Won Over

N

"All participants should come on stage." The compere announced.

Each year, the gang that wins the competition of the previous Christmas special would be given the assignment of organizing for the following year. The gang to organize for this year was The Slack gang - they were complete slackers. Actually, we in the Food gang were kinda slack but not completely. And it was just Blue, Snow and I that were slackers. Sugar, Les, Beauty, Maho and Race took life seriously. Panda and Icy were in between.

"Once more, all gangs that registered to partake in the competition should please come on stage." The compere repeated, sounding annoyed when no one budged.

When we still didn't get up, he began mentioning our names. "All members of the Broken English gang, the Courteous gang, the Dancing gang, the Food gang, the Liberated gang and the Miscellaneous gang should please come on stage. Before I lose my patience." He muttered the last statement but since he was using a mic we could all hear him.

When he did this, we had no choice but to get up. Afterwards, we all sauntered to the stage and stood there, staring each other down.

"Alright. We are going to introduce ourselves starting alphabetically from the Broken English gang to the Miscellaneous gang." He handed the mic to each one of us to introduce ourselves.

Broken English gang comprised of six people: Rocky, Bruise, Candy, Salsa, Hairy and Haystack who were twins.

Courteous gang comprised of three people: JN, Star and Bubbles, mainly because no gang member liked being courteous so some left.

Dancing gang comprised of ten people: Naughty, Chic, Fog, Plastic plate (shortened to PP), Cake, Melody, Knight, Tote, Mire and Fire (who weren't twins but just had similar names).

Then us: Race, Panda, Sugar, Icy, Maho, Beauty, Les, Snow, Blue and I.

Liberated gang had five people: Tidal, Muse, Bebe, Zax and Dove.

And the Miscellaneous gang had seventeen people but we got to know that twelve of them were ghost members. They were people who were once gang members but due to one reason or the other had left the gang but were still being counted as part of the gang. The real people were: Ladder, Navy, Funk, Milky and Cello.

"Okay! That's everyone. You know, there are about thirty gangs in this locality but y'all are lucky to have been chosen to participate in this highly sought after competition." The emcee said.

We all mumbled out our disagreements as we had chosen to register not that we were specially picked.

He however continued, undaunted. "I belong to the Slackers who won the competition last year. It comprises of seven members including me. I was elected to be in charge of the competition while the rest are in charge of whatever they are in charge of." He said with a wave of his hand.

"My name is Quinn which is obviously not my real name and my gang members are: Baby, Royal, Titan, Eon, Creamy and Bass." They all waved from where they sat.

"So we begin now... WHO IS READY?!" Quinn shouted.

"For your voice to crack? We sure are." Funk answered with a smirk.

In return Quinn glared at him, the air between them sizzling with beef.

All the gangs that registered were instructed to bring certain food items. There were no specifications on the kind of food items to bring and we weren't told why. Although, I had an inkling that some of our competitors knew what to buy because they had participated in the competition in previous years.

However, when I tried to get close to ask some of them what to expect, Panda whisked me away quickly, saying something about not fraternizing with the enemy.