--in which everyone meets everyone else and things are set up for the aleged plot--
Somewhere in a dirty, dinky, dank, depressing, and disgusting alley, Paul absently strummed his guitar. The chords were shmarmy. He considered the shmarm and considered the many patrols of Evil Cookies that were out on the streets.
The bored bard played on.
In the Kingdom school was dull. "What about the mirrors?" asked a tall, wiry teacher.
"Uh," said a confused girl, who's name was Polly. "They're a-symmetrical?"
"What else?" asked another teacher, who was shorter and fatter than the other. "Gonna be a long year," he thought to himself.
"Um," said the girl next to Polly. She was wearing a dull red, long, flowing dress, and a short, pastel green vest. "They're not reflective?" she guessed. Her name was Eleanor.
"Why is that anyway?" questioned Polly, fixing the black beret that sat on top of her poofy reddish hair. The teachers both froze.
"Because Evil Queen Lydia said so." they both answered.
"We should do something about that," Polly commented.
"Yeah!" Eleanor said excitedly. "Like we could have a revolution, liberate Prince George, and put HIM on the throne!"
"Uh-oh," the small blond girl next to her said, as the door flew open, and a batch of Lydia's Evil Cookies stormed in, and grabbed Eleanor by her arms.
"Off to the Free Thinker's Jail with you!" one said, and they dragged her away.
"Hey! That's not fair!" Fuleasha, the blond girl, yelled. The Cookies stormed back in and grabbed her too, for good measure.
Polly's eyes grew wide, and she thought, "I've got to help my friends!" but was cautious about saying anything because she didn't think that she could save Eleanor and Fuleasha from inside a Free Thinker's Jail herself.
After school that day, Polly was walking down a dirty, dinky, dank, dark, depressing, and disgusting road, thinking of how she could help her friends. The friends she had left might not be much help: Jessie, the maniacally depressed student, Jack, the student who's brain was fried by SPAM fumes, and Jay Delphono, a student who didn't have much of a brain to begin with, and was possessed by... something...
Suddenly, she heard a sound that wasn't dirty, dinky, dank, dark, depressing or disgusting. It was CHEERFUL! Polly ran towards the sound eagerly.
"Back in the land of the -- Back in the land of the -- Back in the land of the Moon!" a male voice sang. There was only one bard in the whole Kingdom willing to play cheerful, shmarmy songs: Paul the bored bard.
"Is singing a song like that legal?" Polly asked wonderingly when she found him in the alley.
"Shh!" he hissed. "No!"
"Who're you?" Polly asked.
"Paul," he answered. "The narrator just said so." Polly listened to hear if the narrator would introduce her too, but all she heard was a vague mention of her listening to the narrator.
"I'm Polly," she introduced.
"I know, I heard." Paul said.
"Oh, did the narrator introduce me too?"
"No, I heard YOU. You just said so," he replied. "Duhh!"
"This is very weird," Polly commented.
"So are these stories," agreed Paul. "Anyway, no, I don't like Lydia, we can't talk here, I know where to go, how to help your friends and the Prince, yes, George, and where to get help.
"Whaaa? How?" demanded Polly. "I didn't even ask-"
"I've read the story before. This IS the second version, you know." Paul supplied.
"Is it?"
"Shall we go?"
Not much later, the bard had led Polly to the ABC Cafe, where 'the trouble began.'
"Yo! Garcon!" Polly said, snapping her fingers. "Cheese and crackers."
"And cheesecake," added Paul. The food soon arrived.
"You shee," Paul said with his mouth full. "The narrator lefst shish book-"
"It's impolite to talk with your mouth full of food," Polly commented. "It's even less polite to talk with your mouth full of baby squirrels." Then it was Paul's turn to be confused.
"Mental note: Stop making mental notes, you always forget them," he thought, but he forgot it. "Anyway," he said. "Because I know what's going to happen, let's cut right to the Queendom."
"Quoi?!" asked Polly, but it was too late, the narrator had already skipped to the next scene.
