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Post by champ103 on Aug 25, 2005 16:55:30 GMT -5
Chapter two is here, and arrogance is about to be rewarded, whilst tantrums are acceptable. Sorry for the delay, I sort of forgot about finishing it. Thanks to Kimia for reminding me.
Factory, part two
2 ‘In which arrogance is rewarded, and tantrums are acceptable.’
When Kimia arrived downstairs after an awful lot a tiptoeing, she was welcomed by the very quiet sound of the blaring black-and-white television in the main room. James was behind her as she approached the sofa, and they sat down beside one another in absolute silence as the top news flashed in front of their faces. ‘Breaking news,’ said the woman on the television effortlessly, as she sat at the news desks, several dog-eared pieces of paper in her wrinkled hands,’ The first of Mister Lemony Snicket’s golden pages has been found by a boy in Australia-‘ ‘That’ll explain the time he found it,’ James whispered to Kimia, who nodded, and leaned in to hear further news. ‘He will be the first to win the prize of entering the mysterious factory of Mister Snicket, when he and five other winners all enter in early March.’ ‘That’s still two months away!’ Kimia cried in whisper, before turning back to the television. ‘The boy has been named as PJ Thomas, a fourteen year old Australian citizen. Let’s look at this live report from Linda Rahldeen , who’s now with the lucky winner.’ The screen flashed to a pleasant looking scene of a field, where newspaper journalists, and television reporters were crowded around a teenage boy-presumably PJ Thomas-and a taller woman, who Kimia guessed was his mother. ‘How DO you feel, PJ?’ asked the reporter in a nasally voice,’ to be the first lucky finder of Mister Snicket’s lucky pages?’ She whisked the microphone away from her mouth, and held it up to PJ’s, but the teenage boy pulled it away from her, and held himself, looking straight at the camera. ‘Well, of course I was going to win,’ he cried,’ because I deserved it more then anyone else.’ The reporter looked slightly amused, and snatched the microphone back. ‘And why is that?’ she asked. ‘Because I’m better then everyone else,’ he explained, as the microphone was pulled back into his grasp. ‘I’m the biggest and best Lemony Snicket fan-I’m going to enter that factory first, and I’m going to win the prize. No one else stands a chance.’ The television reporter tugged away the microphone, and pulled it to her mouth again, although said nothing, and then decided to hold it up to the woman’s mouth instead. ‘Mrs Thomas,’ she addressed. ‘Oh, call me Annelise,’ chuckled the mother. ‘Annelise,’ the reporter corrected, with a roll of her eyes,’ do you have anything to say about your son’s victory?’ It seemed that Mrs Thomas was about to burst out laughing at that question. ‘Well,’ she giggled, her eyes bright, her cheeks red,’ I’ll be tagging along when March comes!’ She gave a small little chuckle. ‘And what about your son?’ the reporter asked. Again, Mrs Thomas seemed to be on the verge of hysterics. ‘He’s very confident with himself,’ Mrs Thomas replied, and with that, everything went black as James turned of the television. ‘Confident is one way to put it,’ he remarked. ‘Of all the people who could have won that prize, it’s someone who has a head big enough for it’s own postcode.’ Kimia shrugged. ‘I guess he seemed okay,’ she replied. James raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay?’ he questioned her opinion. ‘He thinks he’s a god. The REAL ‘biggest and best’ Lemony Snicket fan wouldn’t be so…’ ‘So much like Carmelita Spats?’ Kimia sniggered, and James nodded with a chuckle. ‘Exactly,’ he replied, and sighed. Kimia froze. ‘What was PJ talking about when he mentioned a prize?’ she asked. James looked up, as if the answer was going to fall down from the ceiling, but he shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘There’s wasn’t anything about it on the news yesterday.’ He stood up from the sofa, and gave a stretch and a yawn. ‘Come on Kimia, it’s in the early hours of the morning.’ He walked towards the small staircase again. ‘’Night.’ ‘Goodnight,’ Kimia replied, and slowly followed him upstairs, and retreated to her bed once more. It took her a while to get back to sleep that night: she was thinking about the golden pages-which there were only four left available in the whole world. PJ Thomas had showed her that anyone with a copy could find it-no matters on the personality, or the country. Come tomorrow morning, it would Kimia’s last chance to win-if James found a golden page. Their family didn’t have enough money to buy more copies of a book they already had two of. And as Kimia was thinking about who would win the next golden page, she finally fell asleep, just a few hours before she was due to wake up. -
Mister Snicket read the newspaper with quite surprise the following morning, from his factory in a small town not too far from San Francisco, when he was greeted with the words ‘SNICKET’S FIRST PAGE FOUND.’ The search for the pages had been bigger in his very own country then anywhere else, yet the first ticket belonged to a boy in Australia, which was a country he had thought wasn’t too interested. He thought wrong. ‘So, this PJ Thomas person…’ he began, to a mysterious figure beside him. ‘He sounds nice,’ said the figure. ‘Nicely stupid,’ Snicket replied. ‘Have you ever heard of someone who loves themselves so much? I mean, why couldn’t the winner be someone who loved something nicer, like rainbows, or wallabies? As far as I can see, there isn’t much about PJ for him to like anyway…’ He put down the newspaper on the table, and took a sip of coffee from an interestingly shaped mug. ‘Maybe the next winner…’ he murmured with a sigh. As it turned out, the second winner was not much better.
