Dirk Destroyer Part 6 Chapter 2 part 2

Though this is the 6^th installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, everything is just getting started. Check back every Friday (or the five previous Fridays,) for other excerpts.

Whatever Ceasaran had been about to say was cut short by three MOIST agents. One of the women who was wearing an official limited edition Moist trench coat shouted, “Hey you!” Ceasaran sighed and closed his window.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I’ve been around a long time, and you might think that I had learned a thing or two. Sure, I knew how to levitate a bag of cigars, and draw gold out of the ground, but that didn’t stop me from having the same reaction that every male has had for eternity when a woman yells, “hey, you,.” I looked around at a landscape that included several hundred sheep, a swamprat bird, and myself, and threw up my hands in the universal gesture, ‘who me?’

“Yes, you,” shouted the MOIST agent. “Come here, and try not to bother the sheep.”

I gingerly picked my way through to the edge of the flock, pausing each time one of them wanted to sniff the bag I was holding, my shoes, my crotch, anything that in their stupid minds they thought might have food in it.

“Took you long enough,” grunted the agent as I finally got through. The other female agent – not wearing a limited edition Moist trench coat, probably because she was much prettier than the first, pointed at the bag I was carrying.

“Are those fizzle wisp phew cigars?” she asked.

It was an odd choice of words, but I nodded my head.

“Can I sizzle sniff slurp one?”

As you might expect, telekinesis doesn’t worry me. My brother played every possible telekinetic joke on me before he was banished to oblivion forever the first time, but my brother wasn’t there, so I was a little surprised when the bag lifted out of my hand.

“Don’t be stupid, Ono,” said the first female agent in as abrasive voice as I’ve heard billarian clinbirds use, and that’s as abrasive as a voice can get. My bag jerked high into the air with cigars and matches flying in every direction.

“Whoops whoop yelp,” said the second female agent in an apologetic if not intelligible voice. I summoned what skill I had in gathering the errant cigars before they hit the ground, but most of the matches landed in puddles of sheep urine – a very effective solvent for mercury tipped inflammatories.

“Cigar smoking is a nasty habit, Ono,” said the first agent.

“It bugs the sheep,” said the male agent, who until that moment had been standing silently in the background. He also was not wearing a limited edition MOIST trench coat, but not because he was pretty at all. He was short, dumpy, balding and had on a particularly ugly shirt.

The first agent stared at the male, as if her eyes had the ability to melt rock. Curiously that is not the hyperbole it seems, for I had seen Dirk do just that to a rock that Uriculous Wisehind had been sitting on. For a moment I thought the first agent had such an ability. The face of the male agent disappeared.

He did not fall over however, and when I heard the void above his collar say, “sorry,” I concluded that he probably hadn’t been melted.

“As you can see, brother of the evil Dirk Destroyer,” said the first agent, “you are in the presence of two very powerful wizards, so I would watch my step if I were you.” Her warning would have carried more force if not for an unfortunate coincidence. As she stomped forward to emphasize the word, ‘step,’ her foot landed in… Well, there were several hundred sheep around.

“Boot slop,” said Swampy helpfully.

The second agent- the pretty one - who was apparently named, Ono, smiled at the hideous bird, and Swampy flew over to perch on her shoulder without releasing any form of defecation.

“As I was saying,” said the first agent. “The man who stands before you, destroyer-brother, is the great wizard, Mage-e-not. He has the power to make himself invisible!”

The headless apparition before me straightened, supposedly to assume his full – though not impressive height which was further diminished by his missing head.

“But I can see you, Mage-e-not,” I said.

“You see my clothes!”

I looked over the eighty percent man in front of me. “But I can see your hands too.”

“But you can’t see my head!”

“I have a good idea where it is,” and I flicked a urine-moistened match in the general direction of his nose. The man flinched, but too late as the match bounced off of something.

“Stop that!” demanded the first agent. Mage-e-not’s face reappeared, and he wiped it with the sleeve of his newly urine speckled shirt.

“This young wizard,” said the first agent, gesturing to the other woman agent, “is Onomaterpoeia Upsala.”

“We just call her Ono,” said Mage-e-not, who then disappeared again when the first agent glared at him.

“As Onomaterpoeia has already demonstrated, she is a master wizard of matter displacement.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said to Ono.

“Hoot tickled,” she responded in a friendly fashion.

