Author's Note: DAKKI: This is, officially, the Chapter of Insane Amounts of Indiana Jones References.
DALTON: It is also the Chapter of Insane Amounts of Copyright Infringement.
SATURDAY: And, for added fun, we've decided that the reviewer who identifies the most movie references wins…
((drumroll))
A Night on the Town with Charlie Dalton!
DALTON: ((flexes manly muscles and grins))
DAKKI: That's right, you, the reader, may win a night with Charlie Dalton! You'll dine at a five-star restaurant, ride around town in a limo, drink fine champagne, and party at the most exclusive clubs!
DALTON: ((coughs)) The club is called "Jack in the Box"…
DAKKI & SATURDAY: And now, on with the fic!
Chapter Two--Calling
Doctor Jones
"Now, listen to me when I say this, guys, 'cause it might just change your
life: when you love someone--I mean really love someone--give them a
potato. It's the only way to tell them how much you care."
This titanic statement was not exactly met with the reaction Race had hoped for
(applause, tears, and a nomination for the Nobel Prize) but rather four puzzled
stares and a loud, unrelated coughing fit from Spot, who had choked on his
freeze-dried ravioli as he tried to lick his lips suggestively, wink at me, and
hum "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" all at the same time.
"JACK! Save me!" he gasped, hurling himself toward me so I
could give him the Heimlich maneuver, knocking me off my stump and sending both
of us sprawling onto the ground, with him landing on top of me.
"You know, Spot, if you can say 'Jack, save me,' I really don't think you
need the Heimlich maneuver that badly," David remarked. I looked up
at him with a weak expression and smiled gratefully.
As suddenly as he had lunged at me, Spot jumped up. "Oh, I see how
this is," he said, staring at David accusingly.
"Finally," Swifty mumbled.
"Davey, you want a piece of my hot body too, don't you?" Spot asked,
angling his ass in his skintight leather pants towards David's face.
David politely attempted not to throw up.
"SPOT!" I shouted, horrified, at least partly because I was afraid
David might actually develop a crush on him because of all this, and then I
would probably have to kill myself by overdose of powdered milk substitute.
"Well, it won't work," Spot said, going over to sit on my lap.
Oh, Jesus. "I'm all Jack's. And you can't have me."
"Gee, what a shame," David said sarcastically, and then--I almost
could have sworn--he winked at me.
"Hey, Davey, you okay?" Race asked.
"Oh, yeah, I just got a gnat in my eye. Okay. It's out."
Never mind.
"So, what's this about potatoes?" Swifty asked at last, as Bumlets
rubbed his back, Spot (still in my lap despite my best efforts) nibbled on my
ear, and David concentrated very hard on his applesauce.
"Well," Racetrack said, "I was just saying that a potato is the
perfect gift for someone you love."
"A potato?" Swifty said.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes."
He frowned. "Well…why?"
"Okay, well," Race said, "look at it this way-what do people
usually give to somebody they love? Roses, right?"
"Yeah…"
"But what do roses say? I mean, all they do is just sit in a vase
and look pretty, and they get all brown and gross after a few days. So
giving someone roses is like saying 'my love for you is temporary and based
solely upon your appearance'."
I thought about this a moment. Racetrack was always coming up with
crackpot theories like this-the pajama thing, for one, or his belief that the
Amish were, by increments, taking over the world-but this one actually made
sense. Especially when I looked at it in light of the fact that a week
after we broke up, Spot took it upon himself to send me ninety-nine red roses,
and a singing telegram to perform "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" complete
with choreography. In the middle of my history final.
"Potatoes, though," Racetrack said, seeming more and more
excited. "I mean, there are so many ways you can enjoy a
potato! You can have mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, riced potatoes,
whipped potatoes, fried potatoes, potato pancakes, potato skins, potato soup,
French fries, home fries, hash browns, tater tots…I mean, you can even make a
battery out of one-"
"You can use one as a sex toy," Spot put in.
"Um…"
"You've been perfecting this theory for a long time, haven't you,
Race?" I asked.
"You can also make a battery out of a lemon," Davey said
thoughtfully. "We did it in the second grade."
"You can use that as a sex toy, too."
"You had sex toys in the second grade?"
"AS I WAS SAYING," Racetrack yelled. "So, you guys see my
argument?"
"Actually, in the second grade, I was-"
"SHUT UP, SPOT!" everybody yelled.
"Yeah," said Swifty, "actually, I can see your point."
"Y'know, Race," Bumlets mused, "you may be onto something."
