Once Upon An Ali

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful pincussion named Hogomier. She lived all by her self in a sewing box..... and well, we all know they're not much for conversation. Hogomier was so lonely that she tried to kill herself, twice .. untill one day Princess Ali came rideing by on her cammel. The camel was fat and sleek and beautiful. Princess Ali rescued the pincussion of course, but that my dear, is utterly inconsequential to our story. Our story focuses on Ali. Ali had been sent on a mission you see. Her mission was to rescue someone she had heard about once on a chill, smokey evening in Arabia, sitting around her campfire at the edge of the dark, hovering mountains, listening to the traders stories to keep herself awake. That was the first time she heard of Him. The slightly deranged, beautiful farm boy who lived in a faraway land called...what was it? Ah yes...Illinois. The stories of the traders were so full of adventure and pain and romance, that Ali decided right then and there to give up her roaming, nomadic life herding camels, (she had long ago run away from being a princess you see...it was too hoighty toighty and she had to wear pink dresses CONSTANTLY) and go rescue the boy. His name was Adam.

So Ali headed off into the wilds of Illinois. It was a long hard trip... the train stewards were unbearably rude about the camel spit stains on her clothes... but she finally made it. She knew that Adam was being kept in a castle owned by the wicked witch Blues. Or at least, Blues was what everyone called her... no one knew her real name....

Ali travelled for 3 days and 3 nights with her camel and a strange native guide named Marina. Marina wore a strange bodice and had her hair in chopsticks. But that was the custom of the native people. Marina also had a pouch attached to her waist that she always kept her hand on, it was peculiar indeed. But Ali tried to keep her mind on the coming events, where she would either have to fight or outsmart this witch. Suddenly, interrupting her thoughts, Marina said, "The castle...Over the hill, there, you see it?" Ali looked and saw it's pointy towers. "Yes, I see it." Ali dismounted her camel and began to make camp, for it was becoming dusk. The camel, also known as Neo, sat down and attempted to sleep. Marina started to set up a tent, and Ali surveyed the area. A forrest to the left, castle to the right, by a river. They made a fire, ate, and got into the tent to sleep.

The next morning, Ali awoke with a start. Marina was leaning over her, with googly eyes. "Miss Ali must awake! There is trouble on the lawn!"

Rubbing her eyes and grumbling about a pea under her mattress, Ali stumbled out of the tent to an odd sight; about thirty or forty one-foot-tall men with red hats, green overcoats, large noses and beards were assembled in front of the tent, holding and fingering the small clubs, tennis rackets, trouts, giant candy canes, ukeleles and other instruments of violence. Lawn Gnomes!!! Looking from face to face sleepily , Ali thought to herself that they looked kind of angry. Over the grumpy muttering of the gnome mob she inquired of them What brings you fine little fellows here today? A particularly peeved, shy looking gnome at the front of the group piped up Well, it's kind of embarrasing, but if you'll observe closely, my brothers and I are holding instruments of violence and muttering grumpily, which in the etiquette of lawn gnomes usually indicates angry sentiments and easily incurred wrath. We're kind of of the mind of slapping you around a bit with a large trout.

Ali pondered over this for a few moments before coming to a conclusion, and promptly picked up the heyHeyHEY protesting gnome and dived Whatdyathinkyoordoin! into the crowd, swinging the ouchheywatchtheHat Yow gnome like a great club. In later times the feat was sung about as the Battle of Drunken Dwarves, and the heroics of the great Ali was praised throughout the land. Comon' in, the water's fine! she yelled to Marina, who, after regaining her composure (which had momentarily left on the sight of a lawn gnome flying into the air with a trout up its nose) joined into the melee, wielding her chopsticks with deadly accuracy and skill!

When the dust settled and the broken tennis racket pried off of Ali's neck, Marina posed the question of whether lawn gnome tasted good toasted and basted with garlic and olive oil, and the situation degraded from there with the aid of some of the 2-liter pepsi's the gnomes had used as weoponry.

Later on, filled to the brim and rather queasy from the filet minon Gnome with tartar sauce, the battle-weary Ali and the courageous guide continued on towards the castle, arguing whether the stewed Gnome with cabbage or the spicy ramen with grilled Gnome had a superiour flavour. Unfortunately for the adventurers, they had not given thought to the power of the witch Blues that could summon such culinary masterpeices!! If they had, they might have given second thought to walking right into the lair of this wielder of terrifying powers.

They banged on the castle door but to no avail. So Ali and Marina(armed with her chopsticks of course) walked around the big purple castle trying to find an alternate way of entrance. They found a small hole in the stone, just big enough to fit through and before Marina could stop her Ali had disapeared. Marina cautiously stuck her head in and carefully poked around with her chopsticks in the darkness. She wandered in a few more feet wondering why she couldn't hear Ali When she felt her chopstick sink into soemthing that was most certainly more than Air. She resisted the urge to scream because she knew what would happen if they were caught but she pulled the chopstick out of whatever was in front of her and very slowly stuck the end in her mouth. It wasn't a Gnome. It deffinatly wasn't Ali and she didn't think it was dirt either.

Just then, she heard a small, pathetic squeak. "who's there??!!" Marina whispered in a dangerous voice, positioning her chopsticks over her head, ready for combat.

"Ahhhhhhhh" the voice said, the 'ahhh' raising up to a wail at the end. "Where AM I??" the voice continued, starting to sound like a whiney little child.

"Hold still!" Marina cried, "And tell me who you are! Otherwise I shall fillet you with my chopsticks of Doooooom!"

"No! nononono!!!!" Said the voice, and suddenly, a small light appeared, glowing just a few inches away from Marina and startling her so much that she must have jumped a foot.

