The Adventures of Pink Baby #5

"Molly and the Pick-Axe"

July 2003

Molly liked to go on journeys like going to caves, or climbing mountains, or going to museums. This time they were going to go to a cave. And she was so excited she could hardly go to sleep that night. So, Nell had to sing her to sleep and she definitely went to sleep. So all night, sleep sleep sleep sleep-uh oh! As last time, Mr. Meanie came along AGAIN, as he did to throw her in the trash last time. Hope you remember that time. Well, Molly had a bad dream. So that got him off the trash idea. He ran away! Because you do know what happens when babies have a bad dream, don't you? Well, they wake up and they start to cry. So, that was the end of the trash idea.

Mr. Meanie sits in his own cave, tells his son what happened, and they both say "Rats!" and "Drats!" and "Wish we had a better plan." But, even if Molly hadn't had a bad dream they still wouldn't be able to go in because they replaced the window. It was the same as it was before he had tried to do Molly and instead of a window open, an air conditioner. Molly hadn't had it on for two months.

It was the next day. They each got out a brown bag from their closet. Molly's was small. About as big as the red chair in the author's very home. And as for the mom's, well, hers was about the size of a window curtain. So off they went. They had a tour through the cave and then they asked if they could hunt for gold or diamonds or rubies. Well, that wasn't hard to convince them. Ask for a bit of this and a bit of that. And they went off.

So, with their promise kept in their hands (the promise was they would give some of the rubies, diamonds, and gold to the place but the rest was theirs). These are the sounds of their pick-axes: BING BONG BANG BOONG GONG. The cave had a brother but the reason the cave had a brother was because the cave's brother looked a lot alike. The brother of the cave they were in was not just any old cave. It was Mr. Meanie's. They heard the sounds of their pick-axes. They peeked inside the brother cave and what do you think they saw? I'll tell you exactly what they saw. They saw Pink Baby! They saw a fat lady! But they didn't see Pink Baby's mama.

"Perfect!" whispered Mr. Meanie's son, who was called Mean Boy. They thought and they thought and they thought and they thought. The fat lady spotted them. She came over and said, "You two better ask for rental pick-axes and your hard hats before you can come in-unless you want a tour of course."

So they went and got their things. They paid ten dollars. And Mr. Meanie said, "Man, that used up ten of our dollars so we could get a house. Now how do you expect us to get one of those houses over there?" They saw a rich house. It was very nice. It had a wonderful attic, and it was for sale. Maybe not for very long, and that was the only problem.

Mean Boy said "You're right. Not for long at all." He pointed to a rich looking lady with a wonderful family saying, "I would buy this house," before even looking inside.

"Drats!" said Mr. Meanie.

"Rats!" said Mean Boy.

They had a plan. To get that house for their very own! They sent rats and mice, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs into the house so they'd be everywhere! Even up dresses, apparently. Because the person who was selling the house found a rat in one of her dresses. She didn't tell the buyer. The buyer looked at the house until something bit her foot. It was a mouse. BOOM! She screamed and ran out of the house. They picked up the little thing.

They said, "Now where did this come from?" One of the sellers said, "That's who it came from," and pointed at Mr. Meanie and his child. They ran off. So that was the end of that house. It was torn down because the rats had already gone potty in it. And when a rat goes potty in a house it's hard to get it out.

They pointed to a house across the street. They went to the cave. They picked and picked and picked. Their bags were full.

"Rats! Our bags are full!" said Mean Boy.

"Oh yes," said Mr. Meanie. "Not only are they full, but I have an idea with all this stuff," he said in a low voice.

"Now I see where you're going," said Mean Boy.

"Bang bong bing, this that this," sang Molly across from them. "I smell the blood of Mr. Meanie and his little boy Meanie Boy." She looked at them. "Yes?" said Molly.

"Be quiet."

"I smell the blood of the English Mr. Meanie," Molly kept singing and did not listen to what they said.

"Ugh!" They heard Molly's mom groan because her bag was so heavy.

"Mine is too!" squeaked Molly. "Ugh!" she groaned again. She put it over her shoulder. She looked at Mr. Meanie. She looked at Meanie Boy. "Scram," she said. They did scram.

There was another house. It was nice. But they didn't know about the secret passageway that was next door to the torn down one. Now, you may not want to know what the secret passageway leads to, but I'm not going to tell you anyway, because if I do, it won't be a secret passageway anymore, will it? So they bought the house across, and they lived in it, and lived and lived and lived. They still had a lot of leftover rubies and diamonds and gold and stuff like that.

Then, Molly tripped over something that was in the attic. "Ow!" she said, "Wah wah wah wah." Molly's mom came over. She opened the trap door. They went down a stair case. Down down down down down. There was a trail. There were three trails. You could go back to the kitchen, you could go to their living room, or you could go to the torn down house. They went to the torn down house. They found a frog. Actually a whole bunch of frogs.

One frog jumped on Molly's head. Two others went on mom's shoulders. Another jumped on Molly. Then they were jumping all over Molly and her mother. They swatted this one and that one and this one and that one!

"Let's get out of here!" shouted Molly. They stopped. Something was odd about the secret passageway. They looked down at the floor. They saw a small wooden plank shaped like a perfect square. Molly's mom stomped on it. It broke open. They saw small handles on either side of two things. Molly's mom pushed them down. It flew down to the ground like a retractable ladder. They heard lots of sounds. Squeak, squeak, ssssss, woof woof, and meow meow, all kinds of sounds. They went down the ladder. They looked at all the cute animals. They even found a parakeet cage.

"Squawk, squawk!" screached the bird behind them. It seemed to be saying something. "Hey, hey, what about me?" it seemed to be squawking. Molly looked at her mom. Molly's mom looked at Molly. Molly made a weird look on her face.

"Oops!" squawked the bird. Or, at least, that's what it seemed to be squawking. And it turned around and pretended that none of it had happened at all. It hummed. Molly went over to the parakeet, and said, "Can you talk?"

The bird just squawked at Molly and Molly went back to her mama.

"Shame on you!" exclaimed Molly's mom. The bird looked weird but didn't say anything. But Molly's mom did. Then she said, "I'll have to teach you not to scare MY daughter." Finally the bird squawked something.

"I-I-thought she was t-talking to h-herself."

"Well, I'm leaving this place. How about you, Molly?"

"We can just lock away this place."

But the bird said, "Will you at least come down to feed us once in a while?"

"Well, ok," said Molly's mom. And they went up the stairs back to their living room. And almost every week, they came down to feed the animals and they had a nice long vacation from, well, a lot.

The End