Sleepless on Harvey Street/Transcript

It was a dark evening on Harvey Street; the air was quite cool and humid, and the full moon glowed faintly beneath the hundreds of clouds in the sky.

Two shadowy forms popped up from a couple of hedges, then made their way toward one of the houses. Once they were at the front door, one of them pressed the doorbell, allowing the chimes to play.

A few seconds went by, and the doorknob turned, then the door slowly opened. It was a dark-skinned man with black hair. When he saw who was at the door, however, he couldn’t help but cringe as he screamed in fear.

“AHHH!! Oh-- What--?”

As he realized, however, the light from inside the house revealed what these figures were holding - one held a pink sleeping bag with green lightning bolts, and the other held a blue sleeping bag with colorful bunny rabbits. The figures lowered their sleeping bags - they were Audrey and Lotta.

“Hi, Mr, Polka,” Lotta greeted him. “We’re here!”

“Are you ready for us?” Audrey asked.

Mr. Polka calmed down now that he knew who had come over. He took another look at what they held.

“Sleeping bags? Toothbrushes?”

Indeed, the ends of Audrey and Lotta’s sleeping bags each had a toothbrush poking out of them.

“You’re moving in?!” Mr. Polka looked dismayed. “Oh, no, two more mouths to feed and bring through college!”

“Honey, calm down,” a different male voice replied. When Mr. Polka turned around, he saw his husband - Dot’s birth father - walking up to him. “They’re just here for Dot’s sleepover.”

At that point, Mr. Polka calmed down once again. “Oh, okay. Well, that’s not nearly as bad.” As Audrey and Lotta came into the house, he continued, “I remember my first sleepover. The games, the practical jokes, the crying for my mom…”

“Dear, that was our honeymoon,” replied Dot’s dad.

“Yeah, I know,” Mr. Polka replied.

Not too long afterward, Audrey and Lotta were in Dot’s bedroom, with Dot looking at them with an anticipating smile.

“Ladies,” Dot started, “welcome to what I expect to be the greatest sleepover in history.”

“Yeah!” Audrey reached behind her back and pulled out a large bag of pink marshmallows. “I baked a bunch of marshmallow balls from the Horn-A-Corn recipe book.”

Lotta held up a DVD of one of her favorite animated movies. “And I brought a video of The Great Bunny Buddy Adventure.”

Dot chuckled. “You know, I think I have something you guys will enjoy even more.”

She pulled out a remote control and pushed a button that was on it. A large, boxy machine arose from the corner of the room.

“Behold!” said Dot, “the Slumbertron 9000, designed to throw the ultimate sleepover party! It provides the greatest made-to-order pizza, tells super scary stories, AND supplies the perfect pillows for ultimate pillow fights!”

“Wow, wow, wow!!” Lotta squealed in excitement. Dot could tell by the look on Audrey’s face that she was looking forward to trying it out as well.

“Turn it on, turn it on!” said Audrey. “Pizza, pillows!” She hugged Dot out of anticipation. “Scary stories!”

“Hey, easy, Audrey.” Dot gently pushed Audrey’s arms away from her. “One thing at a time. This is the Slumbertron’s maiden voyage.” Just then, she came up with an idea. “I suggest we begin with the pillow fight!”

She made her way over to the Slumbertron, pushed a few buttons, and then pushed the lever downward. In response, the Slumbertron began to rumble for a few seconds, but then a panel from inside it opened and expelled three cylindrical pillows. Once they’d landed on the floor, each of the Harvey Girls picked one up.

“These, are, PERFECT!” Audrey said in joy.

“Yeah! Totally state of the art!” Lotta agreed. She then added, in a playfully gruff voice. “Time to take out the trash!”

With that, the Harvey Girls began their pillow fight, using the pillows they had to whack each other harmlessly. Sometimes Audrey hit Dot, sometimes Dot hit Lotta, and sometimes Lotta hit Audrey. But no matter who was hit, or who they hit, with these soft and flexible pillows, all three of them were laughing and having a great time.

