Meepits vs Feepits... Vs Dr. Sloth: Part Ten

“Give me the bomb!”

     “No, let me have a go!”

     “TWENTY EIGHT SECONDS!”

     “Oy! Gimme that back, yoose all dunno what you is doing!”

     King Sloth, Roger, Charles, Alex, Lily, Daisy, Lieutenant Matthew, Helga and George all watched in both fear and amusement at the scene in front of them. With Donna now calling out every second left, everyone was trying to deactivate the bomb themselves, snatching it from one another and attempting to pull the tangle of wires with their bare hands. Being short, Ralph was having trouble trying to get it back. Terrified and unaware of what he was doing, Dr. Sloth was stepping on many of his geraniums, flattening them to a pulp.

     “TWENTY SEVEN SECONDS!”

     Roger let out a small snort of amusement as Ralph took a dive for the bomb and narrowly missed, landing instead on Queen Fyora’s foot.

     “TWENTY SIX SECONDS!”

     “We should really head out of here, just in case!” whispered Lily, terrified. She found less amusement in the situation than the others.

     “You go then,” whispered George rudely in reply.

     “TWENTY THREE SECONDS!”

     Lily bit back a reply as Ralph finally managed to get hold of the bomb again.

     “TWENTY TWO SECONDS!”

     Ralph was working even more furiously on the bomb now. He pulled some wire cutters out of a pocket and studied the wires carefully, not wanting to make a rushed choice. It was all Dr. Sloth could do not to jump on him, snatch the cutters and cut every wire possible. Donna was looking terrified, calling out each number with a steadily increasing shake in her voice. Queen Fyora and the Space Faerie were both feeling just as impatient and worried as Dr. Sloth, although for slightly different reasons. Behind the geranium pot, the meepits and feepits prepared to make a run for it if Ralph could not deactivate the bomb by the time there was five seconds left.

     “FIFTEEN SECONDS!”

     Ralph ignored the panicked comments of his master and concentrated on the wires. He had narrowed it down to three wires now and had given himself five seconds to decide which would be the safest to cut. He ignored the sweat dripping furiously down his forehead.

     “THIRTEEN SECONDS!”

     Lily started edging slowly towards the back door, closely followed by the other meepits plus George and Helga. They had all lost the amusement in the situation now.

     “TWELVE SECONDS!”

     Ralph narrowed his choice down to two wires to cut, both of which were so tangled with other wires they would be hard to cut without cutting another wire anyway.

     “ELEVEN SECONDS!”

     The shake in Donna’s voice had now increased so much her voice sounded a lot like Ralph, but nobody noticed.

     “TEN SECONDS!”

     Ralph chose a wire and tried to position it so he could cut it without cutting another wire that could potentially blow everything up.

     “NINE SECONDS!”

     Everyone else in the room froze, including the meepits and feepits. They were all watching Ralph closely, waiting to see what would happen when he cut a wire and hoping to Neopia and back it would be the right one.

     “EIGHT SECONDS!”

     Dr. Sloth was now so terrified he had picked a large bunch of geraniums and was crushing them in his hand.

     “SEVEN SECONDS!”

     Ralph was forced to wipe the sweat off his forehead before it dripped into his eyes.

     “SIX SECONDS!”

     “Oh no!” whimpered Dr. Sloth.

     “FIVE SECONDS!”

     The only sound now was the faint ticking of the bomb. It now seemed to tick extremely loudly, almost vibrating in everyone’s head.

     “FOUR SECONDS!”

     Tick, tick, tick.

     “THREE SECONDS!”

     Tick, tick. Ralph prepared to make a cut.

     “TWO SECONDS!”

     The room was still dead silent, even the ticking seemed to have stopped now. It hit Dr. Sloth first. “The ticking has really stopped! The bomb has been deactivated!” This was followed by sighs of relief from everyone in the room. Dr. Sloth was now looking embarrassed at having been so terrified, and immediately dropped the geraniums he realised he had been crushing in his hand. He tried to subtly wipe the juice off his hands onto his cloak.

     “The bomb still seems to be unstable, so it will have to be handled with caution, just in case,” warned Ralph, wiping the flood of sweat off his forehead. Everyone ignored him, too relieved that the current threat was over to think of any other danger. Dr. Sloth even picked the bomb up in an attempt to show he was not afraid of it and “never had been.”

