"Ewwww!!!"

Maisarah is reeling in disgust as she sees the animal perching on top of Clarissa's head.

"Neh, a hamster! I trained my little chubby bubby puppy to hide in my hairs." Truly, Clarissa's hair fashion is... traditional. It looks like the beehive hairstyle, but most of the hair are shaped to a large bun. A small hamster is lazily strutting to and fro on top of Clarissa's head.

Aziz wiggles his index finger at the fluffyball, which the animal responds by sniffing at the digit. "Don't you feel uncomfortable having things running on your head?"

Clarissa massages her neck, tired from keeping her head straight. "A little. My neck's hurt though." She slumps her back and rests on a pile of books on the desk. The hamster hides itself snugly between the hairs. A few other classmates watch in awe at the animal clutching at its master's hair and dozing off, until the bell rings to signal the start of class.

The class begins with a Math class. Teacher Zahirah have just returned from her maternity leave, and looks unusually giddy than the usual.

Aziz and Shamsul is slumped on their chairs at the back, trying to make sense of her diagrams. Aziz begins to snore softly when Shamsul jabs his finger at Aziz's ribs, jolting him awake.

The frizzle-haired Aziz rubs his eyes. Shamsul begins his whining. "Why are we learning about circles and angles and letters?"

"That's a good question. We aren't Greeks trying to make circles and being stabbed for it."

"Oh, you remembered Teacher Chong's story yesterday!"

The both of them snickered when they remembered how their History teacher expanded a few paragraphs of their history textbook about some mathematician into half an hour of rambling about being a genius in a mediocre world.

Teacher Zahirah is about to turn and inquire about why the backsitters find circles to be funny when she sees Clarissa's hairstyle. Well, the teacher does not care for the hairstyle, it is not exactly against the rules. But there is a creature she can see lurking behind the large bun on her student's head.

She half-heartedly draws and explains how a triangle, whose base forms the diameter of the circle, will always be a right-angled triangle should the third point touches any point on the cirlce's line. But her drawing turns to an organic creature, a mix between a mite and a hamster.

The class laughs at the resultant figure. Teacher Zahirah slams the duster on the blackboard and wipes the offending imagery from her board, and with it, imagining it gone from her mind. She wipes her chalked hands on her baju kurung, claps her hands, and with the most motherly of smiles, leans to the star pupil with the retro hairstyle.

"Clarissa Wong Mei Li, may I examine your hair?"

Clarissa thought it over for a few seconds. She is sure to have let her hamster back into the cage before the class begins.

"Sure, teacher. Just dont ruin the hairstyle. It's hard to repair."

Teacher Zahirah carefully runs her fingers to her pupil's head, trying to find the offending object.

The hamster, being disturbed from its slumber by a pink earthworm, chomps on the new meal with a decisive bite.

Teacher Zahirah pulls her finger back in pain, to discover a rodent dangling, looking at her with innocent eyes. It squeakes.

"Opocot a mite has feather hairs! Eh, it has hairs! Swinging like a pendulum, always maintaining it's swinging time no matter the size of the swing! Eh, Hamster dangling on my fingers!"

Teacher Zahirah keeps her latah even as she darts back to the teacher's office. In the ensuing chaos, many teachers begin to latah along, even breaking to a gamelan and zapin dance. Other teachers try to calm them down or call the ambulance as some latahing teachers and students decide to jump from the higher floors. The entire school populace unafflicted by the latah just stares in wonder.

Shamsul could muster no reaction on his face, seeing the adult populace of the school turning an institution of learning to a traditional Malay moshpit. "I wonder, do you think Teacher Chong know anything about the history of latah disease in our town?"

Aziz gently rubs his forehead. "I wonder if we will be cursed with latah if we reached a certain age."

“Themes,” Anne grumbled. “Why does anything even need to have a theme? Why can’t a story just be a story?” She tapped her pencil against her blank paper.

“Because a story just being a story is good for nothing,” said Wilma, a haughty lilt in her voice. “At least with a theme, we can apply something to real life and get use out of it.”

Anne sneered across the desk. “You are brainwashed, girl.”

