“I say chaps,” said Mew, pompously gesturing at the Trivial Pursuit (edition XXII) game board, “it will come as no surprise to anyone, I assume, that I have won again?

            Snerdly groaned and admitted defeat for the thirty-seventh time (that week) before collapsing backwards onto the paisley slip-covered futon. Bruce sailed over (resplendent in cocktail apron and pearls) and offered the despondent geek some iced cappuccino and fresh biscotti (yum!), while Mew took another victory lap around the bridge waving a Union Jack and singing `God Save the Queen’. (Bruce smiled modestly.) It was painful to watch.

            Craig glared menacingly from the couch, as Mew grinned pompously at him, then he very gently set aside his fiddle and calmly put away his bow, before lunching at the Labrador. “That’s IT!”

            Tasha hid behind Mollie. Denara hid behind Tasha. Bruce shrugged and began taking latte orders. Jack uncoiled himself from the genuine Malkovian quasi yak bogus fur throw rug and stood between the combatants.

            “Chill pill time guys. It’s ONLY a board game!”

            Craig thrashed wildly at Mew and Jack grabbed both of them by the scruffs of their respective necks.

            “Just because,” Jack went on, undeterred, “the dog has won the last forty-seven hundred…”

            “…and eight…” put in Mew.

            “…games,” finished Jack, “doesn’t mean you have to behave like children.” He grinned at Mollie. “That was my Maturity Mode. Not too bad, eh, Coach?”

            Mew sniffed. “Can I HELP it if my natural superiority (being both canine AND English) makes winning against THIS crowd like taking candy from a baby?”

            Jack looked at Mew, then at Craig. “Then again, I have always enjoyed Professional Wrestling,” he said peevishly. “Mutilate the mutt.”

            Always willing to oblige, Craig leaped at Mew and resumed throttling him. For a few moments the only sounds on the bridge were muttered Gaelic curses referring to red coats and land-theft and Rob Roy, and canine growls, punctuated with references to Calloden and the Queen Mum. It was not a pretty thing.

            Mollie finally stepped forward to restore sanity (well it IS her job). “Wait a minute…” she said, crossing the bridge with Tasha and Denara in tow. “Are you saying you could take on ALL of us at once and win?”

            Mew nodded smugly. “Rather precisely though…yes.” He looked meaningfully at Craig. “Even if I were as drunk as a fiddlers’ bi—“

            Bruce leapt forward with a tray of chocolate-raspberry truffles. “Stop it, just stop it!” He stamped his foot. “You are RUINING my party!”

            Craig glared at Mew. “‘Tis is not a party, ‘tis purgatory.”

Tasha considered, examining the split-ends repaired by Bruce. “I DON’T think that can POSSIBLY be good for your hair.”

            Denara sighed. “Well,” she remarked snarkily, “maybe if we’d gone to sleep last night instead of starting another game…”

            Craig turned to Denara, “Well if you weren’t practicin’ that blasted TAMBOURINE day and bloody night, maybe some o’ us could GET some sleep!”

            Denara glared back. “Well if YOU had given me an easier instrument to learn…”

            Craig snatched a piece of biscotti off of Bruce’s tray. “Here! Try playin’ THIS, ye whiny wench!”

            Jack whistled. “Well,” he observed calmly, settling on the futon and resting his feet on Bruce’s designer coffee table. “Testy bunch of assholes, aren’t we?”

            Bruce mediated. “Oh, now…” he fussed, “testy is such a STRONG word…We’re all just tired, that’s all.”

            “It’s because Sparki made us promise to wait right here until she came back from the basement…” Tasha argued.

            “That was THURRRRRRSDAY…” Craig felt to had to point out.

            “See?” Bruce patted his head. “Being awake for eight-six hours is…” he began wring his hand fretfully, “well, it’s...wearing, isn’t it? I’m stressed myself.

            A loud snore reverberated through the ship and Tasha turned to stare at the door to Hamish’s quarters. “Well, Hamish went to sleep,” she said cheerfully.

            Jack rested his case. “Yes, well HMISH isn’t testy, is he? Bruce, my man, hit me with that forty-seventh cup…” Bruce happily kept the java flowing.

            Mollie sighed and sank onto the futon beside Jack, carefully balancing her twenty-eighth mug of espresso. “You know,” she pointed out, “Sparki didn’t actually say we had to be AWAKE when she told us her news. So...uh…why are we awake?”

            Craig sank into a comfortable pile on the floor. “Sheer bloody mindedness.”

            Bruce peered at the cappuccino machine. “That and ninety seven pots of undistilled caffeine…”

            Jack belched. “Right then. All of US against the dog. Bruce, man, set up the game.”

            Happily humming, Bruce took out a doily and placed the game on top. He arranged the board to be feng shui with the rest of the room and carefully sorted the tiny pie pieces by color coordination. All was right in Bruce’s little fantasy world.

