In My Life—Now Contains More Vegetables
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"I didn't feel like writing yesterday. I'm probably scarred for life."
-From Makoto's Journal.
It was the next afternoon during a lunch break for Mayor Thomas. Still, he kept his job up well, on a business phone call with a merchant while fiddling to snap the can opener onto the can of Spagetti-Os, a goal that seemed impossible to reach. The can opener once again popped off, and the receiver from the phone slipped onto his shoulder.
"Okay, I'm back," the voice on the other line said, muffled into Thomas's shoulder. There was a pause as Mayor Thomas fumbled between the can and the receiver. "Umm… Mayor?"
Thomas finally got a hold of the phone, putting the receiver to his ear.
"Yes?"
"I can't get you those tomatoes for the Tomato Festival tomorrow," the merchant informed him.
"What do you mean you can't get us tomatoes for the Tomato Festival??" Mayor Thomas cried into the mouthpiece. He took a moment to finish slurping some chocolate milk through a loop-dee-loop, red plastic straw, and snapped back on it. "When will you get them??"
"Well, I can't."
"What??"
The merchant let out a heave of a sigh.
"The thing is, I was walking the cart along a mountain path to get them to Mineral Town, but then I hit a bump on the road, and…"
"Uh-huh…" Mayor Thomas nodded. He drifted off a bit, attempting to pop the top of the can once more. Clamp went the can opener, pop went the can opener. Clamp, pop. Clamp, pop.
"… then a guy took them! Some guy in a yellow tunic grabbed the crates, loaded them on rickshaw, and took off!"
Success! The can opener tore a perfect circle around the can. Mayor Thomas smiled to himself, not soon after realizing that the merchant finished his explanation.
"Umm… Mayor?"
The ambivalent murmurs seized. Mayor Thomas fumbled with the can opener, plunking it aside.
"You're fired, Van!"
"B-but, sir!"
Mayor Thomas hung up the receiver and turned to his can, getting to some diligent work of opening it. Cut short by the sudden ring of the doorbell, the top jumped out at his middle finger without him realizing.
"Enter!" he replied as he looked down at his middle finger. Reminiscent of a Makoto injury, Mayor Thomas bit and gnawed on the collar in an attempt to placate himself.
Gingerly opening the door, Won placed his rickshaw near the entrance and stepped in. He stopped in the middle of the doorway when he saw Mayor Thomas nibbling away at his dress shirt, stopping to scratch his watermelon-hat clad skull. Without another thought, he greeted him with a clap of his hands.
"Good afternoon, kind sir," he began. "I hear you need many tomato for tomorrow's Tomato Festival."
Thomas squeezed his bleeding finger, nodding and preparing his reply.
"Yes, why, how did you know, Won?" he asked the merchant.
"Word travel fast."
With a nod out of nervousness as he bled, Thomas said.
"I guess it does here in Mineral Town!" He winced at his cut, but looked back up at Won. "You can bring the tomatoes in here, and I'll pay you immediately!" But once again, he looked down at his finger, moving his clasped hand to reveal the trickle of blood.
As Won looked at the Mayor, he saw his tiny face and red nose go wan.
"Won…" he began. With a deep healing breath, he continued. "I'M GONNA DIE!!!"
With a slump of his shoulders and an incredulous sloping expression, Won let out a sigh.
"Sir, it's only minor!" he told the fretting Mayor Thomas. "You need not worry, Mr. Mayor."
Squeezing his ailing finger, the Mayor looked up at the exotic man only to hear a zip and the shatter of a window pane. A rock skipped from the ground, and landed back down to skid to a stop between Won and the Mayor's feet.
The blood zoomed to Mayor Thomas's round nose, nervous popped-vein hands jumping to his Larry Fine tufts of hair. Won turned to watch the Mayor well at work.
