Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“They say that I was beautiful once,” laughed Cog. “I have to admit that I don’t know if they spoke the truth, for I never saw it.”

Kid regarded the Queen of the Slums with a wary eye. A blindfold of metal covered both her eyes, with a large lens where one oculus ought to have been and a trio of smaller ones on a spindle in place of the other. A grill for what was presumably a microphone protruded, coin-sized, from the canal of each ear. Her skin was pale, blotched in places near her various implants, but her features very delicate and fine. Her hair was dishwatery if clean, and thrown back in a short mane. “I have heard many stories about you, my lady,” said Kid quietly. “I would be honored to hear the truth from your own lips.”

“Fair enough,” laughed Cog. “To satisfy your own curiosity, or to try and ingratiate yourself with me?”

“Both, my lady.” Kid’s answer was nothing if not truthful.

“I was rendered deaf and blind by the Red Plague as but a young girl,” Cog said. “I am told that my family cast me out upon learning of this, replacing me with a lookalike stolen from the slums. I do not know the truth of it, nor do I care to. All I know is that I was raised by a midwife and tinkerer amid the mounds of trash that make up the lowest and most base part of this supposedly grand city.”

Kid nodded, saying nothing that might interrupt or offend the Queen of the Slums, whose mercurial power could aid or cut down anyone as she saw fit.

“One day, my adopted mother was tinkering with a speaker and she brought it to my ear. I could hear the tiniest bit of sound through it–not completely deaf, I suppose, but only practically so. By the end of the year I had built myself a headset by feel alone that allowed me to hear what others said if they spoke into a microphone I had salvaged.”

“How old were you?” Kid asked.

“I neither know nor care,” Cog said dismissively, disarming Kid’s attempt to ferret out her true age. Based on her appearance, she could have been as young as twenty or as old as forty. “After my surrogate mother was murdered by the Guard, and her shop ransacked, for failing to pay protection money to a corrupt officer, I swore to have my revenge. It took years, but I eventually was able to piece together a very crude version of the eyepieces you now see, the earpieces that are my accoutrements, and fused them into my living flesh. It was crude, but effective enough for me to track the Guardsman down and spill every drop of blood in his body.”

The Guard no longer interfered with the Queen of the Sums. They were present, to be sure, but all were in her pocket or marked for death if they interfered.

“Through upgrades and compulsive tinkering, I now see better, hear better, than anyone without similar enhancements,” Cog continued, her eyepieces glowing green as they briefly switched to seeing in the infrared spectrum. “Some say that I have mutilated myself, trading in a flawless face for this power.”

“What do you say?” asked Kid carefully.

“I say that the visage I bear is as beautiful as any I have ever seen in the mirror,” said Cog. “And that if people say I am disfigured, let them say it to my face and bear the full brunt of my powerful response. For my rule over these slums at such a tender age could not have come about with the so-called beauty I once possessed.”

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“Go forth then, and seek ye the Oracle,” said the Automaton, belching smoke and flame. “For only in what remains of the natural world may ye find an answer that be not of cogs and wheels, soot and steam.”

“Where might I find this Oracle?” asked the Supplicant. “For I know only of the great city and its environs, and naught of the natural world but what I have seen in manicured parks and picture books.”

“Go thee many leagues hence in the direction of the setting sun,” replied the Automaton. “Cut ye through the City of Foundries, the Great Crater where ores be strip-mined, and the Desperate Warrens where rats and man live in equal desperation and squalor. Climb ye the Great Wall which shuts off the world of man and his creations from aught which remains of the world of the Deist and his works.”

“And then?” pressed the Supplicant. “And then?”

“Find ye a golden bough which keepeth its hue in summer as in winter,” came the answer in hissing and whistling, clanging and rattling. “Atop that bough wilt thou find an owl of purest white hue, being of two heads. That is the form which the Oracle doth choose to appear to those who would seek it.”

“And then?” cried the Supplicant, almost mad with anticipation. “And then?”

“Ask thine question of it, bearing first the offering of a small creature as repast and a token of thine respect. But be warned: for one head of the Oracle doth always speak the prophetic truth, whilst the other doth always speak its opposite and seek to mislead and waylay, to confuse and corrupt.”

“How shall I know which is which?”

“That,” said the Automaton, “is the final test. They who be worthy of the Orcale’s gift will puzzle out the truth; they who be unworthy will be led astray. I can speak no more to thee, for this be aught that I know.”

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This entry is part of the NaNo Excerpt Blog Chain 2013 at Absolute Write.

