Juditha was not so sure about that, however, as she noted the glow

from the blue plasma ball that had formed in the center of the chamber

they were about to enter, and the strange way it was......

***************

.....indenting here and there each time a pan flute note sounded. Never

once, not in all her previous years of plasma ball encountering, had one

ever played the pan flute before. Nonetheless, the plot demanded that

they enter the chamber...and so they did. Everything in the chamber

was bathed in the strange blue glow from the suspended ball.

So engrossed were they by the flowing colors of the orb, that they failed

to notice all of the smarfflizards, now that the blue light had contacted

their scales, were back in human form. Maximus, gallant of heart as

always, quickly and deftly removed his person from Joimus' bodice before

the delicate gossamer threads might part their woof from their warp.

He stood there a moment until he had regained his tomb legs, wishing all

the while he had had time to recover his gladius from the Fuegan hostess

before she had disappeared so untowardly into the bowels of the burial

chamber.

Jack, glad once again to have his seagulls safely tucked away

where they belonged instead of slogging about in the ancient

detritus that was, of necessity, a part of aging tombs, turned

to ask the General, "Where do you suppose Sid is?"

Agreeing that knowing the whereabouts of the chipman could well prove

useful in the prolongation of life and limb, Maximus replied, "We must

find him right away!"

"Well, then, " began the Captain, "there's not a....."

"ACK!" shrieked all the cast together. The Captain just smiled, knowing

that within two months, with the release of his DVD, he could say the

phrase as often as he pleased. He was a patient man. Well....

not really....but it was a nice thought.

Biebe approached the plasma ball, tentatively probing it with the tip of

his hockey stick. Jiggedy jaggedy blue plasma lines ran up the shaft of

the stick, knocking him backwards into Penny, who deftly caught him in

the large laundry basket she quickly untied from her sash. Watching this,

Ann lay her soft hand protectively on Terry's equipment. "Don't even think

about it," she said, shaking her head firmly. She took her job as equipment

tender extremely seriously and the thought of jiggedy jaggedy blue plasma

lines dancing and playing upon the surface of his equipment was painful

even to consider.
                            

Jeffrey, boosted up on Bud's shoulders, was pouring soy sauce over the

plasma ball, but, alas, the thing seemed to have a taste for the brown

liquid and a distinctive *slurp* replaced one of the pan flute notes. (Now,

guys, as you read these, you must really stop and get a clear mental

picture from time to time in order fully to appreciate the scenarios!)

Joimus turned to make a remark to Bunny, thinking she was nearby,

but on second thinking realized with surprise that it had been quite some

time since last she had seen the English rabbit. That was strange. Her

brow knitted worriedly. Bunny was so sweet, so innocent, so....fluffy.

Had some great evility befallen the Disneyesque creature?

Alas, unbeknownst to Joimus, there was a completely different side to

the rabbit....a scrummy side that, despite being the mother of the heir

to the throne of Yorkshire, had secret lustings after chippish flesh.

Joimus would have been horrified if she had known what the Bunster

had actually been up to in recent episodes.
                                   

Cyd, once having had her way with Sid, cast him aside when she spied

a never-before-digitally-photographed Egyptian morphing ragwort plant

nestled in a crevice of the entrance chamber. Thusly occupied, she had

not noticed or, perhaps, not cared, when a pair of soft white hands

tucked away their carving stone and grasped the unvirtuositous cad by

his purple lapels and hauled him off down a heretofore unseen side

passageway. Quickly carving the outline of an elevator door in the stone

wall, she pressed the "down" button and had arrived in this very chamber

in a matter of seconds, whereas the rest of the cast had crawled for

hours to get here. Such were the behind-the-epi events only now revealed.

( Such were the results of having plied Joimus all afternoon with new

signatures accompanied by certain epi requests!)

What they had been up to in the chamber whilst said tortuous crawlings

were being crawled by those of nobler heart may best be left to the

imagination of the reader. Let us just report that never in his life had

Sid ever been known to resist the advances of long-lashed cottontails.

When, at last, the carrot nibbler lay panting on the floor, Sid had begun

to roll over and over, rising into the air, spinning rapidly until his form

rounded into the plasma ball that glowed before them. How very close

the epi had come to a PG rating!

