Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 03:24:19 -0600 From: m Subject: Story (SRU): Animal Crackers Animal Crackers The Thompson family went to the mall every Friday night. This was their regular, weekly family outing. They ate in the food court and made the rounds of the pet shops, book stores, and, of course, toy stores. Jerry and Linda Thompson always dreaded the toy stores, because it was there, in those labyrinths of noise, color, and enticement, that their children, Bobby and Caitlin, always showed the wild sides of their nature. "I want that racing set!" freckle faced, five-year-old Bobby would shout. "Can I have the new Toy Story stuffed animals?" pig tailed, six-year-old Caitlin, the more aggressive of the two, would demand. Jerry and Linda were young parents who loved to please their kids. They had tried to give them the best of everything, and it was only recently that they found that they could not afford to satisfy every request. Instead they tried to reason with their children. "Now Bobby, you know Daddy has money that is in the bank. It's got to be used to pay bills so we can keep living in our house," he would speak slowly to help Bobby understand. Bobby's response typically was, "But I WANT it..." Linda explained, "Caitlin, when you're a grownup you can buy anything you want. But you're just a sweet little girl, and Mommy's got to take care of the money." "But I'm grown up too...I'm this many!" Caitlin would whine as she held up six fingers. Jerry and Linda would smile to each other and often try to figure out ways to afford the kids desires. Which meant that the next week would be much the same. This night Jerry and Linda Thompson had decided to try to avoid the toy store altogether. They ate dinner, then held the kids hands as they walked to a different branch of the large mall. The kids were the first to notice the strange little shop. "I want to go in there!" Bobby cried. "Hmmm...that seems like an unusual place, but if you want to go there, partner, then... there we go," Jerry was just happy that the kids hadn't mentioned the toy store. The family entered the store, and Linda realized that it seemed to be a magic shop, but with all sorts of odds and ends that didn't seem to have anything to do with magic at all. "We want this!" Caitlin yelled. Jerry looked to see his daughter holding a box of animal crackers. "Now, Caitlin, you just had supper, and you had pie for dessert. You don't need that." "But I WANT it!" "Yeah...me too!" Bobby cried. Linda came over and began one of her patient, simple explanations of how kids always wanted more sweets, but because adults had more experience in life, Mommy and Daddy know that they cause tummy aches. The kids were unphased. "I want the animal crackers!" "Sorry, Caitlin. You're mother just explained to you why you shouldn't eat them." "I wish I were a grown up, so I could eat whatever I want, whenever I want," Caitlin said. "Yeah. Then we could buy any toy we wanted," Bobby added. "But I want the animal crackers now." He started sniffing. "The last time you had cookies so soon after dinner you threw up," Linda reminded her daughter. This only served in causing Caitlin to start screaming and crying. Both parents looked around the shop, seeing no one. Then Jerry leaned over and said, "Ok, darling, if it will stop you from crying, then you can have the crackers." Caitlin stopped screaming, but continued sniffling, as if considering whether to forgive her parents for the terrible injustice of their ever saying "no." Mikey had begun to force out a screaming cry, but stopped short after seeing that his sister's outburst had done the trick. Linda took the crackers to the cash register and suddenly an old man appeared from nowhere. "Aha...you'd like some animal crackers I see." "Yes. For my kids." "Do you like animals?" Linda was surprised by the question. "Oh...yes, I like animals." "Good," the old man's response was crisp as he handed Linda the change from her purchase. "Strange old fellow," Linda told her husband as the kids struggled to open the box of crackers. Jerry took the box from Bobby as he screamed in objection. "I'm just going to open it for you, bud," he reassured his son. "Yeah. He seemed rather eccentric." After grabbing the opened box from his father, Bobby reached into it and pulled out a cookie. "I got a zebra!" he exclaimed. "I got a gorilla!" Caitlin almost spilled the contents as she pulled out her prize. Both kids stuffed the treats in their mouths. "That sure was a strange place," Linda said. "And why do you suppose they would carry animal crackers? I didn't see hardly any other food there." Suddenly, Linda and Jerry were startled by a loud yelp. They turned to see their kids doubled over in strange contortions. The yelp was deep in pitch and was followed by another. Somehow Caitlin had produced the sound. Other shoppers began to stop and stare as more strangeness followed. Bobby went down on all fours and white hair suddenly sprouted all over his body, which was becoming longer. Clothes ripped as the change continued. A thick cluster of hair began growing down his back, and his hands and feet seemed to shrink and grow hard. Suddenly, Bobby had hooves. Stripes also formed all over his body, while at the same time his face elongated into an equine snout. Where Bobby once stood, a zebra, with flowing mane, now trembled. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were speechless with shock. Their gazes now fell on their daughter. Caitlin's body grew bigger, starting with her head, then her hands. Black hair shot out of her pores as her clothes also tore, and her skin turned shiny black. Her nose upturned and her face became distinctly simian in appearance. Finally, a very large, male gorilla stood where she had once stood, his hands scraping the mall's floor. This was too much for the other shoppers, who fled in panic at seeing this monstrous transformation. The noises that the two kids had made during the changes were horrendous, but now all was quiet. The zebra and gorilla slowly walked away from their human parents, then Caitlin the gorilla caught sight of the toy store and began a hunched over, four legged run in its direction, with Bobby the zebra close on her apelike heels. Linda started after them, but Jerry grabbed her arm. "What are you doing? You've got to let me go after them! They're our children," she shouted. "I know they are. I saw them change, too. But don't you see? It was the animal crackers! They each ate one, and then they changed!" Jerry held his wife's shoulders. "We need to go back and see the old man." "You go there, and I'll go look for the kids!" she exclaimed, as she shook herself