Random Title of a Story

Sit down and shut up! Good, thank you. Class, we have some special guests today. These are actual superheroes who go out and fight crime and thwart evildoers every day!

Sigh!

This is Eveready Spaghetti Boy in the brown squiggly suit (sigh), and this here in the bright yellow glowing outfit is Effervescent Fluorescent Boy.

“Hi kids!”

Sigh!

They are here to talk to you today about safety and good deeds and the benefits of a proper education. So, why don’t…. What is so funny?

“Ahem, nothing.”

“Nothing, ma’am, sorry!”

Good… now as I was saying, why don’t we get started? I’m sure they have a lot to tell us… if they can stop laughing long enough.

“Sorry again, ma’am.”

“Um, well, hi kids, how are you?”

. . . . . .

“Fantastic! Glad to hear it… really! I’m Eveready Spaghetti Boy and this is my partner, Effervescent Fluo…”

I already told them all that! Get on with it!

. . . . . .

“Yes, as I was saying… We are, indeed, superheroes. Yes, we do have cool gadgets. No, you can’t play with them. We have a secret base, and no, you can’t go there. We have cool special powers, but we can’t show you or you’ll be hurt. Yes, we have cool specialized weapons, but we can’t show you those either because they can hurt you. Hmmm… they could hurt you!”

“No, Spag man!”

“Damn… Fine!”

“Hehe… um… Are there any questions?”

. . . . . .

“No? OK, then! Why don’t we just start from the beginning? We’ll tell you how we became superheroes! It all started with the mystical Cube of Rubic!”

“It started long before that, when I was held prisoner by evil bunnies…”

“NO! Not that story again!”

Sigh!

“Why don’t we start from the time we met?”

“That would be wonderful! You tell them, I’ll just sit here”

“Fine! Anyway, kids… this would have been a couple years after I got back from the planet Bayou, where I was held prisoner by psychotic frogs…”

“Hey! If you get to tell your story, then I get to tell mine!”

“Baby!”

SIGH!

“Stop sighing at me!”

WILL YOU TWO JUST GET ON WITH IT???

. . . . . .

“Fine!”

* * * * * * * * *

It was a couple years after I had gotten back from Planet Bayou. I had a nice rest in a very large, formal home with lots of nice people to wait on me hand and foot and help me recover from my horrendous ordeal.

(“He tied snails!”

“Shut up!”)

Anyway… we were mere mortals then. Well, fine, we’re mortals now, but we’re special. Anyway… we were normal people then, just regular guys. Regular guys who’d had a couple rather unique experiences with some strange animals! And I had decided to go rock climbing to soothe my mind and relax. I think of it as a sort of meditation, communing with nature. Like asking Mother Nature to grant you passage through Her territory. Like telling Her you can conquer Her, while at the same time admitting that you can only do so if She lets you! It’s like…”

(“Get on with it, already!”

“Right, sorry!”)

Anyway… We decided to go rock climbing in the majestic Grande Kloopta mountain range in southern New Hampshire. It was a bright sunny day and the birds were chirping and there were a few fluffy white clouds in the sky and all was well and…

* * * * * * * * *

Ok, that’s it, I’m telling this story… without all the fluffy crap!

I had just been released from Happy Orchards on my own recognizance after the ordeal with the bunnies.

(“They wanted his waffles!”

“Shut up!”)

Anyway… I decided to go rock climbing in the majestic Grande Kloopta mountain range of southern New Hampshire. Not because I wanted to commune with nature, but because I was thoroughly hoping I would fall and die!

Unfortunately, I didn’t!

There were four of us in the group – Dan, our guide, he was a short, stocky fellow, who always smiled… like his cheeks were pinned to his ears or something. It made me sick actually. Then there was Joe, a dorky guy with bright red flame-like hair. By flame-like I mean it actually stuck straight up in a bushy tuft and kind of waved in the wind. It was interesting! He told us to call him Razor. We all called him Joe. He hated that.

Then there was this idiot here. He could do nothing but talk about being abducted by frogs and tying snails. We mostly avoided him. Everyone avoided me too, since I could do nothing but talk about being pinned on my stove by bunnies. This was our rock climbing group and we all hated it.

