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Chapter 8-Susan

Now that I’ve foreshadowed an upcoming event, I think it’s time I introduce you to Henry’s (Jerry’s) cousin, Susan. Susan is visiting Shopping-Cartsville to relieve himself from the daily pressures and stress of working as a garbage man. This is Susan’s first trip to see his cousin since he moved to Shopping-Cartsville five minutes ago. Susan is just like you and I and so nothing in Shopping-Cartsville makes sense to him. So I now take you to the airport to follow Susan around.

"Flight 7 now arriving at gate 12,365," announced Miss Balchinanokaklalund across the intercom.

Henry became ecstatic and began to make a scene of himself, jumping and violently waving his "fresh eggs" sign around, while retaining his attention towards gate 12,365.

After a long wait, a man came out of the terminal screaming, "Get them off! Get them off! Somebody help me get these dolphins off my arm!" And the man proceeded to roll around on the ground while beating his arm lifeless.

Then Susan walked through the terminal and saw the "fresh eggs" sign that his cousin was dashing about with. Susan charged at his cousin, driving Henry into the ground.

"That’s for what you did to me in the 6th grade!" Susan yelled down the newly formed hole.

Henry crawled out of the cavity, brushed himself off, and said, "Susan! It’s nice to see you again. How long has it been now? Five, six minutes? Anyway, let’s go back to my house to catch up with each others lives," Henry said has he placed a warm arm around Susan.

Once outside, Henry whistled and a llama came to the call.

"Why are we riding a llama?" Susan asked confused as they mounted their chauffeur. Henry laughed it off and took Susan’s remark as a joke. Henry yelled out "Markachocalata" and the llama spurted it’s hosts to their destination.

When they arrived at Henry’s house, Henry put 2 gold teeth in the llama’s ear and it scurried off. Susan shot a look of bewilderment at Henry. Henry just smiled as he lead Susan to his front door.

"Welcome to my home," Henry said. "Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to be getting back to the station. So, make yourself at home and if you want, you can go explore town a little bit, but be careful not to touch any purple aliens."

"What?!? Purple aliens? How could I touch a purple alien?" Susan replied, more baffled then ever. Again, Henry had a good chuckle as he set out for work.

‘This is a very strange place,’ Susan thought to himself, ‘Well, no use in sitting around in here. I’m going to go explore this Shopping-Cartsville.’ Susan meandered around until he found Henry’s bedroom from which he stole 10 gold teeth because he had figured out for himself that gold teeth were the way people, or ‘balognas’, paid for each others goods and services. In other words, Susan figured out that gold teeth worked the same as money. Then Susan stood on Henry’s sidewalk and whistled for a llama, which he had also figured out how to do on his own. He figured llamas work the same way as taxi cabs. But for some reason, the llama wouldn’t move though. So, Susan grew very frustrated and got off the llama and proceeded to kick it. The llama ran away, crying, and Susan wrathfully made his way down town.

Once he had finally arrived, the first image that appeared before him was a large factory labeled "Herold’s Candy Factory". Susan’s mouth began to moisten at the thought of candy and chocolate, but once he went inside, he discovered something that was much to his dismay.

"What do you mean you make baseballs?!? Do you mean like chocolate in the form of baseballs?" Susan asked one of the custodians.

"No, I mean they make baseballs, for playing baseball," Kidney replied.

"I demand to see your manager!" Susan demanded with a firm fist.

"Right this way," Kidney said, "Wait here."

After a giant nose came through the window, rolled over to a nearby door, opened it, closed it, and exited through its origin again, Herold walked out of his office. Herold stood in one spot for a while, then he went back into his office without changing his expression. Susan thought this to be rather rude and charged into the office a few moments behind Herold.

"AHH!" Herold screeched, "You scared the poop out of me! Don’t ever do that again!"

"Listen to him," Billy, his imaginary friend nodded, "I have been in your shoes and he does not like getting the poop scared out of him."

This was beginning to be too much for Susan and he yearned for some sort of an explanation to all of this nonsense. That’s when he broke out yelling these questions at the top of his lungs:

"Why did you come out of your office, stare at me, then go back into your office without saying anything? Why did a giant nose run around and then roll out a window? Why does your candy factory make baseballs instead of candy? Why does your janitor have the name of a vital organ? Why can I see and hear your imaginary friend? Why do you ride llamas around? Why do you pay for things with gold teeth?"

Billy and Herold looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Then they both said, "Ask the magical elephant."

"The magical what?" Susan was anticipating a different answer.

"The magical elephant, he knows every reason for every detail of this whole messed up book," Herold enlightened Susan, "We bolognas don’t ask questions, we just play along with everything. Kind of like a fantasy of some type, and we act out the roles I guess. You aren’t from around here are you? Because you’re talking that ‘normal talk’."

"Well, OK. Forget it, where does this magical elephant live?" Susan wanted to know.

"Oh, on the magical mountain," Billy advised him.

"That doesn’t help! Where’s the magical mountain and how do I get there?" Susan agitatedly asked.

"Just click your heels together twice and say ‘there’s no place like squid’, and you’ll "magically" be transported there," Herold said.

"But a squid isn’t a place, it’s a…" Susan stopped to retain from making a bigger embarrassment of himself. Being as desperate as he was, Susan went along with what Herold and Billy had told him and in no time he was standing directly outside of tarzin’s cave.

Oh, sorry about that Susan, you’re at the wrong cave. Here, let me, the narrator, write you into the right cave.

Susan was now standing outside of the magical elephant’s domain. There.

Susan knocked on the door.

The elephant opened the door just enough to sneak a peek and said, "What is it?"

"Are you the magical elephant?" Susan demanded to know.

"No, I’m a flying piece of lemon pie," replied the elephant as he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, well do you know where I could find this magical elephant?" asked Susan.

"Listen, lady, I was just kidding," the elephant said as he widened the entrance.

"Lady?!? I’m a guy!" Susan was insulted.

"Oh. Sorry, but you have a lady’s name," the elephant modestly said.

"How do you know my name?" Susan’s curiosity struck.

"Oh, I know everything," the elephant coolly informed her…I mean, him.

"Not funny Shane…" Susan scorned me, the narrator, "All I want are some explanations."

"Well, the reason I answered your question was because…" the elephant began to explain.

"No, no, no," Susan was on the brink of insanity, "I don’t want an explanation as to why you answered my question, I want an explanation for everything that’s going on around here, in Shopping-Cartsville. I mean, you ride llamas (‘I don’t,’ the elephant said under his breath), use gold teeth as a form of currency, you have N&N’s instead of M&…" Susan’s list continued on and on. Approximately three hours later, he had finally finished.

"Look, lad…I mean, dude, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m not going to take the time out of my busy schedule to explain all of these complications to you, why don’t you just go home?" the magical elephant had become irritated.

"Yeah, why don’t I go home?" Susan shot a peering eye at Shane.

Hey, look, Susan, I’d let you go home, but I need you for chapter 10. So, here, take this snail sandwich and just relax, ok?

"A SNAIL SANDWICH?!!" Susan fainted and smashed into the ground.

Good, that shut him up. Ah, I mean, that’s not good at all! (Shane gives a suspicious eye out to his reader, that being you) This is terrible! Um…well, look on the bright side, he’ll be around for the huge grand finale in chapter 10!


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