Or Oh, Great, Not This Crap Again.
Well, to make a long story short, Zelda made a complete and utter disgrace of herself. Half of their remaining chili was gone when Link decided to do something about this. “I’ve decided to do something about this,” he announced.
Zelda was too busy stuffing her increasingly chubby face to say anything, and all the others were too stupefied to say anything coherent.
“Well, since no one seems to be listening to me,” said Link, “I guess I can’t share this marvelous idea of mine.”
Still no response. Another empty barrel of chili was flung aside. That’s kind of paradoxical, empty barrel of chili… how can it be a barrel of chili if it were empty? Whatever. I’m just going to get this over with.
“Darunia!” snapped Link. The huge Goron didn’t say anything. “Darunia?” continued Link. “Snap out of it, big guy.” Link poked his sworn brother in the side. “I’m going to need your help, here.”
“Huh? What?” said Darunia.
“I need you to help me get Zelda to the Boss.”
“Oh. Right.”
Seeing that this was the most efficient method, Link and Darunia each grabbed one of Zelda’s now-massive legs, and pulled her out through the doorway, leaving a half-emptied barrel of chili just beyond her reach.
Or at least they tried to. She got stuck.
Zelda, stuck in a doorway, without the chili she loved. A week ago, Link would have sworn it would never have happened.
“I think we’re going to have to just leave her there for now,” said Link. “Come on, let’s get to the Boss’, quick.”
Darunia followed and they both drove off in the big, rock-filled truck.
Meanwhile, back in the hotel room, Zelda’s peculiar lust for the chili had driven her to develop her latent psychic abilities, and she hovered a barrel of chili over, and a ladle.
Meanwhile, in the Boss’ offices…
“What’re they doing now, Bill?” the Boss asked his young writer, now in the form of a spray bottle labeled “Windex” and carving very quickly into a clay tablet.
The bottle was at his desk, writing furiously. “Don’t bother me now, Boss,” squeaked the Windex. “I’m in rare form. It might not be funny yet, but I’m about to make a breakthrough.”
“Oh,” said the Boss. “So should I be expecting them?”
“Yeah, they should be here in just a few seconds.”
Bill scribbled something on his clay tablet, and the Boss was completely ready for visitors, and Link and Darunia came in panicking. “Someone to see you, sir,” said Rauru, the new evil secretary.
“Send them in,” said the Boss, but he didn’t need to, for Link was already in, babbling like a looney.
“Zelda… gone mad… eating lots of chili… can’t be healthy… oysters… help… stuck in… door… please help…”
“Hold on,” said Bill the Bottle of Windex. He scribbled something more on his clay tablet, and Zelda was cured of her addiction to chili. Just in time, too, they were beginning to run out.
“Thank you,” said Link in all sincerity. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, let’s see, that’s one, two, three, four times. Okay, Darunia, we’re out of here.”
Link and the Goron left, and the Boss turned to Bill and said skeptically, “That was your big breakthrough?”
“Wait for it…” replied Bill.
And wait the Boss did. After a few minutes, he was almost convinced that nothing was going to happen, and was about to say so, when Link and Darunia stormed back in.
“Someone to see you, sir,” said Rauru futilely, even as Link said, “She’s still stuck in the door, and she’s still fat.”
“Send them in,” said the Boss out of instinct, then decided to shut up and let Bill handle this for once.
“You know what?” said Bill.
“Dirty windows are the spawn of Satan?” guessed Link.
“Well, yes, but more importantly, I’m fed up wit all your whining and complaining about every tiny thing that’s gone wrong in your life.”
“But you just cured Zelda,” said Link.
“And this is pretty important,” said Darunia. “She’s in the door and I really have to pee!”
“Bathroom’s right over there,” said Bill, aiming his spray nozzle at a door. Darunia ran off and said, “Well, I suppose I can give you a new door, but from now on, if you want me to do something for you, you’ll have to do something for me.”
“But—but you’re an author!” sputtered Link. “The gods themselves obey you absolutely! I’m only saying this because you’re writing it! Why would you possibly want us to do something when you could do it yourself without breaking a sweat?”
“Because I’m angry!” explained Bill.
