The October Pumpkin Spice Everything Phenomenon Read online

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  Agent Diamond grabbed a shopping cart.

  “Surely you aren’t going to buy anything?” Charming Guy asked.

  She glanced at him and gave a rueful smile.

  “I can’t leave without the chili and lime cashews,” she replied.

  The day was brilliantly blue-skied and sunny, the same as most days were in southern California and the sun shone down brightly on the two secret agents as they entered the store. Agent Diamond waited patiently for a few moments while Charming Guy went to see the store manager with a fake letter of introduction that described them as store security agents, there to try to prevent shoplifting. This cover was needed to explain why they would spend an entire day lurking in the aisles of this particular Trader John’s, trying to nab Professor Tiggleswhammy before he could use his ray of nutmeggish doom on the product displays.

  Agent Diamond wheeled her little red shopping cart to the aisle full of packages of nuts.

  “Chili and lime!” she chortled, nabbing the last package of chili and lime flavoured cashews. An elderly Asian woman walked up to the display and eyed the empty spot where the last package of cashews had been. She glared at Agent Diamond, who pretended not to notice.

  “Mine,” Agent Diamond whispered as she wheeled her cart toward the small stand at the back of the store where free samples were given out.

  Charming Guy was inspecting the display of liquor bottles and admiring both the prices and the fact that, in America, alcohol could be sold in the same store as food.

  “I can get olives and gin and vermouth,” he said happily. A short, bespectacled man with white hair and muttonchops brushed against him, clumsily, struggling with something he held in a shopping bag under one arm.

  Charming Guy did a double take— it was Professor Tiggleswhammy! No one else would have so much facial hair.

  Agent Diamond was holding a small paper cup filled with orange juice and chatting with the salesgirl behind the free samples counter. Charming Guy reached into his pocket for his Taser, but was too slow—the Professor had withdrawn a strange object consisting mostly of a glitter-infused pink plastic horn, and was aiming it at the samples counter.

  Charming Guy, fumbling for his Taser, yelled, and Agent Diamond looked over.

  “Duck!” she yelled at the salesgirl. Reflexively, Agent Diamond threw herself into the path of the Professor’s ray to protect the young woman behind her. A beam of pink light struck her full in the chest; Charming Guy and a small assortment of shoppers looked on in horror.

  Agent Diamond staggered a bit, then shook her head. A strange orange mist enveloped her body for a few moments, then cleared. She looked down at herself.

  “Pumpkin-themed blue denim overalls?” she cried in horror.

  The pink ray of light had caught half the sales counter where orange juice samples were given out; the same orange mist which had enveloped Agent Diamond had enveloped the counter, and once clear, the counter contained a festive display of pumpkins, scarecrows, and leaves.

  “Pumpkin Spice Juice” the bottles on the counter read, and every label had a large orange pumpkin on it.

  Agent Diamond unbuttoned the top few buttons of her blouse and peeked down at her chest.

  “Orange gingham?” she cried, angrily. She reached for her Taser and pulled an orange plastic gun from the holster at her waist instead. She aimed it at the Professor and pulled the trigger, and the gun made a whizzing sound, producing a few small sparks.

  “That’s right,” Professor Tiggleswhammy said. “You can’t stop progress!” He aimed his ray at a shelf full of baking mixes. The shelf was enveloped in orange mist for a few moments, and when it cleared, it was full of orange-coloured boxes with pictures of pumpkins, cinnamon sticks, and cranberries on them.

  Agent Diamond stared at a box of pumpkin-cranberry muffin mix.

  “That actually looks really good,” she said, reaching for the box, then shook her head.

  “No! What have you done to me?” she cried, dropping the toy gun. She cradled her head in her hands.

  Charming Guy appeared, a red plastic cup in his hand. He took his Taser out of his pocket, took a sip of his drink.

  “Oh, Professor,” he drawled, and the bespectacled, bewhiskered little man whirled, his beige trenchcoat flapping open.

