Unidentified Funny Objects 7, page 27
“Actually, I have a theory,” Scrunchyface said. “You’re not a person at all. You’re twelve tortoises clustered inside a human skin-suit, hoping to infiltrate our society so you can ride an escalator and finally experience some real speed.”
The goon attacked in an angry flurry, his baton haphazardly cutting through the air. In an impressive display of incompetence, he somehow managed to smack his own ear. He rubbed it, wincing.
“Okay,” Scrunchyface said, “that can’t be good for your hearing.”
He turned his good ear toward her. “HUH?”
They danced about, Scrunchyface adding more counterattacks to her dodges. She mostly worked his body, knowing that if she were going to risk breaking her bones against a skull that thick, she’d have to save it for a shot that counts. Soon enough, she got her chance: the goon had stumbled, falling to his hands and knees. Scrunchyface charged and swung her leg like she was kicking a field goal. Unfortunately, the other leg slipped and came with it: next thing she knew she was horizontal in the air, gazing up at the stars, both feet high.
As her head fell toward the brick walkway, she couldn’t help but wonder what genius had spilled the whipped cream.
Her name may have been Jeannie, but to her fellow FBI agents, she was the Floof. A master of disguise, she’d gone undercover as everything from a horse jockey to an air force pilot—not to mention a rodeo clown, whose adrenaline addiction had ruined her marriage and cost her custody of the family’s pet squid, Rinaldo. (In fleshing out her characters, the Floof sometimes got carried away.)
It was dangerous work, blending in with suspected criminals, but her dream job did have its perks: the bureau had paid for a charter flight from Kauai to Oahu, to make sure the Floof got home on schedule. She celebrated her return by going to dinner with Jack.
“Be honest,” Jack said. “How fat is this going to make me?”
The Floof eyed Jack's burger. Somewhere amidst the cascade of dripping cheese, she lost count of the meat patties.
“You couldn’t gain weight if you wanted to,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you’re some sort of mutant. We’ve even got an X-file on you at the bureau.” Her work-phone buzzed. “Speaking of . . .”
She checked the message. One of Mr. Peeby’s goons had been apprehended, and was willing to talk—but only to the Floof.
Jack had that look: he knew she was leaving.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay.” He squeezed her hand. “Being great at your job has its drawbacks. I mean, who else can masquerade as a sheep to infiltrate a wool-smuggling ring?”
“I will never understand why that’s your favorite story of mine.”
“It got you a nickname! Also, I prefer to think of your less dangerous missions when you’re leaving for a new one.”
“You worry too much.”
“Weird. It’s almost like I love you.”
She stood, smooching him on the cheek. “You’re adorable. Talk soon, love.”
Harold the Square had gotten his name from a Tetris piece: he was short, boxy, and could rotate ninety degrees without any change in appearance. The Floof watched him through the interrogation room’s one-way glass, her arms crossed.
“We nabbed him trying to steal a corndog at the fair,” Sheila said. “Pretty dumb reason to get arrested.”
“In his defense,” the Floof said, “fair food isn’t cheap. Elephant ears are the reason I’ve got a second mortgage on my house.”
“I’m a funnel-cake gal, myself. Figured out how you’re gonna do this?”
“I’ve got some ideas.”
Mr. Peeby’s goons had never seen the Floof’s true identity, and she wasn’t about to change that. She scrounged up some sunglasses, a baseball cap, and a clean mop-head that made for a decent beard but definitely clashed with her dinner dress.
“Well?” she asked Sheila. “How do I look?”
“Like you’re really sad about that ZZ Top look-alike contest you just lost.”
“Perfect. Here goes nothin’.”
The Floof entered the interrogation room. From behind the table, Harold the Square scowled at her. “Nice getup, Floof.”
She sat across from him. “Corndog, huh?”
“Cut the crap. You’re not here to talk corndogs. You’re here to talk Mr. Peeby, because you’ve got nothin’ on him.”
