Turmac Roll: A History

Well, it is. In fact, in addition to fun, it’s downright addicting and aggravating. It doesn’t sound like much to roll an animal over a bump, but it is. The repetitive scenery gets you hooked and every time you hit a tree stump or sharp hill, you swear the berries came together to trick you into falling onto that very sharp hill.

Ah, the berries. The berries are the worst part. They get you all excited and happy and you're like, “Oh look, extra points. How nice.” But then they trip you up and make you slip and all the extra points aren’t worth it! AHHHH. The jumbleberries are the worst. All pink and fuzzy and slippery! Oh, never mind.

But that’s not the point. The point is the story line. The instructions say, “If a Turmac eats a lot, it can grow to be big and strong!” Never once, in my two years of playing the game has that thing EVER grown. It makes no sense! If the instructions say the thing will grow, then gosh darn it, it should grow! In desperateness for this to make sense, I made up my own story about the poor little Turmac.

I named him Fred. Why? Because Fred is a good name. Anyway, Fred was out one day at neoschool, and his friends were making fun of him.

“Oh look at Fred, poor little Fred. He has no muscle, he’s not big like the rest of us,” a pink, insecure male Miamouse said. If you were a pink guy miamouse, you’d be insecure too.

“Haha, Fred apparently never ate his berries like his mommy told him too,” a blue Hornsby taunted. He wasn’t insecure, just mean.

“Fred’s not even normal sized. I doubt anyone will ever notice him,” a blue female Floud said. She had noticed Fred, and didn’t really care how small he was, but she liked the color of the insecure pink Miamouse.

Fred was devastated. I would be too, if my friends mocked my fruit eating habits. So Fred went out to the market one day, to the smoothie vendor. He would have gone to the fruit vender, but there wasn’t one. So little Fred asked the Tuskaninny that was working there for all the fresh fruit he used for his smoothies. This power-shake loving Tuskaninny agreed, for a price.

“I need someone to try out my new power-shake concoction. I don’t think it’s safe enough for me to do it.”

Fred was slightly puzzled. “If it wasn’t safe for you to do it, why would you let me do it?”

The Tuskaninny shifted his eyes. “Because, uh, I, uh, am... older! Yup, too old. But you’re just the right age.” He beamed at Fred. Fred didn’t believe him, being the smart little Turmac he was, but agreed. How bad could power-shakes be?

Twelve power-shakes and a stomach ache later, Fred was lugging his very full sack of fruit to an empty field where he could eat his berries in peace.

Poor little Fred. He had taken on a job too big for a Turmac of his stature. The sack of berries weighed fifty pounds, almost three times the size of Fred himself! (I told you he was small.) He ate as much as he could, then wrapped it up in the burlap bag and called it a day.

He came back for his berries the next day, and the next day, and the day after that, and this continued for a few weeks. After almost a month he was proud of himself. He was growing! Who knew that what your parents said could really be true? He wandered over to the sack and to his dismay, he only had four berries left! How could this be possible? Oh, right, he had been eating them every day for a month. Proud as he was of his new growth, he didn’t want to stop eating but he didn’t have the money to buy any more fruit. He pondered for a while, and a little more, and a little more. Then we went back to the market.

The same powder-shake Tuskaninny was there, slurping on two or three different concoctions. He eyed Fred, then said, “You, little man, there’s something a bit different about you.” He eyed him a little bit. “That’s not important. I’m afraid I can’t give you more berries. I didn’t have enough for my smoothies last time, and I lost some customers.”

Fred begged for a little. Well, actually, he begged and pleaded. In fact, he begged, pleaded, and got down on his knees. Finally, the Tuskaninny gave up. He gave Fred his leftover berries. You know, the slightly imperfect ones that they can’t use. Fred didn’t care; he just happily put them into his sack and carried them off to his field. Well, the power-shake Tuskaninny isn’t the good guy in this story. As soon as Fred opened the bag, the fruit spilled out and ran all over the field. (Yes, the fruit ran. It was radioactive.) The berries ran over the hills, behind the stumps, in the valleys, over the hills, EVERYWHERE. Wow. These weren’t even normal radioactive berries; these were SPECIAL radioactive berries, berries never before seen in real life to this little guy. Fred noticed that the Sniddberries seemed the most common, but the rare Juicy Berry, Unguberry, and Aquaberry were scattered on the field.

As you can by now guess, Fred does not give up easily. He only had to think for a few seconds before coming to a conclusion. He would roll around on the field to get the berries!

After a few days, he came quite good at this, and did it almost every day. His friends began to wonder how he was doing this so fast. One day, they followed him after school to his field. After watching his roll around and eat berries on a field, and after laughing so hard they cried, they decided to photograph this ridiculous sight for an article. They did, and they named the article ‘Turmac Rolls!’ They planned to blackmail poor Fred with the photos, but somehow it leaked out and they lost their power over Fred.

So that’s how the game ‘Turmac Roll’ came to be. The only part missing from this story is how the Unguberries and the Jumbleberries are in cahoots with Dr. Sloth and are now plotting to take over... whatever they can, really. But those are nightmares best left in my own head. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to roll.

Author's note: None of this really happened. And the power-shake Tuskaninny is not evil.

Author's note two: Well, he might, but I don’t know.

Author's note three: The Unguberries and Jumbleberries are fine too.