Zorgamazoo (14 page)

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Authors: Robert Paul Weston

BOOK: Zorgamazoo
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One evening, a zorgle was found on the shore.
He was dripping and drowning and soaked to the core.
Unconscious, he lay like a heap in the sand,
with an odd looking sphere in the palm of his hand.
 
Little-by-little, the zorgle revived,
bewildered and grateful at having survived.
Since his manner was one that the pixies could trust,
they mended his wounds with their magical dust.
 
He explained how a storm had demolished his boat,
despite all his efforts to keep it afloat;
and how, when his vessel was lost in the squall,
the one thing he could save…was his zorgally ball.
The pixies were puzzled. It seemed a bit daft.
Why not a compass, a paddle,
a raft?!
 
When they'd asked him this question, Bortlebee sighed.
I'll just have to show you, he swiftly replied.
So that's what he did: He showed them the way.
And they
still
play the game…to this very day!
 
Then a dragon named Eddie,
enfeebled and old,
recalled how he once had lost all of his gold…
 
He had just sold his lair and moved to a grot,
but discovered his home was unbearably hot.
(The cave, after all, had never been toured
by the
Dragonish Real-Estate Marketing Board!)
So Eddie, of course, had a terrible shock
when his home bubbled over with lava and rock!
 
But lucky for him, he escaped by a hair
by flapping away in the smoldering air.
 
His treasure, however, was lost in the blast,
as Eddie stood watching, agape and aghast.
His grot went KABOOM and his treasure was hurled
to every lost corner in all of the world!
 
Yet though Eddie's treasure could hardly be saved,
on every last penny, his name was engraved.
So as long as the pieces weren't melted or burned,
he hoped that someday it might all be returned.
Then one day, it was. A package arrived.
It was proof that some part of his treasure survived!
 
And then there were more, coming one every day,
from places obscure and out of the way.
Packages brimming with shiny doubloons
or glimmering goblets and runcible spoons;
and each with a letter, signed off at the end:
The creatures recounted.
They all reminisced.
They couldn't hold back. They couldn't resist.
They each had astonishing tales to relate,
old Bortlebee legends of danger and fate!
And then, in the end, when at last they were done,
having laughed, having wept, have shared in the fun,
they all turned to Morty, their eyes full of trust,
and said to him,
“Please! You can save us! You must”
Morty just shrugged. “Well, what can I do?
I'm even more hapless and hopeless than you.”
 
As the words left his lips, you could see all around
how the faces had fallen, how everyone frowned.
It seemed all the hope had been sucked from the
moon,
It was then that their captor came sauntering back,
his languid expression predictably slack.
 
“Good morning,” said Dullbert Hohummer, the Third.
He was followed by robots, who wobbled and whirred.
They were dressed in tuxedos and carrying trays,
like waiters in lavishly fancy cafés.
 
They bustled about, like bees all abuzz,
and Katrina was struck by how hungry she was.
Her stomach was rumbling. She moistened her lips.
She was dreaming of succulent nibbles and sips!
She was ready to gobble, to guzzle, to scarf,
but seeing the food…she was ready to barf!
 
“Eeewwww!”
she exclaimed, her blood running cold.
“It looks like manure that started to mold!”
 
“You're right,” said a yeti, who grumbled and sighed.
“The first time I ate it, I practically died!
But that's all we get. It's all that we're fed—
the grayest of gruel and the stalest of bread.”
And so they were served this slippery slop,
plopped
into bowls with a
glup
and
glop
,
It was slimy and lumpy and thoroughly rank.
And the way that it
reeked!
Believe me—it stank!
 
Dullbert stood back, surveying the scene.
He blinked as the creatures went queasy and green.
 
“You know,” he said absently, tilting his head.
“I was snooping before, and I heard what you said.
This ‘Bortlebee Yorgle,' this one you respect?
He's among the next victims I'm set to collect.
 
Oh, I'll try to be delicate. I won't be too rough.
But I'm on my way now to Underwood Bluff.
The zorgles who live there are last on my list.
It's important, you see, that no one is missed.”
 
“You can't!” Morty cried. “My father's too old!
He's sick! And he can't even handle the cold!
He shouldn't be moved. He's feeble and frail!
His heart is so weak, it'll probably fail!”
“I'm sorry,” said Dullbert. “Just doing my job.”
He took out his watch, which hung on a fob.
“I've no time to chat. I have to prepare.
This business, you see, is a tricky affair.
And sadly I see that I'm falling behind.
So I'll be on my way, if none of you mind.”
 
He bid them goodbye with a spiritless wave,
and left, through the shadowy door of the cave.
 
Morty said nothing, just stood there and stared.
He was rigid with rage, but he also was scared.
He began to feel faint. He began seeing spots,
recalling with terror those Octomabots.
 
