The Toilet Paper Caper — Chapter 14
A Stark Mystery
A piercing shriek filled the room. Someone shut the tea kettle off, please.
“Wha… ?” Why am I on the floor? I must have tied on a doozy. My noggin throbbed and my mouth tasted like old gym socks. To top it off, I could’a sworn I’d been onstage with a big-mouth frog and a pearl-wearing pig in a wig, belting out Ole Blue-Eyes. And it all felt so real.
Slowly, I peeled open one eye. Shards of sunlight stabbed me through said eye. I slammed it closed PDQ, let me tell you.
A dark shadow fell across my face. I snuck a peek. Damn if it wasn’t that ditsy, piano-sitting pig dressed like a chippy. I guess it wasn’t the gin after all. She may have been a doxy, but she meant business.
With a raspy growl, she asked, “Where’s the frog?”
A sharp-toed shoe caught me in the ribs.
“I know you’re awake. Gimme back the frog and no one gets hurt.”
Frog? I rose up on my elbows. Looked around the room. The lab-coat wearing siren slumped in a corner — out of steam. Whipple! Where is he? With the exception of the siren, the diva pig and myself, the room was empty. That lying shuckster lit out on me. Abandoned me here, wherever — whenever — here was.
“I’ll make a deal with you, Doll. You tell me how to get back to my time, and I’ll give your lover-boy back to you. Deal?” At this point, I didn’t care if the entire world had to use mismatched socks to clean their backsides. I was done.
Before the pig could reply, a light flashed in the corner of my eye. A decidedly feminine hand tugged on my collar and the room disappeared.
***
Darling stomped on the clutch as she shifted that Pinto from first to third. I felt the gears grinding in protest, but she popped the clutch and shifted again.
“Don’t worry. They’ll make them out of rubber next year,” I muttered as I grabbed the ‘oh shit’ handle.
“What?”
“Nothing. Wait a minute. I thought we totaled this Pinto?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Are you tripping? Time travel, dude. Time flies in more directions than one. So, what did you learn?”
My head was spinning. Who could I trust? Darling blamed it on this Whipple. This Whipple blamed it on that Whipple. I thought I was caught in a riptide. Who could I trust?
Reaching for the frog in my pocket, my fingers brushed against the scrap of rolling paper. Was I grabbing a piece of something that I thought was gonna last? As I tried to figure out what was more precious, Darling began singing.
Now I won’t say anything bad about her voice, but she was killing me softly with her song.
***
Huddled around the hood of the Pinto, the Big Boy statue throwing shadows across the scrap of rolling paper, Darling and I tried to decipher the code. Even with the extra letters, it made no sense.
I jerked off my trench coat, draped it over my arm, and headed to the door of the diner. By now, I didn’t know where or when I was, but I still needed to use the can.
The frog fell from the pocket of my coat. Darling scooped it up. “What’s this?”
I explained about the pig and the blue guy in the cannon. “I was about to trade him for answers when you plucked me out of there. Not that I’m not grateful for the rescue but your timing sucks.”
Turning the frog over and over in her hands, she gasped. “Of course! It makes perfect sense.”
“What?”
Before she could answer, lights flashed to either side of her. Double Whipples appeared, each grabbing for the frog. Dodging the Whipple boys, she tossed the frog over their heads to me.
As I caught the puppet, she screamed, “Run!”
So I did.
To be continued in Chapter 15
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6
Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12