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(The Adventures of Teen Queen is a coming of age story told by a Giant Horned Toad from Arizona.  Think Uncle Remus on acid.)

THE ADVENTURES OF TEEN QUEEN

by Daddy Horned Toad

with E. K. Deutsch

 INTRODUCTION - Coffee, Tea, Toady Blood?                                                           

 Convulsive baby cries pierced the wavy hot Arizona air and stirred Daddy Horned Toad’s ear holes. 

 “And I was havin’ the best dream too.  I sniffed and tasted the air.  Two footers at twelve o’clock.  The twins was asleep on the 120 degree desert sand.  Gotta admit the little buggers is cute when they’s sleepin’.  I nudged ‘em awake, they mewled and whimpered as per usual.  “Save it, shishkabobs - there’s a new one.  Maybe thisn’s it.  C’mon”.  I poked ‘em up and they staggered along.  Once they’s conscious they know better than to whine.  Drop kick ‘em into a prickly pear, don’t think I won’t. 

 We crawled along the hissin' sand, ‘round prickly pear and cholla patches ‘til the quonset huts was in sight, gleamin’ like peeled soup cans laid sideways in tin row sameness.  Behind ‘em lurked the Superstition Mountains, dark and full of rocks and saguaros prayin’ to the sun.  The twins commenced gambolin' in the sand, so I hissed “Stay close, or the two-footers’l make toady pie outa ya.  Mind me, buggers!”  The twins put themselves in step-swish-step behind me, their tails wavin’ like bumpy flags against the desert sky.

 “Follow the taste” I growled at ‘em, and we put our stick tongues to the air to taste them wails.  Our ear holes stopped workin’ so hard as our tastin’ buds drew us closer and closer to the two footer babe.  A few waddle-hops to the window sill, then my loud toady thud echoed by two soft baby toad percussions hit the quonset’s unforgivin’ cement floor.  “Owww Daddy!” wailed twin #1, a notorious complainer.  “Be quiet or I swear to Toad I’ll thrash your humps into prickly pear dip!” I cautioned.  “Let’s take a look at ‘er”.

 We three scuttled through the quonset sittin’ room, ‘round the lumpy burnt-orange sofa, past the pablum-stained wooden high chair.  “What’s that awful taste, Daddy?” whispered Twin #2.  “Two-footers” I rasped.  “Taste like rotten armadillo meat.”  Mamma Two-Footer was washin’ dishes in the shallow metal sink, her back to the room.  A greasy red & white bandana was tied rakishlike around her foamy pink rollers, and her wet, faded gingham work apron clung to her round maternal bulk, still ripe from droppin’ her second two-footed mite into the world.  Her skin glowed with coursin’ Mamma hormones, her freshly lipsticked mouth curved in a secret smile.  I stared at her thick white ankles peekin’ over new black Keds.  “She’s a big-un” I marveled.  “C’mon, buggers”.  We swish-stepped toward the sound of baby cries.

 The room was darked by an old cotton sheet Mamma Two-Footer threw acrost a yellowed plastic curtain rod.  There was a minimum of air in the room, even for Arizona at high noon.  We climbed over each other and scaled the white painted two-footer bugger crib.  We dropped quiet-like onto the bunny sheets, tripped over stuffed Deputy Dawg and Huckleberry Hound, and sniffed and tasted the air around the wailin' child.  “Sweet, Daddy, sweet” said Twin #1, lickin' appreciatively.  “Yep.  Like Black Ant wine” replied I.  “This here’s the one we’ve been waitin’ for.  Get ready buggers.”

 We lifted on our haunches and squirted toady blood from our eyes in thin, red squiggles across the white crib bars.  “She’s got it now” I said.  “Let’s go”.  We leaped from the bars, thudded to the floor, speed-swished past Mamma Two-footer and hop-climbed our way out of the stinking tin can into the unrelentin’ convection of sun, sand and Toady Heaven.

