As agreed, Karen arrived at the LaGrange Theatre at six o’clock sharp to go over the details of her “glorious new career” with Reno. She was, of course, a nervous wreck.
“What should I wear?!” She asked Chelsea, rummaging through her closet like an autistic weasel with ADHD. “How about this? No, too tacky. Or this one? No, no, no, it doesn’t fit…Or this--oh what am I thinking?!”
“Karen, Karen…poor delusional child,” Chelsea cooed, resting a sympathetic hand on Karen’s shoulder, “It is a true shame that you are not as fortunate as I, to be blessed with incomparable fashion genius! But fear not, my unlovely friend, Chelsea is here! And I shall make everything better. Now, follow me!”
Before Karen could respond, she found her self being dragged out of the room and down the hallway, to Chelsea’s “Secret Lair of Doooom.” At least, that’s what the crudely drawn paper sign on the door said. The room was dark, and smelled like musty cheese. Karen was abandoned on the floor, as Chelsea proceeded to empty the contents of her dresser on the carpet. She hurled various objects behind her, looking for something of specific value.
Karen squeaked as a piñata flew passed her head, followed immediately by a rubber duck suit, a tire, several rolls of duct tape, and a few other oddities that Chelsea keeps in her underwear drawer (which shall not be named for the sake of keeping this story at a PG-13 rating).
“AHA! I’ve found it!” Chelsea cried triumphantly, after several minutes of covering her bedroom floor with junk. Karen, who was currently buried under a pile of fishnet stockings, cringed in horror as her friend proceeded to extract a very large, very pink panda suit from the top drawer.
“You can’t be serious,” Karen said.
“Oh, but I AM,“ the blonde replied.
Chelsea happily began rolling Karen’s long red hair up in a bun. The red-head was unable to retaliate, as her hands were tangled in a mess of multi-colored socks.
“What are you doing?!”
“You’ll want your hair up,” Chelsea instructed, “Otherwise it might get stained. I had a little…er…accident the last time I wore this suit. Wouldn’t want to ruin that pretty hair, now would we?”
“What about my FACE?” Karen asked, now thoroughly concerned for her safety.
“Oh, no one would bother looking there, trust me.”
Karen mumbled a few choice curse words as Chelsea strapped her tightly into the panda suit. She held her breath when the large fuzzy panda-head helmet was forced over her head.
“I cant see,” she said, her voice heavily muffled by the suit. Chelsea misheard her.
“What’s that? You say you have to pee?” she asked, “Oh, don’t worry. Just go. I do it all the time. There’s a build in toilet in there…I think. Or maybe that was the orange miniskirt I bought last week…Oh well, either way!”
And so, that is how Karen ended up in the giant pink panda suit. She now stood before the large concrete steps of the Theatre in the cold evening twilight, wondering how on earth she was going to make it up all those stairs. The suit wasn’t made to bend at the knees, which made walking very difficult. She had tried to take it off earlier, but the zipper was on the outside of the suit, on the back, and she couldn’t reach it. The stairs looked so very long from down here…
Yuki, Stacie, Shiro, Puu and Chelsea were with her, attempting to help their friend up the stairs. Well, Stacie was helping. Yuki was more complaining about the cold night, and Shiro was testing out his new x-ray vision goggles on her, but accidentally looked at Chelsea instead, causing him to go into shock and collapse on the ground. Yuki chuckled at his whimpering form, taking a minute out of her brooding time to kick him down a few stairs. She quickly grew bored, however, and returned to complaining. Chelsea was spinning around on a street lamp, collecting the money that passing men threw at her. Puu was peeing in the public mail box.
“It’s fucking COLD,” Yuki complained.
“If you’d be so kind as to help, “ Stacie suggested while tugging on Karen, who was doing a sort of balancing act on the third step, “maybe the movement will cause you to warm up?”
Yuki rolled her eyes. She stomped down the steps to where Karen was struggling to keep her balance. She roughly grabbed a hold of one of Karen’s large pink paws, and dragged the whining girl up the long flight of stone steps to the front door, then dropped her on the ground with an unceremonious flop.
“There, now shut up and let me complain.” Yuki said. Karen, unable to stand back up, began rolling around on the ground like a moron, similar to the way Shiro was twitching at the bottom of the stairs.
“I can’t get up,” she mumbled. Stacie gabbed hold of both her paws, pulling hard in an attempted to pull Karen upright. It worked, until Stacie fell backwards down the stairs, landing conveniently on top of Shiro, who was just recovering from his conniption.
“Why thank you Shiro, for cushioning my fall. Maybe you’re not such a creep after all.” Stacie said sweetly, offering her hand to the drooling mess that was now Shiro. Her attitude changed abruptly when the boy grabbed her butt, and Shiro was rewarded for his kindness with a sharp kick to the face. The sound of Shiro crying in pain attracted Puu’s attention, and the little green ball of cuteness quickly abandoned his campaign to eat the cat in the nearby apartment window, and ran back up the stairs to join his friends. He climbed on top of Karen’s big pink panda head and began chewing on the panda’s ear.
“Alright already, we’ve had our fun,” Yuki said, “Can we get on with the damn meeting already, so I can go home and get back to my show. I’m missing La Opera del Sopa on the Hispanic channel. Tino is supposedly cheating on Isabella, and if Jorje finds out, he‘s gonna kick some ass and I WILL NOT MISS IT.”
Stacie, Karen, and Yuki all reached for the doorknob of the large oak doors and the same time, when Karen squealed and jumped up suddenly.
“What now?”
“I…I feel a draft.” Karen said. “Is my suit unzipped?”
Stacie moved behind Karen, to examine the back of the suit. “No,” she replied, “there’s a hole back here. Right on your…um…bottom.”
“Oh, that!” Chelsea exclaimed, marching triumphantly up the stairs, carried a large amount of gold coins in her blouse, ”That’s there in case you have to make poopsie”
“Chelsea,” Yuki retorted, “I’m sure if Karen wanted to “make poopsie,” she would just take the suit off!”
“Oh…well, good luck with that,” the blonde replied, nonchalantly.
“What do you mean?!” Karen asked, suddenly very worried.
“Oh, the zipper kinda broke off when I put that suit on you. It’s no big, though. Trust me Karen, you look much better now with all that…you-ness covered up.”
Karen let out a shriek and lunged at Chelsea. She missed, and rolled down the stairs. She landed on Shiro.
**********
Above them, peering from a dusty, cracked window, a man in a dark cloak waited, memorizing every detail of his new victims. A crooked smile graced his thin lips at the thought of all the mischief he could cause for these new arrivals.
“Oh, the fun I shall have…”
**********
To b continued...