Chapter 20
Guess who's Bad! Who's Bad? I'm Bad!
Something felt very odd Marge Simpson admitted, very, very odd.
On the table was a newspaper the Springfield Times, the front page read. Green Face strikes again! Nothing very unusual about the paper itself or the headline, it had been the picture that had grabbed her attention the moment it was delivered. It was of an adult female Green Face. Marge had heard of kids growing up fast these days but that was ridicules, Green Face had gone from about Lisa's age to about Marge's own age in a day, and that was impossible. But as she thought about it Green Face had also changed gender and age before so who's to say he couldn't become an adult female either, why he'd want to do that Marge didn't know but it said to her that Green Face was a very disturbed individual.
There was a connection forming in her head, but her brain, having had years of practice being a stubborn mother and wife, refused to allow it to complete that connection and tried to block it further out by getting on with some household chores.
Hours later she became concerned with a loud amount of banging coming from above and a lot of commotion, undoubtedly from Bart and Lisa fighting again. A quick shout upstairs from their mother seemed to have calmed them down though.
As she went back to her house work however she was stopped by the door bell ringing. She answered it wondering who would be calling so late at night and was surprised to find Homer standing there very pale skinned swaying on his feet before falling down to the floor in a heap. Behind him was a tall, stern faced looking paramedic who looked like his patience had already been exhausted. Behind him parked at the road side was an ambulance.
"Are you Marge Simpson?" he asked, to which Marge nodded. "We've brought your husband home."
"I thought you were treating him?" Marge asked looking at the obviously intoxicated Homer as he slowly dragged himself along the floor into the house. "And, if you don't mind me asking why did it take so long to send him home?"
"We did treat him, we hooked him up to the stomach pump and pumped his stomach" Marge nodded taking this in "Then when our backs were turned he flipped it into reverse and filled himself almost at bursting point." Marge didn't really want to hear that part. Homer didn't like hospital food but she didn't expect him to go so far not to eat any.
"But he didn't eat that much did he?" Marge said a little embarrassed by her husband's behaviour.
"Mrs. Simpson we used that machine to pump the stomachs of several other people before your husband." Marge would rather have not known that specific detail. "It took us three times as long to pump his stomach again..."
"Okay, I get where this is going" Marge said in a hurry, she was only just recovering from a morning of her head down the toilet herself, she didn't need anything else that'll upset her stomach again. She turned to see Homer laying on the floor unconscious "But what's wrong with him now?"
"A friend of his came in and gave him a few presents, Barney Bumball and he didn't bring grapes." The paramedic said dropping a squashed six pack of beer cans onto the floor still in the plastic wrapping and each printed with the word Duff.
If Marge wasn't so used to being embarrassed by her husband her cheeks would be glowing bright red with embarrassment, but as it was she could only look slightly embarrassed. She apologised to the medic for Homers behaviour and let him get on his way.
Marge turned back to her husband who was now sleeping peacefully on the carpet his mouth slobbering a little as he snored. He'll hibernate until morning now Marge realised and so decided to let him sleep there while she got on with the rest of the house work.
It was as she passed the TV area that she noticed something else odd. She'd turned the TV on earlier because she liked to listen to the news while doing her morning chores. But unfortunately having slept for most of the day she missed the morning programs and the afternoon programs so she was just in time to see the evening news.
The show was 'Channel six news with Kent Brockman' who appeared to have had a reverse face lift or something because his face was really sagging.
That's odd Marge thought, that funny image of Kent had stirred a faint memory in her mind. It was a memory of her putting her hand behind Kent's head, removing a sort of clip and seeing his face drop like it was melting. She was going to push this memory aside as another hallucination when Kent suddenly mentioned the words 'robbed' 'jewellery Store' and 'Copacabana' and more memories seemed to stir in her head. She recalled being at the Copacabana but she also had memories of being at a jewellery store a few hours before. She turned back to watch the rest of the news broadcast.
"...Green Face, now in an adult female form, appeared to have sexual powers to command people what she pleased of them. Not satisfied with robbing a jewellery store she then went on to disturb the public at the Copacabana, and then with the residence of the club under her new powers she commanded them to tear down and destroy a local video store that was soon to release the expansion pack to Springfield's most popular video game Grand Theft Scratchy IV."
Okay, maybe this was just a coincidence that Green Face kinda looks like her and they were both there at the Copacabana at the same time, but a sinking feeling in Marge's stomach was trying to tell her otherwise but she used her stubbornly mother/wife like ways to push it away so it didn't manifest itself into a thought.
"Green Face though caused destruction also entertained as she and her controlled mob sang and danced to her own version of Chain Reaction, a song originally sang by performer Diana Ross."
The picture changed to a view of female Green Face singing and dancing to chain reaction with her mob. The ridicules thought Marge's brain was trying to have was obviously wrong, because she could never sing or dance like that, not that well, not to save her life. But she was curious why she couldn't see the familiar puff of blue hair in the background picture that signified where she was. Maybe she left early, maybe she...
"So far Green Face has morphed his form more often than Doctor Who. Viewers may remember the pictures of the four faces of Green Face."
A picture came up on the screen showing the adult Female Green Face that looked a little like Marge herself, then that picture switched to the little, child female Green Face that looked a little like Lisa which was followed by the boy Green Face that looked a little like Bart, then the adult male Green Face that looked a lot like Homer but with plastic hair. Seeing them individually she hadn't noticed the resemblance. The next picture had all four of them together.
Her brain was going into denial at first, a mental barrier to stop these thoughts penetrating her brain, but that barrier was slowly starting to crumble when she looked at a picture mounted on top of the TV which showed the whole Simpson family, Bart, Lisa, Homer and herself holding Maggie. Looking between the picture and the TV the four family members looked very even more similar to the four faces of Green Face, in fact no they looked a lot similar, so similar they could be the same people.
In her denial to accept what she was thinking she started idly playing with a ring around her wedding ring finger. But the ring she was rubbing was not her wedding ring she realised, her wedding ring was there, tight as a drum, it had never left that finger for years, what she was feeling was a ring just in front of that one and it had a stone set into it. Marge looked down and saw the gold ring with the dark red shining ruby on her wedding ring finger. Okay maybe Homer got her that ring for her birthday, yeah maybe that was it.
Get real said a voice in her head Homer bought you a bowling ball called 'Homer' for your birthday, remember.
