RENT-a-Mall
By MarcieCohen
DISCLAMER: The Almighty Larson owns all. I merely mess with his characters.
Chapter 1- Through the Wardrobe
It was winter in the East Village in New York City and to a certain group of residents of an apartment complex on Avenue B, that usually signaled the worst time of the year. It was so cold in the third-floor loft that Angel, Collins, Mimi, Joanne, Maureen, Roger, and Mark often had to wear coats, scarves and gloves indoors. That particular day, however, their landlord and friend Benny had made sure that the heat was working properly as the group celebrated the repeal of their eviction notices.
Benny had just invited them to lunch and they were all very eager to get going. "Hey, Roger," Mark asked, "Have you seen my scarf?" "No," his best friend replied, "You probably left it somewhere. Try the wardrobe over there." Roger pointed to a large carved wooden wardrobe in the corner of the loft's common room. "Why would I have left it in there?" Mark inquired. "Oh, well, guess it's worth a look."
He opened the wardrobe, but it was empty. Mark continued to grope around in the huge wardrobe, looking for his favorite blue-and-white scarf but seeing nothing. When he reached the back. However, what he saw made him gasp in shock.
"Mark?" Roger called. "Mark Cohen, get out here this minute," demanded Maureen. "This is NOT funny!" Roger sighed and climbed into the wardrobe after his friend, guessing that Mark was playing some stupid prank again. When he finally bumped headlong into Mark, knocking off the young filmmaker's glasses, he couldn't believe his eyes either. Staggering a bit from shock, he made his way to the door. "Mimi," Roger said tentatively to his girlfriend, "I think there's a mall in our wardrobe."
Mimi raised an eyebrow, exchanging disbelieving looks with Maureen. "Rog, I hate to say it, but I think you've read The Chronicles of Narnia one too many times," she said. At that moment, Benny burst into the loft.
"What's taking so long?" he asked, ignorant of the "you must be crazy" looks the others were aiming in Roger's general direction. Catching sight of the wardrobe, Benny quickly added, "And where did you get THAT monstrosity?" "It's not ours," Collins said defensively. "You brought is back along with the rest of our stuff." Benny thought for a moment, then remembered. "Oh, yeah. It belonged to some old guy. Dogberry or something like that. I was gonna sell it to an antique shop. Are we going soon or what?"
"Yeah," Roger replied, "Once Mark finds his precious scarf." Roger went back into the wardrobe to find Mark after calling him a few more times and getting no reply.
After Roger and Mark had not reappeared for quite a while, Mimi decided she'd better go into the wardrobe and drag them out herself. The others liked this plan and joined her. To the girls' (and Angel's) delight and the men's (and Joanne's) chagrin, when they reached the back of the wardrobe, they were indeed at the entrance to a huge shopping mall. On the doors in front of them, a logo announced that they were entering the Mall of America.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" shouted Maureen to cheers from Mimi and Angel and groans from the quys and Joanne, "Let's shop 'til we drop!" She pushed the door open and strode inside. She didn't get much further, thouogh, before Mimi stopped short, staring.
