Well, here I go again. I hope you are enjoying this. Do you like my "poems"? Let me know!
Arashikx, thank you! :)
The Two Cowards. Book 4.
Or, In Which Piping Convinces Fleenees, Handoff Returns, And Tom Quotes Poetry.
Piping and Mary woke up on a large table. They sat up and looked around. To their amazement, they were in a great arbor with a waterfall at one end, and a tunnel formed by large bushes at the other. The blobbits yawned.
"YouAreVeryTiredAndGroggyAndAreInNeedOfAPick-Me-Up," said Fleenees, giving them two large cups filled with a dark fragrant liquid.
"Is this decaffinated?" said Mary Christmas.
Fleenees laughed. A queer, high pitched screeching extremely rapid laugh that made the spine cringe.
"DrinkUpMyLittleBugs!" he chattered.
The blobbits drained the cups. They felt their toes curl and their hair tingle.
"ThisSureIsSomeStrongCoffee," said Piping.
Fleenees cackled again and rubbed his queer hands together.
"SayFleenees," said Piping, "WhatDoYouKnowAboutSillyman?"
"IKnowHeChopsDownTreesAndIDon'tLikeTree-Choppers."
Piping brightened.
"WellThenPerhapsYouWouldBeInterestedInOverthrowingHimAndMakingMeTheKingOverAllOfTheEarth?"
"PerhapsSoPerhapsNot," said the Rent. "WhatWouldIHaveToDo?" "YouWouldHaveToGetAllYourFriendsTogetherAndDemolishTheWallSurroundingItAndStuffLikeThat," said Mary.
"Let'sGo!" said Fleenees. "BecauseOfMyMottoWhichIs'BeHasty'!"
The blobbits and the Rent bounded off into the woods, chanting 'JavaJavaJavaJava'. Fleenees led them to a large valley hedged by thornbushes. All the way there, the Rent had occasionally paused for a few miniscule moments, put his hands around his mouth and emitted a loud, piercing hoot that was sometimes answered from far away, coming rapidly closer.
They bounded their way down into the valley. From several other directions, other tall figures were rapidly thronging at the bottom. Fleenees raced up to them and started talking very rapidly.
"It'sSettled!" he said turning to the blobbits who came wheezing up. "OffWeGoToDestroySillyman!"
He picked up the blobbits, and with a hoot bounded off. The other Rents bounded after him, and the queer cavalcade made its quite rapid way to Ithinc. That night, they came upon the tower, the entire valley twinkling with many lights. They looked upon the many, many signs that read: "Welcome to Sillymanland!"
"ItWillBeAnUnprofitableNightForIthinc," said Fleenees.
**********************************************************
"My very bones are chilled," said Wimpy flapping his arms, leaping around and crowing like a rooster.
"Sit down!" said Arrogant.
"I can't believe you forgot my wheelchair!" whined Legless lying on the ground and glaring into the trees.
It was dusk, the same day that they had left the Horsie men. They were at the edge of a forest, under a large maple tree. The leaves were brown, as it was fall. The fire they had lit cast eerie shadow all about, and the companions huddled closer.
"It sure is spooky," said Wimpy.
All of a sudden, a figure dressed in plaid appeared at the edge of the firelight.
"It's Sillyman!" shouted Arrogant, picking up a stick and bashing the man on the head. Legless grabbed a flaming brand and waved it around. Wimpy screamed. The old man disappeared into the trees.
"The horsies!" wailed Legless. Indeed, it appeared that the horsies had dis. (Appeared, I mean.)
"We're doomed!" wailed Wimpy.
"They went into the forest!" cried Arrogant. "Follow me!"
Wimpy ran after him. After a moment's hesitation, Legless picked up two sticks to use as crutches and stumbled after.
Arrogant sped through the trees. He wove in and out, and jumped over and ducked under, until all of a sudden he noticed he was up to his armpits in slime. Wimpy ran up.
"Hey!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, though the pit was not that deep. "What're you doin' down there?"
"Catching some rays!" snarled the man sarcastically. Legless limped up.
"Boy, how could you not see that coming?"
Arrogant struggled out of the pit and tried to wipe the slime off of his clothes. He gave up on that and pulled out his pocket mirror and tried to straighted up his hair before it dried, when just then Legless's sharp eyes saw something.
"My sharp eyes see something!" he hissed.