Link accepted this explanation. “I accept this explanation,” he said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Bring me the head of Tom Cruise on a silver platter!”
“Okay,” said Link. “Just out of curiosity, do you want the rest of him attached?”
“Not particularly, but I don’t really care.”
“Right, so that’s the head of Tom Cruise on a silver platter, hold the rest of the body if possible. You want fries with that?”
“Sure. And can I get a glass of water with that?”
“Absolutely,” said Link. “Your total comes to $6.05 after tax.”
“I got an idea,” said Bill the Windex. “How about I pay you by returning your little, well, not so little any more, but anyway, I’ll pay by returning Zelda to her normal size and weight, okay?”
“That would be wonderful, sir,” said Link. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
Link walked over to the bathroom in which Darunia was. “You almost done in there?”
“Hold on a second,” called Darunia. “How do you flush this thing?”
The bottle of Windex scribbled something on his clay tablet, and the toilet flushed with the sound of a bull elephant brushing its teeth.
Link and Darunia left to the hotel room, where they were pleased to see a new door, and they proceeded to act like they had been there the whole time.
“Link?” asked Zelda somewhat faintly. “What… what happened? The last thing I remember is sitting down to eat some chili, which I really don’t like, and all of a sudden it’s over a week later and I’m the size of Zimbabwe and I’m stuck in a door. What’s going on?”
Link proceeded to fill everyone in. “As soon as you ate that chili,” he said, “you were overcome by a horrible addiction: you were addicted to Evil Ninja Clown chili. You went absolutely mad for it. We took a long detour or two while we were out adventuring and came back with about thirty barrels of it, and you ate about twenty of them, most of them this morning. Darunia and I went to see the Boss, and you got cured of your addiction, but we have to go on an adventure to get you out of that doorway and back to normal.”
“What kind of adventure?” asked Zelda.
“We have to get the head of Tom Cruise on a silver platter, with or without the body attached, and some fries and a glass of water.”
Zelda, who, as you’ll remember, had developed her latent psychic abilities, tried to use them to wedge herself free. Alas, she was firmly stuck, and if the door weren’t a permanent part of the architecture, it would have broken long ago under the stress. “No use,” she said. “I know!” she levitated a few things around in the kitchen, and a glass of water floated out. “Here,” she said, “one less step.”
“Thanks, Zelda,” said Link, glad that she was once again back to normal, doing her best to pull her own considerable weight, though it would take a lot of people, or at least Darunia to do that now, and it would stay that way until I got my head!
Zelda, needless to say, was deeply distraught at the end of the above paragraph. “Hey, quit pestering me about my weight! I know I’m fat, you don’t need to rub it in! It’s not like it was my fault.”
Blah, blah, blah. I’m not leaving this alone until I get my head!
“Well, anyway,” said Impa, “I’ll get the fries.”
“I’ll stay here with Zelda,” said Malon, “for emotional support.” Zelda and Malon were bestest friends.
“I’m sleepy,” said Saria. “I wanna go with Impa!”
“Okay,” said Link. “I guess that means Darunia, Nabooru, and I are going to go look for Tom Cruise, and see if we can get his head.”
And so Our Heroes set off once more, seeking the fabled head of Tom Cruise. Or something else.
Impa immediately went to the Generic Fast Food Place in the lobby of their hotel, and there purchased some French fries, and some other “food” for Saria. Then she went up to help Malon with the pathetically easy job of helping Malon watch the horrendously corpulent Zelda. I told her I wouldn’t leave her alone about it, and so I’m not.
Link, Nabooru, and Darunia, on the other hand, had a very difficult job. Fortunately, time doesn’t seem to hold any sway in this particular series of stories so although it seemed to take a long time to them, Einstein sez it wasn’t very long for the people waiting in the hotel room.
This is what happened:
Link decided that if they split up they would cover more ground. Nabooru, being the shrewd, arrogant, mildly egotistical person she is, took credit for this wonderful idea, and before Link knew what had happened they were off.
Darunia took his truck to Miami. There are a lot of houses in Miami, but after a few long days Darunia decided officially that Tom Cruise’s head was not in any of them. He then carried his truck on his back all along the coastline and to the Appalachian Mountains, where there are many hermits.
