“Move!” Raphael commanded from next to a fire hydrant as he used a tool to make water rapidly stream out. Most of us had already instinctively dodged the movement of the liquid when we sensed it coming, but someone apparently didn’t…
“Move what?” Great Aunt Mildred queried.
She got the brunt of the gushing, but luckily, my mom’s reflexes were fast! She pulled her out of harm’s way in the nick of time, and then she asked Great Aunt Mildred, “Are you okay?”
Great Aunt Mildred sort of slurred her answer, “I’m better than okay! I’m in the arms of a hot stud like you, handsome!”
“Uh, Aunt Mildred… It’s me! Katherine!” my mother corrected her. “I’m married to your nephew, William…”
“Oh hi, Katherine! Can you bring back that beefcake that rescued me?” Great Aunt Mildred requested.
My father briefly glanced at them and decreed, “No more alcohol for you!”
We watched as the torrent pushed against the Lettuce Grove dolls. They earnestly strove against its vigorous force, but they seemed unable to advance themselves forward. We breathed a sigh of relief, and Raphael proudly commented, “You’re welcome, darlings! I may have left the military, but I’m still proud to serve my country!”
Uncle Chester conveyed to Raphael, “No offense, sonny! But, you seem too campy to have ever become an officer!”
“DO NOT QUESTION ME, SOLDIER!” Raphael boomed and got into Uncle Chester’s face. As he cowered from this startlement, Raphael petitioned him, “Is that better?”
“Thank you for your service!” Uncle Chester squeaked.
I got amused by that brief drama, but I returned my attention to the task at hand as soon as the theatrics concluded. “I’m glad they’re not smart enough to go around the flow!”
Everybody but Mara concurred with me. Mara snidely brought up, “Yeah, but aren’t they blocking our only path to the postal distribution center?”
“No! We can go around!” I argued I noticed that it was at the finish of a dead end. Mara smirked, so I shot back, “Okay, Little-Miss-Know-It-All! How do we destroy the dolls?”
“Uh…” Mara clearly blanked out. I felt slightly victorious at that small feat, but it was hard to stay smug- how on Earth we were supposed to rid ourselves of this enemy? All of us stood there contemplating the matter… until…
A car with a catchy rap song sped through the intersection, and I had no clue if the driver saw those monstrosities for what they were or if they were really not focusing on the road, but they plowed right through the dolls! The vehicle sped out of sight, and the smashed dolls lay motionless on the ground! Eamon wiped his hands against each other as if he had played a role in this endeavor and proclaimed, “Problem solved!”
Osra instructed, “Quick! Maybe if we run, we can avoid another cumbersome horror!”
“I should probably give the construction crew back their tool!” Raphael stated.
“Later! Let’s go!” Natalia grabbed his arm after he shut the water off, and we all rushed towards the post office.
We barely crossed Soarcent Street and Beach Boulevard when the sound of tremendous tremors thundered from the near distance! Everyone paused under the assumption of a fresh foe readying themselves to attack us, but prior to anyone swiveling around to behold our adversary, Kendra propositioned, “What if we simply ignore it and grab those Golden Jellybeans?” A large shadow loomed over us, so Kendra resentfully sighed, “Forget it!”
Bystanders screamed as a figure comprised entirely of a fluffy, white snack towered over the adjacent buildings and headed in our direction! Phoebe exclaimed, “The Ever-Rising Popcorn Man! Great, that movie’s ruined for me forever!”
“In Phantom Slayers, they destroyed him by crossing their ray guns,” I recalled.
“And how are we gonna destroy this one?” Kamali challenged me.
I asserted, “We’re gonna pray!”
Kamali riposted, “No, we’re the answer to your prayer! We need something else!”
We couldn’t come up with a solution, so we just fled. We couldn’t go far though because the lane didn’t continue, which I felt foolish for not remembering. The Ever-Rising Popcorn Man got close enough that we wouldn’t have been able to escape if we tried! I panicked and scoured the grounds for a remedy to this catastrophe, and to my surprise, we weren’t alone…
“Huh! Didn’t see that coming!” Jasper remarked as we witnessed the B.O.B.S. swarm on the Ever-Rising Popcorn Man’s legs. “They’re on the same team, aren’t they?”
