Jump to new as of December 7, 1998
Jump to new as of December 12, 1998
Posted on Friday, 04-Dec-98
This is the story of six women. Actually this is the story of scads of people and their problems. But 'this is the story of a bunch of people I don't feel like counting at the moment' just doesn't have the same ring. Darn, now I've lost my train of thought. You go to write a serious story and get tangled up in silly technicalities. Well, now I've got to fill this space, so here is some silly tripe:
Until the Year of the Depressed Newt, Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, Elinor Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Bennet, and (you guessed it) Fanny Price lived relatively happily in -----, a very strange country. No one knows how the inhabitants of this country manage to orally refer to their location, but Mulder thinks it has to do with aliens. (He also thinks sliced bread has to do with aliens, so I kicked him out of my story.) This country also has the distinction of being the origin of the musical. -----ians tend to burst into song and dance routines at the drop of a some form of head gear. (The songs aren't original, but neither is the plot.)
But on the eighteenth of Gruni, in the aforementioned Year of the Depressed Newt, things changed (da da da DUM). Netherfield, a big house, had been rented to a Mr. Bingley, Kellynch Hall was rented out to the Crofts, Emma met a cute and extremely stupid little orphan named Harriet, Catherine went abroad with Mrs. Allen, an old family friend, the elder Mr. Dashwood died, the Crawfords arrived, and Mrs. Norris spontaneously combusted. The last of these events brought great joy to all and a smashing rendition of Great Balls Of Fire.
Chapter2: Anne
The Elliots were having a rather rushed breakfast on the morning before they were to depart. Sir Walter and Elizabeth Elliot were chattering excitedly about Bath, and the superiority of Baronets, and how everyone else seemed totally lacking in beauty. Anne was silently pondering justifiable manslaughter. Suddenly, a man burst into the dining hall.
"Who are you?" asked Elizabeth (Elliot not Bennet).
Music began out of apparently nowhere, the sure sign of a song. The man waited until the downbeat and then began to sing.
"I am the very model of a modern -----ish admiral, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral. I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical, from Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical. I'm very well acquainted with matters mathematical, I understand equations both simple and quadratical, about binomial theorem I'm teaming with a lot of news. With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse."
"But isn't ----- landlocked?" asked Anne.
"Shhh, I like this song," her father replied.
The admiral sang, "I'm very good at integral and differential calculus. I know the scientific names of beings animalculous. In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern -----ish admiral."
"In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, he is the very model of a modern -----ish admiral," sang Sir Walter.
"I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's. I answer hard acrostics. I've a pretty taste for paradox. I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabulus. In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous, I can tell undoubted Raphael from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies. I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes! I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore. And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore. Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic Cuniform, and tell you ev'ry detail of caratacus's uniform. In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern -----ish admiral."
"Yes that's precisely what I want to ask you about." Interrupted Anne, "why are you an admiral? The last time I checked ----- was landlocked."
"Oh, that explains the difficulty we were having. We can't seem to get the ships to go. That's why we're renting your house instead of mucking about on a boat."
"Who is we?"
"Myself and my wife Sophy. She's got off to somewhere. I'll find her and we'll have quite the proper introduction."
"NO! No, we were just leaving."
"I thought we were leaving at nine," said Sir Walter.
"No, you and Elizabeth are to toddle off to Bath now. I'm going to go get my luggage and then I'm going to see Mary."
"Oh. Well good-bye admiral."
"Good-bye."
Anne rolled her eyes and went to go get her luggage. She was not thrilled at leaving Kellynch, but she was quite glad to know she was going to have to deal with Mary, instead of her elder sister, father, and Mrs. Clay. Maybe they would spontaneously combust. Fanny really lucked out in the first chapter.
Chapter 3: Lizzy
Now we all know what the Bennet household was like when news of the lease of Netherfield reached it, so I'm not going to describe it. While Mr. Bennet sought refuge in his study, Lizzy decided to retreat to Lucas Lodge, hoping to escape her mother's most violent effusions on the subject. Jane, who was better at dealing with her mother than either father or sister, merely smiled, nodded, and did not listen to a single word that came out of Mrs. Bennet's mouth. The rest of the Bennet girls were either just as silly as their mother, or sitting in their rooms reading Fordyce's Sermons.
This is not their story, so back to Lizzy. Lizzy met Charlotte on her way to Lucas Lodge. It would seem that Lucas Lodge was just as bad as Longbourn, and Charlotte had decided to take her chances at Longbourn. So they both went into town, in hopes that there would be no musical number about the foreigner's impending arrival. The benevolent author decided to grant their wish, because she did not know a suitable song for the occasion. However, the girls did not escape a song and dance routine.
The citizens of Meryton had learned to dread the fearful sight of Charlotte Lucas and Elizabeth Bennet roaming the streets unescorted. It was a survival trait summarized by Albert Llyod Webber, a famous ----- physicist, and darn good tenor. (His equation, C + L = T^2, or Charlotte plus Liz equals Trouble squared, is considered the most greatest Austenian equation of all time.) So there was nothing unusual when shop doors and window shutters were slammed shut, and people began running in the other direction.
