Young Writers Society

She’s like a slice of chocolate cake – I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help looking. I gaze as her hand rolls across the page, her pen spilling out pink loops and whorls. Her eyes are iced with cloudy caramel and coffee hues, blending together like a painting. A waterfall of charcoal waves tumble down her back...

and the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.

"What happened?" I moaned.

"You were infected by purple prose. You're lucky we found you in time, another few moments and your story would have been dead.

"I feel dizzy," I said. The room was starting to spin.

"Yes, it happens often and for no apparent reason. We have you on an IV of George Orwell, but in about a minute you'll be fine."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Areida. You're in the Big Brother Literary Hospital, purple prose ward."

"Oh," I say calmly, "I have no idea what you just said, but thank you for saving my story."

"No problem, but please be more careful, by the way, while examining you, we found that you have diabetes, type two."

"Oh no! Doesn't that mean I'm obese? Oh dear, I guess I'll have to say goodbye to all those scrumptious chocolate truffles, you know, the nice kind with the creamy chocolate filling." I say, sighing heavily.

"It's okay," Areida said briskly, making a note on a very thick pile of papers. "I'm mildly anemic. These things happen."

"What does that mean?"

She tsked. "You sound delirious. And it means I don't have enough hemoglobin. Now sit still, I'm going to take your pulse. Sometimes people react in funny ways once the Orwell IV is complete and we get them going on a little Steinbeck just for good measure. One, two, thr--"

I passed out.

And when I came too, I was sitting in a pile of Strunk and White's Elements of Fiction.

"Oh my gosh!" I screamed. "Where am I now?"

"Same place you were before, only this time we're checking for grammar."

"wrong what is with my grammar?" I mumbled.

"Well there you go. Now shut up, this won't hurt." I believe she hit me in the face with a dictionary. I couldn't quiet remembered, because when I finally grew attentive enough to pay attention, the dictionary was coming at me.

And, with the dictionary, the thesaurus was closing in fast! Quick! Rapidly! Swiftly! Hastily! Speedily! Briskly! Fleetingly! Nonslowly!--

WHACK!

Didn't we give you an IV of George Orwell?

"Ugh?"

"He doesn't like words like "nonslowly."

"Then why did he have words like that in 1984?"

"No idea."

"Oh." Then Arieda leaned over giving me a strange look. Glaring at me. Staring at me. Peering over at me.

"One more thing..."

"Are you a spy for the Cabassi family?"

"What?"

"I said, are you a spy for the Cabassi family?"

"We should check his hearing while we're at it," Snoink said. "I knew these audio tapes of my novel would be useful someday!"

"I just wanted to make sure that I heard correctly. You're asking me if I'm a spy for the Cabassi Family?"

Grif burst into the room.

"Redundancy has become critical!" he said, before whacking me with an oversized salmon.

"Well I'm not!" I said, trying to push Grif off of me. He was rambling something about redundancy and repetition but I wasn't listening. I did have bad hearing, don't you know?

An audio tape of FREAK started rolling.

"When is this going to be published?" I asked snoink.

She gave me a blank stare. "In a few years. Stop asking. Maybe never! I don't know! When I feel like!" I was quiet surprised when she started cursing at me for asking, apparently, everyone wants a signed copy. Maybe she can get a 'deal' and save on postage.

Then someone else came in.

"NATE!"

"Fear not, for I have posted the new Squills E-zine," he said in a deep voice.

"Praise God!" Areida said. I was thoroughly confused.

"Snoink, I have a new mission for the SPEW Commandos, it's- hey, who's that guy?"

"I don't know, he's an author though," Snoink said.

"We'll just call him Arthur," Areida said.

"Hey! That's not a bad name. Anyway, it's a super secret mission. The Cabassi Crime Family has infiltrated a vegetable processing plant, I need your team to counter-infiltrate it, and take them out using an overly elaborate plan that is doomed to failure," Nate said.

"What about Arthur?"

"He can come too."

It just so happened that I, was Arthur.

So, I was drug(dragged?) along on this mission. Of course, I was quiet confused. They had me bow to Nate sanctimoniously while I was flustered on how to even pronounce "Squills".

And wasn't SPEW a group of critiquers? Or had I been led to believe a lie?

"Arthur!" Grif shouted.

"er?"

"If you're going to come with us, you can't have narratives that no one cares about. Cut it out. You aren't taking the story anywhere that it should be going."

"Yes Ma'am."

"I'm a sir."

"Er... of course you are," I said. "Wait a second, what are you doing?"

Snoink and Areida were unplugging various things from the wall and plucking patches off my body.

"HEY, that HURTS!"

"Sorry," Snoink said brightly. Areida giggled and then snorted.

Nate glanced at his watch. "All right, you four, you have until 1730 hours before you have to be down at the dock to pick up the apes."

"What apes?" I asked.

"The apes for the super secret counter-infiltration against the CCF which we need for our overly elaborate plan that is doomed to failure," Grif said. "What else?"

"Good luck," Nate said. "If you need me I'll be waiting in line to play with the Wii I got for Christmas."

Areida and Snoink waved goodbye. Unfortunately for me, Areida was supposing to be removing the IV from my arm at the time. I screamed.

"Can I gag him?" Snoink wanted to know.

"Later," said Grif, peering into the hallway. "Ready? Let's move."

Areida grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me along the cooridoor. Suddanly, the hallway opened up into a cavernous room, where hundreds of people busily pressed buttons on a gigantic dashboard.

"Where am I?"

"Oh, I think we forgot to tell you," said Snoink. "Oops. While you were unconsious we beamed you up to our secret space base."

"Right. And who are these?"

"Young button-pressers. Has anyone told him-"

"Oh yes. Ahem." Nate cleared his throat. "You are now an official member of the YBPS. Young Button Presser's Society. Now get to work!"

I started pressing buttons, not really sure what they did.

Some said "SPEW" some said "squills" and other, more obscure ones said "HONEST, BUT VERY HARSH CRITIQUE BY INCANDESCENCE" which everyone had told me not to push unless the lights in the back room went off and you could hear a siren. So I made sure not to push it.

"But I thought I was going to..." I began.

"No, not anymore," Grif interrupted, "We decided you weren't good enough, if you can't tell I'm not a man, then you're not on the team. I mean. Not a woman."

"But I—"

"OKAY!" Snoink shouted, "NOW, can I gag him?"

"Yeah, you probably should..." Grif quipped in.

"No, don't do that!" I said. "I have a horrible fear of... er..." I decided to improvise. "Things being stuck into my mouth!"

"Really?" Snoink said, looking interested. "That sounds like--"

"SHHHHHH!!!!" Areida exclaimed, her eyes wide.

"Oh come on!" Snoink said.

"No!" Areida said. "We can't tell him."

"Tell him what?" Grif asked, coming up beside them with an ape sitting on his shoulder wearing a sombrero.

"About the you-know-what in the you-know-where concerning the you-know-who," Areida said.

"i LUV HARRY POTTER!!!11!!" screamed one of the YBPS.

Snoink jumped on her and gagged her. "I think I'm going to need to start a detox for bad fanfiction on this one," she said, studying the girl critically.

Suddenly the lights in the room disappeared, leaving everything in utter blackness. Somebody screamed.

"Oh, shut up," Grif snapped.

"i LUV HARRY POTTER!!!111!!" screamed detox girl.

I was getting a headache.