So the day started off with the training and then we started climbing. No need for details, since it was boring… and I slept through all the training anyway. The weather forecast looked good, but, as usual, they were wrong. By the time we got halfway up the mountain it started to rain. Just a light sprinkle, but since we had started the day with no clouds at all… *sigh* except for the little fluffy puffs that floated gracefully through the air… we were all rather upset and surprised by this turn of events.

It just so happened that there was a cave right at the ledge we were at. So we went inside to keep out of the rain and let it pass. Dan said it would pass soon since there were hardly any clouds out there, and we should wait for the rocks to dry off so they were not slippery. Dan pulled out his… um… his little electronic gadget… and… uh… did stuff. I don’t know what it was, I hate computers.

Anyway… this dimwit pulls out his little game, too. We came to climb a mountain and he brings a handheld computer game. What a twerp! I mean, of all the dumbest things anyone could do, he…

* * * * * * * * *

My turn again! The electronic games were rather important to the story because they weren’t there.

(“What?”)

I mean they weren’t there later! They were there when we used them, obviously, or we couldn’t have used them, right? Actually I was the only one with a game, the others had GPS systems and cell phones and satellite stuff and… who knows! But all I had was a little computer game.

So we waited for the rain to let up and it didn’t even slow down until after dark… despite the fact that there were absolutely NO clouds in the sky whatsoever. I mean I could see through the rain and there was just sun and brightness and even a rainbow right outside of the cave, which I thought was rather interesting since rainbows are usually very far off, but I was in a good mood so I could have been imagining it.

(SIGH!)

Anyway, because the rain didn’t let up until after dark it would have been too slippery and dangerous to climb any more or to even go back down. Dan used the cell phone to call the main base and let them know so that they didn’t think we were dead and that we would finish the climb the next day. So we were forced to camp in the cave overnight. I like camping! I used to go camping every weekend in the summers with my dad. It was great, we would always bring an extra can of processed peas and what we would do is…

* * * * * * * * *

That’s enough of that!

Camping in the cave was a really bad idea. Sure maybe not as bad as climbing wet rocks in complete darkness a few hundred feet above flat ground, but it turned out to be bad for us. I thought I heard some shuffling in the middle of the night, and even voices, so I figured the other two guys were… you know… a little lonely!

(“You did? I thought it was you!”)

Hmmm… yeah, ok… anyway! When we got up at dawn, Dan and Joe were yelling about their computer stuff being taken. This idiot slept with his game under his head, so it was still there. But otherwise, all the electrical equipment we had was completely gone. And they accused the two of us with taking it all. Even though we showed them everything we had and it wasn’t there.

“Well,” Dan said, “since we don’t have the GPS or cell phones or anything, we are going to have to climb back down.”

I sighed again, as I’m sure you might have guessed, and we looked outside only to find it was raining again. Without radios or phones we couldn’t call the base this time. So we had to wait for the rain to stop.

And it didn’t!

* * * * * * * * *

And I got bored, as I’m sure you guessed that too. Even then I was rather hyper, but I was especially happy because I had just finally beaten a game I had been trying to beat for months. So, being bored, I decided to go exploring in the back of the cave. Nobody seemed to mind my leaving. Now that I think on it, I think they were hoping the rain would let up while I was gone and they would leave me in the cave.

Oh, well! Anyway… I walked toward the back of the cave and it went back pretty far. There was a tunnel back there and I called this to the other guys. Spaggy must have been as bored as I was because he actually came with me.

(“Only to make sure you didn’t get yourself killed or bring a bear back with you and get us all killed.”)

Well, anyway, he grabbed his lunch and came with me. And the tunnel went back really far and twisted and turned and split and… we got lost!

So we stopped to rest and fell asleep. When I woke up I heard those voices again. This time I was sure it was Spag-man. (sigh) And so I laid real still hoping he wouldn’t come for me! But then I saw what it really was.

It was a squirrel!

A little tiny fuzzy thing…

(“Excuse me, Mr. Boy?

“Yes, Jimmy?”

“Squirrels can’t talk! And they don’t live up in mountains, they live in trees. We have some in our back yard. They are cute and nice and eat the bread my dad throws out for them.”