"Where?" quavered Wimpy.
"On the other side of the pit!" cried Legless. Arrogant looked up from admiring himself, only to see the man dressed in plaid clothes that they had seen just hours before.
"Who are you, old geezer?" shouted Arrogant leaping across the pit and attacking the man. "Speak quickly, lest I get angry and lose my temper!"
"I'm Handoff, I'm Handoff!!" screeched the figure.
"Flee!" screamed Arrogant in terror.
"Hey, guys! Good ta see ya!" said the blizzard.
"Help help!" shouted Wimpy.
"If you guys had only waited a moment at AmorŽ Land, I would have journeyed on with you! I only fell about three feet, ya know!" said Handoff, giving Legless (who had been unable to run away, having accidentally dropped his makeshift crutches) a vigorous dutch rub.
"But what about the Roadhog?" said Arrogant who was halfway up a tree.
"Well, I pursued him all through AmorŽ Land. I chased him under the Great Slide, over and around the roller coaster, until finally coming to a showdown at the top of the endless stairs."
"I thought that it was incompleted, if not a legend!" said Wimpy.
"It wasn't a legend, said the blizzard. "And it was all there, well, at least most of it was."
He fell silent for a few moments.
"Long time I fell," he murmered after a moment.
"I thought it was only three feet or so," said Arrogant.
"The chasm was. The drop from the endless stairs wasn't!" snapped the irritated blizzard.
"Those stairs aren't the only thing that isn't all there," muttered Legless rubbing his head and glaring at Handoff.
"We climbed back up the stairs and the Roadhog and myself battled on top of a big mountain," continued Handoff. "I went pow! pow! and he went biff! bam! and I jumped on top of him and he jumped on top of me and then we rolled down the mountain into a lake and then once again it was up top of the endless stairs and then I went pow! pow! and he..."
"Oh, look!" said Wimpy. "It's time to go!"
"Go where?" said Handoff.
"To look for twerpy little Mary and Piping," said Arrogant cautiously climbing down from the tree. "They stole our wallets."
Handoff coughed nervously. "I don't think you'll need to look for them. For at this very spot they met someone they did not expect at all."
"You mean someone else has our wallets?" said Legless.
"No, no! Well, yes, I mean, not to incriminate myself or anything, but hey! We have to go to the king of the Horsey People because Sillyman is planning war against them!"
"So?" said Arrogant.
"Well, you're gonna be the king of Flounder, right? And the Horsey People and the Floundarians have a standing oath, right? Ergo, we must go to war on their behalf if we expect them to come to war on our behalf, get it?"
"It makes no sense," said Arrogant. "Flounder isn't at war."
"Not yet," said Handoff mysteriously.
"Is that a threat?" said Arrogant towering over the blizzard.
"No!" squeaked the blizzard shrinking away. "Moron is planning war against all of the earth. Somehow he got the idea that we have the ring, and now it's goodbye us!" he drew his finger across his neck.
"Where did he get the idea that we have the ring?" said Arrogant bending over the blizzard as if he were a loose toy on the floor that he intended to pick up and discard.
"Solemn, remember?" shrieked Handoff, flailing his arms in an attempt to fend the man off. "Moron captured him, and under torture he found the information leading to the arrest of, well, some dude, but also the information about the name Flaggins and the Mire. Solemn escaped, but you captured him and took him to Smirkwood where he escaped again. Does it ring a tinkly little bell yet?"
"Let me guess," said Wimpy. "Solemn is a lurking sniveling wimp who wants the ring back."
"Well, no..." said Handoff.
"Ah!" said Arrogant. "He's a criminal mastermind who will eventually be the ruin of us all?"
"Heck no!" said the blizzard. "He's actually quite a nice guy. He leads two lives."
"I see," said Legless. "In one he seems like a nice guy but in the other he's an evil spy who is working for Moron?"
"No no no!" said Handoff angrily. "In one life he's a respected theatrical actor, and in the other he's a double spy for us!"
"He's on our side?" said Arrogant blankly.
"Yes!" said Handoff. "The Flighty counsil has been planning this for years! We sent him to Mortar to gather information about defences and such, while he gave Moron some carefully scripted lines about the ring. That being done, he escaped and we gave him a new mission. To aid the ringbearer to the cracks of gloom and so save the entire world!"
"Oh," said Legless quite embarassed.
