Dawn on Jefferson: Chapter Eleven, The Breaking Shadstorm
Chapter One: Getting Up
Chapter Two: Where I Live
Chapter Three: The Walk
Chapter Four: School
Chapter 5: Introducing my Friends, the Merry Pranksters!
Chapter 6: Walking to Mom's
Chapter Seven: Mom’s House
Chapter Eight: It Began on Constitution Hill
Chapter Nine: Attack of the Awknerds!
Chapter Ten: No Awknerds Were Harmed
Chapter Eleven: The Breaking Shadstorm
Most of the time, I completely despise the silly word play games kids play corrupting our awesome town’s name into words that are less than wholesome. It is a temptation the young boys who think they are funny. It happens when a lot of them hit my age. And then there are the less than happy cannot resist. I have to admit, though, our town’s founders just walked right into it with name ‘Shadwell.’
Most of the time, as I said, very annoying. I entirely disapprove. However, then, right then, right at that moment, without any question, I found myself in the midst of the perfect Shadstorm.
What’s a Shadstorm? Some exotic alien weather pattern unique to Shadwell?
It's a storm, alright, but it's not the weather.
Shadstorms were when the parents of Shadwell go nuts over something. There was often a lot of angry yelling, accusations and sometimes even name calling. There were a few grudges held over past Shadstorms and some families have had stigmas ever since. In one case, two families moved away to another town!
That was because Livia Curlless and her best friend Rohan Blake decided to go right up to the cliff edge of stupid crazy and take a flying leap, head first, right off. Base jumping edition of mega-derpage. With no parachute. Face first. Singing that classical music song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Yes, really, that dumb.
You see, they decided for their science project, they were going to study the life cycle of the taxito. Livia, in her infinite genius, decided they needed to breed those highly deadly Jefflife bugs inside the school. Bites from those vicious little things can cause anaphylactic shock in human beings. In fact, they almost always do. They are probably one of the single most hazardous creatures on this doughnut shop smelling planet. I told you about them when my Dad and I were walking from his farm to school already, remember?
Yes, this brilliant plan was executed inside the school. Inside where no one wears their leathers as protection. Inside where a swarm of taxitos might bite many many kids and kill several before the nurses could administer antidotes.
Yes, we have protections in case the seals ever break and taxitos get in. No system is perfect and these two megaderps took it way past stupid.
These two geniuses started growing, with the intent to breed, taxitos inside the school. They did have a sealed terrarium. No taxitos escaped to terrorize the school. However! To get eggs even into the school without being detected - I mentioned the protections from dangerous critters getting in, right? - these two megaderps disabled the sensors in the area they snuck the taxito eggs into. They did not want to get caught - so why the school!?! derporable megaderpage! - and they did not want the emergency drones popping out of the wall and zapping the taxito eggs dead immediately. Those drones are standard in every room in a building on Jefferson, just like a smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector or nannite alarm. Normally they sit in a small sconce on the wall until if and when Jefflife is detected in the room and they come out zapping with their mini lasers.
Raising the taxitos would have caused a small storm. BUT! BUT! BUT! BIG HAIRY STINKY SMELLY BUT!
The geniuses left the detection equipment off. And even wild taxitos could have gotten in. Livia and Rohan were worried the defenses would detect the taxitos in the terrarium and attack it as well as set off alarms. And gotten them in trouble.
As if they were going to get away with their plan...In the school?! Really?!
A teacher smelled the taxito larva hatching - they smell like cinnamon buns and Mr. Gutierrez has a serious weakness for cinnamon buns - which was as weird as you might think given how sweet pastries are pretty rare on Jefferson! But then, so was he! - so he followed his nose into the broom closet. And...then he quickly called for help they removed the taxitos and left a surveillance drone waiting for whomever was doing the megaderp.
In walked Livia and Rohan and BOOM! Totally busted.
The Shadstorm that caused was huge. Both families decided it would be better to move away than put up with the storm. The worst part after though was Kat’s Mom. Kat was a Merry Prankster before she met Kalen. Then she became an aderpable. We’ll discuss all the other derp types another time. Kat’s Mom just kept harassing Livia and Rohan’s families. That was the final straw and they moved away.
Oh! The drama! The dark side of living in a small town!
Sadly though, my Shadstorm was far, far worse than some megaderpage.
My Shadstorm had actually mattered more than just my hometown. It affected the whole of the American planet of Jefferson and, even more so, all of the interstellar United States.
Uninvited Indian soldiers on an American planet was an act of war.
Or at minimum an international incident.
But more probably an act of war
So, yeah, my Shadstorm was ten times worse than poor Livia and Rohan’s.