Escape from the Drooling Octopod! (4 page)

Suddenly, small pink creatures that looked like babies with tiny wings began to flutter around them. “They're pink cherubs,” said Captain Bruzelski. “You know, like you see flying around in old paintings or on wrapping paper for baby showers. Oh, they're so cute,” she said as she reached up to tickle one of them.

Before the Star-Fighters could politely refuse, the little cherubs were serving them all kinds of candy plants, along with large cups filled with fruit punch from the river.

“Tastes like candy!” they repeated as they feasted on the dif-ferent candy-flavored plants. Not too surprisingly, plants that looked like pink cotton turned out to taste like cotton candy.

Beamer noticed that for some reason they were all talking and acting more like their kid selves than their Star-Fighter characters.

A cherub with a crew cut scooped some pink mud into little cups for the Star-Fighters. It felt and tasted like soft-serve ice cream — peppermint flavored, of course.

MacIntyre turned to see Bruzelski take a bite of what looked like pink cauliflower.

Noticing that he was staring at her, Captain Bruzelski said, “Tastes like white chocolate. Honest.”

The little cherubs began dancing wildly. Some appeared with heavy-metal band instruments and started playing while others danced.

Ives covered his ears and burped loudly. “What I wouldn't give for a french fry.”

“What did you say, Ives?” asked MacIntyre, unable to hear anything above the band. “I don't suppose there are any rice and beans around here?” he asked as one of the creatures flew by. “I'm all sugared out.”

“Me too,” shouted the captain, who apparently had the best ears in the team. “I never thought I'd say this, but spinach is beginning to sound good to me.”

“Yeah, I could even do with some okra,” said MacIntyre. Yep, his sweet tooth was definitely getting worn out.

Little bumps began to appear on either side of those pink cherub heads, and their eyes started shifting up toward the top of their heads. All of a sudden, they looked more like Kermit the Frog than flying babies, except that these guys were definitely not as nice as Kermit.

As their pudgy little faces twisted into evil smiles, the creatures marched toward the Star-Fighters, tossing pink, candy-flavored items into their mouths like they were cherry bombs.

The Star-Fighters ducked and yelled for them to stop. The bombardment only got worse. MacIntyre finally stopped trying to say anything, since every time he opened his mouth, he'd get a mouthful of candy. That strategy was flawed, however, by the fact that when he didn't open his mouth, his face and uniform would get another coat of gooey or sticky morsels.

“Back to the ship!” the captain shouted as she ducked under a barrage of cauliflower. The little bumps on those cherub heads had now become full-fledged devil horns! They were goblins, not cherubs, and were tossing candy veggies like machine-gun fire at the fleeing Star-Fighters.

5

Mission Abort!

The Star-Fighters were so stuffed that they were chugging more than running. They ducked to evade candy potatoes, celery, and artichokes. By the time they got to the ship, their uniforms were a sticky, candy-coated mess.

Lieutenant Ives pelted one goblin with cans of sauer-kraut from their food rations after the goblin lobbed some candy squash at him.

The captain, meanwhile, battled another goblin who was tossing candy lettuce and broccoli at her. She finally took a broom and swatted it out the door. “Hit the thrusters!” she cried when she finally secured the door.

The little goblins, now numbering in the hundreds, continued to bombard the ship with sugary vegetables.

“Hey, that stuff is eating through the hull!” yelled Ives.

“Lieutenant, activate the stickeyon matter gummerupper — now!” the captain shouted.

For once, they seemed to have the right weapon. Something like a shock wave bolted from the ship, and the goblins suddenly looked like they were wrapped in bubble gum.

Meanwhile, Commander MacIntyre wiped the candy muck off his fingers and again punched the engines. They zoomed into the pink sky and sighed in relief as the pink planet shrank behind them into the black cosmos.

Feeling very stuffed from the sugar attack, Ives tried to stifle a belch. It didn't work. His burp created a world-class atmospheric disturbance. That was because not only Ives, but MacIntyre and Bruzelski as well, belched at the same time.

They were lucky the ship didn't blow up. As it was, the ship bounced back into the tree, the windows burst open, and most of Murphy Street was gassed with something that smelled like sour peppermint.

Luckily, when their uniforms dissolved back to their everyday clothes, the candy muck dissolved with them. Beamer couldn't imagine how he would explain being candy coated to his parents. He had a feeling it was going to take a while for the peppermint smell to fade, though.

That night, Beamer couldn't eat the pink Jell-O ring his mother made for dessert. She looked puzzled. After all, he'd always liked it before. The next morning, when his sister came into the breakfast room wearing not only her pink Nikes but also pink jeans, Beamer couldn't handle it. He ran from the table and skidded into the bathroom. What happened next is up to your imagination. Hopefully you're not reading this during dinner.

Beamer was relieved when he was finally on his way to school, but he stopped halfway down the street.

“What's the matter?” Scilla asked, with Michael acting as her echo.

“Well, there's way too much pink in my life,” Beamer said, “and I've got a feeling it's because of the girl in the Pink Palace.”

That's when Scilla noticed that they were standing in front of the girl's house. “Oh, no, you don't,” she said. “I got a glimpse of her in that picture. She's a girl — a real girl who wears frilly dresses and probably primps, giggles, and talks about her hair all day.”

