October 11, 2001
It was October 11, 2001, which was one month after the September 11 attacks. The attacks would have happened if Logan Dara, Dicky Michaelson, and Andrea Élan hadn’t discovered the attacks in an obscure newspaper and told Sean Michael Rowes about it. Sean never would have tipped off the FBI and 19 men wouldn’t have been arrested for plotting to carry out the attacks.
In short, the entire country would have been destroyed if Sean, Logan, Dicky, and Andrea hadn’t prevented the attacks in time.
We now find the cousins having dinner in a small restaurant called The Sesame Express, located outside Pasadena. At first glance, they are all going out to eat, but if we looked closer, we could tell that they were celebrating something important.
This was the one-month anniversary of when they stopped the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington DC.
“While we’ve gotten a small amount of hype for “The Frostfall”, everyone’s still excited for Harry Potter,” Andrea said as everyone was eating. Dinner consisted of fried white rice with chrysanthemum leaves, durian, ogbono nut, salmon and duck with a salad of sautéed sea kale and elderberries. “What are we doing wrong?”
(Before we go any further, I would like to remind you that “The Frostfall” was a movie based on the book “The Destiny of Lacey Parrish”. The cousins were currently promoting the movie, hoping that it would overtake the more popular and highly anticipated movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.)
“I don’t know, but it seems that everyone wants to watch “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone” and completely ignore our movie,” said Logan. “Which means we have to step it up if we want to take down Harry Potter.”
“Does anyone have any good ideas on how we can do that?” said Andrea. “Legitimate ideas that should work?”
“Well, we could sabotage “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone” by making a video claiming that Harry Potter promotes witchcraft,” said Dicky.
“Oooh, good idea,” said Logan. “I could dress up as Father Diego and pretend to denounce Harry Potter as evil.”
“I don’t think some people will like that,” said Andrea.
“Who cares about what they think?” Dicky cried out. “I most certainly don’t. As far as I can tell, J.K. Rowling can kiss the fattest part of my ass!”
“Dude, you are tasteless!” Logan cried out.
“And proud of it!” said Dicky.
“Oh God!” Andrea cried out.
The Three Cousins soon settled down to a comfortable life in Pasadena, California after leaving New York. While Logan kept busy with his various filming projects, Dicky and Andrea enrolled their children in school. They had yet to plan their next move.
As for Andrea, she was concerned that Roger wasn’t in California yet despite Sean’s promise that he would get Roger’s job to send him to California as soon as he could. She vowed to confront Sean about that the next time they met.
“Enough about that,” said Sean. “We’ve come here to celebrate an important anniversary.”
“What anniversary are we talking about?” said Logan.
“It’s been one month since we prevented the September 11 attacks,” said Sean.
“Really?” said Andrea. “You’re telling me that a whole month has gone by since we stopped the attacks from happening?”
“Yes,” said Sean. “From the looks of it, it appears that the people of New York are celebrating that anniversary.” He glanced at the television, which depicted a large group of people celebrating at Central Park. There was an art show and a free concert featuring the alternative punk rock band Unicorns Smash Beans.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rudy Giuliani out there with the people,” said Logan.
“That he is,” Andrea said as she stared at the mayor on TV. “Just imagine what would happen if we didn’t stop the attacks.”
“We didn’t stop the attacks?” said Logan. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“Oh, perish the thought!” Sean cried out. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if we hadn’t raised the alarm when we did. We would have died or worse.”
“And our children would have been orphans and Deirdre would have been left a widow,” said Dicky. “I’m glad we stopped the attacks when we did.”
“And because of what we did in stopping the attacks before those attacks happened, we have created a brighter future for New York even if we’re not there to see it for ourselves,” said Andrea.
Just then, William came to him carrying a message from Irene. Logan read the note and said, “I thought that we all agreed to meet at Thanksgiving. What’s happening?”
“It’s cousin Irene,” Sean said as he too read the note. “Rex tells us that she had a son this morning. His name is Yeagan.”
Dicky snorted. “Yeagan? Seriously? She named the baby Yeagan?”
“That sounds interesting and original,” said Sean.
“It’s better than any of the other baby names that we’ve heard of,” said Logan.
“That’s as bad as naming the baby Hagrid!” Dicky said.
“I know, right?” said Andrea. Then to the others, she said, “Dicky and I have been reading the first Harry Potter book and...”
