Chapter 11 read by Mark

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11

The Chewbacca jokes were coming fast and furious: ¿What happens when you start chewing on your back and everyone starts trembling in terror?

¡Chewbacca!

The stick insects had heard enough Chewbacca jokes. Now they were picking at their skins with pliers. And they were making pineapple out of penguins.

They were quite the gigantic experimenters, but they had been demigods. Kelsey couldn’t give a rat’s ass for science or religion.

She had woken to a side of bacon and a desperation that bordered on pulmonary heart disease - and then she started hyperventilating. And then she started barfing, and then she started puking, and then she started decking anyone who tried starting anything.

And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she felt like she had tonsil and encephil itises.

-¡Jesus H. Christ! ¡Agoraphobia all around and I’m pushing penguins!- She exclaimed.

She hurriedly said goodbye to the gorilla - she even said hasta la bye-bye to the stick insects - and then she laid a Cuban cigar out on her bureau.

-¡Uh-oh! ¡Look out! It’s that goddamn pony pied-piper.- A bunch of kids exclaimed when Kelsey went traipsing outside with her bald head and her plastic pajamas.

For the first time in her life, Kelsey seemed humiliated - and water and a Chia Pet weren’t playing parts in it. It was like she had submersed her self in a pool. But the pool wasn’t full of fresh, metered-out water, it was full of giant calamari with giant pinchers and giant picante sauces that tasted part tostada and part terrier.

Albeit a terrier that had been subjected to intense doses of vitamin C. A cab driving terrier.

-¡This tastes tame!- Kelsey said, forcing an end to the paragraph where an end didn’t fit.

-¿And where is that?- Drew asked, reading into the nominative, the predative, and the Santa Maria.

-On a Zamboni full of kibble.- She replied, leaving out the Niña. -I have a Zamboni full of kibble and a jockey full of penguins that both need tasting.-

Drew had no idea. She had no idea to a fault. She had no idea because she didn’t care crap about stupid Kelsey and her stupid soap-on-a-rope syntax.

And she had no idea how many penguins Kelsey had already tasted.

None.

Kelsey knew that if she used her palm, and if she cupped it like a gorilla…

The picante sauce and the pinchers would disappear.

-The amulet isn’t in service right now- A voice murmured like a baby who had just been dissected by a can of shaving cream. -¿What’cha gonna to do about it?-

-We’re gonna go back to the castle and load up on underarm deodorant. You don’t even know what underarm deodorant is, ¿do ya?- Drew sure was getting her ya-ya’s out.

A boy lit up like a hairdresser on fire, and they all lunged at him on general principle.

-¡Look!- Kelsey exclaimed without a hint of alienation, as they approached the castle. Then she started snoring and rolling her fingers and just being a snot-nosed terrier.

Drew wanted to punch Kelsey in the decoder ring. And lance her in the quesadilla.

-¿How could she do that?- Kelsey wanted to know.

She can spit into a cuspidor. She can decide who gets brissed and when and where. She can say who has to be on the Crazy Cart and she can put red X’s on Irene Cara’s butt.

    -- on to chapter 12   or   back to PUNK ASS --