One fine day Linkin Park was riding in their tour bus down a two-lane desert highway through the
deserts of New Mexico. They were in the middle of a successful tour, and were due to play a big
concert at Albuguerque later that night. Lead vocalist Chester Bennington was driving the bus,
swinging the steering wheel from side to side and pounding on the horn playfully from time to time,
while next to him his best friend, rapper and rhythm guitarist Mike Shinoda, sat in the passenger seat
sleeping while listening to his MP3 player playing the soundtrack from Diamond Mobile Suit SPIRIT,
one of their favorite shows about brave warrior robots who fought for justice. Lead guitarist Brad
Delson sat in the back of the bus, his tongue lolling from his mouth in a reflection of his slovenly
nature as he idly pressed his bare feet into a pad of ink and then stepped down on sheets of lined
notebook paper to make footprints, while bassist David Farrell held his head out the window excitedly
like a dog.

"This is a great day for a drive!" Chester exclaimed. But nobody was listening to him and so nobody
responded.

The tour bus passed an old run-down diner with threadbare, splintering wooden walls, and Chester
craned his neck to look at it as they went by. It was an interesting old-looking place: the windows were
cracked and broken, the white paint covering the wooden walls was flaking off, and only one old, rusty
pick-up truck sat in the sandy parking lot. A sign in front of the place identified it as "Uncle Grandpa's
Desert Diner." It was a strange place that surely had a story to tell, but Chester couldn't reflect on that
now! Linkin Park had their own story, a saga of truth and adventure that awaited them in Albuquerque
at their big concert!

Chetser kept on driving, and soon forgot about the diner in his short term memory. They likely would
have continued on all the way to Albuquerque, but then like not even a mile later the tour bus ran out of
gas, just as all four tires simultaneously went flat. Before the band knew what was going on, the cap to
the gas tank popped open from the heat and a desert wind blew a bunch of sand inside it. Then the
muffler fell off, all of the axles snapped, and a meteor fell out of the clear blue sky and crashed through
the hood of the bus.

"Uh-oh," ejaculated Chester loudly, "I think the van needs a little tune-up, guys!"

Mike pulled off his earphones and frowned. "You're right, Chestor!" he said. "Let's use our cell phones
to call for a tow truck!"

Chester checked his cell phone and saw that it had no power. "This isn't good," he said. "I think my
battery's dead."

Mike turned on his cell phone and frowned also. "I'm all out of minutes," he sneered. Then he looked
over his shoulder at the band. "Guys, what about you?"

"I ate my cell phone a few minutes ago," Joseph Hahn said, picking a microchip fragment out of his
teeth. He belched, and the "3" button with "DEF" printed on it popped out of his mouth.

"Cell phones are lame, guys!" Brad whined. "Technology's supposed to bring people together, but it
really just sets them further apart! In these days of instant messaging, texting, Twitter, and cell phones,
electronic gimmicks are what passes for real human connection and communication. Gone are the days
when people would wait in rapt anticipation for months for letters from their loved ones halfway across
the country, reading each one with the reverence and awe as if it was the Magna Carta. Never again
will the lively, rhythmic stutter of the telegraph reverberate across the nation. The Pony Express has
canvassed America's midwestern prairies for the last time!" A single tear rolled down Brad's cheek
then.

Chester rolled his eyes. "We need to go get help," he said. "Maybe we could go back to that old diner
and see if we could call a toe truck from there!"

"Great idea, man!" Mike Shinoda said, putting a warm hand on Chester's shoulder.

"All right men!" Chester said. "Linkin Park, let's roll out!"

So they all walked back to the old diner. It wasn't a far walk, and they could see across the desert road
to their destination. But it was about one hundred and ten degrees in the desert and everyone was really
hot. Not just hot as in sexually attractive, but instead they were uncomfortable because of the high
temperature. Brad was especially uncomfortable because he was wearing a black leather trenchcoat like
in the Matrix and four pairs of thong underwear at once. A vulture flew past once in the sky, and Brad
stared up at the sun in despair.

