The Legend of the Gobblewonker! (Part 3)
(Back with the Mystery Gang…)
"Uh huh! Oh yeah! Work it!" Heather was saying to some beavers, taking pictures as they posed with the chain saw "That's good! Oh, do that again! Man who knew beavers could be so photogenic?"
"Hey Ford." Stan said as he sat down on the shore. "Sorry about the monster." He said.
"I don't care about that." Ford admitted as he sat down on a boulder in the water not too far away. "What are we gonna say to Grauntie Mabel, that's what I'm worried about?" he admitted, tossing a pebble into the lake, "We ditched her for nothing."
Stan was just about to say something encouraging when just then there was a ripple in the water, "Hey! Did you guys feel that? WOAH!" The rock Ford was sitting on disappeared, dropping him into the water. "Hey, hey, hey!" He swam to shore where Stan pulling him up.
The group saw the Gobblewonker's figure swimming away.
"This is it!" Ford cried excitedly, as he pulls out one of his cameras. He started taking pictures. "This is our chance!" He turned around, seeing Stan, Fiddleford, and Heather backing up. "What's wrong with you guys?"
"Uh, bro..." Stan said. He watched as the monster rose above water, but Ford didn't seem to notice.
"Holy Roman Empire..." Heather murmured.
"It's not that hard, ok?" Ford said. "You just point and shoot. Like this."
He turned around, looking through the camera. He looked up, seeing the Gobblewonker's face. The monster roared, causing Ford to drop his camera in shock.
"RUN!" Stan screamed, and the four of them did just that. The Gobblewonker followed them on land, knocking over a tree that almost hit Stan and Ford. They continue to run, dodging trees and other obstacles and catch up with Fiddleford and Heather.
"Hurry, back to the boat!" Fiddleford yelled. The Gobblewonker snapped at Heather, who screamed and nearly tripped. Stan grabbed her wrist, pulling her along. Ford pulled out another camera, trying to get a picture, he manages to snag one, but stumbled over a tree root and drops the camera.
"The picture!" Ford cried. He was about to run after the fallen camera when Fiddleford pulled him forward.
"Your life ain't worth a lousy picture, Ford!" Fiddleford yelled.
"If it... makes you... feel any better... I got high... quality pictures of... those beavers!" Heather panted.
"Why would that make me feel better?!" Ford yelled. The group finally reached the boat. Stan got on first, helping Heather up. Fiddleford and Ford climbed aboard, knocking the boat back into the water. Fiddleford ran to the steering wheel.
"Let's get out of here!" He shouted.
"Ok, this is it!" Ford said, taking out a camera. "Cracked lens?! Stan, get a picture!"
Stan, however, was throwing both his and Heather's supply of cameras at the monster. "Take that you boat eating beat!"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Heather screamed, standing up.
"Oh, right! There's still one left!" Stan said and tossed it to Heather, but it fell short and broke.
"One, that's not doing anything!" Heather yelled. "Two, that's actually doing something worse, ya ding-dong!"
The Gobblewonker dove into the water, following the boat of kids. Fiddleford steered the ship forward and away from it.
"Go, go, go, go, go!" Ford urged.
(Back with Grauntie Mabel…)
Grauntie Mabel was struggling to untie a knot on her boat, mumbling to herself while doing so. Her attempt to rustle up some Knitting buddies had failed miserably, and worse still she accidentally kept the boat past what her renting fee allowed and had to pay 50 bucks extra. She felt lousier than ever before, and of course she blamed herself.
'I should have been more a part of their lives.' She told herself. 'Instead I shut myself away from them. No wonder they'd rather stay away I'm a total stranger to them!'
"Can you tell us more funny stories, grandma?" A boy on another boat asked his grandma. Who was strangely knitting some fishing hats for two boys who had uncanny similarities to Stan and Ford.
"Anything for my kitting-slash-fishing buddies," the old woman chuckled, patting her grandsons on the head.
"Grandma? I just realized that..." the second boy looked up at his grandma with wide eyes, "I wuv you."
