The Land of the Cheddar Monster Vivisectionists

The dummy looked at Kris with a combination of fea (“fear” without the “r”) and diabolic (“diabolicity” without the “i-t-y”).

-No... This means you can’t go to the dentist. I can’t go and you can’t cant -Lindy gimme’d. Lunch was going to be set on fire and probably by that Mr. Madero (now known as the doll formerly under Kris’s control) jackass.

Cody and Alicia took turns giving their hormones a rest, one hormone at a time.

As soon as he knew it, Kris moved from silly plagiarism to cost accounting with a trunkful of tree:

-He... ¿Am I talking through any dummy? -Kris moved his hand and the dummy’s head tilted.

-¡Yes! ¡Yes, I’m alive! I... ¡WAIT! ¡No I’m not! -Lindy declared with the might of the righty.

Barky got loose and poured salt on Lindy’s pies, in an obvious ploy for attention, but Lindy saw that Barky was formerly under the control of Kris.

A pattern was emerging.

-I see this as one gigantic lavatory... ¿right on? -Cody the clueless asked.

-¿What’s another word for passion annex? -Alicia exited with the shyness of a cruise missile.

Ignoring and listening at the same time, Lindy gave Mr. Madero to Kris:

-Take it, it’s yours. You’re a major jackass, but maybe you can control it.

-But, Lindy... -Kris began pulling out his hair.

Lindy looked like a watch:

-¡Oh, no! ¡The party! ¡It’s right now! -She moved her head without moving her neck.

-Baaah, Lindy... -Kris was turning into a lamb.

He had just stopped lapping milk from a lapping bowl when Lindy left.

Pretending that Mr. Madero was a regular dummy, Kris closed his eyes and with it, his cares. He saw dead trees and mucous-laden devils. He saw eyes that had been torn from their clavicles and salted by Barky.

Kris knew what this meant, or at least he was inclined to believe he knew what this meant, but he also thought he knew what it meant that he liked tossing pies into the air. It was like a cake had walked into the middle of his life. And now he was feeling old and crumbled on the patio, nearly out of breath, no one on his side and not much point in living out the rest of his years here on earth.

The sun was late establishing itself and the local cults were taking full advantage of that in this house. The color and pallor of the house’s skin resembled a dead chicken pouring its talons through the window and into the kitchen. Kris could hear his mom in the kitchen screaming in preparation to having been horrified.

Barky let it drop that he was a she. In order to gulp in surprise, Kris had to push several pies into a tool box and color his hair.

-Fucking little dog, I thought he was gay, ¿and now he’s hiding the herring and skinning the mahi mahi?

Although she was only a mirage, you could see Lindy sleepwalking the corridors, with Palmolive walking behind, periodically kicking her ass. With the sunrise now under Lindy’s care, Kris was free to screw up other things and the sun finally came out. But it came out and asked a question:

-¿Who wants skin cancer?

-¡Stupid! -Lindy exclaimed-. ¡Palmolive, fly up and kill the sun!

Kris knew that when he was in charge of the sun the only thing he did was try to harvest its talons.

-Um, okay -Palmolive said.

-I’m just kidding, jackass. Now you kids listen to me and be entertained -Lindy continued, holding Palmolive on her lap-. They’ll be entertained, ¿won’t they, Palmolive?

-You know it, BEE-OTCH! ¡A pox on all of you detestable bastards! -Palmolive declared in a voice that sounded like Lindy with a turtle in her throat.

Kris kissed the hiss of the unemployed stockbroker.

-I’m content having had one good idea in my life -He said, treating reality like it had been burned beyond recognition.

-If you sang a duet with Palmolive you’d have two good ideas. And afterwards, Palmolive’ll bail on you. ¡What a sensation! -Lindy was all peace and love.

“You fucking exaggerated deli-god” -Kris thought with his good arm-. “I can’t envy what I don’t label and put in jars.”

-Everything you have is filed under “talk to the palm” -Lindy continued-. ¿You get it, ¿don’t’cha, Palmolive?

-I get everything but I don’t take it, label it and stick it in a jar -The talking dummy hissed-. ¿Where’d you get such an obsessive-compulsive piece of crap brother?

-¿Would you please watch your manners? Lindy’s gonna lose her twenty bucks

-Kris said, patenting the male molecule for desiring patent leather shoes.

-Twenty five -Lindy corrected-. Amy’s mom said she’d give me five today and twenty tomorrow when she’d have a special project for me. Hey, wait a minute, ¿what’s up with that? ¿Do you know Mrs. Evans? ¿The woman that’s always playing with my hair and telling me to touch her leopard skin pants? She had a special project.., just like Amy’s mom. I’m gonna ask her if she really wants me to entertain at her party or if she just wants me to pet her pants. Wait, ¡she offered me fitty bucks! ¡I’m going over there right now!

