Tolkien parody
From: rfd@po.CWRU.Edu (Richard F. Drushel)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Parody of "The Scouring of the Shire" chapter of LOTR
Date: 10 Dec 1992 06:06:22 GMT
Message-ID: <1g6mouINNsur@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Lines: 418
The following is a complement to my previously-appearing parody
of Appendix A in the style of "Bored of the Rings". This text is
inserted before the original final chapter "Be It Ever So Horrid".
Some of the sentences in the first four paragraphs are "borrowed" from
the original text, with new material interspersed. The entire chapter
"This Is The Way We Scrub Our Stye" and the three paragraphs of the
revised chapter "Be It Ever So Horrid" are my own invention. The original
text of "Be It Ever So Horrid" resumes at the end. As in my Appendix A
parody, "Hoggit" and "Hoggiton" replace "Boggie" and "Boggietown".
I feel that this ending and my parody of Appendix A serve to
round out an otherwise complete parody of "The Lord of the Rings". I
hope you enjoy it.
************************************************************************
ALTERNATE ENDING TO "BORED OF THE RINGS" BY THE HARVARD LAMPOON
A Parody of "The Scouring of the Shire"
in "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
(c) 1992 by Richard F. Drushel
with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien and The Harvard Lampoon
So it was that the Great Ring was unmade and Sorhed's power
destroyed forever. Arrowroot son of Arrowshirt and E'orache were soon
wedded, and everybody who was anybody in Lower Middle Earth attended the
wedding. Gladwrapiel and Cellophane came, as did Orlon Half-Witted and
his beautiful daughter, the Lady Arwench. At the reception, Goodgulf
the Wizard blessed the newlyweds, prophesying that eight monocled and
helmeted offspring would soon be smashing the palace furniture. Pleased
by this unexpected news, the King generously made Goodgulf Wizard
Without Portfolio to the newly-conquered Fordorian lands and gave him a
fat expense account, to be voided only if he ever decided to set foot
back in Twodor.
Not a few observers noted the lascivious glances that passed
between the King and the Lady Arwench soon after the Wizard's
benediction. Several weeks later, on one of the darkest days ever to
dawn in Twodor, Queen E'orache was found dead at her breakfast table,
stabbed as she fell over backwards onto a dozen salad forks. Some of
the historians of the realm remarked upon the similarity between the
Queen's demise and that of King Chloroplast the Green; a few who had the
temerity to do so publicly mysteriously disappeared, and the rest took
the hint. The Lady Arwench, properly veiled and attired in a respectful
black mourning swimsuit, stood next to Arrowroot at the funeral; and
when the beefy Queen of Twodor and Roi-Tan was securely walled up in her
crypt, her favorite bull merino lovingly embalmed at her side, Arrowroot
proudly announced his betrothal to the fair Elf-maiden. Orlon her
father kicked up his heels in sorrow, for by her choice she was sundered
from the Auld Elves, and their parting extended beyond the end of the
world.
King Arrowroot now set about the reorganisation of his realm. To
E'orwax, the late E'orache's cousin and now King of the Rubbermark, he
sent a rich weregild of sheep-dip and nose-plugs; and in return E'orwax
renewed the Oath of Churl, the promise of fealty and non-aggression
first sworn long ago by Churl the Dumb to Carrion, eleventh Steward of
Twodor. To Gimlet the Dwarf, Arrowroot granted a scrap-metal franchise
on Sorhed's surplus war engines. To Legolam the Elf, he granted the
right to rename Chikken Noodul "Ringland" and run the souvenir
concession at the Zazu Pitts. Lastly, to the four Hoggits he gave the
Royal Handshake, and one-way tickets aboard Gwanho back to the Stye.
Of Sorhed, little was heard again, though if he returned, Arrowroot
promised him full amnesty and an executive position in Twodor's defense
labs. Of the Ballhog and Schlob little was heard either, but local
gossips reported that wedding bells were only centuries away. Of
Serutan the defrocked Wizard there was no word, however, and Isinglass
lay deserted and silent.
THIS IS THE WAY WE SCRUB OUR STYE
It was but a short time after Arrowroot's second wedding that
Frito, Spam, Moxie, and Pepsi, still clad in their tattered
Elven-cloaks, wearily trod the familiar yellow-brick Inter-Shire
Turnpath back to Hoggiton. The flight from Twodor had been swift, and
apart from some air pockets and a mid-air collision with a gaggle of
migrating flamingoes, was quite uneventful.
As the Hoggits strolled up to the City Gates, they were greeted by
an astounding sight. Hoggiton, in their absence, had been transformed.
Orderly streets with well-paved sidewalks now lay where meandering,
muddy ruts had once run. Rows of newly-painted houses with whitewashed
fences, neat gardens, and trimmed hedges replaced the squalid, filthy
hovels of Bug End. And everything was clean--even the pebbles at their
feet smelled of Lemon Pledge and glistened in the afternoon sun.
"W-w-what's happened to the Stye?" gibbered Moxie, his jaw wagging
like a rusty hinge.
"Yes, what?" chimed Pepsi, retrieving his astonished eyeballs from
where they had fallen at his feet.
"There's been deviltry at work here, and no mistake," said Spam,
thoughtfully scratching his backside.
At that moment, a group of uniformed Hoggits marched smartly out of
the guardhouse at the Gate and surrounded the travellers with a ring of
glittering, razor-sharp putty knives.
"What business brings ye to our humble country, O strangers?" said
a chain-mailed guardsman sporting a tin watering-can upon his head. "We
are not over-fond of outlandish folk at our borders in these troubled
times."
Spam peered warily at the soldier. "Why, you oughta know Spam
Gangree from no strangers, Clotty Peristalt," he cried, "nor Master
Frito Bugger, nor Masters Pepsi nor Moxie neither."
"Aye," said Clotty gravely, "I ken who ye be; but Rules are Rules,
and since ye have come from Outside, therefore ye be Strangers, and
subject to proper Query and Challenge, By The Book."
