Necklace Nightmare

    She had to find the necklace, before the necklace found her. It had been twelve years of seek and destroy. Once the pact had been formed, Sherry was given a week head start. The necklace was hidden, and she had to find it. After her one-week head start, the Sentience Spell would be completed, and the necklace would come for her.

    Initially Sherry thought the task would be easy. One week to find a hidden necklace in an abandoned warehouse, how hard could it be? But the necklace's keepers were cunning, and managed to hide it well enough that Sherry couldn't manage to find it before the Sentience Spell was completed. And so here she found herself, twelve years later, with a sentient necklace searching for her.

    How much longer could she keep this up? She was exhausted. Well, as she had learned time and time again, sitting around sulking never helped, so she took a drink from her canteen, stood up, and resumed her hunt.

    Before Sherry finished slinging her pack over her shoulder, though, she found herself unable to breath, neck constricting, and vision fading. She reached behind her head trying to stop the cursed thing, but the clasps were too erratic; she couldn't catch them as they writhed about. She sank to her knees, everything was going dark. Memories swam in her head as she gasped for air. Wrinkly dresses, stiff shoes, tight undergarments, sun beating down. The discomfort! The humidity! Every single special event she could remember rose to her consciousness. She hated dressing up for special occasions.

    "What a darling!" Sherry heard her mother say in her head. She loathed those comments. All she wanted to do growing up was run around and play, not sit and look nice and be polite.

    She could see nothing. She could feel nothing. Her lungs burned for air, and just before her body gave up, the constricting loosened. She breathed fresh air; her vision slowly returned. She felt around her neck. The clasps had found each other and connected. The necklace draped around her neck, no longer tight, and seemingly no longer sentient.

    Her surroundings blurred as a large mirror appeared in front of her. The person staring back at her wore a poofy green dress, black and white saddle shoes, and a beautiful silver necklace. Her worst nightmare: she was adorable. "NOOOO!" Sherry screamed, falling to her knees.

    Later that day, she found herself with her cousins at one of the tables under the dining tent. The ordeal from the morning was mostly forgotten as they all laughed and ate. Several tables away she heard her mother talking with her aunts ". . . chasing her for TWELVE minutes trying to put her necklace on! I don't know why she doesn't like dressing up when we go out, she is so beautiful."

    Sherry finished her chicken nugget, stepped out of her seat and started running back out to the field they were playing in earlier, tagging Ronny - her next oldest cousin - on the way, saying "you're it!" Ronny and the rest of the cousins scrambled up and resumed their game of tag, laughing and screaming as the parents watched, conversing.

Cabbage's Triumph

    The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden, was silent, secretive and in much need of some tender loving care. But what tender loving care could be brought to an old house that was mainly used for growing cabbages? Well, old lady Wendrington had an idea.

    Coleslaw was the name of her family's game for ten generations, and she wasn't going to let that end with her. For weeks she cleaned out the old house. The overgrown garden was cut down and reduced to a plot ready for cabbage-a-plenty. Old lady Wendrington made sure to leave a row for the spicy peppers she needed. The famous Wendrington coleslaw was known for the delicious crunch, and flaming bite it brought to any pot-luck backyard dish.

    As the house was tamed, Spring approached, and with that, the time for planting. Old lady Wendrington retrieved her wrinkly old cabbage seeds and her knobbly old garden hoe and set to work. Spaced sixteen inches across, she planted seeds two by two, covered with soil, loved with a gentle pat, and watered. The seeds didn't stay wrinkly for long. They sucked in the water and grew plump in no time, ready to sprout roots and shoots in the warm Spring air.

    And sprout they did! Day by day each head of cabbage seemed to double in size, and by mid-summer they were ready to harvest. The harvest picnic was soon, and old lady Wendrington had some coleslaw to make. She set to work plucking and tossing each head into a bin tied to her back. When she was done, she brought them to the kitchen, unsheathed her mother's cleaver, and chopped away. Hours later she stood proudly next to a pile of chopped cabbage nearly as tall as the ceiling. Before she could turn that into coleslaw though, she'd need a couple more ingredients.

    She went back to the yard and harvested the peppers and brought in milk and eggs from the barn. The milk she churned aggressively into a thick cream for the base, the eggs she cracked into a large bowl, and the peppers she ground to a paste. Now all the ingredients were ready.

