The Neverending Plot Bunny
Part 3: Plot Bunnies Are Your Best Escape
Kinch stood over a little purple ball and putted it through an opening of a wooden structure shaped like a ship. The ball went through and plopped into the hole on the other side.
"Another hole in one," Baker said, writing on a card with a short pencil.
"I think Le Beau should be the one to keep score," Carter said. "After all, he's short just like that pencil there."
Le Beau glared at Carter, and then looked around. Sure enough, the man was a few holes behind them waving.
Kinch walked down and retrieved his ball from the hole. "Listen, let's finish this game and move on," he said.
"That's easy for you to say," Newkirk retorted. "You've won every game of miniature golf we've played so far."
"That's beside the point," Kinch said.
"Well if that's not the point, then why are we playing?" Newkirk replied.
"This is another plot device to mention more towns on Cape Cod," Kinch responded.
As if on cue, Carter asked, "So how many games have we played so far today?"
Kinch started ticking them off on his fingers as they walked to the last hole. "Well, after we got back from the trip to Nantucket this morning, we played in Bourne. Then we played at the Pirate's Cove in Yarmouth and now we are in Hyannis at this place called Storyland."
"So what's next?" Le Beau asked.
"Brewster and Dennis," Kinch replied.
"Do you think they will know where Colonel Hogan is?" Carter asked.
"Do I think who will know?" Kinch asked.
"These two fellas, Brewster and Dennis," Carter replied.
Kinch stared at Carter for a long moment. "Carter, just hit the ball," he said.
Carter shrugged and hit the ball. It traveled down the hill, into a little tube and shot out towards the hole. The ball rebounded off the back wall and then went into the hole. "I did it!" he shouted. "I got a hole in one!" He ran down to the hole and looked in. "Hey, where's my ball?" he asked.
"It's the last hole, Carter," Baker said.
"So?" carter responded.
"You don't get the ball on the last hole," Baker said.
"That's not fair," Carter pouted.
"Carter," Kinch said. "Be quiet or you don't get any ice cream."
"Ice cream?" carter said, his eyes lighting up. "Let's go!"
Kinch sighed. I feel like a father on vacation with his 3 teenagers and a 5 year old. I have to keep an eye on the teenagers or else they will walk away after any member of the opposite sex that bats an eyelash at them. And Carter, oh boy, is he a handful!
The men were sitting at a picnic table outside the ice cream place. Carter had devoured two large cones and wanted another.
"No Carter," Kinch said. "Two is plenty."
"Aw shucks," Carter pouted. "I never get to have anything."
Kinch ignored him. "I've been thinking of where to look next," he said.
"Have you decided anything?" Baker asked.
Kinch shook his head. "Not really," he said, looking at the map on the table in front of him.
"We could go up here," Le Beau said, pointing. "Truro and Wellfleet. There seems to be a lot of beach area in those two towns."
Kinch nodded. "That's true," he said. "We can work our way north along the coast."
Carter was looking through a little book. Kinch looked at the cover – Kids on the Cape. Suddenly, Carter dropped the book on the table and pointed to a page from it. "Hey Kinch, can we do this?" he asked.
Kinch looked. "Pirate Adventures of the Sea Gypsy in Orleans?" he asked.
Carter nodded vigorously. "Yes, we can go out on a pirate ship!" he exclaimed.
"I don't know, Carter," Kinch said. "I doubt that the Colonel would be on that boat. Remember we're here to find him."
Carter looked downcast. "But I want to have fun," he pouted.
"Carter, keep quiet," Newkirk admonished. Before he could say anything else, he noticed several young ladies heading towards the miniature golf course. Nudging Le Beau and Baker, he motioned in that direction.
Le Beau nodded and started to get up. "Kinch, while you figure out our plan, we're going to escort those ladies around the golf course," he said. Baker and Newkirk followed him to the golf course.
Kinch sighed. "Oh brother," he muttered.
"What's wrong Kinch?" Carter asked.
"Go get another ice cream cone, Carter," Kinch said.
Carter smiled and jumped up to run inside.
Kinch parked the car in the beach parking lot and everyone got out.
"Where are we now?" Baker asked.
"Chatham," Kinch replied. "We can look on this beach and see what we can find."
Newkirk was scanning the beach. "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello," he said, pointing down the beach.
Kinch looked and saw what he expected. "No Newkirk," he said. "At this beach we are going to look for Colonel Hogan."
Newkirk shrugged and followed the rest of the men out onto the sand.
From behind them, the men heard a familiar voice, "And what are you men doing here?" it asked.
They turned and saw Major Hochstetter standing there. The men were speechless, not because Major Hochstetter had caught them outside of camp – way outside of camp. They were flabbergasted at what the Major was wearing.
"That is a very, um, interesting outfit you have on Major Hochstetter," Kinch said tactfully.
