PART XXIV - THE STICK in the MUD PIE

Three kids sat huddled around a small pit in the driveway, shooting marbles. They each missed, but with nine shots in their automatics, they had plenty of ammunition to hit those pesky pieces of glass. All would have been well, had the slugs not ricocheted into their dad's car.

"Uh-oh," they said in perfect synchronicity.

Ms. Vickers walked around the corner, saw the boys, and started to shake her head. She was wearing her bonnet, a Victorian outfit from ankle to neck and possibly even a chastity belt - we didn't have the balls to check.

{Yet another Author's Note: For the record, it was CWBorysowich who was short on balls. I just wasn't interested.

KDAmery}

"Tsk tsk... Shouldn't be letting mere children play with firearms!"

"Look granny, they're only snail guns. You put snails in here and slugs come out here!"

"Yeah and the shells eject out the side."

Ms. Vickers shook her head again. "Still, look at the mess you've made of that car. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Not to mention the cruelty to those poor..."

"Hey, that snail's getting away!"

Ms. Vickers looked down and saw the snail climb onto her shoe. "Eeeeeeek! Get that thing off me! Such unclean things!" She kicked it off and stepped on it. "Oh no! I killed a living creature!" She rushed to the lawn, wiped off her shoes, and dropped to her knees, reciting twenty-three Hail Marys.

The boys giggled and ran into the back garden to find more snails.

Ms. Vickers continued reciting her rosary as Guido - the first disciple and the reason for needing sixteen more - looked at the dripping slugs on his car and then at the praying weirdo on his lawn.

"Muh-thah of God, how am I evah gonna get to Skuppernung's-a funeral ona time?! Ey lady! Take-a you slugs and get offa my lawn!"

Rushing to her feet and brushing off her petticoats, she turned to Guido and stammered "I am Ms. Petunia Vickers and I must iterate clearly that I had absolutely nothing to do with this outrage upon your vehicle."

"Whata da hell is stuck upa you skirt lady? You-a flatten my grass an you make-a da neighbours stare. Madre de Dios, you are worse dan my kids!"

Stuffing her nose in the air she blurted "Well I never!" And stomped off with the snail shell still crackling under foot.

"Anda you probly nevah will!" Guido pulled open the car door and hopped in. Revving up the engine he tore down the street.

As he passed her, Ms. Vickers said, "Dirty gangster. Oh! I maligned another human being!" She dropped to her knees again, landing on a June bug.

PART XXIII - QUANTUM MECHANICS and BASIC COMMANDO REPAIRS

Lawrence the Arabian opened his eyes and saw horseshoes. Pushing his stall door open, he cantered out to the paddock to find a trainer, or a groom, anyone who could relieve him of this over-enthusiastic hoofwear.

There was no one around.

"Dammit, don't tell me they fell down that space warp again."

Bursting through the time space continuum, ushered by several flares and shrink wrapped jellybeans, came Bob the Quantum Mechanic. Putting down his toolbox, Bob asked, "Spacewarp acting up again?"

"How did you know?"

"You called me."

"No I didn't."

"Sure ya did, twenty minutes... Shit, it must be a time warp too. I'll get right on it." Bob opened his tool box and pulled out a quark wrench. "Let's see what it is now... Holy shit, Schroedinger's having a field day!"

The stable door creaked open and in stepped Niels Bohr, wearing a full jockey outfit and sporting a bull whip. Bob looked up, shook his head and went back into his tool box to find a pair of proton priers, and started to work on some multidimensional anomalies. "Niels, want to give me a theoretical hand. These electron clouds look pretty darned odd. So do you, I might add."

Niels Bohr pulled out a theoretical hand and gave it to Bob.

"Thanks." Bob tied it to a neutron cluster and bonded the fingers each to a muon. "That should just about do it..."

A large puff of flame and smoke scorched the paddock, and when the air cleared the Phoenix was sitting on the charred ground. "Oh, great, what am I doing HERE?"

Niels' eyes widened, and with a leap mounted the bird and let out a crack of the whip, causing the Phoenix to bury it's head in the manure.

Bob rolled his eyes. "This is going to be one fuck of a job. What are the probabilities on this?!"

The phoenix pulled its head out of the ground and said, "What kind of sand is this?"

Lawrence snorted impatiently and went back to his stall to call Bob. Bob dug deep into the tool box and recovered a subatomic drill and started to work harder. After pushing around some particles and doing a neutron dance, Bob had found the problem.

"Here it is. Worst case of infinity twisting I've ever seen. Niels, get off your high bird and give me another hand."

Niels jumped down, clapped, and took a closer look. "My god Bob! It makes the Moebius look like a straight edge!"

"Yeah, it's a pretzel all right. Hand me those neutrino clippers, lets see if we can't untangle this a bit... There we go. All it needs now is a little molecular bonding and... Bingo!"

"Nice job, Bob."

The Phoenix disappeared.

"Uh oh, still got a glitch. Lessee, what else... Hey, is that Oort cloud supposed to be that small?"

"Hmm, looks like we've got a shrunk solar system in here."

"Geez Niels, we may have to call in the Top Guns!"

"No... Not...Beepo the suicidal clown?!?"

"Hey, he is a disciple you know. And he only gets real suicidal on MinuteMaid orange juice."

Smokey the Bear fizzled into existence. "Anybody see Yellowstone?"

Niels looked at Bob. "Call him."