MOTHER 1 NOVELIZATION PART 2

Pippi led me hastily back to her house. For a little kid, she ran really fast, and was almost dragging me through the dirt. The running was making my asthma act up. I reached into my pocket for my inhaler. I puffed it. Oh, dear, I’m out. I slowed to a halt. “Pippi,” I said, “Stop for a minute. We need to go slower. My asthma’s getting bad.”
“Oh, Ninten,” she replied rather testily, “to heck with your asthma. Let’s go.”
“Pippi, please. It can be life-threatening. Let’s just walk. Slowly.”
“Fine. I’ll go by myself.”
“No, Pippi.”
“Oh, all right, fine. But I do want to get home today.”
“We’re almost there.”
“Good.”
“Pippi!” It was Pippi’s mom. “Pippi! You’re all right! Thank God!”
“Mommy!” Pippi exclaimed.
“Pippi, I’m so glad you’re all right! I thought I’d lost you!”
I watched the mother and daughter embrace. It was rather touching. If I weren’t so emotionally void for this kind of thing, I’m sure I’d burst out in tears. But, alas, I was emotionally void in these situations. Anyway, Pippi gave me a badge with a yellow smiley face on it.
“It has a sticker on it, Ninten!” Pippi said.
Oh. Okay. This was a decent reward, since Pippi’s family did not have much money. I went to the Mayor’s office. He gave me a Zoo Key and told me to get out.
At the zoo entrance, a monkey was standing. He said a bunch of monkey gibberish and grabbed my key. He leapt over the fence. The gate swung open, and I stepped in, wondering where all the animals were.
Podunk Zoo was in a pretty awful state. Most of the animals were not in their cages, and there were carcasses of prayed-upon animals everywhere. There was also a very irritative ringing in my ears. I need to find the administration buliding. Fortunately, I know where it is. Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of the zoo. I started walking. About halfway there, I heard more than just a ringing. It was a…
Oh, crap, it was a growl. There was a tiger stalking me.
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The headmaster shouted at me, but I didn’t really pay any attention. I was looking at my Converse, thinking to myself. I had brought bottle rockets to school. They were duds, and I was going to throw them away in the trash can on the roof, but unfortunately, a girl saw me trying to get on the roof. People who do drugs on school grounds do it on the roof, and the girl must have thought that’s what I was doing. She called a teacher, who searched me. She found the duds, and sent me to the office. I was getting expelled, I knew it. My school career was over. Now I’ll never get into MIT…
“LOID!”
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Oh, man. The tiger leapt towards my leg, fangs bloody from eating already. I started running. It didn’t occur to me until a moment after that tigers, as a general rule, run faster than people, probably due to two extra legs. Oh, crap. He’s gonna get me, isn’t… Wait, where’d the tiger go? As a matter of fact, where was I?
This doesn’t look like a zoo…
Okaaay… Where the heck am I?! This isn’t the zoo. Well, it sort of is. But all the objects just have neon-y outlines, as if I was in a giant neon sign. I looked down. I was also neon, apparently. It’s just like I was in the fourth dimension or something. Waaait… Maybe I WAS in Four D. Freaky. I headed towards the neon outline that was the administration building. As soon as I was ten feet from the admin building, everything went back to normal. At least the tiger was gone. I hadn’t noticed it full until now, but there was a ringing sound in the air, and it seemed to be loudest here. The window of the top floor also appeared to be glowing. I headed on up. The ringing grew intolerable. I opened the door to the Zoo Director’s office. There seemed to be a giant capsule floating. In the middle of the room. Today was definetly weird as all get-out. I approached the capsule. It opened. A nearly humanoid thing in pink (was it armor? Or metal casing?) stepped out. It shifted its gaze to me. I half expected it to demand I take it to my leader. But, instead, it whirred a few times and attacked me with a beam. I prepared to drop dead, but the tiny badge on my chest flashed and I saw a faint glimpse of the beam returning to its point of origin. It bounced right off the Starman Jr. (as I decided to call it, it was not quite as tall as me) and hit the ceiling. I took my bat to what I assumed was its head. The visor in its armor cracked. It fell down, and with one last whirr, dissolved. I could have sworn I saw a white face underneath the crack before the thing disappeared. The zoo seemed to be back to normal, and I stepped out. I saw a monkey separated from all the other simians. A sign on its cage read: “See the amazing singing monkey!”. I looked at the singing monkey, and it, well, sang. It seemed familiar, so I put it in my memory. I think it might have been the third set of the 5 notes of the lullaby.
