Chapter Two

I figured I might as well ask to be clued in on what they were deciding for my future.

"OK, we'll talk English for the lammo who can't grok bovine. Is that all right with you Mr. Holier-than-cow?" Nubby said somewhat annoyed.

I managed to shake my head like an idiot as was my custom. I didn't want Barnwaft to see what an excellent negotiator I was by giving a long-winded retort (I was in no position to give a long-winded anything anyway, I hadn't had beans in weeks).

"So, this is how it goes. You get me whoever has been stealing my parking lots and I'll give you each 9,000 drachmas plus a nice little sled. How about it?" Nubby asked.

Both Bruno and Vance agreed almost immediately and then Brophy. I was the last one and everyone looked to me for my decision. Should I agree to work for a milk kingpin? Cows were famous for their lack of scruples so Bruno and Vance didn't have a problem with this, but I was genuinely torn inside by this moral dilemma.

"On second thought, I'm not going anywhere his pants aren't." Brophy said pointing towards me.

I thought for a moment and figured that it wouldn't be so bad. We would get money for an honest job and besides, once you've had a groundhog in your shorts there's just no going back to plain old empty pants.

"We demand an additional ten twinkees each, up front." I said trying to look smart with a shrewd tactic.

"Done, now that the deal is made, how about a tall glass of milk to celebrate?" said Nubby.

"No thanks, we had better be off to find that lot napper and earn these twinkees -come, let's boogie!" I bellowed.

Vance and Bruno looked at each other, shrugged their shoulder's and started dancing. I had forgotten that cows weren't at all familiar with the figures of speech that we midgets often used, so I joined them. About an hour later we left in search of the great parking lot thief.

Fifteen minutes into our trek, Bruno stopped and said, "How the hell are we going to find this guy?"

On cue, Brophy jumped from my pants and said, "I have knowledge of where the missing Banister Fruit might be."

Everyone now stared at Brophy. We all decided at the same moment that finding the missing Banister Fruit might be a good warm-up to actually finding the parking lots. Nobody bothered to ask what a Banister Fruit was but, that didn't seem to matter, the point was that we find something.

In unison we shouted, "To the Fruit! To the Fruit!" over and over again as we followed Brophy through the forest. It occurred to me later that nobody had even bothered to ask why Nubby Barnwaft's brother was a cow.

Brophy explained on the way that he had overheard a conversation at the nightclub. Whoever was talking had mentioned that the mice in a village near Upper Wellbottom knew where to find the missing Banister Fruit. If we could get one to come with us, we could find it easily.

We walked for a few minutes though it seemed like an eternity with the noise of cow taps and groundhog purring until we came to a small village. It was deserted at first glance, looking as if it was ravaged and left for dead. There were tiny holes all over the buildings looking as though little hands had made them, but other than that, there were no immediate signs of life.

Bruno went to examine one of the houses and was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of limburger cheese. He stumbled out of the hovel just as it collapsed in a heap.

"A trap!" I moaned, "whoever set it must have been extremely crafty!"

"Hey guys! Over here!" cried Brophy, "There's a survivor!"

We ran over to where Brophy stood and found a small white mouse fighting to catch her breath. After a few seconds she managed to say "Where am I?" in a muted voice.

"We're in your village. Who are you?" said Bruno with a concerned look.

"The only thing I can remember for sure is that my name isn't Flipper." the mouse said in sincerity as she became more lucid.

"Well, you'll have to come with us, there's nothing here for you unless you would like to play solo Parcheesi." Bruno said with authority. The term 'playing solo Parcheesi' was a figure of speech many cows used to mean 'go insane'. Some cow sayings were pure nonsense, but I had to marvel at the truth this phrase held. "We'll have to call you something though, how about Fern?"

"It's fine by me, I am now Fern!" said the little mouse.

She wore a jumpsuit that sort of looked like those that skydivers wore, but I couldn't be sure. Skydiving had been outlawed since before I was born and it was said that anyone trying to dive would be stripped of their flesh and be consumed by fresh maggots. That was something people and mice nowadays tried to avoid.

"Do you know where the Banister Fruit is by any chance?"

Bruno asked Fern.

"Of course, all the mice in the village know. I wouldn't be worth my weight in Latvian boar seeds if I ever forgot. I'll show you if you want to go." Fern responded.