“Hoot hottie,” said Swampy, who made me think, not for the first time, that he had a better command of human speech than he was letting on.

“My name is Elmer,” I said.

“We know who you are, Elmer Destroyer.”

“Actually, my last name is McFarland, but it’s been so long since anyone’s called me that that I just answer to…”

“Tremble in fear!” bellowed the first agent who had not introduced herself, “for there is one other member of this glorious party – the greatest wizard of them all.”

“A Light Bringer?” I asked.

“THE Light Bringer,” the first agent boomed. “The great and magnificent, Lustavious Brachenhun.”

“Oh,” I said, “where’s he, or she?”

“HE’s back at the ministry,” said Ono. “HE couldn’t come.”

“Yeah,” said Mage-e-not. “He had a date.”

“Will you come with us peaceably,” asked the first agent, “or will our wizards need to bind you with their glorious power?”

“No, I’ll come.”

The first agent stepped forth magnificently except for the squishy sound that her sheep begrimed boot made. The other two hung back a couple paces, and I fell in step with them.

“So what’s with her?” I asked. “Is she some sort of wizard too?”

“Oh no,” said Ono, “She’s just a slap slash whip whirr agent.”

“What’s her name?”

“Youtickubus Akwar.”

“Yeah,” said Mage-e-not, “she’s a real pain, and she shows up everywhere I go.”

And that’s all there is of chapter 2. Only 40 to go (give or take.) The good news is that you’re starting to meet the characters in the story. The bad news is that Youtickubus Akwar is one of them.

Speaking or annoying people…  

Don't Worry; Be Funny

To the best of my knowledge, Bobby McFerrin never did stand-up. That's probably why his music is so relaxing.

We humans demand that the natural cadence and organic happenstance of humor be artificially manufactured in a social arrangement reminiscent of a firing squad.

What did I just say?

We treat our entertainers like convicted felons. We put them under blinding lights; bring in scores of demanding faceless people and then tell the poor saps to be funny.

Go ahead! Make me laugh!

Stand up comedy is conceptually a lot like clowning. Clowns paint their faces to evoke lightness and fun but end up creepy. We figured the clown/creepy thing out decades ago, and the horror industry is still cashing in. When do we start making horror flicks about stand-up?

Pine Street is a quiet road in a typical suburban town. Johnny Belcher's parents have left him alone for the night. Johnny thought he was inviting a few friends for beers and fun, until it all went wrong. You'll laugh till you bleed when you see, Amateur Comedy Night on Pine Street!

Maybe comedy has always had this sadistic underbelly. According to Mel Brooks comedy began with a guy who was eaten by a dinosaur. I trust Brooks' mastery of history even above my teachers in high school.

Invention of the candy gram? Mr. Jones' history class didn't cover that.

After the dinosaur shtick got old, wealthy humor connoisseurs developed the court jester. On the surface the concept seemed civilized, even compassionate. You dress up some schmo in motley. Pick a guy that's too puny to swing a sword. Everybody needs a job, right? The rich noble guy is just being kind.

"Good evening Ladies and Germs!"

But these jesters got pelted by hard and disgusting objects. Have you ever tried to be funny while people are throwing spoiled mutton? Not that the Jesters weren’t grateful when diners threw meat. You’d be grateful for a diversionary portion of sheep’s butt too if a pack of the noble guy's wolf hounds were looking at you like you might be their new chew toy.

One way or the other, the noble guy gets his chuckles.

To reference Mel Brooks again, "When you die at the palace, you DIE at the palace."

So comedy is cruel. Its purpose is to embarrass, degrade, injure, maim or kill people who are just trying to make you happy.

Kind of like dating.

As a matter of fact, the patron saint of comedy, St. Genesius Martinus of Rome is also the patron saint of torture victims! (He's also the p.s. for plumbers. I always thought a lot of plumber’s tools looked sadistic.)

But every night, modern-day jesters line up at open mike nights hoping for their big break. The just want to help people forget their troubles and have a laugh.

Nothing to worry about. Just go with the flow. Pretend the boos, catcalls, and death threats are nothing more cruel than accompanying music - maybe with a lilting Caribbean beat.

Because comedy is the profession of masochists. It's the hopeless pursuit of approval by sadistic masses of ungrateful jerks.

Kind of like parenting teenagers.

Love this song.

