Experiment #8 - Modelland - Chapter 1

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Modelland - Chapter One
By Tyra Banks


Have you ever seen her?

The girl whose face not even the meanest person you know would describe as yuck but who you’d never in a million—no, a trillion years describe as alluring either.

Sam: ...Miss Piggy?

The girl whose eyes are three centimeters too far apart and whose mouth is four centimeters too wide. Not that you’d break out a ruler, but when you look at her, it’s enough to make you say that something is definitely … off.

Luna: Do humans truly obsess over such things?
Midna: If they carry rulers around just to measure sometimes, they must.
Luna: ...such strange creatures.

Come on now, you’ve seen her.

Sam: I feel as if we are being interrogated by this story.
Luna: We wish we knew who “she” was. We certainly have not seen her.

She’s the girl whose hair has multiple personality disorder and can’t decide if it’s supposed to be quasi-curly, silky-straight, frantic-frizzy, or wet-and-wavy—or maybe a “Power to the People” ’fro.

Sam: I believe that is every haircut known to mankind.

The girl whose body is a contradiction of itself: a slightly hunched back (from years of poor posture, one must presume), feet the size of snowshoes, and stick-figure arms and legs so fragile, you think you hear them screaming “Feed me an entire grilled cow, now!”

Midna: If your arms are talking to you, I think you’ve got more problems than how much you’re eating.
Sam: Those limbs would do better to have a much more balanced diet.

The girl with the humongous, punch-bowl-sized head, with a forehead that goes on and on and on, making her look like the weight of her cranium will topple her over and break her into a thousand pieces.

Sam: This is sounding more and more like an alien than someone moderately normal-looking.
Midna: *puts up a hand to her forehead* I can’t help but feel like this story is mocking me.

And not only is her clothing painfully mismatched, so are her eyes, dahling.

Midna: Is this an interrogation or flirting? I think I’m uncomfortable with this, Ms. Narrator.
Sam: This narrator sounds like Cruella de Ville.

You heard me right. She has one green eye and one brown one.

Have you ever seen Tookie De La Crème?

Sam: In a French bakery shop, I think it was.

I bet you have.

Maybe you’ve even met her.

You just don’t remember her.

No one ever does.

Luna: We beg to differ, narrator. Apparently, thou remember her well.
Midna: And they seem convinced that we should remember her too.

For as unusual-looking as she was, Tookie was a Forgetta-Girl, one of the most forgettable girls in the entire world.

Sam: *sighs* One can only hope.

But maybe not for long.


Our tale begins on a Thursday afternoon, the most ordinary of ordinary afternoons,

Sam: I am sorry, but could you clarify? Was it ordinary or not?

a few days shy of the most unordinary day of the entire year. Tookie De La Crème was splayed on her back on the hallway floor of her school, the Bangle, Bauble, and Bead Institute—B3, as it was commonly called.

Sam: This school hardly sounds as if it is providing a proper, comprehensive education.
Midna: You mean all schools don’t let their students lay in the hallway on ordinary days?
Sam: That is, unfortunately, normal for some students. But a school cannot teach only bangles, bauble and beads! What about mathematics, English, and --best of all-- American history?!
Luna: Do not forget magic!
Midna: And Legends!
Sam: ...Those sound more like extra-curricular activities.
Midna: They’re core curriculum where I’m from.

Her large, mismatched eyes didn’t blink as she stared at the stained ceiling. Her gangly legs shot out at odd angles, as though she’d fallen from a six-story building.

Luna: *sigh* If only we were so lucky...
Sam: Now where is the school nurse?!

Her enormous feet pointed straight up.

Sam: Even though her legs are at odd angles?
Luna: Well, we suppose if everything else about her is odd...
Midna: I guess the only thing left to do is put her out of our misery, right?

