XXXIV - BATTLE of the BABES

Barbie stood on top of Wendle's gut in her spike shoes. "Take the rest of the beach if you like, but this one's mine."

The Aussie Surfin’ Babes rolled their eyes. "Look Sheila, you don't even want the mate. You was cursin’ his guts when we arrived."

"So? It's the principle of the thing."

"Can I get up?" Wendle asked.

"No!" they all said at once.

"You will stay there until this is finished, Wendle!" screamed Barbie.

"Wendle? Struth! we're in Key West!" muttered one of the Aussies with disgust.

Wendle said, "Lookit that! It's a lady riding a Phoenix!"

Raquel and Phoenix swooped by.

Barbie stuck her heel into Wendle's gut. "Cut it out, we've heard that one before."

"But... owww!"

Phoenix landed on a van and tapped his claws. "I'm not even going to ask."

"Isn't that Wendle on the ground there?" asked Raquel.

"Aw, shit! We're in Key West," screamed Phoenix.

Raquel jumped off Phoenix and walked over to the Aussies. "Any of you seen a guy wearing hippie clothes from the Salvation Army and smoking a clay pipe?"

"Yeah, we told him to buzz off in Tahiti."

"Oh, thanks."

Raquel hung her head and trudged back over to the Phoenix. The bird looked up from a week old newspaper. "Any news?"

"They last saw him in Tahiti."

"Okay, lets go there."

"Can you go someplace you want to go?"

"Dunno, never tried. Climb up." Phoenix took off and they disappeared.

Barbie meanwhile was brandishing a curling iron to keep the Aussies away. The Surf Babes were about to load their weapons when the leader took a good look at Wendle. "Ferget it, lasses. The mate ain't worth it."

"Struth." They wandered off, looking for guys.

"Now that you've got me, what do you want to do?"

Barbie scowled and curled his eyebrows.

"You're just a friggin’ icon in this place. It's like you run a religion or something." Barbie was so put off, she scuffed sand in his face and left him lying on the beach with his bruises.

A couple walked up to him. "Are you OK? Is that you, Wendle?"

"Gosh honey, did we walk all the way to Key West?"

"I'm fine just leave me alone, alright!"

"Sorry."

"Sorry!?! I'm getting my eyebrows curled by a lady who accuses me of being a cross between one of those screwball Messiahs and a piece of a computer screen and you're sorry?"

"Well, actually, we're not. We just thought we'd be civil."

"Oh. Never mind."

PART XXXIII - A HORSE, a HORSE, my MINIVAN for a HORSE

Floyd and Pinkie sat in the stands waiting for the horse jumping to start. Clutched in their fists were the bets that would make them potential millionaires. Unbeknownst to them, their sweat was seeping into the paper...

Meanwhile, Bob and Niels nervously awaited the arrival of Beepo the Suicidal Clown. The horse jumping was to take place over the centre of the Warp; they didn't want to guess what might happen. An incredible noise attracted their attention, and Beepo rode in on a dirt bike that was missing all the nuts holding its wheels on. Something was hanging from his neck and dangling around the rear axle. He skidded to a halt, covering them in mud, and they saw the hanging thing was a noose.

"Had any MinuteMaid lately?" asked Bob.

"Just at breakfast..."

"Oh great." Neils buried his face in his hands.

Another motor grew louder, and then a minivan screeched around the corner of the stable and skidded to a halt in the mud, applying a second coat to Bob and Niels, a first to Beepo, and a jacket to a guy who stood there saying, "My eyeballs are flickering!"

"I want a horse!" screamed Linda Lovelace as she flew out of the minivan and into the stable. A moment later she came flying out of the stable on Lawrence the Arabian. As she went out on the field, the loudspeaker called out the name of the horse ridden by, "Lickin Linda Lovelace the... Equestrian?"

Paisley poked her head out of the van. "Oh, wow. People."

The three Quantum Repairmen looked around and then at each other. "Better get with it," Beepo said.

"Right." They pulled out their tools and started arranging superstrings into a cat's cradle.

Floyd and Pinkie looked at their bets then out on the field as Linda had one leg over Lawrence's neck, one leg around his snout and two arms grabbing for anything that she could get a hold of. Floyd and Pinkie started to cry.

Paisley shrugged and drove away. Bob watched her leave with supreme indifference, then went back to making chocolates with ion cluster centres. "Hey, Beepo, got any extra anti-matter over there?"

"Only positrons. They do?"

"No. Thanks anyway."

"Sure." Beepo beeped his horn, then dropped the end of his noose into a group of gravitons.

Niels rescued the noose. "Cut that out."

"Sorry, the MinuteMaid is still with me."

An electric surge popped and flattened the three physicists. Linda and Lawrence vanished and a gaggle of six-foot geese took over the field. Floyd and Pinkie both had nervous breakdowns and had to be restrained.

Hafenvlaader jumped up, screaming, "I won, I won, I won!!!!"

"You bet on the geese?" asked Skippy, lowering his arms.

"Get oot of my way, yoo smelly lackie!"

Skippy ducked the psychopathic pict's war axe, saying, "What's with these medieval weapons?", and Hafenvlaader went to the window to collect his forty-eight trillion dollar windfall.

Soon after, a bookie ran up to the unconscious physicists and screamed, "Wake up and materialize a lot of money!!!"

The three physicists picked themselves up and started to work on the Rubiks cube and wrote a sonnet to Paisley called "Ode to the... Never mind."

A large pile of thousand dollar bills then materialized ten feet off the ground and landed on Hafenvlaader. He would have been the richest man in existence if he had been able to swim out of the bills before losing consciousness.

Bob looked at his watch. "Lunch break, guys." They left for a burger joint to get fries and MinuteMaid.