BAKERMONIUM:  RIP VAN KEISHA (Part 2 of 4)
Genre:  Kids’ Cartoon--Comedy
TV Rating:  TV-Y7
Author:  Ida G.


        With cooperative strength and effort coming from all eight kids, they were able to transport the Bag O’Stuff all the way up the stairs, and across the hallway.  When they reached the door of the Baker sisters’ bedroom, LaToya once again told everyone to pause for a moment while she went to open the door.  Then, with her and Khadijah still pulling from the front of the bag, and the six friends still pushing from behind it, all the kids worked with greater strength and effort to get the giant bag through the small doorway.  The six friends let go of the bag, ran back to the other side of the hallway, and then charged into the bag several times, pushing it further and further into the bedroom...until finally it popped in all the way through.

        “Okay, you guys, great job!” LaToya approved, wiping her brow, and then looking back at her friends at the back of the bag.  “Now help us drag this bag to the other side of the room, over there--and then we’ll be ready.”

        As five of the six friends pushed the bag across the room, Benny left them for a moment to go to Lakeisha’s bed.  The Baker sisters each had their own beds along one side of the room.  LaToya’s pink bed was in the middle, Khadijah’s purple bed was to the right of LaToya’s bed, and Lakeisha’s blue bed was to the left of LaToya’s bed.  Lakeisha was sleeping on her side body, so Benny approached the side of the bed her face was showing on.  He stared in awe at her sweet, peaceful face...her eyelids were closed, and her nose inhaled and exhaled air softly.  The outside light from the window highlighted the top grooves of her cinnamon sausage curls, and her little body was curled up into a snug little ball inside her thick blue quilt-pattern comforter, which was bobbing up and down slightly due to her breathing.

        “She’s so beautiful...and peaceful...” Benny said breathlessly, blushing red and smiling very widely as his eyes were transfixed on his lovely friend.  He slowly brought his hand up to the top of her body and tugged gently on her blanket.  He wanted to see her cute little blue silk nightie.

        “Hey Benny, what are you doing?” he suddenly heard from LaToya.  He jerked his head up and gasped as he saw LaToya and the other kids approaching Lakeisha’s bed.

        “Oh, uh...I was just trying to gently shake Lakeisha awake,” he thought up quickly, chuckling a bit nervously.  The other kids were now lining both sides of Lakeisha’s bed.  Miko was next to Benny, looking at Lakeisha’s face.

        “Aww, she looks so peaceful...” Miko smiled.

        “Yes, exactly!” Benny agreed wholeheartedly, pointing to Miko.  Then he turned to LaToya and addressed her.  “As a matter of fact, LaToya, I’m not so sure about this plan of yours anymore.  I think we should all just let Lakeisha continue sleeping in peace.  She must be really deeply tired or something if she’s still sleeping at this point--so why can’t we just let her continue to get the rest she needs for as long as she needs it, huh?  Being well-rested and staying healthy are much more important than going to some silly fair--she can come with us to a fair another time.  Let’s let her stay here and let her tiredness run its course until she’s finally fully rested and ready to wake up on her own.”

        “No!” LaToya still disagreed, sighing exasperatedly.  “I already explained this before:  we can’t let Lakeisha miss out on going to the Funtastic Fair with us just because of sleep!  She’s been so excited about going to the Funtastic Fair for the past several days--she’s been talking nonstop about it.  She really wants to go, I know she does--and if we leave her behind, she would be really mad at us forever that we didn’t try to wake her up.  She would really regret missing out on such a fun and exciting day with us.  So we gotta try with all our might to wake her up--at least for a while.  Also, too much sleep is actually unhealthy.  What if there’s something wrong with her that’s brewing inside her body that we don’t know about?  It’s not a coma-type of serious (she looked at Miko when she said this)...but it could still be something unusual that we need to find out.  So it would be in our, and Lakeisha’s, best interest if she woke up right now!”

        Benny, however, still wasn’t so sure anymore about any of LaToya’s argument points, after now seeing Lakeisha in her bed, and how beautiful, peaceful, and healthy she looked to him.