"Aw, come on!" Mabel complained.
"H-hey now, what's the big idea?" The grandma asked.
"Maybe she has no one who wuvs her, Mama," the first boy said.
"Oh yeah? Well, I... I-" Mabel was cut off as the S.S Nerdling drove past, dousing her in water. Mabel tossed her now-ruined sweater to the bottom of the boat, then sat down and sighed sadly. She no longer cared if the boat would cost even more if she sat in it. She wasn't moving, she was far too miserable to do so.
(Back with the Gang…)
"Fids, BEAVERS!" Ford cried, pointing out the animals and their dam. The boat crashed through the wreck, scattering beavers everywhere. They started chewing on the boat and its crew members.
"Ah, beavers!" Fiddleford shouted abandoning the wheel!
"FIDS!" Stan shouted and grabbed the Wheel as the rest of the crew struggled to fight off the beavers, with Heather throwing some of them at the Gobblewonker. The S.S Nerdling drove through a spot with a bunch of people fishing. Their boats were overturned as the Gobblewonker swam underneath them.
Wendy from earlier now had a fish in a headlock, being cheered on by her three Daughters.
"Mom! Mom! Mom!" The girls cheered. Suddenly a wave from the Gobblewonker turned their boat over, and fish started falling on them.
"The fish! They seek revenge!" Wendy cried. "Swim girls, swim!"
Meanwhile with the S.S Nerdling, the Gobblewonker had managed to knock the top of the control cabin off.
"There you go." Ford says as he finally manages to get the beaver of Fiddleford.
"AHH! Look out!" Fiddleford yelled, pointing ahead of them. Two men in two boats were holding a piece of glass.
"Easy... easy..." the man said, when suddenly the S.S Nerdling crashed through, breaking it. "My glass!"
"Why would you even be moving glass across the lake like that?!" Heather yelled.
"I don't know!" Ford shouted back.
"WHERE DO I GO?!" Stan yelled from the control cabin. He was heading straight for a dead end, a giant water fall!
Ford quickly flipped through the journal, until he finds a page about the water fall. "Uh, go behind the falls!" He instructed. "I think there might be a cave behind it!"
"Might be?!" Stan yelled.
"You THINK?!" Heather added. They all screamed as the boat went through the waterfall and into the cave behind it. They crashed, throwing them all onto the dirt. Heather checked her phone and bag, making sure everything was ok.
"Phew, no water damage," Heather sighed, looking at the sealed Ziploc baggie with her phone.
"You've sure got your priorities sorted, huh?" Stan grouched, pushing himself up. The four of them screamed again as the Gobblewonker burst through the cave entrance, but got stuck.
"It's stuck!" Fiddleford cheered.
"Yahoo!" Ford grinned. "Wait. It's stuck?!"
He quickly tried to find a camera but came up empty.
"Boop," Stan said, pulling the camera pin out of Ford's shirt pocket. Ford laughed and snapping a lot of pictures of the monster.
"Did you get a good one?" Heather asked.
"They're all good ones!" Ford said happily.
"Whoo-hoo!" Heather pulled the three of them into a hug.
"YEAH, Stan O War here we come!" Stan cheered.
Suddenly the Gobblewonker let out an almost painful sound.
"He's really stuck in there." Ford realized.
The Gobblewonker wailed once more, the sound was so loud in the small cave that they had to cover their ears.
"The poor thing." Heather cried.
"Poor?" Stan yelled. "It tried to eat us!"
"No remember what Crazy Chiu said?" Heather argued. "We've disturbed its home, it just wants us to leave it alone. We didn't listen to her, and now look at what we've done!"
"She's right we have to help it." Ford declared.
"But how?" Fiddleford asked. "He's really stuck in there."
"Maybe if we had some butter." Stan suggested.
"Butter?" Heather yelled. "Stan we're in a water fall-"
"No Stanley's right." Ford exclaimed as he got an idea.
"He is?" Heather asked.
