Zorgamazoo (17 page)

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Authors: Robert Paul Weston

BOOK: Zorgamazoo
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“Fixed it?! You
wrecked
it! How incredibly mean!
You've demolished my Hoarder of Boredom Machine!”
“Not at all,” said Katrina, shaking her head.
“It's not wrecked. It's not broken. It's
better
instead!”
 
“You rascal!” cried Dullbert. “You're lying to me!”
He lowered his voice, in a pitiful plea.
“Listen, Katrina,” he said with a sigh,
“without boredom for fuel, my planet…will die.”
 
“Wait,” said Katrina, “see, this is my hunch:
This new kind of gas packs a powerful punch.”
Dullbert was doubtful. He wasn't convinced.
He gaped at the colors. He grimaced and winced.
“Katrina, just look at it—
puff
after
puff
…
It's disgusting! What is it, this
colorful
stuff?!”
Katrina just smiled, and turning around,
she admired the wonderful substance she found.
 
She folded her arms, looking up at the glass.
“I think that I'll call it:
Chapter 18
Enchantium
what?!
Enchantium
what?!”
was Dullbert's reply. “I imagine you think I'm a gullible guy! ‘Enchantium Gas?' It's a fib! It's a hoax! It's a trick, as they say, with mirrors and smokes!”
“But no,” said Katrina, “I'm willing to bet
this stuff has more power than anything yet!”
 
“Colors?!” cried Dullbert. “They're useless! They're junk!
And to claim they have
power?
That's nothing but bunk!”
He turned to the dials and his video screen.
“Just look at these gauges, you'll see what I mean.”
 
But guess what, my good reader. Katrina was right!
To Dullbert's surprise (and to Dullbert's delight),
his energy gauges were spinning like mad,
much faster, you see, than they formerly had.
 
“Amazing!” breathed Dullbert. “In fact, you're correct!
There's more energy here than I'd ever expect!
But Katrina,” he whispered, “what did you do?
This substance—it's almost too good to be true!”
 
But of course it was true, and Katrina explained
her modification was simply attained
by giving the wires a bit of a snip,
switching them round in a bit of a flip.
In reversing the flow, she had hoped to coerce
the whole apparatus to work in reverse.
In place of a steam that was dreary and dim,
it sought out a gas full of vigor and vim!
 
(And if you don't believe such a vapor exists,
a gas made of vibrantly colorful mists,
then shut your eyes now, scrunch them up tight!
And you'll see it—like flashes of colourful light.
 
That's how it begins, as thoughts in your mind.
They spiral and tumble, they whirl and unwind.
Like Tedium Steam, they come out of your head—
but not when you're bored,
when you're
thinking
instead.)
 
“I'm sorry,” said Dullbert, “for being so cruel.
This ‘Enchantium Gas' is a far better fuel.
You've convinced me, Katrina. I have to concede:
I see now enchantment 's the thing that we need.
Excitement and wonder, amusement and mirth—
That's
what we need from the people of Earth!”
Then he turned to his panel of buttons and light.
“Okay then,” he said, “let's put everything right.”
He led everyone out of their cages and crates,
and down to the somber Moonagerie gates.
 
There, rising up like the pipes on a stove,
like a thicket of trees in a curious grove,
were the Graylian rockets, preparing for flight,
rumbling and steaming and teeming with light.
 
“Here we are,” Dullbert said, with a generous grin.
“All aboard everyone! Let's get everyone in!”
 
The first to climb up was Katrina Katrell,
then all of the creatures (the zorgles as well),
until all were aboard, the great and the small,
with the lonely Behemoth the last of them all.
 
Then the rockets took off! They went spiraling high,
through the glitter of stars and the black of the sky. . .
Meanwhile, on Earth, very little had changed.
Papers were shuffled and goods were exchanged.
Most people, you see, were the same as before.
They were leading their lives, no less and no more,
 
 
stuck in their offices, buildings and cars,
never once looking up at the twinkle of stars.
 
(To so many people, the world was a bore.
It might even remind you of Graybalon-Four…)
 
So perhaps you'd imagine their utter surprise
when early one evening, from out of the skies,
came an army of Graylian rockets from space,
sweeping out of the clouds at a perilous pace.
 
They arrived and alighted with effortless ease,
like feathers at play on a delicate breeze.
When the dust settled down, the doors opened wide,
and creatures came out of the cabins inside.
The crowds that had gathered all pointed in fear.
Nearly everyone thought that
invaders
were here.
They shrieked when the steps of the rockets unfurled,
“Monsters!” they cried. “They're invading the world!”
 
