Zorgamazoo (10 page)

 

“Oh, reeeeaaally?”
said Winnie.
“And should I be impressed?
You think I'm unhappy? You think I'm depressed?!
That I lie around weeping all day and all night?
Well, listen here, missy…You're perfectly right!”

Winnie went back to her bellowing moans,
to her blubbers,
her whimpers,
her grumbles, and groans.

 

“Please,” said Katrina, “Just cool it! Calm down!
Your tears are so thick, I could practically drown!
Just take a deep breath and try to relax.
Then tell me what happened. I'm after the facts.

 

The zorgles who live here—where did they go?
Because I've got a hunch that maybe you know.
Was it some sort of magic, or maybe a curse?
Were they kidnapped by pirates…
or burglars…
o
r worse
?”

 

“The zorgles!” wept Winnie. “I remember them well.
“My friends,” she said sadly. “Aw, gee, they were swell!
Which is why it's so awful, about the attack.
They were
eaten
, Katrina. They'll never come back!

They ate every zorgle in Zorgamazoo!
They ate everyone up—and my family, too!
They had tentacles! Wings! They had terrible claws!
And they'll eat us up, too, with their slobbery jaws!”

 

Before Winnie could finish, before she could try,
she stopped…because something went
crackle
, nearby.

 

“They're back!” Winnie sniveled. “We're done for!
We're doomed!
We'll be eaten, Katrina! Devoured! Consumed!”

 

Then came a voice. It was husky and gruff.
“I found you!” It wheezed, with a huff and a puff.

 

To Winnie, Katrina seemed terribly brave,
as she held up her hand in a casual wave.
Katrina, of course, knew that nothing was wrong.
“Hi, Morty,” she said. “What took you so long?”

 

Morty said nothing. He had stopped where he was,
when he spotted that whimpering tower of fuzz.
“Uh, Katrina?” he whispered. “I think we should go.
That thing's not a zorgle—or didn't you know?”

Katrina just laughed. “Don't be silly,” she said.
“There's nothing to fear, nothing to dread.
Morty, meet Winnie. She's a windigo beast.
She's the fiercest in all of the west—
and
the east.”
“Uh, hi there,” said Morty. He gave her a wave.
(He was trying his best to be stoic and brave).

 

Winnie looked up. “You're a zorgle,” she said.
“But I thought you were eaten! I thought you were dead!”
She came forward, to Morty, like a lumbering rug,
and hoisted him up for a muscular hug.

 

“Okay!” Morty gasped. “It's true! I'm alive!
But you squeeze any tighter, I doubt I'll survive!”
“You poor thing.” Winnie sniffled, “How awful for you.
After all that has happened to Zorgamazoo!”

 

Then she loosened her grip. She put Morty down
and her face, once again, tumbled into a frown.
She sniffed through her nose. She grimaced, and then,
her eyes started going all teary again.

 

“Okay!”
cried Katrina. “Enough is enough!
I'm sick of this miserable whimpering stuff!”

She was glaring at Winnie, right dead in the eye.
“Just tell us what happened! And try not to cry.”

 

So Winnie was brave. She began to recall,
in every detail, no matter how small,
all that had happened and all that she knew,
of

Winnie, you see, was rather a mess. In telling her tale, as maybe you'd guess, she sniffled a lot—and you should understand, she was wiping that snot on the back of her hand.

 

So I'll spare you the boogers, all runny and warm,
and I'll give you her story in summary form:

 

The windigo usually travel in packs.
They're especially careful to cover their tracks.
They live in the roughest, most mountainous lands,
and scavenge the cliffs, with their family clans.

 

That's how Winnie was. She was rather the same.
She lived with the clan of her family name,
together in thick and together in thin,
with her uncles and cousins, her kith and her kin.

 

Winifred Windigo Thistle McPaw,
or “Winnie,” of course, as you already saw,
lived on the ridge of a forested peak,
near the banks of a lazy, meandering creek.

The creek overflowed to the valley below,
and perhaps you might guess where the water would go.
It flowed over rocks, with its watery blue,
to a pond in the middle of Zorgamazoo!

 

So after a morning of hiking around,
traversing the cliffs and the mountainous ground,
the windigo clan would visit their friends,
at the pond where the waterfall finally ends.

 

You see, countryside zorgles and windigo folk,
go together as well as a laugh and a joke;
and whenever together, in Zorgamazoo,
do you know what the zorgles and windigo do?

 

Well, let me say this: In all of my days,
and in all of my study of windigo ways,
the fact that I find to be oddest of all
is that windigo love to play Zorgally Ball!

 

Even Winnie herself (when she wasn't depressed),
was a batter who batted as well as the best;
and that's what she did on the terrible day
when the countryside zorgles were stolen away.

