PART ELEVEN

Patch walked up to the gingerbread door and rang the toffee bell. The he pulled it off and ate it.

"Why are you knocking on the door?" Ronaldo asked.

"I need to go to the toilet and was going to ask if I could borrow their bathroom,," Patch answered as he knocked again.

"Do you really think that’s such a good idea?" Toddy asked. "You do remember the other incident don’t you? You broke the toilet!"

"I told you never to speak of that again" Patch said in a low menacing voice as the door opened a crack.

"Who are you?" a child’s voice asked.

"I’m Patch, I was wondering if I could use your bathroom." Patch said.

"No," said the child, "I don’t think so. A friend of ours warned us that there was some freak going around breaking toilets. We kinda need ours."

"Please," Patch said. The other two stared at him, amazed that he knew how to use that word. "It’s kind of urgent."

"Look buddy. There are plenty of trees around here. If it’s that urgent, use one of them. We don’t want you to come in here," the child said.

Now by this stage Patch was getting quite annoyed. He didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a snotty nosed brat. The child was oblivious to this and continued.

"Now if you don’t mind, we’d really rather that you left. You smell really bad."

"Who do you think you are, fucking royalty? There’s only one of you, why the hell do you keep saying ‘we’?" Patch said. This was quickly followed by an exclamation of "Oh shit!" as the door was fully opened, revealing the child who was speaking.

There in the doorway was a child with two heads and four arms and legs. Okay, so it was really two children, but the were joined at the waist.

"That’s gotta suck!" said Toddy while Ronaldo stifled a giggle. Once again he really didn’t know what he was laughing at.

"Who are you, what are your names? Where are your parents?" Patch asked.

"I am Handle, this is Kettle" the boy said. "We have no parents. They sent us off into the forest because they didn’t want us any more. So we blew up their house while they were in it. We came here where a nice old lady let us live with her."

"Let me guess," Toddy said. "she turned out to be a nasty witch."

"Don’t be stupid. She was just a little old lady who was lonely and wanted some kids around. Quite nice too ... until Handle cut off her head." Kettle said. She looked at their astonished faces. "She smelled of lavender." her voice deepened. "We hate lavender."

"Yeah," added Handle. "We also hate people who eat our house." He looked at Ronaldo, who had a huge chunk of roof sticking out of his mouth.

"Umm ... well I think you were right," Patch said. "I’ll just go make use of those trees then." Patch, Toddy and Ronaldo, as they had so many times that day, turned and ran away.

INTERLUDE

Patch, Ronaldo and Toddy were sitting under a big tree watching the sun slowly set.

"You know" said Toddy, "I’m beginning to think that this whole thing’s just a crock. I mean isn’t this trip down the road meant to be some kind of ‘journey of self discovery’? All we’ve done is meet weird people and nearly die a couple of times."

"Yeah," agreed Ronaldo. "This road is supposed to take us towards our destiny, but now it seems that it actually leads to a place called Dlareme. It’s like there’s almost no storyline here."

"You two are so fucked in the head. This is real life, not a story. Why the hell should there be a storyline?" Of course this was Patch speaking. "And we have learnt a couple of things about ourselves. We know that Ronaldo is entirely incapable of dressing himself properly."

Ronaldo looked down at himself then stood up and went behind a bush to once again put his jeans on over the top of his underwear rather than the other way around. When he came back Patch continued.

"Okay, so the point of this trip has become to find the hidden city of Dlareme and only then can we get home. Fine. What the fuck happened to following the road because we were bored and it sounded like a good idea at the time?"

"Don’t get shitty with us, this wasn’t our idea" Toddy said.

"Yes, it was. Ronaldo suggested it and you went along with it to shut him up! I blame all of this on you!"

They sat in silence as the world plunged into darkness. Every so often they would glare at each other then look back at the ground. This went on for over an hour.

Finally Toddy spoke. "This is hopeless. Someone obviously has writer’s block. Let’s just go to sleep." They all lay down and eventually dozed off.

A SLIGHT INTERRUPTION

The three guys sat up and looked around them. Patch looked at his watch, it read 10:30 am. It was mid morning, yet they were surrounded by darkness. Patch really didn't care too much, it just meant that he couldn't see Ronaldo's face for a while. He smiled at the thought of not having to look at him.

Patch's thoughts were interrupted by Toddy muttering to himself about how if it were dark enough for Patch not to see Ronaldo, then how the hell could he read his bloody watch. He was made quiet by a book falling from the black sky and hitting him on the head.