She hated to admit it, but the human rhombus was right—as far as evidence was concerned, Mr. Peeby was clean. But things had been strange since he’d come to town. Anytime the Floof got close to finding dirt on him, the world wiggled, like everything had suddenly been possessed by the essence of tapioca pudding. It had happened outside a bakery, a gym . . .
“Yeah,” Harold said. “That’s what I thought. You’ve got nothin’. ’Til now.”
“Oh?” The Floof leaned back and twirled her mop-beard, not wanting to give away her excitement. “I’m listening.”
“Mr. Peeby’s havin’ a little get-together tonight, at the mansion. He’s sure to be distracted—you could get some real snoopin’ done.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“The boss went too far. Nabbed some kid’s pooch. Dognappin’s where I draw the line.”
The Floof could relate: she loved dogs, but her job was too dangerous to justify ever owning one.
“Anything else you can give me?” she asked.
“I ain’t puttin’ my neck out any further than I gotta. Just get the kid’s dog back.”
The Floof resolved to do just that. She went to Sheila’s office and pitched the idea.
“Absolutely not.”
“What?” the Floof asked. “Why?”
“We’re not throwing together an undercover operation on short notice just for a dog.”
“But this is our chance to get inside Peeby’s ring! Who knows what I might find—”
“Answer’s no. Sorry.”
The Floof was livid, and it didn’t help that she was hungry after leaving dinner. She grabbed the corndog from Sheila’s desk.
“I’m keeping this.”
“You can’t. It’s evidence.”
“Bah!” The Floof slapped the corndog down and stormed out. She felt a little stupid when she realized she was still wearing the mop.
Ditching the disguise, she made for Mr. Peeby’s mansion. If the bureau wouldn’t help, she’d do the job herself.
The Floof parked alongside a car from a bakery. It was unlocked, so she helped herself to a hat with the bakery’s logo and a white chef’s shirt—they’d do fine.
She donned the garments and moved toward the mansion, preparing for her role by reviewing her pastry knowledge. When she realized she couldn’t explain the difference between a bear claw and a butterhorn, she decided that maybe her character just didn’t speak very good English.
She reached the front door and knocked. As she waited, she detected a heavenly aroma: there was pie nearby.
A quick search turned up a bakery box behind a flower pot. The Floof inspected the box’s contents: apple pie—her favorite. Maybe just one bite . . .
The door swung open. The Floof snapped the box shut. She got right into character, but was caught off-guard and ended up speaking in an accent that somehow sounded both Mexican and Irish.
“Oi! I’ve got a wee bit o’ pie for Señor Peeby, si?”
The goon at the door was tiny—more of a goonling, really. She gave the Floof a skeptical look, but ultimately didn’t question anything. She was, after all, a goon.
“This way, lady.”
The Floof stepped inside, trying not to think about how worried Jack must be.
“Hey, boss—some baker’s here to see you.”
The figure in the desk-chair swiveled toward the goon, his face concealed by shadow. In his lap was a chow puppy so fluffy it might as well have been a pillow with a tongue.
“Excellent,” the figure said, standing. “Take him outside, will you?” He passed the dog over.
“Where’re you headed?”
In the darkness, a grin.
“I’m off to start the party.”
Ms. Chocolate had no idea how to dance. The closest she’d gotten was the time she’d walked into a spiderweb while getting the mail, resulting in such wild convulsions her neighbor had tried to administer the Heimlich maneuver. And now she was locked in a room, needing to choreograph a routine for a crime lord. Because he thought she was a dancer. For some reason.
It was time to get back to her element—to a place she felt comfortable. She knocked on the door. A goon answered.
“Whatcha need, Twinkle-toes?”
“A snack. Gotta carb load before the performance.”
The goon checked his pockets. He turned up a tin of Altoids, some loose pretzels, and a strip of beef jerky with a nice lint garnish.
“Thanks,” Ms. Chocolate said, “but I’d rather go to the kitchen. I could even make you something. I’m not a bad cook.”
The goon’s eyebrows rose. “How’s your sandwich game?”
