Creepy With a Chance of Monsters, Chp 3

Later that night, everyone stayed at an elaborate, ten-story hotel called the Ritzy Inn D.C. Flint, Brent, Tim, Earl and Manny shared one bedroom suite while Barb and Sam shared another next door. Both were complete with a pair of red, velvet double beds, a flat screen television, a miniature fridge, and a balcony out the sliding glass doors that showed a view of the entire D.C. cityscape.

Brent laid down on the navy-blue, fleece carpet like a sleepy dog. “Ohhh, man this fuzzy floor feels so goooood! Hey, you don’t mind if I sleep down here, do ya?”

Earl looked down, unimpressed. “Could ya maybe wait until we’ve at least gotten in our room first?”

Brent turned around with wide eyes; his big body was blocking everyone from getting in through the door. “Sorry…”

Flint walked over Brent, his head still hanging low, and plopped his suitcase on one of the beds.

Tim followed him in concern. “…Flint, what ya did was really dumb, but don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re still ok. Just let it go and move on.”

“That’s just it, Dad. I can’t just let it go. This is the 5^th time within the last year that I’ve accidentally almost hurt the people I love. There was the incident with Sardine Land, the Food Storm with the FLDSMDFR, I nearly wiped out all the Foodimals, you guys were almost turned into Food Bars, and now this! I don’t try to put you guys in danger. In fact, I work real hard to try and make you guys happy, and yet, one way or another, I end up putting everybody’s lives at risk. I never mean to, but it still happens…and I don’t know why.”

Tim tried to sound as confident as he could. “Look, son, it’s not that bad. Y-Ya just gotta learn from your mistakes, and then don’t do it again. It’s not that hard.”

“It is if you make more of the same mistakes while trying to stop them from happening again. It’s like…remember back in school? When all the teachers said there was something wrong with my behavior, but they couldn’t figure it out? I feel like it’s that problem coming back again. Something’s keeping me from being the most responsible, adult scientist that I should be, and I don’t know what.”

Flint flopped face-first on his pillow.

Tim patted his son’s back. “…Don’t think about it too much, Skipper. You’re not that bad.”

Brent slapped on some swim trunks. “Yeah, Flint. C’mon and join us in the hot tub. That’ll make ya feel better.”

Flint gave Brent a small smile. “Thanks, Brent, but I can’t swim, and I can’t take off my Spray-On Shoes either.”

Tim smirked. “The water’s only 6 feet deep, son. Besides, I don’t think your shoes will be a problem if people are ok with Earl wearin’ THAT thing…”

Earl wore a purple Speedo that was as tight as his police pants. Flint cringed a bit at the sight, but smiled back at his Dad. “Ok, sure, I’ll give it a try.”

--

Flint clung onto a white support beam as if it were a tree trunk. “I am NOT giving it a try!”

Sam and the others gave him awkward or unimpressed facial expressions. They were all sitting in an a white-tile hot tub next to a large, swimming pool, both of which were underneath a glass roof, and bordered with white, concrete walls.

“Flint, you are NOT gonna drown in a hot tub!” Earl groaned.

Manny added. “Even I, who is only half the size of this tub, am still alive and well.”

Flint pointed. “But look! You can’t even see the bottom of that thing!”

Everyone lifted their feet up, which were only blocked by the immense bubbles. Flint stopped shaking, and just looked down in embarrassment. “Oh…”

Some other guests in the larger pool pointed and laughed at Flint’s little episode of paranoia. The scientist shimmied down the beam in shame, his face as red as his crimson swim trunks.

Sam glanced up at the frost-covered roof. “Good thing this pool is indoors. It’s getting unseasonably cold out for this time of year.”

--

The next morning, the gang walked out to the front lobby, bundled up in colored, winter coats and gloves, gazing at the eight inches of snow that had frosted the entire District of Colombia.

Brent’s eyes nearly burst the hood of his chicken-coat. “It’s snowing!!!”

He then rushed into the ground, spread his wing-like coat sleeves up and down, and stood back up. “My first chicken snow angel!”

Steve popped up from underneath the snow, looking like an Albino monkey. “Cold!”

Sam showed a map of the DC area on her cell phone, holding it with brown gloves. “Well, as long as we’re here, we might as well do some sight seeing. Flint, you kept all your inventions back in the hotel, right?”

Flint gave Sam a thumbs up with his baby-blue mittens. “Yep, nothin’ but my cell phone, and Sprayed-On Shoes.”

“Then, on we go.”

--

The gang made their way to the National Mall, a wide-open park that spread a mile long and half a mile wide behind the White House. It was complete with all its landmark splendors; the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Smithsonian Museum, all the sights that would enthrall the hearts of any patriotic tourist...well, any except Flint Lockwood.

