CHAPTER EIGHT
"I can't believe Randall's here!" Mike said for the twelfth time.
"Really? I think you don't believe this Randall fellow's here!" Jade expressed her annoyance. She calmed down a bit and looked puzzled. "Who is he again?"
"The one who took your sister, genius!" Mike snapped at the fourteen year old.
"Well, excuse me for not being 'in' on the whole thing," she said with attitude. "It's not my fault that I was too tied up with school to join your little mixed up adventure."
"Will you two cut it out? You've been at it for an hour," Sulley said from the floor, where he had been playing with Mary. "I don't know about anyone else, but it's really beginning to get annoying."
Mary nodded in agreement. Sully chuckled and continued playing hide-and- seek with the little girl in very much the same way he had in the bathroom with her a year before.minus the "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum" part.
"I can't believe Sullivan and Wazowski are here!" Randall exclaimed in confidence to Trish. "I just can't get over it!"
"I don't mean to sound snippy, Randall, but I get the idea. I just think you're making a mountain out of a molehill," Trish said matter-of-factly.
"Don't you see? If they're here, then Monsters Inc. didn't go belly up, and all the scare doors are operational. If Wazowski and Sullivan are here, that means I can slip though one of the doors when a monster goes in to scare a kid; then I'll be home!" he explained enthusiastically, rocking back and forth from front pair of feet to back.
"Will you quit rocking like that? You're making me seasick," Trish moaned a little, half from nausea and half from irritation.
"Sorry. Say, you're looking about Wazowski's shade."
"Huh?"
"Wazowski's green," he said informatively.
"He looked pretty pink to me."
"They must've covered him in something," the purple lizard said with a shrug.
How odd he looks when he shrugs, Trish thought. His shrug ripples from his top arms to his lower ones. An unfamiliar emotion suddenly hit Trish. He's leaving, she thought, stricken.
"How long will you stay?" she asked the weird creature she had come to care for.
"As long as Sullivan and Wazowski do, I guess. I no longer have my access key to the building and my plan is to sneak in when they do; that way, I can hide behind Sullivan's Monsterous bulk. Why do you ask?"
"Just concerned.I mean - wondering," she said, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger, and trying to look casual.
Randall stared into Trish's blue eyes and saw that she didn't want him to go. He wanted to return home, but he didn't want to leave one thing - Trish.
Randall sighed. He'd miss her.
"You know, I remember how snappish and creepy you were when we first started talking to each other." Trish said with a nostalgic smile. "You freaked me out a couple times, and I got really mad at you. You got mad at me, too and said I was a brat. Then we began working on each other to be more pleasant. I think, at least for you, it worked."
"Trish, you have no idea how much you've improved," Randall said. He was going to say more, but his throat caught. He'd never imagined feeling this way about anyone, especially not a human.
The intercom beeped and Dan's voice came on.
"Hey, folks! Mr. Bates is home! Look sharp!"
It beeped off. Trish stroked Randall tenderly. "I don't want you to go," she said, and picked up his collar. When she looked at Randall again, she had tears in her eyes.
"Trish, don't cry. You're dad's home, and we can't have him see you crying because his mutant gator is running away," Randall said as he wiped a tear out of her eye.
She smiled a bit at his phrasing of the situation. "You're right. Dad hates 'mushiness.' Come on, he'll want you in your kennel."
"Oh, yeah."
In Monstropolis, at ten p.m., Randall's twin sister, Clarissa, lay on the bed in her apartment watching herself on the news.
"A tragic emergency has arisen here today," Clarissa told the camera. "The CEO of Monsters, Inc., James P. Sullivan, and the company's top Comedian, Michael Wazowski, have somehow gotten trapped in the human world. Experts are assessing the situation to determine the amount of danger these two monsters may be in. A group of volunteers are attempting to reconstruct the unstable door in which Sullivan and Wazowski have so unfortunately been trapped."
She watched with a mix of pride and disgust. Pride, because she was the only reporter who was allowed on the scene and was therefore on every news channel. Disgust, because she came off as completely sappy. It made her want to barf.
She wished that she had been an only child for the umpteenth time in her life. If she had been, there would have been no sibling competition for the Scarer position, and she would have had a nobler calling, not this stupid job. She'd show them what she could do more efficiently than her weak brother could. Oh, how she would show them.