What the hell is going on around here? It wasn't often Marge cursed even in her own mind but something was really wrong here and as she thought harder the memories of last night were getting clearer. She did remember singing and dancing to Chain Reaction, and she remembered Green Face being there. What she wasn't expecting though was to be seeing these events through the eyes of Green Face herself. Singing dancing, ordering the destruction of the video store, it all started flooding back into her mind and it was her doing it all. This was too much, she had to sit down.
Leaving the TV to chatter to itself Marge entered the kitchen, quickly pulled a bottle of wine from the wrack next to the microwave, took a glass out from a cupboard and quickly poured herself a glass of wine. It wasn't brandy but it would be good enough for her.
Taking a swing and swallowing she felt her senses sharpen slightly and her mind cleared of what she was thinking. Except for one image, the earliest image she could remember of that night before the weirdness started. She remembered the wooden mask.
As the paramedic walked back to his ambulance he was stopped by the form of a small boy who he could swear wasn't there a few moments ago. He leapt back at the sight of Bart Simpson still wearing the Mask who had an expectant look on his face.
"Hey, nice of ya to bring Homer home" he said in that odd sounding voice the Mask seemed to grant him "But tell me, why didn't you do anything cool to him? Like give him a sheep's stomach, sow up his mouth, chop his hands off, hell even give him one of those cool steel claws? You didn't even operate on him properly!"
The paramedic took a step back with a look of horror on his face as he recognised the face. "G-G-G-G GREEN FACE!" he screamed pushing past Bart, leaping into his ambulance, starting up the engine and racing off at almost twice the speed limit.
Bart just watched him vanish into the distance a look of disappointment etched onto his face. "I've heard of Dr. Doolittle" he said in a cockney accent "that must be Dr. Doo-bugger-all." For a moment he considered racing after him and causing a little cartoon style mayhem like he sees in cartoons, but the weight of all this gold in his pockets reminded him of the mission he was given, and like all eleven year old boys he was going to treat this mission like a game. If he can get rid of all these objects in less than ten minutes then he wins, if not, well he still wins because it's his game.
Swinging his arms around he forced himself into a rapid spinning tornado before racing off towards town.
This was just incredible, so incredible it was almost indescribable. It was great to be back in the saddle –or back in the Mask-, it felt like he'd just been grated the best freedom anyone could have. The freedom to do whatever you wanted, cause whatever mischief you liked and with the powers to indulge his every whim and desire and to hell with the consequences.
Okay, checklist, he thought mentally, 1 get rid of gold bars, 2 return jewels and 3 go to the police station and stop the forensic tests.
He wanted to question himself, ask why the hell should I do what Lisa wants? But for some reason he found it hard to think about his actions and instead had to just act on his instincts, just like the last time he wore the Mask, and the instincts of Bart Simpson were obvious, cause havoc, have fun and make sure people notice and paid attention, cause if he wasn't getting attention then he wasn't doing his job properly.
As he entered Springfield Square he spied the statue of the town's hero. Jebediah Springfieldand a suitably mischievous thought came into his head. He moved to look at the statues plaque on the base, 'A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man' and briefly Bart remembered the time he defaced the statue by cutting off its head. That had really gotten the towns goat then, though he regretted it at the time he was in no capacity to feel bad about what he was about to do now.
Reaching into his deep jacket pockets he pulled out the countless number of stolen gold bars. Though he really wanted to stuff these up car exhausts like Lisa suggested what he was about to do with them now was more amusing to him
He leapt up towards the tall statue on the plinth and sent himself into another rapid spin. Anyone watching would've seen the statue be enveloped by a big green and black blur swirling all around it. When it had stopped Bart was standing at the foot of the 'new' statue. Bart himself was dressed in a white painters robe with multiple multicoloured stains on it, a black bray on his head and a crude short beard scribbled in pencil on his chin. He held up his thumb to the statue as if judging its scale.
The statue still featured Jebediah Springfield, only he was now bent over, wide eyed, mouth open in surprise, possibly a scream as behind him stood a gold statue of Bart's Mask persona grinning madly as he gave Springfield a wedgie.
"Manifico!" Bart proclaimed in a French accent "That really makes the statue come alive. I say it represents the joker in every man, as well as mans unending abuse and torture in the modern day. That and never turn your back on a school bully!"
He turned on his heels and gave a bow to an imaginary crowd for a job well done. Though the crowd was imaginary their applauding could clearly be heard in the real world, because Bart wanted it to be heard, he wanted it to be as real as possible.
Unfortunately his act had gone un-noticed by the populace because there was no populace, the place was deserted. There was one drunken bum in the gutter a little ways off who was clearly looking straight at him in amazement, but that wasn't the sort of person he wanted spreading this news, who would believe him? He was a drunk. Bart was disappointed because the only person to witness this display was no doubt someone who claimed to see Batman and Robin every night.
To make absolutely sure his master piece didn't get miss identified he scrawled over the plague, 'A Noble Spirit, Embiggens the Smallest Man' so they now had the words 'Green Face waz here!' spray painted in green pain across it. It was complete!
Reaching into his pocket Bart pulled out a sheet of paper. "1, get rid of gold bars, check!" he said drawing a little tick next to the words on the paper with a pencil he didn't have a few seconds ago. The next item was 'return jewels'
"Now, onwards!" he proclaimed as his current costume seemed to morph back into his usual jacket and clothes. Twisting his arms around his body he let it rotate around so he became the tornado again, the only way to travel when you have the power to do it all.
He fired off in a particular direction and despite not knowing where on earth this jewellery shop was he was standing outside it the moment he stopped rotating, as if the Mask knew where he wanted to go and then took him there anyway.
The building was dark, the lights were out and it had obviously been left the way Mom had left it the night before. Crisscrossing over the front door were long streams of tape with the words 'Police Line, Do Not Cross' but of course saying 'Do Not Cross' to Bart was like saying 'Come on in and have fun.'
Bart very slickly walked up to the door and had a look of innocents on his face and he whistled idly pretending to be doing nothing. Something he knew was pointless because no one was really watching him anyway.
He banished his look of innocents as he opened up the mail slot in the door and pressed his face up against the narrow opening, and with an odd sensation he felt his body squeeze and pass through it as if it was made of jelly. He had to wiggle his short legs a little before they passed through but he was in. Collecting his liquid form into a puddle on the floor his own shape began to reconstitute itself and reform until he was whole again.
That was a really odd feeling. Is that how all the crap in dads gut feels when it's being forced out through a tiny hole? Bart thought crudely getting to his feet.
