Duckburg's Bubbling Over With GUM!
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
A rewrite of "The Great Bubblegum Disaster" (Ducktales Magazine spring 1989)with you-know-who left out of it. You left Launchpad out of "Secret City Under the Sea" a rewrite of "Aquaducks", Disney. Turnabout is fair play.
Mr. McDuck, The Trins, Launchpad and I were heading to the grand opening of Duckburg's new bubblegum factory. A foreign investor had designed and built the plant and was running the joint for Mr. McDuck, who owned it.
"I hear this new investor is a very prickly lady and I need to be nice to her. Well, I need more foreign investors, especially designers, builders and inventors! So I'll be nice!" Mr. McDuck said.
And Mr. McDuck was VERY nice to foreign investor lady, a lady duck, dressed in white, with white hair who looked familiar, but NOT in a nice way.
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Tick." Mr. McDuck said, shaking her hand.
"You know what you agreed to do, to start this new factory?" Ms. Tick asked.
Ms. Tick insisted he ceremonally opened the factory by inserting his Lucky Dime into a gumball machine. Or she'd withdrawn her backing from the factory.
"Yes. I put my Number One Dime in this gumball machine." Mr. McDuck said, and did so.
Ms. Tick had told him the gumball machine would immediately return his Lucky Dime.
BUT...
"My Dime didn't come back out! The machine kept it!" Mr. McDuck wailed.
"Of course it did! I planned it that way!" said "Ms. Tick", who then stood revealed as Magica Despell, dropping her magical disguise!
"Hah! I finally have stolen your Number One Dime!" Magica gloated.
And Magica waved her wand and waved good-bye. And then she floated away with the bubble gum dispenser floating behide her.
But Huey took out a good old-fashioned pea shooter out of his shirt pocket and took careful aim.
"I won a medal from the Jr. Woodchucks in accuracy!" Huey bragged.
The marble hit the glass in the bubblegum dispenser and it broke. All the gumballs fell into a vat right below.
"Good work, Huey! The gumballs have fallen into that vat of chicle used to make gum! We can strain it and find my Dime!" Mr. McDuck said.
"Thanks, Unca Scrooge." replied Huey, blushing...and failing to mention that he had actually been aiming for Magica's wand. He had tried to knock the wand out of her hand and missed.
"Drat!" said Magica.
"Launchpad, don't touch that switch." Dewey said, indicting a switch right next to Launchpad.
Launchpad backed away from it, but this gave Magica an idea. She used her magic to throw the switch, to see what Dewey DIDN'T want to happen.
The switch, once thrown, started turning the chicle into bubble gum. Magica chuckled with glee and used her magic to speed up the process. The machine started turning millions of bubblegum balls a minute.
"How are we going to find your Dime in all these gumballs, Unca Scrooge? Chew them?" Louie despaired.
Then Launchpad pulled a different switch on purpose, one that "fed" the gumballs to more machinery.
"Why did you do THAT for?" Mr. McDuck demanded.
"YOU told me that this machinery weights the gumballs. That any gumball that weights too much or too little is rejected, right?" Launchpad confirmed.
"Yes. If a bubblegum ball weights too little or too much, it might be stale or have a foreign object embedded in it...a foreign object! Like my Dime! It has to be in one of the gumballs,and that gumball will weigh more than the others and be rejected! It'll end up in the reject bin! Good thinking, Launchpad!" Mr. McDuck praised.
They all ran for the reject bin. But Magica floated after them, still trying to steal that Dime.
There were a lot more rejected gumballs than there would normally be. The machinery had been working too fast and had therefore made more mistakes than normal. Also, pieces of glass and already-made gumballs from the broken gumball dispenser had gotten into the chicle and thus into the gumballs. These gumballs were immediately rejected. The reject bin was almost full.
Right next to the reject bin, was a machine that made gummy bubbles that was blowing bubbles to celebrate the grand opening of the new factory. Magica used her magic to make it blow billions of billons of bubbles, getting all over everything. Including the rejected gumballs bin. The gumballs got caught in the sticky bubbles and floated away, much to Magica's delight.
Huey took aim again. He hit a lot of bubbles, but there were so many of them! He couldn't tell which one had the Dime; it was inside a gumball someplace...inside a bubble someplace!
His brothers took out their pea shooters and helped. Launchpad grabbed a soda straw from a workman's lunch.
"Excuse me, but I think I need that more than you do." Launchpad said.
And Launchpad used the straw as a pea shooter. Launchpad used metal nuts from his pocket as ammo. And, working together, they popped all the bubbles in sight, at least all the ones with gumballs inside of them.
Magica tried to use her magic to draw the bubbles to them. She made the bubblegum balls as transparent as the bubbles they were trapped in. Seeing which one contained the Dime, she caused it to float towards her. Somebody (I have no idea who) popped that bubble just before Magica could grab it.
Magica tried to grab it, but she lost her balance and fell. She did not have time to use her magic to save herself. And in trying to grab the Dime, she had dropped her wand. Without her wand, Magica had trouble focusing her magic. Worse, she PANICED and could not think stright. She might have died, but my Launchpad (1) grabbed the machine that was still turning out bubbles for all it was worth and aimed it at Magica. Both Magica and the Dime were trapped in bubbles.
Mr. McDuck ran towards the bubble his Dime had been caught in and popped it with his cane. The gumball fell into his hand. He cut it open carefully with a small jackknife and revealed his Dime, safe and sound. Magica then used her magic to go home. She was so embarrassed and humiliated at having her life saved by LAUNCHPAD; she'd had enough for one day.
The End.
(1) Thanks to Disney for having Launchpad save Magica. If you had the sense to do that sort of thing more often, you could make a fortune off of Launchpad. Try it and see. I should LIVE so long. I promise to apologize if I'm wrong.