Once Upon A Melly

Mellisa Grace Townsend was worried. The peanut butter was missing and Franny hadn't called her. She was supposed to have called 5 hours ago. And Mel was sick of sitting by the phone. "This is what comes of getting married" she said out loud to her goldfish bob "Here I am, sitting by the phone with no peanut butter"

Bob agreed with her.

Just then the phone rang!

She picked it up and said "hello?" in the iciest voice she could manege.

"Mel!" hissed franny "I can't talk long because I'm in a phone booth and there's people outside. Don't be mad. I have my reasons. Most importantly, I know where the peanut butter is! Fiona has it! And it's all for the best that she keeps it!"

Mel gasped! "who is trying to get it?"

"Many people" franny told her. We're not sure exactly who. But we think Victor might be involved. And Marina and possibly Becky."

Mel gasped again.

Franny hung up, leaving Mel in a total state of shock. Why did Fiona have her peanut butter? And more importantly, why were Victor and Marina and Becky trying to get it? What was so important about peanut butter? She decided that it wasn't that big of a deal, and went to take a bath.

meanwhile

Franny was busily trying to organize a search party to get Fiona out of there. Her building was surrounded by Victor, Marina, and Becky's group, and Franny wasn't sure how she was going to get out of there with the peanut butter. It was absolutely imperitive that Fiona get the peanut butter out of there unharmed. What was a problem was that Fiona didn't know how important that peanut butter was. Luckily, Franny and Fiona had been developing ESP, so Franny relayed a message to her, and Fiona relayed one back, saying 'okay. I'll do my best.' Franny breathed a sigh of relief, but decided to call Mike and Katherine and Todd to be on the safe side.

Sadly, they didn't get there in time. Victor and Rael burst into the room where Fiona was huddled in the corner with the peanut butter, and started tickling her viciously, and while she was busy laughing, they stole the peanut butter.

Back at her house, Mel suddenly felt a chill run down her spine

Franny felt the same thing. She wondered if this meant Fiona was in trouble or if she was just plain scared.

She realized she had nothing to lose anymore, she'd go looking for Fiona. What room was she in in this crazy building anyway?

Franny ran down two sets of stairs and around a corner. Just as Mel ran up one flight and to the same corner and Fiona came out a door with Victor and Rael behind her. Franny, Fiona and Mel bonked foreheads. This ESP stuff was starting to get out of hand.

Mel spotted the peanut butter in Fionas hands and suddenly she went berserk. Nothing in her life mattered except getting that peanut butter!

She grabbed it away from a stunned Fiona and on a sudden impulse went to the window and threw it out from where they were standing on the 16^th floor.

They heard a scream and then a thump and then another scream. When they looked out the window they saw they had dropped it right on Katherine's head! Mike and Todd stood next to her looking bewildered.

Mel blushed.

"Oops?" she said as innocently as she could manage. Fiona looked at her and shook her head while Franny grabbed both of their wrists and dragged them down the stairs so that they could escape from Victor and Rael. Mel and Fiona protested rather loudly, because being dragged down several flights of stairs is an extremely painful experience. Franny let go of their wrists so that they could get up, but she actually ended up just propelling them farther down the stairs. In a flurry of curses and screams, Mel and Fiona bounced down all 16 flights of stairs, and miraculously got up without a bruise or anything. When Franny reached the bottom, Mel and Fiona shot her rather nasty looks and went to see if Katherine was allright. She was, but the peanut butter jar was in sore condition. Mel scooped it up as if it was her child, and Todd and Mike and Franny ushered Fiona and Mel and Katherine into the tie-dyed unschool bus they had waiting in the parking lot. It was lucky timing, too, because at that moment, Victor and Rael came bursting out of the front door of the building.

Mike drove rather recklessly through downtown Idyllwild, being chased closely by the orange fuzzy SUV that Victor and Rael and Marina and Becky were driving. It wasn't the chase that scared him. It was the paintball guns that they had somehow accquired. This wouldn't have been a problem, but the paintballs weren't filled with paint, and they seemed to be sort of hard and metal. He wondered if they really were paintballs...But it turned out that his worries about this would have to wait. Because as if a tie-dyed unschool bus and a orange fuzzy SUV weren't enough to scare the people of Idyllwild a Neon Green Ice cream truck pulled around the corner and motioned to Mike to stop.

He did pull over as he rolled his window down and was going to tell the person that he had mere seconds but before he could speak the person said,

"Have you seen Ethan?"

"No!" said Mike. Why should he have seen Ethan?

Without a word of thanks the truck drove off and Mike and Franny and Todd and Katherine and Fiona and Mel thought that was the end of it. However when they looked in the rearview mirror they all gasped. The truck was following them! Behind the orange fuzzy SUV! But then, it made a sharp right at the sign that said "National Duck Tape Convention: Turn Right"

"Ahhh" said Mike quietly. He tried not to confuse himself by thinking about how much the person driving the truck looked like Fiona.

Meanwhile, in the back of the bus, Mel was cradling her peanut butter carefully, Fiona was singing some song about asses being left in Minnesota, Todd was zoning out, Franny was writing poetry, no thanks to Fiona's attempts to steal her pen, and Katherine was unconscious as a delayed reaction from being hit on the head by a jar of peanut butter. Mike sighed and continued driving as fast as he could to get away from the SUV. It looked like they were tiring out, though. He rolled the window down and heard a blast of "Jurrassic Park is frightening in the dark! All the dino-" he slammed the window shut as fast as he could. That music that Victor listened to was really interesting.

All of a sudden, from the back came a scream.

"This isn't real peanut butter!!!!! It's... it's... Almond butter! What have they done??" Mel started sobbing uncontrollably. She was decidedly having a bad day.

Fiona stopped grabbing at Franny's pen and put an arm around Mel.

"We'll get you some real peanut butter as soon as this whole mess is over" she promised.

"I don't want any old peanut butter! This was special!" Mel wailed.

Franny cleared her throat.

"While being chased by orange SUV's and watching the birds in the trees our six heros will prevail in their quest to get the mail and...and...."

"Drat! I'm stuck!" she cried.

"But we aren't going to get the mail!" Yelled Todd, coming to life.

"Hmmmm...well....that doesn't matter" said Franny

At that moment however they pulled up in front of the post office.

Mel perked up and dropped her crushed almond butter.

She scrambled over people to get to the post office, rushing wildly through the front doors all the while digging her post office box key out of the huge pockets of the overalls she was wearing. As she reached her box, 6617, she happened to glance back and saw about 20 people sprawled on the floor covered in mail and in varying states of dissaray, people sure are being clumsy today she thought to herself as she inserted her key into the box. Suddenly she heard a hissing noise, sounding almost as though air was expanding from something, I wonder what that is?, dismissing the sound as nothing, she turned once more back to the box, and quickly opened it, and out came...Jadzia?! "Wife! You got here in the nick of time! Frannys madly writing poetry, Fiona wouldn't quit singing, and Mike was about to go over the edge! Something MUST be done. The peanut butters missing, and..." Jadzia put her hand over Mels mouth, and motioned for her to be silent, "Quiet! Do you hear that sound?" BZZZZZZZZZZZZZz "Oh, you mean the sound of a giant train full of squeeling pigs?" Wait a sec, squeeling pigs?... add more...