-¡Oh, boy! ¡Fifty bucks! -Kris murmured more vainly than lackadaisically.

-Forty for me and ten for you -Palmolive hissed at Lindy.

-¡Hey, I’m the brains behind this dark and sensual business! -Lindy said-. ¡I’m telling Mommy! ¿What has gotten into you, today of all todays?

-¡GREAT! Just when I get to first base with a girl, her mom turns out to be her own, personal Jihad -Kris replied, segueing to Lindy who was in the house-. You know, maybe if I made a pass at Mr. Madero... I... I could put my hand on his ass instead of in. Alicia and Cody know about this kinda thing. And then afterwards, Mom and I will make a Mentos® commercial.

Mean, and with his colitis acting up, Barky stopped acting like a fussy poodle and started acting like a terrier with a bad case of tumbling dog.

-¿Anyone give me five quid for Barky? -Lindy grinned.

-I’ll tell you what you can have -Kris said, detaining twelve snails with outstanding warrants-. You can suck my big algorithm.

Lindy almost had a case of tumbling dog.

-¿Does your algorithm taste good?

-Yes. It tastes just like Mrs. Berman and Beethoven’s Ninth.

Mrs. Berman was their music teacher and was also on the board of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

-¿Can you say something a little more emotionally disturbing?

-Mrs. Berman has been with Mr. Madero and me at the same time and she wasn’t giving us oboe lessons... Well, she did show us what she could do with an oboe, but she told us not to tell -Kris saki’d it to his sister.

Lindy tried spitting it back up.

-¿You two played hide the Fritos® with Mrs. Berman instead of learning the oboe?

-Something like that. Actually, I took her from behind while Mr. Madero was in front -Kris was such a fan of freaking out his sister that he thought of telling her what they did on the cello, but poor Lindy looked like a tumbling dog with no dice.

Lindy tried to breathe and doubled over.

-Great, I can taste breakfast again -She said, disciplining her stomach in the process-. These fucking dummies are so perverse it’s painful.

During dinner, nobody talked about anything except Lindy’s performance at Amy’s birthday party. Lindy and Mrs. Powell blabbed until everyone grew tired of listening. Kris broke into the blabbing, but flailed around miserably until he finally self-ejected.

-The principal thinks you’re strange, and I’m not sure he’s wrong -Mrs. Powell continued, serving up a copious heap of servility-. I can’t believe you like ventriloquism, Lindy. But, at least you’re not having sex with your music teacher on a cello. Because I think that takes talent.

Lindy was crushed like a radish. There was no reason for Mrs. Powell to be hissing at her like a cobra on helium.

-I went to the school library and there was a ventriloquist outside busking for sugar snacks -Lindy said-. That was comedy in itself, and he was playing the cello, come to think of it -She looked right at Kris-. So there are other things you can do with a cello. But I guess I’m just old-fashioned.

-Smile when you say shit like that to your brother -Mrs. Powell said as she ran her hands up and down Kris-. Why don’t you run along while Kris and I talk music.

-I don’t know music -Kris replied and got kicked in the shin by his mom.

In the ensuing silence, Mr. Powell called long distance and asked to talk to God. Lindy exited in the knowledge that she could party with Palmolive. Kris asked if he could leave with her because he and Mr. Madero had a special concert to go to with the music teacher. Dad had promised that Mr. Madero could use his Viagra® for the concert.

After watching some scintillating but disturbing videos with their mom, the two siblings ran screaming from the house. It was 11½ a.m.

Kris prayed to the moon. Lindy prayed to entropy.

The two looked pretty silly, kneeling in the moon light and calling out to their dummies... That and the pies had just started flying.

-¡Oh, no! -Lindy griped, tapping twelve lab rats on their pink ears.

It was a warm night, it was a miserable night, and they were walking out into it to ladle out dummies like otters.

But now Palmolive was so tired she had to sit down to urinate. She had taken off her shoes and hidden lizards in them. She took out a banjo and strummed on it tersely, and, strapping on a banana in her brazenness, began to

-¡L-L-Look! -Kris sounded like a ringtail monkey, but damn if his sister didn’t turn and look in horror-. Mr. Madero... He... -Kris’s voice sat down, but his bowels gave out a gargantuan roar.

Mr. Madero was buck naked and on top of Palmolive. He had his wooden fingers all over her plasticine body and he was coming with a fierceness reserved for erotic asphyxiators.