Reaching into his pocket he produced the jewels and stuff, but rather then put them all back neatly and tidily he just inverted his hands and let them all scatter onto the floor, hey Lisa only said to return them, nothing about putting them back in the right places.
With that done he turned on his heels and prepared to leave via the front door when...
"FREEZE GREEN FACE!" someone shouted and that's what Bart did, he jumped first into a ridicules pose while standing on one leg, arms held halfway in a pose of surprise and turned completely into a transparent statue of ice.
"Huh, what the...?" said the voice. From Barts frozen point of view someone entered his field of vision. It was the round form of Police Chief Wiggum and his other two stooges. Wiggum looked confused and surprised at Bart or Green Face for actually freezing like that and even approached him and tapped lightly on his head with the barrel of his gun.
A hairline crack formed where his gun barrel lightly touched him and in a few seconds the crack had spread all over his ice covered body which then shattered and broke apart, falling to the floor in a pile of ice crystals.
"Was that really Green Face?" asked the tall black cop.
"No, I'm Jack Frost!" Bart bubbled through the puddle his melting icy crystal body had formed. "Just thought I'd soak up some of the atmosphere" he quipped, it was a bad quip but he didn't care.
"You don't fool me Green Face" Wiggum said confidently pointing his gun down at the pool of water. "Rule number one of investigation. The suspect always returns to the scene of a crime."
"Really?" Bart asked as he allowed his form to condense back up and reform "that explains why so many Australians move back to England" he said with a cockney twang to his voice.
"You're not going to joke your way out of this one funny guy" Wiggum said as the other three cops surrounded him with their guns drawn. "You're coming down town with us."
Bart considered for a moment if he should just play a prank on these losers and beat it before the real police got here. But then a thought came into his head, why bother wasting his powers to get to the police station if these idiots will take him down anyway?
"Okaydocky!" Bart said holding up his hands to show they were now cuffed, despite none of the cops having cuffed his hands. But what seemed to surprise Wiggum more was when, in the blink of an eye the green faced Bart was now in a straight jacket with arms tied behind his back, two thick long chains curling around his arms and shoulders held together with a padlock and a cage like mask over his mouth, the one you use to stop psychopath's biting you. Bart didn't know what it was really called, only that in this instant it just looked kinda cool. Around his ankles were also two ball and chains. "But can I ride in the front?" he added.
Meanwhile, at Moes
The phone of the grubby bar rang and Moe answered it
"Moe's Tavern" Moe said while he wiped a dirty beer glass with a filthy rag.
"Hello, I'm looking for a Mr. Hardy, first name Iva" said caller.
"One moment I'll check" Moe turned to his other customers "Umm. Is a Mr. Hardy here, Mr. Iva Hardy. Hey everyone listen to me, Iva Hardy here?"
The bar was filled with the roar of laughter and it took Moe a few moments to work out why they were laughing. Iva Hardy, I have a Hardy "Hey wait a minute!"
The caller on the other side had also started laughing out loud.
"Give me that" Wiggum yelled snatching the CB radio from Green Face's hands. Wiggum had no clue how the boy had gotten a hold of this while sitting in the back seat behind a wire mesh, but somehow he had.
"Listen you" Wiggum heard whoever was on the other side "when I get a hold of you I'm gonna chop you up into tiny pieces and feed you to my gold fish!" wait Wiggum recognised that voice. It was Moe, the owner of a bar a few blocks away. How on earth had Green Face managed to contact a telephone using this? Deciding it was best if he didn't ask about any of this wackiness he put the radio speaker back in its holder.
The ride from the jewellery shop to the police station was anything but uneventful. All the way there Green Face kept hawking back and spitting out a widow which somehow kept opening despite how many times Wiggum closed it again. He had to admit though the mischievous... he didn't know what he was, was quite a good spitter. The boy managed to catch a pedestrian right in the ear while they were driving down the street, he had good aim.
The drive was also annoying because the kid had sunk to mental torture by saying "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" over and over again in a verity of ridicules sounding voices. Wiggum tried his best to just ignore this, and eventually the boy seemed to settle down when he realised he wasn't getting the desired reaction. But every now and then when Wiggum peered at the rear view mirror he could swear Green Face was pulling freaky faces at him while he wasn't looking. Wiggum was going to show some leniency towards Green Face because it was him after all who'd somehow magically healed his arm the previous night but the guy was really starting to get on his nerves.
Though Green Face had calmed down to some extent when they arrived the lunacy didn't stop there. When they took his finger prints down at the station they were surprised to find that, despite having nothing on his fingers, his fingers didn't produce finger prints when pressed onto the card but a series of letters, S C R W U, on one hand and A S H O L on the other, read them the right way and Wiggum understood what it was supposed to spell, and even he had to admit it was funny, insulting but funny.
Now they were all sat down in an interview room with Green Face now out of his ridicules straight jacket and other bindings except for the hand cuffs. The boy was sitting behind a desk with Wiggum and Lou on the other side. Wiggum had offered the green boy an attorney to speak on his behalf but the boy refused.
"Come on 'Piggum' get this show on the road, I've got stuff to do" he commented swinging his feet up onto the desk and leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head looking very relaxed. Since the suspect had refused a lawyer to defend himself Wiggum proceeded with the interview.
He set out a tape recorder, put a fresh tape in it and hit the record button before placing it on the table.
"Police Chief Clancy Wiggum and Officer Lou..."
"What's that for?" Green Face asked disturbing Wiggum's set up for the interview, Wiggum was annoyed and wanted to tell the boy to can it, but at the same time the little guy actually sounded genuinely curious, so Wiggum answered.
"By law we have to record everything that's said and done in an interview." Wiggum explained.
"Really?" the suspect asked "So any noise I make will be recorded onto this machine and used in evidence?"
"Yes" Wiggum answered not liking the boys mischievous grin one bit.
The boy sat up and rubbed his wrists, how did he get those hand cuffs off? He leaned in close to the recording machine and smacked his hands together so they created a loud bang and screamed "OW!".
"What did you do that for?" the boy asked into the tape recorder "You did it didn't you, you did it, you did it, confess!" Wiggum's jaw dropped, the boy was mimicking his voice perfectly and if anyone heard this his police career would be over.
"Attention listeners, this is not me saying these things!" Wiggum tried to say as Green Face gripped his own neck in both his hands and made a choking noise. He squeezed so hard his eyes were actually ballooning out with a slight popping noise from his eye sockets.
