Chapter 1
2 Hours Earlier.
“Kit! What do you think you’re doing?!” Rosie cried as I walked out of the Trolley in Daisy Gardens. Crud! Not her again…
“Um, riding the trolley?” I said in a “duh” kind of tone.
“All the way out here? You almost never hang out here,” she said, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Took me a while to find you.” That was the idea….
“Um, yeah. It’s a change of pace.”
“Hmm,” she breathed, looking directly into my eyes, eyebrow raised. She then eyed me up and down and I guess she must have noticed my disheveled appearance because she grimaced.
“Well, you should be getting ready. That’s why I was looking for you, to remind you that the Election is in a couple of hours!” I know, that’s why I’m here, to avoid you, I thought bitterly, groaning internally. I knew I should have stayed home today. Ugh.
“Oh, that. Yeah, um, I don’t think I’ll be going to see it,” I told her flatly.
“What?! Why not??” Rosie cried.
“I’ve already told you plenty of times, did you forget? I’m not very interested in it at all.”
“What?! Why not??”
“As I’ve said before, politics aren’t really my thing,” I told her… once again. Who knows how many times it’s been, we’ve had this conversation a few times ever since the Election started picking up steam again in the middle of last month. Rosie scoffed at my answer.
“Come on! That’s ridiculous. I’ve mentioned that this is a huge thing. Mayor Mickey himself picked these two candidates—“
“Yes, you have mentioned that, several—"
“—and whoever wins becomes the town’s first leader! How can you not be excited about that?”
“I don’t know. I’m not interested in politics. Simple as that.”
“That’s just ridiculous!” You’re ridiculous. “Look, I’m gonna be there,” Rosie continued. “You should come too. It’s an event friends should share together. You’re my friend, so, you should share it with me.” I sighed, and closed my eyes. Why couldn’t she leave me alone about this? I’d already told her that I wasn’t interested in going; why can’t she accept that? You’d think if she were really my friend like she claims to be, she’d respect my wishes.
But, rather unfortunately if you ask me, that’s just how she is. She’s always been so clingy, so pushy, for as long as I’ve known her. Granted, it hasn’t been very long at all. I mean, sure, technically, it has kind of been a good moment since the first day we met, but I try to keep my distance from her, so I’ve barely talked to her over the months, when I can help it. Which is rare, because she insists on following me around. Lately I’ve been staying home, the only place where she wasn’t around, because I’ve managed to successfully avoid showing her where I lived thus far, thank goodness. But staying at home all day gets boring super-fast, so I sneak out tentatively from time to time and try to stay in places she doesn’t frequent. Like today, with me going into the Trolley in Daisy Gardens, a place she tells me is rather bland because it’s basically a giant garden. She has plants at home, she says, why see more? I’d have stayed home if it weren’t for the fact that I’d spent all of the previous day, literally, cooped up in bed, staring at my ceiling. I don’t know why Rosie insists on hanging out with me all the time. Surely I’ve been no fun for her. I never see her hang out with anyone else, it’s always just me. Which is annoying, because to be perfectly honest, I’d rather just be left alone. I’ve had my share of so-called “friendships” and I was done with them. Never again.
By the way, Rosie is a very tall purple cat with a tall torso, a tall head, and tall legs. I first met her when I arrived in the town about four months ago. I’d wandered into the town from the main road with nothing but a few personal items I’d managed to grab, wrapped in a lint cloth in my hands. That road had led met to Toontown Central. I didn’t know anyone or anything around, obviously, so I stashed my puny amount of items in one of the bushes and decided to do some exploring and ended up on Loopy Lane. That is when Rosie bumped into me, as I was running around the corner by a building called Toontown Post Office. She knocked me to the ground, and I landed with a hard Thump and an “Oof!” sound.
“Oh, my goodness! I’m so, so sorry!” she had exclaimed. Words I would have loved to hear back home.
“It’s fine—“
“Are you alright?!”
“Yes, I’m—“
“I’m Rosie, what’s your name?” She looked at me expectantly when I didn’t try to answer right away. I had immediately noticed she tended to interrupt. How could anyone have a conversation with her? I wondered. Talk about bad first impressions. Geez. Though, her bubbly, explosive personality reminded me of someone I used to know. And, as soon as I realized that, I was sickened to my stomach, as angry eyes flashed into my mind.
“Uh, I’m Kitter—errr…. Kit. Yeah. Short for Kit T. Kat.” Close enough, I thought, biting my lip.
“Oooo! Kit T. Kat! That’s a cute name!” she gushed.
“Um, thanks? You, too?” I said uncertainly. “You said your name was Rosie? Is that short for something?” Rosie giggled.
“Nope! It’s just Rosie.”
“Really? Just Rosie?”
