Headache

by Crystal Marcos

  HEADACHE: The Hair-Raising Sequel to BELLYACHE

  By Crystal Marcos

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Crystal Marcos

  Author Portrait by Marie Marcos

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in a review.

  Cat Marcs Publishing

  PO Box 54

  Silverdale, WA 98383

  www.CatMarcs.com

  ISBN 978-0-9843899-7-1

  For my little cupcake

  Contents

  Back at the Sweet Shop

  A Barking Mess

  Finally There

  Easy Breezy Ham and Cheesy

  Breaking the News

  I Knew It!

  Not So Happy Donuts

  Unexpected Visitor

  F-I-S-H-E-R

  Saving the Best for Last

  Hidden Treasures

  Checking Things Out

  Redecorating

  A Gift from the Garden

  Heads Up!

  Meteors and Martians

  The Sweetest Sweet Shop

  Meet Crystal

  HEADACHE

  Back at the Sweet Shop

  Darkness.

  “Where are we?” Joe asked.

  “Shhh, I think I hear voices. Don’t move,” Angela replied.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Me neither,” Angela agreed.

  “Follow that light,” Joe advised.

  “Hey! That is my nose!” Angela wailed.

  “Get off my toe, please!”

  “Yuck, I stuck my finger in something sticky!” Angela griped, and then banged into something hard. “Ouch, I think I just found the door!”

  “Hurry, open it!” Joe replied.

  “I am,” Angela said.

  A relaxed smile spread across her face as she met Joe’s eyes. She glanced past his head and instantly her smile became a look of horror, followed by a scream. As she instinctively covered her mouth with her hands, smearing the white sticky substance across her nose, she screamed again.

  “What is it?” Joe said shakily, not moving his eyes from hers.

  “Get it off my face, get it off my face!” Angela finally screeched, her arms fanning at her nose which was covered in whipped cream frosting.

  Joe sprang into action, grabbing a dish rag. He worked briskly to remove the unwanted substance. When not a trace was left, he said, “It’s all gone.”

  She didn’t reply and stared past him with a look of fright.

  Joe reluctantly turned to look over his shoulder. With terror upon him, he saw one single cupcake perched in the doorway staring at him. He glanced to the side of the door and saw a light switch. He switched it on.

  Both children gasped. There was an excellent reason for their fright. Angela and Joe were Candonite children. Candonites were sweets and there were many different races. Angela was a cookie Candonite and Joe was a lemon-drop Candonite. Before them was a large walk-in refrigerator holding hundreds of miniature versions of themselves and people from their land. Cupcakes, fudges, brownies, chocolates, and other tasty treats lined the shelves. Many had fallen to the floor. Neither child spoke for several moments.

  “I don’t think we are in Maple Town any more. I don’t think we are anywhere near it,” Joe said.

  “Obviously! This isn’t our home!” Angela scoffed.

  “Calm down!” Joe said. “Let’s see if we can figure out what happened.”

  They both were very nervous, realizing they were far from their own world, far from safety. They scanned the room which was now illuminated by the refrigerator lights. It was a kitchen.

  “See what you have done?” Angela whined.

  “Now you wait just a minute!” Joe said. “What do you mean, ‘what I have done?’”

  “Don’t you remember? Peter and Lina had just saved us from that horrible Goaltan and the other Peblars.” She shook her head as she tried to forget the awful time that the four of them spent escaping from Goaltan’s dreadful lair. Thank goodness Peter and Lina came to their rescue. Otherwise, Joe and Angela would still be in Goaltan’s freezing, putrid castle. Angela shook her head harder, as if to shake the memory right out of her head and continued. “We were standing in front of the special delivery box that brought Peter and Lina from their world to Maple Town. They were on their way home. You reached out to bid Peter farewell with a pat on his back. I knew that wasn’t a good idea. I grabbed at your hand to try to stop you while they were saying the magic words to bring them home and—poof—here we are!”

  “So you think we are in Peter’s world, Earth?” Joe asked.

  “Yep,” Angela replied with a frown.

  “I didn’t know this would happen; there is no use in blaming anyone. We should use our energy trying to figure out how to get back home,” Joe said calmly.

  “And just how do you propose that? Should we jump in this mixing bowl and be on our way?” she said sarcastically.

  “Angela, calm down,” Joe replied.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! I don’t know anything about this place except that they eat things that resemble us. Look at those poor miniature Joes stacked against the wall!”

  Joe examined bags of lemon drops encased in their plastic tombs. He was horrified.

  “And I am sure there are some positively helpless cookies with rainbow chips, resembling me, lying around here somewhere! I couldn’t bear to see that.”

  “It will be all right,” Joe reassured her. “Now let’s take a look around so we can find out at least where we are.”

  They scanned the room and saw three doors. One was open, while the other two were closed. They decided on the open door to the left.

