now loading: kids next door mission

operation: t.a.m.i.n.g.

temperamental

adolescent

meets

ingenious

navigator

guy

writing operative: mr. f

copyright commanders: mr. waburton, cartoon network []

"RRRAH!" An earth-shattering wail shook the plywood stalls of the summer carnival, startling the visitors and turning their heads towards the scene. Kids and carnies alike gaped as they watched what was once a crooked Shooting Gallery twist and contort as if undergoing intense, intestinal distress. A pair of oversized hands were squeezing crazily on the booth, putting pressure upon pressure on the fragile construct until it could take no more. Soon, the booth shattered into a conflagration of pop-guns and targets, revealing its great destroyer: a gigantic, mutated female with horn-like braids bolting from her skull, pulsating warts speckled on her face, and a great, bellowing voice that even now was hollering the nature of her extreme beef with the world: "ICE CREAM NOW!"

Yes, the Big Badolescent was certainly making a scene in the once-peaceful uptown amusement facility. She knocked down snack bars. She overturned stools. Everyone around was running desperately from this whirling menace of arms, boards, and cheaply made stuffed animals as she continued to lay waste to the premises. "I WANT PINEAPPLE FROZEN YOGURT CRUNCH!" she continued to demand, though none seemed too eager to fulfill the requests of this prepubescent psycho.

Violently jerking from his ice cream cone, Hoagie P. Gilligan Jr. let out a gasp of surprise as he was alerted to the escalating disaster. The rotund boy better known as Numbuh Two watched with petrified amazement as the Big Badolescent continued her rampage amongst the fairgrounds. Swiftly, he turned to the ice cream man fretting in the stand behind him, another poor soul enveloped with shock and fear. "What's goin' on?" he asked somewhat tactlessly, not entirely heeding the other's horrified expression.

"That loco girl went ballistic, just because we didn't have her favorite ice cream flavor!" the man blurted out in a frenzy, twitching about as if trying to dodge imagined debris. He clenched his head in mental agony, staring off into empty space. "I told the boss that we should restock that pineapple stuff, but did he listen? Nooo!"

"Um yeah, heh heh…" the boy chuckled with a nervous quiver, smiling like a used car salesmen under fire. "That's too bad..." Leaving the man to his anxieties, Numbuh Two walked away slowly from the ice cream stand, enveloped in flustered thought. Ignoring the dramatics around him, he instead looked down to the frozen yogurt cone he held in his grasp. He observed its swirling shape, the granola embedded within the yogurt, the little bits of pineapple stuck among the granola, and sighed.

"I guess I'm the only one who can take care of this," he resolved reluctantly, staring with regret at his cone. "Man, all I was tryin' to do was cut down." He then started his stride.

Back at the action, the Big Badolesent had lost no steam in her quest for soft-serve vengeance. She had now obtained a large ice cream cart, which she held above her head like a sacred, golden calf. With a terrible rage upon her face, she loomed dangerously down upon who appeared to be the park manager, a balding man in his late thirties. Blubbering pathetically, he stammered out weak apologies and bent down in appeal before the tween titan.

"P-please, Miss Badolescent, control yourself!" the manager pleaded up to the beast and her ice cream cart. "We have many other wonderful flavors, which we are sure will be to your liking!"

But the monster girl was unsympathetic to the man's arguments. "ONLY PINEAPPLE FROZEN YOGURT CRUNCH SATIFIES NEEDS OF SKUNKY SCOUT TROOPS!" she declared with gusto, her flapping mouth showing off her glimmering white jaws. Raising the cart above her head, she readied the object for a piledriver upon the manager. Her bulging eyes were swirling with insanity, and her apelike teeth ground together within a maw entirely devoid of Pineapple Frozen Yogurt Crunch.

"YOU SUFFER FOR DAMAGING SANCTITY OF FRAGILE FEMALE HEART!" she hollered out, beginning to bring the object down.

"No!" the manager squealed, covering his head with his hands.

At that moment, all had seemed to be written by this wacko's whim. But just then, a single young voice cried out: "Stop!"

"HUH?" the Big Badolescent burbled, stopping her homicidal lunge. Bringing the ice cream cart upright as quickly as she had let it fall, she turned her head frantically for the interference, a familiar smell tingling throughout her nostrils. Sniffing like a boar, the monster girl let her nose rout out the aroma, which eventually lead her to the source of the prior disturbance. And it was a sight that caused her to drop the ice cream cart altogether. "OOOH!"

Among the once paranoid populous, a reverent silence had taken hold of the people, as if the ground where the Big Badolescent and the manager occupied was holy ground. A large break had formed within the crowd, letting though a round boy of around eleven years old. Like Moses crossing the Red Sea, he steadily made his way towards the beast, presenting an object as if it were a sacrifice to an ancient deity. As well he should, for this object, shining brilliantly in the afternoon sun, was more valuable than any golden calf.

"YAY!" the Big Badolescent cheered, clapping her hands like a schoolgirl. "PINEAPPLE FROZEN YOGURT CRUNCH!" Forgetting about the manager, (who had since then skittered away) she bounded over to the boy in a strange combination between skipping and stomping. With a giant paw, she eagerly reached for the boy's frozen yogurt cone, who relinquished the object with a nervous smile. And with her gigantic tongue, she started loudly slurping away at it, her mouth contorting in a smile that seemed completely alien to the former engine of destruction.