I left the zoo. I didn’t know what to do from here, so I headed east to see if they had lifted the roadblock to Merrysville yet. They had not, but one of the officers told me that there was a roadblock up north where the cops would be lax enough to let me through. I knew all that was up there was a dead-end cave, but walked over anyway. The cops let me through.And, sure enough, all that was there was a cave. But I didn’t come all this way to NOT explore, so went right on in. All that was inside was a hallway of rock. I couldn’t see where it ended. I walked, and almost ran into a giant… pink shell?! I could feel something in my head, like someone besides me was thinking in there. And I realized I had psychic powers, Like those guys on TV. 
But those guys faked it, right? Right…?
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Yep. Just like I thought. I’m expelled. I realized my dreams of taking Duncan Inc. over were crushed in the space of five minutes. I went to my locker to get my stuff. All of the kids were laughing at me. I couldn’t handle this. I decided to go to the roof one last time, to throw away the dud. The same dud that ruined my life. The can was full. I dumped the trash off the side of the roof. It, in a stroke of luck, hit the superintendent as he walked from the building. He looked up, and I hid. As there was nowhere else to hide, I hid in the trash can. If it didn’t stink, it’d actually be quite comfortable…
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OK, the shell was telling me to use George’s book to solve the shell’s riddle. I did so, and, well, was transported. But, to where? There’s shells, and, umm… clouds. OK, that’s weird.
This place has pink clouds. First off, clouds can’t be pink. Second of all, you can’t walk on clouds. Yet, looking around, I see seashells, akin to the one I saw in the cave. Well… holy crap. I decided to go into the biggest seashell I could find, because the leaders always had the biggest places. I was stopped outside by a few guards. They told me I could enter Queen Mary’s castle if I solved their riddle. I looked at the one I assumed was the leader.
I should think of something involving two alligators. Hmm… were his thoughts.
I said the answer, and the guards moved out of my way. “That’s the answer all right,” the lead guard said. “Even though I haven’t thought of the riddle yet.”
The palace was regal in every definition. The walls were made of finely carved jade, and the floor either had a very reflective quality, I couldn’t tell which. I looked down, and saw that I was bruised in every manner possible, and hoped Queen Mary wouldn’t mind too much if I looked this scruffy. I also reflected that my great-grand-mother was named Maria, but that’s not Mary, and she really liked Maria, from what I heard. I reached a room with a red carpet, and saw upon looking up that there was an ornate gold throne with a woman sitting on it. I assumed she was Queen Mary, and turned out to be quite right. “Ninten, welcome.” She said in a very soft, soothing voice. “This is Magicant, my home. However, lately, I have had trouble sleeping, because there’s a song handed down through generations. I have forgotten it. Ninten, I beg of you: Learn the eight melodies. Wait… What is that you’re whistling?”
“What?! This?! Oh, it’s just a song that my mom taught me,” I said, internally chuckling at her amazement. “I only know the first three parts, though… Wait, is this the melody you’re trying to remember?”
“Yes, Ninten the very same. Thank you for whistling the first three parts, although I can’t remember the rest.”
“Wait, why can’t you go find it yourself?”
“I, unfortunately, cannot go into the outside world.”
That was actually pretty sad, but kept it to myself. I agreed to her, and left the castle. One of her guards told me to go to the well, on the east side of town. I did, and was immediately perplexed. Which dang well?! There were at least 15 of them, most of them grated. I found one that wasn’t and leapt inside. Making my way through the labyrinthe tunnels, I met a man that agreed to get out of my way if I forgot about him. I did so, and continued forward. I found myself in a cave very similar to the one in Podunk. I exited. The looming factory in the distance told me that I was just south of Merrysville.