Hi folks! Rodney Q. Beaker here. Welcome to Pluto Washington. My town is probably like a lot of towns in the United States: good law-abiding citizens who all know each other's business, a lot of great fast-food places, a great park, and a movie theater. The only difference between us and every other place in the country, and possibly the world? Pluto is the hotbed for the strange, the bizarre and the unexplainable. Only no one seems the least bit surprised when something weird does happen, which is pretty much all the time. It's like the welcome sign to Pluto says: "Welcome to Pluto, Washington...Where The Extraordinary Is Considered Ordinary." Well, what happened today when my softball team , the Roaring Razorbacks, played a night game against Olio's Thundering Typhoons, is a perfect example of the weird goings on in Pluto. Don't say I didn't warm you...
We were winning by one run when the new kid in school, Marion Dorsey, was up at bat. Yeah, that was his real name all right -- Marion Dorsey. Poor kid! What kind of sadistic parents name their kid Marion? That was enough to make any kid twitchy, but this kid's name was just the beginning of a long list of problems. For starters he had flaming red hair that stuck out from his head in all angles, like he'd stuck his finger in a socket and shocked himself. He also had more freckles than I'd ever seen on anyone in my life. If they all joined together, he'd have the best tan in the world. He was long and gangly, all elbows and knees, and he didn't just walk, he loped, like he was going to take off in a cloud of dust any minute. But it was his eyes you remembered more than anything; they were two different colors. No kidding! His right eye was black, and I mean jet black...as coal. His left was green, and I swear there were times it glowed when he caught me looking at him. I couldn't help it. The guy was the weirdest kid to ever walk...I mean lope...into Planet Nine Elementary School. (Planet Nine because Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system until some scientists decided it wasn't a planet anymore).
The Typhoons' pitcher, Matt Stone, hurled the ball toward Marion and we all held our breath as he swung the bat. It made contact with the ball with a loud crack that sounded like a thunderclap. For a second I thought the bat had broken, or maybe it was Marion hitting the ground. Then there he was running for first base with that weird lope of his.
All of a sudden things started to get really strange. Marion started loping...and I mean for real. One second he was running on two legs, the next he was loping on all fours, and while everyone watched in stunned silence, pounced on the ball right as the kid on first base reached for it. He grabbed it in his teeth. Yeah, I said teeth, then loped off into the woods with the ball in his mouth, for crying out loud.
While everyone gaped, a long, high-pitched howl sounded from the direction he'd run in. Boy, was I glad I hit the boys room before the game!
All of a sudden the entire population of the ball field sprang to life. The coaches, parents and kids all started running in the direction Marion had taken. Coach Mayfield, our coach and one of the greatest guys ever, was the first to find him. He stopped dead, so Mr. Curtiss, our team manager ran right into him. When the rest of us caught up to them, things got even stranger.
There was Marion, or a weird looking animal in Marion's team uniform, covered in fur, tongue hanging out, with the softball lying on the ground in front of his feet...I mean paws. Behind him, hanging low in the night sky, and glowing an egg-yolky yellow, was a full moon.
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