Playing with
Slugs
As
usual Dave was acting his immature self.
With a stick in his hand he watched how the slug he captured slithered
over to the end of it, hoping to escape, so it appeared, and go off on whatever
mission it was determined to complete. Dave
just moved the stick, enticing the slug to crawl up it and remain his captive
specimen for the time being. His
backyard seemed to be a haven for slugs and Dave had always been fascinated by
creatures such as these since he was four.
Derek and Julio practiced soccer moves against each other, wondering if
their other friend would join them in the fun.
Now that they were in fourth grade, these boys only had a mild interest
in such backyard wildlife.
Up in
the clubhouse portion of the wooden play structure Dave’s sister Molly and her
best friend Gabby chatted over boys in their fifth grade class while exchanging
gossip about the other girls. In her
pink spring jacket that she kept unzipped to expose her grey top with the puppy
decal in the center, she stopped to notice her dorky brother ignoring his friends
and devoting his time to some tiny slimy thing.
“Stop
playing with those slugs!” Molly called
while looking down at him from an open window space in the clubhouse. She brushed her denim skirt down along her
leggings with the solid pink and white stripes.
“You’ve got friends over. They’re
gonna leave if you don’t pay them some attention.”
Dave
glanced at them through his round wire-rimmed glasses and saw them busy
challenging each other without a care.
His sister was such a bother because she insisted that just because he
was in fourth grade he had to put away his childish devotion to bugs and
such. He asked them, “You guys really
want me to play?”
“Well…it
would be great,” replied Derek.
“You
guys could come over here and check out this slug. Oh, look…there’s another. You used to be into these guys as much as
me.” Julio lay on the ground, exhausted
from chasing the ball all around the yard.
Julio
uttered, “Yeah…but we’re just not interested in that kind of thing anymore, and
you shouldn’t either. It’s for little
kids.” Dave got hot around the color,
feeling ashamed of himself for not having mature interests. He certainly didn’t want to lose any
friends. Although, he didn’t want to
lose this slug or the one he discovered only a couple of feet from him.
“Alright. Let me get my bug collection boxes and drop
this guy and one of his buddies in and I’ll set them aside. I’ll be right back.” He snatched the other one making its way
through the grass and placed it on the stick with the first one. Then, he marched into his house. Dave retrieved his bug box and indeed shut
the things inside. He figured they would
survive most likely until the next morning.
Dave
dashed to the backyard and found Derek and Julio conspiring to team up in a
contest versus Molly and Gabby. “Molly
started laughing at us and saying that she and Gabby could easily defeat
us. I said there was no way. And Molly even said that she and Gabby could
beat all three of us, even though they only have two. You wanna play?”
He was
eager to join his friends in this matchup.
Although he never said anything, Dave figured Molly and Gabby had a huge
advantage because his sister was the leading scorer on her official soccer
team. Dave secretly hoped that Gabby was
no good and would play with hardly any effort.
He watched as Gabby stationed herself against the fence to be goalie,
while Molly readied herself upfront, prepared to play both forward and
defender. Gulping in realization he and
his friends were about to get humiliated, he thought to destroy his sister’s
confidence through a series of taunts.
All three boys joined in to boast about how they wouldn’t let the girls
have a single score.
Molly
and Gabby won the backyard scrimmage against the boys twenty-four to zero. At the end Molly and Gabby made up a rap-song
describing them as the losing slugs of soccer.
This infuriated Dave, Julio and Derek to the point that they simply moved
their trio over to Derek’s yard, which now they had to be careful not to step
in the piles of poo his friendly golden retriever deposited on the ground. Julio’s parents refused to allow the neighbor
kids over since they had a baby in the house and didn’t want her to be disturbed.
Right
before dimming his lamp for bed, Dave checked on his two captive slugs crawling
at opposite ends of the box. In a white
tee shirt and red plaid pajama bottoms, Dave stuffed himself under the covers,
and flipped off the light. He quickly
fell asleep. Sometime during the night,
Dave woke up to go use the bathroom.
Once he finished and washed his hands as the toilet completed its
flushing cycle, Dave shuffled back to his room.