            Mew scoffed and sneered at Craig. “This will be a piece of cake,” he muttered. Craig looked hostile and through down his spare fiddle bow in challenge.

            Snerdly sat up woozily and yawned, “…what happened?”

            Jack shrugged. “Don’t look now, but I think Scotland has just declared war on England.”

            Snerdly sighed and slunk back down. “What, again?” He rolled over and resumed his nap.

            Nine hours and seventy-one cups of cappuccino later…

            “Okay, this question is for Tasha,” Mew glanced at the card.

            Craig sighed, taking in the precarious state of the game. It was tied and had been at a deadlock for an hour. “Again? It can’t be her turn again…”

            “We ALL agreed it would only be fair to take turns answering the questions and it IS Tasha’s turn,” Mollie pointed out, sighing.

            Tasha looked up from buffing her nails. “Huhhhh?”

            “Oh, I’d get this in a minute,” said Mew, ostentatiously preparing to read Tasha her question. “In what country is the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama?”

            Tasha considered. “Oh wait, I know this one!” She grinned. “Estonia!”

            “Tasha, you are answering a question from half an hour ago!” Mollie hissed.

            “Yeah but did I get it right?”

            “Is that your final answer?” Mew smirked.

            Craig buried his face in his hands. “Holy Saint McCusker,” he blasphemed. “We’re doomed!”

            Mew snickered. “The correct answer is of course `Scotland’. And I do believe it is MY turn again.” He took the dice in his mouth and spit them onto the board.

            “Well, that’s it. If he gets this one right, he wins. Mew’s question is…” Mollie picked up the next card, and groaned. “`What is the name of the sworn virgin of Ancient Troy whose betrayal of her promise of chastity caused the fall and destruction of the city?’ Anyone? Anyone? FIDDLER?…”

            Craig, for his part, had the decency to look sheepish.

 Mew, on the other hand, was flummoxed. After all, he wasn’t there for that little historical turn of events. “Sparki?!” Mew asked, much to everyone’s astonishment.

“SPARKI!?!?!??”

“Craig, you SSSSlut,” Bruce winked.

Mew shook his head and gestured down the hall with his nose. “NO. Sparki.”

Just then, Sparki came bounding into the room excitedly, bumping into the table and upsetting the board game in her enthusiasm. Tiny plastic pie pieces flew about the bridge.

“Eureka!” she exclaimed. “I have totally figured it, like, out, most…where’s Heinous?”

Jack shrugged helplessly. Sparki turned and, like a Tasmanian Devil on speed, tore back down the hall, scattering game pieces in her wake. Craig wept.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!!

Many moments later, a blurry-eyed Scotsman appeared at the door. “Great Celtic cummerbunds, woman, what are ye doin’ wakin’ me oop? `Tis the crrrrack o’ noon!”

Craig hollered from the bridge. “Suffer with the rest of us, ye sot!”

Sparki looked back at the others. “Like, does the fiddler come in decaf?”

She cheerfully grabbed a handful of beard and towed Hamish down the hall. Bruce, sensing a staff meeting was imminent, began serving overpriced (but tax deductible as a business expense) refreshments. Mollie nudged Denara awake and Tasha kicked Snerdly into consciousness. Sparki then began to speak.

“My totally mondo cool friends. I have, like a most momentous announcement to…” Sparki stopped abruptly. “I sense tension on the bridge and no one sleeps until…”

Bruce broke in frantically, fearing more lost beauty rest. “Group hug! Group hug! Let’s all just KISS and make up.” He eyed Hamish. “Me first.”

“Keep drrreamin’…” Hamish remarked moving quickly away.

Several group hugs, grabs and slaps later…

Sparki stood on the table and began expostulating. “Okay, like, as we all totally know, I am a Secret Agent for a most excellent organization and I am on a mission to stop the most ODIOUS Moose from ruling and ruining the radical universe. And I totally had amnesia, but it has been coming back to me in bits and pieces. Not the amnesia or the Moose, but, like, the mission, you know? Is that, like, all copaScottish with you?”

Craig sighed in great imitation of Tasha. “Whatever!”

Sparki, unruffled, continued. “Okay, so like this all goes back to when we all first most totally met, recollect?

Jack raised a finger (no, not THAT finger). “No…”

“Duh!” Sparki slapped her head. “For the total edification of those who joined the party late, let’s have a total recap!”

“Is this the flashback sequence?” Tasha whispered to Craig, who groaned.

“The Moose, you know, totally wanted to destroy me in a most iniquitous way, so he, like, had to hire someone stupid enough to crash their ship into mine…”

Tasha turned to Mollie, excited to be mentioned so early in the recap. “Was that us?” Mollie just sighed.