Deciding it would be impossible to set her plan in action on no sleep, she turned off the T.V. and flopped unceremoniously into her bed.
That night, at about two in the morning, Randall slithered into the guesthouse camouflaged, to have a little chat with his former enemies.
In the guesthouse, Randall discerned two snores, one high and loud, the other low and soft. There was a light on in one room; the other was dark. The reptile slunk off toward the darkened room, hoping Sullivan would be there. He was so focused that he didn't notice Boo exiting the lighted room.
She tripped over him on her way to the bathroom. She uttered a startled cry and kicked in his general direction. By luck, she stuck her foot violently into Randall's green eye. He yelped and turned a vibrant neon blue with pink spots, which was secretly his favorite color scheme.
The rest of the guesthouse's occupants heard his yelp and Mary's cry, notifying them that something was going on. They naturally came to check it out, which is not what Randall intended. "Drat", he thought, much peeved. "I had wanted to keep this low key."
Jade came into the guesthouse living room first, wielding a large copy of Moby Dick she had been reading. Wazowski came after her, armed with the latest issue of a science magazine he had chosen to occupy himself with. Sullivan came in armed with nothing but himself. Iris followed him, with Mary's blanket rolled up and at the ready.
"Randall!" Sulley exclaimed upon seeing the cause of the disturbance. "What are you doing in here? And at two in the morning?"
"Coming to say I was sorry," he said, shuffling his foremost foot on the ground shyly.
"For what?" Sulley asked "For worrying this woman out of her mind when you tried to kidnap her youngest daughter?"
"Pardon me?" Randall asked, taken aback. He had expected to be told off for ruining Sullivan's and Wazowski's lives, not for driving some human into a panic.
"Sull, he doesn't know!" Mike exclaimed, laughing. Sulley soon joined his best friend in a cascade of comforting giggles.
Randall was confused, befuddled, and bemused. "What?" he asked. "Why are you laughing?"
"Some things happened after we threw you through that door, Randall," Sulley said.
"No kidding! I got knocked out with a shovel, attacked by alligators, put in a cage, fed bugs, and purchased by a millionaire to scare his employees," the self-appointed "Lizard King" replied.
"Yeesh. That must've sucked," Mike said. "Anyway, Lizard Boy, some things happened on our side of the closet door. Number one: Waternoose got arrested by the CDA."
"Oh. Who took over? Someone must have taken over. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had any power to get a door working, so you and Sullivan wouldn't be here."
"Good point. I was getting there. Ahem. Number two: that little girl you tried to kidnap showed us that laughter is ten times more powerful than screams."
"Wow. I never would have guessed."
Mike blinked. "You're taking this awfully well," he commented. "Where were we? Oh yeah. Number three: Sulley is the new owner and CEO of Monsters, Inc."
Randall's mouth fell open. "How'd that happen?" he asked, floored.
"I introduced laughter as a replacement for screams," Sulley said, speaking up for the first time. "Since it's ten times more powerful, the energy crisis, at least for Monstropolis, disappeared."
"Didn't the Board of Directors try to stop you?" Randall asked. Knowing how set in their ways the members of the Board were, Randall was shocked that his old nemeses had succeeded.
"The energy crisis had gotten so bad that they were willing to try our proposed method. We had some difficulties, like the exploding canisters, in the beginning, but we fixed them."
"Exploding canisters?"
"Yeah. We tried to use the scream canisters for laughs but they didn't have the right capacity, so we use larger ones now."
"Dang. You know, I thought the incident would've ruined your lives, not made them better." Randall pondered.
"You know, you really should apologize to Boo's mother," Sulley said. "She just about lost her marbles when Boo disappeared."
"Who's Boo?" Randall asked, befuddled.
Jade, with the air of someone giving a lecture about endangered animals, replied to Randall, "Also known as Mary Woodward and as Fluzzy, Boo is the little girl you tried to kidnap, apparently. And she is also my little sister,"
"And you are.?" Randall asked, liking to know whom he was communicating with.
"Jade Woodward, Queen of the Freaks," she responded. "I also go by Poofiemus."
"I'm Randall Boggs. I go by Randall."
"I figured that out, actually."