An internal clock counted down the time in perfect cadence. T minus six minutes and forty-nine seconds. Forty-eight … forty-seven …

As Tookie waited, she lifted to her face a cold canister of whipped cream, inserting the nozzle straight into her mouth. She pressed the trigger that delivered the airy sweetness directly onto her tongue. A bit of cream accidentally dropped from her mouth and dripped from her chin to her neck.

Sam: That! Is not sanitary eating.

With each squirt, more and more of the cream fell to her snug-fitting hand-me-up blue blouse, which had once been her younger sister’s. Another squirt landed in her hair. She then licked her tiny baby fingers from thumb to pinky and prepared for the next squirt.

Midna: Two things: Where did you get those fingers, and what did you do to that baby?
Sam: I would. Rather not imagine.

How was Tookie able to lie in the middle of her school’s hallway, during class time, enjoying whipped cream from the can, and not get herself into any trouble?

Luna: ...magic?
Sam: Blatant disregard for school rules or common decency?
Midna: People don’t want to get involved with the mentally insane?

Well, Tookie was the Institute’s best “skipper.” No one, not even the most cunning teachers, noticed she was gone when she skipped out of class way before most of her lessons ended.

Sam: *facewing* I weep for the institution of education.
Midna: *pats him on the shoulder* It’s obviously not wherever you’re from, at least.

T minus four minutes thirty-three seconds … thirty-two … thirty-one …

As Tookie stretched her legs, the backs of her calves touched the bitingly cold marble, making her shiver. Most people would have found it uncomfortable, but Tookie was happy she felt something—at least she was still alive and breathing.

Sam: The alternative would make for a very short book.
Luna: But, arguably, a much more enjoyable one.

Sometimes Tookie was so used to being a Forgetta-Girl that she thought she really was invisible.

T minus five seconds … four … three … two …

Sam: Liftoff?

A loud but familiar clanging made Tookie jump. The school’s bell was actually an old-time buzzer that had long ago signaled factory shift changes. In days gone by, before the Institute had taken over the building, B3 had produced three things: bangles, baubles, and beads.

Luna: Ah, that explains the name. The administration was too lazy to change the signage.
Sam: And now, it produces poor students.
Luna: We suppose thou could call them “bauble heads”.

Once the bell stopped, a familiar rumbling made Tookie cringe. An oily belch followed, sending a thick cloud of greenish smoke through the vents.

Sam: And that. Is why you should not eat whipped cream for five minutes straight.
Midna: Six minutes and forty nine...forty eight seconds.
Sam: Yes.

A stench filled the air. It smelled like a mix of gasoline, mold, melted plastic, and methane gas emanating from the bowels of the building.

Midna: Well there’s your problem.

Excruciatingly loud school bells weren’t the only relics left over from when B3 had been a factory—the administration had done very little in the way of renovation to convert the safety-code-deficient building into a proper institute of learning.

Sam: This building is not! safe! What would OSHA think?!

The school let out belches and eruptions all day and leaked fumes from every crevice.

Luna: ...this sentence makes us quite uncomfortable.

Groaning, the students emerged from their classrooms.

“Ugh,” Ariella Burtona wailed, fanning the odors from her face.

“Nasty,” Tatiana Sharonne said, pressing a sachet of dried flowers to her nose.

“The B4 Institute tooted again,” Jason Milano chortled, trotting out the school’s oldest, tiredest, but aptest joke. Everyone called the school B4, for Bile, Barf, Belches, and Butt Bombs.

Sam: Then that should be five Bs.
Midna: And why change it from B3? What’s the point?
Luna: They are merely a product of their educational system.

More doors were flung open and the sound of footsteps thundered through the halls.

Midna: Packers! ...why did I just say that?
Luna: *shrug*

Tookie quickly closed her eyes. She then peeked to see just how far the approaching mob was from her prone body. Nine feet away, she estimated.

Sam: Perhaps she should then stand up.

The conversations of passersby began to wash over her. Tookie felt like a fly on the wall.

