It was a lovely day in the forest where the Happy Tree Friends lived - the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the birds were singing and the air was warm. Today, Lumpy was playing tag with one of his friends, a pirate Tree Friend named Russell.
"You're it!" Lumpy said, tapping Russell's shoulder with his forefinger.
As he ran past him, Russell stopped for a moment, but then began running after him.
"Yar, but not fer long!" Russell replied playfully.
"Hey, try and catch me, Russell!" Lumpy called.
He didn't watch where he was going, however, and he bumped into the very Tree Friend he was trying to avoid. Neither of them were hurt, but Lumpy rubbed his head a bit with his hand. That was when Russell tapped his shoulder with his forefinger.
"Lumpy, ye're it!" said Russell.
"Oh!" Lumpy groaned a bit in slight frustration. "This game's too hard."
But not long after he'd said that, Russell smiled. An idea had come to him.
"I know, what if both of us be it?"
"But then, who's gonna be… not it?" Lumpy wanted to know.
"Exactly. Neither of us will know, yar!" said Russell.
"Oh…" As Lumpy let this sink in, he smiled as well. "Now that sounds like fun. Let's play!"
And so the two Tree Friends ran around the area, holding out their forefingers and taking turns calling, "I'm it, I'm it!"
As they were, however, Russell didn't realize he was approaching a rock on the ground. When one of his peg-legs made contact with it, he found himself tripping over it, and the next thing he knew, he'd gone over a cliff.
"Russell!" Lumpy gasped in horror as he listened to Russell screaming on the way down. He didn't know if he was going to be okay, but the moose could vaguely see the pirate falling into a hole that had been covered with wood. "Hang on, I'm coming!"
He bravely jumped off the cliff as well, falling into the same hole Russell had gone through. Soon they'd landed on some kind of wooden floor, with both Tree Friends rubbing their heads.
"Arrgh… what is this place?" Russell asked.
As he and Lumpy picked themselves up, their eyes went wide with marvel. They had landed on a pirate ship, and even though it was on dry land rather than water, they could already tell they were in for something cool.
"Look at all this cool stuff!" Lumpy made his way over to the ship's wheel, where a pirate skeleton was laying. He picked up the skeleton's hat, which was red and had a white skull and crossbones symbol on the front, and put it on his head. Then he pushed the skeleton aside.
"I'm the captain!" He gave the wheel a good spin. "Yo ho ho, ya mateys! Arr!"
A few minutes later, Lumpy and Russell were climbing a net on the ship. They were having a pretend sword fight, trying to slash each other with swords that looked oddly realistic.
"Gotcha! In guard!" Lumpy said, not realizing he was saying the classic 'en garde' phrase incorrectly.
They took their play fight to the top of the ship's net, but as they did, Lumpy's foot almost found its way off the edge. He dropped his sword as he staggered a bit, but Russell grabbed one of his hands and pulled him back.
"Thanks, Russell," said Lumpy. "I guess we'd better be more careful…
"Let's go back to the main deck," Russell suggested.
"Okay," Lumpy said.
As Russell walked left and Lumpy walked right, however, the pirate otter could hear Lumpy screaming, followed by a crash. When he looked down at the desk, he saw that Lumpy's landing had made a hole in the ship.
"Lumpy!" Russell cried. He slid down the pole so he could get to the deck faster. "I'm coming, buddy!" Once he was there, he poked his head into the hole to look inside. "Lumpy?" He jumped in, landing safely. When he turned his head, he saw his friend and smiled. "Lumpy!"
"Wow…" Lumpy was surrounded by large piles of golden coins, and his eyes were twinkling in wonder as he held one of them in his hand. "Shiny and smooth."
He flicked the coin over to Russell, and they both watched as the edge of the coin rolled over to him. Once it had landed, Russell bent over to pick it up.
"Wow, what be this?" he wondered. He noticed some text imprinted on the coin. "Mauna Loa…"
"Let's take some of these to Sniffles," Lumpy suggested. "He'll know who Mauna Loa is!"
"Yar, that be a good idea," said Russell.
With that, he made his way out of the opening of the ship, while Lumpy took about three of the coins and placed them in his pocket. Then he headed out of the ship as well, following Russell as he went.
"I'll see if I can't find Sniffles," Lumpy said as he and Russell arrived at the park, and Russell nodded in understanding.
