Chapter 4: Penelope, my sweet
"Where you going?" Pretzel had caught the hams trying to sneak outside. Pashmina took over.
"We were going to buy a birthday present for Maxwell before he wakes up." She said, deciding to tell the truth.
"Pretzel wants to come shopping with pals." He exclaimed, attempting to leap off the wall. Pashmina shrugged and started tugging.
"Wow, he's really stuck!" Pashmina struggled. "A little help?" Oxnard and Cappy grabbed her ankles and pulled. Soon, Boss, Bijou, Sandy and Penelope had joined on. Eventually, every ham in the clubhouse (except the sleeping Maxwell and Pretzel who was being pulled) had linked arms and was tugging like mad. Finally, the tape began to crackle. Suddenly, Pretzel broke free and was launched through the air! He crashed into the cabinet with a large thud. Penelope rushed over.
"Oakwee?" which meant "are you ok?"
"Pretzel is fine as long as he is with you, my love." Pretzel said, rubbing his head and giving Penelope a dreamy look.
"Oakwee!" Penelope yelled, and she took off and hid behind Pashmina.
On the walk to the ham-mall, Pretzel continued to peep over at Penelope, who was being shielded by Pashmina and Bijou. Jingle was giving Pretzel angry glances. Finally, they arrived at the mall and entered Max's favorite store, Books Brothers. Piles upon piles of books arranged by alphabet, subject and anything else.
"AHHHH! Learning!" Pretzel yelled. "Shield me, my sweet!" He called, scampering behind Penelope. Penelope glanced desperately over at Pashmina, who called to him.
"Pretzel, come check out these books on pickles." Pretzel scurried over to the display and started to chew on the display dummy.
"He's the real dummy." Howdy muttered. No one laughed.
The hams left the shop with a book called Ham-Physics a look into the world of Dr. Fuzz.
"Oakwee!" Penelope sighed, which meant "I'm glad that nut job stopped following me!"
"Where is Pretzel?" Pashmina asked. Suddenly a booming voice erupted over the loud speakers.
"Pretzel would like to take this time to say that he loves Penelope. She is yellow, the color of mustard, I like mustard because it rhymes with custard and I like custard because it is inside donuts and I like donuts for they are round and that rhymes with sound and sound is noise which rhymes with boys and I am a boy and Penelope is a girl and we go together like pasta and onion rings, like ketchup and cats, like, like, like Pretzel and Penelope!"
Even under her thick yellow blanket, you could tell Penelope was turning the color of an overripe tomato. Pretzel was kicked out of the administration office and the hams were asked to leave the mall.
"Okay, so here's the plan. We leave for china tonight, where we'll wait in the sun until we have really brown tans, and then we grow beards and disguise ourselves as a family of computer technicians/coal miners." Howdy said to the hams at the clubhouse. They had just finished recalling the incident to Maxwell, who sat listening and hugging his new book. Pretzel was once again tacked to the wall, this time with a blanket over his head to make him think it was night. It worked and now the only part of Pretzel they had to hear was him sleeping and snoring, zzzz… I like blueberry pie… zzzz.
The hams knew that they would have to get Pretzel to stop liking Penelope somehow, so they came to the master of fixing all problems, Panda.
"Well, this obsession was probably started with Pretzel's conk on the head. Another equally sized conk should do the trick."
"You mean all we had to do was smack him?" Maxwell asked, scribbling in his notebook.
"Yep" Panda finished. "I'll do the honors." He said, holding out a large sledgehammer.
They took Pretzel down from the wall. He immediately raced to Penelope and started stroking her fur. Penelope shivered and winced. Pashmina saw her and whispered "now, Panda!" Panda snuck up behind Pretzel, but was caught.
"You try to hurt Penelope, my mustard colored baby!" Pretzel yelled. He wrenched the hammer out of Panda's paws and rapidly swung at Panda. It missed by inches. All the hams took a step back. Pretzel dropped the hammer and rushed to Penelope.
"Sorry for being away so long." He muttered, and with that he kissed her cheek. Jingle snapped.
"GET AWAY FROM MY PENELOPE!" He screamed, his eyes blazing. Panda was about to give Jingle the hammer, but he didn't need it. Jingle took on mighty swipe, and knocked Pretzel out cold.
"He should be back to normal in a few hours." Panda confirmed. "But we need him to spend the night with someone else. He needs to stay away from Penelope. How about… Stan." Stan winced but nodded.
"Oakwee?" Penelope said to Jingle, which meant "did you really mean that?"
"Yeah, alright I did." Jingle muttered. Penelope kissed his cheek. For the second time tonight, a hamster fainted.
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