|
Ricardo was walking
down the New York sidewalks on one fine, sunny Friday afternoon. He was
done working down at Pedro’s Pet Supplies and was now going home to
relax and play with his pet llama. He really liked that llama, even if
it did spit on him all of the time. The llama’s name was Llarry. Ricardo
had bought Llarry the llama from a strange old Peruvian man while he was
he was visiting relatives in Peru. The only thing that the old man had
asked for in return for the llama was a can of Spam and a six-pack of
Jolt cola. Ricardo walked up the steps to his apartment, found the key
under the “Beware of Llama” doormat, and unlocked the door. As he opened
the door, Llarry suddenly rushed madly up and knocked him flat on his
back and then spat on him. Ricardo just smiled. He loved that llama!
Ricardo decided that
since Llarry was feeling rambunctious that it would be wise to take him
for a walk. He hooked the ten-foot long leash onto Llarry’s bright red
llama-collar. Ricardo and Llarry walked out of the apartment, down the
steps, and onto the sidewalk. Ricardo waved to his neighbors, who had
long since gotten used to the strange sight of a man walking a six-foot
tall llama down the street, as he and Llarry walked by them. His
neighbors waved back and quickly hurried out of the way, since his
neighbors had also long since learned that llamas like to spit.
Ricardo and Llarry came to a busy street corner and waited with the
crowd for the “Don’t Walk” sign to light up so that they could cross.
The light changed and all of the other people made a mad dash across the
street amidst the honks and squeals from cabs. Unfortunately, half way
across the street, Llarry stopped dead in his tracks to nibble on half
of a discarded bagel. Ricardo heard the rather nasty squeal of tires on
pavement and quite suddenly and painfully found himself lying underneath
a cab.
Ricardo didn’t notice
the sound of the guilty cabby cursing loudly in Pakistani. He was much
too busy wondering how the tires had gotten onto his chest. He also
didn’t notice the cabby frantically rushing out of his cab to see if he
was dead. Neither one of them noticed a bunch of punks sneak up during
the confusion, steal the cab’s hubcaps and silently sneak away. The next
thing that Ricardo noticed was that the cab was being lifted off of his
chest. “He’s all right,” someone in a uniform shouted. “Well, except for
the blood.” After the person carefully examined Ricardo, he added, “He’s
just stunned.”
The person, who
happened to look like a paramedic, helped Ricardo get up off of the
pavement. “You’re lucky,” he said. “Somehow you only wound up with some
scrapes and bruises. I’d recommend that in the future not stopping in
the middle of a busy intersection when the light is green.” Ricardo,
still somewhat dazed, thanked the man and limped away from the scene.
Ricardo looked back at the street and saw an unscathed and oblivious
Llarry contentedly still gnawing on a bagel.
* * *
A few days later, a
much recovered Ricardo once again unlocked the door to his apartment and
put the key back under the “Beware of Llama” doormat. Upon entering the
room, he was knocked over by an overly zealous Llarry. He quickly moved
out of the way of the spit flying out of Llarry’s mouth. Ricardo decided
to take a risk and take Llarry for a walk. Ricardo hooked on Llarry’s
leash and walked out of the door.
Somewhere near the top
of the steps, for some unknown reason, Llarry suddenly spun around in a
circle and bolted back towards the apartment door. Ricardo, caught
completely off guard, also got caught up in the llama’s long leash.
With the leash now completely twisted around both of his ankles, Ricardo
stumbled as the llama dashed forward. Ricardo, due to Newton’s law
that stated for each action there is an opposite and equal reaction,
started inevitably falling in the opposite direction - head-first down
the stairway. Several extremely painful flights of stairs and numerous
bruises later, Ricardo finally landed. Ricardo slowly dragged his
battered body off of the floor. He limped up the steps to where he saw
two inattentive Llarrys happily lapping up a spilt can of Jolt cola.
Ricardo closed his blackened eyes, shook his head, and then looked at
the llama again. Now there was only one Llarry lapping up Jolt.
Ricardo tugged at the
llama’s leash. Llarry, having finished happing up the Jolt, obediently
followed Ricardo. The pair made it down the steps without further injury
and walked out onto the sidewalk. As they walked along, Ricardo
noticed a delivery-truck loaded with bagels go barreling down the
street. Apparently, Llarry also noticed the truck because he started
chasing after it. In the process of the truck chasing, Ricardo found
himself being rather painfully dragged down the center of a busy street
over countless potholes behind a llama that was running 30 miles per
hour, narrowly missing oncoming traffic. This lasted about 20 seconds
before the tour bus hit Ricardo.
