When last we met: “WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT A FAIR FIGHT?” There suddenly came a voice that sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. We looked to the southwest and saw the tall giant who had pretended to be the Evil One. He was flanked by his worblatt henchmen, Bellzy, Bub and Clancy. Before anyone had a chance to say, “Holy cow, the bad guys are here,” the giant said, “GET ’EM, BOYS.”
I noticed something odd right away. As almost five dozen elfin beings, 29 eagles, a dozen white-tailed deer and five dragons rallied against three worblatts and a whatever-he-was, the loudmouthed giant leader reached his long arm toward Summer. And the three worblatts surrounded Dejah as best they could without stepping over the fence into the backyard.
“They’re going after the dogs,” I said incredulously. And then I repeated angrily, “They’re going after the dogs!”
“Then get them inside!” Grenn yelled.
“Right. Come here, Dejah,” I said, and the old white dog scampered up the stairs and through the open patio door. “Summer?”
Summer stared at the giant hand reaching down toward her. She looked around the yard. Then she looked at the giant hand reaching down toward her. With all due respect to the 12 white-tailed deer galloping toward the worblatts, Summer looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“SUMMMERRR!” I screamed as the hand began to close around my sweet, gentle, goofy 3-year-old dog.
“COME HERE, LITTLE GIRL,” the giant said, closing his fist around Summer and beginning to lift her off the ground.
Have you ever seen five dragons spew flames from their mouths, all directed at an enormous giant’s head? We all had to turn our heads away, the fire was so bright.
The giant’s hand went limp, Summer dropped three or four feet to the ground and ran like the wind up the stairs and into the house.
The giant’s face was still intact, but it was as charred as you might think it would be after dragons breathed fire from five different directions.
“Ow,” said the giant, and it was the first time it was not necessary to use all-caps to quote him. He brought his enormous hands to his face as if to make sure it was still there. Yes, he still had a face, but it resembled a marshmallow that got too close to the campfire.
The giant ringleader stumbled backwards, tripped over one of the willow trees, and landed in a sitting position in the big field beyond the trees.
“OW!” he cried, a little more definitively, and then, waving at the worblatts, cried, “EXTERMINATE THEM ALL!”
“Did you see what they did to the boss?” Bellzy said.
“You heard him, let’s get busy!” Clancy cried.
But Seth the dragon gave Clancy a prodigious push from behind, and the monster tripped over the fence and landed face first in the backyard.
I hope I have emphasized enough two facts about my backyard. First, I neglected my duty to pick up after my dogs and was encouraged by various magical beings to maintain this neglect until after Halloween. Second, Clancy the worblatt was disgusted and terrified by dog poo to the level of a phobia.
The scream of horror was deafening. Clancy leapt to his feet, ran across the field and into the woods, which led down through a small wetlands and into the waters of Green Bay. We heard an enormous splash from below and Clancy’s cries of “Ew! Ew! Ew!” as he washed his face and body in the great bay.
Meanwhile, the assembled little army of [unpronounceables], dragons, eagles and deer swarmed over the two remaining worblatts and the dazed giant, who stumbled and rumbled and retreated through a hastily constructed inter-dimensional portal.
“That was almost too easy,” said the eagle chief.
“Worblatts and their ilk are easy to defeat,” said Seth the Dragon. “A hurricane is something else.”
“This has to work,” said Blurg. “There is no other way.”
And as the sun set to begin the night before Halloween and a light breeze started to grow stronger, I voiced the only question on my mind.
“Why did they go after the dogs?”