“Yep!”
“Huh.” Strange. I didn’t really know how to respond to that. One-word names weren’t common for me. I was used to long-winded ones, like my own name. A couple of seconds of awkward silence followed.
“So, uh, are you new here?” Rosie asked, breaking the silence. “I’ve never seen you before. Plus, your clothes are odd, definitely not from around here.” She paused, and eyed me up and down, her face forming into a grimace when she noticed my tattered clothes. “And not at all in the good quality that we have here,” she added, a bit of a pretentious tone in her voice.
“Yeah… I’m uh, new,” I told her.
“Ooh! From the Town Key contest?!” she’d exclaimed. The what?
“Um. Yeah, sure,” I’d lied. At the time I had no idea what that was, but I did some digging later that day. Turns out Toontown was in the early stages of expansion when I arrived, and one way they were going about it was holding a contest where the winners won a “town key”, which was a fake plastic key plated in fake gold painting, allowing them to move into the town. It gave me the perfect excuse to find a roof over my head here: I’d strolled into Toon HQ, gold-plated key in hand. Unlike the fake plastic keys, the gold on it was real. It was an heirloom from back home, and it successfully fooled the Toon HQ Officer into giving me my residence papers and the key for the house on an Estate. I even used the name I’d given Rosie on the residency form and no one even batted an eye.
Anyway, after I told Rosie that yes, I’d won the key from the Town Key contest, she did a weird jump into the air, hands extending outward in mid-air. I don’t think I’d ever seen other toons do that before, I found it odd at the time.
“Sweet! In that case, allow me to show you around!” she’d gushed.
“Oh, uh, no, that’s okay—“
“Come on! You said you’re new! I’ll be your tour guide! It’ll be fun!”
“No, really, I’m—“
“This way leads to Minnie’s Melodyland, which is a great place to hear awesome music!” She motioned to where she had come from when she bumped into me. “I was just there right before I ran into you. Nifty place, there’s a cool piano walkway and climbing up and down the instruments is how you access the rest of the place. Come on, you’ll see what I mean when I show you in person!” She grabbed my hand and started pulling me around the corner. I didn’t budge.
“No, it’s okay, no need to—“
“It’s no big deal! I don’t mind one bit!” I stopped arguing with her and let her introduce me to the awesome musical world of Melodyland.
Turns out, she was right. Melodyland had awesome music. And, weird as it sounded, there really was a piano walkway, found on the lower platform of the playground.
Despite that, though, my point still stands: she has the tendency to always go against my decisions. Kind of like she was doing right now with this whole Election thing. I shook my head, clearing away all of these memories and focused back on Rosie, who stood waiting for me to say something.
“I’ve told you, I’m not going. Have fun attending such a boring event. I mean, they’re just going to count votes and hear the winner’s speech. Hoo-ray.” I said unenthusiastically. She just rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“The future of our town will be decided today! I can’t believe you don’t care about it. You decided to MOVE here after all!”
“Only because I had no choice,” I muttered bitterly. My shoulders slumped.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rosie asked, eyebrow raised, and I grimaced, cursing myself at the slip. Crud! She does NOT need to know about that…
“Never mind that,” I snapped, not meeting her eyes. “All that matters is, just because I’m living here, doesn’t mean I enjoy every single thing of this place. It’s nothing like—err, nevermind. It’s just boring. That is all.” Rosie gave me an incredulous look. I could see the gears spinning in her mind as no doubt at least one hundred questions popped into her mind. To her credit, though, she let it go. Good.
“You have a place to live, and some ways to spend the time. Is that not enough?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely glad to have a proper roof over my head. The house on my Estate is roomy and I like it. But just because you were born here ages ago and have been living here for a lot longer than me doesn’t mean I would enjoy it, too. You’re used to it. As I just said, this town is so boring! I mean all everyone does is go fishing and playing the same Trolley games over and over again. Where’s the fun in that?” I did have to admit, though, this town was definitely more open-minded and highly more spirited than where I came from… that kind of behavior was, um, shall we say, frowned upon.
“All that stuff is fun to do, Kit. Plus, it wasn’t even open to the public till recently, and even then, in limited quantities.”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that,” I muttered. She had; when I asked her on that first day why this town seemed to be small (I mean, according to her, there were only 6 different “neighborhoods” that weren’t actually very far from each other, only connected via small streets), she said it’s because since its inception Toontown has been a small village in rural nothingness and there’s been no innovative minds to expand it. The activities that did exist were things the early locals had come up with, like Fishing or playing board games. Where I came from, there was at least twice as many areas—or, “neighborhoods” as Rosie called them-- and they were vast and expansive. Nowhere near this tiny little space. Kingdom vs tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Apples to oranges. Duh. However, where I came from there weren’t that many activities. We couldn’t do much of anything, but things weren’t all that boring for me because I had a quiet, luxurious life. Maybe it wasn’t so much that I found this town’s activities boring per se, but that it wasn’t the activities of home. And boy, did I miss home. So, I’m a bit biased then I guess. Sue me.
