(a/n: um. yeah. there's some age changes obz. w/e.)

No Girls Aloud
by L.C. Li

"I hereby call the first meeting of the Hamada Treehouse into session!" Tadashi Hamada announced proudly, banging a large stick against his upside-down cardboard box with great vigor. His oversized baseball cap flopped over his eyes as he did so.

The other two members in company, both boys, one long and stringy, the other squat and formidable, clapped and whooped. Small sneakers thumped enthusiastically against the wooden floor. Tadashi grinned proudly, surveying the labor of Aunt Cass's hard work: polished surfaces, a big square window, and even a round table that they could use for their Very Important Meetings. Her birthday present to him was definitely unbeatable.

"Today, gentlemen," Tadashi recited, "marks the beginning of a new air!"

"Air?" Wasabi said, puzzled.

Tadashi squinted at his notes. "Air-uh."

"What's an air-uh?" Wasabi asked.

"It means 'party' in Spanish," Fred said wisely.

"So... today marks the beginning of a new party?" Wasabi said.

Tadashi frowned. It didn't sound quite right, but he didn't remember exactly what he'd dictated to Aunt Cass. He eventually shrugged. "Yeah. Air-uh."

"Cool!" Wasabi said.

Tadashi cleared his throat and continued. "Now I, Tadashi Hamada III, King of... of... Treehouseland, invite you all to par-take in this... bunty... bootie... bounti-ful feast." He gestured magnanimously to the bowls of chips, crackers, and pastries splayed around the table. "But, um, remember, we needa clean up after or Auntie Cass will get mad."

He banged his stick against the table again and he, Wasabi, and Fred dug in with vigor.

And thus began the New Era of Treehouseland.

::-::

The first Mission of the Hamada Treehouse was, according to the Treehouseland Manifesto, to take Play very seriously. And so the following day, Tadashi, Wasabi, and Fred dug through a large chest of Aunt Cass's old high school theater costumes and promptly satisfied themselves with a wide-brimmed pirate's hat and two large cloaks. They snagged up some broad sticks at the foot of the treehouse and jumped onto the driveway, flourishing their newfound swords.

"Arrrrr me matey!" Fred bellowed. "I am the Dread Pirate Roberts! Hand over your treasure! Or I will pew-pew you with my cannons!"

Tadashi swelled up his chest. "Arrrr! I am the Dread Pirate... Smith! And, uh, I like my treasure! So no!"

"But sharing is caring!" Fred whined.

"I'm a pirate. I don't care," Tadashi countered.

"Then we have no choice," Fred said solemnly. "A doo-el to the death!"

"To the death!" Tadashi echoed. He raised his sword.

They bowed to each other, circling like sharks, humming dramatic music as they flourished their makeshift weapons. Wasabi glanced from Fred to Tadashi back to Fred, looking awfully apprehensive about the whole ordeal.

"CHAAAAAARGE!" Fred roared.

"RAAAAAAHHHH!" Tadashi roared back.

"WAIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Wasabi shrieked, waving his stick-sword.

Fred stopped. So did Tadashi. Wasabi shuffled from foot to foot, wringing his hands together.

"Before we play, we hafta make rules!" Wasabi said.

Tadashi frowned. "Rules?"

"Yeah," Wasabi said. "Like... no lying. Or stealing."

"But—but what's the point of being pirates if we can't lie or steal?" Fred wailed.

"We can be nice pirates," Wasabi said brightly.

"Like Robin Hood? Steal from the rich and give to the poor?" Tadashi said eagerly.

"Umm, that's still stealing," Wasabi said.

Tadashi balked. Fred shook his head with an exaggerated sigh.

"I don't like these rules," Fred said. "Let's play without 'Sabi."

Wasabi's face crumpled and Tadashi bit his lip. "Um," Tadashi said.

"Okay, fine, we don't need that rule," Wasabi said hurriedly. "But... we need some rule. Or a plan."

Fred considered this. "Like what?"

Wasabi paced for a moment, pondering this question deeper than he pondered the meaning of life. Finally, his eyes lit up. "Proper distance must be maintained between sexes," he said, rather imperiously. "That's something my ma teached me."

"What does that mean?" Tadashi said, incredulous.

"It's Chinese," Fred supplied. "It means that we can only eat candy and chips and ice cream."

"I like that rule," Tadashi said.

"It means," Wasabi said, glaring at Fred, "that no girls is allowed."

"Oh, I like that rule too," Tadashi said.

"And if anyone touches a girl," Wasabi continued, "they should be... be... uh, qua-ran—quarantined." He looked very proud of himself for using such an impossibly long word.

"What does quaran—qua—that word mean?" Tadashi said.

Fred's eyes widened. "It means," he whispers quietly, "that they gonna be shipped to a desert island and leaved there forever."

Wasabi nodded fervently.

And so, with great solemnity, Tadashi etched with a blood-red crayon the terrifying phrase "NO GIRLS ALOUD." Then, after a second of thinking, he added a smaller note: "Trespasers will be kworunteened."