     “To think this tiny thing could cause so much trouble!” he exclaimed, glaring at it and inspecting it from all angles. Acting on a sudden desire, he threw the bomb halfway across the room, at the same time yelling, “Well done, Ralph, for deactivating it!”

     He went silent, though, as everyone in the room stared in horror. A small fire had started where the bomb had landed, and geraniums were quickly catching alight. Unfortunately, many of the geraniums were grown in wooden pots, so the fire spread easily, along with the smoke.

     ---

     “RUN!” shouted King Sloth, forgetting the need to stay hidden. Thanks to the quickly spreading smoke, they could not have been seen anyway.

     “Where?” called out Daisy. “I can’t see the door!”

     “I think I have found it!” yelled out Roger. He felt around, found the handle, opened the door and dived through. Without waiting to see what happened to the others, he ran to other end of the edge of the passage.

     Lily and Charles managed to find the door soon after and they too ran out without waiting for the others.

     “I still can’t find the door!” screamed Daisy, walking into a wall.

     “It is this way!” yelled King Sloth, at last managing to find the door. He ran through, leaving it open for Daisy but caring too much about self preservation to wait for her or help her. Daisy followed the wall, heading in the direction she thought she had heard her leader’s voice. She too found the door and ran through. Nobody bothered to find out what had happened to the feepits.

     On the other side of the room, Dr. Sloth finally remembered that he kept a hose in his geranium garden.

     ---

     Dr. Sloth stood impatiently in the canteen line. He hated queuing but being such a ‘great’ and ‘kind’ leader, he felt it only polite. Donna, standing next to him, jumped as his stomach gave a loud grumble.

     It was a few hours since the fire had been put out. Unfortunately, all that was left of Dr. Sloth’s geranium garden was one small pot with a single flower. It was now kept on his bedside table as a memory of the once great garden.

     “You know, Donna,” he said thoughtfully as he read the canteen menu. “I think I will start a new garden, this time with lots of different plants. Maybe roses! What do you think?”

     Donna rolled her eyes; she had a sneaking feeling that Dr. Sloth and plants with thorns would not mix. “It sounds like a great idea, sir!”

     ---

     “Platoons, ATTENTION!”

     In a surprisingly large clearing in the Haunted Woods, every single meepit in King Sloth’s army stood to attention. They were standing in five groups; the spies headed by Major General Roger, the warriors headed by Major General Daisy, the thieves headed by Major General Charles, the scientists headed by Major General Alex and the collectors headed by Major General Lily. Standing proudly in front of them, having just given the attention order, was Lieutenant Matthew. Next to him stood His Lordship Royal Majesty King Sloth, wearing all his important clothing and his too tight crown. As everyone stared at him he began to speak.

     “As you have all probably heard through various rumours, thanks to my skill, initiative and planning we have managed to uhhh... defeat the feepits and steal Dr. Sloth’s Neopian Invasion Plans! I feel that, unlike him we can take his plans and put them to good, clever use. Do you all agree with me?”

     As one, hundreds of meepits all shouted out “YES!!!” at the top of their lungs. Even if they did not agree, it would not have been a great idea to say so.

     “Charles, hand me the plans then.”

     A collective gasp went out amongst the meepits as Charles proudly stepped forward and handed over the plans he had stolen from Dr. Sloth’s sock drawer. King Sloth took them and slowly, carefully unfolded them, enjoying keeping his ‘audience’ under suspense. As he skimmed his eyes over them however, his face started to turn red and his hands began to shake violently in anger.

     ‘Dear King Sloth (and gang),’ the “plans” began politely.

     ‘I suspected that you would try and steal my super amazing plans to use for your own purposes (it is obvious that you are not capable of inventing a good plan on your own) so I took the liberty of hiding my plans somewhere else and leaving you this note. Congratulations, I suppose, on at least managing to steal something, which I had my doubts you would be able to do.

     Yours sincerely,

     Your superior and Neopia’s very, very soon to be leader, Dr. Sloth.’

     ---

     Far away in the Space Station, in his private quarters, behind a brand new ultra extra high security door, Dr. Sloth cackled (and giggled when he realised nobody else was around) with glee as he watched King Sloth’s reaction through a small hidden spy camera. Smirking, he took a large bite into a canteen hotdog.

The End