"How would you use a potato as a sex toy?" David wondered.
"Well, you-"
"Okay, Spot, that's enough."
And so the rest of the evening was spent discussing potatoes, how they were
ugly but still really awesome, how they lasted forever and instead of dying
just grew even more, and how David's mother had always used to make really great
mashed potatoes every Tuesday night, and the secret was to use orange juice in
them instead of milk, which we all agreed was just plain nasty.
And, to this day, I'll have no idea how Spot did it: but when I went into my
sleeping bag that night, it was filled, from top to bottom, with potatoes.
.o.
"Jesus," Race said, "how do you think he managed it? There
have to be two hundred in there, at least."
"I have no idea," I muttered.
"I mean, I didn't even bring that many potatoes. Could he have…I don't
know…grown them, or something?"
"Do you wanna go get some breakfast?"
"These look like russets."
"I could really go for some coffee."
"I read that russets don't even grow in Alaska…"
"Are we out of Bisquick yet?"
"HOW COULD HE FIND SO MANY POTATOES?" Racetrack collapsed to
his knees and, out of sheer frustration, began to beat his head against the
side of the tent, which didn't accomplish much, since tents, as we all know,
are made of a thin, flexible fabric, and Racetrack has a pretty hard head.
It was the morning after Racetrack's potato discourse, and we had all had an
interesting night. It had taken me over an hour to get out all the
potatoes Spot had put in my sleeping bag; the worst part was that he hadn't
even admitted it, just sat there innocently shuffling Racetrack's pack of cards
and trying to get someone to play strip spoons with him. Swifty and
Bumlets had stayed awake for a long time whispering sweet nothings to each
other about curly fries, in between making out. And then, just when
everyone had pretty much gone to sleep, it started to rain. (It was
actually more like a flash flood, but I don't want to get too technical.)
We learned something important that night: there's a reason they tell you not
to pitch your tent on an incline. Somewhere after midnight, we all woke
up to find out sleeping bags drenched and our tent submerged in six inches of
water. Interestingly enough, Spot was sleep-singing "My Heart Will
Go On".
Swifty solved the problem when he cut a hole in the south side of the tent for
all the water to run out of, but needless to say, no one slept very well after
that. Instead, we lay awake in the dark while Racetrack told us about the
doily collection of Catherine the Great, which was more interesting than anyone
would have liked to admit. Now it was morning, and everyone, although
much more enlightened on the subject of doilies, was in a pretty bad mood.
"Um, Race?" David said. "Are you sure you can make coffee
out of potatoes?"
"You can make anything out of potatoes," Racetrack said, strangely
dignified for someone who was wearing pink bunny jammies with feet.
(Earlier that morning Swifty had remarked that Race looked like Buster Baxter
on crack, at which point Racetrack had beamed and skipped off to brush his
teeth. There are twenty-seven thousand students at BU, and I got roomed
with the only one who watches "Arthur" on a regular basis.)
"Look, Race," David said, pulling his plate away before Racetrack
could serve him any more potato waffles, "I can see how some of this stuff
might work. Potato pancakes, sure. My family eats those all the
time. But…potato flakes?"
"That's what they eat in Ireland
instead of Raisin Bran," Race said authoritatively. "Every
morning. They make everything out of potatoes."
"How would you know?"
"I'm Irish."
"You're Italian!"
"Only partly," he muttered.
"Race," I said, cutting in as I attempted to save Davey from Race's
twisted brand of logic, "you are Italian. Your entire family lives
in Little Italy. Your sister's name is Giovanna. You played Tony in
the school production West Side Story-"
"Really?" Spot said, suddenly looking at Racetrack with a little more
interest.
"Yeah," I said. "He still sings 'Somewhere' in the shower
sometimes."
"Maybe you could sing it to me sometime," Spot said seductively,
licking his lips and gazing at Racetrack, who fell backwards out of his chair.
"I can't believe you told him that," he hissed, standing back up and
handing me a plate of potato waffles that had fallen on his head.
"Now Spot'll be hitting on me all day."
"Sorry," I said.
"You don't sound sorry."
"Well, y'know, I'm not, really." I grinned, and cut a bite of
potato waffle. Before I could eat it, though, Racetrack grabbed hold of
my wrist and glared at me.
"If you don't get Spot to leave me alone," he said, "I will tell
everyone that for an entire year when you were eight you were convinced that
your parents had stolen you and you were actually a member of the Power
Rangers."
