Opening line, what opening line?
Ahem. Sorry to have cut out the anticipation of writing, but I evidently have mastered the skill of transmitting chapters. I won't be around to see it get shot to the ground or praised to the heavens, since I'll be playing at a Christmas concert for my grandma.
Anyway, this chapter is longer than before, and involves some characters not found in book or movie.
Disclaimer: I own neither 'the Bartimaeus Trilogy', 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' or its movie, a pamphlet on tornado safety (we don't get them here. Darn it), 'Life Strategies for Teens', (oops, I might own a copy but nothing more), the laws of physics, Japanese scripture, Microsoft (please don't hurt me), Paint, Megatokyo, however I sadly do own the Disclaimer Demons, who are currently locked in the boot of a car careening down a rocky mountain—
--Disclaimer Demons pop out of the fabric of space--
Female: YOU ARE USING A CLICHÉ; THEREFORE WE MUST KILL YOU!
Male: PLEASE SWALLOW THIS BRIGHTLY COLOURED CLEANING LIQUID!
Um, sorry, I forgot about their omnipresence . . .
Male: QUICKLY! WE MUST OBSESSIVELY RID ALL COPYRIGHTED REFERENCES!
Female: AND THEN WE MUST—
--Mallet wallops from thin air--
Sorry. Mallets are very cliché, but it's irony.
Read on, read on, don't have me stop you.
A Council wit--- DISCLAIMER DEMONS! DISCLAIMER DEMONS!
Up, and up went Mr Pennyfeather's shop. Up, and up, and— oh, then it went down a little bit, then up, and up, and to the left a little bit, then it almost looked like it was going to tip over, and— oh, it's going down, it's going down, faster, faster, oh my lord, this is going to be messy. I hope we can avoid a lawsuit . . .
Whoops, sorry, my mistake. I was looking at it upside down. OK, it's caught in a house-lifting updraft, which is lifting the, er, house, up in its, er, draft. Now it's more or less stable, bar being somewhere in the stratosphere.
Kitty lurched to her feet and carefully crossed the room to the window above the inventive hole. This stood as testimony to her lack of experience with such weather, because it was obviously unsafe to stand near windows during a tornado because you'd fall out.
--Pamphlet on tornado safety is flung with the intent of a charka--
Hang on a moment --leafs through pamphlet-- Oh, right. No, the pressure would just make the window shatter and send shards of glass into your face. Excuse me, I must go and find some antiseptic liquid.
Back to the un-shattered window. Kitty looked out, and saw a great deal of strange things pass by, obviously also caught up by the tornado. They were however lucky enough to have ignored the obvious fact their lives were doomed, so were carrying about their duties as natural.
A policeman was standing in what he thought was the middle of an intersection, puffing great big squeals from the whistle he wore around his neck. Although he couldn't see or hear anything, he thought this was normal peak hour traffic. However, this being a Sunday in the middle of the day, one must wonder how much concentration he can muster after getting kicked to the head a couple of times with steel-capped boots. Normal hazing, you know.
Next came an old man asleep on a deckchair. Since he was asleep on a deckchair, there is little to mention, except that he is asleep on a deckchair. Asleep on a deckchair, there was nothing to mention. I can write a lot about nothing at all, you know. Have you noticed? Pretty cool, isn't it?
--Amidst a chorus of disapproving 'no's, a self help book detailing Life Strategies of Teens, modelled on the author's father's book, Life Strategies is flung with murderous intent at the author--
Hey, you either get it, or you don't!
Then there was a magician behind a desk. This was probably even more boring than that guy asleep on the deckchair. Despite all the noise and movement, he still focuses on his paperwork, which is blown in every which direction. In fact, this all made him feel really good. He thought all the movement and noise was people fussing over and relying on him. The poor guy had low confidence. No, it's not Nathaniel. There are people with inferiority complexes other than him.
As Kitty was about to turn away, feeling quite ill (she didn't use a lot of public transport, since in London, it really isn't all that practical. For her, at least), the next sight was pretty surprising. A man with billowing black cloak, broad brimmed hat, and enormous black boots seemed be stalking something close by. Then the image flickered, and he suddenly transformed!
. . . Alright, there wasn't much of him to transform. But he hat grew a little pointer, and his boots suddenly flash bright red and a broomstick popped out of nowhere. And as this happened, he gave a malicious . . .
Alright, he didn't laugh. Come on, this guy is like the least dramatic guy in the series! But by taking some poetic license, let's say he laughed long and evilly, and great pinwheels of vicious magic pin-wheeled around—
--'Ptolemy's Gate' comes speeding through, smacking into the back of the author's head--
Yee-ow! That hurt! Don't you know how big that thing is? I would, if I had a copy, but it's thirty dollars and my shelf is full . . .