Meanwhile, in the Polka dads’ bedroom, the two fathers had put on their pajamas. Dot’s birth father had already gotten under the covers and was reading one of his favorite books.

“Two, three, touch my knee…” On the other hand, Mr. Polka was doing some relaxing exercises before bed, bending down a few times.

“Honey?” Dot’s birth father asked, looking up from his book, “tell the girls to quiet down.”

“Relax, let them have their fun,” Mr. Polka retorted gently. He went back to his exercises. “Eight, nine, bend my spine.” With a light pop, his arms dangled down below him. “Ah, that’s what I’m talking about.”

The Harvey Girls were still hitting each other with their pillows, albeit not as strongly as before. The three of them were panting quite a few times, trying to catch their breaths.

“I’m tired…” Audrey admitted.

“I’m hungry,” said Dot. “How about some pizza?”

Lotta giggled a bit in excitement. “You read my stomach!”

“I want one with pepperoni,” Audrey said, “and garlic, and onions, and anchovies!”

“And peanut butter, and marshmallows, and hot fudge,” Lotta added. Audrey and Dot looked at her in disbelief. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”

“I’m not, I just wish I came up with that,” Audrey commented.

“One ultimate pizza, coming up!” With that, Dot made her way over to the Slumbertron, pushed a few buttons and pulled down the lever.

The Slumbertron began to shake and rumble once again, but soon a ding was heard. A box of pizza came out from an opening near the bottom of the Slumbertron. When Audrey opened the box, she, Dot and Lotta saw a truly delicious-looking pizza waiting inside. They all took a sniff to smell it, enjoying its mouthwatering aroma.

“Ladies, let the gorging begin!” said Dot.

With that, they each grabbed a slice of pizza and began to eat. Thirty seconds later, however, there was only one piece remaining in the box. The Harvey Girls lay on the floor, groaning in slight discomfort.

“Stomach full…”Audrey complained as she tried to sit up. “Room spinning…”

“I will eat no more,” Lotta told herself. She then took one more bite of her half-eaten slice of pizza. “...forever.”

As she took another bite of that slice, Mr. Polka made his way into the living room.

“Dot, your dad told me to tell you girls to--” He spotted the last piece of pizza, and his eyes widened in surprise. “--give me a piece of pizza!” With a smile, he reached over and picked up the piece. The Harvey Girls didn’t want him to, but they couldn’t complain; they were too full. “Fudge anchovy, my favorite!” He took a bite and chewed, keeping his smile.

“Carry on with your… crazy sleepover thing,” he said as he made his way out of the living room.

With her father out of earshot, Dot slowly sat up for her friends to see. She wasn’t feeling as full anymore, and neither did Audrey or Lotta.

“I believe the time has come for scary stories,” she announced, almost dramatically.

“Well, okay…” Lotta sat up as well, looking a bit uncertain. “But, um, not too scary, Dot. Cause remember last time when I got too scared?” She finished her question in a whisper.

“Hey, you bring a big enough sleeping bag?” Audrey asked.

Lotta patted the cover of her sleeping bag a bit. “Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Audrey wanted to know, but Lotta didn’t answer. Then Audrey told Dot, “Make it scream-your-head-off scary!”

Dot went over to the Slumbertron and pushed a few buttons. “One scream-your-head-off scary story, coming up!”

She then pulled the lever downward, and the three of them watched as the Slumbertron shook once more.

“It’s just a story, it’s just a story, it’s just a story…” Lotta reassured herself, quivering beneath the cover of her sleeping bag.

A light emerged from a lens on the Slumbertron, and soon a hologram of a skull appeared. Lotta couldn’t help but give a little scream of fright when she saw it.