I stared at him pleadingly. "Oh, God, Race, please-"
"And that you would only answer to 'Blue Ranger' and refused to be called
Francis." He paused. "I'll also tell you that your real
name is Francis."
"Don't. Call me. Francis." I said through gritted teeth.
"I will if you don't do something soon," he said. He could be
pretty scary for someone who had a big fluffy tail on his backside.
I buried my head in my hands. There was no way that Davey could find out
about that. Nothing else really mattered. Taking a deep breath, I
leapt up, began to do what Racetrack called my Interpretive Cowboy Dance, and
sang at the top of my lungs:
"KISS ME TOO FIIIIIIEEEEERRRRCELY, HOLD ME TOO TIIIIIIIIIIGHT! I
need help believing you-ou're with me, to-o-night…my wildest dreaming could not
foresee, lying beside you, with you wanting MEEEEEEEEEE! AND JUST FOR
THIS MOMENT! AS LONG AS YOU'RE MINE! I'VE LOST ALL
RESISTANCE! AND CROSSED SOME BORDERLINE…"
It wasn't as bad as I'd thought. I actually have a decent voice - I
played Marcellus Washburn in the tenth grade school production of "The
Music Man", another thing I never wanted anyone but Racetrack to find out
about - and only Swifty laughed hard enough to choke on one of the waffles that
he had stolen from my plate. Everyone else managed to stay upright, and
David politely stifled his laughter, while Spot just stared at me with eyes the
size of saucers the entire time, practically purring.
Happy, I sat down on my stump, and was just tossing some potato waffle into my
mouth, when suddenly Racetrack reached out a hand and grabbed it from midair.
"Bad waffles," he said, and pointed gravely to the ground beside
me. I looked down, startled, to see Swifty collapsed on the grass,
Bumlets already beside him, trying to shake him awake.
.o.
Spot had poisoned the waffles, of course. It didn't take long for us to
figure that one out: almost as soon as Swifty hit the ground, Spot stomped off
to the tent shouting something about how I was supposed to get those waffles so
he could drag me off and have with way with me, and it would have worked, too,
if it weren't for those meddling kids. As punishment, Racetrack sent him
to time-out for the rest of the morning and put him on cooking detail for the
duration of the trip. Swifty woke up with a bad headache after about
fifteen minutes, and Bumlets had a lot of fun pretending to be a wartime nurse
and quoting from "Pearl Harbor", while Swifty lay in the tent
drinking Milo through a twisty straw. It
was the most peaceful morning we'd had since we'd arrived.
That was, of course, until Swifty started whining about how he hurt all over. Wherever Bumlets tried to help, his boyfriend would cry, "No! It hurts!" and begin to whimper sadly.
"What about here?" Bumlets tried tentatively.
"That hurts too!"
Bumlets sighed in exasperation and sat back on his heels. "Well dammit, Swifty, where doesn't it hurt?"
Swifty thought for a moment, then pointed to his elbow. "HERE," he said poutily.
Bumlets slowly leaned forward and kissed his elbow.
Swifty paused, and then a small smile spread across his face. "Here," he said, pointing to his forehead. Bumlets kissed his forehead, too.
I'm sure you can guess what happened after Swifty announced that his lips were not hurting at all in the slightest. Let's just say that none of us dared to go back into the tent until we absolutely had to, and Spot insisted on holding his breath in order to avoid inhaling radioactive material. It was very interesting.
That afternoon, though, Racetrack decided to shake things up, and force us to go on a sort of mini-hike to take photographs of Alaska's wildlife with his special Kyocera Finecam M410R. He wanted to be able to have full-color illustrations when he wrote his memoirs, so he was obsessed with photographing absolutely everything that happened to him wherever he went."Come on, guys! A-photographing we go!" he yelled, sort of prancing out of the tent with all his equipment.
"Why?" I asked without looking up.
Racetrack smiled at me from under the rim of his hat. "Fortune and glory, Jack. Fortune and glory."
"I'm seriously beginning to grow concerned about your mental health, Race, did you know that?" said Bumlets from where he was trying to teach Swifty and David how to do a complicated series of ballet moves in a patch of scrubby grass.
"Why's that?" Race asked idly, adjusting the lens of his camera.
"Because your fedora has pink bunny ears coming out of the top. That's just wrong, dude."
At which point Spot tried not to look turned-on and ended up tripping over a shrubbery. He still had yet to get over the idea of Racetrack as Tony.