  “You’re no match for me!” he cried, and pulled the trigger of his ray just as Charming Guy hit the trigger of his Taser. The Professor dropped his ray and fell to the floor, twitching; his ray had smashed against the tile into a dozen pieces. Glitter sprayed everywhere.

  The orange mist enveloping Charming Guy cleared and he looked essentially the same as he had before the mist, save that he now sported a large gold pumpkin pin in his ascot. He brushed a few specks of lint from his sport coat.

  “You get a pin, and I get overalls and gingham underwear?” Agent Diamond fumed, stomping over to the prone body of the Professor. She and Charming Guy put the Professor in restraints.

  “I cheated a bit,” Charming Guy admitted. He proffered the red plastic cup, which contained two olives floating in a pale alcoholic liquid.

  “A dry martini?” Agent Diamond took a sip. Her overalls shimmered a bit.

  “Better drink the whole thing,” Charming Guy told her, and she drained the plastic cup. Her clothing shimmered and a greyish mist enveloped her; when it cleared, she was wearing her usual suit and blouse.

  She eyed Charming Guy, owlishly.

  “Where did you get a martini?” she asked, peeking down her blouse.

  “Everything normal?” Charming Guy asked.

  “It’s back to black lace. You didn’t answer my question,” she said. She blinked, looked at the plastic cup.

  “That was a double, wasn’t it?” she said, peering into the cup. “Whooo.”

  “I put together a dry martini with ingredients from the store and a red plastic cup I just happened to be carrying in my satchel,” Charming Guy replied. “By the way, we are now buying gin, dry vermouth, and a jar of green olives.”

  Agent Diamond nodded. Store employees were clearing up the mess left by Professor Tiggleswhammy’s exploded raygun.

  “What do you want us to do with this stuff?” a young man asked, holding a dustpan full of pink plastic parts and glitter.

  Charming Guy pulled a box of large zipper-seal bags from his satchel.

  “Did you get that satchel from Doctor Who? Exactly how much stuff have you got in there?” Agent Diamond asked. She was fishing around in the cup for one of the olives.

  Charming Guy smiled, brilliantly.

  “I have a knack for having what I need, exactly when I need it,” he said. He gave a zipper-seal bag to the employee holding the dustpan.

  “It should fit in here,” he said. “And if you find yourself craving pumpkin, or covered in pumpkins, I suggest drinking a dry martini immediately. A virgin cocktail made in a tiki-themed glass or coconut should work just as well.”

  “You’d better call the CIA and tell them we have the Professor,” Agent Diamond said, hiccupping. “Neither one of us can drive right now.”

  Charming Guy paid for their purchases and bundled the reusable bag containing them, along with the zipper-sealed bag full of raygun pieces that was packed into a brown paper bag, into the shopping cart. Agent Diamond pushed the cart out of the store while Charming Guy hefted the unconscious body of the luckily-smallish Professor Tiggleswhammy behind her. They found a spot on the curb to wait for one of the CIA’s black vans.

  “Want another martini?” Charming Guy asked. Agent Diamond frowned at him.

  “You’re not supposed to drink in public,” she said. “You’re lucky the store let us get away with it. In fact, if we hadn’t needed a dry martini as an antidote to the Pumpkin Spice Everything Ray, they’d probably have charged us with something.”

  Charming Guy nodded.

  “How did you know a dry martini or tiki-themed stuff would work, anyway?” Agent Diamond
asked him. She adjusted her sunglasses on her nose, squinted up into the bright sunlight.

  “It was the last page in the briefing report that you only skimmed,” he said.

  “The print on that page was tiny,” she replied.

  “I know,” Charming Guy said. “I was really bored with waiting, and I have good eyesight.”

  Agent Diamond hugged herself, briefly.

  “You OK?” Charming Guy asked.

  “I just had the overwhelming urge to make pumpkin spice cupcakes with little marzipan pumpkin toppers,” she replied, shivering.

  Charming Guy nodded. He reached into his satchel, pulled out a guidebook.

