NEWDIE STEADSLAW

Now, after the prior incident that the seven forty-seven had been involved with—what with the nearly crashing and all—the whole Forty-Seven family had made a few changes, gearing up with a mind for safety and going back to school to bone up on their moves, and now each flew with a full suit of chain mail from head to toe and parts beyond, so as to better protect them from tragic events exactly like the one currently occurring, and so when the seven forty-seven crashed into the blimp, the seven forty-seven was entirely unharmed. As for the blimp, it was little more than a balloon with ambition, and had not armored up in preparation for unforeseen tragedies, and so it instantly burst like the crime against Nature that it was and crumpled under the seven forty-seven’s might, and the gondola plummeted to the surface, and Mario the gondolier also plummeted to the surface in what would certainly be his demise. Traycup and Ben Garment, however, fared better. Clinging to the wing of the plane would have been foolish, as that’s already been done—but what’s more, Traycup had learned a lesson from the previous clingment, so while cling they did do, they did do it elsewhere: latching on tight to the seven forty-seven’s long mohawk.

“Release my spectacular mane at once,” bellowed the plane, “or I’ll shake you off with a barrel roll!”

“No, you’ll not!” said Traycup.

“I will—acause I’ve restudied and now know the difference between a barrel roll and an aileron roll!” said the wiseful plane.

“It’s got us,” said Ben Garment. “Our number’s up!”

“There are always more numbers!” said Traycup.

The seven forty-seven began to do its promised barrel roll—a real one—but Traycup, too, had some experience with the aeronauticals, and so clomb quickly aboard, sneaking up a tear duct and into the baggage compartment. There, to blend in—and to recoup the loss of the late blimp—Ben Garment opened up a coffee shop, utilizing the beans still situated in Traycup’s ear, and they both quickly tied on aprons and began practicing latte art. They couldn’t get the hang of it, but a passing art dealer noticed their work and considered their botched amateur job to be as good as a Dadaist masterpiece offering a brilliant commentary on the state of physical affairs between man and his competition, and offered to buy it for seventy-five billion dollars—but there was no time to sign the paperwork, because that’s when their first customer arrove: a rocking chair named Kent who had a thirst that a gorilla’d notice.

“Hey,” said Kent, “can I get a, uh... a peppermint mocha cappuccino?”

Traycup and Ben Garment stared at Kent in transfixed bemusement.

“That’s almost an inevitability,” said Traycup. “That’s so, eh, Ben Garment?”

“It’s a momentless thing,” said Ben Garment. “We’ve ingredients aplenty. Surely that’s a drink that’s got some in it.”

“Thanks,” said Kent. “The name’s Kent.”

“Impressive!” said Traycup. “And I’m Traycup. How d’you do?”

“How do I do what?” said Kent.

“How do you do the trick where your thumb comes off?” said Traycup.

“Like this,” said Kent, demonstrating the trick where your thumb comes off, and his flawless execution and adept misdirection were so effective that the baristas forgot all about the beverage, goat racing odds, and to pay their rent, and so, as it became overdue, the landlady quickly came up and stood at the window, holding a bushel of raisins, and fuming a steaming smog. Traycup and Ben Garment noticed her slowly and reluctantly.

“Kent,” said Traycup, “my compliments on the trick, but we’ll to take a rain check on that drink.”

“That isn’t how rain checks work,” said Kent, but it was too late, because Traycup had already jumped into the secret passage below the bean grinder. Ben Garment didn’t know there was a secret passage down there—that’s kind of what made it a secret—and so he hemmed and hawed ever so slightly, but when the landlady became made of sieves, he decided Kent was on his own, and managed to follow Traycup mainly by scent. Kent tried to slow the landlady by pulling handkerchiefs out of his sleeve, which did impress her, and so they became fast friends—but the rent was still overdue.

Inside the secret passage, Traycup and Ben Garment found a series of stables for horses that couldn’t see blue, right next to the avocado deliveryperson training school. Traycup smoke-signaled Ben Garment to keep quiet, and they crept by with as much silence as they could muster, for horse and ’vocado alike were building a fine mouse of cards, breath-holding all around. Spooking the mouse would surely kickoff everyone’s downfall. But, alas, Alfonso McDreidel saw them—possibly due to all the smoke—and threw ten dollars at them, shouting, “Who’s got the time for this?”