Twin #2 stopped to look back at the quonset as the wails faded into a faint, sweet scent.  “Is it true, Daddy?” she asked.  “Will she be....hornheaded forever?”  “As long as Two-Footers walk” I chortled.  “We gave her a real shot”.

 We swish-stepped back through the prickly pears, back to the Dream Spot, content the long wait was over.  And Mamma Toad said Fried Fire Ants tonight.

 It couldn’t get any better than this.”

 DADDY HORNED TOAD’S TALES OF THE CHOSEN ONE

 CHAPTER ONE

 Tweetie fingered the amber plastic bottle and held it against the bathroom light.  The capsules inside was half red, half transparent, with tiny black and white balls inside.  “Made me higher’n a kite.  Can’t take ‘em” said Mamma Two-Footer.  Doc Weinstock gave her the pills to help her take a little bulk off, but after poppin’ just one Mamma had to be peeled off the ceilin', eyes reelin’, heart doin’ the Skip to My Lou.  There they sat, the little dexies, whisperin’ in the glass and chrome Sears medicine cabinet, rattlin’ in their bottle like Mexican jumpin’ beans.

 “No more one and a half.  Think of it.” muttered Tweetie.  Frojo Larkitt called her one and a half on the bus yesterday, said she took up one and a half seats, the slimy pock-marked potato-head.  “Just baby fat” said Mamma.  Nothin’ to do with the groanin’ piles of lima beans, pork chops and mashed spuds Mamma shoveled down her corpulent quartet.  Greasy kitchen cabinets overflowed with Mallomars, Tahitian Treat soda, ChocoChip Cookies, Wintergreen Lozenges, Hershey bars and Wise Potato Chips.  And Daddy-O loved the slow-roasted babyback riblets from Buck’s Pork Store. 

 “Slop ‘em and slap ‘em in bed” was the Winkle family motto.  Fat meant content.  Mamma’s Mamma got dumped for a lounge singer durin’ the two-footer Depression.  Left her without a penny.  Mamma did her best Scarlett impression over the stove as she shoveled gleeful gravy onto heaped plates, ”As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” she trilled, and she and her Adipose progeny chortled, mouths full.  Brother Bear drove Tweetie distracted with his chowin' habits.   “Mamma, Bear’s devianted septic is grossawful!”  Brother obliged by openin’ his mouth hippo-like, displayin’ his potato-laced uvula and pork palate. “I don’t want to sit next to him!” Tweetie whined.  “Move me next to Poo.”

 Daddy-O wouldn’t abide no seatin’ changes so late in the season.  “These here is your assigned perches.” he growled.  “Your butts is home.  And Poo’s a left-hander.  Spoils the symmetry.”  Poo ignored the fracas, eatin’ slowly around her pork chop speared through the middle with her fork, twirlin’ it like an umbrella on its stem as she ate the glistenin’ pork fat around the edges.  Head down, she riveted her pale blue eyes on the Bobbsey Twin book in her lap.  Poo was always anywhere but here. 

 “C’mon Tweetie” crooned Iggy, scoopin' Green Giant kernels.  “Plug up with a few Niblets.”  She held the kernels out, a peace offering of old lady yellow teeth.   “I’ll hear him right through Niblets” sniffed Tweetie.  “Maybe a few plugs of Bazooka”.  Mamma Winkle demurred, “Now, no more gum in your ears.  You promised Doc”.  Daddy-O grunted, “Twenty-five bucks for some high-fangled ear tweezer yanker.  Not again in my lifetime.  You’re just too damn high-strung, nervy girl.”  His eyes bugged out like a giant pond frog as his jack hammer jaw worked up on down on his chop and the carotids bulged in his neck. 