::-::

They got their first trespasser just a week later.

She was small and skinny, with large eyes and cheeks full of baby fat, hair choppily lying over her head and framing her round face. If the Treehousers were slightly older, they might have thought that she was pretty. As it was, they were backed into a corner, terrified of the unknown horror that was The Cooties.

"I'm Gogo," the girl said bluntly. "This is a cool treehouse."

"Go away!" Fred screeched, cowering behind his arms. "You'll get us sick!"

The girl rolled her eyes and blew a large bubble of pink gum.

"Please leave," Tadashi begged. "I don't want my friends to get sick."

The girl drew the bubble into her mouth and nonchalantly popped it with her teeth. "I'm not sick," she said petulantly. "Do I look sick?"

"Yes," Fred said.

"It don't matter!" Wasabi added. "You're breaking the rules!"

"What rules?" the girl said.

"Look at the sign!" Wasabi said, pointing to the crudely etched piece of paper hanging on the treehouse door.

"No girls aloud," Gogo read out. She rolled her eyes and popped her gum. "It's 'allowed,' dummy."

"You're a dummy," Tadashi said sourly, not taking well to her insult of Wasabi.

"Your mom is a dummy," Gogo said.

Fred froze. Wasabi froze. Big, wet tears welled up in Tadashi's eyes and he drew his knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms. For the first time, Gogo shrank back, glancing uncertainly between them.

"His mommy's deaded," Wasabi said curtly. "She deaded last year. Dummy."

"Deaded?" Gogo squeaked.

"Deaded," Fred said seriously. "Deaded as a doornail."

Tadashi didn't move.

"Sorry," Gogo mumbled.

"A doornail," Fred repeated.

Gogo shuffled away, morosely chewing at her gum.

::-::

"We should play superheroes!" Fred said one day.

Tadashi's eyes lit up. "I wanna heal people!" he said.

"I wanna breathe fire," Fred said.

They looked at Wasabi.

"I wanna step over the cracks in the sidewalk," Wasabi said.

"That's dumb," Fred said.

"Fine," Wasabi said, miffed. "I wanna make lasers. Then I can laser-hand you in the face!"

Fred squealed and ran away.

::-::

Gogo trespassed again the next week, but this time, she held a paper bag in her tiny hands, which she offered to Tadashi Hamada.

"Sorry," she said, although she didn't sound very sorry.

"You're breaking the rules again!" Wasabi screeched.

"You must be quaran-teened!" Fred announced.

Tadashi silently took the paper bag, making sure not to touch Gogo's hand lest he contract the virulent Cooties. He peered inside and gasped.

"What is it?" Wasabi said fearfully.

"Is it," Fred said, "a b-bomb?!"

Gogo glared. "I hope gummy bears pee in your hair," she said crossly.

Tadashi plucked something inside the bag and raised it high into the air. It was a deluxe model of a pirate ship, sails and cannons and all. With mahogany beams and gilded trim, it was the most beautiful thing that Tadashi had ever seen.

Wasabi's jaw dropped. "Um, you can break the rules whenever you want," he amended.

For Wasabi, that was a magnanimous thing indeed.

::-::

Gogo brought another gift a week later. This time, it was a transformable superhero action figure.

It was universally agreed that the quarantine rule was rather needless, since none of them had deaded and must therefore be immune to Cooties. So from that day forward, Gogo was considered to be an official resident of Treehouseland.

::-::

It was Gogo who introduced the idea of Spies, and the Treehousers seized this idea with vigor. They decided that Tadashi would be the Damsel in Distress, and Gogo would need to make him dead, and Fred's job was to protect him, and Wasabi was the vague father figure whose sole purpose in life was to earn lots of money. Nobody really knew what that had anything to do with Spies, but Wasabi liked the idea of earning lots of money, so they let Wasabi earn lots of money.

Fred threw on a very official-looking blazer that draped to his ankles and sunglasses that kept falling down his nose. Tadashi selected a tiara to get into his role. Wasabi wore an awkward gold necklace that jangled whenever he walked.

Then Gogo burst into the treehouse, somersaulting along the ground in slow motion, waving her arms wildly at Fred.

"Yah!" she yelled.

Fred arched backward in an attempt to emulate the Matrix, but fell flat on his back. He wheezed.

"Bang! You're dead!" Gogo roared.

Fred clutched his chest, and with a dramatic moan, keeled over.

Gogo whipped her fingers to Tadashi, mouth open to shoot him down with a vengeance. Tadashi blinked innocently. Gogo halted.

"Um," Tadashi said.

Gogo frowned. Then her eyes lit up.

"Come with me," she said. "I'mma ran-som you for a quadrillion dollars."

So Tadashi did. And the sobbing father Wasabi handed over a stack of Monopoly currency. It was a very vague stack, since none of them knew how much a quadrillion really was.

::-::

One day, Gogo brought someone to the Treehouse.

It was a Girl, and she towered over them in her pink dress and white stockings. A dainty purse was slung over one shoulder and she had eyes that sparkled in the sunshine. Gogo introduced her as Honey Lemon.

