“I’m glad you weren’t on the school choir,” Josie told Freddy. “You would’ve made the entire school a laughingstock!”
“Hey, I sung ‘Eye of the Tiger’ very well!” Freddy responded. “Look; 90%! I did great!”
“Yeah, but you were on ‘Easy’, which means it only picks up pitch! You could’ve been saying anything as long as the pitch was right!”
“Whatever! You’re just jealous!”
“Right, because there’s so much to be jealous of...”
ERT! ERT! ERT!
“Well, you’re definitely gunna be jealous of my zombie-killing skills after I use the new fire-pea plant!” Freddy said proudly.
“Not if I get there first!!” Josie responded. She then threw the guitar at him and bolted for the basement.
“Hey!” Freddy called after her. He then ran down to the basement as well. Once they were both down there, however, they were shocked to see Alex already in the seat!
“When did you get down here?” Josie asked her friend.
“About 10 minutes ago,” Alex replied. “You were too busy with the game that you must not have heard me come down the stairs. By the way, Freddy, you should be glad you weren’t in the school choir; you would’ve made the school a...”
“OK! OK! I get it!” Freddy growled. “Just...is the plant ready or not?” he asked Dave.
“Yep!” Dave replied. “Now, I couldn’t create a plant that could SHOOT fireballs. However, I managed to make something that creates the same result!”
He then turned to the side and revealed what appeared to be a short but thick log with fire coming out the top! The Plant had a serious look on its face.
“This is Torchwood!” Dave explained. “When a pea passes though the fire he produces, it turns the pea into a fireball! And fireballs do twice as much damage as a regular pea!”
“Well, good enough!” Freddy replied, clearly calmed down now.
“Let’s see how good he does!” Alex said before scanning Torchwood into the laptop. He then quickly started planting Sunflowers and Peashooters.
After a few regulars and Ducky Tubes were killed, a lot of Cone Heads started approaching!
“You could use more Repeaters!” Josie quickly suggested. Alex just quickly looked at her with confusion.
“Well, why do that when I can do...” he started, and then planted a Torchwood in front of a Peashooter. “...that!” he finished.
Sure enough, when the pea passed though the fire, it turned into a fireball! When the fireball hit the Cone Head in the face, the zombie instantly grabbed its face in pain! One hit later, its head flew off!
“I can see this thing being VERY useful!” Freddy said proudly.
“Well don’t think you’re so hot because you thought of it!” Josie told him. She then paused before replying, “Er, no pun intended.”
Suddenly, they all heard a dolphin click! They simultaneously turned to the TV and saw a zombie jump into the pool...on a dolphin’s back!!
“Holy cannoli!” Dave gasped. “Just when I thought I’ve seen everything...!”
Before any of them could respond, the Dolphin Rider Zombie was riding the dolphin across the pool faster than they had seen a zombie go yet! Before they could react, the zombie jumped over the first plant it came across, which happened to be the only Peashooter! However, it seemed to have lost its dolphin after jumping, as it was slowly swimming towards the Sunflower in front of it!!
“Uh-oh!” Josie gasped. “What do we do now?!”
Without verbally responding, Alex clicked on Lily Pad’s picture on the laptop and planted her in front of the Peashooter. He then clicked on Jalapeño’s picture and planted him on the Lily Pad.
WHOOSH! The pepper turned the Dolphin Rider to ash!
“That was close!” Freddy told them all.
Suddenly, another dolphin clicking could be heard! This time, the zombie was in the OTHER lane in the pool!
“I have an idea!” Alex suddenly gasped. He then planted a Lily Pad two spaces in front of the Peashooter. The others were quite confused as to why he was doing this. However, when the Dolphin Rider came to the lone Lily Pad, it jumped her, leaving him without a dolphin and slowly approaching the Peashooter. A few seconds later, the zombie was out! A minute after that, all the remaining zombies were killed!
“Wow, good thinking, Alex!” Dave told him. “And you know, I think I have something than can easily stop those guys from messing with us again!”
“Good to hear!” Alex responded. He then got out of the chair and stretched. “I’m actually kinda hungry. Sun, think you could whip up some late lunch?”
“No problem!” Sunflower responded. Alex then picked her up and brought her to the kitchen.
“Anything you want in particular?” she asked when he had set her on the counter.
He thought for a second before replying, “Dave’s been working hard lately, so I think he deserves something nice.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Maybe a taco bar?”
