"But it's a tradition," the King explained. "started by my great grandfather, George III."
"But arn't you the FIRST George in your family?" questioned the Queen.
"Uh-huh," he responded. "Long story -- no time to explain now -- I have to make all the arrangements -- food, entertainment, advertizing, merchendizing -- and then there are always those scurvy knaves that call themselves sponcers!" He began pacing and throwing his arms frantically.
"Geez, George!" shouted Itsy. "Calm down! We can work it out!"
The King was in a panic. He usually was much more rational and calm, but not at this time. George was trying to plan the Festival Of Phoebus, which was a traditional celebration of the Sun Kingdom. When George's father died and the Evil Queen Lydia took over, all of these such things were forbidden, but now that George was King, it really was quite a time for a party.
The Festival Of Phoebus was origionally a celebration that took place after the Kingdom's triumph at the Battle Of Barney, under the reign of George's great grandfather. George III was nicknamed Phoebus, after the God of the Sun, because of his herioc efforts to protect the Kingdom from big purple dinosaurs who were out to invade the Kingdom. These horrible beasts frightened little children and forced them to sing stupid songs. The King and his Army caused them to become very, very extinct. The day after, a celebration was thown as the Kingdom rejoiced their defeat. Ever since, there had been a festival each year, in memory of it -- though now the whole ordeal was strictly commercial.
After a full day of planning this extrodinary event, King George was exausted and nervous. He decided to rest, and watch the sun set out in the splendour of his Kingdom, sitting on a bench with Itsy.
George sighed. "What a day," he commented.
"So, are you all ready for tomorrow?" asked Itsy.
"What's tomorrow?"
"The Festival."
"Oh yeah, I guess." he answered. They then heard someone running behind them. The King and Queen turned around to see them duck behind one of the clouds.
"Hi Paul, you too Polly." said the King.
"Darn it!" Paul muttered, then he and Polly crawled out from behind the cloud and went over to their friends.
"So when did you two get back from your -- ahem -- honeymoon?" asked Itsy.
"A few minutes ago," answered Paul. "Ya know, Nowhere is quite nice this time of year."
"I bet it is," said the King, uninterested. "Now go away."
"What if we don't want to?" asked Polly with a smirk.
"GO AWAY!"
"Alright, we're goin'!"
As the two of them began to leave, the sound of hooves came clapping towards them. Polly, Paul, Itsy, and George turned around to see Jack galoping up towards them. This might not've been too unusual, exepting the fact that Jack was not on a horse, and some weird man was following him, clapping together empty coconut shells.
"Hey guys!" he exclaimed. "I've got great news! I've been knighted!"
"Let me guess... Sir SPAM-a-lot of Camelot, right?" laughed Polly.
"Uh-huh," said Jack. "I'm a knight of the Triangular Table!"
"Wonderful," George interupted, being a bit too sarcastic. "Now go away!" He was definitely getting irritated.
"Okay," said Jack. "Come on Esmilio!" he instucted the guy that was following him. Jack, Esmilio, Paul, and Polly left, allowing the King and Queen to enjoy the sun set.
Suddenly, Jessie came running up to them. "Mr. King... George... sir... or whatever..." she stuttered.
"YES?!"
"Well, you know how there's the Festival, and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"Neither do I, not anymore..."
"Am I supposed to tell jokes or something? I don't have a drummer anymore. We had creative differences..." said the depressed jester.
"I don't CARE what you do! You can... well, jump off a cliff for all I care! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" shouted the stressed King.
"Fine! Maybe I will!" she sobbed, and ran away.
"Shouldn't we go after her?" asked Itsy.
"She'll be back," said the Sun King. "Remember, she's done this four times this week... and it's only Tuesday."
Just as the depressed jester reached Sutt Cliff, it immediatly began rainning. But this was not ordinary dramatic-effect rain, it was rainning not-fried rice. "What?!" she questioned, holding out her hand to catch some of the toxic, highly-radioactive school concoction. A brief smile flickered across her usually sullen face, as she'd always wanted to see it rain not-fried rice before she died.
She sighed. "Well, there's no way getting around it this time, I'm just have to do myself in. Good-bye cruel world!" She dived off the side of the cliff. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, she was caught by a tree branch, and was stuck to the side of the cliff wall.
"I always wanted my death to be a cliff-hanger," she stated. "But I never meant it quite so literally."
"Vat are you doing down zere?" asked a voice with a thick Transilvanian accent, from above her.