Pandora Morose-a young, loud, American girl, with short curly hair, and a seeming love for children’s jewellery, found the ticket just five days after PJ Thomas discovered his. She wasn’t much of a fan of reading, but she loved the idea of winning prizes, and upon that, decided that she must be a winner, and she said to her mother, or ‘mommy’ as she called her: ‘I want loads of copies of Lemony Snicket’s book please, mommy.’ This was the day of the release, where bookshops were filled of anticipated fans. ‘Pancake, my sweetie,’ her mother-Mrs Erin Morose-replied, addressing her as she always did. ‘Whatever for?’ ‘To win the prize, silly mommy,’ Pandora replied, and picket up a plastic fairy wand that had been carelessly left one of the nearby sofas. ‘Prize?’ Mrs Morose asked, and Pandora quickly filled her in, with a few stomps of the feet and strained words to get across her point. ‘Well, we most certainly don’t have enough money to get you ten whole copies,’ her mother said after hearing what her daughter had to say. ‘But I can surely get you one tomorrow on the way home from work.’ Mrs Erin Morose worked at a nearby bank, which was more of a smile-and-sign-things job, then anything to do with serious banking. And because all she did was smile and sign things, the pay was low, but the bosses of the bank had decided she wasn’t good enough to give a raise, or a promotion, so she stuck at the job, and smiled and signed more forms at hearing the news. However, the bad news of this job was that money was required when you had Pandora Morose as a child, for Pandora Morose had a way of reacting to things she didn’t like to hear. ‘That’s not good enough!’ she cried. ‘I might not win with one copy!’ She stomped her foot hard against the planked floor, and chipped a piece of her shoe heel off. ‘You might not win with ten copies,’ her mother tried to reason, biting her nails slightly. She was a good mother, in the sense that she wanted to keep Pandora happy as often as she could, but a bad mother in the sense that this seemed to make it so that Pandora owned the place. ‘Shut up mommy! You just want to wreck my life!’ she cried loudly, as tears rolled down her cheeks. She started jumping up and down angrily, her face red, her fists clenched. Mrs Morose gulped-this was, to her, just another of Pandora’s temper tantrums, ones that she pulled whenever she didn’t get her way, and ones that she didn’t stop until she had. Mrs Morose sighed. ‘If you stop, young lady,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Pandora continued screaming and jumping for a few more seconds, as if considering the idea, but then stopped automatically, and hugged at her mothers legs. ‘You’re the best mommy in the whole wide world!’ she cried. - When Mrs Morose picked Pandora up from school the following day, she held in her hands, a copy of Lemony Snicket’s new book. Pandora rushed up to her as she escaped from her finished class, and snatched it from her mother’s grasp; opening it quickly to see if she was the winner she was sure that she was supposed to be. Five minutes later, she was screaming again. ‘MOMMY,’ she roared. ‘THERE’S NO GOLDEN PAGE HERE. WHY DON’T I HAVE A GOLDEN PAGE? IT’S BECAUSE YOU HATE ME, ISN’T IT? I’M GOING HOME TO SLIT MY WRISTS.’ And naturally, she did this in the middle of the school playground, with all the students, teachers, and parents watching as she cried and cried, and stomped and stomped, and cursed and screamed and did everything a tantrum could possibly need in it. ‘You promised me ten copies!’ she cried, dropping the book on the floor and stomping on it, whilst holding up ten small fingers. ‘I got one-a loser book, a stupid book. There’s no golden page in it!’ And then she burst into inaudible screamed, drowned by her crying and hiccupping of the tantrum. And so, Mrs Morose whisked her to the local book shop straight from school, and bought her eleven more copies, just to make her feel better. She opened the first, and there was no golden page. She screamed abuse at her mother, saying that was a loser book, and then she opened the next, saw the empty page thirteen, and knocked over a family heirloom in her anger. She opened the third, thought she had the golden page, screamed, and then just saw it was a stain, so she scratched at her mother’s legs and made her apologize. She repeated it with her fourth of the books, and the fifth, and the sixth, and with each ‘loser book’, she grew