"Our first day of summer vacation, and I'm already bored," Muriel Meescovich complained to her friend, Nancy Skunk. "It's too hot to play outside. The door to the roof is locked, and the janitor won't let us roller skate in the the halls."
"I can't go home, or I'll have to clean my room and the mess I made this morning."
"What kind of mess?"
"I fixed hotcakes for breakfast, that's all."
"That don't seem like a big mess. Maybe we can clean it together."
"I don't like cleaning ovens. All those coil things have baked on hotcake stuff on them, and the sugar makes those crystal things."
"You fixed hotcakes in the oven? My Mama uses a skillet."
"Well, nobody told me that before. It melted the plastic dish, too, all over." Nancy shrugged. "Maybe we can go to my Uncle Charlie's apartment?
The first Charlie knew of it was when the two girls came whooping through one of my ratholes. He'd found out, years ago, that boarding them up did no good. I'd simply gnaw another.
He was writing a story about the Mexican invasion of Lower Slobovia in 1413, when he felt tiny Muriel scampering up his right leg, relieved to see she was on the outside of the cloth--for a change. At the same time, Nancy's weight hit his left shoulder, sharp teeth nibbling on his ear.
"Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie. Wha' ya doin'?" Nancy asked. She considers that stupid human her uncle."
"You got any peanuts?" Muriel asked from atop the "F5" to "F10" keys on his computer, a cacophony of "beeps" and "bloops" emitting from the speakers as she jumped back and forth.
Charlie pointed her to a candy dish he kept, for that purpose, at one edge of his desk. Both girls ran over there to munch, thereby saving him an ear.
They told him their problem.
"Girls," Charlie had a suggestion, "why don't we call Looluu Meeschoi. She has that government jet that Georgie Bush lets her use. Maybe we can get her to fly you to Alice's house, and you can spend the day in Wonderland."
"Will she take us?" Muriel asked.
"We can only ask," he said, picking up the telephone. He wanted them out of his hair so he could get back to work. Looluu is a ninja mouse from North Korea. She didn't like living there, and defected to the US. Since she's trained as an assassin, I got her a job with my friends, Georgie and Dick. Because her missions are world-wide, she's been assigned a permanent government jet, and a colonel to drive it. The driver lives in our city, so he likes to park the plane here, on a backyard airstrip paid for with tax dollars. Since Looluu doesn't care where she lives, she moved in with the pilot. See? Simple.
Here's where that human idiot fades out of the story again, after hauling the girls over to Looluu's home.
***
"Can you take us, can you, can you?" Muriel begged the older mouse.
Looluu shook her whiskers, "no." "Colonel Jones has a date with Condy's sister tonight. Politics, you know," she told them, "so I can't take you to Alice's house."
"Awwwwww." Nancy was disappointed. "We came over here for nothing."
"We can do the next best thing, though," Looluu said. "We can go someplace else, the same way Alice does."
"I want Wonderland." Muriel pouted, stomping her mousy paws.
"This is ... well ... sorta a wonderland," Looluu told them. "it's an enchanted forest that might even be in wonderland. I never been there. Alice told me her secret on how to use JPG pictures to travel. I've been too busy to try it, though. Why not today?"
Muriel and Nancy watched as Looluu booted up the colonel's computer, one with a big monitor. She then rubbed something on the screen--some funny-smelling liquid from a bottle. Then she brought up a JPG picture of a strange looking jungle.
"Come on, girls. Hold paws and ... off we go," Looluu said as the three of them skipped through the computer screen, right into the Enchanted Forest.
"Oh, look at the flowers, They smell just like raspberry pizza." Muriel giggled, stooping to all four knees to take a bite.
When she continued munching, seeming to have a good time, Looluu also crouched down to nibble. When Nancy tried it, they tasted awful to her. Must not be good for a skunk, she thought, looking around instead.
She saw that, in person, it was really not such a good place. It was damp, dreary, and the trees went up so high the sun didn't shine--only like just before dark. It even seemed to be getting colder.
She heard a groan. Looking back, Nancy saw her friends rolling around on the grass, sick and throwing up purple stuff. She tried to help Muriel up, but the mouse clutched her stomach with shaking paws and only groaned some more. Nancy realized you had to be careful eating strange plants in a stranger land.
