Dumbo alley

When he woke up Merry discovered that his head was mysteriously placed in a chimney. He pulled out his head, sat down on the chimney and played myling for a while until HubbaBubba arrived. Merry asked where he had been but got no reply. He decided to shrug it off and do as the giant said. He tried to hold hands with the giant and said: "Can we eat breakfast?"

"Neo, ye got pizza yesterday, spoiled brat."

"But it was disgusting."

"But shuddup now ye brat, now we'll go to Dumbo alley."

"What kind of place is it?"

"An alley with wizards' stuff, duuh!" HubbaBubba tossed Merry from the roof and then jumped down on him. Merry felt rather sick for the rest of the day, which was fully understandable in the view of HubbaBubba's weight (500 kg).

They went into a scruffy club, called The hot cauldron. Inside the music was beating like in a disco. The first thing Merry saw when he came in was half naked strippers, both men and women, who danced around poles.

"So, this is a church, isn't it?" said Merry, who never had gone to a church. HubbaBubba just grunted as reply.

Suddenly the music was turned off and all the spotlights reversed towards Merry.

Merry, who had severe stage fright, reacted drastically; the sweat spurted in all directions, his pupils grew huge, the knees shook and he bit his tongue. "Ouch."

"MERRY POPPIS", yelled an insolent stranger who shamelessly ran to Merry, grabbed a handful of his hair, whence he raced away to sell his new treasure on E-bay.

The rest of the rabble approached Merry slowly with fascinated looks. They began to circulate around him, while they fingered on him here, there and everywhere (HubbaBubba also took the opportunity to fiddle, because he never missed such an opportunity).

"Err… excuse me? D'you have a problem or what?" Merry finally spluttered out.

"HubbaBubba, who became bored to have to share his victim with other people, lifted Merry by the heel and dragged him out. They stood (in Merry's case lay) now in front of a green brick wall.

"Fun place", Merry said, and unfortunately really meant it.

HubbaBubba used his destructive giant fists to crush the wall, and hey presto they were in Dumbo alley. Merry was moderately impressed by the fantastic world famous magical street. He wished that he still stood gawking at the green wall.

HubbaBubba dragged Merry to a big snow white building.

"This is a bank. Greengoodie-bank. It's goosy, I hate tha goblins who'se woerkin' here."

They were meeting two bubbly glad creatures at the door, who instantly sent them in, while they coaxed them into accepting green caramels. Merry ate, because he was self destructive and dumb. The allergic shock which followed was one of his worst. After an epileptic attack, he woke up from one of the goblins motherly and generally charitably dabbing his forehead.

"Are ye done nowe, ye little goosy sissy?" HubbaBubba griped, while he stared despiteful in the direction of the poor innocent goblins. He rolled out his tongue at one of them, who really got his feelings hurt and ran to the toilet, where he wailed for two hours, while another goblin did his best to comfort the wimp.

HubbaBubba threw a rusty key in the eye of another goblin, and ordered it to take them to the vault of Poppis. There they found out that it was the wrong key, because HubbaBubba was a clumsy, failed loser who could not even keep track of a damn key. He gripped the goblin's shirt and lifted him abruptly about three meters up in-flight.

"NOW YE OPEN!" he yelled in the goblin's ear with all his power. The goblin, who thereafter would be known as Deaf Al, nodded panicky, and opened with help of the eye scanner. They stepped inside. Merry was yet again unimpressed. The piles of gold did not astound him at all.

"No pumpkins", he established with apparent disappointment in his voice.

HubbaBubba immediately began, very indiscreetly, to fill his pockets with money, but due to the fact that he was not that smart he took the little bronze knuts (which had a very small value) instead of the gold galleons or the diamonds in the corner.

Later, when they had filled their pockets with Merry's money, and HubbaBubba taken out a secret package from another vault whose content he flat refused to show, asked Merry if he could call HubbaBubba for HB which he assumed he could since HB:s grunt sounded positive.