        Marianne, who was on the other side of where Benny was at Lakeisha’s bed, started to shake Lakeisha.  “Hey Lakeisha, wake up!” she called out to her.  “Lakeisha?  Lakeisha!  Wake up!  It’s us, the whole gang!  We’re ready to go to the Funtastic Fair--don’t you want to come with us?  Lakeisha?!”

        Chad then tried to shake Lakeisha harder.  “Hey, Lakeisha!  You should wake up now!  Lakeisha?  It’s time to wake up!” he cried out to her.

        Then Pedro, who was at the foot end of Lakeisha’s bed, climbed up onto the foot end of the bed, ran across the bed until he reached Lakeisha’s head, and grabbed her ear.  The other kids freaked out as he outstretched her ear hole to a super-large size, and then stuck his whole head inside the hole.  “HEY LAKEEEEEIIIIIISSSHHHAAA!!!” he called out from inside her head, his voice muffled, “WAKE UP, GIIIIRRRLL!!  RISE AND SHHIIIIIIIINNNEE!!  WHOO-HOOOOOOO!!  RING, RING, RING, RING, RING, RING, RING...BANANA PHOOOOOONNNE!”  He then pulled his head back out, and looked down at Lakeisha’s face.  “Dang...” he cried, amazed.  “She is really out like a light, isn’t she?”  He looked at the other kids to say something to them--but they freaked out in disgust back at him.

        “What?” Pedro asked, confused.

        “You need to learn how to mind your own earwax, Pedro,” Benny joked, wagging his finger at Pedro’s face.

        “Huh?” Pedro wondered.  He then brought his hand up to his face, and then his hair, feeling very goopy, sticky substances on them.  Giant globs of Lakeisha’s earwax covered his whole head.  He turned around to where Johann was standing, grabbed the front end of his shirt, pulled it all the way up to his face, wiped the earwax off his face, and then let go of the dirtied shirt, the shirt snapping back into place on Johann’s belly.  “The earwax is off my mind,” Pedro grinned in satisfaction, pointing to his head.

        LaToya rolled her eyes, shaking her head.  “We already told you guys using normal methods to wake Lakeisha up wouldn’t suffice,” she said.  “So were gonna have to try more off-beat, hardcore methods to wake her up.  Help me, everyone, to push Lakeisha’s bed out to the right-center side of the room over there, somewhat close to the door.  Then we’ll go over to the Bag O’Stuff.”

        The eight kids surrounded and grabbed Lakeisha’s bed, and with a lot of strength and effort, pushed the bed over to the spot LaToya indicated.  LaToya then closed the bedroom door, and then she and the other kids went over to the Bag O’Stuff on the other side of the room.

        “Now what?” Miko asked.

        “It’s battle time!” LaToya declared, pulling her fist downward.

        Miko gasped, her eyes bulging.  The other kids were puzzled, too.

        “Just follow Khadijah’s and my lead...this is how we did it earlier,” LaToya said, beckoning Khadijah to come over with her fingers.  The two of them went over to the Bag O’Stuff, grabbed an armful of items out of it, and carried them over towards the center of the room, dropping them a few feet before Lakeisha’s bed.  LaToya grabbed water balloons from the pile, while Khadijah grabbed a straw loaded with spitballs.

        “Battle weapons ready?” LaToya asked Khadijah.

        “Check,” Khadijah confirmed.

        “Battle music ready?”

        Khadijah went over to the foot of LaToya’s bed, where a small table stood with an MP3 boombox player on it.  She looked at the MP3 player’s small screen and pushed a button to browse through the track list, until she found a track that had a picture of the Super Mario RPG Official Soundtrack CD cover on the bottom of the screen, and written on the top of the screen was “Semi-Boss Theme.”  She stopped on that track and said “Check.”

        “Enemy sighted?”

        The two girls zeroed in on the still peacefully-sleeping Lakeisha in her bed.

        “Confirmed, we have a visual,” Khadijah said.

        LaToya then gave a nod to Khadijah.  Khadijah turned on the music, and she and LaToya walked up to Lakeisha in her bed.

