13 The Final Inning

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE FINAL INNING Franny watched calmly as Miss Shelly fell toward the ground, screaming. Then, with the loudest puff sound anybody had ever heard, Miss Shelly fell right into the big, squishy pile of white bread, completely unharmed. Franny turned to the Lunch-Meat Creature. "Now, my lunch-meat abomination, go get that pumpkin-headed creep."

The Lunch-Meat Creature grabbed the flagpole tightly and pulled until bologna-flavored sweat dripped off its forehead. Finally, with a monstrous groan, the Lunch-Meat Creature ripped the flagpole right out of the ground, causing a very angry Pumpkin-Crab Monster to fall and hit the pavement with a ground-shaking crash. The Pumpkin-Crab Monster got to its feet and growled. It began stomping toward the kids. It was almost on top of them when Franny, the only kid that did not look worried, calmly whistled.

Suddenly a cloud of bats flew down from the sky and grabbed the Pumpkin-Crab Monster by the arms. "Batter up," she said. The bats flew as fast as they could with the Pumpkin-Crab Monster, and they headed right for the Lunch-Meat Creature, who had the flagpole up on its shoulder.

The bats dropped their burden just in time for the Lunch- Meat Creature to bring the pole around like a giant baseball bat and connect with the Pumpkin-Crab Monster as if it were a giant, stinky softball. With a loud crack it went hurtling off into the sky, never to be seen, or heard from, again.

"Home run!" shouted Franny. Then Franny turned around and saw the shocked and horrified kids huddled around an equally shocked and horrified Miss Shelly.

They looked more scared of her than ever. Franny had the sad, sinking feeling that she had saved the day but had lost all of her friends.