Everyone Loves a Plot Bunny
Part 2: Plot Bunnies Aweigh, Men of Stalag 13

The men pulled into the parking lot in their Hertz rental car. They were lucky; they had been able to get the luxury sedan. It impressed the importance of this mission to London. They got out of the car and stared at the beach.

"So how do we go about finding the Colonel?" Le Beau asked.

"I think we'll have to try every beach on Cape Cod, looking for him," Kinch said.

Newkirk clapped his hands together eagerly. "That sounds like a plan to me, mates," he said. "Let's go!"

"Newkirk, remember we are looking for Colonel Hogan," Kinch said. "Let's not get sidetracked."

"Kinch, what makes you think that I could be ..." he said. His eyes were following a young woman walking by him. The woman was perfectly tanned and wore a tiny red string bikini that left little to Newkirk's vivid imagination. He watched until she walked over to a chair down the beach and sat down next to where 2 small children were playing. He shook his head and looked back at Kinch. "I'm sorry, what was it you were saying?"

Kinch sighed. "I said, let's not get sidetracked to the real reason we are here," he said.

"Right, and I was telling you that there is no way that I could be ..." Newkirk said. He stopped talking as two more scantily clad young women walked by heading in the other direction. "Excuse me mates," he said. "I think I see a clue that I must go and investigate." He started walking down the beach in the direction the young women were walking.

Kinch sighed again. "I think this will be one of the toughest missions we've been on," he said. "There are too many distractions."

Le Beau shrugged. "I don't see what is so distracting here," he said. He was looking down the beach in the direction of another young woman who was putting sun block on herself.

"Le Beau, now don't you start," Kinch said.

"But Kinch, I am French," Le Beau replied. "This is not distracting to me!" He walked towards the young woman and started talking to her. Within moments, he took the bottle of sun block and started rubbing it on her back.

Kinch sighed yet again. Now I know what Colonel Hogan felt like in the first Plot Bunny story. This is the third time I have sighed and it's getting very tiresome. And to top it off, now I am talking to myself. Kinch sighed. When he realized what he had just done, he started looking around. He spotted a man sitting on a chair in sunglasses, pressing repeatedly on a thin box that was folded into an L-shape. "You guys wait here," he said to Carter and Baker, and started walking over to the man.

The man looked up as Kinch stepped in front of him. Kinch noticed that the box had a little keyboard on the horizontal part of the box, and a screen on the vertical portion. There was a Dell logo just under the screen. Kinch bent over and looked at the writing on the screen.

"A-ha, just what I thought!" he exclaimed. "You're the idiot that's put us in this situation!"

The man looked up at Kinch for a moment, and then typed something into the box. Kinch looked at the screen and shook his head. "No, I will not get back over there and continue," he said.

The man typed something else and Kinch bent over to read it. He straightened up and looked back towards where Carter and Baker were standing. Neither man was still standing there. Instead, there was a beautiful young woman beckoning him over. Kinch looked back at the man sitting in front of him. "You do like to make things difficult, don't you?" he asked.

The man nodded and looked back at Kinch, waiting. Kinch shrugged. "Well, when in Rome," he said.

The man bent down and typed something else. Kinch looked at the screen. "I know we're not in Rome, you idiot," he said. "That was just an expression. Maybe you'd like to tell me just exactly where we are?"

The man nodded and typed furiously on the keypad again. Kinch read the screen. "Fall Mouth?" he said tentatively.

The man shook his head vigorously and typed again on the keypad. This was getting tedious. Kinch wished the man would just say something instead of typing on this stupid keypad. He read what was written on the screen. "The first syllable is pronounced foul?" Kinch asked. "So we're in Foul Mouth?"

The man looked at the sky and sighed. Then he typed something else on that infernal box of his. Kinch looked at the screen. "I see, it's Falmouth, pronounced like foul-myth," he said.

The man nodded and pointed back to the young woman that was getting a little impatient with Kinch. Kinch put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, I get the hint. I'm going!" he said. "I guess I'd might as well enjoy this little vacation too." He turned around and walked towards the woman, who was smiling at him.