Randall gave Jade a look that she recognized as one accusing her of insanity, which was a typical reaction when people first met her. The reptile didn't care what she thought of him and simply wanted to get away from the Queen of Freaks as soon as he could. He turned to Iris.
"Ma'am, I'm really sorry I kidnapped your daughter. Before I got stuck here, I had no idea humans were intelligent, or that they had, um, what's the term."
"Complex emotions," Jade supplied.
"Thanks. Complex emotions. I wouldn't have done it if I had known that, at least, I wouldn't now. Anyway, I'm sorry."
"That's okay. You're paying for it through the nose, anyhow." Iris said, pitying the eight-legged creature.
"No kidding."
"Are you into science at all?" Jade interrogated unexpectedly.
"Not really, no. Just cars."
"Drat. I was hoping to discuss the theory of cosmic inflation with someone."
Randall took a step backwards. Not many people could scare Randall, but Jade was unintentionally succeeding. No wonder she calls herself the Queen of Freaks, he thought to himself. The only person freakier was his own deranged sister.
"I should probably get going," Randall said, stealing a glance at the clock. "Gill gets up disgustingly early, even on holidays. The first thing he does every day is drag me across the property at five a.m., and I'd like to drag him around for once."
"That sound like it'll be funny to watch," Jade said, smirking. "I'll be watching through the nearest available window."
"Yippee, I have an audience," Randall said sarcastically. "See you later."
"Catch you later, Randall," Sulley said
Randall waved and slipped into near invisibility, finally able to leave his past behind.
Author's Notes: Okay. I, as the author, have not said much about myself. I would like to thank my friend Shichan Goddess for introducing me to Fan Fiction, and for showing me that even kids can be writers. I would also like to thank my mother for being my editor-in-chief, first critic, and my chief encourager. I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story thus far. You've all been very kind, and your reviews are appreciated. By the way, it was my dad's idea for me not to accept anonymous reviews, for security reasons. I want to thank my freaky dog, Ferrari, for keeping me company while I write.
As to the story itself, (*sung to the end of "Stars and Stripes Forever"*) ? ? ".well, you may think that this is the end.but, it's not. ? ?
Yours truly,
Poofiemus
"I can't believe Randall's here!" Mike said for the twelfth time.
"Really? I think you don't believe this Randall fellow's here!" Jade expressed her annoyance. She calmed down a bit and looked puzzled. "Who is he again?"
"The one who took your sister, genius!" Mike snapped at the fourteen year old.
"Well, excuse me for not being 'in' on the whole thing," she said with attitude. "It's not my fault that I was too tied up with school to join your little mixed up adventure."
"Will you two cut it out? You've been at it for an hour," Sulley said from the floor, where he had been playing with Mary. "I don't know about anyone else, but it's really beginning to get annoying."
Mary nodded in agreement. Sully chuckled and continued playing hide-and- seek with the little girl in very much the same way he had in the bathroom with her a year before.minus the "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum" part.
"I can't believe Sullivan and Wazowski are here!" Randall exclaimed in confidence to Trish. "I just can't get over it!"
"I don't mean to sound snippy, Randall, but I get the idea. I just think you're making a mountain out of a molehill," Trish said matter-of-factly.
"Don't you see? If they're here, then Monsters Inc. didn't go belly up, and all the scare doors are operational. If Wazowski and Sullivan are here, that means I can slip though one of the doors when a monster goes in to scare a kid; then I'll be home!" he explained enthusiastically, rocking back and forth from front pair of feet to back.
"Will you quit rocking like that? You're making me seasick," Trish moaned a little, half from nausea and half from irritation.
"Sorry. Say, you're looking about Wazowski's shade."
"Huh?"
"Wazowski's green," he said informatively.
"He looked pretty pink to me."
"They must've covered him in something," the purple lizard said with a shrug.
How odd he looks when he shrugs, Trish thought. His shrug ripples from his top arms to his lower ones. An unfamiliar emotion suddenly hit Trish. He's leaving, she thought, stricken.
"How long will you stay?" she asked the weird creature she had come to care for.
"As long as Sullivan and Wazowski do, I guess. I no longer have my access key to the building and my plan is to sneak in when they do; that way, I can hide behind Sullivan's Monsterous bulk. Why do you ask?"
