To catch you up, read previous chapters on these blogs:
- Tami Clayton – Chapter 1
- Mike Schulenberg – Chapter 2
- Liv Rancourt – Chapter 3
- Ellen Gregory – Chapter 4
- Richard Monro – Chapter 5
- Kim Griffin – Chapter 6
- Jodi Lea Stewart - Chapter 7
Chapter 8
“No, No, No, I can’t help you save Bikini Bottom. I’m
not buying into any of this,” Twinkle jumped up and down. “La, la, la, la,” he sang as he bounced through
the front door of his house with his hands over his ears, his curly hair bouncing
like a slinky.
“And, I’m not part wooden-headed Juniperian and Earthling. I’m not, I’m not. And I don’t want any part of this weirdness.”
Jupernia ran after him. “Son, listen to me,” she hollered.
“You’re freaking out. Where are you hiding? Twinkle, we have to hurry because
the sappy mist over Lord Lobster’s space ship will only last one hour. Then he
will come after us with a vengeance.”
She followed him through the house exclaiming, “My—oh
my! This hoarding has gotten really bad.”
Twinkle was hiding under the pallets of soap
and other shrink-wrapped items stacked in towering piles in the corner of his
bedroom. She shook her head. Twinkle realized his mother had no idea how bad it
had gotten around their house with his father's obsession.
“I am so sorry, son.” She reached her hand out to
him. “Leaving you was not what I wanted to do, but I have to save my planet
because if I don’t, Earth will be next. And you need to help me.” One of the
spurs sticking out of her back pocket caught on the shrink wrap and tore it
open. Tins of paprika fell to the ground. "What’s this?”
“Oh,
that’s some of the other stuff dad collects. Paprika.”
Jupernia
pursed her lips, put her fingers to her chin and looked up at the ceiling. “Paprika,
Huh? This just might be the answer!” She grabbed Twinkle by the arm and dragged
him to the basement and into Geraldo’s home workshop. He was sitting next to
his workbench, eating a can of the many refried bean cans stored in the
basement, along with his unfinished toys scattered about. He looked up.
“Well,
well, my wife has returned.” He pulled out a bean stuck to his moustache and popped it into his mouth. “Why
have you decided to return to our humble hovel, now, dear? Run out of trees to
climb?”
Twinkle
could see fire flare in him that he hadn’t seen in a long time. His father had grown
some, and was pissed—big time. A fight
was brewing, and he didn’t want to be around when it exploded between his father and mother.
He
felt the vibration in his back pocket and announced, “You two need to talk--alone--and
I need a ground-up-bark-malt to calm me down. I’ll
be in the kitchen.” He grabbed a bunch of maple wood ships and bounced up the
stairs.
He
threw the chips in the blender, added milk and flicked on the blender before opening his phone to the text from his girlfriend, Surnia.
“Crazy here. Need to get
away. Meet me at the park?” He took a big gulp of malt and sighed. His wooden-head disease eased and his head cleared a bit.
He
texted back, “CU there in 5.”
Surnia
always knew how to ease his wooden-head hair, but boy would she be surprised
when she saw his conditioned locks today. He could almost feel her fingers running
through them. He sighed before heading out the door with a plastic tumbler of the remaining maple malt, past the spaceship on his way to meet Surnia.
Meanwhile,
Jupernia had calmed down and told Geraldo the real reason she left him. “We
can discuss this all later,” she said softly as she touched his cheek. “But
right now,” she said with a commanding voice, “we have to hurry and do
something before Lord Lobstar’s minions
break the sap-mist code around their spaceship that is sitting out in the
garden on top of your squash plants.”
She whipped out the can of paprika. “And
this is how we are going to do it. Paprika will deter ants and stink bugs, why
not Lobstar? Come on.” They went upstairs and pulled out her stash of
essential oils which were still in the junk drawer. She chose lavender. “Grab one of the boxes of Sparkle Soap Suds. If this does the trick, it might even smell
better around here. Do you even realize what your hoarding smells like?”
***
What will the concoction do to Lord
Lobstar—will it work to stop this invasion?
Will Jupernia’s idea save Bikini
Bottom?
What exactly is her idea?
Why did Twinkle abandon his mother right now for
his girlfriend Surnia? Will she play a part in saving the planet?
So many questions, so little time.
S.M Hutchins blog, Live Wonderstruck