  Joe reached around and felt for a light switch. They released sighs of relief when they saw it was plainly an office, with nothing to be afraid of. Once inside, they saw a picture of an older human man with glasses on the edge of his nose. He was standing in front of a building. The building sign read “Papa’s Sweet Shop.” They made their way around the small room, which was cluttered with papers, file cabinets, and baking books. In the back of the room was a wooden desk with a worn leather chair. A piece of duct tape was placed snugly on one arm. Another picture sat on the desk. The same man they saw in the other picture stood next to a woman about the same age and a smiling young boy.

  “Peter!” the Candonite children shouted in unison. He looked a few years younger in the picture, but there was no mistaking him.

  “This must be Peter’s grandfather and grandmother,” Angela said.

  “Great! At least we aren’t too off base. We will be home in no time,” Joe said, relieved. “There should be something here that can lead us to him.”

  They rummaged through papers and flipped open books with handwritten notes in them without any luck. Joe began opening drawers. He reached into one drawer when a bottle caught his eye. “Imported from Indonesia,” its label read. He repeated the words aloud, wondering where on Earth Indonesia was. He adjusted the bottle so he could see its contents. Immediately he dropped it into the drawer and covered it up with a piece of paper before Angela could see that it contained quite beautiful rai
nbow chips. The middle drawer contained what they were hoping to find, an overstuffed Rolodex filled with addresses and phone numbers. Joe took it out and thumbed through it.

  “Farmer…Fellows…Finney’s Market…Come on Fis….Here it is, Fischer! Peter and Tracy Fischer.” Joe was so excited at his find that he tore the card right out of the Rolodex. “Oops! I will give this back later,” he said. He smiled at Angela who was clapping her hands gleefully, her colorful chips shaking as she did.

  “713 Mulberry Place. This is where we go,” Joe said.

  “Do you think there may be a map around here somewhere?” Angela asked.

  “It won’t hurt to look,” Joe answered.

  Angela and Joe searched the desk drawers and looked in the file cabinet. After a few minutes, they found a town map. Joe wrote the house number on the edge of the map, circled Peter’s neighborhood, and left the address card on the table. The Candonite children gave each other a quick hug and headed back to the kitchen. There were two doors they hadn’t opened. They went to the nearer one, opening it cautiously and becoming more alert when they smelled the sweet scent of fresh-baked goods. Their bodies stiffened when they looked into the room, faintly lit by the fading sun. It was as though Angela and Joe were looking at a miniature version of their world. Only this version lay on plates and in jars and on shelves with prices for their lives displayed. The Candonite children were disgusted.

  “I could never get used to this!” Angela hissed.

  “You won’t have to. We will be out of here and safe at home in no time,” Joe reassured her.

  A figure passed the window walking briskly and the children froze.

  “Maybe we should wait until dark before venturing out to find Peter. We don’t know if everyone will be as friendly as he is. Besides, we don’t exactly blend right in, you know,” Angela suggested. Joe agreed as he looked around again at the mini-Candonite graveyard.

  “Let’s make ourselves less conspicuous,” he said. “Maybe there’s something we can use to disguise ourselves.”

  A Barking Mess

  “We have to be careful not to be seen,” Joe said. “I am not so sure our disguises will fool anyone.”

  “I think we did a pretty good job with what we could find,” Angela replied, straightening the apron she had placed over her head. She found it hanging on a hook in the kitchen and mistakenly thought it was a hat. She had tied a bow with the ties on the back of the apron on her head and the rest of the apron cascaded down the back of her neck and sides of her head. In addition, Angela wore a dress she made out of a pastel floral tablecloth she discovered in a cabinet. She held it together with safety pins she found in a drawer. Angela thought she looked splendid.

  Joe felt awkward in his disguise despite Angela’s encouragement. He found Papa’s black fedora hat and a charcoal floor-length trench coat hanging in the office. He also tried on a spare pair of glasses Papa kept in a desk drawer. Surprisingly, after a minute of adjusting Joe could see out them perfectly fine. They were an exact fit and didn’t dangle off his nose the way they did for Papa.

  “We should stay in the shadows as much as possible,” Joe said.

  Angela agreed.

  “It may take us all night to get there,” Joe added, gazing at the map.

  “After we spent most of the day in Goaltan’s ghastly castle and escaping, I hope I have the energy to stay awake,” Angela said.

  The Candonite children reflected on the day’s events. Waking up that morning, Angela and Joe had had no clue they would end up in two different unknown worlds. They certainly didn’t think they would have to be rescued twice in order to return home.

  Angela and Joe stood near the glass window of the shop, taking note of the darkened streets, nothing like the shiny colorful ones back home. Joe began opening the door to start their quest when bright lights appeared in the distance. He quickly let go of the door and retreated inside. Soon they saw that the bright lights were connected to a car. But this car didn’t hover off the ground like the ones back home.

  “Interesting,” Joe said.

  “I’ll say,” Angela replied.

  “Let’s try this again,” Joe said, reaching for the door.

  As Joe and Angela exited Papa’s Sweet Shop, they took note of the building number and approached the street sign on the corner. It read “Winters Road.”