All accounted for, we continued on our way. The rest of the day passed without incident and we set up a rough camp about five miles from what looked like a monastery. It was odd trying to sleep with a groundhog in my pants, truly something to be experienced firsthand, but I managed to get some shuteye.

The next morning we got up, ate some twinkees taking note that our supply was practically gone, and set out for the only building visible for miles -the monastery. Vance stubbornly refused to teleport us there claiming that we had to work off those breakfast twinkees. We got to the huge granite doors of the old building after a few hours and, using the knocker shaped doorbell, summoned an obnoxious monk to the door.

"What the hell do you want, can't you see I'm a monk?

Damn you for interrupting my monking! Get out of here all of you and take that damn midget with you!" and he slammed the door that must have weighed four and half tons.

"I'm not much of a judge of people, but I don't think he was especially happy to see us." Fern said.

"Well that doesn't matter. We are going to need more food if we want to get out of here so we have to get inside." Bruno said.

Vance stepped forward and said, "We have small rigfarters to the west." and in the blink of an eye we were inside.

Inside, the room was dark and musty with the faint smell of smoked pheasant reminding me of my bathroom back home. There was no sign of the monk but, the sound of clanging pots in the distance made us dive for cover. We would need a disguise if we were to move around unnoticed and the robes near the door would have to do the trick.

I felt at home in the fleecy robe, though Bruno and Vance had trouble believing that no one would notice that they were cows in human robes -a serious fashion faux pas. Brophy was perfectly happy being in my pants and Fern sat on my shoulder. I hoped to myself that monks in these parts liked an ornamental mouse on the shoulder, just a matter of taste in accessories I hoped.

When we completed our ensembles, a monk rushed in and grabbed a sack of wheat not even noticing us. I hadn't taken a really good look at our surroundings, but it now appeared that we were in a store room. Quickly, I scanned it's contents and found sacks of wheat, barley, and oats along with a complete library of People Magazines since 3770 BC (Before Cow). No twinkees though. Boy, these monks really did live a spartan existence.

"So what are we going to do? Just walk right out there and ask them where they keep the twinkees?" asked Bruno testily.

"Bruno, did it cross any part of that calf's brain of yours that these monks might not have twinkees?" I asked.

From the folds of my robe, Brophy reported, "I must have twinkees NOW!"

"You'll get twinkees as soon as we find twinkees." growled Bruno.

"And just how do you intend to find twinkees...Cow. No offense Vance." I said.

"Hey, keep your pants on. We'll all get twinkees soon." Fern said trying to soothe everyone.

"Well that's easy for you to say, you don't have a hungry groundhog in YOUR pants." I responded.

Vance, not realizing I meant Brophy, telepathically labeled me an immodest braggart. Before I could correct him a monk walked by the door and, hearing the noise, came in to investigate. He looked around the room and thought for a moment. "You must be the visiting monks from the Nagsplinter Regions. Why are you here!?! You must know that we're having a warm gruel dinner in honor of your visit." said the monk.

"We were just gathering and thanking the great Merf that our journey has ended. We always do that after getting to a new monastery." said Bruno.

"But in the storeroom? Surely there are more suitable places in a monastery for prayer." said the monk suspiciously.

"We like the storeroom better for our thank you prayers because when the dead rise to punish the twinkee sinners, the storerooms are said to be safest," sounded good to me, "and we sometimes need to show the great Merf sacks of wheat. Why don't you?" I heard a faint, "And don't call me Shirley" from my pants after I finished but, I don't think the monk heard it.

"Brother, you wouldn't happen to have any twinkees around, would you? We like to end our prayers with a twinkee-amen." Bruno said.

"Why, of course we have twinkees. What kind of monks do you think we are? Right this way." the monk said as he turned expecting, apparently, for us to follow him.

I turned to see Bruno and Vance high-hoof themselves in victory; we would have twinkees soon. Everyone seemed in much better spirits as we followed the monk down the hall and finally into a large banquet room. The room featured an enormous mahogany table with about fifty monks sitting around it eating bread and Grape Nuts. Amazingly, every one of them had an ornamental mouse on their shoulders. As I said before, the luck of the gopher was with us.

We were seated together near the end of the table, which was a relief but Bruno and Vance had a terrible time not falling off the chairs. These stupid monks still hadn't noticed that neither of them were human. We were served an interesting meal which started with a pack of Juicy Fruit gum -Mmmmmm- and ended with the much sought after and highly anticipated twinkees.