Upon closing his door, an intense light flooded into his room through
the window. His eyes felt as if shards
of glass flew into them due to the brightness of the light. Dave reopened his door and found the whole
house drowning in the brilliant aura.
Hoping to alert his parents, he fumbled down the hallway, unable to
really see anything. Instead of his
parents’ room Dave made his way into Molly’s and stubbed his toe on the chair
at his sister’s desk.
“Ahh,
darn it!” he exclaimed louder than he planned, clutching his throbbing big
right toe.
Molly
stirred awake, hearing her brother’s cry, but discovering she was submerged
within a sea of illumination.
“Wha—what’s going on? That better
not be you, Dave.”
“It is
me. I stubbed my toe ‘cause you left
your desk chair where my toe could collide with it. I don’t know what the heck all this light
is. I went to the bathroom, went back to
my room, and as soon as I closed my door, this light started. I was trying to find Mom and Dad, but I can’t
see.” Dave stood in the middle of the
room he assumed.
“Where
are you?” Molly wondered.
“I’m in
the middle of your room, I think. Keep
talking so I can find your bed.”
“This
is so weird. I’ve never seen anything
like this.” Dave followed her voice and
felt for the bed with the soft, cushiony bed spread. Molly had fluffier bedding than Dave.
Since
Dave was quite freaked out, he really wanted to physically touch his sister in
some way, so he found her foot that lay underneath her comforter. “There you are. I’m kind of scared. My eyes hurt so much.”
“Mine
too. Get under my covers. Then, maybe the light won’t bother us so
much.” Dave scrambled to find the open
end to her covers, and he and Molly dodged their heads completely under. Molly’s sheets and comforter with assorted
shades of purple and lavender made the light more tolerable, but they saw each
other in a violet ambience as the extreme aura penetrated the covers.
“Well,
that worked,” Dave said, relieved to give his eyeballs a break. “Your covers only act like a lampshade.”
“I
wonder where all this light is coming—ahhh!”
She screamed and Dave joined her as they both seemed to rise in the air,
the light seeping from underneath the covers.
Their eyes were now bombarded with the light and they felt their bodies
tumble uncontrollably. The sheet and
comforter now wrapped around them cocoon-like and once again their eyes were
better protected. Dave and Molly were
completely disoriented until they crashed onto a floor that seemed to consist
of hard tile. Still entombed in the covers, Dave noticed that he was now in
darkness.
Molly
recognized it as well, and she said to him, “We can’t be in my room.”
Both of
them heard several clicks and murmurs as if other people were there with
them. Dave opened a tiny crack in the
covers to see what was going on, and he thought he saw boots and legs. “Molly.
There are other people here.”
“Who’s
there?” Molly shouted. “You better stay away from us.” She removed her covers completely off her
head, and she screamed enough to wake the dead.
Dave
copied her, and what he saw fully in front of him wasn’t people. At least they weren’t human people. Terrified, he ducked under the covers, and he
joined his sister in screaming at the sight of these beings. “Holy crap!”
Dave cried. Standing in two pairs
were these humanoid creatures, only they resembled slugs with arms and
legs. Each pair was huddled close to
each other around podiums with a black buzzer.
Molly
watched another slug-person count out loud into the mouthpiece of an ear phone
head set. “Okay everyone, commercial
break is over in three, two, one, and go.”
Coming
out from under the bedding, Dave rubbed his eyes in disbelief as he watched row
upon row of slug-people all seated in an audience, applauding as a sign above
their heads flashed commanding them to do so.
The slug with the head set announced, “Welcome everyone to catch that
human!” Every slug in the audience
hollered the words “Catch That Human” with the announcer and both Molly and
Dave watched those same words light up behind the audience. “And here’s our host…Ray Slugberg!” After the head-set-wearing slug shouted this
in his mic, the crowd went wild as a spotlight zeroed in on a slug-man in a
bright orange suit and tie with black, upswept hair. He smiled and began addressing the crowd.
“Thank
you…Thank you everyone. Just so you
know, we our broadcasting simultaneously in human English so our human
contestants can play along.” Ray
Slugberg spoke into a camera focused in on him.
“I like to welcome everyone at home.