"Who exactly is in the Flighty council?" said Arrogant.
"Oh, myself, Gladreel, Sellrond, and Sillyman was, until he turned traitor. That is why we must aid the Horsey People in overthrowing Sillyman. We don't want him to spill the beans and spoil all our lovely plans!" said Handoff. "Besides that, he's started his own amusement park and he knows that it was my idea to put one there but nooo... he has to say that it was his idea and he gives it the lame name of 'Sillymanland' when he knows that it should be 'Handoffland' but he's just too selfish to see that I'm the brains in the family and..."
"How did you get here, if you were fighting the Roadhog all the way at AmorŽ Land?" said Wimpy, who had been thinking it over very carefully.
"Well, after my humiliating def, I mean victorius triumph, I made my way to the Loth L—ri Inn where Celebrate and Gladreel were trying to clean up the place after this huge forest fire mysteriously swept their part of the woods. They tried to beat me up, but I ran away and came all the way to here where I disguised myself as Sillyman and have been hiding."
"What are we waiting for?" said Arrogant. "Let's sleep so we can get up fresh and early tomorrow!"
And immediately, dawn came. Wimpy and Legless looked at the man and the blizzard. They started off, glumly to meet fate.
***************************************************************
"Are you quite sure we aren't lost?" said Tomfool.
"Ach, yes, I am very szure!" said Solemn.
"I think I'd rather be lost than be here," said Hoho. They were at the edge of the Mostly Dead Marshes, and a dreary sight it was indeed.
"This reminds me in a sort of sick way about a poem my uncle Dumbo used to tell me," said Hoho tiredly.
"Oh, that one?" said Tom.
Solemn looked from one to the other. "What poem ees dat?"
Tom stood up straight and put his hands behind his back, like he often did when he was trying to avoid strangling someone and began.
'Twas lunchtime, and the slimy toads
did gape and gamble in the waves.
All flimsy were the applegroves,
amd mummy wraps outgrew their little sisters.
"Beware the Jabbingone, my son
the jaws that work, the tongue that flaps,
Beware the parrot bird, and scum
That foaming Bubblebath!"
He took his usŽd toothpick and
long time in pacific time he sought.
So rewound he the Stooges three
and stood a while in mud.
And as in selfish thought he stood,
the Jabbingone, with eyes of green
came whistling through the blazing wood
and flibbled as he came!
One, two, one, two, and three and four
And won't somebody shut the door,
With extreme glee he ate some snacks
and went ka-skipping back.
"And haste to see the Jabbingone?
please leave the house, you stupid boy!
Oh, crabcake day, wahoo, parkay!"
He choked upon the floor.
'Twas lunchtime, and the slimy toads
did gape and gamble in the waves
All flimsy were the applegroves,
amd mummy wraps outgrew their little sisters.
"He was an odd one, was Dumbo. He wrote what I just said." finished Tom.
"No, Tom! You've got it all wrong!" said Hoho angrily.
"Oh yeah?" said Tom.
Solemn shook his head sadly.
They began picking their careful way through the quagmirous goo. Solemn seemed sure of their way, even when the fog completely blocked off every single bit of light. Tom and Hoho soon gave up on even thinking they would be clean on getting out, because they kept falling into slimy pools and bogs. All day they slogged their way through the tortuous land.
Tom looked up on crawling out of one of the aforementioned bogs, and thought that he saw the Mona Lisa. He shook his head and looked again. It lingered for a moment before it disappeared in a splash of water created by Hoho falling into a pool.
"Hey, Solemn?" he said quaveringly as he saw the painting reappear in the face of a yet un-fallen into pool.
"You are zeeing perhaps great works of art?" said Solemn as the pool was fallen into.
"What is it?" said Hoho. "I keep thinking that I see the Blue Boy!"
The creature shrugged. "Paintings in ze deep. I do not know what causes zem, perhaps it ees heartburn. I do not know. Do not try to get zem and sell zem for a very high profit! I tried zat once, but you cannot reach zem. Nope, nice paintings."
Tom looked at him strangely. They continued through the swamp. Once, Hoho thought he heard a wavering screech coming from very very high up. He looked up and thought he saw a yellow dot pass above the moon.
"Probably just a falling star," he muttered. He crossed his fingers and closed his eyes tightly. "I wish the ring had never come to me."