"AHHH!!!" he cried, the tugging of his hair and the whites of his eyes ludicrously portraying him in his most horrified of horrified states. "NOW MY WINDOWS!! THE HARVEST GODDESS WANTS TO STRIKE ME DOWN!!!"
"For what reason, sir?" Won asked coolly.
"I DON'T KNOW!!!" he immediately cried out in reply. With an abrupt stop, he turned to Won and said. "But I heard she's crazy!"
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The Mayor looked over in the corner at a dusty, turntable record player, a broad overture of dreamy proportions ringing through his head.
"What do you think life would be like if it was a musical?" he suddenly asked.
Won, even being savvy as ever, was taken aback.
"Umm… sir?" he began, incredulous look once again occupying his face. "Shouldn't you find out who broke your window?"
"Oh yeah… right."
And in the wake of the shattering class came more destruction. A collection of snaps mustered into an obtrusive crash, of course not to be avoided by the townsfolk. By the time it stirred the Mayor and Won into rubbernecking, there was already a handful of villagers standing around the wreck. Two ladders, a lot of bricks, one Gotz, one passed out Gray, and one Makoto sprawled out on his stomach, holding a perhaps traumatized Stu just clear of the wreckage.
With his jaw almost unhinged from his skull, the Mayor stood there for the frantic minute of swarming villagers. Right on his tongue tensely waited the words he wanted to scream out. The Doctor was tending over Gray, scrutinizing the unconscious boy. Mary was also kneeling over him, oblivious to the mortar that was dirtying up her pressed black skirt. And the Mayor still couldn't squeeze a word out, even if Gray sputtered out some dust and finally sat up.
It would best be expressed in a choreographed number.
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With a hard day's work behind him on a sticky night, Makoto relaxed with some piano playing. He was rather pleased with himself as he ran through a few etudes. With only the screen door shut, the cooling air of the sunset was welcomed into the house, or at least being honorably welcomed until Makoto saved enough money to invest in an air conditioner. If he felt like it.
As quietly as possible, Elli led the way up the steps to the shaded porch for Stu, the two dressed appropriately in shorts and tank tops for the heat wave. Stu was close behind, an eager look on his face as the intruding guests stood on either side of the screen door. Makoto stopped playing and took a moment to spread and stretch out his fingers, going into a song that was obviously practiced and played before successfully.
For a moment, Elli stood rather baffled. The befuddlement quickly turned to a satisfaction, pleased with Makoto.
"He's got it down!" she whispered to Stu. Stu looked up with a cocked head, but quickly went back to letting his eyes wander around the farm. Without getting to sidetracked from the comment, Elli turned back to listen to Makoto play with no strain, watching him as he gracefully ran his fingers across the piano. He finally went into the solo that was giving him so much trouble before, running through the uplifting notes and curving into the end of the song with the final chord.
"He's good!" Stu exclaimed with a little smile on his face.
With a quick motion of her fist, Elli knocked twice on the door frame. Makoto slowly turned from the bench to the door, and once he discerned who was standing there, his deer-in-the-headlights expression jumped onto his face. Quickly turning to carefully bring down the cover for the piano keys, he sprung off the bench and strode over to pull open the screen door.
"What's up?" he asked with a slightly discernable glint in his eye.
With a quick smile, Elli replied
"Actually, Stu has something to tell, and then something to ask of you."
Makoto immediately dropped his eyes down to the little not-quite menace, Stu meeting his gaze with his usual flicker in his dark eyes.
"Thanks for saving me today, Makoto!" he said. Makoto nodded.
"Was nothing," Makoto muttered in reply. He looked over to Elli with a flat expression, and she cracked another wry smile in response. With a shrug, Makoto looked back down at Stu.
"So Makoto, wanna be on my tomato festival team tomorrow?" he proposed. With a jaunty grin, he said: "So far it's me and my sis, and my sis really sucks. She has no aim!"
"I'll take the blame, Stu, but you can't even see over the barrels," Elli muttered with the roll of her eyes. She looked over at Makoto's eye. "Stu's a sore loser, and all he's been talking about lately is winning this year."