  Tiki Bars of the United States, the cover read.

  “I think we’ve got you covered,” he said.

  “Who’s buying?”

  A black van pulled around the corner. There were two somber dark-suited men with sunglasses in the front seats.

  “Why, the CIA, of course,” Charming Guy replied. “We can even invite good old Jim Wallace along.”

  Agent Diamond looked blank.

  “I was joking,” Charming Guy said.

  The van pulled up, and a door opened. Jim Wallace stepped out of the van. He stared at them intently.

  “Got the Professor here,” Charming Guy said, reaching down and picking up one of the Professor’s arms. “He’s been Tasered but should be all right in a few.”

  “And the ray?” Jim Wallace asked, twitching.

  Charming Guy pulled the zipper-sealed bag from the paper bag sitting in their shopping cart.

  Jim Wallace’s eyes gleamed.

  “Soon,” he murmured, reaching for the bag. “Soon, the power will be mine!”

  “On second thought,” Agent Diamond said, deftly snatching the bag away from both men, “I think the ray was destroyed by an alien race that said such technology was too far advanced for the human race to use safely.”

  She tucked the zipper-sealed bag of pink glittery stuff back into the paper bag.

  “So close,” Jim Wallace whispered. “So close.”

  Professor Tiggleswhammy groaned.

  “We will take the Professor from here,” Jim Wallace said, an unhealthy gleam in his eyes, and two large, dark-suited men in sunglasses lifted the Professor and carried him into the van.

  “Agent Diamond was injured in the line of duty,” Charming Guy said, catching Jim Wallace’s arm. “We require an expense account for her treatment—unlimited expenses for one month.”

  Jim Wallace stared at him for a moment.

  Agent Diamond bit her lip.

  “Yes, yes,” Jim Wallace said, his lip curling slightly. “Only you have to sign a confidentiality agreement—you cannot tell anyone about the Professor and the P.S.E.R. for at least ten years.”

  Charming Guy hesitated a moment, then shrugged.

  “Fax us the paperwork within the hour,” he said, smiling brightly. “You’ll get what you want, if we get what we want.”

  Agent Diamond shook her head slightly, tried to catch Charming Guy’s eye. He ignored her and stared back at Jim Wallace.

  “Done!” the CIA man cried, and with a gleeful expression, hauled himself into the black government van. The door slid shut and the van pulled away from the curb.

  Agent Diamond took Charming Guy’s arm.

  “What have you done? They’re going to recreate the Pumpkin Spice Everything Ray!” she said.

  Charming Guy shrugged. “They were going to do it with us, or without us,” he said. “This way we can at least get you free of the influence of the ray.”

  Agent Diamond winced.

  “I want little sequined pumpkin earrings!” she cried. “Dangly ones!”

  Charming Guy looked somber.

  “We have to call a taxi,” he said, pensively. “We need to get you to a tiki bar right away!”

  “Is there one open at,” Agent Diamond checked her watch, “noon?”

  Charming Guy hefted his copy of Tiki Bars of the United States.

  “If there is, we will find it,” he vowed. “And then drink anything that comes to us containing pineapple, coconut, and small paper umbrellas.”

  Charming Guy dialed for a taxi, arranged for one to pick them up in five minutes. He smiled at Agent Diamond as he spoke into his phone, gave her a thumbs up.

  As soon as he hung up, she grabbed his arm.

  “To the tiki bar!” they cried in unison.

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  About the Author:

  Elizabeth Bent has a Ph.D. in Soil Microbiology and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher since 2001. She writes adult science fiction and fantasy, and enjoys kittens, books, chocolate, red wine, strawberries and long bubble baths. Her writing reflects both her whimsical sense of humour and her interest in the human psyche. She has published one science fiction novel (Perigee) and is currently working on a novel describing what it is like to suffer from delusional disorder (Starstruck). Information on both works, as well as other novels and stories, can be found at her website, www.madgirlscientist.com. Dr. Bent can be reached via Twitter at @bent_elizabeth.