Unfortunately, he should not have closed his eyes at that moment, because he tripped on a log and fell into a pool. Finally, at around midnight they came to the end of the marshes. They looked upon a land long devoid of any life, save that which had been living off of and sucking the life out of the land. (Huh? says the co-author.)
"Eew, leech-like beings!" shrieked Tom and Hoho.
"Hush!" said Solemn. "You must be quiet, or else you will be heard and captured!"
"Eew, captured by leech-like beings!" whispered Tom and Hoho.
They made their stealthful way around the many boulders that had a tendency to look exactly alike until they came to the gate to Mortar.
"I must go through," said Hoho. "I must get to the cracks of gloom."
"But Sellrond said one cannot simply walk into Mortar!" said Tom.
"I know," said Hoho grimly. "That is why I am going to skip, and leap, and two-step, and square dance..."
"Ach, nein, silly blobbit!" hissed Solemn. "You can't go into zat way! Zere is another way."
"Another way?" demanded Hoho quietly yet firmly. "You didn't speak of this before!"
"Well, no!" said the creature. "You didn't ask!"
Hoho slapped his head several times and gritted his teeth.
"What do we have to do?" asked Tom.
"Well," said Solemn, "We just have to go back to ze marshes and zenÉ"
"WHAT?" screeched Hoho "WHAT? WE HAVE TO GO BACK? THROUGH THE ROCKS THAT LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE?" Tom and Solemn cringed at the piercing bellowing of Hoho's voice. But Hoho wasn't done yet.
"THIS WHOLE TRIP HAS JUST BEEN VERY INCONVENIENT! I THINK I AM GOING TO SCREAM!! AIEEE!!!"
"Ach, nein noisy blobbit! We will be heard, or zeen, or zomesink!"
A Corc, unseen, stepped out of the gate. He might have captured them, but just then a object swept down from the sky that caught Tom's eye.
"A Paisley Rider that is flying! A Paisley Flyer!" he screamed, dashing away somewhere south. He was soon followed by Solemn and Hoho, who was still yabbering like a broken piccalo that would be doomed to play the same note for all eternity.
After about six hours, they came to a path that led off into a forest. They stumbled through the trees until they came to a small glade, and collapsed.
Arashikx, thank you! :)
The Two Cowards. Book 4.
Or, In Which Piping Convinces Fleenees, Handoff Returns, And Tom Quotes Poetry.
Piping and Mary woke up on a large table. They sat up and looked around. To their amazement, they were in a great arbor with a waterfall at one end, and a tunnel formed by large bushes at the other. The blobbits yawned.
"YouAreVeryTiredAndGroggyAndAreInNeedOfAPick-Me-Up," said Fleenees, giving them two large cups filled with a dark fragrant liquid.
"Is this decaffinated?" said Mary Christmas.
Fleenees laughed. A queer, high pitched screeching extremely rapid laugh that made the spine cringe.
"DrinkUpMyLittleBugs!" he chattered.
The blobbits drained the cups. They felt their toes curl and their hair tingle.
"ThisSureIsSomeStrongCoffee," said Piping.
Fleenees cackled again and rubbed his queer hands together.
"SayFleenees," said Piping, "WhatDoYouKnowAboutSillyman?"
"IKnowHeChopsDownTreesAndIDon'tLikeTree-Choppers."
Piping brightened.
"WellThenPerhapsYouWouldBeInterestedInOverthrowingHimAndMakingMeTheKingOverAllOfTheEarth?"
"PerhapsSoPerhapsNot," said the Rent. "WhatWouldIHaveToDo?" "YouWouldHaveToGetAllYourFriendsTogetherAndDemolishTheWallSurroundingItAndStuffLikeThat," said Mary.
"Let'sGo!" said Fleenees. "BecauseOfMyMottoWhichIs'BeHasty'!"
The blobbits and the Rent bounded off into the woods, chanting 'JavaJavaJavaJava'. Fleenees led them to a large valley hedged by thornbushes. All the way there, the Rent had occasionally paused for a few miniscule moments, put his hands around his mouth and emitted a loud, piercing hoot that was sometimes answered from far away, coming rapidly closer.
They bounded their way down into the valley. From several other directions, other tall figures were rapidly thronging at the bottom. Fleenees raced up to them and started talking very rapidly.