"We'll never make it, you guys!" Brad moaned. "Go on without me!"

"We're here!" Mike called out as they made it to the front door of the diner.

Up-close, the mystery of the diner only grew stronger, for it was a queer place indeed. It was an
interesting old-looking place: the windows were cracked and broken, the white paint covering the
wooden walls was flaking off, and only one old, rusty pick-up truck sat in the sandy parking lot. A sign
in front of the place identified it as "Uncle Grandpa's Desert Diner." It was a strange place that surely
had a story to tell. Timidly, Chestar pushed the glass door open and stepped inside.

Inside the diner, air conditioning kept the temperature at a managable 90 degrees. Barstools sat in a row
like baby ducklings alongside a lunch counter, and numerous booths sat around the place, their gaudy
white faux leather upholstry tattered to reveal dull yellow stuffing leaking out. A single bare light bulb
hung from the ceiling, lonely and forlorn, and cast a somber air on the place that forespake of loves and
losses gone long by under the starry clear blue desert sky. Cobwebs were scattered along the walls,
catching the dreams of yesterday and beams of light shining in through the diner's filthy, grease-
smeared windows. The air smelled faintly of sour grease from fried beef and cheap cigarette smoke.

Behind the lunch counter stood a portly old man. A long white beard hung from his wisened face,
whiskers hanging upon his merry, wrinkled cheeks. He wore a red-and-white checkered shirt and beige
slacks, and a grease-stained white apron over his bulging belly. His old eyes widened, and he shook his
head vigorously as Linkin Park filed into the diner, causing his great white beard to wobble from side
to side.

"Gracious!" the old man exclaimed. "Customers! I haven't had customers for thirteen years, and now
you and those girls show up at the same time!"

"You must be Uncle Grandpa," Chester said amiably. "Put 'er there, old timer!" Chester gave the man a
high five, then grinned and gave a thumbs-up.

"So can we get any food here, or what?" Brad asked, his slavering tongue slapping against his cheeks
and flinging blobs of drool around.

"Of course," Unckle Grandpa said, gesturing to the booths. "Sit and make yourself at home."

"You said there were girls here," Joseph Hahn said, scratching his head apishly. "What girls do you
mean?"

"Ah, there's a good lad!" Uncle Grandpa said. "They're sitting around the far corner. Have a seat, and
I'll take your order soon."

"Thanks man." Chester led Brad, Joseph, and Mike around the far corner of the booths so they could sit
down and get some refreshing food and drink, and meet the girls. The rest of the band ate the spiders
that made the cobwebs and sucked the stuffing out of the upholstry, and took turns talking in high
voices and pretending the other one was a girl.

Around the corner, a most stunning sight did greet our heroes: four beautiful young women seated at
one of the nearby booths. There was a pretty, innocent-looking redhead with a stunning, stacked figure
and a pretty, freckled smile; a lovely, swarthy brunette with rich, full lips and dark, seductive eyes; a
blonde girl with a sharp, elfin face that wore a vacant expression; and another blonde, taller and more
mature, with a regal bearing and cunning smile. Chester greeted them at once with a wave and a smile
as the band took their seats at a booth next to the girls.

"Hi there!" Chester said. "I didn't expect to see any other people here. We're Linkin Park! I'm Chester
Bennington, and these are my bandmates Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Roscoe Conkling!"

The regal blonde greeted them with an insincere smile. "Ooh, Linkin Park!" she cooed. "That's so
awesome!" She gestured around at her friends. "We're all really big Linkin Park fans. My name is
Regina George, and these are my friends: Cady Heron (the redhead), Gretchen Weiners (the brunette),
and Karen Smith (the other blonde)."

"Hey, ladies," Brad growled lecherously, "maybe after we get a decent meal, I can eat SOMETHING
ELSE too, huh?" He wiggled his hairy eyebrows up and down. "And by that I mean DESSERT!" He
started to laugh, but then fell into a coughing fit.

All the girls giggled. "Oh, Brad, you're so funny," Gretchen purred seductively.