"Help me, help me!" Green Face said through his constricted wind pipe "He's choking me, this cops trying to kill me!"
This mad display was interrupted by a light knocking on the door, it opened a moment later and a man walked into the room. It was Dr. Arthur Neuman, the psychologist Wiggum spoke to a few days ago. The chief of Police was sure he was going to have difficulty talking to Green Face so he'd invited the psychotherapist back to try to keep the green boy under control.
"3:30am, Dr. Arthur Neuman has just entered the room" Wiggum announced into the tape recorder.
"Good evening" Neuman said in his slow, boring droll as he took a seat next to Green Face. "You must be Green Face, Neuman said taking a seat next to the boy. "I am Dr. Arthur Neuman, Ph.D in psychology and author of the bestselling book 'the Masks we Wear'"
The boy however didn't seem interested in what Dr. Neuman had to say. Instead the spiky haired trouble maker seemed more interested in the man's larger than average head with the thinning hair all around it.
"Wow, you've got a massive head!" the boy commented.
"Yes, I'm glad you noticed" Neuman said with a slight drip of sarcasm in his voice.
"Doesn't that big head cause you problems going through revolving doors?" Green Face then made a movement with his hands and head showing a head being trapped in a door.
"No, it doesn't cause me any problems at all" Neuman answered boringly.
"Yeah, I take your point, a big head doesn't cause the owner a problem, it causes the owners 'mother' a problem" the boy grinned showing his massive white teeth "How did she cope?"
"She coped just fine" Neuman said clearly missing the joke.
"After we're done here I'll take you to a hall of mirrors and show you how you should look" the boy joked but again Neuman didn't seem to get it, but Wiggum could hear Lou struggling to hold back a slight laugh. The boy also looked genuinely confused that his jokes weren't provoking the right reaction out of Neuman.
"Lets get on with this interview shall we?" Neuman suggested.
"I'd rather not governor" the boy said in a cockney accent again "I can't get over how big that head of yours is. On hot days to people follow you around for the shade?" again Neuman didn't seem to bite "Your head is just enormous, you know on a normal sized head, 'that'..." he pointed at Neumans short, thinning hair "...would be a full head of hair!"
This was going to be even more difficult then Wiggum imagined.
Okay, okay, okay, maybe Bart won't cause much trouble, Lisa considered as she paced the room. Maybe he'll just dispose of the items, steal the hair sample and come back. Lisa thought nervously as she pressed the tips of her fingers together. Or maybe he'll go to the theatre and catch an R rated movie with his new super powers.
Oh no, wait what was Lisa thinking? Bart wouldn't waste this opportunity to cause some trouble and wouldn't care one pico-metre of the consequences, and that was him without the Mask.
Bart had been gone for two hours and in that time Lisa had come to her senses. She'd only given Bart the Mask in desperation but now she really regretted it. Who knew what Bart was doing right now with that curse hugging his face and in all honestly Lisa almost didn't care as long as he got rid of the stolen items. But what if he caused more trouble, what if he lead the police here, what if someone manages to get the Mask off his face? That was a point, as far as she knew Bart didn't know the Mask only worked at night so what if someone sees the un-transformation of Green Face back into Bart Simpson?
To take her mind off it she'd replaced the loose floor board, carpet and computer over the hiding place where she hid the Mask earlier but as soon as she'd finished putting all that stuff back her anxiety came back, she was too anxious to read a book or play the saxophone, meditate or anything like that, she couldn't stop worrying what Bart was doing out there, hopefully nothing illegal. Lisa didn't want to go to prison, she didn't see herself as a jailbird, she wanted to go to Harvard University and get a degree or thirteen, not rotting away in some jail cell with nothing to read but the dreary writings of Daniel Steel.
There came a light tapping from her bedroom door. "Lisa" said a voice, it was mom "Lisa, I want to talk to you, can I come in?"
Lisa didn't really want her to come in, moms had a sixth sense for detecting when something was wrong. The second she steps in here she'd sense that Lisa was keeping something from her and if mom saw her like this she wouldn't stop badgering her about it. But just telling her to go away would make her more suspicious, she'd have to answer.
"Just a minute mom" she called back, as she closed her eyes and tried to compose herself as much as possible, but it wasn't working. Now standing totally still she could feel herself shaking like a leaf.
"Lisa, I want to ask about that mask" Lisa's heart jumped into her throat and threatened to strangle her the moment mom had finished that sentence. Okay, maybe she didn't really remember the Mask's powers and just wanted to know where it went. It was a fickle ideal but she didn't want mom finding out about the Mask of Loki.
Although maybe it was for the best that mom did find out, surely mom would understand the dangers of it and get rid of the thing for them. But what about the punishments? Her brain rang out at her. If mom found out it was her causing all that mayhem on the news a few nights ago frightening away loggers, tearing Burns' mansion apart piece by piece then mom will ground her for weeks.
"Mask, what Mask? I don't know anything about a Mask!" her mouth had automatically said quickly while her brain had those thoughts.
The door handle turned and before Lisa could do anything mom entered her room and had taken notice of Lisa's trembling form.
"Lisa, a lot of weird things have been happening recently" mom said as she crossed the room and sat down on the edge of Lisa's bed and fixed her with a stare that she reserved for when she wanted to get something out of her by acting sympathetically. Lisa however remained standing. "The four versions of Green Face, the knife in the living room, Bart's recent fear of you, the empty fridge, the port-a-potty in the back yard. All ever since Homer bought that wooden mask for Bart on his birthday, you wouldn't know anything about that would you?"
Looking into her moms concerned eyes just made her tremble all the more. It was too much, all her worries, all those nasty thoughts of prison she was having; it was just too much for someone of her age to handle. And despite her maturity beyond her years, despite her intelligence and despite how pathetic it may look Lisa did the only thing an eight year old girl would do in a situation like this. She began to cry, she ran up to her mom and hugged her tightly and just burst into tears letting it all pour out of her.
"There, there sweetie" mom said softly patting her on the back as she cried into her moms shoulder "Now, why don't you tell me all about it?"
"I'm starting to lose patience Green Face" Wiggum said trying to filter out as much menace as he could from his voice. It wouldn't come across well when this tape was played back in court, but the boy just wouldn't take this seriously and Green Face had humiliated Wiggum on so many occasions that he was starting to lose patience with this boy version.