Later that evening, the men were sitting together at a table in a pub called The British Beer Company, across the street from the beach where they had spent the day.

"Any luck?" Kinch asked.

"Eh?" Newkirk said, looking at Kinch.

"Any luck finding the Colonel?" Kinch clarified.

"Oh, that," Newkirk said. "I thought you were talking about something else."

"I know what you were thinking about," Kinch retorted.

"What was Newkirk thinking about, Kinch?" Carter asked naively.

"Never mind Carter," Kinch replied.

Carter shrugged and went back to studying the menu.

"I didn't find out anything useful from those women," Newkirk said. "But I think they were hiding something."

"I don't think they could hide very much with what they were wearing," Le Beau said.

"Ain't that the truth!" Newkirk said. "You know something, I think this idiot writer we have isn't so bad after all." Le Beau and Baker nodded their agreement.

"You have got to be kidding," Kinch said. "The plot of this story isn't any better than the other two."

"Oh, yes, that's true," Newkirk said. "But I was thinking about ..."

"I know," Kinch replied. "You seem to have only one thing on your mind."

Carter looked up from his menu. "What does Newkirk have on his mind, Kinch?" he asked.

"Never mind Carter," Kinch replied.

Carter stared at Kinch for a moment, then shrugged and went back to studying the menu.

"What I would like to decide," Kinch said, "is what we are going to do next."

"I know what I would like to do," Newkirk responded.

"Yes Newkirk, I can guess what you would like to do," Kinch said.

Carter looked up from his menu again. He looked at Kinch for a long moment, opened his mouth, stopped and shut his mouth again. Then he shook his head. "I know, never mind Carter," he said and went back to studying the menu.

Kinch stared at Carter and sighed. Darn it! There I go again with the sighing. Kinch pointed at the map he had laid on the table. "Anyway, we should decide where to go next," he said.

Both Baker and Le Beau looked at the map.

"Mashpee?" Baker asked.

"Sandwich?" Le Beau asked.

Carter looked up from his menu again. "Guys, I don't see a mashed pea sandwich on the menu," he said.

Newkirk, taking a sip from his beer, couldn't hold back his laugh, which was unfortunate for Le Beau, who was sitting across from him at the table. Kinch dropped his head in his folded arms on the table. He rolled it from side to side. We've got to find Colonel Hogan soon. I can't take too much more of this insane dialog.

Without raising his head, Kinch said, "Carter, Mashpee and Sandwich are towns on Cape Cod."

"Oh," Carter said, "Never mind then." He went back to studying his menu.

Kinch raised his head finally. "Look, we have to plan this out. Cape Cod has a lot of beaches on it, and we'll have to be organized to check them all out." Kinch looked at Newkirk and Le Beau and noticed the eager anticipation in their eyes. "No, I don't mean that!" he said.

"But Kinch, I'm French!" Le Beau exclaimed.

"Then go storm the Bastille," Kinch retorted. "We have to find the Colonel."

"Blimey, worse than me mum, he is!" Newkirk exclaimed.

"Yeah, but much better looking," Baker said laughing.

Newkirk glared at Baker. Before he could respond, Kinch said, "Fellas, let's concentrate."

Still glaring at Baker, Newkirk pointed to the tip of Cape Cod. "What about checking here?" he said. "Provincetown."

Kinch shook his head. "I don't think he would be there," he said. "Besides, you might not like the kind of Beach Bunnies that you will attract on the beaches there."

Carter looked up from his menu. "Why not Kinch?" he asked.

Kinch told him.

Carter smiled. "That sounds like a good place to go, if everyone is happy," he said.

Everyone stopped to stare at him. Le Beau shifted in the booth to move further away from Carter.

Kinch sighed. "No Carter," he said. "I didn't say they were happy. That wasn't the meaning of that word that I was using this time."

Carter stared at Kinch. Slowly a look of realization came over his face. He quickly started shaking his head. "No, that would not be a good place to go," he said.

