Peppermint Twist Read online

  That, plus her finger came away with a slightly sticky, grainy substance coating it. Just as she’d done with the broken shard of disc, she sniffed, and couldn’t believe what her nostrils were telling her. Her tongue lapped her fingertip clean eagerly and she smiled widely.

  “Don, get the plates. You’re not going to believe this.”

  But Don was already holding two plates and crossing the kitchen back to where his sister stood. “Smells sweet.”

  “I could have sworn I grabbed the bean and rice ones, but this must be a new kind. Probably Dad wanted to surprise us.”

  “What already?” Don demanded.

  And soon he found out what.

  The burritos weren’t really burritos at all, though they were the same shape and size. Instead, the kids had a dinner of fried dough wrapped around a chocolate frosting filling.

  The dessert burritos were probably the most delicious things they’d ever tasted, and they gobbled them down in seconds flat before chugging a couple of Cokes to wash away the sticky in their mouths.

  Satisfied, Don rubbed his tummy and grinned. “Best supper ever.” He rose from the kitchen table to carry their plates to the sink, while Lucy checked in the recycle bag, fishing out the cardboard boxes the burritos had come it.

  “They say bean and rice,” she told her brother.

  He shrugged. “Must have been a screw up at the factory.”

  Lucy agreed, but was somewhat troubled just the same.

  Seeing the expression on her face, Don said, “What are you worried about? You shouldn’t complain about something so awesome.”

  “I’m not complaining. I wish all our food was so yummy.”

  “Amen to that. Maybe we should heat a couple more before Dad finds out and has a fit.”

  “Those were the last ones.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess it’s back to messing around with that dumb game then.”

  “Guess so.”

  She trailed behind her brother, back into the living room. They’d only gone a couple feet when something seemed…off.

  What was that sound? Some sort of crunching…

  “Ouch!” Don cried, lifting one bare foot.

  “Wha-” Was all Lucy managed to get out before something sharp poked her own bare feet.

  The twins looked down at the floor to discover that the carpet was different somehow. In fact, it was no longer carpet at all. It was golden brown, and when Lucy bent to inspect it, she rose with a handful of what she at first suspected was some kind of gravel. It covered the entire living room floor.

  Don peered into his sister’s hand and recognized the stuff. With a gasp, he cried, “Peanut brittle!”

  7.

  The kids didn’t know whether to gape in horror or squeal with delight. But one thing was for certain: if their dad saw this, they were going to be in big trouble.

  Lucy said as much, and Don suggested they start eating.

  “Are you crazy?” Lucy asked. “We couldn’t eat all this in a week.”

  Don took this as a challenge and began shoving peanut brittle into his mouth, chomping loudly. He swallowed and grinned at his sister. “Wanna bet?”

  She gave him a scowl and bent once more, pushing aside peanut brittle in search of the carpet beneath.

  But the carpet was gone. Lucy found nothing but floorboards.

  She shook her head in distress. “Dad can’t see this.”

  “We didn’t do it,” Don said, peanut brittle falling out of his mouth and onto his chest. “It’s that game.”

  And of course it was that game. The entire mess had begun when the disc had gotten stuck in the Z-Box.

  “Do you think he’ll believe that?” she asked.

  “We’ll show him. How could he not believe it?”

  However, Lucy remained unconvinced. “I’m gonna go talk to him.” She left the room, walking towards her dad’s office.

  “What?” Don balked. “Are you nuts?”

  But it was too late. His sister had made up her mind and he was already talking to her back. He had no choice but to follow.

  Lucy knocked on the office door, hoping Dad wouldn’t notice the scent of the candied burritos.

  From inside the room, their father called, “Yes?”

  With trepidation, Lucy turned the knob and entered the dim room. Her father sat behind his little desk, typing something into his laptop. He looked up when they entered and said, “Hey guys. How’s it going?”

  “Uh…good,” said Lucy. “I was just wondering if you…uh…needed anything.”

