Cannibal alert {Prank family thread}

[Sleepy Fluttershy]

Lane Prank

I never understood how my parents take care of all their children. Actually, sometimes I get the impression they don't, but it is not so. I don't think I will ever be able to look after such a load of children. I can't even keep an eye on all my pets...

I am wrapped up in my blanket, turning around and trying to fall asleep. It is very challenging, considering that I spent too much time on my homework today and went to sleep late, which means that all the good places were taken already and I got the coldest spot - the one near the door. I shot an angry look at a figure in my favorite sleeping place under the staircase. Now I have to sleep here. Perfect. What if my mice or cockroaches catch a cold?

Suddenly a terrifying thought shoots through my brain. No, it can't be true. I dip my hands into my sheets. A box with the cockroaches is in its place and the mice are running around in a box near my pillow, but there are only four! One of them is missing. I remember that Cannibal was feeling a little under the weather when I was walking home from school, so I put him into my coat pocket to keep him warm. I stand up and rush to a pile of clothes in the further end of the room. Oh, I think I stepped on someone's arm...

"Sorry!"

I try to figure out who it is, but it is really hard to see the face in the dark... Was it Lacrosse? I don't know. I rush forward again and find my coat in the pile. However, I can't find anything in the pocket! What happened to Canny? Maybe he got lost and is wandering around the room, hungry and scared? I have to find him before it is too late!

I rush to the middle of the room and yell at the top of my voice:

"Wake up, everyone! It's an emergency! Cannibal is missing! Has anyone seen Cannibal?"

[♛ scandal]

Ugh. I could not study with all the ruckus in this house. My
parents have to work, and when they do that all hell breaks loose
in this house. My study time was interrupted and I could not
get to the end of the chapter in this textbook. It greatly annoyed
me. I was up late studying so much that when it was time to
go to bed, I was near Lane on the floor. It was cold, and my
blanket didn't absorb enough cold for me to feel warm. I was
very cold, close to shivering in my sleep.

I was trying to sleep when Lane does something that catches
my attention. I see her put her hand in the box of cockroaches.
She looks scared, so maybe a pet is missing. Honestly, I wouldn't
care, but Lane would. I probably might spend a couple minutes
looking, because those animals never gave me any love, so why
should I? Then Lane rushes to a pile of clothes and steps on my
arm in the process. "Sorry' she said. I didn't know if she knew 
who it was, or if she could see but all I did was nod.

"Wake up, everyone! It's an emergency! Cannibal is missing! Has anyone seen Cannibal?"

I shake my head and rub my eyes. "I haven't, nor do I care, 
so I think I'll head back to bed, and you can find the insect
who should be dead," I said, sleepily. I know Lane won't
like my response, and neither would the other kids, but I
do not care about their opinions one bit. I know I should
help Lane like I said I should, but I really don't feel like
it, and it is just a cockroach.

I get up, and say, "Go find him, I'll look for him in the house."
No, I won't look for him, while the others are looking for the
cockroach I will be stealing the bed and having a good night
sleep. 

I clap my hands.

"Chop, Chop."

[kap]

Drôle Prank

I'd always hated our setup for sleeping. Though, I guess there's nothing I can really do about it. With so many children in the house we live in, it's impossible for everyone to be comfortable when they doze off into their nighttime slumber. I was on the floor again tonight, but I was lucky enough to be near the fireplace. There was no fire in the fireplace, but it was still warm next to it from when there was earlier in the day. Normally, I had to fight to get this spot, and I never seemed to win. Tonight, however, I managed to get there first, which was quite a relief.

Opening one eye upon hearing Lane moving around, I roll over so I'm looking in her direction. From what I can see, she's checking on her pets. It kind of makes me glad, sometimes, that I'm not the only one in the family with a weird pet. After all, I have a three legged toad. Though, she always seems to insist that Gregory, my toad, will eat her cockroaches. I tell her that he would never do that, but she always insists he would. I do my best to ignore her when she says that.

