Jarry Ponder and the Operative's Rock

Chapter Two: Rowling for Titles (Ah. Haha. Hahaha... Ha... *cough*)

Nothing much had changed about 12345 Rivet Drive, outwardly, though 10 years had passed since that fateful night blah blah blah. Look, if you're reading this, surely you must be familiar with how this chapter starts out in The Sorcerer's Stone. So, just imagine that; only funnier, and with less regard for human life. Er... Now then....

Jarry's bedroom, if it could be called that, was the cramped cupboard-area under the sink. And, no matter how the real estate agent describes it, let me assure you; it was NOT 'cozy.' It was rather painful sleeping with a pipe jammed against your leg, bent in an awkward position- and then, of course, there was waking up. Every morning, Jarry awoke to the same thing, and this one was no different.

"EL BANGO!" Juanita yelled, slamming the handle end of her broom down into the sink, finally managing to puncture the basin. Jarry awoke just in time to shift his position enough that the broom missed puncturing his stomach as well, and sighed sleepily.

"Yes, yes, I'm getting up..." Jarry whined in a cross between a propah einglish auksent and a scottish one. And no, I don't intend on writing out his words pre-accented. Accent them yourself, ye lazy bastids. Right, so then Jarry opened the door leading outward into less-cramped spaces and quickly rolled out of it to avoid Juanita's swat with the dustpan. Every morning, Juanita set up new traps to try to eliminate Jarry on the way to the bathroom to clean up for breakfast, and again this morning was no different. Jarry was forced to crawl along the floor, hugging the ground closely to avoid Juanita's rat-poison tipped toothpicks before he could even leave the kitchen. In the hall, he had to do several aerial maneuvers to avoid her Jarry-seeking, acid-spitting carpet cleaner; and finally he had to punch in the correct code on the bathroom door (which Juanita changed daily) or be disintegrated by wall-mounted lasers.

Naturally, Jarry managed his way through, and was in the process of washing his hands when he saw the door slip open; just a crack. He wouldn't have payed it any mind, but before he could refocus his attention, a small metal cylinder poked through the crack, and he knew at once that Juanita was attempting yet another assassination. He waited until he saw her finger on the trigger, and just as it started to squeeze he threw himself against the door, causing her to misfire. Juanita's attempts for the day thwarted, Jarry continued with his daily preparation. Breakfast was uneventful as usual, as long as you consider uneventful to mean one poisoning attempt and being pounded with Defnitly's fist.

After breakfast, Julius set down his newspaper ("Tomorrow," naturally) and proceeded to ask Defnitly what he wanted to do for his birthday. Jarry had completely forgotten, but was now reminded, that Defnitly turned 11 on this very day. Typically, on Defnitly's birthday, Juanita would successfully sedate Jarry with an undetectable sleeping pill and they'd all go off to do Clod-knows-what. On this particular day, however, Jarry had apparently avoided such an outcome.

"Doctor, I failed to get rid of him this time... What are we going to do?" Juanita demanded, in her typical threatening manner. And so, after much debate, the unthinkable happened; it was decided that Jarry would accompany them. To skip much more bad writing and generally boring 'tween-plot babble, it turned out Defnitly wanted to go laugh at poor people. And so they got in the car and went off to find some.

On the way to wherever they were going, someone started talking about dreams. Probably Juanita talking about how she dreamed of a world without Jarry. In any case, Jarry was reminded of a dream he'd had the night prior about a unicycle...

"I dreamed about a unicycle last night. And it was flying," Jarry mentioned just loud enough for the others to hear.

"UNICYCLES DO NOT FLY!" Julius yelled, stopping the car and turning around in his seat. He waited a moment, to make sure his point was made quite clear, and then turned on the radio before continuing to drive.

"... A new model of unicycle that actually flies!" Were the first words that came from the radio, and Julius turned it off as quickly as he'd turned it on. The rest of the drive ensued in silence. Roughly half an hour since they'd begun their trip, they stopped outside a ratty diner in town.

"How's this, Deffers?" Julius asked, and his question was met with several eager nods of approval from Defnitly. The four exited the vehicle and proceeded over to the large window seperating the diner's inhabitants from the outside world. There was but a single customer inside, a very poor woman indeed, and she seemed to be trying desperately to write on a napkin.

"Make her move!" Defnitly whispered harshly to his father, who rapped his knuckles on the glass. The woman inside ignored them, and Defnitly insisted that Julius try again, which he did. The glass actually rattled somewhat, making for an altogether louder try, but still the woman just sat in her booth. Eventually Defnitly claimed she was too boring and led Julius and Juanita into a side alley to look for someone else to laugh at. Jarry stayed behind and focused on the poor woman in the diner.

"You've got writer's block in there, don't you," he muttered. To his surprise, the woman looked up at him and winked. Jarry, surprised though he was, winked back.

"You can hear me?" He asked, and the woman nodded her head; he was actually able to communicate with her! He glanced to the side of the window, where there was mounted a plaque that stated "Aunty May's, conceived in Brooklyn." Jarry looked back at the woman, who was still staring intently back at him, and questioned her again.

"Conceived in Brooklyn, huh?" To which the woman shook her head fiercely and pointed toward the sign. Jarry read the smaller print, which stated that the woman sitting at the window booth was NOT Aunt May.

"Oh, I see. Then you've never met your family?" He asked, and the woman shook her head again, this time simply with frustration. Jarry felt he could relate, but before he could continue his conversation, Defnitly shouted something from behind him.

"Look at what this poor woman is doing, dad!" And with that, Defnitly shoved Jarry out of the way and pressed his face up against the glass to watch the woman, who was now scribbling furiously on her napkin. Jarry, startled, hardly noticed when the glass simply vanished and Defnitly fell into the booth right across from the poor woman. The woman screamed and glared first at Jarry, then at Defnitly, then Jarry again.

"I am going to SUE whomever is responsible for this mockery of my writing!" It appeared that the woman was quite angry about something, but Jarry wasn't sure what it might be. He offered the woman a few writing tips, but this only served to further infuriate her. Eventually the woman stormed off, yelling something about having to work on Letters From Nowhere. Jarry would have spent more time pondering the situation, but he then noticed Julius' rather angry look. He then applied his brainpower to trying to find a way out of the situation... And found one.

"Dr. No, why do you have that necklace Juanita said she lost?"

This, as you can imagine, was enough to get Juanita jabbing something dangerous at Julius. Jarry only hoped it lasted long enough for him to hide safely away under the sink... And his luck held out. With Juanita threatening to hang Julius by his own intestines, the doctor was clearly intent on getting home as fast as he could anyway. He was the first in the car, with Juanita following close behind, and once everyone was at least partially within the car he drove as fast as his spedometer would allow. The ride home was nothing to concern Jarry, as Julius was the only one in any immediate danger, and he was left on his own long enough to escape to the Undersink. Later that night, long after everyone else was asleep, Jarry lay awake thinking about his situation. But, it was really very boring and wouldn't have much effect on the story anyway, so I'll just skip it. And yes, don't worry folks, it's the last time I will skip such 'vital' information.