"Nice going, Bob!" said Juanito sarcastically. "How the heck am I supposed to build an anti-gravity device out of this junk?"

"Hmmm..." Bob muttered. "I think I have an idea! If we put the crochet needles in a piece of toast so that they form a hook-"

"-we can have an internal toast support system!" finished Juanito. "Then if we attach the yarn to where it extends from the toast, and then tie the remaining ends of yarn to the balloon, then when the toast drops, there will be a bouyant force righting the toast, but with too little power to hold it in air!"

"But how do we get a low-density gas?" asked Bob. "Hey, wait, we're in a hall closet! There has to be loads of junk in here!" After a few minutes, Bob and Juanito had found a politician. They figured that if the politician blew up the balloon, then it would float. (Politicians are full of hot air.)

After several minutes of testing and refining, Bob and Juanito had found their solution to the jellied toast problem. However, Juanito figured that it would be best to eventually re-reverse the gravitational polarity of jelly so that the toast would fall the right way without a jury rig.

Ace Blomburger, private eye, sat in his office in the heart of New York City. Blue clouds of cigar smoke covered the ceiling, while Ace leaned back in his chair and set his feet on his desk, pondering whether he should get take out Chinese food, or pizza. Ace's life was riddled with such problems as that. He really needed a case so that he could get a take-out dessert as well.

Just then, a dame walked in. She was a tall, slender brunette. Ace was wondering what the heck she wanted.

"What the heck do you want?" he asked in a gruff, crabby voice, as he set his feet on the floor.

"I'll have a Big Mac, hold the lettuce, a large fries, and a medium root beer," she answered, in a way all too typical of dames.

"Oh, the Mickey D's is next door," Ace replied. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

Just another typical day in the life of private eye Ace Blomburger.

Bob and Juanito were having too much fun in the hall closet. They had found a barrel of gunpowder, and since Bob and Juanito were dragons, when they sneezed, they triggered a series of major explosions. They hoped that someone would notice, so that they could get out of the cramped hall closet quickly.

Pia, the hairy-footed lady, was feeling more askew than something that is really askew, like a skew. I'm not quite sure what that meant, but it sounds good, and I meant to say that she was feeling depressed. Oh, and, can you do me a favor? Look up skew and askew in the dictionary. Thanks. To get back to Pia, she was feeling so askew because her heart longed for someone, someone to love, someone to be loved by. But since she had hairy feet, that was impossible. All the men that she met thought that she was a weirdo, thought she was out of the question.

It wasn't Pia's fault that the fateful accident happened in the ZitKom Chemical Stuff Place in Irasudwiatistan, a small country in the middle east. [To avoid confusion, I the editor, am writing this to say that this is a flashback scene.] Irasudwaitistan had a cruel dictator for a leader, who's only joy was seeing really weird stuff. She was to be immersed in a vat of jelly with the gravitational polarity reversed. Only she and the scientists at the ZitKom Chemical Stuff Place knew that reversing the gravitational polarity of jelly makes any contact with human skin cause hair to grow immediately where it would not otherwise. She was told what the experiment was to do to her, so that she would know what to tell the scientists, and what to expect.

The experiment began. Pia was strapped down to a palatte, to be dipped, feet first, into the only vat in the world of jelly with the gravitational polarity reversed. However, Pia had a proverbial ace up her sleeve: she had sabotaged the straps on the palatte, so that a quick escape would be possible. She also had a picture of a dog that sang Gilbert & Sullivan opera music. Although that doesn't sound like a brutal weapon, she knew that Peesfil Ensineety (Say it out loud, you'll get it), the crazed dictator who led Irasudwaitistan, would pass out laughing in shere glee, and his honor guard would be consumed with resusitating their beloved dictator. Peesfil Ensineety was a true dictator, completely unlike Spanky. Ensineety believed that he had power, which he did, and so he ruthlessly dictated that every Tuesday he would tour his small nation to find weird things that his people had accomplished.

The whir of the crank which would lower Pia into the vat of jelly startled everyone. "WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE WEIRD?????? 'CAUSE IT SURE WASN'T!!!!!! DON'T GIVE ME A SLIP-SHOD JOB!!!!!! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEADS!!!!!!" Ensineety bellowed. He had something in common with Spanky: He could bellow effectively.

"Oh, sir," his honor guard said imploringly, "I'm quite sure that that was unintentional." Then, to calm the crazed dictator, "Here's a picture of a cat doing the hula."

The dictator started chuckling lightly.

The palatte lowered steadily. Pia struggled to free herself. "I thought it was easier to de-velcro a few straps!" she screamed in frustration, but it was to her detriment. The experiment was being videotaped, so when she screamed it, it was to the effect of writing a confession that the experiment was sabotaged.

"Aha!" the head scientist, who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt screamed. "I replaced the palatte you sabotaged with a stronger one! You must think we are fools!"

Fortunately, Pia had taken acting lessons. She acted like the fumes from the jelly were making her behave spasmodically. When her feet hit the water, she went limp.

"Stop the experiment!" screamed the head scientist. "The jelly may be fatal!" Scientists aren't good at reading body language. Anyone could tell that Pia was faking, but I guess that those scientists were pretty dull.

Pia was removed from the palatte, but not after her feet had been dunked in the sticky jelly. When the supreme dictator saw the hair growing thickly, he passed out laughing. His honor guard was consumed with resuscitating him, while the scientists were running about hyperactively, screaming "The experiment is ruined!" Pia made her escape.

Pia lived the next few months on the lamb. It said "Baa! Baaah!" frequently, but she figured that she had no other choice. The sciEntists had an all points bulletin out for a hairy footed woman named Pia.

Check out chapter four