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Slowly and carefully, the adults of Quacker County picked themselves up off the floor of Willy's Bar and wandered around, not quite sure of where they were going just yet. Barny lay on top of the bar, moaning pirate-esque oaths to himself about "Davy Jones". Slugger had woken up to find Troy lying on top of him, and now the blue pony was desperately trying to avoid the big mean baseball player, in case he got "accidently" mistaken for a curveball. Salty was busy calling for more beer as he was starting to feel dangerously sober. Chief extricated himself from being handcuffed to the plumbing in the gents' bathroom. 4speed was idly wondering if this would have any effect on his bid for re-election, then remembered that Wiggy rigged the election anyway and happily fell asleep in a bowl of stale toffee popcorn.
"Has anyone seen Steamer?" asked Margot.
Royal Blue put her hands over her ears and moaned. "Not so loud, Margot," she asked, trembling.
"But has anyone seen him?" insisted Margot. "I can't find him anywhere."
"Maybe Dibbles and Nibbles have stolen him," suggested Sweetie. Margot's eyes glowed bright red.
"They'd better not have," she growled and ran outside.
"He-ey!" Delight drawled groggily. "What happened my guitar, man?"
Gene glanced at his brother's most prized possession. Someone had written all over it in bright red magic marker: "Die Dad Die! Bwahahahahahahahaha! The eye! The eye is everywhere! Go to Hell! Come back and bring me the complementary T-shirt!"
"Rusty," he groaned.
"Oh my," said Cara, blanching suddenly. "The kids!"
"They've been unattended for four whole days!" Sarabi wailed.
"Best thing for 'em," Salty growled. "Maybe they'll have run away and joined the freak show."
Quarty, who had gone out and was lying down on a couch that had somehow found its way outdoors, heard the commotion and came up to tell them to keep it down because his head felt like several large cannon were exploding inside it.
"Quarty, honey," said Royal Blue as her husband poked his nose through the door, "it's the kids. They've been on their own for four days now, we really ought to go and find them."
Quarty pulled a face. Neither he nor his head were in the mood for baby-hunting. "Can't we wait a few days? I mean, if they've survived so long, a few more days won't hurt. An' if they dead already - "
One look from the entire female population of Quacker County, and the football star was quailed. After all, there were considerably larger numbers of them than of males to back him up.
"Ok, ok, I'll organise a search party," he said, holding up his hands in surrender.
"DADDY, DADDY, DADDY, DADDY!" Suddenly about half of Quarty's work was done, as a pack of prick-eared tikes came pouring through the doorway.
"Daddy, daddy, Amber pushed me in the Waterway!" wailed Sparky.
"Did not!" protested Amber. "Did too!" returned Sparky. "An', daddy, that nasty ol' Lady of the Lake bitchslapped me. An' it really hurts!"
"Oh, sugerplum!" cried Royal Blue in concern.
"An', mommy, mommy, guess what?" cried Tee, bouncing wildly about his mother's feet. "I set fire to a whole tree!"
"That's nice, dear," said Royal Blue distractedly.
"An' I ate some fireworks!"
"Daddy, I got stuck with bubblegum to the bathroom ceiling."
"Mommy, we trampolined on the whales! It was fun."
"I fell over an' hurt myself and then I cried because it hurt an' then someone said I should stick my fingers in an electric socket cos that pain would cancel out the other pain so I did and now my hair smells of burning." This last one was from Blue Ribbon.
"Oh, honey, you really shouldn't have done that!" Royal Blue exclaimed. "What am I supposed to do with your hair now?"
"I don't mind," said Blue Ribbon, with a big stupid baby grin. "I saw pretty lights."
With that there was a positive onslaught of babies. They seemed to be crawling out of the very woodwork. Lucky and Elizabeth mysteriously showed up at different times, trying to look as casual as possible. Dibbles and Nibbles swooped in, and realising that the men were still too hung over to move, took squealing advantage of it by pulling and prodding various parts of their anatomy. Rusty showed up with a chainsaw, at which point Gene decided that no matter how hung over he was, it was definitely time to get out of there.
Quarty looked around at the cooing mothers, petrified fathers, and the ocean of swarming baby heads. "Well," he said smugly. "That's another job well done." He began wading through the crowd, looking for his favourite child, Mac, picking up squealing babies by the ears and tossing them aside in disappointment. He and Mac had four days worth of NFL to catch up on.
"Daaad-dieeeee!" Someone pink and small was tugging at Quarty's pants.
"Yes, honeybun, not now," Quarty replied absently, patting the baby's head. "Daddy's busy."
"But, Daaaa-aaad!" the kid wailed. Quarty winced. Baby wailing and hang-overs were not a pleasant combination.
"Sweetie, this is important to Daddy," he tried to soothe her, grabbing at a random baby and discovering it was one of Celeb's brood. "Go talk to your mother."
"But DAAAAD-DY!" the baby shouted.
"Hey!" called out a dazed Wiggy, who was being carried off by a mass of as-yet unclaimed children. "Where did all these dwarfs come from?"
"They're not dwarfs," Quarty informed him, as he tossed a squealing Ribbs over his shoulder. "They're babies."
Wiggy blanched. "Aw, hell," he exclaimed as the kids carried off their new "daddy" with Native American whooping.
"Daddy, daddy, lis'en to me!" That little pink baby sure was persistent; she'd even started to crawl up Quarty's legs.
"Sugarkitten, could you please get off Daddy's leg?" Quarty asked politely, hopping about on one foot. "You're really not helping."
"What's going on?" asked Royal Blue, wading knee-deep in kids.
"This one won't leave me alone," Quarty wailed in irritation. "Gerreroff me, gerreroff me!"
"Marty, muffinbun, leave your father alone," Royal Blue coaxed. "He's a very busy man, and not just himself at the moment."
"But MOO-OM!" Marty protested.
"Can't you control these kids?" Quarty complained as his wife tried to peel his little pink daughter off his leg. "Can't anyone control these kids?" he bawled to the room; but everyone was too busy dealing with the children to listen. "And where's Mac?" he grumbled.
"That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, daddy," Marty cried. "About Mac!"
"WHAA-AT?" Quarty seized the baby with both his hands and shook her like a pink maraca. "What about Mac? Where is he? What have you done with him? What do you want? I swear, if you've harmed a single hair on his head - "
"Quarterback!" Royal Blue only ever used Quarty's full name when she was really pissed with him.
"I dunno where he is, daddy!" Marty squeaked in terror. "I dunno where he is, I jus' woke up an' he wasn't there an' he wasn't in the house an' he wasn't anywhere, daddy, and it really wasn't my fault, daddy, it really wasn't, and please don't kill me, daddy, please!" And she burst into big fat baby wailing. For an instant the vast crowd of babies all fell silent, then exploded in sympathetic blubbing.
Quarty had gone very pale and very still. Mac. Gone. In a daze which had nothing to do with his hang-over, he handed Marty to her mother, and walked to the open front of Willy's bar, treading on shrieking baby ponies on the way. Trembling, he leant against the wall and gazed blindly across Quacker County. Then he raised his head; and with a backing chorus of baby-wailing, Quarty expressed himself in the most eloquent way he knew how.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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