string bean | wilbur soot

32

"That's exactly what it's gonna be," Noah nodded, grabbing one. "I'm going to use this to whip the competition."

Then Charlie and I found the puppets. First, Charlie grabbed a parrot as we laughed about it. Then he grabbed a dinosaur alligator thing. I grabbed the iguana.

Charlie walked over to Ted, putting his puppet on his hand, trying to scare him with it.

We didn't get bags for our puppets.

-

I walked next to Cooper to the chairlift. Someone yelled at us, and when we looked over, it was Carson. Cooper flipped him off immediately. I laughed, grabbing the hand Cooper was currently using to give Carson the bird, pulling it down with my iguana puppet. He started laughing along with me.

"It's four to a chair," Ted said when we got up to the lift.

Cooper looked at him. "Vee and I can-"

"Charlie, Vee, Ted," Schlatt interrupted. "C'mon, us four."

Charlie cleared his throat. "Are you forgetting someone?"

I looked at him, confused until he held up his puppet. I chuckled, holding mine up as well. 

"I'm not counting the puppets. You guys are actual fucking children," Schlatt sighed, getting into the chairlift. Ted got in behind him, then Charlie and I did, laughing.

As the lift started moving, we remembered that we were supposed to make small talk. Schlatt turned to Ted. "Tell me about how you're maximizing your revenue with a Roth IRA. You ever think about it?" he asked.

Ted nodded, "I do kind of think about Roth IRAs every now and then. The individual, uh, retirements account."

"Hi!"

We looked to the right and saw a group of people in the chairlift on the other side of us, waving. We all said hey back, but Schlatt yelled, "You guys know what Roth IRA is?!" causing me to laugh.

Ted and Schlatt went back to talking, but Charlie decided to mess with Schlatt with his puppet. Eventually, Ted got pissed and shouted at him: "You need to stop. You need to stop- You need to stop."

"Hold his hand- hold his hand- he's scared, he's scared, he's scared, he's scared- you're being loud, you're being loud- hold his hand, Ted-"

"See this?" Ted asked, grabbing onto the tag on the puppet. "See this?" he asked again, ripping it off.

"Ted, you monster!" I shouted.

"Holy shit," Schlatt laughed.

"No! My god-" Charlie held the puppet in his lap. "He's bleeding out- Vee- Vee, help-"

"I have no regard for life," Ted stated. "Anyways, uh, that was some good small talk."

-

"We have to quickly walk across this bridge," Cooper laughed.

"Easy," Noah shrugged.

"Vee, you're the smallest, get on," Ted said, crouching down slightly.

"What?" I asked.

"If I carry you, we'll both win."

"Ted, it isn't a competition-" Charlie said.

"Or is it? Vee, hurry!"

I laughed, getting on Ted's back as both he and the others started to walk quickly. Well, everyone but Schlatt, basically.

-