MaryAnne and Snifflly 4,700 YA Comic book characters get their revenge. (standard:adventure, 4309 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jul 06 2020	Views/Reads: 1228/890	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Have you ever wondered about the fates of your childhood comic friends?

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“Shut up, you squeaking idiot,”  Peggy told him, pretending to slap him
on his cheek with her finger.  “You want to be my first customer, you 
little devil?” 

“Lose three-hundred pounds and I might,”  he squeaked. 

“Maybe we can rob a bank or something?”  MaryAnne suggested, stirring a
third spoonful of sugar into her coffee.  “The worse thing that would 
happen is we get caught.  I hear the jail in this town isn't too bad.” 

“And we would go to jail, for damned sure.”  Sniffly sniffled. “Two old
broads like you wouldn't have a chance.  I can see Peggy escaping on 
her walker.”  He tromped slowly across the table in a parody of Peggy 
trying to run. 

“Cut it out, Sniffly,”  Peggy trumpeted while MaryAnne laughed. 

“Seriously, guys, why not?”  MaryAnne's face took on a serious look. 

“Why not what?”  from Peggy. 

“Why not rob a bank?” MaryAnne suggested. “We could do it.” 

“Aw, come on,” Sniffly stopped in mid stride, “‘that's ridiculous.  Us
old farts robbing a bank?  The elephant here can hardly walk.” 

“Shut up and listen to her,” Peggy told him, “or I'll sit on you.” 

“On his face, Peggy,”  MaryAnne suggested.  The two women laughed while
the mouse blushed. 

“Me and Sniffly can go to Toyland and find some guns,”  MaryAnne told
Peggy. “They got those old realistic cap pistols there.  You've got 
that big basket for your walker.  It can carry a lot of loot.” 

“And just how do you think we can get away afterward?”  Peggy was in no
way convinced. 

“You can draw a door and then erase it when we get through, that's how,”
MaryAnne told her. 

“But then I'd still be inside the bank,” Peggy reminded her. “You might
get away, but I'd be caught.” 

“I didn't think about that,”  MaryAnne admitted, “but if we give it some
thought, we might find a way.  Maybe not a bank, only a gas station or 
something?  For practice, I mean.” 

With nothing better to do, over the next few days all three of them
spent time thinking on the subject.  If nothing else, it was something 
to do and built up a lot of restlessness.  It was like anticipating the 
publishing of a new comic book label; something to get excited about. 

*** 

MaryAnne and Sniffly made their first visit to Toyland in many years. 
MaryAnne even dusted off her frilly little-girl costume for the trip.  
She almost busted the seams but managed to get it on by only fastening 
half the buttons.  Standing next to Sniffly, she intoned the magic 
phrase. 

“Poof Poof Piffly, make me just as small as Sniffly,” she stuttered,
shrinking rapidly down to mouse-size.  Sniffly grabbed her around the 
waist and hugged her. 

“We don't have time for that, honey, I got a headache,”  MaryAnne told
him.  She laughed and pushed him away, grabbing him by the hand 
instead. 

“Here we stand, I hold your hand, at my command, open the door to
Toyland,”  MaryAnne commanded. 

A door appeared in front of them.  Sniffly opened it and politely stood
aside for MaryAnne to enter.  They were once again, for the first time 
in twenty years, in Toyland. 

“What the hell's going on here?”  Sniffly exclaimed.  The place had
changed.  Where before it had been a quaint little village with 
animated toys walking around playing cute little games, now the village 
had changed to high-rises and parking lots.  Toy construction equipment 
was engaged in plowing the earth, with tin soldiers pounding away with 
toy hammers and sawing with toy saws, building even more tall buildings 
and parking lots. 

The toys were working instead of playing.  Teddy bears carried
briefcases along the sidewalks, even while toy animals built more 
sidewalks.  Two toy policemen drove by in a toy car, with a toy wolf in 
the back seat showing them his handcuffs. 

“Darn, the place sure has changed,” MaryAnne admitted. “Lets see if we
can find any guns running around.  I'll bet they could use the 
excitement of a  real robbery.” 