"By The Book indeed!" snorted Spam. "What kind o' tom-foolery is
this, anyhow? Hoity-toity-talkin' guards at the Gate, new paint on
ev'ry house, no potholes in the streets--what's Hoggiton coming to these
days? You never were much o' one for regiments an' regularity, Master
Peristalt--'ceptin' in meals an' stools, o' course."
Clotty looked sheepishly at the ground. "Aw shucks, Spam," he
whispered, "things is differ'nt now since..." He cleared his throat,
and his voice changed, as if he were reciting lessons learned by rote.
"We are now much better off than at any other time in our history.
Efficient planning and resource allocation have allowed the Stye to
become a model of peaceful, harmonious, and productive society for all
Lower Middle Earth. We must not allow undesirable outside influences to
disturb our prosperity."
Frito, who had been silently taking all this in, suddenly spoke up.
"I think I have the answer," he said as a 25-watt light bulb appeared
over his head. "Look there." Frito pointed a quivering finger at the
bright insignia on the guardsmen's trashcan-lid shields. It was a
Dragon's head, tongue a-loll in an idiotic grin, with great round ears
like black bowling balls...
"Aiyee!" screamed Moxie. "It's Dickey Dragon!"
"And that means that Serutan the Wizard is at work here in the
Stye," said Frito.
"But I thought Goodgulf had expelled him from the Magician's
Union," said Pepsi. "His pitchfork was broken."
"Serutan has many powers besides magic, or so Goodgulf told me,"
explained Frito. "He still has his persuasive voice, and around here
that seems to have been quite sufficient."
Spam stamped his foot. "Well, I may be naught but a simple-minded
Hoggit, but I'm not gonna set aroun' here an' let some two-bit ex-Wizard
tell me how I'm gonna live. No sir, I'll not *stand* fer it!"
"Then *sit*, traitor," said Clotty Peristalt sternly. "For such
talk is slander against the State, and the penalty is Death, By The
Book." The ring of soldiers began to close in upon the Hoggits.
"O snap out of it already!" snapped Spam, tweaking Clotty's
pock-marked nose. "All this law an' order an' such, it just ain't
nacherl fer Hoggits t' live that way. Tell me, Master Peristalt, how
many baths ha' they made ya take in the last week?"
"Seven," admitted Clotty.
"An' how many times didja hafta change yer underwear?"
"Seven."
"An' brush yer teeth?"
"Seven again."
"An' you like that, Master Peristalt?"
There were a few seconds of ominous silence, then a terrible cry
erupted. "No!" shouted Clotty. "I'm sick an' tired of it! I hate it!
I hate it!"
"Well," began Frito slyly, "if you dislike it so much, why don't
you, like, uh, put a stop to it, y'know?"
"Like, uh, revolt," suggested Spam.
"Like, uh, rebel," prompted Moxie.
"Like, uh, have a revolution, y'know," added Pepsi.
Clotty pondered long in silence. Finally, the single relay that
was his brain gave an audible KLUNK! and he looked up decisively.
"Revolution it is!" he cried. "Down with the New Order! No more
dieting! No more garbage collection!" The other guardsmen stared at
him stupidly; but then their own mental relays tripped in a flurry of
clunks that sounded like flashbulbs popping at a presidential press
conference, and they joined in with subversive outbursts of their own,
like "No by gosh, we won't wash" and "We love our toxic waste." Frito
pointed the aroused Hoggits in the general direction of the Town Square,
and they set off, each one firmly resolved to wrest his right to be
slothful and slovenly from the do-gooder government. All except for
Pepsi, who had to go poo-poo and was looking for the nearest filling
station.
As the band of rabble-rousers marched through the streets of
Hoggiton, the townsfolk peered curiously out of their spotless windows,
muttered to themselves about the shameful decadence of modern society,
and promptly joined ranks. By the time they reached the Town Square,
nearly three hundred (give or take a thousand) swearing, shouting, and
spitball-shooting Hoggits were calling for the impeachment (and the
head) of the Mayor.
"The Mayor?" said Frito incredulously. "You don't mean that good
old Warty Fastbuck has got anything to do with this?"
"Warty ain't the Mayor no more," said Clotty. "He got voted out
last Arbour Day, tho' it was one o' the fishiest elections I ever seen.
You an' I both know that there ain't but nobody in the Stye dumb enough
t' want the job o' Mayor 'ceptin' ole Warty, so nacherly there warn't
nobody but Warty on the ballot--that I'll swear on a heap o' stingwort.
I warn't the onliest one t' be plumb pooped outa me pants when we opens
the ballot-box and sees that ev'ry vote cast was fer somebody named
Shark-eye. Ev'ry one! As the whole Board o' Elections is standin'
around scratchin' its armpits an' wonderin' what's the deal, in walks
some tall feller in a red Union-suit, claimin' t' be this very Shark-eye
an' demandin' t' be sworn in as Mayor."
"So what happened?" asked Frito.
"Well, the Board tried t' disallow his claim, on account o' he
hadn't filed no petitions t' get hisself ont' the ballot in the first
place. But Shark-eye says, 'Why, most certainly I filed the proper
petitions. Why don't you just go and look yourself?' So Dungo
Liverflap, head o' the Board, opens up his filin' cabinet, an' what does
he pull out but a proper signed petition, all dated, stamped, sealed and
official-like! I don't remember ever seein' no such petition--but right
there on it was my very own X-mark, jes' like I always scrawl it; an'
lotsa other folks' X-marks was there, too. So by an' by the Board says,
'We don't rightly remember any o' this, but all the papers is here, fair
an' square. Papers don't lie, so we musta elected this Shark-eye
Mayor!' An' ole Dungo Liverflap pulls out The Book an' swears Shark-eye
in right then an' there!"
"But what happened to Warty?" asked Frito.
"Nobody rightly knows," said Clotty with a shudder. "After
Shark-eye took over, things started t' change around here mighty quick.