But that wasn't the only thing that seemed completely alien about her. For just a few moments after she had received her treat, a strange transformation began to overtake the Big Badolescent. Her hands began to shrink to a normal size and her body slimmed down to about a third of her former girth. Another two seconds later, and where the beast once stood was now a young African American girl, with eyeglasses, a scout uniform, the same horn-like braids, and an innocence that completely belied her darker nature.

Laura Limpin rose from her spot on the ground, tilting her glasses and licking her cone. "I really like Pineapple Frozen Yogurt Crunch!" she stated cheerfully, as if nothing had happened at all. She turned towards Numbuh Two, and latched onto his side with a ferocious hug. "Thank you, Mister Hoagie, sir!" she squealed, a smile of half-crazed joy affixed to her face.

"Aww!" the crowd cooed, apparently having forgotten their imperilment for the sappy sitcom that was this scene.

"Eh heh-heh-heh…!" Numbuh Two put a hand to the back of his head, looking away from the kid and chucking nervously. Inside though, he had a cold feeling in his chest that things were about to get really messy. And that wasn't just the frozen yogurt that was getting smeared on his jacket.

"We're goin' to a sleep-o-ver! We're goin' to a sleep-o-ver! We're goin' to, we're goin' to, we're goin' to a sleep-o-ver!" Down the neighborhood road, an irritating, bouncy jingle could be heard emanating from a skipping, hyperactive nine-year-old. The small girl took huge, leaping steps outrageous for the size of her legs, turning her gait into a series of jumps and springs. Her face was a mask of oblivious joy, her bespectacled eyes seeing nothing but her own enjoyment. So she was completely unaware that her new-found-friend was not synchronous with her happiness, and was in fact, wishing he were somewhere else.

Numbuh Two groaned with distaste as he was dragged against his will by Laura's small, but surprisingly strong hand. His feet drummed away as he tried his best to keep up with his capricious captor. "Ah, c'mon!" he complained loudly, trying to wretch away his fingers from hers. "Why do we gotta go to your house now?"

"Cause' you gave me my favorite frozen yogurt flavor!" she responded jovially, ignoring his futile efforts at escape. "You're my bestest friend!" The young scout thought over this revelation for a moment, then burst into song again. "Best friend, best friend, best friend times ten!"

The boy only groaned at the irritating tune, and did his best to cringe away from the girl. It had been like this ever since they left the ruined carnival. After receiving her PFYC, Laura had latched onto him like some sort of fungus, all but demanding that he come to her house for a slumber party. Before he knew what was happening, he was an unwilling prisoner of both Laura Limpin and the Big Badolescent, a singular pair that he'd only deal with equipped with two SCAMPPS, a SPLANKER, and maybe a big rubber band for flinging her away.

"But I barely even know you!" he tried again, his face filled with desperation. "And my arm's gonna break off!" Numbuh Two furtively looked around, wondering if anybody had seen them. Just as he was glancing towards the sidewalk across from them, a pair of middle aged soccer-mom types locked eyes with him. His ears reddened, and he turned away in humiliation as both of them pointed and giggled at the boy and his girlfriend/adopted sister. (they couldn't decide which)

"We'll be at my house soon, and Mom's gonna have a pot roast waitin' for us!" Laura continued, still not responding to Numbuh Two's pleas. "And then we'll play and play and play, all night long!" The girl went into an excited, dreamlike state, her irises glossing up with a certain romanticism. "We'll play with toys, we'll play with jacks! And then, you can try on all of the skunk hides I skinned to get my merit badges!"

That was it. "Alright, enough!" Numbuh Two cried out, finally wrenching his hand free from the girl's titanium grip. "I'm not gonna deal with this any more! There's gonna be no toys, no jacks, NO SLEEPOVER!" He put his hands on his hips in a manner not unlike an angry matron. "Understand, kid!"

This shocked the girl right to the bone, causing her to gasp and put her hands to her mouth. Numbuh Two blinked guiltily and took a step back, wondering if he had said what he should have said. Both of them were now stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at each other in silence. And Laura slowly turned away, and clenched her hands into two shaking little fists.

"Mister Hoagie's gonna go to a sleepover with me," she said quietly, an ugly tremor forming in the back of her voice box. "Or Mister Hoagie's gonna be a HOAGIE SANDWICH!" In a burst of blubber, she elevated upward to three times her size, her glasses disappearing, her braids going akimbo. And then, she was the Big Badolescent once again, raising the boy up by the neck and giving him her meanest, most psychopathic glare.

"ACK!" Numbuh Two squealed, his voice cracking like a teenage girl. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and his teeth chattered like a bad canasta player. "Y-yes, ma'am!" he stuttered, trying to conjure up something like a smile. "I mean, my dear friend!"

The beast suddenly let out a gigantic smile. "GOOD!" she said with satisfaction, placing the boy roughly back on the sidewalk. After a quick metamorphosis, Laura was again back to her sweet old self, popping right back to Numbuh Two's side and taking his hand. "Now we gotta hurry, 'fore the pot roast gets coldy cold!"

Once again, Laura took off skipping and singing down the sidewalk, taking Numbuh Two along for the ride. The boy took one last tug on her hand before sighing in defeat. Like it or not, he was stuck with this strange little girl for the moment. He'd just have to find some way to grin and bear it, at least until he could somehow make a getaway.

interrupt transmission []