Once again, beachgoers were screaming, but in this instance, it did not originate from the joy that amusement rides can bring! Beavers that were at least seven feet long crawled toward us and growled in a manner that exposed all of their teeth! As they inched closer, Phoebe relayed to Raphael, “I’m pretty sure these things aren’t native to Southern California! But no, we’re not honeymooning here!”
“Oh, they’re B.O.B.S.!” I observed.
“Great! It’s so comforting to know the name of the creatures who are about to murder us!” Mara sarcastically muttered.
I educated everyone, “No, they’re the Beavers of Big Size from that movie, The Duchess Betrothed!”
My father pressed me, “I never saw that one. How did the hero defeat them?”
“They wandered onto the Blazing Pastures,” I recalled. The B.O.B.S. got pretty close, so noted, “Probably won’t help us here!”
“Don’t worry! I’m a former Army Sergeant- I can use my combat skills to conquer them!” Raphael avowed. He seized a nearby pool stick and hit one of them across the head. The wood splintered, but the B.O.B.S. seemed unharmed, so Raphael’s face fell as low as his confidence did. “Never mind! I’ll be useless here!”
The B.O.B.S. grabbed him, and the rest of us instinctively dashed to rescue him, but Rowen pled with us, “Don’t take away their lives! Let’s deal with them in a more humane way!”
Uncle Chester snapped at him, “Son, how do you reckon we’re gonna do that? Mother Nature’s not gonna drop the solution out of the sky!”
As if on cue, my six ancestors manifested behind the B.O.B.S. and hopped on top of them! The B.O.B.S. began bucking like bulls, and Jasper defended their actions, “Well, at least they’re not trying to rip you to shreds anymore!”
“Dad?” My mother peered at Jasper curiously.
“Hey, pumpkin!” Jasper merrily greeted her as he strove to maintain his balance. “I’d love to catch up, but I’ve got spirit guide duties…”
Rezart cried, “If these monsters eat us, then that weird guy won’t get his Golden Jellybeans!”
I responded, “Yeah, that’s kinda his point! It was never about the jellybeans… However, that doesn’t mean we’re gonna let him get his wish! We’ll find something to take them down!” I espied Rowen’s aggrieved expression, and, with some derision, I added, “Humanely!”
“You get out of here, you disgusting beasts!” Great Aunt Mildred reached into her bamboo purse and started chucking random objects at him. The B.O.B.S. didn’t react to her coins, makeup, or address book, but one of them flinched when she threw a peppermint candy at it. “Yeah, I don’t fancy them either, but if a hunk comes in my direction, I can’t have bad breath!”
“Peppermint! That’s it!” I mulled that over for a moment, and then I retracted my statement, “Or, maybe it’s not! Where are we gonna get enough peppermint to stave them off?”
Eamon got flung into a snowcone cart, and he moaned, “You know, I thought when I died, I wouldn’t feel pain anymore!” The B.O.B.S. towered over him, but prior to it devouring him, it sniffed the air around him, cringed, and moved on. Eamon got offended and yelled, “What? I don’t smell good enough for you to consume me?”
Kendra, who was barely hanging onto her mount, probed, “Are you complaining that it spared you?”
“No!” Eamon claimed, but we could tell he still felt sour about it.
“Hang on! …Is there a peppermint syrup there?” Phoebe wondered.
Mara folded her arms and bitterly remarked, “Who gets that flavor during the summer?”
Eamon lifted the cart back up, and Phoebe dodged the movements of the B.O.B.S. as she raced to it. She scanned the inventory, and her visage lit up when she chanced upon it. “Eureka!”
She couldn’t get the cap off, so my father, who had more of a proximity to her than I did, offered, “Toss it here!”
Phoebe hurled it to him, but she missed by a few inches. The bottle burst, and its contents spread profusely. When the B.O.B.S. detected its odor, they became resolutely revolted. My ancestors slid off of them as they disappeared into the distance, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Rowen commented, “Maybe we’re the reason that peppermint snowcones never really took off!”