“Isn’t that cute! Hush!”)

Anyway… these squirrels were little fuzzy things and looked a lot… well, like squirrels. So I am quite sure they were squirrels. And yes, they were talking!

(“They were! And believe me, because I hate agreeing with him.”)

And do you know what they were after? My computer game!

(“AAAAAHHAahhahahahahahaaaa!!”)

Yes, it sounds funny, but they grabbed my computer game and they were gone before I could jump up and stop them. Quick little buggers!

So we tried to go back to the other two guys and we got lost more. But then we found another cave, which was about ten times the size of the cave we were in. It was HUGE! And more importantly, it was FULL!

* * * * * * * * *

Ok, enough of the cryptic crap! It wasn’t just full, it was full of our stuff. And not just our stuff. There were so many computer parts open and lying around and wires everywhere and all sorts of icky mess. And even more strange than that, was that it looked like someone had tried putting together some big kind of thing that was all computery and stuff! I have no idea what it was supposed to be, but it was really big and it looked like a collage of every electronic thing there was in the cave, which was an awful lot! Someone was building something!

Everything was here except Florey’s computer game. So, of course, we had to look for it! So we spent hours digging through all that rubbish and he kept finding all kinds of neat things and I just kept finding junk. There was everything from cell phones to a dismantled and labeled jet engine. And then he happened to notice, up on a large rock, sitting all by itself, a small block of mixed colors.

It was a Rubic’s Cube. I thought absolutely nothing of it, but he seemed to think it was the greatest find. He abandoned his search for his beloved computer game and grabbed the cube and began tinkering with it.

“Fine,” I said. “If you are going to play with that thing, I’m going to eat my lunch.” So I pulled out my lunch bag and sat down. He sat next to me, which bugged me, but I was too tired to say anything.

“Good,” he said, “let’s take a rest. I haven’t played with one of these things in years! I used to be the best in my chess club.”

I sighed. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last time!

So I just sat, eating my spaghetti. I now wish I hadn’t brought spaghetti. Maybe a nice chocolate pie would have made a more interesting superhero. But what can you do?

(“Excuse me, Mr. Boy?”

Sigh! “Yes, Jane?”

“Uh, It’s Theresa, sir.”

“Who cares? What do you want?”

“Um… ok… er… well, I was just wondering why what you ate had anything to do with the superhero you are now.”

“Aren’t you, though? Aren’t you just wondering that?”)

Anyway… I had learned to make really good spaghetti at Happy Orchards. So there I was… with really good spaghetti. And really good spaghetti sauce running down my chin.

And then this moron goes and starts jumping up and down and screaming how he’s going to beat the cube. And I start jumping up and down at him screaming how I’m going to start beating him! And just as I grab the cube to take it away from him, he clicks the last row into place and we are surrounded in light!

* * * * * * * * *

It was a pretty light! It was all white and soft and glowy and…

(“Ok, I’m telling this part!”

“No, I can do it! I’ll leave out the fluffiness!”

“Fine!”)

Ok, so we were surrounded in light and a voice came out of nowhere and said to us from nowhere like it was from a body that was in the middle of nowhere (SIGH!) and it spoke to us!

“You two have called upon the secrets of the mystical Cube of Rubic. I shall grant you both all the powers the Cube has. Take these powers and do good deeds with them so that this world might get a little less screwed up!”

And then funny things happened that I can’t describe and I felt like I was in two places at once and the world kind of went sideways and then backwards, then forwards again and then the other sideways. It was really cool!

(“Made me sick! I had just eaten.”)

And when the light was gone I was wearing this bright yellow outfit, a symbol of the sheer joy I was feeling at the time. My severely good mood at that time was etched in my personality for the rest of my life. I became Effervescent Fluorescent Boy!

And he was wearing that brown and maroon squiggly suit, symbolic of the great spaghetti that was on his mind at the time. And his severely bad mood at that point was etched into his personality for his life. What a bummer!

(SIGH!)

Anyway, I think it works out quite well that way. We balance each other out, like night and day, light and dark, yin and yang, mud and….