Sunflower just grinned happily.
“He’d LOVE that!” she replied. “I’ll get to work on it!” She then turned to the stove and turned it on.
“Oh, by the way,” she continued, “you’re probably wondering where I’m getting all the food for this, right?”
“Actually, now that you mention it, I AM rather curious.”
“Well, would you believe me if I said it was because I can magically turn the soil in my pot into raw food supplies?”
Alex suddenly felt like he was about to hurl.
“Well if you would, I’d be lying to ya!” she responded. She then let out a chuckle before asking, “Gotcha, didn’t I?”
Alex nervously chuckled before replying, “Yeah, you did.”
“But seriously, though,” she continued, “don’t ask how, but Crazy Dave managed to make a way to have whatever raw food item I think of appear right in front of me if a clap my leaves twice in a row!”
“Really?”
Sunflower simply turned to the lit stove, placed a pan on it, and clapped twice. When she did, a loud sizzling sound was heard from the pan and steam could be seen flying out of it! It also quickly smelled of meat! Curious, Alex quickly went over to the stove and looked into the pan. Sure enough, to his surprise, Alex saw raw beef cooking in the pan!
“Now THAT’S amazing!” Alex told the Plant. “But wouldn’t it just be smarter to have the finished product appear?”
“Well sure, but where’s the fun in cooking at that point?” She then gave another wink and clapped twice again. This time, a container of spices appeared on the counter.
“Lunch should be ready in about an hour,” Sunflower continued. “That’ll give you time to do whatever it is you wanna do.”
Alex just nodded and went into the living room, where he saw Freddy and Josie playing another round of Rock Band. This time, Josie was the one singing. She was actually doing quite well on ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’, not that Alex was surprised; she was one of the best on the school choir. In fact, she was the lead of Belle in that year’s musical production of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
Alex himself didn’t get a role, but he managed to get a job of stage crew and set design. The two were each giving each other advice on how to improve, and it paid off in the end; the musical was, as told by the papers, ‘the best production in the town’s history’.
“Yes!” she suddenly exclaimed as she saw her score. “100%! Take that, Freddy!!”
“You got lucky,” he responded with a mumble.
“Whatever you say, loser!” Josie replied with a grin.
ERT! ERT! ERT! The two bolted for the basement, with Alex right behind. Once down, they stopped dead in their tracks as they stared at the newest plant.
This Plant had to be 6 feet tall AT LEAST! It almost looked just like Wall-Nut if he was taller.
“This is Tall-Nut,” Dave explained. “His height is just enough to prevent a zombie from jumping over it! Plus, his shell is stronger than Wall-Nut’s, meaning he’ll last a lot longer!”
“That’ll definitely help!” Josie told the lunatic. She then quickly planted.
After the Sunflowers and Peashooters were planted, Josie then started planting Torchwoods, Spikeweeds, and Repeaters.
Suddenly, after a few minutes, another dolphin click could be heard! They turned to the screen and, sure enough, a Dolphin Rider jumped into the pool!
Without being told to, Josie planted a Lily Pad and then a Tall-Nut. Instantly, the Dolphin Rider jumped when it got to the nut; however, Tall-Nut’s height prevented the zombie from getting over! The Dolphin Rider smacked into Tall-Nut and slid into the water. After a second, the zombie reappeared in front of Tall-Nut and started eating it. After a few seconds, though, the fireballs from the Torchwood killed it!
After that, more Dolphin Riders appeared, as well as Zombonis, Pole Jumpers, and Bucket Heads; however, the Plants did a quick and fantastic job of stopping them. After a total of 5 minutes, all the zombies were gone.
“That was incredible!” Josie told all the Plants. “Nice job to all of you!”
“Hey, you’re the one who planted us,” Tall-Nut pointed out. “You should be the one taking the credit out there.”
“Well...okay then!” she replied with a chuckle.
“How many attacks was that?” Freddy suddenly asked nobody in particular.
The others quickly paused in thought. Suddenly, Crazy Dave replied, “That was the ninth, I believe.”
“After the ninth attack, don’t they usually...”
ERT! ERT! ERT!
Everyone quickly turned to the TV and saw another zombie with a piece of paper in its hand run towards the house. After reaching the middle of the lawn, it dropped the paper and ran off the property.
“...do that?” Freddy finished.
“As fast as he’s going, you’d think he’d keep going instead of dropping the paper and leaving,” Alex pointed out.
