The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Gone Rum
One rainy, spring day, Lucy was pacing methodically about the inside of one of the Professor's rooms. It was not horribly dusty, just a bit, but it was irritating her. Consequently, she decided to get a leaf blower and use it to dust. Therefore, she did. She blew the expensive "historical artifacts" and paintings off the walls and the whole room filled with dust. She was wandering blindly around when Mrs. Mcready walked in.
"WHAT is going...on down HERE?" she said sternly with just a HINT of panic. Then, she grabbed Lucy and shook her. As she was doing this, Peter walked in. Undaunted, Mrs. Mcready seized Peter in her other hand and shook him too. The leaf blower, which had been spinning unnoticed in a corner, found a HUGE pile of dust, where the lazy Mrs. Mcready had been sweeping it under the rug, and blew it all over the entire room. EVERYONE was covered in dust! Suddenly, the leaf blower flew up in the air and started sucking at Mrs. Mcready's hair.
"AHHHHHH! My hair! My hair! My beautiful hair!" she yelled as her wig came off. Lucy and Peter, wrenching away from her grasp, began laughing hysterically. Mrs. Mcready, a bit shaky from losing her hair, tripped over the leaf blower, which turned and discharged her wig into the open wardrobe.
"NOOOOOO!" she cried. Then, she leapt into the wardrobe after it. Peter and Lucy looked at each other, horrified. What would she discover? They hurried to check inside the wardrobe. They found an ordinary back, but there was no sign of Mrs. Mcready or her wig. As they came back out, Edmund entered the room.
"I say! What are you two about?" he asked. "I thought I heard a row!"
"It's Mrs. Mcready! She's…she's gone," said Peter, indicating the wardrobe.
"Uh…what?" questioned Edmund.
"I came in, then the leaf blower, and then Mrs. Mcready, then her hair, and now she's gone to Narnia!" Lucy prattled.
"Uh…what?" asked Edmund. "I can't hear very well. I have crackers in my ears."
"Mrs. Mcready accidentally went into the wardrobe and is in Narnia!" Peter yelled, losing patience.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Mcready found herself in the middle of a dark, snowy wood, near a lamppost. Her wig was nowhere to be seen, but there were tracks leading away from the clearing. They were from a goat, Mrs. Mcready surmised, giving her expert opinion. She was an expert in EVERYTHING (she thought). Strangely enough, her guess was not far off. She set off in the direction that the tracks were leading. In a half of an hour, she, although she would never admit it, was hopelessly lost. As she stood turning around and around in a clearing, trying to get her bearings (being an expert on EVERYTHING, she figured that she was outside of the mansion somewhere), several animals and a faun peered out at her from behind the trees, staring at her curiously. Feeling threatened, she pulled out her feather duster (at least it was until the leaf blower got a hold of it. Now it was just a stick) and brandished it convincingly.
"Run!" the faun yelled. "She'll turn us into stone!"
"It's the queen!" squeaked the squirrels, scattering as fast as they could. Mrs. Mcready whirled around to find out who had spoken. She did not think it was the animals, you see. While her back was turned, many other creatures took the chance to flee.
"Ha! That will teach those disgusting animals!" she cackled smugly. At that point, she heard a giggle in the brush:
"She looks funny with no hair, mommy."
"Shhh…" hissed another voice urgently. Mrs. Mcready searched the place thoroughly for the speaker.
"Who is there?" she asked, annoyed. Just then, the faun peeked out from behind a thick tree. Mrs. Mcready noted in anger that he had HER wig on his head. She started yelling curses at the faun as it turned to run. She would have chased it through the brush, but she was wearing VERY fancy and luxurious dress shoes and this would have soiled them. Therefore, she decided to throw the stick at it instead. She missed. As she went to look for a path, a fat dwarf came and handed her the REAL witch's wand.
"Your majesty," he said, "I've been looking for you everywhere! Here is your wand. We wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands!"
Mrs. Mcready did not know what to think. She took the wand, stared at it a moment, and pointed it at a tree.
"That stupid tree," she said aloud. "I wish it would turn into a spear." It did. She blinked in amazement, then went and grabbed the spear, hurling it at the faun. She missed again and shook with rage. She started vaporizing everything in sight. Thankfully, the creatures had cleared out by then, leaving Mrs. Mcready standing alone in the newly expanded clearing (Since she had vaporized many of the trees; even the fat dwarf had run off). Being extremely perturbed, Mrs. Mcready started shooting flames all over and melting the snow. Had she had half a brain in her head she would have merely given herself hair and been done with the whole ordeal immediately, but she was VERY stupid when she was mad. Not that she wasn't stupid normally; it was just that she was implausibly stupid when she was mad! Therefore, she tried to blow up the world, but could not focus the power of the wand and ended up blowing up the clearing. Her clothes blackened, she screamed angrily, and then wished for new ones. Surprisingly, instead of her normal clothes, she found herself in a full-length white gown under a long pallid mantle made entirely of fox fur. On her head was tall crown, which seemed to be made of ice.
"Now THIS is more like it!" she said, her eyes gleaming wickedly. "Why do I have a feeling I'm a white witch? Muhahahahahahahaha!" Therefore, being EXTREMELY evil, she started running around looking for little animals to zap. Did she find any? No. She was too stupid. She yelled and laughed so loudly that every creature could hear her from MILES around and dove for cover a few hours before she even reached them. Then, being completely exhausted, and having a very cold head (she IS bald), she went looking for a place to stay. After several minutes of searching, she said:
"Why not? I'll just make myself a castle!" Therefore, that is just what she did. After she made herself a castle, she said:
"Now that I have made myself a castle, I shall go inside." Therefore, that is just what she did. After she went inside and saw the white, empty courtyard, she sighed wistfully and said:
"I NEED lawn ornaments!" Therefore, she ran outside and captured a bunch of animals that were at a Christmas party and made them pose in awkward positions, after which she turned them into stone.
