ONLY IN DREAMS.

It wasn’t even as if it would be difficult.

Kansas “Benny” Sinclair eyed the floor with an air of extreme professionalism, and nodded once, decisively.

Yes, it would be a piece of cake.

She rolled over onto her stomach, grunting slightly when she hit the miniature bonsai tree that had somehow wormed its way into her mattress. Distracted momentarily by this minor inconvenience, she managed to miss it completely when the first shark surfaced.

This is why, when she finally managed to jam her way into a sitting position and swing her legs of the bed, she was understandably startled when a clearly female shark leaped rather clumsily from the carpet.

Make a note: clumsily, because the shark missed what Kansas supposed was the intended target (her face) and hit the backup target (as in, the target behind Kansas, the bonsai tree) with a terrific thump and a girly squeal.

Terrified, the shark shrunk to conserve energy, and looked at Kansas with a profoundly disapproving expression.

Kansas briefly remembered something her Grandmother had said, once upon a time:

“Yes well– honey– sharks, you see– like carpet. A lot. Almost as much as bonsai trees. And lipstick. So just– make sure you keep your makeup back as far away from bonsai trees as possible, and always wear– you know, shoes.

Kansas reflected upon the possibility that her Grandmother might not have been insane, and smiled warmly at the shark, surreptitiously wiping the lipstick from her lips.

The shark wasn’t fooled, and pursed her well-done lips.

They looked at each other.

“So,” Kansas began finally, “would you mind too terribly much getting out of my bonsai tree?”

“We don’t eat faces you know,” the shark said angrily. “I have no idea where you stupid monkeys got that idea– I mean, what the hell– what do you think we are?”

“Not very nice?” Kansas suggested. “And also face-eaters?”

The shark managed to suggest without using any words what Kansas could do with herself.

They both looked down at the carpet contemplatively. Kansas looked up at her fan, which was dripping bubbles, and then back at the shark, which was still quite small in comparison to– say, Kansas’ shoe.

The shark caught the thoughtful gleam in Kansas’ eye, and snarled, which was still quite frightening, considering that Kansas had lipstick smears on her hand.

Shrugging, Kansas pulled out from under her pillow the scuba gear that the Tooth Fairy had so kindly left for her the night before– she had wisely saved up all her teeth and stolen some from others, also– and flapped it around in the air a few times, to make sure that there were no mice or pumpkins in it.

It remained satisfactory and rainbow colored, so she stepped into it, calmly ignored the disco ball/headlight that had been installed into the top of her helmet, and slid off of her bed and into the turbulent carpet.

There was a brief moment of confusion during which there was a confused school of thought trying to make heads or tails of the gummy worms that were indigenous to the waters of her carpet rather than the philosophy she supposed they ought to be working on–

And then Kansas was quite rapidly upside down, staring down at the floor of a bouncy house. She had enough time to comprehend this and begin working on why she was upside down, before she was rather abruptly sideswiped by the blade of a fan.

Predictably, she dropped like a rock. Seeing no other appropriate action, she squealed, loudly, but was cut off with an indignant squawk when she hit the bouncy house floor and flung rather unceremoniously back up towards the ceiling.

The minute her scuba suit hit firm ground once again, Kansas scrambled hastily away from the fan, righted herself, and cast a wary eye over the premises.

Checkerboard tiles? Yes.

Robots? Certainly.

Disco ball/headlight? Oh heck yes.

They were variables only designed to lead to one answer, no matter what the equation was:

So, like any reasonable scuba girl, she jammed like a fool.

After a few centuries of that, the party decided that it was tired, and decided to relocate to the moon. This was accomplished with the use of massive amounts of bubble gum, and Kansas’ uncanny ability to duplicate her scuba suit, which was clearly compatible with space travel.

Kansas found this quite agreeable indeed.

Once on the moon, she made the genius suggestion of creating ATVs out of– something– Daniel will do, right?– and having a great race to see who was to be fed to the sharks, who was to be given an telephone complete with an answering machine, who was to be hugged by a bear, and who was to be made to fall asleep.