When I was about to roll back over and close my eyes again, however, Lane shoots up from the spot where she had been sleeping, declaring loudly that there was an emergency. I groan, sit up, and rub the sleep from my eyes. Honestly, at first, I was kind of hoping it was a real emergency, rather than just one of her stupid fiascos. Unfortunately, it wasn't a real emergency, at least not in my opinion. It was just that one of her pets, one of the ones with a stupid name, had gone missing. It was the one she called 'Cannibal', and to be honest, I couldn't remember whether that one was a mouse or a cockroach.

”Which one of your pets was that again? I can't keep their names straight. I can't even keep all of our family's names straight,” I said to her, motioning around the room to make my point as to how many of us there were.

Lacrosse, one of my other sisters, then got up, irritated at first, but then, seemingly having changed her mind rather quickly, said she'd help. I knew, though, that Lacrosse wasn't really going to help. She always seemed to have an alterior motive, after all. I knew at this point, since Lacrosse probably wouldn't help, someone had to. If no one helped, after all, there was no doubt in my mind that we'd all be kept up later than we wanted to be. Finally completely rising from my spot by the fireplace, which I knew I probably would no longer have when I got back, I headed over to where Lane was, stepping over the sleeping bodies on the floor as I went, being sure not to bump anyone and cause any more commotion.

”Lane, tell me what animal it is and I'll help look, but then, I'm going back to sleep.”

---

515 words

[solo]

↠ Zecora Prank ↞

My family has never been a quiet one. If I were to take a guess, I'd say we make up about fifteen percent of the noise in District 7. There's a calm at night though, when the sun dips below the horizon and folks shuffle away into their homes, when daily activities die down and everyone is getting ready to sleep. There's a crescendo as we all pack into the one room, but then, when everyone has finally settled down, it's almost blissfully quiet. Sure, there's the occasional scuffling sound when someone rolls over, or a complaint when one person gets too close to another,but for the most part, it's peaceful.

"Wake up, everyone!"

Apparently not tonight.

"It's an emergency! Cannibal is missing! Has anyone seen Cannibal?"

I close my eyes. Deep breath through my nose, slowly let it out between thin lips. I can here movement around the room and anonymous voices grumbling their complaints. My fingers tighten around the thin blanket covering my body and I pull it up over my head. If they can't see me, maybe they'll go away.

"Go find him, I'll look for him in the house. Chop, chop."

Two claps echo around the room, followed by a groan from under my blanket.

"Which one of your pets was that again?"

I almost laugh at that. Almost. But I'm already sleep-deprived, and the noise bouncing around the tight four walls of our home aren't helping in the slightest. I roll over and pull the blanket down, pale blue eyes peeking out over the edge. Three of them are up already. At this rate, I give it thirty seconds before the entire family is up and chattering away at each other. Won't that be exciting.

Slowly, I shuffle into a sitting position, back leaning against the cold wall behind me. My eyes follow the movement taking place around me, silently debating whether I should join or not.

I eventually decide on the latter.

"I had a few snares set up behind the house." I say, somewhat to myself, picking at a thread that's coming loose from the sheet. "Maybe he's stuck in one of them." I pause, then look up with a grin. "Of course, he might not be alive. Most of 'em die before I get there."

{Word Count: 372}

[Lyn𝛿is]

G A L L E Y

It was a balmy spring night, where 'balmy' here meant 'not raining and above freezing'.

Galley was starting to regret not stealing a couple blankets and going off to her favorite spot in the woods. Not that she'd spent any nights there since some squirrels (probably) had chewed up the previous blanket she'd snuck there last autumn.

No one would miss her. No one would even notice she was gone unless they did a headcount. She knew that sometimes people even went beyond the fence and disappeared from the district entirely. Sometimes, she wondered how they did it, and why other people thought it was so bad. It was a different sort of bad from how they thought of her family - that was pity. This was closer to hate.

