“That’s great and all,” Verona said, “but what should we do while we wait?”

  “Maybe we could tell stories?” I suggested; and Cob said, “I could tell y’all about the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper. Have you heard of him?”

  “Nope.” Verona and I both said at the same time, and so Cob began to tell us about the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper…

  “Once upon a time, there was a person named Laxy who was just minding her own business and shopping for some doughnuts.

  Well, the place she usually got doughnuts at was out of them for some reason, and so she decided to head over to a nearby village to purchase some yummy doughy treats, but when she reached the village it didn’t look like it had looked before.

  This was strange to her, but she figured that they had just remodeled since she’d last been there, and she searched around for a doughnut shop.

  She soon found one, and she entered the shop and said hello to the person who was at the counter.

  “Hey! Muahahahahahaha!” the man at the counter said with a grin, “How are you today?”

  Laxy thought that it was odd that the man had laughed diabolically, but she decided to ignore it and then said, “I’m fine now that I’m here. You seem to have quite a good selection of doughnuts!”

  “Ah yes,” the man said proudly, “all of the miscreants who are going through rehabilitation do a great job making them! Sometimes they do such a good job that I’m reluctant to ever declare them rehabilitated! Muahahahahahahahaha!”

  Laxy was very confused by what he’d just said, and she was a bit worried about the idea of miscreants making doughnuts. Like, could she trust that miscreants were being well-behaved while they made the doughnuts, or were the miscreants mixing boogers or worse into the doughnuts in order to make fools out of people like Laxy!

  And so Laxy decided to leave the doughnut shop, because now she was paranoid that miscreants had put boogers into the doughnuts, and so she said, “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, and I promise to be back soon!” but she wasn’t actually planning on coming back soon and was just trying to be polite to the strange man who was at the counter.

  Then the man pulled out a device and said, “Unfortunately, this lie detector test says that you just lied to me. Now why would you do that?”

  “Ummmmm…” Laxy said while sweating nervously, “You know that lie detector tests are famously unreliable, right?”

  “And so are you saying that you didn’t lie?” the man said while staring intently at Laxy; and Laxy began slowly moving backwards and towards the front door of the doughnut shop and said, “Even if I had, why would it be any of your business? I mean, it’s not illegal to lie, right?”

  “Maybe not where you’re from,” the man at the counter said smoothly, “but the laws are different around here, and your answer sounded a lot like an admission that you were lying to me. And so now we have a problem, because I can’t just let you get away with this criminal and miscreant behavior, now, can I? You clearly need to be rehabilitated!”

  Laxy then dashed! out of the front door and ran as fast as she could away from the village and back to her humble abode!

  But then she noticed that she had received a letter in the mail, and the letter said, “You are hereby required to come to the doughnut shop where you committed your miscreant behavior every Monday at 1pm so that you can be rehabilitated. If you fail to do this then you will be captured, and so why not just do 1 day a week of rehabilitation willingly instead of me having to force you to do 7 days a week of rehabilitation? I’ll see you soon! -The Dreaded Doughnut Dropper”

  Laxy was furious about the letter, and she went straight to the local police station to show them what that villainous doughnut guy had delivered to her house!

  When she showed the police officers the letter, one of them said, “You really shouldn’t have left our village, because if you broke laws in the other village then they’re allowed to punish you for your crimes as long as the punishment is within reason, and one day a week of rehabilitation doesn’t seem that bad to me.”

  “Whaaaaaa???” Laxy said frantically, “Are there any villages I can move to where I would be safe from having to do this “rehabilitation” nonsense???”

  “We’re the wrong people to ask about that,” another officer said while doing a facepalm, “because now we’re obligated by low to arrest you and let the law enforcement in that village know that you’re trying to get out of doing your rehabilitation!” and then he handcuffed Laxy, led her to a jail cell, opened the jail cell’s door, made her enter into the jail cell, and then removed the handcuffs now that she was securely contained inside of the jail cell.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “This is ridiculous!” she cried out in frustration, “I mean, the laws in that village don’t even make any sense!”

  “Lots of laws don’t make sense.” the officer said with a shrug, “Now I’m gonna head over to that village now to let them know about what’s going on. Hopefully something can be agreed upon that will work out well for everybody.” and then he walked away to give the law enforcement in the next village the information that he had about Laxy.

  Laxy paced back and forth in her jail cell for a while, and was very worried about what might happen to her next, but then she saw that there was a doughnut that was hovering in the air near her jail cell!

  “Wtf???” she yelped, “Is there a hard-to-see thread that this doughnut is attached to???”

  “Nope!” the doughnut replied, and Laxy immediately fainted from the shock of seeing a doughnut talk to her!

  When she came to, she was no longer in the jail cell, and she felt that the floor beneath her was very unstable.

