Starring Wicked Queen Squippache, Snow Waz, and the 7 Dweebs.  And, introducing for the first time in decades, the return of  Mirror! Mirror! On the Wall (as himself).

Featuring Sleazy, Slumpy, Dumb (as a rock) Doc, Dumber, Gumpy (who loves shrimp), Bonehead, and Dumpy - also known as the Seven Dweebs.

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CHAPTER TEN

The sky above the Squippache Kingdom grew closer, and larger, as an odor began to infiltrate through the carriage cracks.  The aroma hinted of apples and cinnamon.  The carriage bumped once, then twice, the second time hard enough to shake Snow from her comfortable snooze.  She realized that she had slid down in her seat so far that her knees were dreadfully close to the Pirate's knees.  The last bump from the carriage caused their knees to knock together, bringing a different kind of redness to each of their faces.  The carriage kept bumping and rocking, and seemed to be slowing its pace along the road.

Sheriff Sadie leaned the side of her face against the window on the right side of the carriage, trying to see toward the front.  She wondered why the carriage was slowing down.  She could see ahead only enough to realize that the sky in front of them had turned dark.  The fresh-from-the-oven golden smog over the kingdom was being overshadowed by a mass of darkness that approached the lone carriage as swiftly as a  horde of locusts and, now that Sadie's ear was pressed against the carriage door's glass, she could hear a humming that, indeed, sounded like locusts.

"Prepare for the worst, prisoners," she said, her ear still straining to listen as hard as her eyes were straining to see.

Outside, the driver spanked the horses on, screaming at the top of his lungs.  He was on a mission and the approaching storm clouds were not to hinder his getting home in time for his wife's beef stew and cornbread.  The dissipating fog, now being overshadowed more deeply than before, reminded him of the burnt edges of his wife's cobbler.  That is why his thoughts were on supper and driving the horses to the stall, and why he did not recognize, until it was too late, that it was, indeed, a horde of insects that approached and not a rain cloud.

The lead horse came to a screeching halt as it and the other horses reared up in fright from not only the darkness approaching so quickly, but, also, the increasing level of a humming sound.  Now, the sound had become so loud and so high that the passengers were holding their ears.  The driver watched in a mesmerized surrender as the millions of flying insects swooped from cloud level and swarmed down like a twister from a Kansas cornfield - approaching at a speed faster than, the driver decided, any horse could match.

Grabbing the reins and snapping his shoulders to the right, he frantically called the horses to turn.  Reluctantly, yet obediently, they came down upon all fours and snapped the carriage forward as they turned in the roadway, the carriage whipping forward in obedience - the passengers being tossed and thrown together as the carriage twisted and turned in obedience to the new direction of retreat.  As the carriage turned around, the right front wheel slid off the roadway and onto the soft shoulder (for the last 5 miles they had been reminded to be aware of the soft shoulder).  As the wheel slid off the pavement, the carriage rocked, throwing Snow snuggly against Sheriff Sadie and the Pirate plummeting into Mr. Mouse.  The carriage tipped and was on the brink of rolling, but the momentum of the now galloping horses forced the wheel back onto the road.  The Breakneck speed of the horses (only myth can prove that the coining of the phrase "Horsepower" came out of this incident) began to gain distance away from the tornado-like funnel that followed - although, the attacking enemy had now expanded and split and began to approach from behind and both sides.

As one of the faster flying insects approached from the east, the driver was the first to see what only the horses had seen and understood before.  The horde of screaming, determined insects were only butterflies.  But, they were more than butterflies.  They were not yellow and green and blue and orange and white and black.  They were all black.  A second butterfly flew in from the west and hovered beside the first.  Their wings were covered with a metallic-like substance that looked so heavy it was a wonder they could fly.  Their faces were overgrown, not at all beautiful as the driver had known most all butterflies to be.  Their feet were covered with hair like lamb's wool and five talons protruded from each clump of wool.  