I must say that watching David do ballet was quite possibly the hottest thing I'd seen in a very long time. His face was scrunched up in concentration and his tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth as he watched Bumlets swing his legs around at impossible angles. Every so often a little curly piece of hair would fall in front of his eyes, and he would flick it away impatiently and give a little sigh of frustration. Holy crap, that man was sexy...
Racetrack waved a hand in front of my face. "Hell-ooo, Jacky-boy-"
"HEY! That's my nickname for him!"
"Sorry, Spot."
"Yeah, you should be. He's MINE."
"Whatever..." Race adjusted his fedora impatiently, his fingers hovering over the camera around his neck as if he were itching to plan out his memoir. "C'mon, guys, we have to go before the sun goes down!"
David, pausing in the middle of an arabesque, glanced at his watch. "The sun doesn't go down for another five hours, Race," he said skeptically.
Race grinned. "My memoir's gonna be pretty fucking long, buddy."
It was in this way that the four of us found ourselves being dragged into the wilderness yet again by a fanatical Racetrack. Yeah, I know, the guy's small-but when he gets going, there's no stopping him. It's positively terrifying.
"So where to, Race?" asked Swifty.
Racetrack, who was kneeling down to take a picture of a couple of owl droppings, didn't answer. Bumlets shrugged and pulled a map from his backpack. "You want pictures of wildlife?" he said slowly.
"Yep," said Race distractedly.
"Well then we should probably take this route, 'cause it leads right through the center of the woods and it looks wild."
"It looks wild?" Race lifted an eyebrow.
"Shut up, Mr. Bunny Fedora."
It was in this way that we ended up spending two and a half hours in the middle of nowhere, yawning and grumbling and poking each other and watching Race taking pictures of flowers. I was bored out of my mind, and occupied myself by trying to get closer to David and farther away from Spot. Needless to say, I was not having very much success.
"Where the hell did you come from?" I demanded, looking over to find Spot at my elbow yet again.
Spot shrugged. "I'm like a bad penny; I always turn up," he said, and proceeded to make some incredibly disturbing tongue gestures at me.
"I see," said David.
"Behold!" gasped Racetrack from up ahead. "An Arctic Poppy!"
"Poppies will make them sleeeeeeeep!" said Swifty in an uncanny impression of the Wicked Witch of the West, which caused a full-blown reenactment of a scene from "Wicked" by him and his boyfriend, looking at me meaningfully every few lines as if searching for signs that I was dying to sing Elphaba's part with them. Ha.
I decided to look at David instead of making myself go through the pain of watching them. "Do you know what time it is?" I asked him.
David glanced at his wrist and squinted for a full ten seconds before realizing he had forgotten to wear his watch. "No idea," he said, grinning at me. "It's getting late."
"I HATE being outside!" Spot yelled, tried to pull the leg of his pants from some brambles. "Jack, save me!"
I looked at him.
"Aww, you guy suck," he said, and he sat down and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not moving any further. I hate the brambles, and I hate being cold, and I hate YOU!" He directed the last word at Racetrack, who was examining a fireweed and didn't answer.
"Aw c'mon, Spot, you can't stay here all night," said David reasonably.
"Sure he can," I answered.
Spot glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean, Cowboy? Don't be ridiculous-from the moment you met me, you haven't been able to keep your eyes off me!"
"Oh yeah?" I leaned against a tree and slid my hat down over my face so that I wouldn't have to look at him any more. Maybe I'd finally be able to get some sleep.
"Umm, Race?" said Bumlets after a moment.
"Yes, Bumlets?" I heard Racetrack answer irritably. "I'm kind of busy at the moment; these forget-me-nots are incredible. What do you want?"
Bumlets cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think our map is wrong."
There was silence for a minute, and then I heard Race snatch the map from the other boy's hands. "Of course the map isn't wrong; I got it for twenty bucks at the base camp. Look-according to the map, we should be right about-" He stopped.
"Yeah, we should be in the middle of a lake," said Bumlets.
There was another long pause.
"Shit," said Swifty.
"Lost?!" Spot yelled, his voice cracking. "We can't be lost! I'm too YOUNG to die! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME, I'M AN AMERICAN-"
"Aw, shut up, Spot," said David impatiently. "Let me see that map, I'll bet you're just holding it upside-down or something."
He wasn't. The map was wrong.
"Aww, where are we, anyway?" Spot whined after about ten minutes of fruitless map-reading. He was still stuck to the bramble bushes, I was still hiding behind my hat, and Bumlets, Swifty, David, and Race had sunk dejectedly onto the scrub grass.