"I wanna win every year!" Stu declared. He then looked up at his sister, feigning a solemn expression. "It's not that you can't throw, sis, it's that you can't throw straight!" Then he looked up at Makoto with another grin of his. "I bet Makoto'll be real good at this! That's why I want him." Another look to his sister. "We'll be almost unstoppable! I've been practicing throwing high!"
Elli nodded.
"High price," she informed him, complete with her cock-eyed glare. Stu folded his arms with pouted lips.
"It's not my fault that window broke!" he exclaimed, pout turning to a frown. "I just… ummm…" His tongue went limp, and Elli let out a flash of a sardonic grin. She then turned to Makoto with a sweeter smile for him.
"So be on time tomorrow, okay Makoto?" she said, looking directly at him. "And get some sleep."
Makoto nodded.
"I will," he insisted. Elli let out one last smile, and then turned to lead Stu off the porch. Stu turned back to Makoto with the wave of his stubby hand.
"Bye Makoto!" he called out as he dashed past his sister and jumped down all three steps. Elli took her time to flip-flop down the stairs, turning to Makoto as soon as she reached the bottom.
"You'll play again, right?" she teased, a faint smile returning to her face.
Deer in the headlights. Elli waved a full goodbye, turning to head to the entrance marked with a wooden sign hung over the fence with the black-painted words "Strawberry Fields" with her brother to go home.
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Mineral Town, being the cesspool for cultural tradition that it is, has a strange custom adopted from Spanish culture. For every twelfth day in the summer season in Mineral Town's long history, the townsfolk gather in the town square, and celebrate the harvest of tomatoes with a peculiar tradition that began when play goers hurled rotten vegetables at actors during the most terrible of plays.
The Mineral Town Tomato Festival, better known as the day when townies get the opportunity hurl tomatoes at neighbors they loathe, or just are having some troubles with. Two sets of three barrels each stood a good fifteen feet opposite each other, large enough to hold enough tomatoes for the entire tournament with only a few back-up crates lined on the South side of the square.
In little fragments, villagers took notice to the chalkboard denoting tournament line-up, heading to their respective places after reading. A team consisting of Duke, Manna, and a missing was to open up the preliminary round against Doug and Ann. The two innkeepers were intimidating and vicious enough to strike down the rest of their opponents on their own. Last year, every other team succumbed in a sticky, tomato splattered and undignified manner to Team Red.
Within some time, everyone was settled, the two teams giving pre-match solid "game faces" to each other while the other teams and spectators assembled in the makeshift steel bleachers that were assembled for such events. From the bottom of the bleachers, Mayor Thomas handed a portable microphone to Rick, the chicken boy taking and tapping it.
"Testing!" he announced, heads turning. "Okay. Welcome, everybody, to the Mineral Town Tomato Fest! You know the drill, folks. Two teams of three hurl tomatoes at each other, and once you're hit, you're out! Last team standing wins!" He turned to the seemingly bored spectators as someone cracked their neck a bit with a sigh. "Okay…" he continued. "Let's meet the teams!"
He turned to look at the incomplete teams, and let out a groan.
"Well, it looks like we'll need some extra participants." He looked to the bleachers, noticing Cliff and Gray scattered amongst the spectators. "How about Cliff and Gray?"
The boys shrugged in reply, proceeding to climb down the bleachers. Cliff instantly had his mind made up and headed over for Team Red.
"While they're getting settled, I'd like to let you know that this year, our tomatoes were provided by Won!" There was a mild applause as Rick turned to see Cliff and Gray with their respective teams. "Okay. To the left is Duke, Manna, and Gray on Team Duke. And to the right, we have Doug, Ann, and now Cliff, the indomitable, colossal, seven-time champions…" He hushed for a moment, drawing the crowd into no such intense anticipation. "Teeeeeaaaaaaaaammmmm RED!!"
