Chapter Five

None of that mattered now though. He realized the importance of this treaty and knew that the ferrets needed the deer to fight the desert mice as much as the deer needed the ferrets. The mice were a threat to the whole world and had to be stopped quickly.

Reggie had waited a good hour and a half at the designated meeting area before he caught sight of Vance, followed by the rest of us, coming over the hill. After introductions were made, Reggie signaled to one of the two lower ranked ferrets that had accompanied him to fetch the treaty. A buck general hurried over with the vital document ready for signatures as Parfoom limped over to examine it. Parfoom had stayed with the park rangers for a long time and now he was the chief of its treaty bureau -a very prestigious position for any deer to hold.

"It all looks pretty good to me. I never thought you guys would go for it." Parfoom said as he signed the bottom of the agreement.

"These desert mice are unbelievably crafty and it's important that we eliminate their threat to the peace. Besides, I don't much like the thought of thinking I'm a wheel of cheddar." Corporal Reggie said as he signed the paper next to where Parfoom had.

"What do you mean 'think you were a wheel of cheddar'?" Mervin asked slightly alarmed.

"Oh, the desert mice have come up with an ingenious way of making their foes think that they're cheese. We're not sure how they do it or how to cure it, but then we won't have to worry about that after the mice are defeated and defeeted." Reggie responded.

That last comment drew a shudder from Vance. It was common knowledge that the naked ferrets of Northern Berfinia would cut off any intruder's feet at the ankle. Although a bit barbaric, it did cut down on unannounced visits.

The accord now signed, it was sent to the ferret capital of Bizcup with the two escort ferrets that were with Corporal Reggie. He had to accompany Parfoom back to the deer capital as proof that the agreement was made. Unfortunately, the deer capital was said to be under desert mouse control. They had to find some way to get word to whoever was now in charge that there would be ferret help coming.

"How about Sperfville? It's the place the Council of High Deer meet and, if memory serves me, they are convened at this very moment." Parfoom suggested. The council liked to meet there because they could get in some good sperf hunting in between meetings -hence the name Sperfville.

The road to Sperfville was a bit rocky, but otherwise safe. It would be suicide for there to be any desert mice this close to the border of the Ferretish Union of Cool Kingdoms.

The forest was thick making the going slow though noticeable. We were half way to our destination when Mervin made a startling observation, "You know, these pine trees don't smell pine fresh."

He was right, the trees didn't smell pine fresh -odd.

The odor wasn't as bad as when Vance told someone to pull his hoof, but it was definitely not the smell of a tree. The mystery didn't last too long as Fern, with her acute rodent nose, sniffed out the odor source in no time.

"Look! Someone has hung a large deodorant, in the shape of an old car, on one of the branches of that tree! That must be what is stinking up the place!" Fern pointed out.

We hurried our pace to get as much space between us and the deodorant as possible. Whoever had put it up was surely nearby and would return soon to drive away his tree.

We made it to Sperfville three hours after the pine tree observation and headed for the government buildings. The security at the main leadership building was very tight with large metal detectors at all major entryways. We entered and a loud beeping noise sounded as Parfoom passed through. Burly security deer surrounded him as he patiently explained the reason the alarms went off. As a precaution, one of them took out the refrigerator magnet all security personnel were required to carry and watched as it stuck fast to Parfoom's butt. Satisfied, the deer retrieved his magnet and let Parfoom through. Parfoom smiled to himself; he always did like the feel of magnets on his butt, even before the metal plate was put in.

Vance was allowed to keep his butterknife since the deer didn't look at it as a threat and the rest of us went through without incident until, lastly, Brophy passed. As he walked through loud beeping filled the room. The deer didn't even take a second glance, mostly because their equipment didn't detect anything dangerous. Brophy, disappointed, stopped the beeping (his throat was sore by now) and followed Mervin.

We were brought by escort deer to the topmost room of the single story building and told to wait for the Prime Deerster. It wasn't long before a short deer came in followed by a few secret service deer -this had to be the Prime Deerster. Parfoom shook the Deerster's hoof and introduced Reggie and the rest of us. Brophy jumped into my pants again causing the secret service deer to eye me more cautiously. They didn't trust any midget with a groundhog in his pants -who could blame them?

Parfoom and Reggie related what had happened in the past few days to the Deerster and told him about the treaty.

"Good. We'll need your help as soon as possible. The mice have started their takeover already. We've lost contact with seven cities so far and we know three more are under assault. Most of my troop deer think they are either swiss or american cheese with a few in the romano family. It's a real mess." the Deerster lamented.

"Well Mr. Deerster, my fellow ferrets are ready to come to your aid. I just have to get back to my capital to notify my leaders of your situation and lead my ferrets back." Reggie said.