“Alright, let’s go get those jellybeans! Or the Rainbow Tektite, whatever comes first!” Osra directed us.
“Shouldn’t we do something about the B.O.B.S. though?” my mother brought up.
Jasper asserted, “That’s not a priority right now!”
My mom grew appalled by that. “Not a priority? People could get hurt or even killed by those things- what could be more of a priority than that?”
“Try the world ending! And don’t argue with me, Katherine! I’ll ground you!” Jasper scolded her.
“You can’t ground me! I’m seventy-two!” my mom quarreled.
Jasper apologized, “Sorry! Force of habit!”
My mom appeared as though she intended to persist with this feud, but preceding that eventuality, Kamali intervened, “Listen, the fabric of society is already getting torn apart! We were supposed to get sent to this realm immediately, but instead, we got sent to the eighteen-eighties! Thank the heavens we got the Rainbow Tektite immediately!”
“What do you mean, we?” Natalia piped up. “I got it! You were too afraid to!”
“I wasn’t afraid!” Kamali refuted. “I just wasn’t willing to snatch it from that small child and make her cry!”
Everyone gave Natalia a judgmental glance, but she didn’t display an ounce of regret. “What? It was either that or let the universe get destroyed!”
Kendra addressed the group, “Indeed! So, let’s now focus on those Golden Jellybeans! I’m guessing we can’t find them at a candy shop!”
“Why not?” Mara questioned. “Shouldn’t we at least try?”
“We can’t waste a minute!” Phoebe contended. “There’s not the least bit of likelihood that he’d pick an easy quest for us! He wants us dead ASAP, and the worst a candy shop would do is slowly give us diabetes!”
Mara huffed, “Oh, so what do you propose we do? Wander all over the West Coast ‘til we happen to spot them?”
They engaged in a verbal spat, and some of the others joined in with the aim of settling the dispute, which resulted in nothing more than more noise. I wasn’t certain on how to resolve this conflict, so Rowen, Rezart, and I surveyed the area for clues. Rowen suggested, “Maybe they’re real gold! We should check the bank!”
The cacophony was so voluminous that I couldn’t hear a word he said! “What?” It became clear that we needed to quiet the rambunctious bunch down, but the fortitude of this altercation was too robust for it to conclude in the near future. I didn’t know what to do, but fortunately for me, I didn’t need to figure it out…
“Excuse me, folks!” a mail carrier with a large cart came to the foray cheerily as though this momentous ruckus wasn’t transpiring at all. It reminded me of that mailman who whistled as the abandoned house across the cul-de-sac from me burned down- what was up with that? Do postal workers lead a chaotic enough life that dramatic occurrences don’t phase them? Everyone stood in a stunned silence of her brazen yet oblivious intrusion, and we watched as she met up with a colleague at the center of the main aisle and excitedly greeted him, “Hey, Chuck! Check out this Polaroid!”
“Woah!” Chuck reacted in surprise when he saw the photo. “Where did you catch a glimpse of that?”
She excitedly gushed, “It’s at the Soarcent Distribution Center! If you hurry, you can go view it! They’re waiting for Secret Service to inspect it and bring it to the White House!”
Chuck eagerly articulated, “Oh, man! I better hurry and finish this route so I can witness a piece of history!”
“Didn’t President Reagan like jellybeans?” I queried.
“Ooh! I vaguely remember why those Golden Jellybeans sounded so familiar!” Raphael recalled. “They’re on display at a museum in Washington D.C.! Hmm, I guess he never at them! I wonder why…”
I decreed, “Who cares? We know where they are now, so let’s go get them! Be on the lookout for strange things along our route, and nobody die out here!”
Great Aunt Mildred chirped, “Honey, I’m ninety-one, so I can’t promise anything!” Everyone nervously chuckled at her dark joke, so she laughed, “Whoops! My apologies- that wine must still be in my system!” She led us all down the road, and I grimaced at the notion of her fighting any monsters in an inebriated state!