“Let’s not question it too much! Let’s just get out of here!” I directed everyone. We shifted towards the entrance to the postal sorting center, and there stood Damon! He seemed disappointed about our survival, so I taunted him, “Sorry to rain on your parade, but we’re going in!”
Damon pouted, “You’re not sorry!” He saw us sprinting towards his position, and he emitted a high-pitched scream preceding his retreat to the interior.
When we went into the lobby, I expected to view several people scared and stunned by the commotion outside, but everyone appeared to be carrying on like that was a totally normal occurrence! Did they actually get used to the presence of otherworldly creatures in their city? I inquired to a guy standing in line, “Did you see what happened out there? Didn’t it freak you out?”
The guy replied, “You must be tourists! We’re right by Hollywood, dude! They pull these stunts all the time!”
There was an enormous thump from the exterior, and we could only presume that the B.O.B.S. successfully took down the Ever-Rising Popcorn Man. It astounded us, but no one in the lobby even batted an eyelash at it! It perplexed me that they could get used to such oddities, but I couldn’t really complain since mass hysteria would cause the situation to worsen, so I shrugged it off and rejoined the others.
“I can’t find Damon anywhere!” Phoebe reported. “He must already be in the back!”
“Why? I thought he wanted us to get the Golden Jellybeans!” Rezart catechized.
Kamali informed him, “He does! He’s guarding us from the Rainbow Tektite, which is the only mechanism home! Well, not the only mechanism! We could give him the Golden Jellybeans, but I’m sure there’s some kind of horrible catch in letting him have it!”
My dad canvassed the group, “So, what do we do? It’s not like they’ll let the public into the employees’ area! It’s federal property, after all!”
“Speaking of federal, Secret Service agents are supposed to get here soon, so we don’t have long to get this done!” my mom pointed out.
“So, what are we doing?” Mara bitterly pondered. “I doubt we could convince any of the workers to let us in, and if a gigantic monster didn’t distract them, how could we possibly pull it off?”
Great Aunt Mildred volunteered, “Leave that to me!” None of us could fathom what she had in store, and we grew bewildered when she got onto a counter where forms were stashed in her still-damp garments! She certainly caught a lot of scrutiny for her actions! That multiplied tenfold when she dramatically addressed her audience, “I’ve lost my third husband, I’ve lost my damn mind, and now, I’m about to lose these clothes!”
She hummed her own stripper music as she clumsily performed a dance of seduction, and the majority of the populace became appalled at this spectacle. A few onlookers tried to seize her, but she flipped her shoes off at them. A postal personnel from behind the front desk warned her, “Ma’am, you can’t do that in here!” She ignored them as she continued her exhibition, and that woman entreated her colleagues, “What do we do? This wasn’t in the training manual!”
Aside from not wanting to catch a glimpse of a relative in such a sordid status, I craned my neck away from her makeshift stage to scope out a route for our exit. I spotted the package pick-up door, and it was momentarily vacant there, so I motioned for the others to follow me there. Uncle Chester recommended, “Maybe I should keep an eye on her!” He glanced over to Great Aunt Mildred, shuddered, and supplemented that with, “Well, I’ll ensure that she doesn’t fall or get arrested!” I nodded, and we hurried into the private sector.
I don’t think any of us imagined a flurry of activity in such a normally quiet building, so it caught us off guard to observe a maze of various metal chutes zigzagging all over the facility! It was slightly intimidating to see the mechanics at work, but it was also fairly intriguing to see the advanced process! “Ah, so this is how they sort international mail! Fascinating!” Kendra opined as she beheld the system’s many functions.
“Can we learn about this later?” Phoebe posed to her.
“No! Because you’ll all be dead!” Damon histrionically hollered.
Eamon retorted, “Some of us are already dead!”
Damon clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I meant the ones who weren’t, obviously! And as for you, you’ll…!” Evidently, Damon couldn’t concoct a proper response for that, he chucked a box at us and fled.
