Another day in Meatsville. Another glorious, glorious day.

6am.

Richie awoke to the screams of the chirping birds. The ones that lived outside. The bed-ridden chap found himself tangled up in a telephone chord. A makeshift blanket. Obviously something was fickle.

Getting up, Richie realized it was breakfast time. He could smell the meat from a mile away. It just so happened, however, that he didn’t need to be a mile away. The meat was downstairs. However, failing to go downstairs, he ran into the next room. The room his sister was occupying at the time.

He ran into the girl’s room and screamed as he saw what she had done. MargaRAT had taken all of Richie’s blankets and tried to replace them with a telephone wire. The poor boy hadn’t noticed.

"M-RAT!" he cried at the top of his lungs. You know. The very top.

6:01am

The girl awoke to the sound of a wiry, top-of-the-lungs-type fellow screaming his cute little heart out. Trying desperately to understand the situation, but at the same time trying not to wake up (as she was dreaming about junkyard nomads, and the thought of meeting one seemed downright intriguing), the girl opened one eye. That eye met an eyeful of screaming-in her ear! Understanding, but not really caring about the situation, M-RAT woke up after a chorus from her brother, in his unusually awkward screaming voice, a voice best compared with screaming orangutans, the defensive kind, not the nice kind, as is generally thought of apes, that they’re friendly; some are, some aren’t, it really depends, as described in an abnormally long sentence that seemed to just go on and as the text slowly permeated the viewer’s mind as it was probably the most irritating sentence of the entire play.

"What’s the poop, Rich?" spoke the girl in a fluffed voice.

"Kids! Breakfast!" cried a bitter, fickle voice from downstairs.

"AHHH! It’s time for MEAT!" cried Richie in a tone that would suspect that the boy hadn’t quite anticipated his sister had woken up yet, as he was still screaming well after she did.

"W-w-w-w-why didn’t you say so, Jollyhead?" she cried. She jumped out of bed, and together the two comrades bolted downstairs. Every annoying step stimulated the happy staircase. Step by step. Foot by ugly foot. The two jetted downstairs as if their immediate lives depended on it.

M-RAT was first into the kitchen, a room that was actually disconnected from the rest of the house for political reasons. As she walked in, she was met by a facefull of ants.

"What do you think of em?!" asked the jaded, useless voice of the man the kids called DADDY.

"AAHHH!!" cried M-RAT!, confused and shocked by the clod of dirt with ants on it, encased in a big glass jar.

"AHHH!!!" cried Richie, still screaming from when he was upstairs.

"I’m starting an ant collection," he said, moving to the left a bit, revealing that the whole kitchen has been completely overtaken by ants.

"Don’t worry," spoke the disheveled, unnecessary voice of the one they called DADDY, "I’ll get this mess fixed up by mid-day."

Referring, of course, to the unsalted MEAT that sat at the table before the group of friendlees.

"Me first! Me first!" yelled Richie.

"Do you have any other tone besides Loud?" grumbled the needlessly dispickable man the children knew only as DADDY.

"Junkyard voices, Richie!" whispered M-RAT!."

The two sat down and enjoyed their MEAT. The salted meat, of course. The unsalted meat would remain a problem until, probably, about mid-day.

"So let’s go play, Rich! You know, outside!"

"Well, but… Well I was gonna go see how many hate-letters I can send to potato-chip companies before they either threaten me with lawsuit or give me free potato chips. Boy, I sure am hungry."

"Silly Richie. You cannot write."
"Oh yeah. OK lets go."

The two exported themselves outside.

"So where you wanna go?" asked Rich.

"Junkville, of course." Said M-RAT!, taking charge in this situation, once again.

"Junkville? Well, Gee wiz, M, I mean, that’s a long ways away."

"Shut up."

"OK."

"It won’t be long if we take the imagination-bus!"

"Oh hey, I never thought of it like that!"

"Obviously…"

The two climbed in, looked around, then at the bus driver, who was dressed in a blue jumpsuit.

"Howdy, kids! I’m Blandy McCharacter!"

"Sounds fun!" started M-RAT!

"It’s really not." The bus then took off, and went into the sky where it was never heard from again. For at least 8 minutes.

The two then left their fateful city of Meatville to venture on foreign quests in Junkville, land of a thousand junks.

At least 8 minutes later the bus stopped at Junkville and the two children departed.

"So long, "Blandy McCharacter! We won’t forget you, and the good times we had!"

"You alllreeaddy haaaave!" cried the strange, un-described (not indescribable) old man dressed only in a blue jumpsuit as he and his forgettable bus flew away.

"Don’t you remember what happened 8 minutes ago?" said M-RAT!