“…never even seen a Savage Figure Eight. How do you suppose Caleb Jung found one?” Deputy Marshal Hopkins was saying. “Nobody liked those even when cap-and-ball was state of the art!”

“Probably bought it off a peddler for $5,” Cunningham grunted in return. “Remember the Elgin cutlass pistol he brought last year? After he missed with his first shot, he ran up and stabbed the target?”

“One of the O’Clellan Gang had an Elgin as his backup boot pistol,” Hopkins said. “Wasn’t even good for roasting meat on a spit after we pulled it off his carcass.”

“…still got to work that into every conversation, don’t you?” Cunningham muttered. “So, who have we got here? Miss McNeill, I see!”

“That’s right, Deputy Marshalls,” Virginia said. “I’m here to do my parents proud.”

“I rode with your parents when I was just a rookie Ranger myself,” said Hopkins approvingly. “It’s a shame they were taken from us so soon. I could have used their guns against the O’Clellans.”

Cunningham audibly sighed, and Virginia responded: “I hope to do them justice. I was to wear my mother’s own duster and kit until there was a…washing mishap.”

“Yes, that would have been most fitting,” said Hopkins, glancing at Virginia’s ragged and somewhat tatterdemalion rig with a critical eye. “We’ll have you fitted out properly at the Rangers’ quartermaster if it comes to that.”

Cunningham looked at the revolvers laid out as part of Virginia’s kit. “Most of our candidates are using Peacemakers,” he said with a note of surprise in his voice, “but I see you favor the Model 1875.”

Virginia nodded eagerly, trying to remember the lines Adam had told her to recite at just such a statement. “Yeah. Mr. Remington can go to hell. My parents used a Colt as Prosperity Rangers and that’s what I’ll use now.”

Cunningham and Hopkins looked at one another with meaningful, skeptical glances. “I…see,” Cunningham said. “Recite for us the Prosperity Charter, Miss McNeill. Why, and for what principles, did our forefathers reject the inequity of the east and come to the lands of the Ide in peace and brotherhood?”

“Ah…” Virginia said, pursing her lips. She knew this, she’d learned it in school, Adam had yammered on and on about it while she had daydreamed about rags to riches stories…why hadn’t she paid more attention? Why hadn’t she tried to listen for Talbot’s answer so she could copy it?

“Come on, out with it,” said Hopkins. “As I said before facing down the O’Clellans: he who hesitates is lost.”

“…really?” Cunningham murmured. “Really?”

“Uh…everyone’s equal…ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t matter,” Virginia said, bowdlerizing the concept as best she could.”

“Point the First: All shall be equal before the settlement of Prosperity Falls and before God, regardless of their sex, creed, or color!” barked Cunningham.

“Right, exactly, just like I said.” Virginia’s bullets weren’t all on the table; she was sweating them. “Er…Point the Second…disputes get solved peacefully…no war…no violence!”

“Point the Second: Real men solve their disputes peacefully, and there shall be no war and no recourse to violence save in direst need and then only in defense!” Hopkins cried. “Really, Miss McNeill, if this is a joke it is in exceptionally poor taste.”

Virginia bit her lip. Somehow, being called out for a lie—well, a bowdlerization—didn’t seem as easy to brush off as it had been for the eponymous hero of Alger’s Luke Larkin’s Luck weathering crooked Mr. Coleman. “Point the Third: Respect for the natives…settlers and Ide tribes trade and get along!”

“Point the Third: The Indians are the original posessors of the land and will be dealt with fairly and respectfully; trade and brotherly harmony shall be our watchwords!” corrected Cunningham. “As I said in the action at Slaughter Gulch, near isn’t nearly good enough.” The Deputy Marshal seemed slightly crushed when his witticism elicited no visible response.

“Point the Fourth: Self-sufficiency: Prosperity Falls makes everything it needs!” Virginia clenched her fists in anticipation of the brutal riposte Hopkins or Cunningham would respond with.

“That’s better,” said Hopkins. “Well recited, if only on that last point.”

Virginia sighed heavily.

“Gather up your kit and meet the others at the firing range,” Cunningham added. The pair then moved on to Jake, who flawlessly belted out the Prosperity Charter with a smug sidelong glance at Virginia.