It wasn't like the floor was any warmer than the woods. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten the bed - there were too many siblings fighting over it all the time. Being the youngest, she wasn't much one for fighting. She tended to stay invisible.

Being invisible could be useful. It could also be confining.

Children should be seen and not heard, was what had been taught her. But when you stopped being heard, you stopped being seen, and then you got stepped on -

A "sorry" echoes across the room, and then someone is yelling.

"Wake up, everyone! It's an emergency! Cannibal is missing! Has anyone seen Cannibal?"

A surge of rage comes across her. An urge to kill the stupid pests Lane thinks is more important than everyone being able to sleep for once. Or maybe have some fun with them before they ended up dying. But if it wasn't cockroaches, or rats, it would be something else. There was always something else.

"Go find him, I'll look for him in the house."

"Lane, tell me what animal it is and I'll help look,"

It had probably found its way to the tesserae grain by now. The thought of telling her that maybe they didn't need any more mouths to feed crosses Galley's mind. But who would listen, least of all an older sibling?

"Of course, he might not be alive. Most of 'em die before I get there."

There is a pregnant pause, as though fireworks were about to go off any moment now. Saves her from having to add her own nasty comments, at least.

Sure enough, there were something - rather, many somethings - moving around inside the grain bag. "Found it," she called out, reaching into the bag and cupping her hands around one of them at random. Lane couldn't really tell any of her animals apart, could she?

[Sleepy Fluttershy]

Lane Prank

People around me start waking up, all of them sleepy and grumpy. I don't really care about how mad they will be at me right now, because my poor pet's safety is all that matters. The first one to look at me is Lacrosse, but I know that she won't be of much use in my search. She has never been a big fan of mice.

"Go find him, I'll look for him in the house."

Oh, really?

"Chop, Chop."


I think we both know it is a big, fat lie. But I am not going to comment on it. I will just leave Crossy to do whatever she is intending to do, maybe even take someone else's place and make herself comfortable while we're looking for Canny, because it is useless to try and make her help me when she doesn't want to.

Drôle is the next one to speak and her voice actually gives me hope, because she is one of the few people here who realize how depressing it is to lose a pet. I don't like her toad much and it looks suspicious in my opinion, but it doesn't really matter now.


”Which one of your pets was that again? I can't keep their names straight. I can't even keep all of our family's names straight. Lane, tell me what animal it is and I'll help look, but then, I'm going back to sleep.”

Is it that hard to remember nine more names? How do they always manage to know everybody in our house, which is about eighteen people and keep forgetting what my mice and cockroaches are called? That's ridiculous. I still have to be patient, though, and tell everyone that Canny is a mouse for the hundredth time in my life.

"He is a mouse, Drôle. The grey one with the funny teeth and a chopped ear."

"I had a few snares set up behind the house. Maybe he's stuck in one of them. Of course, he might not be alive. Most of 'em die before I get there."

Zecora's voice from her sleeping spot strikes me like a lightning. NO WAY! My poor pet can't be stuck in one of her disgusting traps! So now the traps around the district are not enough, she is making them near the house when she knows there are children and pets here!

I give her a terrified look and my voice is full of tears as I speak:

"He'd better be alive if he's there, because if he's not, I'll set up a snare for YOU!"


"Found it!"

I can't believe my ears! Canny is here! He is not in mortal peril and Galley found him! I rush to her across the room, stepping on someone else's leg, but when I take the tiny thing from my little sister's hands, I see that it is not him. It is Duke!

"You got the wrong mouse, Gal! It is Duke, because he has a bowtie-shaped spot on his neck! And he is brown, not grey!"

But... Does it mean that more of my pets are missing? I look at the mouse box near my pillow and see that I have turned it over in a hurry!


"Oh no! Now they are all missing! Do you see any more mice? Please, help me find them!"

