Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun rose over the colorful city of Spamtopia and all the Spamtopians were ready to start another chaotic day. Adults got ready for work; children got ready for school, in their usual crazy and fast-paced way.

One of those children was the 9-year-old Oscar Jester. He did his daily routine like every other kid: waking up, eating breakfast, and putting on his favorite hat.

Oscar sighed in his electronic voice as he made his way out the door to head to the bus stop.

Instead of having two or more eyes like all the other Spamish kids, he had one huge eye in place of his head. A lot of the kids at school picked on him for it and he didn't have any friends. He and his parents were some of the few Spamtopians who had an eyeball for a head and he was a misfit because of it.

The bus zipped down the road before abruptly stopping and Oscar got in. It was chaotic and out-of-control inside; classmates blew spitballs at each other, threw paper airplanes at each other, and did tons of other stuff unruly kids would do. The bus driver barely paid attention to it, instead barking at Oscar in Spamish to get inside.

Oscar knew nobody would want him to sit next to him, he sat in the back alone. A bully noticed him and made a mean joke about his eye, which he just tried to ignore. 

As the bus zoomed down the streets, Oscar sat in his bus seat, dreaming one day of becoming something bigger. Maybe someday he’ll become someone powerful and everyone will finally respect him.

The 8-year-old Pim Pimling quickly made his way out of his house to avoid yet another argument from his parents and getting bullied by his big sister Amy.

“OI, PIM!” Pim’s father shouted in his heavy Australian accent. “CAN YOU STOP BY THE CORNER SHOP AFTER SCHOOL AND BUY ME SOME THINGS! THERE’S A LIST ON THE FRIDGE AND MONEY ON THE COUNTER! ALSO THERE'S A LETTER ON THE COUNTER I NEED MAILED SO CAN YOU DO THAT AS WELL!”

“STEVEN, I’M TAKING TO YOU! DON’T FOCUS ON SOMETHING ELSE!” his mother yelled back.

This of course instigated another argument from his parents and Pim just sighed as he went to the kitchen to grab the money and list and then made his way towards the bus stop to wait for the bus that was supposed to take him to his new school, so that could start his first day of his new third grade class.

His family had just moved from Australia to America and he was nervous about starting school. He was wondering if he was going to make any new friends. He just hoped that nobody would make fun of his weird eyes like they did back at his old school.

The bus pulled up and of course Pim got on, ready to start his first day.

Chapter Text

School today was of course rough for Oscar. His classmates of course teased him, saying his eye was "gross" and "weird-looking" and calling him things like “freak”. During recess, a couple of bullies even grabbed his favorite hat and played catch with it.

He came home with his eye tearful. His dad wasn't there, as he was likely still at work. He was Spamtopia's ambassador, so a lot of times he was absent due to that.

He just wished he had at least one friend, even if said friend was far away.

School actually went pretty well for Pim! His classmates were surprisingly really nice. 

Nobody made fun of his eyes, although Pim did have some self-conscious thoughts about what they thought about them. Some kids were at least talking to him and asking him about what Australia was like.

Once the school day was over, Pim walked home instead of taking the bus, because he remembered that he needed to stop by the corner shop to pick up some things for his dad, having the money and list in his bookbag, as well as stop by the post office to deliver his letter. It’s a good thing that the corner shop and the post office were next-door to each other.

He went to the corner shop (in America they call it a convenience store though) and the cashier working there was a bored teenage critter wearing a grunge shirt. As he grabbed the items his dad needed and checked out, the teen looked at him weirdly.

“Aren’t you too young to be shopping by yourself?”

“Um, my daddy sends me to do errands,” Pim nervously replied.

The teenager just shrugged and checked out his products.

After Pim left the store, he headed straight over to the post office to drop the letter into the mailbox outside. However, just as he was about to drop it in, suddenly a bird came and took it.

“Hey!” Pim exclaimed.

Alas, it was too late and the bird had already flown off.

“Oh, no…” Pim muttered. “I hope Daddy won’t be too mad…”

Chapter Text

Pim got home to his house and his dad was sitting on the couch drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, and watching TV. On TV, he was watching what appeared to be some sitcom.

“Um, hi, Daddy. I’m home from school and I got your stuff!” Pim held up the bag of items.

Pim’s dad just grumbled tiredly, seemingly exhausted after a long day from his new job at the mines, but he still thanked Pim while placing his cigarette in his ashtray and grabbing the bag of items. “Thank you, Pim. Glad some people in this family aren’t completely useless unlike your bloody mother! Did you mail that letter?”

“Um…about that, Daddy…” Pim nervously twiddled his fingers. “I was about to mail your letter, but a bird swooped down and grabbed it. Sorry…”

Pim’s father just groaned in frustration. “Damn it, Pim! I asked you to do one bloody thing and you screw it up! Whatever, I guess I’ll just write another one then, more work I gotta do!”