While Sam and the others ventured through the sights, cherishing this rare vacation, Flint found himself constantly distracted by the simplest of pleasures that would seem more fitting to amuse a six-year-old than a twenty-five-year-old inventor. While everyone else peered at the gaping view from the top floor of the Washington monument, Flint stared up at the passing clouds above, imagining them as different Foodimals such as Watermelephants, Cucumbirds, and Buffaloafs. At the Constitution Gardens, Sam and the others took turns feeding the geese bread crumbs and taking amusing poses at the massive lake. Brent even tried to swim like the geese, but leaped right out of the water, his shivering body turning teal-blue. However, Flint just stared aimlessly at the water, holding a wooden branch with a weeping willow strand attached to the end, resembling an ameture fishing rod, waiting in vain for a bite. The only sight that seemed to remotely fascinate Flint was the National Air and Space Museum branch of the Smithsonian, which mostly consisted of colossal collections of historic vehicles, such as the Apollo 11 Command Module or Amelia Earhart's signature biplane. The young inventor would analyze the descriptions of the machine's inner workings, his eyes darting across the words like a computer scanner, all while humming his own theme song to himself. But, eventually, Sam, Tim, or Brent would let Flint know that they were moving on, and he would reluctantly return to his less pleasant reality. 

As everyone headed out of the Smithsonian, the others finally picked up on their friend’s unease.

“You ok, Flint?" Sam asked. "You’ve been wandering around by yourself all day.”

Flint tried to mask his anxiety with a smile. “No I haven’t. I’ve been looking around at the exhibits and stuff like you guys have.”

Tim added. “You’ve been lookin’ at pretty much everything BUT exhibits.”

Earl raised an eyebrow. “You sure you’re ok? You seem really tense.”

“Tense? No, no no no no, just a little chilly from being outside, that’s all.”

Sam frowned. “Flint, we just came out of a heated, INDOOR exhibit…”

Flint looked down at the ground; he was clearly not a very good liar.

Sam put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Flint, please tell us what’s wrong. We wanna help you in any way we can.”

Flint noticed everybody gathering around him, and struggled to get the right words out. “Well, I-I, um…I-OOF!”

Brent had thrown a snowball across the group, and smacked Flint in the back of the head!

“Gotcha!”

Flint sighed in relief, and made a relaxed smile, rolling up a snowball back. “I feel a lot better already…SNOWBALL!!!”

The rest of the gang watched as Flint went back to his cheery self, pelting Brent with snowballs across picnic areas in the Mall. Still, they couldn’t help looking at each other with confusion.

Then Manny broke the silence. “Hmm, none of these particular sights are of any interest to Flint. He appears to gets anxious when he is outside his typical comfort zone for an extended period of time.”

Tim nodded. “That’s always been a problem since he was a kid. He was always nervous about tryin’ new things, so he got more involved with his own interests than anybody else’s.”

Sam looked confused. “But he used to not like fishing, and now he does it with you a lot back home.”

“Yeah, sometimes he gets into these phases where he’ll reeeeeally love a certain interest a lot, but until he feels he’s ready ta try it, he won’t even touch it.”

Barb cringed. “And people say I’M a monkey…”

Flint chased Brent down a White House Gift Shop on the outskirts of the National Mall, still tossing snowballs at each other.

Brent rushed inside the lobby, laughing and stopping to catch his breath. “Ok ok, dude, you win!”

Flint smirked, rolling up his last few snowballs. “I don’t think so…snowball, and snowball!”

A pair of Caucasian security guards raced toward Flint. “Hey, what the heck are you-?!”

“SNOWBALL!”

But as Flint tossed his last snowball one of the guards, he instinctively drew his pistol in a split second flat, and before the snowball even hit his chest…

BANG!

Sam and the others jumped back at the gunshot. Earl winced and clung onto his chest. “Oh man…my chest hairs have upgraded from just tinglin’ to burnin’ up somethin’ fierce!”

Sam gasped. “Oh my gosh, where’s Flint and Brent?!!”

--

The entire lobby of the White House gift shop, inside and out, was blocked by a fence of yellow police tape. A red ambulance sat parked next to the entrance doors, with two police cars parked to the left. Though five security guards were blocking any curious visitors, a crowd of several dozen people stood anxiously behind the police tape, trying to look at the crisis behind the glass doors. 

In the lobby, an outraged Tim Lockwood was giving the shooter guard a severe dressing down.

“You shot my son over a SNOWBALL?!!”

“We had no idea, sir! For all we know, that could’ve been a snow-covered bomb waiting to blow the capital!”

About twenty feet to Tim's left, Sam, Brent, Barb and Manny sat beside a horrified, extremely distraught Flint on the granite floor. The poor inventor sat there crying hard and squeezing Sam's right hand as Manny carefully observed Flint's blood-stained right hip, tearing the bullet hole in his jeans even farther for a closer look.

Brent watched Manny with intense focus. "Easy, Manny, careful, easy...whoa whoa, watch it, Manny! Manny, be careful! Hey, easy!"

Earl glared. "Glad to see you're bein' the brave one tonight..."

Finally, Manny looked up. “The bullet appears to be only skin deep, but we need to get Flint to the hospital to have it properly removed.”

The gang all walked Flint inside the ambulance, and he lied down on his left side on a cushion stretcher. 

Tim sat beside Flint, holding his right hand. “Don’t you worry, son. Those guards ain’t gonna get away with this. I’ll find you the best lawyer around, we’ll sue the guards for excessive violence, and-!”

“Thanks, Dad, but…I just wanna go home…”

Poor Flint buried his face in his pillow, sobbing, as the ambulance drove away from the main entrance of the National Mall, and into the cold, dimly lit streets of of Washington DC.