"Now, now Mr. Wiggum" said Neuman in his low monotone that threatened to put them all to sleep every time he spoke. "Perhaps reinforcing the boys negative attitude with shouts and bullying is not the best of ideas. I suggest we try to connect with the boy, try to understand what goes on inside his head and try to make his inner child more comfortable and possibly more dossal."
While Neuman said this Green Face was sitting behind him and held up a large painted wooden sign on a wooden stick, Wiggum wasn't even going to question where the heck it had come from. There were no words on the wooden sign, just a picture of a spanner and an arrow pointing at Neuman, in other words 'tool'.
Wiggum actually had to fight back a laugh when he saw this, he may have problems with the boy but the little trouble maker wasn't wrong there.
As soon as Neuman finished his sentence, still oblivious to what had just happened behind his back, the green boy quickly put his hands in his pockets and the wooden sign had just vanished into those pockets as soon as Neuman turned to look at him.
"Now then Mr. Green Face, do you have a name I can refer to you by?" Neuman asked.
"Yeah I do" Green Face said leaning back on his chair legs again. "My friends call me Weiner, first name Ey'ma"
"Okay, Ey'ma Weiner" both Lou and Wiggum had to fight back the urge to just laugh and still Neuman didn't seem to even get or notice that a joke had just happened but he did turn to look at them curiously before turning back to the boy. "Why don't you tell me about yourself, where do you come from?" the boy shrugged.
"Well..." the boy said rocking slightly on the chairs back legs "I was born in the wagon of a travelling show" the boy said "My mama used to dance for the money they throw. Papa would go whatever he could..." this sounded vaguely familiar to Wiggum "...teach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of Dr. Good. Gypsies, tramps and thieves, they hear it from the people of the town, they call us gypsies, tramps and thieves."
That was a song by Cher, Wiggum realised. The boy wasn't singing it, just said it as if he was causally talking.
"But every night the men would come around, and lay their money down" the boy finished.
"I... see" Neuman said, Wiggum couldn't tell if he got the joke or not but at least this time he didn't take the statement seriously. "Tell me a little more about you parents, are they kind to you? Do they care for you? Do they abuse you?"
Suddenly Green Face got to his feet and stood on the chair and pushed his face close to Neuman in a threatening manner, and Neuman showing genuine fear shrank away a little.
"You trying to blame my parents for my behaviour?" he said in anger.
"No, no not at all" Neuman said eyes wider then Wiggum had ever seen them as he held up his hands to show he meant no harm.
"My behaviour is my own, don't blame it on my parents, don't blame it on my dad, don't blame it on my mother!..." was that music Wiggum could hear fading in from the tape recorder speaker? "...don't blame it on my sister, don't blame it on the night!..." Suddenly Green Face pulled back away from Neuman, leapt up onto the table, wrapped one leg over the over and sent himself into a spin, when he emerged he was still dressed the same but had just launched himself into another of his song and dance routines.
"Don't blame it on the sunshine
Don't blame it on the moon light
Don't blame it on the good times
Blame it on the boogie!"
Green Face span on his heels just once this time like a dancer before coming to a stop and flipping his feet up and bending himself forward a little so he was balanced on the tips of his shoes like Michael Jackson.
"Don't you blame it on the Sunshine
Don't blame it on the moon light
Don't blame it on the good times..."
The boy dropped down to the desk, made several trademark Michael Jackson moves with his feet, before moonwalking the length of the table.
Blame it on the boogie!"
This was really going to be more difficult then Wiggum predicted and Neuman looked shocked by this eccentric and unusual behaviour, perhaps at last he understood what the police force had been going through these last few weeks.
Completely failing to get any kind of usable statement from the menace Wiggum then changed tact to how long Green Face will spend in prison for his crimes. He even mentioned that they had a hair sample that would place him at the scene of the jewellery store robbery and that all they had to do was collect a sample of Green Face's DNA for comparison, Wiggum also stated they had a warrant for his DNA sample so there was no use trying to say they didn't.
Lou approached him with a cotton swab to take some cells from the inside of his cheek, it had a small plastic container attached to it to avoid DNA contamination.
"What the hell's that for?" the boy said flicking the plastic part with his index finger.
"It's what the cotton swap is kept in to avoid DNA contamination, if DNA is contaminated then the courts won't accept any of the findings" Lou explained as if to an enthusiastic youngster as he bent down closer to take the cell sample.
"Is that so?" the boy said. Wiggum didn't like that look on his face, it looked as if he'd just got an idea.
"Open wide little guy" Lou said, and indeed the boy did open wide, very wide, so wide that you could fit a bed down that mouth. The boy even went 'Ahhhhh' and as he did this and the smell from his mouth was just horrific, like something had crawled down his throat, died, decomposed, came back to life as a zombie and took a dump in his throat.
"That'll do" Lou said in a faint voice that made him sound like he was only half awake, he hadn't made a move to swab the inside of the boys mouth and was starting to lean backwards "Thank...you..." and the police officer fell back on his chair and collapsed to the floor, overcome by that putrid smell from the boys mouth.
As Lou fell Green Face took the cotton swab from Lou's hand and, despite it not being designed for that, started to brush his teeth with it. When he was done the boy tossed it into a waiting trashcan contaminating the evidence.
"Speaking of DNA" Green Face said getting to his feet "you guys have a forensics lab around here, right?"
"Yeah, out the door, turn right, third left, second right" Wiggum then wondered why he'd just answered that question? He was the police chief, he got to ask the questions.
"Thank you" the boy said in a very irritating tone of superiority as he headed for the door, turned the handle and made to leave.
"Hold it right there Green Face" Wiggum said drawing his gun from his holster. He took a step forward, or tried to because as he moved his left foot it stopped and refused to go where it was needed for him to maintain balance. He fell forward onto his stomach, an impact which knocked the wind out of him. It took him a few seconds to roll over, look down at his feet and discover that Green Face had somehow removed the hand cuffs from his own hands and attached them to his ankles.
After unlocking the cuffs with a key Wiggum got up and made to go after the mischievous boy. He opened the door which the boy had left ajar and was about to step into the corridor when something whooshed past him so fast he nearly fell backwards again. He couldn't be sure but he was almost certain he saw Green Face sitting in one of those mop buckets janitors used, the type that were on wheels, and he was driving it like a go-kart along the walls up onto the ceiling before heading straight back towards him knocking the cap off his head as the boy raced above him. Heading, Wiggum guessed, towards the forensics lab. The boy then vanished around a corner and Wiggum follow him calling for the aid of any officers along the way.