“I was bread for it.”
Puns, Ms. Chocolate learned, were wasted on goons. He broke the awkward silence by leading her out the door.
The kitchen was sleek, silver and unoccupied. Right away, Ms. Chocolate scanned for something to help her escape her warden. Flour to the eyes? A splash of boiling water? She even considered what damage she might do with a whisk, but decided fighting a human must be completely different from fighting eggs.
The goon stuck his head inside the fridge. As he listed the available sandwich ingredients, Ms. Chocolate settled on a classic kitchen weapon: the frying pan.
“Ooh, salami sounds good. Maybe with some hot musta—”
Bonk.
The goon dropped like a sack of potatoes. Ms. Chocolate heard footsteps rushing her way, and hid behind an actual sack of potatoes.
“Aw, shit,” said the arriving goon. “You been hittin’ the hot mustard again?” He knelt by his fallen comrade. From behind him emerged a little panting poofball on a leash.
Ms. Chocolate barely kept from calling out Bear’s name. That puppy was the entire reason she’d put herself in this situation. She was so close to going home—she just had to get the dog without being noticed.
Bear spotted her and barked.
She ducked behind the potato sack in the corner.
“Smell somethin’, boy?” the goon asked. Bear barked some more. Ms. Chocolate heard his nails scraping the floor as he fought the leash.
Footsteps approached, heavy and slow. Ms. Chocolate held her breath.
A shadow bled over.
Scrunchyface stumbled into the room, shoved by the goon she’d been brawling. Her head was still fuzzy, but she recalled having the upper hand until slipping on a dessert topping she’d historically been on good terms with. It would be a long time before whipped cream regained her trust.
Scrunchyface looked around. The goon had taken her to a personal library, filled with leatherbound books. She was scared, but resolved not to let that show.
“I’m guessing this isn’t your usual territory,” she said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because none of these books are asking the reader to find Waldo.”
The goon sneered. “You’ve got a real attitude, Floof.”
“Again with this ‘Floof’ business. I don’t even know what a Floof is!”
“Oh, please. You show up looking exactly like the dancer, and you expect me to believe you’re not the bureau’s master of disguise?”
“I’m the dancer! And you think this is a disguise? Go ahead. Pull my mask off.” She stuck her face out.
The goon wagged a finger at her. “Nuh-uh. I’m not falling for any tricks. You’re not gonna ruin Mr. Peeby’s party.”
“What party? We didn’t pass anyone on the way here. Whatever your boss has planned, it’s no shindig.”
“Listen, I don’t ask questions. You think I know why Mr. Peeby’s got us running around, stealing dogs, leaking info to the FBI? ’Course not. All I know is he’s got a plan—he always does.”
“Wait—you’ve been stealing dogs?”
“Well, just the one. But that’s not the point. Point is—”
There came a loud thud from elsewhere in the mansion. It sounded like someone had dropped a three-hundred-pound sack of potatoes.
The goon stuck his head out the door. “What the hell . . .”
If years of sparring had taught Scrunchyface anything, it was that opportunities must be seized. She charged the goon, jumped, and threw a flying knee to his spine. He shouted and crumpled to the floor, where she finished him with a kick to the jaw.
Venturing into the hall, Scrunchyface heard a dog’s bark. She recalled the goon’s comment and went toward the sound.
The barks led her to a kitchen, where a goon lay unconscious by an opened refrigerator. Another stalked a sack of potatoes in the corner, his back to her. By his side was a vaguely dog-shaped pile of orange cotton.
Scrunchyface tiptoed toward the standing goon. The fallen one was very large, and very in her way. Appraising the situation, she developed a new appreciation for Olympic hurdlers.
As her leg crossed the summit of Mt. Goon, she heard a heavy bonk. The other goon went down. Standing before him, holding a frying pan, was . . . herself?
Scrunchyface and her doppelganger stared at each other.
“Um,” they both said.
The world wiggled, like everything had turned to marmalade during an earthquake. Cupboard doors flapped sloppily; pots splatted to the floor.
