Username: Emalthya
Chapter Title: The Chapter where Little D makes a splash and meets some Talking Shoes
Set Up: Basically starting where the first part finished, Clubs is taking Little D down to the April Fool's party. (I got inspired after no ideas so... there's... yeah. Sorry. (not sorry))
LETS GO:
Clubs the Rabbot took Little D down into the throng of fuzzy creatures and random things. There were also sudden sounds like bangs and fart noises in between fresh bouts of giggles, snorting, and cackling laughter. In the centre of the confusion of activity there was a long table set with tea and cake and teapots which were actually cakes and cakes which were actually guests covered in icing and all sorts of other strange things.
“Excuse me,” called Little D to anyone who would listen. A few creatures turned to her and one prunny gave her a teacup with nothing in it. She looked closer and realised the cup was made of spun sugar. She licked it. It was minty. She put it on a pile of phonographs. “April Fool’s creatures? I need some help!”
Nobody turned to her. One small bodied but long limbed elephant moved his trunk around Little D to pick her up, but Clubs raised his cannon arm subtly and the plasma blast began to glow brighter until the elephant walked away as though he was actually two people on stilts.
“They won’t listen to you,” said a sad, slow voice. It belonged to a red panda whose face, like the faces of all red pandas, looked a little sad. He didn’t seem sad because of his markings, but because every part of him drooped. His ears drooped, his bushy tail drooped, and his whiskers drooped.
“Why not?” asked Little D.
“Because they don’t listen to anything if it’s not a song.” The red panda flicked away some icing from his fur with his paw. “There’s a stage up there and the only time when everyone is paying attention is when somebody is up there singing. Even if they sing very badly, everyone pays attention to laugh at them. If they sing really well, at least they all stop laughing to hear it.”
“No-one’zz up zinging now,” said Clubs.
“The last person was very good and the April Foolers wouldn’t let him stop until he fell off the stage.” He sighed sadly.
“You don’t seem like an April Fooler,” said Little D.
“I got caught up with the crowd and I never got free of them. Every time I try to leave, somebody dances with me until I’m so dizzy I can’t find my way out, or they carry me around and don’t let me go, of something else. It’s not so bad, but I am getting tired of the gag gifts.”
“I got carried along here myself,” said Little D. “I’m trying to get home. My name’s Little D and this is Clubs.”
Clubs let out a surprised mechanical noise like the grunt of a gear box crunching, then a pleased, higher noise like the sound an old computer makes when it stops booting up and starts humming. “Clubz.”
“My name’s Akane,” said the red panda. “Maybe you can take me with you when you go?”
Little D shook her head so her pink ears wiggled. “I have to use the wish of the Heart of the Park to get home and I don’t think that’s on the way to your house.”
“The Heart of the Park? You’d have to convince all the April Foolers not to use it for themselves to make it April Fool’s day every day. Can you sing?”
Little D thought. Of course she could sing. But maybe the question was, could she sing well enough? She didn’t want these hysterical creatures laughing at her instead of listening to her, and she didn’t want to sing until she fell off the stage. “I don’t think I could convince everyone…” she said slowly. “Can you sing, Clubs?”
“No,” said Clubs. “Only techno music and zzampling.”
“That’s still really cool!”
Somehow Clubs looked very happy, even if his face was metal and didn’t quite show emotions properly.
“I saw a guest with a pair of singing shoes earlier,” said Akane the red panda. “Maybe you could ask him for them?”
“These creatures might go for anything,” said Little D, “but I wouldn’t want to give some stranger my shoes.”
Akane picked up a box and a lid which didn’t match it. “Give him this in trade.”
Little D took it from him. “It’s empty, though?”
“It’s a gag gift,” explained Akane. “I last saw him over here.”
Little D and Clubs followed Akane through the braying, eating, dancing, and dashing crowd. Clubs was a little concerned that someone might get angry at him for being a rabbot, seeing as the whole mechacity was on the warpath against them, but nobody cared. Some young rabbit with a cupcake ran into him and smeared cream and icing all over his shiny front panel, but all the rabbit did was laugh, draw a smiley face in the mess, and run away. Little D was not thinking fondly about putting on some person’s shoes and dancing her way home. It sounded like another story of her brother’s, but that story had a pair of shoes covered in oysters which spat pearls at the enemies of whomever wore them. Singing shoes or oyster shoes, shoes which had been worn by someone else were stinky and sweaty.
“That one,” said Akane, pointing his paw at a strange creature with the head and neck of a giraffe, the wings of a bat, the feet of a stag, and the body of a leopard. Through some really intrepid tailoring, the creature was wearing a well-made and dandyish suit. On his back feet were a pair of sturdy brown shoes, like the shoes a schoolkid would wear. Little D could tell they were far too big for her.
“Just go up to him and suggest a swap,” encouraged Akane.
“But…”
Clubs put his claw down to where Little D could reach it and she took it in her paw. She felt better and the three of them approached the creature.
“I want to swap you your shoes for this present,” called Little D up to the bat-winged thing.
The thing looked down at her. “Me? My shoes? I tell you these shoes were once owned by a marvellous stage performer for so long they learned to sing and act themselves! And then they were given to Waxberry the Mortowog.” He spoke in a strange lofty tone.
“Who izz Waxberry?” asked Clubs.