Dirk Destroyer Part 5 Chapter 2 part 1

This is the 5^th installment of an endless serialization of a novel that was never meant for prime time (unless you read this between 8 and 10PM – some say 11.) I’m sure there’s a way to search out the first four parts, but blog navigation has never been my strong suit.

Chapter 2

Politically Incorrect Smoking Protagonist Meets Other Folk

The town of Gyno wasn’t really a town. It was a loose grouping of settlements, scattered across a valley. Each grouping was just two or three buildings, all with small doors so that sheep couldn’t rush in when people came and went. The Ceasarian section of town was in a curved gash between two hills. I walked through the tobacco fields, occasionally running across a ram or ewe experimentally nibbling on a tobacco leaf.

“Sick, sick, sick,” said Swampy. Sheep and tobacco didn’t get along. They might eat a leaf, but they never kept it. Only one thing smells worse than healthy sheep – sick sheep.

Getting through the field, the Ceasaran homestead came into view. It was a pretty little settlement, and I was happy to see it, but getting to the door was going to be a problem.

“Sheep,” said Swampy.

“Yup,” I said. The house, work shed and barn were all surrounded by hundreds of sheep. They were especially packed around the doors.

How do you wade through a huge flock of sheep without bugging any of them?

“Lotta wool,” said Swampy.

A man was sitting on a rock at the edge of the flock. It was a pleasantly warm day, but he was still wearing a one hundred percent cotton overcoat.

“Don’t bug the sheep,” he said predictably.

“How do I get to the door?”

“Don’t care,” said the man, “just don’t bug the sheep.”

“How long have they been here?”

“The sheep?” asked the man. “I’m not sure. Maybe a week.”

“Are the Ceasarans all right?”

“Don’t care,” said the man.

“Well can I call and see if they’re all right?”

“I wouldn’t,” said the man. “It might bug the sheep.”

“Stupid Spy,” said Swampy, and I had to agree. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. “Are you all right in there?”

The man jumped up from his rock. “I better report this!” he said and hurried off. I was just about to shout a second time when what looked to be a second story window opened in the house.

“Is that you, Mister Elmer.”

“Yes Mister Ceasaran,” I said.

You might think we were being formal here, calling each other mister, but we both had our reasons. Ceasaran called me Mister Elmer, because I was the brother of a very important, albeit infamous man. I called Ceasaran, Mister because I’d dealt with so many Ceasarans over the years, that I’d given up trying to remember their first names. He was probably Marko, Mario, or Martin. The Ceasarans almost always named their boys a name that began with M, and those three were the most common. I’d had dealings with a couple of Martins, a handful of Markos, and several Marios. Curiously, I never dealt with Marias, or Martinas. I don’t know if the entire tobacco industry was patriarchal, or just the Ceasarans.

“Are you all right in there?” I asked again.

“We are dying,” Ceasaran replied, “otherwise, we are fine. You’ve come to get cigars?”

“Yes,” I said, “but that doesn’t seem so important now. Maybe I should do something to stop you from dying.”

“That is very kind of you, Mister Elmer. You have always been a kind man, but Maria and I are old now, and there is very little food. We would have to get around to dying eventually, so there’s no reason to put it off.”

“I’d be happy to go buy you some food,” I offered.

“You don’t understand,” said Ceasaran. “I don’t mean that there is very little food in the house. I mean there is very little food at all. Tobacco is not considered important enough, so we don’t get food.”

“Not important?”

“Mister Elmer, most years since my grandfather’s day you have been our only customer. Sometimes a teen asks for a cigar that blows up, or a man with a new baby buys some to give away. We had a politician buy an especially durable one for his mistress, but we didn’t ask if it was for smoking. Most of the time, it’s just you.”

“I didn’t realize that business was so bad.”

“Oh no,” said Ceasaran. “The business is not bad. You are always very generous. We have always been a wealthy family because of you.”

“So why can’t you get food?”

Ceasaran shook his head. “It is not a matter of money; it is a matter of importance. The sheep can’t eat tobacco, and the MOIST people do not smoke cigars. We do not contribute to the thirty-fifth idea.”

“But what about your children?”

“You did not notice, Mister Elmer? Maria and I have no children. We are also very old – not like you are old, but very old.”

I probably should have noticed that. It just seems like you barely notice someone and they grow old and die. The only reason the Ceasaran’s stuck in my mind is that I’d done business with fifty or so of them, and they tended to look alike.