* * * * * * * * *

And that’s how we became superheroes! Any questions? No? Good, I… sigh…

(“What is it, kid?”

“Um, my name is…”

“Did I ask? What do you want?”

“See what I mean? Bad mood! All the time!”

“Shut up! Now, what do you want?”

“I have a question, sir. What happened with the squirrels?”

“The squirrels?”

“They were stealing all the computer stuff. What did they want them for?”

“Well, we asked them that.”

“You talked to them?”

“Yes… damn, now I have to tell this story!”)

Well, anyway, as soon as the light faded and we got done examining our new selves, we looked toward the exit of the cave and saw a bunch of squirrels there staring up at us with their jaws hanging open. We were rather shocked at seeing them there so we could do nothing but stare at them too. Then the one in front threw the little computer game he was holding at the ground where it shattered. Florey screamed and bent to pick up the pieces.

The squirrels started talking among themselves, obviously rather peeved about something. I clearly heard one of them saying, “That was supposed to be for us! How could they have got it?”

Whatever he was talking about I didn’t know or care. Florey walked back to me holding the broken pieces of his hand-held video game, looking rather pouty… but not for long as he yelled, “I can fix it!” And he set about doing just that.

Meanwhile, the squirrels were still staring at us, but were silent once again. The one in front turned to the one next to him and said in a low voice, obviously thinking he was being quiet, but not good enough, he said, “Do you think they know what they can do with it? They look pretty stupid.”

“No,” the other one said quietly, “they are definitely stupid! They don’t have a clue what they can do!”

I raised an eyebrow at this, as the front squirrel came closer a bit and said to us, “We would like you to get out of our cave now, thanks.”

I blinked. Then I blinked again to stall for time. I noticed Florey was also staring up at the squirrels, but with a much happier look on his face. He obviously thought he could now talk to animals. But after the fish thing we discovered that others can hear the animals too… we just get the wrong kinds of animals.

(“I knew others could hear the animals after the frog thing, I was just shocked to see squirrels doing it.”

“Well, sorry, I had to endure my bunnies alone!”

“Poor you!”)

Anyway! I looked at them and told them to shove off. “It’s our cave now, buddy!” And then I realized what I said and smacked my forehead thinking how stupid I just sounded talking to a squirrel. But Florey tugged on my cape and I turned and saw that it really was our cave!

All the electronic crap was still there, only it was surrounded by a newly cleaned and refurbished large room with a fine shag rug and a full bar and huge bookcases and a chute to what we would later discover was an underground (further inside the cave) room with all kinds of tools and gadgets and vehicles that we never really use, but which are nice to go cruising in. A spiral staircase lead up to our private chambers, which we use a lot… way too much, we’ve been told. It was definitely to our standards!

I turned back to the squirrels and blew a raspberry at them!

* * * * * * * * *

Ok, my turn, my turn, I haven’t told much of the story at all!

(“Fine!”)

Cool! So there we were, in our own secret mountain base staring down some squirrels that obviously were up to no good. I was feeling rather hyper, being new to my hyperness and all, and all I could think to do was shake hands with the squirrels, because it was just so cool, you know? But Spag-man cut in with a question about why they needed all those machine parts littering our new floor.

“That is our business,” the lead squirrel said.

But the squirrel next to him leaned over to him and chattered a bit in his ear. I wouldn’t have thought I could hear them, but I did. I later figured out that I gained super-sensitive senses in all this, too.

“Hey, boss,” the second squirrel said, “maybe we should use them. The cube only has one use and they got to it before us. Maybe we should use their power to help us.”

The first squirrel seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Ok,” it said. It pointed at me and asked, “Do you think you can make that game you have there into a remote control for a big super laser?”

I blinked. I even felt Spag-man blinking next to me. “Sure,” I said, and set about doing just that. Before Spaggy was done sighing, I was finished.

“Great!” the squirrel leader squeaked. He seemed very pleased, as did the rest of the cute little squirrels. “Now, that jet engine, over there, and all those cell phones… we have a detailed plan for how to put them together into a giant super laser.”