"Anyway, we broke down in the desert on our way to our next rock concert," Mike explained. "So we
decided to come to this diner instead! What about you?"

"We're students at North Shore High School, and we were on our way to Albuquerque for spring
break," Regina explained. "But then SOMEBODY spent all of our gas money on these matching pink
miniskirts back in Pueblo, Colorado..." She trailed off, glaring at Gretchen.

"But Regina," Gretchen whined, "that was you!"

Regina rolled her eyes and put a hand up into Gretchen's face. "Whatever," she said. "I don't remember
asking you to talk just now."

Karen Smith, meanwhile, took a deep drink from the bottle of mustard on her table and then grimaced.
"This is totally the WORST lemonade I've ever tasted!" she protested.

Cady Heron, the red-haired girl with the freckles, gave Chester a smile that was at once warm and
apologetic. "Coming to your show tonight would be awesome to really kickstart our Spring Break," she
said, "but that can't happen while we're all stuck here at the diner."

"Ah, that's okay," Chester said magnanimously, with a wave of the hand, "it's what's in your heart that
counts."

"I know," said Cady wisely, and the two of them nodded at once.

Just then Ungle Grandpa showed up with a pen and paper. "I'm ready to take your orders, ladies!" he
thundered.

"I'd like two fat-free hot dogs on whole wheat buns, over easy, and a 7-Up with a splash of grenadine,"
Karen said.

"Could I have the chef salad with light dressing and a bottle of Rolling Rock?" Gretchen said.

"I'd like a platter of your finest Egyptian caviar, served alongside a fresh plate of lobster thermidor and
a sparkling glass of Royal Crown Cola," said Regina snootily.

"Cream of potato soup, hash browns, and four Jell-O shots, please," Cady said, batting her eyelashes at
Uncle Kracker.

"Very well, ladies," Uncle Grandpa said, puffing his flustered cheeks in and out as he furiously took
down their orders. "And you boys?"

"I'm really more thirsty than hungry," Chester said. "Could I have some iced tea?"

"Same here," said Mike, "but make mine a green tea."

"Me too," Brad said, "and I'm also sleepy. So bring me a Red Bull!"

"I want an entire case of Natty Ice," Joseph Hahn said.

"Indeed, boys!" Undcle Grandpa said, and he darted off to the kitchen. 

Left alone with the girls, Chester admired Cady's innocent features. Her sweet, bright smile was almost
as beautiful as Mike's, and her red hair tumbled around her face like vines hanging around the entrance
to an ancient ruined temple deep in the jungle. "You know," Chester said, "this old diner isn't so bad! I
could get to like it here!"

Cady nodded. "There was one like it back in Africa, where I grew up," she said. She saw his curious
expression and explained. "My father was a researcher there. Ever seen Captain Spaulding from
Animal Crackers? Just like him."

"Oh, yes, that's right!" Regina said with a laugh. "Cady's from Africa. Isn't she so exotic and sweet?"
Cady shrank back in her chair, blushing around her thick freckles.

Chester nodded. "I feel like she's a sister to me already," he said cheerily.

Just then Uncle Grandma came back. He gave all the girls exactly what they wanted, then turned
sheepishly to the boys. "I didn't have what you asked for, so I brought out some substitutions. Instead
of iced tea... here's some fried beef." He set a plate of fried hamburger meat in front of Chester. "And
instead of green tea, here's green beans." He set a plate of green beans in front of Mike. "And instead of
a Red Bull, I brought you a bread roll." He set a dinner roll in front of Brad. "And instead of Natural
Ice, I brought you Miller High Life." He set a case of beer in front of Joseph Hahn.

Chester was disappointed, but fortunately the fried beef actually helped to refresh him and quench his
thirst quite a bit. The others ate their food in sullen silence, and Joseph Hahn guzzled the whole case of
beer in an insane frenzy and passed out in an alcoholic coma. When they had nearly finished their meal,
Uncle Grandpa returned with a cunning grin.