“You’ve read the book,” said William. He glared at them before continuing, “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone is a children’s book. Please grow up and read something for adults.”
“Be quiet, William,” said Sean. To Dicky, he said, “I can’t believe you’ve read Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone, you dork!”
“Well, of course, I did,” said Dicky. “Practically everyone and their mother has read that book. I’m secure enough in my maturity to admit to reading it.”
“Oh brother,” Andrea cried out.
“What’s the verdict?” said Logan.
“Is it any good?” said Sean.
“That book is full of crap,” said Dicky.
“What makes you say that?” said Logan.
“First off, the orphan-as-hero trope has been overdone, and I don’t like orphans,” said Dicky. “Second, why the heck would you leave a baby on the doorstep in the middle of the night? Doesn’t everyone know that if you leave a baby on a doorstep, that baby could freeze to death or be taken away by a stranger?”
“That alone would make me stop reading the book,” said William.
“To make things worse,” said Andrea, “the author sent Harry to live with his fat abusive relatives.”
“What the hell is this crap?” Logan cried out as his cousins and various other patrons and waiters stared at them. “When last I checked, fat people are 10x more likely to be abused than to be abusive towards others. Plus, the abusive relatives trope needs to go away and die, not be celebrated or embraced or accepted. Besides, no self-respecting person wants to deal with abusive relatives.”
Sean said, “You know, if I was her editor, I would tell her to delete that part of the story immediately. Having an orphan as a hero and living with abusive relatives is nothing but trouble. Now, how far did you guys get?”
“I stopped reading after page 20,” said Dicky. “Most of the first chapter centered on a man named Vernon and not on Harry. I mean, most of the chapter centers on him going to work, which I think is boring.”
“Well, not to be outdone by Dicky’s rather poor reading habits, I read to the end of the chapter,” said Andrea.
“And?” said Logan.
“It was so dumb,” said Andrea. “They called Harry a hero, yet condemned him to live with “muggles”. That’s so insulting!”
“Muggles?” said Sean.
“What the heck is a Muggle?” said Logan.
“A term coined by Rowling that defines non-magic users, which is basically anyone who’s not a witch or wizard,” said Dicky. “I believe that that word is a term used to insult us non-magical people. I mean, what’s so great about using magic anyway? What’s wrong with being a Muggle?”
“I certainly don’t know what’s wrong with us being Muggles,” said Sean.
“Muggle and proud!” Andrea yelled.
“Yes,” said Logan. “Let’s shout it from the rooftops for the world to hear; we’re Muggles and we’re proud!”
As he said that, a group of people walking by glared at him. “What?” He said to them. “What’s wrong with being a muggle? Muggles are great! Muggles rule! Besides, we built the Internet! We built cars! We own this world! Besides, what have wizards ever done for this earth, besides hide in their little magical world and not interact with us?”
“Whatever,” said a man.
“Believe me, you’re going to be thankful when Harry Potter mania hits this country on Thanksgiving and it fizzles as quickly as it comes,” said Logan. “When that happens, I’m going to be serving you all a great big heaping bowl of I-told-you-so. It’ll be such a crying shame because it’s going to be delicious.”
The group of people harrumphed and walked away. Some of them muttered threats against the cousins as they left
“Well, I never!” Andrea snapped as she watched the people leave. Everyone stared at her. “Did these people not care about what you had to say to them about Harry Potter? The nerve of people these days!”
“It’s like when we had to deal with that Pokémon crap a few years ago,” said Dicky. “Think of the mess that it created.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” said Andrea. “It was already bad enough that kids were playing with those Furbies, beanie babies, and Tickle-Me-Elmo. But when Pokémon came onto the scene two years ago, kids were losing their minds over those silly fake pocket monsters and the quest to catch them all, whatever that meant.”
“I don’t want to think about that, not in this lifetime,” said Logan. “Not when I had to fight with everyone and their brother to keep Pokémon out of my home and away from Homer and Treasure. Even the movies about Pokémon were busts, no thanks to the movies “Beyond Lemuria” in 1999 and “The White Octopus” in 2000.”
“Too bad that none of them were on the same level as The Spirit Keeper,” said Sean. “Those movies that you made to try to force everyone to stop watching those Pokémon movies were seen as mediocre at best. Anyway, we might as well get to the hospital and see little Yeagan before Irene sends out a search party for us. You know how she is if we choose to skip out on an important occasion such as a baby’s birth.”