        “Alright, then--let’s execute Operation ‘Wake-isha!’” LaToya declared.  She and Khadijah placed their hands on Lakeisha to touch her.  Suddenly, as if by magic, a huge black swipe swept across the whole room.  When the swipe went away, the room had transformed into an RPG battle arena, and the semi-boss music began to blare away.  LaToya and Khadijah were back at their previous positions--standing a few feet away from the sleeping Lakeisha.  Displayed high above the two fighters were two stats signs, one for each girl.  The signs had circular pictures of their faces on the left side, and their HP (health points) written on the right side.  Each girl had 30/30 HP.

        “Balloon Bombs!” LaToya cried out, going first.  She threw several water balloons at Lakeisha’s face.  But the number zero flashed above Lakeisha, indicating that no HP was taken away from her to wake her up--she was still fast asleep.

        “Spitfire!” Khadijah cried out next, putting the straw into her mouth and blowing several spitballs at Lakeisha’s face.  But once again, a zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Cymbals!” LaToya cried, crashing two cymbals together hard and opening them up again.  The huge sound waves reverberated visibly throughout the room, hitting Lakeisha.  But a zero flashed above her.

        “Peer Pressure!” Khadijah cried, pumping up a large water gun and shooting a highly-pressurized stream of water at Lakeisha’s face.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Knock Knock Ball!” LaToya cried, drop-kicking a small red dodge ball into Lakeisha.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Fast Ball!” Khadijah cried, winding up a baseball really fast with her arm.  She then pitched the ball as fast as she could at Lakeisha’s face.  The pitch was so fast, however, that the ball bounced off Lakeisha’s forehead (with a zero flashing above her), and flew directly back at Khadijah’s forehead, knocking her backwards to the ground.  The number -10 flashed above Khadijah, meaning that 10 HP had been taken away from her.  She had 20/30 HP left.

        “Oh gosh!  Are you alright?” LaToya asked, rushing to her sister to inspect her head.

        Khadijah groaned a bit, sitting up and rubbing her forehead.  But she soon shook off the pain with her head and got up again.  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she reassured LaToya.  “Let’s keep going!”

        “Okay,” LaToya nodded.  “Tickle Tackle!”  She jumped on top of Lakeisha, moved her arms upward so that her armpits were exposed, and tickled her armpits furiously.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Splash Flash!” Khadijah cried, throwing a bucket of water onto Lakeisha’s face.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Lazy Ball!” LaToya cried, drop-kicking a very large red dodge ball into Lakeisha.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Drill Sergeant!” Khadijah cried, climbing up onto Lakeisha’s bed, going behind her, and blowing a high-pitched whistle very loudly into her ear.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        During all this, in the meantime, just a few feet back in the distance, the Baker friends just stood frozen where they were, absolutely gawking in astonishment at the very bizarre sight.  Pedro, however, soon lit up and broke the silence.

        “Gadzooks!” he cried in great excitement.  “This really is an RPG battle!  It’s like a live-action role-playing video game!  I love video games!  I wanna play, I wanna play!”

        He reached into the Bag O’Stuff, pulled out an electric guitar and a small amplifier box, and ran over to the battle arena.  As soon as he did, a stats sign appeared high over Pedro--a circular picture of his face, and his HP number next to it.

        “Ooooooo...”  Pedro said, looking above him at his sign.  “30 out of 30...100%, dude!”

        “We all have 30/30 HP,” LaToya explained to him.  “And so does Lakeisha, although there’s no sign displayed above her.  It will take 30 HP to wake her up.”

        “Gotcha!” Pedro affirmed, saluting LaToya.  Then he faced the amplifier towards Lakeisha, and plugged the electric guitar into it.  “Volume 11!” he cried, giving a huge strum on the guitar strings.  The rock sound blared loudly throughout the room, its sound waves hitting Lakeisha.  But a zero flashed above her.

        Then Marianne reached into the Bag O’Stuff, pulled out a microphone, and ran over to the battle arena.  Her stats sign showed up above her, too, with a circular picture of her face and the 30/30 HP display.  She unplugged Pedro’s electric guitar from the amplifier, and plugged in the mike.  “Velo City Idol!” she cried, and then screamed “YAAAAAAAAAA, YA, YA, YAAAAAAA!!” very loudly into the mike.  The giant sound waves hit Lakeisha--but a zero flashed above her.