The Major was clad in baggy shorts that hung down past his knees, a muscle-style shirt and around his waist was an inflatable floatation device with a ducks head in the front.
Hochstetter looked down. "Bah!" he exclaimed. "Those fools in wardrobe did it to me again! I said I was going to the beach for a little dunk, and they gave me a little duck!"
Newkirk smiled. "Aw come on Major, the duck isn't that bad," he said. "You know what they say, it's not the size that matters!"
"Bah!" Hochstetter yelled again. "Heads will roll!" He stomped off down the beach, ignoring all of the pointing and laughing that followed him.
Le Beau was laughing hysterically. "I'm glad I saw that one," he said. "If I was one of the poor readers of this story, it might not have seemed so funny."
"That's so true," Baker agreed.
The men heard another familiar voice behind them and turned to find Kommandant Klink standing there, with Schultz behind him.
"Hello, Kommandant," Kinch said.
"Hello men," Klink replied. He took a deep breath of the salt air. "Ah, isn't Palm Springs great?"
Baker and Kinch looked at each other. Kinch finally said, "Um Colonel, this is Cape Cod. Palm Springs is on the west coast of the country."
Klink frowned. "Really?" he asked. Kinch nodded. Klink sighed, and Kinch was glad that it was somebody else's turn. "I was hoping to make it to Palm Springs while we were on this vacation," Klink said. "What are you doing here?"
"We're looking for Colonel Hogan," Kinch replied. "He's off to find the elusive Beach Bunny."
"Sounds like fun," Schultz said.
"Schultz!" Klink bellowed. "You keep out of this."
"Hey Schultz, what is that you are wearing?" Carter asked.
Schultz looked down at his outfit. "This is my swimsuit," he said.
"Swimsuit?" Newkirk asked. "From what century?" The men laughed.
Schultz looked down again. "I do not wish to expose too much of myself," he said.
"That might be hard for you, Schultzie," Le Beau said.
"I hate to break this to you, but ankle length swim suits went out of style sometime in the early 1900's," Baker said.
"Really?" Schultz asked. "How come nobody told me?"
"Come on, Schultz," Newkirk said. "Let's go find you something more stylish to wear." Newkirk led the big man away.
"So you are looking for Colonel Hogan?" Klink asked.
Kinch nodded. "We've looked over almost the entire Cape and haven't seen any sign of him yet."
"Hey Kinch," Carter said, "let's go on one of those whale watch boats."
Kinch sighed. "I don't think he will be out there," he said.
"I know, but I think we'll see something out there," Carter replied.
"What makes you say that?" Baker asked.
Carter pointed over to a pile of large rocks. They saw the man again, sitting on a large boulder with his L-shaped box on his lap, pounding away.
Kinch sighed again. "I suppose we better indulge him," he said.
Before they could walk away, Newkirk returned leading a reluctant Schultz by the hand. "There you go Schultzie," he said.
The men looked at Schultz. "What exactly are you wearing?" Klink asked.
Schultz was almost too embarrassed to speak. "I believe the man called it a speedo," Schultz whispered.
Le Beau was trying hard not to laugh. "It looks like something that the writer should have put on Colonel Hogan!" he exclaimed.
The men heard a loud whistle and glanced over at the man sitting on the rocks. He pounded furiously on the keypad on the box. Then he motioned to the men and pointed at the screen. Kinch sighed and walked over to glance at the screen. He read what was on it and came back.
"Well, what did it say?" Baker asked.
"He didn't want to take a chance with putting Hogan in that outfit," Kinch replied. "He was afraid of teasing too many members of that SmartGroups list thing."
"Teasing them how?" Le Beau asked.
"Can you imagine Colonel Hogan in that outfit?" Kinch asked
"Well, he's not my type," Le Beau said. "But I do get your point. We would probably have too many of those writer-people flocking to this story."
Kinch nodded. "Exactly. We could have a riot on our hands with everyone fighting to get near him," he said.
"So now can we go on the whale watch boat?" Carter asked.
Kinch sighed. "Yes Carter, we can go now," he replied.
The boat had gone miles away from the shore. The men stood on deck, looking out at sea.
"I can't wait until we see them!" Carter exclaimed.
"Settle down, Carter," Newkirk said. "We'll see them."
Suddenly, the captain of the boat directed their attention to the port side of the boat. The men all moved to the left side of the boat, except for Carter.
"Carter, get over here!" Le Beau said.
"But Le Beau, the captain said the port side," Carter said. "And the port is back in that direction!"
"Carter!" Kinch exclaimed. "Port is a nautical term for left."
"Oh," carter said, and joined the others.
Baker pointed out to sea. "Look, there they are!" he said.
Everyone watched as several whales arched out of the water. One of the largest blew a spout of water from its blowhole as if putting on a show for the boat.