  Dad, lost in his work, didn’t respond. Lucy and Don exchanged an awkward glance.

  Finally, their father looked up. “Okay. What did you say?”

  “She asked if you need anything,” Don said. “You know, like a…a soda or something.”

  Dad sat back in his chair and stretched his arms high above his head. They could tell from his expression that he was thinking. “You know what? I think I could use some coffee.” He started to rise, but Lucy blurted, “I can make coffee!”

  Their father sat down once more, his brow furrowed. “Since when?”

  “Mom taught me,” she said quickly, though it was a complete lie.

  “Really? Huh.”

  Don stood beside his sister, nodding like a maniac. “Me too. She taught us both.”

  A moment passed, their dad debating with himself before smiling at them. “Okay then. Thanks, Lucy.”

  “No problem.”

  The twins spun around, anxious to get the heck out of there.

  “You wouldn’t be making that up now, would you?”

  They froze, eyes wide, but as usual Lucy recovered before her brother. By the time she was turning around, a wide grin split her face and she let out a laugh.

  “Oh, Dad,” she said. “You’re so goofy!”

  Don followed suit, nudging his sister with his elbow. “As if we would make it up!”

  “I know, right?”

  The two of them giggled until their father was shaking his head at them. “Okay, just checking. Just don’t make a mess.”

  They left the room, thankful that the office was as dim as it was. If it hadn’t been, Dad would have surely seen that all the color had drained from their faces.

  8.

  “That was close,” Lucy said when they were back in the kitchen.

  “You’ve never made a pot of coffee in your life,” Don said, as if this were news to her.

  She shrugged, moving over to the coffee maker. “I’ve watched Mom do it a million times. How hard could it be?”

  On the counter was a brass canister where their father kept his coffee beans. Lucy popped the lid, peered inside, and let out a gasp.

  Jellybeans. In every shade, in every color. Jellybeans.

  “Oh, crap,” she said.

  “What?”

  Lucy tipped the canister so that Don could see inside it. “Oh, crap,” he agreed. “Those aren’t coffee beans.”

  She rolled her eyes, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

  Don plunged a hand into the canister and brought out a handful of the candies. “Look. Brown ones. Maybe they’re coffee flavored and we can use them to make coffee.”

  “I kind of doubt that, Don,” Lucy said, closing the canister before her brother could start eating the jellybeans. He’d already popped a few from his handful into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

  “You have to stop eating everything,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re gonna get sick, and then I’ll have to figure this all out by myself.”

  “I won’t get sick.”

  “You will.” Before he could argue, she added, “And I really need your help.”

  He smiled, jellybean guts caught in the spaces between his teeth. “You can count on me, sis.” He peered down at the remaining candy in his hand, puzzled as to what to do with it. Then he shrugged and tossed the rest of them into his mouth.

  “Don!”

  “Yo
u closed the…that thing.” He pointed to the canister as he chewed.

  Lucy sighed and turned back to the coffee maker. Maybe their dad had instant coffee in a cupboard somewhere? She knew her mother sometimes preferred that if she only wanted a single cup, and Lucy knew for a fact that she could manage making one. It was no different than making tea, really.

  Behind her, Don made a grunting noise, which she ignored as she began to open up the cupboards.

  “Have you ever seen Dad make instant coffee?” she asked.

  “Iyy ouff iz uck osed!”

  Lucy poked her head into a cupboard containing powdered cocoa, teas, and apple cider. “Jackpot,” she said as she spotted a jar of instant coffee.

  “Eez! Elp!”

  “Stop talking with your mouth full.”

  “ELP!” Her brother grabbed her by a shoulder and spun her around. Angry, she was about to snap at him, but instead her mouth hung open and she felt an icicle of fear stab her spine.

  Don frantically worked his jaw, his eyes rolling and frightened. In his mouth was a huge amount of sticky goo, thick and white, stretching between his upper teeth and his lower and, even as she watched, the substance was hardening, making it more and more difficult for him to move his jaw up and down.

