THE PRIZE

I live in a flat called spag junx. It contains five humans: myself, Scott, Woodham, Damien and Brad. Very close to us, a mere 5 minute walk/3 minute skate/2 minute bike away, is a flat called Toulouse Crew (at least, that was the name a few months ago, I'm not sure if it's changed since). In that flat lives Ronan, Ollie, Nathalie, Gina and Nicola.

they may look nice but they are brutal!

here is a wonderful map

One night, towards the end of summer a few months ago, I brought some of my Super Soakers to spag junx. The arsenal included 1x CPS 1500, 2x CPS 1200, 1x CPS 2500 and 1x CPS 4100 (anyone born in the late 80s/early 90s should feel waves of nostalgia upon seeing such beautiful machinery).

who wouldn't be intimidated by this?

It was quickly decided that we should assault Toulouse Crew with our unbeatable arsenal. Since it was around 10pm I decided to give the enemy a chance, so sent a text to them saying "PREPARE YRSELF". We would find out later that upon receiving that deathly message Toulouse Crew placed itself in immediate lockdown; they turned all of their lights out and hid in Gina's room with torches. Jars of peanut butter were placed at various strategic chokepoints around their flat (I am allergic to peanut butter).

It was at least another 20 minutes before we set off towards Toulouse Crew along Route #1. This was partially because we all had to get changed into suitable clothing for such violent conflict. We also had to fill up the water bazookas and then test shoot them and marvel at their magnificence. These acts of preparation gave us a huge psychological advantage over our enemy as they undoubtedly cowered in terror inside their palace of siege.

We walked with confidence to Toulouse Crew around 10.30pm. It was a warm summer's night; a night for extreme water warfare. Toulouse Crew has a super wide gravel driveway in front of their house with cars parked sideways, a park to the right and neighbours in the front left; all of these things played a part in our confrontation. Here is an accurate war diagram for those of the visual inclination:

First we installed intensive fear in our enemy. We went to the park, and shot at their upstairs windows from behind the fence. Loud screams could be heard from inside. It was clearly working. Then, suddenly, the screams turned into dinosaur shrieks. This was Gina's battle cry. I instantly remembered hearing that same cry many times during high school, and the terrible events that would follow such a noise. Fear leapt into my heart.

We gathered on the Path for Feet and decided on a new PoA (Plan of Attack). It was decided that we would creep along the right bout of the gravel abyss, using the parked metal boxes as cover. The gravel underfoot was a great obstacle to our quest, but we were silent warriors. We were highly trained in gravel locomotion and gruelling military operations. We snuck up to the front door of Toulouse Crew with absolutely no issue whatsoever. But then we had a problem. It seemed that the enemy had evolved highly advanced security systems. Their front door was locked. We had not anticipated such a setback. We had underestimated the enemy. They were obviously highly adaptive and artfully defensive.

A new plan was in order. We spread out around the perimeter of the flat, then sprayed their windows from all directions. The front door opened, but closed before we could get inside. Again, the front door opened, and a jar of peanut butter was through out into the driveway. I recoiled at the grenade and fled around the back. Then, the front door opened again and a human emerged. It was Ronan, topless. The sight of his bare chest was a weapon in itself. He wore swimming togs on his lower human half. And he had a popcorn bowl, filled with water.

imagine this man running at you. terrifying. 

Someone yelled "Ronan, out front!" Immediately the men of spag junx converged on the front door, pummelling Ronan with harsh bouts of water. But Ronan did not care. He seemed invulnerable to our onslaught. He pointed at me and charged. I shot him with my CPS 2500 on its 10x nozzle (403ml per second) but he continued charging. Ronan had finally completed the transformation into a raging bull, transfixed by my fire engine red water cannon. Finally he reached me, dumping a full popcorn yield of water on my human body. I was soaking. He then ran back indoors screaming victory. We retook our positions around the house.

Soon the door opened again and produced Ollie and Ronan, both topless, dressed in togs and both armed with bowls/buckets of water. Again, our vicious streams of water bore no deterrent to their pursuit, and we were quickly running out of water. I yelled "RETREAT!" and ran back down the driveway towards the park. My loyal comrades followed me. As we approached the end of the driveway we were met by a terrifying surprise. The door of their neighbour's house opened and a third topless screaming man emerged with a bucket. Now we were truly scared. We did not know this human and he was running at us with fire in his eyes.

We were sprinting for our lives now, up the park towards the playground. We fanned out in all directions, attempting to wade off the three men with our pathetic streams. It did not work. They got three of us with their waterbuckets, then Ollie and Man-Neighbour retreated back to their respective houses. Spag Junx found a tap at the park; we refilled our water guns and prepared for the Second Encounter. Ronan re-emerged and begun trying to refill his popcorn bowl at the tap too. We spied him and got him good whilst he was refilling. I changed my nozzle specifically to 20x and got him square in the back with 684ml of water in a single second. He loved it.

this is what ronan and ollie looked like by the end of our battle. so very wet.

We cornered Ronan and took his popcorn bowl. Defenseless, he eventually ran back to his flat after receiving some serious water and we followed. Again we spread out around the perimeter. I was around the back of the house when Ollie opened the toilet window, saw me, shrieked and flung an entire bucket of water at my face from a mere metre or so away. It hit me straight in the eye and I was immediately blinded. Back inside, Ronan had grabbed a ceramic bowl to continue his kamikaze mission. He attacked us in the garden and I grabbed the bowl after he had dumped the first load on Woodham. A tugging war ensued; the bowl slipped from both of our hands and fell to the grass, somehow breaking into many pieces. Everyone stopped. A collective "ohhhhhh" arose. Ronan blamed me for the mishap even though it was clearly his fault.