The two found a policeman directing traffic. 

“Where can we find some guns, sir?”  Sniffly asked. 

“We keep them in a building behind the jail, you know?  They have to be
registered now, you know?”  the policeman told him. “We can't have them 
corrupting kids, you know?”  He stepped aside to motion a bus carrying 
a band of toy rats arguing with their musical instruments to go through 
the intersection. 

They found the jail.  It was in the same location as before, but was now
a much larger building.  Going in the front door, a teddy bear with 
sergeant's stripes greeted them. 

“What can I do for you folks, and where's your tags?  Everyone needs
tags.  How can we know how much you're worth without price tags?”  He 
got out his ticket book and began scribbling wildly. 

“We want to know who to see to get us some guns?”  MaryAnne explained to
the sergeant, who stepped back in alarm, drawing his own pistol.  The 
toy gun screamed at them through its muzzle, “Hands up. Hands. Up.  I 
-- I'll shoot,”  it yelled in a tinny voice. 

“Shut up, Homer,”  the sergeant told his jabbering pistol, “and let them
explain.  Where are your price tags, and what do you need guns for?” 

“We want to rob a bank,”  Sniffly explained. 

“Robbers.  Robbers, everyone. Help,”  the sergeant screamed, pointing
Homer at them.  Homer quivered in excitement and fired off a string of 
caps.  He was a cap pistol and it was the most fun he'd had in ages. 

*** 

MaryAnne and Sniffly found themselves incarcerated in the Toyland jail. 

“Now what, Sniffly?  Why did you have to tell them that?” 

“Sorry, but I was told never to lie to the police.” 

“An odd aspect for a wannabe bank robber.  But, now what do we do?”  She
began crying. “We might be here for years.”  Eyes wet, she looked over 
at Sniffly, to see her rodent companion unconcernedly nibbling on a 
wall.  “And what are you doing?” 

“Eating.  The walls are made of cheese,” Sniffly told her, chomping
away. “This is the old part of the jail,” he explained.  So they ate 
their way out of jail and tiptoed to the building behind it.  There, 
they found long rows of cells, all containing sad-looking firearms.  
There weren't any guards around. 

“Hey! You!  Let us out, please,”  a purple sub-machine gun pleaded, 
“The police came to our homes last month and rounded us up.  I have six 
little revolvers at home without a daddy.” 

Others gave their own pleas.  MaryAnne found a keyring on a nail and
unlocked all the cells. 

“Anyone wanna go to the real world with us to rob a bank?”  Sniffly
asked while they were shaking MaryAnne and his hands.  A half-dozen gun 
barrels raised high.  Sniffly opened the door and the escaped weapons 
ran for home, except for the ones going with them, of course. 

They ran back to the doorway to reality, whistles blowing and caps being
fired as the police tried to round up the escapees.  They made it back 
and closed the door, causing it to disappear.  MaryAnne returned to 
human size, then hosted a freedom party for their guests, with a choice 
of olive or gun oil on their salads. 

*** 

Now that they had acquired toy weapons, the three still needed a plan. 
Every morning, the two humans and mouse would meet, brainstorming for 
ideas. 

“It might help if we tour all the banks, maybe draw maps of their layout
or something,”  Peggy suggested. 

“Not only banks.  Anyplace that might have money lying around,”  Sniffly
corrected. 

The three began searching, especially in their own part of town. 
Sniffly went out at night and crawled under back doors, setting off an 
occasional alarm. 

*** 

One Tuesday morning, the three met like always but with another
destination in mind. One dear to them all. 

“You guys ready yet?”  Peggy asked when she came in. “The doors open at
ten.” 

It was the day a big comic book display at the museum opened for
business.  The entire apartment building of old comic characters were 
going.  One of the largest displays was by MaryAnne's old employer, 
"Crappy Comics." 

“Just have to wait for Sniffly to brush his few remaining teeth,” 
MaryAnne told her. 

“Yyouu, shhul alk.  Yu ony ‘ave two real ones yrsself, lady.” Sniffly
spoke over his toothbrush. 

