Alex was in for quite a surprise when Sunflower called them all up 30 minutes later.

“That smell...” he gasped. “It smells like...dough! And maple syrup!!” Sunflower just smiled.

“That’s because it is!” she replied. She then pointed at the counter, which had a large plate of freshly cooked waffles on it!

“Sunflower, how did you know waffles are my favorite breakfast food?!” he demanded. She just winked.

“I have my sources,” she replied, and then started placing the waffles on plates. Alex stood there for a few seconds before turning to Josie, who was staring at him with a giant smile.

“You said you wished you could have them back, didn’t you?” she asked. Alex smiled back at her and then ran and hugged her tightly.

“This is why I’m glad you care for me,” he told her happily. “Thanks.”

“Any time,” she replied. “After all, it’s what friends do!” Alex just stared at her for a second. He thought he saw a look in her eyes he hadn’t seen before. It was a look that he had only seen in cheesy romance movies. Again, before he could think too much about it, Sunflower told them they could get their waffles. He then walked over to the counter and grabbed a plate.

“These smell better than my mom’s!” he told Sunflower. “And that’s saying something!” Sunflower just chuckled.

“Well thank you, then!” she responded. “Now, eat up!”

ERT! ERT! ERT! They all just paused and groaned.

“This better be a quick one!” Freddy finally said. They all then set their plates down and headed for the basement. On the way, Alex took a glance out the back sliding door, where he saw a zombie climb over the fence at the edge of the property! He then quickly ran downstairs, where he saw Freddy already planting. The Sunflowers and Peashooters were already set up and he started planting Wall-Nuts, just to be safe.

It seemed like a normal round at first, but a lot of Bucket Head and Football Zombies were approaching the yard at once!

“What do you say we flatten these guys?” Freddy asked with a smile. He then planted a Squash in front of where a Football, Bucket Head, and Cone Head were all standing. Instantly, the Squash clone saw the zombies, leaped into the air, and then landed right on top of them very hard, crushing them flat! A second later, the Squash, as well as the flat zombie corpses, disappeared.

“That was amazing!” Josie exclaimed.

“Why thanks!” Squash replied proudly.

“Nuts!” Freddy suddenly exclaimed. “I don’t have enough sunawatts for a Peashooter, and a zombie’s approaching the house!” The others quickly looked at the TV with fear and realized he was right; he had only 75 sunawatts and a zombie was almost to the porch!

“Plant a Wall-Nut until you can save enough sunawatts!!” Dave told him. He then did as he was told and planted a Wall-Nut in the last square of the row. After saving sunawatts, he earned 150 total, and then POWIE! He blew the zombie up with a Cherry Bomb.

“Thank God that was the last one,” Josie exhaled. “That could’ve been bad!”

“No kidding!” Alex responded, and then turned to Dave. “That actually brings up something that’s been on my mind for a while,” he told him. “It gets kinda rough and time-consuming placing Peashooters individually. Is there a way to maybe plant multiples at once?” Dave paused for a few seconds.

“I’ve got something that may work,” he replied. “It should take about 10 minutes to do.”

“Perfect!” Alex responded. “Just enough time to go through a few plates of waffles!” Josie just chuckled.

“Just don’t choke!” she told him as they all started walking up the steps.

*           *           *

After licking the syrup off his hands, Alex let out a large belch.

“Excuse me!” he said with a chuckle. “I can’t remember the last time I felt so happy eating food...”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that!” Sunflower replied, and then took his plate.

“Well, it’s been 10 minutes,” Josie said while looking at the wall clock. “Let’s see how Dave’s doing on that new plant.” They all then got up and headed back downstairs to the basement, where they saw Dave at the table doing something with his hands.

“Oh, hey guys!” he said when he saw them come in. “You’re just in time to meet...” he then got out of the way, revealing the new plant, which literally looked like Peashooter...if he had three heads!

“...Threepeater!” Dave finished. “Plant him in a row, and he fires peas in the row he’s in, as well as the two outside of him!”

“Nice!” Alex responded.

“However,” Dave continued with a serious tone, “he requires 325 sunawatts!” Josie’s heart sunk.

“That’s more than the cost of just planting three Peashooters!” she told him.

“I understand that,” Dave replied, “but at the rate the amount Sunflowers we’re planting are giving sunawatts, it shouldn’t take that long to get him up and running!”

“If you say so...”

ERT! ERT! ERT! They turned to the TV and saw zombies approaching!

“Let’s go!” Dave shouted. He then sat down and planted. At this point, it wasn’t difficult at all to start out; fill the last two columns with Sunflowers and the column after that with Peashooters. Granted, they had to use Lily Pads, but they only used 25 sunawatts each, so it wasn’t too much out of the way.

At first, it was only regular zombies and Cone Head Zombies. After a while, though, more than they could handle started approaching!

