ToonZ - The Gift of Christmas chp 1

December was a most joyful time of year in South California. The sun was bright, just as the lights going up on the houses in neighbourhoods were. People seemed a little kinder; although shopping malls were filled to the brim with shoppers and retail workers grumped a little more often.

The drop in temperature not only meant the holidays were around the corner, but it also meant that school closure was as well.

And not only humans were getting ready for Christmas or Hanukah; animation studios across Los Angeles were already releasing holiday specials. Disney and Warner Brothers being two of the most competitive ones. It was a festive time as much as it was a time to celebrate rivalries—whichever cartoon hit the television sets first won the race.

But aside from the coming of his favorite time of year, nothing of that sort was on Ashton Bunny’s mind; especially what True Toons like his father were up to. This would be his very first Christmas in the city, the first Christmas he spent with others than his parents and grandparents.  This time, he would witness how others his age celebrated the holidays, and how special it would be with the rest of the Looney Tunes and the Looney Kids around.

His best friend Penny reassured him that it was the most festive time among their families. The Looney Tunes always had some great activities planned for the gang and the children, every year on Christmas Day.

December was only a day away, and already the public school Ashton attended was decorated in green and red. After such a crazy Black Friday—that had been the first for him as well—the little rabbit was shocked to find people already getting ready for Christmas. Children seemed the most enthusiastic, especially when it was announced that Santa Claus was accepting letters and emails to the North Pole. Most children did that through the school, although Ashton had already gotten his sent a week earlier—better early than late.

“Hey Ash!” A human girl with pigtails shouted at the rabbit as she ran by in the hallway, “Didja bring an ornament to decorate for Art Class?”

Ashton gave her the thumbs up. “Packed in a box in my bag,” he shouted back.

“Awesome; can’t wait to see it! Meetcha in class!”

Public school had been the first time Ashton had been exposed to the world of humans and Toons interacting. When he lived in the forest with his parents, in their tiny cottage, the only humans he knew of were those who lived in the nearby village. But since Bugs and Lola had homeschooled him, Ashton had never gotten the chance to truly interact with any. Public school had been one of the best things that happened to him in his nine years of living.

The only thing about this public school that bothered him was the statuses of the student body: most children, human or Toon – though these last ones were still scarce—either were related to or knew someone who worked in the film or animation industry. It disheartened Ashton a bit, knowing that kids placed each other in categories like that, so he tried to ignore it as much as possible.

“Morning, Ash!”

He looked up from his locker and grinned. Penny Pig arrived from her walk to school and stopped at her locker, next to his, all the while smiling at her best friend. “How’s this fine Friday treating you?”

Ashton giggled. “Hard to say, it’s not even nine in the morning yet,” he replied while hanging up his scarf and closing the locker door. “Didja walk here with Beebop again?”

“No, he spent the night at the twins’ place, so he got a ride with Tyrone and Trixie when their Mom drove them,” the piglet replied while taking off her jacket. “Are you going to head for the WB studios after school to wait for your dad to drive you back? Cuz if you are, I’m heading in that direction too. Daddy needs to take me to the hairdresser right after work.”

“Yeah, Dad said that he was gonna be working an hour extra so he said that I could walk over.”

He and Penny began the walk to class together, something they did most mornings. Of all his friends, Penny had been the only one who had instantly welcomed him upon his move to the city, and treated him just like any other kid, never expecting him to be an exact replica of his father. Beebop, the only child of the Road Runner, and the twins Tyrone and Trixie Duck, children of Daffy and Tina Duck, had a bumpy beginning in their friendships with Ashton, but within a month or two, they had also welcomed Ashton to the Looney Kids Gang, the name that most students at the school called them due to being the children of the Looney Tunes.

On any normal occasion, Ashton asked Penny questions about classes or else what they would do while waiting for their parents to finish work. Today, he was too caught up in the glittering garland hanging on the walls, and the poinsettias here and there. It was too colorful for him to begin any conversation; it was so distracting, in fact, that Penny was the only one who greeted their friends upon reaching their lockers.

It took Beebop’s exclamation and leap onto the rabbit’s back to bring Ashton back to the present moment with a laugh.

“Sooo, who’s goin’ snowboardin’ this Christmas break?” Tyrone said, beaming with pride. Pointing at himself, he said, “I am, that’s who. Trixie and I are goin’ for a whole weekend with our parents to a resort up North. It’s gonna be saaahhhweet!”