Ricardo lay there on
the pavement, reminiscing about the last time he had been in this
predicament. He noticed that this time was a lot more painful. Yes, it
was definitely a lot more painful being underneath a tour bus than a
taxicab. Ricardo laid there in pain for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally, somehow the tour bus was lifted off of him.
The first thing that
Ricardo saw after the bus was taken off of him, by a crane he noticed,
was around thirty Japanese tourists crowding around him, blocking the
paramedics. All thirty-some of their cameras went off simultaneously in
his face. Great. Now he was blind in addition to having been beaten into
a bloody pulp! The paramedics pushed the multitude of Japanese tourists
out of the way and rushed to poor Ricardo. Ricardo felt himself
being examined thoroughly by some paramedics. When his sight finally
came back, Ricardo noticed that the paramedic that was standing over him
was the same one that had examined him after he had been run over by the
cab a few days before.
“What? You again?”
exclaimed the paramedic. “I thought that I told you to stay out of the
middle of busy streets!” He shook his head. “You know if you’d just
listen to my advice you wouldn’t keep getting hit by assorted motorized
vehicles. You were lucky again. Miraculously, you wound up with a lot of
bumps, scrapes, cuts, and bruises. You also appear to have sprained your
left wrist. I’m amazed that you’re not street pizza! Let’s bandage up
that sprain and you can go home. Please try not to get ran over again!”
Once again Ricardo
thanked the paramedic, whose name must have been Paul since it was on
the nametag of his uniform. Ricardo gave Paul the paramedic his address
for billing and limped away to find Llarry. He found Llarry several
blocks up the street, blocking an intersection. The llama was chewing on
some bagels that had fallen out of the delivery-truck, oblivious to the
myriad of honking cabs. Knowing that it would do no good to try and move
the llama at this moment, Ricardo let Llarry finish his snack, then
picked up the llama’s leash and led him away.
On his way back to
their apartment, Ricardo decided to take a scenic detour through Central
Park. About half way through the park, Ricardo wrapped the llama’s
leash around a lamppost and let Llarry graze. He bought a large
bagel from a sidewalk vendor, and then sat down on a bench. He
pondered why he had been having such bad luck lately. Nearby, the
llama grazed near a large flock of pigeons, which were fighting over a
bagel. Abruptly the llama noticed the bagel in the middle of the
ruckus and sent the pigeons flying.
Meanwhile, a poor and
oblivious Ricardo nibbled on his bagel. Suddenly the large flock of
pigeons was attacking him! The birds mobbed poor Ricardo. They
landed on him, and covered him from head to toe. The pigeons dirtied the
new white shirt that Paul had given him to replace his tattered previous
shirt. The birds scratched his bare arms and face with their feet,
ferociously pecked at his arms, head, and hands, and finally wrestled
the bagel away from him. After they had eaten all of Ricardo’s bagel,
the birds flew away, leaving a battered Ricardo covered with dirty
pigeon feathers.
Ricardo fell off of
the park bench, but managed to pull himself to his feet. Ricardo limped
over to the lamppost where an inattentive Llarry was gnawing away
contentedly on the remains of a bagel. Ricardo untied the llama’s long
leash from the lamppost and continued to limp home.
Finally Ricardo and
Llarry exited Central Park. They walked along the sidewalk back towards
the direction of their apartment. A well-fed and contented Llarry walked
along docilely on his leash.
Around three blocks
away from their apartment, Ricardo dropped the llama’s leash as he felt
someone grab him from behind and drag into a dark alleyway. An
extremely burly and tough looking punk was pointing a sawed off shotgun
at him and smiled at him, showing his gold teeth. “Hello sir. In case
you hadn’t deduced it yet, you’re being mugged. Please hand me all
of your money and any valuable possessions you may happen to have on
your body.”
A terrified Ricardo
whipped his battered wallet out of his pants pocket and handed it over
to the punk. Then he took off his watch, which had been a gift from his
Grandma Rosa for Christmas, and handed over his ring. The punk took
fifty dollars out of Ricardo’s wallet, and then handed the extremely
battered wallet back to Ricardo. “Thank you for your cooperation, sir.
By the way, that is a nice looking llama that you have over there.”
