Ho Ho Ho!
Have we got a present for all you naughty/nice children.
It is, of course, unarguably one of the best POP! nights of the year - Christmas POP!
The theme for this week's POP! is all things Christmas related. So dress up as Santa, Santa's bitches (elves), presents - whatever vaguely Christmasy thing you can think of.
We'll also be circling in Westwood Cafe (wow reacts pls) so its BYOB (Bring Your Own Booze) so please arrive at 7pm for a 7:30pm start!
TL;DR: Christmas theme - Westwood cafe - BYOB - Be there or be on the naughty list (7pm)
Shellie Mant-
Woah, woah, turns out we haven't finished yet.
(I mean, you could probably stop reading if you wanted to because you will gain absolutely no useful information from the next part.)
Now, if you've actually been reading the event descriptions, you've probably realised that we haven't made any jokes yet which we normally do (or at least try too (and i oop)).
Well, why's that?
Well, I'm glad you asked person that is reading, because it's only because we wrote a Christmas Dodgeball novel.
You might think we're kidding but you can claim us all you want on that because it's true and we've decided to post the first two chapters as a little taster. Later chapters will come out in the lead up to Christmas, but for now, wrap yourself up warm and get yourself a nice cup of tea as you settle down to read a warm Christmas story, starring none other than our own Tom Lake (I promise you it's worth it). Enjoy! :)
Dodgeball: A Christmas Carol
Aayush Shrestha
Whish, whoo, phoo, the wind went.
Or was it the sound of dodgeballs swooping past, narrowly missing, nearly grazing?
Tom Lake lay in bed wondering. He just couldn't get dodgeball out of his head. As he tucked his deliciously ginger locks of hair behind his head, he wondered why his head had been haunted, infected, by the ghosts of his past.
It had all come back today of all days. Walking along the parade, he'd been lost in nostalgia. Passing McDonalds, Planet Bong and the gravestone on which he had once chundered, had brought back fond memories of his youth.
He was old now; at that auspicious age which he couldn't bring himself to say, held back by old habits.
Then he heard it. Squals sounded out like there were a pair of seagulls arguing, almost like they were screaming his age. As he turned toward the sound, that's exactly what Tom Lake saw.
One of the pair stood proud and defiant, the other even more so, both with stubborn looks on their faces. They were clothed which Tom Lake found strange but, stranger still, were what they were wearing.
What seemed like the male, appeared to be wearing the remnants of a red cape on his back, covering his spritely wings, with a strange scrawling of what looked like names and dates laced through.
He looked to be losing the argument that was ensuing between the pair. It seemed like they were almost shouting and Tom Lake could have sworn he heard words come out of their bright, protruding beaks.
He went closer, squinting his eyes, and listened closely.
"You can't say that! You know you can't!" the red backed seagull shouted at his female counterpart.
"Yes, I can. I don't care," she yelled back.
Tom Lake was taken aback but he couldn't help listening in. He peered at the intransigent female gull, in awe of her resistance. Somewhat symbolically, she was wearing the only one of the pair wearing trousers. She started to wildly yell, as if she had wanted to get something off her chest for an eternity.
“MINE! MINE! 21! 21!”
The male gull looked shocked.
“Lucy! No, you just can’t-,” he started. Suddenly, his head turned towards Tom Lake, who mid-stare, didn't realise he was just metres away from the seagulls.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. So many questions burned through his multilingual brain. As he tried to comprehend what was going on, the two gulls gave a knowing look to each other and in an almost imperceptible whisper, both said “15” and charged towards Tom Lake’s head.
As they soared towards him, Tom Lake felt something he hadn't felt in years. As the gulls came closer and closer, he knew what he had to do. Time slowed down as his adrenaline shot through him, pulsating through him.
With a series of dodges, ducks, dips, dives and dodges, he managed to avoid the mysterious gulls.
Then Tom Lake ran.
He ran like he hadn’t for a long time
Chapter 2:
Sweating, Tom Lake ran into a corner shop. Thoughts ran through his head. Seagulls? Talking? Mine (whose)? 20+1?
He nearly lost his balance - he was exhausted. He grabbed onto the nearest stand, which happened to be on an aisle of sweets and grabbed a refresher. He did love refreshers.
Looking down the rest of the aisle though sent a shiver through his spine.
The aisle was full of refreshers. Why was it full of just refreshers?
Closely examining the refresher in his hand, he realised that these weren’t normal refreshers. They seemed to have names on them, and even more grotesquely, faces printed above their names.
Tom's refresher had a delightful face gleaming up at him, smiling with his glasses, charming whoever had the luck to pick him up. Tom recognised the face as Aayush's, but the name below the refresher said 'Aadil', and in even smaller letters '(Aayush 2.0)'
Tom dropped the refresher in shock. He frantically looked through the rest of the aisle and saw even more names and faces printed on each wrapper.
Charlotte, Robbie, Joe, Henry, Georgia, Ben, Jamie, Ishaan, Becca, Lisa, Sachin.
All these names with faces printed next to them made Tom Lake horrified.
“Ah,” a voice said behind him, “You found my collection.”
Tom Lake turned to see the person he least expected to see there.
“Welcome to my shop, the aptly named - Sharkbait!”
It was Jon, the shopkeeper. Tom knew much about Jon, even things that Jon had never told anyone, such as that he was part of the England team or the closest representative in Dodgeball to the sports exec.
Jon stared at Tom Lake, with that grin. Behind were posters with even more names and faces.
“Ah yes, those happen to be the refreshers I have yet to get,” Jon proclaimed.
Tom staggered backwards. “What’s going on? What the fucking shit,” he panically exclaimed.
“It is your destiny to be here,” Jon’s voice boomed, “My duty is to give you this present”.
He brought his hand up out from his pocket.
In it rested a hamster, looking sweetly from Jon to Tom Lake and back again.
“This is the son of Odd,” Jon said, fixing his eyes on the hamster.
“The what?” Tom asked.
“The son of Odd”
“Ohhh, the son of Odd”
“He has been tasked as being your companion for the following day”
“Companion? Task? What are you chatting, mate?” Tom quizzingly asked
“All will become clear in the next day. Now, please could you kindly fuck off because I see some people stepping on lines over there and that absolutely can’t happen and I need to tell them right now.”
Tom Lake took the hamster with him.
Shellie Mantha xo
https://ift.tt/2OBbydq
