Forums » General Roleplay » (Closed) Summer Soiree: The County Fair

"That's makes one of us," he laughed in response to the comment of her knowing he could. He tugged the shades he'd tucked behind his shirt collar before throwing back out and raised them to shield his eyes again. "No problem, good luck with everything," he nodded to Marie as she thanked him for playing. "Sorry about that Tabby," he gave a sympathetic smile to the girl, shaking his head lightly as he turned to leave. From the looks of things, she had a long ass day ahead of her. Cheerleaders sure were brutal. His phone chimed and he tugged it from his back pocket, groaning slightly. Work had a call-in, they needed him bad, and he didn't have the heart to say no. Guess the fun was over for the day.

He gave one last lazy departing wave to the bunch as he headed into the crowd and made his way towards the exit of the fair. At least it wasn't a total bust.

(Thanks for hosting! )

"Cut the chatter, Red Two," Matt said with a grin. He took aim with the next ball and launched his second attack, which didn't come close.

Matt shook his head in feigned frustration. "Negative, negative, it didn't go in. Just impacted on the surface."

"Perhaps you'd like it back in the pool, your highness," Trevor called to Tabby. "Use the force, Matt... trust your feelings!"

*Tag Matt*

"Matt, you switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong," Trevor asked.

Marie suppressed a laugh. She tried to not let on that she was watching Matt out of the corner of her eye. Tabby's friends really sucked at this. They were as crappy at sports as they were dorky, apparently.

"Thanks for not hitting the target, Matt," Tabby yelled. "If you could miss once more, that would be awesome!"

Matt ignored Marie's stifled laugh. No one had ever accused him of being good at sports.

"She's so small she's evading our turbo lasers," said Matt. He took aim with the last ball. "This is Red Five, I'm going in."

Matt groaned when he saw the results of his throw. "I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I feel something terrible has happened."

Sandy was working her arts and crafts booth where she was selling healing stones, herbal teas, incense, and tie-dye clothing. Sales were ok, if erratic, and though she could hear notes of a guitarist and a loudspeaker touting a fundraiser of some sort, she was a bit too far away to see or hear much of it. There was a couple sounds of splashing water through the day, and Sandy was wanting to take a break from her booth.

It was around lunch time when her daughter finally arrived to help out. Teenagers sleeping in... anyway, Sandy was able to get out and walk around the fair now. Unfortunately the music she had heard had ceased, but she did see where the splashing was coming from. A very wet girl was sitting on the drop seat of a dunktank, and looking at her it appeared she had recently took a dip. There were some guys around trying to dunk her again, but the throw Sandy saw was quite a wild pitch.

Sandy want much for the preppy, sexist cheerleader school-of-thought, but if these girls wanted to show off their young bodies and it is their choice to do so, then good for them! Sandy herself was pretty free with her skin in her crazy youth in the sixties and seventies so she ‘got it’ up to a point. She would give this a try....

“I need tickets I guess, huh...” Sandy said to the brunette who seemed to be in charge. Her outfit looked a bit like something from Hugh Hefner’s playboy club, along with the opposite matching girl with her. Sandy had bought a pile of tickets when she came in to set up her booth, and she was giving them out with purchases, so she had a few in the pocket of her long sundress she was wearing. “...here you go sweetie...”

Sandy waited for the guys who obviously knew the girl on the plank as they tried to drop her seat with their throws. She would wait her turn.

Doreen rolled her eyes as she listened to the dialog going on between Matt, Trevor, and Tabby. Were they talking in code? It almost sounded like that short guy was pretending he was shooting at the target with a ray gun instead of throwing balls. What a dweeb.

That last throw had been so bad that the ball had completely missed everything and was now rolling away across the fairgrounds parking lot. She groaned; someone was going to have to chase it down, and it wasn't going to be Marie. "Be right back," she said, and began her pursuit of the ball, her heels making a click-clack staccato rhythm as she gave chase across the asphalt.

When she had secured the ball and arrived back at the dunk tank a couple of minutes later, a new customer was approaching. The new arrival was one of those new-age types, a woman who looked like she thought she was one of those flower children still living in the '60s. Doreen gave her a friendly smile and nodded in greeting while Marie dealt with taking her tickets.

Woodstock called, they want their VW bus back, Marie thought as the hippy woman approached. She'd passed her essential oil booth or whatever the hell it was earlier as she made her way to the dunking booth to set up.

“I need tickets I guess, huh...” Sandy said to the brunette who seemed to be in charge.

"Uh, yeah, that would be helpful," Marie said unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She did stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“...here you go sweetie...”

"Thanks," Marie said. "Here are your balls. You're up next."

Dori had just returned with the ball Matt had managed to roll across the fair with his last wild throw.

Sandy waited for the guys who obviously knew the girl on the plank as they tried to drop her seat with their throws. She would wait her turn.

As Matt stepped aside, Marie gestured for the flower lady to take her pitch. She hoped she'd sink Tabby. That would be hilarious after all of these guys tried to show off and failed miserably.

“Ok, well, I used to play softball in junior high which was a couple of lifetimes ago. Let’s see if my arm is mobile enough to pitch...” Sandy said as she took the first ball. With a reasonable spin of her arm, she let go an underhanded throw toward the target...

It did hit the backstop, but just barely. “Sorry sweetie, no dowsing on that. . .”

Emily chuckled when the boy with the Star-Wars obsession managed to heave the ball all the way into the parking lot, badly missing the target. She watched as the cheerleader in the white tuxedo-bikini hurried off to recover the ball. About the time she came back with the ball, an older lady was giving the other cheerleader in the black tuxedo bikini some tickets. "She can go ahead of me," said Emily. "I'm going to go get a snack, and I'll take my turn when I get back."

