Hi guys, it's me again. *Sighs*
I'm a little stressed. In my ROTC class (I won't say what branch in case one of you tries to track me down and kill me), we're working on hosting a Military Ball. And it's tonight.
Yeah.
A day or two ago, I was still feeling really angry about something that had happened when I suddenly remembered that I had made Mad Dummy into an anger management counselor. So I decided to try to work on my aggression by writing it into a chapter. Unfortunately, this took a few days, and my anger has cooled a bit, so it's not as passionate as I hoped it would be. I'm still a little mad, and I don't want to talk to my teacher or even look at him any time soon, but I'll just have to make do. *Is disappointed with self*
But forget about my problems, how about your problems? Here's the chapter. See you at the bottom.
'Mad' Spelled Backwards Can Hold Back Floods
Neal walked into the Student's Office and blinked at the small training dummy that was sitting at the secretary desk. This was going to be a long day.
Offices always made Neal nervous, even if he wasn't in trouble. Doctors, dentists, it didn't matter who used the office. The fifth grader recalled a time when he was even younger when he'd been called down to the principal's office to get an award of some kind. Of course, no one had told him that, and he ended up crying just outside the door because he thought he was in trouble. Yeah, that's how bad it was.
He blinked again at the dummy. It was a head shorter than him, and was set in front of a computer as if it could actually use it without arms. It didn't seem to notice that he had arrived.
"Um," Neal said quietly. The dummy remained silent. "I'm here to talk to the counselor. Is… now a good time?" The dummy, clearly, was not much for conversation. "Why am I talking to a dummy that can't talk?" Neal asked, more to himself than to the dummy. The dummy tired of Neal's questions and floated out through an open window. (You won! Receive 0 EXP and 0 Gold!)
Neal watched the dummy go. He couldn't say he blamed the dummy that much. But now his path was clear, and a door with the word "Counselor" on the cloudy glass leered in his direction. Neal sighed. "But late than never," he muttered to himself. He hesitantly opened the door.
"DUMMY!" A loud voice made Neal jump. In the counselor's office, a small room that barely fit a large wooden desk, a lamp, and a tiny wooden stool greeted him, which was more than what could be said for the rest of the room. Another training dummy, this one much more obviously sentient, was hovering in the air and swinging his base around angrily. He was throwing knives at a dart board on one side of the room. Nearly all of the knives hit their mark, while a few spiraled to the side and bounced off the wall, to which the dummy would shout, "DUMMY!" and throw the next knife even harder.
"Mr.… Dummy?" Neal said. The dummy became distracted and missed the dart board again.
"DUMMY!" the dummy shouted again before turning to Neal, angry red eyes making Neal flinch. "What do you want? I'm busy!"
Neal was about to speak again when he noticed a picture of a blonde woman taped on the dart board with several knives in her face. "Is that Mrs. Linda from the PTA?" he asked.
"That is a DUMMY, is what it is!" The dummy landed on the floor and began to jump up and down angrily like a big boot. "It's thanks to DUMMIES like her that my cousin is getting replaced next week!"
"Your cousin, sir?"
"That's right!" The dummy jerked his head in Neal's direction. "My cousin is also my secretary. But thanks to that DUMMY that you see here, he's going to get replaced with someone because 'It's an object' and 'can't have a job'. Like that's stopped anyone before! It's stupid, stupid, STUPID!"
Neal looked at a knife that was stuck deeply in Linda's ear. "Is this legal?"
"Silly boy, anything is legal if you keep it a secret."
"That's rarely a good thing."
"Neither are DUMMIES like her!"
Neal decided to drop it. "Sir, I came to talk to you about… well, me."
The dummy sighed dramatically and jerked his head at the tiny chair in front of his desk. "Fine. Have a seat, boy." Neal sat in the seat. The seats exaggerated tininess and the desks exaggerated largeness made Neal feel smaller than he ever had been. The dummy looked at the tiny laptop screen on his desk. How did he use it without arms? "Let me see, let me see, let me see… ah, yes. You are Neal, son of Pete from the PTA."
"Actually, my last name is—"
"Anyway, my name is Mad Dummy! Since you are a student, you may either refer to me as Mad Dummy or Mad Dummy! The same rule applies for anyone who talks to me!"
