We made it uneventfully back to the Lab, where we wasted no time in dumping our bags out in our own piles. I remember someone, probably Jimmy, yelling, "Let the bartering begin!" as we started swapping our less preferable treats for our friends' less desirables.
We were just about to the bottom of our piles when we just happened to notice, as a group, that no one had touched the Full Moons. In fact, it seemed almost as if we had forgotten all about the old lady's generous contribution. None of us really wanting to be the first to try it, we began to dare each other...
-- --- --- --- --- --
"I dare...Carl to try it first!" Sheen yelled, animatedly pointing his finger at his bulky friend.
Terror filling his small, dark eyes, Carl stuttered, "N-no! I d-don't want t-to!"
"Oh come on!" Sheen urged, "You eat everything else!"
"I do not!"
"You know you want to," Sheen enticed, wiggling his eyebrows for effect and waving a piece of the mysterious candy under Carl's nose. "Come on, try it!"
Unable to stand it any longer, Carl buckled under the pressure. "Fine! I'll try it!" he burst out. "If I die," he continued dramatically, while Cindy and Libby rolled their eyes behind him, "tell Judy she can have my llama collection." When they realized what he had said, his friends mouthed "Eww!" in varying degrees.
Moving the piece of candy around in his mouth, he gave them his report. "It's kind of soft and gooey. Tastes kind of like...caramel. Or butterscotch." Sucking on it a bit longer, he continued, "Wait a minute! It's got a center! And," he bit down on it, "Ow!-it's hard. Tastes kind of lemony. Mmm..." Carl smiled, and reached for another. "These are pretty good you guys. You should try them."
Shrugging, they each grabbed one and stuck it in their mouths, working it around to taste for themselves a Full Moon. "Hey, these are good!" Libby said, reaching for another one. "Yeah! Give me one, Libs," Cindy said.
Soon, after everyone had consumed the entire supply of Full Moons, the group made a discovery, which, of course, was iniated by Jimmy. "My teeth feel...funny. Like something's stuck to them. What about your guys' teeth?" When everyone began to scrub their teeth with their tongues, they soon agreed.
"Maybe it's just because the candy was so sticky," Libby suggested.
"Yeah, don't worry your big head over it, Neutron. I'm sure our teeth will be perfectly fine after we brush them," Cindy put in. "Ready to go Libs? Bye Nerdtron, Ultra-Dork, Loser."
"Yeah. It's been a real pleasure boys. See-ya." She waved them good-bye, then followed Cindy out the door.
-
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a person was busy getting out of their costume. Taking off the gray wig, coke-bottle glasses, and dress, a man stepped out, laughing to himself. "I've got you now, Jimmy Neutron. And all your little friends too."
-- --- --- --- --- --
He couldn't believe he hadn't seen this coming. Sure, he wasn't the smartest kid in town (though he was best friends with one), but he was fairly observant. And he had his moments. Of course, one of the biggest moments was enhanced so much with technology that he supposed it couldn't really be counted.
But hindsight's 20/20. Everyone seemed angry at themselves for not seeing the forest for the trees. Looking back, he realized there were all sorts of warning signs, and however subtle or minute they were, they were still there. They had still happened.
They had still been ignored.
He started to sigh, but had to cut it off halfway through. It just simply hurt too much. Oh why couldn't he have seen the obvious? Because, he answered himself, attempting a smile, the obvious was hidden under a full moon...
-- --- --- --- --- --
"Alright Neutron, start explaining," Cindy huffed, stomping up to the local boy genius, ready for a confrontation and an explanation for what was going on in her mouth.
"Yeah Jimmy. What'd ya do to our mouths?" inquired a very peeved Libby, coming up behind her friend.
Not turning from his lab door, he told them, "I haven't a clue as to what is happening to your oral cavities, but rest assured, I'm going to get to the bottom of this." He turned around, looking at them for the first time. "If you ladies will excuse me, I've got some research to do and data to collect, concerning my own mouth." He made a move to open the door to his clubhouse, but Cindy was not one to just stand aside and let things happen.
"Neutron, either you tell me what's happening to my teeth or I make sure you wear false ones for the rest of your life!"
"Do I look like a dentist Vortex? I don't know-and frankly, I don't care-what's happening to your teeth." However, when she wouldn't budge, he was forced to glare at her and admit defeat. "Fine. You can come in my lab. Just don't touch anything."
Getting admittance to Jimmy's lab was one of Cindy's longterm goals, but this was a hollow victory, for she was starting to feel the effects of Halloween.
-
"Jimmy! Jimmy! Let us in! Hurry! We need your-" Sheen and Carl were interrupted from their banging-of-doors when the mat slipped out from under their feet and they fell, landing on the hard floor of Jimmy's lab. Noticing just exactly who's company they were in, Sheen jumped up. "Libby! I'm so glad to-ow!-see you!" he exclaimed, his slight and newly developed tooth-ache beginning to assert itself.