All the garbage was t' be picked up, folks couldn't have no run-down
houses no more, the streets was all levelled off an' paved. Shark-eye
gets some o' these renegade Elf interior-decorator-types in t'
bee-yootify the town, an' sooner'n you can snarf a watermelon, droves of
architects are swarmin' in, a-goo-gooin' an' a-ga-gain' over this an'
that, handin' out medals an' ribbons an' awards an' such fer such purty
designin'. Yecch! Whadda all those egg-heads come up with? That
simperin' Dickey Dragon character, who's s'posed t' be the 'yoonifyin'
theme' fer the Stye, so we sees his face plastered everywheres, from
lamp-posts t' garbage-cans. The reg'lar Hoggit-folk begun t' get a bit
upset, seein' as how the Mayor o' the Stye ain't really s'posed t' do
very much in the way of actual govermint, an' Shark-eye was doin' more
than the last fifty Mayors ever had nightmares about doin'. So ole
Warty Fastbuck, he stands up an' says, ''Nuff's enuff!' Next thing
y'know they're buildin' a bypass straight through Warty's bedroom, an'
Warty hisself is hauled off t' the Black Holes for violatin' some Rule
or other. A couple days later, Shark-eye puts up a flag on top o' City
Hall, bearin' a remarkable resemblance t' ole Warty; not surprisin',
since it was ole Warty, or his skin rather. After that, folks got
mighty co-operative with Shark-eye, seein' as how back-talk was bein'
dealt with; so we've gotten neat, an' clean, an' even ar-tick-yoo-late.
Not willingly, mind you, but discretion is the better part o' stayin'
alive, as we say in the Stye."
Frito looked up, fearfully expecting to see the grim remnants of
the late Mayor still fluttering from the flagpole. A hideous vulture
was perched at the top of the pole, licking its beak hungrily, but only
a white Dickey Dragon pennant waved idly in the breeze.
The crowd of Hoggits in the Town Square was growing even more rowdy
and boisterous. They pelted the windows of City Hall with apple cores,
old sweatsocks, and the contents of chamber-pots. Dickey Dragon posters
and billboards were obscenely defaced, and Dickey Dragon dolls were
burnt in effigy. Moxie and Pepsi, their faces flushed with excitement
and ale, stood on the front steps and led the riotous mob in a loud
protest song:
"Who's the wielder of the club
That bludgeons you and me?
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Hi-dee-hi-dee-ho there!
Who has caused our misery?
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Dickey Dragon! (Shark-eye sucks!)
Dickey Dragon! (Shark-eye sucks!)
Forever let us hang the Mayor high, high, HIGH, HIGH!
Come along and sing our song
And join the massacree!
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Diiieeeeeeee Dickey! Diieeeeeeee Dickey!
Diiieeeeeeee Shark-eye the lousy Mayor!"
As the fired-up Hoggits were about to begin another rousing chorus,
there was a bright flash of light, and a billowing cloud of greenish
smoke emanated from the second-floor balcony of the City Hall. Moxie
and Pepsi ran screaming from the steps, and the rebellious crowd fell
back speechless, all eyes aloft in terror. As the smoke cleared, the
Hoggits could see a tall figure clad in a glowing red Union suit
standing at the balcony railing. His long, barbed tail thrashed back
and forth like that of a wary, stalking cat; St. Elmo's fire danced from
the points of his polished black horns. He stroked his pointed goatee
with the air of a philosopher counting angels on the head of a pin, and
his rude cackle echoed through the silent Square.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," he cackled.
"Aiyee!" shrieked Clotty, "it's Mayor Shark-eye!"
"Serutan, you s-s-stinkin' worm!" yelled Spam, trying to keep his
knees from knocking. "H-h-how dare you come b-back here an' ruin our
S-s-stye?"
The defrocked Wizard put up his hand in a gesture of resigned
annoyance. "Well, well, Master Spam Gangree," he said mockingly. "I am
indeed most sorry that you do not approve of the recent, shall we say,
improvements? which I have so generously brought about here in this
charming homeland of yours. However, I do not believe I asked you for
*your* opinion."
Spam's unprintable retort died in his throat as Serutan slowly
clenched his fist. Spam's larynx closed off, his tongue clove to the
roof of his mouth, and he was stricken dumb.
"And if it isn't the two idiots, Moronoduc Dingleberry and Paraffin
Gook," sneered Serutan, unable to conceal his scorn. "I truly marvel
that your pitiful brains are even able to keep your hearts beating and
your lungs breathing at the same time. Goodgulf Greyteeth must be
stupider than I thought if he would willingly concern himself with the
likes of you." Serutan crossed his arms and blinked, and suddenly their
hearts stopped beating, and their diaphragms were paralysed. Yet,
remarkably, they did not fall dead, though whether by the force of the
Wizard's spell or the natural indifference of Hoggit physiology to
asphyxiation could not be said.
Grinning evilly, Serutan cast his mesmeric gaze upon Frito, who
squirmed like a bowlful of tapeworms. "Hail the Ring-Bearer, the
estimable Frito son of Dorito!" His soothing words oozed with honey and
cyclamates. "To you we owe a great debt of thanks for so courageously
and expeditiously disposing of foul Sorhed. Long have the free peoples
of Lower Middle Earth awaited the downfall of the Barnyard-do^r! I
grieve that your finding me here distresses you. But those who leave
home and return oftentimes find that life has gone on without them, and
it's 'on your feet, lose your seat,' as they say in the Stye." He
chuckled aloud.
Frito struggled to speak. "This is our home," he said brokenly,
fighting off the Wizard's spell. "We liked it the way it was, however
rustic and inefficient you think it might have been. We don't like what
you've done here, we certainly don't like Dickey Dragon, and we
absolutely positively don't like you, Serutan, or Shark-eye or whatever
you want to call yourself. Just go away and leave us alone! Besides,
the Magician's Union could get pretty testy if they find out you've been
practicing black magic without a licence."