"Well, I guess I WAS commiting suicide, I got delayed." she explained, and the owner of the voice pulled her back up. Jessie looked to see him, a guy about two years older than her, with long brown hair and brown eyes. Behind him was another guy, also about the same age. He was shorter than the first, and had blond hair and steel-blue eyes. They were both very pale, and dressed completly in black, from head to toe.
"Vy vere you going to do zat?" asked the brown haired one. "Zat vould hurt, and be very messy."
"Who ARE you?" she asked, feeling less suicidal, though still depressed.
"I am Vincent!" he introduced. "And zis is Vilson. Ve are ze undead!"
"You mean... vampires?" she asked.
"Yes, ve are." stated Vilson. "Blah, blah!" He added for effect.
"Vould you like to be undead?" asked Vincent the vampire. "It's very vonderval,"
"Does it hurt?"
"No," Vincent affurmed. "All I have to do is zis-" he said, and bit her unsuspecting hand.
"OUCH!" shouted Jessie. "You said zat it vould not hurt!" Then she realized that she now had an accent like theirs, and she had suddenly grown a set of fangs.
"Zee, now you are undead," explained Vilson.
"Ve vill call you... Vilma?" asked Vincent.
"Yah, Vilma it is." said Jessie. "Vell, it's getting late, and I ztill have to prevorm at ze vestival tommorow, and I ztill don't know vat to do."
"Prevorming at ze vestival?" asked Vilson thoughtfully. "I zink ve can help."
"Veally? Zen let's get to vork!" said 'Vilma.'
It had just stopped rainning not-fried rice when Jessie finally returned to the Sand Castle later that evening, accompanied by her new friends. She had invited Vincent and Vilson to spend the night in the castle's guest room, so they'd be able to rehearse their act in the morning, before the festival.
The Sand Castle was calm, peaceful, and quiet that evening, as all of it's residents snuggled comfortably in bed. Suddenly, from the courtyard absolute shmarm was heard. They all ran to their windows (or for the undead, their 'vindows') to see Paul, being so sweet, cute, and shmarmful, serenading Polly, who lovingly watched from the balcony.
"SHUT UP!" shouted Queen Itsy, King George (KARL!), Jack, Jessie, Vincent, Vilson, and even Stan the guard, who was out at his post. The bored bard ignored them. Polly looked at them evily, then went back to staring at her knight-in-shining-armour, and sighed.
Very soon, a large group of people holding sharp pairs of sizzers were chasing after Paul, threatening to chop off his hair and the strings of his guitar. He started to run back inside, but his shoes got stuck to the not-fried rice that was still on the ground from the shower. As the mob advanced, he quickly slipped his feet out of his shoes and escaped, barefooted, into the castle.
"Whew!" sighed Paul, slamming the door behind him, hoping they hadn't followed him. "That was close!"
"You ran away." said Polly, unimpressed at the cowardly act.
"But you know what they'd do to me! They'd mess up my hair -- then probably go so far as to decapitate me! And I really LIKE my hair-"
"You ran away." she said again. "My brave knight-in-shining-armour ran away! You should be ashamed to even show your face-"
"But my hair! I'm NOT letting it get chopped off by an angry mob!" Polly rolled her eyes in disgust.
The next morning, Vilma, Vincent, and Vilson all awoke with the sun. George and even Itsy were up too, though no pun was intended about George awaking with the SUN. Jack and Ringo were also awake, and they were all rehearsing for the festival. Polly slept in, but Paul was up. He wasn't rehearsing, though. He was brushing his hair, and making faces in the mirror.
Later he did decide to practice, mainly because he was dissatisfied with which song he should do, finally deciding to solve the problem by looking in his mirror some more.
Polly had a simular problem. When she finally woke up, she came to the horrifing realization that she had never actually decided on what she was doing. She burst into the room where Paul was tuning his guitar.
"Paul!" she screamed frantically, like a chicken with it's head cut off and was running around in circles. (Chickens without heads can not scream -- those responcible for this line have been sacked.) "I never decided what I was doing for today!"
"Calm down, Polly!" he comforted. "Chill babe!"
"Babe?" she asked, looking disgusted. "Babe was a pig. Out of all the pet names you could've chosen to say, you pick the one that's the name of a pig."
"Alright, would you prefer 'shmookums'?" he asked with a grin.
"Now that's just bad!" Polly laughed. "But what am I going to do for the festival?"
"Maybe you could do a duet with Colm."
"I thought of that, but he's in jail for stealing bread and kidnapping some Christine chick while only wearing half of a mask!" she cried.
"Again?... Well, is Einstien around? You two were great in 'Who's In The Bathroom?'"
