📚In which pompom causes problems on purpose

Pompom is left to her own devices at Granny Edna’s store… for better or worse.

Characters: Pompom, Jay, Granny Edna

Warnings: N/A

Wordcount: 1,155

Vibe: pompom is TOO sillay

she got too sillay…….. poor edna 🙁

it only took me like. two months to finish this. full time classes have hands </3

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Today is a beautiful day…

And you are a horrible jester.

Pompom’s schedule for the day was relatively free, as it usually was. All she had marked down was that Granny Edna had asked if she could help with cleaning the store a bit, since her back was acting up.

Edna was someone Pompom looked up to a lot, so even if the thought of cleaning that old place was a bit mindbogglingly boring, she still agreed to do so.

Once Pompom arrived at Edna’s store, the door’s bell jingled as she entered. Usually, this would elicit some kind of greeting from Edna, but there was just silence once the echoes of the bell had ceased.

“Granny Edna? Are you there?” Pompom called out – but there was no response.

It felt odd not to hear her voice as she entered.

Pompom slinked around the tightly-woven shelving… once she caught sight of the checkout desk, she was able to definitively confirm that Edna wasn’t there.

Though Pompom was concerned, she quickly noticed a notepad laid out in plain sight on the desk, facing in the ‘customer’ direction.

Pompom,

I’m going to be heading to the clinic shortly to see if they can do anything. I’m not in any danger, but surely you can understand that I’d rather not be in pain.

I don’t believe I’ll be back at all today – it may be a heavy ask, but if you are able to store-sit while I’m gone, I would be so grateful.

Particularly, that outsider with the feathers was going to be delivering things around town, including to here. It would be lovely if you could ensure that the delivery here goes smoothly.

Take care!

— Edna

“Interesting…” Pompom mumbled to herself as she finished reading the letter.

The outsider with the feathers… that had to be Jay, right? Especially if it was someone doing deliveries.

Jay and Pompom had a bit of an odd dynamic. Pompom was loud, Jay was over-confident… the two’s personalities often butted heads, though their conflicts were generally more harmless and comedic than anything.

They’d argue over ice cream flavors, but could still collaborate over more serious things if there was a mutual sense of importance.

Unfortunately… this sense of importance wasn’t present. Not today.

It took Pompom five, maybe ten minutes at most to get bored. Edna’s small curio shop was seldom visited by anyone aside from Pompom, so it was completely dead.

As she sat at the checkout desk, head resting on her hands… Pompom suddenly got an idea.

Edna wanted Pompom to clean the store, right?

Surely she wouldn’t mind some… temporary re-arrangements.

After all, with the kinds of odds and ends Edna must have stashed away, Pompom could truly get… creative.

—

Jay sighed, and checked the small patisserie they had just exited off the delivery list.

“Almost done…” she huffed to herself, seeing the one location left.

“God’s sake, Ego…”

Ego was the ambassador of the small village. While she held a close level of trust with the townsfolk, she was nervous as to the thought of treading outside of the bounds of its safety…

That’s where Jay came in. Gutsy and adventurous, she was the perfect type of person to handle imports into the small village… whether she liked it or not.

Still… Ego was Jay’s friend, and it’s not like Jay had anything better to do, anyways.

…But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a complainer.

One last drop-off. And then she could crash for the day.

The location wasn’t even far – it was on the other side of the makeshift road, tucked in an alley. A bit shady? Sure, but Jay had seen worse.

Jay approached the drop-off location’s door, and knocked. There was no response, so Jay waited a bit longer, and was about to knock again – until noticing the ‘OPEN’ sign, indicating it must’ve been a public establishment.

“C’mon, no losing your mind yet…” Jay sighed, rubbing her temple with one hand.

Jay pushed the door open, and it creaked eerily in silence. It was pitch black inside the building, despite the fact that Jay very much saw windows on the exterior.

Something wasn’t right.

But before Jay could properly react to their vibe check and leave before anything happened, the door shut behind her, and she was in complete darkness.

Jay yelped from the initial shock of the door closing, but her patience had already been wearing thin prior – this was the last straw.

“Alright, what the FUCK is going on in here?!” Jay snarled.

Suddenly, a sole spotlight illuminated what appeared to be a desk that sat a few meters away from Jay.

“I’m glad you asked!!”

The voice came from seemingly nowhere, and had the affect of someone with a high-pitched voice trying to imitate an elderly person.

But to Jay, there was no mistaking who’s voice it was. One that was all too familiar.

“POMPOM, I SWEAR TO-”

But Jay’s accusatory yelling would be cut off, by none other than the culprit herself – using the desk as a ‘stage’, and rolling into the light balanced atop a large crystal ball. She was wearing a fake, white beard.

“Welcome to the grand wizard Jimothan’s circus!! Prepare your eyes for magic beyond imagination!” she said, retaining her imitation of an elderly voice.

“What?!” Jay said in response, baffled.

“Ok, first off, wizards don’t run circuses!! Second, what kind of name is Jimothan?! That’s… that’s not a real name!”

Pompom found it hard to contain a laugh. Of course, out of all the absurdities of this situation, Jay got caught up in the details.

“If you’re going to surprise me with… whatever kind of bullshit prank you have going on this time, at least get it right!” Jay huffed.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! Jimothan is a totally real name… it’s my name! And I’m simply a circus wizard, who-”

While Pompom was doing her best to maintain her obvious facade, laughter managed to overtake her. But her words were cut off for a different reason – being, her fits of giggles caused her to lose balance, and…

CRASH.

Pompom slipped, and crashed towards the ‘audience’… that only consisted of Jay. And while Jay was there to break Pompom’s fall, the heavy crystal ball shot in the opposite direction – barreling into the shelves that Pompom had haphazardly shoved to the side.

One shelf toppled onto another, creating a domino effect of noise and dust as they fell. Eventually, the spotlight that Pompom had used fell over too, and the duo was plunged into darkness.

At least… darkness until the door of the small shop creaked open, pouring light from the outside.

Pompom and Jay untangled themselves to glance at their onlooker, only to react in horror to see it was… Edna.

Who came back just in time to bear witness to the havoc that her shop has been subject to.