Manuscript
Location: Washington state, seattle?
Note: Setting normal house party: Timid young main character is being dragged along by brave friend up to a house. Circle vignette in center of page.
Date: 10/15/17 Time: 9:23pm Location: Josh’s House
“You have to give her back, she will just make you sad and think of Josh every time you look at her,” Cindy motioned to the hedgehog Tallulah was holding on to (Note:Hedgehog in cage.) Josh gave the hedgehog to Tallulah for her 17th birthday; two months later they broke up. Well Josh threw Tallulah’s heart in the trash, set it on fire, and then shit on it. In one arm Tallulah had a box containing his letterman jacket, a necklace, and some other dumb memorabilia that Josh had given her. In the other arm was Miss. Prickles the majestic, sassy hedgehog. Tallulah really didn’t want to give up Miss. Prickles, she was a great companion during her long bouts of insomnia stressing about the uncertainty of the future. She would talk to her and work out her problems aloud even though she knew Miss Prickles was just interested because of the prospect of getting extra food. She agreed that Cindy was right to give Miss Prickles back to Josh, because she would be happier living with Josh’s other hedgehogs.
[Note: Drugs, people having sex, people getting drunk, a huge mess. Two girls navigating through crowd. Tallulah visibly uncomfortable, Cindy strutting confidently dragging her friend. ]
Josh O’Connell (note acne face, greasy hair show picture of him) was Tallulah’s first boyfriend, they were together for 5 months. He was very unathletic but his parents made a huge fuss to get him on the football team because he was going to Harvard goddamnit! And he needed more extracurriculars. Everything worked out because Josh had broken his arm (note show broken arm bleeding) in the first week of practice and was benched the rest of the season. But this meant he was friends with the actually cool football players. Therefore got invited to the legendary parties that usually ended being shut down by the police because of a noise disturbance.
Tallulah was smitten after she had told her friend Sam, to tell Josh’s friend Tyler, to ask him if he thought she was cool and if he wanted to go to the winter formal with her. (Note: depict conversation through phone with text messages) Tallulah and Josh had a very awkward slow dance ending with an even more awkward first kiss, but Tallulah felt like she had become an official woman (even though if you ask her mom she has been a woman since her overly expensive bat mitzvah). (Note Show them slow dancing awkwardly).
Josh ended up getting into Harvard due to the new O’Connell library that his wealthy investment banker father donated money to. Josh didn’t need Tallulah “cramping his style” so he broke up with her in the millennial way over text message.
Josh’s parents were out of town on some sort of wealthy yoga health retreat, so he was throwing a huge rager and the whole school was invited. Cindy- Tallulah’s more free spirited party gal friend - convinced her to go to the party. It would be the least awkward way to casually say goodbye to Josh, and give him back his things. So here she was at the party.
Cindy immediately went into party mode grabbing a bottle of crappy vodka by the neck and chugging it while being cheered on by the hockey team, Tallulah however tried to blend in with the crowd sulking about giving back her hedgehog. She still didn’t want to have to say goodbye to Miss Prickles, or see Josh again for that matter. She found a spot on the sticky beer covered couch next to some band nerds that were groping each other and slowly undressing. She slowly sipped her PBR in order to prepare herself for the uncomfortable exchange with Josh.
Two beers later Tallulah decided she didn’t want to talk to Josh, she just wanted to leave his stuff in his bedroom and go home. Miss Prickles was part of a litter Josh’s other hedgehogs had. Tallulah knew in her heart that Miss Prickles would be happier with the rest of her hedgehog family. She made her way upstairs to his bedroom where he kept the other hedgehogs. She half expected to walk in on people having clumsy drunk sex, instead she saw Danny Devito and Courtney Love!? She was dumbfounded. Did Josh know them? If he did how did he know them? Was his dad really that connected? What were they doing in Washington? How did Danny and Courtney know each other? Why were they at a lame high school party when they could be doing something cool that only rich and famous people can do? All of these questions raced through her head before she noticed they were wearing odd matching metallic jumpsuits. Courtney was holding Josh’s wiggling hedgehogs. In Danny’s hand he held a squirming burlap sack.