        Then Chad reached into the Bag O’Stuff and pulled out a pan of pie.  He ran over to the battle arena, his stats display showing up above him.  “3.14!” he cried, pieing Lakeisha in the face.  A zero flashed above her as the pan slid off her face.  Her face was covered in pie crust bits and cherry goop.

        This excited Johann very much.  He barked like a dog and ran over to the battle arena on all fours, his stats display showing up above him.  He jumped onto Lakeisha’s bed, right next to her face.  “Wake Up Master!” he cried, licking the pie mess off Lakeisha’s face with his giant tongue.  He ate all of the pie goop, and then panted and barked happily.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        Next, Khadijah approached Lakeisha with a cup of hot coffee.  “Morning Coffee!” she cried, prying Lakeisha’s mouth open with her hand and pouring the beverage into it.  Something then unexpectedly happened--Lakeisha started coughing and gagging.  Khadijah and the others gasped in high alert.  Was this it??  Was this going to wake Lakeisha up??  Suddenly, though, Lakeisha gave off a forceful cough, throwing up the hot coffee all over Khadijah’s face.

        “Owww!!  Hot, hot, hot!!” Khadijah cried in pain, frantically rubbing off the coffee from her face as a zero flashed above Lakeisha.  However, a -8 flashed above Khadijah, which brought her HP down even more--to only 12/30.

        Miko was very alarmed at this.  “Khadijah, your health is weakening.  Let me help you!” she said.  She grabbed a bucket of water with a rag draped over the side of it from the Bag O’Stuff, and ran over to the battle arena, her stats sign appearing above her.  “Aqua Kid Healing Force!” she cried, dampening the rag with the water and rubbing it onto Khadijah’s face.  Khadijah’s face was healed, and a +8 flashed over her.  Her HP was back up to 20/30.

        “Thanks, Miko,” Khadijah sighed in relief.

        “You’re welcome!” Miko beamed.

        “Ringing in the Ears!” Pedro cried, jumping onto Lakeisha’s bed from behind her, opening up her ear hole to a large size, and dumping an alarm clock in it.  The alarm clock went off loudly in her head, shaking her head violently--but a zero flashed over her.  Pedro pulled the alarm clock back out of her head, and saw that it was covered in earwax.  Once again, he grabbed the front end of Johann’s shirt, pulled it all the way up to the alarm clock, wiped the earwax off the alarm clock, and let go of the again-dirtied shirt, the shirt snapping back into place on Johann’s belly.  “The earwax is off this alarm clock's mind,” Pedro grinned in satisfaction again, pointing to the alarm clock.

        “Fan Slap!” Marianne cried, opening up a paper fan and slapping Lakeisha’s face several times with it.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Star-Swatter Rain!” LaToya cried, holding up a gigantic flyswatter with the swatter part in the design of a giant yellow star.  She slapped the Star-Swatter down on Lakeisha several times.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Watermelon Machine Gun!” Khadijah cried, holding a long gun with a watermelon connected to the top of it.  She shot a whole mess of watermelon seeds at Lakeisha, deflating the watermelon as it was used up.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Cannon Boy!” Pedro cried, as Johann jumped into Pedro’s cannon.  Pedro lit the cannon with a match, and then turned away and plugged his ears.  Johann, rolled up into a ball, shot out of the cannon and hit Lakeisha.  The two of them rolled off the bed and down to the floor.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.  “Tumbler Girl!” Johann then cried out.  He lay on his back on the floor as he put Lakeisha up on his feet and tumbled her in the air really fast with his feet.  Then he pushed her through the air with his feet all the way back to her bed.  Lakeisha landed back on her bed, and a zero flashed over her.  Pedro put the blanket back on Lakeisha.

