by John Mason and Eliza Brooks
Warning: what follows is an example of the strange side of both authors (truthfully, it's mostly Eliza's strangeness). Just in case you're wondering, we weren't on drugs when we wrote it. (We teenagers are crazy enough without them.) Enjoy.
Once upon a time, there was a family of rabbits, who lived in a hollow tree. (Wait a minute! This sounds just like another familiar story opening!) Their mother's name was Mommy and she was very kind and sweet. Their father's name was Grime, and he had no interest except in his bottles of whiskey, for he had gone mad. He could often be heard smashing his bottles on the window sill and screaming. Their only other relative was an aunt, their father's sister, who was a witch.
So you can see that their situation was not so great, all in all. Of course their mother's kindness was a balm of comfort in this time of distress.
Now one day the children were playing outside when they suddenly saw their aunt (the witch) picking huckleberries.
"Come here, little nephews and nieces," she called. "Come pick huckleberries with me!"
"Don't! Don't!" shouted Edgar, the oldest and smartest, for he knew that a witch could mean no good.
But of course the other children weren't smart enough to think for themeselves, so they listened.
As they came over, the witch gave Edgar a strange look, and the instant the children touched the huckleberries, they vanished. (Which vanished, I wonder? The huckleberries, or the children? Oh well.)
"No!" screamed Edgar. "You can't do this to us! Mother will be heartbroken!" He burst into tears and buried his face in his hands.
The witch only sneered. "I will give them back to you."
Edgar perked up instantly. "Really?"
"Yes," she said in a sick honey-coated voice. "All you have to do is go to the old great stump for me. There you will find a bottle of green liquid. Bring it to me and I'll bring back your siblings."
You might like to know at this point what was happening in Edgar's mind. As it was, he was torn between two equally unacceptable alternatives: losing his siblings and obeying the order of a witch. He hesitated.
Stop. This might be a good time to tell you that the characters in this story are not rabbits. They are human's. What a short memory I have! I forgot what they were after I wrote the first paragraph! Anyway, back to Edgar's dilemma.
After a brief struggle he said, "All right. I accept."
"Good," said the witch with a smirk. Edgar headed off toward the stump, thinking all the while of his sblings' release.
It wasn't far to the stump. It was quite a wide stump in th middle of a a great open clearing. Edgar immediately spotted the bottle; the luminosity of the liquid within betrayed it easily. He knew that the contents of this bottle were probably something harmful, but he had to save his brothers and sisters, and there was no other way.
So, slowly and tentatively, he stepped up to the stump, leaned down, and picked up the bottle.
Meanwhile, Mommy was calling out of doors for her children. She was in quite a panic. "Edgar, Philip, Socrates, Plato?! Where are you?!!" (Wait a minute. I thought that this woman had daughters. She
did, till now, at the whim of the authors.)
In the midst of her frenetic perambulations across the yard and through the house she heard a voice say, "Mommy, is that you?"
She stopped dead in her tracks. "Edgar, is that you?!!"
"No, it's Grime, my love," said a voice from behind her. Mommy turned to see her husband Grime, sane and normal again.
By the way, disregard what I said earlier. The people in this story are not humans. They're elephants. Anyway.
"Grime!!" Mommy trumpeted in elephantine tones, and threw herself into his embrace. (Have you ever seen elephants embrace? It's a disaster at worst, and a problematic business at best.)
After she had calmed down somewhat, Mommy said, "Grime, the chldren are missing."
"Oh no! I bet she's got them!" cried Grime.
"Who?" asked Mommy fearfully.
"The witch! The terrible, horrible witch!"
"Grime," said Mommy, "Maybe you're not quite entirely sane yet."
"Dearest, I
am entirely sane. Where is my sword? I must save the children from her evil cutches!!"
(Can you imagine an elephant wielding a sword? I certainly can't.)
"I'll give you your sword only if I can go with you, dear."
"Very well, sweet."
Meanwhile Edgar was on his way to the witch with the bottle in his hands. Hands??? Elephants don't have hands!! Oh yeah, I might as well tell you that the people in this story are not elephants at all; they're flies. Back to the point.
Edgar handed over the bottle to his aunt. She smiled, and it vanished. At the same moment, his brothers reappeared beside him.
"You can go home now, sweetie," buzzed the witch-fly; and she also vanished.
Edgar walked home with his brothers, thinking, "I Should tell Mommy about Auntie." But when he got home, neither his mother nor his father were anywhere to be found. This nearly sent Edgar into a panic. Placing his brothers at home under the care of the second-eldest, Socrates, he ran in search of the witch.
He struck out for the huckleberry bushes since it was there that his aunt had first appeared. When he arrived, he found that his guess was correct. His aunt was standing by the huckleberry bushes, striking a typical witch pose, with a crow perched on her shoulder.
Now wait half a minute! A crow? Perched on a fly's shoulder?? How could we account for such an impossibilty? Forget what I said earlier. These people are not flies. They're blue whales.
"Where are my parents?" whaled Edgar in the most demanding tone.
"Hidden away in a safe place, dear," the whale-witch sang in answer.
"Give them back!"
"Calm down and be patient, dear. I just need you to run a little errand for me."
Before Edgar can protest that he cannot
run any errands, (his large bulk being ill suited for such a purpose, especially on land), I might as well tell you that these people are not whales; they're clams.
"What must I do?" asked Edgar.
"All you've got to do is go get my other bottle from the stump. It's a black one. Just bring it to me and put it in my hands." (As if she had any.)
So Edgar went to do her bidding. (How he accomplished it, I have no clue.)
While he was gone, the witch began to talk softly and sweetly to her crow, which had re-perched itself on her upper shell.
"The moment he touches the bottle, his parents will be released miles away, just as I planned." She chuckled, swirling the sand around in her mouth. "And the moment he puts the bottle in my hands, he will be in my power!" she screeched with glee.
"His father, that stupid old oaf, fell into this trap years ago. But he's too old now for my purposes. I need a youth, yes, my pet, yes, sweet!"
Presently, Edgar returned bearing the bottle of black liquid--wait, clams don't have hands. I guess I lied. These people are praying mantises. But let's get on with the story.
Just as he was about to place the bottle in the witches hands, his father rushed out of the bushes with his sword, knocked the bottle out of Edgar's hands and smashed it on the ground. The moment Edgar was safe, Mommy rushed out of her own hiding place and embraced her son.
"How did you get here so fast?!" shrieked the witch.
"I dunno," answered Grime. He then brandished his sword, prepared to wallop off the witch's head.
The witch shrieked to the crow for help, but she had forgotten that she was now a praying mantise, and that crows generally like to eat members of her species. This crow, when she called it, fixed its eye on her, and suddenly took it into his head that the small bug at his feet looked delicious. Snap!! The witch was gone.
So you see that the story has a happy ending (for the crow, especially, for his little snack was delectable). Now I know that you're all smart readers. You knew that the people in this story weren't rabbits or humans or elephants or flies or blue whales or clams or praying mantises or any of that sort. No, I'm sure you knew they were pizza boxes all along!
Finis