As Lumpy walked away from him, Russell made his way over to one of the benches. He pulled out some materials for making a model ship, constructing a replica of the ship that he and Lumpy had found earlier that day.
"Mauna Loa, how I love ye, me secret lovin' hideaway," Russell sang to himself, placing the finished ship in a glass bottle. "Me Mauna Loa bay-a-bay…"
"Hey, Russell," a voice greeted him, bringing him out of his thoughts. When Russell looked up, he saw that Flippy was standing in front of him.
"Ah, ahoy, Flippy. How ye doing?" Russell replied.
"I'm alright, thanks." Flippy's eyes moved to look at the bottle Russell had, which still held his ship. The green bear's eyes went wide. "Wow! That's a nice-looking ship you made there."
"Thanks. But that just be me secret-" Russell's non-hooked hand immediately went to cover his mouth as he realized what he was saying. His hook hand moved the bottle out of Flippy's view and behind his back, and then he gave a sheepish chuckle. "Har-har…"
Flippy didn't quite understand what was going on, but he chuckled as well. Meanwhile, Lumpy had found the Tree Friend he was looking for; he was sitting on another bench, reading a math book he held in his hands.
"Hi, Sniffles," Lumpy greeted him.
Sniffles looked up, immediately recognizing his best friend. "Oh, hi, Lumpy!"
"There was something I wanted you to have a look at," Lumpy said. "It's these coins that me and Russell found."
Sniffles closed his book and put it aside. "Sure, Lumpy. Could you show them to me?"
Lumpy reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden coins that were inside. As he handed them to Sniffles, however, he could hear some familiar laughter from nearby. He turned his head, trying to find where it was coming from.
"By the way, try not to worry about all that laughter. That's just Lifty and Shifty tickling each other," Sniffles explained. Indeed, Lumpy could see Lifty and Shifty in the midst of a playful tickle fight, with Shifty tickling Lifty's sides and listening to his laughter.
"Oh." Lumpy chuckled to himself in amusement.
As Sniffles pulled out a magnifying glass and used it to identify the coins, however, Lumpy looked down at his hands. He couldn't remember the last time he'd washed them…
"I'll be right back, I've gotta wash my hands," said Lumpy.
"Okay," replied Sniffles. Not long after Lumpy had walked away from him, he put down his magnifying glass. "Interesting. It appears that each of these coins have the words 'Mauna Loa' on them."
"Huh?" Lifty and Shifty stopped tickling each other and raised their heads, having heard what Sniffles had said. Then they rushed over to him, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"MAUNA LOA?!" they cried in unison.
"As in the shipwreck Mauna Loa?" Lifty questioned, picking up one of the coins.
"Yes," Sniffles said with a nod, "but I didn't know you guys knew about it."
"Knew about it?!" Shifty asked.
"They say the largest unfound pirate treasure lies in its ruins!" said Lifty.
"We've been searching for this treasure nearly our entire lives," Shifty remarked, but Sniffles had a feeling he was just exaggerating out of greed.
"Yeah, looking over every nook, every cranny… oh, and every dusty closet." Lifty rubbed his nose once with his hand.
"Once we get our paws on it, we'll become the richest raccoons in the world!" Shifty remarked. He then gave that familiar snicker of his.
"Well, I suppose that explains that ship Russell showed me," Flippy mentioned, walking by.
"Russell?" Lifty asked, raising an eyebrow. "Hmm, maybe he and Lumpy are trying to haul the loot for themselves."
"Like heck that's gonna happen!" said Shifty. He took Lifty's hand. "Come on, bro, we've got to let those two ding-a-lings lead us straight to the Mauna Loa."
As Lifty and Shifty walked away from Sniffles, the anteater sighed to himself as he shook his head.
"When will those two learn that greed won't get you anywhere?"
"Alright, time to get back to our… playground," Russell said as he and Lumpy made their way out of the park. Soon they were trying to find the spot where they first encountered the Mauna Loa. "Hey, Lumpy? Do ye think we gave away too much about our secret hideout?"
"I don't know," Lumpy replied. "But I don't see who cares if everyone knows about our secret hideout."
"Doesn't that make the secret hideout a bit less… ye know, secrety?" Russell replied.
"Well, no, it's just a secret that everybody knows about," said Lumpy.
As they were walking, however, Russell stopped, his eye wide with concern. He turned to look at a nearby bush. He had the strangest feeling that someone might have been watching them…
"What's wrong, Russell?" Lumpy asked.