They bought a lot of things on the list, like books and crap like that. Then HB walked away somewhere, so Merry went into a clothing store by himself. There a hag pinned a Frogwarts dress on him. Thereafter she sutured the dress and pricked Merry with the needle several times. To distract himself from the pain, Merry greeted another ill-fated man-child who was standing a few meters from there.

"Hello", Merry said.

"How do you do, my name is Mallboy, Dragqueen Mallboy." The boy handed Merry a visiting card, "Please call me Mallboy, as I have to avow that I despise my forename, and that I accuse my parents in my darker moments."

"Okeeey… the interest club's taking notes", said Merry scornfully, but still took the visiting card, so that he would be able to phone terrorise Mallboy's parents later. "I'm Merry Poppis."

The other boy looked impressed, but Merry did not get why so he ignored it.

"Wooow, just… WOOOW… WOOOOOOW, seriously, are you JOKING? Seriously? Do you mean it? Is it TRUE??? Ohh, ohmygod I have to sit down… Oh my LORD, I, I mean I get to meet MERRY POPPIS!!! I cannot believe my eyes, it is totally PEERLEEESS!" By this time Mallboy had gone berserk, and jumped enthusiastically around the shop, hollering, and shouting "MERRY POPPIS! OMG, OMG!!!"

Merry thought that the boy was ridiculing him, so left. (Later HB had to go get the clothes for him.)

Merry went out to the window peeking HB, who was snacking an enormous ice cream cone.

"Can I taste? Pleeeaaase…?"

"Hell no. My ice cream. Here ye get a flamingo instead. It reminds me ofe ye. Goosy and sucha like."

Merry received the fowl without thanking or making any other gesture resembling politeness, then they went off to Olive-Anders' olive and wand store.

A very old, frail and mouldering geezer met them in the doorway. "Olives or wands?"

"Wand, please", said Merry with an unusually polite tone.

The geezer tossed the nearest wand to him. "Try this one."

Merry waved a little with the stick. An octopus appeared on Olive-Anders' head.

"Seems to work, take it."

"I don't like it, can't I try another one?"

"Cope. This will do. Take it, pay, and do not come back."

Merry paid the stiff price, and strode away, disgruntled as usual.

A bit later, when Merry had bought himself a hamburger, he sat down on a bench where HB sat as he poked hard at Merry's flamingo with a fork. The flamingo howled chirpingly as HB sniggered unexacting.

"By the way, HB, why did it seem like the people at The hot cauldron recognize me?" wondered Merry, who had reflected on that the entire day.

"You're kinda famous or somethin'", HB said.

"Any particular reason? Some more details, thank you!"

"OK OK, I tell ye da whole story to ye then", sighed HB, "Okey… For so-so 10 years agoe there was a terrorist geezer named Lord Violenty, who tried to take over da world. He was quita crummy in da beginnin', but fore some reason many thought that he was charmin' so they joined hisa club. Lord Violenty o co did a lot ofe monkey business; they stole people's mail, set cats on fire, vandalized, scribbled and killed people who opposed 'em. But one day he decided to kill yer family, dono why, I mean, yer parents were real losers. Anyway he killed 'em, but he was so clumsy that he failed to survive himself. No one knows why. It's why everyone thinks you're a special kid and a hero. Suckers."

"But what happened with Lord Violenty?"

"Most people thinks he died cuz no one has seen him since thata time. But I don't believe in that. It's kinda obvious that he's alive. He probably was sorcerised to a polah bear and lives on the North Pole or at a zoo."

HB got up. "But now I've had enough of ye, brat." He threw a crumpled scrap of paper to Merry. "Here's yer ticket. Now I'm outta here." He rolled out his tongue and took off.

Merry unwrapped the scrip. It was a rail card. Not back home though but to Frogwarts, so he had to get home by himself.

But since Merry was a spoiled little brat he of course had a luxurious cell phone, so he just called his uncle.