“Hey,” I said, “I have a couple algae bars,” and I zipped open my fanny pack.

“Baaaaaahhhh!” A wall of wool rushed at me.

“No,” I said to the surprised sheep. “You can’t have these. They are for the Ceasaran family.”

“Let them have the algae bars,” said Ceasaran. “As I am dying now, I admit that I am not such a believer in the thirty-fifth idea, but Maria and I have both tasted your algae bars. If we are going to die, I would rather we did so without our mouths tasting like fertilizer.”

“Crappy bars,” said Swampy as I threw the bars to get the sheep to move away from me. This gave me a chance to get much closer to the window. I saw Ceasaran smile at me. He was an old man.

“Wait a moment,” he said. He must have been standing on something, because he lowered himself very carefully from the window height. While he was gone, the sheep wandered back over to me. The sniffed around me and my fanny pack looking for more food, then gave me a look that showed their annoyance when they found nothing. Swampy landed on a ewe and crapped on her.

Finally, Ceasaran’s face reappeared in the window. He held out a bag. It was too far for me to reach, so I used telekinesis to bring it to me, and then did the same with the gold and silver lumps to Ceasaran. A bead of sweat broke out on my brow. Dirk was always better at telekinesis than I was. For some reason it was easier to move stuff in the ground than it was in the air.

The old man took the metal and shook his head. “It is the last sale for Ceasarean tobacco. We were in business over a thousand years.”

“I am very sad to see you go,” I said.

“It has been an honor to know you, Mister Elmer. You have…”

Yes, I’m ending the excerpt here. It could be that Mister Ceasarian (not to be confused with Caesarian,) had nothing left to say. I could also be that I’m an SOB that sadistically ends an excerpt in the middle of a sentence.

Anyone vote for both?

To find out web in (well tune in doesn’t work,) next Friday!

Here’s the vid.

Scary Food

Growing up in the 60s, Halloween was all about candy. You were thrilled if you got a full-sized candy bar (unless it was Almond Joy or Mounds,) and you prayed that nobody put a homemade caramel popcorn ball in your bag to mutate into a candy wrapper giganto monster by the time you got home.

But other than the giganto monster, and the rumors of hidden razor blades in the candy, Halloween food wasn’t really about scary.

Witches teeth? Maybe scary if you’re a dentist, or the tooth fairy, but to us kids – nothin’.

Things have changed in the last five decades.

Halloween is more of a holiday now, and less of a candy grab.  It's more about adults and less about children.  It's less about Three Musketeers bars and more about edible body parts.

It requires a lot of thought.

   But what is the cerebral without a little heart as well?

   Finger food isn't enough.

   You need put your whole arm into it.

   Can't you see?

   Modern Halloween food has to have some bite to it.  But don't worry...

   You'll be fine as long as you keep your head.

   All kinds of creepy food ideas are birthed at Halloween.

   Though some might not be appropriate for young children.

   Or house pets.

   Aquatic house pets.

   Exotic house pets...

   All kinds of house (ugh) pets.

   Don't let it gross you out.

   Neither hurl, nor howl.

   Festive medical assistance is standing by.

   To help you scab over those rough patches.

   And put you all back together, safe and warm.

   snug as a bug,

   In a rug.

   Some gross food traditions do go back to my generation

Dirk Destroyer part 4 Chapter 1

This is Chapter 1 of the novel, Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother, which means that lots of stuff came before it that you may or may not want to look at in previous posts. This story is a satire, which is not a concept I really understand except it keeps me from being sued.

Chapter 1

Boiler Plate Opening Chapter to Novella

It was a typical morning. I awoke on the dirt. It wasn’t so bad. Long ago, I’d learned how to make the earth soft, like a fine mattress. I sat up and looked around.

A ram and ewe were standing by a small patch of stinkweed. It was the closest thing to grass in sight and the ram was eyeing me as if he thought I might fight him for his precious stinkweed. The ewe was munching placidly. Swampy landed on a rock next to me.

“Need fish?” said Swampy. He said it as a question, as if he was offering me fish, though I don’t think that was his intent. Swampy was a swamprat bird, a remarkably ugly creature, which normally would have the capacity for a few words only. Swampy had a large vocabulary, largely because he was about half as old as I was. I think Dirk did something to him, though I have no idea what. Dirk is cleverer than I am, and though neither of us is magical, we’ve learned to do a few things over the years.