“Uh….” Courtney Love stuttered in a drunken state
“Don’t say nuthin bout the damn hedgehogs Courtney” Danny Devito said aggressively. “We ain’t doing nuthin suspicious with these hedgehogs” Danny Devito barked at Tallulah as he grabbed a hedgehog from Courtney and shoved it in the bag. “Ey gimme that!” Danny ripped Miss Prickles from Tallulah’s hands and threw her in the bag.
Tallulah was in shock, scared, nervous all at the same time. She was confused why these odd celebrities were snatching her hedgehog. Before she could do anything the pair took off running throughout the house of drug filled teens.
Cindy was headed upstairs to find Tallulah, but before she could do that was pushed aside by two blurred figures. Before she could register who ran past her, a hand grabbed her arm and dragged her back downstairs, it was Tallulah.
“THEY TOOK MISS PRICKLES! WHERE ARE THEY?” Tallulah cried.
Tallulah dragged Cindy out to the front yard where they saw Danny Devito and Courtney Love getting into what appeared to be a UFO double parked next to someone’s Prius. The girls ran over and Tallulah started yanking at the door trying to get in when all of a sudden …..
[note - weird timespace travel sequence]
[note once in the planet’s atmosphere, the spaceship drops the girls off and they fall and land on pile of yarn or something soft]
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[note: doesn’t need description, full page scenery bustling with mix of people/aliens/ weird shit, showing Tallulah and Cindy’s backs silhouetted].
“Where are they?” Tallulah yelled.
“Where is who?” Cindy asked.
“Danny Devito and Courtney Love stole Miss Prickles!”
“Ok what have you been smoking? More importantly what have I been smoking where the fuck are we?”
As the crowd shuffled around them someone fell on top of Tallulah knocking her to the ground. Before she could get mad she looked into the beautiful eyes belonging to the poster child for someone in an indie band.
“Oh love, sorry ‘bout that, I’m Moonbeam. I’m such a clutz tripping over my own feet and all,” the handsome boy helped her up and shook her hand. Tallulah’s heart fluttered. Could this stranger be the rebound from Josh? Will they grow old together, move to Portland by the coast, manage a small alpaca farm, shear/ dye/ knit goods to sell at their small craft store, have 2.5 kids that will grow up to be doctors, teachers, and maybe social workers, sit on the porch and watch the sunset together and complain about pesticides in food and how gluten is evil? He could also turn out to be a fuckboy that listens to Beach House and read one essay by Noam Chomsky that thinks he is God’s greatest gift.
“Uhhh you guys look super lost. Do you need help?” Moonbeam offered.
“What gave us away?” Tallulah asked as she batted her eyelashes.
“Holy shit! You’re humans right!? From Earth!?” Exclaimed Moonbeam.
“Aren’t you too? You look so normal compared to all these other weird blobs floating around,” Cindy gestured to the other oddities moving about. “Where the hell are we?”
“I’m actually a Cyborg.” He peeled his skin back revealing intricate metal wire works. “I have never actually seen a live human this close before, this is wild. I was made to mirror Earth creatures, so I had to study your species very thoroughly for the space mafia. There is a big inside trading deal in Italy for rare pasta. People here will pay big bucks for it. I used to travel to Earth and steal pasta recipes for Big Tony and the Tonettes. But then I wanted out of the space mafia biz, so now I sell repaired used Earth vacuums to collectors. Clients trust me cuz I look like I’m from Earth. Yeah anyways, you are on planet Flizzflazz, how did you guys end up here?”
“Can you help us? We are looking for a short, fat man and a washed up singer, they stole my hedgehog. I was trying to break into their spaceship but we got sucked up and spit out here [NOTE UNSURE IF THIS MAKES SENSE]” Tallulah blurted out.
“Oh the notorious space criminals. We are on the bad side of town where a lot of trades and weird science shit happens, but that is also where the business for used vacuums is. I have a lot of sketchy clients. The space criminals are over here a lot buying machine parts. I heard through the grapevine they are trying to breed the ultimate monster for their army to take over other galaxies. They have been collecting different rare species to breed together and hoping something works out.”
“Miss Prickles! What are they going to do to breed the hedgehogs” Tallulah exclaimed.
