Pez: A narrative game running between the children for several years now.   What follows is a jumbled interview about the world of Pez.  Not much attempt is made to note who is speaking.  The kids often finish each other's sentences and we are more interested in capturing the rollicking creative spirit of the game, than good form.


What is Pez?  A candy.  Its a game.  No, its a candy.  Its a game too.
Tell me about this game:
Its a candy.  Its not a candy.  Well, first of all its set in a world we didn't actually create.

Meaning its set in this world?
No.  The thing about pez is that it all started out when we were bouncing on Josh and Emily's trampoline.  We were playing Pokemon and Pokemon Trainer.  Henry was the trainer and I was the Pokemon.  My name was Delcatty.  That's all.  Just Delcatty.  So then one night in meetings (which, for the record, are forbidden) we were bouncing around on my bed, back when it was the big four poster bed, when I'm not entirely sure how it happened but we decided to turn Pez into a game set in the Pokemon world.

We started out with making the main character, May.  The years of Pez take place in between the time when she was 10 and 16.

Another of the main characters (played by me, Henry) is this little French guy who narrates everything.  He lives up in a little apartment on a cloud (sits around in his bathrobe all day eating scones and drinking cocoa).  He can read May's mind and is constantly making annoying comments.  In the game, he pretty much runs the world.  (We tried it the other way, it didn't work.  Yes it did.)  He has no name.

The children point out that the narrator doesn't work as a main character because he "just sits around trashing things.  He waits for the the main character to bring him everything.  So he has to be the narrator."

Riley, tell me more about May:
Well she's the main character and she's died a bunch of times.  Most of them were in a dream though.  The very first part of Pez took place in a dream, for several years of her life.  Though when we were telling the story, we didn't know it was a dream until I decided to say, "And then I woke up."   The reason I've died so many times in the real world, was because when I was young I was interested in being a mad scientist and I split part of my soul into two separate bodies.  (Hey Riley, we don't see Victoria much anyone. You're right.)  Anyway, the body of a cat and the body of a bird.  That was in the dream, at least.  So when I came back to the real world of Pokemon I had to make some modifications and put the cat in the body of a Glammeow which is a Pokemon that highly resembles a cat.

Tell me about Victoria:
I was just getting to that.  Victoria is the bird I mentioned earlier.  Though, again, when I came back I had to make some more modifications and put her in the body of a Pokemon that resembles a sparrow called Pidgey.

(The children smile at each other mysteriously and say "Somethings should be kept a secret.") 

Henry, why is Pez called Pez?
Her idea.  (Points at Ry.)

Adrian and Takeshi:
Apparently Takeshi got pushed off a building by May (Oh hush, in the dream) because he was climbing up to a secret meeting house the wrong way.  (Maybe we should talk about May's earring.  Wait, you talk.)  Okay, Adrian is pretty much my principal character now.   The Narrator only shows up occasionally.  Adrian has white spiky hair even though he's not that old.  And a weird jacket.  He stores a lot of stuff in the jacket.  It also has electricity and running water.  (Kind of like May's earring.)  Including the cable used to wench himself down from the sky while playing his theme music.  Adrian has theme music.  His name was originally Adrieth but we thought that sounded dumb so we changed it.  Adrian also really really really loves chocolate covered apricots.

Cowa:
(Cowa!  Moodash! I love Cowa!)  Cowa is a little cow, from the planet of cows, who stands upright and talks.  She also tunnels, an odd habit for a cow.  With her favorite move:  "Moodash!"  She plows through about 100 yards of dirt.  We don't see Cowa that often anymore.  (Maybe I should bring her back in the story again.  Yeah.)

Carol isn't that interesting.  She only eats ice cream.  Her real name is Caroline.  For a long time in the game she was trying and trying to taste ice cream but all these things kept happening so she couldn't taste it.  But when she finally tasted it, she sort of went on a spree.  Also, she's 27 and married now so she had a kid.

What other characters are there?
June.  Eh, she isn't so interesting.  She doesn't come into the story very much.  When May was fifteen, for her birthday her parents adopted a kid and gave it to her, a baby.  June was the baby.  Did she grow up?  She's 10 or 11 now.

Then there was Jay.  Dream Jay or annoying brother Jay?  Annoying brother Jay.  Ugh, he's so annoying.  When May was in the dream a lot of the characters resembled characters in the Pez world.  So in the dream May found her evil identical twin Jay.  (This is May, she thinks everyone who doesn't like her is evil.)  When she woke up she found she had an 18 year old brother.  Jay is older, by some amount.  (There is controversy concerning if they are actual twins or not.)

There is Mr. Kaput.  (Oh he is so annoying.  He is my very least favorite character.  Ugh, he makes things go kaput.  It was a catchy name though: Kaput.)  Um, Mr. Kaput is kind of super hero or super villain depending on who hires him.  He uses his kaput powers to make things go kaput.  (Which means to he makes things disappear, sending them off to another plane of existence.)  Mr. Kaput wears kind of a white jumpsuit with a big red K on the front.  He also wears a black cape.  That's all about Mr. Kaput, except that he's made May go kaput a bunch of times.  Only twice.  Yeah, well that's enough.

Pez is enormous and complex.  We can't begin to outline the various story lines here.  Let's end this interview with a list of as many characters as you can remember:

Kamikaze, The E Person (Elvira), Elsa and Elliot, Henry and Riley, (there are warps that lead to different worlds - we haven't even got into warps yet, but anyway), Dean and Dave, Muffin, Cup Cake, and Spiffing, The Mad Scientist,  Mittens (part of Jay's soul - a little tan cat with a bunch of black spots with a removable black spot - he can also turn to steel at will), (when you slip part of your soul into an animal in this world you lose part of your personality), The Psychic Dave, The Peaka's Manager, The Float Glass (everyday at 8:02 May walks into a cafe called The Peaka's where a float glass is waiting for her.  Her hand is molded into the glass.)  Mr. Happy and Mr. Intimidation (who collided together and Mr. Happy exploded.  May got it on video).  The Orphanage Babies and The Barbarians.  The Necromancer and Assorted Minions (you got held hostage and met the talking skeleton, remember that?) Little Guy, May's dragon - he was so tiny and never got very big so we called him Little Guy.  Great Lord Cheese, Granny - the creepy one who can disappear at will and turn into trees and stuff.  The Gran that May built - she's kind of a robotic Granny who runs ridiculous errands for May.  The Orphanage Teenagers who worship the Great Lord Cheese.  (About The Cheese:  no one knows where The Cheese came from.  But when May went upstairs in the orphanage there were all the teenagers playing boardgames.  When she flipped a switch the fake white walls flipped up to revealed graffiti walls and a closet that was stocked with many things the orphanage woman didn't know about including a warp to another world, and various highly caffeinated soda cans (which the babies occasionally stole, they are weird babies.  The things these babies can make out of Tinker Toys....) The Cheese lives in this Tupperware container there and its so moldy its become a living organism the teenagers worship.  Occasionally its speaks.  It sounds like some fat guy smacking his lips underwater.