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Reports that a group of basketball players disrupted an open dress rehearsal of a musical set to open next week has sent shock waves through the Southern Michigan University community. Allegedly, the perpetrators used catcalls, thrown objects, sarcasm, and pathos to disrupt the University Players’ production of Penis! The Musical. Penis!, which was written in 1995 and has won every award for which it has been nominated since, is based on the true story of a Milwaukee gynecologist and plastic surgeon who performed their own sex change operation in 1987. The Anthony Award telecast called it both “a bitingly satirical take on the male member” and a “plea for tolerance of pre- and post-op trans-everythings.”

This is not the first time the play has attracted controversy; a student newspaper reviewer at the University of Northern Mississippi called the play’s centerpiece number, “The Scrotum Song,” “over the top and disgusting” in a 1998 op-ed. In turn, they were accused of “holocaust speech,” “insensitivity on a Novocain level,” and being a “‘lil Hitler.” Every issue of the offending newspaper was then stolen and destroyed by campus activists as a “response to the columnist’s attempt to silence free speech through intimidation.”

The SMU Guardian published a story on the disruption which soon became national news, with the students’ reporting and sound bites picked up and recirculated without any original reporting on the part of the other news outlets. In an attempt to head off a reaction, the SMU athletic department forced a representative of the players to issue an apology and attempted to suppress the Guardian article, calling it “biased and one-sided.” The apology, delivered by the assistant captain of the lacrosse team, was rejected by the SMU Theater Department, which noted that the wording of the apology, (“we are sorry that some students’ actions were interpreted as causing offense”) was “insulting.”

Eventually, the ensuing outcry, led by sarcastic Twitter statuses and angsty Facebook vagueboking, led to a more official, organized response. “We deplore these actions,” said university president Cynthia Mayfield in a statement. “We fully intend to spare no effort to release apologetic and self-flagellating rhetoric until this whole thing blows over. In addition, I have formed a committee of administrators who have no real function due to administrative bloat, and asked them to come up with a delayed and fully rhetorical response to the incident in six to eight months which will only serve to make things worse.”

Since the riots that led to the closure of the Southern Michigan University several times in its history, most recently in 2007, it has been under increased scrutiny by the news media, says Dexter Hauser, one of the many unnecessary VPs pulling six-figure salaries despite the core instruction at SMU being done by graduate students who are indentured laborers in all but name. “This is the kind of magnifying lens that is normally put only on southern schools that resisted desegregation or places like Kent State where there was some other traumatic event,” said Hauser. “Just like the mainstream media pounces on any incident at a southern school to portray them as a bunch of vicious unrelenting bigots, or calls any stubbed toe at Kent State a ‘massacre,’ any disturbance of any kind here at SMU is termed a ‘riot’ or a ‘new Days of Rage’ regardless of the actual facts of the case.”

The SMU Fighting Grizzlies, for their part, have promised a thorough investigation. “The Fighting Grizzlies believe strongly that athletes need to learn how to repress their natural instincts and learn not to say anything that represents their true feelings,” said head coach Austin Winters. “If these boys expect to go pro, they need to master the art of giving vapid, content-free interviews and press conferences about hustle and giving 110%. Sometimes, in the rush to recruit athletes who have been granted untouchable status and special privileges since middle school because of their top position on the totem pole, we forget that not getting caught in an embarrassing position is almost as important as catching the ball in the right position.”

Cynthia L’Overture, Grand Czar of University Diversity and Guilt, had this to say: “We certainly need to contain this issue as soon as possible with as much boilerplate diversity talk as possible, to plaster over the deep fissures it exposes in our carefully maintained facade–fissures which exist in every school but which the subsequent rhetoric from students, faculty, staff, and outsiders will paint as unique to SMU.” Every special interest group that can associate itself with the wronged party in any way whatsoever, she added, will attempt to twist the incident to their advantage.

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PetStation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GesteCo, is pleased to announce the latest edition to our lineup of in-store pet purchases! Look for these exciting and always ethically sourced new companions in select PetStation locations beginning this spring:

Elvee-Fortoosixxian Huggfacer
These adorable and spunky creatures take your love of tarantulas, hermit crabs, and other quasi-arthropods to the next level! Able to move at 20 mph, jump 15 feet, and with a tensile strength in their eight legs and tail sufficient to crush a hippopotamus skull, the Elvee Fortoosixxian Huggfacer is sold with its own bulletproof lucite terrarium. All huggfacers sold by PetStation have been hatched from eggs laid by a queen on a special high-alkaline diet to minimize the corrosive effect of the atomic acid that serves them as blood. A PetStation huggfacer has had its proboscis surgically removed, minimizing the chance of any unplanned impregmentation. Best of all, these pets require no food or water! Due to the settlement agreement between GesteCo and Mankind for Ethical Animal Treatment, all huggfacers sold in the state of California have their proboscis intact.

