Chapter 9

With Sean off to college and the Dwarves gone, things were returning to as close to normal as possible at the Michaels household. Lisa was now getting all of her mother's attention and that wasn't always such a great thing. At the current moment, Lisa's mother had just discovered what Lisa had been up to while they had taken Sean to school.

"Did you say that a college boy gave you his phone number?" Lisa's Mom asked sweetly.

"Yes, and he was a real hunk, too. I bet he could fetch and carry all kinds of things for me," Lisa said.

"Do you still have his number?"

Holding up the slip of paper, Lisa answered, "Yes, I do."

"I want you to call that number and tell that boy that I want to talk to him."

Lisa said, "Okay."

She dialed the number and waited for big hunky guy to answer.

"Mental Health Hot Line. Are you in crisis?"

Lisa looked around for a second and then said, "Uh ... my Mom wants to talk to you."

Her mother grabbed the phone and shouted, "Listen you little pervert. I'm going to come down there and rip your balls off. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you."

"Then I'm going to slice them into little thin slices, fry them, and then feed them to you."

"Uh, Ma'am. Are you feeling okay?"

"I'll feel a whole lot better when I'm done with you," Lisa's Mom answered.

"You might want to calm down, Ma'am."

"Calm down? You have the gall to tell me to calm down you little pervert. I'm going to push a broom handle up your butt so far that people with think you're wearing a hat rack on your head."

"Ma'am. There's no need to be threatening."

"Threatening? I'm not making threats. I'm making promises."

Lisa raised a hand and said, "Uh ... Mom."

"Do you often feel violent like this?"

"Only when I really get mad and I'm crazy mad at the moment."

"We can talk this out, Ma'am. There's no need to be angry."

"Do you really think we can solve this with talking?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I'm sure that we can come to an understanding and work through this issue."

"You sick twisted man!"

"Uh ... Mom."

"Be quiet, Lisa."

"Do you need some help, Ma'am?"

"Help? No. I don't need any help. I can hunt you down and torture you without any help from anyone."

"Are you Mrs. Michaels?"

"Yes, I am. In case you're wondering, I'm Lisa's mother."

"Is she there with you?"

"Don't play stupid with me. I know what you're doing."

"I've called for some help. They're on the way, Mrs. Michaels."

"Help? You're going to need a whole bunch help by the time I'm done with you."

"Uh ... Mom."

"Be quiet, Lisa. You'll get yours when I'm done with him."

"Ma'am. Are you threatening your daughter?"

"What are you worried about her for? You'll be dead and buried by the time I get around to punishing her!"

"You're scaring me."

"Be afraid, be very afraid!" Lisa's Mom said and then cackled.

"Maybe you need to get a little distance..."

Lisa's Mom interrupted, "Distance? You want distance?"

"Ma'am..."

"You can run, but you can't hide. I've been chasing Leprechauns for a year now. You aren't going to get away from me."

"Leprechauns? You've been chasing Leprechauns?"

"Don't change the subject pervert. I'm coming after you."

There was a knock on the front door.

Sean was studying his new super advanced hyper fantastic high tech cell phone with features that haven't been invented yet. He knew it was that, because that was what it said on the box it came in.

So far, he had figured out how to make a call. He had tried it out by calling himself, but he got a busy signal so he couldn't practice answering it.

Sean figured he would have made a bit more progress than that except the instructions were written in a language that was very similar to English. It was similar in the sense that every word was an English word, but the words were ordered according to some scheme that even a Leprechaun couldn't figure out.

Giving up, Sean asked, "What does – Butterfly floating touches make best not machine action window – mean?"

His roommate, John answered, "It's best to use a firm pressure when using the touch screen."

"That's completely obvious," Sean said.

"It's one of the easier ones to figure out," John said. "I've had my phone for two months and I've managed to get through the first two pages of instructions."

"You've only got a hundred and eighty-eight pages to go," Sean said.

"I'm not even going to try to figure out the warranty."

"I don't blame you."

The cell phone started making noises like a cricket chirping. Sean asked, "What's that mean?"

"You've got a call."

"My first one," Sean said. "Let's see if I can answer it."

It didn't take him that long to find the right button to push. Who ever was calling was very patient and kept calling back until he managed to answer it.

"Hello, you've reached Sean Connery Michaels on his new super advanced hyper fantastic high tech cell phone with features that haven't been invented yet."