“Need fish?” said Swampy again. When he says that around some people, they feel obligated to go and catch a fish for Swampy, like he was a sheep, or something. I know that Swampy is not offering to fish for me, and he should know I won’t fish for him. I don’t particularly like Swampy, though I’ve known him longer than any other being but Dirk, and I’ve spent a lot more time with Swampy than Dirk.

The stupid rat-bird won’t leave me alone; I have no idea why.

“Stay with Elmer,” says Swampy as if he’s read my mind.

“Wonderful,” I grumble. I focus on the dirt, bacteria, and other unuseful organisms clinging to my body since I fell asleep. After a few seconds, it all falls away. Swampy swoops down and feeds on a worm that must have spent the night with me.

“Well now, I’m clean, and you’re fed,” I say to Swampy – not that I’m looking to start up a conversation with the rat-bird, but I guess it’s better than talking to yourself. “Now it’s time for my breakfast.”

I squat down so that I can lay my palms flat against the earth. I concentrate on vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins and fats. I feel my body begin to absorb the nutrients, until something buts me in the back.

It’s the ram. He’s looking at me as if it’s my job to give him anything he wants. I feel like punching him between the horns, but you never know where Moist might show up to enforce the thirty-fifth idea, so I move away submissively. Swampy flies by and farts in the ram’s face.

At times, Swampy isn’t such bad company.

One of the advantages of living out in the open is that you have nothing to defend. Sure, the sheep were annoying, but they weren’t a threat. They couldn’t take anything from me because all I had were my clothes and whatever I could fit in my fanny pack.

I wandered over the rise that had once been a grassy bluff. The soil was loose and sandy now, with an erosion ditch that led down to the river. How long had it been that way? From the height of the rise I could see quite a ways. I saw lots of sheep, lambs playing, ewes clumped in groups as if they had anything to fear now that nearly all the wolves were dead, two rams were butting each other across the river, probably over a large group of ewes nearby, though maybe over a patch of short grass. There was surprisingly little grass.

“How long has it been this way, Swampy,” I asked. The rat-bird had followed me, as it always did.

“Need fish?” said Swampy.

A single worm isn’t much when you’re a rat-bird, I guess. I was still hungry too. The ram had interrupted my breakfast, and river soil is rich in nutrients. Swampy flew ahead as I made my way down the rise.

The river was muddy; filled with silt. There must have been some flooding downstream, though I couldn’t remember any particularly heavy rain. I didn’t notice rain much since I learned the secret to repelling it. It was a pretty simple trick – one of the first I learned when I was only three or four hundred years old. Every once in a while I let the rain drench me; just to remember how it felt.

I knelt by the river. Swampy waddled over to join me, his greasy wings flailing, and his seven rat-tails stirring up the sand behind him. He stared at me with one gray and puce eyeball. Birds don’t stare at you straight ahead. He didn’t need to say anything, I knew what he wanted. I thought about him farting at the ram and laughed. I leaned over and dangled my fingers in the water. It took longer than usual to attract a fish – it must have been all the silt. It wasn’t very big.

Swampy pounced. That would keep him quiet for a while.

I imagined that my body might still be able to digest fish, but I didn’t try to catch another. I just put my hand flat in the river shallows and soaked up nutrients. It was pretty poor for river soil. Maybe there was some natural disaster going on that I didn’t know about. Plagues, famines, earthquakes, floods – they didn’t affect me much anymore. The first few were exciting, but after you live through a hundred or so, it’s kind of like diarrhea, go about your business and it passes after a short while.

I wasn’t hungry anymore. I reached into my fanny pack for a cigar and noticed that I was down to two. It was a good thing that sheep didn’t like the tobacco plant. I’d have a hard time obeying idea thirty-five if flocks started threatening my cigar supply.

Not surprisingly, I was short on matches too. One of the matches was wet. I pulled it out and smelled it. It smelled like sheep urine.

How had a sheep managed to pee into my fanny pack and onto one, but only one, match?

I was just glad the other matches were all right. I once spent a couple centuries trying to figure out how Light Bringers made fire come out of their fingertips. It would be a useful skill to have, but I couldn’t learn the trick. I asked Lenny Bruise to teach me once and he made fire come out of his middle finger.

