Chapter 9: Randy - Is That…. Flying Lasagna?

"Woah," I exclaim, marvelling at the giant room. "This place is SO. HONKIN. BRUCE."

"'Bruce'?" Danny says, closing the door behind everyone. "Who says that?"

"We do." Howard speaks up from across the room. "And we're not gonna stop anytime soon!" he smiles as he walks with Adrien towards his washing machine.

I smile at Danny and run over to meet the other two by the machine.
"It's nice to know you won't have strange green stains on your clothing when you're done washing them." Danny says as he walks over to join us.

Adrien just laughs as he sets up the machine. "Okay, who's going first?" He looks over to Howard and I.

Almost immediately, Howard pushes me out of the way. "Ooh, me!" he says, plopping his bag of unwashed clothing on the ground and reaching to take off his pants. Adrien averts his eyes as Howard throws the pants and everything in the bag into the machine, then shrugs and throws the bag in too.

I walk over to Adrien and put hand on his shoulder. "He does this at home too," I say, trying to be reassuring. "Although usually it's not just the pants."

"Hey! This is perfectly normal!" Howard yells. "I don't judge you for your habits, do I, Cunningham?"

I immediately get flustered. "I- You- Don't change the subject!" I know what he's talking about - well, most likely he's talking about all the the weird places I've gone to transform into The Ninja. Although I regret some places, others I can agree are hilarious sometimes.

I can see that Howard is about to say something else when he's interrupted by Danny, pointing at something with a worried look on his face.. "Uh, guys? There's something big and red coming towards the window."

Howard looks to where Danny's finger is. "Is… is that the school cafeteria's lasagna?"

"What?" Adrien and I reply in unison.
"Does your cafeteria food usually fly?" Danny asks, not even off put a little by the idea.
"No…. why?" I ask.
"Just wondering…" Danny says, seemingly in deep thought before the lasagna makes a sharp right hand turn away from the hotel. There is a long silence and no one says anything. At least, until Howard interrupts the silence.
"You know… looking at the lasagna, uh, reminds me that I need to use the bathroom." I start to walk away, but then stop. "Uh, where is it?"
"Down the hall on the right." Adrien tells me.

"Thanks," I say, giving him a thumbs up before sprinting in the direction of the bathroom.

I can hear Howard convincing the other two that he's going to come to the bathroom with me, while also simultaneously dissing me. He does that often, and I've gotten pretty used to it, besides the fact that it still hurts my pride a little.

Howard finally meets me at the bathroom door, just before I close it. "Cunningham, you are NOT doing what I think you're doing." he says.

"And what is it that you think I'm doing, hmm?" I reply, raising an eyebrow and giving him a smirk.

"Oh, I know EXACTLY what you're doing." he pokes me in the chest with one finger. "You're going to go ninja, and follow that… flying… THING!"

"And you're exactly right." I smile at him as I back away and close the door. "Now," I start, even though I'm the only one who can hear myself right now. "If I go ninja, how do i get out of here without the other guys seeing me?" I ponder over this a little, ninja mask in hand, when an idea comes. I smirk a little bit as I put on the ninja mask.

"SMOKEBOMB!" I yell, appearing in the large room where everyone was. I look upwards, posing dramatically. "Fear not, citizens! I only need to use your balcony to go after…" Silence. I look around to see no one in the room but Howard. "Where did they go…?"

"Dunno," Howard replies, shrugging. "They were gone when I got back."

I hunch my shoulders. "Howard, where could they have possibly gone?" I complain.

Howard shrugs again. "Don't ask me, but they're not here - and you shouldn't be either." he points to an open window that leads onto a balcony. Was that window open before?

I shake away the thought and run towards the window. "Right. Sit tight, Howard, I'll be back after I find out what that thing is."

"You do that, Ninja," Howard yells as I jump out the window. "I'll stay here with my pants."

Vaulting across rooftops, I keep an eye out for that flying… lasagna-looking thing. I pause for a moment to catch my breath. In doing so, I notice two figures on a rooftop not too far away - they look a bit familiar, so I decide it would be in my best interest to check it out. As I get closer, I can see one is floating just to the side of the roof…

'Wait!' I think, looking at them. 'He's the kid who was fighting that Robo-Ghost with a thermos, wasn't he? An even better reason for me to Ninja my way over there!' I jump down off the roof, falling for a while, and then finally use my giant red scarf to hook onto a nearby lamp post and launch myself towards them. Gotta enter with style, right?

I make it up to the rooftops again, jumping from wall to windowsill to emergency escape, and land in a very cool pose right next to the cat-man.

"Why hello," I start, giving them a little bow. "Fancy-feast meeting you here." I smile widely, knowing that they can't see it. They just stare for a bit, obviously too amazed by my pun to say anything.

Danny speaks up, finally. "Dude… what?"

"Y'know, Fancy-Feast? The cat food?" I try to smile wider.

"That pun was a stretch, Pajama-kid," Danny replies. "But bad puns aside, what are you doing here? If you're from Norrisville, why aren't you with the school of kids from there?"

"All of the people who would have tried to destroy me or the school are back in Norrisville," I explain. "As for what I'm doing here, I'm chasing some red… flying thing that looks an awful lot like lasagna." I look down a little bit. "That, and ask for your help on being a hero…" I mutter, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Apparently, I wasn't too quiet, as Chat puts a hand on my back. "It's okay, dude, not everyone's mister perfect like Ghost-Kid here"

"Hey! I'm not that perfect!" Danny crosses his arms and gives us a stern look, then his eyes widen. "Do you really think I'm perfect?"

I get ready to reply, but Chat beats me to words. "Wait, what is that?" he points a clawed finger skyward, and we all see a bright blue light fly over our heads, followed closely by the familiar red blur.

"That red thing was the lasagna, but I have no clue about the other thing!" I say.
"I don't think that's lasagna," Danny says.

Chat and I both turn towards Danny again. "What do you mean?" Chat says.

"Yeah, what makes more sense than lasagna?" I ask.

"You guys are gonna think I'm crazy," Danny replies, looking towards where the blurs flew off to. "But, to me that looked like a dragon."

CHAPTER END