"Just concerned.I mean - wondering," she said, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger, and trying to look casual.
Randall stared into Trish's blue eyes and saw that she didn't want him to go. He wanted to return home, but he didn't want to leave one thing - Trish.
Randall sighed. He'd miss her.
"You know, I remember how snappish and creepy you were when we first started talking to each other." Trish said with a nostalgic smile. "You freaked me out a couple times, and I got really mad at you. You got mad at me, too and said I was a brat. Then we began working on each other to be more pleasant. I think, at least for you, it worked."
"Trish, you have no idea how much you've improved," Randall said. He was going to say more, but his throat caught. He'd never imagined feeling this way about anyone, especially not a human.
The intercom beeped and Dan's voice came on.
"Hey, folks! Mr. Bates is home! Look sharp!"
It beeped off. Trish stroked Randall tenderly. "I don't want you to go," she said, and picked up his collar. When she looked at Randall again, she had tears in her eyes.
"Trish, don't cry. You're dad's home, and we can't have him see you crying because his mutant gator is running away," Randall said as he wiped a tear out of her eye.
She smiled a bit at his phrasing of the situation. "You're right. Dad hates 'mushiness.' Come on, he'll want you in your kennel."
"Oh, yeah."
In Monstropolis, at ten p.m., Randall's twin sister, Clarissa, lay on the bed in her apartment watching herself on the news.
"A tragic emergency has arisen here today," Clarissa told the camera. "The CEO of Monsters, Inc., James P. Sullivan, and the company's top Comedian, Michael Wazowski, have somehow gotten trapped in the human world. Experts are assessing the situation to determine the amount of danger these two monsters may be in. A group of volunteers are attempting to reconstruct the unstable door in which Sullivan and Wazowski have so unfortunately been trapped."
She watched with a mix of pride and disgust. Pride, because she was the only reporter who was allowed on the scene and was therefore on every news channel. Disgust, because she came off as completely sappy. It made her want to barf.
She wished that she had been an only child for the umpteenth time in her life. If she had been, there would have been no sibling competition for the Scarer position, and she would have had a nobler calling, not this stupid job. She'd show them what she could do more efficiently than her weak brother could. Oh, how she would show them.
Deciding it would be impossible to set her plan in action on no sleep, she turned off the T.V. and flopped unceremoniously into her bed.
That night, at about two in the morning, Randall slithered into the guesthouse camouflaged, to have a little chat with his former enemies.
In the guesthouse, Randall discerned two snores, one high and loud, the other low and soft. There was a light on in one room; the other was dark. The reptile slunk off toward the darkened room, hoping Sullivan would be there. He was so focused that he didn't notice Boo exiting the lighted room.
She tripped over him on her way to the bathroom. She uttered a startled cry and kicked in his general direction. By luck, she stuck her foot violently into Randall's green eye. He yelped and turned a vibrant neon blue with pink spots, which was secretly his favorite color scheme.
The rest of the guesthouse's occupants heard his yelp and Mary's cry, notifying them that something was going on. They naturally came to check it out, which is not what Randall intended. "Drat", he thought, much peeved. "I had wanted to keep this low key."
Jade came into the guesthouse living room first, wielding a large copy of Moby Dick she had been reading. Wazowski came after her, armed with the latest issue of a science magazine he had chosen to occupy himself with. Sullivan came in armed with nothing but himself. Iris followed him, with Mary's blanket rolled up and at the ready.
"Randall!" Sulley exclaimed upon seeing the cause of the disturbance. "What are you doing in here? And at two in the morning?"
"Coming to say I was sorry," he said, shuffling his foremost foot on the ground shyly.
"For what?" Sulley asked "For worrying this woman out of her mind when you tried to kidnap her youngest daughter?"
"Pardon me?" Randall asked, taken aback. He had expected to be told off for ruining Sullivan's and Wazowski's lives, not for driving some human into a panic.
"Sull, he doesn't know!" Mike exclaimed, laughing. Sulley soon joined his best friend in a cascade of comforting giggles.
Randall was confused, befuddled, and bemused. "What?" he asked. "Why are you laughing?"
"Some things happened after we threw you through that door, Randall," Sulley said.
"No kidding! I got knocked out with a shovel, attacked by alligators, put in a cage, fed bugs, and purchased by a millionaire to scare his employees," the self-appointed "Lizard King" replied.