"I agree with Carter," Newkirk said. "Those aren't my kind of Beach Bunnies at all."

Ignoring Carter and Newkirk, Kinch continued, "I think we should head over to Martha's Vineyard."

Le Beau perked up. "A vineyard?" he said. "We could have a little wine, and maybe this Martha will know where the Colonel is."

Kinch sighed again. "No Le Beau, it's not that kind of a vineyard," he said. "Martha's Vineyard is that island that you can see across the water from here."

Everyone turned to look out the window. "But how can we get over there?" Baker asked.

"We can catch the ferry at Woods Hole," Kinch said.

"Um Kinch," Carter said, "I thought you said that was in Provincetown."

Kinch stared at Carter. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The ferry, you said they were in Provincetown," he said.

For the second time Kinch dropped his head into his arms folded on the table. The other men stared at him. Kinch stayed that way for almost a minute. When he raised his head, he looked at Carter and said, "I said ferry, spelled F-E-R-R-Y. It's a boat, you dolt."

Before Carter could respond, the waitress appeared at the table ready to take their order. The men all ordered. When it was Carter's turn, he said, "I'll just have a bottle of Dasani water. I'm not very hungry."

"I'm sorry," the waitress replied. "We only have Aquafina or Poland Springs bottled water."

"Well then I'll just have a Mountain Dew," Carter replied.

When the waitress left, Newkirk turned to Carter. "If you weren't hungry, then why did you spend all this time studying the menu?" he asked.

Carter shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Ask him." He pointed over to the man that Kinch had talked to on the beach. He was sitting at a nearby table with that L-shaped box.

Newkirk started to get up but Kinch stopped him. "No Newkirk," he said. "Let it go. It won't be very helpful." Newkirk sat down.

"Besides," Kinch said, "we have to get over to Martha's Vineyard."

"Do you know the schedule of the ferry?" Baker asked.

Kinch looked over at Carter before responding. Carter didn't show any signs of making a comment. "I don't think the schedule matters," he said. "After all, we are in this story that makes no sense so why should we stick to a ferry schedule."

"Kinch is right," Le Beau said. "I have a feeling that we'll all of a sudden find ourselves on the island with no explanation as to how we got there."

The men were standing in the middle of a clearing on Martha's Vineyard. Surrounding the clearing were many quaint cottages. In the middle of the clearing was a large pavilion. On each cottage was a sign on which the name of the cottage was written.

Le Beau looked around. "See? I told you so," he said.

"You were right," Baker said. "The sad part is, I didn't even get to eat my food."

"Look at all these houses," Carter said. "They look like gingerbread houses."

"They're so little!" Newkirk observed.

"I don't think they are that small," Le Beau said.

"That's because you are so short, Le Beau," Kinch said.

"Hey, no short jokes!" Le Beau exclaimed.

Kinch shrugged. "Not my fault," he said.

Le Beau started scanning the area. He spotted a man sitting on a bench in the clearing in the middle of the houses. The man had the L-shaped box on his lap and was busy pounding away at it. Le Beau walked over to him.

"What's the big idea putting short jokes in this story?" he asked angrily.

The man looked at Le Beau, then pounded a little at the keypad on the box. Le Beau looked at the screen.

"Yeah, so what. I'm short," he said.

The man typed some more on the box and showed Le Beau the screen. Le Beau stared for a moment and then walked back towards the rest of the men.

"Well?" Newkirk asked.

"He said that if I ever want to see this story end, I have to put up with an occasional short joke," Le Beau said.

"Then please put up with them!" Baker said. "I'd hate to have this go on forever!"

Newkirk was watching a group of young ladies walk down the street. The women were wearing very short shorts and tops that left their midriffs exposed. "Oh, I don't know," he mused. "I think I could put up with this for a while." He nudged Le Beau and Baker and the three of them started walking down the street after the women.

Kinch sighed. "Oh brother," he said.

"Where are they going Kinch?" Carter asked.

"Never mind Carter," Kinch replied.