"What's this?" Toddy asked.

"Who cares?" Patch replied.

Toddy looked at the book and opened it. He read the first page, this time with no smart arse comment about it being too dark to see!

"Well stuff this for a joke! She's writing another fucking story!" he said.

"Shut up shit for brains" said Patch, who was in a particularly vile mood.

"What?" Ronaldo came and looked at the book. "Well I'll be damned. Who's this Sam chick?"

"That bitch! She's obviously so busy with her new story that she's forgotten about us and left us here in the dark." Toddy said. "How can she forget about us? I mean who could forget this face? I'm just so damned good looking, she couldn't forget about us."

"Look" Patch piped up. "I don't know what the fuck you two are going on about, but will you just SHUT UP! It's dark, I sleep. There is no bloody story, I thought we covered this already."

"Ahh," said Toddy, "the old 'I have nothing better to write so I'll just repeat stuff that I've already written' trick. Well, I'll stop that right now. I'll ..."

Toddy was suddenly struck by lightning. Ronaldo thought better of saying anything and lay back down. Patch just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed!

PART TWELVE

As the sun rose the three lads sat up and rubbed their eyes. Patch and Ronaldo looked at Toddy and laughed. His hair was sticking in all directions, he looked as though he had spent the night plugged into an electrical circuit.

"Hehe. You look like you’ve been struck by lightning or something," Ronaldo giggled. Toddy just shrugged and wondered why he thought that he smelt of barbecue.

A couple more insults were thrown around as they ate breakfast – the gate of the gingerbread house. Ronaldo had stolen it as they were running away in terror from two little children. When they had finished eating they headed back towards the road.

"Look, I reckon we should just go back home," Patch said. "This is a huge waste of time."

"But we can’t," Ronaldo said. "The little people said that the only way we could get home is to find the hidden city of Dlareme."

"How about this for an idea dip-shit. We follow the road back the way we came?" sneered Patch.

"Umm…that could be a problem," Toddy said. He pointed to the road, well what there was of it. There was a sign saying ‘Dlareme’ with an arrow pointing to the left. To the right, the way that they had come, there was nothing. Just a forest full of pine trees and yellow eyes. Of course Ronaldo was the only one who saw the eyes and promptly began to cry. Patch hit him and he sank to the ground curled up in a foetal position whimpering to himself.

"I don’t suppose anyone was paying attention to the things around us as we walked?" Patch asked as he looked at Ronaldo in disgust. "We could try going from memory."

"Yeah, we could try that. Oh … umm … Wow! I can’t remember your name." Toddy said.

Patch instantly gave up on the memory idea. "Well is there any other way we can go back?" he asked.

"Nope!" Ronaldo said triumphantly, uncurling himself and standing up. "Now we have no choice but to keep following the Slightly Off White Brick Road. Yay!" He skipped off down the road.

"Great" mumbled Patch. "Now we’re fucking well stuck. This is bloody fantastic. Has anyone stopped to think about how the hell we’re going to find this city when it fucking HIDDEN???" he yelled.

No one answered him, they didn’t dare. The three guys just walked on in silence. Well actually just one guy walked in silence. Ronaldo skipped along singing to himself, conveniently forgetting how scared he was just minutes ago, and Patch trudged along muttering a string of filthy words which, if listed here, would just come out as a lot of little dashes (damn censors!). Toddy just walked silently, trying to remember a disturbing dream he had had, which involved a book, lightning and a very dark place. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Patch stop in front of him and ran smack into his back. Because Patch was in such a filthy mood (well actually just because he was such a little bastard) he turned around and decked Toddy.

They both turned and looked when Ronaldo suddenly emitted a high pitched and terrified scream.

PART THIRTEEN

What they saw when they turned around shocked them. They saw Ronaldo waving his arms and screaming and in front of him was someone who looked identical to him. He even had his underwear on over the top of his jeans. Ronaldo stopped screaming long enough to shout "WILL YOU FUCKING WELL STOP DOING THAT TO ME!" then went back to screaming.

"I’m not surprised he’s screaming," Patch said. "I’m scared myself. Two Ronaldos ... that’s fucking terrifying!" Toddy just stared in disbelief.

Ronaldo came running back to Patch and Toddy. When he reached them his screams turned to whimpers.

"Help, he’s going to kill me," he cried.

