Richie Rich Vaults of Mystery
by: Paul G Jutras
It all started one early morning on the Rich Estate. The butler Cadbury was reading the headlines of the paper when young master Richie showed up in pressed white shirt, black jacket, blue shorts, white shoes and red bow toe.
"My word!" Cadbury explained. "The notorious E.G. Fizzle has escaped from prison."
"E.G. Fizzle?" Richie questioned. "Sounds familiar."
"E. G. Stands for Evil Genius." Cadbury quickly reminded his young master like a father would warn his own son.
"Oh, him."
"I shall be out on an errand today, master Richie!" Cadbury said as he picked up his umbrella and derby. "Be alert!"
"Cadbury worries so!" Richie chuckled as the door bell rang and he went to answer it. "E.G. is probably half way around the world by now ! Well, I guess I’m the butler for the moment. If this is E.G.... I’ll tell him to get lost!"
"Hello!" A curly blond woman stood at the door with one hand stretched outward in greeting and the other on her hip. She was dressed sharply in a green blouse and matching shoes with a wedge heel. The slit in her black skirt revealed the slip she wore. "I’m answering your ad for a new maid!"
"I’m sorry," Richie replied. "There must be some mistake. Irona didn’t mention anything about a new maid."
"No mistake!" The woman quickly grabbed Richie by the wrist and dragged him along inside. "Just let me inside and I’ll show you! Hold Still! I have something here in my purse..."
"That’s not a very lady like grip!" Richie quickly broke free and karate chopped the lady who simply charged forward in anger.
"Nobody karate chops E.G. Fizzle!"
"E.G.?" Richie back up puzzled as he grabbed her wrist and flipped her to the ground. "A woman? I bet you’re a man in a wig!"
"Oops! You’re now a woman in a wig!" Richie quickly starting to dial his emergency wrist phone for help. "I’ll call the police right away!"
"No you don’t!" E.G. pulled out a gun and shot Richie. The kids wrist watch dropped to the floor with a clang as Richie himself was shrunk to the size of a Barbie doll.
"What happened?" Richie stood puzzled.
"Either your watch got big... or you shrank." E.G. chuckled as she scooped him and put him in her purse. "Enough talk! Into my purse you go!"
"This is how you escaped from prison!" Richie said as he started to scream for help. "You slipped between the bars!"
"Nobody can hear you." E.G. replied.
"I did it." E.G. laughed as she put her wig back on and left the mansion. "I got Richie Rich. It’s wonderful being a genius!"
"What a spot!" Richie said as he sat on E.G’s compact. He was surrounded by her lipstick, bobby pins, a comb and the change fallen from her wallet. "I’ve got to get out of here."
"Now we’ll go to my lab where my truth machine will extract some family secrets that will make me rich, Richie Rich!" She said as Richie’s dog Dollar got the scent of his master and started to follow the strange woman. With a growl, he knocked her to the ground and gave Richie the chance to escape the purse.
With a whistle, Dollar ran over and Richie hopped on board to ride back to the mansion. "Don’t ask questions Dollar, just head for the house."
"I should of shrunk that mutt right away!" E.G. said as Dollar reached the steps and began to get smaller and smaller with each step. As they reached the top, Richie headed inside while he instructed Dollar to go for help.
"Dollar! Find Professor Keenbean!" Richie ran inside and reached the combination to one of the family safes in a single bound. "23... 32... Boy this is hard to turn."
"You can hide Richie Rich!" EG rounded the corner as the door opened and spilled money on top of her. "You can’t run far! I’m rich!" She said gleefully with hands filled with cash. "Wait a minute! This is chicken feed! That kid will make me the richest criminal in the world!"
"Stand in for me Richie Doll." Richie said as he went to hide.
"A dollhouse where else would he hide." E.G. said as she opened the back of the house. "Imagine trying to outwait a genius!"
Meanwhile at the Keenbean lab... "Do I hear a tiny bark?" The professor turned around to see the tiny Dollar growling for help. "Dollar? You’ve shrunk! I had an evil assisant once who invented a shrink ray. Lucky there was an antidote in ice cream."
"There you are Richie!" E.G. grabbed the doll and Richie took off running. "A doll? You can’t hide in a dollhouse!"
"Lucky everything in this doll house works!" Richie ran to the shower and sprayed E.G in the face with water. "Try a pins and needles shower!"
"You ruined my make up." E.G. said as she grabbed a doll size vacuum cleaner. "How lucky that everything in this house works. Gotcha! Sometimes I love housework!"
"So E.G., we meet again." The professor appeared with a full size Dollar.
"Keenbean!" E.G. shouted in anger as the two pointed their shrink rays and fired at the same time.
"I have a reducing ray too." Keenbean declared as Dollar pinned her down while the professor ran for a gallon of ice cream. "But I have ice cream and you don’t! Richie are you all right?"
"I’m find," Richie replied.
"Eat your ice cream." The professor said as Richie just laughed.
"What flavor?"
"The warden will be happy to see you Miz Fizzle." Richie gave a nasty glare down at the former male scientist who was heading for a woman’s prison this time. "That bird cage will have to do until we can get you behind real prison bars!"
THE END
© 2000
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