Melonball’s Experimental Simpson Snack
By Lutro
Kidnapped!
Lisa Simpson awoke in a strange place. She wasn’t on her bed, but whatever she was laying on was just as soft, if not more so. She lifted her head up and looked down over herself: She wasn’t in her nightgown either! The girl was clad in her usual attire – orange dress, slip-on shoes, pearl necklace, snug panties. “Where am I?” She looked around curiously as a gentle morning breeze washed over her. It was morning, wherever she was, and was like a summer day with the comfortable warm air billowing about her. She was among a sea of flowers, including where she rested, the small things coming to life to dance about with the wind. They smelled wonderful, and Lisa couldn’t help but bask in the comforting embrace of what by all appearances appeared to be the middle of nowhere. She was still worried about waking up somewhere completely foreign, but the gentle environment put her at ease somewhat.

Lisa pulled herself up and stretched. “Well,” she mused, “guess there’s nothing for it but to start walking.” The young girl actually half-believed she was dreaming, which accounted for the muted reaction to being somewhere completely different – and dressed completely different – from when she fell asleep. She traipsed her way through the rolling hills of flowers before her, the expanding fields nearly limitless in their expanse across the girl’s field of vision. Lisa hummed a song to herself, stepping up into a skipping motion through the fields as the minutes wore on. This had to be a dream. It made no sense that there was no sight of civilization anywhere. Not so much as a shack came across her vision while she skipped and sang gaily, and there was naught but a stirring bird or chipmunk in terms of other life. None that she could see at first, anyway. 

The early morning wore on into a proper one when Lisa stopped for a moment to relax among the flowers. She sat cross-legged and took a deep, relaxing breath, closing her eyes and smiling through her plight. “Relax, that’s the key, Lisa,” she instructed herself, taking controlled breaths in and out. “Whatever brought you here will bring you back home. Even if what it was that brought me here was a dream.” She peeked one eye open, expecting her bedroom to come back into focus, but she was still out amid the sights of nature. Lisa closed her eyes again and took a few more deep breaths. It was so peaceful here by comparison to her rambunctious home. Not that she didn’t love her family, but Lisa did appreciate the occasional bout of peace and quiet. And wherever she was, she was being granted it in spades.

That was, until she heard a faint giggle.

Lisa’s eyes sprang open, the girl turning in her seat to glance towards the happy sound. “Who was that?” she asked, more curious than startled. Lisa looked about at the sea of flowers still shifting about in the soft breeze, but picked up on a subset of them being perhaps a little more animated than usual. She cocked and eyebrow at the spot and called out again. There was another giggle in response, and this time something purple and white grew out from the flowers, waving back and forth, getting closer to her. It got to within a dozen yards of Lisa before she heard accompanying footsteps to whatever it was headed her way, putting her on edge just a bit. “Hello?” she tried a third time, scratching the back of her neck nervously. She was about to get up and move away from the encroaching thing when it pounced up from the flowers! “Yah!”

Lisa didn’t have time to stand up as a large purple yoshi leapt from the flora, closing the remaining distance and pinning the girl to the ground with a paw on either shoulder. Blotting out the sun was the yoshi’s large head and bulbous snout, both facing down at the girl as the yoshi giggled away. “Gotcha!” the yoshi crowed, stepping back up and off Lisa and dusting her paws off. Lisa rubbed her eyes and slowly sat back up, smoothing her dress out in the process.

“Who… what are you?” Lisa was never much for video games, so the creature’s iconic status was lost upon her. “You’re like a big… fat… dinosaur!”

“Well, someone’s certainly rude,” the purple yoshi replied with a snort, albeit with a smile. The dino idly lumbered around Lisa, her thick tail swaying behind her and white belly jiggling some. The yoshi easily towered over the girl, being twice her height and at least that much as wide. Lisa watched from her seated position, turning her head about to keep the yoshi in sight, eyes brimming mostly with curiosity, and only a little bit apprehension. “Name’s Melonball, sweetheart. And who might you be?” Lisa didn’t hesitate, happy to get some information out of this series of oddities that encumbered her morning.

“Lisa. Lisa Simpson.” She stood up and offered a hand to shake. When Melonball didn’t take it, she pulled it back and awkwardly scratched her ear. “Er… so, Melonball, where exactly did you come from? What are you? I don’t think I’ve seen anything like you before. And dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years!” Melonball, still idly pacing about the girl, chuckled.