loose from her husband's grip. One minute later, Jerry was in "Spells R Us" (he hadn't noticed the sign the first time), and yelling for the old proprietor. "Coming, coming! Hold your horses!...or should I say zebras?" he smiled as he spoke. "Look, you. I don't know what your game is, or how you did this to our kids, but you're going to change them back!" The old man's smile remained. "I don't play games, Mr. Thompson. I just sell people what they need. Your children wanted the crackers, so now their wild personalities can really be uninhibited." Jerry was taken aback by the old man's knowledge of his name, but before he could demand an explanation, the shopkeeper continued. "Now, what YOU need is a way to have your kids back to normal again. You want them to be the same bossy little people that they were, always getting what they want, and never receiving any discipline." Jerry was getting impatient. "I just want things the way they SHOULD be!" "So you shall have your way," the shopkeeper disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared with a box in his hand. "This is a box of PEOPLE crackers. Just give your kids the crackers in the shape of a little boy and a little girl, and I'm sure things will be the way they should." Jerry grabbed the box and raced out of the store. After eluding a mall security officer who was waiting for an animal control unit to arrive, Jerry saw his mostly deserted destination. When he entered at the toy store, Jerry found Caitlin, his gorilla daughter standing on the top of a display rack of stuffed animals. Bobby, his striped son, was head butting the Lego display. And Linda, his wife, was patiently trying to reason the kids to come out of the store with her. "Now, children. You know that it isn't nice to damage other people's things. Come outside with Mommy." "Linda, I have a cure for the kids," Jerry proceeded to explain what the old man had told him. Linda nodded her head and took the box from him. Opening it revealed a jumble of cookies. She took a few and looked at them. There were men and women of all ages and races in the box. Some of the cookies were damaged--heads or limbs broken off. Finally, Jerry said, "Look!" In the very bottom of the box were two cookies that looked exactly like Bobby and Caitlin. Linda grabbed them and was relieved to see that they were not damaged. She gave Caitlin's cookie to Jerry and took Bobby's with her as she headed closer to the zebra. "Come here, Bobby. Look,... another cracker for you!" The zebra turned his head with interest as his mother enticed him with the scrumptious snack. Meanwhile, Jerry had already coaxed Caitlin halfway down the display case with her cookie. Linda saw her son the zebra straining his neck for the cracker. He began to curl his lips over it, when suddenly there was a crash behind Linda. The display case had fallen over and the gorilla had landed hard on the floor near Jerry. The gorilla looked at his father, who was still holding out the cracker, but then Caitlin spied a whole box of crackers lying on the floor. She lunged for the box, grabbed it, and headed back toward her lofty perch, stuffing a cracker in her mouth as she went. Bobby also saw the box, noticing a few crackers falling out of it as Caitlin scrambled up an adjoining display rack. He galloped toward the nearest one and began eating it. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson gasped as they watched their children transform again. The gorilla slowly decreased in size. His color changed, but not his sex. Finally, all his hair receded into his body, and an adult middle-aged man, older than Jerry, stood on the display case... which was appropriate since he was displaying everything. The zebra, meanwhile, finished swallowing the cracker, and also changed. His body hair also diminished, but his skin got darker. Human hands and feet were shaped from his hooves, and his long nose shrunk back into his face and became delicate in appearance. Finally, the figure rose from all fours to reveal a buxom black woman, also nude. "Daddy," the man climbed down from the rack and walked shyly toward her father. "Mommy," the woman walked with a childish gait toward his mother. "Caitlin?" Jerry looked at his transformed daughter, who now could be an older brother. "Daddy. It's me! I'm a person again! And I want to tell you something." "Mommy. I want to ask you something too," the woman's voice sounded seductive, and Linda had to remind herself that this was her five-year-old son. "What is it kids?" "Can we have that Super Nintendo?" their whining coincided. Jerry and Linda looked at each other in disbelief. Did their kids only think of toys and having their way? "No, kids. Instead, why don't you have another cracker? We have one for each of you!" Caitlin and Bobby looked down at the crackers that their parents were offering them, and then they noticed the strangeness of their new bodies. Caitlin was surprised that she had a hairy chest like her Daddy, but she was delighted that she was tall and grown up. Bobby was shocked to have big soft and creamy dark mounds on his chest. They seemed to be a lot like his Mommy's. He realized that he was now grown up like Mommy, and mommys carried purses with them that had lots of money in them for buying things. Caitlin realized that daddys carried wallets in their pockets with magic plastic cards that let you buy anything you wanted. Both kids were delighted and stole a quick glance at each other. They grinned and, at the same time took the crackers being offered to them...and stuffed them into their parent's mouths. They enjoyed watching Mommy and Daddy change. Now they would look just like THEY used to. Before the dazed and shocked Jerry and Linda could grab another cookie or the box of people crackers. They were grabbed forcefully by Caitlin, the new Daddy, and Bobby, the new Mommy, and lifted away from the crackers. They went to the back of the store, where Caitlin and Bobby could change into their parent's clothes and then take their nude children home. They did plan on coming back, though. They were going to go on a shopping spree. Later that night, after the animal control unit of the police department discovered the false alarm, and the mall was closed, a janitor noticed a box of animal crackers on the floor. It was resealed. He liked animal crackers, and picked up the box. The next day, an elderly man found a box of unopened crackers on the floor of the toy store, where he was buying some gifts for his grandchildren. "People crackers? Whoever heard of people crackers?" He took them home to show his grandchildren. The old man at the magic shop smiled as he turned over his "Yes...We Are Open" sign.