"Yeah, well I’m pretty damned tempted myself," Patch muttered. This only made Ronaldo cry harder.

"Don’t worry Ronny, he doesn’t mean it," Toddy said.

"Yes I do," said Patch under his breath.

"Who is he?" asked Toddy as he looked at the ‘other Ronaldo’. "Jeez, his face is pretty messed up."

"His name’s Jordan. He was my brother and he’s come back to kill me!" Ronaldo bawled.

"Let me guess. He was your siamese twin and when the doctors separated you he died and now he’s back for revenge." Patch sneered glaring at Ronaldo.

"Don’t be stupid, I didn’t have a siamese twin brother. I had a siamese twin sister, her name was Jessie. That’s who you’re thinking of. This is Jordan my identical, not siamese, twin."

"Why does he want to kill you?" Toddy asked as Patch rolled his eyes and Jordan came closer.

"Because when we were ten he used to tease me all the time. He used to say I had a big head. So I killed him. I hit him on the head with a spade and he died." Patch and Toddy stared at Ronaldo, they had no idea he could be so nasty. "And now he’s going to kill me. Don’t listen to him, don’t do it!" He was crying again.

Jordan had reached them and opened his mouth. The noise that came out made Patch Toddy and Ronaldo writhe on the ground in agony.

"I’ll be loving you for-e-ever ..."

"Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh! Make it stop!" Toddy yelled. But Jordan wasn’t going to stop, he just kept singing.

"You got the right stuff, baby ... oh oh oh oh oh Hangin’ Tough! ... She’s my favourite girl, don’t you know ... watcha gonna do ‘bout it ... Step by step, oooh baby! Gonna get to you g-i-i-i-rl ... This one’s for the children, the children of the world ..."

"Oh shit, looks like she’s a closet New Kids fan," Toddy said as he looked up at the sky. The singing continued.

"Dirty Dawg!"

"Oh fuck this for a joke." Patch stood up and picked up a spade that was conveniently standing against a nearby tree. He swung it hard at Jordan’s head.

"If you go away ..." his voice was cut off (literally) as his head went flying off into the forest. Jordan’s body turned in a slow circle, gave Patch the finger then melted.

"Well," said Patch as he dusted off his hands. "That was fun. At least I got to kill someone that looked a lot like Ronaldo!"

"C’mon, lets go," Toddy said. They began to walk along, Ronaldo singing to himself.

"First kiss was a sweet kiss, second kiss had a twist. Third and your fourth kiss I don’t wanna miss. You got the right stuff, baby ..." He was stopped when a rock hit him in the back of the head. He turned around. "I can’t help it," he said. "The tune’s just so damned catchy! Oh oh oh oh oh ..."

"Hey Ronaldo. What ever happened to your siamese twin Jessie?" Toddy called out as Patch collected more rocks.

Ronaldo just looked at Toddy and grinned evilly then skipped on up the road.

PART FOURTEEN

"That’s it, I’m not taking another fucking step," Patch said as he threw himself down on the ground.

"What’s wrong Mr Grumpy?" Ronaldo asked.

"I’m sick of this."

"Sick of what?" Toddy asked, staring at Patch.

"Being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with you two. It’s fucking depressing. I mean you aren’t too bad, but look at Ronaldo. He’s a fucking freak!" He pointed at Ronaldo who seemed to think that he was a dog and was currently chasing his own tail.

"Yeah, well I guess you can’t expect anything more from the little guy." Toddy sat down near patch, his hands trembling very slightly. "So, you think I’m not too bad hey?"

"Well at least you don’t think you’re a fucking dog!"

Toddy smiled to himself and inched closer to Patch. This was the kind of recognition he had been dreaming of ... Patch wasn’t insulting him. "So ... umm ... I don’t think I thanked you for saving our lives ... a few times. Well my life anyway, it would be a shame for someone with my looks to die so young."

"What can I say? I got to kill things. Cute little puppies, people that looked like Ronaldo ... it was fun." Toddy pulled out a mirror and studied his reflection. Patch stared at him. "You really do think you’re good looking, don’t you?" he asked.

"I don’t think, I know."

"Yeah, well it’s a pity that there’s not much more to you than good looks," Patch said.

Toddy’s eyes lit up. "Patch thinks I’m good looking," he thought. "And he didn’t say it too cruelly." He edged a bit closer to Patch, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him. "Could he really feel the same way about me that I feel about me ... I mean him? Do I dare try and find out?" He looked at Patch, who was staring straight ahead. "Oh God," thought Toddy. "Look at that face. He is so ... interesting looking."

