bliumchik | Fairytale fic: Jack and the Giant Mushroom

Title: Jack and the Magic Mushroom
Fandom: Fairytales
Wordcount: 834
Notes: Exercise for writing class, rework a fairytale, yawn. This isn't the one I'm going to turn into my final piece, this is just for the lulz.

The flipflopping price of the dollar was making it truly unforgivably difficult for Jack to buy drugs. It was an outrage. Nobody accepted cash anymore, because nobody was quite sure how much cash was worth what kind of high. On the other hand, a healthy barter system had sprung up almost overnight. Jack's mate Cindy had paid for her latest stash of eccies with an actual honest-to-goodness pumpkin she'd grown in the backyard – and what's more she wouldn't share, either, stuck up bitch.

Jack's room had steadily emptied of semi-valuable possessions. His ipod now belonged to the local pot dealer and his stereo was languishing in the back room of an electronics store whose owner's brother was a chemistry student. All that was left was a skateboard and some fake-brand hoodies. None of that was enough to buy six magic mushrooms off the smug bloke in the hat who'd taken to hanging around Hyde Park in the wee hours, accumulating TVs and illegal firearms (which probably helped him hang on to the TVs).

“You swapped the car for some WHAT!?” Jack's mother grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shook him like he was still six. He hated that. Then there was some swearing but he thought throwing the mushrooms out the window was overkill – now they had neither car NOR drugs.

Of course that was before he saw the giant mushroom towering over their backyard.

“This is your fault,” said Jack's mother.

“Trust me,” said Jack, and began looking for footholds.

“There's a lift,” said Jack's mother, glaring at it like it was a cat sitting on a pile of fresh laundry.

Jack sheepishly got in the lift and pressed the top button. The lift groaned and creaked like an old tree in a gale, the spongy floor shuddered under his feet and then he was rising at a slightly terrifying pace.

“Ding,” said the lift as it came to a halt, in a pleasant tenor. “Penthouse!”

The doors slid open.

“Fee fi fo fum!” boomed a voice from outside the lift. “Enough boiled eggs, I want a gold one!”

“That doesn't even rhyme,” a second voice said nasally. Jack stuck his head out of the lift.

Atop the gently curved surface of the mushroom he saw an enormously fat man sitting in a pile of cushions. In front of him was a goose. It was rolling its eyes.

“In any case,” said the goose, “You want gold eggs in this economy you should stop feeding me that piece of shit dollar-store birdfeed. I thought we had an agreement!”

“But I can't afford good feed without the golden eggs!” the fat man mumbled plaintively, drooping into his pillows.

“What did you do with all the others?” snapped the goose.

“...invested them in Bear Sterns.” said the fat man almost in a whisper, trying to shrink into the pile.

“Oh that's just typical,” the goose replied. “You should have invested them in Macdonalds, you've practically kept those guys afloat single handedly.”

The fat man looked upset. “There was no call for that!”

“Oh please.” said the goose. Then there was some swearing. Jack watched avidly.

The altercation ended with the goose storming off in a huff, as far as birds can do so. Since there was nowhere really to storm to that meant it flounced into the lift and pecked all of the buttons it could reach with its beak, petulantly.

“Um.” said Jack.

“Who the hell are you?” snarled the goose.

Jack gestured vaguely in a way that was meant to convey his wish to answer the question, but also his temporary muteness in response to the overwhelming ridiculousness of being in a lift with a goose at the top of a giant mushroom. Before the goose could answer and indicate whether or not all that was understood, the lift arrived at the next floor down and the doors swung open on a long white corridor hung with pictures of famous rap stars eating cheeseburgers.

“Ding!” said the lift. “Floor three hundred and two!”

At the other end of the corridor, a fire exit door suddenly swung open and the giant huffed and puffed out of it.

“Get back here you ungrateful-” he started to shout, and had to stop to lean against the wall and pant.

“Oops,” said the goose, and held its wing down on the Door Close button. The doors closed.

There was a brief silence, interrupted only by the lift announcing that they had reached floor three hundred and one. This was an identical white corridor, this time with a selection of bongs in interesting shapes tastefully displayed in glass cases. The emergency exit door was propped open by a brick.

Down the stairwell echoed “-and when I -huff- catch up to you-” and this time Jack was the one to reach out and close the doors. The lift shuddered and began to move once more.

“So.” said Jack. “What kind of bird feed DO you prefer?”