Midna: Instead of a highschooler dripping with whipped cream on the floor? That’s an improvement.

“Zarpessa says she’s spending fifty thousand on her prep,” said an annoyed female voice over Tookie’s head. “Hag.”

Sam: Such poor language!

“What do you think the look will be at T-DOD this year?” a girl with a forehead tattoo whined. “I hope my tatted face will be in.”

Sam: Yes. Thank you for clarifying the fact that she has a tattoo on her face, and the dialogue immediately following that description certainly did not inform us as to the fact that she has a tattoo on her face.
Midna: Ohhhh, she’s got a tattoo on her face! I get it.
Sam: Which, by the way, is a terrible thing to have.
Luna: Tattoo...? Oh! So she has something akin to a cutie mark? ...on her face?
Midna: Yes, but she did it herself with needles.
Luna: *just looks horrified*
Sam: *shares in Luna’s horror*

“Don’t hold your breath, Inky …,” a male voice answered.

Sam: Otherwise it will deprive her body and brain of oxygen, and goodness knows she needs that.
Midna: I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it’s helping her decisionmaking any.

Another voice floated over from the other side of the corridor. “… if they don’t choose me, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I’ll die if I end up working in a belt-buckle factory like my mom. I’ve been crying for a month straight. I hope my eyes aren’t going to stay all puffy like this.”

Luna: If that is the worst possible scenario, then thou should be thankful!
Sam: Crying nonstop for a month? Everyone in this story thusfar needs to see a doctor!

Many of the conversations had to do with the big event that was taking place in two days, The Day of Discovery, which most people shortened to T-DOD. It was the grandest of holidays, and B3 was even letting its students have Friday off this week to prepare—an absolute rarity. Not that Tookie really cared.

Luna: We certainly care! Fair Rarity has more style and class in a single hoof than anyone in this story thus far!

“Where do you think the rest of ’em will be this year?” a girl with a nasal voice asked.

Sam: Holidays? On the calendar, naturally.

“I heard that a girl found one in a pot of boiling sweet potatoes and burned up her hands real bad trying to get it!”

Midna: Pinkie Pie has hooves and she can get things out of an oven just fine. What’s wrong with these people?

Tookie shifted on the floor. Now they were talking about SMIZEs.

Sam: While knowing that is supposed to be an acronym, it still looks like it is spelled wrong.
Luna: As in “WE SHALL CUT THEE DOWN TO SMIZE!”?
Midna: Or “WE SHALL SMIZE THEE!” maybe.
Luna: Oh! Thou has an excellent Royal Voice!
Midna: I’m out of practice, but I can try!
Sam: It seems quite loud to me...
Luna: Mmm, it isn’t quite loud enough, but still very regal!

Girls had been searching for the magical charms for days, fighting at water spigots, sloshing through sewers, splashing in the Peppertown pool, which everyone knew kids peed in.

Luna: Would the... *clears her throat* bodily functions not ruin the magical properties of the charms?

“I found the pipe where the gunk water from the Shivera hospital dumps out,” a hopeful girl whispered. “No one is going to be looking for SMIZEs there!”

Sam: Perhaps because they have better sanitation habits.
Midna: I’m pretty sure that slogging through hospital waste is a good way to die. Maybe she’s on to something.

As more people passed, as more girls chattered about T-DOD, Tookie began to feel lonelier and lonelier. It was yet another day when no one, not a single person, looked down on the floor and cried, Oh! Check out that girl down there! All the students rushed past Tookie like water in a stream flowing around a rock.

Sam: Then they must at least be aware of her presence. Otherwise, she would be stepped on.
Luna: We suppose they are thinking “Oh, there’s that mentally unstable female lying covered in whipped cream again. Just go around.”

Rubber sneakers almost crushed her fingers. Heavy boots nearly bumped her shins. A piece of paper fluttered out of someone’s notebook and landed close to Tookie’s left hand.

