Chapter X
Sir Lil’
Fee fi fo fumb!
I smell the blood of a nasty one!
Be he young or be he old, I will eat him, if truth be told!
Meanwhile (you would think there would be tons of synonyms for a word as common in writing as meanwhile wouldn’t you? But strangely enough there is not that many at all) all the way across the road a very different scene was taking place in the home of the Nasty Rodents.
There were many different types of small cheese or nut loving animals making up the clan of Nasty Rodents but they were all more or less the same size; some of the rodents would have grown bigger, because they were young, if it were not for the Initiation, yet others were still babies and smaller than the standard size. There was a rat, a young raccoon, squirrels or chipmunks, mice of men, mice of woman, rabbits and gophers. But perhaps the most important of the whole clan was those ferrety/ weasely/ stoaty/ ottery types of animal. He was an adult male, strange because he had survived the initiation. He like most of the others was large rat sized. He was brown and named Runner for unknown reasons. Well I know why he was named Runner but as far as your concerned it was “unknown reasons,” and don’t you DARE act all smart-alecky on me and say it is because he runs a lot, because you don’t know if he does. Well anyway Runner was the leader of the insane mottled clan of Nasty Yellow Bucked Teethed Rodents. Some other smart alecks might also snobbily point out that some type things, or raccoons are not rodents, I would not know but this is MY story so I shall go ahead and claim that they are all rodents. Anyone have a problem with that? Because if you do I would very calmly like you to know, that quite frankly, I don’t care, and if you feel that me saying this is rude than you can go leave ‘cause I (apposed to you) am the ringleader here. So as my grandmother and some times my mom says, Anyhow.
Anyhow the filthy rodents were having another screaming rowdy argument about initiation.
“It is time! He is old enough.” goes Runner.
“He is barley a child! He is MUCH too young!” says motherly female rodent of your choice.
“He must!”
“No! Please! I might get killed!” cries young male rodent of your choice (are not I being generous in letting you decide what type of rodent they are? See? I am not all bad).
The adult rodents ignore the youngster, of course.
“He is tiny!”
“That is because he is young, duh!” says Runner who at times was foolish.
“You just contradicted yourself!”
“I did not.” said Runner in a final tone.
“You did. Anyway The One shall surly eat him alive!” “The One” she was referring to was none other than the great standard poodle, Boo who all young Nasty Rodent boys have to face and survive, not kill her but survive her, because killing her was beyond comprehension. All young boys had to face this gruesome initiation, and not one had yet survived. This tradition had gone on as long as anyone could remember but then again rodents have notoriously short life spans and even shorter memories. Afte, all Boo was mortal dog, if a little large for her breed. She was also skinny from living off of only occasional initiations and barbaric ritual sacrifices from the Rodents in addition to scarce desert food. Boo had been abandoned as a one year old dog simply because she was no longer a puppy, that is why she was stuck in the desert.
“He is a tough fellow.”
“A tough fellow! A tough fellow!? That only means he will take longer for her to chew!” frantically screamed motherly female rodent of your choice.
“I don’t care what you say, he needs to be initiated and that’s final! He will survive, won’t you boy?”
“No! Please! I am weak and small for my size!” pleaded young male rodent of your choice “I don’t want to die!” he sobbed.
“Nonsense! You can’t be small for your size! You mean small for your age!” Runner was truly very foolish indeed.