Fancy Procompsognathus
The fancy compy is available in a wide variety of colors, from classic green to white to the ever-popular Clown Compy with polka dots. These turkey-sized creatures are an energetic delight, especially in groups, and will surely be some of the most popular lizardine pets in the diverse PetStation stable. Like snakes, fancy compys require live or frozen feeder species, exclusively available from PetStation (WARNING: non-PetStation live food will cause immediate death from septic shock and anaphylaxis). The fancy compy is a very affectionate creature, well-known for its love bites; its saliva contains a mild sedative that causes drowsiness, torpor, and sluggishness. Due to supply-chain economics, fancy compys are only available to purchase in groups or ten or more.

Kaadathan Zog
The small and highly intelligent zogs are celebrated as pets in their native home of Ull-Thar, City of Felines, as well as the eternal realm of Celefaïs. While regarded as treacherous by some like the googs, ghaasts, and nacht-gaunts, PetStation is confident that you will be able to navigate the zogs’ labyrinthine language and treacherous culture to find these sapient rodents of the dreaming nightscape beyond sight invaluable companions. They are endorsed as pets (and as a delicacy) by such experienced travelers as Rudolph Crater, Bertram Axeman, and Nyanyahotep (the Chaos that Crawls beyond the veil of insanity and ordered space). Please note that, due to circumstances beyond the control of PetStation and its parent company GesteCo, zogs are only available between the hours of 9pm and 6am, and are not available to residents of Rhode Island or students, faculty, and trustees of Muskatronic University.

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The Walker-Blount Computer Lab at Osborn University is proud to present:

The Five Stages of Computer Crash Grief

1. Denial — “My computer didn’t crash, the monitor cable is just loose. It’ll come back on in a second and then I can finish my paper on why the drinking age should be lowered to 12.”

2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair! All the other times I typed 75% of my paper without saving there were no problems!”

3. Bargaining — “You there, computer lab guy. I’ll give you everything in my student printing account if you can somehow reach in and get my paper back with your computer magic. It’s all in there somewhere, right? That program that wiped the memory clean whenever the machines restart doesn’t always work, right? Right?”

4. Depression — “Oh, woe is me. I have to retype the first two pages of my report, and integrate all two citations to Wikipedia back into it. I should just walk away and take the zero, or buy a counterfeit academic essay from Honduras.”

5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay. I can’t get my paper back, and it was probably going to be a C+ anyway. I can write a new C+ paper easily, and maybe this time I will save to an external USB drive as suggested literally everywhere in the lab.”

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This post is part of the November 2013 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Unicorn droppings.”

The master Druggists at The Swindley & Co Apothecarium, makers of such fine Products as Phoenix Feather Phlogiston Fixitive & Wyrmscale Worm Whackers bring you & Yours a delectable new Patent Medicine: Horace Swindley’s Unicorn Droppings.

Made from the Whole & Unadulterated droppings of our herd of tame Unicorns, & hand-harvested by Virgins under exclusive contract to The Swindley & Co Apothecarium, Horace Swindley’s Unicorn Droppings are a Delectable Fancy like unto Candy that may also be used for the Treatment of various & sundry Ailments.

To Those who Say that consuming the Droppings of any Animal is distasteful, we Remind you that Unicorns subsist solely on Rainbows & Light, with occasional Binges of Children’s Laughter & Sparkles. Therefore, those selfsame Ingredients are the only Items present in Horace Swindley’s Unicorn Droppings save for a Gelatin covering to help them go Down smoothly & etc.

In addition to their fine Taste, suitable as a Candy for the Fancy of Children & Ladies as well as the more Discerning Dandified Gentlemen, Horace Swindley’s Unicorn Droppings offer the following Proven & Patented health Benefits:

-First and Foremost, soothes Coughs, Colds, Hoarseness, and all Afflictions of the Lungs
-Cures all known Diseases & all Unknown ones
-Prolongs Life, even should the Imbiber be near Death
-Promotes a Shiny & Full-Of-Volume appearance in the Hair
-Restores, improves, & promotes Carnal potency, even in Welshmen
-Leaves one’s Breath a most pleasing Odor & fights against Decay of Teeth

In accordance with The Swindley & Co Apothecarium’s stance toward Honesty, & in full Compliance with a ruling from the duly appointed Courts of the Land, The Swindley & Co Apothecarium also offers a full Reckoning of these Minor & Infrequent Side Effects:

-Very occasional Whitening of the Hair (but who does not enjoy such as a Mark of Experience & Respect?)
-Rare but sometimes noteworthy Cravings for Rainbow & Sunshine as Sustenance to the detriment of Weight & Health (but is not excess Weight a thing to be Avoided?)
-Incidental Headaches leading to the Uncommon emergence of a small Horn on the Forehead (but as such Horns are panaceas, is this not but good Fortune in Disguise?)
-Once in a great While, particularly eager Imbibers may Experience an Increase rather than a Decrease in Horseness, by which we Mean full Assumption of a Unicorn’s total Form (but is this not a true Opportunity, as one may sell one’s own Droppings & Blood for Profit, & none are better at the art of attracting Virgins?)

Pick up a special Baker’s Dozen Box of Horace Swindley’s Unicorn Droppings from The Swindley & Co Apothecarium today! On sale wherever fine Patent Medicines, Salves, & Ointments are sold. Look for our Advertisement in Hoe & Plow Monthly for a Halfpenny’s discount when buying 5 Cases or more!

This post incorporates a modified version of this public domain 1853 advertisement from the Library of Congress.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
ishtar’sgate
sweetwheat
skunkmelons
BBBurke

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Andrew Rumpfs, CEO and chairman of Rumpfs Equities LLC GmbH, had asked his secretary to forward calls to his office phone while she was on vacation. He may have been a ruthless multibillionaire tyrant, but he wasn’t below answering his own phone for a few days. By force of habit, he also forwarded his own calls to Donna’s phone whenever he left the office, as the few people important enough to know his direct extension weren’t the people who could be left on the line.

It wasn’t until he dialed into his own landline from his cell to leave a reminder message that Rumpfs realized his mistake. His landline phone was forwarding calls to Donna, and Donna’s phone was forwarding calls to his landline in an infinite loop.

He had crossed the streams.

They say that the tortured spirit of Andrew Rumpfs haunts the internal telecommunications infrastructure of Rumpfs Equities LLC GmbH to his very day.

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“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Jim. “You probably know me from these school board meetings if you had any viewpoint on the art program cuts last year.”

There were murmurs throughout the small crowd of parents and busybodies. Jim Vakian had been associated with the Deerton school district for years in one way or another. He’d attended the schools K-12, he had been a substitute art teacher until the program was cut, and his father James Vakian Sr. had taught social studies at Deerton High until he had died at his desk while Jim was studying at nearby Osborn University in Cascadia.

“I’m not here to argue for the program’s reinstatement, but I do have something I’d like to say.”

More grumbling. The school board meetings were open to the public, and he bylaws allowed anyone the podium for new business so long as there was time left in the two-hour allotment. But most of the people there were thoroughly sick of Jim Vakian; his lanky frame seemed attached to every bit of counterculture that Deerton could muster, and his attempts to make a living as an artist had drawn the ire of just about everyone in town. That and the fact that living on what an artist could make with the occasional substituting job gave him what Shawn Didier had called a “hippie stink.”

“As many of you know, I am an artist with deep roots in Deerton. I’ve done my best to try and make a living through my art, but since the art program was canceled that’s become impossible, even with the generous donations I’ve received from my public performances.”

Jim’s public performances generally involved posing, prancing, and shouting while covered with a garish mix of body paint and costumes of his own design, “sustainably sourced” from refuse. The hat he put out collected at most a soda pop’s worth of change each time.

“So, I have decided to embark upon one last public performance piece. I call it ‘Anatomy of a Suicide.'”

Jim reached into his bag and produced a wrapped parcel, and an item rolled up in a rag. Setting both on the lectern, he unrolled the rag to reveal a large-caliber revolver.

“I have here a means of ending my life. Each of you will make an argument as to whether you think I should end myself or spare myself, and I will respond. Our interplay will be chance art, found art, at its finest and most raw. When enough art has been made, I will–as my final performance–blow my brains out in front of you, or surrender to the authorities you are probably already dialing on your cell phones.”

Pandemonium. Jim silenced the screaming with a blast from his gun into the Deerton High library roof.

“The package in front of me contains insurance that the performance will not be concluded prematurely,” he added. “A powerful artwork of my own design, explosive enough to reduce this room to a book burning, equipped with a dead man’s switch.” Jim flashed a small something clutched in one hand. “I will deactivate it only when there is no more art to be made.”

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This entry is part of the NaNo Excerpt Blog Chain 2013 at Absolute Write.

The blast startled the cows, and they began to moo in a frenzy and gallop about the Wonky M Ranch paddock. It was a stampede in the making.

