Zorgamazoo (16 page)

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Authors: Robert Paul Weston

BOOK: Zorgamazoo
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There was only one person who saw where she went.
He was stooping and crooked and thoroughly bent;
and this aging, decrepit, cantankerous guy
had ironically seen her with only
one eye
.
 
Watching her vanish, having heard what she said,
he winked, with that vacuous hole in his head.
“Good luck,” said the ogre, with a weak little wave,
“You're probably nuts…but you're certainly brave!”
Chapter 17
inside the
machine
I magine, of course,
you're eager to know: Where was Katrina?
Where did she go?
You're wondering where and you're wondering how.
Wait six little words…
and
I'll
tell
you
right
now:
Looking behind her, Katrina had seen,
a hatch in the Hoarder of Boredom Machine.
She opened it up with the tip of her shoe,
and clambered inside, then vanished from view.
 
Down through a passage, she quietly sneaked,
while in every direction, machinery creaked.
 
The farther she went, the passages shrank,
the workings grew cluttered and dingy and dank,
but still she pressed on, going all in between
the wires and tubes making up the machine.
She finally came to the end of the road,
to a nexus, where all the machinery flowed.
There, she encountered a mountainous sphere:
An incredible orb that was perfectly clear.
 
It rose from the floor like a planet of glass.
It was filled with an
almost invisible gas
.
The gas had the color of moldering cream,
and Katrina knew then: this was Tedium Steam!
 
She took a step forward, approaching the sphere.
It loomed overhead, looking bleak and austere.
 
She spotted two wires, two cables, two cords,
that sprung from the floor and went curling towards
the base of the sphere and its silvery glass,
where they linked to the bottom, with fittings
of brass.
 
Seeing them there, something clicked in her mind
as she looked at the way the machine was designed.
Those wires
, she thought.
They are the way
of solving our problems and saving the day!
She took off her bag, slipping out of the straps.
She opened it slowly, unzipping the flaps.
Inside was a clutter, a jumbled array,
of all she'd collected since running away:
 
The spring that had come from a grandfather clock,
the one she had used to jimmy the lock…
 
Some strips of the sheet that had flapped like a cape,
when she'd leapt from her window to make her escape…
 
There was also a knife she had grabbed in a flash,
from the hair of that bully, Selena the Slash…
 
There were pebbles and stones,
from the Tunnel of Hush,
she had caught when they fell
in that plummeting crush…
 
She had even acquired some slippery slime,
the oiliest, goopiest, greasiest grime.
It had come from the tongue of the Octomabot,
and clung to her bag like a dollop of snot.
Using the knife from Selena the Slash,
she proceeded to sever, to mangle, and gash.
 
Then with the pebbles and some of the rocks,
she scraped and she hammered
with scratches and knocks.
 
The spring—it was twisted and given a flip,
so its coil became more of a fastening clip.
 
With all of these items, she fiddled around,
using all of the various things she had found.
 
At last, when her curious work was complete,
she tied it all off with the tatters of sheet,
and sealed it like glue with the gunk that had hung
from the Graylian robot's mechanical tongue.
 
Then she stood back, her eyes going wide.
Something
peculiar
was starting inside…
 
At the heart of that shimmering, luminous sphere,
a
new
kind of vapor began to appear.
It started quite slow. At first, just a puff,
from one of the tubes that was pumping the stuff.
A new kind of gas was replacing the old,
and the new stuff, in truth, was a sight to behold!
 
Inside of the glass, to Katrina's surprise,
was a music, it seemed,
Meanwhile, outside of the Boredom Machine,
the battle was growing ferocious and mean.
 
The creatures of Earth, the zorgles and all,
were locked in a brazen and barbarous brawl:
There was hair being wrangled, eyes being poked,
toes being twisted and throats being choked!
Morty and Winnie were taking their lumps!
The sphinxes and griffins were covered with bumps!
The dragons, the yetis, the phoenixes too,
the pixies and fauns and the Gillygaloo,
were lost in fracas of wallops and bonks,
of punches and pummels and clobbers and clonks!
 