As Wiggum rounded the last corner to the lab he was stopped by a wall of bubbles and suds which erupted from the corridor leading to the lab. From that wall of bubbles came the bucket-kart in which sat Green Face.
"I didn't do it" the boy said unconcerned that no one would believe him as he raced towards the chief of police.
"Reach for the skies!" Wiggum said pointing his revolver ready to shoot though he knew this pea shooter probably wouldn't do anything to the bullet proof boy. But Green Face did reach for the sky, he held up his arms which stretched upwards and grabbed an overhanging pipe and he quickly lifted himself out of the bucket up towards the ceiling as the bucket careered into Wiggum's legs and sweeping them out from under himself causing him to summersault in the air twice before landing roughly on his backside.
Green Face then let go of the pipe and dropped towards the floor and landed on a pogo stick, Wiggum was getting to the point of taking all this weirdness in his stride now as the boy bounced up over the police chiefs head and bounced the rest of the way down the corridor on his new found transport.
Then from the bubbling foam wall came several of the forensic scientists coughing bubbles and gasping for air before finally collapsing to the floor unconscious. The boy had ruined the lab, shame because that lab was just one day away from retirement.
As Wiggum got to his feet he was joined by Ed and several other officers who had obviously heard the disturbance, they were followed moments later by Lou who still looked a little dazed.
"He's heading for the car park, Chief!" Lou said "Let's go!" but Wiggum held out his arm to stop the officers moving down the corridor.
"Lou" Wiggum said "who's the Chief of Police here?"
After a brief argument the police officers arrived in the parking bay. Most of the bays were empty because most squad cars were out on their night shifts but one or two of them were still in their bays. Was Green Face attempting to steal a squad car?
The car park was eerily quiet as the dozens of police officers filed inside. The boy could be anywhere, literally anywhere, behind one of the columns, under one of the cars, in the cars, in the vent system, under the road, maybe he was the road for all Wiggum knew.
Off into the distance Wiggum could see a shadow being cast from behind one of the support pillars holding the ceiling up. He was there, just behind it the small form of the menace sprouting the thick, spiky hair. The Chief clicked his fingers to attract the attention of the other officers and pointed at the shadowy area where no doubt the boy was.
"Okay Green Face, I'm gonna count to three, then I want you to come out" he warned sternly "One…" he looked around the silent shadowy parking bay as he approached, he was expecting Green Face to have made a move by now "Two…" Wiggum's finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire off a shot. "Three!"
He rounded the corner and pointed his gun at… it was just a mop and bucket, the mop head was casting a shadow similar to Green Face's head.
"Oh, it's just a mop and bucket" Wiggum sighed.
"Correct…" said that child like voice "…and the next object?" it said like a parent encouraging a baby to correctly name something.
When Wiggum heard this voice he fired off a shot in panic, the bullet passed straight through the head of the mop. Oh no! That poor innocent mop Wiggum thought sadly some days you just don't want to be a cop, you know. The mop suddenly fell over revealing the figure standing behind it, the shape of the mop head had completely and perfectly eclipsed the form of Green Face who stood there with a hole in his forehead, a hole that went straight through to the back of his head.
"Oooo, that is gonna hurt tomorrow!" the boy said his eyes swirling to look up at his forehead.
Wiggum didn't show any surprise that the boy wasn't dead, the Green Face had been ran over, shot at, crushed, blown up and so on and still hadn't died. Wiggum just pointed his revolver at the boy and a moment later he was joined in the gun pointing by the other police officers in the parking lot, but the boy just smiled.
"Hey, I've just come up with a new game to play" and in a flash he had zoomed straight past the police officers before they could squeeze off a single shot, that wouldn't have done much good anyway.
Was Green Face trying to escape again? The answer to that question was no, because he had come to a stop and was just standing there, in the middle of the vast space holding himself as if he was in a trance with his head down.
The boys clothes had changed, he now wore a black shirt with dark jeans and a leather jacket and leather boots but what was most noticeable about the clothes was the presence of many shiny, silver buckles which clanged together whenever he made even a little movement.
"Okay Green Face" Wiggum said raising his revolver "Get your hands up, and no funny business" and the boy did raise his hands above his head, the buckles making a jingling noise as they rose, but when they were stretched out as far as they would go the boy sent himself into that whacky spin like tornado again.
Wiggum readied himself to fire when the tornado split into two, both of which twirled around each other before further splitting into two, creating two small and two large tornados, and an even smaller one broke off from one of the larger ones. Then suddenly they all came to a stop revealing five people of different ages and genders, all with big green heads and comically large teeth. Wiggum recognized four of them as the four versions of Green Face, adult male, with the fat gut and plastic hair, the boy with the crazy jester hat like hair style, the girl with the spiky blond hair and crazy look in her eye, the woman with the long flowing blue hair and eyes that could melt a man's heart -if the rest of the face wasn't so freaky-. But Wiggum had never seen the baby with the big balled green head which sucked menacingly on a pacifier. Somehow Green Face had split himself into five different versions of himself, that's all they needed right now, five of them!
It got worse though because a lot more green headed figures suddenly jumped out from behind the tall pillars around the five and some even dropped from the ceiling seemingly from nowhere. All had big green heads, all had big teeth, some had larger eyes than usual, none had ears and most were balled. What the hell was this, a family reunion? One of them, a tall man with a big green balled head dressed in a bright yellow suit and yellow wide brimmed hat with a long feather in it suddenly wiggled his teeth making an odd yammering noise.
Wiggum and the cops held their ground despite how much they wanted to run. They were now face to face with more Green Faces then they'd ever imagined. Where the hell had they all come from?
For a few moments the cops and the Green Faces just stared at each other across a small void between them. Wiggums mouth became dry and his brow began to sweat, is fingers trembled on the trigger of his revolver, waiting for the first move.
The boy who appeared to be the leader of this gang, crossed his arms over his chest and continued to stare at them creepily smiling with those large, white teeth.
Suddenly the boy made a move, so fast it produced the sound of a whip cracking, but it wasn't a threatening move. The boy had flung a clenched fist into the air and as if it was a signal music started pouring out from the walls around them, and the static figures began to move, move in sync with the boy in front who, Wiggum had just realized, was dressed in a Michael Jackson costume and the music was from one of his songs. Wiggum wasn't a big fan of Michael Jackson so he honestly couldn't remember what the name of the track was, but that didn't stop the dozens of Green Faces dancing to it.
