A Dwarfish Odyssey

By

Sophia Demetri

Twice upon a time, Snow White had just been awakened by love's first kiss and was now riding off to her new life with her new husband, Prince Ferdinand. The seven dwarves watched with both joy and sorrow as they watched the fair princess and spouse disappear into the horizon. Yes sir, it would now be happily ever after from here on out right? Wrong!

Yes Snow White was very much living happily ever after, but what about her seven little comrades? Sadly, things did not look to well in the dwarves neck of the woods. Now that they were no longer on coffin duty, they had to return to their lives without their beautiful housekeeper. When they returned to their home, it was like the plague had hit it. The house was now infested with a variety of vermin and enough dust and cobwebs to make one think that it was haunted. "Let's go check on the mines. HI HO!" said Doc, the leader of the dwarves. "HI HO!" replied his companions, and they all went, as the song says,"off to work."

When they got to the mines they couldn't get in. Why? Because after an extensively long period of abandonment, the mines were now more dangerous than Haiti after the earthquake! Now the dwarves were truly in a pickle, with no home and no occupation. "Well at least it's not raining!" Happy said. Then just as he said that a thunderstorm broke above their heads. "Sure, it's not." Grumpy said sarcastically.

The next morning, all the dwarves went into the town to go job hunting. This would not be an easy task, but they had to do it. "Alright men, let's go to work!" Doc commanded. So all the dwarves tried out their skills in the real world, but as luck would have it, their new occupations all ended in disaster.

Doc tried working in a bookshop, but kept getting all the books mixed up. Happy tried being a chef, but had trouble with "the catch of the day." Bashful signed up to judge beauty pageants, but was fired because the other judges thought that he was crushing on all the contestants. Sneezy tried his hand at selling flowers, but his hay fever drove away any and all potential customers. Sleepy became a sailor, and the job ended with him falling asleep at the wheel, and nearly causing the demise of the entire crew. Grumpy was a villain's henchman, but was then fired for calling his boss a rat. Finally, Dopey tried to be a sorcerer's apprentice, but lost the post to a mouse. In the end, they all wound up with zero dinero and had to search the garbage outside of a pub for dinner.

While they searched for an adequate meal, they heard a voice from behind ask them: "Have you by any chance come across any beans in that dumpster?" The dwarves turned around to discover an old man and his pet owl standing behind them. "Who are you?" the dwarves asked him. "My name is Merlin, and this is my assistant Archimedes." he said addressing his owl. "Hmph. You need all the assistance you can get." said the owl. "Oh, come off it." the wizard responded. "But you do! You even need assistance in your powers." "My powers are perfectly fine." "If they were 'perfectly fine' you wouldn't have blown up the house and gambled all of our money away during that horse race." "Oh come now you even agreed that 'Hellfire' sounded promising!" "That doesn't change the fact that it lost to a horse called 'Worthless!'" "Come on, who in their right mind names a decent horse 'Worthless!'" "WELL AT LEAST HE DIDN'T RUN BACKWARDS LIKE 'HELLFIRE'"

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP?" Grumpy screamed at the two. "Now will you please tell us how to get this assistance that you're talking about?" "Oh yes, of course, of course the assistance! How could I forget?" Merlin exclaimed. "You can't even remember what you ate for breakfast this morning you old fool!" Archimedes sassed. "You be quiet! Now, on with the assistance." The old wizard cleared his throat. "Now let's see…hmm…let me check my bag. No, no, ah, here it is!" "Here what is?" Happy asked. "Why a map to the gold mines of the Northern Kingdom! According to my studies (and by the looks of you lot) the seven of you are miners looking for work, and what better way to get a new job than by simply getting the same one in a different area?" "It's a lot better than searchin' this dump for food." Grumpy grumpily stated. "If it's food you want you can have our sausages! There's enough for all of you! I was just hoping for some free beans to go with them." Merlin said. "You can't give away our dinner!" Archimedes exclaimed rather loudly. "We had to work in the kitchen all day to get those and now you're giving them to total strangers!" "Oh come off it now!" Merlin snapped. "We'll get some more food!" "Yes, from a dumpster!" Archimedes retaliated.

"Now don't mind him, he's just gets a little grumpy when he's hungry." Merlin said to the dwarves. "Then Grumpy must be hungry all the time!" Happy joked. This joke sent laughter among the whole group (except for Grumpy and Archimedes of course).

After they all had a good laugh, Merlin gave the dwarves a map and food and sent them on their way. Then as the dwarves began their journey towards their version of the American dream they ended up changing their song so that it sounded a little something like this:

Hi ho, hi ho, to find a job we go

(whistling)

(Repeat)

This new song ended up catching the attention of a small weasel named Fred. While running an errand near the dumpsters, he caught wind of this new song, realizing that this could be of great importance to his roomie; Corpsegrinder. "I must go and tell Corpsegrinder of this at once!" The weasel said to himself. "He will be so happy and pleased!" Then the young weasel went straightaway to go and tell his roommate just exactly what was going on with the dwarves.

To be continued…

Disney films referenced

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves(obviously), Beauty and the Beast, The Little

Mermaid parts (1&3), The Great Mouse Detective, Fantasia, and The Sword in the

Stone

References to Metal

The character Corpsegrinder is named for Cannibal Corpse frontman: George

"Corpsegrinder" Fisher.