One day Bobby noticed that one of his sneakers was missing and he looked all over his room and house for it. He got frustrated and woke up his mother. "Mommy! Mommy! Have you seen my sneaker?"
"Bobby, I don't know. We can look for it later. Go back to sleep."
"But I wanted to see the sunrise at the mire!"
"Well, wear my slippers then and keep them clean."
"OK, thanks mommy!"
So Bobby ran to Mommy's closet and peered inside and found some big pink slippers and slid his feet into them and sauntered out of the house, careful not to let his feet out of the big, lanky grown-up shoes.
"Hmm," he thought to himself. "Which way was the mire again?" He stumbled back into his quiet house and woke up his father. "Daddy, daddy, which way is the mire?"
"Mmmph. Hmphf. Ughmm..."
"..."
"Umm, go around the left bend toward the meadow, but don't tread in it, that means you went too far. Make another left at the red rocks before the meadow and follow the rocky path down the swamp and you'll hit it. Run along now and be careful. I'm going back to bed. Mmphf."
"Thanks daddy!" said Bobby. He started to run out of the house, wanting to get there before sunrise, and almost tripped over his own feet in the process. "Stupid slippers! Well, better than being half barefoot on this rocky, muddy trail!" The sky was a dark velvet purple, with just enough clear moonlight for Bobby to find his way, but the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. He took the left bend toward the meadow and slowly maneuvered over the red rocks and slid down the muddy path, careful not to soil the pink slippers. But his feet came loose and so did his grip on the branches sticking out from the walls of the trench. It got stepper and steeper and he panicked as his sliding back a roll and he spun down the path like a loose tire until he hit the bottom of the mire, a pool of viscous, gooey brown mud, a stew of plan debris and rocks, probably devoid of life.
It was still when he reared his head and looked about the zone of muck and grime he'd gotten himself into. "Augh!" He shouted. He thought about the shoe he was looking for and the pink slippers he must have soiled and left behind in his spontaneous descent until..."Aughh!" he screamed as he felt a strange, sharp pull on his leg. "What? Hey! Help!!" A new limb wrapped around his arm. He shouted and squirmed until he saw a rounded, mysterious stump looming, rising from the mud and then stopping. There was a hiss, and a "Kaugh....KAKAKAKAKAKaugh..."
"Ollie? Ollie!!" Bobby shouted with glee. He felt the claws unwind around his limbs and for the first time, was happy to be stuck in a pit of mud with an alligator.
The beast reared his stump of a head and bore its teeth and let out of a loud grunt.
"Bobby..." It spoke like an overflown rain gutter, spewing water. "You can't just hop in here like a handicapped toad. I would have swallowed you whole!"
"It wasn't up to me, Ollie! The mire walls were super steep! What happened?"
"Oh, I've been doing a little remodeling to invite more...visitors. It worked for you, didn't it?"
"Yes, I guess so. Anyway the reason I stopped by is because I'm looking for a shoe."
"Heh, I think I got that. Gimme a sec." Ollie Alligator stood up high on his hind legs, rising out of the mire, spewing bits of mud everywhere while Bobby wipes some off his face. Nine feet is visible [...] and he inhales a torrent of air into his dark green nostrils and takes a step back from his little human friend. And, perfectly on cue he spits from his giant tree trunk snout a monsoon of mud and gunk and half-digested food scraps lining the mire with trash and debris. Bobby laughs and smiles at Ollie.
"I wish I could have done that at dinner last night...casserole again."
A loud belly chortle escapes Ollie. "Next time try to liberate those leftovers for me!"
Bobby eyed the now more-littered-than-before mire. Lying in the mud were chicken bones, pieces of string, pages from a Berenstein Bears coloring book, old coins, fathers, scraps of colored paper, some metal trinkets, soup cans and lids, receipts, spent Borders gift cards, old moldy bread, a milk carton, a shoe, a sleeping frog, a Band-Aid, someone's underwear, and what have you. It seemed like the garbage tsunami was coming to an end, all that Ollie was matriculating were now a few guttural belches.
"Hey!" Bobby shouted. He waded through the gunk and grabbed a now dark green and brown sneaker.
"Just leave it by the fireplace tonight, it'll be good as new in the morning," Ollie instructed. "Oh, do you want this coloring book? Even though...it's mostly colored mud?"
"No thanks, Ollie. I just got the new Captain Sassafras Molasses one. My dad bought me it!" Ollie puts his snout under the surface
and sucks up a piece of old chicken. "Cool! Well, have a safe trip home!"
"Thanks again, Ollie!" Bobby shouts back, relieved as he climbs up the walls of the valley of mud. Eventually, he made his way home, realizing he'd bumped into his mother. "Bobby," she said, "You made it!" She warmed him with an embrace. "Now, where are my slippers?"
No comments:
Post a Comment