I want to remind everyone if you’d like to play along at home, simply
log on to www.catchthathuman.com.slg and if you get all the trivia questions
correct, you can enter for a drawing of ten thousand dandelion leaves.” The audience erupted with applause and
whistles at the mention of the prize.
Ray
Slugberg continued, “Now, let’s first meet our Slugworld contestants, Suzie and
Charles Slugton.” More applause sounded
at their names. “Tell us a little about
yourselves.”
“Well,”
answered Suzie who was in a flower pattern dress with shoulder straps and
bright red hair done up in a bee hive.
“Charles works for a packing company and I stay home and keep up the
nest. I don’t know who works harder, me
cleaning up after Charles or Charles, who packages anything from cereal to
shoes. And—”
“Okay…let’s
learn about our other Slugworld contestants who are two identical brothers,
Yola Slugburp and Lol Slugburp.” Ray
Slugberg didn’t have too much time for chatty contestants. “Tell us what you will do if you win the
million dollar dandelion prize.”
Looking
at the twin brothers and all the slug people, Dave and Molly thought they all
were identical to one another, except for clothing and hairstyle. Even the slug-women had appeared exactly as
the slug-men. Both kids remained seated,
upright and alert amongst the blanket and sheet, trying to figure out what was
going on.
Yola
responded. “Well, my brother Lol and I
have been collecting humans since we were little slugs. Such fascinating creatures. We plan on opening an entire preserve for
humans to frolic about and Slugworldians would have a nice place to go and see
them without disturbing them. We’ll
start with these two,” he pointed at Dave and Molly. “Such fine humans they seem to be. It’s always great to get them while they’re
young.”
Another
round of applause thundered in the set of what seemed to be a game show of
sorts. Ray Slugberg with his
ever-so-enthusiastic voice reminded them.
“They are a great couple of humans.
But, you’ll have to beat them first…and then catch them.”
“Now,”
Ray continued, “it is my pleasure to introduce to you from the human home
world, Molly and David Roswell.” The
spotlight went right onto the two still on the floor. A slug in a suit and tie pointed over to the
podium with their names on it, indicating for them to take their places. “Oh, they appear a little bit shy. Let’s give ‘em a nice warm, Slugworld
welcome, shall we.” Encouraging them to
take to their podium, the hand-clapping in the crowd got louder and louder the
longer they stayed on the floor.
Dave
looked at his sister in worry. “What do
we do?”
“How
should I know?” Her curly brown hair was
a bit unraveled since arriving to this place.
“You’re
the oldest. You’re supposed to know,”
Dave insisted.
“Well,
I’ve never been to Slugworld before. I
don’t even know how we got here.”
The
slug-man in the suit whispered to the two young humans. “C’mon, you two. Everyone is waiting. Get up there.
Don’t let me sick those on you.”
He pointed to a room with a set of double-doors that opened outwardly to
reveal two human-sized scorpions behind a caged door. The door rolled itself open like an automated
garage door and one of the scorpions began creeping out.
Molly
screamed and yanked on her brother’s arm.
Gazing at the slug-man, she stated, “Okay. We’re going.”
They went to the podium assigned to them. Molly was only in a nightshirt with pictures
of hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses eating happily. She also did have a pair of underwear
underneath, but that was it. A draft in
the room chilled her.
“That’s
more like it!” Ray Slugberg
hollered. Dave and Molly watched as two
other slugs dressed in work uniforms carrying electrified poles, tried to
wrangle the lead scorpion back into its lair.
Once both scorpions were all the way back in, the cage door rolled
closed, but right before it would fully seal the arthropods, the lead one
snatched one of the slug-man workers, pulling him in with them. As the door finally shut, the slug-man
trapped inside screamed in horror as the two scorpions worked their giant
stingers into him, possibly preparing to eat him.
Ray
Slugberg only chuckled at the slug’s fate, commenting, “Oo, that’s gonna leave
a mark. Heh-heh.” His attention went to Molly and Dave. “So, Molly and Dave tell us where you are
from and what you plan on doing if you win.”
“We’re
from Riveroak, Illinois,” Dave answered.
“What do you mean win?”