That sounded super neat to me! The head squirrel started up to the engine parts, looking for the plans. “Now the plans show that the combined power of all the cell phones, with all the radio waves they each pump into your heads every time you use them, combined they should equal enough power to shoot a large radio wave at a given target.” He showed me some metal pieces and wires and a large sheet of paper with crude drawings on it. It was definitely a super laser!

“When we reconstruct the jet engine, like so,” it continued, “and then pump the cell phone radio waves through the engine, like so,” he pointed to another illustration, “and add in some condensed GPS and satellite waves, like so,” and he pointed to yet another drawing, “it should combine into a powerful laser-like thing shot out by the engine and carried by the radio waves!”

Spaggy and I blinked repeatedly as we stared at the squirrels and they stared at us, expectantly. And then I picked up a few cell phones and started to put the pieces together. It was exciting!

Spaggy said, “Why would you want to do that?” Leave it to Grouchy, here, to make me stop in the middle of having fun!

(Sigh!)

But, to be fair, it’s a good thing he did. I was so excited that I was about to go build a laser.

(“I discovered later that the plans they had for the laser would have actually worked! With a few minor tweaks, of course, but they would have done it!”)

Yeah, and I was about to build it! But thankfully, my good friend…

(“I wasn’t his friend then, and I’m really not now.”)

… anyway, he stopped me from building it. Good thing he did, because he asked what they were going to do with it once it was built.

“We are going to rule the world,” the squirrel leader said. “Won’t that be fun?” He grinned widely, showing lots of tiny squirrel teeth.

It was the first time we had heard that bit about ruling the world. It wouldn’t be the last, though.

I put the pieces I was working with down and said, “No, I don’t think you can rule the world with a laser.”

“It would be able to point anywhere in the world with that remote control gadget you made. And the radio waves and light waves would let it go all the way around the world if we wanted it to go there.”

“Um, no,” Spaggy said.

Then the squirrels got really peeved! “You will make the laser or else, human!” And we noticed all the squirrels were bearing very large incisors!

(“Mr. Boy, what are incisors?”)

And that’s when Spaggy boy got peeved! I don’t know where he got it from, but suddenly he whipped out this long wet noodle and whipped it around the squirrel leader and grabbed him and pulled him in and then grabbed him with his hands and…

* * * * * * * * *

That’s enough, you’re scaring the brats.

So I grabbed the squirrel and started throwing him around by his tail… stop screaming, you babies… and then I slapped him against a large rock a few times… oh stop crying, you pansies… and then… oh fine!

I picked him up and set him down in front of me and gave him a Time-Out. Happy now? I gave him a good stern talking-to!

Sigh!

And when I was done, the little squirrel was a mess! He was crumpled into a pile in a corner of the cave, twitching uncontrollably. Florey was standing with his jaw dropped, and that made me feel good. I turned to see the squirrel mob with their jaws dropped. That made me feel good, too. Then the squirrel mob closed their jaws and turned their heads toward me in unison. That made me feel not so good.

And that’s when they all attacked! It wasn’t pretty, I assure you.

But, see, I somehow knew that was about to happen and I reached in my tights… damn, that sounds wrong… anyway, I reached in my super-suit… yeah, that’s better… and pulled out Florey’s weapon.

(“I didn’t even know I had a weapon!”)

I tossed him a long bundle of bare wires!

(“What??”)

Yep! A bundle of bare wires! And I had no idea why, it was just what came out. But he grabbed one end and his inner energy flowed through the copper and he swung the wires around and had himself an electric whip!

(“COOL!”)

So we were being swarmed by biting squirrels and whipping them away from us and climbing heroically all over the cavern and piles of stuff. I could almost hear the hero-adventure music! For the first time in a very long time, I was really happy.

It wouldn’t last long!

* * * * * * * * *

Oh, stop being a grouch! It really wasn’t that bad. But then, nothing really is to me, is it? Hmmm….

Anyway, we whipped our way awound… heh, I said awound… I meant to say “around!” Hehe, but with all the W’s I said, it came out “awound!” Hah!

(Grrr….)

Sorry!

Anyway, we whipped our way… AROUND… heh… around the cave and eventually we were fighting back to back. Just like the old-time super-heroes. We were really cooking! It looked like nothing was going to stop us as we snapped and cracked our way through a flock of squirrels!