Now, the Fraternal Order of Appalachian Hermits may not contain the best hermits in the world, but they certainly had a lot of them. Darunia decided that rather than lug his truck around to every one of these hermits, he would just ask the head of the brotherhood, while he was riding his truck.
“So, you want to know where to find Tom Cruise’s head?” asked the Chief Hermit.
“Yes, I do,” replied Darunia, barely straining under the weight of his truck.
“Hmm… if you want me to do something for you, you’ll have to do something for me.”
“I seem to be hearing that a lot lately,” muttered Darunia. Now he began to speak up. “Sure, what do I have to do?”
“We want to open a chapter house in Tibet,” explained the Chief Hermit, “but the Tibetans keep forcing us out. We need you to build us a chapter house there.”
“You got it,” said Darunia.
Darunia then set his truck down, and drove out through the back wall of the Chief Hermit’s cave.
He drove and drove and drove until he couldn’t drive any more, so he stopped at a truck stop, took a shower, refilled his tank, and drove a little more, until finally he came to Tibet, the Land of the Great Hermits. Actually it’s not called that, but I thought it would be funny, and I want to make poor fat Zelda suffer longer which is why I took the time to say it and to explain this, how do you like me now, fatty? Huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought!
Ahem. Where was I?
Ah yes. Darunia came to the Chief Hermit of Tibet, also called the President of Hermits. “I have been sent to build a chapter house here for the Fraternal Order of Appalachian Hermits,” announced the Goron.
“What a coincidence,” said the President. “So have I.”
“What?” asked Darunia.
“Long ago, I was sent here by my father, the Chief Hermit if Appalachia, to build a chapter house here in Tibet. I instead was accepted into the Tibetan Hermits’ Guild. And here I am today.”
“That’s… very interesting,” replied Darunia. “How about you lease me some land to start building it on? I’ll pay up front.” The Chief hermit had given Darunia some money, quite a lot of it in fact, but I was too busy making fun of how Zelda weighed at least as much as three and a half rhinoceroses to mention that fact. (Don’t tell her that that’s actually an exaggeration, please).
“I must charge you All of Your Money for you to build the chapter house.”
“Okay,” said Darunia, handing over the cash.
Later that afternoon, Darunia built a large house with his bare hands.
He drove all the way back to Appalachia, and told the Chief Hermit what he had done.
“Splendid!” said the Chief. “Now, I will tell you the location of the Head of Tom Cruise….”
But before he could do that, I decided to tell you what Nabooru had done.
She basically searched the whole of the Magical City of Answers, and stole everything she saw that she wanted, because she is a thief after all.
She found no sign of Tom Cruise after days of searching, but did manage to become extremely wealthy. So she placed an ad in the paper, saying she wanted someone who could find the exact location of Tom Cruise’s head and that she would pay almost Zelda’s weight in various expensive goods. Actually those weren’t her exact words, but she probably didn’t have that much anyway. That’s more a testament to Zelda’s weight than to Nabooru’s considerable skill as a thief.
The next day, a funny little cloaked man with beady little glowing eyes under his gray hood presented himself. “I am a Garo,” he said with a raspy rasp of a voice. “I will find Tom Cruise’s head.” Nabooru knew she could trust him; Garos were very good at spy-type stuff.
The next day after that, the Garo returned. “I have found the head,” he rasped in his raspy rasp.
But the Garo didn’t have time to tell her since I had to narrate what happened to Link.
Link went off on a Most Exceedingly Grandiose Quest Adventure Thingy and found a really spiffy bow-and-arrow, and killed a nasty evil monster, but found no sign of the fabled Head of Tom Cruise.
He decided to go on another Most Exceedingly Grandiose Quest Adventure Thingy. This also produced no favorable results, but he did get to make his sword shinier.
The third time, though, proved to be the proverbial charm. Instead of a neat weapon thing he found a Mystical Scroll. This scroll told of the exact location of Tom Cruise’s head.
The Chief Hermit, and the Garo, and the Mystical Scroll all said the exact same thing: “It’s on his shoulders, idiot.”
Not much later, they also all said, “His shoulders are in the Quite Large City, which is to be found on the other side of the Impossibly Huge Cliffs.” The Impossibly Huge Cliffs, I should note, are probably the one thing in the world larger than Zelda at this point in time. So basically they’re really fricking huge.