"We need a more stirring MC, eh?" Kai cracked from the top row of the bleachers. A couple of snickers rose up from the young folk up in the bleachers, including a giggle from Popuri as she watched him with sappy eyes.
"I heard that, Kai!" Rick huffed out loud, holding up his accusing finger. Kai cracked out a cheeky smirk as he watched Rick roll his eyes.
"Let's start the first match in the preliminary round!" he announced. With a ding from a bell, the match began.
A tomato nearly burnt up as it whizzed over from Team Red's side and splattered on Manna's face, two more following. From Team Red's side, Ann gave Cliff and her father a quick high-five. Duke stared at his wife, utterly stupefied.
The spectators watched on as Gray quickly flung a tomato into the air. Doug had chucked a tomato at Duke, only to have Gray's tomato explode all over his skull. With globs of pulp and seeds dribbling down his cheeks, he turned and began cheering Cliff and Ann on.
Gray heaved another tomato bomb up in the air, only to be splattered right between his shoulder and his neck. His head snapped to see Ann with a delighted grin on her face, and he just shrugged it off.
In the bleachers, Stu eagerly turned to Makoto, a grin on his small face.
"So, you get the feel of it, Makoto?" he asked.
Makoto shrugged.
"What's there to get the feel of?" he murmured in reply. He looked over next to him at Elli, who was casually watching the game.
Stu let out a blatant frown.
"You're only on my team 'cause you can even beat Team Red, but other than that you're a big meanie!"
Makoto kept his gaze on Stu.
"Cheeky brother you've got here, Elli," he muttered. Elli joined Makoto with her own gaze at her brother as Makoto continued. "Kid, you're not that cute."
Taken aback, Stu cried out.
"Sis! He's mean! Tell him to go away!"
With a shrug, Elli turned to Makoto and tapped him on the arm.
"Go away, Makoto."
"Okay," Makoto shrugged. He scooted over to the edge of the bleachers and jumped down. Stu watched him walk with his hands in his pockets to head back toe Strawberry Fields, mouth agape.
"Wait a sec, I need him for my team!" Stu exclaimed. He looked up at his sister as she smiled at him. "Sis!"
"Go get him. I'm sure he'll come back if you get down on your knees and desperately beg for his forgiveness."
Without another word, Stu hopped off the edge of the bench and took off at twice the speed of Makoto's stride. Elli turned her head to watch Stu down on his knees, Makoto kind of staring off and shrugging. She turned her head back to the match, and just in time to see Ann rubbing tomato glop off her face in disbelief.
It was Cliff and Duke left standing. Duke was in the midst of celebration, fists in the air as he bellowed out a "Huzzah!!" as his wife stared on incredulously. He found his grip on another tomato, squeezing it in his palm as he watched Cliff duck behind his barrel.
"Now to get that Cliff..." he huffed under his breath. He whopped the tomato out, hopelessly missing. Cliff came back with another hurl, but Duke dodged it.
They exchanged vicious volleys for a while, for a long while. Makoto came back to the bleachers, followed by Stu, and the two took their respective seats. People began to notice that Duke, in the midst of the intense stalemate, was sweating profusely. He grabbed his heart, on and off between a quickly paced inhale and exhale. Finally, he held up his arms, and the bell once again rung.
"And it goes to… Team RED!!" Rick cried out. Duke dragged himself from his post and headed in the direction of his house, Manna scuttling away close behind. Before disappearing complete, Duke shot a parting glare at Cliff, and all the boy could do was stand around and stare blankly as Ann and Doug slapped him heartily on the back.
It was beginning to cool down, the sky growing heavy and dull with clouds.
"Now, it's time for the second match of the preliminary round!" At that, the participating teams took their cues to head to the barrels. Ann walked up to Rick while rubbing her face down with a white towel and waited. "On the right, getting assembled right now is Team Poultry, with Popuri—" He groaned. "Kai, and myself." He stopped and handed the microphone to Ann, jogging off to meet his teammates.