“Good evening,” the skull greeted the Harvey Girls. Its voice sounded similar to that of a serious villain from a film or television series; Dot thought it sounded most similar to Ganondorf’s voice from The Legend of Zelda. “I am Dr. Dark, teller of terrible tales.”

“Hold up,” Audrey stated, “do you mean terrible like lousy or terrible like scary?”

“SCARY!” Dr. Dark snapped in an almost threatening voice, which caught Audrey off-guard.

“Got it!” Audrey whispered apologetically. That was when Dr. Dark began to tell the story.

“Once, there was a monster who only appeared at night, at sleepovers. And he was called, the Sleepover Monster.”

Audrey could feel her teeth chattering involuntarily as she listened.

“He only came out at night because the sun was his mortal enemy. And he liked to eat…” Dr. Dark rose closer to the Harvey Girls, which caused all three of them to cringe in surprise. What he said next didn’t help. “Children! Girl children, just about your age!”

Dot looked around, a bit nervous. “Um… maybe it'd be better if we listened to the story in the morning?”

“Yeah. Not that I’m scared.” It was pretty obvious that Audrey was lying. “I just don’t want to wear out this awesome machine.”

On the other hand, Lotta dived into her sleeping bag and started jumping around a bit in panic.

“Turn it off! Turn it off, turn it off!!”

Dot went over to the Slumbertron, pushed a few buttons, and brought the lever back up. The light began to dim, and Dr. Dark faded back into the lens. All three of the girls inhaled once, then sighed with relief.

“Night, guys,” Dot said as she headed over to her sleeping bag, which she crawled into.

“Night, Dot,” Lotta replied, having calmed down. She gave a cute yawn into her hand. “This is the best sleepover ever.” Dot nodded in agreement as she lay her head down and closed her eyes.

“Wait a minute!” Audrey stood up. “Who said anything about going to sleep? What are we, a bunch of babies? Come on, I’m gonna stay up all night!” She began to dance a bit, taking some inspiration from one of Crash Bandicoot’s dances. “Party! Party! Par--“

All of a sudden, she fell over on her stomach. Her eyes closed, and she began to snore. That being said, she was able to scooch herself into her sleeping bag so she wouldn’t get too cold. Dot and Lotta had begun to snore as well; Dot was lying on her side, and Lotta was lying on her back.

The sky outside was still dark, cloudy. You couldn’t find a single star or the moon no matter how hard you looked.

For what felt like a few hours, Audrey, Dot and Lotta were deep in their shared slumber. At around one in the morning, however, Lotta’s eyes slowly opened; she felt an empty sensation in her stomach. She blinked a few times to wake up, then giggled to herself.

“Somebody’s hungry,” she commented, quietly. “Hey, Dot, how about some more pizza?”

But there was no response. She looked over at Dot, who was still sleeping.

“Dot?” Lotta asked. She tapped her nose gently with the tip of her forefinger. “Dot…?”

Dot brought her hand up to rub her nose, but otherwise slept on. Lotta sat up, but then looked over at the waiting Slumbertron.

“I, I bet I could make one of those pizzas,” Lotta said, pushing the cover of her sleeping bag off her body.

As slowly and carefully as she could, she made her way up to the Slumbertron, stopping only when she was in front of the keypad.

“I, want, pizza. Love, Lotta,” she said, carefully pressing buttons. But an error screen appeared on the Slumbertron. “Hmm, maybe if I just push everything...”

She pressed both of her hands against the keys, pushing them all in unison. Just then, the Slumbertron began to shake and rumble again, this time more violently than it had earlier that night. Lotta had the strangest feeling she’d made a massive mistake, one as big as she was.

“Uh, Dot? DOT!!” she called.

Audrey’s eyes popped open as she sat up in her sleeping bag. “Uh, breakfast time?”

Dot sat up as well, rubbing her eyes with one of her hands. When she looked over at the Slumbertron, however, her eyes widened and pupils shrunk in horror. “L-Lotta! What did you do?!”