"Gloogle fever. Yep, tis gloogle fever, young lady."
The voice came from behind her. Frightened, Nancy turned, to see a human sitting on a very large aardvark, leaning over and watching the other girls vomit.
"Answer me a riddle, and I'll tell you how to cure them," he said, sitting straight up on his steed, a huge smile on his face. "Answer me a riddle and I'll tell you."
"Wh ... What's the riddle, mister?
"What's yellow, mushy, and can't stand heat?" the man asked.
"Uh," Nancy asked, not having any idea. "Can I have a clue, sir?"
"Very well. It often sits on your butter-dish."
"Uh, butter?"
"Correct. Now for the next one."
"You didn't say there was more than one."
"Who ever heard of one riddle? Certainly not me, little skunk. Three is the accepted practice. Three, indeed."
"Okay. What's the next one?"
"What do you say when a strange man riding an aardvark rides up? Uh, you tell me that, young lady?"
"Wha ... I mean, 'hello?"
"It's about time you remembered your manners. You must be out-of-forest, but not out of the woods, to be here, you know."
"We're only visiting."
"Well, whatever you do, stay away from the Quizels, what ever else you do or not. Stay away from the evil Quizels."
He turned his aardvark and started to ride off.
"Wait. Pplease, mister. What's the third riddle and how do I help my friends?"
The aardvark strode closer, causing Nancy to raise her tail in self-defense. He whispered in her ear, "He only knows the two. He quit school in the second grade, before they taught riddleography, you know. And your answer is to leave them alone and they'll quickly recover. Remember, though, to stay away from those evil Quizels." And the two trotted away.
"What's a Quizel?" Nancy called after them, but received no answer.
"Wh--Who was that?" Looluu asked, wiping her snout on clean grass before getting to her feet.
"I dunno," Nancy answered, perplexed, to say the least. She watched Muriel, also recovered, get to her feet, forcing a sickly grin.
"Not anywhere as good as I thought. I'll never eat raspberry pizza again."
Finding a path, one winding through strange trees, some with nice-looking fruit which none of the girls even considered trying, they came to a split in the trail. A large wooden sign told them that one way led to Quizelville, and the other to Spidertown.
The road to Quizelville was paved in nice yellow bricks, with signs picturing strange looking animals having fun, many of them smiling as they hugged each other and played video games. They did have large and sharp teeth, though.
The road to Spidertown was made of sharp stones, bad on tender paws, and it was covered with old cobwebs.
"Which should we take?" Looluu asked. "Quizels might be dangerous, but I don't like spiders."
"Spidertown, of course," both Muriel and Nancy replied.
"Why spiders?" Looluu asked, surprised. She figured she could protect all of them from the Quizels, who didn't look all that dangerous to a trained ninja assassin mouse.
"We have a good friend who's a spider, Arabella Spiderski. Spiders are really friendly."
And they were. The girls met a spider named Abby, and were served a meal of French-fried Beetle wings, dipped in yak-butter, and some nice non-alcoholic sweetened mosquito juice, while the adult Looluu enjoyed a glass of roach wine.
"Uh, Abby, dear," Looluu asked their host, "could you tell me about those Quizels. Do they eat mice and skunks?"
"Heavens, no," Abby laughed a huge spider laugh, wiping tea from her mouth with three of her legs at the same time. "But they recently wiped out the family of poor Snyder Spider.
"First, one came over to borrow a few grains of sugar, but it had to be in Mildred Snyder Spider's own cup. On the way out, he asked for the saucer, too.
"Then, another came and borrowed their teapot, stove and all. Before long, the poor Snyder Spiders were reduced to a bare web. When they saw three Quizels coming, dragging an empty thread spool, they gave up and ran. And those Quizels never, ever, return anything. Not at all. That's why you must beware of the Quizels."
Full of mosquito juice and mite cookies, the three girls returned home. On the way, Muriel commented, "I'm glad we don't have any Quizels."
"Wait until you grow up a little, honey. There are more of them in our world than you can imagine," Looluu told her.
By Oscar Rat, the famous rat writer (with the help of Arabella Spiderski.)