“Well,
Mark, tell them what they can win.”
“Aside
from winning your freedom, you get to keep the pair of Slugworldians with the
fewest points, if you catch them.
However, you’d have to beat Yola and Lol who have won for six straight
months, making them the winningest Slugworldians in the history of Catch That
Human. Back to you, Ray.”
“Okay,
we all know the rules. I’ll ask a
question, the first team to buzz in gets to answer. You must answer in five seconds or you lose
points and you give your opponents a chance to answer instead to steal those
lost points. First team to one hundred
gets the chance to chase down the human team through a winding labyrinth,
capture them, and take them home in a plastic box. However, if the human team finishes with a
hundred points, then they get to chase the Slugworldian team with the lowest
points and capture them. It’s just that
simple.”
Licking
his fingers, Ray worked at his hair, worried that one little follicle was out
of place. However, his entire head of
hair slid around. Ray Slugberg was
wearing a wig. In fact, all of the slugs
with hair used a wig.
Asking
Molly, Dave wondered, “I wonder what they’ll ask us. I don’t know anything. I don’t wanna be in plastic box.”
“We’ll
just wait and see. This is probably all
your fault because you are always placing slugs in a box.” Molly had to find blame somewhere, who better
than her own brother.
“It’s
not my fault!” Dave protested.
“Whoa-hoe. A little bit of sibling rivalry going on
folks. Humans, right? Are you all ready to play…Catch That Human?” Once again the audience joined him in the
phrase “Catch That Human” following up with roaring applause.
“Okay,
first question for ten points. In the
metric system kilograms is a measurement for mass. In the standard system, what
would be the unit of measure for mass?”
Desperately
trying to pry the answer out of Molly, who only shrugged, Dave pressed his
buzzer on an impulse. Molly was shocked
that he did that. “Uh…Uh…Pounds?” The boy yelped into his microphone.
“Oh,
I’m sorry. That is incorrect,” Ray said
in disappointment. “That’ll cost you ten
points. Now you are ten in the hole.”
Molly
punched him in the shoulder and scolded, “Don’t answer if you really don’t
know. It costs us points.”
The
twin brothers chimed in and Lol smugly responded, “That would be the
slug.” A bell dinged throughout the
studio indicating a successful reply.
Everyone in the crowd cheered for this winningest team.
“Ten
points are awarded to you. Okay, next
question for ten points, Molly just punched her brother in the shoulder. What is a four-letter word in human English
beginning with ‘s’ and ‘l’ that is a synonym for the word punch?”
Since
Molly was normally asleep at this time, her tired brain wasn’t as quick as it
typically was. However, she had what she
believed was the correct retort. Hitting
the buzzer, she firmly stated, “Slug.
It’s slug.”
The
correct-answer bell rang and the audience clapped for Molly. Ray happily explained, “That is absolutely
correct. Ten points to…wait a
second. The judges are discussing…apparently,
there’s something wrong with Suzie and Charles’ buzzer.” The Slugtons shrugged their shoulders and
shook their slug heads in disgust at their missed opportunity to win that
question. “Apparently, the judges had
all confirmed the Slugtons certainly buzzed in first. So, we’ll start the five second clock again,
remove the points from Dave and Molly, and give them a chance to answer.”
“What?” Dave cried.
“But, you have to ask a different question. They know the answer for sure. That’s not fair.”
“Oh,
here we go. A ‘that’s not fair’ from our
human guests.” Ray and all the slugs
laughed at them. “We’re not on the human
world, my friends. Ho-ho. Now, Suzie and Charles your time to respond
starts…now.”
Suzie
answered as she pushed her bee hive wig higher on her head, closer to her
antennae. “The answer, Ray, is
slug.” The correct-answer bell sounded.
“Well,
look. We’ve got a tie game now. Except for our human team.” A foghorn filled the studio with a deep
ominous sound. “Well, it looks like
we’re about to move into our second round.
The second round is just like the first, but the answer is more
difficult. Now listen carefully…the
following question is worth ninety points.”
“Ninety
points?” Dave contended into his microphone.
“But, even if we get it, we wouldn’t get to 100. You’re making it so we can’t win.”
