Introducing the neo-Hippos
Posted by Bruce on April 24, 2008
The neo-Hippos, as stated in the entry Run for the Hills!, are a collective of extremely fat (some might say ridiculously so) creatures. Their leader at the time Spectacles: Bruce’s Story opens, Beverly, has a strange habit of chasing after Elysia Ilapse, and not even Ilapse’s father is sure why.
The members of the group are, in order of seniority:
maggie: Her name was printed lowercase on her birth certificate and was never changed. After a while it stuck, and so her name is invariably written without capitalization. Shortly before Spectacles: Bruce’s Story begins, maggie attempts to break up the Hippos due to a rift with her sister. Despite appearances and her threatening aura, she doesn’t possess an insatiable appetite. This is almost certainly a good thing, as if she did… well, let’s just say Robert would be the least of Scott’s concerns!
Beverly: maggie’s Chinese half-sister, Beverly took over leadership of the neo-Hippos after maggie deserted, defying maggie’s wishes that the group be disbanded. Beverly has always had a habit of terrorizing innocent people, generally threatening to eat anything and everything that crosses her path. While she rarely delivers on these threats, she tends to be considered a force to be reckoned with nonetheless, as when she does deliver on a unheeded threat, the consequences are often dire.
Gail: Gail is a 5,000-pound bird who looks suspiciously like an overweight hawk. Her average day was spent trying not to get eaten by maggie, so she was extremely grateful when maggie left and followed Beverly willingly, even if she didn’t necessarily agree with Beverly’s penchant for terrorism. Obviously, Gail can’t fly well, but her weight isn’t entirely at fault for this; a disagreement with maggie three years before the story begins left the 2.5-ton bird minus a wing. It took her a year and a half to learn how to fly again.
Charles Burke, the Fattest Telephone Guy: Charles lives to eat telephone wires. He doesn’t say much about himself and so only a select few know anything about him. The Hippos are the only ones who know his name; everyone else just calls him “the Fattest Telephone Guy.” Rumors suggest he was an employee for the telephone company in Tontropolis who was fired after his boss discovered he was eating the equipment (and his truck, after all the equipment was gone). The boss mysteriously vanished, and Burke joined up with the neo-Hippos shortly afterwards.
