I Was A Teenage Kappa

Part One of Five

Our story begins on a warm November day, with our protagonist’s arm around the shoulders of his girlfriend in the middle of a crowd, surrounded by his friends. Together they snake through the throngs of San Francisco’s China Town. All are students of Windsor Academy, an upscale private school in northern California, and all are currently on a “culture awareness” field trip.

“Young man! You buy my erixer, yes?”

A stall ran by a tiny, toothless Asian hag suddenly is thrust in front of them, blocking their path. There seems no way around the situation for our protagonist and he is forced to engage her in conversation.

“Uh, no thank you,” our protagonist says, carefully annunciating his words in order to avoid a misunderstanding. The hag presents him with a smoking vial full of a dark red liquid anyway.

“Drink this—good for swimmer’s regs!”

“How do you know I’m a—”

“Come on, Starbuck!” one friend teases. “Drink it.”

“She made it up ‘speciar’ for you,” another jokes.

“I really don’t—” Our protagonist is again interrupted by his friends.

“I totally dare you to,” one of them says.

“Yeah—you could totally use all the help you can get in the pool.”

“Shut up!” Our protagonist replies, laughing. He takes the concoction from the hag’s outstretched hands, taking a whiff of the gas smoking out of the vial. “Oh god, this smells gross!”

“Drink it!” his friends chant. “Drink it!”

“Don’t drink it, Troy!” his girlfriend complains, revealing our protagonist’s name. “You don’t even know what it is!”

“Is this pureed fish guts, lady?” Troy asks, trying to push the concoction back into the hag’s hands. “Because it really smells like it.”

“Secret Japanese medicine. Wirr change your fortune for better!” the hag (apparently Japanese) says, pushing the vial back in his hands. “Wirr make you best swimmer in town!”

“If I drink it, you gotta drink some too,” Troy says, turning to the red-head at his right. We identify this boy as Kendall Walters, his best friend and fellow teammate.

“No thanks, buddy,” Kendall replies, his nose wrinkling at the smell coming off the pungent mixture. “We’ll leave this one up to you.”

“Don’t drink it, Troy!” his girlfriend says, scoffing. “It’s so grody!”

“Drink it! Drink it!” his other friends chant.

“Drink it,” the hag urges.

“I can use all the help I can get, right?” Troy says with a shrug, finally giving in to the pressuring of his companions. He thinks, what harm could it do, anyway?

His friends erupt in disgusted hyena laughter; the girlfriend rolls her dolled-up eyes; Troy fights the urge to throw up.

“That’s sick, man!” his friends say through their laughter.

“I can’t believe you drank that,” the girlfriend snaps, resigned to thoughts dwelling on the fact she was so obviously surrounded by idiots.

“That’rr be five-dorrars, preese,” the hag says, sticking out her palm again.

“Five dollars?” Troy repeats, outraged. Grudgingly, our protagonist scrapes a few spare bills out of his pocket and deposits them in the hag’s hand. He mutters things about “rip-offs” under his breath as his girlfriend tugs on his arm.

“Come on, Troy!” she wails, forgetting her distaste from just moments before. “Let’s go eat something!”

“Yeah, I’m suddenly craving liver and onions.”

“Ewwww, Troy! How can you eat something like that!”

“That’s Troy for you—he’ll eat anything so long as it’s dead!”

Insert the fading laughter as the group disappears into the crowd. The hag pockets her crumpled Washingtons and returns to her job of forcing her herbal remedies on gullible tourists. The hag smiles, unconsciously counting the change in her pocket with her thumb and forefinger.

Her greedy grin reveals a startling set of sharp, pearl-white teeth.

Commentary:

Yeah, so I'm working on this new story here. It's done, minus some editing for continuity. Basically, it tells the story of a teenage boy as he is turned into a kappa. Sorry, fans of "I Was A Teenage Werewolf", there aren't any mad scientists here. I find writing this incredibly, painstakingly difficult because of the 3rd-person present-tense. Oh dear god, is it torture. If I make an error, please catch it and tell me in a review.

This story is inspired by "Polished Pebbles" by Nayima---it's in my favorite story section, if anyone is curious. It is probably the best story I have read on fictionpress, and arguably one of the best stories I've read in a while (even though I have been reading marvel comics lately, and those are pretty good...)

Check it out, 'cause it's awesome.

R&R, yeah? -Skylar Alexander