  “The air is unpleasant here. It doesn’t smell anything like home.” Angela grimaced. It was another clue they were far away from the sweet smell of Maple Town.

  The children traveled unnoticed for about an hour with one wrong turn. After rounding a corner, they were spotted by an elderly man. The man was just a few feet away walking briskly toward them. There was no time to react before he was upon them. He wore thick glasses and his silver hair hung long against his neck, his broad smile beaming at them.

  He paused and spoke, “Top of the evening to you. Usually don’t see many folk out this late. Doing my evening rounds. Not much of a sleeper myself.”

  Angela and Joe looked at each other in surprise and replied, “Evening.”

  “Doc says I shouldn’t be out walking this late with my sight going and all. He worries about me running into trouble. I told him, I been walking these streets for 67 years and I ain’t planning on stopping anytime soon. I ain’t never been much of a sleeper. That’s a nice hat you got there.”

  “Um, thanks,” Angela replied.

  “Well, I better be going. I got another four blocks to go before I get home. By the way, young man, yellow is a good color on you. Evening.” The man nodded and hurried off.

  “Evening,” the children called after him. He waved back without turning around.

  Angela and Joe looked at each other and let out soft nervous giggles. They had obviously fooled the old man and were relieved they did.

  Angela and Joe continued their traveling for quite some time, ducking in and out of alleys, narrowly missing being spotted by a passing taxi driver, when they heard the pattering of little feet behind them. When they swung around to investigate, they saw a pair of eyes and a long wagging tongue attached to a fuzzy little creature.

  “What is that thing?” Angela shrieked, stepping back.

  “Shoo! Go away!” Joe commanded. But the fuzzy little creature started wagging its tail.

  “It’s a dog!” Angela said. The dog peeked over his shoulder, and soon another identical dog slightly larger than the first appeared from the dark street.

  “Not more of them,” Joe said. Waving his arms, he gestured and said, “Shoo. Go on! Get!” No sooner did he have the words out of his mouth than two more dogs, one black and one dingy white, joined the others. All of them wagged their tails.

  “Oh no!” Angela sighed.

  With a flash of an eye the dogs sprinted toward the children, sniffing and licking at Joe and Angela’s legs.

  “Yuck!” Angela said as she tried to weave away from the dogs.

  “They like the way we smell. We have to find a way to get them to leave us alone quickly before we wake someone,” Joe said.

  “I have an idea,” Angela said. “Follow me.” She turned around, heading toward the way they came, and began walking quickly. Joe did as he was told. It was difficult to walk with the dogs at their heels. Angela tripped over the smallest dog and it instinctively licked her face. She couldn’t help it, she giggled. Joe helped her up. “There,” she said, pointing at a dumpster in a seemingly lifeless faintly lit alley.

  Joe jogged over with the dogs following closely behind, climbed on a crate, and peeked in. “Uh uh, no way,” he said as he scanned the unwanted waste. “Sick! Don’t humans know about recycling?”

  “You got a better idea? We don’t have time for this. Jump in,” she coaxed.

  Joe didn’t budge. Angela pushed another crate beside the first, climbed up, and grabbed Joe’s arm, pulling him in with her as she plunged into the heap of trash. The dogs barked after them.

  “Did you really have to do that?” Joe whined.
>
  “Yes,” Angela answered. “Now roll around in it and cover up your natural smell.” She demonstrated what she wanted.

  “Disgusting!” said Joe as Angela rubbed an old rotting cabbage head against her body.

  “Oh, lighten up,” she said, as she grabbed a damp wet sponge and threw it at him. Joe said nothing and returned the favor, slinging a handful of something slimy and bright yellow across her shoulder. Angela gave him a “how dare you” look, followed by a giggle and began chucking trash at him left and right. Soon it was an all-out war. After a minute, Angela and Joe were crouching in opposite corners, covered from head to toe in waste.

  Joe stated the obvious. “We may have overdone it.”

  “I think so.” Angela looked Joe up and down and then at herself.

  “I don’t hear the dogs anymore,” Joe said. He pulled himself up and peered out. He found the dogs staring back, their tails no longer wagging.

  Angela joined him and they helped each other out of the dumpster, pushing and pulling. The dogs remained there, eyes fixed with blank faces. The little one was positioned in front. The dog’s lip began to curl, a low soft growl came out, and he promptly turned and trotted away. The other dogs followed him.

  “It worked!” Joe said. “You were right.”

  “And you doubted me,” Angela said, feeling smug.

  “Never again. But now we are terribly disgusting!” He laughed.

  “Well, I like to think it was better than having those dogs lick us silly,” Angela said.

  “Hopefully, we can find something to clean some of this off,” Joe said as a drop of goo dripped off the end of his nose.

  “Is the map okay?” Angela asked.

  Joe wiped his hand off on the crate and reached into grandpa’s coat pocket. “Looks good.”

  “Phew!” Angela whispered.

  The Candonite children were soon back en route to Peter’s.