Winnie's own team, the “Growlers” by name,
came down from the cliffs for a sociable game.
When Winnie arrived, she was limber and spry,
with a spring in her step and a gleam in her eye.

 

She arrived with her Uncle, and Auntie as well,
on a day when the weather was perfectly swell.

 

The zorgles were waiting. The meadow was groomed;
the uniforms pressed, the equipment perfumed;
the goggles were polished, the bases were buffed,
while up in the bleachers, the cushions were fluffed.
Every helmet was buckled up under a chin,
and at last it was time for the game to begin.

 

The competition was stiff, the athletics intense.
There were several hits that went over the fence.
One team would score, then the other would lead,
as they flew round the bases with flippery speed…

 

It was late in the bottom of inning sixteen,
when the crowd had gone silent and oddly serene.
The fate of the game was still up for debate,
and that was when Winnie stepped up to the plate.

On the mound was a zorgle of legend and fame,
so famous you've probably heard of his name.
He was Cyril “The Slinger” Zipzorgle DeYoung,
the finest of flingers that ever had flung.

 

But Cyril DeYoung wasn't
young
anymore.
He had grey in his hair and his shoulders were sore.
His bones, they were old, they ached with fatigue,
and he no longer played in the Zorgledom League.

 

Yet still, when he pitched, when he threw,
when he hurled,
he was still the best flinger in all of the world!

 

He stood on the mound. He pounded his glove.
For him, this whole game was a labor of love.

 

He kicked up some dust. He chewed on his lip.
On the zorgally ball, he shifted his grip.

 

Then he lifted his leg from the place where it stood,
and he slung and he flung just as hard as he could!

The ball soared away…and in one second flat,
Winnie let loose with the crack of her bat!

 

The ball, like a rocket, went higher than high.
It became just a speck in the blue of the sky.
It went into a cloud that was hanging about.
It went
into
the cloud…but it didn't come out.

 

Out of the sky, came an ominous
hummm,
then a clatter as if from the beat of a drum
(but without any rhythm, without any flair,
like the growl of an engine in need of repair).

 

In an instant, the noise grew incredibly loud,
and it came, so it seemed, from the gathering cloud.
The players looked up. They shielded their eyes.
The cloud was expanding to cover the skies!

 

Then, all at once, the cloud disappeared,
and there, in the air, when it finally cleared,
humming and hovering up in the breeze,
were
creatures
that buzzed like the bumble of bees.

 

But bees are so tiny, just wee little shrimps.
These
creatures, however, were bigger than blimps!

And each like an octopus fitted with wings,
with tentacles twisting like rubbery strings!
The tip of each tentacle ended in
claws,
looking anxious to nourish these animals' jaws!

 

They hung in the air for a second or two,
then dropped from the sky over Zorgamazoo.
They chased after players on both of the teams,
eliciting panic and hideous screams!

 

The creatures, it seemed, in their terrible way,
thought Zorgamazoo was a dinner buffet!

 

They would scoop up a zorgle, sometimes even two,
and the windigo players before they were through!
They snapped them all up in their pincers and claws,
and greedily sprinkled them into their jaws!

 

Even Winnie herself was caught in a claw,
but was thankfully saved by her Auntie McPaw,
who shouted to Winnie, “You give 'em yer all!
Winnie, you
hits
'em, like ya did with that ball!”

 

Winnie did just as her Auntie had planned
(she still had that zorgally bat in her hand).

So the moment the beast had her up in the sky,
she prodded the thing in its yellowy eye!

 

The creature was stunned. It floundered around.
It bobbled with Winnie, who fell to the ground.
She landed with luck in a cushiony bush,
and softened the blow with her cushiony tush.

 

“Good girl!” cried her Uncle. “Now Winnie, you hear?
You stay in that bush! Stay out of the clear!”

 

Winnie complied, staying out of the way,
while the others were keeping the creatures at bay.
Yet though they fought back with a spirited fight,
they were hardly a match for the animals' might.

 

So that was how Winnie had come to survive—
while watching her family swallowed alive!

 

Having eaten, the creatures leapt up in the sky.
And then Winnie the windigo started to cry…

To Morty, the story was rather inane,
but before he began to protest or complain,
there was one little detail he wanted to check.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Now hold on a sec!

 

“You mean
Cyril DeYoung?
The best of the best?
If you're playing with him, then I'm pretty impressed.
His flings were like lightening. Aw, man, he could throw!
Used to play for the
Underwood Titans
, you know.

 

“My Pop used to take me. We'd go to their games.
I knew all of the players, knew all of their names.
But my favorite, of course, was that Cyril DeYoung.
‘The greatest of flingers that ever has flung!'”

 

“You're right,” Winnie sniffled, her eyes going damp.
“There's nobody like him. He was truly a champ.
But what does it matter? I mean, Cyril is dead!
He was
eaten
, remember?! It's just like I said!”