"Before you youngsters go, I should tell you the legend of this diner," he said ominously. "It's said that
this diner is built on top of the ancient tomb of the legendary Princess Andielle, and that her golden
treasures are all still stored below. In addition, whoever wears her pendant beneath the full moon will
be granted one wish."

"But... the full moon's tonight!" Mike said.

"Guys, we need to find this pendant," Chester said. "If we do, we can make a wish that we were in
Albuquerque in time for our concert!"

"Yeah!" the others said, pumping their fists in the air excitedly.

"And we could use some of those golden treasures, since we don't have any money to pay our check,"
Gretchen said. "Like we said, Regina spent all of the money earlier on--"

"Zip it, Gretchen," Regina snapped. Then she gave Old Grandpa a sweet smile. "Can you show us
where this tomb is?"

"Of course," said Uncle Grandpa. "Follow me."

He led them back through the kitchen and into the stock room, then pulled up some of the floorboards.
Beneath them was a trap door, and when he opened it, it led to a passage down lined with ancient,
crumbling stone!

"Great Scott!" Mike exclaimed. "There's a secret passage to the tomb!"

"Come on, guys!" Chester said. "We have to go!"

"You heard him, ladies," Regina said. "Get down there and grab everything shiny you see."

"What about the reflections of torchlight shining off of our eyes, like divining pools into the mysterious
cores of our young and malleable souls?" Karen Smith said.

"No you stupid twat," Regina said, "I'm talking about treasure. Let's go, girls."

And so Chesthair Bennington, Mike Shinoda, and Brad Delson went down into the mysterious passage,
and so did Regina George, Gretchen Weiners, Karen Smith, and Cady Heron. But as they crept down
the narrow, winding passage, Gretchen grabbed Chester by the shoulder and suddenly stopped him.

"Before we go any further, Chester, there's something you really ought to see," she said. 

"What is it?" Chester asked worriedly.

With an uncharacteristically concerned and nervous expression, Gretchen slowly took hold of the hem
of her pink miniskirt and lifted it above her waist. When she did, Chester could only gasp and flinch
back in surprise and wonder at what he saw.

Everything seemed frozen in time there in that dark cavern. Chester felt the whole world drop away,
and he was stuck in a perfectly crystallized moment with Gretchen, a young woman whom he barely
knew but who had just changed the course of his life forever.

“What do you think?” asked Gretchen shyly.

Chester gave her a goofy thumbs-up.

“It's beautiful,” he said. “I'd love to see it again when our adventure is almost at an end.”

And with that, they rejoined their friends.

The party marched bravely down the long passageway, their only light coming from the blazing torches
they bore bravely above their heads. Down, down they descended, winding their way through the
blackness, over crumbling stair and stone, down into the darkest depths of the earth. They were deep
under the deserts of New Mexico. Deeper than the unsold copies of the album Linkin Park recorded
with Limp Bizkit, “Linkin Bizkit: Live from Folsom Prison,” which Warner Brothers had thought to
bury away from the gaze of the unforgiving desert sun. Though they did not know it, they marched not
just towards tomb and treasure, but towards their futures; futures that could be as dark or as bright as
the contents their own young hearts, for each would be sorely tested there in that womb of earth.

Eventually the descent ceased and the party found itself on level ground. A faint murmur could be
heard somewhere up ahead. Cady took the lead, the torchlight paling in comparison with her crimson
hair. She lead them past bats and bones, spiderwebs that could ensnare an enraged hippopotamus (if
indeed such a beast should ever find itself lost in the tunnels beneath Uncle Grandpa's Desert Diner),
and strange markings on the walls in an eldrich script.

The murmur ahead grew louder, and as the party passed through an arched gate and into a large cavern,
its source revealed itself: a narrow river, darker than blackest midnight, surged ahead of them, cutting
them off from the far side of the cavern.

“Oh no!” exclaimed Chestert. “We'll never make it over this dumb water! Our quest is doomed! I'll
paint it on the walls, 'cause I'm the one that falls! I'll never fight again, and this is how it ends!”

“Wait!” Cady demanded. “I think I see the entrance to the tomb on the other side of this cavern. We're
too close to give up now!”

