Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 21:35:36 -0600 From: m Subject: Story: People Crackers People Crackers The elderly man left the toy store with the yoyos for his grandchildren. Joe Barnhill did not like big, noisy, fancy schmancy malls, and he did not like all the high tech gimickry that passed for children's toys nowadays. He preferred things simple, and he had come to call this "Galleria" mall, simply the "Glitzeria." Where are the Five and Dimes when you need them, Joe thought as his 75-year-old frame shuffled out of the store. Joe couldn't believe some of the things he saw as he leaned on his cane and made his way through the throng of people in the mall. He slid his thick glasses up his nose as he strained to get a better view. There were posters of scantily clad young women in the store display windows, television sets at an electronics store blasted cinema profanity at passersby, and one store actually sold sexually explicit board games! Just when Joe thought he had seen everything, he remembered his more innocent discover from the toy store. On the floor of the store, he had found an unopened box of cookies. The box was bright red, attractively packaged, and had the title "People Crackers" emblazoned in its side. This kind of cookie Joe had never seen. Oh well, he thought. The grandkids might like them. It was important for Joe to impress his grandkids today. After a miserable arthritic weekend with three preschool age grandkids' screams coming from all sides, Joe's temper was unleashed on them the night before. "You little monsters need to shut up!" he had thundered from the easy chair in the living room. He had then proceeded to explain to Marcie, Samuel, and Tanya how he would sell them off to the circus if they continued to make such a racket. This, of course, coming from the stern, angry, pasty-faced man had simply turned their squeals of merriment into screams of terror. Joe had never been fond of his grandkids. (STEPgrandchildren, he continually reminded himself.) When his estranged son had married the widow with the three babies, Joe had no idea that he would ever have to meet, let alone live, with this raucus family. He was no family man. Never had been, and never intended to be. Thinking back to his own short-lived marriage and fatherhood, Joe remembered how his son would constantly do things to annoy him. He would cry at all hours of the night and spill his milk. Yeah, he deserved the spankings and scoldings, he thought as he rode in his old Plymouth Valiant toward the suburbs. His son, Leon, had met him back at the car and was driving. The scoldings, however, had been too much for his now-deceased wife, who also was a victim of his verbal abuse. She had moved out with her son, and Joe never saw her again. Joe didn't see his son for forty-plus years, until he woke up in the hospital, the victim of a mild heart attack. Leon had insisted that Joe live with his family and was intent on establishing a relationship with his stranger father. Joe couldn't take care of himself and reluctantly had accepted. Things had not gone well, however. The "Three Terrors," as Joe thought of them and often referred to them under his breath, brought out the same impatience in him that his own son had, only intensified threefold. Once Leon's wife, Sue, had found Joe in the process of spanking the three-year-old. She immediately told Leon that she wanted him out of the house. Leon had managed to calm her down, and together they let old Joe know that he had one more chance to play loving grandfather with the kids. "It's easy for you," Joe had insisted. "You're young! Youth and health fades quickly, then you're like me...old and useless, with false teeth and failing eyesight!" The family had tolerated mean old miserable Joe for another couple of weeks until the previous night's incident. Threatening to sell the kids off to the circus did not sit well with Sue, who believed that they might be emotionally damaged because of the threat. Realizing that he had nowhere to go if he was evicted, Joe had convinced Leon to give him a chance to patch things up with the kids. So, here he was, coming home from the mall with a few yoyos and a strange box of cookies. Joe never was a big spender. The three tiny figures marched reluctantly through the hallway to their stepgrandfather's room. To them, it was a forbidden place, almost like the haunted house on the corner: "Enter if you dare." Their father the peacekeeper, however, had insisted. "Your granddad just wants to give you some presents," he perked their collective interest with the promise. But they still felt trepidation. Marcie, the oldest at five-and-a-half, was the first to timidly enter the stale room. It smelled like the thrift shop her mother had donated clothes to the other day. "Hello, granddaddy," she whispered as she played with one of her dark pigtails nervously. "Hello, sweetheart," he answered, forcing the foreign words from his lips. Samuel and Tanya were soon in the room, trying desperately to see what their scary grandfather had bought for them. When Joe saw their excitement, he produced the three yoyos from behind his back. "What's that?" Marcie had asked as three-year-old Tanya grabbed one of the yoyo strings. "They're yoyos!" Joe responded. "When I was your age this was my favorite toy." Samuel rubbed his long black hair, grabbed his shiny red yoyo, and looked at it quizzically. "This is how they work," Joe was trying to be patient with these ignorant children (he could tell they didn't have his genes), and had to keep reminding himself that his future might ride on his performance with the kids. He made a muddled attempt at trying to do a basic yoyo maneuver. Upon seeing this, little Tanya innocently threw her yoyo with great force. It spun through the air and landed with great impact...squarely between Joe's eyes, breaking his glasses, and bruising his forehead. Something snapped in Joe's brain. "YOU LITTLE MONSTERS! You're spoiled rotten! You don't deserve any of this!" he shook with anger as he tossed the box of People Crackers at Marcie's feet. "I REALLY ought to sell you to the circus!" Samuel and Tanya, tears streaming down their faces, were picked up and carried out by an eavesdropping Leon, who had burst into the room at the first sound of trouble. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he softly said. "You never have been a father to me, and it was stupid for me to think you had changed." Marcie didn't cry, though. She just looked curiously at the old, withered man, picked up the colorful box at her feet, and walked carefully out of the room. Joe lay in his bed, muttering quietly to himself about the IQ of "those kids," then became quiet as he soberly realized that he was about to be without a bed, shelter, or free meal ticket. He considered his options. Two hours later, Joe stealthily approached the door to Marcie's room. Her parents were arguing in their bedroom a few doors down. Sue was apparently angry that they had given him another chance. Joe reached for the doorknob. He HAD to somehow convince Marcie that he wasn't such a bad old guy. She was the oldest and had the most sense, he reasoned. Plus, she had gazed at him with a hint of compassion when he had lost his temper. He could never make a case with Leon and Sue for him to stay, but if one of the KIDS would speak on his behalf, then he might have a reprieve. This, he figured, was his only chance. He slowly turned the knob, peered through the slightly opened door, and inwardly gasped at what he saw. Marcie was lying on her pink "My Little Pony" bed eating the cookies that he had thrown at her. The cookies seemed to be shaped like people, which didn't surprise him. What did surprise him, however, were the changes. A different little girl, probably Chinese, he thought, lay there in Marcie's powder blue dress. Then she chewed up another cookie, swallowed, and her body contorted. Her body got taller and muscles popped out of the little blue dress. The little black pigtails seemed to retract into her head along with the rest of her hair. The two bright blue ribbons from the pigtails fell to the carpet. A ripping sound softly permeated the room as the dress ripped from skirt to neckline. Hard features developed in Marcie's face, which included a scar on her cheek. Joe gasped as he saw male genitals pop out of the dress as it made it's final rip. Finally, a tall, burly, muscular man with a crewcut lay in Marcie's bed, completely nude. She had her eyes closed, recovering from this extreme transformation. Joe looked at the figure, then glanced down at the box of cookies on the bed. The gears in his brain spun wildly. Did what I think happen just happen, or am I finally senile? his mind raced. It's those cookies! They caused the change! Dreams of living another lifetime suddenly filled Joe's head, and rather than continue the daydream, he lunged as fast as his septegenarian body would allow him to lunge toward the People Crackers. He clutched the cookies and hobbled out of the room, leaving stunned Marcie in a fetal position on her bed, hugging her huge biceps. Joe flung his door closed and looked at the cookies. He could see that the cookies inside were in all different sizes and shapes. He reached for his glasses, then realized they were broken. "Damn!" he muttered as he strained his eyes to see the cookie selection better. Just then he heard a door down the hall shut. That has to be Leon and Sue, he frantically thought. Come to send me away. I can't give them a chance to discover the power of these cookies. They'll see Marcie, then take them away from me before I have a chance to use them! As the footsteps approached, Joe held a cookie in front of his face. It was a child. It was a fuzzy sight, but definitely a child. Yes! That's what I want! A chance to start over in life! He raced to retrieve his false teeth from the cup of Efferdent, but only succeeded in knocking it over, his false teeth falling behind his bed. The footsteps got closer. No time to chew, he thought. He snapped off a piece of the cookie, thrust it into his mouth, and gulped it down. Immediately Joe felt a change. He felt faint and his mind whirled. He dropped the rest of the cookie as he felt his face begin to contort. He felt hair grow down onto his neck, and suddenly he realized that his vision was clear. He turned and gazed toward the dusty mirror hanging on the wall. What he saw shocked him. Staring back at him was a little girl, China doll-like face, with long curly blonde hair to his shoulders, and porcelain skin. His head could have belonged to Shirley Temple's sister. But his body remained old, male, and decrepid. He immediately came to his senses and overcame his aching arthritis to lean down to retrieve the rest of the cookie. As he looked around, his curls bobbing around on the back of his neck, two big bare feet stepped into his line of sight. Joe slowly peered upward, his big blue eyes cute as a button. His eyes slowly rested on Marcie's grinning Schwarzeneggerian features. She had a "My Little Pony" bedsheet wrapped around her hulking body. "Looking for this?" the accent was all childlike innocence, but the pitch was deep bass. She held the box of cookies in one hand, and a headless little girl cookie in the other. "Give me that...you've got to give me those cookies!" Joe pleaded, shocked at his "Good Ship Lollypop" voice. He reached out with his age spotted, wrinkled hands. The fresh faced girl's head was a freakish match to the hunched over ancient, male body. Marcie reached out, grabbed Joe in a powerful headlock, and carted him out of his room, and out of the house. The next morning Marcie awoke later than normal. She rubbed her innocent, delicate face and thought about her strange dream. She giggled. Leon and Sue poked their heads into her room. "Marcie, we've got something to tell you. Your grandfather's gone. He must have felt badly about mistreating you, and was so sorry that he left last night. We want you to pray that he's okay, wherever he is." Marcie reached up to play with her pigtails, which had somehow become undone. She considered that maybe her dream actually happened. Nahh, she thought. How silly. A mile away at the State Fairgrounds, Joe was pondering his new life as "The World's Oldest Gender Reversed Child." At least he had a bed, shelter, and free meal ticket,... and the circus had a new attraction on the midway. Meanwhile, the box of cookies rested near the circus behind some bushes where Marcie had eaten her last one. They had mysteriously become resealed.