Charles Bingley, Caroline Bingley, Louisa and Bubba Hurst, and (you've been waiting for it haven't you?) Fitzwilliam Darcy, he of the very unfortunate first name, were sitting in a carriage headed for Netherfield. Bingley was reading a tourism brochure and chirping happily about national monuments, quaint customs, and a real life musical. Bubba was snoring loudly with his ever present liquor bottle in hand. Louisa was chattering loudly to her sister. Caroline was trying to look alluring and sultry. And Darcy was trying to tactfully keep Caroline from sitting on him.
Suddenly they heard screams coming toward them (except for Bubba, who was still quite plastered). Darcy and Bingley leaned out of the windows. People were running in the opposite direction. Bingley grabbed someone's arm. "What's going on?" he yelled over the commotion.
"They're coming. They're coming."
"Whose coming?" asked Louisa.
"Them." Said the man pointing wildly.
"What? You mean behind those two girls?"
"The girls are Them. They're vicious, run for it while you have the chance." The man called over his shoulder as he began running again.
"What a strange person." Remarked Darcy.
"These silly musical bumpkins go running away from rather plain young women. What are those women doing running around with live fish in their hands any way?" asked Caroline.
"Perhaps we should ask if they need a ride," commented Bingley.
"All right, or at least find out who they are, and why they're running around with live fish." Said Darcy.
"Um, Johny could you stop by those women, we'd like to speak with them," Bingley said to the carriage driver.
"Certainly, sir," replied Johny, who was also a foreigner.
The girls were rather surprised when a carriage drove up. Undaunted, they began to tickle the carriage driver with some fine, semi-alive perch. Bingley was a fine, mild mannered sort of guy, but he was not going to tolerate people tickling his driver with half dead fish. He leaned his head out of the carriage and said "Stop that. Why are you tickling poor Johny with half dead fish, you silly women?"
"Because we want to," the lighter-haired one replied and started to tickle him with a fish, "we're the Them."
"Who are the them?" Bingley said, "And stop that, it tickles. Hehehehehe."
Out of thin air, music began to play. "Now look what you've done." Complained the darker-haired woman, "now we've got to sing."
"Charlotte Lucas," the light haired woman sang.
"And Lizzy Bennet," sang the dark haired woman, "we're the notorious Meryton Them. Mad cap clowns and social comedians, queens of irony and sarcasm."
Charlotte sang, "We have an extensive reputation, we make our home in this little town. This is really our center of operation, 'cause we are uncommonly eager to prank."
After turning some interesting flips they both sang, "When a family sets down to Sunday dinner, quite determined to not get any thinner."
"On an argentine joint for which they've been cravin' all juicy and fat and generally pleasin'." Sang Lizzy.
"Enter the cook from behind the scenery, and says in a voice that's filled with sorrow, 'I'm afraid you'll have to wait and have dinner tomorrow, the joint had gone from the oven, oh d*mn!' sang Charlotte.
"Then the family will say, it's one of the Them. Was it Charlotte Lucas, or Lizzy Bennet? And most of the time, they leave it at that." Sang both of the Them.
"Charlotte Lucas and Lizzy Bennet have a wonderful way of working together. And some of the time you would say it was luck, and some of the time you would say it was whether, we fly through the air like a hurricane. And the whole town's in turmoil, and they complain. Was it Charlotte Lucas or Lizzy Bennet, or could you have sworn that it might have been both?
"So when we smack them with a trout, or sprinkle pepper on an old dog's snout. Or stick itching powder in your under drawers, or sneak a peak, behind closed doors, and shout what we saw from the fifth floor. Then the people will say, now which was which girl?"
"It was..." announced Charlotte, "Charlotte Lucas."
"And..." sang Lizzy, "Lizzy Bennet."
They both sang "And there's nothing at all to be done about that."
"How'd you do that?" Asked Darcy. "That was clearly choreographed, and rehearsed. And where did that music come from?"
"We don't know." Said Charlotte. "We just hear the music and have to sing and dance and tell all of our secrets at the top of our lungs, or we tend to spontaneously combust."
"You must be the foreigners moving into Netherfield. If the music starts for you any time during your stay here, just sing. A song will come out, no matter if you normally can't rhyme or sing or dance, you will do all three quite well." Said Lizzy. "Oh and a word of warning, a lot of the mother's have been singing a different tune about unwed daughters and rich young men, so watch out."
"Now we're going to tickle you all with fish." Announced Charlotte. And both girls began tickling Charles and Darcy with their perch until the Them lost interest and allowed the carriage to go on. The Them signaled the carriage into odd places with their fish, and the driver paid no heed to their signals. Then the Them juggled the fish. Eventually, the Them just forgot about the fish and made plans to go see some friends in the countryside.