The demon-butterfly on the driver's left spit out a brown goober that hit the driver square in the eye.  It stung so bad that he thought he would go mad, but he forced the other eye to remain open and swatted with his riding crop.  He missed the butterflies, and instead hit one of the horses in the rear so hard that it got the message and sent word to the lead horse that, "it's time to get into the full-stride gallop."

And gallop they did.  They stepped up the pace fast enough to leave the butterflies surprised by the quickness of the horsepower of the carriage.  If butterflies could talk, they would have told the tale differently than it really happened - but, still, it is quite possible that the legal speed limit for fairy tale land being measured by butterfly-power was a direct result of this chase - because, dear friend, the butterflies caught up with those swift horses faster than a tortoise catches a napping hare - yes, much faster.

By the time the horde of butterflies caught up with the carriage, though, it was approaching the forest's entry exit sign.  The driver knew that it would be a close call, but hoped to get the carriage into the forest before the butterflies caught up.  He saw a great swarm flanking on his right and knew he would not be able to keep on the highway that circled the forest.   The entry into the forest via the dirt path was their only hope.

Whipping the horses and screaming at the top of his lungs he drove the horses onward.  The swarm on the right was approaching much quicker than he first thought and, in fact, sped ahead of the carriage, quickly blocking the entrance to the forest.  Now they were trapped.  The great mass of butterflies had them surrounded from behind and to the right.  Several other very quick butterflies broke out of the pack and began to plummet the horses and the driver with gooey goobers like grasshoppers spitting tobacco.  Only this tobacco stung both the eyes and the skin, as well as exuding a stench that stung the lungs.

Waving wildly and wanting to avoid their only other option, the driver finally surrendered and turned the horses to run along the left fork in the road - the fork that lead to the dark side of the forest.  The left rear wheel skidded as they turned and knocked over the road sign that read:  Dark Forest 200 yards.

Not even the butterflies had anticipated that the driver's madness from their stinging goobers would drive him to the perils of the Dark Forest.  But, really now, he had no choice.

The horses made short work of the 200 yards and before anyone knew what had actually happened the carriage disappeared into the dark side of the forest - fading from front to rear like a giant chocolate bar dipped into a cup of dark chocolate pudding.

Snow felt a hand on her knee the very moment that the inside of the carriage went dark, as if the sun were immediately turned out - like a lone candle extinguished on the darkest of starless nights.  She placed her hand over the top of the hand that was on her knee.  Another hand laid itself nervously on her top hand.  She felt more weight on her hand, correctly assuming that one of the other passengers had joined in the  truce that was forming in the darkness.  Before long they were all reaching, grasping for flesh to touch; innocent, careful, delicate fingers reaching quietly - as if the darkness refused to allow a sound from itself or its captives.

The carriage, finally and gratefully stopped.  The horses laid down on all fours and waited, licking their wounds with tongues that burned from the licking.  The driver, still clutching the powerless reins, shivered into a ball under his seat, his left eye, that had been blinded by the spitting butterfly, thankful to have a companion in the darkness.

They all waited, waiting for the darkness to allow the faint shadows that can be seen in the darkness once the eyes have grown accustomed to the dark.  

But, no light nor hint of shadow came.

The Dark Forest was patient - waiting to open its arms to its new residents.

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end of PART ONE of Snow Waz & the Seven Dweebs - Growing Pains & Autumn Leaves!

Return to Amaze Thing Books.

Please let me know if you have read (and enjoyed) Part One of Snow Waz & the 7 Dweebs by sending a quick email to:  ehylandmaze@aol.com  -  it might inspire me to upload Part Two:  Dark Forest Friends.

Thanks again for reading, my friend!

bless you.....................................Eugene H. Maze

This chapter and all chapters related to this website book entitled "Other Shorts" (copyright 1995, 2005) was written and published by Eugene H. Maze.  No portion of this book may be copied, sold or distributed either by electronic or other means in any fashion whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author.  Permission for distribution may be obtained by contacting the author at ehylandmaze@aol.com.  Links to this and all previous and subsequent pages of this book entitled "Other Shorts" may be distributed freely without permission.

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