“Then wowwy zappo! Our two shops TOTALLY morphed…like the bitchen Power Rangers, dig?”

“Pink or blue?” asked Tasha, trying VERY hard to stay with the narration.

Sparki’s tale continued unbroken. “So we totally teamed up like the X-Dudettes and went to visit the Liz-Dudes and the Pelicans and we BLEW UP their moon. But only as a mondo cool favor,” Sparki looked at Jack, who had raised a finger again. “Then my Boss Dude gave us a way totally cool coded map with keys to help me on my mission, which I totally fed into the ship’s computer…”  (Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, there was a belching sound.) “And it was good thing I did cuz soon after that, we went to the Amnesia Planet…”

“When was that?” Denara asked.

“I forget…,” admitted Mollie.

“Oh that was way back in Chapter Eleven…” Sparki continued. “So, anywhoo…

Snerdly organized us into a totally rad celtic bagpipe bebop band with a mondo uncool name (he has, like, NO right brain!) and we had a really hip tour schedule. And a lot of time passed. We, like, don’t KNOW how long…” Sparki added before Jack could hold up another finger. “Then we somehow totally got some of our memories back and after we finished throttling Snerdly, we resumed our course in total oblivion. See, see? And I like TOTALLY forgot I had a secret mission.” Sparki paused for dramatic effect.

            “Which WAS?” prompted Craig, eager for the rest of the story (or truth be told, eager to go to bed).

            “Oh, like I totally forgot to tell you!” Sparki smacked her head. There was a hollow echoing sound. “The Moose BOGUSLY wants to rule the mondo cosmos and he can like, totally do it if he has the SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE!!!” (There was a dramatic chord struck on an invisible piano.)

            Snerdly snorted, ignoring the coffee that shot unattractively through his nostrils and scoffed, “The chances of anyone FINDING the Secrets of the Universe are 2771773263625.32 to 911.”

            Craig growled, “That’s how many hours we’ve been awake! Stop interruptin’!”

            “Wait! I’m really confused,” Tasha wailed.

            “Yeah, I know,” Sparki grinned and continued. “The mondo cool Secrets of the Universe are way coolly coded on seven micro-scrolls – lot’s of information, itty-bitty living space - and hidden throughout the galaxy by my bosses. Okay and totally check this – I fed the computer the map and so it has completely been on auto-total-pilot and like, has taken us to each of the secret hiding places without us knowing! Only, like, once we get to those places, we totally CANNOT leave without the scrolls. Bogus feature. And don’t you see what that means?!?!?” Sparki waved her hands over her head excitedly.

            The others shook their weary heads in unison. “NO!” They chorused.

            “And I think you are expecting a little too much from us,” Denara whined.

            “Yeah,” Jack began, “and I think we should finish the `sleep depravation’ experiment BEFORE we begin the `long-convoluted-storyline’ exercise…”

            Hamish glowered. “I think we should start the `let’s jettison the secret agent into deep space’ experiment first…”

            “Secret agent my arse,” Craig muttered, tuning his fiddle. “She tells EVERYONE…”

            “Testy bunch of…”

            “SHUT UP, JACK!” They all exclaimed.

            Sparki restored order. “Anyway. What this means is, like, we must have totally acquired each scroll every place we…”

            “Crashed…” interjected Snerdly.

            “…landed!” Sparki grinned wildly.

            Hamish considered this. “What yer sayin’ is someone in this group has gone somewhere they had noo business goin’ and takin’ things they had noo business takin’?

            Everyone looked at Craig. Craig whistled innocently and went on tuning his fiddle.

            Sparki put down the shoebox she had been holding all this time (that no one had noticed previously because the authors forgot to put it on the Prop List). From the box, she withdrew a black government-issue flashlight (stamped `Property of F. Sculder’), a crumpled marriage license with a gold seal (and several names crossed out under the heading: Groom), a tape of Canadian Accordion Music (available at any Blockbuster store near you), a dog-eared copy of Socrates for Dummies (a MUST read!), one silver shoe and an origami swan labeled `Icon Scroll’.

            Jack turned to Mollie. “Any guesses, Coach?” Mollie shook her head.

            “Like if you all totally wait, I’ll TELL you!” Sparki put her hand in the box and took out six tiny iridescent microchips, which she held out for all to see. She then gestured to the junk on the table. “These are the items that most coolly contained the micro-scrolls and like, all of you totally helped acquire them, for which I am totally, like, grateful.

            They all peered at the strange collection of items on the table. With great flourish, Sparki then dipped into her backpack and removed a very ordinary-looking gray stone.  She spit polished it and grinned triumphantly. “And this my dear dudes and dudettes, is the absolute key to them all!

            “A rock?” Hamish deadpanned with some disappointment

            Sparki nodded.  “This is the mega-famous Rosieodonnell Stone!”