Penny and the Turlit System
by Leigh
Penny crammed another turlit in her mouth. “Fnut?” she mumbled, a look of confusion crossing her frantically-chewing face.
“Uh, nothing, nothing,” Ellen replied, scooting backwards on the school bench - she had to avoid the turlit crumbs that were exiting Penny’s mouth almost as fast as they went in.
“Don’t you think you ought to, maybe... Slow down?” Rosie said, also a little frightened by the rate of Penny’s consumption.
“Fno muhs!” Penny replied, which in standard English means “No, guys!” Penny
continued, still eating as fast as she could. “Fi non’t binish deshe, bile mever dake turpentine!” (“If I don’t finish these, I’ll never make it in time!”)
“That’s great, Penny,” Victoria replied enthusiastically. “Really great! But uh, I seem to be experiencing a library emergency. Ellen, Rosie, you two wanna help me out with that?”
“Oh yeah, yeah!” Ellen and Rosie both replied, trying not to seem too eager to flee into the food-prohibited safety of the library - trying and failing.
Penny sat on the bench outside Mayhew. Let them go. Let them abandon her in her hour of need. At the end of the day, she would be the one reigning triumphant. She would be Queen of the Turlits! Then that Jonathan would see.
Or Jonathon. Or Johnathonian. Oh, hell, call him Faggy McFag. After all, it was pretty GAY to get so upset about the QUEER spelling of your name.
Anyway, Penny had better things to worry about now. Like the last five boxes of turlits that were sitting next to her. At first they had tasted kind of delicious. Now they were beginning to lose their flavoursome appeal,however. Penny suspected that in five more boxes, her treasured turlits would be quite loathsome to her - she would probably sit there crying, and cramming turlit after turlit in her mouth... Mmm, flavoured by tears... But it would be worth it. She shoved another turlit in her mouth.
“Oh, wow!” Someone sat on the bench next to her and reached for a turlit.
Penny automatically slapped his hand away, screeching, “Fresh!” Of course, since her mouth was full of delectable turlit, it sounded more like, “Bless!” She turned to see who her turlit assailant was, and suddenly blushed fourteen shades of red. And also two shades of pink.
“Goku!” Penny squawked. “THE Goku!”
“Yeah,” he said, still his preternaturally optimistic self, even though he was denied the turlitty goodness. Actually he seemed a little confused as to why Penny would adore him enough to shout, “Bless!” but hate him so much that she denied him food.
“Wow! Why are you on school grounds?”
“Well, Penny,” Goku said, “To tell you the truth, I was just flying by when I saw your huge pile of turlits there. Turlits are my absolute favourite food. Turlits rule my stomach with an iron fist of love! ...Are you sure I can’t have one?”
Penny’s awe was swept away in a flood of rage. “The hell you can! Get your own damn turlits, you lousy Saiyan!”
Goku blinked. “But you have five boxes!”
“Four and a half, actually! Anyway, whaddya gonna do about it, hmm? I heard you were Pret-ty dowdy! That you were a cowardly ham statue with chewing gum blobs of energy, Goku!”
Goku’s bottom lip trembled. His Super Saiyan 4 tail twitched. Some little pebbles flew off the pavement and floated around his head.
“I can’t believe ever I thought you could possibly beat Lestat!” Penny, defiant, stood up and as one final insult... Violently crammed a turlit into her mouth. “Beyd fall for Leigh!”
“...Who’s Leigh?” Goku asked confused.
“Fnut Leigh! Smeee!”
“What, that dude from Peter Pan?”
“Fnut Smeee!” Penny’s rage was palpable... Or was that turlit she was tasting?
“For me! For me, you idiot! THEY’RE ALL FOR ME! Now get off school property
before I tell Mrs Tucker you’re here! And not only that, I’ll call Ms Ussher and Julia Wallace from the former principals’ grave beneath the roses!”
Goku stood up. He wrapped his tail around his waist to keep it from getting within Penny’s wildly-gesturing hands.