Sam: Certain words were emphasized almost too much.
Midna: Our misery was almost ended early.
Luna: We nearly reached a resolution.

The paper’s owner, a dark-haired girl, bent down to snatch it, not even noticing that Tookie was there.

Irrelevant. Expendable. Forgettable. All Tookie wanted was for someone to notice her. Anyone. Just a simple kick in the ribs or a sneaker sole that squished her hand or a textbook that slipped from a student’s grip and fell on her large forehead. She wasn’t picky.

Luna: Then perhaps she should seek out the opening narrator.

Spin, thud, spin, thud, spin, spin, spin, thud.

Midna: A flat tire’s coming down the hall?
Sam: Or else a song by Dead or Alive.

Tookie looked up at a spinning dervish approaching, taking in her long, thick, curly wheat-blond hair, her silver-dollar-sized aqua eyes, and her perfectly symmetrical face.

Luna: We have a strange feeling that a young man with three white stripes on one side of his hair would approve. We are not sure why we think this...

It was as if Tookie’s wish had come true—sort of. For here was her sister, Myrracle, someone who did notice her.

Sam: ...If this book were a spelling test, I would give it an F.

Except, well, Tookie didn’t really want her to.

Spotting Tookie sprawled on the floor, Myrracle began to sing. “You. Are. Not. My. Deeee. Nay. Nayyy.”

Sam: Of course not. She is her sister!

She gave one spin for each word, making the hem of her blue dress flutter. It was a dress, Tookie guessed, that would pass to her as a hand-me-up in a matter of days.

Luna: Then it, too, would be covered in whipped cream.
Midna: Maybe her sister doesn’t approve of her getting food all over her nice clothes.

Tookie rolled her eyes at her sister’s mispronunciation of DNA.

Luna: Is it even possible to mispronounce letters?
Sam: The Swedish Chef could do it...

Beyond her looks and fancy flights of footwork, what was most disturbing to Tookie about The Myrracle, as Tookie’s mother called her, was not that she was Tookie’s younger sister. The most disturbing fact was that The Myrracle was distinctly, indisputably, flat-out … dense.

Luna: Ah! All is explained.
Midna: She has so much mass, the vibrations that her speech make in the air are distorted, or something.

As dumb as a lobotomized turkey—and turkeys were said to raise their heads to the sky during rainstorms and drown themselves.

Sam: Nonsense! Turkeys are noble birds, and quite important to one of the most important American holidays, Thanksgiving!
Midna: That’s right; everyone thought they were better than silly eagles for the national bird.
Sam: Wh. What? Eagles are not! Silly! They are even nobler, more important birds for Thanksgiving! *long pause* …Wait.
Midna: And more delicious than silly turkeys?
Sam: Absolutely not!
Midna: So...turkeys are better than eagles.
Sam: As American mascots? No!
Midna: Mmhm. Oh, hey, the story is still going.

Oh, Tookie tried to give her sister the benefit of the doubt—Myrracle had memorized every intricate dance step of the twenty-two verses of “The Shivera Shuffle,” after all, and at least she understood the concept of DNA, even if she got the pronunciation wrong, but in all honesty, Myrracle wasn’t the brightest tube of lipstick in the makeup caddy.

Midna: I thought Shivera was a hospital...wait, is she mocking her developmentally disabled sister? No wonder...Myrracle...doesn’t like her.

Luckily, Myrracle pirouetted out of sight almost immediately. Problem gone … for now.

Sam: Until the next pointless conflict.

Tookie sighed and reached for a small, thick yellow book wedged under her lower back. It wasn’t just any regular yellow, but the color of a taxicab that had been freshly painted and spit-polished.

Sam: So. Regular yellow.
Midna: Maybe it’s...yellow and black?

And it wasn’t just any regular book, but a collection of letters Tookie had written to people she’d encountered throughout her life. Not that she would ever dare send them.

Sam: For she was short on postage.

