Tasha nibbled at the edge of a fuschia fingernail and sighed soulfully, near tears. "I can’t do this – I can’t! I cannot possibly in any way, shape or form leave this ship!"
"To be precise," Snerdly glowered, calculating furiously on a scrap of paper, as Mollie and Sparki had stomped his calculator into a sparking pile of scraps on the floor. "If the oxygen percentage in the atmosphere may be deduced correctly, through a complex series of calculations, (which I will not grace you people with as it will only be unappreciated)…then it is within the narrow margin of possibility that we will be able to breathe of the surface of the hologram…well, holographic moon."
Tasha glared, "You don’t understand – my hair’s not WORKING!"
Sparki grinned and grabbed two Mountain Dews from the huge, purple sequined knapsack she had somehow concealed on her person. Snerdly stared in amazement at Sparki’s cleavage, wondering shrewdly what else was hidden down there.
"Like, I vote that we ditch and go spec this place! It could lead to like heinous, non-triumphant and hideous certain gushy death, but then again, it might be way cool…."
Mollie nodded. "We have to do something; we can’t just sit here. Besides, I distinctly heard pieces falling off the ship when we landed."
"Landed!" Snerdly squawked, "we crashed here after spinning relentlessly in 360 degree spiral turning patterns for an interminable period of time and hit the ground with definite whumpf!"
"Well, yes," Mollie admitted, "but that was after you said it was a hologram."
Snerdly then did something totally unexpected. With a sudden lunge, he snatched the hatch control device from the console and wielded it wildly, like a television remote.
"Cool!" said Tasha. "Can we get MTV?"
"No one," Snerdly growled, "is leaving this ship."
"Get real!" Tasha howled. "The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest day in retail sales, and it’s only ten months away! I ‘m outta here!"
"Like, yes way, man," Sparki chimed. "I have a goal, like a philosophical purpose for my life – and I will not rest until I have a yellow vinyl copy of Elton John’s `Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album!"
Snerdly sneered sneeringly. "Well it is out on CD…"
"Fascist pig!" Sparki yelped, lunging for him. The twins jumped in to help Sparki, shouting and yelling and crashing into the walls. And thus it was, Snerdly dropped the control unit, Mollie stepped on the button and they all fell out the door to the ground below.
Shocked and dazed, they stared around themselves. The sky was purple, the ground was busy choosing between yellow and orange, and the air smelled very strangely of hors d’oeuvres. Mollie glared at Snerdly. "Don’t you think that cologne is a bit much?"
"Like, no posolutely absutively friggin’ total way!" said Sparki, picking up a bit of the planet’s surface and (to Mollie’s horror) putting it in her mouth. "The moon really is made of cheese! Way cool! Got any crackers?"
"I don’t like it here!" Tasha stomped, watching in dismay as the high heel of her new leather boot sunk to the ankle in orange. "I wanna go back to Miami Beach!"
"Look," Snerdly said, "as much as I hate to interrupt your little whine and cheese party, we have two little problems…"
Mollie crossed her arms quickly over her chest. "Shut up, Snerdly, just shut up!"
Snerdly held up his plastic pocket protector and waved it around for silence. "ONE," he said importantly, "the hatch control is locked inside the ship. And TWO: there is something alive behind that shrubbery."
"That’s not shrubbery," Sparki muttered, "It’s like garnish or some kind of way cool house plant."
"Oh?" Snerdly glared. "Well how do you explain what’s eating it?"
The group gasped in horror, as an amazing creature emerged from behind the foliage. It was larger than all of them, and resembled a giant iguana, with large webbed feet, a two-foot pink tongue, large, dark eyes and definite scales. Blue ones.
"Oh look, " Mollie nattered, "a lizard…."
Tasha trotted forward, hand extended. "Isn’t he cute? Nice doggie…"
Snerdly jerked them both back. "Are you insane? Are you mad? Do you have to be suicidal?"
Mollie rubbed her arms where his fingers had left IBM imprints. "Do you have to over-act?" Thus ensued a three-way argument, which ended abruptly when the trio noticed Sparki calmly conversing with the huge creature, and feeding it Doritos.
"Like zappo," she grinned, "this dude is way cool. He’s named Ignatious and he hates lite beer, but he thinks the Spice Girls are way out totally awesome."
"You understand him?" Snerdly sputtered.
Sparki’s eyes narrowed as she shrugged. "Is that totally out of it? Mollie understands Tasha, doesn’t she? Like, lighten up." She pulled out some more Doritos and the alien began to purr.
"How are we going to get back into the ship?" Snerdly glowered.
"Anybody got a credit card?" Sparki grinned. "They can be real handy in like opening locked doors – honest, totally mega mondo helpful."
Tasha was struggling to drag a large card board box from outside
the storage locker. "The only one we don’t have here is American Express, but I
have my Discover Card in my purse…."