Paul had asked the Moon Queen for her help. She was an elderly lady who seemed frail and sick. Her oldest daughter, Itsy, was very short, loud, and Jewish.
"I'm sorry. We don't have an army because we are peaceful, as well as interesting, colourful, magical, surprising, artistic, musical, and wonderful. But you can take my daughter to help."
Princess Itsy waved to them.
"Would you mind getting on with the story?" the princess interrupted.
Paul glared at the small girl who would make much fun of him in years to come. Itsy didn't like him immediately.
"Uh, your Majesty-" Paul started.
"PLEASE take my daughter!" the Queen begged. Paul groaned.
They rounded up the rest of Polly's friends and the six of them sat around the ABC Cafe. Paul was eating cheesecake and combing his hair. They were working on a plan to free Eleanor, Fuleasha, and George. The plan was very...
...weird...
Paul checked his hair, and winked to Polly. He dashed out of hiding, and tapped the Evil Cookie on his left shoulder. As it turned around, Paul dashed to the right, inside the Free Thinker's Jail. He reached out the window and popped a milk-baggie over it's head. It immediately dissolved, leaving only it's keys behind.
The other five plotters joined Paul, and used the keys to free Eleanor and Fuleasha. They left Jack and Jay in the cells, wearing dresses, make-up, and wigs, not to mention stuffing.
They were there to keep people from noticing that Eleanor and Fuleasha were missing. It wasn't very effective, but it was extremely amusing.
Then they walked into the castle, with Itsy and Polly in hysterics about Jack and Jay. They arrived at the bottom of the tower, and Polly handed the keys to Itsy.
"You go get George out," Paul said.
"You just want to ditch me!" Itsy accused.
"We want to keep you safe because your mother might declare war on us if you get hurt." Paul lied.
The group was out of Itsy's sight before she realized that without an army, her mother COULDN'T declare war on them. She sighed and looked up the staircase.
It was a long, long, long way up.
Meanwhile Paul, Polly, Jessie, Eleanor, and Fuleasha searched for Evil Queen Lydia (who wasn't nice.) They found her stirring up a batch of Evil Cookies with her magical silver spoon -- the source of her magic.
"Hey, get lost!" she snapped.
"Not a chance." Fuleasha replied. The Evil Cookies attacked, but the group was ready, and popped some more milk-baggies (provided by the dirty, dinky, dank, dark, depressing and disgusting schools) on them.
"I'll get you for that!" Lydia yelled.
"Wanna bet?" commented Jessie.
Meanwhile, when Itsy thought that she couldn't trudge another step, she came to the top of the long and winding staircase that led to Prince George.
She unlocked the door. It swung open. "Hello?" she called.
"Go away mother!" someone, presumably George, yelled. "I won't arrest Paul and that's that!"
"Umm... I'm not your mother," Itsy said, stepping inside. That was when she and George first saw each other.
"Uh," George said. "Hi?"
Lydia, enraged, threw a book at Paul. He ducked it, but Jessie caught it -- with her head. She passed out.
"See what you did?!" Polly yelled. She picked up the book. It was War and Peace, so it was nice and thick. She threw the book back at Lydia, who moved. It hit her hand and knocked the spoon out the window.
Paul picked Lydia up and sort of -- accidentally -- dropped her out the window. She splashed into the moat below, where she was sort of --accidentally -- eaten by her own moat monster.
"Are you okay?" asked George.
"I'm tired is all," Itsy said. "I had to run up all those stairs so I would be back in time to help the fight," She then explained how Paul and Polly had ditched her.
"Why that dirty, rotten, SHMARMY bard! I'll... I'll... I'll arrest him!" George yelled, then scooped Itsy up and carried her down the stairs.
The moment Lydia was sort of -- accidentally -- killed, her evil magic was lifted, and the dirty, dinky, dank, dark, depressing, disgustingness left the Kingdom of the Sun, making it even more interesting, colourful, magical, surprising, artistic, musical, beautiful, and wonderful than the Queendom of the Moon. Everything became symmetrical, and mirrors became reflective.