"Ah, I suppose," responded Rich, eager not to use his brain in any way, "but when are we ever going to junk-dig? I’m getting hungry and I can’t wait to go back to eat some ant-salted MEAT! I wonder how Daddy’s ants are doing…"

M-Rat, apparently, still thinking about the imagination-bus ride, said, "I think it was fascinating how the old man used his brain to avoid going to college, so that he could cleverly manage to drive the imagination-bus every single day." Obviously referring to a story much too uninteresting to actually put into print, but still managing to talk about it just enough to waste about the same amount of time, M-RAT! pushed Rich into a puddle that was sitting next to him.

"Gee Wiz! Why’d ya do that?" spoke Richie in a dumb-founded voice.

"Don’t you see?" cried his sis, "I had to. That puddle looked lonely, like it was in desperate need to absorb something. You were just standing right there!."

"Well, I rarely understand what you’re talking about, but alright, friend." Spoke the ugly half of the dimwitted duo. But why had the girl pushed the boy into the pond? As a matter of fact, she was trying to push Richie out of the way, as, a strange, nomad-looking creature seemed to be walking up to the two siblings, and she seemed, at first, embarrassed to be seen with such an unknowledgeable trash-picker such as her brother.

"Err…Hello there, kids. Uh, how are you?"

"Good," said M-RAT!, speaking for both of them simultaneously. It was a multi-tasking trick she had picked up in Cyberville.

"I am the prince of Junkville. I am high and mighty, but I thought I’d get off my high horse for just one moment while I talk to you nice young small little children here." He said as he tapped each one of the children’s noses in a way that, in description, seems peculiar, but in practice, is considered friendly. "For I am the prince and I am in great peril."

GASP! Cried the duo!

"Tis True… For you see, I (sniffle, cough) the prince of Junkville, am in need of assistance. I request immediate help, the kind of help that only a prince needs…(cough, cough) It is a task that will be amply rewarded, if not materially then by sheer knowledge of knowing the prince—the prince of Junkville!"

"Oh boy, sounds like fun!" The two both exclaimed at the same time, which would lead any outside viewer to believe that they simply must have practiced that sort of thing for at least a couple days.

"Yes, I uh…(COUGH!!! COUGHH!!!!) I, the mighty and exalted prince of this land you see here in Junkville," the children looked around to see a couple stores, a dinosaur, and a stink-heep the size of the moon, "I, the most splendid and un-sordid of any prince, do request a small favor."

"Anything!" said M-RAT!, obviously taken back by the man’s charm and loftiness.

"In my quest to save the kingdom, (wheeeeez, cough, cough, wheeeez) I must ask of you this one simple favor.." He looked at the two square in their eyes, all four of their eyes. "In as cultured and dignified a way as imaginable, I must ask of you two…I…. I’m kind of hungry and I really would like to sit down for a little while I uh… (Cough)…"

"We have MEAT! Come with us!" the two said, in a seemingly practiced unison, once again.

"Really? Cool, thanks. Man, that actually works out perfectly. See, I’m not even supposed to be here! Ha!" The two looked confused. "Oh, it’s cool. It’s cool. See, I’ve been kicked out of Junkville. I’m a-uh…ya know…(cough) a political prisoner and shit?"

"You sure do have a lot of wallets!" exclaimed Richie as three small folded money-pouches fell out the man’s wrinkled, ripped-coat.

"Why did they kick you out of Junkville?" asked M-RAT!.

"They accused me of thieving, the ass holes."

"That’s dastardly." Cried M-RAT!

"Yea," he said with near-enthusiasm, "yeah, I-yeah it sucks. House thieving, in fact. They caught me red-handed—But I didn’t do it!"

"That’s totally unfair!"

"Yea, I know. So you kids don’t happen to have a house, do you?"

"We do," Said M-RAT!, "and we were just going to it."

Then, suddenly, a thought somehow managed to crack through the thick, un-penetrable skull of Richie as he said, "Hey, do you want to come to our house?"

"Well that uh, (cough) that was, indeed, what I, the high and mighty one…what I was getting at," said the prince, in a renewed accent," I do indeed. I do. (Cough!) God it’s freezing out here isn’t it?" Said the grungily magnificent fellow to the two eager young schoolchildren.

"I don’t seem to think so," said M-RAT! to the man. She stripped a layer of coat off and, to further prove her temperature-driven point, she discarded the thick coat in the Dumpster that was stationed right next to her.

Squiiiiirrrrr!!! A small armadillo weaseled it’s way down the pant leg of the exotic new friend.

"Ah, I’m sorry," grumbled the old man in a voice someone might think of using after they just threw up, "that’s my armadillo. It’s a pet, you know?"

"Huh. An aardvark in hand is worth two in the pants!" Said a small little boy, an annoying little boy, who always seemed to be filled to the brim with wisdom beyond his years.

No one knew what the small blonde little trouble-maker was up to or why he was there so they beat him up with no delay and then exported themselves back to Meatville.

The three arrived back at the house by mid-day and walked inside.

"Hello, children. Hello raggedy-dressed-prince." Said Daddy.

