Move

As Mart was walking down the hall to his room, he heard the sound of Bobby kicking the wall.  He moved to the open bedroom door and saw Bobby tossing and turning in his sleep. Mart thought it looked a lot like when Reddy moved around because he was in doggy dreamland, running, chasing, and playing fetch.

Because Bobby had kicked off his blankets, Mart turned on the bedside lamp to straighten the covers and cover him up against the cold of the night.  But as he watched, he saw a look of terror move across Bobby’s face, as well as droplets of sweat appearing on his forehead.  Suddenly, Bobby cried out.


“Trixie!  Nooooooo!”

Mart reached out an arm to shake his younger brother awake.

“Bobby.  Hey Bobbster.  Wake up.  It is only a dream.”
Bobby scooted away from the arm and moved closer to the wall.  

Mart spoke again.

“Bobby, it’s me.  Mart.  Wake up buddy.  Everythings okay.  It’s just you and me here.  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom, and Trixie is up at Manor House spending the night with Honey and Diana.”


Bobby blinked open his eyes and stared into the light of the room.  “Mart? Is it really you?”

Mart finished straightening the covers.  “Sure, it’s really me.  Who did you think it was?”

Bobby breathed a deep sigh.  “I thought it was Mr. Lytell.  He was chasing me through the woods, because Larry and I saw him with his shirt off.“ 

Mart exploded with a big laugh. “Well, I admit that Old Man Lytell is strange, but the image of him with his shirt off takes the cake.  Hmm.  You know, you had a pretty big piece of cake while you watched that old science fiction movie tonight. Maybe both of those gave you nightmares.  But that was just a dream, and everything is fine.  You need to go back to sleep now.”

“No Mart, it is real.  Don’t you remember when you were late for curfew because of those strange green strawberry looking lights on the sky?  You said that Mr. Lytell came out of the woods and told people to go home because there wasn’t any spaceship?

“In my dream,  Mr. Lytell was talking to someone else, someone named Great Pubah and he was saying that if this Pubah guy  would just tell him why they had to get the strawberry pop to Trixie, then maybe he could come up with better ways to make the transfer.

“Mart! Then I saw Trixie talking to Daddy.  She said that he needed to talk to me because I realized that Mr. Lytell is an alien and that soon I would figure out that the Strawberry Pop is the Brides Price to marry her off to that Pubahtosis guy.”

“Bobby that does sound like a horrible dream, but it was only a dream.  You know that Trixe isn’t going to marry anybody for a long time, and when she does, it will be Jim and he will protect her from everything including space aliens.  Now settle down and go to sleep.  Morning will be here before you know it.”

Mart?   I thought you said that the other people watching the light on Glen Road that night were afraid it was some strange fire or explosion or something.

“So why did Mr. Lytell come out of the woods and say there wasn’t any spaceship?  And what is a Bride's Price?”

Scales

I recently polled the participants at Jix about whether the men in our Sleepyside lives have hairy chests or not.

One response was along the lines of, “...Mr. Lytell,..really don’t want to go there.”, which resulted in “I think Mr. Lytell was really an alien, so my guess is that he has scales, not hair.”

So without further prompting, I had the following bit of inspiration.

Trixie was watching the various dust motes dance in the hot air stirred about by the air of the ceiling fan.  With a sigh, she acknowledged to herself that the dusting would not be successful until she turned off the fan and vacuumed the accumulating dust off the blades.  As  she turned to get the vacuum out of the broom closet, she glanced out the front window.

Suddenly one of the Lynch twins burst into view, turning from Glen Road into the Belden driveway and running like his very life depended on getting away from the monster chasing him. He didn't even stop to knock, he just burst through the front door and dove behind the sofa.

Trixie stood and watched for a minute before kneeling on the sofa cushions and leaning over the back of the sofa.   She saw one of Diana’s younger twin brothers and finally identified him as Larry due to the adherent earlobes on the side of his head.  She continued to watch as he lay on the floor trying to catch his breath.  

Larry finally looked up and asked, "Where is Bobby? Is he here? I have something mega-awesome to tell him."

