Head or Tails
Part 2
By Missy

Laverne sat beside the road, her arms crossed, leaning against the ice cream truck as Squiggy and Lenny stared into the radiator.

Shirley sat beside her, fanning herself uselessly with a map. "So how's it coming, fellas?"

"Eh, Squig pulled the wrong tube!" Lenny complained.

"I did not! You're the one who's leanin on the carburetor!"

"That's not the carbuerator, dummy!"

"Don't call me dummy, you dope!"

"Boys!" Shirley called. "BOYS!" But it was Laverne's high-pitched whistle which cut through the tension.

"We need a real mechanic," Laverne declared.

"Hey," Lenny protested, "I've been working on cars since I was six."

"Yeah, but they was made of Tinker Toys," Squiggy catcalled.

"Oh yeah? You're the one who used to dissect toy cars to find the driver."

"Doncha think it's creepy that there ain't one in there?" Squig shuddered. "It just ain't natural."

"Let's bike back into town and ditch 'em," Shirley whispered.

Laverne shook her head. "That wouldn't be right, Shirl. 'Sides, Lenny owes me five cents for the Knee-Hi he bought back at the drug store."

"All right - Lenny, Laverne, you stay with the car. Squiggy and I will head to town and finds a willing mechanic."

Squiggy grinned as he came around the car to meet Shirley. "So is this a social visit?"

"It's a lets-get-help visit," she replied, dragging him away by the ear.


***

By the time Lenny and Laverne had been rescued from the roasting hot ice cream truck, they'd used the Nutty Buddies as ice bags. Laverne wiped the half-melted chocolate from beneath her armpits, embarrassed.

"We didn't think you were gonna get back, Shirl." Laverne told her, as they huddled together in the air-conditioned front seat of the tow truck. The elderly man who had picked them all up smiled indulgently at them.

"New to town?"

"Just tourists," Shirley declared firmly. "We're on our way to Hollywood."

"To be famous," Laverne replied.

"And get oodles of chickeroonies," Squiggy added.

"And see the ocean," Lenny declared.

The elderly man just shook his head. "That's what I said forty years ago," he declared, whistling and spitting a mouthful of tobacco juice out of the driver's side window.

Laverne eyed him. "Shirl, are you sure about him?"

"Of course! He was nothing but a gentleman to me at the filling station, and he showed me his purple from World War I."

"Do you really think we're gonna stay?"

"Oh, pshaw," Shirley declared, starting out the window at the golden-blue sunset.

To Part 1
To Part 3