Paul realized when he was trying to comb his hair, but he couldn't see in the mirror until it suddenly shined his image back at him. "Hey, groovy!" he said.
Outside the now symmetrical castle, George's sister, Linda, saw her mother's magical silver spoon fly out the window, followed by her mother. She didn't really care, afterall, Linda was an evil and not nice person, but she did want the spoon. So she snuck across the newly mowed, newly coloured bright green grass, and stole the magical silver spoon, making herself very powerful.
George and Itsy entered the throne room, where a helpful person told them the group'd be. George carefully set Itsy down on the Queen's throne, although now it was his throne. He turned to face Paul.
"Paul, you owe me, BIG TIME!" he yelled.
"What?!" asked Paul, "But I just saved you!"
"But you also killed my mother AND ditched beautiful Itsy over there!" George exclaimed, and pointed to Itsy, who waved -- again.
"You didn't LIKE your mother, and we didn't ditch Itsy!" Paul yelled back, exchanging guilty glances with Polly.
"If I didn't hate to honor my mother's memory, may-she-rest-in-peace, I'd arrest you!" George said. "Now apologize to Itsy -- sing the shmarmiest song you know!"
"But that's Toast o-" Paul objected.
"I know." George said smugly." so do it. It won't effect Itsy, she and I are already in love, Eleanor left to get Jack and Jay, Fuleasha just thinks you're weird, and Jessie is asleep. The only thing you've got to worry about is Polly, and Itsy claims that you like her enough to sing it anyway."
Paul, defeated, pulled out his guitar and began singing. He was magically accompanied by violins and flutes. Polly sighed happily, and Itsy just kept staring at George.
Outside the door, Linda heard it too, and both she and Polly fell in love with Paul. But shmarmy ol' Paul only loved Polly.
"What'd you think?" Paul asked after the last note had completely faded away.
"Good," Itsy said. "Shmarmy, but good."
"I loved it!" Polly sighed.
"And I love you." Paul said smarmily.
"Gag me!" George muttered. "Itsy, I'd love to marry you, but at birth I was betrothed to the Princess of the Moon, so-"
"But George-" Itsy said.
"-and I really do love you-"
"But George!"
"-so I'm sorry, but-"
"George, I AM the Princess of the Moon!" Itsy exclaimed.
"Oh," he said. "So what are we waiting for?"
"The Priest?" Paul suggested.
"Rabbi," Itsy corrected.
"SPAM!" someone yelled, charging in.
"No, see, I'm Jewish so I don't eat-" Itsy started.
"Hi, Jack." Polly said.
"Hi!" Jack answered.
"Where's Jay?" Paul asked. Eleanor shrugged.
"Still there," she said, and everyone laughed.
"Paul, there's still one more thing you have to do before I can forgive you," George said. "Find me a jester."
The room was silent, then Paul had an idea. "Jessie!" he exclaimed. "She can be your jester!"
"Alright, I've decided to knight you, for, uh..."
"Services to shmarminess." Itsy finished.
So Paul was dubbed Sir Paul and, for fun, Jack was given a suit of armor with SPAM written in giant letters across the shield.
Itsy and George were wed and moved into a symmetrical Sand Castle that sat on a cloud directly above the Kingdom.
"Anyone weird enough to like George has to be okay, I guess." Paul said.
"Yeah," agreed Polly, and Itsy punched her in the arm.
Polly had to go away on family business, but Paul had to stay at the castle. They said their shmarmy "Good-bye"'s and parted.
Unfortunately, the elderly Moon Queen died, so Itsy was crowned Queen of the Moon. It was then that the last of Lydia's evil magic was lifted. Eleanor discovered that her long, flowing, dull red dress had become bright red and very short. Her short pastel green vest had become very long and neon green.
"Dude, cool!" she exclaimed, and she skateboarded off into the sunset.
And they lived shmarmily ever after -- er-- sorta...