“Well, that doesn’t exactly matter, does it?” Crazy Dave asked. He then went upstairs.
A second later, they heard the back door open and saw him run into the backyard, grab the paper, and then ran back into the house. A second later, he came down the stairs with the paper still folded up. After completely down, he unfolded the paper and read it. He then just gave a sarcastic chuckle and showed it to the others.
Hello. We herd you were having a pool party. We think that iz fun. Well be rite over.
-The Zombies
“Well, that’s clearly another sign of an upcoming attack,” Alex commented. “You know, it makes me wonder why they give us heads-ups on these attacks. If they want us dead, why would they let us know they’re about to come in large groups?”
“Who knows?” Josie replied. “All that matters is we’re still surviving; don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!”
“I know! I’m just saying it’s kinda weird; it’s like someone’s trying to help us out...”
ERT! ERT! ERT! They looked to the TV and saw a huge wave of zombies coming!
“Let’s stop focusing on that and focus on killing them!” Freddy told his brother.
Crazy Dave then sprinted to the laptop and typed again. As expected, more green numbers and letters scrolled across the screen. Finally, the screen turned normal again.
“She’s all yours!” he told the teens. Freddy quickly sprinted to the chair and started planting.
Seeing as how he had the ability to use any plant he wanted, he quickly planted a few Threepeaters. Not long after that did he place some Torchwoods in front of all those! Nearly every type of zombie was approaching the house; if not for all the fireballs, they would’ve probably been smoked! Thankfully, three whole rows of Threepeaters and a row of Torchwood in front of that were doing the trick quite well.
After a while, as expected, Freddy’s eyes started to burn from all the work. He appeared to be slowing down a bit, too.
“Someone take over!” he suddenly shouted. As soon as that was said, Alex ran over to his brother. Freddy then quickly jumped out of the chair as Alex jumped in.
Once in the chair, Alex realized there was not much for him to do; the amount of fireballs was doing quite well at stopping every single zombie there was, even the Zombonis!
Finally, after another 15 minutes, all the zombies were taken care of. They all then let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Glad that was taken care of,” Dave finally said. He then turned to Alex. “Didn’t you say you were gunna have brunch?” Alex simply smiled.
“I sure did,” he replied. “In fact, Sunflower should be done with it by now. Let me check on that.”
He then quickly ran upstairs and into the kitchen. Once inside, he was amazed at what he saw: the table filled with plates of taco shells, shredded beef, shredded chicken, shredded cheese, sour cream, refried beans, lettuce, and hot sauce!
“Wow!” he said with total shock to Sunflower, who was on the counter. “You don’t disappoint!” Sunflower just chuckled.
“I do my best,” she replied. She then turned towards the basement door and shouted, “FOOD’S READY!”
A few seconds later, Alex heard the others sprinting up the stairs. Dave was first, with Josie after him and Freddy after her. After getting into the kitchen, they all froze with shock at the sight on the table!
“Well I’ll be darned!” Crazy Dave said with a chuckle. “A taco bar! Never thought I’d see Mexican food again!”
“Well, that’s the great thing about me,” Sunflower replied. “I can make anything happen!”
"Clearly!" Dave replied with a smack of the lips.
"Well, enough chit-chat!" Alex told them all. Let's eat up!"
And so, they grabbed their shells and filled them up with meat and the other toppings.
After a good hour or so of eating unlimited tacos, Alex looked at his watch and saw it was much later than he thought.
"We should head to bed," he suggested to the others.
"Why?" Asked Josie. "The zombies are just gunna wake us up later anyway."
"Exactly," Alex replied. "Wouldnt't hurt to get as much sleep as possible."
"He's right," Dave told them all. "And truth be told, I'm worn out from all the plant making."
So with that, they all agreed to go to bed. Dave went to the basement, and the teens went upstairs. Freddy said his goodnights and went into his room. That left Alex and Josie alone in the hallway.
"Goodnight," Alex told her. Josie smiled shyly at him.
"Goodnight," she replied. She then sprinted to her room and quickly closed the door.
Alex was confused as to what that was about, but he just shrugged it off and went into his own room. He then got into his pajamas and removed his glasses. He couldn't believe all that happened that day. The biggest shock was what Josie told him that morning. He really wanted to do what she was wanting, but he was right; they needed to wait until they were safer. With that, he laid down, closed his eyes, and waited for the zombies to wake him up.