The light came from a cigarrette lighter clutched in the hands of a weird looking boy with wild matted dark hair and the biggest mouth Marina had ever seen. He looked as surprised as she was. From everything Ali had told her, this could only be one person. Adam.

"Adam???" Marina asked in an incredulous voice. She recieved a small nod in answer. She lowered the chopsticks a little but kept them ready to skewer soemone. She couldn't be sure that this wasn't just an imposter.

"How did you get here?" she asked.

"I got away from Lotus when she was throwing a fit and yelling at her servents because her guitar wasn't tuned right. I just slipped though a little hole in the wall and ended up in this tunnel."

"Where's Ali?" asked Marina without expecting an ansewr but to her surprise Adam spoke.

"There' a deep pit right at the start of this tunnel and she could have fallen into it right as she came in. Come on lets go look"

So they crawled back a few yards and sure enough, there was a deep hole. Marina dove in without a second thought and landed with a thump on a packed dirt floor. She could see three other people. One of them she assumed was Ali but the other two she couldn't palce.

"Hello marina dahlink" said one of the shapes in a low melodious voice.

"Yes, hello my Vanilla Ice Dust Bunny." Said the other voice sweetly.

Marina shivered in absolutely horror, as Adam called softly from above "Is she down there? Marina? Marina? Marina?"

"Adam. Shut up." Marina whispered. Then she asked softly "Ali?"

"Oh, she's not in the mood to answer you dear." Said the second mysterious voice. "She von't be coming around for quite a vile."

"No." Said the first voice, "Ve saw to that. Heehee."

There was a shuffling noise, and Marina saw the two shapes advancing on her slowly, shuffling their feet in the dirt.

"W-w-who ARE you?" Marina asked in a cold voice, trying desperately to locate her chopsticks, and realizing with cold horror that they were NOT there. Damn, she must have dropped them when she fell.

Suddenly the two were upon her, and she had a brief glimpse of two faces, before there was a sharp prick in her neck...a prick that felt like...fangs!

Marina screamed and kicked and struggled, trying to resolve the faces that she thought she'd seen with the creatures trying to suck her blood.

Her last thought was "I didn't know that Franny and Becky were vampires." Then there was total and absolute blackness.

When Marina came to she couldn't figure out where she was but she knew two things: She was very hungry and she didn't know where her chopsticks were!

"Eeeeekkkkkkk!!!" she screamed!!

Ali was beside her in a moment with one hand clasped firmly over Marina's mouth and the other shoving the beloved chopsticks into her hand (they had been lieing on the floor right next to her)

"Do yu want someone to hear us down here?" Ali hissed. Marina only whimpered quietly. So Ali took her hand and pulled her along a tunnel. a long dark tunnel with a very low ceiling and water five inches deep on the floor, which made for quit an uncomfortable journey.

"Ali?" said Marina quietly

"What?" Ali replyed with exasperation. Couldn't Marina be quiet for two seconds?

"Did you see their faces?" Marina asked with shock and horror in her voice.

"No! Who was it???"

"Becky and Franny!!!!"

Ali fainted.

"So. It's only you now. Alone and trapped in a tunnel. You can't run and if you scream the results will be hazerdous. I can assure you" said a horrible and low voice."

Marina fainted. Franny stepped out of the shadows and lifted the hood from her face. Becky climbed out from under Franny, and Franny fell to the ground.

"Darnit, Franny! Why do I ALWAYS have to carry you? Couldn't I be on top for ONCE?" Ted complained

"Silence, mortal" said Franny, as she surveyed the scene. As she was looking around, Becky stepped out from behind both of them.

"Ted? Why is your balance so lousy? You almost dropped her about a MILLION times. Do you know how freaking sore my arms are from having to catch Franny?? Do you? Do you????" said Becky

Ted grinned sheepishly and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Just because I play with my balls all day doesn't mean my balance is good! Besides, I can't even see where we were going in this dark tunnel!"

Becky pulled out her dreaded pink rabbit-kitten-pig hat, and shoved it on her head. Ted cowered and began his best to give Becky the bestest puppy dog eyes he had ever given anybody...(except for Emerie, and that time there wasn't anybody else watching...however, Ted did not remember that one time at this moment, and thats another story). "But where is Adam, that mangy little scoundrel we were sent to capture!" shouted Becky.

All three shivered at the thought of what the Queen of Blues reaction would be, when they returned empty handed. Even if they did bring the two unconcious lumps, she would still not be satisfied with a mere Ali and Marina!

Meanwhile...Ali was slowly reviving from her shock of discovering that Becky and Franny were vampires, and that Ted was serving as their wench. She groped around on the damp floor, trying to find (dum-da-dum) Marina's Catastrophic Chopsticks of Chaos!

Becky, Franny and Ted were still arguing about how they should go about finding this boy Adam. As well as other things, mainly who was going to carry the others because Ted had said that if he had to one more time, his ego was going to suffer a terrible blow. He sincerely doubted he would ever recover from it.

Ali had finally found Marina's Chopsticks of Chaos and quietly crept off down the tunnel, back the way they had come. She didn't really think that Marina was worth the effort to drag her. Finally, Ali arrived back at the pit which she had first fallen down. Quickly and skillfully she carved a staircase, huge chandiliers and all, out of the wet, clay walls with the chopsticks. Quivering with anticipation, she ran as fast as she could to get out of the castle.

At last! Ali saw the small hole which she and Marina had entered through, and tried to squirm back out again. But she couldn't. There seemed to be a large, hairy, damp object blocking the hole. She couldn't figure out for the life of her what it was!

Then, all of a sudden, she could hear a loud snuffling noise! "I know that sound, I know that sound! Why can't I remember where it is from???"

It dawned on her! This big, hairy, snuffling thing was......

NEO!!!

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