“Oh,
ho. Settle down, kid. You don’t want us to bring out Bonnie and
Clyde, do you?” Ray pointed towards the
double-doors where the scorpions dwelled.
Quickly
shaking his head, he apologized.
“Um…never mind.” He ogled his
sister and Dave could tell from the expression on her that she was greatly
worried about their chances.
Molly
whispered to him, “Listen. Let’s not
panic, Dave. We can do this.”
“Okay,
the first second round question is,” Ray started. “When Dave played soccer against his sister
this afternoon, he was running very slowly in comparison. What could you say he was running like?”
Both
siblings stared at each other hoping the answer would spring up between
them. Molly deduced that so far the
answer to the first two questions was the same.
While her brother shrugged his shoulders, Molly’s hand went for the
buzzer, but at that exact moment Yola and Lol chimed in, tying her.
“Oh,
look. We have a tie. Hmm…in the event of a tie, the first response
always goes to the champion Slugworldians.
That would be Yola and Lol.”
Molly was so angry that she kicked the podium, putting her foot right
through the material which was something similar to Styrofoam. She grasped her face in absolute terror that
her actions would result in the scorpions being released on her and her
brother.
Yola confidently
retorted, “He was running like a slug.
Slug is the answer.”
Balloons
and confetti dropped down from the ceiling as Yola and Lol reached the 100
point mark. The audience was on its feet
applauding and whistling for the twin brothers who wiggled their antennae in
rhythmic waves at each other. Together
they chanted, “Oh, yeah…oh, yeah. Who’s
the slug-man? Oh, yeah…oh, yeah. Who’s the slug-man?”
The
Slugtons clapped for the Slugburp twins.
Ray walked over to the twins to shake their hands in congratulations. Into the microphone in his hand Ray shouted
over the audience. “Yola and Lol! Twenty-seven straight wins!”
Looking
with pity at Molly and Dave, he said to them, “As for you Roswells…that was one
of the worst performance of any human guests.
You know what that means?” He
waited for the audience to call out with him.
“It’s time to Catch That Human!”
A set
of double doors opened on the opposite side from the scorpions and a long
corridor was revealed. Ray motioned for
the two preteens to step over to a line that had the word “start”. “Now, it’s time for our third and final
round.” Molly and Dave watched as Yola
and Lol were getting dressed in red and
blue stretch suits with a nozzles attached at the sleeves. “While Yola and Lol get ready, let me explain
to you what’s going to happen. When the
foghorn sounds, you two will run through the maze. Yola and Lol will start chasing you after
you’ve had a five second lead. If you
can reach the center of the maze before they catch you, a transporter will take
you back to your house there in Missouri.”
“Illinois,”
Dave corrected.
“Uh,
whatever. Yola and Lol are equipped with
four capture nets that they will shoot out of their nozzles in hopes to make
you their specimen to take home and store you on a shelf or create their human
reserve or flush you down their toilets.
You’ll be at their complete mercy.
Don’t you love playing with slugs?”
Ray especially eyed Dave who was now thinking he was being punished
somehow for his interest in these creatures that were normally not human
sized. “Oh, and in twenty seconds of
play, the scorpions will be released into the maze. Better hurry.
They love human blood. Don’t let
them be in the transporter with you or they’ll be most unwelcomed house
guests.”
Molly
pleaded, “Just let us go home. Please.
We don’t want to play this.”
“Now,
what would be the fun in that? Okay, the
game starts in five, four, three, two, one…” The foghorn went off, vibrating
the bones of Molly and Dave. At first
they didn’t move, but they saw Yola aim his nozzle attached to his right arm right
at them.
“Fish
in a barrel,” he commented. And, he
released his net.
Screeching,
the brother and sister duo bolted into the maze as Yola and Lol slowly scooted
towards them. The first corridor only
went one way to the left. “Let’s go this
way,” Molly decided, and so they did.
Above their heads was a T.V. monitor and they could see Yola and Lol
making progress, but realized they moved at a snail’s pace. They would have plenty of time to find the
transporter. “Hey,” Molly
suggested. “Why don’t I try and scale up
the wall and have a look around? I could
stand on your back.”