“Well their last hideous abomination was a mix between grass alien DNA from planet LawnMowe and squids. That was one ugly ass mess up, so they had to kill all of them. Tossed ‘em into a vat of Toxic Goop and burned them alive. Perfectly good waste of Toxic Goop, maintenance had to clean the whole factory. The stocks dropped that week,” Moonbeam said.
“NO! We need to stop them,” Tallulah screamed.
“You were going to give Miss Prickles back to Josh anyway weren’t you? Ugh, I want to go home,” Cindy said.
“Yeah I was …” Tallulah said sheepishly. “But she can’t die like that! We need to find her.” She was trying hard to keep her cool and seem flirty, but her anxiety was getting the best of her.
“Ugh you weren’t going to give her back, I knew it. Fine the faster we find her the sooner I can get out of this hellscape. Excuse me, Moonbeam do you know how we can find them?”
“Yeah, their lab is notoriously hard to break into. I know one guy who tried to rob them. Ended up developing a weird twitch. But I just ended my shift, and I’m always down for adventure so let’s do it,” he said with a grin.
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Earlier that night - 10:42pm Josh’s House
[Note: Miss Prickles perspective. She is in her cage]
Food, food food. Munch munch munch.
New smell! Oh! Food munch.
I love running in circles. Yes running. I love food. More food? Munch munch.
New smells! New smells! New smells! Familiar smell! I’m moving! Mom! Sniff sniff sniff no food??? Mom I love her! Back in the cage. Munch munch I love food. Munch munch.
Oh we are moving. Munch munch munch.
New smells! I’m moving! Mom? New person! New friend! New friend! I-----ACK darkness! Scared scared scared. New smells. It smells like me. OW OW OW spikey ow ow ow OW.
Oh. This thing looks like me. Food? No food? Mirror? No it’s moving differently. Friend? Scared.
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[Note: Moonbeam led the girls to a dive bar.]
“Barkeep one Toxic Goop for me, and anything for you ladies?” Moonbeam asked.
“No we are definitely ok,” Cindy said [note: making gagging face].
The bartender slid Moonbeam a drink.
Moonbeam motioned for the girls to follow him into the grungy bar bathroom. He pushed open the narrow door to a stall and pushed the toilet to the side to reveal a small crawl space.
“This way,” Moonbeam took the lead. Cindy and Tallulah followed.
[Note: Approach a metal door that resembled a bank door to safety deposit boxes with a huge vault (?). And a scanner to capture the proper fingerprint to open the door. ]
“This is the direct entrance to the liar, but it’s a fingerprint scanner lock. We will have to go through the back way; it’s heavily booby trapped. Lots of kids try to break in so they can brag to their friends, but it’s a dangerous venture not many - if any - to my knowledge have successfully made it through. We have to slide down that tunnel are you guys ready?”
Tallulah mustered up all the courage she could. “For Miss Prickles”
“No no no no y’all are crazy!” Cindy shouted, but it was too late Tallulah grabbed her arm and Moonbeam’s arm and dragged them to their mysterious fate.
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Note: Danny + Courtney perspective [setting - Evil science lab, test tubes, frankenstein-esque]
Danny looked lovingly at his drunken queen Courtney Love. [note - flashback] After Kurt Cobain died Danny finally saw his opportunity to divorce his wife and shack up with the hot mess of a pair of tits. He had met her back in ‘85 at some club. There she was passed out at the bar, empty beer bottles around her, one breast hanging out of her stained shirt. He fell madly into infatuation.
[note - setting back to alien planet] The sack of hedgehogs was tied up in a corner. “Courtney, babe, gimme them tools over there”.
“Do you think we can snort coke of this thing?” Courtney said holding a hedgehog in one hand, a bag of premium Nicaraguan coke in the other.
“Of course we probably could, but we need these things for our experiment!” Danny protested and snatched the hedgehog from her hands. He held it right up to his face and looked the hedgehog in the eyes. Bastard, you are going to make me the richest king of the whole universe.
He was going to mutate the hedgehogs’ spike gene with some flying alien DNA to create the ultimate undefeatable army to attack and overthrow other planets. The alien gods had enlisted his help for this mission, as they had granted his wish of fame and then subsequently Courtney Love’s fame. Not to mention with the overthrowing of the universe Devito and Love’s thirst for fame would increase enormously.
