Free AAAARGH!!! by Bill Myers Page B

toward the door exactly as she had entered. Except for one minor detail.
    “She’s off angle, dude.”
    “What ?”
    “She’s going to miss the doorway; she’s going to hit the wall.”
    And that’s exactly what she did. But instead of hitting the wall and stopping, she kept right on going . . . right up the wall.

    “Turn it off, Herby. Bring her back down.”
    “I’m trying.”
    Along with the voices, Elizabeth heard a strange

    followed by more

    which ended in a pathetic little

    Unfortunately, her human fly routine wasn’t quite over. Because once she reached the ceiling, she took another corner and started upside down across it.

    Elizabeth was definitely not having a good time. In fact, she was trying really hard to pass out, but it’s hard passing out when you’re standing upside down and all the blood is rushing to your head.
    Fortunately, after a few more

    and one or two more

    she finally heard a slightly reassuring sound.

    And just like that, she

    fell to the

    floor.
    Needless to say, she felt great being on the ground again. But this was no time to stick around and celebrate. It was, however, a time to run out of the room, stumble down the stairs, and race outside.
    It was also a time to bump into TJ, who was coming back from the beach, and to scream to her, “PLEASE! I promise I won’t tell anyone! Just don’t kidnap me to your planet or turn me into a toad!”
    And with that friendly farewell, Elizabeth turned and continued running for her life.

    The following morning, bright and early, Chad was out on his surfboard. He’d made his decision . . . or Doug had worn him down until he’d made it. There’s something about 2:00 a.m. calls that can do that. . . .
    And if 2:00 a.m. calls don’t work, there’s always
    2:49 a.m. calls,
    3:10 a.m. calls,
    3:51 a.m. calls,
    4:07 a.m. calls,
    4:45 a.m. calls,
    5:06 a.m. calls,
    and . . . well, let’s just say Doug can be pretty persistent.
    By 7:12 a.m., Chad had finally agreed to try out the new board. Unfortunately, all the listening to Doug’s talking (and sniff-sniff- ing) had worn him out. He was so tired, he could barely stand. But it didn’t matter. Once they sealed his cast in a giant plastic bag and put on his wet suit, everything was automatic. All Chad had to do was stand up (with the help of a metal brace running down his legs and powerful magnets attached to the board) and let Doug do all the work.
    It was beautiful.
    Well, it was beautiful after the first thermonuclear explosion, the six trips to the ER, and a visit by the USS Kitty Hawk to stop what they thought was a national invasion.
    (Okay, that’s another exaggeration—there were only three trips to the ER.)
    Anyway, by the end of the day, all of the kinks were worked out. There was little doubt that tomorrow Chad Steel would be able to shut down all the competition and become a major winner. Now, if he could just shut down all the guilty thoughts that said he was a major loser. Actually, his thoughts weren’t really calling him a loser. They were calling him something else. A word starting with C H E A , ending in T E R , and without many letters in between.

    TJ’s Saturday was about the same as Chad’s . . . but without the cool beach, beautiful ocean, or occasional visit by aircraft carriers.
    However, she did have plenty of crumpled papers to keep her company, since crumpled papers are what you get when you try 2,121 times to start an essay that you’re clueless about how to write. That’s right; she’d also given in to the dark side in a major, Darth Vader kind of way. (It was either that or fail English as a UFO alien vampire witch—something she doubted would be all that attractive to the Chad Steels of the world.)
    Of course the writing might have been easier if she didn’t have two time-traveling goofballs floating cross-legged at opposite ends of her desk.
    “This is really torked, Your Babe-ness.”
    “Herby, please,” she said, running her hands