Wilma raised her head and gave a glare. “I’m realistic. Artsy stuff doesn’t do any good. We should all be more like Irwin.” She lowered her head and went back to writing.

Anne gave a quick look at Irwin. Then she did a double-take.

Irwin was the only non-organic classmate in Anne’s class. It had showed up in the Nursery not long after Mollie and Ollie had been dropped off, and got added to the class along with them. The robot was tiny, barely over a foot tall, and its body was basically two half spheres with a gap between. Out of the gap sprouted a glassy orb on a wire, with another wire sticking out the top of that, which led to a very tiny but detailed satellite dish. Another wire stuck out of the gap on Edwin’s “back” end, which connected to a thin metal halo which encircled its entire body. Everything was a dulled and tarnished grey, except in all the spots where ugly rust had grown over the metal. The halo and the satellite dish tottered back and forth whenever Irwin moved.

Right now, however, the satellite dish was jittering back and forth at an alarming speed, in concert with a pencil scribbling furiously on the paper in front of Irwin. (Irwin was sitting on top of the desk; otherwise, it wouldn’t have been able to see.) Irwin had filled nearly an entire page with writing in the time it had taken Wilma to do one paragraph.

The pencil continued to move, without being touched by Irwin.

“Okay,” Anne said, “I had no idea you could do that, Irwin.”

The satellite drooped to the side. The pencil stopped moving and fell over.

Anne stared. “Uh. I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to, like, scare you, or anything.”

Irwin remained still.

“Just, it’s cool. That you can do that, I mean.”

Irwin remained still.

“And it’s . . . okay? That you can do that, I mean. You don’t have to hide it from us.”

“And she was willing,” said Irwin. Its voice came tinny and surrounded with static, like a radio that was only barely tuned to the station it was trying to play.

Anne stared for a moment, then looked at Wilma, who had stopped working to listen. Despite their earlier disagreement, the girls now shared a look of confusion. “That’s . . . good,” Anne finally said. “Good to hear.”

Irwin remained still. Eventually, the girls both went back to focusing on their own papers. Neither looked up when the sound of Irwin’s pencil on paper began once more.

* * *

Fox sat with his back against the wall. Across the room, Marty and Edwin were playing Sorry!, Marty as the yellow player, and Edwin as the red.

Fox watched as Edwin’s satellite swiveled, and a card drew itself and flipped over. The swiveling continued as one of the red pieces moved the correct number of spaces. Then the swiveling stopped again.

Marty gave Fox a meaningful look. They had both heard about Edwin doing homework the day before from the girls.

Fox said, “So I guess the big question is, what is that thing coming out the top of your head?”

Edwin’s voice crackled out, “A tin can, she thought—B&M beans or Campbell’s soup.”

Fox blinked. Marty, drawing the next card, said, “Uh. Okay.”

While Marty moved one of his pieces, Fox said, “But how does it—how do you work? How are you doing that?” He pointed at the card Edwin was now drawing from the deck.

The crackling radio noise came again. “Nor can we tell you so you’ll understand. That’s all over your face.”

Fox blinked.

Marty leaned in close to Edwin. “It’s all right to tell us, okay? We’re your friends, now. We’re just curious about what you can do.”

Edwin replied, “Stand, be brave, be true, stand for your brother, your friends.”


Marty raised both eyebrows in surprise, drawing back just a tad. He then turned to Fox and shrugged. “My turn,” he said, and drew a card.

* * *

“Thank you for coming here with me,” said Nostrum.

Irwin rolled along behind him, leaving a pair of furrows in the snow between the centaur’s hoof prints.

Nostrum stopped at the crest of a hill, looking up at the artificial sky. “My people place great importance in the stars. There are many things that can be read from the way the stars arc across the sky from year to year, night to night, hour to hour. These stars are artificial, of course.”

Nostrum folded his legs and kneeled down to get closer to Edwin’s level. “My people are not . . . scientific, as humans would say. We read the stars, but we don’t know why or how we are able to do so.” He looked down at the robot. “I do not understand your functioning, or what that machine on top of you is, or how it works.” He laid a hand on Edwin’s chassis. “But I like you. Don’t let the questions of the others bother you too much. Humans like to understand things as they are now. But I think you and I like to see things farther ahead, yes?”