“Why he’s me,” said the Mortowog.
“It’s a very April Fool’s present,” said Little D unwillingly.
Waxberry twisted his long neck down to look at her and the box she held. “If you insist,” he said, and he opened the box.
Out of the box swelled a torrent of liquid, as though a wave from the ocean had hidden in ambush and burst out suddenly. Waxberry was utterly drenched and knocked from his seat, right out of his shoes. At once, Little D could tell that whatever it had been, it was not water.
“I’ve shruuuunk!” shrieked Waxberry shrilly, capering around on the ground, now the size of a puppy.
Little D gasped and clung harder to Clubs’ claw. “Sorry!” she squeaked. “It was empty before!”
But Waxberry was laughing. “What a fine joke!” he cried, still prancing around. All the creatures about them laughed as well.
Little D looked into the box. It wasn’t even wet.
“Here, Little D,” said Akane. “I got the shoes. They're no use to him now; he's even smaller than you are.” He set them down in front of her so she could step into them.
The shoes had been shrunk by the potion, too, but not nearly as much as Waxberry had shrunk, because they had flown off his feet. They were now a perfect fit for Little D’s feet.
Little D let Akane take the box from her and set it on a pile of junk nearby. “Did you know that would happen?” she asked hesitantly.
Akane looked at her quizzically, the first time he hadn’t just looked sad. “You didn’t?”
Little D put on the shoes and tied them. They didn’t sing. “How do you make the shoes work?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Akane replied. “I just saw that Mortowog Waxberry dancing and the shoes sang along.”
“Let’zz go back to the ztage,” suggested Clubs.
Little D started walking back with him and a voice from below her said “Ouff I haven’t been this tight since I left the cobbler!”
“What?” asked Little D. She and Clubs and Akane stared at her feet and the now silent shoes.
Clubs shrugged and took a step. Little D had to take two steps to keep up.
“I can’t talk while you stand still, pinkie,” said the shoes.
“Oh!”
As they walked back to the stage, the shoes explained to Little D, Clubs, and Akane all about itself.
“I need to be able to flap my soles to say anything, and I can’t flap if you pin me down.” The shoes spoke in a squeaky voice, like the sound shoes make when you walk in them for the first week. “But if you do a dance, I’ll do a song.”
“I need to perform a song so these April Foolers will listen to me about needing the Heart of the Park’s wish to get home,” explained Little D.
“That would take a very good song,” squeaked the shoes. “Good thing for you, I’m a very good songwriter. What kind of music will you dance to?”
Clubs tilted his head and began to play a peppy, light-hearted song.
“That’s perfect,” said the shoes. Each shoe took a turn to speak as it was lifted off the ground and no matter how quickly Little D walked, the shoes still sounded odd.
They reached the stage. “Do you have a song made up?” Little D asked the shoes and then jumped in the air while they answered.
“Yes, just have that music-“ Little D jumped again “- from the beginning and try-” Little D did a twirly pirouette “-to dance and keep up.”
So they all went on stage. Clubs stood near the edge so his music would be heard better. Akane went to the front and yelled out “Here’s a new song for you! Listen up!” The he scurried to the side and began to clap his paws.
Little D glanced at Clubs, who played his music. Then Little D began to dance. It didn’t matter what the steps were, as long as she was always moving. She even had fun, jumping and spinning and tapping her feet and waving her arms. Over the sound of Club’s music, Akane’s clapping, and the sound of her own feet, she heard the shoes singing the song they had made up for her.
“Should our land be japey and jokey every day of the year~
There is someone here who would be disappointed, so I fear.
Her name is Little D and she is not some sour lemon face!
But she’s not from here and needs Park’s wish to go back to her place.
If a joke’s not funny to everyone, it isn’t worth a laugh~
Pranks all day without a smile won’t be so great by half!
There’s a cheer wish to make each and every year, don’t forget!
So send her home and next year we’ll have April Fool’s forever yet!”
Little D ended with a dynamic pose, breathing heavily with one foot raised.
“Not my best work,” admitted the shoes mildly. “But I only had about three minute’s notice.”
“It wazz v-hery good,” said Clubs. “I liked it.”
“I think they did, too,” said Akane, pointing with his bushy tail to the crowd. The crowd was not silent, but they were paying attention.
One bunny bounced up on stage, or was perhaps thrown up by the narrow-legged elephant. “We don’t need a wish to have fun all year! I’d hate it if I couldn’t be here having fun with you. The April Fool’s fun we make would be better than any wish can make!”
Maybe they listened to him because Clubs was still playing music, but the crowd seemed to agree.
“I think you won them over,” said Akane to Little D.
“I think so,” said the shoes, taking the credit.
Clubs addressed the crowd, still covered in cake topping with a melty smiley face drawn in it. “It’zz not enough,” he said. “You muzzt ztop the rabbotz from uzing-g the wish to make it always Eazter or Little D will be ztuck.”
There was a cheer from the April Foolers. Clubs turned to Little D and she could tell he was very happy. He may not have expected a teeny pink grunny as help, nor may he have thought she would make a big difference, but he was wrong and glad to be, because only Little D could have made an impact on these fun-crazed creatures.
He put his claw out to take her little paw. The ravening tide of rabbots was approaching. If anyone could win them over, it was Little D.
