(A/N: hey did you guys know that beans are nitrifiers … something about the roots … sorry about that – I'm in Biology and she had to go and mention beans right when I'm writing about them so I had to take note of it … and now back to your regularly scheduled programming … )
Dom's mother went inside, muttering about talking plants and the nitrogen cycle.
Then, suddenly and without warning, the Great Mother Goddess appeared before them.
"I have a message for you," she proclaimed, her voice terrible to hear, as it echoed all around them. Chicken-Kel and Dom winced and fell to their knees and Neal-the-Beanstalk attempted to cover his sensitive ears and failed miserably. The Goddess, noticing this, muttered something intelligible and switched off the reverb and turned down the volume on her sound system. "You must go on a quest," she continued in a softer voice. "You must venture up the perilous Beanstalk (A/N: Neal: Hey! I resent that!) to the Land-Above-the-Clouds and do battle with the pernicious Giant there who hath stolen they lands and fortune."
"I have to do what?" exclaimed Dom.
"Since when did we decide to speak in ancient Common?" Chicken-Kel wanted to know.
"Can you turn me back to normal?" Neal-the-Beanstalk demanded.
The Goddess ignored the first two and studied his predicament. "I'm afraid I have no control over what has happened to you…"
Neal looked crestfallen (A/N: what does that mean, anyway?) and started to bemoan his sad and sorry state, his leaves slowly wilting.
"…but…"
Neal perked up.
"If your noble companions will complete their task and bring me the Hen-that-lays-the-strangely-yellow-and-shiny-eggs that was stolen by the giant and was very precious (A/N: My Precioussssssss) to me, then I will consult my brothers and sisters and see if any of them can help you as I cannot."
"Oh," Dom said, "so if we agree to go on this...quest...for you, will you agree to try and turn all of us back to normal?"
The Goddess nodded.
"Alright, so now we have incentive..." started Kel.
"Incentive?!?!?" Neal-the-Beanstalk yelled, outraged. "I have no intention of staying a VEGETABLE for the rest of my pathetic existence, so you had better..."
"Ok, Neal, calm down," Dom yelled over Neal's ranting. "We're going, alright? I just wanted a little more information before we leave." He turned to the Goddess, "You said this giant stole my 'lands and fortune'? I don't really remember having them to begin with"
The Goddess looked a bit peeved. "You weren't supposed to notice that," she muttered. Thinking a moment about how to fix her argument, she added, "the evil giant has been plundering many lands for some time now, and has collected a vast horde of wondrous things, many of which, I believe, had formerly belonged to friends of yours."
"You know all this and you never did anything about it yourself?" he demanded.
The Goddess shifted uneasily.
Chicken-Kel leaned over and whispered in Dom's ear, "I think she believes it beneath her to steal her own stuff back, so she's trying to give us a reason to do this for her."
"Well I still think its stupid..."
*CRASH!!!* Lightning struck right next to Dom. Chicken-Kel shrieked and lost a few tail feathers. Neal-the-Beanstalk made a face. A slightly crispy, very sooty Dom grinned nervously,
"Heh...point taken. Up the beanstalk we go then."
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
And so they climbed....
.....and climbed........
.....and climbed some more.............
...until they finally broke through the top of the clouds. Chicken-Kel laboriously clawed up the last couple of feet and sat down on the fluffy white ground, panting, "You know, I never thought about how much I'd miss fingers as a chicken," she contemplated.
"Chicken fingers?" asked Dom.
Chicken-Kel shuddered. "I don't think I'll ever be able to eat a bird again."
YES!!! Yet another awkward place to stop a chapter. Joy. Rapture. Its just that if I didn't stop here, I would have to wait for a LONG time because there aren't any good places to end in the bit of the next part that I've written so far… so yeah… you choose… wait another three weeks before you read this part because I can't seem to get the next bit written… or let me end where ever the mood strikes me.
Anyways… what did you think? Enough randomness for you? Its annoying…practically the only free time I have during the day is in study hall or in a class where I don't have to pay attention and sit in the back… (a combination that doesn't happen very often, unfortunately) and its hard to get in the right frame of mind for this…by the time I do, the darn bell rings. Very, very annoying. But it would make all of that worthwhile if you would but review and laugh at my insanity, tell me this was the stupidest story you have ever read… that we should light a bonfire with it and use it to roast marshmallows (yum!!!) … or something like that. Actually, the marshmallows aren't such a bad idea. *goes off on a hunt for marshmallows and something to build a fire with…oooooh! My English essay!! Yessssss. This will burn WELL* yeah…so I'm kinda a pyro…nothing wrong with that…. As long as I don't burn my igloo down… * does a happy-penguin dance around her roaring fire…
REVIEW!!!! Trust me, it's not that hard. (pretty please? I like the number 7 and all…but bigger numbers are ever so much prettier…)
Toodles!!!
~ Erm the Penguin ~