cutscene-picnic

Cutscene One - The Pic­nic

Nice breezy, sun­ny day among the pines. A pale, lit­tle girl of no more than eleven years care­ful­ly smooths her pret­ty white dress, with its frills and cute pink belt that match­es the rib­bon in her blond hair. She knows her guests lack the math­e­mat­i­cal ap­ti­tude to no­tice the geo­met­ric equa­tion she has for­mu­lat­ed on the spot­less white table­cloth. Even so her blue eyes sparkle with sat­is­fac­tion at the splen­did ar­ray of saucer­s, cup­s, tasty morsel­s, steam­ing tea, soy-milk, cubed sug­ar, nap­kin­s, and Wendy’s fa­vorite, it­sy bit­sy lit­tle sil­ver spoons that twin­kle in the sun­light. At the cen­ter of it all a sim­ple cream vase de­mur­res to the beau­ty of a sin­gle daisy. Fresh­ly grown by the the se­nior bi­ol­o­gy class, each petal a dif­fer­ent un­nat­u­ral­ly vi­brant hue. An­oth­er of Wendy’s fa­vorites, brought just for her by Mr. Del­ga­do. Who, as too of­ten, is look­ing pro­tec­tive­ly to­wards her. She brush­es a lock of hair from her eyes and fa­vors him with a re­as­sur­ing lit­tle smile. Mr. Del­ga­do re­moves a black wool hat, re­veal­ing his short cut but hand­some, dark and stiff head of hair. Gray­ing at the tem­ples in the most gen­tle­man­ly of man­ner­s. He bows deeply, re­turn­ing Wendy’s greet­ing and places his cane care­ful­ly with­in easy reach. He had­n’t even com­plet­ed re­mov­ing his fine gloves be­fore an ill­man­nered at­tempt to pil­fer a but­tery cook­ie was halt­ed with a quick eep and stern look from Wendy. Mr. Del­ga­do would have to sit, pa­tient­ly, un­til Wendy said it was time to have cook­ies. What could he have been think­ing? The tea has­n’t even been poured yet! But, she must at­tend to that short­ly, Queen Pick­les had start­ed chew­ing on her nap­kin! Wendy sighed, ac­cept­ing that her dress was as smooth and straight as it pos­si­bly could be and poured Mr. Del­ga­do and her­self each a hot, rich brown cup of [drag­on] tea. From some hid­den place she pro­duced a cher­ry toma­to. Queen Pick­les ceased her un­seem­ly nap­kin chew­ing and fix­at­ed on the shiny treat waved in front of her. The Queen’s at­ten­tion was soon re­ward­ed and she was slop­pi­ly and nois­i­ly in sweet toma­to blis­s. Gig­gling, Wendy next pro­vid­ed sev­er­al bright green leaves of let­tuce to the dis­tin­guished Mr. Shuf­fles. Near­ly as dis­tin­guished as Del­ga­do for he al­so had a fine hat and gray fur, lack­ing on­ly a cane. Queen Pick­les was al­ready nudg­ing Wendy for an­oth­er tasty treat.

Owl had to ad­mit that this was a very pleas­ant par­ty and the nice lit­tle girl was def­i­nite­ly of the white side of things. But, Owl could­n’t very well leave un­mo­lest­ed such a plump rab­bit peace­ful­ly munch­ing away right un­der­neath his branch. He was af­ter al­l, Owl. So, Owl un­furled great brown wings and silent­ly left his piney perch. Mr. Shuf­fles stopped chew­ing, he had that feel­ing. The feel­ing that on­ly the hunt­ed get, the feel­ing that on­ly the hunters give. He hopped on­ce, get­ting all the way on­to the ta­ble. Then turn­ing three quar­ters of the way around pushed as hard as his hind legs would be pushed. On the way to the ground, some­thing yanked off the stoopid hat Wendy made him wear and his left ear stung painful­ly. He heard Wendy screech and call out his name. But, there was no time for any of that. Mr. Shuf­fles was busy ex­e­cut­ing his fa­mous “Hip­pi­ty Hop This way an That” ma­neu­ver.

