Chapter 4

Confused, Luke looked up at the Guk. "Now what? I can’t do a double war since I’m out of cards…."

"Tie game!" Declared the little green man, "Now we have three choices. One: play again! Two: you give us half the ice cream and we leave. Three: we take all the ice cream and blow you up anyway. Hmm…" mused the little man, "where’s your ice cream?"

"What do you want the ice cream for anyway?" Blossom asked when Luke just stared stupidly at the little green man.

"Banana Splits! What else!" the Guk rolled his eyes as if everyone should already know this.

"Remember what I told you about letting them think you have something they want!" warned the Voice. Luke quickly shut his mouth on what he’d been about to say and instead decided to try to trick them. After all, the situation couldn’t get any worse.

"We’ll only tell you where the ice cream is if you don’t blow us up." He said with more force than he felt. "Uh.. If you blow us up, then you’ll never find the ice cream." He thought that was pretty smart of himself to think up. He was silently congratulating himself when the forest green alien to the left of the leader suddenly began yelling unintelligibly at the leader and turning a dark purplish forest green color while waving his tube wire thingamabob around.

"You think that’s their mother language?" the Voice asked Luke. "Hee hee, here, I’ll translate, he’s saying. You stupid pinhead, I told you they didn’t have any Spam. This is a waste of time. I could be home watching the news, but no, I’m out here with a lamebrain leader who--" the Voice abruptly cut off his joking as the Guk charred a nearby tree with his wire bobber. In a grave tone he decided, "This looks serious."

"You think?" Luke asked sarcastically. Blossom looked at him curiously.

"Think what?" she paused, "or are you talking to yourself again?"

Luke growled, but decided against explaining, instead he asked sarcastically, "You think the Llama could help us?"

"That’s a good idea," Yogi agreed, "I’ll send the elephant to fetch him."

"That’s a stupid idea!" Blossom pouted, "and besides, how would an elephant know how to find a llama?"

"Grassho--" began Yogi,

"DON’T CALL ME THAT!" screamed Blossom. "I’M SICK and tired of being turned into insects because you can’t remember my name. It’s Blossom, BLOS-SOM, B L O S S O M. got it?"

The purplish forest green Guk halted mid-rant and stared at Blossom, who’s yelling had temporarily outmatched his. By this time, five or six trees had been charred into ash. He advanced on Blossom with a curious look on his face. "Yowx wouzn sde bolae we?" He asked Blossom respectfully.

Blossom turned from Yogi and her face began to assume a purplish tint as well. "I CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU STUPID GUK! Speak an earth language! Speak pigeon for all I care, but don’t go calling me names in a language I can’t understand!"

The Guk looked pleased, “SEOP MI ZYOLO BU!!” he shouted gleefully back at Blossom.

“AND ANOTHER THING! YOU FRIED MY FRIENDS!! I’M PART TREE YOU KNOW, AND LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO MY GARDEN!”

"Xoip WOIN sio--" began the Guk when Blossom interrupted.

"QUIT SPEAKING GIBBERISH! YOU OVERGROWN TERMITE!" She began to turn pink then red then purple as she started to swell. Luke remembered the last time she’d done this she’d turned into a fire breathing dragon, and a show down between a dragon and a Guk with a thing that fried trees didn’t particularly sound fun.

"Why don’t you morph into one of them? Then maybe you could understand him." Luke suggested helpfully as Blossom began to change colors and swell up. She instantly froze her swelling and looked at Luke.

"That’s actually a good idea goat-boy." She sounded surprised. She began to deflate, and shrink and then with a puff of smoke she stood there in Guk form, except for the flowers growing out of her ears. "Now, what were you calling me?" she growled at the purplish forest green man.

Blossom and the purplish Guk began chattering back and forth unintelligibly, and Blossom began to blush a delicate shade of pink. Luke blinked, it looked as if the two were flirting! Luke looked around for Yogi instead of watching those two act silly. He glanced around at a loss. The sky was starting to lighten, and it would be morning soon. They must have spent all night dealing with these Guks. And Yogi, for all of his supposed wisdom, hadn’t been much help. Speaking of which, when and where had Yogi gone?

"He said something about the elephant…" the Voice reminded Luke, "and it’s gone now."

"Good grief!" Luke said exasperated, "you think he rode off to find that stupid llama?"

"Probably." agreed the Voice.

"Quack!" interrupted the duck. Luke turned to look at her and saw the leader advancing on him.

"Well," began the little green man, "It looks like we don’t get to blow you up after all." He sounded disappointed. "His majesty’s son has taken a strange liking to Bla-sum."

"Majesty? I thought you were the leader?"

"Correct." agreed the Guk. "I am the leader of this expedition. I am the general of his Majesty’s invasion force. However, his son insisted on coming along to help learn the skills he will need when it is his turn to rule. He disapproved of my strategy to give you earthlings an illusion of a fair chance by battle, and then take over the planet anyway. But I thought that by the time the card game was through, since it is a very long game, my spies would have located your ice cream stash and sent it to the mother ship. Unfortunately, they failed to locate it, and so I was somewhat at a loss of what to do when you threatened to take the secret to your grave. Of course, we can make ice cream ourselves, but we find the earth varieties taste best because of the cows milk." The little green man shrugged his shoulders, "Now I do not know what will happen. His majesty won’t be too happy, but then he always gives his son everything he wants. Perhaps he will decide to take Bla-Sum back with us. But from the sound of things right now, it looks like he might want to stay here and plant a colony." The Guk let out a long sigh. "What a mess."

Luke privately agreed, but kept his mouth shut. Let flower-ears get herself out of this mess, he thought peevishly. "Told you we should let them think we had ice cream." a smug Voice bragged to Luke. Grimacing, Luke looked over to the duck, who was staring raptly into the forest as trees began to shake and sway, it looked like the elephant was returning. On the elephant’s back rode Yogi and a big cardboard box.