“Molly,
I should stand on your back. You’re
bigger and stronger than me.” This made
better sense to Molly, even though she didn’t have much confidence in Dave’s
ability to figure out the maze. “In
fact, just prop me up so I can climb on the edge. I think between the two of us I can reach it.” Looking at the monitor, Yola and Lol were now
just entering the beginning of the maze, but they spotted the brother and
sister standing still at the end of this section of the labyrinth. They crept closer to them.
Molly
grabbed her brother by his shirt upon seeing Yola and Lol coming their way and
rounded the corner into the next section.
“Let’s get some distance from them.”
Yola
boasted, “We’ve got you now. There’s no
escaping us.”
Dave
noted, “They are so slow. This is
ridiculous.”
As soon
as he said this a tornado siren went off, and he heard Ray’s voice announce,
“And here come the scorpions.”
Then,
Dave cried out, “Oh, crap. It’s the
scorpions. They won’t be slow.”
Now
that they were out of sight of the two slug-men for a time, Molly said, while
crouching, “C’mon, stand right on my shoulders.
Steady yourself with the wall if you have to and I’ll stand up and you
should be able to reach the edge of the wall.”
Doing
as instructed, Dave planted his bare feet right onto his sister’s
shoulders. Before she hoisted him up
further along the wall, a blood-curdling cry sounded from the corridor Yola and
Lol were still in. Dave glanced at the
monitor since Molly was too preoccupied with lifting him up, and watched as the
two scorpions took turns devouring Yola and Lol.
The
voice of Ray Slugberg rang out. “Oo…it
looks like our all-time champions became an all-time meal for Bonnie and
Clyde. Perhaps, the scorpions will be
too full to chase after our humans.”
Finally,
the top of Dave’s head just reached the edge of the wall and he placed his
hands on the flat surface that was roughly one foot thick. He pushed himself up, trying to get some
traction with his feet, but managed to place his toes against Molly’s curly
top. Molly detected the clicks of the
two scorpions and out of the corner of her eye, she saw on the monitor that the
two arthropods were done with their slug meals, and were now briskly walking
further down the first corridor of the labyrinth. “We gotta hurry. Those scorpions are going further into the
maze.” She pushed against the soles of
her brother’s dirty, smelly feet. “When
was the last time you took a bath?”
“That’s
not important right now, Molly. Just
keep pushing.” Dave was able to reach
out for the other edge of the wall on the top and now braced it with one of his
arm pits. “It’s so narrow up here. I hope I can keep my balance.” He finally got a toe from his left foot up
the edge and he managed to swing his leg around and straddle the top of the
wall. Even without standing he could
tell that the scorpions in the previous aisle over were confused a bit and stopped
moving to the end. So, instead, the
scorpions decided to scale the wall and would soon drop into the aisle Molly
alone now stood. “We gotta hurry.” He glanced around the maze in search of the
middle, and he realized it was so simple, that it was basically a zig-zag
pattern, and there was only one way to go.
“Molly, just keep following each section of the path. There’s nothing to trap us. I’m gonna drop down the other side and meet
you. Molly…run! The scorpions are coming over the wall behind
you.” And, they did. Both Bonnie and Clyde were now mere feet from
Molly.
That
eleven-year-old girl shrieked at the sight of them and sprinted away from
them. One scorpion stayed close behind
Molly while the other noticed Dave up on the wall and lunged towards the
nine-year-old. He tried to slide off the
other side, but his right arm got caught by one of the scorpion’s grasping
claws. It sliced into the boy’s skin,
and he hollered, “Molly, help me!” Only,
Molly was just now rounding the corner to the next segment of the labyrinth. Dave would have to save himself, and he gripped
the top portion of the arachnid’s claw and pushed up on it with his left hand,
slicing his thumb and palm in the process.
It dropped him as soon as the predatory critter reached up with its
other claw and Dave slid down along the floor with the hard tile, his butt
slamming hard, bruising his tail bone.
Molly
saw her brother a bloody mess, seeing he was nearly cut down to the bone on his
forearm. She grappled her slumping
sibling by the shoulders, and shouted, “You gotta get up, Dave.” Dave’s sheer will to survive prompted him to
stagger to his feet while being seized by utter terror as he observed one
scorpion skittering down the corridor while the other one was crawling over the
wall.