Nostrum stood up. “Let’s head back to the Bunks. We must rest for our classes tomorrow.” He began to trot back to the doorway that led into the corridors.

He didn’t hear Edwin crackle from behind him, “Once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual.”

* * *

doctorlit's note: I will never be able to prove this, but I swear, I swear, I SWEAR I designed Edwin before BB-8 was released in The Force Awakens. I SWEAR YOU GUYS.

—doctorlit swears, you guys

"Mornin', sleepyhead."

"mrflmrf."

"I said, mornin', sleepyhead!"

"mmffuggoff."

"HEY!"

"Aaa!" Cass sat bolt upright for exactly 0.3 seconds. Then her head collided with the top bunk and she bounced back down onto the pillow. There were words. Most of them had four letters.

"Sooooo, d'you remember what today is?"

"with a rusty- mwha? No, not really, too busy being in pain at the moment."

Em stepped back and spread her arms wide. "It's your unbirthday! Wooooo!"

"... I don't follow."

"And that means we're going out to celebrate-"

"You wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me this?"

"It's three pee emm, Cass."

"Yes, and I'm still technically a student. Three in the afternoon indeed. What the hell kind of waking-up time is that? What sad, demented people are ready to do anything by then?"

Em quirked an eyebrow. "Most of them."

"That is both lies and slander." Cass still stretched, yawned hugely, and glanced at one of the clocks. "Anyway, look, it's only twenty past five in the morning."

"That's the clock tells time in Tahiti."

"Then today I am being Tahiti-ish. Tahitian? Tahitese? One of them." Cass blinked and rubbed her eyes, moving her thick mane of hair out of the way and tucking it behind her ears. "Wait. Hold on. What's that coming out the top of your head?"

"Uh..." Em paused, smiled sheepishly. "It's a plume."

"I know it's a plume, but - wait. You're wearing a knight helmet. Why are you wearing a knight helmet?"

Em lifted the visor up and rubbed her brow, the movement of her wrists making the metal hinges squeak. "Look, Cass, I know you don't go out much, but... well, a few days ago I went to the cafeteria and a huge fight kicked off. Some doofus in a uniform showed up and started posturing, and Sally from group therapy - you know, the ex-Suvian from NCIS? - saw her and had a flashback, and before I could do anything there was this mass brawl. And, and I hadda get out, y'know? An' I got dinged in the head by a plate on the way out, which is... which is why I'm wearing the helmet."

Cass just sat there, staring. Then she got up and wrapped Em up in a wordless, fierce hug.

"Thanks, Cass."

Time passed.

"You don't want to go back alone, do you, Em?"

"Gurl, I don't wanna go back period. But I have to eat, and I have to make you eat - yeah, Cass," Em raised a hard, forestalling the objection, "I know I'm not your carer, but you kinda suck at remembering to eat most of the time. I just... yeah."

Cass let go and stepped back. "Well, I'd better go and get dressed then. But before I do..."

She fished her wand out from under her pillow and flourished it at Em. The other girl's clothes suddenly ballooned outwards and adopted a metallic sheen, as well as joints, hinges, and a general armoured theme. Alas, the newly-Transfigured suit of armour still had the same Paw Patrol print as Em's pyjamas, but it was the thought that counted.

"Uh, what?"

"Now you match!" Cass grinned and hugged her partner again. "Right then. Let's get this over with. I'm... actually hungry for once."

And so they wandered off towards the cafeteria, clanking noisily, arm in arm.

There aren't many puns you can do with prompt are there? (This is not an invitation for people to spiral out of control with puns)

Thanks for the random ideas, I may fiddle with a few of them because I prefer having the prompts be applicable both inside and outside the PPC. And thanks for the answers, so far I have 1 Once a month, 1 Bi-weekly and two abstains so I'll probably continue every other week until I get more results to look at.

Honestly, I mean it.

In regards to B) yes I do want to continue doing the prompts, I was just worried that other people didn't want them, or didn't want to see them.


Novastorme