    The old lady sauntered over to the other side of the kitchen, stooped down, and undid a latch in the floor. She opened two large doors hiding a giant mixing bowl set into the foundation. She plowed the chopped cabbage into the bowl, and vigorously whisked the peppers, cream and eggs into the delicious binding for the coleslaw. When she poured the mix into the bowl, the aroma made her eyes water with joy, and the gentle thuds of fainting mice sounded through the rafters.

    The little old lady removed her little old shoes and her little old socks, stepped her wrinkled old feet into the bowl, hoisted her dress and began to dance among the ingredients. Slowly, the ingredients shifted from their isolated pockets into a homogeneous mixture, as the tossing and lofting of old lady Wendrington's dancing churned then about. "This is what gives it that extra 'kick'" She could hear her mother saying in her head.

    Hundreds came to feast at the town's annual pot-luck picnic, and the murmurs of the famous coleslaw could be heard through the hills for miles. The tradition alone was worth continuing to make her famous coleslaw, but old lady Wendrington did love the praise that came every year at the picnic.

    When she returned to the kitchen of the old house that evening, she smiled and sighed, content with her work. And as the scurrying in the rafters resumed, she retired for the night, leaving a snack for the mice, and the mess for tomorrow.

Court Catastrophe

    She had made a poor job of hiding the damage. There was nothing anyone could do to help her either. The only relief she had to aid her was the broom in the closet. So, begin to sweep she did. Left and right she made piles on the floor. Carefully navigating them as they grew more numerous.

    As she swept, she began to think about what went wrong. What could she have done differently to avoid such a catastrophe? "Stop doing this to yourself, Anne. You always do this to yourself." So, she continued to sweep. A maelstrom of sweeping prowess. What was once the remains of a cataclysmic destruction, was now a tempest of purity. No spot left unswept.

    And when the court had been fully swept up, it was time to mop. Mop like Anne had never mopped before. If sweeping the room was a dust storm, then her mopping was a hurricane of the ages. Water slicked the floor and drops flew everywhere. Eventually, the court began to shine like it did before.

    When the paramedics arrived, Anne directed them to the casualties. The poor kids. She knew they couldn't handle the pressure. They lay on the floor covered in residue from the damage. She should have spoken up. This is the same way her son went years ago.

    Eventually, the paramedics nodded to her. They would be ok.

    The clock was counting down, there was little time left. Fortunately the children stirred. Oh thank heaven Anne thought. The minister urgently returned to the court, not wanting to delay further. One by one the children approached the minister, hunched forward in lingering pain.

    "We applaud each and every one of your efforts, young ones!" the minister said in vain. The children could barely stand. Still, the clock continued to count down. The minister was beginning to sweat; he had little time left. "But there can be only one winner" he continued.

    "After significant deliberation, the judges have concluded that directly preceding the disastrous explosion, Adam 'Apple' McIntosh once again ate the most hot applesauce during our halftime show. Two point three gallons to be exact! And it's a lucky thing too. He consumed sixty percent of the total applesauce by himself. Had there been more remaining in the pot when it boiled over and exploded, it would have covered the entire arena, and let me tell you folks, we did not prepare a 'Splash Zone' for this basketball game!"

    The crowd chuckled as the children and attendees exited the court, making room for the players to continue the game. One by one the children made their way to the triage room for further examination. In the middle of the walkway, though, Adam McIntosh couldn't hold his stomach any longer. He spewed hot applesauce all over the floor, walls, and the other contestants, and for the first time since he sat down to begin the contest, smiled in wonderful relief.

    As Anne finished the last spots of the court, she saw the commotion, gave a sigh, and went to clean the walkway. "There's always something else to clean" she thought to herself. 

Fire Fright

    The fire was getting closer to his bum. It was hot. The heat he felt from the fire caused him to panic. In his state of panic, he decided to take his clothes off and toss them out the window. "Crap" he thought. "I'm going to need those. . . "

    Hours later, he woke up and prayed that the house didn't burn down. It would have been tragic indeed.  But now he needed a plan. With the recent trauma he faced, he wasn't sure if he could go out and brave the world by himself. He'd need a partner. A sidekick.

    That's when he decided to turn off the stove, put some pants on, and go out into the world to find someone suitable enough to be a good sidekick with him for days to come.

    The first thing he did when he went out was get the rest of his clothes and put them on too.