For a while the boys sat in silence, Toddy occasionally glancing over at Patch, who continued to stare straight ahead. They were both deeply lost in thought ... about surprisingly similar things.

"I wonder if he does?" thought Patch. "Nah, I’m sure he wouldn’t ... would he?"

"I wonder if he does?" thought Toddy. "Nah, I’m sure he wouldn’t ... would he?"

Toddy let out a small sigh which caused Patch to look at him in surprise. "That’s it," Toddy thought as he moved slightly closer again to Patch. "I can’t deny that way I feel any longer. I just want to take him in my arms, feel him against me, kiss him, stroke him, hold his throbbing manhood in my mouth and put myself inside him. I have to tell him." He turned to Patch, but before he got a chance to say anything, Patch spoke.

"Remember that computer we found earlier?" Toddy nodded. "Well I found this page full of stories about these two guys. I think they were meant to be us, but they had pretty stupid names."

Toddy’s heart started racing. he knew exactly what Patch was talking about, he had seen them too ... and had instantly put himself and Patch into the positions of the characters. "This is it," he thought. "Patch really does feel the same way." Then out loud he said "Yeah, I know the ones you mean. I read a couple of them."

"Well," continued Patch. "They were all fucking brilliant stories, really well written," Toddy held his breath, "but if you ever even THINK about doing any of those things to me I’ll kick your fucking head in." Patch said this calmly, in a low voice which had a very menacing edge to it.

"Oh ... ah ... yeah, of course. I mean that would just be gross, disgusting." Toddy said as he quickly moved away from Patch.

Patch stood up and started walking along the road again. Ronaldo trotted along behind him, Toddy stood where he was and stared up at the sky.

"This is your fucking fault. You knew damn well that he’d say that, but you still made me think those things. You bloody well need to stop reading those filthy (yet brilliant) stories. And stop fucking well sucking up to the people that wrote them, they don’t fucking well care, they probably aren’t even reading this shit!!!" With that he stomped off after Patch and Ronaldo.

ANOTHER INTERRUPTION

Hi. I'm Toddy Furglebottom and here with me is Ronaldo Fiddlerontheroof. We're here to say that we've hijacked the story that CiC was writing about some stupid guy searching for his stupid father cos his stupid mother is dead and he lives with a stupid artist. Ever since she started writing about these people she's ignored us and we're sick of it! Oh shit, here comes Patch. Watch it, he's a little cranky right now.

"What the fuck are you two doing?" Patch yelled at Toddy and Ronaldo. "We're meant to keep moving, otherwise we'll never fucking well get home. Don't just stand there looking around like complete morons! Okay, Ronaldo, you can ... but only cos you ARE a complete moron. Let's go!" Patch started to walk away down the road. Roanldo trotted after him like a little puppy dog while Toddy stood, watching them go. He stared at Patch's tight little butt, watching the slight sway of his hips as he walked and sighed. Then he followed along ... muttering about how he really hates being made to think this way about Patch, he could never be attracted to a small dirty smelly little man!

"It better" screamed Toddy, "Or you'll never see Paul or Scott again!"

"Who the fuck is Paul?" Patch yelled back. "Stop wasting fucking time! I want to get off this fucking road sometime during this fucking millenium!"

"Too late," piped up Ronaldo. "She’s been so lazy, it’s already the new millenium!"

"Well actually ..." a voice from behind some bushes said, "the new millenium doesn’t technically start until 2001 ... that’s when I’ll be partying!" The speaker appeared ... a small, balding man wearing glasses and with a very whiny voice.

"Oh look, fuck off Howie. Noone cares what you fucking well think ... noone would invite you to their fucking party anyway. After this whole fucking GST thing ... nah stuff it. I’m sure noone would be fucking upset if I did this." Patch pulled a gun out of his belt and shot the balding little man who vanished into a puff of self admiration. (Wow, Patch has really developed a bad case of Potty mouth while I’ve left them alone!)

"Hey ... where’d he get the gun from?" Toddy shouted up.

"What gun?" Ronaldo asked.

"Well, that’s strange," Patch added as he looked down at what he was holding in his hand. The banana was still smoking slightly and one end was a little charred.

The three lads wandered off into the sunset.

"Oh, by the way ... what’s a gst?" Ronaldo asked.

"Noone knows little buddy," Toddy said as they disappeared over the horizon.