“I don’t know!” Lotta tried to explain, “my tummy woke me up, it was hungry! I, I pressed all the buttons, and…” She looked down at her torso, shaking one of her forefingers at it in slight anger. “Bad tummy, bad tummy! AAAH!!”

Just then, a ding was heard, and a pizza box came out from the Slumbertron. As soon as Lotta saw it, she almost immediately calmed down.

“Hey, look! I made a giant pizza,” Lotta said with a giggle. “Let’s eat!”

But just then, the box opened by itself, and an uncut pizza pie arose from it. Lotta couldn’t help but yelp in shock.

“What the heck is happening?!” Audrey demanded to know.

Dot made an educated guess. “The Slumbertron must have combined the pizza and scary story programs to create…”

A scary face slowly appeared on the pizza, staring at all three of the Harvey Girls. They couldn’t have been more horrified than they were now.

“A PIZZA MONSTER!!!” Lotta cried in horror.

Dot rushed over to the Slumbertron and tried pushing some buttons, but nothing happened.

“I can’t delete the pizza!” she cried. “The screen’s frozen!”

“Time for my dinner!” the Pizza Monster bellowed in a voice similar to Dr. Dark’s.

“AAAAAHHHHH!!!” Audrey, Dot and Lotta couldn’t help but scream as they began to run from the monster. It wasn’t much help, however; the Pizza Monster simply floated to where they went.

Meanwhile, Dot’s dads were trying to sleep in their bed. The room was dark, but they could hear quite a few strange noises.

“Tell those girls to go to sleep now!” Dot’s birth father complained.

“Oh, honey…” Mr. Polka replied sleepily, “they’re just playing ‘Help, I’m Being Chased By a Monster.’”

Soon the Harvey Girls had been chased into a corner of the dining room. The three of them were hugging one another and shivering in fear as the Pizza Monster stared them down.

“Well, my tasty morsels,” said the Pizza Monster, “the tables are turned. Now it looks like I get to eat YOU!”

“Let’s split up,” Dot told Audrey and Lotta. “Whoever the monster isn’t chasing can go for help! One, two, three…”

Audrey and Lotta tried to run, but bumped into her by accident. Audrey rubbed her face a bit with her hand, but then Dot motioned for them to go the other way.

“Go!!”

With that, each of the Harvey Girls ran a different direction. The Pizza Monster, having heard their plan, spun around for a few seconds - when it had stopped, it had split into three evil Pizza Slices. They all laughed evilly and followed the girls - one followed Dot, one followed Audrey, and one followed Lotta.

As each girl ran, she screamed, and each of the Pizza Slices stared at her as they levitated toward them. At one point, however, Lotta placed her forefinger upon the Pizza Slice that had been chasing her, then placed that same finger in her mouth to taste its cheese. It tasted good, but that only made that Pizza Slice more willing to eat her, so she kept on running.

“Listen!” Dot’s birth father said to his husband, grabbing one of the sleeves of his pajama top and shaking him awake. “Go downstairs this instant! And tell those girls to settle down!””

“Okay, sure. Fine.” Mr. Polka sounded very tired. As he stepped out of bed and made his way over to the door, he couldn’t help but mumble to himself. He opened the door to the bedroom and looked outside into the hall. He could see Audrey, Dot and Lotta all being chased by the Pizza Slices, but his sleepiness kept him from seeing it as more of an annoyance than danger.

“Hate to be a party pooper, girls, but can you keep it down just a smidgen?”

“Help!” Lotta cried.

“Thank you.” Mr. Polka closed the door again.

“What’s going on out there?” asked Dot’s birth father as his husband walked back over to the bed.

“Oh, nothing,” Mr. Polka replied, although it was pretty obvious that that wasn’t true. “The girls are being chased by giant slices of flying pizza.”

As the two dads let this sink in, however, their eyes widened and pupils shrunk in realization as well as disbelief.