"It'sSettled!" he said turning to the blobbits who came wheezing up. "OffWeGoToDestroySillyman!"
He picked up the blobbits, and with a hoot bounded off. The other Rents bounded after him, and the queer cavalcade made its quite rapid way to Ithinc. That night, they came upon the tower, the entire valley twinkling with many lights. They looked upon the many, many signs that read: "Welcome to Sillymanland!"
"ItWillBeAnUnprofitableNightForIthinc," said Fleenees.
**********************************************************
"My very bones are chilled," said Wimpy flapping his arms, leaping around and crowing like a rooster.
"Sit down!" said Arrogant.
"I can't believe you forgot my wheelchair!" whined Legless lying on the ground and glaring into the trees.
It was dusk, the same day that they had left the Horsie men. They were at the edge of a forest, under a large maple tree. The leaves were brown, as it was fall. The fire they had lit cast eerie shadow all about, and the companions huddled closer.
"It sure is spooky," said Wimpy.
All of a sudden, a figure dressed in plaid appeared at the edge of the firelight.
"It's Sillyman!" shouted Arrogant, picking up a stick and bashing the man on the head. Legless grabbed a flaming brand and waved it around. Wimpy screamed. The old man disappeared into the trees.
"The horsies!" wailed Legless. Indeed, it appeared that the horsies had dis. (Appeared, I mean.)
"We're doomed!" wailed Wimpy.
"They went into the forest!" cried Arrogant. "Follow me!"
Wimpy ran after him. After a moment's hesitation, Legless picked up two sticks to use as crutches and stumbled after.
Arrogant sped through the trees. He wove in and out, and jumped over and ducked under, until all of a sudden he noticed he was up to his armpits in slime. Wimpy ran up.
"Hey!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, though the pit was not that deep. "What're you doin' down there?"
"Catching some rays!" snarled the man sarcastically. Legless limped up.
"Boy, how could you not see that coming?"
Arrogant struggled out of the pit and tried to wipe the slime off of his clothes. He gave up on that and pulled out his pocket mirror and tried to straighted up his hair before it dried, when just then Legless's sharp eyes saw something.
"My sharp eyes see something!" he hissed.
"Where?" quavered Wimpy.
"On the other side of the pit!" cried Legless. Arrogant looked up from admiring himself, only to see the man dressed in plaid clothes that they had seen just hours before.
"Who are you, old geezer?" shouted Arrogant leaping across the pit and attacking the man. "Speak quickly, lest I get angry and lose my temper!"
"I'm Handoff, I'm Handoff!!" screeched the figure.
"Flee!" screamed Arrogant in terror.
"Hey, guys! Good ta see ya!" said the blizzard.
"Help help!" shouted Wimpy.
"If you guys had only waited a moment at AmorŽ Land, I would have journeyed on with you! I only fell about three feet, ya know!" said Handoff, giving Legless (who had been unable to run away, having accidentally dropped his makeshift crutches) a vigorous dutch rub.
"But what about the Roadhog?" said Arrogant who was halfway up a tree.
"Well, I pursued him all through AmorŽ Land. I chased him under the Great Slide, over and around the roller coaster, until finally coming to a showdown at the top of the endless stairs."
"I thought that it was incompleted, if not a legend!" said Wimpy.
"It wasn't a legend, said the blizzard. "And it was all there, well, at least most of it was."
He fell silent for a few moments.
"Long time I fell," he murmered after a moment.
"I thought it was only three feet or so," said Arrogant.
"The chasm was. The drop from the endless stairs wasn't!" snapped the irritated blizzard.
"Those stairs aren't the only thing that isn't all there," muttered Legless rubbing his head and glaring at Handoff.
"We climbed back up the stairs and the Roadhog and myself battled on top of a big mountain," continued Handoff. "I went pow! pow! and he went biff! bam! and I jumped on top of him and he jumped on top of me and then we rolled down the mountain into a lake and then once again it was up top of the endless stairs and then I went pow! pow! and he..."
"Oh, look!" said Wimpy. "It's time to go!"
"Go where?" said Handoff.
"To look for twerpy little Mary and Piping," said Arrogant cautiously climbing down from the tree. "They stole our wallets."
Handoff coughed nervously. "I don't think you'll need to look for them. For at this very spot they met someone they did not expect at all."
"You mean someone else has our wallets?" said Legless.