At this the defrocked Wizard became enraged. He stamped his cloven
feet, swung his barbed tail around his head like a lasso, and began to
foam at the mouth. "Testy?" he spat, "I'll show you testy! You
pathetic little rodents! How dare you mock the power of Serutan the
Great, Keeper of the Dark Flame and Lord of Hocus-Pocus? I am the Mayor
of the Stye, and I am the Master here!"
Serutan drew himself up to a set, looked in for the sign, then
wound up and fired a screaming strike of glittering ball lightning right
at Frito. Frito tried to get out of the way, but the vicious 95 MPH
fastball caught him belt-high in the gut, knocked him off his feet, and
burst into flames. "I'm done for now," thought Frito as the hair on his
belly began to singe, "so what the heck." He began to scream bloody
murder.
Spam, Moxie and Pepsi each tried desperately to move toward Frito,
but the Wizard still held them in his iron grip. The rest of the Hoggit
crowd began to disperse, needing no further convincing as to who was
Boss in the Stye; and Serutan laughed approvingly from his balcony, and
turned to leave Frito to his fiery fate.
Suddenly a buck-toothed little girl wearing a
blue-and-white-checked gingham dress and ruby-red slippers, with a mangy
runt of a dog yapping at her heels, came rushing in with an old oaken
bucket full of water. She ran over to Frito, reared back, and clumsily
slopped the contents of the bucket in his general direction. She missed
him completely, but the spray of water sloshed up onto the balcony of
the City Hall, drenching Serutan instead.
"Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!" screamed the Wizard. "Now look what
you've done!"
As the Hoggits watched in horror, streams of smoke and steamy
vapours began to rise from Serutan's body. "I'm melting! I'm melting!"
he wailed as he dwindled and shrank and oozed away into a puddle,
leaving only his robes, horns, and hooves behind him. The dreadful
slime rolled over the edge of the balcony, where it dripped onto the
steps of City Hall, eating deep pits into the marble steps.
"My! People certainly do come and go around here!" spoke the
little girl, picking up her dog, who was lapping at the hissing goo.
Spam, Moxie, and Pepsi found that they could move once again. They
cautiously approached the steps, staring up at the smoking balcony. As
the rivulets of melted Wizard dropped a black horn onto the fizzling
steps, the trio flushed with realization and incontinence. "Serutan is
dead!" they cried joyfully.
"Shark-eye is dead! Hurray!" shouted the rest of the Hoggits,
throwing caps and diplomas into the air. "Long live the Stye! Long
live the little buck-toothed girl!" The crowd grabbed the girl, hoisted
her up on their shoulders, and began to march around the Square, singing
"Ding-dong! The Shark-eye's dead!" They also grabbed the little dog;
but of this we will say no more.
"But what about Frito?" said Moxie, glancing at Pepsi.
"Yeah, Frito?" said Pepsi, glancing at Moxie.
"Frito!" gasped Spam, glancing in horror at the crackling blaze
that was his master. "Oops, almost forgot." He grabbed the bucket,
filled it from a convenient horse-trough, and dashed it over the fire.
Remembering his Hoggit Scout training, he stirred the smouldering embers
thoroughly, then shovelled fresh dirt onto the ashes. "Lo, Master
Frito," called Spam hopefully, "are ya okay?"
The mound of dirt stirred. Two blackened hands were thrust up, and
then an amorphous mass rose and opened its mouth. "Yes, Spam," said
Frito Bugger's voice, "I'm okay."
Spam grinned weakly.
"But when I get my hands on you, you won't be!" screamed Frito,
his clenched fingers lunging for Spam's throat. Spam turned in terror
and sped across the Square, with Frito right behind him, cutting loose
with a stream of choice epithets which even old Uncle Bimbo, after years
of four-letter Scrabble, could not have matched. The two Hoggits
vanished in the distance, but Frito's angry shouts rang out even above
the din of the celebration in the Square.
Moxie and Pepsi exchanged "What, me worry?" looks. "So what's
eatin' Frito?" asked Moxie.
"Yeah, eatin'?" echoed Pepsi.
BE IT EVER SO HORRID
The next few weeks in the Stye were filled with both celebrating
and cleaning up the mess that Serutan had left behind. Actually,
"cleaning up" is not the word for it, since most of the evil Wizard's
reforms had consisted of picking up trash, closing open cesspools and
the like, and the Hoggits were only too glad to return to their former,
squalid habits. Soon the gutters of Hoggiton were crawling again with
flies and mosquito larvae, and everybody agreed that things were pretty
much back to normal.
The dim-witted little girl whose errant bucket toss had resulted
in the dissolution of Serutan was hailed as the saviour of the Stye and
was richly rewarded. The Hoggits held a great feast in her honour, at
which they presented her a gleaming golden statuette cunningly engraved
with adulations, valedictories, and Variety headlines. The Hoggits
begged her to stay and be Queen of the May, but she said something about
a prior engagement with a Scarecrow at a Tin Woodsman's house and she
really ought to be on her way. After a tearful good-bye, the girl and
her runty dog skipped off down the yellow-brick Inter-Shire Turnpath,
and were not heard from again.
In the meantime, Frito Bugger lay in bed at Bug End, wrapped like
a mummy in Vaseline gauze, nursing the third-degree burns which covered
95% of his body. Spam Gangree hovered tenderly over him, nursing some
third-degree injuries of his own. Two purpled eyes and a crooked nose
were grim reminders of Frito's fierce (and completely uncharacteristic)
rage, though Spam had quite forgiven his master.
[resume original text]
--
Richard F. Drushel ****** Ph.D. in Developmental Biology as of 4:45 PM 9211.20
rfd@po.cwru.edu ** Cleveland FreeNet ** Co-Sysop, Coleco ADAM Forum ** Go Z80!
