Stained Elephants on Parade
By Sharan McQuack. Launchpad's wife.
Yes, I KNOW the song from Dumbo goes "PINK elephants on Parade"
Thanks to Stretch Snodgrass for suggestions when I got stuck.
"LAUNCHPAD!" screamed Mr. McDuck.
"Yes, Mr. McDee?" Launchpad asked.
"I just heard from a friend of mine who is a high muckeyduck in India. There are poachers killing elephants there and he's asked for my help in stopping them." Mr. McDuck began.
"I'm with you so far." Launchpad replied.
"My chemists have come up with a permanent tooth stain that makes elephant tusks look like cheap plastic. It permeates inside and out. It doesn't hurt the elephants a bit" Mr. Mc Duck said.
" In fact, when applied to the elephants' teeth it helps them live longer by preventing their teeth from rotting, by making their teeth stronger." Mr. McDuck continued. (1)
"Sounds good. Nobody would bother killing the elephants if their tusks look like cheap plastic- we hope." Launchpad said.
"I need you to fly me to India and help me find elephants to try it on and find out if it really works. I also have some gas to sedate the elephants with so we can apply the stuff to their tusks and teeth." Mr. McDuck finished.
So Launchpad flew them to India. Then Launchpad searched until they were flying over a depressingly small herd of elephants. Launchpad released some gas that sedated the elephants so their tusks and teeth could be painted with the tooth stain.
Soon, that's exactly what Mr. McDuck and Launchpad were doing. Launchpad thought of painting the elephants' toenails.
"Now nobody will make footstools out of their feet." Launchpad hoped.
"If this works, we'll try it in Africa." Mr. McDuck said.
"Maybe we can try it on rhinos, too?" Launchpad suggested. "Cheap plastic don't make you horny. Heh."
Now, at first the poachers did not realize what our heroes were doing. They thought the elephants were merely being "tagged" and did not object. However, the poachers did spy on our heroes to find out exactly what was going down. The poachers figured they might use the tags to find the elephants later.
About this time Launchpad called me asking me to bring some cargo to them. There's nothing unusual about that, Launchpad often goes off with Mr. McDuck and later contacts me getting me to fly them cargo they didn't know they were going to need until they got there.
Saves a lot of time over Launchpad having to fly back, get the stuff and then rejoin Mr. McDuck. And Launchpad can stay with Mr. McDee, doing stuff not the slightest bit in Launchpad's job description. Like paint elephants tusks, teeth and toenails.
But this time, I brought some unusual "cargo": a vet/dentist. When Launchpad was painting one of the elephants' teeth, he noticed one of the pachyderm's teeth was rotten. So the vet came to pull the tooth.
"I am Dr. Watt Supdoc (2)Which elephant?" he asked.
"This one! Over here!" Launchpad replied.
Soon the bad tooth was out, but the elephant apparently felt something, he winched and the tooth flew thur the air, falling someplace. When we finally calmed downed and soothed the poor elephant, we couldn't find the tooth. So we forgot about it.
However, after we left for the day, the poachers found the tooth when they searched the area looking for clues to what the bleep we had been doing there.
"A plastic elephant tooth?" One poacher asked.
"That's a real elephant tooth. We saw one of the elephants getting a tooth pulled, remember?" Another poacher corrected.
"So how come it looks like a plastic tooth?" First poacher asked.
IF they had tested it they would found out it was a real elephant tooth but had been treated with something to make it appear to be plastic and that said stain was permanent and unremovable. However, this was middle of no place, India and there was no way to test it.
Assuming Launchpad was "mindless hired muscle" they asked Launchpad: "Hey, big guy! What's with this plastic elephant tooth we found?"
Launchpad decided to lie shamelessly just to see how stupid THEY were.
"Oh, that. We had to get a techie remove it from one of the robot elephants. It got all covered with rust and mold." Launchpad lied.
"Robot elephants?" the poachers asked.
"Yup. They sure look real, don't they? They even eject dirt and grime that might gum up their works out like...well, you know." Launchpad began.
" Mr. McDee got the idea from those robot dinosaurs he sells tickets to see. "Launchpad continued, sticking to the truth as mush as possible.
"Mr. McDee makes lots of money from them. So he asks himself "Why wait till the animals become extinct?"" Launchpad finished, enjoying himself. "But the ears give them away. Too small."