“Those old pirates are supposed to have every comic book issued from the
thirties onward, including ours.”  Peggy was excited about seeing her 
old work. “They're worth a lot of money right now, to collectors.” 

“Yeah, and all they paid us was peanuts, literally in Sniffly's case,” 
MaryAnne mentioned. “The publishers are wealthy and all we have are 
scraps, and we did all the work.” 

“That's the way it goes.”  Peggy sighed.  Ready, Sniffly climbed into a
specially-made purse MaryAnne carried.  It had plenty of windows and 
breathing holes for him, as well as a mouse-sized chair. 

MaryAnne and Peggy, carrying Sniffly, walked to the bus stop.  They
couldn't afford a cab and their old bones were stiff by the time they 
entered the huge museum building.  The women seemed lost in the marble 
halls of the massive edifice. 

The comic display was way in the back, in a cheaper addition to the
building.  One built only of plywood and plastic, unlike the older 
marble facade. 

“I gotta find a place to rest for a minute, Peggy,” MaryAnne told her
friend.  They had paid their entry fees, all except Sniffly of course.  
“You have that contraption to lean on, I don't.” 

They found a wooden bench in a corner and sat down, Peggy's walker
containing her purse with Sniffly in it beside her. 

“What's going on.  You old broads tired already?”  Sniffly squeaked from
his comfy purse chair.  The mouse wasn't tired at all, and wanted to 
see his old comic magazines. “Come on, already.” 

“Quiet, mouse, or I'll bang you against the wall. I swear I will.” 
Peggy bumped the purse with her palm. 

“Hey look, that man over there.  It's my old boss, Arthur Banks.  He was
head of the whole operation.  He promised me the world.”  Peggy called 
out, “Hey Arthur.  Remember me, Peggy Pen?” 

She knew he heard since he looked over, squinted, and waved -- before
ignoring her.  And here she had made him wealthy, angry Peggy thought.  
Rich from her sweat, and her being paid only twenty-dollars a week.  He 
had made hundreds of thousands of dollars off her.  Then he dropped her 
and went on to those new deep-space comic heroes.  In her youth he had 
promised her the world, which turned out to be a room in a cheap 
boarding house.  She knew he lived in a mansion on a hill. 

“Well, not much I can do about it now.”  She sighed. 

“What was that, Peggy?  You say something?”  MaryAnne asked. 

“Na.  Just dreaming is all.” 

“Come on, you had time to rest,” complained Sniffly. 

They ambled slowly over to the displays.  Being a long time comic hero
with hundreds of cartoons and graphic novels to his credit, Sniffly 
Mouse had a huge one.  He sniffled while watching one of his earlier 
ones on a small television screen. That one was about him and Perky Pig 
saving a flight of Allied bombers during WWII. 

“See, that's me with Perky Pig's arm over my shoulder.  Damn but I was a
good-looking mouse in them days.  Got me all the girls.”  Sniffly 
jumped up and down in the purse, remembering how he'd helped Perky 
escape from Wilbur Wolf.  Then he recalled Wilbur had died of cancer a 
few years before -- in their boarding house, yet.  Sniffly tried to cry 
and laugh at the same time but couldn't do it.  He settled for 
laughing. 

“Hey, stop bouncing.  I might drop you,”  MaryAnne cautioned, seeing her
own former boss standing and watching the same Sniffly film. 

“Mr. Yates.  It's me, MaryAnne.  How you been doing?”  She nudged his
arm.  John Yates, in his fancy suit, looked down at MaryAnne. 

“Oh, Hi Mary Jill, long time no see.”  Then he walked away to talk to a
current executive from DC comics, snubbing poor MaryAnne and bringing 
tears to old eyes.  He owned half the comics in this exhibit and she 
possessed only memories.  Several of the latter were of waking with him 
beside her in the morning, others of false promises. 

*** 

It was a strangely silent trio that walked to the bus stop after leaving
the exhibit.  They were glad to see themselves remembered, if even in a 
small way, by older comic addicts.  They had met many old friends, most 
as poor as they, themselves.  But they also remembered the way their 
former bosses had treated them -- as useless castoffs. 