"The bright and blinding sunlight shines so hotly on the trash-heaps that mere
undigested food and snotty Kleenex flow as rivers of milk and honey." - c.5253
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Parody of "The Scouring of the Shire" chapter of LOTR
Date: 10 Dec 1992 06:06:22 GMT
Message-ID: <1g6mouINNsur@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Lines: 418
The following is a complement to my previously-appearing parody
of Appendix A in the style of "Bored of the Rings". This text is
inserted before the original final chapter "Be It Ever So Horrid".
Some of the sentences in the first four paragraphs are "borrowed" from
the original text, with new material interspersed. The entire chapter
"This Is The Way We Scrub Our Stye" and the three paragraphs of the
revised chapter "Be It Ever So Horrid" are my own invention. The original
text of "Be It Ever So Horrid" resumes at the end. As in my Appendix A
parody, "Hoggit" and "Hoggiton" replace "Boggie" and "Boggietown".
I feel that this ending and my parody of Appendix A serve to
round out an otherwise complete parody of "The Lord of the Rings". I
hope you enjoy it.
************************************************************************
ALTERNATE ENDING TO "BORED OF THE RINGS" BY THE HARVARD LAMPOON
A Parody of "The Scouring of the Shire"
in "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
(c) 1992 by Richard F. Drushel
with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien and The Harvard Lampoon
So it was that the Great Ring was unmade and Sorhed's power
destroyed forever. Arrowroot son of Arrowshirt and E'orache were soon
wedded, and everybody who was anybody in Lower Middle Earth attended the
wedding. Gladwrapiel and Cellophane came, as did Orlon Half-Witted and
his beautiful daughter, the Lady Arwench. At the reception, Goodgulf
the Wizard blessed the newlyweds, prophesying that eight monocled and
helmeted offspring would soon be smashing the palace furniture. Pleased
by this unexpected news, the King generously made Goodgulf Wizard
Without Portfolio to the newly-conquered Fordorian lands and gave him a
fat expense account, to be voided only if he ever decided to set foot
back in Twodor.
Not a few observers noted the lascivious glances that passed
between the King and the Lady Arwench soon after the Wizard's
benediction. Several weeks later, on one of the darkest days ever to
dawn in Twodor, Queen E'orache was found dead at her breakfast table,
stabbed as she fell over backwards onto a dozen salad forks. Some of
the historians of the realm remarked upon the similarity between the
Queen's demise and that of King Chloroplast the Green; a few who had the
temerity to do so publicly mysteriously disappeared, and the rest took
the hint. The Lady Arwench, properly veiled and attired in a respectful
black mourning swimsuit, stood next to Arrowroot at the funeral; and
when the beefy Queen of Twodor and Roi-Tan was securely walled up in her
crypt, her favorite bull merino lovingly embalmed at her side, Arrowroot
proudly announced his betrothal to the fair Elf-maiden. Orlon her
father kicked up his heels in sorrow, for by her choice she was sundered
from the Auld Elves, and their parting extended beyond the end of the
world.
King Arrowroot now set about the reorganisation of his realm. To
E'orwax, the late E'orache's cousin and now King of the Rubbermark, he
sent a rich weregild of sheep-dip and nose-plugs; and in return E'orwax
renewed the Oath of Churl, the promise of fealty and non-aggression
first sworn long ago by Churl the Dumb to Carrion, eleventh Steward of
Twodor. To Gimlet the Dwarf, Arrowroot granted a scrap-metal franchise
on Sorhed's surplus war engines. To Legolam the Elf, he granted the
right to rename Chikken Noodul "Ringland" and run the souvenir
concession at the Zazu Pitts. Lastly, to the four Hoggits he gave the
Royal Handshake, and one-way tickets aboard Gwanho back to the Stye.
Of Sorhed, little was heard again, though if he returned, Arrowroot
promised him full amnesty and an executive position in Twodor's defense
labs. Of the Ballhog and Schlob little was heard either, but local
gossips reported that wedding bells were only centuries away. Of
Serutan the defrocked Wizard there was no word, however, and Isinglass
lay deserted and silent.
THIS IS THE WAY WE SCRUB OUR STYE
It was but a short time after Arrowroot's second wedding that
Frito, Spam, Moxie, and Pepsi, still clad in their tattered
Elven-cloaks, wearily trod the familiar yellow-brick Inter-Shire
Turnpath back to Hoggiton. The flight from Twodor had been swift, and
apart from some air pockets and a mid-air collision with a gaggle of
migrating flamingoes, was quite uneventful.
As the Hoggits strolled up to the City Gates, they were greeted by
an astounding sight. Hoggiton, in their absence, had been transformed.
Orderly streets with well-paved sidewalks now lay where meandering,
muddy ruts had once run. Rows of newly-painted houses with whitewashed
fences, neat gardens, and trimmed hedges replaced the squalid, filthy
hovels of Bug End. And everything was clean--even the pebbles at their
feet smelled of Lemon Pledge and glistened in the afternoon sun.
"W-w-what's happened to the Stye?" gibbered Moxie, his jaw wagging
like a rusty hinge.
"Yes, what?" chimed Pepsi, retrieving his astonished eyeballs from
where they had fallen at his feet.
"There's been deviltry at work here, and no mistake," said Spam,
thoughtfully scratching his backside.
At that moment, a group of uniformed Hoggits marched smartly out of
the guardhouse at the Gate and surrounded the travellers with a ring of
glittering, razor-sharp putty knives.
"What business brings ye to our humble country, O strangers?" said
a chain-mailed guardsman sporting a tin watering-can upon his head. "We
are not over-fond of outlandish folk at our borders in these troubled
times."
Spam peered warily at the soldier. "Why, you oughta know Spam
Gangree from no strangers, Clotty Peristalt," he cried, "nor Master
Frito Bugger, nor Masters Pepsi nor Moxie neither."
"Aye," said Clotty gravely, "I ken who ye be; but Rules are Rules,
and since ye have come from Outside, therefore ye be Strangers, and
subject to proper Query and Challenge, By The Book."