She called this book T-Mail Jail. Tookie found it ironic that the book’s initials, TMJ, also stood for an ailment that impaired a person’s ability to open her mouth.

Midna: Because really, all she knew about irony was from some Alanis Morissette song.

The front cover displayed Tookie’s first name, handwritten in beautiful calligraphy. The spine of T-Mail Jail read DON’T KEEP OUT! The back cover urged, INVADE MY PRIVACY—PLEASE! If one were inclined to follow these instructions, the inside cover challenged, I DARE YOU TO TURN THE PAGE.

Sam: Perhaps this is an attempt at reverse psychology.

But no one dared … or, more accurately, cared.

Sam: But. What if...everyone cared?
Midna: What if just one person believed in her, hard enough and long enough?
Luna: Perhaps if everyone joined hooves, hands, or wings, and said in unison “We care!”?

As the crowd continued to move around her, Tookie opened T-Mail Jail to a blank page. She closed her eyes, selected one of the dozens of colored pens tucked into the pocket of the book’s back cover, and held it in front of her face. Blue, in her color code, was for the English language. Boorrrring, Tookie thought.

Sam: *greatly offended* Hmph! Neither blue nor the English language are boring, young lady!

Tookie uncapped the pen, held the journal in the air over her head, and began to write to her only friend in the world. She had been missing for over six weeks now, and Tookie feared she’d never see her again.

Dear Lizzie,
It’s day thirty-nine of my great SPLD campaign and everyone is still ignoring me.

Luna: Small wonder...
Sam: *imitating writing the letter* It is day thirty-nine of you not being here, and still I am ignoring you.

SPLD stood for Silent Protest by Lying Down.

Sam: What is she even protesting?
Midna: Being in this awful book!
Luna: Or the system. T’is always the system.

Tookie pronounced it “spilled.” As an oblivious classmate almost whacked Tookie’s head with a rusty fencing épée, Tookie licked the tip of her pen, gripped it in her right hand, and continued to write.

Midna: Were back to “almost” again. I almost missed that word.

She wasn’t a natural right-hander, but her mother had slapped her wrist so many times for writing with her left that Tookie had begrudgingly made the switch.

It hurts.

Sam: *imitates writing the letter* When I am almost whacked in the head with a rusty fencing epee.

And it hurts that you can’t be here and I can’t tell you this for real. It hurts too that you disappear for weeks and I have no idea where you’ve gone. Girl, you’re my only friend! Can’t you at least tell me where you’ve been?

Sam: No, for she is missing, and you have not alerted the authorities or gone in search of her.
Midna: Or sent a letter to her, rather than treating her as a fake diary.

Anyway, everyone is caught up in The Day of Discovery happening this weekend. But even if they weren’t caught up in all the hoopla of the coming event, they still wouldn’t see me. Perhaps I don’t want them to notice me.

Midna: Maybe I’m just doing this for the whipped cream. Or maybe it’s the fumes...

I mean, this is SPLD Number Thirty-Nine. Why not go for the world record? Forty days of lying on this cold hallway floor, waiting for someone to speak to me … but no one saying a word. Forty days of being invisible.

Sam: Think of what she could have been doing with her time instead.
Midna: She could have waited out a global flood and rediscovered land.
Luna: Perhaps she truly is invisible and manifesting magical abilities?

Lizzie, there must be an association that honors achievements like this.

Luna: Idleness is an achievement? Forty days are nothing!

I can hear my acceptance speech now: “I’d like to thank the SPLD Academy. There is nothing more beautiful than a Forgetta-Girl being recognized by her own Forgetta-Peers! And let’s not forget my dear family.

Sam: Shouldn’t that be “Forgetta-Family?”

“On second thought? Let’s.”

Miss ya, girl. Hopefully, I’ll see you today.

Midna: Not that I”ll go looking for you or make any effort to contact you. But as long as I don’t have to make an effort, hopefully!