The moves they were making were way too complicated for Wiggum to even describe but when the boy flung his hand up in the air again he began to sing in an odd voice that Wiggum knew wasn't even his but sounded like it was really coming from his mouth.
"Your Butt Is Mine
Gonna Take You Right
Just Show Your Face
In Broad Daylight
I'm Telling You
On How I Feel
Gonna Hurt Your Mind
Don't Shoot To Kill
Come On, Come On,
Lay It On Me All Right..."
All the Green Faces suddenly turned to face away from them and craned their necks and shoulders in such a way that it produced a loud clicking noise before spinning around and they started running across the car part towards a wall with an air vent set into it.
"Well They Say The Sky's
The Limit
And To Me That's Really True
But My Friend You Have
Seen Nothing
Just Wait 'Til I Get Through . . ."
When they reached the vent the boy reached out and pulled the cover off. Amazingly a large gust blasted from the open vent causing the boys pointy hair to sweep back as he continued to sing.
"Because I'm Bad, I'm Bad-
Come On
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
You know I'm bad, I'm bad
'Really really bad'
And The Whole World Has To
Answer Right Now
Just To Tell You Once Again,
Who's Bad . . ."
The vent had gradually stopped blowing while Green Face sang at it pretending to be Michael Jackson. What's with all the singing and dancing from these guys anyway? Wiggum wondered.
They stopped dancing for a moment and slowly turned back to face away from the vent before spinning back around again to face the vent quickly and wiping their faces with the back of their hands.
Then they all turned around again ran back a little ways and began to dance again matching moves perfectly to the music video that Wiggum now realized was the song 'Bad', it was so obvious because it was in the title.
"You Know I'm Smooth, I'm
Bad, You Know It
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
You Know I'm Bad, I'm
Bad Baby
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
You Know, You Know, You
Know It, Come On
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
"And The Whole World Has To
Answer Right Now"
"Woo!"
The troop broke up and started dancing all over the parking lot, all the officers didn't know who to keep their guns trained on. The boy, the baby, the girls, the adults, the dogs… dogs?
Meanwhile the main Green Face, the boy was singing and dancing in the middle of the lot while a bunch were skipping in an eccentric way towards him before spinning around and around like dancers while still moving forwards. Then the boy did a double twirl without becoming the tornado and came to a rapid stop. There was a loud crunching noise and the boys jaw dropped open as if holding back a howl of pain and his eyes inflated in shock as his hands raced down towards his groin having apparently crushed it in that spin.
While the boy fell to the floor the rest of the troop kept dancing, but then the boy swung himself back up again apparently un-phased as if that was something he'd meant to do anyway.
"Just To Tell You Once Again
You Know I'm Bad, I'm Bad-
You Know It
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
You Know I'm Bad-You
Know-Hoo!"
Wiggum hand honestly given up trying to describe what was going on anymore, the dancing was utter chaos, some were moonwalking one way, others spinning in another, it was just too complicated to put into words so instead he focused on the boy who was obviously in charge. He was currently doing a strange movement with his legs that gave the illusion he was walking forwards while being stationary, like the moonwalk only he wasn't even moving backwards.
Now the troop had reassembled and were advancing towards Wiggum and the group of cops next to him. The police chief hadn't dared fire a shot or try to interfere because none of them had no idea what to do because for some reason the police manual didn't include arresting a large dancing crowd of super powered lunatics in their procedures, fools! They didn't need police officers they needed the National Guard!
"'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
You Know I'm Bad-I'm Bad-
You Know It, You Know
'Bad Bad-Really, Really Bad'
And The Whole World Has To
Answer Right Now
Just To Tell You Once Again . . .
Who's Bad?"
The song finally over all the Green Faces frozen in a specific pose, with the boy at the head of the group holding up his fist towards them and staring intently at them as if they were a threat.
Silence again as the band of cops continued to aim their guns at the dozens of Green Faces. Wiggum could hear the rattle of many guns because like him they were all trembling with fear.
Then in a blink of an eye and with a whoosh of motion they were gone, all of them, gone every Green Face gone except for the boy who just stood there innocently as if nothing peculiar had happened at all.
"Well it was fun playing with you, but sorry I gotta split!" and Green Face ran, but in which direction Wiggum couldn't tell because it looked like the boy had divided again into four clones of himself that ran in completely opposite directions.
Wiggum and the other officers spent hours scouring the parking lot for the elusive boy, but no luck. Green Face had escaped again.
Bart laughed like a drain for hours after that as he continued to cause mayhem all over the town. First he'd gone to Luigi's and planted 101 rats in the soup while the owner was describing how all his food was made with only the 'most quality of ingredients', he had said this before lifting the lid on a pizza with rats heads all over it.
Then the masked Bart had then gone to the power plant and freaked out the night staff there by crawling out of a toxic waste barrel glowing bright green with bulging muscles and a really distant look in his eyes which he added for effect. He'd moaned and groaned as he held out his hands and slowly walked like a zombie saying "Must... destroy... mankind!"
He even had fun with some of the road signs all over the town. One he rewrote to say 'Amarillo, this way!' to help Tony Christie find his way, hey he kept asking! Another he wrote said 'Springfield, twinned with hell' and another he rewrote to say 'Help, I'm trapped in a sign making factory!' One road sign he found read 'Park and ride 200 yards' above which he wrote 'Want a hooker?' Bart didn't really understand what he had just written, only that he thought it was funny.
Then as he slowly walked towards his next destination, the bully Nelson's house Bart got the shock of his life when something smacked into him at high speed plastering his form to the front of a speeding vehicle.
Inside the large black car sat four men, three dressed in smart suits and the fourth was a fat person in an orange prison jumpsuit, he didn't manage to get a good look at them though in the darkness.
"Hey, the bugs in this town just keep getting bigger and bigger." A skinny man behind the wheel said in the accent of an Italian mobster as he flipped a stalk on the wheel housing causing the windscreen wipers to start up, pushing at Bart's face distorting it even further. Bart just let his form melt, literally melt away and he seeped under the hood where, through some mystical powers of the Mask, he managed to make the car come to a screeching halt and stall.
"Oh no, come on start, start!" the man behind the wheel said in panic turning the key again and again only to hear a choking engine, the car just refused to start because Bart wouldn't allow it to happen.