angrier, and Mrs Morose grew more scared of what would happen if there was no golden page in any of them. She had already spent all her month’s wages on these books, and she couldn’t spend any more. The seventh, the eighth and the ninth contained nothing, and she had to hold Pandora down to stop her attacking the family cat, ‘Princess’. The tenth had nothing in either, and Pandora picked up the eleventh copy of the new book. She opened it-there was nothing but a blank page. And what followed in the following half and hour, until Mrs Morose promised another copy was violent, loud and desperate. Mrs Morose was starting to crack up, failing to sleep that night, knowing the pain her poor little Pandora was going through, and knowing the bankruptcy that she was going to end herself up in. She closed her eyes, and got a few hours rest, although she never fully went to sleep that night, and knew she wouldn’t again unless Pandora got until she wanted. The next day she found some spare money to buy one more copy, but if Pandora wanted more after that, she would have to go to extremes. ‘You got me another!’ Pandora cried happily at their home, sitting by the television, grabbing a hug at her mother’s legs. ‘I love you so much, mommy, you’re the best ever!’ Mrs Morose smiled-she loved it when Pandora was in happy moods; she was a perfectly acceptable child then. She held her fingers crossed as Pandora opened page thirteen, and she could have sworn she saw something shiny and golden before- ‘YAY, MOMMY, I WON ONE, I WON A GOLDEN PAGE!’ came the happy shrill of Pandora’s voice, pulling out the golden page and waving it excitedly. ‘I LOVE YOU MOMMY, YOU GOT ME A GOLDEN PAGE.’ Mrs Morose gave a sigh of relief; she just hopped the happiness stayed there for long.
When the news of Pandora’s golden ticket, the second one found, hit the press, it was all over the news on Kimia’s arrival home from school. James was watching it enthusiastically, chomping at a bowl of cereal, and her mother seemed to be paying some interest, although she was preparing some dinner. Kimia smelt the soft aroma straight away-it was what her mother described as ‘chicken pie’, but what Kimia described as ‘salsa.’ Her mother’s cooking was generally good, just not her pies-the dough needed more of ingredients that they just couldn’t pay for. ‘Another one found?’ she asked, sitting next to James. ‘You bet,’ he replied, taking a spoonful of cereal. ‘By a girl in America. She seems okay, if not a bit whiney.’ Currently, on the television, an interview with Mrs Erin Morose was taking place. ‘My Pancake deserves it more then anyone else,’ she explained. ‘She wanted it so much: she was scream and scream until she got it…loads of tantrums when she didn’t get her way. But I’m used to it now, I know it just means she’s really partial towards stuff…it’s a good quality.’ James turned to Kimia and rolled his eyes. ‘A good quality?’ he snapped. ‘More like a bratty quality-maybe she DOESN’T sound all right, she sounds like a brat.’ ‘”She screamed and screamed”’ Kimia quoted, and nodded, ‘You’re right.’ ‘She got twelve copies,’ James replied. ‘Twelve copies of one book.’ ‘Her family’s probably rich or something,’ Kimia fausley said. ‘You’d have to be to waste money like that…’ James snarled.
It had turned out that James’s copy had not contained a golden page any more then Kimia’s, or eleven of Pandora Morose’s had. Kimia was not too disappointed, since she hadn’t raised her hopes, but now that she knew she had no chance of winning, she had been less and less into the stories. Little did she know, the statistics of ‘no chances of winning’ were rather inaccurate…
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Post by xangelkimzx on Aug 26, 2005 8:03:19 GMT -5
Haha, it's so good! You mix seriousness with humour, Jorge, and that's a very good quality. It's really, really good and I love it. You should actually release it or something, and everyone'd buy it. And if the film came out then I should play Kimia.
;D
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Post by mysteriouscreep on Aug 26, 2005 10:02:27 GMT -5
Haha, it's so good! You mix seriousness with humour, Jorge, and that's a very good quality. It's really, really good and I love it. You should actually release it or something, and everyone'd buy it. And if the film came out then I should play Kimia. ;D Enter the Copyright Sharks.
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