While we ate and enjoyed ourselves, Fern and her unusually keen rodent eyes noticed that these monks seemed too happy and talkative for monks. I knew that some monks didn't take vows of silence, just as a matter of practicality. If no one was talking, who would conduct the business of the monastery not to mention those 900 numbers? Could it be? Was this the long lost Retreat of the Morons I had read about in my mythology classes?

My train of thought was derailed when Brophy decided that it felt like the pants were closing in around him and leapt out onto the table. His sudden presence startled only a few nearby monks while the rest went on eating. In a little while there were a half-dozen groundhogs on the table. Something told me that maybe these Monks of the Moron had stumbled onto the meditative use of groundhogs in the pants by themselves. Either that or they liked it, for which I could hardly blame them.

During the sparse dining conversation, we were told that a meditative store of twinkees was available in the southern storeroom and that we were welcome to them. It seemed incredible to us that these monks were so loose with their twinkees. We just counted our lucky sternums and thanked Merf, the great god of twinkees, for the boon he had granted us.

After about six hours of feasting, Vance was the first to get up. His tail had fallen asleep and he couldn't stand that. The rest of the monks didn't notice we were leaving and Bruno whispered, "I think we should come back here after glomming the twinkees and teleport from here. I'd feel much better knowing that these goofs burst into flames when we left. I still don't see why we just didn't 'port over to a 7-11 and avoid this altogether."

Vance looked at me again and slapped his hoof to his forehead as if he should have thought of that himself. It didn't matter anymore, we had our twinkee connection right here.

We were brought to our rooms and left to ourselves. The room looked much the same as the storeroom only no sacks and no magazines. What was more important at the moment was that there was no toilet. Even back home we had urinals in our rooms -MAN!

"Great! Even in the joint we had poop pots in our cells. COW! Where are we going to crap now?" Bruno asked looking toward me for leadership.

"Well, I seem to remember seeing that most of the monks in the dining room had hats on. Maybe you can sneak a dump in one of those." I suggested sarcastically.

"Are you kidding? This is a two hat job at least." Bruno lamented.

I could tell that I wasn't going to get anywhere with this conversation so I turned to Vance and asked him what he thought we should do. He told me, telepathically, that we should leave in the morning with as many twinkees as possible -fine advice. I then turned to Fern.

"Where did you say this Banister Fruit was and more importantly, what IS Banister Fruit?"

"I can tell Vance exactly where to bring us, but I was hoping that maybe you knew what it was. I guess it's a good sign, me remembering something, I wish I could get it all back at once though." she confessed.

"OK, tomorrow we leave at daybreak with every spare twinkee for this Banister Fruit place." I looked over at Bruno knowing he couldn't hold out much longer, "and Bruno, go get some damn hats, other people have body functions too, you know."

By morning we woke to find five hats full to the brim; it appeared that Juicy Fruit gum and gruel rifled right through Bruno's guts. We went down the hall cautiously to the twinkee room. On the way we passed the dining hall and found it was still full of monks eating. It started me wondering if these guys ever had time off from eating to monk. Anyway, we were there. The twinkee room was full of the tasty cream-filled treats and we loaded up.

The grumpy monk came in just as we were about to teleport out. Vance said, "We have small rigfarters to the west" but the monk got alittle too close and inadvertently got 'ported with us and our stash of twinkees.

We appeared in an empty basement room with a door to the north. It wasn't like the monastery but, it might as well have been; we had a monk with us. His eyes darted around and in a panicked voice he said, "Where the hell are we? And what is that damn smell?"

Vance looked around as if he didn't hear what was said, trying to appear as innocent as possible.

Quickly the young monk's eyes darted from side to side, then hurriedly he whipped through his brown robe. Thankfully he wore a notched belt that held it closed to cover the presumably naked monk beneath. Soon he found what he wanted -his monk communicator.

"Father Biff, Father Biff come in. I've been kidnapped by militant cows again. Over." he said. For a few moments he stared at the speaker in the device; there was no response. "Damn that monk! I told him someone should always be monking the radio!" Regaining his composure he brushed his disheveled brown hair back into its simple bowl shape.

"Mr. Monk? A word?" Bruno asked.

"Yeah, what do you want -cow?" grumbled the monk.

"Well, what we have here is a mistake, Vance could you please put our angry friend back?" Bruno almost pleaded.

"You can't send him back, they're not there." said Fern almost matter of factly.

I had to ask, "How do you know that?"

