So with a plate of cookies in one hand and her hot pink rhinestone encrusted phone in the other, Dallas Jean Lee skidded down her driveway in her hot pink VW bug, a manical grin stretched across her face.  Next to her, Adelaide gulped back the rest of her Big Red in her martini glass. Behind them, Larry, Curly and Mo hopped in the backseat, wearing matching pink rhinestone studded harnesses.

Only Curly was a girl.

“Dallas, why don’t you let me hold the cookies?” she coaxed.

“No!” Dallas bellowed. “You’ll want to eat them!”

“I promise you, I won’t,” Adelaide replied dryly.  She would have never hurt Dallas’s feelings, as her friend loved to bake and sincerely thought she was good at it, but Dallas’ cookies tasted like dry bricks.

“You and your goofy diets,” Dallas muttered, swerving around a old woman crawling across an intersection.  “Granny, you better hurry up before you become roadkill!” she shouted out of her window.  The old woman snarled and shook her walking stick at her.

“I thought you were supposed to like old folks,” Adelaide muttered.

“I do,” Dallas Jean replied.  “I was warning the dear old thing she has a choice between being a flat on a truck grill or dottering with the other old timers at the Grill.  Either way, she’ll be grilled!”  She cackled at her own pun.  Larry, Curly and Mo howled along in glee.

Weaving down the road, Dallas Jean blew through several stop signs and clipped a mailbox before finally skidding to a stop in front of the petting zoo on Evers Road.  Straightening her magenta dress sprinkled with crystals that formed a large parrot above each breast, she slipped on her four inch pumps and reapplied her hot pink lipstick.  Fluttering her eyes, smeared with purple shadow that curled out like Nefertiti due to her hurry, she beamed at her best friend.

“Ready?” she asked.

Adelaide looked at her empty martini glass.  “Sure you don’t have any Big Red in the trunk?”

“I bet they got some inside.”  Dallas opened the door, letting Larry, Curly and Mo hop out and dance around her feet.  “You remember the plan, right?”

Adelaide blinked.  “All you said was that you had heard that the animals were mistreated, and we were going to rectify the situation.”

“Right.”  An evil grin crept over Dallas Jean’s face.  “It’s what a good mayor’s wife would do.”

“But how are we going to fix the situation?” Adelaide asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Dallas Jean snorted.  Grabbing her favorite floral purse, she swept towards the gates of the petting zoo.

“What’s easy?” Adelaide asked.  Receiving no response, she hurried after her friend, who had marched through the gates and was now barreling towards the tiny shack that served as a office.  A small man with a gleaming bald head started as Dallas stuck her wide bouffant through the tiny front window.

“Pardon me, sir, but where might I find the owner of this fine establishment?”

“Right here,” the man stuttered, his eyes wide.  “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Dallas Jean slapped a $50 on the counter and simpered.  “Why, we want a tour, of course!”

“You can walk around at your leisure, ma’am,” the man stuttered, grabbing the money before she could change her mind.

“Oh, but we don’t want to just wonder around aimlessly,” Dallas Jean cooed.  Her crystal studded fingernails fluttered.  “We want a tour.  We want to learn about the critters, the petting zoo, everything.”

“Well, all right,” the man muttered, shaking his head.  He stood and scurried out of the small building.  Glancing at Larry, Curly and Mo, he shook his head.  “I’m afraid that I can’t allow your animals here, ma’am.”

“Really?”  Dallas Jean’s lips formed a tight smile.  “Then give me my money back.  Admission is only $3 a person.”

The man gulped.  “My name is Billy.  I’ll be  your guide.  Right this way, please.”  Extending his stubby arm, he lead the ladies toward a pen with goats.  The petting zoo was not very big.  Within fifteen minutes, they had seen goats, cows, miniature ponies, chicks, ducks, geese, llamas and pigs.   With every pen, Dallas’ lip curled and her nose wrinkled.