“From your neck of the woods, maybe. Not from where I’m from!” Melonball gestured all about the luscious flowery fields. “Us yoshies have lived here a long time. Enjoying the fruits of the land and living in peace.” And after I do my little taste test, we might have a whole population to feed off of… Melonball did her best to keep her appetite in check, her desire to feed as insatiable as any yoshi. All that clued Lisa in was the faintest of rumbles from the yoshi’s belly.

Lisa smiled to the answer and clapped her hands together excitedly. “Oh wow, a whole undiscovered sentient species of dinosaurs living here all this time! I can’t believe you’ve stayed hidden from humanity all this time Melonball! How many yoshies are there? Where did they come from? How long have you been living here?” Melonball came to a stop and stood face to face, or more accurately, belly to face, the yoshi’s head looking down on the girl. “Actually… where is here? I was asleep in my own bed last night only to wake up here.”

Melonball swayed her tail back and forth slowly behind her, almost as if it were part of her natural gait when standing still. But the truth was she was growing eager and excited every moment she saw, and smelled, the fresh meat before her. “Why, isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I brought you here myself! For an experiment.”

“Experiment? What’d you have in mind? I’m well-versed in several methodologies of experimentation, and– mmf…" A purple paw to Lisa’s mouth silenced her ramblings. Melonball gently removed it when her voice died down.

“Nothing nearly so complicated, Lisa.” The yoshi’s tongue slid out and licked across scaly lips. “You correctly identified that I’m a big girl. And yoshies just love to eat. What’s more, we’re not that picky. So when I decided to venture out of our island in search for a more plentiful food source, well, we found your kind.” Lisa’s grin vanished in an instant.

“You were looking for food, and found… us?”

“That’s right, Lisa. I was attracted to you in particular by your scent. I can’t explain it, but something you exude just screamed ‘tasty’ to my tongue.” In that instant, Melonball opened her maw and flung her yoshi tongue outward, the tip splatting against the shocked girl’s face. Lisa cringed as she felt the frog-like thing slurp up her cheek and over the top of her head, before the yoshi retracted it and smacked her lips, gauging her flavor. “Mm… Yep yeah, I was right. I knew I smelt something tantalizing.” Lisa stumbled backwards, hastily wiping her dripping cheek with a free hand, finding the left-behind saliva viscous and warm to the touch. “I followed you home, waited for the right moment, and gave you something to fall asleep. Sure, you probably thought you went to sleep normally, but I assure you, the past few days were not a dream! You’re the guinea pig, Lisa, and if you’re half as good as that first trial was, I think we’ve found the food source we’ve been looking for!”

“Wh-what, no! You can’t eat me! I’m just a kid!” Lisa protested, slipping backwards and landing in the bed of flowers. She continued scooting backwards with her hands and feet, watching with frightened eyes as Melonball loomed over her, casually keeping pace with the girl as she tried to flee.

“I don’t require your permission, Lisa. I’m afraid you’re this fat yoshi’s breakfast, whether you like it or not.” Melonball slurped noisily over her lips and lowered her front half, sniffing at the flowers and at Lisa’s exposed legs, bulbous snout inches from the girl. Melonball’s tail raised upward to maintain balance, the yoshi staring straight into Lisa’s eyes. “Any last words, my meal to be?”

Lisa looked around with a quick swivel of her head before facing the hungry yoshi. “J-just one… HEEELLLLP!” Lisa turned and scrambled to her feet, hands thrust ahead of her as she began to dash through the wildflowers in a panic. Melonball let her get going a few paces, before flinging her thick tongue outward again. It cracked like a whip as the edge slapped around Lisa and splatted to her middle. Lisa cried out in shock when the tongue tore her backwards, her legs flung forward in the momentum as her shoes came off, lost to the flowerbed. The girl urked with each bounce against the ground before she came to a stop just before the hungry yoshi.

“Can’t say you’re the first to have such an original last word. But I’m not going to judge you on that. It’s your flavor that counts.”

“N-n-no, don’t do it Melonball. Don’t eat me, please! I can find you food! I can! Only if you let me go!”

What will Melonball do to the kidnapped Lisa Simpson? Does the girl look tantalizing enough to eat? Or does she appear more fitting for other needs to the chubby yoshi?