While the women had talked to almost forgotten friends and visited
exhibition booths, Sniffly had noted down how much each comic was 
worth.  Some of the originals were bringing many thousands of dollars 
from collectors, for a comic he had been paid maybe a dollar in peanuts 
for acting in.  Sniffly, alone most of the time in a purse, had time to 
think while the other two complained to each other on the bus ride 
home. 

Sniffly noticed the display was on the ground floor rear of the
building, backed by a dark alley.  He remembered that MaryAnne still 
had her driver's license, with a lot of restrictions of course -- such 
as no night driving.  He and Peggy had good vision, but they couldn't 
drive. 

When they got back that night and Peggy stopped in for a final coffee,
Sniffly brought up his idea. 

“Look.  Those comic companies cheated us, their most famous characters. 
Why don't we knock over the exhibit?  Instead of a bank?”  Sniffly 
suggested. “Peggy can draw a door on the alley wall, with MaryAnne 
driving a rental truck.  I'll hide in the museum and bite through alarm 
wires.” 

Sniffly drew plans, such as diagrams of the museum.  The ladies went
back almost every day and made notes, asking questions of employees 
about such things as security.  They tried to see where the cameras 
were located in that wing, along with anything along the walls that 
looked like it could be a security sensor.  The two looked for anything 
and everything that might help or hinder them.  Then they went back and 
helped Sniffly put it down on paper. 

They had two more weeks until the exhibit was to be packed up.  One
thing Peggy found was that the museum hired part-time help to pack or 
unpack exhibits.  Then, they learned that since that particular exhibit 
was to be picked up a few days after packing, it would probably be left 
in place in the same display room until then.  Since it would be sealed 
in boxes and the doors locked, the security wouldn't be very strict.  
Shoplifters couldn't carry large marked boxes out without being seen. 

“Why don't you two get a job helping them pack?”  Sniffly suggested. 
“Then we'd know where to find the stuff later.  We don't want to break 
in and find the room empty, with the comics stored somewhere else.” 

“They'd never hire me to pack,”  Peggy observed.  “Not on my walker.” 

“Probably not, but they might hire me,”  MaryAnne observed.  She went
down to the museum and volunteered.  Since she was a known cartoon and 
a comic expert, she was immediately hired as a supervisor, at 
ten-dollars an hour. 

“Right on, Mary Ann.”  Sniffly ran around the table, knocking over the
pepper shaker, which caused him to sniffle at more than his usual rate. 


*** 

With Mary Ann's help, the packing was finished on a Friday, with the
first boxes to be picked up the next Wednesday.  As a supervisor, 
MaryAnne made certain the comics were packed in small light boxes, the 
easier for them to carry out when stealing them.  She also ordered them 
stacked against a rear wall.  Both Yates and Banks had come in to 
observe the packing.  Although seeing and recognizing her, both had 
avoided even saying hello.  She was only a has-been menial to them. 

On MaryAnne's last day of packing work, she brought Sniffly in with her,
along with a cheese sandwich and a hot thermos of cheese soup for his 
supper, of course.  She set him loose behind stacks of boxes in the 
large almost empty room. 

The double doors to the room would be locked from the outside and
MaryAnne had brought in a half-dozen large wooden wedges.  Nobody had 
questioned her as she dumped them and sniffly's supper between a stack 
of boxes.  She doubted if the guards would even check the room itself, 
since those doors were the only entrance and would be locked from the 
outside. 

*** 

After he saw the guards and a museum official leave and heard locks
click, Sniffly got to work.  The mouse located alarm boxes and cameras, 
biting through their wiring.  He only received one shock, since he knew 
all about color coding and not to bite the red ones.  It took him hours 
in the darkened room before he was certain he had them all. 

Before settling down to eat lunch under an emergency light near the
floor, Sniffly bit open one of the boxes.  He read an old adventure in 
Sniffly Comics #112 while he ate his sandwich and waited for the 
others. 