--Sharp bookmark follows, managing to skim so close by author's ear it shaves off some hair and boomerangs back to lodge a place in the book--
Alright, alright. Geez. Let me see . . .
Yes, in here he is immune to magic, so he couldn't be a witch/warlock. But this is a parody, so I can do what I damn well please, OK?
Anyway, at this point, the house starts to drop very suddenly. If normal laws of physics were adhered to, she'd be plastered against the ceiling now. But they don't, so she isn't.
"This disobeys the laws of physics!" Mr Tipples yells as they descend.
"You disobey the laws of physics!" Mr Buttons shouts back, telling the truth, as it happens. But that wasn't intended.
Whumph. Although obviously not the exact sound, but it was close enough in standard English. A situation like this really needs some Japanese kana to get it good enough, but my computer doesn't support Japanese figures due to some reason, possibly I'd have to find the Microsoft Office Disk and—
--Gigantic phonebook flies from opening and clobbers author--
Alright, alright, I'll get back on track.
OK. The house has landed, right? Kitty stumbles to the door, still wearing the sock puppets, and walks out, noting that the door and the rest of the house is still intact from being picked up by a violent tornado and dropped several thousand miles/kilometres.
The door opens (like undamaged doors do) onto a world that jarred Kitty's former view of it. It was incredibly bright, with every colour as if somebody had cranked up the Luminosity and Hue rating in Paint. The greens were brilliant, the blues were dazzling, the reds were vivid, my thesaurus ran out of words, and the yellows were enough to make her brain hemorrhage.
"Dear god, MY EYES!" screamed Mr Buttons.
Kitty looked around the obnoxiously bright village for as long as she could take. It was as far from London as possible.
"I don't think—" she began to say, but was interrupted by something unscripted.
"HALT!" screamed a couple of people, dressed in business clothes, carrying briefcases, wearing unnecessary glasses and half Kitty's size, despite looking about thirty five, which would make it risky for the woman to try and conceive.
"SHUT UP!" shouted the woman.
"Who are you?" asked Kitty. As if artificial candy red wasn't enough, now she was getting shouted at by a midget.
"WE ARE THE DISCLAIMER DEMONS!" roared the male, which seemed to be the only way they could talk. "AND IT IS OUR DUTY TO BOTHER ANY THAT DARE USE ALLUSIONS IN THEIR OWN WORK!"
"This is a parody," said Mr Tipples. "It's supposed to have allusions."
"You're allusions," shot back Mr Buttons.
"No," said Mr Tipples, unbothered. "An allusion is a passing reference to something else. As I am an OC, original character, I can't be an allusion to anything."
"Eat spools and die!" Mr Buttons shouted back.
"YOU MUST NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE YOU WERE ABOUT TO SAY!" shouted the woman, waving her briefcase threateningly.
"What sentence?" asked Kitty, every mobile inch of her face showing her rising annoyance.
"THAT 'I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS ANY MORE, TOTO' THING!" shouted the male.
"You just said it," pointed out Mr Tipples, ahem, Kitty.
"YES YOU DID!" screamed the female.
"NOOO! I HAVE SINNED!" bawled the male. "NOW I MUST KILL MYSELF!" He pulled out a sacrificial short sword from his briefcase, and was about to plunge it into his chest . . .
"NOOO! THAT'S AN ALLUSION TO A WEBCOMIC!" screeched the woman.
"NOW WHAT MUST I DO?" howled the male, quickly pulling out the sword.
"LET'S JUST KILL THE GIRL THAT SAW ALL OF THIS, SO IT WON'T MATTER!" suggested the female.
"YES!" agreed the male, pulling out a very nasty letter opener.
"No, I don't think so."
A pink bubble suddenly bulleted into the scene, blowing over kitty and the crazy midgets, and coming to a halt short enough to give anyone in two metres' radius whiplash. It suddenly (again) disappeared, revealing an old, kind looking woman with short white hair and perhaps a little more fat around her middle than was expected for the Witch of the— oops, getting ahead of myself.
If there had been any readers of Jonathon Stroud's acclaimed 'Bartimaeus Trilogy', they would have recognized the short-lived character of Martha Underwood. Except now she had wings and wore pink, but everyone expected a nice character to be made out of her, right?
"They wouldn't let me be the Witch of the West," she sighed, but in acceptance. "At least I don't get killed now."
"OH NO! IT'S AN OBSCURE CHARACTER!" screamed the 'demons' in horror. "RUN AWAY!"
They took off in a cloud of convenient dust.
"There you go, dear. You can say it now."
Kitty blinked at all that happened, then sighed.
"I don't think we're in London any more, Mr Tipples and Mr Buttons," she sighed.
"I think I like the movie line better myself," commented Mr Tipples.
"I hate you and your movie lines," snapped back Mr Buttons.
Thank you, and good night. Or day. Or morning. Depends on your location both physical and mental.
Read and review, please!