“Come on, Scilla,” Beamer argued. “You're as much of a girl as she is, whether you want to admit it or not, and if she needs help — ”

“Not a chance. There are girls, and there are girls. That subspecies of
Homo sapiens girlus
has always given me a lot of trouble, so if you want to help her, you'll have to do it without me.” With that she whirled around and stomped on down the street.

“Scillaaaaa!” Beamer called after her. He heaved a huge sigh and stumbled on toward school.

For the next three days, Scilla angled her nose at two o'clock and walked to school by herself. Ghoulie set up dentist appointments and extra-credit P.E. assignments for himself. Since Ghoulie hated both dentists and P.E., Beamer figured he hated Beamer's crazy idea even more. For that matter, the last thing on planet Earth that Beamer wanted to do was to ask some girl to come out and play. So, for the time being, all rescue operations connected to the color pink were strictly “no go.” It didn't take long for things to change, though.

Beamer was in the school cafeteria trying to decide if his meatball lunch would make a good weapon of mass destruction when Scilla and Ghoulie suddenly appeared across the table. Neither of them looked well. Their hair was all scraggly, and they had dark shadows around their eyes.

“We've been cursed,” said Scilla.

“Not cursed,” said Ghoulie, rolling his eyes, “just psycho-logically dissociated due to residual guilt-driven stimuli in the hippocampus.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” asked Beamer, shaking his head in bewilderment.

“Well the hippocampus is the region of the brain which — ”

“We've been having pink dreams,” Scilla said, interrupting him. “Three straight nights of them. One thing's for sure,” she added, “I hate anything pink and sweet so much now that I'll probably be having fewer cavities for a while.”

“Yeah,” said Ghoulie. “Those pudgy little pink cherubs we met on the planet have gotten into our heads.”

“Cherubs . . . nothing!” said Scilla. “They were goblins, plain and simple. We've gotta do somethin' about that girl before we all go crazy!”

“What the heck are you talking about?” asked Ghoulie. “We don't even know if there's anything wrong with her! I'll put my money on going back to the pink planet and blowing it up!”

“Somehow, I don't think blowing things up is what the Star-Fighters are all about,” Beamer said with a put-down grimace. Of course, he liked shooting up things as well as the next guy. In video games, you could be a hero or a bad guy with no pain and no guilt. You just had to keep from thinking about the fact that real shooting was all about pain and guilt without the advantage of extra lives.

“Things happen to us for a reason,” Beamer insisted, “at least things connected with the tree ship. Remember when we almost crashed on the space platform?”

“Yeah, so what?” Ghoulie answered.

“Well, right after that we met Solomon Parker, whose whole life was a wreck, with broken inventions and abandoned projects everywhere around him.”

“So you're thinking all these pink attacks, dream-wise or otherwise, have something to do with that girl in the pink house,” Ghoulie grumbled, regretting the words as he said them.

“You're right, though,” Beamer said, looking at Ghoulie. “We've got no idea what's goin' on with this girl. I mean, is she locked in and made to scrub floors like Cinderella?”

“For all we know,” Scilla chimed in, “she may be allergic to everything and has to live in a glass bubble.”

“Or maybe exposure to the smog-infested atmosphere has changed her into a drooling, bloodsucking, pink octopus,” said Ghoulie, dipping into his taste for Saturday-night 1950s horror reruns.

6

First Contact

Scilla was in a mood to spit nails. They'd watched the girl's house for a week without seeing her come out once. They'd seen the lady with the pointed nose and a tall, dark-haired man going and coming, but no girl. So Scilla had been elected to go to the girl's front door and ask if she wanted to play.

Holy tamole!
thought Scilla.
The fact that I'm a girl has
nothing to do with why I'm the one who has to knock on the
door of the pink castle. Beamer and Ghoulie are just like the
cowardly lion when it comes to girls. Of course, they didn't
think of me as being a girl.
That was sort of good and sort of not, although she wasn't exactly sure why.
The
frilly girl will probably want to play hopscotch or dress-up or
do something with paper dolls. She might even try to steal
her mother's makeup and give me lips the size of a billboard. This is crazy! They even talked me into wearing a dress! Talk about humiliation. If it weren't for those stupid pink
dreams — drat it all!

Scilla huddled up tight next to the gate, hoping no one would see her in a dress. Beamer and Ghoulie were standing back a few feet, snickering. Scilla gave them a searing look and pushed the call button.

A few seconds later, somebody answered, “Hello, may I
ahsk
who is calling?” Scilla recognized the voice of the woman with the pointed nose.

“My name is Scilla Bruzelski and I was wondering — ”

“Yes, Ms. Bruzelski,” the voice interrupted her, “and what is
yoah
business?”

“I just wanted to see if . . . uh . . . your little girl could come out and play?”

“What?” the voice said as if Scilla had asked for the family jewels. “How did you know a little
gahl
lived
heah
?”

“Well, I was here the other day when Beamer — that's Beamer MacIntyre — dropped off some papers from school for her.”

“Oh, yes, I see. Uh . . . she doesn't play . . . uh . . . outside — ”

“Then can I come inside and play with her?” Scilla asked, feeling like she was making the ultimate sacrifice.

“Uh . . . no. She doesn't play. I mean, she isn't allowed to play with
strangahs
— with anyone.” The woman sounded a little rattled as she went on. “You see . . . uh . . . she's . . . uh — I mean, she's a special child and . . . uh . . . not allowed to play with anyone.”