"Um, yes, Mad Dummy, sir."
"Now then," Mad Dummy leaned forward and looked at Neal. "Tell me who the DUMMIES are." Neal looked confused. Mad Dummy rolled his eyes. "What seems to be the problem, dear sweet human child?" he asked sarcastically.
"Oh," said Neal. Then he looked at his twiddling thumbs. "It's my teacher, I guess, who is being the dummy."
Mad Dummy nodded as his had expected such a response.
"It's just… I know he's just doing to be 'helpful' or whatever, but it's not working and he makes me mad."
Another nod. "Elaborate, boy."
"You see, in class, we've been working with each other to host this 'fifth grade finale', where we all come and eat food and have fun before we go to sixth grade. And every fifth grade class has to do something for the finale, like sell tickets, make posters," Neal puffed his chest a bit with pride, "and my class is doing decorations!"
Mad Dummy continued to nod, eyes shut. "Yes, yes, yes, I have heard of this event through the fruit rope. Keep going—"
"Um, fruit rope, sir?"
"The gossip grinder, boy."
"Do you mean the grape vine and the rumor mill?"
"Whatever, whatever, WHATEVER! Continue the story!"
"Yes sir. Um, well, it turns out decorating is a lot more complicated than I thought. Everyone had different ideas, and then we had to pick what we liked best, and then we had to actually make all of it. The pieces are scattered between all of us, and we keep forgetting stuff or just think that someone else was doing what we were supposed to do! And that leads to constant arguing or just plain shutting down and refusing to talk. We've kind of silently agreed that we'll just do our own thing and then stick it together at the end. But then our teacher comes in…"
Neal paused to take a breath. Mad Dummy was watching carefully. "Apparently, we're not doing it the way he thinks it should be done. He keeps going on and on about how we should be breaking into smaller groups or gathering together for big meetings. So he decides to show us what he wants done. He makes all of the main committee members who are in charge of the different parts of the finale, like ticket sales, escorts, decorations, bring some desks to the front of the room for everyone else to watch and points out all of the issues that the leader doesn't have solved. I can see the tears she's holding back, and the class just laughs because they thinks it's funny to watch us all argue!"
Neal's hands balled into fists. "And even though I'm part of the decorating committee, he didn't think I needed to be up there because my position is 'debatable' because I'm not as prominent compared to everyone else! I ended up sitting on the floor near the circle to catch his attention, and he didn't even look at me! I wasn't even worth his time of day! And even if I did try to confront him, he'd just think I was being funny and get this stupid smile on his face. I hate that smile. And it's not like he's trying to make anyone feel bad. He actually thinks he's helping!"
Mad Dummy hopped once to catch Neal's attention. "Alright, alright, alright. I think I know what to do." Mad Dummy leaned over to his computer. "What's your teacher's name, boy?"
"Mr. Worchester… sir, please don't tell him what I said! I'll get in trouble!"
"No, no, no. Nothing in this room leaves this room unless I let it. I'm not telling your teacher anything. That is for you to decide." A whirring sound came from behind the door Neal had come in from. "Boy, go the printer behind the secretary's desk and bring me what I printed."
Neal hurriedly exited the room and found the paper sitting in the printer. He set it on Mad Dummy's desk before sitting back in his chair. On the dart board, the knives quivered and unstuck themselves from Linda's face and hovered around Mad Dummy. He stapled Mr. Worchester's face over Linda's and hovered behind Neal. One of the knives landed in Neal's hand.
"Is this real?" he asked.
"Yes. Now throw it at the picture."
Neal looked hesitant. "Are you sure this is okay?"
"Probably not by your DUMMY school rules, but it is in this room! Now, throw it, throw it, THROW IT!"
Neal held the knife like it was a dirty tissue and look at the dart board. Mr. Worchester had that smile on his face. He could practically hear his voice as he droned on for half hours at a time about how little time was left before the deadline. He threw the knife. It went way to the right and landed on the floor.
"You do not play sport, do you boy?" Mad Dummy asked. "Come on! You can do better than that! Like I always say…" Another knife hovered near Mad Dummy. "Who needs friends…" The knife zoomed forward. "When you have KNIVES?" The knife stuck Mr. Worchester in the nose. Neal flinched.