“Indeed we must,” said Andrea, “because what kind of cousins would we be if we never meet the little guy?”
“Irene would kill us if we don’t get our butts over to the hospital right now,” said Logan. “This means we need to gather the kids and get over there immediately. I bet Jacquelyn wants them to meet her new little brother.”
“As well as Jo and Ari,” said Sean. “They will want us to meet the baby.”
“Well, looks like we better leave now if we want to get to the hospital on time,” said Dicky.
They left the restaurant and walked down the street with various people staring at them. They knew the cousins from the newspaper detailing the one-month anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Many people cheered while others shook their heads wondering how some people with Down Syndrome and other various mental issues (especially Sean’s hatred of America) could have stopped terrorists from attacking New York.
Yet, a rude man approached the cousins, yelling, “Why didn’t you let the attacks happen?”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY???” Andrea snarled at the man who made that rude remark concerning the September 11 attacks.
“You know what I said,” said the angry man. “Why didn’t you let them blow up the Twin Towers?”
“Well, here’s what I have to say about that,” Andrea said as she sized up the man. He was fat and ugly with a twisted nose, pimples that scarred his face, unwashed hair, and wearing ragged clothes.
In short, this man wasn’t the kind of man who should be harassing the cousins.
“Now listen up here, you big fat tub of lard,” Sean snapped as he faced the man. “I’m only going to tell you this once. You have no right, no right to be yelling at us like that. We saved your pathetic country so you can live in it without fear of being blown up by terrorists, and this is how you choose to thank us? By scolding us for not allowing bad people to blow up buildings and killing hundreds if not thousands of American citizens? You’re absolutely the worst person in the world if you had to say that to us, and I’ve spent my entire life dealing with people like you. I have fought for this country for most of my life and I gave up my blood when I should have been doing something else and I don’t like people like you.”
“What’s happening here?” said William.
“Nothing except for some fool of a man decided to yell at us for not allowing terrorists to attack Americans,” said Sean. “Don’t forget, we had relatives who fought in World War II on the side of the Americans because they didn’t want Hitler and his Aryan supremacy to take over the world.”
“Well, you’re a bunch of dumb Brits,” snapped the man. “I wave my middle finger at your mothers, you Sons of a banshee!”
“And then he goes and starts pulling out random Monty Python quotes from his ass,” Logan snapped in anger.
But Andrea wasn’t finished yet. “Now listen up here, you wolf in sheep’s clothing! I didn’t prevent the 9/11 attacks as well as my own murder to be insulted by a lying pathetic son of a Pharisee such as yourself! You’re like a magician who conjures gulden into the mouths of silly people, but when they open their mouths, they have horse dirt in them.”
“Way to go, Andrea,” said Sean. “Show him what you’re made of!”
“He’s nothing but a pushover,” said Logan.
“Who are you calling a pushover, you squealing little meerkat?” said the man.
“How dare you call me a meerkat when you don’t know what a meerkat is!” Logan said in anger. “May you be swallowed by a whale with excessively bad breath, you dabbler in abominations!”
“Indeed you are,” Dicky said as the man was about to respond to Logan’s insult. “I pray that you shalt be as welcome as a fart in Laura Bush’s bedroom, you denizen of the underworld!”
At that insult, the man grew so angry that his face turned purple and steam appeared to come out of his ears. Andrea noticed him and she said to the others, “We better be careful guys. The next thing we say to him could set him off.”
“Indeed,” said Logan. To the man he said, “You know, with all the energy that you put into insulting us, you should channel it into something a little more positive, such as ending world hunger. If there are more angry people like you clamoring for the government around the world to put an end to world hunger and make sure that starving boys and girls get something to eat, then the world would be a better place and no one would have to kill anyone for anything.” The man glared at him. “Think of the children!”
For a long time, no one said anything. The man stared at the cousins for a long time not knowing how to respond. It looked as if he was exposed as the loser in this debate.
“I say let’s walk away now while he still confused,” said Sean.
They all agreed and silently walked away as the man stared in another direction. As soon as they reach the corner, they made a break for it and headed straight for the hospital. Where Irene zapped them all for being late.
“Come on now,” Logan said as he sat in the doctor’s office being treated for a black eye. “Totally worth it!”
“What the frick, dude!” Sean snapped at him.