"Yeesh. That must've sucked," Mike said. "Anyway, Lizard Boy, some things happened on our side of the closet door. Number one: Waternoose got arrested by the CDA."
"Oh. Who took over? Someone must have taken over. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had any power to get a door working, so you and Sullivan wouldn't be here."
"Good point. I was getting there. Ahem. Number two: that little girl you tried to kidnap showed us that laughter is ten times more powerful than screams."
"Wow. I never would have guessed."
Mike blinked. "You're taking this awfully well," he commented. "Where were we? Oh yeah. Number three: Sulley is the new owner and CEO of Monsters, Inc."
Randall's mouth fell open. "How'd that happen?" he asked, floored.
"I introduced laughter as a replacement for screams," Sulley said, speaking up for the first time. "Since it's ten times more powerful, the energy crisis, at least for Monstropolis, disappeared."
"Didn't the Board of Directors try to stop you?" Randall asked. Knowing how set in their ways the members of the Board were, Randall was shocked that his old nemeses had succeeded.
"The energy crisis had gotten so bad that they were willing to try our proposed method. We had some difficulties, like the exploding canisters, in the beginning, but we fixed them."
"Exploding canisters?"
"Yeah. We tried to use the scream canisters for laughs but they didn't have the right capacity, so we use larger ones now."
"Dang. You know, I thought the incident would've ruined your lives, not made them better." Randall pondered.
"You know, you really should apologize to Boo's mother," Sulley said. "She just about lost her marbles when Boo disappeared."
"Who's Boo?" Randall asked, befuddled.
Jade, with the air of someone giving a lecture about endangered animals, replied to Randall, "Also known as Mary Woodward and as Fluzzy, Boo is the little girl you tried to kidnap, apparently. And she is also my little sister,"
"And you are.?" Randall asked, liking to know whom he was communicating with.
"Jade Woodward, Queen of the Freaks," she responded. "I also go by Poofiemus."
"I'm Randall Boggs. I go by Randall."
"I figured that out, actually."
Randall gave Jade a look that she recognized as one accusing her of insanity, which was a typical reaction when people first met her. The reptile didn't care what she thought of him and simply wanted to get away from the Queen of Freaks as soon as he could. He turned to Iris.
"Ma'am, I'm really sorry I kidnapped your daughter. Before I got stuck here, I had no idea humans were intelligent, or that they had, um, what's the term."
"Complex emotions," Jade supplied.
"Thanks. Complex emotions. I wouldn't have done it if I had known that, at least, I wouldn't now. Anyway, I'm sorry."
"That's okay. You're paying for it through the nose, anyhow." Iris said, pitying the eight-legged creature.
"No kidding."
"Are you into science at all?" Jade interrogated unexpectedly.
"Not really, no. Just cars."
"Drat. I was hoping to discuss the theory of cosmic inflation with someone."
Randall took a step backwards. Not many people could scare Randall, but Jade was unintentionally succeeding. No wonder she calls herself the Queen of Freaks, he thought to himself. The only person freakier was his own deranged sister.
"I should probably get going," Randall said, stealing a glance at the clock. "Gill gets up disgustingly early, even on holidays. The first thing he does every day is drag me across the property at five a.m., and I'd like to drag him around for once."
"That sound like it'll be funny to watch," Jade said, smirking. "I'll be watching through the nearest available window."
"Yippee, I have an audience," Randall said sarcastically. "See you later."
"Catch you later, Randall," Sulley said
Randall waved and slipped into near invisibility, finally able to leave his past behind.
Author's Notes: Okay. I, as the author, have not said much about myself. I would like to thank my friend Shichan Goddess for introducing me to Fan Fiction, and for showing me that even kids can be writers. I would also like to thank my mother for being my editor-in-chief, first critic, and my chief encourager. I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story thus far. You've all been very kind, and your reviews are appreciated. By the way, it was my dad's idea for me not to accept anonymous reviews, for security reasons. I want to thank my freaky dog, Ferrari, for keeping me company while I write.
As to the story itself, (*sung to the end of "Stars and Stripes Forever"*) ? ? ".well, you may think that this is the end.but, it's not. ? ?
Yours truly,
Poofiemus