"No, no! Well, yes, I mean, not to incriminate myself or anything, but hey! We have to go to the king of the Horsey People because Sillyman is planning war against them!"
"So?" said Arrogant.
"Well, you're gonna be the king of Flounder, right? And the Horsey People and the Floundarians have a standing oath, right? Ergo, we must go to war on their behalf if we expect them to come to war on our behalf, get it?"
"It makes no sense," said Arrogant. "Flounder isn't at war."
"Not yet," said Handoff mysteriously.
"Is that a threat?" said Arrogant towering over the blizzard.
"No!" squeaked the blizzard shrinking away. "Moron is planning war against all of the earth. Somehow he got the idea that we have the ring, and now it's goodbye us!" he drew his finger across his neck.
"Where did he get the idea that we have the ring?" said Arrogant bending over the blizzard as if he were a loose toy on the floor that he intended to pick up and discard.
"Solemn, remember?" shrieked Handoff, flailing his arms in an attempt to fend the man off. "Moron captured him, and under torture he found the information leading to the arrest of, well, some dude, but also the information about the name Flaggins and the Mire. Solemn escaped, but you captured him and took him to Smirkwood where he escaped again. Does it ring a tinkly little bell yet?"
"Let me guess," said Wimpy. "Solemn is a lurking sniveling wimp who wants the ring back."
"Well, no..." said Handoff.
"Ah!" said Arrogant. "He's a criminal mastermind who will eventually be the ruin of us all?"
"Heck no!" said the blizzard. "He's actually quite a nice guy. He leads two lives."
"I see," said Legless. "In one he seems like a nice guy but in the other he's an evil spy who is working for Moron?"
"No no no!" said Handoff angrily. "In one life he's a respected theatrical actor, and in the other he's a double spy for us!"
"He's on our side?" said Arrogant blankly.
"Yes!" said Handoff. "The Flighty counsil has been planning this for years! We sent him to Mortar to gather information about defences and such, while he gave Moron some carefully scripted lines about the ring. That being done, he escaped and we gave him a new mission. To aid the ringbearer to the cracks of gloom and so save the entire world!"
"Oh," said Legless quite embarassed.
"Who exactly is in the Flighty council?" said Arrogant.
"Oh, myself, Gladreel, Sellrond, and Sillyman was, until he turned traitor. That is why we must aid the Horsey People in overthrowing Sillyman. We don't want him to spill the beans and spoil all our lovely plans!" said Handoff. "Besides that, he's started his own amusement park and he knows that it was my idea to put one there but nooo... he has to say that it was his idea and he gives it the lame name of 'Sillymanland' when he knows that it should be 'Handoffland' but he's just too selfish to see that I'm the brains in the family and..."
"How did you get here, if you were fighting the Roadhog all the way at AmorŽ Land?" said Wimpy, who had been thinking it over very carefully.
"Well, after my humiliating def, I mean victorius triumph, I made my way to the Loth L—ri Inn where Celebrate and Gladreel were trying to clean up the place after this huge forest fire mysteriously swept their part of the woods. They tried to beat me up, but I ran away and came all the way to here where I disguised myself as Sillyman and have been hiding."
"What are we waiting for?" said Arrogant. "Let's sleep so we can get up fresh and early tomorrow!"
And immediately, dawn came. Wimpy and Legless looked at the man and the blizzard. They started off, glumly to meet fate.
***************************************************************
"Are you quite sure we aren't lost?" said Tomfool.
"Ach, yes, I am very szure!" said Solemn.
"I think I'd rather be lost than be here," said Hoho. They were at the edge of the Mostly Dead Marshes, and a dreary sight it was indeed.
"This reminds me in a sort of sick way about a poem my uncle Dumbo used to tell me," said Hoho tiredly.
"Oh, that one?" said Tom.
Solemn looked from one to the other. "What poem ees dat?"
Tom stood up straight and put his hands behind his back, like he often did when he was trying to avoid strangling someone and began.
'Twas lunchtime, and the slimy toads
did gape and gamble in the waves.
All flimsy were the applegroves,
amd mummy wraps outgrew their little sisters.
"Beware the Jabbingone, my son
the jaws that work, the tongue that flaps,
Beware the parrot bird, and scum
That foaming Bubblebath!"
He took his usŽd toothpick and
long time in pacific time he sought.