(“No, bunnies come in flocks! This was a mob!”)

But as we turned to survey the damage we did, after all the squirrels were dropped, we saw we had missed one squirrel. And it was holding some sort of laser. A smaller, hand-held version of the big world-dominating laser. And it was pointed at us. It was so cute!

(Sigh!)

“Ok,” it said to us, “you ARE going to help us. You will help us or I will cook you with this… thingy here!”

We stopped to stare at this cute little thing cutely threatening our lives. I just wanted to squeeze it and pet it, but I thought if I did, it would zap me into dust. So I didn’t! But I did notice its paws.

“Awww… isn’t that adorable?” I said.

Of course, Spag-man looked at me like I was insane (you are) and I just continued to stare at the squirrel. The squirrel stared at me and then at Spag-man, whom it obviously decided posed no threat. So it looked back at me. And I just continued staring at it, while Spaggy just stared at me.

“Fine,” the squirrel squeaked. “You want to play it that way, calling me adorable… ADORABLE of all things!” It seemed rather peeved at this… I didn’t understand, but I’m sure Spaggy boy does. He hates compliments, too. “I will roast you both, now!”

It was so cute the way it said that!

“Ok,” I said, “have a BLAST! Get it? Blast? Have a… never mind!”

So the squirrel just stared at us for another moment.

“Oh, don’t think I won’t! I will! I’ll do it!”

I yawned, which was just for show, because I really wasn’t tired. I’m sure you could have guessed that. But Spag-man just kept looking back and forth between us. Finally he spoke up.

“Are you crazy?” he asked me.

So I nodded and decided to get it over with. I took three rapid steps (as I do, most everything) toward the squirrel. The squirrel panicked, as I knew it would. It tried to squeeze the trigger on the laser, but, again, as I knew they would, its paws slipped around, not being able to grasp anything real well. It almost dropped the laser, but its little claw did catch the trigger and it shot a beam off at some freaky angle that charred a hole in a small rock off in the corner. I quickly reached down and grabbed the laser away from it’s dangerous, yet cute, little paws.

“Bad squirrel!” I scolded it. “Very bad squirrel! You could poke someone’s eye out with this. Or burn a hole right through them. That was very irresponsible of you.”

It looked rather shocked. I don’t think it had ever been scolded or chewed out before. It blinked at me and eventually picked up its jaw and lowered its head in shame. And then it completely surprised both of us by bursting into tears!

“I just wanted to be more than just another dumb squirrel,” it sobbed. “I really wanted to make something of myself. I… I… I… just wanted to be… respected!” Sob, sob, sniffle, sniffle! It was kind of gross.

Spaggy sighed again and rolled his eyes. I admit that I sighed too, and I sat down beside the squirrel and put my hand around his back.

“There, there,” I said around its sobbing and sniffling, “you can be respected without frying the whole world.” *sob* “I know it will be tougher for you, since you are a squirrel…” *sniffle* “…but if you try really hard, you CAN make something of yourself.” *sob*sniffle* “Even squirrels can be great if they set their minds to it!” *sniffle*sob* “You know, you could even be my pet!”

That was the wrong thing to say!

It slowly lifted its eyes to me, head still lowered, and instead of sobbing and sniffling, it was growling. A cute little high-pitched growl that sounded like small motor. It was so cute!

And it spoke again… and it’s voice dropped about three octaves.

(“Mr. Boy, what are…”)

It looked at me and growled, “I am nobody’s pet!” And it ceased to be cute!

And then it bit me. Very hard, I might add! In the arm that was comforting it. And when bad people… or animals… do bad things to good people… or animals… bad things happen to those bad people… or animals… that do bad things.

(“WHAT???”)

When it bit me, it got fried!

* * * * * * * * *

I watched this ultra-wired freak show, here, get some nasty teeth sunk into his arm. It looked like it hurt. It sounded like it hurt, too, from the way he was screaming. And with all the blood gushing out and… What?

Fine… I didn’t even notice the blood so much, anyway. I was watching the squirrel jump! It jumped and spasmed and bounced around and it looked rather unsettling. When it was finally done, Florey pried its blackened smoking jaws out of his arm. Then he dropped the blackened smoking carcass on the floor of the cave. It was kind of gross.