"OK, you go back and take them with you for protection." the Deerster said waving to me, Vance, Mervin, Fern, Brophy, and Banister Fruit. Parfoom was to stay behind and figure a way to get the deer to think that they were actually deer again.

Before any of us could register a word of protest we were on the outside of the city gates with Corporal Reggie. No one asked us if we wanted to go. We were just sent. This made Vance mad. Nothing worse than a mad cow on a long walk, I thought to myself, especially one with taps on.

Without warning, a shot rang out that almost shaved Mervin's head of it's proud horn making ability. Immediately after, a large sperf chugged by us and, as soon as he was out of sight, a sperf-hunter came running through.

"Which way did he go?" asked the hunter.

"That way!" everyone yelled, each pointing in a different direction.

"Thanks." the hunter replied and ran off in an entirely different direction. Hunters, boy were they stupid.

Moments later, the hunter ran back. "Which way?" he asked again with a puzzled look.

Mervin pulled him aside this time. "Listen, almost anyone can use their buttcheeks to pick up simple farm implements if the mood hits them." Mervin said in a sage-like way.

"Oh, so you're saying he went west?" he asked.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, you bastard." Mervin confirmed.

Happily, the hunter ran off to the east, humming the theme to Bonanza. He never noticed that his underwear was on backwards, not to mention on the outside of his pants. Even Brophy looked at him in disgust. The only place this hunter would be well camouflaged in would be the underwear section of K-Mart.

On the walk to Bizcup, Reggie told us more about the crafty desert mice. "There is little that is known for sure about them, but it is certain that they can say, in no less than twenty-four languages, 'Hello my fine lad, have a danish?' Also, most of the high desert mice in the chain of command wear mirrored contact lenses." Not alot to go on, but it was something.

I asked Reggie about the parking lot mystery we had set out to solve. He thought hard for a minute, "The desert mice have a new way of making cheese that lasts for years using parking lot material." he suggested.

"We already know that. What we don't know is where they were taking them." I said.

He looked at me as if I had a copy of Time magazine stapled to my forehead. I looked too, just to make sure -not this time. "They are probably taking them to their major cheese factory in Rifflenerb. Most of the cheese in this hemisphere is cut there." he said.

After an eternity of walking, we got to the ferret city of Bizcup. It wasn't all that spectacular and, except for the ferrets that rushed out to yodel at Reggie's return, it was pretty quiet. I guess that's how they came to be called the Naked Yodeling Black Ferrets of Northern Berfina -just a hunch though.

Reggie paused for a moment to admire the yodeling; I could swear I saw a tear in his eye. He led us to a small hole in the ground and we followed closely. He turned suddenly and shouted angrily, "Can't a ferret take a whiz in peace?!?"

It appeared that the hole was part of the waste disposal system for the ferret city. Somewhat embarrassed, we wandered off thinking that we had seen the inside of municipal sewers alarmingly often as of late. All except Brophy who peered down the hole with enthusiasm. "Bruno would love this bowl!" he exclaimed excitedly. I hurried over, grabbed the eager groundhog and stuffed him in my pants where he would hopefully stay out of trouble.

Reggie finished with a few last bursts and a flush. He made sure each piece of fur was in place and took us to meet his president. Actually, the title was the Lord President and King of All Ferrets Big and Small, but it was alittle too long a title to fit on his business cards so he settled for his people to call him president.

The White Palace was the largest building in the city, but underbrush made the entrance to the ferret seat of power almost invisible. We rushed through several checkpoints and followed Reggie to a room that was completely round. Even the floor was rounded, making it extremely difficult to get any furniture to stay in place for long. The designers of the building wanted the president's office to be called the Round Room only they hadn't counted on the president wanting actual furniture.

After an hour of waiting, the president entered the room with a pair of roller skates on. It was a little known fact that the president of the ferrets was a skating maniac and if you got a few milks in him he'd turn into a dancing fool. The president skidded to a stop in front of his desk and asked for a report from Corporal Reggie.

"The treaty has been signed and I've met with the Prime Deerster. He requests help as soon as possible against the desert mice and their liver leech allies. Also, much of his deer-force think they are cheese and he wishes to know if there is any defense to this." the corporal reported.

The president winced as if he had been tossed a large pineapple. "It's that bad?" he asked.

Mervin walked forward and said, "No, we came all this way to lie to you. What the hell are you -an idiot? I don't care if you don't believe us. It's no skin off my begonias, but there are a few monks that I care about that might get leeches stuck to their butts or worse -believe they're cheese. That would make me a bit miffed and I'd be coming after you and your lower regions -Mr. President." he finished, bowing respectfully.