It seems nearly impossible, though. Four more mice to go and only one person who is willing to help me, more or less. I sit down on the floor and look around desperately. A large tear appears in the corner of my eye and travels down my nose slowly, hanging on the chin for a while and dropping down on the floor in front of me. I put Duke in my pyjamas pocket to make sure he doesn't disappear again and continue my search.

[♛ scandal]

Lacrosse

This was fun to watch them scramble all over the house. I knew Drole and Lane thought I was lying about finding him, and I was. I just do not like working, so why should I have to do it? No idea. When Drole said this, "”Which one of your pets was that again? I can't keep their names straight. I can't even keep all of our family's names straight,”  I burst out laughing. It was funny. I just don't picture Drole saying it for some reason. It just doesn't sound like her, but it is. I guess my sister has grown up. Hopefully following in my footsteps, and being smart. Then she wants to help. I guess she is going to be one of those sisters who actually help their siblings. Please, nobody does that in this house. Well, expect her, and Galley, and Lane. "I had a few snares set up behind the house," Zecora says. Zecora added, "Maybe he's stuck in one of them." She pauses and looks up with a sly grin on her face. "Of course, he might not be alive. Most of 'em die before I get there."

Now, that was funny. I walked up to her and gave her a high-five. I always knew Zecora was my favourite for a reason. She was funny, that's why. Not helpful like the rest of my siblings, and cousins. They would always help somebody. Galley then says she found the stupid rodent. Lane checks and then runs to her box of cockroaches, and none of them is in there. Haha. I look through some things to just be a little nice. I don't like to see people emotional, so I will look for a bit. I look through the couch, and behind a pillow. I put my hands through the cushions and hear squeaking. Dumb rodent. I try to grab the rodent. I then feel a searing pain in my finger. That dumb thing bit me. I grab it by the snout and look at it. This one is a light brown one, but I do not remember the name of it. I find Lane and give it to her. "Here is this dumb rodent, now I am going upstairs to look for more," I tell her. That is a lie. I walk to the living room and lock eyes with the bed. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips. I wait until I think the coast is clear, and I head toward the bedroom. A bed for a queen. The floor of dumbasses. I might let Zecora sleep in the bed with me, but probably not. I lay on the bed. O' god, it is comfy. The pillow is nice and soft. I just lay there. "Guys, I think there upstairs," I yell from the bed. It will be best for me if the go look upstairs, so they don't tell me to get up. That would be tiring, and an argument I do not feel like having at this hour. So I hope the do. 

[kap]

Drôle Prank

It was starting to get quite chaotic in our household. Then again, when was it not chaotic with so many children in our family? Clearly, our parents didn’t know when to stop reproducing. I was one of the younger ones, though, so I knew that if they had, I may not be here. Therefore, I just brushed the thought away, and tried to focus on what was happening. Some of the others seemed to find it humorous that I couldn’t remember which pet was which, but I ignored this. I just wanted to help Lane find what she said was a mouse and had described to me, so that I could get back to sleep, even if it was in a rather uncomfortable spot by the time I got the chance, since someone would likely snag where I’d been sleeping when I got up.

I nodded when Lane told me it was a mouse and told me what it looked like, and started looking, until someone shouted that they’d found the mouse. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, not even caring who’d found it, when Lane, to my disappointment, declared that it was the wrong mouse. It took quite a bit of effort not to roll my eyes at this, but I kept looking. I just wanted to find this mouse so I could go to sleep. Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t long before Lane said that all of her mice were missing! If I remembered correctly, she had four of them, and only one had been found so far.

“I’ll keep looking, Lane, okay?” I said to her. I honestly felt bad for her at this point, knowing how distressed I would be had I lost my own pet. Searching the sleeping room and stepping over my siblings who were still asleep, I eventually saw the movement of something small, and lunged at it, narrowly avoiding landing on one of the sleeping people on the floor. I got a hold of the moving creature, which happened to be the mouse with the chopped ear.

“Lane, I found Cannibal!” was my exclamation. I was glad to have found one of them, which meant we were getting closer to being able to go back to sleep.

---

374 words