They slowly made their way out of the bedroom to investigate what was going on. Not too long afterward, they heard a noise - three of them, in fact. Dot’s malfunctioning machine had expelled three pillows, identical to the ones Audrey, Dot and Lotta had used for their pillow fight. However, these pillows were standing up on one side as they approached Dot’s dads, to their confusion and slight nervousness.

“Honey, do something…” said Dot’s birth father.

“Nice pillow. Now, stay, stay…” Mr. Polka commanded, holding his forefinger out. “Don’t do ANYTHING evil...”

But three evil faces appeared on the pillows, revealing that all three of them were monsters. Dot’s dads had to scream and run as those pillows began to chase them.

Dot opened the door to the closet and ran into it. Audrey and Lotta followed her, with the latter pulling the door shut behind them. The three Pizza Slices reunited, then spun around for a few seconds - when they had stopped, they’d merged back into The Pizza Monster. He turned his body this way and that, trying to find whom he’d been chasing. He didn’t know where they’d gone, but he was more than willing to pursue them once more as soon as he saw them - or as soon as he heard them, for that matter.

“AHHH-CHOO!!!” A loud sneeze echoed from the closet.

“Aha!” The Pizza Monster smiled evilly as he turned toward the closed closet.

Audrey, Dot and Lotta were embracing one another in the empty closet, all shivering in fear, and Audrey had given them away by sneezing. She sniffled as she rubbed her nose with her forefinger.

“Gesundheit,” Dot said, not looking too amused.

“Ugh, sorry,” Audrey apologized as she continued to rub her nose. “If I knew this dusty closet would make me sneeze, I wouldn’t have wanted to hide here.”

“Alright, this is it, guys,” Lotta stated nervously, trying to accept their fate. Her hands went to cover her eyes. “Pleasure knowing you…”

Dot brought two of her fingers on each of her hands up to her temples, two fingers on one and two on the other. Then she began to rub, trying to come up with a plan.

“Think, think, think…”

As Dot tried to brainstorm an idea, quite a few things came to her mind; the Pizza Monster that had been chasing her and her friends, and the Slumbertron that had gone haywire. Finally, an image of the sun appeared in her mind, and her eyes popped open as she gave an inspired smile.

“Bingo!” said Dot. She turned to Audrey and Lotta. “Hey, remember the story? The sun is the monster’s mortal enemy!”

“Good, Dot! Go get the sun!” Lotta said.

Just as she said that, however, Dot realized something and put the palm of her hand to her face. “Oh, gosh darn it! Sunrise is only eight minutes away!”

“But maybe I can make the monster think the sun is coming up…” Dot’s smile returned. “Lotta, I need a pair of glasses!”

“Okay.” Lotta picked up the closest one she could find, then handed it to Dot. “How about this one? Didn’t you say your mom gave it to you before she moved and your dad got remarried to your other dad?”

“Perfect!” Dot took the glasses. “But let’s not bring that up again, please.”

“What, the glasses?” Lotta asked.

“No, the story of why I have two fathers instead of a mother and father.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“We can’t just stand here doing nothing, Lotta!” Audrey said. “We gotta help Dot!”

With that, she opened the door to the closet, holding a flashlight in her hand as though it were a microphone.

“Good morning, Harvey Street!” said Audrey. “It’s six AM, sixty-two degrees. We’ve got a beautiful sunrise out, we’ve also got a sweet dodgeball game coming up in a couple of hours, marshmallows everywhere!”

As she walked out of the closet, Lotta followed from behind, singing an improvised song and suppressing her fear of the Pizza Monster as best as she could. As she did, the monster looked at her in bewilderment.

“Good morning to you, good morning to you, we’re all in our places with sunshiny faces…”

Audrey then handed her flashlight to Dot, and she held it in front of the glasses as she switched it on. A light appeared on the wall, and when the Pizza Monster saw it, he gasped and flew into his pizza box. Lotta ran over to the pizza box, tripping over her sleeping bag as she did so, but she landed right on the box, holding it shut.