There was silence for a minute. Then- "Farther from camp than I thought," said Racetrack softly.
"How do you know that?" David asked.
Race didn't say anything. I heard Spot gasp faintly at my right, and I took my hat off my face. I gasped too.
Standing before us was a very tall, very thin, very dark, very scary old man. His hair was white and frizzy, standing a good five inches out on either side of his head, and his eyes were wild and shining. He was smiling crookedly at the six of us.
"Holy crap," said Bumlets softly.
--
I had never seen a Mesolithic tribe in the middle of Alaska before, and I was beginning to wonder whether I was having a Hansel moment and just high from some sort of weed that I'd been smoking for the past five days. Scary Old Man turned out to be pretty nice, but he didn't seem to realize that we didn't speak his language.
No, I mean he was seriously ranting on in some unusual dialect and expecting us to understand everything he was saying. Racetrack was trying very hard to be polite, but I could see the corners of his eyes crease up the way they always did when he was confused or frustrated or both. I tried not to laugh.
We walked through the middle of town, where wide-eyed, dark-skinned people were selling goods. Spot was very excited; he hadn't been shopping for a week and a half, and he was starting to go into withdrawal. He was also very broke.
"Water? No, thank you, fish make love in it," he was saying to a street vendor. "Is there anyone here who speaks English? Or maybe even ancient Greek? No, thank you, ma'am, I'm a vegetarian. Hey! Does anyone understand a word I'm saying here?"
"C'mon, Spot," I said, taking him by the elbow so that he would follow us into a small hut at the end of the road.
The moment we stepped inside, I knew I was going to like it here. The air smelled faintly of some sort of wood, and the floor was carpeted with the kind of stuff that feels really nice between your toes. I was tempted to take off my shoes and socks and walk around the room several times, but I decided against it. The last thing I wanted was for Spot to think I was stripping or something...
Scary Old Man smiled at us as we sat down, and he nodded to someone just outside the hut. Two or three young women entered, bowed to us, and handed us crude bowls of some sort of food.
"Ohh, I hope this means dinner," said Spot anxiously. "God, I'm starving."
"Thank you," said Racetrack as he accepted the dish. I got one too, and looked down.
It seemed to be a combination of cooked rice and smushed flies all mixed together into one disgusting paste. I looked over at Race, who was eating contentedly, and then at David, Swifty, and Bumlets, who were tentatively poking at it. I looked back down at mine. "Ah well, couldn't be much worse than our omelet mix," I said, shrugging, and I tried it. Personally, I thought the omelet mix was much worse.
Spot stared at me, carefully not looking at his bowl. "I can't eat this," he said.
"That's more food than these people eat in a week," said Racetrack, trying to smile so that Scary Old Man and the women wouldn't see that anything was wrong. "They're starving."
"Oh, well then-" Spot tried to offer the food back to the women, but Race stopped him.
"You're insulting them, and you're embarrassing me," he said. "Eat it."
Spot glared at him, lower lip trembling, and then looked back down at the food. With a barely-repressed shudder, he stuck his fingers into the paste and put some in his mouth. He looked like he was about to throw up.
Race continued to eat, satisfied, and then turned to Scary Old Man. "Thank you," he said, and then David repeated it in twenty other languages.
Scary Old Man's smile broadened. "You ah Doctah Jones?" he asked, his words barely recognizable because of his thick accent.
"You speak English?!" Race demanded.
"Of course," said Scary Old Man lightly. "What country do you think this is?"
"If this is America, why the hell are you serving us squished bugs?" Spot muttered under his breath. Swifty smacked him.
"Doctah Jones, we need your help," said Scary Old Man to Racetrack. "That is why you haf been brought heah."
Race's brow furrowed. "We weren't... brought here. Our map is wrong," he said.
"It's wrong," said Spot, and he tried to act it out with his hands.
"On the way to Delhi, you will go to Pankot," said Scary Old Man, still smiling happily.
"Pankot isn't on the way to Delhi," said Race, raising an eyebrow. He stopped. "Wait, what the hell-We aren't even going to Delhi! Listen, mister, I think you've got the wrong guy here. Thank you for the smushed fly pudding, but my friends and I really have to get going." He stood up, and the rest of us followed suit.
One of the women reached out and grasped Bumlets' arm before he could go. "This is how we say goodbye where I come from," she said, and she kissed him.
"And this is how we say goodbye in Alaska, Doctah Jones," said Scary Old Man, and he smiled and punched Race. "Thank you foh all your help."
David looked at me. "I liked the Alaskan way better," he said.