 Tweetie knew it was time to back down.  “I’ll be gone soon enough.  Just hope he marries a deaf girl.”  She huffed upstairs, fish-flopped on her bed, rolled over and stared at Petey Parakeet dancin' on his cuttlebone, shrieking hello.  “Some day I’ll be gone from here” she muttered.  “You’ll never see the likes of me again.  None of you.”  She reached under her pillow to feel the contraband Dexies and hear the faint mariachi band inside the bottle.  “Tomorrow, little amigos.  Tomorrow you do your stuff.”  She tossed a towel over Petey’s cage, kicked off her walked-over turquoise moccasins and commenced to sleep.

                                                 *

 Tweetie blinked at the sun fingers reachin' around the curled edges of her ragged vinyl window shade, and absently stared at her orange cement-swirled ceiling as she picked corn skin between her teeth.  “Somethin’ good’s happenin’ today, somethin’ real good.  Somethin’ Mon-U-Men-Tal.  What is it?  Corn Dog Friday at school?  Two-For-One at Lawson’s Mini Golf?”  She picked at her memory cells, then jerked up “The pills.  The sky-high fat blasters!”  She reached under her pillow and grasped the bottle, prayer-like, between her hands.  “Buenos Dias, my leetle buddies” she whispered into her hands, and the Dexies did their best Senor Wensas back at her, “Si, Si, Sawrigh!”

 Changin' for school was moot, as Tweetie wore the same getup every day, and it was already slapped on her back, since she slept in it.  Black rayon skirt to her shins, turquoise mocs, black turtle, and her beloved Indian vest, like a fringed Navajo rug ringin’ her spud-packed heft.  And the beaded buckskin and bead necklace Dweed made to keep away the Evil Eye.  She got razzed a lot on account of her getup.   Mrs. Edmont, her grade 8 teacher, sent Tweetie to the school head poker, since the girl wore the same black and Indian duds day after day.  “Just ain’t right, ain’t right an’ fittin’” said the old fart.  “What does she know from getups anyway, her with her dangly-ass specs on a rope and baby blue Woolworth’s cardigans” sniffed Tweetie. 

 The head poker showed Tweetie a bunch of drawings, people doin' all sorts of chores and strikin' perculiar poses, and pages of black squiggles and blobs.  Tweetie was surposed to say what the pictures was sayin’ to her.  “Well, that one there with the man hangin’ in the doorway kinda droopy-like and the lady lookin’ off - that there means they’re secretly happy” said Tweetie in a far-off thinkin’ voice.  The head poker’s eyes popped, and she leaned forward evil-like and said “Secretly happy?”  “Yeah” said Tweetie.  “And that’n there, with the specs and blobs all over, that’s two frogs cuttin’ each other up, Samurai-like”.  The head poker sat back in her chair like she was hit with a deer rifle.  “I heard enough child” she said, slow and soft.  “You can go now.”  After that the head poker talked to Mamma and Daddy-O, said Tweetie was odd, but wasn’t much could be done for it.  Just let her go about her business, bein’ odd.

 Tweetie took a quick gander at herself in the mirror, and fixed her dirty blonde bangs so as to cover the zits on her forehead.  They felt bumpy, like the surface of the moon.  Her big, blue Tweetie-Bird eyes checked out and approved her uniform, and she cradled her Dexie in her hand. After the usual Captain Crunch, buttered toast, Sweet Buns, One-A-Day and secreted Dexie with OJ, Tweetie, Poo and Iggy slid down the rocky driveway to wait for the bus.  Brother Bear didn’t go to their school, he was a school-hater cause the bully-boys beat up on him a lot and called him girly ‘cause of his hair down his back and his big round Winkle-style butt.  He went to a school-haters school with other girly boys and general misfitters.  Mortified Mamma and Daddy-O, since Mamma was the Library Lady at the Senior High, and Daddy-O taught fancy readin’ and writin’ at the brick school for big-uns on the hill.