The alien gods had an odd complex, the 3 rulers were voted on every 10 million years. They had the responsibility to keep the universe in order, but they also had a mischievous side. They themselves had more important matters to concentrate on like keeping gravity in order and boring paperwork. So in order to have fun, they granted powers to special individuals they thought could make things more spicy.
“Courtney, let’s go over the process so you don’t fuck up again.” Danny pointed to his schematics as he flipped his welding mask down.
“Ok first we take the hedgehog sample and put it in the Transforminator Capsule compartment 3.A. Then we take the alien DNA and put it in compartment 5.W. Then as we push the button, the DNA will smoosch together and our army will be born. Here’s where you come in. As I laugh my maniacal laugh you will start playing your God-awful music and train them to listen to our attack commands with the sound of your voice. I will then agitate them and roll down the projector and play the Chuck Norris combat video. They will absorb the war moves and be ready to conquer the universe for us. Yah got it bitch?”
Courtney picked up her guitar and started playing a garbage out of tune hymn.
“That’s my girl” Danny said.
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They fell through the sky and hit a creamy substance. It was mayonnaise. It is the most evil condiment coming only slightly after tartar sauce. The last time Tallulah had come in contact with it was on a dare at her first boy girl party to eat it straight out of the jar with a spoon. Josh was there and she didn’t want to seem like a pussy, so she mustered up all the courage she could to take a huge gulp of the nasty oily foul substance. The moment the stuff hit her tongue she felt her whole body want to reject it. She felt nauseous and like the room was spinning but tried to push through. It was worse than swallowing a pill the size of a fist, she was thinking this was an impossible feat and she should give up. She was determined to show off in front of Josh but her body was not responding and projectile vomited the mayo onto a very popular girl.
All these memories flooded her as the mayonnaise flooded every nook and cranny of her body as she sank into it. She was fully repulsed to her core and thought she might die in that moment. She was overcome with worry as Cindy was equally as repulsed if not more repulsed than Tallulah. One of the reasons they were best friends in the first place; they had met at the boy girl party. After Tallulah choked up the mayo Cindy stood up and shouted “How dare you make someone do something that horrible. You people are truly awful and this is medevil torture. I should call 911 and have her stomach pumped for any residue of this nasty cum you call a condiment”. She grabbed Tallulah and pulled her into the bathroom and helped clean her up. “Don’t ever let anyone disrespect your body like that again, you are a beautiful queen and mayo should never touch your lips”
The strength of her love for her best friend hit Tallulah and she scrambled to float to the top to save her friend. She hit the top and struggled to stay afloat, mayo was much harder to swim in than water. Some people dream of a pudding pool, but if it is this consistency maybe they should re-think. Tallulah spotted Cindy spazzing out trying to stay afloat but also hysterically crying and panicking; she didn’t see Moonbeam anywhere. Tallulah tried her best to swim over to her to help her stay calm but as she did this she looked around and saw nothing but mayo for miles. She knew she couldn’t keep floating like this forever her muscles were giving out. The overwhelming smell of mayo made her so nauseous she passed out.
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Tallulah’s eyes flashed open as her body felt electrified with fear. The first thing she saw was Moonbeam and Cindy leaning over her. [Note: sequence of blurred images coming into focus] She heard muffled sounds before realizing it was Moonbeam saying “are you ok?”
“Oh thank god she is waking up,” Cindy said.
“What happened?” Tallulah said weakly.
“I ate all of the mayonnaise, I love it so much. It’s a cyborg delicacy. It’s also Danny Devito’s favorite food. Then at the bottom of the mayonnaise I noticed a small metal door, which lead us here. You passed out so I carried you here and we have been trying to wake you up.”
“Wow. Thank you, I don’t know what we would have done if you weren’t here. I also don’t understand why are you trying to help us. That could have been a lot more dangerous than just mayonnaise. You don’t know me or Cindy, and all of this is for my hedgehog!”
“Well,” blushed Moonbeam, “I wanted to get to know you better. I have never seen a human as beautiful as you. Sure I haven’t seen many humans, but the ones I studied were ugly. Yeah I don’t know you, but I want to get to know you.”
Cindy made a gagging noise.