The rules were somewhat unclear as to who would get what for which placement in the final lineup, and so when Kansas came in dead last, she somewhat arbitrarily decided that whoever won a straight out barroom style brawl would get to be sole ruler and arbitrator of whatever went down.

There was generally good feeling associated with this idea, as most involved were of the opinion that Whatever Went Down was a rather awesome name for a kingdom. A moon kingdom, to boot!

Speaking of boots, however–

Kansas stared at the boot, and it stared straight back at her.

“Now see here,” she began reasonably.

“No, no, no,” the boot said hurriedly, “I don’t think you understand. This is our moon, and you can’t just go around doing whatever you jolly well feel like! I mean,” it huffed indignantly, “just because we happen to orbit you doesn’t really mean that– you know.”

Kansas stared at it some more. And then frowned, and pinched her nose. “Ugh, what’s that smell?” she shouted.

The boot kicked her savagely in the knee. “Show some more respect for your betters! That’s the oldest boot there is!”

“You’re tellin’ me–“

“Shut up! Here he comes!”

There was a respectful pause as a shabby old boot dragged its arthritic way out of a crater. The pause continued as... the old boot... continued to drag himself out of the crater. And– the pause went along even further as– the old boot... stopped to breathe crankily, laces flapping wearily.

Kansas wasn’t impressed.

“He’s very wise,” the first boot said desperately, trying to impress upon Kansas the importance of this particular boot.

Kansas finally shrugged and climbed into the hot air balloon basket hanging under the whale. She waved goodbye to the boots and to her robot companions who were still jamming on the ATVs, and then smiled maliciously down at the old boot that had just now made its way out of the crater.

With a hoot, she and the whale and the basket vanished.

The first boot sighed, staring grimly at the spot where she had just been standing.

There was a wheeze, and a juicy cough that rattled the snot in his toes beside him. “Whur’d that little lady go?” the old boot asked, laces quivering lasciviously.

The first boot sighed again, forlornly. “Well, you know what our laws say about females of other species–“

“Waste not, want not!” the elder boot said wisely.

Quite save from ravishment by a tribe of boots and quite comfortably at the kitchen table, Kansas poked moodily at a bowl of cereal. Her father snapped the paper across the table, and she glanced up, glaring daggers.

Right after she had returned with the whale and right before she escaped to her next adventure, she had been attacked on either side by both of her samurai-clothed parents.

Kansas, somewhat stunned by the development, could only stare in complete bafflement as they screamed at her in Japanese.

Upon the realization that she couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, unless she was translating it right and they wanted her to go play hockey with a tuna tribe of misfit sunshine–

They removed their Japanese tongues, pocketed them, and replaced them with their semi-normal English Parental Edition tongues, and fiercely ordered her to bed.

This was, in Kansas’ opinion, utterly ridiculous and not at all very nice– and so she put up a rather spectacular fight–

But alas, in the long run, there is no fighting samurai parents.

Between the two of them, it took them approximately 2.8 seconds to render her unconscious and led her straight into the dreaming world, which she hated.

She scowled darkly at her father again, and shoved a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, rebelliously.

Stupid dreams. Why couldn’t they be half as cool– come on, at least half!– as cool as reality?

Kansas flashed another dark look at her father, and chuckled grimly.

He set down his paper, and looked at her with concern.

“Are you quite alright, dear?” he asked, sweetly.

Her lip curled upward in a snarl. “Yes Daddy, I’m just great.” Then she gave him a suspicious look. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, delicately. “I hit you too hard, and your mother got angry with me, and knocked me out also.” He sighed fatalistically. “I just know that she’s having an affair with that Greek statue we met at that museum one time– what was his name, David? Damn your mother, always going for athletes–“

Kansas tuned him out with a sigh, and turned back to her cereal bowl. And then did a double take. Had one of her rice chex just winked at her?

She stared hard into her cereal bowl, waiting–

“A-ha!” she bellowed happily. The milk stuck out its tongue, and she rejoiced. She must be waking up!

Kansas sat back, and intertwined her fingers over her stomach, satisfied. The thing her parents never seemed to realize was that– unconsciousness only lasts for so long.

She grinned, evilly.

THE END.