“You’re not gonna be around for Christmas?” Ashton asked. “But I thought the Looney Tunes always did something special with their families that day. That’s what Sylvester Junior told me.”

Trixie shoved her brother out of the way. “We’re going the following weekend,” she clarified. “Daddy wanted to go on Christmas, but Mom wanted to keep with the tradition. And since it’ll be your first Christmas here with us, she thought it was only fair.”

“Bee bop, bee bop!” Beebop cried out while leaping up and down.

Ashton grinned from ear to ear and skipped as they turned a corner. “I can’t wait to see what Christmas with the whole Gang’s gonna be like,” he said. “It must be the happiest, funnest time ever with all the Looney Tunes!” He looked at Penny. “Do you know if the other studio Toons do traditions like ours?”

Penny smiled wryly and shrugged. “Well, I dunno, Ash,” she said. “We usually don’t mingle with the True Toons from other Animation Studios. It’s—!”

“Against the laws of Nature,” Tyrone interrupted. He was replied by a smack over the head by his sister.

Penny rolled her eyes before continuing: “We don’t usually mingle because it just feels funny to,” she said. “Not because we can’t. Since we’re the first generation of Toons that were born, not drawn, it’s still a little awkward to cross paths. I think we should mingle a bit more but some of us, meaning Daffy Junior here, think it’s against the rules.”

“Well, Dad said it was,” Tyrone replied while rubbing his head where Trixie had hit him. “He says it’s been that way since World War Two or something. Because of the differences and rivalries between studios, they—!”

He raised his head as he spoke and noticed something ahead. Taken aback, Tyrone stopped in his tracks with a gasp. After a pause, he held out his arm in front of the young rabbit, taking Ashton by surprise and nearly causing him to fall backwards. A frown formed over the duckling’s brow. “Watch out, here come the rich dorks,” the nine-year-old grumbled.

Ashton, Beebop, Trixie and Penny peered around the duckling. Walking by them in the adjacent breezeway were three Toons—two were Senior Students, or so Ashton guessed by the jackets they wore. The thin one was a black dog with blue eyes and two large front teeth. He was bouncing a basketball in one hand while chattering with the plump black cat next to him. This one was busy looking over notes for an exam, no doubt.

The third student was perhaps only a few years older than Ashton. It was a white duckling, wearing purple attire. He was wearing a plaid backpack over his shoulders. His feathers were silky and his hair flipped forward in a type of frontward cowlick. His rolled up sleeves, the stubborn way he walked—with fists tight—and the frown over his brow seemed to warn other students that he was not someone to be messed with. It worked, since most students seemed to back away or whisper about him.

But it seemed out of place, to Ashton, since the duckling’s blue eyes did not look or feel as cold as his frown and movements were.

Deciding not to ponder it for too long yet, the little rabbit watched the three Toons walk by, silently wondering why he had never run into them since September. “Wow, they turn eyes,” he muttered, seeing all the students watch the trio walk by. “Who are they?”

Tyrone wrinkled his bill and narrowed his green eyes. “The D Gang,” he said coolly.

“The What Gang?”

“D Gang,” Trixie corrected him. She glared over her brother’s shoulder. “The most overly priced, hot-headed kids in this school.”

“Or on the face of the Earth,” Tyrone added.

Penny tugged on Ashton’s arm when her best friend only looked on in confusion. “They’re the Disney Kids,” she clarified. “Direct blood relatives of the Core Disney Characters.”

Ashton’s eyes brightened at the news. Despite being the child of Warner Brothers’ Toon icon, he was a big fan of Disney animation. “Ooo, they’re related to Disney people?” Ashton said with a grin. “That’s neat.”

Tyrone laughed sarcastically and looked at him. “Think again, Little Buddy,” he said. “They’re the most selfish and self-absorbed pack of brats you’ll ever find. They think that just because their parents are Disney stars, they’re the best of the best.” He pointed at the white duckling heading the group. “You see that walking snowball? That’s Dudley, Donald and Daisy Duck’s kid, and cousin of the Duck triplets, Hewey, Dewey and Louie. Second Toon Kid to be born in history, not drawn.”

“Donald’s son?” Ashton gasped.

