4. the beginning ..

4.
Plodding along in a dark tunnel, there was no noise at all among the 16 strong team, except for the sound of their footsteps. And Hopigan’s hopping. The mood was affecting them all.

Bean Boy was leading them towards whatever was awaiting them. They had only been told by Lame Name Eric that something strange was happening in this tunnel. As they had entered the tunnel they had encountered a couple entertaining each other. As Poo Cake Woman joked that this was probably the strange thing that Lame Name Eric was talking about, they heard a train enter the tunnel at the opposite end, the couple pressed themselves as close to the wall as possible as the train went past.

They were now nearing the half way mark of the tunnel and hadn’t found anything strange just as Fred said “What’s that faint blue light up there?”. They all prepared themselves with their weapons and, with Bean Cake Kid, Fuirell, Stiltzpig, the vampire, the 2 frogs and Brian following behind them as they had finished their training course, they carried on towards the light near the end of the tunnel.

As they got nearer they saw that the faint blue light appeared to be a ghost. Still leading the group, Bean Boy turned around and said “I can handle this one on my own”. Poo Cake Woman said “I hope it gets you” to which Bean Boy replied “Thanks” and carried on.

Having easily ridded the ghost in the tunnel, they had started to wonder back along the tunnel to their vehicles to return to their base.

The journey back was just as silent between everyone as it had been in the tunnel. Once back at the base, Bean Cake Kid, Fuirell, Stiltzpig, the vampire, the frogs and Brian had gone off to find something to do, all the others went off into the communal room. Before arriving there Poo Cake Woman took a door into a different room. Bean Boy was last to exit the vehicle and didn’t follow the others.

Upon entering the communal room 5 doors away, all of the others sat down and as he went to get a bone to eat, Fred said “Its getting worse” to mumbled agreement from everyone.

Bean Cake Kid had gone to find Bean Boy. Finding him sitting on the ledge overhanging the long drop to the floor he sat on the floor near to the ledge. Bean Boy acknowledged that he was there and then continued to stare into space. Bean Cake Kid broke the silence by saying “How long has it been?”.

Bean Boy said “4 years. Me and The Bored Guy were the original two. We met in college. We first started to be friends in one of our lessons when our teacher asked us to draw something. We both drew something really unusual, things that weren’t related to the subject. Weren’t really related to anything.”

“We started hanging out more and our friendship went up a notch when we realized how much we had in common. We had quite an eventful time, being picked on by younger people than us, which we found quite funny.”

“We were eventually joined by Poo Cake Woman, who actually lived quite far away from us. Before her it was just two high school friends hanging out making a joke out of everything. But she introduced us to more and more people.”

“I was sitting on her bed one day, when Poo Cake Woman introduced me to Fred, the Lonely Bear and Eric The Phantom, who later went on to get named Lame Name Eric after something The Bored Guy said”.

“We all became good friends and started to help out people in trouble when we found them. It stayed this way for 2 and half years, with all 6 of us, until The Bored Guy said he had to go away for a bit.”

“He said that when he returned we would be able to call on him if we needed it. He left the day after and we were down to 5 of us. We set about looking for new members, but weren’t successful. 9 months later we heard from The Bored Guy who said he was coming home soon.”

“We stayed in contact with him and learnt about things he had, and first saw our old friend again after 10 months, when we needed him to help us out with his new flying car he had told us about.”

“He soon returned and was somewhat more successful finding new members than we had been. He helped us find out most of the new members, starting with MM, who he had said he met when he was away. Whilst MM just seemed like a normal person, we all got on with him and decided that he should stay.”

“You came about at a similar time to when we found Hopigan and the 62 fingered man. Your name, obviously came from combining your two founders, me and Poo Cake Woman. We thought that Hopigan was unusual like the rest of us, so we invited him in. Lame Name Eric wanted the 62 fingered man as he said he could be useful for the control side of things”.

“We found Mr Mike .. well .. Mr Mike found us actually. He didn’t seem to know where he was and somehow forced his way into our building, and after that he just kept coming back. Your friend Fuirell, I came across him once on a car journey, I can’t remember the exact details about it, but I liked him so he stayed.”

“Your other friend, Stiltzpig, was also introduced to us by Poo Cake Woman. I’ve never been informed of where he came from, but he’s still here. And obviously you know about the Vampire, Brian, the frog and the newt. Which, as you know, evolved into a frog just the other day. So now we have two frogs.”

Bean Cake Kid was interested as to how they had all met as he had never been told before. He said to Bean Boy “Oh, I thought you had all been friends for much longer than that”.

Bean Boy then finished the conversation by saying “It does seem like it, doesn’t it. Sadly enough, I’m not sure that we are going to continue for much longer ...”