"I am?" Stan asked as well. "I mean of course I am."
"You have no idea what he's talking about do you?" Heather asked.
"No." Stan admitted sadly.
"Maybe he hit his head or something." Fiddleford suggested.
"No my head is fine." Ford assured them. "I'm talking about the moss!" he pulled some off of the rocks around them as he spoke. "If we stuff them in-between the rock and the Gobblewonker's skin it should make the rocks slippery enough for the monster to wiggle out of the cave."
"Like butter!" Stan exclaimed giving Heather a smirk face.
"Yes, yes now help me all of you." Ford ordered. "We don't have much time."
The friends all chipped in and soon they were stuffing moss everywhere they could manage around the beast.
The Gobblewonker continued to thrash around, but it was trying to come at them instead of moving backwards.
"Look I know we invaded your territory." Ford tried to reason with the beast. "But you got to move back."
The Gobblewonker growled, and snapped at them.
"Hey it's okay." Ford assured him placing his hand on the beast's side. "We're all friends here, we're not here to hurt you."
Suddenly their eyes met, and the Gobblewonker's gaze softened, as if looking into Ford's eyes was all the assurance that it need.
Ford smiled. "It's going to be okay, now move back please."
The Gobblewonker does as it's told wailing softly.
"It's moving back!" Heather shouted.
"Keep applying moss." Ford ordered. "He's almost out!"
The gang did as he said, and with a few more tugs from the Gobblewonker the beast managed to squeeze out of the cave entrance, and disappear behind the falls.
"We did it!" they exclaimed.
"Ford that was awesome!" Heather shouted before giving him a big hug.
Ford blushed, but retuned the hug none the less.
Stan gave him a big thumbs up.
"I wonder if it's okay." Fiddleford asked.
Ford suddenly pulled away from Heather and walked over to the mouth of the cave. "Let's make sure." He said.
"Careful, Ford!" Fiddleford warned.
"I've got this," Ford assured as he stopped at the falls. He couldn't see anything behind the water. "Wait here!" He told them before disappearing behind the falls.
"Ford!" Stan shouted and ran after him.
Heather and Fiddleford are close behind.
"Ouch." Stan shouts as he ran into Ford. "Hey why'd you stop bro-" he froze as he saw why.
Heather and Fiddleford appeared beside him, and they gasped at the sight.
There was the Gobblewonker only it had been joined by a second.
The two Gobblewonkers were hugging each other with their necks and making soft sounds to each other.
"It had a baby." Heather realized. "She's just protecting her baby."
"She must have thought the fisher men would hunt them for sport if they had the chance." Ford realized. "That's why she kept destroying boats."
"Awe that's the most beautiful thing I ever saw." Fiddleford cried.
"Yes family is a beautiful thing." Crazy Chiu agreed.
"AHHH!" The kids screamed as the old woman appeared out of nowhere.
"How did you get here!?" Stan shouted.
"I followed you to make sure you stayed safe." Crazy Chiu told them.
"Why didn't you just stop us?" Ford asked.
"Yeah wouldn't have that been easier?" Heather agreed.
"I supposed I could have tried." Crazy Chiu seemed to agree. "But you would not have listened. You needed to learn this lesson for yourself, nothing is more important than family."
Ford suddenly looked down at his camera pen and was filled with guilt. If he showed this picture the Gobblewonker and her baby would never be safe again. He sighed and dropped it into the water.
"You are a good boy Stanford." Crazy Chiu told him. "Young people don't value family like they ought to. And then when they get my age they wish they had. But I guess it's to be expected, when you get to be old like me, no one pays attention to you anymore," Crazy Chiu sighed. "My own friends haven't visited me in years. You just do not know what we old people will do for a little quality time with the ones we love. But I find solace in the fact that some kids know the value of family better than I ever did."
Stan and Ford pulled out the sweaters their Grauntie Mabel had made for them. They sighed, looking at the excellent craftsmanship.
"Yo, I guess the real lake monster is us." Heather said. "Sorry Guys. I couldn't miss that roasting opportunity. Even if it is us getting roasted."