Joimus stomped over to where Bunny still sat, breathing hard, yet with

a sloppy grin plastered all over her face. "BUNNY!" Joimus intoned

seriously, "How COULD you!! Didn't you KNOW that when Sid gets all...

er...happy....he turns into a plasma ball?"
                                   

Bunny actually had not known, but at the moment, did not really care.

Joimus shook her head. Bunnies!!! How well they seemed to deserve

their reputation! Now, she wondered, how could they possibly contain

the released plasma ball? But...as she turned back to look at it again,

the problem seemed to be being solved. Nash was running in tight circles

about the ball, completely encasing it in white twine. After popping in a

push pin to hold it all in place, he stepped back, smiling slightly as he

brushed his forelock with his hand.

"Hey," Cap'n Jack said, "There's a good fellow! No need to salute,

though. I wasn't going to have you flogged."

The plasma ball had stopped spinning and dropped to the floor of

the chamber. Maximus prodded it with his boot. "OW! Stop that!"

came Sid's muffled voice. The General flashed one of his rare,

glorious smiles. The white twine had turned Sid into a plasma mummy.

Maximus grasped the basketball-sized orb with one large hand, lifting

it up and , with a laugh, tossed it to Biebe. "Here! You can use it for

a puck!" he chortled. Biebe slamdunked the orb into one of Penny's

baskets and the two of them went off, arm in arm, accompanied by

muffled, mournful pan flute music. Hmmmm?

Joimus wondered still about that pan flute thingie and knew that it

would have to be addressed in some future episode. The Fellowship

of the Crowe then followed the hockey couple back into the adjoining

colorfully-decorated chamber. They studied the da Vinci painting

carefully, looking for hidden clues as to the whereabouts of the burial

chamber of Russenaten.

Sunnie narrowed her eyes. There must be some CODE, she reasoned....

some sort of secret da Vinci code that, once discovered, would lead

them to their goal. They examined the huge wall painting minutely, inch

by inch, finally arriving at the section where Ando was leaning tiredly

against it. "Would you MIND?" Susan Guildford asked, tired herself

from her intricate spider-leg-weavings. Ando frowned and shifted

herself a couple of feet to the left.

Zack shone his flashlight beam directly on the spot and, lo and behold,

THERE was the clue!! It was in the form of a little signpost pointing

towards a large crack in the stone floor. Painted on the sign were the

words, "Attention! Attention! THIS WAY to the hidden burial chamber

of Russenaten." It was so overwhelmingly subtle that they all gasped in

the knowledge of how easily it could have been overlooked. No wonder

the secret location had never before been found!

Hando crouched beside the crack, loosening the ancient mortar with

his switchblade, then, when the blade snapped, with his teeth. Before

long, several pairs of nearly identical male hands (though you could tell

Maximus and the post-Gladiator characters by the scar at the base

of the right index finger) lifted the huge block and set it to one side.

Terry noticed his fingertips were wet and sticky. Ann licked them and

said, "Raspberry juice!" Lucilla had been this way!

Every eye narrowed. HOW had the hostess managed to get so far

all alone? Or...WAS she alone??? They peered down into the newly-

revealed chamber. "You know," piped in Susan, "if we keep this up,

we'll be hitting China soon." It was a thought Joimus took into

serious consideration.

They, however, seemed to be at an impasse. They were completely

out of both spider legs AND keepsake anchor ropes. Cort, who had

been quiet for too long, and was experienced in heading things off

at both passes and impasses, figured it was durn well HIS turn to

save the day. He cleverly pulled the large neon orange lever marked

"UNFOLD STAIRCASE TO THE HIDDEN TOMB OF RUSSENATEN"

and, lo and behold, a polished marble set of steps ploinked out and

down. Sue was SO proud! Her cowboy was not only gorgeous and the

possessor of a fine head of dusty hair, but SMART!

Countess Pat walked up and tapped Joimus on her shoulder. "Excuse

me," she said politely, "but, really, might I inquire as to where I

have been on this adventure...not to mention Alex?"

Joimus smiled enigmatically and gestured towards the staircase,

saying, "Please...go first."

Pat gazed into the darkness as mournful notes from the pan flute

wafted upwards, accompanied by a dried rustling sound, the soft

*plop* *plop* *plop* of something thickish dripping, an abruptly

cut-off squeal, and the scent of burnt feathers... not quite sure

THIS was what she actually had in mind, but Alex grabbed her

elbow and there was nothing to do but go along with him.