"Yes!" she said, quite satisfied. "I like this. Now, I need a crystal ball!" She used the magic wand to make herself one. Grasping the glowing black ball tightly in her hands, she stared greedily into it, and saw to her horror Edmund smashing all the historical artifacts and throwing garlicky peanut butter at the walls. She shrieked with fright and hurled the crystal ball to the stone floor, intending to shatter it. Instead, there was a bright flash. While she was recovering, Peter and Lucy were growing nervous, though they didn't know why. Edmund, who was looking very grubby, began licking the peanut butter from his hands and chortling about how "revolting" it was. Then, he picked up a small bust of Shakespeare, produced a stub of pencil from his back pocket, and began scribbling a swirly mustache on it. Peter and Lucy pointed and laughed. Mrs. Mcready picked up the crystal ball again from the ground, saw what had happened, and grew infuriated! She screamed curses at Edmund, aimed her wand at the crystal ball, and blew it up. Meanwhile back at the ranch (or, in this case, the Professor's home) Peter was saying, "Mrs. Mcready should be back by now. I wonder why she hasn't returned!"
"Oh, do stop jawing!" cried Lucy. "We don't WANT her to come back, do we?"
"You do have a point, you know," said Peter. "Just don't tell Susan. That goody-two-shoes would make us go and find her."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Mcready decided to find some minions, since she had pretty much resigned herself to evil. Hence, she went outside and said:
"Come to me EVIL! Come to me, Ghouls, Hags, Specters, Cruels, Black Dwarves, Minotaurs, Cyclopes, People of the Toadstools and other evil things, et cetera, et cetera."
Then, all kinds of diaphanous beings appeared near her: some looked like flaming leaf creatures (FLC), others like weird crawling things (WCT). Still others resembled bizarre beasts of all forms, Minotaurs, Hags, et cetera, et cetera. Mrs. Mcready decided to get all of Narnia under her control.
"The first thing I'll do is rally all of the rest of the Evil to ME, then, I'll nuke anyone who tries to stop me from taking over the world, and then I'll take it. This is going to be fun! When I rule, I will make everyone get me many historical artifacts and put them EVERYWHERE—because I LOVE historical artifacts. They're what I LIVE for!" She called to those around her "Go gather the remaining evil and bring them to my presence."
Suddenly, the real White Witch arrived, searching for her wand. Mrs. Mcready looked at her quizzically and asked, "Who might you be?"
"Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Empress of the Lone Islands, Chatelaine of..."
"Dry up!" cried Mrs. Mcready.
"Are you trying to steal my title? This is open treason! You, wolf! Do your duty! Kill her!"
"No, kill her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
(Ten hours later)
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"No, her!"
"NO, HER!"
"NO, HER!"
"QUIET!" bellowed the wolf. "I have a few solutions. One, I could kill both of you. Two, I could kill neither. Three, I could kill myself. Which would you prefer?"
"None," said both Witches in unison.
"Then we will have a test, to see which the real witch is. The winner will become queen and the loser will be banished to a land of the other's desire," the wolf said quickly. "The real Witch could never resist...this!"
He pulled out a strange looking greenish blob and held it towards the two witches.
"So..." he said enticingly. "Who wants—" Before he could get any further, Mrs. Mcready had snatched it from him and gobbled it down.
"Strange," remarked the wolf. "That was the queen's nightly facial cream; I thought it was her candy box. I wonder how that got in there." Mrs. Mcready began to choke violently and suddenly threw up on the real witch. The real witch then began chasing after Mrs. Mcready with an axe (which conveniently appeared out of nowhere). However, the wolf finally stopped them with a savage snarl and told them he had a better idea. He called several creatures that were in the witch's employment and asked them which witch was which. (Ha, ha)
Mr. Tumnus said, "That one."
Chailoghdan the Minotaur growled, "That one."
Polyphemus the Cyclopes grunted, "That one."
"Which one?"
"Which witch won?"
"No, which one do you mean by, 'that one'?"
"THAT ONE!" they all said pointing at Mrs. Mcready.
"Why you traitorous scum!" the real witch shrilled.
"Sorry, whoever-you-are," said the wolf, "but you're no queen! You're an impersonator."
"What?"
"All right," the wolf said to Mrs. Mcready, "where, o queen, would you like this imitator to go?"
"I know just the place," she smiled evilly.
Jadis, former queen of Narnia, found herself stepping through a grove of trees and suddenly out of the snow into the darkness of a wardrobe. Solemnly, she strode through the row of coats and out the door.
Loud shrieks of terror greeted her. Abruptly, the door to the wardrobe room opened and in stepped the professor.
"Mrs. Mcready," he said without missing a beat, "the sad state of this room says that it has been sorely neglected. See to its cleaning, at once. Come, children. Time for tea."
Reluctantly, the children followed the professor out of the room.
The new Mrs. Mcready began her work straightaway.
For years afterwards, the professor told his guests that he was really quite fond of his housekeeper. He also said that she had a very nasty temper at times, and warned them never, ever to mention lions, especially lions named Aslan, or the word "Narnia" in her presence. Indeed, this raised many eyebrows.
Finis
To Be Continued with Prince Caspian: Gone Rum