Ricardo looked over in
the direction that the punk was pointing and saw an unconcerned Llarry
joyfully munching on a half-eaten bagel from out of a trash can.
Ricardo rolled his eyes. When Ricardo looked back towards where
the young punk had been loitering only shortly before, he noticed that
he had ran off. Ricardo wearily picked up Llarry’s leash and
dragged the llama the remaining three blocks home.
* * *
Ricardo had decided
later that night that it was the llama that was the cause of all of his
misfortunes. He was fed up with being spit on, mugged, run over by
assorted vehicles, attacked by flocks of birds, and falling down stairs.
Just about the only thing that hadn’t happened to him was being
trampled!
Ricardo decided that
it was time to get rid of the llama. He called up JFK Airport and
reserved a ticket on the next flight to Peru. He was going to take
the llama back to the old man and demand compensation for injuries!
The next day, Ricardo
deposited Llarry at the baggage drop off at the airport. The lady
behind the counter had looked rather shocked as she led the llama away.
Ricardo walked through the rest of the airport until he found where his
plane to Lima was boarding at Gate 13. Ricardo and his carry-on
luggage boarded the 8:00 plane for Peru. Ricardo took his window
seat and watched the stewardess demonstrate the safety equipment and
point out where the parachutes were located.
Then the plane took
off. It was a nice flight. The dinner was actually edible, but the
in-flight movie, “Attack of the Giant Killer Rabid Mutant Llama,” gave
him the willies.
Suddenly Ricardo heard
a rather unpleasant sputtering noise and felt the plane shudder.
As Ricardo looked out of the window, he noticed an ominous stream of
smoke coming out of one of the plane’s engines. Ricardo oddly
enough felt quite calm as the voice of the pilot came on over the
intercom. “Hello. This is your captain speaking. One of the
airplane’s engines has quit operating. Please remain calm.
We are now flying on one engine only. I repeat, please remain
calm. Thank you.”
Amidst the ensuing
screaming, Ricardo heard a nasty boom. When he looked out of the
opposite window, Ricardo noticed that the other one of the plane’s two
engines was on fire. Ricardo listened to the pilot come on over
the intercom again. “Hello. This is your captain speaking.
The other engine has exploded. Please remain calm. All
passengers should please take all carry-on luggage and move to the rear
of the plane in an orderly fashion, take a parachute from the
stewardess, and jump out of the plane before it crashes into something
like the ground or a mountain and bursts into flames, killing everyone.
Please remain calm. Thank you. Have a nice day!”
Ricardo grabbed his
duffel bag and calmly moved to the rear of the plane, getting knocked
over and trampled by the screaming stampede of panicked passengers in
the process. A battered Ricardo picked up the last parachute,
jumped out of the door of the plane, counted to ten and pulled the cord
of his parachute.
As he drifted towards
the ground below, Ricardo realized that he was finally free of the
llama! The accursed llama would die in flames as the plane crashed.
Ricardo rather enjoyed the mental image that he had of the llama humming
in terror and trying to spit the flames out but being slowly devoured by
the inferno.
Then Ricardo happened
to look beside him, and saw Llarry floating gently to earth on two
parachutes, that an animal-loving stewardess had wrapped around him
before jumping out of the plane herself, contentedly humming to himself
as he munched on the remains of his in-flight bagel. Ricardo
screamed and promptly passed out.
* * *
When Ricardo came to,
he found himself hanging from the upper branches of an extremely tall
tree from his parachute and nearly strangling on the straps of it.
Ricardo looked down at the ground below and through the layers of
branches he thought that he could see a llama grazing on the meadow
beneath him. He thought that he saw his duffel bag down amongst
the lower branches, but he wasn’t sure.
Ricardo looked at the
landscape around him. He noticed that the terrain was mountainous.
The plane must have reached the Andes before it crashed, since they had
reached South America. Since he was in the Andes, he assumed that
meant that he was in either Columbia or Peru, but other than that he had
no idea where he was. He seemed to be in some remote location.
In the distance, he thought that he could see a little village in a
valley several miles away.
Ricardo just sort of
hung there in that tree for a few hours. He watched as the sun
slowly started to sink into the western sky, which was rather lovely.
He was starting to get a rather nasty kink in his neck from the straps
of the parachute. As Ricardo squirmed to maneuver into a better
position, he heard the branch that he was hanging on make a nasty snap.