Bud had made a passable torch by wrapping sections of Colin's

sideburns around one end of the chair back the cop always carried

and igniting it with Steve's cigar butt. With BertiVet pressed

closely to his side, Bud followed Alex and Pat down the staircase.

The ceiling was low and Bud was sure that, had his hair been longer,

the batwings would have become entangled. "STOP!" the cop said,

wanting all walking to cease for a moment so the sounds of the

hundreds of dung beetles crunching under their feet with each step

would no longer muffle the flute notes, rustlings, ploppings and squeals.

He held his chair-torch out, casing the joint with a practiced eye.

That would be his left eye. His right eye had had far less experience. 

In the circle of light cast by the flickering torch, they saw an upright

sarcophagus leaning against the wall, it's cover lying to one side. Thick

red raspberry juice dripped slowly from its base, forming a puddle

roughly in the shape of a heart on the tomb floor. The Countess' eyes

grew wide. The heart appeared to be beating! But, no, it was merely

several dozen dung beetles doing the backstroke in the puddle. Jack,

having arrived with the rest of the cast, dipped a finger into the puddle

and, after shaking off several of what he called "damn large weevils",

tasted it. "Raspbe...." he started to pronounce, but keeled over onto

the floor.

Maximus stooped beside him. "It must have been the SAG's...or

possibly even the BAFTA nominations." he intoned seriously, but

Phyllis knew it was something sinister in the puddle that had

taken the wind out of the captain's sails. She smelled the puddle.

Yes, the unmistakable scent of Palauan squid juice! How AWFUL!

It had been, alas, because of the inter-tribal squid juice wars

that she was forced all those years ago to give up the throne

of Palau and move to Cleveland....but never EVER would she

forget that unique and highly pungent smell, a mixture of possum

roadkill and wart remover. But, she wondered, what was it doing

here in Russenaten's lost tomb mixed in with raspberry juice

that had dripped from an open sarcophagus onto a dung-beetle-

infested floor?

Her eyes narrowed. Only Lucilla could have caused something so

strange as THIS! (Joimus, of course, had nothing at ALL to do

with it. That was evident from the halo glowing above her head

and the innocent look plastered across her face as she studied

her keyboard.)
                                  
                                     

Hando, meanwhile, had kicked in the false back of the open sarcophagus

and was standing, nostrils tightly flared, looking into the brightly-lit

chamber beyond. There, in the warm glow of a thousand candles, stood....

gasp...

Jason Isaacs! He grinned. "You have been discussing me onlist so

much that I was forced to make an appearance."

They circled warily about the newcomer, studying his red British army

officer's jacket, his pirate captain's wig and hat, the pan flute lifted

halfway to his lips.

"Sweet November!" growled Hando, the words sounding like a curse as

they fell from his lips. "What's THIS bloke doin' here?"

"Why," replied Jason good-naturedly, "trying to lure that Peter

whippersnapper, of course." He turned and gestured across the room

towards a large lantern, "But I've only managed to capture Tink so far."

Amanda ran across the tomb...*crunch* *crunch* * crunch*....

and peered into the lantern. "LUCILLA!" she shrieked. "Look!

Lucilla is trapped in the giant lantern"                                     

"And I," chortled Jason, "have the key." Which he then swallowed.

Joimus narrowed her eyes and fixed him with a cold stare. "Lest you

think Benjamin was a wild man with his little hatchet....let me introduce

you to Maximus as he was in Zucchabar!" And, with that, Maximus

threw off his rust-colored cape, revealing North African gladiatorial

garb. Maximus advanced toward Jason and tipped his head down in a

bow.

Jason was no slouch, let it be told, and had behaved with valor himself

in a Ridley Scott battle movie, but he knew a superior force when met,

dropped his pan flute, picked up a nearby frying pan and scurried off

calling, "Charlize! Oh, Charlize! What would you like me to make for dinner,

dear?"

Everyone then gathered about the lantern, trying to figure out how to

release Lucilla. The glass was very, very thick and even the hardest

blows from Hando's combat boots didn't crack it. Biebe beat on it with

his hockey stick to no avail. Cort would have shot it, but Sue figured

they might just need Lucilla alive for future episodes, so talked him

out of that. Nothing worked. Not, one is reluctant to report, even

Terry's equipment.

