The Good Scissors
Category: The Mighty Boosh
Series: Appropriation Paradise
Characters: Howard Moon, Vince Noir
Pairing: Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Genre: Fluff
Rating: G
Status: Complete
Length: 1-5k words
Notes: Little!Howince
The Good Scissors by ineedtobleedit
“A pair of hungry scissors sat down to dinner, all shiny and sharp. They looked around the desk for something to eat, and spotted something yummy. The only problem was, they were good scissors and didn’t want to eat their friend, paper. They became confused and decided to consult the universe in hopes of a solution. The planets, Mercury, Venus, Neptune and Saturn looked at each other blankly, unable to come up with an answer to solve the poor scissors problem. Suddenly, Jupiter thought of an idea.
“I have the answer to your problem, good scissors.” Said Jupiter, his big red belly glowing. “You shall have for dinner the material of fashion criminals, for they deserve to be eaten.”
The scissors were happy, they were going to eat tonight. They went out on the streets of London and sure enough, there were plenty of plump, tasty fashion disasters walking around everywhere. They had a lovely feast that night. They munched up a pair of brown ugg boots. They swallowed a plaid jacket. They even came across a stripy green and blue sock and ate that too.
“You have done a good thing for the universe.” Jupiter said, when the scissors had finished feasting. “You shall get a reward.”
The End.”
Vince snapped his scrapbook shut and peered up, smiling triumphantly at the astonished faces in front of him. A moment passed. Then another before half-hearted applause (three claps) barely filled the classroom.
“Well.” Muttered Ms. Adams, looking as confused as the students in front of her. “That was certainly… interesting. Mr. Noir, were you aware that the essay topic I assigned the class pertained to Ancient Greece?”
“What’s ‘pertained’?” The small boy asked. Then he nodded his head reluctantly under Ms. Adam’s glare.
“Then what did this,” the teacher waved her hand dismissively at the crumpled bits of paper in the kids hand, “have to do with Ancient Greek culture?”
Vince opened his mouth to say something, but for the first time since birth, words failed him. He stood there, gaping at the grey-haired woman, looking like his soul had been beaten with a steel rod. Ms. Adam’s tutted disapprovingly and called the next student up to present their speech.
Vince sat in the playground by himself, hunched over at the end of the red slide. Ms. Adam’s had given him a mouth-full at the end of the class, accusing him of being a “trouble-maker” and saying that his story was “structureless, error-ridden nonsense without a comprehensive ending.” Then when he was walking away, she had muttered something about seeing a psychiatrist, whatever that was. Vince had a feeling it wasn’t something nice.
Anyway, it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t spell. There are no dictionaries in the jungle, after-all.
Nearby was the sound of shoes crunching in the sand, and Vince glanced up to see a vaguely familiar face peering down at him. The boy above appeared nervous, fidgeting with his blue and brown striped tie. And his eyes kept on darting around everywhere, unable to fix upon one spot for more than two seconds.
“Hi.” The boy said eventually, his voice unusually low for a ten year old.
“Alright.” Vince returned, smiling slightly at the fact the boy was wearing black shoes and brown shorts together.
“I um, liked your story.” The boy said, rubbing his tie between his fingers till they were red. “Even though it was supposed to be an essay speech. About ancient history.” He added quickly, his tone a bit more rigid and formal.
“Yeah, well, that’s a boring topic anyway.” Vince said sourly, wrinkling his nose.
“Hmm.”
Vince watched in curiosity as the boy toed the sand beneath him uncomfortably. He remembered the first time he saw the boy, only about two weeks ago when he walked into Vince’s classroom, all timid and stiff, wearing a pair of plaid pants and an oversized brown fedora hat. That’s how Vince remembered the kid from then on. Didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he was from, or anything about his life, but the kids face lingered in Vince’s mind from his strange taste in clothes. Vince was surprised actually. Usually, it was him who initiated contact with others, he was always the one greeting others, always the one trying to make friends, even though most of his grade had negative perceptions of him. Hushed whispers would linger throughout the school, that he was strange, a weirdo, the freak who wrote bizarre stories about scissors and bark and left them scattered around the hallways and inside lockers. But this was the first time anyone had ever approached him, and what surprised him the most was the fact, out of all people, it was the quiet, timid kid with no fashion sense.
“I’m Howard.” The boy mumbled finally, still standing in the same place, brown eyes burning into the ground. “Howard Moon.”
“Noir.” Vince grinned, patting the ground next to him, inviting the boy to sit down. “Vince Noir.”
Howard had been hard to crack at first. The boy had hardly said anything, let alone shifted his gaze from a seemingly interesting looking grain of sand on the ground whilst Vince waffled on about clothes, bananas, toothpaste, exotic trinkets, karate and how leaf juice made for a good hair salve. It was only when Vince had mentioned writing and art Howard perked up and for the first time, managed to make eye contact with Vince for more than two seconds. In fact, Vince was pretty sure eye-to-eye contact lasted in blocks of at least five seconds (no more than ten seconds, however) as the kid raved on about post-modernism, neo-romanticism and various other “isms.” Even though Vince had no idea what Howard was talking about, he felt oddly content to sit there and listen to Howard ramble on and on about things he had never even heard of before, let alone having no desire to comprehend what they even were.