“We have 800 sunawatts!” Josie pointed out. “More than enough for a Plant!”

“Then let’s try using triple the action!” Dave replied with a smile. He then clicked on Threepeater’s picture and placed him in the fourth column, second row. The Plant then spat out a pea in that lane, but also simultaneously spat one out in the row above it and below it! After a quick reload time, Dave placed another in the same column, but in the fifth row.

“This certainly saved time!” Freddy said happily.

“That was my intention,” Dave replied without looking off the screen.

SPLASH! A zombie jumped into the pool, but stayed under the water! In fact, the only way they knew it was headed towards the house was a snorkel sticking out of the water and was slowly moving towards the back porch!

“He’s too low for a pea to get him!” Alex exclaimed. “What do we do?!”

“Hang on!” Josie gasped. “I have an idea!” She reached over to the laptop and planted a Lily Pad in the same row as the Snorkel Zombie. She then placed a Wall-Nut on top of the Lily Pad. When the Snorkel Zombie finally reached the Lily Pad with the Wall-Nut, it stuck its head out of the water and started eating the Wall-Nut! Unfortunately for it, however, its head was out of the water, meaning it was easy for peas to hit it and kill it!

“I must admit, these zombies are just getting smarter and smarter in their methods,” Dave said.

“Yeah, well so are we!” Freddy pointed out. He then turned to Josie. “Nice thinking!” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “Though I wonder if there’s an easier way to handle one of those Snorkel Zombies...because I guarantee they’re gunna send more of those.”

“Yeah, most likely,” Dave admitted. “I think I have something that could work, though.”

“Man, do you like think ahead for everything?” Freddy asked.

“Well, you can never get too careful with these zombies,” Dave pointed out. “If they’re trying ridiculous ways to kill us, we should try ridiculous ways to kill THEM!”

“I guess you got a point,” Alex replied with a shrug. “Let’s just not go overboard, okay? It gets bad enough with Doom-Shroom...”

“Don’t worry; I won’t get worse than Doom-Shroom,” Dave promised. “After all, I don’t want to destroy my new home, now do I?” He then winked and went over to his work table. The teens then slowly walked upstairs. Once in the living room, Alex turned to his brother and friend.

“Do you think he can hear us up here?” he asked with concern.

“I’m not sure...” Josie replied. “Maybe he just said out of chance that even though we coincidentally said that earlier...”

“Well either way, we should be careful what we say about him up here,” Freddy told them all.

“Well it’s not like we’ve said anything bad about him,” Alex pointed out.

“Yeah, I know, but still. You never know when he could take something the wrong way.”

“Well I definitely won’t have to worry about that,” Josie told him sternly. “I think Dave’s a good guy and he does nothing but help us! I’d never say anything bad about him!”

“Well, we all call him crazy,” Freddy told her.

“Yeah, including himself!” Alex responded. “I think he even LIKES when we call him crazy!” Freddy just sighed with frustration.

“Okay, I guess you all have a point...” he mumbled.

“Changing topics, how about we play some Xbox?” Josie suddenly asked. Alex shook his head at her.

“Peashooter accidently busted the TV last night while playing,” he told her.

“No problem,” she replied. “We can just hook it to the TV down here. C’mon!” She then ran upstairs. The boys just shrugged their shoulders and followed her up.

Once upstairs, they grabbed the console, controllers, cables, and a few games. After hooking everything up downstairs, they started building and digging in Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.

After a while, Freddy had built an underwater mansion and Josie had built a maze made of gold. Alex, however, had built something quite bizarre: a giant square block that read ‘In Memory of Those Lost to the Zombies’. Below it were a bunch of roses.

“Well, that’s...interesting,” Freddy told him after seeing it. Alex just gave a sarcastic chuckle.

“I can’t even enjoy one of my favorite games without thinking of all the anonymous people I played with all over the country, and even the world, that are most likely dead right now,” he murmured.

“Well, there’s really nothing you could’ve done for them,” Josie responded. “It’s not like you’ve actually met and seen them before.”

“Exactly! These people I played with online seemed like good guys; I wish I had the opportunity to see them in person...maybe I could’ve had some more friends...” Josie then wrapped her arm around his shoulder.

“Alex, you don’t need a million friends to be happy. Look at us; we only had each other, and I’d say we were happier than anyone at school!” Alex just looked at her and smiled shyly.

“I guess so,” he finally responded, “but I’m just saying it would’ve been cool to have a few more friends, you know?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Back in Illinois, I had quite a few friends I thought were cool. They were at first, but after a while, they just got...stupid.” Alex and Freddy just laughed.

“I’m serious!” she told both of them. “Most of them were just jocks and cheerleaders. Yeah, they were nice people, but they just wanted to party and get drunk and stuff. I was almost tempted to join, but I knew my future was on the line! So, I stopped hanging with them and they just started ignoring me, which I guess I was fine with.”