Tallulah was floored. She felt a warm happiness spread across her body. Before she could say anything the lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared directing everyone’s attention to a stage. A greasy balding man walked out from behind the curtain and stood too close to the microphone. His mumbled jokes were unbearably awful. They were racist, sexist, or just an awful cry for a career change. “What’s a parrot’s favorite food? Squackamole!” He retorted in a dull monotone. The audience was non-responsive. It was like someone had died, but the person who died was not very liked, but no one wanted to be that disrespectful asshole so like their parents told them “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. The most painful part of this experience was the 2 drink minimum each of them had to cough up for shitty beer with a low alcohol content.
People tried to leave, but every time someone stood up the comedian started heckling them and bullying them into staying. Cindy kept giving Tallulah looks like ‘how are we going to escape?’.
Finally a girl stood up and announced that she had to go to the bathroom. Tallulah and Cindy stood up and announced they will go with her as it is unsafe for girls to go to the bathroom alone. They needed each other’s passive aggressive comments to gauge how well they re-applied their makeup in the foggy graffitied club mirror. This was the perfect exit plan. As the girls headed for the bathroom Tallulah grabbed Moonbeam and dragged him out the exit with them.
-------- [note: need transition how do they get into the lair???? ]
Tallulah burst into the lair to see Miss Prickles out of all the hedgehogs strapped into some terrible machine. She saw a weird looking alien strapped in opposite of Miss Prickles to the machine. Lights were flashing as the machine was gearing up to do something. Tallulah noticed the hedgehogs that had already been mutated swarming around Courtney’s feet as she was singing and playing her guitar. Their eyes were glued on her. Danny Devito was fumbling with a projector and a copy of Chuck Norris’s top 20 films.
Cindy immediately felt the flight or fight mechanism inside of her kick in and ran straight for Courtney Love and started ripping at her hair getting into a cat fight disrupting the hedgehog’s trance.
Moonbeam searched for how to shut down the terrifying machine. He ripped open a closet door revealing the original members of Black Sabbath: Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Ozzy Osbourne. Danny and Courtney had been sharing their evil lair with Black Sabbath because rent on planet FlizzFlazz is expensive. Through extensive encouragement Black Sabbath agreed to move in, in exchange for failed mutated bats from one of Danny and Courtney’s experiments. The bats had been combined with the slime monster goo DNA, so essentially just slimy bats. Ozzy Osbourne saw great potential. They were trying to train the bats to do tricks for their live tour.
“OH!” Ozzy grumbled. “Is the concert now?”
“Guess so?” Geezer retorted. The band slowly and drunkily got their instruments together and started playing [note: show this happening while Cindy fighting Courtney, Moonbeam fighting Danny, and Tallulah trying to rip Miss Prickles from the machine]
A harmonica silenced everyone. They were surprised Ozzy was sober enough to remember how to play music. The rest of the band chimed in and started playing “The Wizard”. Courtney Love felt threatened as she was not the center of attention. She grabbed her guitar and started trying to compete with her slurred words and out of sync strumming. The hedgehogs infused with the alien DNA responded to this noise and started flailing around making vicious noises.
“No he isn’t fully trained!!!” Danny cried out. The hedgehog started attacking his leg, biting him, spurting blood everywhere. Danny’s skin turned pale as he started to bleed out. He died. Courtney was overcome, she didn’t know what to do without him. Out of fear she fled the scene, she didn’t want to be faced with the implications of trying to overthrow the universe.
After hitting all the buttons on the machine frantically, Tallulah finally broke the seal on the Transforminator…
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[ Miss Prickles perspective ]
Dark. Ahhhh noise noise. Loud. Scary. Screech. Screech. Screech.
A hand. Mom? MOM??? No. Other hand. Rough. Same as before. Not Mom. Snack? No snack. Sad. Snack? No. Snack?
Moving. Not dark. What is this? New place. New friend? Snack?
COLD! COLD! Hard. Cold. I’m on my back. Uncomfortable. Snack?
Noises. Lights flashing. What’s that? Strange. Snack? Still no snack??? Noises. Noises. Noises.
Mom? Mom. Mom! MOM! Sniff sniff. Mom. Snack? SNACK. At last. Safe. Happy. Snack. Munch munch munch.
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