To The Treehouse
O Lando should have been exhausted by the cruel pace set by these FANGIRLS, the prodding, the touching, the oogling, the fingers run through his hair over and over again. Instead, he had felt himself strangely empowered by the libation of that draught they had forced upon him. He felt his strength rise and realized his stamina had been fortified for whatever task they held in store for him. Yet, yet, that was not all. His head and heart seemed strangely overwrought and he found he could begin to devise cunning plans to deceive these FANGIRLS. This was something unlike any other libation he had drunk before.
Then felt the wound in his head; it had healed, but he feared he would be scarred for the rest of his fifteen minutes of fame.
"O Lando, O Lando," Vogonwë whispered, "Why does your name sound like a brand name for butter in the Seventh Age?"
"Deep in the heart of my family's ways lies the truth and meaning thereof. It derives I say from the noble spirit of a warg who did great deeds at a place by name of Hogwart's Press."
"Well, we're on this expedition now. Where do we get bed and breakfast?"
"Now, then," intruded Chixinlov. "None of that! Hold your tongues. You'll get your bed and breakfast too, at the end of it, if these girls have their way. But we're tired of lugging you about."
Where upon the brazen hussy cut the thongs about the two cousins, and forced them to run unhampered. A sudden thought leaped into O Lando's mind and he acted on it at once. He swerved aside away from the Path, landed on some mossy keyboards amongst the low hanging websites, and quickly brooched a message which he hoped might frighten the FANGIRLS,
Spiders with malice aforethought.
"Hey, you, there's no time for that stuff now," cried out Gayflowerhottie as O Lando was rudely picked up and roughly pushed back along the Path.
Neither O Lando nor Vogonwë remembered much of the later part of the journey. They ran and they ran, kept going only by the stimulation of the orc draught and the licks every now and again of the FANGIRLS. Finally, however, it seemed they reached a goal.
"Oooww, look," cried Legosassy. "It's the Black River boutique. And it is stocked with all the oldest Gothic fashions of satins and velvets and leathers and feathers and chains and hair gels and hair sprays."
The boutique was cordoned off by a rope, with a security guard outside holding a long queque of FANGIRLS at bay.
"How many do you think there are?" asked DesiriaBloom.
"I shouldn't think above twelve," answered Lecheria.
"Twelve! I should have thought it was thirty at least, but my eyes don't see as well as they did. I must need glasses," retorted Orlophoria.
"Does anyone have more rope?" asked PinkChihuahua. "We could lasso the lineup and draw them away."
Gayflowerhottie was deemed the strongest armed and threw the first lasso.
"Not far enough!" claimed Chixinluv."A couple of feet farther and you would have had them."
Gayflowerhottie picked up the rope and threw again, this time with greater strength. It overshot the queque and had to be drawn back gently.
These maneuvres went on several times, again and again, until finally it dawned on O Lando and Vogonwë that they were on longer being watched. O Lando had so wanted to enter the Black River Boutique too that for the time being he didn't mind being captive.
A squeal and loud uproar then proved that the lasso had finally found its mark and the wildest quarrel ensued with all clamouring for entrance to the boutique.
"Get to it now," Vogonwë cried. "Run! Here's our cheap deus ex machina."
There was a flying sound of hooves on the Path and out of the gloom came the shape of a flying deer. It gathered itself for a mighty leap and the two elves sprang onto it. It flew high, high, higher into the air, up and over the Black River Boutique and the ugly fight among would-be patrons.
It soared, but the hold of the elves was tenuous. Vogonwë held on by the thinnest caesura and finally that broke the sentence. As the deer ran on, O Lando could hear the poet fulminating his anathemas as he tumbled earthward in his finest hour.
Flowers bloom as black as night
Removing color from your sight
Nightmarish vines block your way
Thorns reach out to catch their prey
And by the pricking of your thumbs
Realize that their poison numbs
From frightful blooms, rank odors seep
Bats and FANGIRLS fly and creep
'Cross this evil land, ill winds blow
Despite the brand name bargains down below.
All will rot and decompose
For something wicked this way grows...
"Noro lim, noro lim," cried O Lando, holding on for deer life.
"Shut up you fool," said the White Deer. "I'm your agent in disguise. And I've come to take you to cement a deal. There's a dwarf here who is crazy for a deal."
When they were far enough away from the calamitous scene, the White Deer finally halted, knocked three times on the nearest tree, did the hookey pookey and turned it all about and suddenly became O Lando's agent, PeeJay13. They walked to a familiar treehouse, where Kuruharan was waiting, holding the precious Foozle closely in hand. The negotiation O Lando found difficult to follow as the slow tongue of business was unknown to him.
"It is like the market itself, rich and rolling in part and else hard and stern, torn between the Scylla and Charybdis of the bull and the bear. I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with profit for me."
"Shut up you fool," said PeeJay13, who turned back to Kuruharan and said, "You now have exclusive rights to the name."
"Really?" said Kuruharan. 'That's great. My own line of hair spiking glue. L'oréal will draw those gothgirls in for sure."
The deal concluded, PeeJay13 left in search of kiwi profits elsewhere while Kuruharan and O Lando just-Bloom-now wound their way back to camp and the beautiful maid MeriSuewyniel.
[ February 18, 2003: Message edited by: Bethberry ]