“The petting zoo opened about thirty years ago, and has gone through five owners,” the man recited, obvious of Dallas’ expression as a mud covered pig brushed against her.  “We only feed our animals the best grain, and hire only experienced caretakers.  School children come here often on educational trips and we hire out for parties and events.”  He paused in front of a bored cow, dully chewing her cud.  “Bessie is our prime exhibit. Children can pet her, smack her, milk her.  She never kicks of bites.”

“Dallas!” Adelaide screeched, spooking Bessie and Billy.  “I feel something!”

Dallas rushed to her friend and grabbed her hand.  “What is it, Adelaide, tell me?”

“What’s going on?” Billy asked, rubbing his bald head nervously.  “Is she having a seizure?’  Adelaide moaned and swayed from side to side, her red head waving about.

“She’s psychic,” Dallas Jean informed him, helping her friend stand.  “She’s having a vision.  She sees something, something we ca not.”

Billy snorted.  “She is a vision,” he muttered.  “A vision of insanity.”

With her eyes closed, Adelaide raised her other trembling hand to her lips.  “This is an evil place,” she intoned, tears streaming down her face.  “Something terrible happened here, something terrible!  The animals aren’t happy!  They’re sad, Dallas, and they’re scared.”  Her eyes opened. “We must do something, Dallas, or these animals are in terrible danger.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Billy sputtered, his face turning red.  “This is one of the best petting zoos in Texas!  Why, we were ranked”–

“One of the best petting zoos?” Dallas snorted.  “Son, your water dishes are filled with mosquitoes and mold. Your animals are rolling about in their own filth.  I would day these cages haven’t been cleaned in weeks, let alone days.  Bessie here is so underfed I can see her skeleton and your sheep are in desperate need of shearing.”  She bent down, picking up a mud-smeared goat.  “This goat is covered in open sores, some infected.  You’d have to be blind or stupid not to notice.”  Dropping the goat, she dusted off her hands and jabbed her finger into his chest.  “This is a terrible excuse for a petting zoo.  You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“What would you know?” Billy snarled.  “You and your crazy rich friend march in here, with your stupid dogs and pretend to know everything?”

“Stupid dogs?” Dallas repeated, her voice soft.  “Stupid dogs?”  She stepped toward him slowly.  “Are you calling my dogs stupid, boy?”  Larry, Curly and Mo, sensing their mistresses’ anger, ran to the end of their leashes barking and snarling at Billy’s legs.

Adelaide crossed her arms and glared at him.   “Perhaps the evil I feel here is you,” she hissed.  “Perhaps I can remedy that.”  Grabbing his hand, she traced her red fingertips over his palm and began to laugh.  “Dallas,” she drawled, “this man is the most miserable creature I’ve ever seen.  And he’ll have the most terrible, horrid, most atrocious…”

“What?”  Billy cried, his eyes wide.  “What?”

Adelaide dropped his hand.  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she warned, her voice low.

Billy snatched his hand to his chest, his face pale.  “You two are crazy!” he shouted, his voice quavering.  “I’m calling the cops!”

“Go ahead!” Dallas Jean replied airily.  “I’ve got plenty to tell them.”

With scarcely a backwards glance, Billy bolted to the tiny office.  As he dialed the police, Dallas Jean and Adelaide began to call their own back up.

And from the front gate, her pen flying, Clementine Jane scowled through her binoculars.  “My mother’s gone too far this time,” she muttered, watching her mother try to fit a small piglet in her purse through the tiny lens.  Her police scanner buzzed, and she groaned as an order for the whole police force to the Evers Road Petting Zoo crackled over the airwaves.  Grabbing her camera, she hurried out of the car.

“If anyone’s going to get this for the paper, it’s going to be me,” she muttered.  “If someone doesn’t stop my mother soon, my father’s campaign will be over before it began…”

To be continued…

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we’ve got a new Critter Confessions!  Next week we’ve got more whimsy, tasty recipes and a whole lot of fun!  Stay tuned!

And if you need more to read, check out my new book, Miss Pickles!

Or if you’re looking for some early holiday cheer, check this out!  It’s my Twelve Tales of Christmas, children’s and adult short stories  perfect for the whole family, available on Lulu or Amazon.com!