Bizarroville

The Worst Game Ever

"This is the worst game ever!" Mackie yelled as she hid her head between her arms. She couldn't understand why her father was making them play this stupid game.

"Come on Mackie," her father said. "Josh seems to be having a lot of fun."

"No, I'm not, actually," Josh said. "I'm just hoping you'll let me go out with my friends tonight. So I'm pretending to have fun."

"Seriously dad, I googled it. It has like, -2 stars in rottencucumbergames.com!" said Mackie.

"Ah come on guys," their father said. "My dad and I used to play this game when I was your age."

"Ooh, I bet you had a blast," Mackie said into the table.

"No, I didn't," he said. "I actually hated it."

Josh and Mackie looked at their father like a couple of wings had just sprouted from his skull.

"Then why would you make us play such a weird game? Twice!" Josh said. "We played the game yesterday, and the day before that. There was no need to play it today as well!"

"Well, in time I began to value this game," their father said. "Besides giving me some time with my dad, it also turned out to be really helpful in real life."

"How would knowing the ingredients for fairy tea ever help me in real life?" said Mackie.

"Oh, that part's just for the fun of it," her dad grinned. "But it is an excellent remedy for hiccups."

"Dad," said Mackie, "the ingredients include fairy dust and a flower growing off a nymph tree. Where would I get that?!"

"Not just any nymph tree, Mackenzie," said her father. "An eastern nymph apple tree. Otherwise you get a nasty rash and hiccups for life. Your Uncle Greg had that, you know. It took a whole ton of goblin limeade to cure him."

"Dad, you're not making any sense," said Josh. "You're supposed to tell us fairytales when we're little, not when we're fourteen and seventeen."

"Come on guys, I'm just trying to have fun here!" their father said.

"Well, you might but we aren't." Josh said.

Their dad breathed out. "Fine. We'll play just one more round. Mackie, you're up," he ignored her groan. "You find a threatening goblin in the woods, what do you do?"

"Duck, roll, flick his ear," Mackie said, completely bored.

"Nope," her father said. "You duck, roll, jump, then flick his ear. Congratulations, you've just been turned into a palm tree. Again."

Mackie groaned.

"What do you do, Mackie?" her father asked.

"I close my eyes and think really hard of being anywhere but here." She said.

"No. You try and touch your toes. Josh, you're up next, let's see if you can rescue your sister from her present state."

"Ugh, I don't get it," said Mackie. "How am I supposed to touch my toes if I'm a palm tree? Don't you see how stupid it is?"

"You don't actually touch your toes," her dad said, "you just try to touch them. The key is all in the phrasing. Now come on  Josh, get out of the mermaid pool and help your sister."

***

Mackie kicked a soccer ball in their backyard. She focused all of her frustration into the ball. Then she groaned as she watched watched it soar up high, up above and over the fence. She stomped across her backyard and unlocked the back door that led to the woods. Then she went through and started looking for her ball.

She was about to start turning over rocks when a sound behind her startled her. She turned around and saw a goblin. No, a threatening looking goblin. She groaned.

"Great. Now I'm dreaming about that stupid game. Thanks a lot, dad!" she said, not really hoping that her father would hear her.

Now that she knew she was dreaming, all she had to do was control the environment of her dream. She'd done it a couple of times, and managed to transform a nightmare into a beautiful dream.

She extended her arms towards the goblin and said "Turn into Harry Styles!"

She frowned when nothing happened and the goblin kept advancing towards her. Sometimes it took a lot more will to take control of her dreams. Stupid, stubborn brain.

"Turn. Into. Harry. STYLES!" She said.

The goblin stopped, turned his head, and smiled a gruesome smile. Then he kept walking towards her.

"Ugh, great. I can't believe I'm about to do this." She said to herself. Then she took a step forward, ducked, rolled, and tried to flick the goblin's ear. However, she failed. And then she felt her body stretching and stiffening, until she couldn't move and stood several feet above the goblin.

Damn it, she thought. I can't believe I forgot to jump!

Mackie was getting tired of this dream, so she did the one thing she knew would wake her up. She tried to fall asleep. This was apparently very hard to do when you're a palm tree. She tried jumping, it usually made her fly when she was dreaming. She couldn't do it.

After a few minutes she began to think the unthinkable. What if this wasn't a dream after all? What if she stayed a palm tree forever? They lived on the northern hemisphere. She was pretty sure palm trees couldn't survive this far north. She heard a few of her leaves shaking, and realised she was shaking. Then she realised she had realised she was shaking. And she looked down and saw her body. Sort of. She saw herself as a palm tree, but she saw her body in the palm tree. And she realised she could move in the palm tree. Then she remembered something. So she bent down and touched her toes.

The next thing she knew, she was sitting in the woods, the wet grass seeping through her pants. And she giggled. Goblins were real after all. That meant fairies were real too. And she could give her brother permanent hiccups.