“But Penny,” he said. “That Former Principals’ Grave thing is just a myth! And Ms Ussher isn’t even dead yet!”
“The hell she isn’t!” Penny howled, and crammed in another turlit. “Beeshall flies Tom her knave, flaws fike dombeesh fand...” Penny swallowed. “She shall rise from her grave, claws like a zombie’s and screaming for your ham flesh!”
Goku dodged one of Penny’s punches, floating into the air. “This country is Messed Up.” He muttered. “I’m going back to Japan. NOTHING weird ever happens there.”
As Goku’s muscular monkey body disappeared into the sun, Penny sat down calmly, trying to hug her four and a half... No, four remaining boxes to her all at once. The schoolbell rang, signalling the end of lunchtime. A few moments later, Rosie, Ellen and Victoria walked out of the library.
“So you see, Rosie,” Victoria was explaining, “The variable y means that the velociraptor is equal to the parable of t minus ten seconds.”
“Ohh. I concur!” said Ellen.
“Of course!” Rosie slapped her forehead. “How could I have been so wrong?”
“I just don’t know.” Victoria beamed, glad to have been of service. “Come on guys, we’d better hurry or we might be late for CHEMISTRY!”
The other two squealed - not chemistry! Perish the thought!
“Come on, Penny, are you coming?” Rosie asked.
“Fnut!” Penny shook her head, turlit crumbs flying out like water from a rotating sprinkler.
“Don’t be silly, Rosie,” Ellen explained. “Penny can’t carry FOUR boxes of turlits at once. Those things are huge!”
“But guys, we could carry one each! There are FOUR of us!”
“Ohhh.” Rosie and Ellen gasped again at Victoria’s genius, until suddenly Ellen had a thought. She carefully approached Penny... Reached out a hand...
“Bless!” screeched Penny, slapping Ellen’s hand away.
“No good, guys.” Ellen said sadly as Penny climbed on top of her boxes of turlits, spreading her arms over them like a mother hen would over her chicks. She bared her teeth at her friends.
“Penny’s practically not home any more,” Ellen said sadly. “This turlit system is destroying her. Oh well!” She smiled. “To chemistry!”
Penny’s friends wandered off again. Penny looked at her turlit throne. Must... Consume... More... Turlits...
That evening Penny had a visitor at her home. Actually, she had several. Penny lay in her bed, a cool cloth on her forehead, a bowl of broth on her beside table.
Ellen, Rosie and Victoria were crowded around the foot of her bed, whispering excitedly.
Suddenly, Jonathonaian was marched in the door at gunpoint. It was his own gunpoint.
He was holding it there to make visible his disgust at what he was about to do.
“Here, Penny,” he muttered resentfully. “You won the challenge with your clever system.”
“What system?” Rosie piped up. “All she did was eat and eat?”
“And I wish I’d thought of that, too!” snarled Jonathone in reply.
Penny smiled up at him as he presented her with her prize - a t-shirt printed with the slogan, “Member of the Pirate Club!” She clutched it to her chest like it was a turlit.
“Oh Jinnython!” Penny breathed. “I had the most wonderful dream! And you were there!” she pointed at J-Moneython. “And you!” Penny directed her gaze to the three friends at the foot of her bed. “And you were there... And you!”
Penny’s eyes rolled back in her head. She was so happy. She heard her friends talk in hushed whispers.
“Come on, let’s go. She’ll be sleeping off those turlits for a while.”
“But what a system!” Jonatheen said, still clearly envious that Penny’s plan to consume the most turlits had been so much better than his own.
“Right, Jonnython. Hey, look out for that - ”
BOOM!
“And that’s why you should always tie your shoelace,” Victoria said to Ellen and Penny in a motherly tone.
Penny heard the boom as she drifted off to sleep, her Pirate-sloganed t-shirt safe in her arms. Jeenathon was going to a better place. A place where zombie principals reigned supreme, and pirates and penny whistles...
Penny snored gently.
She dreamed of turlits.