Pim stood silent for a bit as his father continued to focus on the TV, before speaking again. “Hey, Daddy, tomorrow is Saturday, and if you’re not too busy can we do something? I would love to see what this lovely city has to offer, but I’m kind of scared to walk around it myself…”

“Pim, you’re a grown boy, it’s time to stop being scared!” Pim’s father sighed. “But sure, I guess I will take you on a walk.”

“Yay!” Pim excitedly exclaimed, happy that his dad agreed to do something with him tomorrow. Maybe he could convince his dad to take him into the Enchanted Forest, as he heard from some kids at school that there was a lot of cool stuff in there.

He then ran up to his room to play his favorite video game, Gwimbly 3: Gwimbly’s Revenge. Of course not before his sister Amy saw him and called him “stupid”.

It was a sunny Saturday, at least in the desert surrounding Spamtopia, as the sky over the city was still that same pink and yellow gradient.

Oscar sat alone on a park bench, watching a playground as young children played games and energetically ran around the various oddly-shaped structures. Other children with their friends, of course

Oscar sighed, wishing he had someone to play with, but instead here he was all alone…

He slumped, depressed. Then suddenly, something hit him on the top of his eyehead. It hurt a bit, but only for a few seconds. He looked to the sky to see that it was a bird who dropped something on him. Then he looked to the grass.

It was an envelope. He picked up the envelope and curious of the contents, opened it up. It was a letter, written in a strange language that certainly didn’t look Spamish. He didn’t know what the letter said.

Perhaps his dad knew. He was an ambassador for Spamtopia and knew a lot of languages from the outside world as his job required it. Thus, Oscar decided to make his way back to his house to ask his dad about the letter.

Chapter Text

Oscar ran back to his home, a letter clutched in his hand. As he ran inside, he saw his dad sitting on the couch. He was a rainbow-colored man with an eyeball for a head like Oscar. His name was Otto Jester, but professionally everyone called him Mr. Jester.

He was watching on the TV what was a Spamish program. To any outside viewers, it would look like total nonsense.

“Hey, Father…”

Mr. Jester directed his eye from the TV and towards his son. “Oh, hello there, son! Anything you need?

“I found this letter…” Oscar spoke to his dad, showing it. “Do you know what language this is?”

Mr. Jester grabbed the letter and took one good look at it. “Ah, I do! It is English, it’s what many people outside of Spamtopia speak. I suppose this letter must be from somewhere in the outside world. It seems to be from someone named “'Steven Pimling'."

“What does it say?” Oscar pried.

“Nothing of the sort that would interest you, Oscar…” Mr. Jester gave the letter back to Oscar. “Now go back outside and play with other kids.”

“Don’t have anyone to play with…” Oscar sadly and slowly made his way to his room. However, he started becoming curious of who this “Steven Pimling” guy was.

More curiosity flooded his eyehead, and he started to become curious about the outside world. Sure, his father traveled the world and saw many different places and told him many stories about them. However, he had never actually met someone from the outside world.

So Oscar had an idea to respond to the letter, asking about the outside world.

However, there was a problem: Oscar didn’t know a word of English, even though he would have to write in the language.

Perhaps the library had a Spamish to English dictionary…

Back at the Pimling household, Pim was watching some cartoons on the TV.

As his father had walked into the house, Pim noticed that he had some mail crumbled in his hand which he carelessly tossed aside.

“Hey, Daddy! What kind of mail did we get?”

“Just junk mail…and one letter that was addressed to me, but the handwriting is crap. Looks like some kid wrote it!” He gave Pim the letter. “You can have it, I guess.”

Pim looked at the letter and it did indeed look like a kid had written it. He started reading it.

Hello, my name is Oscar Jester, I am 9 years old and I am from Spamtopia.

I found your letter, and even though I do not understand what it says because I only speak Spamish, I wrote to you using a Spamish to English dictionary, because I want to know more about the people outside of Spamtopia.

I hope you write back.

Pim had never heard of this Spamtopia place. But he was really happy to see that another kid had written to his family. Pim just had to write back to him. He turned off the TV and ran to his room. He got started on writing back to Oscar.

Hi, Oscar!

I am Pim Pimling. That letter you got was from my dad. But I would love to tell you about were I live. I would also love to learn more about Spamtopia.

Anyway, here is some stuff about me! I am 8 years old and I was born in Australia but my parents moved to Pensilvania witch is a state in America. I live with my mom, dad, and my big sister Amy. My mom and dad fite a lot and Amy is realy mean to me, but I have a cuzin named Graham who is at leest nice to me and can do cool tricks on his skatebord.

My favrit vidio game is Gwimbly! Do they have vidio games in Spamtopia? Also, there’s a lot of cool stuff in the city that I moved to! There is a place there called the inchanted forest, I realy wanted to go in but my dad said it wasn’t for childrun and only for heros.

The kids at my new school are nice but feel like I don’t fit in very much becuz I wear glasses and have these weird eyes that are diffrent sizes.

Hope you write back Oscar!

Sincerely, Pim

He felt like that was a good enough letter to write. He decided he was going to mail it tomorrow, and then went back to watching cartoons.