Carl, as opposed to Sheen's jubilance at seeing Libby, was not as happy. His low tolerance for pain and the apparent failure of normal pain relievers was what had him seeking his friend's eternal knowledge in the first place, and girls or no, he was going to get what he came for. "Jimmy, do you have new and um, really, really fast working pain relief medication? Because I took some aspirin and Tylenol, but that doesn't seem-"
"Do your teeth hurt too Carl?" Libby asked, interrupting her bulky acquaintance.
Carl gasped, looking at her in surprise. "How did you know?" he breathed. "Are you a mind-reader?"
She never got a chance to answer, though, because Jimmy cut in. "Wait, everyone, show of hands. How many of you are here because you have a toothache?" When Cindy and Libby quickly shot their hands up, as he expected, then Carl and Sheen did the same, he began rattling off questions. "When did you notice your tooth was hurting Cindy?"
"Teeth," she corrected him, "and after I woke up this morning. About 8:30, I think."
"What about you Carl?"
"Well, I started to notice it during breakfast. I remember because we were having blueberry chocolate chip pancakes. Um, about 9:00?"
"Sheen?"
"During the morning Ultra-Lord viewing. It starts at 8:30, but I didn't notice anything was wrong until it went off and I started to eat my Ultra-Lord Berry Blaster cereal that really turns your milk blue. You should try it, and help support the Ultra-Lord Fan Club, because 15 percent of the profits go directly to the-"
"Sheen! What time?" Jimmy pressed, irked.
"Alright! Dang. Ultra-Lord goes off at 9:30. Happy now?"
"And did your toothache start about nine Libby?"
"That sounds about right. And it's not just one tooth, it's my whole mouth."
"Hmm...that's interesting," he said, lost in thought already. He headed over to his main computer, typing in the information.
"What is?" Carl inquired.
"Given that no one else has monopolized my time with complaints about their teeth going haywire, I feel correct in assuming that we are the only ones to whom this problem has presented itself. Now, if everyone began noticing their toothaches at different times, I would probably think it was just because of our excessive rations of candy eaten last night. However, since our toothaches began around the same time, and since the odds of that happening are extremely slim, I'll need to do some tests to deter-"
"Woah, woah, wait just a minute. Tests? What kind of tests?" Cindy interrupted him.
"Just simple samples of your teeth. Don't worry, the drills I have that I'll use numb whatever they touch, so you won't feel a thing," Jimmy assured them.
Libby declared her defiance to his supposed answer to their problem by using a tone she thought he wouldn't dare argue with. "There is no way you are coming near me with a drill."
-- --- --- --- --- --
I have to admit, if there's something Jimmy's good at besides being smart, it's persuading. He could probably convince an eskimo to buy ice. Sure, it took some time, but he finally convinced us all to let him play dentist for a little while.
It wasn't all that bad, actually. Whatever was making our teeth behave this way was sure starting to be a pain, though. It was like everyone's teeth were connected and when someone's symptoms started to worsen, everyone else's soon worsened too. It almost seemed as if someone had planned this, like maybe someone had planted some sort of device in our mouths and kept pressing the pain button.
It didn't help that Jimmy couldn't readily identify what exactly the problem was. He kept saying things like, "Organic matter," and, "Never been found quite like that before," and something that really didn't sound good: "What is this? Who would be crazy enough to put those chemicals together? Did they have a death wish?"
Finally, when he turned to us (we were in the stage of pain when it was more than just a nuisance, but not completely unbearable. For the most part, we were strewn about the rest area, lying on the couch or the floor, trying to lessen our pain by sleeping), we expected him to ramble for about five minutes, say he had the answer, give us some sort of unsafe, untested product, and we'd all leave and live happily everafter.But what he said made us realize that, not only would we not be happy for a while, but sometimes, genuises really don't have all the answers.
"Guys...I don't know how to fix this."
I bet you guys expected an end this time, didn't you? Ha! I fooled you! But, alas, I fooled myself too. I thought this was going to be the end too. Oh well. I suppose this will have to do, won't it? (Sigh) And I thought I was going to be done with this story! lol.
No more promises, though. Those are bad and just don't work. I will try, however, to have the real ending up...sometime. lol, that's about as difinitive as I can be. I can say, however, that I have given a lot of thought to the plot line, and it's increased dramatically. So...I suppose that's something, right? Right? Right! Anyway, please review and tell me how I can improve, because I don't think this installment was as good as the first one.
Oh, and cookies go out to those who guess correctly the identity of the troublemaker! Or is it someone new? Mwhahaha!