"So, did you ever talk to your friends about how you felt?" Stan asked Crazy Chiu.
"Nope, I let them do what they pleas it's their life after all." The woman said as they watched the Gobblewonkers swim away.
"Well, so much for the photo contest," Ford sighed.
"Well I know a guy you would love to buy our beaver chain shot pics." Heather assured them. "We can split the profit 25 each."
"Hot diggidy dog!" Fiddleford exclaimed.
"And we still have a roll of film left," Stan said as he pulled out one last camera from his pocket.
"What do you wanna do with it?" Ford asked his friends.
"I say we go make your Grauntie's day." Heather suggested as they headed back to their boat. "Hey we should ask Crazy Chiu if she needs a ride back." She suggested.
"I got it!" Stan said and tuned back around "Hey Crazy Chiu did want-" he stopped as he realized the old lady was gone. "Well that's not creepy at all." He lied.
"Want to run back to the boat screaming?" Heather asked.
"Yes." Fiddleford admitted.
"After you." Ford told him, and Fiddleford ran off screaming towards the boat with his friends not too far behind.
The beast with one eye chuckled as he watched them run; despite himself.
While he would have loved to watch them get eaten, he had to admit that little Sixer had quite a head on his shoulders.
"He could learn the truth to early if I'm not careful." He realized. "I'll have to keep a closer eye on you." He thought as the friends made it on the boat and drove out of the cave towards the docks.
"A very close eye indeed…"
(Back with Grauntie Mabel…)
Grauntie Mabel had finally managed to drag her sorry but back on shore and now she was mopping towards Tate's front door. She sighed sadly.
"Hey, look this way!" Heather called. Over on the destroyed S.S Nerdling, Ford snapped a picture of his Grauntie Mabel as she looked their way.
"What the- boys?" Mabel looked over at the boat. "I thought you were off playing Spin the Bottle or something with Fids and Heather."
"Well, we spent the day trying to find a legendary dinosaur," Ford said, rubbing the back of his head.
"But then we realized the only dinosaur we want to spend time with is you," Stan smiled.
"Yeah well, I've been having a great time by myself," Mabel folded her arms. "Making friends, telling myself jokes..."
"So I guess you don't want to join us inside for knitting?" Ford asked with a smile. He and Stan pulled on their name sweaters. Mabel smiled back and got on the boat. "I got a better idea, I saw a grandma knitting with her grandkids as they fished they called themselves fishing-slash knitting buddies."
"Well I just so happen to have my own fishing poles right here." Fiddleford said as he opened a crate full of poles, hooks, and lures.
"Awesome!" Everyone exclaimed.
"Got room for one more?" Tate asked as he appeared on the dock beside them.
"Get in here!" Heather exclaimed. "And let's get this party started!"
"Hey have you ever seen me thread a hook with my eyes closed?" Stan asked, sitting down.
"Five bucks says you can't do it!" Fiddleford bet.
"Five more bucks says you can't do it with your eyes closed. Plus me singing at the top of my lungs!" Mabel added.
"You're on!" Stan smirked.
"Alright, everyone get together!" Heather said, holding a camera. Stan, Ford, Tate and Fiddleford grouped next to Mabel. "Say 'fish-kitting'!"
"Fish-kitting!" They said.
The rest of the day consisted of them having fun. Heather had to cover Stan's eyes so he didn't cheat ·while threading the kitting hook. Mabel showed them pictures from her scrapbook and told stories as she taught them how to knit a fishnet quilt.
At the end of the day, the group was relaxing in the boat. Taking a break when suddenly the boat bumped something.
"What was that?" Ford asked. Stan shrugged and they forgot about it.
Below the water swam the two Gobblewonkers side by side, both happy to be together and free. And they owed that freedom to two twins and their brave group of friends.
-To Be Continued
Author's Notes: As always I thank you for reading and please review.
The next Chapter will be up after the holidays.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
Yours truly RoxieDivine ;)