by Bruce Grimes

I was dreaming of a class with Hagrid. It was a class to go hunting for magical snowballs. 

This was back in 2010. Harry Potter was riding a broomstick to McDonald’s. After he bought some food there, he rode through Taco Bell drive thru. He bought all the food there for Hermione, who was a kitty cat at the moment after drinking a transfiguration potion. 

Then Ron drank potion to turn into a rat. Hagrid had put a spell on him to become a rat, so Ron could fit down the drainpipe if a mountain troll attacked him. Hagrid had a troll trapped in the castle. 

Hermione the kitty cat met Ron the rat and they didn’t recognize each other. They cried, “Ahh!” The kitty cat chased the rat into the dark forest. They ran into the magical car that Harry Potter was driving. They both jumped into the car. Harry Potter called out, “Oh no, what should I do now? I can’t transform you guys back!” Hermione suggested, “Try saying a spell with your wand.” But she could only get out the words by saying “Meow.” Harry could sort of kind of understand her. He thought she said, “Meow meow, let me out of this body!” So he tried this spell: “Hocus pocus, abracadabra, let me out of this body.” 

It worked! Hermione suddenly turned into her human self. They both said the magic spell for Ron too, and he turned into an eagle! Hermione said, “Oh no, we’ve got to get Ron out of this! Go to Professor McGonagall and ask for help!”

They ran into Dobby the House Elf. Dobby said, “Let me try.” Dobby said a spell, and Ron turned into Dobby! Ron said, “I’d rather be an eagle than a House Elf.” That made Dobby sad. Hermione thought, “What do we do now? It’s almost time to ride the train back home from Hogwarts.” Ron couldn’t ride the train as a rat, an eagle, or a house elf. He was stuck as a character . . . until they played Wizard Chess. 

Hermione and Ron played together. Ron decided the moves, and Hermione moved the pieces. They were playing against Professor McGonagall, who was trying to learn how to play chess. She knew that Ron was a chess champion, and wanted to learn from him. 

Ron wanted to learn transfiguration from Professor McGonagall so he could turn back into his human self, and Professor McGonagall wanted to learn chess from Ron. Maybe we can make a swap, they thought.
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They taught each other what each wanted to learn. They finished the chess game – Hermione and Ron beat Professor McGonagall – and Ron transformed again . . . this time into a frog! Poor Ron. He said, “Oh no, now I have to stay at the castle instead of going home.” They were worried about the mountain troll in the castle. So they trapped the troll with little pieces of candy: They placed the candy in a line leading to a hidden cage. The troll picked up all the candy, eating it along the way until he suddenly found himself trapped inside the cage. The kids said, “It’s about time we got this mountain troll under control.” Hagrid said, “Now I can stay at the castle with Ron the frog.” Ron replied, “Ribbit ribbit ribbit” which meant “Let me out!” Then he turned into an owl – Harry Potter’s owl Hedwig. Ron thought, “Now I can go on the train and be back at home with Ginny.” They caught the train just in time.

by Bruce Grimes

Two old ladies, Wilma and Ruth, baked banana bread and M&M cookies to sell at the farmer’s market. They sold all the cookies and used the money they earned to go to a haunted mansion.

At the haunted mansion, they saw a ghost of Michael Jackson. They screamed, “Ahhh!” and fainted. The ghost went inside their bodies and said, “Let’s fly an airplane – a ghost plane.”

There was a World War II plane inside a TV in the haunted house. The ghost had a magic remote control. He said, “Come with me if you want a ride.” 

The old ladies said, “Did you hear that?” 

Suddenly, they saw two more ghosts – John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles. 

Together, they all went to a fun house. They went through a psychic room there and lost Michael Jackson along the way. But John Lennon and George Harrison were still with them. 

The ladies started singing Halloween songs, starting with “Monster Mash.” They hadn’t been very good singers before, but suddenly they could sing very well because of the ghosts nearby.

After they sang “Monster Mash,” they started singing “As My Guitar Gently Weeps.” They went to TCF football stadium. There, they started singing to a live crowd. The ladies said, “I can’t believe we just sang that song!” The ghosts said, in a British accent, “Wow ladies, you sing just like us!” The crowd at the stadium wanted more, so they clapped and clapped their hands together. “Give us more!” they shouted. So Wilma and Ruth asked for a lot of money to keep singing. They wanted to give the money to Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. 

The crowd said, “Do more! We’ll give you so much money if you keep singing Beatles songs!”

They sang a full concert of Beatles songs. The crowd loved it. After the concert was over, the ladies went to a nearby hotel; the ghosts of John Lennon and George Harrison wanted to stay near the stage at the stadium. 

