Earthbound Scrapbook Entry #9: Summers Vacation (GPP9)

My new friends Ness and Jeff told me that it wasn’t necessary for me to come along with them to the Dusty Dunes Desert to get the trout yogurt machine that their inventor friend sent them, but I know that they were just being modest. I mean, I’m totally helpful and junk! And I need to make sure that Master Pokey gets his favorite yogurt. It’s like my job and stuff, right?

We finally found the yogurt machine in some stinky cave filled with beavers or something about an hour ago, and we started walking back to the city because Ness had spent his bus fare on a Picnic Lunch and a Skip Sandwich to give to those greedy hairballs.

“Hey Jeff!” I yelled, “Is that Paula chick you’re trying to find your girlfriend or something?”

“Uhh, no, Electra. She’s not,” he replied. Jeff nodded his head towards Ness. Ness blushed a bit.

“Hey Jeff! Where did you learn all that science stuff?”

“Well, my father is the famous scientist, Dr. Andonuts. That’s the nature. The nurture comes from –”

“Hey Jeff! Those bottle rockets look dangerous. Are they dangerous?”

“Highly. If one isn’t careful, one could seriously injure oneself or perhaps anybody with a –”

“Hey Jeff! Have you ever killed a man?”

“Yes.”

“Hey Jeff! What’s that big machine doing out here in the desert?”

“They’re still digging?” Ness asked.

“Affirmative,” replied Jeff. “There’s a good chance that there are more diamonds to be had.”

“My ex-boyfriend gave me a diamond ring once, but it turned out to be a twisty tie. I hate twisty ties,” I said. “But I do like bread. Bread is a word my boyfriend used when he meant money, so I guess it’s a little funny when you think about it. Hey Jeff! Are you okay? Your forehead just got all veiny and stuff.”

*   *   *

By the time we made it to Fourside, it was already night. The sky was totally lit up and junk, just like always.

After we got back to Master Pokey’s office building, I invited the boys up to my room to try out the trout yogurt machine and Ness and Jeff stared at the elevator operator’s hips the whole 48 floors up. We had to walk through a few empty offices to get to where I live.

Right when I was about to ask Jeff where he got his sweet glasses, we were totally stopped by a security robot.

“Please say the password in 10, 9, 8…”

“Like, password?” I asked. “No one ever told me a password.”

“I’ve got his one on lockdown,” said Ness. “All you have to do is wait three minutes without saying anything.”

“…2, 1. Terminate intruders.”

“Well THAT didn’t work,” said Ness. He quickly swung his baseball bat at the robot and smashed it to pieces.

“Ohh, so that’s why I wasn’t able to tell him the password,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Jeff.

“Well, I don’t have a baseball bat,” I said. Then Jeff’s forehead got all veiny again and I ate the candy bar I found in my apron.

* * *

“It’s another one of those security robots,” said Jeff. “But this one seems… different.”

“It’s because he’s eating a bologna sandwich,” I said.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she’s right,” Jeff said.

The bologna bot came out swinging; it totally didn’t even ask us for a password! Ness and Jeff whacked it as hard as they could, but they weren’t gaining any ground from what I could see. The robot just kept eating those sandwiches.

All of a sudden, some guys rushed into the room! It was the Runaway Five! Lucky quickly ducked behind the robot.

“I flipped the switch and it stopped. Ha ha ha hah… Geez, what a loser robot. It was so easy to stop!”

“Oh, thank God!” I yelled. “One time I had a robot vacuum and it kept cleaning after it should have stopped. It was a lot like this!”

“Where’s Paula!?” Ness  yelled. He burst though Mr. Monotoli’s door. I was going to follow him, but one of the Runaway Five was gooving on me, so I let Ness and Jeff take care of it.

* * *

I guess Pokey took off and Mr. Monotoli was totally mellow, because the next thing I knew, we were on our way to a place called Threed. I heard about Threed on the news and junk; it was overrun by zombies or whatever. But not anymore; Ness and his friends fixed it. We also found Paula and I guess she’s pretty, so that’s cool for Ness.

Fourside looks pretty cool at night in a bus.

When we pulled up to Threed, Ness and Jeff and Paula got out and I came with them because, like, where else would I go? Lucky told us that we were always welcome as guests of the Runaway Five, and then I asked about the sixth member of the band. Everyone got quiet and left after that.

Threed is pretty beautiful, except for some parts. We had to walk through the graveyard to get to Jeff’s flying machine thing. It was all creepy and stuff but Ness said that it was even worse a few days ago. I don’t know how it could have been worse but whatever; I guess I believed him.

By the time we found Jeff’s spaceship or whatever it was, some dudes from Threed had totally remixed that stuff, so it was almost ready to rock n’ roll. All Jeff had to do was play with some wires or whatever and then let ‘er rip. All I gotta say is, wow! If you believed in aliens before this Sky Runner thing, maybe you’d rethink all that stuff after taking a ride in it! It’s amazing!

After an hour or two, we landed in some old man’s lab. He was totally hanging out with some freak in a loincloth, so I’m not too keen on this dude’s sanity. But he was able to fix the Sky Runner, no problem. All we need to do was kill a few hours. I guess this Paula chick is into darkness because she suggested we go hang out in the cave across the way.

I was not into that at all, so I hung out outside the entrance.

It wasn’t long before Ness and Paula and Jeff came out of the cave and they were all happy and whatever. Paula was telling me about some kind of giant mushroom man they fought, but I wasn’t too keen on believing that.

She did draw this awesome picture of him, though, and she was all about the “rainy circle” she said they found afterwards. Maybe… maybe these kids are stronger than I think.

Okay, so the old man fixed the UFO better than Jeff could and I guess we have to go to Summers now. Without Master Pokey to give me work, I’m free as a bird anyway. They told me I gotta pay off these college loans even if I didn’t actually get a degree, so it looks like I’m in the market for a new job.

Off we go!

*   *   *

That’s totally the last time I let Jeff drive! But at least we’re in Summers. It's beautiful! And there are plenty of shirtless dudes to make me hot under the apron.

But when I was talking to Paula about it, she was kinda steamed because Ness was talking to some other chick who was about four years older than him! Total burn, dude! I hope Ness realizes what he’s doing to poor Paula!

* * *

The hotels here are totally high class in a different way than Master Pokey’s office, that’s for sure! I can almost feel the tips pouring from the fingers of the hotel guests. I mean, look at this stuff! It’s totally high class. A girl could make a sweet living here in paradise…

All of this awesome stuff and Ness and Paula and Jeff wanna spend their time hanging out at this nowheresville Stoic Club place. They told me it has to do with some kind of “magic cake” but that stuff sounds sketchy to me. I guess I made up my mind anyway – I’m gonna grab a job at the Summer’s hotel serving guests trout yogurt from the machine these little guys gave me. In the mean time, I’m gonna stare at this rock like everybody else and hope no one notices that I don’t know what the heck I’m talking about!

* * *

I said goodbye to Ness and Paula and Jeff this morning. They were cool about it; Jeff’s vainy forehead even went away for a minute when I told him; I guess he was worried about me. When they left, I watched them hang out with some chick from the Stoic Club for a few minutes until they ate some cake or something; but it must have been some pretty crazy pastry because they all seemed to black out for about an hour and a half after eating it.

Hmm… I guess that magic cake stuff was as sketchy as I thought!