Link, Nabooru, and Darunia regrouped at the Hotel Room.
“We think we’ve found him,” said Link.
“That’s good,” replied Impa. “The fries are starting to get cold.”
“You could always just get more,” suggested Malon.
“This is true,” replied Impa. “So, where is he?”
“He’s in Quite Large City, on the other side of the Impossibly Huge Cliffs,” said Darunia.
“I think we should fly there,” said Nabooru.
“I think we should hire Sherlock Holmes,” said Link, “but since he’s all the way in nineteenth-century England, Nabooru’s idea is better.”
“Then let’s go!” said Darunia. They all left through the door I had to give them because Zelda was too fat to fit through the other one. Zelda had given up on trying to persuade me not to do this, so I had no choice but to come there in person and redouble my efforts. This means that you, the reader, no longer have to put up with my insults! Not much, at least.
Nabooru had purchased a pilot for the jet, so she no longer had to busy herself with flying it.
Link and Darunia, seated in the cabin of the jet, could not help but notice that there was a lot of stolen goods taking up most of the space in the plane, and that it gave the impression that there was more hidden somewhere. “I could not help but notice,” said Link, “that there are a lot of stolen goods taking up most of the space in the plane, and that it gives the impression that there is more hidden somewhere.”
“As a matter of fact, all of these things are absolutely true,” said Nabooru. “What, are you going to get all goody-goody on me and turn me in because I stole half of everything that wasn’t bolted down in the Magical City of Answers?”
“Actually, I was just asking. Besides, you’re an officially licensed thief, so technically you’re allowed to do that.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have any spicy rocks in here?” asked Darunia. He was hungry since he had been building a house all day.
“They should be buried in there somewhere,” said Nabooru.
“I found ‘em,” said Darunia, holding up a medium-sized party bag thing labeled “spicy rocks.” He began to munch them.
Before long, the Impossibly Huge Cliffs were in view. They really were impossibly huge, because from the window, Link could see that they took up the entire sky. “I can see that they take up the entire sky!” he exclaimed.
The pilot Nabooru had hired was a very good one, and soon they had flown clear through the Impossibly Huge Cliffs, and ahead of them was Quite Large City.
The plane was soon landed, and Quite Large City’s largeness was soon very apparent to Nabooru. They say the larger the city, the more stuff that’s there. Actually, they don’t. But it serves my purposes just fine. This city, Nabooru decided, must have a lot of stuff in it, and since she was an officially licensed thief, she could take all of it at her leisure. But not now. They had a job to do: finding Tom Cruise’s Head.
They were about to begin a search, but Nabooru instead decided to place another ad in the paper. “Wanted: Tom Cruise’s Head, w/ or w/o body” and then the name and number of their jet.
The next day, there was an anonymous note left in their plane. It was written in cut-and-paste letters from a magazine. “If you want the Head,” it said, “leave $183,506.19 in small, unmarked stolen goods by the tree in the middle of the City.”
“$183,506.19?” thought Nabooru out loud. “A drop in the bucket.” She gathered that much stolen goods into a bag, and made Link and Darunia go put it by the tree.
It was a very uneventful trip for Darunia, who never noticed Link impaling mugger after mugger on his shiny new sword and gathering the rupees their burning corpses turned into.
They left the bag by the tree, and the next day, Tom Cruise himself was left, bound, gagged, and unconscious, on the plane’s front door. Link put the head on a silver platter he found among Nabooru’s stolen goods (without taking it off, there was no need for that) and they disembarked for the Magical City of Answers.
During the middle of the flight, Tom Cruise somehow broke free and turned into a huge hideous monster, with the body of Abraham Lincoln and bearing the heads of a canary, a can of sprite, two nine-pound bowling balls, and a Barbie Doll Action Figure™.
It began to wreak havoc in the plane, until Link drew his spiffy new bow and shot its sprite-head. The monster turned around with agony, and with its arm in the shape of a garden hose, flailed at Link.