“Katrina,” he said, his mouth going dry.
“I'm feeling like Winnie. I'm ready to cry.”
He slid down his bars to the mesh of the floor,
feeling even more gloomy than ever before.
 
Katrina went over to offer some cheer,
to say something kind into Mortimer's ear.
But what could she say? What could she do
for a friend who felt so inconsolably blue?
So gently, she rested her hand on his head.
Because sometimes our words…
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
. . . are best left unsaid.
Chapter 15
a
wing
and a prayer
It was then
something
rather surprising
occurred.
A
noise
drifted up, like the chirp of a bird; like a floor, giving way with the tiniest creak, it was reedy and shrill, going:
squim - squibble - squeak!
 
 
 
 
 
In the cage just below her, an ogre was there.
He was polishing something, with hanks of his hair.
The object was round, like a peach or a plum,
which the ogre had clenched in his finger and thumb.
 
He would spit on the object, then polish and rub,
giving every last inch a meticulous scrub.
Therein lay the source of the curious sound,
as he burnished this
thing
that was perfectly round.
The
ogre
himself was the
usual kind.
He was crooked, decrepit and hardly refined.
Though his arms and his legs
were spindly and svelte,
his belly was plump. It hung over his belt.
 
His jowls were like rubber, his nose like a twig.
His feet were all grubby and terribly big.
He was old in his bones and he needed a shave.
He already, it seemed, had one foot in the grave.
 
Katrina, intrigued, put her face to the floor.
She had never encountered an ogre before.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Hello there. I'm new.
I've only just come to this weird little zoo.”
 
The ogre looked up, his face like a mutt.
His one eye was open. The other one shut.
“Well, missy,” he said, with a yellowy smile,
“you'll be here forever! Or at least for a while.”
He laughed at his joke, with a rascally smirk,
going back to the
squeaks
of his polishing work.
 
Katrina, still curious, wanted to know
what it was that he did in his prison below.
 
“Sir?” she inquired, acting prim and polite,
“May I ask you a question, to see if I'm right?
That bauble you're shining, like silver or brass,
I'll bet it's your
eyeball
. Is it made out of glass?”
 
“It is,” said the ogre. “It's a pretty good fake.
I take care of it, see? So it won't ever break.”
Then he held it aloft, with the pupil in view.
“So, yes, it's my eyeball—and what's it to you?!”
 
“Well,” said Katrina, “here's what I think:
We can get ourselves free of this miserable clink!
Because I've an idea that I'm willing to try,
but the key to my plan, good sir…is your eye.”
 
The ogre recoiled. He cowered and flinched.
His eyeball, he clutched and he clenched
and he clinched;
he squelched it back into its usual place,
in the wrinkly and puckered-up hole in his face.
 
Then he paused for a moment.
He looked up and he smiled.
He regarded Katrina with eyes like a child.
“Escape?” he said vaguely. “You think that we can?
In that case, okay then. Let's try with your plan.”
 
He plucked out the eye from the hole in his head,
“Be careful, it's precious,” he breathlessly said.
Then, with a gesture like motherly love,
he held up his eye, to the shadows above.
 
Katrina, up top, lay flat on her side.
She reached through the bars, her hand open wide.
 
After they made this uncommon exchange
(the swap of an eye; it was certainly strange!),
the ogre's long arms fell limp at his hips.
He looked to Katrina with quivering lips.
 
A tear trickled out from his one seeing eye.
This cantankerous ogre…he had started to cry.
“Don't fret,” said Katrina. “There's really no need,
if we follow my plan, I think we'll be freed.
Dullbert, you see, he's forgotten that box,
the one that controls all the cages and locks.”
 
 
 
It was true: There it was, on a shelf by the door,
a long way away—fifty meters, or more.
It sat there, just blinking, that special remote,
like a faraway lighthouse that beckons a boat.
 
“There it is,” said Katrina, “on a shelf, over there.
If we smash it, I think, beyond any repair,
then the locks will malfunction, they'll go on the blink,
and we'll stage an escape…at least, that's what I think.
 
So my plan is to smash it by throwing your eye.
We've got little to lose. So I'll give it a try.”
As the ogre stood cringing and wincing below,
Katrina wound up. She got ready to throw.
 
“Stop!” came a cry, from near where she stood.
“It's too far! You can't do it! Almost nobody could!”
It was Morty. He was suddenly back on his feet.
“To throw it that far, you need serious heat!”
 
Then Winnie piped up, her eyes going wide.
“There is only
one person
to do it!” she cried.
 
Morty looked at Katrina, surprisingly calm.
“That's right,” he agreed, and he put out his palm.
“If you need something thrown,
something flawlessly flung,
you need Cyril “the Slinger” Zipzorgle DeYoung.”

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