Klink pointed towards the end of the pod of whales. "Look, what's that at the end?" he asked.
The men looked at Klink and Schultz. Schultz was still wearing his miniscule outfit, and looked very self-conscious.
"I didn't know you two came along," Kinch said.
Klink nodded. "We didn't have anything else to do and I didn't want to waste the airfare just to come here for one or two lines," he said.
"Major Hochstetter didn't seem to mind," Newkirk said.
Klink shrugged. "Maybe the Gestapo has a bigger budget," he said. "Besides, he doesn't have to answer to General Burkhalter."
Kinch let out a small gasp. Oh no, he said that name. I wonder what is going to happen now.
"As I was saying," Klink said, "what's that at the end?"
Kinch put the binoculars that he had brought up to his eyes to look. After focusing a bit and scanning to find the pod of whales, he moved the glasses to the end. When he saw what Klink was talking about, he nearly dropped the binoculars into the ocean. "You are not going to believe this," he said.
"What is it?" Baker asked. Kinch handed him the glasses and Baker looked. "You're right, I don't," Baker said astonished.
"Let me see," Newkirk said and grabbed the binoculars. He looked through them and let out a laugh. "Blimey! It's General Burkhalter out there!" he exclaimed.
There was a rush for the binoculars, as Klink, Le Beau and Carter each wanted their turn to look.
Sure enough, at the very end of the pod of whales that was surfacing, General Burkhalter was swimming. He would dive and surface, like the whales. Occasionally he would spit a stream of water into the air. What the men in the boat did not hear was the General saying over and over, "I hate this dummkopf writer!"
"Well now I've seen everything," Newkirk said.
"No you haven't, old chum," Baker replied. "We haven't found Colonel Hogan yet."
"That's right," Kinch said. "But I think it's time for another one of those lines of asterisks that places us in a new location. And I have a feeling that we will find Colonel Hogan."
"What makes you say that?" Klink asked.
"We only have one town left to visit, and I don't think that this writer is dumb enough to send us on this chase without finding the Colonel," Kinch replied.
"Are you sure about that?" Le Beau asked.
"Of course not," Kinch said. "Look out, here come those asterisks."
"Whew, that was close!" Baker said.
"I warned you," Kinch responded.
"Where are we now?" Carter asked.
"We're on the Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham," Kinch replied. "Over there is the Coast Guard station."
Everyone turned to look.
"Should we go Ooooooh and Ahhhhh now?" Carter asked.
Kinch shook his head. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said. "We don't need the sound effects for this story. Look, there's the Colonel," he said, pointing to a spot on the beach.
Everyone looked to where Kinch was pointing. Indeed, there was Colonel Hogan, soaking up some sun. The men were shocked to see two blonde Beach Bunnies on the sand beside him.
"Oh no," Newkirk said. "It looks like two of those Beach Bunnies have got him. We've got to help the Colonel!"
They ran across the beach towards the Colonel, yelling at the Beach Bunnies. Colonel Hogan raised his head and looked towards the commotion. When he saw his entire team running towards him, followed by Klink and Schultz, he winced.
"Well, there goes the neighborhood," he said to Hilda and Helga, who were beside him on the sand.
The men reached Hogan and stopped. They stared at Hilda and Helga in surprise. Newkirk stared at them with a little more than surprise, but seeing the glare of his Colonel, he quickly looked away.
"Colonel, I'm glad we found you!" Kinch exclaimed.
"Well I'm not!" Hogan responded. "Why did you have to come here anyway? We were having such a peaceful time."
"And you didn't take us?" Kinch asked.
"Sorry," Hogan said sheepishly. "I guess I figured that I would be back before you knew I was missing."
Kinch cleared his throat. "Colonel, now that we found you I have something to say," he said.
"Yes, what is it?" Hogan asked.
Kinch pointed to Newkirk, Le Beau and Baker, who had wandered down the beach following several young ladies with very little to hide. "They're all yours," he said.
With that, Kinch turned around and walked towards a group of four beautiful ladies who where waiting for him by the parking lot. When he got there, they all rushed to give him a welcome kiss. Kinch turned around and looked back. Hogan could see a very broad smile on his face. Kinch waved, and followed the ladies into a brand new sport utility vehicle and drove away.
Hogan looked pleadingly over at Klink. "Don't look at me," Klink said. "I wanted to go to Palm Springs." He shook his head and started walking away down the beach.
Hogan looked at Schultz. "That's a very interesting swim suit you have on Schultz," he said. "It leaves very little to the imagination."
Schultz nodded, and reddened with embarrassment. Hilda and Helga looked at each other and nodded. Smiling, they got up and each took one of Schultz's arms and led him away. As he left, Schultz looked back at Hogan with a huge smile on his face.
Hogan looked around for Carter. He saw him down the beach, trying to fly a kite. Hogan sighed. "So much for my vacation," he said aloud.