        “Newton’s Cradle!” Chad cried, pushing a long, giant Newton’s Cradle up next to Lakeisha in her bed.  He pulled up three outer balls from his end of the cradle, and threw them down with a lot of force.  The three balls hit the center balls, transferring their energy through them to the three balls on the other side of the cradle.  Those three balls swung up, hit Lakeisha’s face (with a zero flashing over her), and fell back down to the center balls, which transferred the energy...right back to Chad.  The three balls on his end came out and hit him, knocking him backwards to the ground, and causing a -10 to flash above him.  He was down to 20/30 HP.  “Uggh...I forgot to get out of the way...” he groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head in pain.

        Khadijah stood in a power stance, her fists rolled upward and her eyes firing up.  “Kaaaaammmiiii.........kaaaaaammmiii...........” she called out, and then pulled out a toy model of a Japanese plane.  “KAAAAZZZEEE!!” she cried out, spinning the propellers of the Kamikaze toy plane and throwing it.  The plane zoomed through the air and crashed into Lakeisha’s face.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Wet Willie!” Johann cried, jumping onto Lakeisha’s bed from behind her, putting his finger in his mouth, and sticking the wet finger in her ear.  A zero flashed above Lakeisha.

        “Static Fanatic!” Chad cried, appearing wearing wool socks.  He placed a wool carpet underneath his feet, rubbed his feet furiously over the carpet, and raised his hands up in the air as powerful static electricity shot up his body.  He shot his hands at Lakeisha, zapping her with the electricity.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Whack-a-Friend!” Marianne cried, whacking a plush hammer over Lakeisha’s head several times.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “T.K.O.!” Pedro cried, wearing giant boxing gloves on his hands and punching Lakeisha several times with them.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        “Soda Shooters!” LaToya cried, bringing out two 2-liter soda bottles.  She shook the first one vigorously and aimed it at Lakeisha’s face.  The pressurized soda shot out from the bottle and hit Lakeisha’s face--but a zero flashed over her.  Then LaToya grabbed the next bottle--but Johann snatched it out of her hands.

        “Hey!” LaToya cried out in surprise as Johann shook the bottle and shot the soda into his own mouth.  He then faced Lakeisha and cried out, “Belch Bomb!”, and let out a long, earth-shattering burp at her.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        As the whole battling mayhem went on in the arena, back in the background was the only kid remaining in the background--a very shocked and silent Benny.  He was alone--the only one of the kids who had not moved from his background spot.  He couldn’t move--he couldn’t speak.  He could only stare, dumbfounded and in huge disgust at all of these obnoxious attacks the other kids were doing to his precious love.  He absolutely refused to participate in this.  What...is...everybody...DOING??! he screamed to himself in his head.  They’re beating the living daylights out of her!  His temper was steadily rising in him...he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could bear to watch.

        Khadijah climbed up onto Lakeisha’s bed from behind her and held open her eyelids.

        “Flash Beam!” LaToya then cried, aiming a flashlight at Lakeisha’s exposed eyeballs and turning it on.  The three-hearts meter along the side handle of the flashlight powered up to full power, and then an intense beam of light shot out from the flashlight into Lakeisha’s eyelids.  The beam stayed on Lakeisha’s eyes for several seconds, until tears gushed out from her eyes.  In the background, Benny winced.  “Hey, don’t blind her!” he cried out to LaToya.

        “I know, I won’t,” LaToya answered, keeping her focus on Lakeisha, turning the flashlight off a couple seconds later.  The tears soon stopped flowing out of Lakeisha’s eyeballs, and a zero flashed over her.

        Marianne grabbed one side of Lakeisha’s mattress, while Pedro grabbed the other side of it.  “Bedquake!” the two of them cried out together, shaking the mattress back and forth as vigorously as they could.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha.

        The window behind Benny suddenly slid open, and Chad jumped onto the windowsill from outside.  Benny leaped out of the way, startled.

        “Seasickness!” Chad cried, holding out a water hose from outside in his hands.  He looked back outside, down below him.  “Let’er rip, Johann!”