"So did I," I answered, grinning.
The six of us left the hut in a hurry, Race rubbing his jaw and grumbling under his breath. "I think I got cooties..." Bumlets sobbed, his head resting against Swifty's shoulder. "That was terrible!"
As we left the village, we passed a young man, a woman, and a small boy who looked to be about ten. "He's wearing a Mets hat!" Swifty gasped, and David nudged him to shut up.
The young man stopped and looked Racetrack up and down from under the rim of his fedora. "Nice hat," he said, eyebrows raised in slight surprise.
"Right back atcha," Race answered with an identical expression on his face.
"Ah, Doctah Jones!" called Scary Old Man, striding forward from inside the tent.
"Yeah?" said Race and the other young man at the same time. They turned and stared at each other again.
"Sorry," said Race. He looked back at us. "C'mon, guys, let's go. I still want to get a picture of a bearberry bush for my memoir, and it's getting late."
"Take however many photos you want," Bumlets muttered, "I just want to get back to the campsite soon. Swifty's feeling weak, and I need to give him a sponge bath."
"You do?" Swifty asked.
But we didn't get back to the campsite soon. We didn't even get back to the campsite eventually. You see, when you're in the Alaskan wilderness, with a useless map and a flamingly gay Brooklynite, your chances of finding your tent again are slightly between winning the lottery and dying in a freak toilet plunging accident. Which, somewhere after mile six, was beginning to look pretty attractive.
"Hey guys?" Racetrack said, after we had been wandering around for two hours and a few stars were already in the sky, "um, I think we might be going in circles here."
"WHAT?" Bumlets roared.
"Well, uh…see that Birch? I think we've passed it before."
"How can you tell?"
"Well, it has that kind of crooked—no, Bums, to the left, I think—uh—" seeing the glare Bumlets was sending him, Racetrack faltered and began to fiddle nervously with his bunny ears.
"THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME, RACE! THEY'RE BIRCHES! WE'RE LOST AND WE'RE GOING TO DIE OUT HERE, AND ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR CRAPPY NAVIGATIONAL SKILLS!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Racetrack said angrily. "Since when is this my fault?"
"You're the hike leader!"
"The map was wrong!"
"SO? You were responsible! What—" he stopped suddenly, and stared at Racetrack, who had that constipated look he always got when he was angry. "You wanna make something of it, huh, Stretch?"
Racetrack raised a clenched fist. "Just say when, pal."
Now, allow me to clarify something here: if you were to look at Bumlets, and then at Racetrack, and be asked who would win in a fair fight, you wouldn't have much trouble coming up with an answer. Bumlets is a dancer; he works out five hours a day, he's strong, he's agile, he's flexible. Every part of his body is absolutely toned to perfection. Racetrack, on the other hand: Racetrack is built more along the lines of the "short Italian guy" physique. Look at Bumlets, look at Racetrack. Try to figure out who'll win.
If you say Bumlets, then you obviously don't know what Racetrack is like when he gets angry.
After Racetrack had flipped Bumlets over backwards and gotten him into a stunning full-nelson, he wrapped his hands around his neck and said, through gritted teeth, "all I have to do is squeeze."
"And all I have to do is scream."
Sighing, Racetrack let go, and Bumlets straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck and looking at him, more than a little impressed. "Didn't know you had in you."
"Yeah, well," Race said. "That's what you get for messin' with a Jet." Even Spot stopped beating his head against a tree for a while to gaze at him moonily.
And as Swifty rushed to attend to Bumlets' battle wounds, Racetrack began to sing a proud rendition of "The Racetrack Song" and Spot swooned, I looked over and noticed that, somewhere along the line, David had sat down under a tree and begun, very quietly, to cry. My heart went out to him and I made towards him, but he saw me and quickly started to wipe his tears away. I took hold of his wrist. "What's goin' on?" I asked softly so that no one else would hear.
"Nothin'," said David. "And I'm not cryin'," he added quickly.
I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I believe you," I said.
"Really?"
"No." I smiled. "What's wrong? C'mon, Dave, I'm not gonna tell anyone..."
David pulled his wrist from my grasp and looked away. "You won't understand," he mumbled.
"Hey." I tipped his chin so that he would have to meet my eyes. "I'm your friend. I'm always gonna understand. What do you think I'm gonna do, laugh?"
David looked at me for a minute, his bright eyes still wet, and then he looked away. "Fine," he said. "I'll tell you—I'm scared of the dark."
And you know what?