Emily returned about ten minutes later, having finished off a funnel cake. Some guy who claimed to be blind, or nearly so, was throwing. His first two throws missed. As he was about the make his third throw, Emily suddenly pressed her hands against her ears and said, "Ow! What the hell was that?" She looked around and noticed a couple of people were giving her weird looks, though most of the crowd was focused on the dunk tank and the redheaded girl who had just taken a plunge when the man's third throw had been successful. Apparently, nobody had heard that weird noise but her.

After the blind man moved away, Emily said, "Okay, I'll take my turn now."

Summer was here at last! Fumizuki was happy, as usual. The small and fluffy shipgirl had been saving up money to go to the fair, and now here she was. She had bought some tickets to try her luck at the dunking booth, and was waiting patiently in the line.

Susan was snacking on cotton candy while wandering through the carnival looking for fun things to do. She rounded a corner and found herself staring at a dunk tank being run by those horrid cheerleaders from that other high school. There were Marie and Doreen, the leaders of the prep pep squad, acting all cute in their little tuxedo bikinis and bow ties. Marie even had a top hat! Ugh! She couldn't stand those two. She didn't know who the redhead they had sitting in the dunk tank was, but she guessed it was one of their first-year initiates.

Susan was tempted to go up to them and give them some tickets just for the privilege of dumping a future Teal Cove Raptor cheerleader in the water, but knowing them, Marie and Doreen would probably like that. Plus, they'd benefit by getting the money from the tickets. Maybe she could find a better way to spend her tickets and cause them some grief at the same time.

She walked around the fair a little more until she spotted one of those cop guys with the plastic badges and over-sized foam hats; she knew they were running a charity jail. She went up to him and waved a couple of tickets at him. "Excuse me, officer, I want to put out charity arrest warrants on a couple of people. There are two girls over by the dunking tank wearing tuxedo-looking bikinis; the one in the black and white bikini and wearing a top hat is Marie Evans. Her friend in the white bikini is Doreen Rogers. Could you please arrest them for me?

“Ok, well, I used to play softball in junior high which was a couple of lifetimes ago. Let’s see if my arm is mobile enough to pitch...” Sandy said as she took the first ball. With a reasonable spin of her arm, she let go an underhanded throw toward the target...

It did hit the backstop, but just barely. “Sorry sweetie, no dowsing on that. . .”

"That's okay," Tabby replied to the older woman trying to sound encouraging. "You have two more throws." Tabby was starting to feel a little warm now. That pool below her wasn't looking so bad all of a sudden. She just hoped her sunscreen would hold out. Not only did she have to deal with Marie's taunts, but Matt and Trevor, too.

After the blind man moved away, Emily said, "Okay, I'll take my turn now."

"Go for it," Marie said gesturing for the dark-haired woman to take her first shot. It wasn't a bad throw, just a few inches off. "Eh, not too bad," Marie said with a shrug. She didn't recognize the current customer either. There were a lot of people here from surrounding communities including the surrounding colleges.

"You can do it," Marie encouraged as the woman lined up her second pitch.

Marie turned and noticed a young girl waiting in line. She took her tickets and handed them to Dori. "Okay, hon," Marie said smiling at the young girl. "You can go ahead and take your shot. Just put it straight into that target and Tabbycat gets a bath!"

Marie handed her 3 balls and gestured to the line on the ground with tape. "You can move up a bit if you want," Marie told her. She noted she was pretty young and might have trouble getting the ball all the way to the target.

OOC: If you want to give her a +2 in the third box, you can at your option.

"Okay." Fumizuki smiled timidly as she stood on the line. Focusing on the target with the same accuracy that she would use with her main guns, she takes the throws.

The girl took the 3 balls and made her throws in rapid-fire succession. She put in a good effort, but none of them came close to the target.

"Ah, that's too bad," Marie said. "Good try, though! Thanks for playing."

Fumizuki smiles as she goes off to enjoy the rest of the fair. "I'm glad I tried. Have fun!"

"Thanks," Emily said to the cheerleader in black. Emily's first attempt had come pretty close, but it was a failure nonetheless. And that was okay.

The nice thing about this game was that it depended pretty much entirely on the accuracy of her throws. Unlike that Hi-Striker game she'd played earlier, calling on superhuman strength or speed wouldn't help with this one. That was a good thing for several reasons. For one, calling on her superhuman abilities too often could lead to her losing control, and that would put people's lives in danger, including her own. For another, the use of those powers had the potential to draw unwanted attention to her, and that could be problematic. When she wasn't using those abilities, there generally wasn't any way to tell there was something unusual about her. And last but not least, using those abilities offended her sense of fair play. She wanted to win these games fair and square, not by cheating. She was still upset with herself for calling upon her strength in the Hi-Striker. She should have ignored that fool Roger, not taken his bet, and used her own natural strength on her third swing like she'd done on the first two, but no, she'd let her hot-headed nature get the best of her and lost her temper.

She stepped up for her second throw, and looked down at her feet to make sure they were behind the line marked by the piece of tape on the ground. Satisfied that she was playing fair and square, she took her second throw.

The shot went way to the left of the target. Tabby breathed another sigh of relief. While part of her wanted to be able to cool off in the pool, there was a certain feeling of surprise whenever the bench dropped out from under her. It was always a startling feeling.

"Oh! One more, you can do it," Marie urged. She had paused trying to draw more participants over the mic for the moment in order to watch the current contestant throw. She glanced at Tabby whose legs were still dangling over the pool. Her dorky friends were still watching her off to the side. Maybe Starla's long-haired hippy boyfriend would play after the line cleared.