“Oh god, they’re gonna get me! They’re gonna get me! Help!” Jeanette was sprinting headlong under the moonlight with a bevy of bovines in hot pursuit, not towards the fences—at least not directly—but rather toward Virginia.

“What part of scatter don’t you get, you plain fool?” Virginia cried in response, but it was too late. Jeannette was beside her, and they were on the run from a rapidly-growing herd of cattle in addition to old man Morrison, who was huffing behind his prized beasts fumbling for fresh crimped-brass cartridges in the pockets of his overalls.

In the distance, Dale had managed to evade notice by diving into, and apparently rolling around in, the baker’s dozen of cow pies that littered the field like torpedoes in Farragut’s Mobile Bay. His eyes saucer-wide at Virginia and Jeanette’s predicament, he finally found the mental fortitude to make a sloppy, smelly dash for the Wonky M Ranch’s paddock fence. Unfortunately for him, Morrison had put up barbed wire like it was going out of style, and while it had been easy enough to wriggle through on the way in, Dale found himself caught and suspended from his clothes—hung out to dry next to a big red “no trespassing on penalty of shotgunnery” sign, one of many Morrison had hand-painted and erected.

“You…said…this…would…be…easy!” Jeanette panted, giving Virginia as recriminating a look as her velocity and panic allowed.

“And you said you could run if he caught us!” Virginia shot back. She’d just wanted to have some fun at the expense of the old fart and grump who was always chasing kids away from his market stand and yammering on about conspiracies against his person, his cows, and his ranch hands. You couldn’t argue that the unhinged curmudgeon didn’t deserve it.

Both the cows and said coot were gaining. In fact, some of the cows were actually passing Virginia and Jeanette on either side, panicked and stupid as they were. They were close enough to see their brands—and it was no use arguing that the Wonky M Ranch brand wasn’t specially made so it fit perfectly over a McNeill Ranch brand. Just another reason Morrison could stand to have a few cows tipped.

A fresh blast of gunpowder and rock salt lit up the paddock, grazing a few head of cattle and sending them even further down the dark road to stampede. “Dammit, get back here so I can shoot you!” Morrison cried.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that!” Virginia cawed over her shoulder. The Wonky M fence was just ahead, but there was no way to clear the barbed wire at the full-on clip they were running. The barbed wire was stretched over a wooden framework, leaving a good foot open at the bottom in places. There was nothing for it but to try and slide under the fence like a scoring baseman and hoping that the dewy grass would be slick enough to allow passage rather than an invitation to a fatal trampling.

It worked, after a fashion. The lubrication for Virginia’s slide was less dewy grass, though, than it was an arsenal of cow pies. She came up thoroughly smeared and smelling like a barnyard in July.

For her part, Jeanette took a sharp left at the fence, nowhere near nimble enough to take a similar dive. The cows followed, as did Morrison; when Jeanette reached the far corner, she took it again. She eventually escaped out the same door Morrison had come in by, as the nasty old coot had left it ajar in his haste to apply the liberal shotgunning promised by his signs.

Panting and red, Jeanette appeared at the rally point overlooking the Wonky M from a low hill nearby. Virginia was already there, retching into a bush as the cow pie deluge hadn’t spared any orifice.

“That…wasn’t…as…fun…as…you…said…it’d…be,” panted Jeanette.

“Look,” said Virginia. “Once I join the Rangers tomorrow, there won’t be as much time for fun. We had to go out with a bang.” The words were meant for Jeanette but directed at the unfortunate sagebrush that was now the proud owner of a gumbo mixing Ms. McNeill’s stomach contents with old man Morrison’s cow pies.

“Yeah…I’m sure that will…go down in history…as one of the great pranks…of Prosperity Falls,” Jeanette said with as much acid as she could manage between great gasping gulps of air.

Virginia wobbled to her feet, boots squishing with an unspeakable mixture of different fluids from different species. “At least I tried,” she said. “When I’m a famous Prosperity Ranger, riding the range, you’ll look back on this and smile.”

“I’d have to be looking back on this from an awfully long way to smile,” said Dale. He had appeared unnoticed while the girls had been distracted by talking and other things that were not necessarily language yet still coming out of their mouths.

“Well we…oh God!” Virginia cried, turning away in disgust and heaving anew atop her put-upon friend the sagebrush. “Dale, where the hell are your clothes?”

Dale sighed as Jeanette broke into a fit of giggling. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Can we just go home? I have to be up in an hour to start milking.”

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