Escape of the Nerk Twins

Chapter XI

"Gerta, dear, could you go check that Doctor Lennon 007 doesn't own the Beatles?" the well-dressed nude man asked his grey-haired wife.

"Right away, Martin!" she replied, getting up from her psychedelic rocking chair and wandering over to the window. "Does Doctor Lennon 007 own the Beatles?" she screamed into the flowerbox.

"Lemme see . . ." replied the ancient Greek philosopher crouched underneath the flowerpot. He pulled out a 1967 London Yellow Pages and a pair of spectacles. "Nope," he concluded.

*static*

Announcer: This sketch has been created by the Board of Public Sanity to warn consumers of the dangers of overuse of Monty Python's Cure-All Entertainment.

A/N: Grazie mille to all my fab reviewers - FanFiction: leah9712, ThisBirdHasFlownToRhye, and Macca's Little Teddy Bear; WattPad: InmylifeIloveLennon, Macca40, and MasterofFire.

"Can you believe that Roman Emperor Nero played the bagpipes?" exclaimed Paul, clutching the steering wheel with one hand and eating crisps from a bag on his lap with the other.

"Yes," replied John flatly, not bothering to look up from his notepad.

Outside the car, the now relatively windless Highlands rushed past in a blur of subtle greens and browns. Grey clouds and shards of blue sky in between hung over the narrow strip of worn concrete.

John and Paul drove in silence for a few seconds. John chewed the end of his pen reflectively, poised to write something more.

"It's interesting that they don't really know when the first bagpipes were introduced to Scotland," mused Paul.

John groaned. "Can you please shut up about bagpipes? You've been talking about them for the past three hours."

Paul continued obliviously, "I mean, concrete evidence of actual bagpipers or pictures of bagpipes limits their origin in Scotland to the 1400s, but that seems late to most scholars. Textual evidence –"

"I can't believe you actually remember all this!" exclaimed John.

"Or is the design more interesting to you?" asked Paul, risking a glance away from the curving road through the hills to glance at his passenger. "'Cause I can tell you that, although it's classified as a double-reed instrument like the oboe, it actually has four reeds, but not all of these –"

"I've just remembered, I have to go shampoo my goldfish," cut in John hastily. "Can you let me out of the car, please?"

They drove on in silence. The road continued to wend. The grass on either side continued to be green and brown.

"What're you doing?" Paul asked John.

"I was writing," replied John pointedly. "Until you started giving me a lecture on bagpipe use in Scotland."

"It's interesting!" defended Paul.

"Look!" exclaimed John.

Paul whipped his head around. As the car came around the latest sharp curve, the two Beatles could suddenly see a large lake to the left of the road. The glassy water was perfectly still, reflecting the snow-capped hills behind it so clearly that, for a second, Paul thought he might have accidentally confused up and down.

"Stop the car!" yelped John, tossing his notebook carelessly into the back seat, to rest upon a mound of discarded candy wrappers, comic books, and the burnt-out flashlights from the previous night.

Paul pulled the silver-blue Ford Anglia carefully off the narrow highway, onto a patch of grass on the edge of the lake. He slowed the car to a stop and put it into park.

"Can I get out now?" complained John, bouncing up and down in his seat.

"Yeah, I'm not stopping you," replied Paul. The pair leapt eagerly out of the car.

"Aye, it's good to stretch me legs again," said Paul in an exaggerated Scottish accent.

John leapt wildly into the cool, clean air. "I'm free!" he yelled. The echoes reverberated off the lake and the hills behind him.

"Let's get out the cameras," suggested Paul, racing around to the back of the car and unlocking the trunk. He rummaged around in the half-empty gas-station bags, eventually pulling out two new Kodak cameras full of unused film.

John raced around to the back of the car, clutching an imaginary hat to his head.

"Here you are," said Paul, handing his friend one of the cameras.

John stared at the camera for a second before whipping it up and taking a picture of Paul.

"Gotcha!" he cackled gleefully. "Your soul is mine forever!" He capered back around the car, blowing a raspberry at the bassist pursuing him.

"You'll pay for that, Lennon!" laughed Paul, raising his camera to take a picture of John.

"The horror!" yelped John, clutching his chest. "You've taken my soul!"

Paul bent over, clutching his knees, silently laughing. John snapped a picture.

"How . . . dare . . . you!" wheezed Paul, trying to pull in some of the crisp, still Highland air. John's laughter reverberated off the lake into the distance like the thin rings left by a waterbug.

Paul whipped up his camera and snapped a picture of the guffawing guitarist.

"Okay, tell you what, let's take pictures of each other," suggested John.

"Right, count of three!" agreed Paul. They both straightened and prepared their cameras.

"One," announced Paul.

"One and a half!" yelled John.

"Two," intoned Paul, placing his finger carefully over the button.

"Thirty seven!" cackled John, doing a little jig.

"Three!" declared Paul. They started taking pictures of each other.

Click click click click click click was, for a few seconds, the only sound. Until both of the cameras refused to click properly.

"I think I'm out of film," said Paul, staring at his camera in consternation.

"So'm I," replied John. "We'll just have to take mind pictures for the rest of the trip."

"Ooh, I like that," said Paul. "Mind pictures . . . sounds like a song, doesn't it?"

"Catch!" ordered John, tossing his camera in Paul's general direction. The bassist caught it with the tips of his fingers.

The pair leapt back into the car. Paul carefully leaned over into the backseat to lay the cameras on the cushioning mound of debris before realizing that something was off.

"John . . ." he growled menacingly.

"What?" inquired John innocently.

"Get out of the driver's seat," enunciated Paul in a low, dangerous voice.

"Where am I supposed to go? You're in the passenger seat," pointed out John, stroking the steering wheel lovingly.

"Get out of the car!" yelped Paul. "I'm not letting you drive!"

Reluctantly, John pushed open the door and pulled himself out of the vehicle. Paul climbed over the gearshift and settled into the driver's seat.

"Now you go around and get in on the other side," ordered Paul, pointing at the seat next to him.

Once John finally collapsed into the passenger seat and slammed the door, Paul grinned.

"Ready to go have some more adventures?" he asked.

"If you insist, Phyllis," replied John in a posh falsetto.

A/N: *deep, booming voice* And now for something entirely different:

I was riding a horse yesterday and fell off. I almost got killed! Thank goodness the Walmart greeter saw what happened, came over, and unplugged it.