“We should probably go,” Scrunchyface said.
“My thought exactly. Like—verbatim.”
Both Jeannies, simultaneously: “This is weird.”
They decided against jinxing each other.
The goonling guided the Floof down a long hallway.
“Wanna take that pie to the kitchen, lady?”
“Por favor, lass,” the Floof said.
From a dark doorway, a voice: “Interesting accent. Mexican-Irish?”
A tall figure emerged. He wore a black suit with white pinstripes, and his face had no actual features—he looked like an eyeless mannequin sculpted from creamy peanut butter, which was not only unsettling, but also frustrating because the Floof still hadn’t eaten.
“Mr. Peeby?” the goonling asked.
“Leave us.”
She disappeared down the hall.
“Señor, I’ve brought you a bloody fine—”
“You can lose the accent,” Mr. Peeby said. “I know you’re not here for a delivery.”
The Floof had spent enough time undercover to know when she’d been made. She wondered if a pie to the face would be much distraction to a guy with no eyes.
“Okay,” she said, “you’ve got me. What’s your game, Peeby? What do you want with the dog?”
“The dog means nothing. That was just to get you here. All three of you.”
“All three of us? I don’t—”
Mr. Peeby held up a finger, listening. “There.” His pseudo-lips smiled. “It’s coming.”
An invisible wave ran down the hallway, wiggling the walls, ceiling, floor. It passed over the Floof with a nauseating rush. She fell to a knee, the whole building trembling.
Two women rounded the corner, stumbling against each other. One carried a frying pan, the other a puppy.
“It’s getting worse!” they both said, dropping to the floor.
Mr. Peeby gently lifted the Floof. He walked her to the others and set her down.
“I’m glad you could all make it,” he said.
“For what?” the Floof asked, shouting over the gurgles of a splattering world. “Why are we here?”
“To see what could have been. The closer you get to one another, the easier it becomes: the veils between your realities are melting. Go ahead. Take a look at the life you never had.”
The Jeannies did, and they saw everything: Ms. Chocolate, loving her business but having no free-time; Scrunchyface, staying fit but struggling to pay the rent; the Floof, working an exciting job but living in constant danger.
“You’re starting to understand,” Mr. Peeby said. “Even the dog should teach you something: he’s the one constant, in every reality. Ask what his involvement tells you about yourself.”
The Jeannies looked at each other, silent. Maybe they were contemplating the question. Maybe they felt their answers were already implied. Or maybe nobody wanted to risk saying something dumb, and being labeled the stupidest Jeannie. (She was, after all, her own harshest critic.)
“Our time here’s done,” Mr. Peeby said, the destruction intensifying. “Any questions before you go?”
All three: “Who are you?”
“Just someone with an interest in your personal enlightenment.” He smiled, his peanut-butter lips melting away with the rest of the world. Soon his entire face was gone, revealing a different one beneath.
“Jack?”
Jack looked at his hands. He seemed confused, as if he’d been hypnotized at home and woken up waist-deep in a vat of hummus.
“Wait a sec,” he said, the hallway crashing down in big, squishy globs. “He made me the bad guy? Oh, this is so going in my Yelp review . . .”
The world wiggled. The mansion melted. Amidst the gurgling chaos, darkness fell.
Jeannie woke, the world around her rumbling. A voice came over an intercom: “Please fasten your safety belts. The captain says we’ll be out of this turbulence soon, and should land in Seattle on schedule.”
The plane—right. Jeannie was coming home from Hawaii. She shook the remains of dreams from her head, resolving to never again accept Chex Mix from strangers.
Jack picked her up at the airport.
“How was the flight?”
“Slept the whole time. Had some weird dreams . . .”
“Me too! I dreamt your plane landed an hour early.”
“That’s not weir—”
“The plane was an octopus.”
“I rescind my statement.”
Jack opened the car’s trunk and pulled out a medium-sized, lidded box. He traded it for Jeannie’s luggage.