Vince was perplexed. This kid had the brain of a university student, nothing interesting to say and the dress-sense of an 80 year old jazz musician. In fact, Vince realised that Howard was essentially the opposite of him, and both of them, sitting here together, attempting to interact and converse with each other was like trying to mix oil with water. It shouldn’t be happening, but somehow, it- them together- worked. Somehow it felt right.
“Do you write your own poetry?” Vince managed to squeeze in as Howard was taking a breath in the midst of his lecture about Sylvia Plath, whoever that was. And for the first time in fifteen minutes, the bigger boy went silent.
“Well, uh, yes.” He muttered after a few beats, clearing his throat.
“Can I see it?” Vince probed intently. Howard glanced over to Vince, eyeing him sceptically for a second before he cautiously reached into his beige man-bag and fished out a small notepad. Vince caught the words “Howard’s Poetry” printed on the front in the fanciest writing he had ever seen, and he craned his head, peering over to see the loopy writing. A few minutes later, the two boys were swapping poetry and marvelling at each others words, like two friends who have known each other for years. Their writings were so incredibly different, Vince had noticed. Howard was an immaculate speller, and his handwriting was neat and elegant, whereas Vince wrote all wonky and couldn’t spell to save his life. Howard told of deep, brooding tales of the human psyche and declarations of passionate love, all the things that a ten year old shouldn’t be aware of, let alone be writing about. Conversely, Vince wrote about simplistic and mundane things, like dogs, coffee grounds and swimming, but according to Howard, “in an interesting way which strips the normality from the subject and creates a whole different context to it, a lively and exciting context.” Vince just smiled and nodded, having no idea what this meant, although he had a feeling it was something good.
“Rose white, rose red
Pluck the thorns from my head
Bury my love into your soul
and watch it grow and grow and grow
Star-bright
Candle-light
Never let you out of sight
I will take you to a gallery of fine art
where Picasso and Van Gough will capture your heart.”
Howard’s face seemed to get redder by the second as Vince read his personal poems out loud, words drawn out when the kid struggled to pronounce something. When Vince had finished, he looked up at Howard, his pointy features twisted with perplexity.
“This doesn’t sound right.” He declared. “Like, have you ever seen those wrinkly old ladies who wear tube tops three sizes too small and cake their faces in makeup, so they can look younger than they really are? It’s well wrong.”
Howard frowned, shaking his head.
“Well, this poem is like that.”
“My poem is like a wrinkly old woman who wears tight clothes?”
“No no, that’s not what I meant.” Vince waved his hand in frustration as Howard wrinkled his nose in confusion. “What I’m saying is, the idea, all this love and roses business, doesn’t fit with the way you say the words.”
Howard looked twice as confused. Failing to verbalise his thoughts, Vince grabbed his schoolbag and fished a pen out of the front pocket. Howard let out a howl of protest as the smaller boy began to scribble a flurry of words beside his neatly written poem, sometimes on and over it too. Just as Howard was about to snatch the notebook back, Vince had beat him to it, and suddenly it was back in his hands, as if it had never been taken away.
“There!” Vince said triumphantly, clicking the lid back on his pen. “That sounds much better.”
“Excuse me, you can’t just take somebodies personal journal and doodle all over it without their permission!” Howard admonished. “Do you know how long it took me to write that? I’ll have you know that it took me one whole English lesson, and that’s not counting the first three drafts!”
“Sorry.” Vince offered, gingerly. “But please, can you read my version? You’ll like it, swear.”
Reluctantly, Howard did what was asked of him.
Brown bread, white bread
Garlic, herb and pepper bread
Pop it in the toaster
Pop it in the pot
Don’t forget to turn it over
Ouch! That’s very hot
Spread with berry jam
Indeed goes well with ham
And a bit of curried lamb
Baguette! Baguette!
Rise!
Howard stared blankly at the page for a few moments, trying to register what on Earth he just read, before looking up. Vince was staring straight back at him, grinning like a madman.
“Well, did you like it?” The smaller boy asked, eagerly. “I know it isn’t completely hunky dory, what I wrote, but I think if we both took turns in writing bits, like if we wrote another poem, we could come up with something really, really nifty.”
“But this has nothing to do with what I wrote!” Howard exclaimed, still astonished. “What I wrote was a declaration of deep, undying love, this here, is a nonsensical riddle about bagels!”
“Baguettes.” Vince corrected. “But you think it’s good, don’t you?
“Yes, it is.” Howard admitted in a small voice. “But I still think it wasn’t necessary to-”
“Will you write with me?” Vince interrupted as Howard kept speaking.
“-And I really don’t know if we can-”
“Do you want to be my writing buddy, my pen pal, do you?”
Howard stopped talking. He shut his eyes, and opened them to see Vince staring back at him, blue eyes wide.
“Let’s do it.”
Later on, when Vince and Howard were walking back to their classroom, Howard turned to the smaller boy and asked, “What did Jupiter give the scissors anyway?”
Vince smiled cheekily.
“A new wardrobe.” He said, tilting his head toward his new friend.
