***
By photocopying Really Wimpy’s transdimentional scent (and separating it from his own personal stench), the crew established parameters on finding the universe where magic actually worked. And so Horrendous, Henry, and Nestley transploded into the most likely universe of their long-lost Chickenfeet Academy.
Henry stared. “Was it always this cluttered?”
The mess rivaled even Henry’s room at home with its collections of autographed toilet tissue and lack-of-muscle posters. There were heaps of wands: with light beams, with swishing sounds, with sibling transformation spells. There were Halloween costumes and wizard hats. School uniforms, striped ties, and scarves. Hundreds of pairs of round glasses, oddly, without any glass in them. Stuffed owls and toads and all manner of plush and puppet creatures.
“What’s all this junk?” Nestley asked.
Horrendous shook her head in puzzlement as she gazed about the crowded warehouse. “There aren’t any Sorting Rats, or flying pigs to bring the mail or Quick-grab-the-fish pennants. This must be some other franchise.” She opened a box, and a winged golden golf ball flew up and hit her in the nose. “Ow!”
“It’s kind of close though,” Henry said, admiring a heroically-posed poster of a far more heroic-looking teen.
“Wow, look at this,” Nestley said. He’d stumbled across a pile of his own universe’s trubbles. “And here’s my first calculator from when I was three.” He bent to retrieve it, and tripped over a phizzer, falling into a pile of them. “Cool! Captain Guitard won’t let me have one.” He grabbed a phizzer and pressed some of the buttons. “Zap! Kpow!” A red light began flashing on the weapon’s base.
“Ready for autodestruct,” said a bored computer voice.
“Whoops!” Nestley juggled the phizzer from hand to hand in a game of hot potato. “Um, a little help?”
Henry snatched the closest wand off a pile of knitted hats. “Expeli-arms!”
Nestley’s arms tumbled off, and the phizzer rolled under a pile of trubble-printed tea cozies.
“Henry, you numbskull!” Horrendous drew her own wand and aimed it at the pile. “Shields up!” The tea cozies wove themselves around the phizzer, forming an enormous ball of yarn. She glanced at Nestley. “That’s what you say around here, right?”
A disturbing humming rose.
“It’s gonna blow!” Nestley flung himself behind a barricade of Georgy Porgy’s slotted spoon glasses. Horrendous grabbed Henry and dragged him to the floor.
Yarn exploded everywhere.
“Pffff!” Spitting out fibers, Horrendous emerged from the pile. “Wow. That was actually the least annoying mess today.”
“Speak for yourself,” Henry said. He and Nestley had gotten the worst of the glue dribbles back in the infirmary and now looked like abominable yarn men. “Can we please get out of this universe before anything worse happens?”
“Where are we, anyway?” Nestley asked.
Horrendous eyed the heaps of yarn-shrouded books and action figures. “It’s like a big fandom archive, but from several universes.” She staggered and clutched at the wall. “Oh! Why didn’t I see it?”
“What?”
“We’re in crossover fiction!”
This revelation took a toll on the trio, who sat down heavily. “And a Nestley Crunch story at that,” Henry muttered.
“Hey, guys, I’ve got an idea,” Nestley said. “Why don’t we gather up all the space paraphernalia and sell it to collectors? When all that’s left is occult jewelry and wizard party favors, the morphic resonance of it all should create a bridge back to your own world. Or one that’s close enough, anyway.”
“That’s brilliant,” Horrendous said.
“It is?” Henry asked, blinking.
“What we need now is someone skilled with collectables and fan auctions and so forth,” Nestley mused.
“Are you kidding?” Henry asked. “I’ve been selling my autographed undershirts on elfBay for years.”
A Preposterous Portfolio of Parodies: Free Selections from Spoofs of The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Star Trek and More Page 11