He felt himself falling through all of the layers of branches below him,
his body getting scratched by all of the little twigs and branches as
they broke under his weight. Finally Ricardo landed with a loud
thud on the ground, along with his duffel bag, which a squirrel had
managed to open and it was now nibbling on one of the packets of
complimentary peanuts that he had received on the plane.
As Ricardo lifted up
his battered head, he noticed with a certain amount of dread that he had
landed in the middle of a herd of grazing llamas! Ricardo must
have looked otherworldly with his torn clothes, covered by twigs, leaves
and blood from his many cuts and bruises. As Ricardo stood up, the
normally calm llamas spooked at the sight of Ricardo covered by the
ripped and dirty white sheet of his parachute. The crazed llamas’
first reaction was to hum loudly in alarm, and then they started to
stampede in shock. The squirrel bolted for the tree and Ricardo
was knocked flat on his face by the stampeding llamas. The
terrified llamas spat on him as they ran away from him and trampled
Ricardo with their hard cloven nails in the process. After being
stepped and/or spat upon by what must have been the entire herd of
llamas, Ricardo dragged himself to his feet only to be knocked over by a
rambunctious Llarry.
Llarry nuzzled poor
Ricardo. Ricardo was forced to drag himself to his feet once again
and leaned against the tree. Once he had regained his breath, he
sat down and looked over the contents of his duffel bag. He found a
half-eaten bag of peanuts, a can of Spam and a bagel for Llarry, his
latest edition of “Mad” magazine, a penlight, a comb, and sweatshirt.
Great. This is what he was supposed to survive on while he tried
to reach civilization? Ricardo got up, grabbed Llarry’s
miraculously still intact leash, and headed off in the direction of the
little village that he had seen from the tree.
Ricardo limped into
town just as the sun finally set. In the fading light, Ricardo
looked at the scenery in an attempt to find an inkling of an idea to as
where in the Southern Hemisphere he was. Ricardo glanced at a
relatively large building, which appeared under further inspection to be
an airport. The sign in front of the building read (in translation)
“Remote Location in Peru National Airport.” Ricardo’s mouth
dropped open in shock. By some weird twist of fate he had managed
to land exactly where has had wanted to go! Ricardo couldn’t
believe it. After all of his bad luck something had finally gone
right for a change! As Ricardo started to wander away in
amazement, he tripped over Llarry’s long leash and fell face first into
a huge mud puddle. When Ricardo made an attempt to get up out of
the puddle, he found out that his ankles were tangled up in the leash as
he fell flat on his hack into the puddle again. After carefully
untangling his feet from the leash, Ricardo carefully stood up and
walked out of the huge puddle.
Ricardo picked up his
luggage and llama’s long leash and led the llama to the nearest house.
Ricardo planned to ask the owner of the house where the old man lived.
Ricardo walked up the sidewalk to the very fashionable house, stepped
over empty bottles of Jolt cola, stopped at the Spam doormat, and rang
the doorbell. To Ricardo’s surprise the old man himself answered
the door. The old man was wearing a very bright Hawaiian shirt
along with a pair of shorts and flip-flops sandals.
“Can I help you?
Hey, nice parachute! H ave you been skydiving? That’s something
that I really need to try sometime! C’mon in. My friend Ben
and I were just having supper. Would you like to join us?” The old
man glanced at Llarry. “Your llama can join us to if he wants to.”
A somewhat stunned Ricardo dazedly followed the old man into the house,
his complaint unvoiced.
The old man led
Ricardo and Llarry into his kitchen, where a brown haired guy in a Spam
T-shirt was drinking a can of Jolt. “Hey, Bernie. Who’s the guy in
the parachute? A skydiving buddy of yours?”
“Nope, Ben. I
actually haven’t ever been skydiving. We should make an
appointment with a place in Lima sometime soon. And I have no idea
who this guy is but he has a llama with him. Sit down, and have
some Spam and Jolt. Tell us who you are and why you’re here,” said
Bernie as he sat down and put his feet on the table.
Ricardo took off his
parachute, sat down at the Formica table, and got a bagel out of his
duffel bag for Llarry. Then he started to tell his story.
“Well, around two months ago, I was here in Peru visiting relatives.
I was walking down a street on my way to the airport when you, Bernie,
pulled me over into a dark alleyway and said, ‘Hey kid, would you like
to buy a llama? He’s very friendly and he’s housebroken too! He’s
yours for two hundred bucks, or a six-pack of Jolt cola and a can of
Spam. He’d be a great souvenir of your trip to Peru!’ So, for some
unknown reason, I decided to buy the llama. I took the llama home
with me on the plane to New York. Shortly after that the bad luck
started. The day after I brought Llarry home, my apartment was robbed!