Anyway, Rosie told me then that at the time Toontown was created there was only a tiny little area with, like, four wooden farmhouses separated by a small amount of land in-between them. It wasn’t even called Toontown at first, it was known as Funny Farms. Then one day a toon named Mickey Mouse came by and liked the feel of the town. He immediately proposed the idea of becoming Funny Farms’ first official mayor, because he had some ideas on how to expand and make it better and the people then agreed. Mickey’s vision for the town was for it to be a place where any Toon anywhere can call it home. So, he renamed Funny Farms to Toontown and called the very center of the lands separating the four farmhouses, where all four of them intersected via dirt roads, Toontown Central. He repurposed the farmhouses into buildings that later became known as the Toontown Bank, the Toontown Library, Toon Hall, and Toon HQ, respectively. After that, the Trolley and its minigames were born, which meant expanding Toontown Central to house them. Then came more areas—or, “neighborhoods”. Rosie tells me Mickey invited some of his friends to design and build their own areas based on what they wanted. Hence, Donald’s Dock, Daisy Gardens, Minnie’s Melodyland and Goofy Speedway were born. I didn’t know who any of the toons they were named and designed after were—where I came from there was rarely any mention of “the outside world”— but I pretended to, because the way Rosie described them made it seem like they were famous, and I didn’t want her to scrutinize me. The last thing I wanted was for her to prod into my past.
“Well, that’s why this election is so important,” Rosie was saying. “We need a leader, someone who can guide us into a bigger, brighter future. Only then will this town expand and get better.” I frowned at her words.
“That guiding us into a bigger, brighter future part sounds a lot like something this green duck I saw said the other day.”
“Oh, so you have been keeping up with the news??” Rosie beamed. I shook my head.
“Hardly. There’s almost nothing to do in this town. I saw a big crowd gathering near Toon Hall the other day, so I checked it out. It was just boring political talk and propaganda.”
“Yeah, well, I voted for Slappy—he’s the green duck.”
“You actually voted? Ugh. Why did you vote for him? I didn’t really like him that much.” Rosie rolled her eyes at that. “It doesn’t help that I’m not really a fan of toons promising a brighter future,” I muttered to myself.
“Well, I voted for Slappy cuz he’s good. He’s had great ideas for the town. Flippy… well, he’s nice and all but I find him lacking in creativity a bit, compared to Slappy. I mean, he gave us free balloon rides! You don’t see Flippy doing that.” I had no idea who Flippy was, yet she talked about him like he was common knowledge. Maybe he was, I don’t know.
“Balloon rides? That does sound like fun.” I hated to admit that, but it sure beat riding the Trolley all day long. Rosie grinned, apparently taking that as a possible change of mind.
“Yes! It was probably the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
“Hmm. Not surprising, compared to how much fun everything else is,” I muttered. Rosie shook her head in exasperation.
“Ugh! Whatever, think what you want. At least come watch the elections with me later. It’ll be fun, I’m sure!” she added, when she saw the disinterested look on my face. I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah, right, sure. Just like everything else is so darned fun around here.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t be such a grouch! Why are you always so serious? From day one you’ve been so… closed off. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hiding stuff from me.”
“That’s… it’s just how I am,” I said softly, obviously not denying the claim that I was hiding something from her. Rosie noticed—her eyes went wide, and she looked at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. I shifted my feet.
“Hmm…well…something a little different can only be a good thing. In fact, I thought you wanted something different? Weren’t you just complaining that everything is dull and boring because it’s the same stuff over and over again?”
“Well, yeah…” I started, but as usual she didn’t let me finish my sentence.
“Well, there you go! The Elections will be something new and different. I mean, it’s not something you experience every day.”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts! Just give it a try! You can’t say you’ll hate it if you don’t actually try it!
“True…”
“Alright, awesome! See you then!” Rosie said, and then very quickly turned around and ran away.
“HEY! I never said I would—" I called out to her, but she was gone. Dang it! She tricked me! Or did she? I wasn’t completely sure anymore. I sighed. Elections. Politics. I thought I was done with all that stuff. Guess they’ll always follow me no matter where I go. Back home, there was plenty of that stuff…
“Well, let’s just get this boring old thing over with… maybe she’ll leave me alone for good after that” I muttered to myself. I walked towards the Trolley, not at all looking forward to the upcoming boring election process.
Of course, little did I know that the election would be anything BUT boring!