"Honey Lemon?" Fred balked. "What kind of name is that?"

"A gooder one than yours," Gogo said, quite sharply for a five-year-old.

"Why's she here?" Tadashi asked curiously.

"'Cuz she's my friend," Gogo says.

"But we can't let just anyone be a Treehouser," Wasabi protested. "So-sai-ty has rules! This is a-nar-kee!"

"What's a-nar-kee?" Tadashi asked.

"It's when somebody comes to a super duper secret place without putting in the passcode," Fred said wisely.

"Oh, that makes sense," Tadashi said.

Gogo rolled her eyes and looked at Honey Lemon. Honey Lemon smiled and dug into her purse. A moment later, she thrust something out.

"This is my re-su-may," Honey said.

It was a pouch of some kind. Fascinated, Tadashi took it and turned it over in his hand. It was packed with all sorts of unusual things—a tin of powder, a brush, a circle of unusual glass, a notebook, a handful of colored cards...

"What is this?" Tadashi said.

"A"—Honey lowered her voice for dramatic effect—"spy kit."

Fred stiffened. Wasabi stared.

"Are you telling the truth?" Fred said, his voice deadly low.

Honey nodded and grinned.

Fred propelled himself forward, snagging the kit out of Tadashi's hands. He fixed two burning eyes on Honey.

"You are now a Treehouser," he said.

"A-nar-kee!" Wasabi screeched.

::-::

They put the spy kit to very good use. Honey taught them how to fingerprint evidence, and they quickly learned that Fred was stealing all the peanut butter cups, that Tadashi was secretly hiding the pirate ship model in a box, and that Gogo should never be trusted with the mag—magni—magnificent—weird glass that made things look bigger. She somehow managed to set the treehouse on fire with it.

::-::

Eventually, Fred began to quiet down, preferring long sessions of meditation over his usual fun-loving nature. So bizarre was this situation that when he called the Treehousers together for a conference, everybody actually listened to him.

"Treehousers," Fred announced very officially, "I think that it's time we de-termine what our porpoise is."

"What?" Tadashi said confusedly.

"We need a porpoise!" Fred said heatedly. "A higher-er calling in life!"

"A porpoise sounds WONDERFUL!" beamed Honey.

"We should write it down," Wasabi agreed.

Tadashi smiled encouragingly. "What do you think our porpoise should be, Fred?" he asked.

Fred cleared his throat and unrolled a piece of paper. In his imagination, it was a scroll, although the letters scrawled upon it were hardly recognizable. "I think," he said, "that we gotta save the world!"

Silence descended upon the Treehouse.

"Save the world?" Gogo reiterated, popping her gum.

"That sounds hard," Wasabi said, intimidated.

"It's gotta be easier than homework," Fred countered.

And none of the Treehousers could really disagree with that. So Fred drew himself up to his full height, which was not very considerable.

"We are the Grand Heroes of Treehouseland!" he proclaimed dramatically.

They all stood and looked very epically into the distance, silently feeling the weight of the world on their tiny shoulders. Gogo sneezed. No one said "Bless you." They were too busy looking epically into the distance.

And then Tadashi Hamada said, "Ow!"

Everyone turned. A chubby little boy, just past his toddling years, had latched on to Tadashi's leg and was currently beaming his gap-toothed smile at the group, cooing softly.

"GYAAAAAAH!" Wasabi screamed.

"An alien!" Fred yelled excitedly.

Gogo rolled her eyes and popped her gum.

"Awwww, he's so cute!" Honey Lemon said, reaching out her hands. Hiro stopped cooing and hugged Tadashi's leg a little tighter.

"Hiro?!" Tadashi said, incredulous. "Whatcha doing here?!"

"Dashi," Hiro said.

"This is suuuuuper secret, Hiro," Tadashi said sternly. "You can't be here."

Hiro blinked owlishly. "Dashi," he said.

"How did he get up here?" Wasabi squeaked.

"Magic, of course," Fred said eagerly.

"Go away, Hiro," Tadashi said crossly.

"Dashi."

"Oh, come on. Just throw him out."

"Noooo, Gogo, you can't throw a baby! It's against the law!"

"Really? I don't remember that law, Honey."

"And Wasabi knows a lot of laws."

"Then what're we gonna do?"

"Shoo! Beat it! Go!"

"Dashi."

"Come onnnn, guys, we're heroes. We can handle this village!"

"It's 'villain,' dummy."

"You're a dummy."

"Your moooooo—oooop is a dummy."

"Okay, okay, I gots it. Hiro will be... the village!"

"Villain."

"Here, give him the pirate hat. Hiro, say 'Arrrrrrrr.'"

"Dashi."

"Close enough. Come on, guys! Let's take down Hiro!"

"CHAAAAAAARGE!"

"RAAAAAAAAH!"

"WAIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

"...What is it, 'Sabi?"

"What about the rules?!"

"...Uuuuuuuughhhhhhh."

FIN
s.d.g.