*** 

At two am, MaryAnne drove a rental truck into an alley behind the
building.  Leaving the motor running, she took out a tape measure.  Her 
and Peggy took each end and they measured off sixty-two feet, exactly, 
from the entrance of the alley. 

“Don't make any mistakes, honey,” Peggy cautioned. “There's a water pipe
on each side of where we go in.  I don't wanna get wet.” 

“I'll get it, I'll get it.  Don't nag.”  MaryAnne was careful, using a
penlight to make certain.  She marked both edges of the proposed 
doorway on the wall by scratching a screwdriver on its imitation-brick 
siding. 

When they were ready, MaryAnne pulled the truck up until Peggy signaled
that the large back door of the vehicle was even with the marks.  Motor 
still running, MaryAnne got out and went to the back to open the truck 
doors. 

Peggy had her magic Magic Marker out and was tracing a door on the wall
between MaryAnne's marks.  It wasn't very high, only as far up as Peggy 
could reach. 

“There!”  When the oblong was finished, a new door appeared in the wall,
complete with a silvery doorknob.  Peggy twisted the knob and pushed.  
The door only opened a half inch.  “Darn it, I forgot. It's been a 
long, long time.”  She drew a couple of hinges at the appropriate 
places.  After that, the door opened outward. 

“I guess we were a few inches off, Mary Ann.  It must have hit the edge
of the stack.”  Which was so.  When they pulled the door open the two 
found about six-inches of stacked boxes in the doorway. 

“Let's do it,” Peggy said, excitedly looking back and forth down the
empty alley. 

They had to search to find the sleeping Sniffly.  He was stretched out,
half under a comic book, in the lighted corner. 

“Sniffly, hurry up and help us.”  Peggy woke the mouse.  It took several
hours of effort for the two old women and the mouse, but they managed 
to load half the comics onto the truck.  They would have gotten more, 
but were too worn-out to finish.  The first thing they did was to kick 
wooden wedges under the double doors.  Now the doors were locked from 
the inside, too. 

Sniffly helped by nagging them and keeping watch.  The toy guns were
running around inside  both truck and alley, hoping for a chance to 
shoot a roll of caps, disappointed when nothing happened. 

"Wheee, take us in, take us in," a mean-looking sky-blue revolver
pleaded. 

"Yeah, come on, take us in, too," a toy rifle whispered, jumping up and
down on the seat, cocking and un-cocking itself. 

"Now, cut it out, you guys."  MaryAnne cuffed them. "We need quiet
here." 

When they were through, Peggy closed the door and erased it with an
eraser built into the pen.  It was a blank wall again. 

*** 

“When can we unload that truck?  Rental costs money by the day?” 
MaryAnne asked the others.  They were back in her and Sniffly's room.  
“And where we going to keep the loot?  We don't have room in here.”  
The truck was parked a few blocks away. 

“I thought about that, girls,” Sniffly told them. “One of you go out and
sell a couple of comics.  We'll be able to pay for the truck and have a 
few dollars left over.  We can't show a lot a profit for awhile.  The 
cops might get wise and search our rooms.  That happened to me and 
Daffy Drake once in Perky #215.” 

“Won't they, the cops, get suspicious about someone selling rare comics
this close to the robbery?”  Peggy asked. 

“Na, not for one of us.  Just say it's from your own private
collection,”  Sniffly reminded them. “They won't be suspicious of us 
having a collection of our own comics.”  He brightened. “In fact, we 
should cover that tonight.  Let's go out while it's still dark and get 
ourselves a collection out of the truck.  I wanna read my old ones 
anyway.” 

So, that's what they did.  They went out to the truck and broke open a
couple of boxes, taking a few dozen of each of their comics back 
upstairs.  The three had their most enjoyable evening in many years, 
reading their own escapades and reliving old adventures throughout the 
night.  After that, they enjoyed a prosperous future by selling a few 
comics at a time. 

*** 

Before I forget, Sniffly bought a huge crate of explosive toy caps for
the guns to take back to Toyland with them.  The rebellious toy weapons 
used them to overthrow the current government there, returning Toyland 
to its roots as a happy place for toys to live. 

The End.


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