A couple of hours later, when the sun had risen into the sky, the Harvey Girls brought the pizza box out onto Harvey Street. They placed it on a table, making sure it was the right spot where the rays of the hot sun would reach it. Then they opened the box. The Pizza Monster screamed at first, but the scream turned into a groan as the sunlight drained its life from it. Finally, its face was gone, and it seemed to be back to a normal pizza.

Dot sighed with relief as Audrey and Lotta wiped their foreheads with their hands. “Mission accomplished,” said Dot.

“If only he would use his anchovies for good instead of evil,” said Audrey.

“I’m starving,” Lotta replied. “Let’s eat!”

But then the pizza box opened again, revealing the Pizza Monster’s angry face. The Harvey Girls all screamed in surprise.

“FOOLS!” said the Pizza Monster. “Haven’t you ever heard of sequels?!”

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” Audrey, Dot and Lotta had no choice but to scream in horror…

“AAAAHHHH!!!” Dot sat up as she screamed. She then sat where she was, trying to catch her breath.

She looked down at one of her hands, then the other hand. She was okay. She looked over at Lotta; she was still sleeping on her back. Then she looked over at Audrey; she was still sleeping on her stomach. Dot sighed in relief.

“It was only a nightmare,” she acknowledged. “An anchovy, marshmallow and peanut butter-induced nightmare.”

Just then, she heard some screams, and she turned her head to look toward the opening to the living room. Her dads were being chased by the pillow monsters from slightly earlier in the dream.

“AHHH!” Mr. Polka sat up with a scream, one that ended sooner than he thought it would. He looked around, seeing he was back in his bedroom. He looked to his left, seeing that Dot’s birth father was asleep.

“Phew!” Mr. Polka wiped his head with his hand. “That was a doozy.”

Just then, he heard a scream. When he turned to look where it’d been coming from, he saw Lotta running into the room, the Pizza Slices hot on her tail. She fell over, and the slices all prepared to eat her.

But before they could, Lotta, too, sat up, screaming. “AAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

“Bad dream, bad dream!!” Lotta cried, hugging her bunny doll as tightly as she could. She then heard Audrey screaming.

“WAAAAAHHHHH!!!” When Lotta turned to look at her, Audrey was holding the Pizza Monster in her hands and screaming in horror.

“AHHHHHH!!!” Audrey sat up as she screamed, but then lost her breath. As she panted, she turned her head this way and that, looking around. She wiped her forehead with her hand.

“Phew. I guess it was… all just a dream!” She looked toward Lotta, who was still sleeping. “Hey, Lotta, I-- I--”

“Haaah-choo!” Audrey doubled over as she sneezed, then rubbed her nose with her forefinger.

“Gesundheit,” a deep voice said.

“Thanks,” Audrey said with a smile. When she finished rubbing her nose, however, she looked down to see what she was holding in her other hand. It was the Pizza Monster from earlier. Immediately horrified, she screamed. “AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” The Pizza Monster screamed as well.

Just then, that same Pizza Monster sat up with that scream. As he tried to calm down and catch his breath, a female pizza sat up and looked at him. She’d been sleeping next to him when his cry woke her up; the two of them had been sleeping in separate pizza boxes rather than beds, in the kitchen of a pizzeria far from Harvey Street.

“Honey? Oh, what is it?” she asked.

“Oh, I had the most horrible dream,” said the Pizza Monster. “There were three terrible children: a smart one, a manic one, and one who was taller than the other two!”

“I told you dear,” the female pizza replied, “there’s no such thing as children. Now, go back to sleep.”

With that, the two pizzas lay back down as they resumed their slumber, and the lids of their pizza boxes closed gently upon them. As they did so, they could hear their cat, which was also a pizza, meowing at something it must have seen.