  “What th-“ she mumbled, but then she suddenly noticed that there was a big balloon above her, and the only logical explanation for this was that she was now in a hot air balloon!

  But why tf was she in a hot air balloon!?!

  Then the doughnut who had spoken to her earlier suddenly came into view and said, “Hello! I’m Jelly!, and I rescued you from that jail cell because I reviewed your case and decided that the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper had no right to force you to do rehabilitation! Hmph! All that you did was maybe tell a meaningless fib that wasn’t hurting anybody, and that’s not the sort of thing that merits rehabilitation! Not by a longshot!”

  “Thanks…” Laxy said in a confused tone of voice, “But how are you even able to talk? I mean, I’ve most certainly never thought that doughnuts could be alive before! This doesn’t make any sense!”

  “So,” Jelly began, “the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper is able to create living doughnuts when he wants to, and I am a living doughnut that he created. BUT, just because he created me doesn’t mean that I always agree with him. In fact, I usually disagree with him, and I’m kind of a villain because I even ever work with him at all, to be honest. But I’m able to have good influence sometimes by continuing to associate with him! Like how I just rescued you from him! And so I don’t know if I really count as a villain, even though the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper is indeed undoubtably a villain.”

  “And so what’s the plan?” Laxy asked, “Are we traveling to a place where he won’t be able to capture me and make me do his ridiculous “rehabilitation” nonsense?”

  “Weeeellllll,” Jelly said, “There’s only really one place that he avoids, and that’s an island where a tyrannosaurus rex named Rexy lives. See, Rexy managed to gobble him up one time, and even though he easily escaped from her stomach he usually avoids her and her island unless he feels like has no choice but to go there.”

  “But will I be safe from the tyrannosaurus rex?” Laxy said with a gulp. “I mean, even that villainous rehabilitation nonsense sounds like it’d be better than being gobbled up would be… Are you just rescuing me from the frying pan only for me to end up in the fire?”

  “Don’t worry!” Jelly said cheerfully, “I know a plant-person named Plants who lives in an underground shelter that’s safe from Rexy! And so you can just live with Plants until I’m confident that the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper has lost interest in you, and once he’s lost interest in you then there are tons of places I can take you to where you’ll be safe from him.”

  “I guess that sounds like a reasonable enough plan…” Laxy said, “And how long do you think that it’ll take for the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper to forget about me?”

  “He’ll probably forget about you within the next month or so,” Jelly said, “and there’s no way that it’ll take more than 3 months, and so I can assure you that you won’t have to live in the underground shelter for more than 3 months.”

  “Well, thanks then.” Laxy said, “And I’m Laxy, by the way, and I sure am glad that it sounds like I’ll never have to meet that Dreaded Doughnut Dropper again!”

  “You’re welcome!” Jelly said; and then she added that, “I can see the entrance to where Plants lives now! And Rexy is currently on the other side of the island, and so I’ll hurry up and get us down to where Plants is!” and she quickly adjusted the steering controls on the hot air balloon so that her and Laxy were soon right next to the ground.

  Then she led Laxy off of the hot air balloon, and she knocked on a piece of wood that was on the ground.

  A voice soon said, “Is that you again, Jelly?” and Jelly said, “Yup! I’ve got a person named Laxy who wants to stay in your underground shelter for a while. Is that alright?”

  “Only if you stay too!” the voice said firmly, “I trust you, but I don’t trust strangers. It’ll be up to you to make sure that Laxy doesn’t cause problems!”

  “Sounds good!” Jelly said; and so Plants moved the piece of wood aside, and said, “Hey, Laxy! I’m Plants! Come on in quickly, because I can hear Rexy running towards us!”

  Just then, Laxy heard a distant roaring sound, which confirmed that Plants was indeed correct about Rexy, and so her and Jelly quickly entered the underground shelter so that Rexy couldn’t gobble them up!

  The underground shelter was pretty nice, and Plants gave Laxy a grand tour of it!

  There was a library, a science lab, and kitchen, a bathroom, a game room, and much more too!

  And so Plants, Laxy, and Jelly all had a lovely time for 3 months, and then Jelly and Laxy said farewell to Plants and got back into the hot air balloon and began flying towards a place that Jelly said would probably be a good new home for Laxy.

  After many days of traveling, they finally reached a giant mansion, and Jelly introduced Laxy to some folks who were named Pop, Sizzle, Corn, Rip, Stacy, Trip, and Pandora; and she asked Rip (who owned the mansion) if Laxy could live at the mansion with them because she had escaped from the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper and couldn’t return to her previous abode.

  “Sounds good to me!” Rip said cheerfully; and so Laxy moved in with Pandora, Trip, Stacy, Rip, Corn, Sizzle, and Pop; and the 8 of them lived happily ever after!

  The End”