Tales from the Land of Ooo (5 page)

After a moment, he stepped back to admire his work. In the center of his throne room now stood a large scale made purely of ice. Icy weighing pans hung from a long beam of ice.

“Now, you stupid identical penguins, I’ll weigh you each against one another. And one of you Gunters will weigh more! And
that
will be the Gunter that has swallowed my gum! Oh boy, I’m brilliant,” the Ice King continued, giggling softly. “I wish someone was here to see this.”

The Ice King began placing Gunters on the scale. “That’s it, on the scale. You’re next,” the Ice King said as he helped one penguin up and into the left pan and another into the right.

“Four point six pounds,” he said, reading the scale. “Yes. Okay. Next. Four point six pounds as well, I see.

“Okay, you two pass the test.
For now
…” the Ice King said, glaring at them.

The Ice King brought two more Gunters up onto the scale. But, immediately, the Gunter on the right pan began doing a little booty-shake dance.

“Gunter, stop dancing!” the Ice King shouted. “Stop dancing, Gunter! You’re muddling the measurements!”

But Gunter ignored him and only began to dance more awesomely.

Then the Ice King
snapped
, like a frozen Slim Jim. He had never been so angry. His blood—usually steady at a temperature of 30°C—began (relatively) boiling. He saw visions. Ice King visions. Horrible, terrifying images danced across his eyes.

“That’s it, you prancing Gunter!” he screamed, and then—

KA-SHOOM!!!

Ice bolts hurtled from the Ice King’s fingertips!

“WAK!” Gunter scrawked (that’s a screech and a squawk at the same time, BTW).

Gunter twirled and booty danced off the side of the pan, just as an ice bolt shot past him. The ice bolt blasted into the ice scale.
KRA-KRUNCH!
There was a big ice ’splosion, and the scale was destroyed, scattering little ice cubes of justice on the floor.

The Ice King was in a frenzied rage. “One of you will spit out my magical potionlicious bubblegum right this second, or I’ll send all of you away on an iceberg. One hundred stupid Gunters floating away at sea!”

He got down on one knee and grabbed the closest Gunter.

“Now…SPIT. IT. OUT!”

And—finally—that Gunter gave the Ice King what he wanted…sort of. Gunter blew a giant magical potionlicious bubblegum bubble right in the Ice King’s face.

The gum was indeed enchanted, and it certainly would have allowed the Ice King to blow the biggest bubble ever. Gunter’s bubblegum bubble grew bigger and bigger and bigger
until
…

POP!!!

The giant bubblegum bubble exploded in a blast of messy pinkness. Sticky, stringy strands of gummy goo coated the Ice King’s white beard and white hair and white eyebrows.

“Oh, Gunters…” The Ice King sighed.

SOME TIME LATER…

Finn and Jake were in the middle of a game of
Portender Defender
when there was a loud knock at the door. Finn hit Pause and walked to the door.

“Jake, you better not un-pause it and double reverse suplex me while I’m answering the door, or I will come back and fart knock you!”

Finn opened the front door. There stood the Ice King, covered head to toe in bright pink bubblegum. “Holy shmow!” Finn said. “What happened to you?”

“Finn?” the Ice King said with a gentle softness. “We’re friends, right?”

Finn thought for a moment. “Um. Kinda…”

“Well, ‘kinda friends’ sometimes give each other emergency haircuts, right? To get out stuff? Like, maybe, for example, bubblegum…”

Finn sighed. “Come in, Ice King. I’ll go get my sword…”

“Couldn’t you just have had Gunter help with this?” Finn asked.

“BLERG!!!!”

THE END!

Finn and Jake were playing Twister, and Finn was
not
having fun. Finn didn’t dislike Twister, per se—in fact, he sort of kind of
really
wanted to play Twister with Flame Princess. But Finn
hated
playing Twister with Jake, because Jake never, ever lost.

“Left butt, red,” BMO said, in that impossibly soft and cute little BMO voice.

“Dude,” Finn said, sweat pouring off him as he tried to get his butt over to red. “This—
oww
—isn’t really—
argh
—fair.”

“Why not?” Jake said.

“You’re wrapped around every which way! You’ve got, like, five elbows and six butts right now!”

“Don’t be a hater,” Jake replied.

Finn stretched and struggled and reached and moaned and groaned and then—

“GAH!”

Finn lost his balance and collapsed on the floor in a sprawled-out human boy heap. As he did, his right foot slammed into the wall of the Tree Fort. And on that wall hung something very sharp and very bright and very poke-y…

A yellow dagger.

Finn’s accidental kick knocked it free, so that it was now plummeting to the ground!

THUNK!

“Whoa!” Jake said. “I almost got pincushioned!
That
is it!
There is an overload of junk in this joint.”

“Junk?” Finn said. “What junk? I only see awesome lame treasures.”

“Yeah, well, one man’s treasure is another dog’s junk—and this dog thinks this stuff is junk,” Jake replied. “But don’t worry. I have a solution.”

Finn waited.

“One word…,” Jake said.

Finn’s eyes were wide with anticipation.

“Tree Fort Front Yard Sale!” Jake exclaimed.

Finn thought for a moment and then said, “That is not one word. That is five words that separately are all kinda
eh, whatever—
although
fort
is pretty much cool no matter what—but you put those five words together, and you know what, Jake?”

“What, Finn?”

“I LOVE it! I am freaking
all about
offering people the chance to buy our radical possessions at bargain-basement prices.”

SOME TIME LATER…

Jake and Finn were going through the tree house, room by room, throwing stuff in For Sale boxes. They already had two big boxes filled to the brim.

But as Finn went through the bedroom, throwing in skulls and helmets and other items, he began to feel a little sad. “I’m maybe rethinking this, Jake. These items hold so many memories…”