"By The Book indeed!" snorted Spam. "What kind o' tom-foolery is
this, anyhow? Hoity-toity-talkin' guards at the Gate, new paint on
ev'ry house, no potholes in the streets--what's Hoggiton coming to these
days? You never were much o' one for regiments an' regularity, Master
Peristalt--'ceptin' in meals an' stools, o' course."
Clotty looked sheepishly at the ground. "Aw shucks, Spam," he
whispered, "things is differ'nt now since..." He cleared his throat,
and his voice changed, as if he were reciting lessons learned by rote.
"We are now much better off than at any other time in our history.
Efficient planning and resource allocation have allowed the Stye to
become a model of peaceful, harmonious, and productive society for all
Lower Middle Earth. We must not allow undesirable outside influences to
disturb our prosperity."
Frito, who had been silently taking all this in, suddenly spoke up.
"I think I have the answer," he said as a 25-watt light bulb appeared
over his head. "Look there." Frito pointed a quivering finger at the
bright insignia on the guardsmen's trashcan-lid shields. It was a
Dragon's head, tongue a-loll in an idiotic grin, with great round ears
like black bowling balls...
"Aiyee!" screamed Moxie. "It's Dickey Dragon!"
"And that means that Serutan the Wizard is at work here in the
Stye," said Frito.
"But I thought Goodgulf had expelled him from the Magician's
Union," said Pepsi. "His pitchfork was broken."
"Serutan has many powers besides magic, or so Goodgulf told me,"
explained Frito. "He still has his persuasive voice, and around here
that seems to have been quite sufficient."
Spam stamped his foot. "Well, I may be naught but a simple-minded
Hoggit, but I'm not gonna set aroun' here an' let some two-bit ex-Wizard
tell me how I'm gonna live. No sir, I'll not *stand* fer it!"
"Then *sit*, traitor," said Clotty Peristalt sternly. "For such
talk is slander against the State, and the penalty is Death, By The
Book." The ring of soldiers began to close in upon the Hoggits.
"O snap out of it already!" snapped Spam, tweaking Clotty's
pock-marked nose. "All this law an' order an' such, it just ain't
nacherl fer Hoggits t' live that way. Tell me, Master Peristalt, how
many baths ha' they made ya take in the last week?"
"Seven," admitted Clotty.
"An' how many times didja hafta change yer underwear?"
"Seven."
"An' brush yer teeth?"
"Seven again."
"An' you like that, Master Peristalt?"
There were a few seconds of ominous silence, then a terrible cry
erupted. "No!" shouted Clotty. "I'm sick an' tired of it! I hate it!
I hate it!"
"Well," began Frito slyly, "if you dislike it so much, why don't
you, like, uh, put a stop to it, y'know?"
"Like, uh, revolt," suggested Spam.
"Like, uh, rebel," prompted Moxie.
"Like, uh, have a revolution, y'know," added Pepsi.
Clotty pondered long in silence. Finally, the single relay that
was his brain gave an audible KLUNK! and he looked up decisively.
"Revolution it is!" he cried. "Down with the New Order! No more
dieting! No more garbage collection!" The other guardsmen stared at
him stupidly; but then their own mental relays tripped in a flurry of
clunks that sounded like flashbulbs popping at a presidential press
conference, and they joined in with subversive outbursts of their own,
like "No by gosh, we won't wash" and "We love our toxic waste." Frito
pointed the aroused Hoggits in the general direction of the Town Square,
and they set off, each one firmly resolved to wrest his right to be
slothful and slovenly from the do-gooder government. All except for
Pepsi, who had to go poo-poo and was looking for the nearest filling
station.
As the band of rabble-rousers marched through the streets of
Hoggiton, the townsfolk peered curiously out of their spotless windows,
muttered to themselves about the shameful decadence of modern society,
and promptly joined ranks. By the time they reached the Town Square,
nearly three hundred (give or take a thousand) swearing, shouting, and
spitball-shooting Hoggits were calling for the impeachment (and the
head) of the Mayor.
"The Mayor?" said Frito incredulously. "You don't mean that good
old Warty Fastbuck has got anything to do with this?"
"Warty ain't the Mayor no more," said Clotty. "He got voted out
last Arbour Day, tho' it was one o' the fishiest elections I ever seen.
You an' I both know that there ain't but nobody in the Stye dumb enough
t' want the job o' Mayor 'ceptin' ole Warty, so nacherly there warn't
nobody but Warty on the ballot--that I'll swear on a heap o' stingwort.
I warn't the onliest one t' be plumb pooped outa me pants when we opens
the ballot-box and sees that ev'ry vote cast was fer somebody named
Shark-eye. Ev'ry one! As the whole Board o' Elections is standin'
around scratchin' its armpits an' wonderin' what's the deal, in walks
some tall feller in a red Union-suit, claimin' t' be this very Shark-eye
an' demandin' t' be sworn in as Mayor."
"So what happened?" asked Frito.
"Well, the Board tried t' disallow his claim, on account o' he
hadn't filed no petitions t' get hisself ont' the ballot in the first
place. But Shark-eye says, 'Why, most certainly I filed the proper
petitions. Why don't you just go and look yourself?' So Dungo
Liverflap, head o' the Board, opens up his filin' cabinet, an' what does
he pull out but a proper signed petition, all dated, stamped, sealed and
official-like! I don't remember ever seein' no such petition--but right
there on it was my very own X-mark, jes' like I always scrawl it; an'
lotsa other folks' X-marks was there, too. So by an' by the Board says,
'We don't rightly remember any o' this, but all the papers is here, fair
an' square. Papers don't lie, so we musta elected this Shark-eye
Mayor!' An' ole Dungo Liverflap pulls out The Book an' swears Shark-eye
in right then an' there!"
"But what happened to Warty?" asked Frito.
"Nobody rightly knows," said Clotty with a shudder. "After
Shark-eye took over, things started t' change around here mighty quick.
