The house lights dim, and the theatre grows quiet, waiting for Hikaru 
Gosunkugi's entrance with more News from Nerima.  In the silence, one can 
hear the scraping of wood over a tile floor, and Hikaru makes his entrance.  
There is a rope tied around his waist, and the scraping noise is heard with 
every step he takes.  The rope trails behind him offstage, but eventually, 
his trademark stool is pulled into view.  The audience hopes he will explain 
this curious object lesson, as he stops and begins to reel the stool in 
toward center stage, where he is now standing.  Once the stool is in reach, 
he turns around to face the audience, hoists himself onto the chair, gets 
comfortable, and begins:

"It has not been a very quiet week in the Nerima district of Tokyo, my 
hometown..."

======================

NERIMA HOME COMPANION:
Tied To The Tail

A woebegone Ranma 1/2 fanfic
by Ukyou Kuonji

----------------------

Standard Takahashi disclaimers apply, as well as certain apologies to 
Garrison Keillor

======================

It has not been a very quiet week in the Nerima district of Tokyo, my 
hometown, but then, that's to be expected.  What's odd is *why* it's been 
so noisy.  Normally, there's the usual mass destruction that comes with the 
territory when you have a half-dozen of the world's finest martial artists 
in close proximity and at each other's throats.  Not this week.  For the 
past week and a half or so, the general sound of Nerima has been that of 
fifty cats dumped into a pachinko machine.  This tends to put a damper on 
the martial arts activity, as Ranma Saotome won't even venture out of the 
Tendo Dojo if he doesn't have to; and even after twenty years, he's *still* 
the one around whom most of the craziness revolves.  So when he hides, all 
the fun stops.

Well, aside from the few who were making their own fun already.  A couple of 
teenagers had gotten it into their heads that it would be fun to tie empty 
beverage cans to cats' tails, and set them loose to make a racket.  And such 
a racket, indeed!  One particularly large cat was found with a liter-size 
Asahi beer can attached to it tail, followed by several regular-sized cans 
on a long string.  The poor thing made more noise just walking around (and I 
mean walking; there was no chance of it *running* anywhere with all that 
metal attached to it) than the average garbageman going about his rounds.

It was agreed that something needed to be done about this nuisance; after 
all, one can't simply ignore the complaints of fifty cats... especially when 
they're registered at approximately two-thirty in the morning.  But no one 
knew who the pranksters were, or if they did, they weren't telling.  So it 
continued.

It was probably inevitable, then, that they'd make the biggest mistake of 
their lives, and grab the wrong cat.  Not that it would be surprising.  
After all, she's already got these little jingle-bell ornaments by her ears, 
right?  She's already making noise as she walks about, what difference would 
it make to tie a string of cans to *her* behind?

Plenty, as it turned out.  It may be an occupational hazard of the Jusenkyo 
springs for these sorts of things to happen.  After all, Ranma's girl form 
was drooled over by a number of guys, some of whom even knew about the 
curse.  Ryoga, of course, is constantly threatened with becoming someone's 
next meal (thank heavens that Nerimans seem to insist on boiling their meat 
before actually cooking it).  And Genma occasionally finds himself behind 
bars, treated like the endangered species his cursed form is (and, to be 
fair, loving every minute of it).  So it stood to reason that Shampoo would 
fall victim to these vandals who treated her just like any other cat.

Except that she wasn't just any other cat.  For one thing, once she 
transformed back into a human, the knot tied round her tailbone actually 
tightened and rode with the bone as it shrank back into her body.  She had 
to walk in a rather bowlegged fashion to the Tofu clinic.  Doctor Tofu, upon 
examining the result, found himself wishing that he'd boned up on proctology 
a bit more while in med school.  Still, after a couple of hours, a bit of 
local anaesthetic, and a few stitches, he'd removed the string and the cans 
from her coccyx.  It had occurred to both of them to try and transform her 
back into her cat form, but he argued that now that the string was stuck up 
there, the second transformation might just make the situation that much 
worse, so...

The other thing was that now there was someone who *knew* who was 
responsible for this hooliganism.  But she wasn't telling anyone... why 
reveal how you happened to know when the story about *how* you know is as 
embarrassing as this?

Besides, Shampoo had her own ideas about how to get even with her 
tormentors.  As it turned out, they weren't all that hard to find.  
There are some folks that still don't seem to know about the curses, 
and these boys were apparantly among them.  So they never thought to 
hide from Shampoo when she went out looking for them.  Of course, if 
they'd known, they would never have been so stupid as to pick *that* 
cat to tease in the first place... but this is Nerima, after all, 
where everyone's entitled to be as stupid as they choose to be.

Indeed, not only didn't they hide from her, they actually showed up at 
the NekoHanten shortly after Shampoo's operation.  She spotted them 
straightaway, and shoved Mousse aside to wait on them personally.

"Can Shampoo take your order?"

One of the boys gave a snorty nose-laugh ("Fhhnn-hhnn!"), while the other 
grinned.  "I dunno... you gonna gave us a bottle for us to yell our orders
into it?"  Shampoo's eye twitched at this, but she struggled to keep a 
smile on her face... it was starting to get tight enough to hurt.