“Yeah, and he’s the snobbiest of them all. He doesn’t talk to anyone, snaps at anyone who does talk to him, and doesn’t socialize. No doubt cuz he thinks of himself to be too perfect for the rest of us. Just like his hot-headed dad.” Tyrone pointed at the two teenagers, walking behind the duckling. “Those two there, that’s Max Goof and PJ Pete, Goofy and Pete’s sons. They’re probably the easiest to get along with out of them all, but I still stray away from them. That Max can sometimes be a sport show-off and PJ’s just a nervous wreck.” The duck leaned back and crossed his arms. “They’re a bunch of losers, if you ask me. They think that just because their dads have been successful longer than ours, they’re aaaaalll shedazzle.”

“I think Max is nice,” Penny muttered. “At least he is to me when he runs into me in the hallways.”

“It’s because he’s a gentleman. His dad’s probably the most level headed of all the Disney Characters save the Big Cheese, even if he is a Goofball. I mean, for a nutbrain like him to have raised a son on his own long before his two best buds became dads, that’s pretty smart.” Tyrone looked at Ashton again. “Max and PJ are also True Toons, by the way; even though they were born too, their existences were planned out and they have a set personality. So that’s yet another reason why they’re all high and mighty.”

Ashton was growing impatient with the black duckling. “Maybe you just need to be nice to them,” Ashton said, taking a few steps forward. “Mom always says you should be polite to people, even if they’re mean.” Not waiting for a reply, he raised his gloved hand and waved. “Hiya, Guys!” he called out.

Max and PJ turned to look at him. Max began to smile and raised his hand, but an anxious PJ quickly lowered it and told him to look away. Max looked at him for a moment before looking at Ashton again, raising his eyebrows and then continuing on his way.

“They probably just realized whose kid you were and thought it would be safer not to wave back,” Tyrone grunted. “See? They’re a bunch of suckers.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve even put in the effort to be nice,” Ashton noted with a frown.

“Ha! Be nice to them, are you serious?” Tyrone scoffed. “They’re stuck-up Princes!”

“You only think that because you know they’re kids of a rival studio’s stars and so you just watch them walk by with a grump. Have you ever spoken to them?”

“Talk to them? Has he gone nuts?” the duckling exclaimed. “Do you even realize what you’re saying, Ash?”

Penny pulled Ashton backwards. “He was homeschooled by his parents before moving here, Ty,” she said. “You know he doesn’t know better. He’s just gotta learn the ropes of this school.” She looked at Ashton and smiled pitifully. “What I said earlier is still true, but due to the intense rivalry between Disney and Warner Brothers, it’s kinda hard for Toon kids from those families to see eye to eye.”

Ashton wrinkled his nose at this and looked away while blowing his floppy ear out of the way. His father had never raised him in the odd manner of his friends—it had always been “treat others as you would have them treat you”. Bugs and Lola had always insisted that being kind to others was the best way to make friends, despite the boundaries Toons had between studios.

He suddenly realized something as he dwelled on the rivalry between Disney and Warner Brothers. Ashton pointed at the D Gang again. “There’s no mice,” he said.

“Mice?” Trixie echoed.

“Yeah. Like, where are Mr. Mickey’s kids?” When there was silence, Ashton flushed. “W-well, he does have at least one kid too, right? Since he was the first True Toon to become a father?”

Tyrone rolled his eyes as Beebop shrugged. “They don’t go to this school,” he said. “I think their parents put them into some prestigious private school. Figures, though; that rodent’s got enough money to pay them their own way in life. Boobs, they are.”

“You’ve never even met them!” Penny argued, hands on her hips. “None of us have. You can’t just call them boobs if you’ve never even met the Mouse family!”

“They’re all Disney Dorks, so they’re all boobs in my mind,” Tyrone complained. “Preppy bunch of Toons.” The bell for class rang and after looking up momentarily, Tyrone turned on his heels and walked back down the way they came from. “We should get to class before we get caught by the hall monitor again. I ain’t walkin’ in no hallway those Baffoons walked in, so I’m takin’ the long round.”

“Bee Bop!” Beebop honked as he ran after Tyrone. Trixie and Penny followed soon afterwards, but Ashton continued to stare down the hallway the group of cartoons had come from. After he furrowed his brow in confusion, he decided to question his parents that night at dinner on the matter, and dashed off after his companions.

*****