“Flick – you, Elmer,” he said or something like that. I can’t quite remember exactly what it was.

I guess that meant no. Maybe Light Bringing wasn’t a skill, but actually magic. I always expected magic to be more dramatic.

“Well Swampy,” I said, “if I don’t want to run out of cigars, I better go see the Ceasarans.”

“Going to town,” said Swampy.

I fished the earth for gold or silver. It’s a lot like soaking up nutrients, but I had to stop the mineral before it entered my body. There was still plenty of precious metal in the ground, and it only took a few minutes before I had a decent sized wad of silver, and a smaller one of gold which I put in my fanny pack. I did a similar thing with river algae, drawing it up into a couple of rough bar-shaped lumps. I pushed the moisture out of the bars, along with any harmful bacteria. Algae bars might not taste good, but if there was a famine in the land, one of these would keep a body alive for a day or two. I wanted to keep the Ceasaran family alive. They were the only cigar-making family I knew, and had been selling me cigars for… well, quite a while.

I didn’t bother asking Swampy if he was coming. Of course he was coming. The stupid rat-bird never left me alone.

I might mention here that I created the character Swampy before I ever saw Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, though I imagine the screenplay writer had the concept first.

Sometimes muses mess with us like that. Here's a clip from the movie.

Tender Vitals

Tender Vitals

by Headley Hauser

"Look!" said Dander. "There it is again. They named a candy after you, Skittles!"

Skittles pouted. "It's not named for me. There are lots of fairies named Skittles."

"But not near this Seven Eleven! Look, some of the candies are green like your eyes, some of them are yellow like your teeth, and some of them are red like the color your cheeks get when you're angry."

"Stay back in the flower bed!" scolded Skittles. "A human will see you - or worse, a cat!"

Dander gave a little jump at the mention of the C word. There were a lot more of them now, and they weren't staying in houses and getting fed small cans of meat and meat byproducts; they were out hunting for birds, rodents... and fairies!

"A-ha!" laughed Skittles, "worried about your tender vitals, I see."

"The humans never should have named their cat food that. The cans turn every content calico into a fairy hunter."

"The humans named the cat food Vittles," said Skittles.

"Close enough!"

"And they don't think cats can read, or even understand their language."

"They don't think cats can read," said Dander. "They don't think cats can turn door knobs, or drive an SUV, or load and fire an M16. Humans aren't very bright."

"Most cats prefer Uzis. They're easier to carry."

"It's not like the old days when we twitched our wings and flew out of the cat’s reach."

Skittles bobbed her antennae. "It's hard to out-jump a nine millimeter bullet traveling at four hundred meters per second."

"I'll give the humans one thing," said Dander, "Their veterinarians help slow the rate of fairy-folk genocide."

"Yeah,” said Skittles. “They get those cats right in the bob-o-links.” Like most fairies, Skittles chose her euphemisms from among the names of small flowers and birds.

"Shush," said Dander in a whisper. "There's a tabby at five o'clock."

"What's she packing?"

"It looks like a Kalashnikov."

The two fairies hid among the marigolds. Marigold scent was unpleasant, but it masked their fairy airy from the hunting feline. The cat must have heard them, or seen movement because she was staring at the marigolds. Three banana clips hung from the cat's collar, and she wore a small medal with the word, "Neverland" inscribed at the top. This was no casual Sylvester, but seasoned campaigner. A lot of Tink's best fairies bought it in the catastrophe of '07.

A mole scampered across the path, catching the cat's attention. The calico released the Russian-made automatic weapon's safety and followed after the small rodent.

"You know," said Dander after the danger had passed, "maybe we fairy-folk should consider a new career as house pets."

"Like the canaries? You want to live in a cage?"

"We could avoid cages by using a litter box, and making ourselves useful. We could help them find their house keys after the imps steal them. They might even feed us Skittles!"

"Very funny," said Skittles, "but count me out. Humans claim to love their pets but how is it that the world is filled with homeless cats? Remember what happened to Charlotte’s 4H friend, the pig. Instead of feeding us sweets, the humans are more likely to feed our Tender Vitals to their cats."

“You’re right,” said Dander. “We should stick to fairy stuff. You go paint a water stain of the Virgin Mary on that Seven Eleven, and I’ll grab the candy while the humans are staring at it.”

The moments before that cats landed in Neverland 2007.