“Stand backwards!” said Traycup, shielding Ben Garment from the money, but it was too late. Ben Garment already knew the exchange rate.

“You’re getting got, and I’m doing the getting!” said Alfonso McDreidel, intent on seeing the job done. The trap was sprung, and all the horses came out of their stables playing trombones—save Phillippo, who was new, and hadn’t learned how not to see blue yet—and Traycup, in the confusion, hid himself in a toaster. Being that trombones were Ben Garment’s third greatest weakness, he took three-dee-six points of damage, and collapsed into a chaise lounge. Alfonso McDreidel stood triumphantly above the stunned anglerfish and tied him up with a rollercoaster, then put him in a potato sack which was already half-full of potatoes, turning it into a potato-and-Ben-Garment sack, and then he put the potato-and-Ben-Garment sack onto one of those flat shopping carts you get at those stores that smell like lumber and have birds throughout. Without a flick of his wrist, Alfonso McDreidel wheeled the whole menagerie away to the nearest pretzel seller, a narrow rectangle named—well, his name wasn’t important.

“I’ve got,” said Alfonso McDreidel, “the goods.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the pretzel seller.

“Never that mind, but name a price!” said Alfonso McDreidel.

“Uh,” said the pretzel seller, “I was told this part had no lines?” He looked confused. Poor kid. Well, he’d have no savior this time, as none of the rest get one but semiannually at best, and the pretzel seller hadn’t the shadows to his past to warrant any more. Besides, his contract clearly says he has lines—we sent him the script, he knows what’s going on. I swear—he’s not paid much but it’s more than he’s worth.

“Hi, I’m Phillippo,” said Phillippo, “and I’m playing a horse in this story! If you enjoy my performance, consider hiring me for children’s parties, circus performances, and bar and bat mitzvahs!”

“So, you think you’re a bony master?” said the flat cart Alfonso McDreidel had been pushing around, as it sprang to its feet and whipped out its rapier, ready to duel to the pain, finally. In its springing, the potato-and-Ben-Garment sack was overturned, and since it had never been tied properly, most of the potatoes and all of Ben Garment came toppling out like a velocipede without a ranch.

“Um,” said Phillippo, “I thought there was supposed to be a jeep here? Am I in the wrong scene?”

Advantaging himself of the distraction, Traycup carefully emerged from the toaster, sensing trouble with partridges and pear trees in his future, and plucked Ben Garment away from the oncoming battle.

“Well, that’s too many times already!” said Ben Garment.

“The chicken’s got the plot!” said Traycup.

“Is there room for one more in that soup?” said Phillippo, as Alfonso McDreidel’s flat cart neared his boundaries, rapier areadied.

“There’s!” cried Traycup, and then those three of them turned tail and ran off, for Phillippo had no grand plan to see the flat cart met in combat, in truth, but had merely become overexcited with the camera on it. They sped apart from the domain, leaving Alfonso McDreidel and the feisty flat cart in some dust. The pretzel seller was also left in some dust, but he preferred it that way.

“That was a well-fared test!” said Traycup. “You might have some head about you!”

“Gosh,” said Phillippo, blushing at the first kind words it’d received since October thirteenth, nineteen seventy-two. “And not even my birthday!”

They ran on, past a crowd of margarita tasters who leapt out of the way like vagabond divers next to a golf club, and soon they were free from the illegal army compound and out into the back alleys. In the urban maze, they could quickly lose their hunters, and once the trail was well-shook, well, the next step’d obviously be to—

“We’ve to escape the plane entirely,” said Traycup, “and yet without one akin, we’ve no way to a safer elevation.”

“There’s a danger here,” said Ben Garment, “which rings as a pity! Blimpless, this local plane makes for a fine transporter.”

“Alas, we call the destination uncontrolled,” said Traycup. “We want for alternative locomotion!”

“I could offer my horsedom!” said Phillippo.

“Nay,” said Ben Garment, “you’ve not the flight capacity desirous of expedient travel. I’ve a finer plan: as we are aplaned, and enfoed to all, let’s seal the deal in complete—the time for a hijack’s come!”

