Six-year-old Lorbert was stealthily crouching behind the sofa, eyeing the front door. In a few minutes, the door clicked open. Standing in the doorway was a silhouetted figure of a woman carrying a colossal cake the size of Lorbert. She came hobbling in, struggling under the weight of the cake. The woman put the cake down slowly, covered it with a plastic bag and, within a few seconds, swiftly walked out of the living room, calling, “Lorbert, mommy’s home!”
Lorbert waited a few more minutes to make sure that the woman was truly gone and, as soon as this fact was confirmed, he set out to investigate this new curiosity.
Target locked, the twisted voice of a conscience in Lorbert’s head clicked. Leaping like a raptor, Lorbert ripped off the plastic bag and eyed his prize curiously. It was a three-foot-tall wedding cake decorated with a fluffy, light, pink frosting. As this was obviously not a bomb, but a cake, Lorbert tore out a chunk in the back, scurried like a rat with its cheese back to his room, and greedily devoured it.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang in a two note chime. In walked Lorbert’s grandfather, a prunish octogenarian.
“Glad you could make it, Phineas,” Lorbert’s mom greeted him.
“Yah, yar, marbbll, snurffull,” was all Lorbert’s grandfather could mumble out.
Lorbert’s mom tried to ignore the fact that Phineas was way past his expiration date and then asked him, “Could you watch Lorbert for the rest of the day until I return?” “Bummble, snarfen, habba,” was all he could say, instantly walking over to the couch and falling asleep.
Seeing as she had no other alternative babysitter with her husband on a business trip, Lorbert’s mom sighed and looked at the cake one more time just to make sure it was fine. With one last breath, she yelled an exaggerated warning to Lorbert upstairs, “Don’t eat that cake mister! It’s a cataclysmic bomb that’ll detonate in a ridiculous sized explosion which will then wipe life off the face of the Earth.” Up in his room, the startled Lorbert, with all the childish naiveté in him, peered down at his stomach with a look of sheer horror.
“Ding, dong,” the doorbell rang again. Looking really annoyed, Lorbert’s grandfather slugged off the couch and struggled to get to his feet.
“Hurry up!” came a rude noise from outside.
“Rammah cruming, Sonny, rummy,” ol’ Phineas garbled in return.
It took awhile, but Lorbert’s grandfather finally wobbled to the door and slowly opened it. Outside in the white, freshly-fallen snow stood two kindergartener boys, dressed head-to-toe in clashing purple and neon green snowsuits. One of them then started shouting, “Hey gramps, I’m Chunk and this here’s Florence. Florence doesn’t talk very much but can do all the functions of any stereotypical toady. Also, don’t talk to him about his name, he doesn’t like it.”
“Grunt, grunt,” added Florence.
The pair then stepped into the living room, tracking mud and snow on the carpet as they went. Grandpa Phineas really didn’t care and just settled down onto the couch for another round of naptime.
“Lorbert!” Chunk called upstairs. Tip-toeing as cautiously as possible, Lorbert took an eternity just to get downstairs.
“What’s the hold up?” Chunk impatiently whined, “Let’s go outside and knock each other’s brains out with snowballs!”
As soon as Lorbert got dressed in his neon hot-pink colored snowsuit, he stepped outside into the wintery wonderland known as Schnacdady Lane. The roads were covered with a thin layer of snow, signaling it was still early in the morning. Good thing I padded myself with extra “armor.” Now there is no way I will explode on contact! thought Lorbert. But his contentment at the success of his scheme was soon interrupted as a snowball straight from Chunk knocked him on the head. A snowfort was now his number one priority.
Minutes later, Lorbert could not have been more proud of his new snowfort; it was tall, fat, and long; impenetrable except through an opening in the back towards the sidewalk. Waiting for the ceasefire to end, Lorbert watched an ice cream truck jingling down the road. Suddenly, Chunk threw a six-inch-wide snowball at the truck’s windshield. A rock in the snowball cracked the windshield and startled the senior driver. The innocent truck turned into a raging missile, knocking down every single mailbox in its path. Its rampage was finally ended when it hit the propane tank of a nearby barbeque grill, which exploded into a big fiery ball. The fireball set off like a bomb, clearing the whole house of its snow, and the snow on the houses around it, too. The truck caught fire and the driver ran away screaming. That truck must’ve eaten the cake too!, thought Lorbert. Just to make sure Chunk and Florence wouldn’t throw rocks at him to make him explode, Lobert bluntly told them, “No throwing rocks in the snowballs, okay?”
“No,” Florence quickly replied.
Darn, Lorbert thought to himself, I knew he was going to say that. Wide-eyed and glancing back and forth quickly, Lorbert took off in a mad dash that even the cartoon roadrunner couldn’t beat in speed.
“Where are you going?” called Chunk.
“Hiss!” hissed Florence in alarm.
“And,” Chunk turned to Florence, “why are you so weird?”
Why do Chunk and Florence want to make me explode, I’m cuddly and loveable, aren’t I?
Lorbert was running down the street for dear life, yet he could not help but look around to see what his neighbors were doing. Maybe they’ll help me from the evil wrath of Chunk and Florence.
“Hi Lorbert!” a neighbor waved as he lit New Year’s fireworks off.
“AHH!” screamed Lorbert. Hey look, there’s Chunk’s sister, Chunkette.
“Look at me light this pile of sticks on fire Lorbert!” WHOOSH! “Whoa, look how big that flame is!”
“AHHHH!”
“Look at this automatic massager I got, it’ll do wonders for your back and will let you “discharge” all your stress and “energy”!”
Look, a T.V., maybe television can help relieve my anxiety.
“As you can see, the powers of ‘yellow cake’ are indeed very destructive.”
“AHHHH!”
“Hey little kid, look at all this candy I got.”
Those schemers just keep coming, all trying to make me detonate, thought Lorbert, and who was that shady man giving out candy behind that house anyway? He then shimmied up a nearby tree and decided to camp out there for the night. Soon, Chunk’s dad came and asked Lorbert, “What are you doing in the tree?”
“I’m hiding from Chunk.”
“Why are you hiding from him?” asked Chunk’s dad.
“Chunk was trying to get me to do drugs.” Lorbert hoped the lie would let Chunk never have the chance to get to Lorbert. Pretty soon, Chunk’s dad stormed off in search of his son. It made Lorbert shudder to think about what Chunk was going to get in a few minutes.
It was getting late now and a crowd was starting to gather in front of Lorbert’s tree.
How come so many people want to make me explode?
“Kid, get down from there!” someone shouted.
“Yeah, you’ll hurt yourself!’ another yelled.
“No, you’ll hurt me!” shouted back Lorbert.
I have to find some way to get away from these people! I know, I’ll distract them! Lorbert started climbing down the tree, but before he hit the bottom, he flung off all his clothes and threw them at the crowd.
“Gasp!” went the crowd, “naked boy!”
Haha, I got them now! Lorbert ran away from the crowd but his pride was quickly cut off when a police officer on patrol spotted Lorbert.
“Hey kid, stop!” the officer roared out the window.
It was a short chase, and the cop caught up eventually. As they swung around to Lorbert’s house, a crude note was stuck on the door. “Gone to by sleep pils, laxatives, and to sign up four a speling clas. Whill return in to hours. ~ Phineas.”
“Looks like you’re coming with me kid” the police officer told Lorbert.
After getting some pants, the officer led Lorbert into the police station. Lorbert, weary and tired, looked around the station for something to entertain him. Suddenly, a surprised voice started talking to him.
“Hey Lorbert, what’re you doing here? My dad took me here to be searched for drugs.”