"Hi, Sean. I'm at the police station."

"Hi Lily. Did Mom get arrested again?"

Lily answered, "Not exactly. She's in the crazy section of the hospital."

Rolling his eyes, Sean said, "I've told her to run if she ever encounters that psychiatrist in public. He's got it in for her, but you know Mom – she never listens to me."

"They came to the house for her," Lily said.

"That's odd. Why?"

Lily said, "Do you remember big hunky guy who gave me his telephone number?"

"I certainly do. I really read him the riot act," Sean said.

"Well, he didn't give me his telephone number. It was a different number."

Wondering if he owed big hunky guy an apology, Sean asked, "What number did he give you?"

"The mental health hot line."

Sean said, "Let me guess, you called, she grabbed the phone, and made the kind of threats that mother makes so well."

"Exactly," Lily said.

"Why are you calling me? I can't bust her out of the hospital."

"The doctor said that she's going to be in there for years."

"He never did like her, particularly after she photo-shopped a picture of his head on the body of a flasher and sent it out as a Christmas card."

"He never should have said that she was nuttier than a fruitcake."

"That was after she zapped him with the cattle prod."

"He said she needed medication."

"You can't change the past. I wouldn't worry about Mom. She can take care of herself."

Lily said, "I'm not worried about her. I was wondering if you could ask big hunky guy for his real phone number."

"I can't. He's no longer big and hunky. He's now small and flat," Sean replied.

"What happened?"

"He was run over by an ACME steam roller," Sean said rolling his eyes.

"Those are dangerous," Lily said.

"They've flattened many a coyote chasing roadrunners."

"That's a shame about big hunky guy. I'm sure there are other guys just as big and hunky there."

"Sorry, there aren't any left on the entire campus."

"What happened to them?" Lily asked.

"They all failed school."

"It's only been a week."

"It's a tough school."

"Well, Dad is going to be here soon. I'm going to have another lollipop and wait for him," Lily said.

"Okay. Ask Dad to call me," Sean said.

"Sure."

Lily hung up. Sean examined his phone with a frown. He said, "My battery is almost dead."

"Hey, you got a whole phone call out of it. You're doing better than I've managed to do," John said.

"I was worried about battery life."

"Now you don't have worry. You know it sucks."

Sean nodded his head.

John said, "So your mother got locked up in the wacky-factory."

"Yep," Sean said. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. She is a little exuberant at times."

John said, "That happened to my mom once. It didn't affect her at all. The doctor ... well ... he didn't always have that twitch. It's getting better now. I heard that he can drink most of a cup of coffee without spilling it on himself."

"My mother has that effect on some people, too."

John looked at the clock and asked, "Don't you have chemistry soon?"

Dr Waters said, "We pour. Then we pour. We stir it a bit. We pour in a little of this. We stir it again. We pour in some of this. We don't stir. We back up and wait for the boom."

There was a loud noise and glass flew across the room. The only student watching was Sean and he was clapping loudly. The rest were hiding under their lab benches. They weren't clapping. Most of them were quivering in fear.

Chom and Pip came walking across the lab bench. Every eye in the class watched their progress. After all, it wasn't every day that two strange Dwarves walked across a lab bench in the middle of a class. The two Dwarves stopped a step away from where the beaker had been.

While stroking his beard, Chom said, "That's wasn't a boom."

"More like a thump," Pip said.

"Definitely more like a thump. Although, I might use the word whomp to describe it."

Dr Waters asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Chom."

"I'm Pip."

"Get out of my lab!" Dr Waters shouted.

Chom asked, "So you can convince these poor saps that that pathetic little whomp was a boom?"

"How dare you?"

Pip said, "He dares pretty easily."

"I do," Chom said with a nod of his head.

Pip said, "If you want to hear a boom, then watch the master at work."

"Do you think you can do better than that?" Dr. Waters asked knowing a challenge when he heard one.

Rubbing his hands together, Chom replied, "You bet."

"Show me!"

Chom ran around the room grabbing bottles of chemicals off of the shelf. He put a beaker on the lab table and started mixing chemicals. Dr Waters saw what he was doing and stepped back.

Chom said, "Now it goes Boom."

There was a loud explosion at the front of the room. Part of the lab bench disappeared and the ceiling above it turned black.

Dr Waters said, "That's not too bad. Now, it's my turn."

Sean said, "This ought to be pretty good."