Pepperland

Brittany stared at her white ceiling, a blank look on her face as she day-dreamed about pianos in colors other than brown, black, and white. The sun had just begun to set, and she was wondering if she should go get a bath yet when a small, rainbow-colored circle of light suddenly appeared on her ceiling. She watched in awe as it slowly began to spread out, eventually covering the whole ceiling. She stood up on her bed and reached toward it, her fingers almost scraping the ceiling--

"Brittany! Brittany! Brittany!" Ashlie burst in through the door, her face slightly pink with excitement. "You have to come see this!" Brittany looked desperately at the ceiling, only to see that the rainbow light had disappeared. "Come on!" Brittany huffed as she jumped off the bed.

"What is it?"

"Two words: Trale Lewous!"

***

"Twizzlers is the taste!" Ashlie giggled to herself as she dipped her paintbrush in the red acrylic paint. A drop of it slipped down the handle and landed on a sheet of paper on the floor. Ashlie's eyes nearly bugged out of her head as the fallen paint began to draw a picture of a pack of Twizzlers on the crumpled sheet. The shade of paint began to change into the same color of a real pack of Twizzlers, the candy spelled as "Twizzuhlers". Ashlie slowly crouched down and picked up the paper and looked on the back.

There, in small, red writing was "Twizzlers is the taste! ~Trale Lewous.

***

A stout red haired woman led the little girl into a room large enough for four people to stay in.

"Here you go, dearie," the woman said. "Stay as long as you like."

"Thank you," she said, a smile stretching across her lips as she pushed her glasses up her nose. "Miss?"

"Rita," the woman said, also smiling. "And your name is?"

"I'm Zoe." They shook hands, then Rita left Zoe to check out her new, and possibly temporary, room.

Zoe carefully inspected the lumps in the far corner of the room. They were covered in sheets. She pulled off the sheets, coughing as dust flew up like ghosts. She gasped when she realized what she was looking at.

Musical instruments.

Two guitars, one electric and one acoustic, were in the corner, accompanied by a red bass guitar. The large lump that had attracted her attention in the first place was a large bass drum. It looked as if someone had started to put the set together and got distracted halfway through. The bass drum was tilted upside down, and Zoe leaned in to look at the inside. It was very large, enough to fall and get stuck in. She turned around, thinking about how nice it would be to just collapse on the bed when her ankle got caught in a wire. She twisted on one leg to try and get it out, but ending up falling -- right into the bass drum. Her arms were tucked in at her sides and her legs were dangling out of the drum. She reached out to grab something -- anything -- to help herself out, but all her hand brought back was a pillow. She stared at it for a while, then shrugged.

It's not too bad in here, Zoe thought to herself. As long as I'm in here... She got as comfortable as she could, then went to sleep.

***

Laura sat at the small desk in her room, painting her fingernails in two different colors by the light of her cocker-spaniel lamp. She had just begun to paint the right hand when she heard a noise, like someone was clearing their throats. She froze. Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead. Then, the singing began.

"SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE
Well I feel like I've been chewing on tinfoil
SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE
It's like I got a great big mouthful of cod liver oil
Well, I'm feeling like I stuck my hand
Inside a blender and turned it on
You know I've been in a buttload of pain
SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE."

Laura stared in horror at her Beatles poster as the picture of Paul continued singing, the three others serving as back-up.

"(SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE)
I couldn't feel any worse if you dropped
A two-ton bowling ball on my toes
(SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE)
It couldn't hurt any more if you shoved
A red hot cactus up my nose

SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE
Well, it feels like I'm getting tetanus shots every day
SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE
It's like I got an ice cream headache that won't go away
Ever since the day you left me
I've been so miserable, my dear
I feel almost as bad as I did
When you were still here."

Laura watched the poster as if it might spontaneously com bust. She slowly got up and switched on the overhead light, getting a closer look at the poster. The four boys just stood there in their various poses, smiles plastered on their faces, as if they hadn't been singing Weird Al seconds before. She decided that it was just the combination of late hours and nail polish fumes that had created that terrifying hallucination. She had just screwed the cap back onto the nail polish bottle and turned off the lamp when the John Lennon on the poster suddenly shouted at her:

"Stop going on You Tube, you junkie, and read a book!" Then it was back to normal.

With a small shriek, Laura quickly turned off her bedroom light and jumped into the bed, hiding under the covers.