I laughed.
David pouted slightly and looked away again, his eyes cast downward. "I knew you wouldn't understand," he said quietly. "Nobody ever does."
I stopped laughing. "Aw Dave—"
"It's David, okay?" He was getting defensive, I could tell. He still wouldn't look at me. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I'll be fine. Just—go and swoon with Spot over Race or somethin', all right?"
I cleared my throat awkwardly and didn't move. "I'm sorry, David," I said softly. "I shouldn't have laughed. I was scared of the dark for two years after I saw Stephen King's 'Children of the Corn', and I had to sleep with this teddy bear Spot gave me so that I wouldn't be scared." I paused. "I'm still sleepin' with it, actually. Ew. Spot germs. I should throw that thing out."
"You sleep with a teddy bear?" David asked, finally looking at me.
Crap.
"It doesn't matter," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "Anyway, if we do end up sleeping out in the woods tonight—you can sleep near me, okay?"
David smiled hesitantly. "Okay," he said. "But only if you let me see that teddy bear when we get home."
"Believe me; you don't want to see it."
And so, as the evening stars continued to appear in the sky (and Bumlets insisted on singing Les Mis for about twenty minutes—"Take my haaaaaaand, Cosette, the light is faaaaaadiiiiiing! C'mon, sing with me, Swifty! Can't you seeeeeeeeeee the eeeeeeeevening staaaaaaaaar appeeeeeeaaaaaariiiiiiiiiiiiing?"), the six of us chose a dry-ish patch of scrubby grass and curled up at the bases of trees, feeling like real, genuine Lost Boys from Peter Pan. David snuggled up next to me underneath the birch tree Race had pointed out earlier, and Spot got stuck in some more brambles and decided to sleep there for the night. Yes, everything was as it should be, and I can honestly say I have never been more happy sleeping outside.
Except that one time a couple of years ago when I came to David's apartment and slept on his fire escape because I missed him. He didn't see me in the morning, and his sister Sarah attacked me and insisted on making me breakfast, but I had been happy.
My little trip down memory lane was interrupted by an all-too-familiar noise to my left, back in the woods a little bit.
The snapping of a twig.
"Spot," said Bumlets before anyone could move, "If you say anything about Ricky Martin, I am going to kill you."
"Hey!" said Spot poutily from his bramble bed. "Don't make fun!"
"I thought we already established it was Enrique Englasias," said Swifty, confused.
"Same difference. In all honesty, I'd rather listen to Beethoven's compositions than either of them."
"Is he dead?"
Another twig snapped, closer this time, and Racetrack stood up. "What the hell are you doin', Race, Beethoven will see you!" Spot shrieked.
"I want to be the first man alive to have a scary Alaskan monster in my memoirs," said Race happily, and he disappeared into the woods.
There was silence for a minute. "He's lost his mind," said David.
"Of course," I answered.
A twig snapped again, and there was a yelp, and a click, and a flash. "RACETRACK HAS BEEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!" Spot screamed, trying desperately to get un-stuck from the brambles.
"Don't be an idiot, Spot, that was his camera," said David wearily.
"YOU HAVE NO PROOF OF THAT!" Spot yelled.
Just then, Race came galloping back into the clearing with a triumphant look on his face. "I return victorious!" he declared. "My memoirs will be absolutely phenomenal, gentlemen! I can start giving out autographs now, if you like. They'll be worth more than a Ted Williams signature one of these days, I can assure you of that..."
But none of us were really listening. Swifty had grabbed his camera from around his neck, and the five of us were crowded around it, trying to see the picture on the tiny screen. "Where's me pitcha, where's me pitcha?" Spot demanded as we went through a lot of random photographs. "Ooh, look, it's Jack! Whoa, when were you wearing that? It looks pretty damn—"
"Wouldja keep your fingers off me face?" I asked irritably, wrenching his hand out of the way.
"...and all the chic's'll want my to sign their bodies, I suppose," Race continued, oblivious to the fact that no one was listening to a word he was saying. "I'll be a star, and the audience will LOVE me! And I'll love them for lovin' me, and they'll love me for lovin' them, and we'll love each other..."
Suddenly, Swifty stopped. "I've found it," he said.
"Lemme see, lemme see!" Spot hollered. There was a moment of silent struggle as he tried to climb onto my shoulders for a better view and I tried to wriggle my way out of his reach, but in the end he won and perched happily on top of me. Then we all looked at the camera.
"Oh my—" said David.