UMMMMMMM ... A BREAK???

"Damn it, why are you still doing this? You heard what Patch said, he’ll kill me! You’re a crude and disgusting individual who needs to get out and find some healthier past times! Why can’t you just let it go and move on!"

"Toddy, what’s your fucking problem?" Patch yelled. "Why the fuck do you keep yelling at the fucking sky?"

"He’s just annoyed that she won’t let him do the dirty with someone," Ronaldo piped up. Toddy picked up a rock and threw it at him, but being such a pretty boy the rock only went a couple of feet before falling to the ground.

"Ah, so that’s your problem ... aside from having a pathetic throwing arm ... you wanna shag," Patch said.

Toddy didn’t say anything, just glared at both Patch and Ronaldo. "This is all you’re fault," he thought as he glanced up at the sky.

Well seeing as I can’t write properly cos I’m seeing blurred words I think I’ll give this a rest and try again when the characters are in better moods. I have a question though, what the fuck happened to the third TV theme for Mikey’s team?

"I stole it!" yelled Ronaldo and he ran off giggling like a little girl.

PART FIFTEEN

Okay, well seeing as the characters have been running riot a little bit, I decided that I should probably get back to their story to calm them down. But it’s been so long since the last (proper) part was posted I thought I should do a brief re-cap of the story thus far.

"We’re following a road made with bricks that are slightly off white. We can’t get home! There, re-cap done! Now get on with the story!" Toddy suddenly looked around in surprise as a gag appeared over his mouth. He sank to the ground and glared up at the sky.

There are three main characters. Patch McSporrin - a rude, mean, cruel, smelly little man who can sing beautifully but has a potty mouth and likes to kill things; Toddy Furglebottom - an arrogant loud mouth who thinks he’s the most good looking man ever to walk the earth, and who has developed strange sexual desires and Ronaldo Fiddlerontheroof - a quiet, stupid man who plays (badly) the banjo and has trouble dressing himself. These three are following a road, mostly because they were bored but also because it has now become the only way that they can get home. It seems that they have to somehow find the Hidden City of Dlareme and talk to the Draziw of Zo in order to get home. Once they do this they will find their destiny. So far they have run into many varied and interesting creatures, most of which are either dead or emotionally scarred (this would most likely be Patch’s doing). Some of these included Fleecy - the strange boiled egg man (wasn’t killed, but was deeply offended by Ronaldo); Patch - the satanic spawn of the devil dog of Due North (now dead thanks to Patch); his sister - the devil dog of Due West (also dead); Slob - the leader of a cult of daylight vampires (dead); Jordan - Ronaldo’s evil identical twin with a thing for New Kids on the Block (dead - Patch again) and a house which was so disturbed when Patch broke it’s toilet that it grew wings and flew away. Patch also killed, with a banana oddly enough, a smug, pathetic little balding man who seemed to have a very big problem with an over inflated ego and with no clue what so ever as to what the people of his country actually want!

"The political opinions expressed in this story are by no means those of the characters!" Toddy suddenly shouted. Patch turned to him and hit him over the head with a banana.

Oh, and here were also a couple of psychotic kids and a lot of little people, but they all survived. And finally Toddy has developed certain lustful cravings for Patch.

So that’s pretty much it to this point. Here we go again.

When we last saw the boys they were wandering rather aimlessly down the road. Ronaldo was skipping and singing to himself, Patch was grumbling and contemplating killing Ronaldo and Toddy was staring at the ground, refusing to look anywhere near Patch.

Suddenly Ronaldo stopped and turned around to face the other two. He stuck out his bottom lip and pouted.

"Oh God," Patch muttered. "What the fuck’s wrong with you now?"

"I’m hungry!" Ronaldo said.

"Yeah," Toddy said, "me too."

"No, I’m really hungry. I’m really, really, really, really, really ... ugh!" Ronaldo fell to the ground holding his jaw. He started to cry. "What’d you do that for?" he whimpered.

"Cos you’re a fuckwit," Patch answered.

"But I’m hungry. I’m really, really, really ..."

"We get the idea Ronny! What do you want to eat?"

"Anything. I’m starving!"

"Will Jatz do?" a voice behind them asked.

"Umm ... yeah, I guess so. Who are you?" Ronny asked as he looked at the strange man with the big nose and the tight red cowboy suit. The man didn’t answer him, he just spat Jatz biscuits all over Ronaldo.