Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) by Margaret Lashley (interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

flush, Queen Kristie and her infected troops will be infecting the water supply via their raw sewage.”

I winced. “Oh.”

“Wouldn’t water treatment plants stop that?” Jimmy asked.

“Hey bro,” Garth said, “if an alligator can survive in a sewer, why not this alien bacteria stuff?”

“Both of you bring up good points,” Grayson said, tapping the bottom of his stick on the deck like a cane. “Perhaps water treatment will stop the bacteria. Perhaps not. We’re in uncharted territory, here. But one thing’s for sure. We need to stop Queen Kristie now, before her bacterial brew has a chance to spread.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Jimmy asked.

“The only way possible,” Grayson said. He leaned over and jabbed his stick at the QK scrawled on the water heater box. “We need to give that parasitic princess the royal flush.”

“The royal flush? I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“This.” Grayson turned and stabbed his stick through the QK on the water-heater box, then pulled it out and pointed to the ragged hole in the cardboard. “I’m talking about sending Queen Kristie back through the same space hole she dropped out of.”

“Space hole?” Garth asked.

“The wormhole,” Grayson said. “We need to find the portal she rode in on and send her packing back through it!”

“Argh!” I groaned. “Not that whole portal-wormhole crap again!”

“It’s not crap,” Grayson said, straightening his shoulders. “Unless, of course, you think Einstein was full of crap.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Grayson beat me to it.

“Wait,” he said, arguing with himself. “Einstein was human, so I suppose he was full of crap, intestinally speaking, of course.” Grayson glanced back over at me. “But that’s beside the point. What I’m talking about is his postulate.”

“Einstein’s prostate?” Garth asked. “I don’t get it.”

“No. Postulate,” Grayson said. “Einstein’s belief that the Theory of Relativity allows for shortcuts across the Time/Space Continuum.”

“Huh?” the three of us grunted simultaneously.

“Drex, don’t you remember?” he asked, then flung his stick into the junkyard. “The discrepancy in time I found with the oscilloscope yesterday. It’s the fingerprint of a real Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Right here in Polk County! Somewhere in the Hi-Ho there’s a wormhole connecting it to the planet Krull!”

“Cool!” Garth said, bobbing his head.

My face collapsed. I shook my head. “Let me get this straight, Grayson. You think this Queen Kristie chick came through an interstellar wormhole just so she could dance around a bonfire in the middle of nowhere with some random fat guys?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grayson said. “Her actions aren’t random. Though I must confess I’m beginning to doubt the validity of the KFC connection.” Grayson rubbed his chin. “There’s got to be another reason.”

“Maybe she chose Florida because she thought she could do her bidding unnoticed,” Garth offered. “We are kinda a mecca for strange down here.”

I sighed. “That makes as much sense as anything I’ve heard today.”

“Hmm,” Grayson said. “Garth, you could be on to something with the Florida angle. The tropical climate here could replicate her home planet. Bacteria generally prefer warm, moist places to colonize.”

A sharp pain stabbed me between the eyes. “Enough, already!” I blurted. “Let’s say you’re right, Grayson—about everything. Florida is this blonde bimbo’s new nirvana and fat guys are her bread and butter. What do you propose we do about it?”

“I thought I just explained that,” Grayson said. “We send Queen Kristie back to Krull using the same wormhole she rode in on.”

“Krull?” Jimmy said. “I thought that was just a made-up movie planet.”

“No,” Garth said, elbowing his brother. “Think about it. Krull. Crullers? A coincidence? I don’t think so.”

I’D EXCUSED MYSELF from Grayson’s Lord of the Flies porch meeting on the premise of needing an aspirin. It hadn’t been a complete lie. My headache had been real enough. But when I’d checked on Earl, I’d gotten some immediate relief. The tub of yogurt Grayson had left just inside the bedroom door was missing—and I could hear Earl softly snoring again. Hopefully, the probiotics were working their magic.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that, in my absence, Grayson had ordered food delivered. He and the guys were busy munching on tacos at the picnic table he’d set up nearby the RV.

What I wasn’t so happy about was the conversation going on over the crunch of crispy taco shells.

“First off, we need to find the wormhole’s location,” Grayson said, biting into a taco. “Then we’ve got to figure out how to make it open on command.”

Right. Should we try “abracadabra” or “open sesame?”

“Good idea,” Garth said, picking tomato slices out of his taco.

I sat down next to Jimmy and eyed the heap of wrapped tacos in the center of the table. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be easier to just make our own wormhole to send Queen Bimbo back where she came from?”

Grayson snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I rubbed my forehead. My headache was attempting an encore performance. “Excuse me, but how is that ridiculous?”

Garth snickered. “Pandora, to create a wormhole we’d need the energy of like, fifty-thousand hydrogen bombs.”

“Exactly,” Grayson said, pointing at me with his taco. “And that’s just to create an opening the size of a molecule.”

I shook my head and grabbed a taco. “How do you guys know this weird stuff?” Then I glanced at Garth. “Never mind. I forgot. You speak Klingon.”

“Hey,” Garth said. “It comes in handy sometimes.”

“Yeah,” I said, unwrapping my taco. “I bet the chicks really dig it.”

“The right ones do,” he said, then flung a tomato wedge onto the ground.

While the guys chewed thoughtfully on their tortillas, I took a slurp of Dr Pepper and a snarky thought hit me.

“Hey! I know,” I said. “Why don’t you guys just rent a wormhole? You know. Look in the yellow pages under portal letting?”

“They do that?” Garth asked.

“I wish,” Grayson said. “Unfortunately, our only viable option is to locate the existing wormhole and figure out how to make it open at our will.”

I laughed. “Here’s another idea. Why don’t you just follow Queen Bimbo around