Everyone stared in complete and moronic shock, at the appalling mismatched Vogue-impaired woman standing in the room.
"Like, where are we, Dudes?" Sparki asked.
"Good question," Mollie turned to Snerdly, who sneered and leered.
"Yeah, where ARE we?" he asked in his most innocent tone.
"How should I know - Tasha hit the button…"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP ME!" Tasha attacked Snerdly. (No one stopped her that time either.)
Snerdly straightened up with an affected scowl, and began to explain. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…"
"Och!!" Hamish bellowed. "Get on wi' it, man!"
"I was hoping for some theme music," Snerdly pouted. The others glared. "Very well. This is what happened…"
Snerdly's tale was horrifying. Snerdly's tale was frightening. Snerdly's tale was…
"Ludicrous!" Tasha exclaimed.
"Wow, like how very Funk and Wagnalls of you!" Sparki cheered, because unlike the others, she had actually SEEN a dictionary.
"There's no bloody way," Tasha grinned at Hamish and Craig, amazed at her demonstration of biliguality, "…no bloody way we GAVE you the Limitless Credit Card for safekeeping, then ASKED you to be our manager." The others concurred. Snerdly sniffed.
"We want the truth!" yelled the others, except for Hamish, who was muttering something unintelligible that needs no translation (if we want to keep our PG-13 rating, we should refrain from translating most of what Hamish mutters).
"The truth…" Snerdly said, "is out there…."
"Where?"
"There."
"Where?"
"Here?"
"HERE?"
"No, THERE!" Snerdly pointed out the viewscreen window.
"WHERE?!?!?!?!?!?!" the others cried.
Suddenly, there was a hideous crashing, crunching sound like a box of popcorn being run over by a bicycle. There was a flash of blinding light, then silence.
"Here," Snerdly sighed.
They all looked out the window and saw what was either a beach without water or a desert.
"Bogus!" Sparki proclaimed.
"Okay!" Snerdly chirped, "Everybody
out!"
Hamish muttered something which loosely translated as, "I'm nae goin' anywhere wi'
the Loch Ness Monster incarnate…"
"Oh, yeah," Mollie remarked, finally catching up. "What is all THAT about?"
"Well, we were on board a bold sailing vessel, and we were…er…well…having a party, and I, er, that is CRAIG cannae hold his liquor, as everybody knows…"
Craig shrugged, "I just play the fiddle."
"So he was pukin' over the side, Bein' a true and loyal friend that I am, I went out to offer him another drink. That's when I saw that evil slimy crraytur, rrisin' oot o' the depths an' comin' at me!"
"Then what?" Tasha blinked.
"Then," Hamish scowled, "I damn near peed me kilt."
"Snerdly has that effect on people," Mollie patted Hamish's very muscular, very large, very broad, very masculine, very…
"Censor! Censor!" Craig suggested to the authors.
Mollie glared at him. "SHOULDER!" She said.
"Snerdly, Loch Ness is VERY bad for the complexion," Tasha reprimanded.
Sparki objected, "Like, I don’t think Snerd-dude is at ALL complex…
Sparki figured she might as well join in on the conversation, even though she had no clue what the others were talking about. As usual.
"MY calculations told me that the chances of finding the Loch Ness monster were 39545434545.578648646486 to 3 and 5/8ths. I intended to prove the cynics wrong."
"Um, so WHAT were you doin' in the Loch?" Craig grinned, "Besides scaring the piss oot o' Hamish?" Hamish glared.
"Oh," said Snerdly. "I was Snorkeling."
Mollie frowned. "Has everyone forgotten that we have CRASHED on Planet Sahara here?" She went to the hatch and opened it.
There were quiet mutters of "oh yeah" as they all followed Mollie and trooped outside to have a look. Everyone that is, except Tasha, who was frantically searching for sunblock, a floppy hat and fashionable Ray-Bans.
"The sun ages you," she called after the reckless heroes. "And YOU need all the help you can get, Snerdly." The others ignored her. "Damn…" Tasha tossed a few dozen magazines aside, stopping to gaze at the six-month old copy of "Cosmopolitan" that declared `Fat is Beautiful - Just be Yourselves Girls and Have that Chocolate Cake!'. "I will NEVER forgive Snerdly for making me miss that," Tasha declared, deciding to have Mollie add it to the list of Unforgivable Crimes Committed By Snerdly Against Humanity and Others (Mollie kept a lot of lists).
Finally, Tasha located the sunglasses and the sunblock in a corner behind the Wankle Rotary Engine (she felt an unmistakable shiver as she saw the Engine). The hat was nowhere to be found, and the others were disappearing over the horizon.
"&**&^#$@#@#@@#!!" Exclaimed Tasha, in deference to the censors. She rolled up the windows and locked the doors. Then she turned around and ran smack into Mollie.
"Hurry up! Hurry up!" Mollie cried.
"You came back for me!" Tasha exclaimed, hugging her sister. Then she pulled back in disgust. "I am not going anywhere with you looking like THAT!" Tasha pointed to the green zinc oxide smudged on Mollie's nose.
"Get real, Tash, you know my nose burns…"
"Well don’t blame ME if all the gorgeous
hunks fall at MY feet and not yours."
Mollie snorted. "You wish!"
"Okay, Mol, like who tore up YOUR credit cards during a Macy's One-Day Sale Event? Or is it just PMS, because you are WAY too bitchy today…"
"Must be the effects of the amnesia, Tash…" Mollie confessed, looking crestfallen. "I suddenly feel the urge to wear blue stockings and read Dickens."
Tasha shook her frantically. "Snap out of it! Snap out of it!" she cried. "Blue looks AWFUL with purple and green hair!"
"I know it," Mollie agreed, "But somehow I don’t CARE any more. I don't even like green nail polish now…"
"Well," smirked Tasha; "There's one improvement…"
"Let's go before the others…" Mollie scanned the horizon. "…Disappear. Where did the go, Tasha?"
Tasha finished smearing the sun block on her arms. "What? Sorry…oh, I don’t know…Well, I'm ready - let's go!"
"Go where? They're gone!"
"So what? This white sand is really cool. I'm going to find the water and take a dip."
"Water?" Mollie asked.
"Yeah, the BEACH. I mean - this is the wrong color for a desert. I mean, whoever heard of White Sands?"
They started walking. And walking. And walking. And walking…
"I'm tired," Tasha finally whined, "and the coconut scent of my sunblock has worn off!"
"I don't think they went this way…" Mollie began. Suddenly, she saw something on the horizon. The something looked an awful lot like a missile.
"Ladies…" said a gruff voice behind them. "Please come with me…"