"You know what Shampoo mean.  You ready order, yes?"

The Snorter waved her off.  "Not just yet, okay?  We're gonna take our 
time with this."  She responded with a noncommittal look before turning 
around and heading for the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next.
It was then that she heard them:

"D'ja get a load of the dumb chink?"  "Hhnn-hhnn-hhnn."  High falsetto: 
"'Can Shampoo take your order?'"  "Hhnn-hhnn-hhnn."

That tore it.  She put on the sweetest face she could muster, spun around,
and headed back to their table.  She had to make an effort, though, not 
to appear *too* eager.

"Shampoo forget!  Have chef specials in kitchen... you come see and choose, 
yes?"  She took the Snorter by the hand, and the other kid barely had time
to protest before she'd grabbed his in turn.  It wasn't too long before 
they found themselves in the NekoHanten kitchens.

The Smartass looked around, but didn't see anything prepared for him and 
his buddy to choose from.  "Okay... so, uh, where's the specials?"

"You just wait."  Shampoo was already up on a stepstool, reaching for a 
packet of powder.  "Shampoo mix special drink for you two... Hiba-chan!"

Cologne's head popped into view, and the boys clutched each other in 
fear and surprise.  "What is it, Shampoo?"  Then, the old woman noticed 
the two alarmed boys, and her face wrinkled (assuming there was room for 
more wrinkles on her face) in irritation.  "You two are new faces around 
here, I take it..."

They relaxed their grip on each other as they realized they were talking 
to a person rather than some ghostly troll.  Matter of fact, they backed 
away from each other rather hurriedly, as it occurred to them that they 
had been holding onto each other.  "Uh... yeah, that's true..."

Shampoo handed the packet to Cologne, and gabbled something to her in
the Amazon dialect.  Cologne nodded as she took the powder, taking a 
quick glance at the boys, who were now back to their insolent selves.
Even more so, as the old troll hopped away, returning in less than a 
minute with a pitcher full of ice cold water.

"Special drink, huh?"  Smartass was staring at the pitcher.  "Whatcha got 
in there, some 'ancient Chinese secret'?  Huh?"

"Hhhnnn-hhnn."

Shampoo just smiled, and set the pitcher down on the counter next to the 
two boys.  "Is something like that.  Shampoo get glasses for you two."  
She clambered up onto the counter to reach for some rather elaborate-
looking mugs...

...and in rummaging around, kicked the pitcher of instant Maoniichuan 
over onto the two boys.  "Ooops!  Shampoo so clumsy!  Must dry stupid
boys off!"  But of course, they weren't boys at this point.

She leaped down from the counter, and grabbed the two cats by their 
haunches.  Both of them were squirming frantically trying to get out 
of this madwoman's grasp.  But they were fighting against three thousand 
years of Amazon tradition; there was no way they were about to free 
themselves.

Until one of them, in his terror, simply lost control.  Even a revenge-
bent Shampoo isn't going to hold onto a cat when it's wetting on her.
She let go, and the cat landed rather hard on its back.  It took only 
a second or two to recover, and began scrambling off in whatever 
direction it could, trying to escape.

But Shampoo has more experience at being a cat than most folks, including 
these boys.  So while the escapee managed to get out of the NekoHanten,
he didn't get much farther before being caught.  Once she had both cats
well in hand, she proceeded to tie their tails *together*.  The two cats 
attempted to run off in different directions, and wound up dragging each 
other in a direction that lay somewhere between their individual 
destinations.  Shampoo smiled maliciously.  That'd teach them.  Their 
rear ends would be so sore from all that pulling, it'd be as effective 
as having given them both a thorough spanking, without the possibility 
of their enjoying it, like Mousse might.

***

Say what you will about eye-for-an-eye vigilante justice, it certainly 
gives the former victim a great deal of satisfaction.  Shampoo even went 
so far as to say that at that moment, as she went scrambling after the
escapee, and later, as she watched the two cats skitter through the 
NekoHanten alley in a sort of zig-zag route, she had never felt so...
alive.  Not human, maybe, but alive.  And that's what matters, ne?

And that's the News from Nerima...
where all the women are strong (and how!)...
all the men are... well, they aren't necessarily men, actually...
and all the craziness is above average.

======================

Well... at least it's written and out here...

This was supposed to have been a digression from the whole Soun Tendo
funeral that made up the focus of the main Nerima Home Companion story, 
but it kinda grew big enough to stand on its own... almost.  You can 
even see the seam at the end... there's an irony in the fact that the 
same examining table from which Shampoo began her crusade that made
her feel so alive once she'd accomplished it now holds Mr. Tendo's 
casket... of course, that would be assuming that folks in Nerima go in
much for irony -- which they don't.

In any case, I was getting pretty dissatisfied with this side story
once I'd gotten about two-thirds of the way through... "tweening" is
not a strong suit of mine.  And I'm pretty sure I've lost the Keillor
'voice' in the process, too... anyway, I could use some help with this.
Any and all suggestions are welcomed with open arms.

Itsu mo,
Ucchan  ^_^