The Importance of a Good Breakfast

1. Morning Should Start in Mid-Afternoon

The knife flew through the air, but James didn�t panic. Cool as a cucumber, he reached up and snatched it out of the air the second before it plunged into the chest of the beautiful woman next to him. "Give up, Despairo," James called out. "You can't beat me. I'm just that much better than you, and way better looking."
Despairo screamed in frustration. "You impudent little punk," he shouted. "You dare mock the great Despairo? I'll make you pay for your arrogance." He rushed forward, only to be met by a rock solid fist. Again and again he used his face to stop the fist until he fell to the ground in a heap.
A quick kick to the ribs was enough to satisfy James that the villain was down for the count. He turned to the woman beside him and smiled broadly. "Your cat is safe now, ma'am," he said gallantly.
"Oh Buttons!" The woman ran over and picked up the cat, stroking it affectionately. "How can I ever repay you James?" She walked closer, pursing her lips for a passionate kiss.
James leaned forward, but jerked back when the cat started beeping loudly. He stared at the cat, which smiled up innocently at him. Cautiously, he reached out his hand and tapped the cat on the head, but it kept beeping.
Suddenly the woman reached forward and started shaking him. "C'mon bud. Let's go." This was highly unorthodox. "Up and at 'em," she said, shaking him harder.
With a start, James sat up in bed, nearly smashing into his mom, who jerked back in surprise. "Well, you sure don't do anything slowly, do you?"
Fifteen minutes later, he sat at the table, munching on some Cheerios. He wasn't sure who had invented morning, but whoever it was had been blatantly wrong. He oughta be dragged out into the street and flogged. At least he still had his Cheerios, his daily morning ritual, the tiny O's swimming floating delicately in a sea of milk would lift his spirits. But they seemed drier that usual today for some reason. He glanced down at his bowl just as his little sister enthusiastically dug a spoon into her grapefruit. A stream of juice hit James in the eye, blinding him. "Janie!" he shouted, leaping at where he thought she was. He was wrong, and with a crash he knocked everything off of the table, sliding off himself and landing rather inelegantly on a box of cereal. He laid on the ground for a minute, rubbing his eye and blinking rapidly, trying to get his sight back.
Finally he sat up, looking at the carnage he had unleashed around him. Sugar was spilled all over the floor, Janie's grapefruit was across the kitchen, still wobbling around slowly, and his precious Cheerios were scattered everywhere. Janie was sitting in her chair, or at least trying to. She was finding it hard to remain in said chair while she was laughing. Finally she gave up and dropped to the floor, rolling around while she clutched her sides, gasping for breath.
"It's not funny Janie," James said sulkily. "I spilled all of my Cheerios. You know what happens when I don't eat them in the morning. Strange things. Strange, irritating things. Now what am I supposed to do?"
"Why don't you try eating them off of the floor?" she asked sweetly, between gasps for air.
He stuck out his tongue at her, but she wasn't paying attention. A quick glance at the clock showed that he didn'�t have time to finish eating and clean everything up before he had to leave for school, so he did what any self-respecting teenager would do - he sat down at his chair and started eating what cereal remained in his bowl. It still didn't taste right, though.
Just then, his mom came into the room. "What happened. I thought I heard..." she trailed off as she noticed the mess in the room. "What's going on here?"
James gave her his most innocent look. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He smiled broadly and put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
His mother looked at him through narrowed eyes, then glanced at a newspaper at the other end of the table. "Harold, what happened?"
The newspaper lowered itself to reveal a bespectacled man wearing a blue shirt with a striped tie. He glanced around the room and shrugged. "I couldn't tell you, Carrie" was all he said. The paper raised itself once more, and he was gone.
"Okay, last chance." She levelled her best mom gaze on both of her children. James squirmed in his seat, unable to meet her eyes. Instead, he looked at his sister, and found some satisfaction that she was also uncomfortable. "Which one of you is responsible for this mess?"
James sighed quietly. I guess there's nothing left to do, he said inwardly. Without looking at his mom, he raised his hand, and pointed directly at his sister. He looked up, only to see a finger pointed straight back at him. Slowly, they both looked at their mother, who was standing with her arms crossed, and looking very cross.
"Since you both appear to be guilty, you both have to clean it up."
"But mom..." they both started, but she cut them off.
"No buts, no ifs, no maybes, no 'aw geez', no nothing. Clean this up and go to school. Even if you aren't finished eating. You'll be fine until lunch."
A few minutes later, the kitchen was back to its normal state of disarray. Janie grabbed her lunch and went to the door just as her bus pulled up to whisk her away to the eighth grade. Just before she left the house, she looked back at James. "One question. Did you not realise that we were completely out of milk? You were eating dry Cheerios."