Over the i in her name, Tookie added a tiny FG for Forgetta-Girl. But before closing T-Mail Jail, she thumbed through its previous entries, admiring the rainbow of colors. Every color represented a different language: flamingo-pink for Gowdee’an, cabernet-grape for Très Jolie, mandarin-orange for BayJingle, and skyscraper-gray for Colorian, the language spoken in the distant land of SansColor.

Sam: What. What are these places?! They sound communist!
Midna: Don’t you mean communocryptofascist?
Sam: Even worse!

Tookie had a knack for quickly picking up foreign languages, and wrote whole letter entries in them.

Luna: T’is simple when one makes up their own fantasy languages.

By the age of eleven, Tookie knew twenty-eight languages. Now, at fifteen, she spoke nearly every world tongue.

Sam: Including ‘BayJingle?’ That’s not a language! That is music from a commercial!
Luna: For the latest transforming robot film?

The nagging truth, though, was that this incredible linguistic gift of Tookie’s seemed wasted—it was almost a cruel cosmic trick. Why give this ability to a girl with whom no one wanted to speak?

Midna: It’s almost as if she were going to become the central character in a story where her language skills would help her!

The thundering crowd in the Bangle, Bauble, and Bead Institute hallway started to thin. Tookie nervously smoothed out her shorts, closed her T-Mail Jail, and straightened her body out of its position suggestive of traumatic injury—and then she heard the bowlegged footsteps she’d been waiting for:

Step-pause-step-pause-step.

Coming. Her. Way.

Luna: O.M.G.
Sam: How. Shocking.

There was only one person at B3 who had spoken to Tookie besides Myrracle: class president Theophilus Lovelaces,

Sam: I would not vote for him.
Midna: Why not?
Luna: We think that the name sounds more like an alias.
Sam: Among other reasons, yes.

the very step-pause-step-pause figure quickly approaching. It had been one year ago, almost to the day, but Tookie hadn’t forgotten it—in truth, it was why she had invented the act of SPLDing in the first place. There were many letters in T-Mail Jail written to Theophilus, all expressing unrequited admiration and affection. Tookie longed to slip one into his locker, but she knew she never would.

Midna: Invisibility and precognitive abilities? It is magic.

A year ago, Tookie had taken a real spill, tumbling down the narrow spiral staircase to the cafeteria. All she clearly remembered about that moment was one foot touching that first step and then both enormous feet flying into the air. She was falling … falling … there was the floor … boom!

Sam: The staircase exploded?

Tookie had landed so hard the world had gone black for a few minutes. Spots began to appear before her eyes. Bodies swept past her, but not one person tried to help.

Luna: We cannot blame them.
Midna: It makes sense from what I’ve seen.

Tookie had just lain there while the day continued as usual for everyone else at the Bangle, Bauble, and Bead Institute.

Sam: And thus, her idea for her lying-down campaign was born.

But then a figure in a pin-striped jacket had appeared.

Sam: She had found herself in the middle of a zoot suit riot.

Tookie’s vision was still blurry, but she could make out a small, round button on the figure’s lapel.

VOTE FOR LOVE

Midna: You’re right. There’s something off about this guy.
Sam: See? I would not want him as President.
Midna: And just think. The girl with the tattoed face has the same vote you do.

“Are you okay?” Theophilus Lovelaces stood above Tookie like a royal guardsman coming to the aid of his queen. The pin on his lapel was one of the good-luck charms he passed out to B3 students in hopes of getting reelected every school year. He’d never given one to Tookie, though.

Sam: She received nothing but his pity.

The noises in the cafeteria ceased to exist.

Midna: Are three magical occurences enough to confirm magical talent? A spell like that would be hard.
Luna: Nonsense! Of course we have had a fair amount of practice with it.