The llama spit on me hundreds of times. I fell down thirteen flights of
steps at my apartment building. I got ran over by a taxi and a
tour bus full of Japanese tourists on two separate occasions. I
got attacked by a flock of pigeons in Central Park, and mugged shortly
afterward. My plane crashed on the way here, I fell out of an
extremely tall tree that I landed in, I got trampled by a herd of crazed
llamas and finally I fell into a big mud puddle on the way here!”
“Bummer. But
what's your point?”
“My point? All
of these bad things only happened when I was with the llama! You
sold me the llama! I want you to take back the llama, repay me for
it, and give me full compensation for my injuries! That’s what I
want!” Ricardo was normally a pretty easy-going guy, but he was
mad. In fact, saying he was mad was an extreme understatement.
He was ready to kill everyone in the house and then blow the whole
country of Peru to kingdom come.
“Hey, Bernie,” Ben
interjected. “The last time that I was here you didn’t have a
llama. Where did you get it and then why did you give it to...hey,
what’s your name anyway?”
“Ricardo.”
“Well, I won the llama
in a crooked poker game in Lima shortly after you left for Wisconsin.
Some witch doctor from the Brazilian rainforest was in Lima looking for
a good time and it’s all that he had with him to use for a bet.
When I won the game, he muttered something and made some weird gestures
and said that he put a curse on the llama. I guess he didn’t like
losing. After I got the llama, I fell off my motorcycle on the way
back into Remote Location and wound up in traction in Remote Location
Hospital for a month. After I got out, I had a lot of other nasty
accidents while the llama was around. Anyway, after another nasty
accident, I decided that I had to get rid of the llama. It just
wasn’t working out. Did you know that...Llarry did you call him?
Llarry scared off my neighbor’s llama herd and no one’s seen hide or
hair of them in over three months?”
“I think that I met
them all personally,” said Ricardo as he rubbed his bruises from the
llama stampede. After thinking for a minute, he decided that if he could
get Llarry de-cursed, he’d like to keep him. After all, he really
did love that llama, aside from the bad luck. “Is there anyway to
de-curse my llama? If you can do that, I’ll take my compensation
and the llama and go home.”
“Easier done than
said, man,” said Bernie. “Ben, why don’t you go surf the Internet
and try to find some information that pertains to the de-cursing of
cursed llamas.” Ben gave Bernie a thumbs-up and headed into the
living room. While Ricardo waited, he tried to calm himself by
petting Llarry, but all that that accomplished was getting spit on by
the llama. Ricardo sighed, and then finished eating his Spam.
“Aha!” Ricardo heard
Ben exclaim. Ricardo got up from the table and joined Ben and
Bernie around the computer. “I think that I’ve found the solution
to your problem! Bernie just happens to have a copy of Weird
and Rare Curses of the World, so I looked up your particular curse.
It’s right here under “The Brazilian Llama Curse.” That one is
rare! Did you know that there’s only been one other reported case?
It says that what we need to de-curse the llama is...ew! We need a
vat of llama spit! Then we need a can of Spam, and a penlight.
Then it lists the incantation to use.”
“Great, man!” said
Bernie. “We’ve got cans of Spam up the wazoo, and it shouldn’t be
too hard to get Llarry here to hack up a few lugies for us. I’ll
just go find my penlight and we’ll start the curse-breaking ceremony.
Do we have to wait for a special time?”
“We just have to wait
for midnight. How come you have a copy of Weird and Rare Curses
of the World, anyway?” Ben asked.
“Well, I was just a
little mad at that witch doctor for cursing me and that stupid llama, so
cursed him with the “Curse of the Angry Peruvian Llama-herder.”
That should’ve made him break out in hives the size of Toledo and made
him start clucking like a chicken with a hernia for the rest of his
life. Peruvian law states that if you create a new curse you’ve
got to submit a copy of it to the book, since it’s published in Lima.
I figured that as long as I was published in there that I might as well
buy a copy of the book. You never know when you’ll want to put a
curse on someone. Anyway, I’m gonna go look for that penlight.”
Bernie came back to
the living room after around twenty minutes saying, “I can’t find my
stupid penlight!”
