Bruce the Duck
Other sections:
| The Characters | The Movie |
Other sections:
| The Characters | The Movie |
Chapter 21: The Real World
Julie and Amy looked somberly at each other.
"I guess we've got to do it," said Julie.
"Yes, for the love of Spam, I guess," said Amy.
They said a quick prayer and teleported to the real world, which was very hard for them, against their instincts.
To become a permanent resident of Blondeworld, one must possess some degree of magical talent, though it was possible for an untalented person to visit if brought by a friend. Amy and Julie, both possessing the talents which allowed them to fly, teleport, move things about without touching them, and a whole lot of other seemingly impossible things, were among the people with the highest status in Blondeworld.
For them, it was exceedingly hard, mentally and physically, to go into the real world, for not only was the astral plane all fucked up and the tide sweeping towards Blondeworld, the girls did not want to go back to the place where they had been thought of as freaks and ostracized since early childhood, when their weirdness became apparent. No one wore piano socks up to their knees! No one liked to wear Spam shirts! No one enjoyed singing "Fish Heads"1! No one wore blue sunglasses! No one had heard of Pimpy the Stud-Mouse! No one still wore the Blind Melon shirt after they had gone out of style! No one liked to write nonsense! No one even understood if you said, "smishenflagglezippy!" to them! They'd just shake their heads at you, or they would shout rude stuff, go home, and shave their cats.
No, Julie and Amy did NOT want to return to the real world, but, as all of us know, there are still some nice people who haven't gone to their respective hair-color lands. And it had been an ass long time since Julie and Amy had seen them.
Chapter 22: The Real World II Julie was shaking.
"Oh, Amy," she sighed. "That tide was strong! What's wrong today?"
"I'm not sure," chattered Amy, trying hard to calm herself. They were in the Real World. It was night.
Julie and Amy were usually extremely confident, almost cocky, but here they were very lonely and afraid. A coyote howled. An owl hooted. A pig snorted. They realized they were in the zoo, the exact place they had meant to land.
Amy heard a sloshing behind her as Yakko the Walrus2 climbed out of the water and regarded her sadly from behind the cage.
"Yakko," said Amy joyfully.
"Buck-meow," said Yakko. He was somewhat of a freak, as were Amy and Julie, who were the only people who Yakko had ever met that could understand him, since, being a walrus, he wasn't able to say anything besides buck-meow.
"Buck-meow," said Yakko. Amy knew he was trying to say, I'm stuck in here. No one lets walruses ride on buses or trains, and so someone took me here. Get me out! Please!
"That's what I'm here for," Amy reassured Yakko.
"Buck-Meow," said Yakko joyfully as Amy appeared inside his pen and shrunk him to put in her pocket.
"Buck-Meow," he said, reminding Amy and Julie so much of Gene + Dean that they laughed loudly and woke Aaron the Giraffe3 up, but they weren't sorry. They would've had to wake him up anyway to shrink him.
There was a time when Aaron the Giraffe and Yakko the Walrus had been known as Aaron and Bryan, and another time when they'd been known as Wakko and Yakko. But Aaron came to prefer Aaron, and Yakko came to prefer Yakko. So they were known as such. Aaron could make his neck longer or shorter, depending on how his tail was cranked. Julie shrunk Aaron, put him in her pocket, and grinned.
Chapter 23: Is That a Giraffe In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me? His back was facing Julie and Amy.
"Herminio," said Julie. "Um . . . ."
"I'm eating shit, I'm eating shit,"4 he said hurriedly. "Go away."
"Umm . . . okay, we'll come back later," said Amy hesitantly.
"I'm eating shit," Herminio reminded them.
Then they came upon Meghan. That was only her alias, though. Her secret, true name was Toadstool5. She sat reading the Enquirer.
"Hello, Toadstool," said Amy happily.
"Hi," she answered. "Wow, this is interesting. Did you know that, up until the age of six, children really DO have two tummies? That's how come they can be full of dinner but still have room for dessert." Meghan chuckled, leaning back against her tree.
Amy and Julie handed her her invitation, and she was immediately very happy.
"And Adam Sandler's there, too," said Julie.
"Adam SANDLER? Wow! I'll go!" Meghan took a couple of deep breaths, looked up, closed her eyes, seemed to flicker for a moment, and then was gone.
"Meghan's getting better," they agreed. Meghan had also always been considered freakish in the real world. People had shunned her all her life, which caused her to stop pursuing the perfection of her teleportational talent. Only recently had she begun to practice the technique again. Once she became a master like Julie and Amy were, she would move to Blondeworld, thus escaping college.
Amy and Julie didn't know Laura6 too well, but they appeared in her bedroom anyway. Laura looked up from her book and screamed. With that Julie heroically lifted Laura and teleported to the outside of her house, where she put her down. Amy held off Laura's family, worried by the scream, with the magic wand and hypmotized them into thinking nothing was wrong and that they could all go back to bed. She followed Julie to the outside of Laura's house, the crisis averted.