Dave
announced, “I don’t even feel my arm anymore, Molly.” They continued with the Bonnie and Clyde in
full pursuit, weaving through the maze until they found a bright pillar of
light that had to be the center and the point of escape. Dave left a trail of blood wherever he went.
However,
the scorpions were so close that they would no doubt enter the transporter with
them. Dave took his red plaid pajama
bottoms off with his left hand, unable to use the right. “Help me get these off!” He pleaded with his sister, and she complied,
unsure of what he planned on doing with them.
The boy was so light-headed from the amount of blood pouring to the
floor, and he stood only in dark blue boxer briefs. Splashing as much blood as he could on them
he balled up the bottoms, and tossed it over the tail of the scorpion in the
lead. The scorpions each made a grab for
them, reacting to the human blood that they detected on it.
“Great
thinking. C’mon, Dave. Let’s jump in.” Unfortunately, Dave collapsed to the floor,
going into shock, his face completely without any color. Molly didn’t know what to do, but she had no
means to help him out medically. Her
only hope was to get him in the transporter, so she dragged him to the beam and
together they were once again immersed into a world of bright light.
Flipping
every which way, their bodies just rolled around and due to the intensity of
the light, Molly could not even see her brother. She clutched his left hand, careful not to further
damage his right. Both of them landed on
the carpeted floor of Molly’s room, and the light faded. Noticing the time on her alarm clock, the
brother and sister were gone for an entire hour. Molly hysterically sobbed as she remembered
the injury her brother suffered. She
huddled over him and yelled for her parents.
“Mom! Dad! Come quick!
Dave is badly hurt! Call 9-1-1!”
Her mom
rushed into her room and flipped on the overhead light. She found Molly holding onto her brother’s
head and he didn’t have any injuries at all.
He appeared to only be sleeping.
Molly’s mother asked skeptically, “What? What happened to him?”
Molly looked
at Dave, baffled to see him completely healed from his scorpion encounter. “Well…his arm was badly cut from these giant
scorpions and…you’re not gonna believe this.”
Peering
at her in total disbelief, her mom said to her, “I told you guys not to sleep
in each other’s rooms. It’s always one
thing or another.”
Dave
groggily woke up. “Hey. What’s going on?” He looked up at Molly, who still held onto
his head. “Molly. We’re home.”
He laughed in relief, shaking from the crazy experience.
“Dave. Please go sleep in your room. And Molly…where is your sheet and
comforter?” Mrs. Roswell went into the
hallway to find a closet with an extra blanket.
“Here, use this for now. I’m
going back to bed and figure it all out in the morning.”
Sitting
up, Dave asked Molly. “Was that all just a dream?” Scanning his arms, he saw nothing to indicate
he had a near-fatal tussle with a giant scorpion. A small bright light enveloped Molly’s bed,
and her covers returned with a framed picture.
Molly retrieved it, and displayed it in front of her brother. It was a picture of Ray Slugberg in all
smiles and slicked back wig-hair. An
autographed inscription was scrawled on it.
Molly read it aloud. “To Molly
and Dave. Thanks for appearing on my
show. You’re not bad for a couple of
humans. Hope to see you again
sometime. Yours Truly, Ray Slugberg.”
They
just stared at each other and smirked.
Their mother shouted from her bedroom, “Dave…go to your room and go to
sleep or no more slugs for you.”
Molly
said, while flapping the picture around in her hand, “Well, at least we know it
wasn’t a dream. Hey, your pajama bottoms
are still back at…you know.”
Dave
noticed there was a line of words written on the picture that Molly
missed. He read it. “P.S. We’ll send the pajama bottoms back
later after we thoroughly clean them.”
Heading
out of Molly’s room, he turned to her and said, “I am never going to play with
slugs ever again.” Dave wandered back to
his bed and he and his sister fell fast asleep.
As for the slugs in the box on Dave’s nightstand, they just continued crawling
about in the way that slugs do. In the
morning, Dave planned to release them.
Be good to yourselves!
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