Just as she was about to answer, Bobby walked into the living-room. "Trixie? I thought I saw Larry running this way. Did he not come into the house?"

Trixie just directed Bobby's attention to the sofa. Larry stuck his head out, and with eyes full of terror he said, "Bobby! You were right about Mr. Lytell! I was just in the woods behind his store. It looked like Belle had been injured on her fore-leg somehow. Anyway, Mr. Lytell took off his shirt to use as a bandage on her leg.

"Bobby! He doesn't have skin, he has scales!

Bobby, hooted!  “See, I told you he was an alien!”

Trixie burst out with nervous laughter. “Scales?  Alien? Mr. Lytell?  What are you two running on about.” Bobby and Larry both began talking at once.  

Bobby said, “Trixie,  he has to be an alien.  The movies make it seem like aliens will be strong giant bullies able to bend us to their will.  But the internet says that aliens aren’t likely to be some super human mega strong race.  That as a scientifically advanced culture,with the technological proficiency to be space explorers there won’t be any need for brute strength.”

Larry interrupted, “Yeah, because of their brains making them smart, they don’t need muscles to beat us.  And they probably don’t eat meat either because they don’t need the protein.  Have you ever seen Mr. Lytell eat meat at any of the Thanksgiving Open-Houses?

Trixie fell down on the sofa, laughing so hard that she started crying.  “You dweebs have been watching way to many sci-fi movies.  If you can’t come up with anything better than to talk crazy like that, then I am sure Moms has some chores that you can do to get your minds out of the clouds”  Trixie stopped and cackled with laughter again.  

Later that evening, Trixie knocked firmly on the door to her father’s Den.  “Daddy, can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure Princess, what’s up?”

“Daddy,  I think it is time that you have a talk with Bobby. He has popped to the idea that Mr. Lytell is an alien.”

Peter Belden sat up in surprise.  “Does he know anything else?

Trixie rolled her eyes.  “No.  He is mostly comparing movie fiction to real life and making wild accusations.  Still,  it is getting more and more difficult to hide the truth from Bobby and Mart.

“If we don’t watch out, Bobby is liable to figure out even before Mr. Lytell, that all that strawberry pop is the Brides price that you are being paid to marry me off to the Great Pubah of Pubahtosis so we can accomplish an alliance between our two worlds.”

03/28/2014 Prompt: Alien encounters and UFO sightings / Believers vs. Nonbelievers

Bobby, Larry and Terry ran up the wooden steps of the country store.  They opened the old screen door and let it slam behind them with a bang.  The boys went to the soda cooler and pulled three bottles of pop out of the ice.  After opening the bottles with churchkey attached to the cooler on a chain, they went to the counter to pay for their treats.

“Hey, Mr. Lytell.  Why don’t you think that bright light in the sky last night was an alien space-ship?  

Larry, Terry and I were sitting out on the roof watch-ing it when Mart got home from his date with Di.  He didn’t get home until two thirty and he missed curfew, but he told Dad that he was standing on Glen Road with a bunch of other people watching the colored lights hovering over the Preserve.  He said that it looked like a giant revolving green strawberry and that he stayed until you came out of the Preserve and told everybody that they should go home because there wasn’t any space ship.”

“Pshaw Bobby!  I don’t know why everyone was getting upset over nothing more than some colored fog.  I imagine the fog was getting a reflection from that Auroa Borealis light stuff from the North Pole. 

The three of you have been watching those space alien movies again and letting your imaginations run away with you.  You three get along home and find something constructive to do to stay out of trouble.

Oh, and tell that harum scarum sister of yours, that I just got three more cases of that awful Strawberry Pop stuff that she likes so much.  She needs to get down here and take it off my hands.  Now go on, get along with you.”

He watched the boys run out of the store, and then he closed the door and turned the Open sign to Closed. He returned to the counter and pressed two unmarked keys on the old hand crank cash register.  A shim-mering portal opened and he was able to see three strange beings in the wavy image.

