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The Fweeble Hatching
Part I. "You hop on it!" exclaimed her plump father. "You can jump with it" explained her pear shaped mother. Her mother and father beamed at one another as if they knew something wonderful that Ippinina did not. Ippinina smiled because she didn't want to upset her parents. As soon as they left the room, she began to frown. She had no idea what this odd thing was and she felt a bit like crying. What should she do? Ippinina was not like other children. Margaret, her pony tailed friend from down the street would have kicked the Hop 42, carried it around, sat upon it and done other playful things. Ippinina was far too serious for such frivolous behavior. Instead she began reading the instructions printed in very small print right below the ball's odd name. Being serious all her life had made Ippinina quite linguistically proficient for her age. The instructions read:
Ippinina followed the directions to the letter, but she could not get the toy to work. It was all very silly, but Ippinina was not the sort of person to give up easily. Her parents were out shopping at the ice cream stand for the afternoon, so she scrambled up to the phone and called 1-800-ANSWERS all by herself. "Hello, You've reached the Answers section," rasped a dry old voice on the other end of line. "What do you want, Ippinina?" "Um...I want to know how to...," Ippinina stumbled and blurted out "How did you just know my name?" The dry voice sighed, "This wouldn't be much of an Answer's desk if we didn't know something as simple as your name, eh? So now what was your question?" "Well, I just got an odd toy called a 'Hop 42.' I followed the directions, but it doesn't seem to do anything. What should I do?" asked Ippinina. "Did you say a Hop 42?" said the voice. "Not that it matters, but our new model is the Hop 45. Much better. Fewer chances of explosion." The voice paused and Ippinina heard the sound of pages in a book being flipped. "Ah, here you go, " grumbled the voice, "I found the old instructions. We changed the product line because of all the unfortunate hops into the Otherland. Sometimes I just wish we would stop making odd toys and focus on singing lollipops or something normal. Okay, are you listening? I'm only going to read this to you once." Ippinina assured the voice that she was listening though she was, at this point, quite sure that the person on the other end was absolutely bonkers. The new instructions were a bit more complicated:
"What does all this mean!" cried Ippinina when the voice was done reading. "Hmph. You young'ens. Always expecting Answers to make sense," groused the voice, "Just do what it says and it will work. Good day." And with that, the voice on the other end hung up. Ippinina tried to call back but every time she got a busy signal. The voice that gave Answers must be quite popular. Part II "Do you like your Hop?" asked her father, licking his tasty mustache. "Why aren't you bouncing on it? " inquired her mother, as she nibbled a small chunk of fudge off Father's sweet upper lip. "This is what the instructions say I'm supposed to do," said Ippinina solemnly, but her parents weren't really listening. Her mother was whispering in her father's ear and Ippinina caught the words "strawberry vanilla cream swirl." Her parents giggled to one another. As they waddled out of the room, her mother absent mindedly commented "Have fun dear!" Ippinina sat on the Hop 42 for 3 days. At night she piled blankets on top of it to keep it warm and in the morning she ate her bowl of organic rice while perched on top of the odd toy. Every evening she would look at the Hop and wonder what it was. The color seemed a bit redder than she remembered and it didn't squish as much as it once had. On the fourth day, she turned the hop one half turn to the left. At this point she wasn't quite sure what do do next. Ippinina had never made a cooing sound in her entire life, never mind one that was oochy or moochy. Relying on sheer instinct, Ippinina began cooing as best she could. The Hop began to jiggle! Ippinina immediately began to tell it how much she loved it. Argh, this was even more difficult than cooing. She gritted her teeth and gasped out a short 'luv ya' The Hop made a noise that sounded an awful lot like 'Fweeep!" Encouraged, Ippinina told it again that she loved it. The more she said "I love you," the easier it became. Soon she was enthusiastically yelling "I love you" over and over again, while the Hop jiggled up and and down, fweeping happily in the cutest manner one could possibly imagine. Exhausted, Ippinina gave the Ball a big hug and was pleased to note that it was glowing with a rich warm heat that felt just right. The next two days passed most quickly. The Hop would glow occasionally and sometimes if Ippinina listened most carefully she was sure she heard a soft sleepy 'fweep.' On the 6th day, Ippinina woke with a strange tingling running from her toes, up her back, all the way to the tip of her nose. She was staring dreamily at the Hop when suddenly it began to vibrate. A low hum rose and Hop 42 began pulsing a bright pink. There was a sudden PoP! and a flash of light that made Ippinina blink. When she opened her eyes, there was the Hop 42 was lying broken into a little bits, like an eggshell. Smack dab in the center of the floor was small creature. The thing stretched as if it as just woken up. It looked at Ippinina with half lidded eyes. With a lazy smile, it casually drawled "'Ello there, Ip. My name is Fweeble. And as you have probably guess, I am not a chicken." For some reason she couldn't quite place, Ippinina felt indescribably happy. The End.
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