For one of the few times in his new life, Florey was actually drained. I like him better that way. He’s more calm, easier to deal with. And his bite was cauterized.

(“Mr. Boy…”

“Shut it!”)

I checked out his bite and it wasn’t too bad. It bled quite a bit, but as the frying happened it got cauterized and stopped bleeding. There was still a possibility of infection and neither of us had a first aid kit with us. So, for some reason, I felt compelled to check my super suit again. Which I did! I immediately wished I hadn’t, since I found what I was looking for. It was rather disquieting.

So I pulled out the salve (look it up, kid) and put it on Florey’s bite.

(“He was so gentle. I knew he wasn’t such a block of stone on the inside.”)

Whatever! So, then I turned around and all the squirrels that we beat the snot out of were all rushing at us at once. And they actually proceeded to knock us off our feet and carry us out the cave entrance and push us over the edge.

(“Mr. Boy, did you hang on with your spaghetti whip?”

“Actually, no, I didn’t even think of it.”

“What did you hang on with?”

“Nothing, you silly snot! We fell!”

“But you’re still alive!”

*SIGH*)

So we fell. And in our fall, we panicked. And in our panic, we desperately willed ourselves to fly. And in our desperation to fly, we did! We discovered we could really fly, and so we did. First we kind of floated, not really believing it, once reality settled in. But neither of us are big on reality, so we accepted it and flew back up to the cave entrance.

We discovered the entrance was kind of like a stone porch (complete with stone railing) outside the doorway. This was the entryway to our secret base, or, depending on our mood, lush bachelor pad. And the entryway was clogged with gaping squirrels!

There wasn’t too much excitement with that group anymore. We just scooped them up and dropped them to the earth many miles below us. And that was that!

We remembered the rock climbing group we had left behind. Dan and Joe were probably thinking we got eaten by then. So we flew straight up, over the mountain, and then back down the other side. We quickly found the entrance to the cave again and noticed a strange metal construction above it… a large water tank hooked to a large sprinkler. It was a rain machine! Obviously hooked up by the squirrels to get unsuspecting climbers to stop in their cave so they could steal all that computer and electrical equipment. Not bad work!

We turned the machine off and saw Dan poke his head out of the cave as we landed just outside the entrance. He was surprised to see us. Or maybe he was more surprised by our new outfits. Or maybe he was just stoned, who knows?

We flew them back down to the ground, all the while listening to them yell at us for not getting their GPS systems and radios and phones back. It was all I could do not to drop them. Squelching that urge got easier as the years went by, but it never truly went away.

* * * * * * * * *

“And that’s how we became superheroes. Any questions?”

You don’t expect us to believe all of that malarkey, do you?

“Yes, we do, ma’am.”

Well, I’ve heard some screwy tales in my time, especially from these stupid brats, but I’ve never heard such mentally deranged crack head lies like you just told!

“Um… Ma’am? Can you see that we are superheroes?”

I can see that you’re wearing silly pajamas and lowering your voices an octave to sound impressive.

(“What the hell is an octave?”

“Shut up, James!”)

And furthermore, you taught these brats nothing useful. Just a bunch of lies! Just a big tall tale that you have no proof of, and… GACK!

COOL! You fried the teacher!

“Don’t worry, kids! I just zapped her a little. She’s unconscious now, but she’ll have a heck of a headache when she wakes up. And I bet she’ll believe our story, then!”

“Oh, and about that thing about the benefits of a proper education? Get as good an education as you can get! That way you can intelligently fill out your unemployment forms!”

“Bye kids!”

THE END

Teacher played by: Margie Mugface

Brats played by: Genetically Enhanced Laboratory Mice

Dan played by: Joe

Joe played by: Dan

Squirrel Mob played by: Really Fat Mutant Hamsters

Squirrel Leader played by: The Ugly Baldwin Nobody Talks About

Times Author Got Distracted While Writing This: 1,093,728

No animals were harmed in the writing of this story.

Except for the dragon, who got ticked and left, which is why his scene was cut!