Ricardo smiled and
said, “Well, I just happen to have one in my duffel-bag. Here, I’ll go
get it.” He was glad that that penlight had come in handy for
something. He handed it to a grateful Bernie.
For the next few
hours, they waited for midnight. Ben surfed the Internet looking for
information on ancient Inca civilizations while Ricardo and Bernie
played a quick game of poker. Finally it was just about midnight.
The trio quickly persuaded Llarry to fill up a vat full of spit, and
then got out a can of Spam from a crate full of it in the kitchen and
the penlight. Ben grabbed the instructions and they set up shop.
At midnight they
started the curse-breaking ceremony. Ben started to read off the
instructions off the sheet of paper, and then he started to chant off
the curse-breaking incantation. Bernie opened up the can of Spam
and set it in front of Llarry, who wolfed it down eagerly. Then
Ricardo shone the penlight into the llama’s eyes as Ben chanted, “We ask
the evil spirits that curse this llama to leave! We now anoint
this llama with the sacred spit! Llama-llama-llama!”
At that cue, Ricardo
and Bernie picked up the vat of llama spit and dumped it on Llarry’s
head. Llarry did not like being spat on and started humming in
anger. Ben, Bernie, and Ricardo all dropped everything and ran
away from Llarry before the llama could spit on them.
* * *
The following morning,
Ricardo phoned the Lima airport and made reservations for the next
flight to New York. Then, he sat down at the kitchen table and ate
his breakfast of jelly-filled doughnuts. Llarry had apparently recovered
from the previous night’s experience and he sat next to the table on the
floor, eating his breakfast bagel and drinking his bowl of Jolt.
Ben came into the kitchen, petted Llarry, and sat down. Then
Bernie entered the room, still wearing a pair of red and white
zebra-striped pajamas. Bernie sat down at the table and ate his
breakfast. Then Ricardo said, “Bernie, I want to thank you for
being such a gracious host. I know I was kind of…er, ill-tempered
when I showed up at your door the other day.”
“Well, that’s
certainly understandable with everything that’s happened to you lately.”
“Thanks for being so
understanding. Anyway, it’s time for us to leave. I need to
get back to my job. I booked a flight this morning and the llama
and I will be leaving on the 3:00 plane to New York today. Do you
think I could bother you for a ride?”
“Hey, man, that’s
cool! I’m going to have to call the airport and see if I can set
up an appointment for some sky-diving while we’re there! I’m sorry
that you have to leave, by the way. It’s been nice hanging out
with you. We ought to get together again sometime, under better
circumstances.”
“Hey, as long as we’re
going to be at the airport, I want to see if my luggage ever showed up,”
said Ben.
Later that day, the
trio hooked up a trailer onto the back of Bernie’s car. They used
a bagel to persuade Llarry to get in, and then they all piled into the
car and headed off for Lima. Later on, they arrived in Lima.
Bernie parked in the airport parking lot and they led the llama out of
the carrier on his leash. No one in the airport looked twice at
the llama, since it wasn’t an unusual sight to see llamas anywhere in
Peru. Ricardo dropped off Llarry at the luggage drop-off, and then
walked with Ben and Bernie towards the gate where Flight 14 to New York
was boarding.
Ricardo handed the
stewardess his ticket. At the boarding gate, Ricardo handed Bernie
a piece of paper describing exactly where he had ran into his missing
llama herd and a few ideas on how to round them up again. Ricardo
figured that the ideas should work if the herd is anything like Llarry.
One of the ideas was to make a trail of bagels towards the corral,
leading the llamas to that location. Ricardo shook Ben and
Bernie’s hands, then Bernie handed Ricardo his compensation in the form
of a twelve-pack of Jolt, a case of Spam, enough cash to cover his
medical bills, and a package of bagels for Llarry. Ricardo waved
goodbye to Bernie and Ben and boarded the plane.
Ricardo took his seat
for takeoff, and then watched the stewardess demonstrate the safety
equipment. He clapped loudly when she was done, which really ticked off
the stewardess. A few minutes later, Ricardo glanced out of his
window and saw a waving Ben and Bernie drifting earthward in two
brightly colored parachutes.
Ricardo relaxed.
He was finally fairly sure that he didn’t have to worry about the plane
crashing, or getting into any other painful accidents. He hoped
that Llarry really was de-cursed. If he wasn’t, Ricardo was going
to have to put the Curse of the Angry New Yorker on Bernie!
The End
Back
to the Stories page
|