A Three-Donut Vacation: XXII. Confrontation at the Donut Factory

Heavy-Duty Donut Machinery

Written 8 July, 2008

A Three Donut Vacation

XXII: Confrontation at the Donut Factory

“Look!” cried Sweetie.

I had been gazing longingly at my bag of donuts, just feet away. But now I saw what had alarmed Sweetie. Across the room, the heavy steel door to the Donut Room was sliding slowly closed. We couldn’t possibly get there before it slammed shut—and once shut, it would STAY shut. Krispy Kreme is serious about donut security.

To my surprise, there was an English throwing scone in my hand. I had no memory of having grabbed it from its patent leather designer pouch. “One side!” I yelled. Sweetie ducked behind a bin of flour and I spun the scone away, using my best underhand throw. It bounced along the floor like a rock skimming across a pond and by sheer good chance skidded to a stop at the base of the door. The huge door hit it, shuddered, and stopped.

“God bless the English!” I cried.

Sweetie reached the door before I did. She squeezed through the opening without a problem, but I got stuck. “Damn my breast size!” I cried.

Through the thick Plexiglas picture windows of the Donut Room I could see the pastry-making machinery in motion. Donuts, in rows of six, were making their way through pools of hot oil. And I could see, in the narrow space between the conveyors, Sweetie and ImSoNotADiva engaged in a fierce sword battle.

I had gone into Appearance and was feverishly dragging the slider for breast size to the left. I didn’t think I would ever get myself small enough, but finally I popped through.

I had hoped to go to Sweetie’s aid, but straightaway a sword wielded by a second (well, third, if you count the head in the book bag) Diva nearly skewered me.

By the use of artful dodging I avoided my Diva’s blade long enough to find the watermelon gun in my Inventory ( MELONS). Sweetie is always on my case about being hyper organized, but in this case, the hours of sorting paid off. I attached the watermelon thrower, hit M for mouselook, and just as I was about to be split asunder by my Diva’s descending cutlass, I fired.

Watermelons are heavy; that’s why I had passed up the tomato gun INVENTORY> CHEY’S THINGS> WEAPONS> GUNS> GUNS WITH UNUSUAL PROJECTILES> FRUIT GUNS> NON-CITRUS> FRUITS OFTEN MISCLASSIFIED AS VEGETABLES). The melon hit my diva amidships and knocked her back hard against the conveyor. As she teetered, on the verge of righting herself, I fired again and she was knocked back into the hot grease. Her scream was horrible, but cut blessedly short as her open mouth was filled with boiling sugar as she passed under the glazer.

By then ANOTHER Diva was on top of me. This one was ridiculously armed with a donut hole gun. The little holes bounced ineffectively away—although they made a MESS of my Evie’s Closet gown.

“Take this!” I cried, and hit her with a stream of melons. She went down. I kept firing until she was lifeless, buried beneath a sea of pulp and rind.

Finally, I was free to turn to Sweetie. She was on the other side of the six-foot-wide conveyer belt, standing on a pile of headless Divas, fighting for her life with what I hoped was the last of our enemies. This diva was wielding a Hot Donuts Now gun. Had one of its glazed projectiles touched Sweetie, she would have been killed instantly. She was knocking the donuts aside with the blade of her katana, but this Diva was skillful, and one of about every four donuts was encircling the tip of Sweetie’s katana and sliding down the blade toward the hilt. The growing stack of donuts was making Sweetie’s parries increasingly clumsy and me increasingly hungry.

Things looked grim.