Brad confidently stepped forward, a gallant smirk on his face.

“Allow me, ladies,” he declared.

Brad then grabbed Cady's pink sweater, pulled it off of her, and cast it into the river. The sweater, being
far too small to serve as a bridge over such a mighty waterway, was immediately sucked under the
surface and carried into the blackness. None could know then that the sweater would eventually surface
in another deep cave, where it would become home to a small family of cave salamanders. These
salamanders over time would evolve into a sentient race long after the extinction of man and would
come to rule the earth and eventually the stars as well. Though the space lizards of the far future bore
little resemblance to their cave-dwelling ancestors, they paid tribute to the sweater in which they once
took refuge with the name of their civilization: the Celestial Empire of J-Crew.

Regina just rolled her eyes at Brad, then gave him a solid hip-check, sending him tumbling into the
river. Luckily, Brad was able to grab onto the far shore while keeping his feet anchored on the near
shore, turning himself into a living bridge. Regina confidently marched over Brad, a satisfied
expression on her snooty but nevertheless attractive face. The rest of the party followed her, and soon
they made it to the other side of the cavern.

Linkin Park and their new friends found themselves at a large set of brass doors set in a stone arch.

“This must be the tomb of Princess Andielle!” demanded Mike.

“Um, duh,” said Regina. “Who else would be buried in this dump?”

“Well,” Gretchen piped up, “they never did find Jimmy Hoffa's remains. Maybe he's buried here?”

“Or Amelia Earhart!” chimed Karen helpfully.

“Is that how you spell that? I always thought it was h-a-r-d-t,” said Chester confusingly.

“Shut up and open it already!” Regina demanded.

Everyone but Regina took hold of the great brass handles of the two doors and began to tug on them
with all their might. Slowly, and with a mighty groan, the doors swung open. Just as they did, however,
a great gust of wind emerged from the tomb, extinguishing the candles!

“Come on, gang!” said Chester gamely. “We might be in a pickle now, but I'll bet there are some
torches or maybe a flashlight or some big fireflies in that tomb!”

Thus inspired, the group marched ahead into the tomb and began to grope and feel around. Just then, a
deep, throaty, slightly deranged laugh began to echo about them.

“What's so funny, Karen?” said Regina hotly – hotly as in she was angry, not that she said it in a
sexually appealing voice, although with her lovely features and supple young body it was hard for the
guys not to find something strangely alluring about her domineering tone.

“It wasn't me, swear to Gucci!” protested Karen meekly.

Then, the torches lining the tomb sprang to light. Standing in front of them with a devious smirk on his
face was Kentucky junior senator Rand Paul. He was dressed in a sharp fitting charcoal pinstriped suit
with a gold tie and a gold dollar sign pin in his lapel. The pinstripes of his suit were tiny dollar signs
placed end-to-end. Behind him, dressed in a dumb pirate outfit complete with a fake parrot and real
duelling pistols stood pro-wrestler Dustin Runnels.

“I suppose you are surprised to see me,” said Rand Paul with a terrible leer.

“Well, yeah,” said Cady. “I mean, it's surprising to meet anyone in an ancient tomb beneath the earth.
How did you get here, anyway? Uncle Grandpa would have told us if he had let someone else down the
same passage, don't you think? And it's especially weird considering that you're a senator. A geologist
or someone like that would make a lot more sense.”

“Or Laura Croft,” said Brad with a far-away expression on his grizzled face. “Though its graphics may
seem crude to us now, Tomb Raider was definitely the first video game to give me a stiffy. Except for
that one time I was playing Super Mario Brothers 2 and I realized that all the enemies could see up
Princess's skirt. Anyway, why is Dustin Runnels here with you?”

“Because, you simple-minded ogre, I love gold more than life itself, this tomb is reputed to be home to
a great hold treasure, and Dustin here used to wrestle under the name Golddust. Isn't that right,
Dustin?”

“Aye-aye, captain! Soon we'll have all the gold doubloons and pieces of eight we can spend, but first
we'll make these scurvy sea-dogs and wenches walk the plank!” declared Dustin Runnels.