But in spite of their vow that they never would quit,
in spite of their bravery, gumption and grit,
they were starting to tire, losing their hopes,
like a boxer, pinned down, his back on the ropes.
 
The Octomabots, they too could surmise,
with the ominous gleam in their ominous eyes
that the battle was finally taking its toll,
and now was their moment for taking control.
 
So half of them suddenly stood in a row,
like dancers in some sort of musical show.
They spread out their tentacles, weaving them all
with the others beside them, creating a wall.
 
Then they came forward, inch after inch,
enclosing their prey in a sinister pinch.
So Morty and Winnie and all of the rest,
were hemmed in a corner, compacted, compressed.
They were forced in a clumsy, uncomfortable pose,
being elbow to elbow to shoulder to nose;
and being so crowded, so awkwardly crammed,
they couldn't fight back. They were thoroughly jammed!
 
Then the Octomabots, who were still in the air,
could pluck up their prey without even a care.
In this way, the creatures were quickly re-caught,
in spite of how bravely their battle was fought.
 
The Behemoth, at last, was the only one left;
but even with all his incredible heft,
he couldn't fight back; his chances were slim.
There were simply too many—even for him!
 
So alas, my good reader, the battle was done,
and the Octomabots had clumsily won.
 
The creatures of Earth, I'm sorry to say,
were locked up again, without any delay.
The bolts were refastened, the cages refilled,
and Morty, of course, wasn't terribly thrilled.
 
Once more, he was hunched on the floor of his cell,
and wondering:
Where was Katrina Katrell?!
Understandably, Morty was all in a huff.
“Adventures!” he grumbled. “Enough is enough!”
 
Then the entranceway door, it opened up wide,
and Dullbert came wearily strolling inside.
He stood for a moment, one hand on his hip,
the other one thoughtfully tapping his lip.
 
He took a step forward and finally spoke.
“So, you tried to escape? Oh, please! What a joke.
There's no way to leave here, or didn't you know?
We're up on the moon! There's nowhere to
go!”
He's right,
Morty thought, feeling thoroughly beat,
beset by a feeling of utter defeat.
 
He puffed out a rather disheartening sigh.
While Winnie (as usual) started to cry.
But just as she started to sob in her cell,
her tears were cut short by the toll of a bell.
 
It resounded like thunder. It rang and it rang.
It chimed with a terrible, desperate
clang!!
Hearing it, Dullbert was suddenly tense.
“The alarms?” he exclaimed. “That doesn't make sense!”
He examined his cages, dismayed and distraught.
There's one of them missing!
he suddenly thought.
 
To Morty he said, “Hey you, with the fur.
That girl who you came with, what happened to her?”
He went to his bank of surveillance displays,
showing dungeons and cells in an intricate maze.
“He let out a shriek as he peered at the screen:
He stabbed at some buttons (he pushed quite a few),
and the Hoarder of Boredom split open in two,
revealing Katrina, who cowered inside.
She had nowhere to go. She had nowhere to hide.
But amid all those wires and Graylian gear,
all that anyone saw was the luminous sphere.
 
You see, my good reader, that circle of glass,
 
 
was filling with billows of
colorful
gas!
Where once it was filled with a nebulous gray,
the Tedium Steam was all washing away.
It was being replaced with the colorful threads,
of a gas made of glittering yellows and reds;
and not only those, but a great many more,
more colors than anyone's thought of before!
 
There was olive and orange and lavender, too!
There was purple and puce and cerulean blue!
There was violet, vermillion, viridian-green!
More colors, I'd say, than you've ever seen!
 
They were blindingly bright, seeming never to cease:
There was burgundy, lilac, and even cerise,
all mingling with others (like aquamarine),
swirling and whirling inside the machine!
 
Dullbert just stood there in shock and dismay,
He was utterly stunned, didn't know what to say.
He whimpered and waggled his Graylian head.
“You didn't!”
he cried.
“You couldn't!”
he said.
 
“You're wrong,” said Katrina, “I certainly could.
I fixed it all up…I fixed it up good!”

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