I picked up the bowl pieces and brought them to the sliding door. From the other side of the glass Gina looked angry.
"Did you just break the bowl my mum got me for my birthday?" she asked. I gulped and tried to explain myself. Luckily Gina was just trolling me; it turned out the bowl was Nicola's but she wasn't upset that it was broken. A stalemate was declared and we all discussed the hilarities of the conflict. There were many hearty soup laughs.

Since we were wet and cold we walked back to spag junx, but before we left we grabbed the popcorn bowl, a jar of peanut butter and the broken pieces of the white bowl as war prizes to make us feel like we had won.

a clear victory?

HAIR ONLY WET FROM SHOWER

Woodham suggested that we glue the bowl back together so I gave him some glue and he spent a considerable amount of time painstakingly glueing it back together before adding a layer of duct tape for extra hardiness. We cut out the words "THE PRIZE" into the bowl to make us feel better about our defeat and took victory photos.

The Prize clearly denotes Victory

The Prize stood proudly on top of our microwave for several nights. Our spirits were high during that glorious period. But then Nathalie and Ollie came over one night to watch a movie and unceremoniously stole The Prize without us knowing. Needless to say, spag junx wept nonstop that night.

And thus, the game had begun. The objective is to secure The Prize for as long as possible without letting the other flat steal it. We have established a few rules for the game however:

1. The Prize must always be on display by the flat that is in possession of it (you can't hide it)

2. If you take The Prize but are caught with it whilst still on the property of the current host flat, you must return it.

There have been many memorable thefts of The Prize. Here are a few:

- On the 31st of March Toulouse Crew had The Prize. I was there with a group of eight or so, playing Chinese Pictures for the first time. I stationed my skateboard outside, came back inside, grabbed The Prize and quickly skated back to Spag Junx (this was before we established the rule that if you were spotted stealing The Prize then you had to give it back). As I arrived home my flatmates were just heading out to another party. We were all very happy. I then skated back to Toulouse Crew to see that my courageous escape had been documented in a round of Chinese Pictures (which I have somewhere; will post when I find it)

- Back at Toulouse Crew that same night, Ollie asked me if he could see my keys. I gave them to him without thinking. He immediately ran to the door to run back to our flat and re-steal The Prize. I grabbed my skateboard and followed him. He went Route #2 whilst I went Route #1. I was worried because I knew that my flatmates had gone to a party so The Prize was completely unguarded. Luckily  I got to Spag Junx before Ollie did and Scott was back there anyway. I congratulated Ollie for his smart attempt at re-taking The Prize but was pleased it did not succeed.

- Later on that same night, Ronan and Ollie came back to our flat after we had gone to a few parties. We went on Skype in my room in an attempt to talk to Rosa, and Ronan slipped out of my room, locked Woodham and myself inside my room (my room already had an awkward external lock on it when I moved in) then grabbed The Prize and gave it to Ollie who biked it back to their flat. Ronan then finally let us out of my room and we learnt of the crushing news.

- On April the 10th it was my birthday so Spag Junx went to the local fish and chip shop to order kai. We stationed Brad and Woodham to collect the kai whilst myself, Damien and Scott walked to Toulouse Crew. We made Damien hide out the front of the house, then Scott and I went inside to find Ronan pottering around in the kitchen. We pretended that we were planning on going to Washington skatepark that night, and invited him to come. He then went into his room to show me a flight card he had got in the mail. I quickly darted to the kitchen, grabbed The Prize off the top of the pantry, handed it to Scott who dashed out the door and handed it to Damien who walked silently down the drive. We were so quick that by the time Ronan came back out of his room Scott and I were standing there as if nothing had happened. We then said that we'd better go pick up dinner so left, struggling to keep our expressions normal. Damien was waiting at the end of the street with The Prize and we celebrated all night. Best birthday present ever!

- On the 14th of April we had our second flatwarming with The Prize in our possession. With all five members of Toulouse Crew attending we were careful to guard The Prize at all times. At one stage Ollie and Nathalie managed to take The Prize from under our noses and hide it in our front garden near our recycling bins so they could grab it later when they left. However, Woodham noticed that The Prize had gone and went on a search around the property with Daniel to find it. Daniel found The Prize and Woodham put it around the side of the house, leading to a very confused Nat and Ollie when they tried to find it later. Technically this was cheating but the stakes were too high to place it back on the microwave.

- Eventually Toulouse Crew managed to steal The Prize back from us. I mounted many solo missions to their flat to get it back, but was always discovered before I was safely off the property. One time I pretended to leave their flat, then climbed back in through Ollie's open window. Ollie had lots of ornaments on his windowsill so I was careful not to stand on these as I made a jump to land on his bed. While the windowsill items remained safe, my foot got caught in the curtain as I jumped, and the entire curtain came down with me, including the curtain rail. This meant that my attempt to quietly re-enter the house was utterly ruined and I spent the rest of my time there apologizing and trying to fix the  curtain rather than stealing The Prize.

- By the time I had my 21st birthday party on May 12, Toulouse Crew was in possession of The Prize. During the speeches they presented me with a shoebox containing The Prize. I initially thought that they had created a second fake prize but it was actually legit. Of course, by the end of the party they had stolen it back. I screamed with agony.

- A mere few weeks ago, James and I made our most daring play yet for The Prize. It succeeded, and was such a significant event in The History Of The Prize that it deserves its own post, to be written soon.


Toulouse Crew is currently in possession of The Prize. But not for long.

as you can see, spag junx is in a general state of unhappiness without The Prize...but not for long