  “What the…” Lucy watched her brother, fright blooming into a full blown panic. “What do I do? What do I do?”

  She tried to think as Don pawed at the inside of his mouth in a fruitless attempt to dig the chunky white goop out. His eyes pleaded with hers and began to leak tears, his mouth freezing open as surely as if it had been filled with cement.

  He collapsed onto the floor and curled into a fetal position, screaming silently.

  “Oh, God,” Lucy cried, crouching beside him. At least he seemed to be breathing okay, his chest pumping up and down rapidly from the air he was sucking in through his nose. “I’ll go get Dad.”

  Don reached up and grabbed her arm, shaking his head. “Oooo!”

  “I have to, Don!” She pulled herself free from his grip and raced down the hall towards their father’s office.

  “Dad!” she yelled, practically ripping the door from its hinges as she opened it. “Dad! Help! Don’s…”

  The moment her feet crossed the threshold into her father’s room, she knew something was wrong. She skidded to a stop as a fist of fear pummeled her belly. Dizzy, she fought the urge to gag, and grabbed the doorframe to keep herself upright.

  Behind the desk sat not her father, but something else entirely.

  9.

  A snatch of some old, crazy song filled Lucy’s head as she stared, horrified, at what was sitting in her dad’s chair.

  You can’t catch me-I’m the Gingerbread Man.

  “Holy…”

  A huge gingerbread man sat at the desk, deliciously brown, with a wide red frosting smile and small blue dollops for eyes. Weird, mitten-shaped hands rested on the computer keyboard and the air smelled pleasantly of fresh-baked cookies.

  But it was impossible to deny: the cookie was-or at least had been-her father. It had the same blond hair, parted on one side. Hair that was still very much human, clean, and shiny.

  The cookie also wore Dad’s favorite green cotton baseball shirt-the number 33 stamped across the front-instead of the usual frosting buttons that most gingerbread men sported down their torsos.

  Lucy couldn’t tell if the thing also wore her father’s blue jeans, but she was way passed caring. Now, she knew, was a perfectly good time to start screaming and, so, that’s exactly what she did.

  The gingerbread man seemed to watch her scream from his spot at the desk. He also seemed rather indifferent, which made her scream all the more. She might have gone on screaming indefinitely if she hadn’t remembered her brother.

  Lucy managed to choke off her screams and raced from the room, back to the kitchen where Don was still crumpled on the floor, trying to claw the sticky goop out of his mouth.

  Lucy stood over him, trying desperately to think of how to help. What would get rid of sticky jelly bean guts? Hot water!

  She flew to the sink and turned on the tap. “Hang on.”

  The water flowed freely but definitely not clearly. It was a dark, golden brown.

  Oh no! The last thing they needed was for the plumbing to be screwed up!

  She stuck her finger beneath the flow to check its temperature and found that the water, like everything else, was sticky.

  Brown, sticky water? What else could go wrong?

  Not to mention it just wasn’t getting any warmer, and a whitish foam was forming at the bottom of the sink. Foam that reminded her of the head on a mug of-

  “ROOT BEER!”

  She tasted her finger to confirm her suspicions. It was indeed Don’s favorite beverage flowing out of the faucet.

  “This is not good,” she said, shaking her head.

  Should she try another sink?

  “Ad?” Don gurgled.

  “What?”

  “AD!”

  “Oh. Dad’s…um…kinda busy right now.” She saw no reason to alarm Don more than was necessary, given his condition.”

  “Izzy? Ut uh uck?”

  Lucy scowled. “Watch your language, Don!”

  Sticking his fingers in his mouth, Don attempted to scrape the goo out with his fingernails, giving Lucy an idea.

  10.

  With the faucet now spewing root beer, Lucy had no choice but to clean out her brother’s mouth manually.

  She grabbed the biggest salad fork she could find and told him to remain still as she crouched beside him.