“That makes sense,” said Brad, overcome by the sheer force of the senator's mighty logic.

“But why do you want all the gold for yourselves?” said Cady, shyly. “Isn't there, like, enough to share?
After all, we found it too!”

“No,” declared Rand Paul. “For I require all the gold in America to build my greatest achievement to
date: a mighty phylactery for my father, the dread lich Ron Paul. Picture this: seven mighty coffins
stand in a semi-circle atop a great mountain of gold. When a party of adventurers ascends the mountain,
the coffins rise in the air and spin about in an orbit, attacking the party with powerful magics. They
must discern which is the true coffin containing the phylactery and destroy it. However, doing so only
unleashes the most powerful magic defence: the entire mountain begins to stir, revealing that it is
actually a mountainous Gold Golem! Level 30 Solo Brute; 95,000 XP.”

“Pshaw!” scoffed Mike. “Convert that thing to D&D 3.5 and my Mystic Theurge will kick it's shiny
gold teeth in!”

“Excuse me? Mystic Theurge?” said Regina. “Do you seriously play that hot mess of a prestige class?
What, being character level seven and casting spells at three caster levels below an equivalent single-
lass wizard didn't tip you off that it's a pointless build? Who needs all those extra weak spells in your
spellbook when you can still only cast one per round, anyway? It's like, why choose a closet full of
grody Steve Madden's over a single pair of Christian Louboutin's when you can only wear one pair of
shoes at a time, right?”

Everyone stared at Regina George, who turned bright-red and cast her gaze down at her feet, which just
happened to be encased in a pair of nude Louboutin heels.

“Anyway,” said Rand Paul after a while to break the silence, “I am going to keep the entire treasure for
myself.”

“But that's not fair!” whined Karen.

“Fair? Young lady, I am a rational actor exercising my enlightened self-interest. It may seem selfish to
you now, but if you consult the works of Hayek, Von Mises, and Von Zarovich, you will learn that not
only do I have a right to pursue my own gain without surrendering to your tyrannous demands that I
share my wealth, but I maximize the good of the entire economy by doing so!”

“But don't your economic theories overlook the degree to which the social contract and collectivism
both act to better your own life?” challenged Mike. “After all, you probably drove here on public roads.
No matter how you learned about the existence of this tomb, I'll bet that a public library or a site on the
Internet was involved at some stage in the research process, if not in your own research then in the
research conducted by your sources. Whatever you read that led you here, I'll bet it was written by
someone who was taught to read and write in a public school. The number of ways in which you have
personally benefited from collectivism in the pursuit of this treasure are too numerous to count, so
believing that you are somehow entitled to the whole thing is preposterous!”

“Blasphemy!” shouted Rand Paul.

“Actually,” declared Karen, “blasphemy is technically slandering or speaking irreverently of a supreme
being. The word you are looking for is heresy, which entails believing or espousing views that depart
from an orthodoxy: in this case, beliefs that are contrary to orthodox Austrian economics.”

Everyone (excepting Rand Paul and Dustin Runnels) burst into a round of applause at this display of
erudition. Karen blushed, and gave a shy curtsy, overwhelmed at the outpouring of sincere admiration
from her friends old and new.

“Enough of this foolishness. What use could you possible put this treasure to that rivals my own grand
design?” enquired Rand Paul haughtily.

“Well,” said Gretchen, “we need to pay our bill at the diner. Uncle Grandpa is a small businessman, and
it would be wrong not to compensate him fairly for his top-flight goods and services!”

“And we need to make a wish to get to our concert!” added Chester.

“I wouldn't mind some new video games,” said Mike.

“And I wanna go shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue!” demanded Regina.

“And I'd like to go to Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th,” said Karen.

“I recently learned that you can order pizzas with no crust,” said Brad, “so I want to order an extra
large pizza with no crust, no sauce, a four cheese base, and then provolone, mozzarella, Parmesan and
goat cheese as toppings. I want to see if they'll deliver a cardboard box full of nothing but melted
cheeses to my house!”

