Hello, my fellow crazy people (or sane, if you are) on FanFiction. I know I haven't updated in...three months, I think, but I kind of gave up on writing a month ago, assuming that no one would read this anymore. But then my friend at school started bothering me about updating (*cough, cough* Mewcat60 *cough, cough*) so...here I am!
Astra wanted to quit. Like, now.
Okay, so penguins would chide her with, "You'll never get anywhere if you're a quitter!" or something along those lines, but if anyone else was in her place, they would go mentally insane, and not like Astra's "fun" crazy. It would be more like mental-hospital-is-greatly-recommended-crazy, though penguins would joke that Astra belongs in a mental institute.
After the first episode of the show had ended, it was chaos on the set. Some idiot decided it would be funny to put a thumb tack on a chair and PH ended up sitting on the pin. She had been so angry that she went after Skye, who turned out to have left the push pin on the seat as the alternative to paying Jet Pack Guy the five hundred coins he owed him. That resulted in PH chasing after both of them around the set. Astra had never seen Jet Pack Guy so scared before, but then again, it was the level-headed PH who ran after them. She was usually the one to break up fights between EPF agents (mainly between Astra, who is short-tempered, and either Rookie or Jet Pack Guy), not the one who started the fighting (Has anyone else ever noticed that in any FanFictions, PH isn't the violent one?).
If that wasn't enough, Rookie somehow managed to annoy Jet Pack Guy, resulting in a wrestling match between the two. Then Dot started refereeing the match by yelling, "FOUL!" and "Ooh, that must've hurt!" In other words, she basically did absolutely nothing to stop them from hurting each other, PH was still exhausted from racing after Skye and Jet Pack Guy, and Jessie had left before the thumb tack incident, so the responsibility fell to Astra to break the fight up. That resulted in a megaphone with enhanced speakers, a giant-sized air horn stolen from Herbert's lair last week (no one needed to know how hard Astra had to kick that obese polar bear in order to knock him out), yelling at Dot to stop encouraging the brawl, and finally turning on Jet Pack Guy's jet pack, which was the worst idea because he flew out of control.
When things couldn't possibly get any worse, Rookie accidentally pushed Skye against the lights, knocking them down like dominoes. All of the film equipment would've been knocked down because of this if not for Dot, who was practicing her disguise skills by wearing a costume to fit in with the equipment. Her flippers immediately came up and caught a tripod with a camera on it before it could continue the chain effect.
To summarize all of the events, the aftermath of the first episode of Club Penguin Talk Show was one disaster after the other.
"You can't quit," Dot had said while trying on some random costumes when Astra complained about it loudly. "Who's going to keep Jet Pack Guy from killing Rookie?"
"You can't quit," Jet Pack Guy told her after briefly mentioning it as he tinkered with his jet pack. "We need someone to keep Dot grounded."
"You can't quit," PH panted, shooting daggers at Skye. "Who's going to keep the troublemakers in line?"
"You can't quit," Gary had hacked and coughed out. Okay, so it was a bad idea to mix some sort of fizzy green liquid with pink bubbles, but he should've warned Astra. "Someone has to clean up the messes." With that, Gary handed Astra a broom and mop before leaving the room to clean himself up.
"YOU CAN'T QUIT!" Rookie had wailed when she was discussing the idea with Jessie over the phone. He jumped and latched onto her feet, his flippers holding tight to her gray high tops. Astra let out a string of not-so-pleasant words and nearly dropped the phone. "Jessie, tell her she can't quit!" Rookie pleaded, putting more pressure on his flippers when Astra tried to run away. "There won't be anyone to keep me company!"
"Don't quit," Jessie laughed on the other end before hanging up.
"ROOKIE, LET GO OF ME!" Astra yelled, limping, hopping, jumping, and squirming around to get free of Rookie's grasp. Her foot was screaming in pain as Rookie's grip became even tighter since the fabric of the high tops weren't too thick to begin with. Besides, she wanted to go get something to eat, but couldn't move because of a specific green penguin wearing shades and a propeller hat.
"PROMISE THAT YOU WON'T LEAVE ME!" Rookie cried in desperation, grabbing Astra's other foot in mid-jump. Astra fell on her back and hit the back of her head hard against the floor. Stars exploded in front of her eyes. The pain in her foot wasn't as bad as the throbbing of her head anymore.
"You do realize I can quit because of abuse from other co-workers, right?" Astra grumbled, kicking at Rookie and squirming around until she finally escaped from his grasp. Grabbing a spare reel of film tape, Astra unwound the long strip and pinned Rookie down. Flippers flying quickly, she tied him up and made sure part of the strip went through his beak.
"Done," she announced, satisfied with her artwork. A tied-up Rookie was probably the best piece of art she ever created. Maybe she should showcase this to an art museum or something.
"MMF!" Rookie exclaimed in protest, rolling around on the floor.
"Hey, Jet Pack Guy!" Astra called, ignoring Rookie. She gestured to the green penguin at her feet. "Isn't my artwork amazing?"
Jet Pack Guy's head popped up from behind the box he was carrying. His sunglasses hid his eyes, so Astra couldn't tell what his reaction was until he spoke. "It belongs in a museum," he replied sarcastically.
Astra grinned and left Rookie like that after spotting Aunt Arctic. "Hey, Aunt Arctic!" she yelled.
"Be quiet, Astra!" a penguin shouted back.
"You're not even supposed to be here!" Astra argued, not recognizing the penguin as part of the group who stayed behind to clean everything up. The penguin turned pale as Astra blew the whistle hanging around her neck, a shrill sound piercing the air. "SCRAM BEFORE I LITERALLY KICK YOU OUT OF HERE!"
Aunt Arctic rolled her eyes at Astra before asking, "What is it that you wanted to discuss?"
Astra opened her mouth to speak, but made a split-second decision with the quitting idea and chose to blurt out probably the most ridiculous question ever: "Why is Sensei still the sensei if everyone who has a black belt already beat him in Card-Jitsu?"
The EPF Director stared at Astra as if she was asking what the answer would be to one plus one. "Astra, are you joking?" the Director demanded.
Astra shrugged. That question had been in her mind since she finally earned her black belt after beating Sensei in Card-Jitsu. "What? I'm curious. How is he still sensei when half the penguins living in Club Penguin surpassed his level of skill in Card-Jitsu?"
"Well, um, uh, it's...complicated," Aunt Arctic stuttered, trying to figure out the answer to that. "But-"
"I'm kidding," Astra laughed. She couldn't believe the Director was actually thinking about it, but it also made her guilty about wanting to quit. "Erm...this job...there's too much responsibility being hefted on my shoulders. I'm expected to break up childish fights, clean up messes made by other people, keep everyone in line, deal with Rookie in general, and starve. I can't believe that I don't even have time to eat! Do you know how important food is? It's essential to survival and it's appealing to me too! Eating is like my favorite thing to do after sleeping! I know that I'm an EPF agent, but food matters way more! I didn't get to eat since breakfast! There wasn't even enough time for me to grab a snack from the vending machine! DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THIS RIDICULOUS DRAMA WITHOUT FOOD?!"
Aunt Arctic chuckled. "Fine, Astra, you can get a day off tomorrow. You haven't had a break in a while anyway."
"I'M FREE!" Astra shouted for all the world to hear.
But when the phone rang the next day, she was anything but free.
Not a very good ending, but my writing's pretty rusty now.
Okay, so about Astra's very long speech about food: That is exactly how I much I love food. In Spanish once, my teacher asked me what I like to do on weekends (in Spanish, of course), so I said "A mi me gusta dormir y comer." Anybody know what that means without using Google Translate? I know my classmates will.