Sunday Festive Shorts: Marshmallow Surprise

Well, why don't we wash out the bad taste of last Sunday's atrocity with some marshmallows? Our protagonist, Marsha, is having a sledging race with her brothers, Ricky and Ronnie. Eventually, they crash through the flower garden of an evil old woman, Mrs Spooner. Mrs Spooner allegedly hates kids, and once called the cops because Marsha's dog was in her yard, and somehow wasn't arrested for wasting police time. When she's been through the flower garden, Marsha accidentally knocks Mrs S's mailbox over using only her head. Physics (or more specifically, force)! Mrs Spooner comes into the yard, and, instead of telling them off or reporting them to the authorities for property damage, invites the 3 of them in for cocoa. Marsha, Ricky and Ronnie don't find this suspicious, because if they did, the story would be over.

They go inside, and the atmosphere here is delightfully creepy. There's tons of weird stuff crammed on the shelves, like a jar of eyeballs. It's like they walked into Tim Burton's closet. They sit down and Mrs S. passes out the cocoa. Marsha asks for some marshmallows, and Mrs Spooner ominously replies that they're coming. OK, wow; this story is managing to make asking for marshmallows creepy. And Hollywood can't even produce anything scary that isn't a jumpscare-fest. This troubles me slightly. The kids finish their cocoa, and Mrs S. starts listing off all of the stuff they've done to her. Well, that's rude. This obviously includes trespassing, because we're currently talking about Goosebumps, but it also includes ringing the doorbell and running away (an oldy, but nevertheless a goody), and the most terrible crime a human can commit: slowing down whilst walking past her house to look at it.

And now we get into one of the greatest parts of any story ever written. William Shakespeare can only dream of such genius. Mrs Spooner finally tells them when the marshmallows are coming: Marsha, Ricky and Ronnie are the marshmallows. In Soviet Russia, marshmallows put you in their hot chocolate! Well, actually, to clarify, the cocoa as actually a potion that turns your bones to marshmallows. That's so morbidly ridiculous I can't be mad at it. But wait, it gets better. Marsha and her brothers tell Mrs Spooner that she should have let them go earlier, because it's getting dark. Why are you still there at 5 o' clock in the afternoon then? The 3 start howling at the full moon. "You are werewolves!" cries Mrs Spooner.

Her last words.

Yikes. Yeah, the werewolves turn on Mrs Spooner and gobble her up like a chocolate chip muffin. So, they're still going to turn into marshmallows, right? Does this mean that literally every character in this story has commited murder?

Marshmallow Surprise is one of those stories that's just so utterly ridiculous that it's unhateable. It's got a wonderully dark yet charming atmosphere, like a Tim Burton film.  The ending is so out-of-nowhere that it's downright hilarious. Well, until they gobble up Mrs Spooner. This was intended for kids, right? However dark it may get, this story is definitely reccomended by me for anyone, unless they're like 5 and might get a bit too scared by it.