“I'm not so interested in the treasure for myself; I just want us to get what we've been searching for
because I believe that succeeding in this quest will bring us closer together than we ever have been,”
said Cady with a shy but radiant smile.

Rand Paul looked from Linkin Park to the girls and back again. His face, formerly stoic, began twisting
itself into a look of cold rage.

“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?” he began, anger and contempt dripping from his voice.
“No! says the pink mini-skirted harlot, it belongs to the kindly diner owner! No! says the bespectacled
twerp, it belongs to the band that aggrandizes high-school social angst by marrying it to over-the-top
imagery derived from anime and God knows where else, keeping all of the macho posturing of rap-
rock with none of the actual machismo in order to appeal to self-identified nerds who want to see
themselves as better than the jocks who listen to other bands in the same genre.”

“We should keel-haul the lot of them!” declared Dustin Runnels, secretly sad that everyone was
ignoring him.

"For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking,” continued
Rand Paul, a look of derangement in his eyes. “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does
not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has
destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing-you who dread knowledge-I am
the man who will now tell you."

“Hey,” said Chester. “Shut up!”

“Fools!” said Randy Paul. “Prepare to face my true form!”

With that, Rand Paul pulled off his tie, threw aside his suit jacket, and ripped the shirt from his muscled
torso. As he did so, patches of grey mangy hair began to sprout from his body. His handsome face,
already somewhat rodent-like, began to lengthen, as did his sharp, predatory teeth. When he was
finished transforming, he was no longer a man, but a giant bipedal rat!

“Aha! He's a wererat!” said Chester. “It makes so much sense! Stand back, everyone, I know how to
deal with these!”

Chester launched himself at Rand Paul with a mighty battle cry, but Rat Paul sidestepped his attack,
grabbed Chester by the waist, and threw him headlong into the wall of the tomb, knocking him
senseless. The rest of the group prepared themselves to attack, but were frozen in place by the sound of
Dustin Runnels cocking his duelling pistols.

“Next landlubber to move sleeps in Davy Jones's locker!” he declared. It was indeed a grim situation
our heroes had found themselves in.

Rand Paul turned to the girls, a wolfish grin spreading across his ratty features.

“So many lovely young things,” he said. Smiling horribly, he approached Gretchen. “What is your
name, my dear? How about I instruct you in the finer points of the gold standard?”

He stuck his paw down the front of Gretchen's pink skirt. A moment later, he yelped in pain, and
withdrew his paw. Clinging to it was a silver mousetrap!

“Alas! Vile strumpet, you have vanquished me!” he declared in anguish.

With that, Randpaulstiltskin gave an anguished howl and ran from the tomb, never to be seen again.

“I told you that I would see that thing again near the end of the adventure,” said Chester with a thumbs
up as he awoke from his restful unconsciousness at the other end of the tomb.

“I suppose you were right!” said Gretchen, laughing.

“You'll never catch me alive, coppers!” said Dustin Runnels as he fled into the darkness of the cavern.

Everyone laughed and high-fived and celebrated. Everyone, that is, but Regina George, who
impatiently clicked her fashionable heels against the stone floor of the ancient tomb.

“Um, hello? Is everyone forgetting about the treasure?” she enquired.

“Oh, right. I think I landed next to it when that guy threw me into the wall!” said Chester sagely.
“Come on, everyone, let's take a look!”

Chester was right! Beside him, against the wall of the cave, illuminated by a curious shaft of light,
there was an ancient marble dais, upon which there lay a necklace of the most brilliant gold. From the
necklace hung a silver pendant, the centrepiece of which was a massive ruby that glowed with mystic,
fiery light. In front of the dais there was a great wooden treasure chest with polished brass clasps.

Chester flung open the treasure chest. The murmuring of anticipation, however, soon turned into
mutterings of despair!

“It's empty!” declared Gretchen.

“Bogus!” said Mike and Brad in unison.