        Down below outside, Johann grinned and saluted Chad as he turned on the water hose’s faucet.  Water traveled up through the hose and shot into the room, flooding the room about halfway with water.  The other kids screamed in fright as they and everything else in the room floated up in the sea of water.  Then Chad threw the hose back outside and dove into the water, swimming across the room until he reached Lakeisha’s floating bed.  He grabbed the edges of Lakeisha’s bed and wobbled it up, down, and around in the water very vigorously, trying to induce seasickness in her.  It seemed to be working...Lakeisha started to look sickly-looking in the face, and she was coughing a bit.  But then her face freshened up again, and a zero flashed over her.

        “Aww, man...I had it...” Chad muttered to himself, swimming up to Lakeisha’s face and wobbling the bed around a little bit more.  Lakeisha then suddenly barfed all over Chad’s face.

        “Aaaaauuuuggghh!!” Chad cried out in huge disgust, his whole body turning a sickly green.  A -12 flashed over him--he was now down to a dangerous 8/30 HP.

        “Oh my!” Miko freaked out, quickly swimming over to him.  “Chad--you’ve been poisoned!”  By the time she reached him, another number flashed over Chad--a -3.  With his HP at an even lower 5/30, Chad was so weak he could barely keep himself afloat.  And the vomit poison was going to drain him of the rest of his health if Miko didn’t act fast.

        “Marianne, help me keep his body up!” Miko called out to her desperately.  Marianne shot on over to Chad and held his body up above the water.  “Aqua Bath Healing Force!” Miko then cried out, squirting liquid soap from a large bottle all over Chad’s face and body.  She then dipped a large-handle brush into the water and scrubbed Chad’s face and body with it, washing off the vomit and smell from him.  Marianne then shoved Chad up and down in the water several times to rinse him off.  A +15 soon flashed over Chad, refreshing him to 20/30 HP with the poison out of his system.

        As Khadijah watched Chad being rinsed, a very devious idea came to her.  She swam over to Lakeisha, pulled her out of bed--and then started shoving her face in and out of the water several times, trying to induce drowning in her.  Lakeisha started gargling and coughing furiously.  Benny freaked out--this was way too devious for him to bear.  “AAAAHHH!  KHADIJAH, NOOOOOOO!!” he screamed in anger.  He shot across the water at torpedo speed into the arena, his stats sign finally showing up above him.  When he reached Khadijah, he tried to grab her--but she shoved him away.

        “Aaack!  Benny, what are you doing?!  Move away!” Khadijah screamed back in anger.  “I’m trying to wake Lakeisha here!  She’ll definitely wake up if she can’t breathe!”

        “Killing her is not going to wake her up!” Benny retorted even more indignantly, trying several times to reach Lakeisha and rescue her.  But Khadijah kept shoving him away.  Benny then saw the bedroom door, and got an idea.  He quickly swam over to the door, and opened it.  All the water in the room gushed out the bedroom door, and all the kids and things in the room floated back down to the bare floor.  With no more water to obstruct her breathing, Lakeisha’s airway soon cleared and she resumed her peaceful slumber on the floor.  A zero flashed over her.

        “UGGH, BENNY!!” Khadijah roared, completely ticked off.  “I HAD HER!!”  She stormed towards him, ready to lay a fist on him.

        “You can’t have her life!” Benny protested, nervously backing away and shielding himself with his hands.

        LaToya quickly ran over and intervened--she stood in front of Khadijah with her arms outstretched, blocking her from reaching Benny.  “Whoa, wait, stop, Khadijah!  Wait!” LaToya said.  “Look...maybe Benny’s right.  Maybe we shouldn’t really try, umm...‘fatal’ ways of waking Lakeisha up.”

        “I wasn’t going to let it get that far!” Khadijah barked, very annoyed.  “Honest--I had it under control!  I just wanted her to freakin’ wake UP!  Sheesh!”

        “Speaking of up...look, up in the sky!” Pedro cried out.

        LaToya and Khadijah looked behind themselves, and Benny looked ahead, to see Pedro standing next to Lakeisha’s bed, pointing upward.  He had already put her back in her bed and put her blanket back over her.

        “It’s a bird, it’s a plane...it’s Super Jump!” he finished crying out.  He then leapt up high into the air and began jumping on Lakeisha as many times as he could.  He counted each jump out loud:  “One, two, three, four, five, six...”