“The point is,” she concluded to Alex, “you can’t think having a bunch of friends will fix all your problems, because most of the time your friends aren’t real friends.” Alex slowly nodded his head.

“Well, I’m glad I have at least one friend that’s a real friend!” he said with a grin and then playfully punched her shoulder. Josie just smiled back.

“Same here, man,” she replied and then punched him back.

BOOM! Alex and Josie quickly turned to the screen and saw a portion of her maze blow up!

“Stupid Creepers!!” she shouted at the TV. Freddy just chuckled.

“Actually, that was me igniting TNT,” he told her. She then proceeded to glare at him for a few seconds...before jumping on top of him and punching him repeatedly!

“Hold it! Hold it!” Alex exclaimed as he tried pulling her off of him. “It ain’t worth killing him over!” She turned to him with a smile.

“I know, she replied. “I just wanna do it anyway.” She then continued punching him.

ERT! ERT! ERT!

“How about you take it out on the zombies?” Alex responded, and then yanked her off his brother.

“Fine,” she replied, and then ran downstairs. Alex turned to his brother, who had his face buried in the couch cushions. After a second, Freddy turned and looked at his brother.

“She wasn’t really hurting me, you know,” he told Alex. Alex just rolled his eyes.

“Whatever you say,” he replied and then headed to the basement. Once down, he already saw Josie planting.

“Did you get the new plant done yet?” Alex asked Dave.

“Almost finished!” the lunatic replied without taking his eyes off the table.

“Well, I hope you finish it quickly! We may need it!”

“Don’t worry; it’ll be done in a minute or so!”

“Ok, then...Josie, just keep on planting!”

“Don’t gotta remind me!” she said while focusing on the laptop. Alex had to admit it: this seemed rather easy compared to rounds previous. It was just regular zombies, Cone Head Zombies, Bucket Heads, and Newspapers, and they all got easily taken down with Peashooters, Snow Peas, and Repeaters.

However, another Snorkel Zombie soon approached the pool! After quickly jumping in, it disappeared again, with only the snorkel sticking out.

“Perfect timing!!” Dave finally exclaimed. “Here’s the new plant!” He then held out another flowerpot filled with water. This time, though, the Plant seemed to consist of only black and green vines wrapped in a bunch, save for a giant black space in the center where only large red eyes could be seen.

“This guy is Tangle Kelp!” Dave continued. “Plant him in the pool, and he’ll pull the first zombie that gets near him under the water! And he only requires 25 sunawatts!”

“Perfect!” Josie told him. “Scan him in so I can use him!!” Dave quickly pressed the button on Tangle Kelp’s pot and a few seconds later, his picture appeared on the screen. Josie then clicked on the picture and planted him in the same row as the Snorkel Zombie. She looked at the TV and saw the Kelp there. A few seconds later, the Snorkel Zombie was right in front of the Plant. When it was, Tangle Kelp grabbed the zombie and yanked himself AND the zombie under the water! After that, they took care of the remaining zombies by using a good number of Threepeaters.

“This is actually getting quite easy!” Josie told Dave. “It kinda makes you wonder how the other zombies are feeling about this...”

*           *           *

“AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Zomboss screeched as loud as he could. He picked up a jar of brain juice and tossed it at the wall in frustration.

“Master!” Minion exclaimed. “For Pete’s sake, calm down!” Suddenly, his master threw a brain-shaped plush pillow at him and it smacked right onto his face.

“HOW CAN I DO THAT WHEN THESE HUMANS KEEP OUTSMARTING ME?!?!” Zomboss replied. “I AM THE GREAT EDGAR ZOMBOSS!!! I GOT THE OTHER 7 BILLION PEOPLE ON THAT STUPID PLANET; WHY CAN’T I GET THESE FOUR?!?!?!” He the punched the wall so hard that he put a giant dent in it! This quickly got Minion worried. Suddenly, he had an idea!

“Master, I know this’ll sound crazy,” he said nervously, “but what if, just what if, you made the zombies SMALLER?” Zomboss just glared at him with confusion. He was about to reply when Minion suddenly continued.

“I mean, if they’re smaller, maybe they’ll be quicker!” he told Zomboss. “Plus, maybe if they’re smaller and shorter, those peas can’t hit them!” Zomboss’s face slowly grew less angry as he thought about Minion’s suggestion. Finally, he grinned with pure happiness.

“As crazy as that sounds, it’s better than anything else I can currently think of!” he told Minion. “Work on doing that, will ya?”

“Yes, Master!” Minion replied with a breath of relief and then left the room. Zomboss looked at the live image of the house for a minute or two before leaving the room as well.

‘I may as well help Minion,’ he thought. ‘The last thing I need is for him to screw this up!’