"Joanna beat her up. She 's in bad shape I guess."
"Oh, why don't you play the entire First and Second Suites by Gustav Holst on the bass clarinet?" he suggested.
"Because," she whined.
"Yeah! That's it! DO 'BECAUSE'!" exclaimed Paul, releived that she'd finally leave him alone.
"Oh, yeah. I could do that." she decided, then asked, "What are you gonna do?"
"I think maybe... this..." he said, and mischieviously began playing 'Toast Of Tommorow'. Of course, Polly was extermely happy about that.
As the song ended, they heard applause coming from the doorway. They gasped in horror at the thought that someone else might've fallen in love with Paul, but it was only Vincent, Vilson, and Jessie, all looking as if they couldn't have cared less about Paul and his shmaminess.
"Zo zat vas ze vamous 'Toast Of Tommorow'?" Jessie remarked. "Itsy vas vight -- good, but too zhmarmy vor my taste."
Polly let out a sigh of relief. "So vat -- I mean, what are you guys doing?"
"Vat is everyvone doing? Rehearsing vor ze Vestival of Voebus, vat else?" said Vilson. "Vat does Voebus mean anyvay?"
"Phoebus was the nick-name of my great grandfather," explained George, who had just walked into the room with Itsy, overhearing their conversation. "But Phoebus is actually the name of a Roman God, like the Greek God Apollo."
"A-PAUL-o!" laughed Jessie to Itsy.
"Oh, Jessie! That's a-PAUL-ing!" Itsy added.
"Stop it!" shouted Polly, who seemed much more insulted by it than Paul.
"Don't get her angery," George warned. "She'll kill you, and then we'll have to get a PAUL-bearer!"
"Alright guys, that's quite enough of that." Paul said calmly, though he showed to be growing a bit annoyed as well.
"Okay, you have our a-PAUL-ogies!" giggled Jessie, who went to run away, but was too late. Polly was already trying to strangle her. Fortunately for Jessie, Paul was able to hold her back, most likely saving 'Vilma's' undeath.
"Vat did I do?" she asked. "Vy does she get zo angery over noving?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, weasels and weaselettes, steers and cows, roosters and hens-"
"We get the point!" shouted a cheese-weasel from the audience.
The King blushed slightly, then continued. "Sorry, got carried away -- but anyway, I hope that you all had a fab time at the festival today -- I know Itsy and I enjoyed it -- and I also hope tha you'll enjoy this evening's entertainment. And, as my special guest host for tonight, I'd like you to all give a warm, Sun Kingdom welcome to -- Mr. Boneless Chuck!"
An odd-looking pink guy walked on stage, his limbs flapping about, lacking much needed support. King George handed him the microphone. (Yes, this IS the middle ages, I suppose, but they had techies to provide jobs to.)
"Heyup people!" Mr. Boneless Chuck greeted. "Get ready, 'cause you're in for an evening of jack-packed entertainment-"
"Was that my que?" Jack asked, rushing on stage.
"No -- get outta here!" hissed the calcium-free announcer.
"Oh, sorry." apologized Jack, and ran back off stage. Boneless Chuck fell off the stage, making a painful-sounding thud. He introduced the first act, and got back up.
First, a little girl introduced her tiny red dog, Clifford. She dunked Clifford into a cup of water, and he grew quite quickly, eventually reaching a height of at least 10 ft. Then she sprinkled salt on him, and he shrunk back down. The little girl and the red dog took a bow and exited.
"Amazing!" remarked Boneless Chuck. "Now, I am very pleased to introduce a good friend of mine -- Cheddar, King of the Cheese-weasels -- singing his theme song!"
There was a roar of applause as a little cheese-weasel burst onto the stage and funky music began to play. "I'm the cheese-weasel, gettin' it in the groove, the cheese-weasel, makin' ya wanna move-" He sang and danced around on the stage. The song ended, he bowed, and was pulled off stage by a cane.
"Very...um... interesting," Mr. Boneless Chuck commented. Cheddar ran back on stage, and pushed the announcer off again. Chuck flopped around a bit, and then two grundgies set up on stage. One had an electric guitar, and the other had a large microphone, that he kept shoving completely into his mouth. They screamed, jumped around, and the one played loud, screechy notes on the out-of-tune guitar. Then, he smashed it against the speakers and there was a cool explosion. They blew up. Everyone applauded.
"Now that, ladies and gents, is first-rate entertainment!" complemented Boneless Chuck. Someone rushed on stage and whispered something to him. "Wait! I have an announcement. Amanda Hugenkiss is requested out front, I repeat, I need Amanda Hugenkiss out front -- immeadiately."