Launchpad figured the poachers wouldn't know that Asian elephants have smaller ears than African elephants.
Launchpad had his finger on his cell phone thurout the entire conversation. The cell phone was on "outgoing only" mode. Mr. McDee heard the entire conversation, but Launchpad (and thus the poachers) could NOT hear any response Mr. McDuck may have made.
Which is just as well, considering Mr. McDee's temper and the fact it took Mr. McDuck awhile to figure out Launchpad was snowing the poachers. (Mostly because Mr. McDuck thinks Launchpad's a moron. What are you going to do?)
Soon, the poachers were huddling "He's gotta be lying. If Scrooge McDuck had made robot elephants, we'd never be able to get this close to them without buying tickets!" Boss poacher pointed out. Quite loudly.
"Did you hear that? Your idiotic husband..." Mr. McDuck began.
"Was stalling for time. I already know Launchpad is a lousy liar. That somehow doesn't distress me very much." I replied.
"Did you bring that experimental ray that grows and shrinks things?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"Sure. Why do you want that for anyway?" I asked.
"To scare off poachers and test it on animals to see if it's safe." Mr. McDuck answered. "the locals have been trying to kill off all these mice, already."
And he took the ray gun and pointed it at some mice minding their own business nearby. We had eaten lunch and they were eating our crumbs. The ray grew the mice making them bigger and bigger until they were the size of elephants. (3)
The mice were frightened by their sudden increase in size and stampeded. And while elephants are, under normal circumstances NOT afraid of mice...GIANT mice scared them and the elephants stampeded too.
Right towards the poachers.
"Ut-oh! I only meant those giant mice to scare off those poachers! Not trample them!" Mr. McDuck yelled.
And he hopped into the jeep and so did I.
"I'll drive! You'll need both hands to help them onto the jeep!" I yelled.
I knew Mr. McDee ain't going to admit he don't know how to drive, but why else would he pay Duckworth to drive him?
Meanwhile. Launchpad had run for his plane and was heading towards us. My clunky cargo plane was too slow and clumsy for this, even if I had thought of it (which I didn't)...but Launchpad soon swooped his plane down, opened up the plane and scooped us up, jeep and poachers alike.
Soon thereafter, the mice shurk back to normal.
"It wears off. Very fast, too." Mr. McDuck commented.
Mr. McDuck then turned to Launchpad:
"You idiot! There was no need to lie to these poachers about robot elephants! I was going to offer them a job protecting these elephants, shooting them with cameras! They know how poachers think, and can keep them safe!" Mr. McDuck hollered at Launchpad.
"Maybe if you TOLD me that BEFOREHAND, I wouldn't have to wing it!" Launchpad replied."And what if they wouldn't take the job?"
"I'm sorry if I couldn't resist the temptation to lie to them, I figured they deserved it." Launchpad said.
"We all want to be good but not too good and not quite all the time." I muttered.
"We wouldn't of accepted the job...BEFORE you risked your lives to save ours. Now, I figure we owe you that much." boss poacher said.
Soon, the ex-poachers were protecting the elephants from other poachers, and were taking photos
of the elephants, both stills and movies. And were acting as guides to tourists who came to see the elephants.
The ex-poachers liked their new job. They had often gone long periods without making any money on their old "job" because the animals they hunted were getting scare, were somewhat protected and the animals themselves were wising up. The animals hid as as much as possible. And they still had to spend money on food and supplies.
THIS job they got paid every two weeks, nice and regular. The pay was less, but so were the expenses...and that wasn't even including possible jail time or bribes to avoid jail time.
"I think I like protecting elephants better than I liked killing them. And if there were no more elephants, we couldn't have our old "job" or our new one." Boss said.
The End.
(1 )On the unfortunately rare occasion that elephants are NOT killed by poachers they die when their teeth wear down and then they starve to death.
(It seriously stinks to be an elephant.)
Just one question to the hopefully well meaning people who want to free elephants and other animals from circuses: where do they go THEN? I find it a tad hard to believe circuses would abuse them, they are rare, expensive and hard to replace. Doesn't seem to make economic sense to be mean to them. If circuses do abuse their animals, where would they be safe if their not safe when they're making money for their keepers? (I COULD BE WRONG!)
(2 )I deserve to be phasered for that one.
(3) Anybody ELSE remember the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons with elephants (or kangaroos) mistaken for giant mice?