 Lunch-time came and Tweetie had no heart for the chipped beef on toast.  “The stuff must be workin’, cause I generally loves moo-guts on a shingle” she mused to herself.  “Guess I’ll just sit out with Dweed.”  Tweetie’s best friend Dweed brought her grub in a bag, the same every day - cheese sandwich, Hershey Bar, and red delicious apple.  Dweed was smart as a whip, skinny as a rail-post and had a thick fountain of ripply red-brown hair to her knees.  Tweetie loved Dweed.

 “Time for my warm up” Dweed giggled, as she snuck the Hershey Bar between her thighs.  Tweetie smiled as Dweed wrapped her giant crooked front teeth ‘round her Velveeta and Wonder Bread delight, then ate her apple - seeds, core, stem and all.  “Y’know Dweed, I read someplace or other that apple seeds is poison” said Tweetie, half-serious.  “That would explain THIS” squeaked Dweed, as she swoon-flopped on the table and played dead.  Chigger Connors at the next table laughed so hard milk came out his nose, and Tweetie giggled behind her hand, then blurted,  “C’mon Dweed.  Time for yer dessert!” 

 Dweed sat up like a shot. “I’ll die later” she quipped as she pulled the bar from between her thigh-warmers and s-l-o-w-l-y peeled the white paper away from the softened brown squares that glistened in the cafeteria fluorescence.  “Did ya ever see anythin' so beautiful...” breathed Dweed, prayin' at the Hershey altar.  “Looks pretty good” said Tweetie without much interest.  Dweed gently broke each square apart, and moaned softly as she plopped the squares one by one down her gullet.  “Gotta pee before Math” said Tweetie as she stood up.  “See ya.”  Dweed looked curiously at her friend.  “T.W., your eyes look mighty perculiar.  Are you sick?”  “Naw” said Tweetie, too casual-like.  “I feel real good.  See ya.” 

 Tweetie was fixin’ to flush when she heard a pile of voices comin’ through the door of the girl’s can.  She peeped through the crack of the green metal stall door and saw Dreamy McGonickle and her fawnin' crew come in to do girly-girl junk in front of the mirror.  “Oh great” whispered Tweetie, and she decided to hide out in the stall until the floozy-flock vamoosed.  “Oh, Dreamy,” crooned Jilly Oberson as she put black goop on her batting eyelashes, “did you HEAR what Tweetie Winkle said in English today?” 

 Dreamy tossed her palomino waist-length hair, gandered at her itty-bitty waist and mountain-shaped, gravity-defyin’ hooters in the old streaky mirror and twanged, “Oh, H-e-r-r-r-r.  She’s so W-e-i-r-r-r-d.  And she’s such a B-r-a-a-a-ai-n.”  They all cackled in agreement, and presently flounced out, honkin' and flutterin' like a bunch of landlocked geese.

 Tweetie thudded down on the toilet seat and turned her brain-tape backwards.  “English class, English class.  What did I say in English class?”  Then she recollected that she just remarked on how Lennie Bernstein used Willie Shakespeare’s yarn about Romeo and Juliet for West Side Story.  “Big deal” Tweetie sniffed.  “Everybody knows that, except for Dreamy McGonickle and her bunch.  Silly bitches... So I’m weird am I?  Just a B-r-a-a-a-i-n am I?  I’ll show them.  I’ll be better at bein’ them than they are bein’ them!  And I won’t quit ‘til Dreamy McGonickle is at my feet, beggin' to be like me!  And I can do it too!  I’m the one who can do it!” 

 Tweetie jumped to her feet, flushed the dumper and stared at herself with fire-wolf eyes in the dirty mirror as she washed her mitts.  Maybe it was the Dexie talkin’, and maybe it wasn’t, but it was clear Tweetie had a very large bug up her round Winkle butt.  “How hard can it be to be beautiful?  It just takes studyin’ and doin’.  And them’s two things I do best.”  Tweetie set her shoulders and barked at her reflection, ”All right Tweetie-girl.  Let’s get crackin’!” 

 She walked in that crapper a girl who had to pee, but she left...

                      A WOMAN WITH A MISSION.

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