There was a roar of laughter over the audience, and those who'd heard backstage. "And now, for a special treat, we have -- a mud wrestling match!"
The techies came out with a dump truck filled with mud, and poured it all over the stage. Out of one corner appeared a girl wearing a yellow polka-dot bikini, and on the other side, a guy appeared, wearing roughly the same thing.
Judge Mills Lane came to the center of the stage and gave his whole "Let's get it on!" speech, and the two fighters tacked each other.
The guy pulled a vast collection of knives out of nowhere, and ran after the girl. The girl dug around in the mud, and pulled out the tomb-stone of Gustav Holst. She beat the guy over the head with the stone, and the guy chopped off an arm and a leg, spraying the audience with her blood. Suddenly, as the fight continued, the fighters disovered that the techies had played a terrible trick on them. The mud was sinking sand, and they both were sucked down. Judge Mills Lane declared the fight a tie, and a rematch was set for two weeks later.
"And now, a very talented group from the cattle of the Sun God. I present to you... Flying Space Cow Odessey!" announced Boneless Chuck. Three huge cows dressed in space suits flew on stage, and fog machines along with blacklights were placed on the stage by the Techies, Snap, Crackle, And, and Pop.
"Moo, moo, moo! Who are you? Who are we? We're Flying Space Cow Odessey! Flying Space Cow Odessey!" sang the cows, as they marked up the wooden floor with hoove prints each time they came in for a landing. Then, as the song finished, they floated off.
Suddenly a strange little man wearing a straw hat and a colourful Hawiian-type shirt burst through the curtains with a ukalali in his hands. He immeadiately began singing, "You are my sunny-shine, my only sunny-shine..." but he was abruptly dragged off stage, kicking and screaming. The Techies asked for a brief intermission to take place so they could all get drunk, and forget about the unpleasantness that had just been witnessed.
During the intermission, watered-down orange drink was served, and the band played an intermezzo in E flat by Gustav Holst. (And, of course, Polly did not rest when she was supposed to and played everyone elses parts excepting her own, and Itsy twacked her, just before falling asleep.)
When the intermission had finished, Snap's band, called Gas Station Everything, decided to play good, yet depressing songs, though his voice was too low to understand what he was saying. As they finished, King George ran on stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began gravely, "Mr. Boneless Chuck... is dead!" Gasps of horror and alarmed shrieks fell over the audience. "Wait, no! I meant to say... he's been kidnapped by an escaped and caped con." He laughed with embarrassment. "So I'll be taking over again -- God knows how I love the concept of divine right! And now I'd like to introduce the world renown thesbeans Bill and Lee, in the belcony scene from that wonderful old Shakespearian number, Romeo and Juliet."
The curtain was opened to reveal Lee on a poorly made balcony, wearing a shiny gold wig and a tacky polyeaster green dress. "Billio, oh Billio... where for art thou, Billio...?" he said, looking very bored.
"Oh, I am here Leette!" shouted Bill from off stage.
"Where for art thou, Billio?" repeated Lee.
"Just a sec!" shouted Bill. There was a scream from backstage, and finally Bill entered, carring Polly with him. "I have brought you a gift for tonight's sacrifice."
"Put me down!" demanded Polly. "You can't sacrifice me!" They ignored her.
A mysterious man wearing a cape and half of a mask came onto the stage. "Polly, Polly..." he sang.
"Colm?" she asked, "YOU'RE the escaped con? But-" Bill put her down and ran off with Lee.
"You have come here, in persuit of your deepest-" he sang, but was unable to continue when Boneless Chuck plunged at him and beat up the masked man for kidnapping him. Polly ran off stage, and Colm was left there as the next group was introduced by a very pleased Mr. Boneless Chuck.
"And now for a new group, ladies and gentlemen, I present The Resentful Undead!" Jessie walked out onto the cold, dark, and otherwise empty stage, then was soon followed by Vincent and Vilson the vampires. Three separate spotlights shone over them as soft music began to play and Vilson sat down at his drumset in the back of the stage.
"It must've been good zere in ze shadows, to never have sunlight on your vace..." the depressed jester and Vincent sang to the tune of 'Ze Vind Benieth My Vings. "Zank you, zank you, zank Vlod vor you, ze Vind Benieth My Vings!" They finished and a roar of applause took over the audience. The three of them took multiple bows, but were finally pushed off by Jack the-SPAM-knight and Ringo, who were next, singing a fully cauriagraphed version of 'We All Live In A Town Of Friendly Hicks.'