All the garbage was t' be picked up, folks couldn't have no run-down
houses no more, the streets was all levelled off an' paved. Shark-eye
gets some o' these renegade Elf interior-decorator-types in t'
bee-yootify the town, an' sooner'n you can snarf a watermelon, droves of
architects are swarmin' in, a-goo-gooin' an' a-ga-gain' over this an'
that, handin' out medals an' ribbons an' awards an' such fer such purty
designin'. Yecch! Whadda all those egg-heads come up with? That
simperin' Dickey Dragon character, who's s'posed t' be the 'yoonifyin'
theme' fer the Stye, so we sees his face plastered everywheres, from
lamp-posts t' garbage-cans. The reg'lar Hoggit-folk begun t' get a bit
upset, seein' as how the Mayor o' the Stye ain't really s'posed t' do
very much in the way of actual govermint, an' Shark-eye was doin' more
than the last fifty Mayors ever had nightmares about doin'. So ole
Warty Fastbuck, he stands up an' says, ''Nuff's enuff!' Next thing
y'know they're buildin' a bypass straight through Warty's bedroom, an'
Warty hisself is hauled off t' the Black Holes for violatin' some Rule
or other. A couple days later, Shark-eye puts up a flag on top o' City
Hall, bearin' a remarkable resemblance t' ole Warty; not surprisin',
since it was ole Warty, or his skin rather. After that, folks got
mighty co-operative with Shark-eye, seein' as how back-talk was bein'
dealt with; so we've gotten neat, an' clean, an' even ar-tick-yoo-late.
Not willingly, mind you, but discretion is the better part o' stayin'
alive, as we say in the Stye."
Frito looked up, fearfully expecting to see the grim remnants of
the late Mayor still fluttering from the flagpole. A hideous vulture
was perched at the top of the pole, licking its beak hungrily, but only
a white Dickey Dragon pennant waved idly in the breeze.
The crowd of Hoggits in the Town Square was growing even more rowdy
and boisterous. They pelted the windows of City Hall with apple cores,
old sweatsocks, and the contents of chamber-pots. Dickey Dragon posters
and billboards were obscenely defaced, and Dickey Dragon dolls were
burnt in effigy. Moxie and Pepsi, their faces flushed with excitement
and ale, stood on the front steps and led the riotous mob in a loud
protest song:
"Who's the wielder of the club
That bludgeons you and me?
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Hi-dee-hi-dee-ho there!
Who has caused our misery?
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Dickey Dragon! (Shark-eye sucks!)
Dickey Dragon! (Shark-eye sucks!)
Forever let us hang the Mayor high, high, HIGH, HIGH!
Come along and sing our song
And join the massacree!
D-I-C
K-E-Y
O-U-S-O-B!
Diiieeeeeeee Dickey! Diieeeeeeee Dickey!
Diiieeeeeeee Shark-eye the lousy Mayor!"
As the fired-up Hoggits were about to begin another rousing chorus,
there was a bright flash of light, and a billowing cloud of greenish
smoke emanated from the second-floor balcony of the City Hall. Moxie
and Pepsi ran screaming from the steps, and the rebellious crowd fell
back speechless, all eyes aloft in terror. As the smoke cleared, the
Hoggits could see a tall figure clad in a glowing red Union suit
standing at the balcony railing. His long, barbed tail thrashed back
and forth like that of a wary, stalking cat; St. Elmo's fire danced from
the points of his polished black horns. He stroked his pointed goatee
with the air of a philosopher counting angels on the head of a pin, and
his rude cackle echoed through the silent Square.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," he cackled.
"Aiyee!" shrieked Clotty, "it's Mayor Shark-eye!"
"Serutan, you s-s-stinkin' worm!" yelled Spam, trying to keep his
knees from knocking. "H-h-how dare you come b-back here an' ruin our
S-s-stye?"
The defrocked Wizard put up his hand in a gesture of resigned
annoyance. "Well, well, Master Spam Gangree," he said mockingly. "I am
indeed most sorry that you do not approve of the recent, shall we say,
improvements? which I have so generously brought about here in this
charming homeland of yours. However, I do not believe I asked you for
*your* opinion."
Spam's unprintable retort died in his throat as Serutan slowly
clenched his fist. Spam's larynx closed off, his tongue clove to the
roof of his mouth, and he was stricken dumb.
"And if it isn't the two idiots, Moronoduc Dingleberry and Paraffin
Gook," sneered Serutan, unable to conceal his scorn. "I truly marvel
that your pitiful brains are even able to keep your hearts beating and
your lungs breathing at the same time. Goodgulf Greyteeth must be
stupider than I thought if he would willingly concern himself with the
likes of you." Serutan crossed his arms and blinked, and suddenly their
hearts stopped beating, and their diaphragms were paralysed. Yet,
remarkably, they did not fall dead, though whether by the force of the
Wizard's spell or the natural indifference of Hoggit physiology to
asphyxiation could not be said.
Grinning evilly, Serutan cast his mesmeric gaze upon Frito, who
squirmed like a bowlful of tapeworms. "Hail the Ring-Bearer, the
estimable Frito son of Dorito!" His soothing words oozed with honey and
cyclamates. "To you we owe a great debt of thanks for so courageously
and expeditiously disposing of foul Sorhed. Long have the free peoples
of Lower Middle Earth awaited the downfall of the Barnyard-do^r! I
grieve that your finding me here distresses you. But those who leave
home and return oftentimes find that life has gone on without them, and
it's 'on your feet, lose your seat,' as they say in the Stye." He
chuckled aloud.
Frito struggled to speak. "This is our home," he said brokenly,
fighting off the Wizard's spell. "We liked it the way it was, however
rustic and inefficient you think it might have been. We don't like what
you've done here, we certainly don't like Dickey Dragon, and we
absolutely positively don't like you, Serutan, or Shark-eye or whatever
you want to call yourself. Just go away and leave us alone! Besides,
the Magician's Union could get pretty testy if they find out you've been
practicing black magic without a licence."