“I can't believe I came all that way and dealt with those two creepy idiots – not to mention the rest of
you freaks,” said Regina with a look of scorn at Linkin Park, “to get ripped off like this!”

“Wait a minute, Regina,” said Cady. “I see something in the chest.”

“Where?” said everyone in unison.

“Look at the clasps. I can see our reflection in them!” she said softly.

Everyone was confused. Everyone, that is, but Chester.

“I get what she's saying, guys. She's saying that we're the treasure that we found! Not, like, that we now
all own each other in some kind of bizarre mutual slavery pact or anything like that! We've gone
through so much together that we're now all better friends than ever, and isn't friendship the real gold?”

“Whatever. At least we still have the magic pendant. Chester, baby, you'll wish for something nice for
me, won't you?" said Regina, stroking Chester's cheek with a single perfectly-manicured finger.

“You bet I will!” said Chester.

He seized the pendant, put it around his neck, and then, looking over at Cady, said:

“I wish that we'll all be friends forever!”

With that, the fire in the ruby burned brighter than ever, then went dark. The necklace and the entire
pendant, ruby and all, crumbled into the dust from whence it came. Everyone gasped; everyone, that is,
but Cady, who simply smiled at Chester.

“That's not what I meant at all! God, you're such a four-eyed freak!” said Regina.

“Uh, bro,” said Mike. “I like friendship as much as the next dude, but how are we going to get to our
gig?”

“Or pay for our food?” added Gretchen.

“Or get out of this cave?” said Karen.

Just then, they heard a hearty voice above them.

“Hello down there!”

It was Uncle Grandpa! Everyone looked up in astonishment, and saw the kindly, bearded face of their
close friend Uncle Grandpa staring down at them from a hole in the ceiling of the tomb.

“What are you doing up there, old fella?” said Chester jovially.

“This is the other entrance to the tomb of Princess Andielle! It's out back behind the dumpster.”

“I guess that explains where the gust of wind that extinguished our torches came from,” said Mike.

“And how Rand Paul and Dustin Runnels were able to get to the treasure without us knowing they were
down here,” said Gretchen.

“But it doesn't explain why he told us to go the long way,” mused Karen.

“Gosh, don't thank me,” said Uncle Grandpa. “Here, grab this ladder and climb on out!”

Soon, everyone was out of the tomb and in the stock room of Uncle Grandpa's Desert Diner. The only
things in the stock room were brown burlap sacks with the words “Rotten Potatees” scribbled on them
in childish handwriting, and an old oil drum with“Not Milk” painted on the side. Nevertheless, no place
on earth had ever felt more like home.

“So, how did things turn out?”

“Well,” said Chester. “The only treasure was the treasure of true friendship, and our only wish was that
we could remain friends forever. But now we can't make it to the concert on time.”

“Oh,” said Uncle Scrooge jovially, “you need to get to a concert? Well, why didn't you say so?”

“I'm pretty sure we did!” said Mike, a man whose honesty and forthrightness would remain a model for
all until the end of his days.

“Also, we still need to find a way to pay you,” said Gretchen.

“Don't worry about a thing, my friends!” laughed Uncle Grandpa. “I have a spare tour bus from my
days as a Grateful Dead roadie that I can lend you in exchange for letting me jam with you guys at the
concert! If we high-tail it, we can still make it to Albuquerque tonight! As for the bill, the rest of your
band has been scrubbing dishes since you left. I didn't even ask, they just set themselves to work! All
you need now is for one person to stay behind to finish washing up – I'm sure sweet little Regina
wouldn't mind volunteering!”

“Deal!” exclaimed Chester.

“Hold on a minute,” began Regina, but the cheering and hooting of everyone else soon drowned out her
spiteful protestations.

In no time at all, everyone but Regina was on the bus and on their way to Albuquerque. Brad and Mike
were teaching Uncle Grandpa all the great Linkin Park songs, and even though he wasn't a very good
guitar player, it didn't matter, because neither were they. Cady sat up front with Chester, and he knew
that their new-found friendship would be everlasting.

“Now this is what we call a happy ending!” Chester and Cady sang.

THE END