Fortunately, Link was smart and dodged the hose. He then shot one of the bowling balls. Tom Cruise turned all blue. This was his chance; Link slashed at the monstrosity with his shiny new sword, but Tom Cruise retaliated by kicking Link across the room!
The battle continued a long cycle of shoot—slash—kick until finally it died and turned back into Tom Cruise. Then the pilot stopped flying in circles and landed.
Link walked triumphantly into the Boss’ office, ignoring Rauru’s “Someone to see you, sir” and the Boss’ “Send them in.”
He presented the platter, along with the fries and the glass of water he had picked up on his detour to the hotel room.
“Splendid!” squeaked Bill the Windex, who had returned from the hotel room once Zelda had mastered the fine art of Ignoring the Author. “From now on, anything you want, you name it!”
“Really?” asked Link.
“No!” said Bill. “But for a while, at least!”
“That’s great!” said Link. “Will you please make Zelda her normal size, shape, and weight?” said Link.
“I’ll do even better!” said Bill. “Wait, no I won’t.” He scribbled something on his clay slab. “There you go. Anything else I can do for you?”
“Uh, sure,” said Link. “Can we have a permanent residence within the Magical City of Answers?”
“I would, but there are no permanent residences within the Magical City of Answers.”
“You’re an author, you can make one.”
“Oh yeah.” Bill scribbled something more on the slab. “You need help moving in?”
“Nah,” said Link. “We have to make this story longer.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Link left, and after a short while, the Boss emerged from his own section of the office. “Can I say something besides ‘Send them in’ now?” he asked timidly.
“Sure!” said Bill. “I’m not angry any more.”
“Thanks,” said the Boss with a slight relieved sigh. “Why did you want the Head of Tom Cruise?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Works for me.”
Meanwhile, back in the hotel room…
“I’m back to normal!” exclaimed Zelda. “I didn’t even have to go to the trouble of changing into my normal clothes!”
At that point Link strode triumphantly in, flanked by Nabooru and Darunia.
Zelda rose excitedly and hugged Link. “I’m back to normal!” she said again. “Thank you so much!”
“Don’t mention it,” said Link.
“Too late!” said Zelda. “I already did!”
They all had a cheesy fake laugh at this, and then Link said, “I have more good news!”
Everyone began to listen eagerly, until they realized that Link, too, was waiting for himself to say something, and this made him very embarrassed, but he started talking anyway. “I got us a permanent residence to stay in here in the city!”
“I thought that didn’t exist,” said Impa skeptically.
“Not until now!” explained Link. “Come on, everybody, let’s get packed. It’s that really big, well-supplied mansioney building across the street.”
There was a general chorus of, “you’re the best, Link”s and “oh boy! A real house”s and “whatever”s and then everybody scrambled to get packed.
Zelda, who retained her latent psychic abilities, was able to pack all of her possessions into only one suitcase this time, which was good since Nabooru and Impa needed that one to put their plane it.
And basically everyone left with what they came there with, more or less.
They all went across the street, and ran excitedly around their new house, and saw that it already had all the necessary appliances and furniture and whatnot. Then they put all their stuff into their appropriate places. They even found that everyone had at least one room of their own.
They had a great time moving in, but eventually they cam to miss their old hotel room.
So Zelda (who had much more money even than Nabooru had stolen) paid some construction company to take the hotel room and move it from the hotel to their house, and so they had a new wing sticking out of the third floor. This was a very large house, mind you.
They all got accustomed to this new house and life basically returned to a normal vacationing lifestyle, lounging around, or watching TV, or doing some stuff, or staying up late telling funny stories over a bowl of Evil Ninja Clown chili (now 100% addiction-free, guaranteed) or going to a beach they asked Bill to install within the city, and basically just taking it easy and having a wonderful vacation.
Until something happened that caused them to wonder whether or not they would have o go back to their normal lives.
Of course, for some of them at least, there was little difference between their vacation and their job, except for where it takes place.
But anyway, this something I was talking about, it happened. Oh, it happened all right. It happened so hard that none of Our Heroes knew what hit them until they found out.
It was a happening so happeny that I am going to allude to it for the rest of the story.
Wait, I mean it was a happening so happeny that it happened.
However, I have not yet decided what this happening was, so it looks like you’ll have to wait until the next installment to find out. Suckers!