When we last left off in Spooky Story Corner, Tommy met Bucky Badger in the dark underworld, as he too also played “Spooky Scary Skeletons” on his AirPods. With skeletons surrounding the new buddies, the future looked bleak for the newly nerdified Tommy and the anthropomorphic badger. However, it seemed like Bucky just got an idea.
“I swear I have an idea,” Bucky said.
“Bucky, you just said that in the last issue,” Tommy said. “We’re going to need more substance than that if this story is going to get to 650 words.”
“Story?” Bucky asked. “I thought this was real life.”
“No Bucky, this is all a part of a serial for The Badger Herald,” Tommy said. “Literally someone just sits in the office writing this every week to fill half of a page. We aren’t autonomous actors, she controls us.”
Bucky was obviously taken aback by this. He typically thinks he controls his own destiny, but for once, he felt like a lie.
“OK well let’s scratch my old plan of staging a ‘rock, paper, scissors’ match to get out of this abyss,” Bucky said. “Our new goal is to go to The Badger Herald’s office and get this author to stop writing this story once and for all.”
Tommy didn’t know how to feel about this. Unlike Bucky, Tommy was an original character, meaning he owed his whole existence to this author that he had a haunting suspicion would somehow get him out of the skeletal world through some zany high jinks.
Sighing, Tommy collapsed onto ground and looked meaningfully into Bucky’s eyes.
“Bucky, I just don’t know,” Tommy said. “The author created me. You’re a stock character which gets the chance to live on throughout the school year outside the confines of this story. When she stops writing, I stop existing. I mean, just look at what happened to Suzie from last year.”
“Who’s Suzie?” Bucky asked.
“Oh c’mon Bucky,” Tommy jested. “You didn’t read Spooky Story Corner in print or online at badgerherald.com at all last year?”
“Um, no,” Bucky said.
Tommy could not believe these words. Bucky missed out on the worst story of the century.
“Bucky, Suzie basically was the protagonist in this story last year,” Tommy said. “She was sucked through a desk that transported her into a similar abyss filled with ghosts instead of skeletons. She befriended a pencil, not a badger, which helped her leave the ghastly experience. At the end, she came back to Humanities, but the author has wrote nothing about her since.”
“Wow Tommy I feel really bad for you,” Bucky said. “You only get to exist for such a limited time, you’re like a special happy meal toy.”
Kind of desperate, Tommy pulled into Bucky and embraced the badger. Bucky huddled in close as well, he hadn’t felt this genuinely upset since 2018’s Minnesota game. A tear trickled down his fuzzy face to hit the top of Tommy’s head. The tear trickled further down to Tommy’s eye, where the salty tear mixed in with Tommy’s own tear.
Suddenly, Tommy and Bucky were transported far away from the skeletal world. Tommy’s nerdy look shedded itself away, but now a red and white striped sweater adorned his body. Bucky, likewise, found himself in a bro tank and shorts.
Terrifying wasp infiltrates J201 class, dies on scene via blunt force trauma
“Uh, Bucky,” Bucky said.
Wait.
“Tommy, you’re in my body!” Bucky exclaimed. Bucky was actually inside Tommy’s body a la the Scooby Doo movie, hence why the clothes switched.
“Gahhhh, I’m fluffy!” Tommy cried.
The duo looked around their surroundings. Dogs ran about. Food trucks appeared in the distance.
“Ok Bucky, so we’re on State Street,” Tommy said. “Maybe we can find the author down this street and have her rewrite this wrong.”
Will Tommy and Bucky meet this story’s author? Will Tommy remain in a badger state for the rest of his existence? Will the skeletons come back and make this story actually spooky? Turn to this page next time to find out.
