The More Things Change

"Children, I have an announcement."

The class, which had been packing to leave in anticipation of the bell, halted.

"I am sure I do not need to remind you," continued Toriel, "but tomorrow is the last day of the school year. To celebrate, school shall close at midday, and you may bring in a toy or game of your own to play with. It has been my experience -" she glanced at her son in the front row with a smile, who promptly tried to hide behind his ears, "- that children learn very little when a holiday approaches. We may as well enjoy ourselves."

Though she had finished, packing did not resume. A babble of excited chatter started up instead. Asriel and Frisk were huddled together, clearly planning a strategy. The chatter only died away when the bell finally rang and the packing resumed. Toriel did not get up, having paperwork to fill out before the start of the next year.

"We'll go straight to Dad's now, Mom. See you tomorrow!"

"Of course, my children."

The talk started up again as bags were filled and other kids not under strict orders hung around to continue their talk. As they passed her desk, she overheard snippets of conversation.

"...can't finish Monopoly in a morning, that's a waste of time..."

"...I don't want to bring my doll, I might lose it..."

"Well I'm definitely bringing my hompergrande."

Her what?

"Oh yeah, I'll bring mine! We can swap stats."

"What colour do you have? I've got orange."

"Ooh, rough luck buddy. I managed to get a purple one."

"Aw, I'm jealous..."

The talk continued like that until Toriel was alone in the room. The paperwork kept her busy, but a little flame of curiosity was alight inside her. It continued all the way to the penultimate staff meeting she had scheduled.

"Good afternoon. First of all, do we have volunteers for helping Asgore lock up the school for summer?" Two hands and a wing shot up. "Good. Now, I have filed the license extension paperwork, and that should be in order before July, but if there are any issues or questions of employment I shall contact you with time to spare. And finally, the invitation to bring homemade food to the end of year party tomorrow is still open. I shall provide my own pie. Goodness, it really feels like a SLICE of life."

The smiles on her faculty's face froze.

"Well, that was shorter than I anticipated. I suggest you get some sleep, the children are bound to be excited tomorrow."

They obliged, and started to leave.

"A moment, Trainee's Teacher Assistant Bratty?"

The alligator paused. She had a reminiscent look on her face, like she was used to being summoned by school authorities for less than happy reasons.

"This may be a foolish question, but you are the youngest member of staff, so I thought I would ask. When I made the announcement about bringing in toys, several students talked about a 'hompergrande'. Do you know what that is?"

Bratty's eye lit up.

"Oh my gosh, I totally forget how old you are sometimes!"

"Excuse me?"

"Like, I didn't mean it that way, okay? Okay, so what did you think they'd, like, wanna bring in?"

"Well, toys." Bratty looked at her. "Balls, soft toys, dolls, action figures, maybe cars or planes."

"Okay, so, yeah most kids have that junk. But it's not the biggest hotness. My younger brother, back Underground he had to, like, have the latest thing Mettaton put out. And so did all his friends. Even, like, that totally cheap trapper keeper that didn't keep anything safe!"

Toriel recalled a few glittery trapper keepers in trash cans throughout the year.

"So it is a very specific toy of some sort?"

"Well probably, but, like, it's really something they've all seen on TV and are like 'yeah, everyone's getting one, I gotta, like, get one too or oh my gosh I'll be a loser!' It's all a fad, very few of them last longer than, like, a few months"

"These trends. They are common?"

"Well duh! You should have, like, heard Knighty's class droning about squeeze burgers at Easter!"

"So... do you know what a hompergrande is?"

Bratty shrugged. "I don't pay attention to kids stuff anymore. And my brother's, like, in the 'lock himself in the room and listen to rock music' phase, so he's no good. Guess you gotta ask somebody else!"

"I see. Thank you, Bratty."

"Like, sure thing Miss Toriel. Later!"

Toriel was alone in the staff room. It seemed for all her efforts at teaching, children's tastes had changed, and it could not be merely placed on the influence of the surface.

****

She could not stop thinking about it as she headed home. A teacher needed to understand how children worked, and that included how they played. Unfortunately the toy shops had closed by the time she got away from the school, so she could not ask someone there what these were. And Asriel and Frisk had never mentioned them to her, so calling them to ask would be clueless. She supposed she would have to adapt to them on the fly tomorrow.

"s'up, tori?"

"Oh, Sans! You brought the ingredients I need?"

"yup. always going the extra mile when you need help cooking, i make sure it pans out."

The two of them laughed.

"AND I HELPED, MAJESTY!"

Papyrus rounded a corner carrying two heavy looking bags. Had she been paying attention she would have noticed Papyrus actually carried everything, and Sans just had his hands in his pockets, but a thought seized her.

"Come in, boys. The children are with Asgore tonight, so I could use a little noise. I have grown accustomed to it, no KIDding."

"heh."

Papyrus looked like he was struggling not to criticise the queen's sense of humour.

"Papyrus dear, may I ask you something?"

His irritation vanished. "OF COURSE!"

"Well, I understand if you have not heard of them, but would you happen to know what a 'hompergrande' is?"

His face lit up, and Toriel's matched it.

"I COULDN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY WERE OR WHAT THEY DID," he said triumphantly, "BUT! DOCTOR ALPHYS EXPLAINED THE LORE BEHIND THEM, AND I REMEMBERED IT ALL!"

"The lore...? You mean it is a television program?"

"INDEED! ALPHYS WATCHED EVERY EPISODE!"

Oh. Oh no. One of those cartoons with incomprehensible stories. She had to stop-

"IT ALL BEGAN," he began, "IN THE ERA BEFORE TIME, WHEN THE HIGH MASTER HOMPERGRANDE DEFEATED THE ELDRITCH WHOMPERBLANDE..."

****

Toriel arrived at school early, to store the pies she had set to baking in an attempt to drown out the ten thousand year history of the hompergrande. It had been surprisingly effective. And the one bright side of the evening was she was unlikely to run out of pies. Although she had tugged at her horn so much as a distraction it tingled.

Manning her post at the front door, she watched the children arrive. Their bags considerably lighter without the books they normally bought. Asriel and Frisk waved at her, and as usual she escorted them in personally. For a day that promised excitement, everyone was in position as if it was a normal day.

"Well," she said, "let us not delay the fun any longer. You can take out your toys!"

And they did. Toriel felt mildly relieved as she saw cars and dolls and board games come out, as well as a few comics, and the class got into good spirits playing. At least not everything was part of a fad.

Two of the children she had overheard yesterday seemed to have brought balls. That was a curious decision considering wht they discussed. But they were busy shoving them together.

"Erm," she hazarded, "were you not discussing bringing, what was it, 'hompergrandes' to school today?"

The small bear looked up at her. "But Miss Toriel, these ARE hompergrandes! Look!"

He handed his orange ball to her. She realised it had a rather mean looking face painted on it. And tiny lights in its eyes that were blinking green.

"And... how do you play with them?"

"Like this!"

Taking his ball back from her, he shoved it into the purple ball the duck was holding. There was a digital musical chime, and the orange ball suddenly spoke.

"Gorath has bested Justor and taken his strength."

"Yeah!" cried the bear, "now he'll be strong enough to help stop the whomperblandes!"

Toriel regarded the scene. This was the big fad? Balls with blinking lights and a speakerbox? She wondered how anybody could be taken in by that. Of course, this tempted fate.

"Hey Mom, those are pretty cool, right? Um, can I have one."

She looked down at the unusually eager face of her son, a look he had not worn in a long time, and she remembered how there was always a new whatever he wanted...

She burst out laughing. It turned out children hadn't changed at all.