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A lot of bad things happen in The New Divsion. As of my current planning, it probably won't get a happy ending. (I'm not saying it's got a sad "everyone you love dies" ending, but it won't be a nice neat, everyone lives happily after. I'm not going to pull an Infiltration here ... Miss Melody knows what I'm talking about.). I just don't think it would fit with the story and the message I want to portray.
So, in the spirit of bad things happening, we're going to write a story together. Where nothing goes right.
I'll start it, you guys can take over, and, as per usual, I will draw the name of a random participant and let them read all 18,484 words that I have written in this book. That's a prologue, six whole chapters, and three random words that are grinning at me.
Anyways ...
It was any ordinary day ... except that when I woke up, the sun was missing.
Naturally that made for a good deal of bumping and tumbling for my twelve brothers and sixteen cousins who all lived in the same house with me and my parents and my uncles (two) and aunts (also two, of course).
ReplyDelete"Who stole the sun?" asked my Uncle Jonadab.
"Don't be silly. You can't just steal the sun," said Aunt Forsythia. Her strong voice carried clearly through the dark. And then we heard a thumping as one of the cousins fell down the stairs.
"Everybody stay still!" shouted Daddy. "I think the dogs are breaking out of the kennels.
I should explain, before we go any further, that we train chihuahuas and poodles for dog shows, which is about the most despicable job in the world.
My clumsiest brothers, Vespasian and Evandrus, toppled over each other in their haste to reach the kennels. There was a clipped shout of pain as they stepped on whoever had fallen down the stairs.
ReplyDelete"You blithering numskulls!" I knew at once who the victim was: my oldest cousin Jarl, the only one among us to use a word such as "blithering."
"Ugh, it's so cold," my cousin Bridget grumbled somewhere near me. "Who knew July could be so frigid?"
"No, no, no!" Mother moaned. "The garden! It'll be ruined!"
Jarl began muttering under his breath as he fumbled to his feet. "You could watch where you're walking, folks. I think I've broken it."
ReplyDelete"Broken what, darling?" said Aunt Forsythia. Jarl had always been her favorite.
"Everything," moaned Jarl.
"How will we get him to the hospital?" cried Aunt Forsythia.
"Never mind the hospital," said Daddy. "What about the garden once those chihuahuas get into it, not to mention the poodles?"
Aunt Forsythia sent Daddy a withering look. "Of course you care more about those awful dogs and the garden than you do about your own nephew."
At that moment, one of the chihuahuas, which had somehow managed to get into the house, planted his sharp little teeth right into Aunt Forsythia's ankle.
Aunt Forsynthia's scream was masked, somehow, in the sudden terror of the youngest of us. My five-year-old sister Emilia was not happy to awaken to darkness.
Delete"MOMMMMMYYYY!"
All thoughts of the garden fled as my mother raced toward her baby. Daddy, however, was not ready to relinquish our only means of fresh vegetables. "Dark or no dark, we've got to get things under control. Abiah to Joktan," he said, referencing all the children between the ages of sixteen to eight, which unfortunately included myself, "outside. Vespasian, Evandrus, Jarl, get to the kennels and see if you can calm the dogs."
Aunt Forsynthia gasped. "Not Jarl! He's broken everything! Besides, I need him here to take care of me. I'm in such pain, brother!"
If eye rolling was audible, I'm sure I heard my father roll his eyes. But that was before we heard the sickening sounds of Sapphira suddenly taking ill. Again.