Wilma and Ruth said, “Oh, now we can’t sing anymore.” They felt sad about that. To make themselves feel better, they decided to do something they enjoyed doing together: Drawing. They drew some scary pictures, but that made them feel doomed. It didn’t really make them feel better. So instead, they drew some pictures of the Beatles on-stage in 1968 when they were very young and starting to get famous.
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That felt like a nice conclusion to their singing adventure. 

by Bruce Grimes

Fred was a secret agent who wanted to go on Dr. Phil’s show to get advice about his love life. His problem was that he was in love with Becky, who was married to Bruce.
But because he was a secret agent, Fred couldn’t just go on TV. He had to go undercover. He thought the best way to do that was to pretend to be “Bruce.”

Meanwhile, at Bruce’s own house, he had a magical TV that could transport him into any show. Bruce happened to be watching Dr. Phil when suddenly there was a guest named “Bruce” who started talking about a woman he loved, “Becky.”

“Hey!” said the real Bruce. “That guy is talking about my wife, Becky! What’s he’s doing pretending to be me?”

Bruce took the magic remote control and aimed it at his magic TV. Bingo! Suddenly he was in the show with Dr. Phil and the imposter “Bruce” (who was actually Fred).

Bruce said, “Hey, you imposter! Get off the show right now!” He wailed, “Dr. Phil, call the cops!”

Fred replied, “Bruce, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at home watching your TV! You get off the stage right now!”

But Bruce said, “I can’t! I don’t have the remote anymore!”

Dr. Phil told them both, “This is really good TV. Keep going with your stories!” 

But Bruce and Fred started fighting on stage. That was too much for Dr. Phil. He realized he should call for help.

The audience started to boo loudly. Suddenly, Becky walked onto the stage and shouted, “Don’t boo my husband!” Dr. Phil told Bruce and Becky and Fred the secret agent to leave and go to a different show. “How about Sally Jesse Raphael?” Dr. Phil suggested.

The three of them got rooms in a hotel nearby and had strawberry margaritas and lemon cookies together. They were thinking about going to Divorce Court instead of Sally Jesse Raphael’s show.

The next day, they went to Divorce Court with Judge Ruth. She told them, “You need to figure out your problems yourselves.” So Bruce, Becky and Fred sat down in a quiet place in the Fireplace Lounge at Northfield Hospital to have a conversation.

Bruce and Becky were happy to be married. Fred liked Becky but didn’t want her to leave Bruce . . . because the more he got to know Bruce, he really liked Bruce, too. In the end, the three decided to be friends together.

“Hey,” said Fred. “Did you two ever consider being secret agents?” 
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Bruce and Becky thought that sounded like fun. So the three became a team.

by Bruce Grimes

Tonya and Ruthie wanted to grill food for a contest on a TV show. They wanted to grill for Gordon Ramsay. They wanted to grill old-fashioned hot dogs, but Gordon Ramsay said, “No! Grill some premium, expensive fish.” 

They got kicked off the TV show. He said, “Since you don’t know how to grill expensive fish, you’re off the show!” They cried. “Waah! Boo hoo!” 

Tonya and Ruthie raised $500 to open their own drive-in restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant caught on fire when they were cooking bacon. They rebuilt it and changed the menu to seafood. Now they really did have to learn how to grill fish.

Then Gordon Ramsay stopped by their restaurant and tasted the fish. He said, “Wow girls, you have improved yourselves!”

They said, “Will you give us $100 now?” But Gordon Ramsay said, “You deserve much more than that,” and he gave them $1,200. They used that as the beginning of raising money for a food truck.

They used cooking oil to fuel the truck and took it on the road . . . all around the world! They were cooking all different kinds of food: seafood tacos, pizza burgers, and hamburger patties. They also cooked their first favorite food: old-fashioned hot dogs.  

Tonya and Ruthie started their food truck journey in New Mexico. While they were there, they learned how to cook pineapple and kiwi on the grill. People asked for the food deep-fried instead of grilled. They asked for zucchini bread also. On the food truck, Tonya and Ruthie had an oven that ran on propane. They baked zucchini bread and muffins there. They sold them for $5 each. Those were the top-sellers on the food truck. 

Then Tonya and Ruthie took the truck to Texas and later, New Jersey. They went onto another TV show called “Bar Rescue.” They raised money for another business: This time, they wanted to open a bar. Tonya and Ruthie wanted to start with a bar from the show “Bar Rescue,” a bar that people didn’t want to go to. They made it into a bakery and bar together. They did so well that John Taffer from “Bar Rescue” gave them $1 million.
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Tonya and Ruthie said, “Wowie! Now we really have some money!” They put it in the bank to save up for a vacation. They planned to travel around the world and taste as many different foods as they could. Including old-fashioned hot dogs.