When they were finished scaring little children and traumatizing everyone else, a ska-band played a song called 'He once had a Boyfriend.'
Afterwards, some guy named Dave (that was changed to Bob,) came on and talked about how mathmatics could be used in everyday life, and did a skit on the importance of multiplication in the very distant future.
"That's... very nice, Dave..." said Mr. Boneless Chuck. "Now, if we can wake her up, we have Polythene Pam playing piano."
"It's an organ!" corrected Polly, as she was lifted up from a trap door in the center of the stage, with a big white organ, on which she was playing the opening measures to 'Because,' and afterwards she complaimed about messing up, though no one noticed.
Following Polly was the 'Ballet Of The Stinky Cheese' prefomed by some little cheese-weasles. After that, the whole place smelled like Limberger.
"Now wasn't that cheesey?" remarked Chuck. "Now we have Mr. Bishop and his super-sax." There was a shrilll scream from backstage, and Polly passed out.
John whipped out his (dumbstupid) saxophone, and played an improv version of 'Little Brown Jug." Then he left and was flattened by one of those gigantic anvils that you see in the cartoons. Polly was happy.
Mr. Boneless Chuck then introduced the next act, three dancing cats with canes and top-hats. They tap danced around for a while, then tried to take over the stage. Their attempt failed due to the fact that the Evil Banana Man had thrown his skin onto the stage, causing them, as well as Boneless Chuck, to fall, limbs flailing about.
"Now we have...and Irish gentlemen whose name eludes me for the moment," groaned Boneless Chuck, who as soon as he got up, fell back down, causing a few "Meow!"s to echo about.
Paul came onto the stage, being shoved on by George, Itsy, Jessie, Jack, Vincent, Vilson, and Polly. "But I'm not Irish... well, I suppose a little bit... but I wouldn't concider that as to be..."
"Shut up and sing!" shouted Itsy, who then added, "Wait, no! Just shut up."
"Well, maybe I just will sing!" snapped Paul, to annoy Itsy. He set his guitar down on the stage and ran off behind the curtain.
"Now where's he off to?" asked a confused Boneless Chuck. Paul came back on the stage, carring Polly, who he sat down. Then he picked up his guitar, and began singing shmamily. A small cheese-weasel in the front row fainted.
"Each one believing that love never dies, watching your eyes, and hoping I'm always there-" he sang, oozing with shmarm, until the little ukalali guy in the Hawiain-style shirt ran on stage, interupting the shmamy preformance.
"Hakuna Matata, such a wonderful phrase-" sang the ukalali guy. Then Paul got up, broke his ukalali, slugged him across the face, and pushed the guy off the side of the stage, also knocking over Mr. Boneless Chuck, who made that painful-sounding thud again.
"Paul!" shouted Polly.
"Sorry, but they both deseved it, and you know it." he explained. "Now let's split this joint!"
"I wanna see the rest of the show!"
"No you don't," he whispered. "It's all Preppie cheerleaders, then Itsy and George."
"But still-" Then they were shoved off stage by the King, who apologized to the audience. Then Preppie cheerleaders ran on, cheered, danced around, and told everyone to clap their hands, stomp their feet, and so on. They ran back off stage as King George came on with an electric guitar.
"What'd ya think, I was gonna miss out on the fun?" he asked. Then with a flash of lights, he began to sing and play 'Three Cool Cats,' and Itsy started headbanging and singing along.
The King and Queen were applauded and took their bows. "And that concludes this evening's entertainment," announced the King. "Have a safe-"
"WAIT!" screamed Mr. Boneless Chuck, "We have a late entry! Ladies and gents... Annie!" A small girl (or what was supposed to be a small girl,) with curly red hair, and wearing a red dress walked onto the stage.
"The sun'll come out tomorrow, beet yer bottom doller that tomorrow there'll be sun-" she sang badly. "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow, yer only a day -- a -- way!" she finished, and the audience boomed with applause.
"Little Miss, you've just won the contest!" announced Chuck.
"No, tadpole! Tadpole is the winner!" shouted a guy from the audience.
"Annie is our winner, boy-George!" dissagreed Chuck.
"How'd you know it was me?" asked Annie.
"What about you?"
"I'm Boy George!"
Everyone gasped out of shock.
"You're still the winner, Boy George!" said Chuck, "Congratulations!"
"But this wasn't a contest!" shouted the King. "And if it was, I should've won..." That last part was murmered to himself.
Then Annie magically floated away, and everone, except for George, cheered.
