A glittering stream of sweets, glorious in foil wrappings of every shade and hue, tumbled down into the octagonal plastic box with a rattle.
"What are you doing, you idiot?" Marshall yelled, jumping off the sofa in a shower of cookie crumbs and throw cushions.
Dash glared up at him, the now-empty tin of Roses in one hand, the newly-refilled box of Quality Street in the other.
"What?" he demanded.
"You can't mix Quality Street with Roses!" Marshall shouted, a vein jumping in his temple. "What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, really?" Dash countered, reaching for the red cardboard tube. "You're really going to hate this, then..."
Simon, who had been steadfastly ignoring them while he flipped through the Commander Cody Christmas Annual, looked up at Marshall's horrified scream. He tried to reach for the Celebrations, but his feet tangled in the heavy throw rug Marilyn had spread over the three boys after lunch, and he went sprawling.
"Dash, no..." he tried, but it was too late.
The Celebrations, gold and brown and red, rustled and clattered as they mixed with the blues and pinks of the Roses and burrowed down amidst the greens and purples of the Quality Street. The room filled with the smell of fondant and melted chocolate, and Dash dropped the now-full box with a curse as the plastic began to heat.
"What have you done?" cried Marshall, as a pair of drippy brown hands appeared over the edge of the Quality Street box and a mis-shapen head, stinking of unpleasant flavour combinations and studded with a thousand Toffee Penny eyes, rose from the churning moil.
"For decades, I have slumbered," gurgled the Selection Box Homunculus, a long string of too-sweet strawberry-orange filling dripping from the corner of it's too-wide mouth. "But at last, I rise again! Cower, foolish mortals, for the curse of all-the-good-flavours-are-gone is upon you!"
"Great," said Marshall, as a nearly-full box of Malteasers flew off the coffee table to be absorbed into the monster's gloopy body. "Thanks for ruining Christmas, Dash."
"How was I supposed to know?" Dash snapped back, making a futile grasp for the last of the Thin Mints as they vanished into the roiling mass of confectionary.
"Everyone knows!" said Simon, as peanut m&ms streamed between his frantically clutching fingers and straight into the monster's gaping maw. "It's a basic tenant of the holidays: you never cross the candy streams!"
( Read the rest of the Christmas series here )( Read the rest of the Microwave verse here )