"Just as I thought," said Russell. "We're being followed. That's it!"
He made his way over to the bush, trying to suppress his fear as best as he could. Once he was close enough, he placed both his hands on the bush and pulled them apart to look inside.
But there was nothing.
Russell breathed a sigh of relief, wiping his head with his non-hooked hand. "Looks like no one was following us to the hideout after all."
But not even a foot away from that bush, he saw the hole that led to the Mauna Loa - and to his surprise, Lifty and Shifty were looking into it.
"Found it! Hehehehehe!" Lifty and Shifty said, laughing to themselves.
"Hey! Were ye following us?!" Russell complained.
"No, we just saw the sign," Lifty claimed, pointing behind him.
Russell looked in that direction, seeing that Lumpy was hammering a sign that read, "Lumpy and Russell's Secret Hideout" into the ground. Russell was so dismayed that he had to take the hook off his hand so he could put it to his face.
A few minutes later, Lumpy and Russell had arrived on the deck of the Mauna Loa, and Lifty and Shifty were standing in front of them.
"So you thought you could hide the treasure from us, huh?" Shifty asked.
"What treasure?" Russell asked. "I don't remember findin' any treasure here."
"Yeah, me neither," Lumpy replied. He was telling the truth, but neither of the raccoons believed him or Russell.
"But I suppose if ye'd like, ye can hang out at the hideout - just as long as ye scallywags keep it a secret."
"Who you calling scallywags?" Lifty asked, almost playfully.
"Do you really expect us to believe this malarky?" Shifty asked.
"Guys, come on, this isn't malarky," Lumpy tried to reason with them.
"You're a stone wall, huh?" Lifty asked, reaching down to grab one of Lumpy's ankles. "We'll see about that!" With that, the younger raccoon started tickling Lumpy's foot with his fingers, causing him to laugh.
"Hey, stop that! Hahahahaha!" Lumpy laughed, twitching around a bit.
"Now where'd you two find the gold coins?" Shifty demanded to know.
"Hahahaha! If you quit doing this, I'll show you! Hahahahahaha!" Lumpy laughed.
Lifty pulled his hand away from his foot, then let go of his ankle. He and Shifty looked at one another with a satisfied smile.
"Pushover."
Not too long afterward, Lumpy and Russell had led Lifty and Shifty to the room where they'd found the gold coins. Needless to say, the raccoons were delighted - at first.
"I knew we'd find it!" Lifty cheered, laughing happily.
"Check it out! Cold hard doubloons, baby!" Shifty said, showing one of the coins to Russell.
At that moment, however, Russell realized that there was something about the coin that neither he nor any of his friends had noticed.
"Arr? You might want to take a closer look at your coinage," said Russell.
"Huh?" Lifty and Shifty immediately stopped celebrating. They each picked up one of the coins to, indeed, have a closer look at them. At that moment, they realized that the coins had a bit more text besides the words Mauna Loa. "What the…?"
"Token has no monetary value?!" Shifty couldn't believe his eyes.
"Token?!" Lifty started looking at each of the coins, tossing them aside by the handful when he was finished with them. "These don't have any monetary value, either!"
"This must be a decoy!" Shifty assumed.
He made his way out of the room and onto the main deck. He spotted a barrel, picked it up and shook it, trying to find some treasure inside it. It didn't feel like anything was inside, however, so he threw the barrel aside, causing it to break open. Close to him, Lifty picked up another barrel, but was disappointed to find that it was also empty. He dropped it as well, causing it to break open.
"Ahoy, boys!" Russell said, getting their attention. He pointed his hand toward a shed that was almost a foot away from the ship. "Maybe they hid the loot off-ship in that shed."
Immediately convinced, Lifty and Shifty dashed off the ship and over to the shed, only stopping once they'd gotten close enough. Then they jumped into the shed in excitement. As Lumpy and Russell walked over to them, however, they could tell that the raccoons were again disappointed.
"What in blazes?!" Shifty yelled. He arose from the opening on the shed, revealing that he was holding a roll of tickets in each hand. "It's just full of tickets!"
Lifty stood up as well. "Well, you usually find tickets in a ticket booth…"
"TICKET BOOTH?" Shifty looked up, realizing that there was a "Tickets" sign on the opening above him. He put one of the rolls of tickets down before putting his hand to his face.