The president didn't appear to hear any of it. He skated off to the door and made an impressive jump as he sailed through the opening. "Reggie, you will lead a force of crack Screaming Ferrets to defend the deer capital and I'll have other units go for the other deer cities. As for your friends, I have no use for them. Tell them to get out of my sight, but be nice about it."

I guess the president didn't take into account that we might have ears because we heard every word. He didn't even try to whisper it to Reggie. Having his orders, Corporal Reggie turned around and told us to get out. His actual words were, "Get out! Get out now! I'm sick of your foul cow stench and Vance is no rose petal either! Have a nice day."

Once again we found ourselves on the outside of a city's gates trying to figure out how we got there. This desert mouse thing wasn't any of our concern anyway. We had to get back to the Barnwafts and tell them about their parking lots. The drachmas would be ours and we could retire (for awhile at least), hopefully to never see another naked ferret again. They might be smart but, they sure could use some clothes.

It was a long way off to Upper Wellbottom and we had no transportation other than our feet. It was slow going through the woods until we got to a wide clearing. Smack dab in the middle was a large building with a sign I couldn't quite make out due to the fading near its top. After much debate (Mervin didn't want to go), we headed for the building hoping that maybe there would be a sled or some other form of transportation inside. Vance noted that the parking lot was still intact here and thought it was funny since all of the other lots in this area were missing.

Mervin shared his fears about the area as we approached, "If we find anything in there, don't say hello to it. I was in the area once before and a friend said hello to a tribe of leaffolders and was killed with glee. Apparently, hello roughly translates to 'please gut and fry my dog while twirling my bladder on a pole' in the local dialects." he said shrugging.

It didn't seem to matter much now anyway; we couldn't see anyone to say hello to if we wanted to. It was at least another days walking before Vance could teleport us anywhere and this warehouse was the only structure for miles.

The building was huge and it took us a good ten minutes before we could find any doors. Finally, Fern found four faintly finished, firmly framed, shutters flailing furiously (say that five times fast). They were just in reach so, one by one, we climbed through.

The first on the other side was Brophy. When he hit ground on the inside he started screaming like a groundhog possessed. Alarmed, we rushed in to see what the hub bub was about. When I climbed in, I found Brophy jumping around in glee from one pile of rags to another. The material was piled everywhere, making the building look a lot like a large storage shed. On closer inspection and clues from Brophy I figured out that the rags were actually brand new pairs of pants.

"I'm in heaven! Please try these on...no these! Mervin you try these on." After a new pair was put on he promptly jumped in. It looked as though he was looking for just the right pair for the journey home.

While the three of us were busy with fashion alterations, Vance went with Fern and Banny to check out the rest of the warehouse. It was wall to wall pants. Brophy could stay here for the rest of his life and still not be able to explore each pair.

About an hour later, Brophy nearly collapsed from the exhaustion of shuffling from one pant leg to another. "The only thing that we would need to make this perfect would be a big keg of milk." he said eyeing Vance expectantly.

Fern interrupted his rapture for a moment. "Is anyone else wondering why there are so many pairs of pants here?" she asked.

"They knew I was coming." Brophy answered blissfully.

"Who?" she asked, but he couldn't hear her after diving into another pair.

Everyone glossed over the identity of who would have built a pants warehouse out in the middle of nowhere. That was until Banny spotted a figure dart behind a large pile of the leg coverings.

The figure was human she told us, maybe a thief here to get a good supply of leg ware. Vance was the next to get a glance at the intruder. The overhead lighting caught something shiny on his upper torso. Carefully, the intruder crept out of the shadows and revealed himself; it was Officer Wetleg.

"Freeze!!!" he shouted to us, "Stop right where you are, you lot-nappers. OK...step out slowly."

He wasn't holding a gun so we all sat back down and went about our business as if nothing had happened. He didn't like that.

"I said stand up damn it! How can I do my job if the bad guys won't even listen to me? I try and try and try but no one listens to me. Then a cow pees on me and everyone starts calling me Officer Wetleg. My name isn't Wetleg. My dad's name was Wetleg. My name is Skidmark...Officer Skidmark! If they keep calling me Wetleg I'll eat melons and then they'll be sorry." He mumbled too low for me to hear then and collapsed, falling smack on his butt without a pause in his ranting.

"You know," Mervin said, "what he needs to lift his spirits is a really quality whoopee cushion. It did wonders for me."

"A whoopee cushion? Do you have one?" Skidmark asked hopefully.

"Of course, here try it out." Mervin said as he handed over the bag of air from a pocket in his robe.