"I am not pleased with this current turn of events" said a man in a cool, husky voice who was obviously the leader of this gang. "I did not plan for weeks to get broken out of prison only to get recaptured due to the low quality of American getaway cars."
"Whoa, whoa, boss, maybe I can fix it real fast!" the skinny man opened the car door and jumped out.
"You'd better, or you'll be joining the skunk in the trunk" and from the trunk Bart could hear a loud muffling, struggling noise, these were real gangsters, possibly the Springfield Itallian mafia, COOL!
The skinny man popped the hood, and his eyes widened in amazement because Bart had made the entire engine vanish, you couldn't see anything mechanical on the inside at all. All that was there was Bart holding onto a steel bar which ran from one side of the car to the other and he panted and coughed heavily as if he had run a mile pushing the car along.
"How does Fred Flintstone do this?" Bart said letting his tongue hang out as he panted.
"What? Where..." the man was clearly lost for words and stared in amazement "How did you get here?" he asked, to which the boy just smiled broadly and said. "You'll have to ask my parents, they wouldn't tell me."
Then the boy leapt from the car's engine housing and landed on the grill at the front. Bart recognised this goon as one of Fat Tony's henchmen, a large crime family of the Italian mafia and Bart intended to have a little fun with them. But the moment he leapt into the air to land on the grill he was almost blinded by something off in the distance, and it burnt him, burnt him badly.
Just on the horizon the yellow disk of the sun was slowly creeping into the sky and as it got higher and higher Bart started to feel progressively worse as if he was badly ill. His stomach turned and his face felt like it had bad sunburn on it. He began to reach up to feel his face when it suddenly dropped and drooped down into his hands, which were at the moment down by his stomach. What was happening?
Behind him the engine he'd just made vanish was slowly starting to shimmer back into existence, where it had been before.
Quickly Bart clumsily dropped to the ground and ran for his life into a nearby dark back alley out of sight while he worked out what was going on here.
The tall man looked on in bemusement for a while considering if he should chase after the boy, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of police sirens. He slammed the hood down, climbed back into the car which started no problem and was driving off a few moments before a large collection of police squad cars raced past chasing after them their sirens and lights blazing and Bart remained in the shadows feeling more and more fatigued and sick.
He swayed in the ally unable to keep his balance. He opened his eyes and spotted a small fragment of a broken mirror leaning up against the wall. It was small but from it he could see his reflection perfectly.
His face, it looked like it was melting and crusting over at the same time. He reached up and felt the soft rubber start to harden into wood and as he watched his long black hair started to recede back into his head and turn blond again, his clothes began to fade back into his usual blue shorts and red shirt and the green Mask started peeling off from his face.
Why was it doing this? He didn't want to lose these powers he was enjoying himself too much. But he apparently didn't have a choice as he felt the power drain from him like the sewage in the school septic tank after he drilled a few holes in it last week. A whirl wind kicked up around him and after a loud snap followed by an anti climatic hiss the de-transformation was over and Bart was back to his normal self, and no matter how hard he pressed the Mask onto his face it wasn't taking effect again.
"Ah man!" he moaned removing the wooden thing from his face and immediately felt weak as if the Mask had left a void inside him, an empty shell that was completely drained.
Coming to his senses he tucked the Mask under his arm and slowly began walking back home.
It took him about an hour on foot to walk home, much longer then it would've taken to drive by car but then again he guessed that must be what parents were for anyway.
He arrived back home and approached the front door of the family house but suddenly realised it wouldn't be open this early, no one would be up and anyway it would look suspicious if he did enter through the front door. Especially if mom was up already, she usually was at the crack of dawn. So instead he snuck around the back of the house, climbed into his tree house and walk along the branches towards his bedroom window before climbing through it, which he always left unlatched in case of such emergencies like these.
He closed the window behind him and glanced down at the Mask in his hand. He was annoyed at it, why had it stopped working? He wanted to throw it into the garbage in frustration, or try to flush it down the toilet, but as he considered that it might start working again he realised he'd be mad to throw it away, not something so powerful and so much fun, but why had it stopped working?
"It only works at night, Bart" said Lisa who'd managed to open his bedroom door without him noticing. He didn't like that superior tone of hers, one she reserved for when she had an ace up her sleeve.
"and you didn't think to inform me earlier?" Bart said in annoyance, clearly back to his old self after that psycho standing on the threshold of his bedroom nearly killed him a few nights ago. "And I did what you asked, I got rid of that gold and the jewellery and destroyed that police hair thingy."
"You also destroyed the forensics lab" Lisa said with disapproval. "Yeah, it's been all over the news how 'Green Face' escaped police custardy and not only stopped the forensic tests to identify him, but also ruined several case trials that were due to put several dangerous criminals behind bars."
"Hey, you said if I got rid of that stuff you'd let me do what I wanted, and I can keep the Mask" Bart said clutching the thing tightly in his hands in case Lisa tried to make a grab for it.
"Only 'I' said you could keep it" Lisa said as another figure entered the room, taller than Lisa with much taller hair. It was mom, what was she doing here? She looked at Bart with a look of half annoyance, half concerned, her eyes then glanced momentarily towards the mask in his hands before looking back into his eyes again. The look on her face told Bart everything he needed to know immediately.
Lisa had broken the golden rule of being a kid, 'don't squeal.'
To be continued...
Author's notes: Which Mask persona was the best? Cast your vote on the poll on my profile page and tell me which Mask persona you thought was the best.
I was in two minds about letting Bart dance to Bad, because I thought 'there's been too much singing and dancing in this story already' but in the end I put it in. But I've promised myself this will be the last one in the story.
'Bad' and 'Blame it on the Boogie', were both songs sung by Michael Jackson, no copyright infringement was intended and the lyrics were just used in humour. Also, R.I.P. Michael Jackson.
The other Green Faces that appeared during the Bad dance are all previous people to have worn the Mask from the Simpson family all the way back to Stanley Ipkiss. I like to think the Mask retains a little of the creature it transforms a person into which is why Bart was able to project the other Masks. So those of you who have written your own 'unique Mask' fan fictions can imagine your own versions of the Mask in there as well if you like ;)
I've never read any Daniel Steel but my girlfriend did describe the books as 'dreary rubbish', plus there is an episode which Lisa mentions not liking them somewhere, don't know which episode though.
The road sign gags are actually from an episode of the comedy panel show, 'Mock the Week'
-Hope you all enjoyed the new chapter.