Saved on the digital screen was an enormous, furry, black thing that looked to be about eight feet tall, at the very least. It seemed as though it had been making its way toward Racetrack as he took the picture, but the flash had startled the thing to make it stop for a second. Its mouth was open, and we could all see its inch-long, razor-sharp teeth.
"It has terribly red eyes," Spot remarked. "We should use that Red Eye pen on this photograph; it's much more flattering."
It struck me that this... thing was still out there in the woods now. Possibly watching us at this very moment. I shuddered slightly and glanced back into the woods, trying to look nonchalant. Suddenly, I wasn't quite so happy to be sleeping outside anymore.
--
Shoutouts (done by Saturday, this time, with the assistance of Kid Blink, because he's adorable beyond words).
--
Aelia O'Hession:
BLINK: Spot is not misunderstood. He's sadistic and obnoxious.
SATURDAY: That's not true—he just thinks he's a sexy beast. But he appreciates your sympathy, and so does Jack.
BLINK: And being paranoid is indeed very fun.
SATURDAY: Thank you for the review!
--
uninvisible
SATURDAY: By all means, please do eat Spot up.
BLINK: He's particularly good with raspberry jam, but I suppose strawberry would be just as good...
SATURDAY: Thanks for the review!
BLINK: ((proudly gives you a daisy)) I picked it myself, just for you!
--
Erin Go Bragh:
SATURDAY: ((blinks))
BLINK: You, my dear, are excellent at rambling.
SATURDAY: I vote we give her a gold star. What say you, good sir?
BLINK: Aye. ((gives you a gold star))
SATURDAY: Thanks for the review!
--
silk'n'steel
SATURDAY: I think Dakki's feeling much better now—your flowers and chicken soup were much appreciated.
BLINK: She stayed in bed while Dalton read excerpts from "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" to her. Who knew he was so deep?
SATURDAY: I certainly didn't.
BLINK: Neither did I. Of course, the fact that he painted on his face with lipstick and beat on his drums every other line kind of took away from the effect, don't you think?
SATURDAY: Of course. But that's only to be expected. Anyway, thanks for the review!
--
Sapphy:
BLINK: ((approaches Sapphy with a bottle of sunscreen)) Mwahaha—
SATURDAY: Hey, Blink, we mocked her about her fear of fish already in her birthday fic. It would be downright cruel to make fun of her fear of sunscreen, too.
BLINK: ((thinks for a minute)) I see your point. ((puts the sunscreen away))
SATURDAY: And yes, Titanic is terrible.
BLINK: ((solemnly)) Amen.
SATURDAY: Thanks for the review!
--
Dreamer110:
SATURDAY: Racetrack's watch was Dakki's idea.
BLINK: She's a bloody genius, isn't she?
SATURDAY: It's insane. The song, however, was my idea. I'm a bloody genius too, am I not?
BLINK: ...Um, Saturday? I'm sorry to have to say this to you, but... ((whispers)) ...you took that idea from a different movie. So you're not a genius, you're more of a plagiarizer.
SATURDAY: AT LEAST LET ME ENJOY THE IDEA, BLINK!
--
Braids21:
SATURDAY: I hate Ricky Martin too. Ahh...
BLINK: However, I must say that "Livin' La Vida Loca" is an excellent karaoke song.
SATURDAY: ((looks at him)) I don't want to know.
BLINK: Thanks for reviewing!
--
Thumbsucker Snitch:
SATURDAY: Honestly? I don't think I've ever seen or heard anything more terrifying than Enrique Englasias.
BLINK: I second that.
SATURDAY: I hope you had a fun time at work... ((dies laughing))
BLINK: Thanks for reviewing, and we apologize for the lack of Snittery in this story. ;-) Much love to you!
--
SATURDAY: Got everything written down?
DAKKI: Because if you've caught every reference, you could win…
DAKKI & SATURDAY: ((fake announcer voices)) A Night on the Town with Charlie Dalton!
DALTON: ((boogies)) Who's the pretties preppie on the block? It's me! It's me! Who's the—
SATURDAY: Dude…stealing The Racetrack Song? …So not cool.
RACETRACK: Somebody say me name?
DALTON: ((cowers)) I'm sorry Race, I—
BRROKLYN NEWSIES: Grr.
RACETRACK: Get 'im, Boys.
DAKKI: OH MY GOD! They're…THEY'RE THRUSTING HIM TO DEATH!
SATURDAY: ((pause)) Well, review, because you COULD win…A Night on the Town with Racetrack Higgins!
RACETRACK: ((beams))