So rewound he the Stooges three
and stood a while in mud.
And as in selfish thought he stood,
the Jabbingone, with eyes of green
came whistling through the blazing wood
and flibbled as he came!
One, two, one, two, and three and four
And won't somebody shut the door,
With extreme glee he ate some snacks
and went ka-skipping back.
"And haste to see the Jabbingone?
please leave the house, you stupid boy!
Oh, crabcake day, wahoo, parkay!"
He choked upon the floor.
'Twas lunchtime, and the slimy toads
did gape and gamble in the waves
All flimsy were the applegroves,
amd mummy wraps outgrew their little sisters.
"He was an odd one, was Dumbo. He wrote what I just said." finished Tom.
"No, Tom! You've got it all wrong!" said Hoho angrily.
"Oh yeah?" said Tom.
Solemn shook his head sadly.
They began picking their careful way through the quagmirous goo. Solemn seemed sure of their way, even when the fog completely blocked off every single bit of light. Tom and Hoho soon gave up on even thinking they would be clean on getting out, because they kept falling into slimy pools and bogs. All day they slogged their way through the tortuous land.
Tom looked up on crawling out of one of the aforementioned bogs, and thought that he saw the Mona Lisa. He shook his head and looked again. It lingered for a moment before it disappeared in a splash of water created by Hoho falling into a pool.
"Hey, Solemn?" he said quaveringly as he saw the painting reappear in the face of a yet un-fallen into pool.
"You are zeeing perhaps great works of art?" said Solemn as the pool was fallen into.
"What is it?" said Hoho. "I keep thinking that I see the Blue Boy!"
The creature shrugged. "Paintings in ze deep. I do not know what causes zem, perhaps it ees heartburn. I do not know. Do not try to get zem and sell zem for a very high profit! I tried zat once, but you cannot reach zem. Nope, nice paintings."
Tom looked at him strangely. They continued through the swamp. Once, Hoho thought he heard a wavering screech coming from very very high up. He looked up and thought he saw a yellow dot pass above the moon.
"Probably just a falling star," he muttered. He crossed his fingers and closed his eyes tightly. "I wish the ring had never come to me."
Unfortunately, he should not have closed his eyes at that moment, because he tripped on a log and fell into a pool. Finally, at around midnight they came to the end of the marshes. They looked upon a land long devoid of any life, save that which had been living off of and sucking the life out of the land. (Huh? says the co-author.)
"Eew, leech-like beings!" shrieked Tom and Hoho.
"Hush!" said Solemn. "You must be quiet, or else you will be heard and captured!"
"Eew, captured by leech-like beings!" whispered Tom and Hoho.
They made their stealthful way around the many boulders that had a tendency to look exactly alike until they came to the gate to Mortar.
"I must go through," said Hoho. "I must get to the cracks of gloom."
"But Sellrond said one cannot simply walk into Mortar!" said Tom.
"I know," said Hoho grimly. "That is why I am going to skip, and leap, and two-step, and square dance..."
"Ach, nein, silly blobbit!" hissed Solemn. "You can't go into zat way! Zere is another way."
"Another way?" demanded Hoho quietly yet firmly. "You didn't speak of this before!"
"Well, no!" said the creature. "You didn't ask!"
Hoho slapped his head several times and gritted his teeth.
"What do we have to do?" asked Tom.
"Well," said Solemn, "We just have to go back to ze marshes and zenÉ"
"WHAT?" screeched Hoho "WHAT? WE HAVE TO GO BACK? THROUGH THE ROCKS THAT LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE?" Tom and Solemn cringed at the piercing bellowing of Hoho's voice. But Hoho wasn't done yet.
"THIS WHOLE TRIP HAS JUST BEEN VERY INCONVENIENT! I THINK I AM GOING TO SCREAM!! AIEEE!!!"
"Ach, nein noisy blobbit! We will be heard, or zeen, or zomesink!"
A Corc, unseen, stepped out of the gate. He might have captured them, but just then a object swept down from the sky that caught Tom's eye.
"A Paisley Rider that is flying! A Paisley Flyer!" he screamed, dashing away somewhere south. He was soon followed by Solemn and Hoho, who was still yabbering like a broken piccalo that would be doomed to play the same note for all eternity.
After about six hours, they came to a path that led off into a forest. They stumbled through the trees until they came to a small glade, and collapsed.