“Fair Ben Garment’s in the mood for a challenge!” said Traycup. “But I’ve a mind to make amends! We’ll have a mutinous journey if we step up the battlescape. Let’s call off the hijack and instead let’s call on a byejill. It’s the thought that counts, after all.”

“Then, it’s a plot,” said Ben Garment. “I’m to guess you’ve got bellows for all, then?”

Traycup indeed had bellows for all. “The plan is as follows,” Traycup said helpfully. “First, resurrect Dobcanyon the Musicalier. He’s key. While he’s distracted by differential equations, we design new coinage, f’t for peasant and prince alike—fine coins bearing the names of clouds and shaped like well-meaning werewolves. But, here’s the twist. We’ll’ve the coins stamped on a Tuesday, in a wooden dog park. That way, barley prices will plummet, and the tropics will see their first snowfall in almost a week! And, last but not least, don’t know about socks. This increases our chance of being greased.”

“You’ve rare talent,” said Ben Garment thoughtfully. “This is potent stuff!”

“We are,” said Traycup, “ever goalward.”

“Call me sold,” said Ben Garment. “It’s a plan I like!”

“Me too!” said Phillippo.

“Well, I don’t like it!” said the disembodied head of a robotic alligator demigod that now was floating before them, screaming every swear in every language and also on fire and spewing poison from its nose and spinning and shooting lasers from its eyes and also probably had radar dishes for ears. No one had noticed it, but it had been there the whole time.

“Ah,” said Traycup, “this got an upgrade! Well, let’s not be pantsless again!”

Ben Garment dove for safety before the horn section could attack again, and Phillippo parakeet for safety, which wasn’t very similar but was just as effective. Poor unbirded Traycup was trapped by the monstrous apparition, which was shrieking horribly, gyrating ominously, and the ninth of six children. The head flew at Traycup and out came the fire, but Traycup could assemble a futon by himself—not that he did, but he could. But the head threw its teeth at him, and then had a lot of college degrees, far more than was plausible. There was no way it got those legitimately, they must be from a diploma mill or something. No one is ten Ph. Ds.

“Get bound up in the call of the end!” said the weird head thing.

Backed into both kinds of corner, and without the other option, once more was Traycup stuckled. He peered at Ben and Phillippo both, assured of their safety, and the calendar didn’t change. Traycup beheld the head, drew a lengthy breath in permanent marker, and said, “So, listen well—they don’t make flagpoles like they used to, and those that are left in the junk drawer have stains and brambles aplenty, enough to feed a platoon, which, by the way, isn’t the same as a bread basket! Watch when the ducks cross the road, for they’ve taken a bath, and know full well how to button both hands of the wrong lady’s shirt! As for me, I’ve got a cough drop left over, but it’s half past the middle of the clock, and wouldn’t you know it—any lemur can know how to have eyes!”

Somewhere an alarm clock rang backwards. Seven dogs became religious, realized the errors of their ways, and bought a new refrigerator, one made of a harpy’s divorce settlement, and henceforth, to them, bones were no more than the best way out of a stifling conversation. They had to go to the toast store later, but if later came, there’d be a fence with their name on it, and no mistake. Well—maybe one mistake.

This silenced the yowling head for long enough for Traycup to escamper away, but soon the head began its bawling anew and burst into flames the color of rainbows. However, the Traycup-Ben Garment-Phillippo triumvirate had already given it the entire slip, and so it drifted alone in the shadowy, forgotten plains in the dark depths of the wheel housing. Sadly, it would never know love.

Once safely away, Ben Garment said to Traycup, “That was a fine form, yet we’ll have a new pursuer before long.”

“It’s a whim,” said Traycup quixotically, “for undestruction, as we’d be better not knowing when the next friend’s ready for a snack!”

“Let’s get refocused on the plan,” said Ben Garment. “The time for the byejilling is upon us.”

Traycup, Ben Garment, and Phillippo sold the rest of their stocks, curdled the newest portions of the sirloin, and pushed through the saloon doors, stepping onto the disco floor.

“Hello!” said Traycup to the assembled folk. “This is a byejilling!”