"And on the left—"Ann was cut off by cheers once she spoke. "Is Team Rocket, led by Stu, with his sister Elli and our resident farmer Makoto strung along for the ride." She turned to look at the two teams, Stu giving her a thumbs up and Ann exchanging with her own thumbs up. "START!!" And with that and the microphone screech, the first tomato was lobbed.
Popuri looked up, running a hand through her sugary pink hair to feel the cold tomato that dribbled down her skull with a cry. She ducked behind the barrel.
"You should've ducked, Popuri," her brother admonished as he ducked down to talk to her. From Popuri's other side, Kai ducked down too.
"Don't sweat it, Rick," Kai said coolly, and upon that, Rick shot his glare at the seafarer. "Worry about getting Makoto out. He's the one you should be keeping an eye on." As he talked, he tapped a finger to the side of his twinkling eye. Rick huffed.
Team Rocket were all ducked behind their barrels as Stu revealed his thoughtful strategy.
"Makoto," he whispered. "You throw."
Makoto peeked out from around his barrel while reaching up for a tomato, and then quickly jumped up and came back down, rid of his tomato. Stu eagerly turned to Makoto.
"Did you get someone??" he asked with a hushed intensity.
"Rick."
Stu threw up his fist with a confident laugh.
"You should be a major league pitcher, Makoto!"
Makoto shrugged.
"Timing," he murmured as he gave him a gaze.
Stu spun around to meet his sister's eyes.
"Alright sis," he said with enthusiastic hand motions. "Let's distract Kai a bit. Once Kai is looking over here… POW!" He said it with a smack of a fist into his palm. "Makoto can wallop him!"
Elli nodded and looked past her barrel, but no one on the other side was standing.
Kai was taken aback, rubbing his sore eye as he looked up a Rick.
"Hey, take it easy, man! You're a bit gone there!"
With a violent grip, Rick grabbed Kai by the collar of his white T-shirt and swung him around, his back colliding with his barrel. It tipped right over, landing with a crack as the two boys rammed into a scuffle in plain view of all the gaping spectators. Everyone stood dumbfounded, a couple raindrops taking advantage of the moment. With baffled their own baffled faces, Team Rocket rose up from behind their barrels.
Makoto shrugged and snatched up a tomato as fast as he hurled it. Kai hardly noticed it land with a splat on his left leg. For a moment, everybody's attention remained fixed on the boys.
Finally, Ann gripped the microphone and brought it up to her mouth.
"And… Team Rocket wins!!" she declared uneasily as she bit her lip, tearing a gash in the clouds and bringing on the gush of rain that stirred everyone scatter off in every which direction. With a shrug, she switched the mike off and stuck it away in her pocket. Turning over to the barrels, she noticed Stu dashing up to her. The little boy stopped, trying to catch his breath as he looked up at her.
"You're ending the tournament??"
Ann nodded, but cringed with the crack of a punch from behind. Behind her, Rick and Kai were both smeared in tomato, now with matching left eyes.
"Awww… and my team was about to wipe the floor with yours!" Stu pouted. He sighed. "Oh well, I guess we can call it a tie this year, right Ann?"
With a grin, Ann replied.
"You bet we can! But… you better tell your teammates to be on guard." And with a sly grin, she let out a quick laugh.
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The next day, Makoto and Cliff were casually talking, until Makoto turned just enough for Cliff to sneak up and smear a tomato all through his mop top.
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Eat your veggies. I'm not extremely pleased with the chapter, a couple of moments here and there, but blah. BUT... reviews make me feel nice.
Anyway, thanks to all who read and reviewed.
Anime26Angel- I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter so much, and the cookie too.
Vivi239- Congratulations on bravely enduring seventeen chapters of this story… you shall receive a cookie in your mailbox soon.
Zomaelgustar the Wanker- God rest her evil soul.