Out of Whack Read Free Page B

muck field?”
           “It’s that patch of tar on the street. Don’t move.”
           I tried to remain steady. “Is that your camera?”
           “My dad had it in the attic. You’re moving.”
           He pressed a button on the camera and held it for a split second, then reached over and moved an armored figure (Vantor: Defender of the Scum People) about half an inch. Then he filmed for another split second.
           “How long is this going to take?” I asked.
           “I don’t know.”
           “Can I move some of the figures?”
           “Then how would you be an eclipse?”
           “I’ll move them then stand back up.”
           “Okay, you can move Sorikand and Quart if you don’t knock them over. I’ll tell you how to move them. Only do it a little at a time.”
           I crouched down beside the sandbox. “How about you have the robot kill that guy next to him? He could pop his head off.”
           “I don’t want to wreck my figures.”
           “I’ve got a bunch of figures at home. We can destroy them. I even have firecrackers.”
           And in that moment an instant friendship was formed.
     

      
     
     
     

Chapter Three
    “Friends and Octopi”
          
           We never did get more than five minutes of the adventures of Vantor taped, though in those five minutes my figures were punctured, dismembered, melted over an open flame, sunk in homemade quicksand, and tortured with minor acids from Travis’ chemistry set. Their cries for mercy went unheeded. Heh heh.
           The rest of the summer was an absolute blast. Travis loved hearing my jokes, though when he tried to tell them himself the results were disastrous. Have you all heard the joke about the string going into the bar? I personally have nightmares about that one, but it’s nice and simple, with a somewhat clever little pun at the end. Except for the time Travis told it...
           “This string walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says ‘Hey, we don’t serve strings here.’ So the string says ‘Okay’ and walks outside, then he frays himself and ties himself into a frayed knot. So he goes back into the bar and the bartender says ‘Hey, aren’t you that string?’ and the string says ‘No, I’m a frayed knot’ and so the bartender gets him a drink. And then the string says...ummm...he says something...”
           Sigh.
           What Travis could do is come up with amazing adventure stories. He lived for aliens, boogey men, pirates, giant mutant bugs—all that stuff. When we would construct elaborate scenarios with our action figures, he was in charge, and my attempts to interject slapstick into the proceedings were not appreciated. You should all be aware that the Dark Raider would not let himself slip on a banana peel and fall off a cliff. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
           Together we had close to 150 figures from seven different terrible Saturday morning cartoon shows, and Travis knew the full background of each and every one of them. I knew which ones had the coolest guns. And while my contributions to the action were generally ripped-off from the latest episode of the cartoon, Travis’ were entirely original, though strictly within the guidelines of the character and his powers.
           We did other stuff during that summer, too. Neither of us were much interested in sports, which are by definition boring and far beyond our abilities, but we liked to walk through the woods, go to movies, watch enough TV to justify our parents’ concerns about brain rot, and eat lots of candy. Lots and lots of candy.
           It was the quest for candy on one extremely hot day that led to something that I’ll just refer to as The Incident. Our mission for that day was to pick up a pair of Hershey bars each, a new action figure for me, and a new video cassette