"Hello."

"Hello (cough!)."

"You’re just in time for MEAT! I got the salt working again…sort of." Cried Daddy in a voice that, for a moment, could’ve been mistaken for enthusiasm, were it spoken by anyone other than the one who spoke it.

The new-found-friend went into the other room.

"Well, kids," spoke the unusually pointless voice of the one they called DADDY, "I realized, in my constant studying of these ants, that I am very able to come up with a solution to the unsalted MEAT problem."

"Oh?" spoke M-RAT, in her bossiest tone possible for an honestly curious response.

"You see," spoke the generally uninterested man the children referred to as the magnificent DADDY, as he picked up one of the ants with his pinky and pointer finger, "if I squeeze on em hard enough, this juice comes out. Stay with me. This liquid, sticky, grainy substance that excretes from the ants delicious little bellies actually looks and tastes like salt!"

Daddy put some on a piece of MEAT toast and then took a big, annoying bite. Obviously looking pleased, but too modest to swallow in front of children, he smiled his big ugly face into a food-stuffed grin that resembled a jack-o-lantern filled to the brim and about to burst with water. An eery yellow-ish (not yellow) smoke slowly came out of his nose.

"Oh no! What’s that?!" cried Richie, usually not this engaged in current affairs.

"DADDY! Are you alright?"

Daddy swallowed the fine ant goo but the smoke would not stop coming out of his nose.

"ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO!" screamed DADDY.

"Achoo…" mellowed M-RAT!, trying to be a part of things.

"Wow. I think this ant goo makes me sneeze a lot. That’s strange. I feel kind of queezy, too. That kind of makes me want to sing…Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!"

Just then, a loud BITE BITE BITE squiiiiirrrrr!!! Was heard from somewhere in the background.

The group looked around quick. But then M-RAT looked in front of her to see that the strange noises were not coming from behind, but from in front of the group—from the armadillo!

"Way to be on top of things, Narrator."

Shut up.

"What’s the armadillo doing?" spoke Daddy in an unmistakably compromising voice.

The armadillo had eaten a whole MEAT-filled banana dipped in ant-goo, and was about to eat another one, when it fell over and died.

"Apparently the ant goo made him die! That’s probably why you feel queasy, super-POP, (referring to her father, DADDY) you’re going to DIE!"

"Oh boy wouldn’t that be a shame worse than raising you two kids….."

"What?" asked Richie.

"Nothing." Said Daddy, innocently.

"Well, I didn’t ingest very much of the goo. And what I did eat, I didn’t chew. So I can say, without any doubt on my stupid face, that I’m gonna be O.K." He made one of those hand gestures where the thumb meets the pointer finger, and the other three wail around in idiotic excitement, signifying the "O.K" gesture.

"Well….What about the armadillo? It’s starting to smell bad. And it’s got ants crawling out of it’s mouth."

"That brave little trooper." Said Richie.

"Snap out of it, fingle-wit!" said the girl, slapping the lad.

"Thanks, comrade. I needed that."

"No problem. Now about this armadillo… there’s only one thing we can do…"

The three sat there for a moment, a couple of them thinking, but one of them sitting their unthinking, trying to create a thoughtful pause.

"Funeral/Taco Party!" Cried Richie, interrupted by M-RAT!

"Funeral!" cried M-RAT! "We got to have a funeral!"

The three then went outside, dug a deep hole, and threw the half-invisible carcass of the now-dead animal with-Hey! Wait a minute! It’s not invisible at all! You ripped it in half, Richie!

"No I didn’t."

Yes you did! It’s hanging out of your pocket now!

"Sorry!" said Richie to the Narrator as he discarded most of what he had in his pocket. The three looked in at the hole and the animal therein.

"YAWN! I’m tired and stupid. Let’s go back inside. This festival of tears is making me hungry." Said Richie with his characteristically nihilistic outlook on life.

The three exported themselves back into the kitchen, only to find a hunched over, puking junkyard nomad, searching for his last breath of air. The poor man, with a coat that appeared stuffed, had ant goo dripping out his mouth and smoke coming out his nose. The brave soldier feared the worst, as death was upon the horizon for this lonely trooper. A plate fell out of his dirty jacket and fell and broke into at least 30 pieces as it hit the floor.

"Shnarrgle!" the man screeched as he fell off the table and onto the floor, where the plate had hit just seconds before. As he hit, his whole coat seemed to break into at least 300 pieces from the inside.

"Oh God! These plates, they’re cutting me! The insides of me! Ahhh!" cried the dignified stranger one last time before he FINALLY died.

"Huh. Guess the thief doesn’t fall far from the aardvark." Said a small little boy, an annoying little boy, who always seemed to be filled to the brim with wisdom beyond his years.

Daddy, M-RAT! and Rich all attacked the boy with unrelenting rage until he couldn’t feel a single part of his body.

The End.