"Yar, and why's there height restrictions on the starboard?" Russell pointed his hook hand toward another sign on the side of the shed. Lifty stepped out of the ticket booth to read that sign.
"Must be this tall to ride?"
"Well, maybe they had something against short Tree Friends," Lumpy assumed. "I like their little clothes."
The four Tree Friends made their way back onto the ship, and Russell approached the doorway to one of the rooms.
"Captain's Quarters?" he read. He turned around, pointing behind him. "There must be some treasure in here, mateys."
Almost as soon as he'd said that, Lifty and Shifty rushed into the room. Once they were inside, they looked around, spotting a treasure box sitting on the other side of the room.
"I knew it!" Shifty dashed over to it, and Lifty followed suit.
"The lost treasure of the Mauna Loa is finally mine and Shifty's!" said Lifty.
"I can practically taste those jewels!"
Shifty quickly picked up the box and held it over his head. But due to his haste, he fell backward, and the box broke into pieces once it hit the ground.
"It's a little lighter than I thought…" Shifty commented, rubbing his head. As he stood back up, however, he was shocked to find that the bottom of the chest held nothing inside. "Huh?! It's empty!"
He threw the chest aside, then turned to look at the inanimate skeleton pirate that sat before him.
"Very clever, captain! Thought you'd throw these coons the old ringer, huh?" No response; Shifty turned to whisper something to Lifty. "He must have a treasure map somewhere…"
"Well, where you keeping it? In your pocket?" Lifty asked. He pointed to the skeleton's coat pocket, but couldn't reach into it. He tapped the hat on the skeleton, but it didn't move. "Plastic?"
"Hang on a minute..." Shifty then said. As he put the clues together, he counted a bit on his fingers. "Plastic captain... The ticket booth... tokens..." Before he could say anything more, his eyes widened. He'd realized what was going on.
"This isn't the wreck of the Mauna Loa! It's the wreck of the Mauna Loa amusement park ride!" said Shifty.
Lumpy and Russell gasped with surprise as well as happiness when they heard that.
"No wonder we were so amused!" Lumpy commented.
"Well, I'm not," Shifty snarked. He and Lifty made their way out of the room, and Lumpy and Russell followed them as they stepped back out onto the deck.
"Remember, mateys, ye're always welcome back at the secret hideout," said Russell.
"But this place doesn't have any treasure!" Lifty snapped.
"Keep your worthless hunk of junk!" Shifty agreed.
"Okay, but… Would ye mind keeping this worthless hunk of junk a secret?" Russell asked.
"It wouldn't be much of a secret if we had all the Happy Tree Friends showing up," said Lumpy.
"Oh, don't flatter yourself. Tree Friends only want to see the real thing," said Shifty.
"It's not like you can just call Sniffles to fix an old amusement park ride up so we can have the other Tree Friends show up to it for fun…" Lifty stated.
But almost as soon as he'd finished saying that, both he and Shifty's eyes widened as they realized what he'd said. Lifty's hands moved up to cover his mouth.
"You know, that's a great idea!" Lumpy pulled out his smartphone and began dialing a number. He then held his phone to his ear as he waited for a response.
"Hello?" Sniffles' voice was heard.
"Hey, Sniffles?" Lumpy greeted him. "I've got a project for you, and I have a feeling it's gonna lead to the worst-kept secret in the forest!"
A few minutes later, Sniffles had arrived in the cavern that Lumpy, Russell, Lifty and Shifty had been in. Lumpy explained the situation to him, and he agreed that if they wanted to prove to the other Tree Friends that an abandoned amusement park ride could still be worth having fun on, they needed to make some adjustments to make it safer. And if there was one Tree Friend who was good at fixing things up, it was Sniffles.
The anteater took a few days, plus a few hours per day, to repair the ride and make it safe, but his time and effort were worth it - the Mauna Loa was remade into a safer and slightly more modern version of the amusement park ride it once was. Now that it was finished, Sniffles brought it to the local amusement park, placing it in an open spot and the ticket booth not too far away.
"Arr, welcome to the Wreck of the Mauna Loa!" Russell was manning the ticket booth, with Cuddles being his first customer. "How can I help ye?"
"Yeah, I'll take ten tokens, please," Cuddles stated, and Russell handed him some tokens in response. As Cuddles walked away from him, Russell reached his non-hooked hand up to a microphone before pulling it down. As he spoke, his voice reverberated around the park.
"Step right up, don't be shy! Experience the amusement and terror of the Wreck of the Mauna Loa!"