“Oh Great Pubah, with all due respect, you need to realize that these people aren’t all that stupid, and their progeny such as the youngest Belden that was just here, are particularly able to put two and two together and get all the facts right more often than not.  We need to be much more careful in making the transfer of the Strawberry Pop.  I really wish you would tell me why it is so important to get the stuff to that girl.  Maybe then I could help figure out better ways for the transfer.  

Anyway,  it is high noon now, and I doubt that anyone will see your lights with the sun shining so bright, so now is as good a time for your interspace transfer as we are likely to get.  Until next time, Long Live Pubahtosis!”

Elsewhere, Bobby finished his soda and started tossing the bottle from hand to hand.  

“Hey guys, we know a lot of old people.  There is Old Brom, and Mrs. Vanderpoel, and Mr. Maypenny.  I have never heard any of them talk quite like Mr. Lytell does.  He talks funny but you can tell he is super smart, and I have never seen him eat meat, not even at the Thanksgiving Open House.  

And now he is trying to convince everyone that those lights last night were nothing.

I tell you guys,  Mr. Lytell just has to be an alien!”

03/16/2014 Prompt: Someone is snooping around and finds something disturbing ....

Our scene opens to a view of our heros, three boys about twelve years old, walking down Glen road.  

Bobby, Larry and Terry were having fun quoting script and acting out parts from their favorite scenes of the movie they had just seen at the Cameo.

Bobby kicked a rock down the road.  “Do you guys figure that such a thing could really happen?”

Larry shoved Bobby aside to be able to kick the rock next.  “Sure.  Why not?”

Terry took his turn and kicked the rock up on the porch of Lytell’s Store.  “Hey, lets get a drink”

After selecting and paying for their drinks, they leaned against the counter to continue their discussion.  After a long sip Larry said, “Well you know, I was reading an article on the ‘net’ the other day.  It said that they would be aggressive.  They would have to be, to fight to get here. They would also be explorers and snoop around kinda like Trixie.”

“You calling my sister an...?”

Terry shrugged.  “Hey, I’m not sure the ‘splorin she does with Jim counts.”

Larry broke in, “They are supposed to have super intelligence.  I’ll give Trixie points for being smart and being able to figure out mysteries, but she can’t work her way out of a paper bag when it comes to math.”

Bobby countered, “And you can?”

Larry continued, “All the movies make them seem like strong giant bullies that are bigger than us and able to bend us to their will.  But the thing on the net said that once they reach the level of technological proficiency required to be space explorers, there won’t be any need for brute strength.  It said that a scientifically advanced culture would no longer require physical strength to manipulate its surroundings.”

Terry tossed his soda bottle in the trash and the three boys headed for the door. “Yeah, and she eats what we eat.  The article said that they would be more like vegetarians than they would like carnivores.”

As the boys continued to kick the rock down the road, Bobby asked, “You know, Mr. Lytell is a snoop and always nosey like Trixie.  Have you ever seen him eat meat?  He fits all the other things you said.  Maybe he’s an alien.”

01/26/2014 Prompt: Cheese

"Oh Cheese it!

"I have been stuck on this back-country road for over 21 years now. I know the great Pubah on Pubahtosis is all seeing, but for gosh sakes, I wish he would explain just exactly what I am supposed to be watching that nosey irksome little girl for. 

"I have reported every time she has solved some sort of mystery from finding that red headed run-away, to catching the gun-runners, not to mention those earthbound aliens trying to get that ugly wooden idol from her. You would think for someone who is so good about sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, that she would have stumbled by now to the fact that I am IIMM. To civilians, that would be International and Interstellar Man of Mystery.

"Surely her father the banker, or the millionaire neighbors have enough money sense to question the productivity of this old store. Most people of even average intelligence would question the old cash register and the old balance weight scales. Pubah has to be mistaken about her importance to Pubahtosis’ future.

"But here I sit, putting on a good show of cantankerous gossip so I can keep up with anything and everything that is going on. It is getting really old having to make it look like I am making enough of a living to support myself all the while obeying my orders to keep a good stock of that awful red pop in stock for her. 

"Hmmf, maybe she is converting it, by cutting the cheese, into special noxious fumes that will fuel our space fleet so we can conquer this universe."