        LaToya and Khadijah quickly ran over to the side of Lakeisha’s bed where her face was showing to watch her for any signs of awakening while Pedro was jumping on her.  But Benny stayed where he was, his eyes bugging out in more disgust.  Aaacck!  He’s trying to squash her like a bug!, he freaked out in his mind.  He felt that this attack was too brutal, too...so he got down on the ground and slithered over with his elbows to the other side of Lakeisha’s bed without Pedro or the two Baker sisters seeing him.  He grabbed hold of the edge of the blanket and looked up at the jumping/counting Pedro, waiting for just the right moment...

        “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-WHOA!!”

        The blanket suddenly got pulled out from underneath Pedro’s feet, and he flew off the bed, crashing hard into LaToya and Khadijah--the crash made the sound effect of a bowling ball crashing into bowling pins.  The three of them tumbled back several feet before finally coming to a stop.  A zero flashed over Lakeisha while three -10’s flashed over the three kids laying in pain on the ground.  LaToya and Pedro were now down to 20/30 HP, while Khadijah was down to 10/30 HP.  While the crashing happened, Benny quickly threw the blanket back over Lakeisha’s body and ran over to the three kids to check them out, pretending he had never been by Lakeisha’s bed at all.

        “Hey, are you guys alright?” Benny asked them.

        The three kids sat up and rubbed their heads in pain.  “Ow, I guess...” LaToya replied.  “Pedro, what in the world happened??  How did you fall off the bed like that??”

        Pedro shook his head in confusion.  “I have no idea!” he shrugged.  He looked back at Lakeisha’s bed and saw nothing out of the ordinary.  “Uhh...I guess I tripped or something...”

        “Are you guys okay??” asked a worried Miko, who had now just run up to them.  “Looks like you could all use...a Group Hug!”  She smiled and opened up her arms to the three injured kids, while they looked back at her and at each other in great confusion.  “Come on now, get up!” Miko encouraged them.

        When the three of them stood up, Miko first gave the two Baker sisters a great big hug together.  Blue star sparkles arose from the hug, and two +10’s flashed over the sisters as a result.  Then Miko hugged Pedro, which also sparkled him up with blue stars and had a +10 flash over him.  Pedro grinned a cheesy grin.  “Sweet!” he said.  “You cute girls can hug me anytime!”

        “Uggh...” Khadijah groaned, rolling her eyes in annoyance.  Her HP was back up to 20/30, while LaToya and Pedro had full 30/30 health again.

        “Out of the way, guys, unless you want to get gunned down by tennis balls!” Chad called out.

        Pedro, Miko, Benny, and the two Baker sisters turned to see Chad coming towards them, pushing a tennis ball pitching machine.  Startled, they all moved out of the way.

        “Tennis the Menace!” Chad then cried out, turning on the machine.  A spray of tennis balls shot out from the box like a machine gun and pelted Lakeisha.  A zero flashed over her.        

        “That’s right, we have to continue to fight the fight!” LaToya said.  She then addressed Miko.  “Miko, you’re doing a great job being the doctor on the battlefield.  But we could use your help as a fighter, too.  So what do you say--will you help us?”

        “Oh, um...well...” Miko thought nervously.  Behind the group was Benny, who was watching Miko tensely.  No, no...say no, Miko...stay as the healer only... Benny pleaded to her silently.  So far he and Miko were the only ones who had not yet attacked Lakeisha.

        “Come on, Miko--we really need as much help as we can possibly get to wake Lakeisha up,” LaToya persuaded.  “We need to all work together at this.”

        Miko thought about it for a little while longer.  She finally caved.  “Umm, uhh...okay, I’ll try,” she answered timidly.

        Nooooooo, dang it! Benny growled.  Miko never saw his pleading face at all.

        “Great!” LaToya exclaimed.  “Then let’s move, soldiers!”  She, Miko, Pedro, and Khadijah ran back to the battle arena.  Benny, however, walked back to the sidelines, frowning in disappointment--he was just gonna have to be the lone non-fighter, now.  He refused to participate in a battle he didn’t believe in.


END OF PART 2 --- TO BE CONTINUED...