"Um…" Neal looked down at his feet. "I don't know if I can do this, sir."
Mad Dummy sighed. "Very well, very well, very well." The picture lifted from the dart board, crumpled into a ball, and landed in a trash can. "It's just the board now. Now throw the knife!"
Neal took one of the knives from the air and threw it a little harder. It bounced off of the board and landed on the ground. Mad Dummy was in the air and kicking his base excitedly. "Better, better, BETTER! Do it again!"
Neal kept tossing knives as Mad Dummy flew around in the air and shouted encouragement. Finally, there was just one left. Neal took the knife and studied the board. He pulled his arm back and let the knife fly. It spun a bit in the air before hitting the bottom edge of the dart board and dangled down by its point, like a beard. "Eureka, eureka, EUREKA!" Mad Dummy exclaimed.
Neal jumped excitedly. "I did it! I really did it!" He then looked up at Mad Dummy. "Do any adults know about this?"
"No, no, no, and if you keep your mouth shut, it will stay that way." Mad Dummy settled onto the floor and sighed deeply. "That always calms me down. How do you feel, boy?"
Neal thought for a moment. "Better. I'm still a little stressed about the finale."
"Are you sure you don't want to throw knives at the picture?"
Neal shook his head quickly. "I don't want to hurt Mr. Worchester, I just want him to be less of a jerk."
Mad Dummy nodded thoughtfully. "You know, I haven't had a student yet who has thrown a knife at the picture. I guess that means something."
Neal looked at the clock. School was almost over. He turned to leave the room.
"Wait a moment, wait a moment, WAIT A MOMENT!" Mad Dummy shouted. Neal jumped and turned around. Mad Dummy was looking in a drawer in his desk. "This is for you!" A small, pale blue toy knife landed in Neal's hand.
Neal gripped the plastic handle and smiled at Mad Dummy. "Thank you, Mad Dummy! Good bye!" he said before he walked out of the office.
Mad Dummy settled into the sudden quiet of his office. "Good bye, Neal."
Head canon I don't actually think #10: The other training dummy found in the Ruins is Mad Dummy's secretary. It handles things like scheduling and other minor paper work.
Did the training dummy get laid off? Probably. It's not like no one tried to plead in his defense, far from it in fact, it's just that the training dummy doesn't like to talk and couldn't defend itself. Mad Dummy, naturally, was mad, but the training dummy found a new line of work as a model at a shopping mall. Who became the new secretary? Probably someone like A Generic Male Guy. How did the finale go? After much stress, as well as it could have. Everyone who came said they liked it, while the fifth graders cried in a corner because of whatever went wrong. Such is life, it seems.
I like to think that Mad Dummy and Undyne could occasionally get along, since they're both very passionate. Maybe Mad Dummy could act as a substitute coach in case something happened to Undyne and Papyrus? It's not likely to happen, but I can always dream.
==============Hey Look A Thing For GuestVader You Don't Have To Read If You're Not Them===============
Recently I got a review from GuestVader that said, quote (Because of copy and paste):
Stuff I wanna see cuz y not.
1. Sans giving Linda a bad time for insulting Papyrus's cooking
2. Mettaton ranting about Diana's fashion sense
3. Napstablook helping Mad Dummy as school counselor
4. Undyne getting so riled up at a PTA meeting that Flowey has to do some serious s*** to get her to calm down
5. Muffet bringing her pet to a bake sale/meeting
6. Diana being scared of spiders
7. Alphys overruling any and all reasons Linda can think of that monsters shouldn't be on the surface. Get dunked on,hon.
8. Helen vs Muffet
9. Sans and Gloria talking about life's problems (drunk or otherwise)
…
I am now going to make this face:
:/
Because you clearly have not read chapter eight. There isn't even someone named Diana in this series. Why would you think there was, just because I've already used other generic PTAAU names?
And now, because of you, there will be no one named Diana in this story. And I'm going to try to avoid your plots.
"cuz y not"
Also, why do I get the feeling you're that Guest who I had to write to in chapter eight?