“Oh no!” Wendy thought, that naughty owl scared Mr. Shuf­fles. Scared Queen Pick­les too, but she had sense enough to hide un­der the ta­ble. No doubt curled up tight, spines all out. With a quick twist she threw her tea cup up af­ter the owl but he was al­ready lost to sight, even a slay­er’s. Wendy for­ward flipped out of her chair, over the ta­ble and was off run­ning af­ter the rab­bit. She ig­nored Del­gado’s warn­ings, plead­ings, and last­ly his ad­mon­ish­ments to re­turn. Her pret­ty pink rib­bon caught on a branch and was yanked from her hair. It swung briefly in the ocean breeze be­fore Del­ga­do re­trieved it. Fold­ing it neat­ly and sigh­ing, he placed it in his vest pock­et. Check­ing his watch he was ex­treme­ly alarmed to find it sud­den­ly af­ter dark.

Wendy stopped, her hair did not. With a hefty puff from her low­er lip she blew the blond mess clear from one eye. For­get­ting she bran­dished on­ly a tasty car­rot, she held it pointy end to­wards the trench­coat­ed fig­ure that had halt­ed her chase. She did­n’t rec­og­nize this one but she knew the type, heavy boot­s, lots of black, lots of leather. Not much trou­ble usu­al­ly, but this one had it’s clawed hands wrapped round a quiv­er­ing mass of grey fur. She was pre­par­ing a suit­ably threat­ing threat when Mr. Trench­coat burst out laugh­ing.

“Lil mis­s, did you not get the mem­o? Car­rot­s, do jack all against us vam­pires.”

This prompt­ed a laugh from an­oth­er just walk­ing up. His laugh was gut­tural, the kind that on­ly comes from be­ing raised in “Ass­wipe” Mis­sis­sip­pi. This one Wendy knew all too well.

“Uh huh, get it boss? Lead­ing with car­rot, hit­ting with stick. Huh huh.”

“Shut up Clee­tus.” said the trench­coat.

Wendy said to Clee­tus “Thanks for re­mind­ing me.”

Wendy let go of the car­rot and start­ed top­pling for­ward in­to a cart­wheel. When her shiny black shoe was far over­head she grabbed a stake strapped to the back of her thigh. End­ing her tum­ble with the split­s; right leg out, toes ex­pert­ly point­ed, right arm per­fect­ly par­al­lel. Coach By­ers would be proud. The stake, pro­pelled with all her for­ward mo­men­tum, pen­e­trat­ed more than half­way in­to Trench­coat’s chest. A small puff lat­er he, fash­ion crime out­fit and al­l, turned to dust. Wendy jumped up, not even paus­ing to brush away the dirt and nee­dles her gym­nas­tics had at­tract­ed. Clee­tus was dum­b, dumb­er than dirt, but he knew when to run. By the time Wendy was hug­ging Mr. Shuf­fles safe and sound he was long gone.

Ewwh! There was slob­ber all over Mr Shuf­fles ear, that nasty trench­coat had been lick­ing all the blood off Mr. Shuf­fles talon wound.

Back at the pic­nic area ev­ery­thing was smashed and scratched in­to the ta­ble was a note from Clee­tus:

“We gots D. who dummest now”

Wendy burst in­to tears. Queen Pick­les did­n’t quite know what to do with Wendy so up­set. So, she rubbed her tiny wet nose on Wendy’s wrist.

Wendy woke up with a frown. Mr. Shuf­fles was hid­ding un­der the warmth of the cov­ers as usu­al and Queen pick­les was nudg­ing her wrist im­pa­tient for morn­ing treat. “What a poopy dream. I won’t pay it any mind at al­l. To­day is my birth­day! la la my birth­day! me me birth­day la da dee.” she sang all morn­ing get­ting ready for school.