At the intersection of Colorado Avenue and Soarcent Street, a group of construction workers were busy repairing the pavement as we passed. A few of them started wolf-whistling, and one of them called out, “Yo, baby! You, with the acid-wash jacket!” Phoebe stopped out of startlement of getting referred to like that, and the man continued, “Pour some sugar on me!” Phoebe rolled her eyes and kept walking, so he pathetically whined, “Don’t leave or I’ll go crazy!”
“Then go!” Phoebe retorted.
“I’ve got something sweet for you!” Mara purred.
The man rejected her, “No, thanks! I don’t pay for dessert!”
Mara got offended by his insinuation, so I grabbed her wrist and steered her away from that site. I then posed to Phoebe, “I don’t sound that corny when I use that line on you, do I?”
“Oh, look!” Raphael pointed to a doll in a toy store window with a bulbous head, round eyes, and stubby limbs. “Those Lettuce Grove Dolls used to be super hard to get back in the day! I wanted one for my birthday, and when my mom went to the mall to get it, there was kicking, biting, and mass hysteria when they got rolled out! But, she told me it was worth the lawsuit that inevitably followed!”
“By golly! What an investment opportunity!” Uncle Chester very interestedly verbalized. “We could pop in real quick and then flip it for a profit!”
Kendra denounced that idea, “How do you expect to pay for it? We can’t use credit cards that expire in the twenty-first century! They’ll think it’s a joke!” We came to a shoe emporium, and Kendra’s interest instantly piqued. “Are those Jellies? Ooh, I’ve always wanted to try those on! Maybe we can barter with the clerk…”
I put my foot down, “No more pit stops! We can’t let the world end over our won self-interests!” I promptly forgot what I just mandated when we strolled past a theatre whose marquee indicated that a Def Leppard music video was in the process of getting filmed there! “No way! We HAVE to see if they need any more extras!”
“What were saying about avoiding distractions?” Osra prodded me.
“But, we could hear something completely original!” I protested. “Pour Some Sugar on Me came out in eighty-seven, but in this realm, it aired a year sooner! I’m assuming… Unless they got inspiration from that creepy construction worker… But, it could be totally new! What if we go back to Terra Belle and I never…?” I halted my footsteps when I beheld one of those dolls standing on the sidewalk ahead of us. “What, did Santa Monica not catch on to that trend or something?”
Kamali grew alarmed by the doll’s presence. “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! It sprung to life like in that horror movie!”
Eamon scoffed at that concept, “Come now, Kamali! Isn’t it more likely that someone placed it there like that?” A couple more dolls ambled into the vicinity and stood beside their comrade, so Eamon changed his tune, “Apparently not!”
A dozen or so showed up and posed in an intimidating fashion. None of us moved a muscle as we anticipated some sort of attack, but after a while, Rezart broke the silence by puzzling, “Okay, I give up! What’s so scary about these stupid-looking toys?” They all pulled out knives, and it shocked Rezart for a second, but then he pondered, “Alright, but the worst they can do is mess up our ankles, right?”
The first doll flew towards his face with his weapon drawn! Rezart got stricken with fear, but Great Aunt Mildred acted swiftly! She swung her purse at it, and it got hurled back to its brethren. This action caused Great Aunt Mildred to lose her balance, and after she tumbled to the floor, she mumbled, “I never liked those Lettuce Grove Kids anyways!”
Upon beholding an easy target, the dolls swarmed in her direction. Everyone but Raphael sped to assist her. Raphael hastily headed back to Colorado Avenue and swore, “I’m not fleeing! I’ll return in a sec!”
I wasn’t certain that I believed him, but I didn’t have a very lengthy stretch to contemplate it. We used our arms and legs to counter their movements, and we managed to ward them off, but their never-ceasing energy made it clear that we weren’t going to defeat them! Rowen exclaimed, “How do we execute these demons?” We gazed at him in bewilderment, so he justified himself, “What? They’re not living things! They’re possessed pieces of plastic- that doesn’t count towards hurting the ecosystem! …Though disposing of their remains would…”
Before any of us could consider that topic any further, we felt something fast whoosh behind us…
My Stories 