"Oh, I'm clairvoyant. My Merf I'm clairvoyant! I can remember that! This is great!" Fern exclaimed.

No one else looked at all surprised at this revelation, but it caught me off-guard since I knew that mice weren't normally clairvoyant, chipmunks were -odd.

"So, what are we supposed to do with him -we're hot on the trail for the Banister Fruit." Brophy broke in excitedly.

"I don't suppose you would want to come with us to find the lost Banister Fruit, would you?" I asked the monk.

"Well, seeing as though I don't have much choice I might as well. Besides, I hear good things about this Banister Fruit." he added.

"Aaa...do you know what Banister Fruit is?" Bruno asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me." said the monk embarrassed.

"Well if you don't know what the Fruit is, we ain't telling you!" said Brophy feigning knowledge.

"All right you little butthead, when Mervin the Monk gets his hands on you, you'll be singing O' Canada to the great Merf in person." said Mervin as he dove for my pants and the taunting Brophy.

"OK, there'll be none of that business in MY pants! You want to fight, take it out of my slacks." I said trying to control an ugly scene, "We have more important things to do now though."

"Yes," Bruno commented, "To the Fruit!"

Again we were on our way munching twinkees and chanting "To the Fruit!"

We didn't get far before we realized, again, that we were in a basement room. Actually Vance never forgot, the rest of us just got into the chanting alittle too much. We searched the room but, it was empty and the door was locked. Luckily for us we had Vance. As he prepared to teleport us to the other side someone else 'ported in and slapped a muzzle on Vance's snout. He couldn't speak now and it was then that I found out that the chant WAS necessary for teleportation. Don't you just hate when someone muzzles your teleporting cow?

It was a couple of seconds before I could get a look at the muzzler. It was a large pink rabbit and with him was another teleporting cow. It didn't take them nearly as long to notice us.

"What are all of you doing in here? Who are you to be allowed in King Z's basement?" asked the bunny.

"We are the new basement cleaning people...and cows. Why, is our work not perfect?" I said.

"Oh, so you're the new cleaners, eh? Well, why are you dressed in monk robes?" the cow asked.

Mervin stepped forward, "What the hell are you, stupid?

It's the latest in basement cleaning technology. It produces so little dust you could grow rutabagas without water."

The bunny seemed to agree until the cow interrupted, "I'm sorry but, this room was cleaned yesterday. We better take you to the security office to answer some questions. Maybe then you could tell us why your cow was about to teleport."

I could tell by the look in Vance's eyes that he wasn't going to take anymore of this. Everyone knew it had to happen. Vance jumped forward, still gagged, and let loose a rocket of cow water that knocked the bunny to the floor. At the same time, lightning rushed from my lower regions -Brophy knew a cue when he saw one. The cow was downed by the electrical blast while the bunny struggled with Bruno till it finally fell unconscious.

"Do you do this all the damn time?" Mervin inquired as he removed the muzzle from Vance's snout, "cause if you do, I'd really like to party with you guys. Down a couple of gallons of milk. It would be bitchin' with blinders on!"

Finally, we got to the other side. It was a plain hallway dotted with a few doors and ended in a elevator. We decided (well, Fern decided when she ran for the elevator yelling "Come on, Fruit is near!") that we should take the elevator. Luckily, it was a large cargo lift and we were all able to fit in it at the same time -you try and fit two cows, a mouse, a groundhog, a monk and a midget on a regulation size elevator.

The control panel had a total of nine buttons and we were already on the basement level ("B" in elevator control panel lingo). I thought it would be most appropriate to try the next floor but, before I came to that conclusion about a dozen hands and hooves had already pushed various other buttons several times. It became clear to me then that the term "leader" meant nothing to this bunch other than who to look to when the twinkee supply ran out.

I waited patiently as the elevator rumbled up it's shaft, wanting nothing but to go back to my carefree days when it was just me and my cow. Everyone was quiet until Fern cried out, "Scuba Tank!" for no apparent reason. She must have noticed that I was staring at her because she turned and gave me a big thumbs up, grinning widely. Mice! Boy, are they weird!

The elevator stopped at what I would call the seventh floor and the metallic doors rolled open. We were met by a rather large group of fuzzy pink bunnies and they didn't look happy.

"Welcome to King Z's Immense Tower! Please come with us so we may remove your right kidneys and if you resist, we'll gladly give you a permanent wedge."

At that last comment Bruno winced, "No one's putting the fruit in MY loom!"