"That explains a lot," James muttered to himself. He sighed and grabbed his lunch, stuffing it in his backpack. This was going to be a gem of a day, he could tell. At least it was a nice day out, and he was meeting Mel at the corner by her house to walk to school. That was always fun. With a shouted "Bye Mom!" he ran out the door and down to the sidewalk. As much as he hated mornings, it was kind of nice to walk to school on a day like this. The neighbourhood was relatively quiet, with proud, stately elms lining the street, the leaves emerging into a full, healthy green. Pink flamingos were scattered around the neighbour's lawn, proudly proclaiming Mrs. Horn'er's fortieth birthday. Of course, the Horn'ers lived across the street, and James was pretty sure that her birthday wasn't until August. And she was forty-five or forty-six.
The sun showed itself through some leaves, casting interesting beams of light onto the sidewalk. James tried to get by them without letting them touch him, like they were some kind of super powered laser being shot from a satellite, trying to kill him. He dodged this way and that, leaping around like some sort of super agent from the movies. At one point, he was facing the lawn with the flamingos, and he paused. Had they all been facing in the same direction before? It seemed like they were all looking at him. A shrug. Probably just his imagination.
It was weird enough, though, that he stopped his game. The mood wasn't quite right for that sort of game anyway. This was a contemplative sort of morning. A few birds chirped in the trees, singing their songs as they flitted around the leaves. Houses passed by on either side, their manicured lawns looking fresh and proud. The Christmas lights on Ms. Card's house shone dimly in the morning light. Not only had she never taken them down, they were still plugged in, and lent an interesting look to the neighbourhood at night, with the softly glowing red and green lights, and the Santa on lawn smiling and waving. Three months, and it still was going. James wondered if she was even home, or if she had left on an extended vacation.
A scurrying sound behind James interrupted his thoughts. He waited a second and then whipped around, but there was nothing there. "I know you're there," he called out softly, but nothing stirred, except for a lone squirrel, peeking out from behind the waving Santa. But that didn't fool James. He knew the squirrels were following him. They had been for some time now, but he wasn't quite sure why. The squirrel looked at him innocently before slowly sinking behind the Santa and disappearing without a trace. It was exactly this sort of thing that happened when he didn't get his Cheerios.
His journey continued past a few more houses. One house had a garden starting to bloom in front of the house. Another had a few St. Patrick's day decorations up - green shamrocks, leprechauns, rainbows with pots of gold. A cow was grazing contentedly on Mr. Von Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger's lawn. Oh man, he's gonna be ticked, thought James to himself. He doesn't even walk on his lawn himself, let alone having a cow walk all over it. The cow watched him as he passed, its dull brown eyes following his movements.
He passed a few more houses on either side, nearing the corner where he was to meet Mel. She was already waiting, and as she turned, he smiled and waved. He went to call out, but his greeting died on his lips as something occurred to him. A cow? James stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned around, but there was nothing to see.
Mel came up behind him. "What is it?" she asked, looking at him funny.
"There was a cow on Mr. Von Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger's lawn."
Mel laughed. "You didn't get your Cheerios this morning, did you." It wasn't really a question, more of a statement of fact. She knew him pretty well.
James looked offended. "It's important to start your day off right, with a proper breakfast. Cheerios is a part of this complete breakfast."
"You're so weird," she said, but she was still laughing lightly as she did.
A quick glance at Mr. Von Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger's lawn showed that there was nothing there, so with a shrug James turned around and headed towards school.
The cow looked around the corner of the house, watching the two teens walk away. Everything was going well so far.

Are the cows evil? Will James ever catch the squirrels? How do ducks come into play? Are the flamingos more than they seem? Isn't Von Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger a weird name? Especially for an Asian? Which he isn't, but it wouldn't it be odd if he was? Is he a secret Asian? All of these questions and more will be answered, or completely ignored, in the next instalment of:
The Importance of a Good Breakfast.
Same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger time, same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger place!**

** [Editor's note: Same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovich time is every Monday, hopefully, and same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovich place is right here]