  When he saw the fork, he shook his head. “Uh-uh. Uh-uh!”

  “We don’t have a choice. Do you want your mouth filled with goop forever?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “That’s what I thought. Now open up.”

  Cleaning the gunk out of his mouth was long, laborious work-especially since he was being such a big baby about it.

  “Hold still! Do you want four holes punched through the side of your cheek?”

  That would settle him for a little while, but eventually he would start to squirm again and the threat would have to be repeated.

  All told, it took Lucy close to an hour to get enough of the gunk out so that he could move his jaw and tongue and could speak again.

  “It’s still in my teeth,” he complained.

  Lucy tossed the fork, with its newly bent tines, in the sink. “That’s your problem. I’m not a dentist.”

  “Good thing.” Don moved his jaw back and forth. “You’d be a mean one.”

  She ignored him, her mind going back to the gingerbread man in her father’s office. Working on Don’s mouth had been a distraction for a while, but now she was close to panicking.

  “I have to brush my teeth,” Don said. “They feel gross.”

  “Whatever.”

  She had bigger things to worry about right now than Don’s teeth. She had to think about what they were going to do. Should she call someone? 911? Her grandmother?

  After some consideration, she decided the latter was the better choice, but while she was dialing the phone, Don shouted from the bathroom, giving her pause. Sighing, she hung up. “What?”

  “Check this out!”

  “No! I’m calling Grandma!”

  She resumed the call and, as she listened to her grandmother’s phone ringing, Don came back into the kitchen holding a tube of toothpaste.

  “Look!” He squeezed a glob of toothpaste directly into his mouth.

  Lucy hung up and grabbed the tube from him. “That can make you really sick!”

  Don swallowed. “It could probably kill me.”

  “You’re suicidal now? God, you’re even wimpier than I thought!”

  He made a wounded face. “It could kill me if it was toothpaste. But it’s not.”

  She scowled and examined the tube. “Looks like toothpaste to me.”

  “Taste it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  �
��Who’s being wimpy now?”

  Her scowl deepened. “Fine!” She dabbed a small dollop onto the tip of her finger, brought it to her tongue, and sure enough, Don was right. It was cake frosting.

  Thick, white, sweet, sweet frosting.

  “How awesome is that?” Don grinned.

  “This isn’t awesome,” she snapped. “We’re in real trouble here!”

  Grin vanishing, Don grabbed back the tube. “You don’t have to be so rude.”

  Lucy opened her mouth to argue with him, but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

  11.

  “Hello, sweetheart. How’s my favorite granddaughter?”

  “Grandma!” Lucy practically shouted into the phone. “Thank God! Grandma, we need you!”

  “Good heavens, Lucy. Calm down. What’s wrong?”

  “That game you got us…it’s all weird and…and…” She looked at Don, hoping he would be of some help, but he only shrugged.

  “The game I got you? Oh, you mean that computer game? Is it fun? It looked like it would be wonderfully fun.”

  “No, Grandma, it’s not fun. It’s-“

  “It’s kind of fun,” Don said, squeezing more toothpaste into his mouth.

  Lucy closed her eyes, trying to maintain the thread of composure she was gripping. “It’s not fun,” she repeated. “There’s something very wrong with it.”

  “Do I need to return it, dear?” Grandma’s voice turned somber. “I’m quite sure I kept the receipt.”

  “Not that kind of wrong. But, it’s messed everything up. Our whole house is turning into candy! Even Dad turned into a gingerbread man!”

  Don’s eyes went wide and Lucy heard her grandmother laugh. “You always did have a very vivid imagination, Lucy.”

  “I’m not imagining it, Grandma! It’s true. There was the burritos. And the carpet turned into peanut brittle. And the…the…” She felt on the verge of tears. “Please! You have to help us.”

  Dropping the tube of frosting, Don hurried off towards their father’s office and Lucy braced herself for his reaction.

  Grandma laughed again, nervously this time. “Maybe you should put your father on, dear.”