Indeed, a few of the Tree Friends were riding the Mauna Loa as it swung back and forth, its movements making them laugh in enjoyment. Close to them was Sniffles, who was intently manning the controls and making sure the ride operated smoothly.
"Oh, man! This ride looks awesome!" Cuddles commented as he watched the ship swing to a stop. As the Tree Friends who had been riding it dismounted, Cuddles turned to Flaky, who had been standing behind him and looking a bit nervous about the ride. "Why don't you and I go next, Flaky?"
"I don't know, Cuddles…" Flaky replied, nervously.
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Cuddles said, but Toothy took Flaky's hand and pulled her away from him.
"Cuddles, I'd much rather she didn't," said Toothy. "Besides, you really shouldn't force other Tree Friends to do things they don't want to do…"
"Oh, right," Cuddles replied. "In that case, you can just watch. But you don't know what you're missing!"
"Thank you, Cuddles," Flaky said, watching as Cuddles and a few other Tree Friends headed onto the ride.
As it started up again, Lumpy and Russell made their way to the front of the crowd of witnessing Tree Friends. But Russell couldn't help but notice that Lumpy wasn't looking as happy as the other Tree Friends.
"What be the matter, Lumpy?" Russell wanted to know.
"I don't know about you, but I think you're right," said Lumpy. "If we hadn't given so much away about our secret hideout, it would still be ours to play in. But now everyone else's playing on it…"
But Russell looked at him with a comforting smile, before placing his non-hooked hand on his shoulder.
"It's not too late, Lumpy. When it be our turn, we'll ride it together."
Lumpy managed a little smile. "Good idea."
Indeed, when the ride had finished and the Tree Friends had gotten off, Lumpy and Russell went to ride it next. Just before they could, however, they saw Lifty and Shifty, also in the crowd, and they got an idea.
"Hey, guys! You want to ride the Mauna Loa with us?" Lumpy asked.
"Well, as disappointed as we are that it didn't have any treasure… I guess riding it once couldn't hurt," Shifty mentioned.
"There you go!" said Lumpy.
With that, the raccoons met up with Lumpy and Russell, and they all got onto the ride together. Almost as soon as it had started up, they found themselves laughing in pure enjoyment, from start to finish.
"Oh, man, that was awesome-marinara-sauce!" Lifty said at the end of the ride.
"Yar, I couldn't agree more!" said Russell.
"You see, guys?" Lumpy asked as they walked away from the ride, "there's more to life than just having money. Having fun with your friends is way more important!"
"You know, it is," Shifty stated. "Thanks for talking us into this, Lumpy! Lifty's right, it was awesome."
"No problem, guys," said Lumpy. As he and Russell walked away from Lifty and Shifty, Lumpy continued, "Well, we may have lost our secret, but at least this amusement park's got a brand new ride for everyone to enjoy."
"Aye. And who knows, Lumpy? The next fun thing might be just around the corner," said Russell.
As he and Russell were walking, however, they suddenly sunk into the ground below them, to their surprise. When they'd had landed, they sat up, rubbing their heads - as it turned out, they'd landed on the deck of another ship that happened to have been below the amusement park.
But unlike the first ship they'd landed on, there was a sign above the doorway to the inside of the ship, and Russell couldn't help but read it.
"The Real Mauna Loa?" Russell immediately became excited and turned to Lumpy. "Lumpy, can ye keep a secret?"
"Nope!" Lumpy admitted.
This time, however, Lumpy didn't call Sniffles to alert this ship to him; he was probably too busy operating the amusement ride, anyway. Instead, Lumpy called the museum, and later that day, the actual Mauna Loa ship along with the treasure inside of it was brought to one of its empty exhibits, for every visitor of the museum to see.
By the way, Lumpy received quite a few thousand dollars for his donation, but he didn't let it go to his head, nor did he tell Lifty and Shifty about it. Instead, he gave most of his acquired wealth to the Generic Tree Friends who owned the amusement park - not only to keep it running, but to keep the Mauna Loa ride in good condition for as long as they could. Lumpy and his friends weren't sure they could keep the ride going by themselves every day, so the Generic Tree Friends who already worked there were happy to resume their work.
Every one of the Happy Tree Friends - except for Flaky, who admitted she had more fun watching it than actually riding it - enjoyed riding the Mauna Loa, and it had been one of the amusement park's most popular rides since.