But then they saw something they didn't expect.
It extinguished their panic. It made them reflect.
What they saw was a girl, just a regular child.
She waved to them all. She nodded and smiled.
 
At her side was a creature, all covered with hair.
A warthog, perhaps…or maybe a bear.
Well, whatever it was, it was certainly weird.
It had horns on its head and a whiskery beard.
 
The TV reporters, they clustered and swarmed.
“What happened?!” they cried. “We must be informed!”
 
The girl was accosted with cameras and mics.
They were waved in her face like skewers and spikes.
 
The reporters cried,
“Who?!”
The reporters cried,
“How?!”
“What, when and where?! You must tell us, right now!”
The girl found her voice. It was clear as a bell.
“ My name,” she explained , “is
These creatures aren't
aliens,
isn't that clear?
They don't come from space.
They come from right here”
 
Everyone gaped, they ogled and glared.
They gawked, rather rudely, and everyone stared.
That's when they knew, with the merest of looks,
that these were the creatures from stories and books!
 
So they yelped with a joy they could barely conceal.
The creatures weren't myths! They were
actually real!
In that very moment, the people were changed.
Their minds were expanded, their thoughts rearranged.
 
Enchantment was coursing through all of their veins.
It swept through their bodies and into their brains,
where a pressure built up, like a teakettle pot,
It grew and it grew, then it popped like a shot!
 
It flew out all at once! It spiraled and swirled!
It
erupted
from people all over the world!
For the very first time in a great many years,
Enchantium Gases
came out of their ears!
 
Then everyone watched as the creatures dispersed.
It began with the merfolk, they were the first.
They wished to return to the fish and the foam,
and the wind and the waves of their watery home.
 
The phoenixes then set their bodies ablaze,
and took to the sky like a flock of
flambés.
Then went the pixies, the ogres, the gnomes,
who trundled away to their forested homes.
The yetis were next. They went lumbering off,
each one of them fluffing their flocculent coif.
 
The griffins and gargoyles said their goodbyes,
and leapt from their feet and into the skies.
The sphinxes, gorgons, the Gillygaloo,
the satyrs, the centaurs, the hippogriff too—
they all headed home, after bidding farewell
to their savior…a girl named Katrina Katrell.
 
At last, the Behemoth went
thrumping
away
(but where he was going—well, no one could say).
 
Then bidding goodbye to the windigo clans,
Katrina shook each of their leathery hands.
Winnie stepped up, and Katrina was squeezed
so breathlessly tight that she started to wheeze.
 
Next was the zorgle named Cyril DeYoung.
(the finest of flingers who ever had flung).
“Kiddo,” he said, in his leisurely drawl,
“I bet you'd be deadly at Zorgally Ball.”
Then he and the zorgles, the windigo too,
went back to the mountains of Zorgamazoo.
 
Dullbert came forward to bid his goodbye.
“Katrina,” he said, “I promise to try
to rescue my race from its Graylian haze.
The time has arrived for changing our ways.
I'll give them a bit of enlightened advice:
that sometimes, a
little
excitement is nice.
That's what I'll do—start spreading the word!
Or my name's not Dullbert Hohummer, the Third!”
 
Then to Katrina's tremendous surprise
the tiniest sparkle came into his eyes,
and a smidgeon of color came into his face,
as he climbed in his rocket…and flew into space.
 
Once Dullbert was gone, once the rockets had flown,
Katrina and Morty were standing alone.
 
Katrina said, “Well…” as she nodded her head.
“Our adventure is finished. It's over,” she said.
She regarded her friend with a wavering smile.
She put out her hand. It hung there a while.
 
Morty reached out and he gave it a tug,
and their handshake, abruptly, turned into a hug.
Then Morty stepped back. He mumbled and frowned.
He explained it was time to go back underground.
He'd had more than his fill of adventuring stuff.
It was time to go home, back to Underwood Bluff.
He was long overdue at the Hospital Shop.
He had to return and check on his Pop.
 
With the gleam of a tear in each of their eyes,
Katrina and Mortimer said their goodbyes.
Then Morty turned round, moving terribly slow,
as Katrina stood wistfully watching him go.
 
His shoulders were slackened. He shuffled his feet,
approaching the steps that went under the street.
He followed them down, going lower, and then:
he vanished. He was back in the shadows again.
 
By now, my good reader, the crowd had so thinned,
the only things left were the whispers of wind.
And Katrina recalled, in a moment of woe:
that she, of all others, had nowhere to go.

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