At this the defrocked Wizard became enraged. He stamped his cloven
feet, swung his barbed tail around his head like a lasso, and began to
foam at the mouth. "Testy?" he spat, "I'll show you testy! You
pathetic little rodents! How dare you mock the power of Serutan the
Great, Keeper of the Dark Flame and Lord of Hocus-Pocus? I am the Mayor
of the Stye, and I am the Master here!"
Serutan drew himself up to a set, looked in for the sign, then
wound up and fired a screaming strike of glittering ball lightning right
at Frito. Frito tried to get out of the way, but the vicious 95 MPH
fastball caught him belt-high in the gut, knocked him off his feet, and
burst into flames. "I'm done for now," thought Frito as the hair on his
belly began to singe, "so what the heck." He began to scream bloody
murder.
Spam, Moxie and Pepsi each tried desperately to move toward Frito,
but the Wizard still held them in his iron grip. The rest of the Hoggit
crowd began to disperse, needing no further convincing as to who was
Boss in the Stye; and Serutan laughed approvingly from his balcony, and
turned to leave Frito to his fiery fate.
Suddenly a buck-toothed little girl wearing a
blue-and-white-checked gingham dress and ruby-red slippers, with a mangy
runt of a dog yapping at her heels, came rushing in with an old oaken
bucket full of water. She ran over to Frito, reared back, and clumsily
slopped the contents of the bucket in his general direction. She missed
him completely, but the spray of water sloshed up onto the balcony of
the City Hall, drenching Serutan instead.
"Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!" screamed the Wizard. "Now look what
you've done!"
As the Hoggits watched in horror, streams of smoke and steamy
vapours began to rise from Serutan's body. "I'm melting! I'm melting!"
he wailed as he dwindled and shrank and oozed away into a puddle,
leaving only his robes, horns, and hooves behind him. The dreadful
slime rolled over the edge of the balcony, where it dripped onto the
steps of City Hall, eating deep pits into the marble steps.
"My! People certainly do come and go around here!" spoke the
little girl, picking up her dog, who was lapping at the hissing goo.
Spam, Moxie, and Pepsi found that they could move once again. They
cautiously approached the steps, staring up at the smoking balcony. As
the rivulets of melted Wizard dropped a black horn onto the fizzling
steps, the trio flushed with realization and incontinence. "Serutan is
dead!" they cried joyfully.
"Shark-eye is dead! Hurray!" shouted the rest of the Hoggits,
throwing caps and diplomas into the air. "Long live the Stye! Long
live the little buck-toothed girl!" The crowd grabbed the girl, hoisted
her up on their shoulders, and began to march around the Square, singing
"Ding-dong! The Shark-eye's dead!" They also grabbed the little dog;
but of this we will say no more.
"But what about Frito?" said Moxie, glancing at Pepsi.
"Yeah, Frito?" said Pepsi, glancing at Moxie.
"Frito!" gasped Spam, glancing in horror at the crackling blaze
that was his master. "Oops, almost forgot." He grabbed the bucket,
filled it from a convenient horse-trough, and dashed it over the fire.
Remembering his Hoggit Scout training, he stirred the smouldering embers
thoroughly, then shovelled fresh dirt onto the ashes. "Lo, Master
Frito," called Spam hopefully, "are ya okay?"
The mound of dirt stirred. Two blackened hands were thrust up, and
then an amorphous mass rose and opened its mouth. "Yes, Spam," said
Frito Bugger's voice, "I'm okay."
Spam grinned weakly.
"But when I get my hands on you, you won't be!" screamed Frito,
his clenched fingers lunging for Spam's throat. Spam turned in terror
and sped across the Square, with Frito right behind him, cutting loose
with a stream of choice epithets which even old Uncle Bimbo, after years
of four-letter Scrabble, could not have matched. The two Hoggits
vanished in the distance, but Frito's angry shouts rang out even above
the din of the celebration in the Square.
Moxie and Pepsi exchanged "What, me worry?" looks. "So what's
eatin' Frito?" asked Moxie.
"Yeah, eatin'?" echoed Pepsi.
BE IT EVER SO HORRID
The next few weeks in the Stye were filled with both celebrating
and cleaning up the mess that Serutan had left behind. Actually,
"cleaning up" is not the word for it, since most of the evil Wizard's
reforms had consisted of picking up trash, closing open cesspools and
the like, and the Hoggits were only too glad to return to their former,
squalid habits. Soon the gutters of Hoggiton were crawling again with
flies and mosquito larvae, and everybody agreed that things were pretty
much back to normal.
The dim-witted little girl whose errant bucket toss had resulted
in the dissolution of Serutan was hailed as the saviour of the Stye and
was richly rewarded. The Hoggits held a great feast in her honour, at
which they presented her a gleaming golden statuette cunningly engraved
with adulations, valedictories, and Variety headlines. The Hoggits
begged her to stay and be Queen of the May, but she said something about
a prior engagement with a Scarecrow at a Tin Woodsman's house and she
really ought to be on her way. After a tearful good-bye, the girl and
her runty dog skipped off down the yellow-brick Inter-Shire Turnpath,
and were not heard from again.
In the meantime, Frito Bugger lay in bed at Bug End, wrapped like
a mummy in Vaseline gauze, nursing the third-degree burns which covered
95% of his body. Spam Gangree hovered tenderly over him, nursing some
third-degree injuries of his own. Two purpled eyes and a crooked nose
were grim reminders of Frito's fierce (and completely uncharacteristic)
rage, though Spam had quite forgiven his master.
[resume original text]
--
Richard F. Drushel ****** Ph.D. in Developmental Biology as of 4:45 PM 9211.20
rfd@po.cwru.edu ** Cleveland FreeNet ** Co-Sysop, Coleco ADAM Forum ** Go Z80!
"The bright and blinding sunlight shines so hotly on the trash-heaps that mere
undigested food and snotty Kleenex flow as rivers of milk and honey." - c.5253
Comments
Post a Comment