Finally, slowly and with the utmost hesitation causing her voice to

quaver, BugMomDogPug held out her basket. "I...I....I...., she

stammered. "I think I might have....the solution." Every eye went

to her basket. Reposing in it lay Sid, still a plasma ball wrapped

in white twine. "We....we...," DogMomBugPug continued in a barely

audible voice, "we....could.....unwrap.....Sid."

The entire cast gasped in horror....well...all except for the English

rabbit, who pushed her way to the front and said eagerly, "Oh...ME!

Let ME do it!" She stood there next to the basket, running her

forefinger in a definitely NOT proper English manner, along the curve

of Sid's twine.

"STOP THAT!" said Joimus firmly. "You'll make him all...er...happy....

again and we'll never get him back into human form!" Not that anyone

except the Bunny really WANTED Sid in human form....but....he could

prove useful were that to happen. "Look, Sid," Joimus said to the

mummied ball, "if we release you, will you absorb the glass from

Lucilla's lantern prison?"

From within the wrappings came a muffled voice, "But I don't need

to regenerate any missing parts."

Maximus grinned. "THAT is a problem I will be glad to help you with!"

Whereupon he took his gladius Lucilla had dropped and chopped off a

piece of the entwined plasma ball.

"NOOOOO!" shrieked Bunny, "You don't know WHAT you might have

severed!" That was true. Bunny quickly untwined the rest of the ball

and Sid hopped out onto the tomb floor. He glared at Maximus as

Bunny was busy examining him for missing....er...parts. Everything

she was fondest of seemed still to be there, but his left leg, from

the knee down was several feet away.

"Where's this blasted lantern?" he growled. Bunny helped him hop over

to Lucilla's cage and he jabbed his stump into the glass.

*SLUuuuUUUUUuuuuUUuuuuurp*...and the glass became liquid, pouring

itself into the form of a new left leg.

"Be good!" whispered Bunny, knowing what an effort that would be

for the angry chipman. But Sid's eyes were focused on a whitish

form lying on a large table to one side.

"How did HE get here?"

"He WHO?" asked Susan Guildford, going over to the table and noticing

the strangely man-like form of the object.

"HIM!" growled Sid, "HimSELF!"

"WHAT??" croaked all the women together. "What are you talking

about?"

Sid confessed that , back in Dickens' London he had Russknapped

Himself and stuffed him into the canvas toybag in the sleigh and sent

it off towards the North Pole, knowing that Tim Allen had the corner

on being Santa Claus so there would be no way Russ would get the role

away from him and so he would be trapped forever in the toy shoppe

hammering tiny nails into little wooden train engines.

Suddenly the whitish form sat up and the rolls of wrappings unspooled,

revealing Himself in the flesh. Yes, he WAS in the flesh, his jeans and

flannels having been stolen by Sid in the shadows of Parliament. But,

this being a PG epi, the wrappings unspooled in very modest heaps upon

his lap.

Immediately he noticed the left leg of his jeans upon Sid were missing

from the knee down. "What have you %$#@& done to my favorite pair

of &%$#@& jeans??" he bellowed. Yes, indeed, Himself was back.

"Just makin' 'em match your flannel shirt," Sid shot back, sick as he

was of giant elbow holes. After there had been a clothing exchange,

with Himself back in Big Blue and what remained of his jeans and Sid

wearing bits and pieces donated reluctantly by various characters,

Russell explained how he had befriended Glorp, the misfit elf, who

had used long strips of white wrapping paper to disguise Himself as

a Christmas present and deliver him to the Thebes Ramada Inn where

Professor Jones was spending the holidays looking for his adopted

daughter, but some fellow with a pan flute had stolen the present

from the luggage rack of the bellhop stand and taken him across the

river and deep into the interior of a tomb where he had, for the l

ast several interminable epis lain uncomfortably on the table, listening

to horribly played pan music, causing him to moan with the painful

assault on his eardrums.

Joimus, feeling rather tombed-out at the moment, turned and whispered

something to Bunny, whereupon the English cottontail whipped out her

sharp carving stone and cut the outline of a revolving door on the wall

of the tomb. With a light push, the revolving door revolved and Joimus,

followed by the entire cast, Lachlan and Zack carrying the

captain, stepped out onto.....