"Gee thanks!" The loud noise of the fake personal injury cloud was heard over and over. The officer was now quite happily jumping up and down on the cushion, pausing only to reinflate it for more action. "I feel loads better now. You guys can stay here as long as you want, just lock up when you're done and don't take the parking lot." Skidmark said. He walked a few feet away and sat on the cushion, got up, walked a few more feet and sat on it again, repeating this until he was out of sight.

When it was time to leave it was up to me to break the news to Brophy. "No! I won't leave my pants!" he cried. After more convincing, he came around and said, "All right, I'll leave like a brave groundhog, but I don't like it."

Carefully, he marked the building's location on a map and swore that he would return to his pants paradise. We went to jump from the opening we came in through and discovered that the parking lot was gone. Agreeing that it would be better for all of us if we could get out of there as quickly as possible before anyone noticed, we ran until out of sight of the building. There was no way Skidmark would believe that we didn't steal that parking lot. We ran like perforated stepchildren in an effort to get out of range before Skidmark forgot his whoopee cushion party and came after us for the crime.

After an hour of running, we stopped to catch our breath. The area was filled with oak trees as far as I could see with every direction looking pretty much the same as the others.

"Are we going the right way?" Brophy moaned.

"Sure we are, Vance has an uncanny sense of direction and wind speed, all cows do." I said.

"Who cares about direction. I'm hungry. Break out the twinkees!" Mervin yelled.

"Er...a... I've got some bad news on the twinkee supply." Fern said.

Wide-eyed, I rummaged through the twinkee sack. Sure enough, there was maybe one each left. This supply wouldn't last the day and we needed at least that much time to get to where Vance could teleport us out of here. We would be cutting it dangerously close -too close for a bunch of twinkee addicts.

"Who was the twinkee custodian supposed to be? Damn it!!! Do I have to keep on top of the twinkees all the time? I'm a monk, I have important monking to do so I don't have time to be twinkee guardian. Where are we going to find twinkees here...at THIS hour???" Mervin screamed.

With time running out, we continued on our way with Mervin rambling behind all the way. "How do things like this happen? I've been a good monk. I don't deserve to be twinkeeless. Now Father Biff, there's a monk that doesn't deserve twinkees, not me...."

A bit after the end of our twinkee supply, we reached the border of Berfina and Vance was now free to teleport once again. Just in time too. Mervin was suffering badly from twinkee withdrawal and mumbled, "My uncle died when he forgot that he kept his pet pit bull in the toilet just as he sat down to read the day's paper. I tell you, he was really black and white and red all over that night." I still get nightmares from the description and always check the bowl for pit bull storage.

"We have small rigfarters to the west." Vance said and we were transported to the doorstep of Nubby and Ruby Barnwaft's home. It was quiet there and when Banny knocked, there was no answer. "Hmm...Where are the doorbulls?" Brophy asked. Slightly puzzled, we opened the door and went in.

Mervin rushed in yelling, "Twinkees!! I must have twinkees!!! My monkshood for a twinkee!!!!!" and ran down the hall in search of his required daily dose of snack treats. The rest of us went out in search of the Barnwafts. We finally found them in a meeting room staring in a daze at digital clocks muttering to themselves. When I got closer to Ruby, I could make out the words, "I am parmesan...I am parmesan...I am parmesan...." I walked over to Nubby and heard his words, "I am ricotta...I am ricotta...."

"They think they're cheese!" I nearly screamed. "The poor bastards think they're parmesan and ricotta cheese!!"

"Ricotta? That goes good with beans." Brophy suggested helpfully.

"They seem to be staring at those digital clocks. Do you think maybe that's how the desert mice are doing it?" Fern asked fearfully.

"Of course, why didn't I think of it before? It's so simple anyone could have done it." Banny exclaimed.

"Let's assume that none of us knows what the hell you're talking about. Could you possibly explain your great discovery or, Merf help me, I'll be eating fresh rabbit tonight." Mervin said after returning from his unsuccessful quest for twinkees. "By the way, Vance, you've been here before. Could you possibly lead me to the twinkees?"

Vance ignored the annoyed monk and Banny started to explain. "The scientist bunnies over at King Z's Immense Tower had stumbled over a way to control minds some dingbars ago, but they abandoned the research because it was judged too dangerous. The desert mice must have developed a similar way to do it on their own. I think we developed a cure for it but, I never read about it, it wasn't my area. The bunnies are very protective of their work so most documents are labeled, 'Keep Your Grubby Doombugs Off'. Strangely enough the labeling works."

"So, what you're saying is that we have to go back to King Z's place again?" I asked.

"Didn't I just say that?" she responded.

Smart bunnies, I hated smart bunnies. "OK, clear the decks, flammables coming through. Vance, let's get out of here and back to Mookie's pad." I commanded.

"But what about twinkees???????" Mervin's voice was lost in Vance's chant, "We have small rigfarters to the west."