Chapter 24: Sorry! "Sorry," said Amy.
"Sorry," said Julie.
"Oh, my God! What were you DOING?"
Amy and Julie turned their backs on Laura, and then they began to argue.
"You tell her," said Julie.
"You tell her," said Amy.
"You did the fun stuff!"
"Well . . . . that's true. Hypnosis is more fun than lifting people. I'll tell her, and you get the food."
"Hey," interrupted Laura. Both girls looked at her.
"I am fed up with this. You guys showed up in my bedroom, after midnight, when no one's supposed to be up—" Laura blushed and looked down, realizing that SHE had been up, but quickly regained herself and met their eyes again, "—and you yank me out of my bed, it's cold out here and I'm in my nightgown, and my socks are wet!" she spluttered. "Who are you people?"
Julie disappeared. She reappeared with a picnic basket.
"Laura," said Amy, "do you know Bruce the Duck?"
"No, I don't know Bruce the Duck!"
"Do you know Pimpy the Stud-Mouse?"
Laura wrinkled up her nose at the thought of a mouse being studly.
"No," she answered.
"Do you know . . . Phil?" Amy asked knowingly. Laura gasped and covered her mouth.
"How did you know . .. about my dreams?" she asked. "I dreamed I was sliding down a magnificent, endless, silken tie, and a man named Phil was telling me that he loved the way I stroked his tie!" She smiled. "He makes me laugh. I wish he were real. How did you know about him?" Laura asked, a frown creasing her forehead.
"Easy," said Julie through a mouthful of apple without skin, the only way she liked it, "he's God of our home, the Blondeworld."
"I was telling," protested Amy. But Laura's eyes had become glazed as the invitation was placed in her hand. She would go.
Chapter 25: Why Do They Call It a Mental Institution If You Only Go There If You've Lost Your Mind? "Wait here," Julie told Laura.
"Mmmm," she replied, still dazed. The thought of meeting her Dream-Tie had her in a state of trippin'.
Julie looked at Amy, and they both shrugged. Then they popped off to the asylum.
Richard was actually a crazy man, but the reason that he was in the asylum in the first place was not because of that. People thought he was crazy for a different reason than he really was. Richard's imprisonment in the asylum was actually all Julie and Amy's fault.
Back when Julie and Amy did live in the hideous Real World, they and Richard had attended Chamberlain High School as sophomores together. Richard was exposed to Julie and Amy's constant practicings and mentionings of their paranormal abilities, and, being the type of person who always told the truth, was not able to keep himself from telling his loved ones about his strange, disappearing friends.
Julie and Amy frequented Richard's house often, but Richard's parents never saw them come in, because they had always teleported straight into his bedroom (with, several times, disastrous results). One day, Julie and Amy took him to India with them, and when he told his parents this, they called the nice young men in their clean white coats. They locked Richard up for imaginary trips, friends, and occurrences, but he was really crazy because, of course, you'd have to be crazy not to lie sometimes. Richard never did.
He sat up in his bed and a grin found its way to his ears.
"I was wondering if you guys were ever coming back!" whispered Richard, conscious of the sleeping inmates around him. "I was beginning to think I really was crazy," he added in a mumble as he put his glasses on. Julie and Amy exchanged a rye look. Then they ate some wry bread. They each grabbed one of Richard's arms (the magic wand, making a sound of 'zonk,' being too loud for immediate use) and left.
Do you actually want to read more of this? Then go on to the next five chapters.
If you're curious about my current skills in the long fiction department, check out the novels in my "current projects" section.
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FOOTNOTES:
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BRUCE THE DUCK PAGE
1: "Fish Heads" is a funny song by Barnes & Barnes. We knew about it from the Dr. Demento albums. [BACK] 2: My friends Bryan, Aaron, and Meghan had adopted as aliases the "Warner Brothers" from Animaniacs: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. When the character representing Bryan was chosen to be a walrus, he still kept the name Yakko. And for some reason Bryan always said "Buck-Meow," a noise like a chicken and a cat. [BACK] 3: Aaron the Giraffe was the Aaron of the above-mentioned Warner trio, but for some reason he stayed "Aaron" when his character became a giraffe. [BACK] 4: Our friend Herminio told us this weird fable that was supposedly known in the Spanish culture, about a guy who ate shit to trick other people into eating shit so he could distract them or something weird like that. I was really amused by the way Herminio told the story, so it became part of his character when he got written into the story. [BACK] 5: I didn't know Meggie very well when she first got written into "Bruce the Duck," but now she's one of my best friends. Meghan's nickname was Toadstool before I met her. [BACK] 6: Laura was a girl some of my friends knew, but she was in the class above mine and I didn't know much about her but we hung out once in a while. She was involved with my boyfriend somewhat during high school. [BACK]