We chased after him, and he continually hurled parcels at us to slow us down. At least, that was his intention, it didn’t deter us much in reality! At the other side of the chutes, Damon was cornered. He was overtly nervous, but he made a bid to appear as though he wasn’t by leering, “So, you caught me! You still gotta complete your quest to go home, so you’re wasting your time hassling me!”
“True! But, we could… Wait! We could capture you and take your spoiled-rotten butt back to the afterlife!” Osra countered. She then muttered to herself, “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
“You’ll never take me alive!” Damon shouted.
Jasper laughed, “Finally! Something we agree on!”
Damon quivered as we advanced on him, and I could hardly believe we were, at long last, going to seize him and put a halt to his apocalyptic plot! We got closer, and it seemed as though victory was inevitable, but then Damon found a large envelope with something hard in it on a table beside him and threw it at us, hitting Rezart! It hit Rezart’s noggin and then bounced into one of his palms, and Rezart used his free hand to rub the site of the impact and groaned, “Ow!”
“You scumbag! You could’ve killed him! He’s a child!” Rowen bellowed.
“Meh! I nearly kill children practically every day!” Damon waved that off. Rowen’s visage contorted as though he couldn’t decide between beating him up or delving more into what he meant by that sentence, but prior to him picking either option…
A staff member went up to us and gently accosted, “Excuse me, folks! We can’t have you back here!”
I knew we had to act fast, so, without thinking about it much, I spat, “Yes, we can! We’re the Secret Service! We’re here for the Golden Jellybeans!”
Instantly, I regretted relenting to that impulse! I could hardly blame him for ogling at us skeptically- not a single one of us was dressed for the part! The others glared at me in a reproachful manner, and my insides plummeted! We were so close to capturing Damon and returning to the present, and I may have blown it with an odious lie! I gulped apprehensively, but to my astoundment, the staff member concluded, “Well, you must be telling the truth, or else how else would you have known about those! Carry on!” As he walked away, he complimented us, “Nice disguises! Totally had me fooled!”
“Thanks!” I chuckled as the tension I had just built up got released. As soon as he was out of our range of vision, I switched my diligence back to Damon, but he was no longer there. “Dammit! The coward disappeared!”
“He’ll return as soon as we get those jellybeans!” Natalia reassured me. “Come on!”
We traveled to an office space, and we discovered them sitting in a supply room! They were sitting in a plastic case with their burlap bag slightly opened so passersby could discern their authenticity, and they weren’t there by themselves! Next to the gilded candy was a letter in a foreign language, and suddenly, Raphael’s recollection kicked into high gear. “Oh! That’s right! The Soviet Union sent the Golden Jellybeans as a peace offering along with a nuclear disarmament proposal! I guess it wasn’t a great offer since the Cold War went on for another six years!”
My dad probed, “So, we’re not gonna obliterate the planet from a radioactive conflict by giving them to that scoundrel?” Everyone peered at him in consternation, and he grilled us, “What? How else are we gonna get home?”
“Unfortunately, he’s correct!” Osra dismally concurred. “We haven’t found the Rainbow Tektite, so I suppose we have no choice!”
Mara banefully asserted, “Well, I guess we’re doomed! Thanks for dragging me along with you!”
Kamali insisted, “No! There’s always something else we can do! We… um… Ooh! We could stay here until we find our precious interdimensional stone! It may take years, but hey, if the Cold War finishes before we find it, we could go get the Golden Jellybeans, can’t we? They wouldn’t need it anymore! You know, assuming Damon doesn’t tear apart the fabric of existence before then…”
The entire lot ruminated on this issue, but nobody could produce a proper solution. Several long seconds later, Rezart put in, “It might not be that bad if we stayed a little longer! I can always find stuff to do! Papa, what kind of apps did they have in this decade?”
Rowen relayed to him, “They didn’t. I don’t think they even had the internet yet!”
“What? How am I supposed to be entertained here?” Rezart folded his arms sullenly, and in so doing, he hit the envelope he still had for whatever reason against a pipe. It made a noise that caused my eyes to widen…
“Give me that!” I ordered him as I hastily snatched it. Okay, that was a bit rude, but I swear, he was about to thank me for it later…
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