Tookie was groggy from her fall, her ears rang to the point of leaving her deaf, and her mouth felt like it had been anesthetized, but that didn’t stop her from noticing his imperfectly perfect features: sun-kissed, tightly curled hair, a left cheekbone that was sharper and more defined than the right, and sympathetic golden-brown eyes the exact color of two salted caramels, Tookie’s favorite candy.

Sam: She wants to eat his eyes?

He wore a camel-colored suit of the finest fabric, an indication of his family’s prestige—they were the wealthiest in all of Metopia—

Sam: Wh--what? This isn’t America? Where on earth is this terrible school full of terrible people?!
Luna: ...someplace terrible?
Sam: *shudders* It must be.

and yet he didn’t carry himself with an air of privilege or self-righteousness. In fact, he chose to attend B3 over a private school in his own neighborhood because he wanted to be “among the regular people.”

Midna: Candy eyes, brown suit, slumming for fun...it’s the gingerbread man!
Luna: Run, run as fast as thou can... away from him!

And now he was smiling at Tookie kindly and generously, as though they were equals.

Sam: I knew it! COMMUNISM.
Midna: At least socialism, which will turn into Communism while you watch.

Yes, she had wanted to tell him. I’m better than okay! But her mouth wouldn’t work.

Theophilus tilted his head to the side, his lip curling over a slightly chipped tooth. “That was quite a spill.”

Sam: And a protest, although an odd one at that.

And then, amazingly, he had reached down and taken her hand. Tookie’s tongue was frozen solid.

Sam: *nods* Too much whipped cream.

She had imagined what she must look like to him—like a rag doll without most of its stuffing, and with trace lines of drool on both of her cheeks. Disgusting.

Sam: ...Animal?

After a few moments of Tookie lying there, just staring, Theophilus stepped back, an apologetic look on his face. “Okay. Um … sorry.”

Luna: What in the name of the moon does he have to be sorry for?
Midna: Being in this terrible story?

And then he had turned around and left. They hadn’t talked since.

Sam: Was this all a flashback? I am confused.

Now Theophilus was fast approaching. T minus ten, nine, eight. Albert Talbert, the most disheveled student at B3, walked alongside him,

Sam: Next to Foxy Loxy and Goosey Loosey.

his unlaced shoes flapping against the hard, shiny floor.

T minus three seconds, two …

Luna: Ground control to Major Tom...

Maybe Theophilus would see her today, splayed out in the SPLD. Maybe he would do as he did last year, standing above her, extending his hand, asking, Are you okay?

Midna: No, he’s probably used to it like everyone else.
Luna: Perhaps he will see the cream and assume she is rabid? We do hope so.
Midna: *as narrator* And then animal control arrived and took her away. The End.

And then Tookie would stare into his salted-caramel eyes and tell him exactly how she felt.

Midna: *sings* I only have eyes...for you...to eat...

Theophilus crossed in front of Albert and stumbled over Albert’s shoelace as if it were a trip wire. His body pitched forward. Tookie reached up her arms to catch him. Unfortunately, Theophilus caught hold of an open locker and steadied himself. Something plopped onto Tookie’s chest, and she did a half sit-up to peer at it.

Sam: Unfortunately...or perhaps fortunately...we will never find out what it is.
Midna: So...in this world, gas fumes make everyone crazy, and people with blatantly assumed names are voted into office. And keep running schools that are full of the gas fumes. Is that it?
Sam: This is neither a safe nor wholesome world. Thank goodness it isn’t America.
Midna: Of course! Kings and queens make much more sense than elected officials.
Luna: And princesses.
Midna: That’s right. We’d never let things get into such a state.
Sam: *head in wings*
Luna: *stands dramatically* WE HAVE SEEN ENOUGH! WE WILL NOW TAKE OUR LEAVE AND TRY TO ERASE THIS FROM OUR MEMORY!
Midna: *imitating* SHALL WE GO GET A DRINK TOGETHER IN THE CAFETERIA?
Luna: INDEED, WE SHALL!