Ready? The second great fanfic by Hudson Duck is finally ready! Now you'll have to find something *else* to look forward to in life ...unless I decide to do a third one!! >:) -HudsonDuck (hudson@acmeonline.net) --------------------- "Stand By Toons" - a story of toon self-discovery, determination, and a bunch more dull stuff By Hudson Duck and Mycroft Bunny I was twelve, going on thirteen, when I first saw my big break. It was 1990, the time when Dr. Pepper was available at most local convenience stores around these parts, when an 8-Bit Nonminndo Video Game System was good enough for any kid, and when Tiny Toon Adventures held its "Character Try-outs" thingie they did. You know... they redid the thing in "The Toony Beginning?" Um, alrighty then... the First Episode? The one which actually was aired first on a different network than on the one which made the show famous? You with me so far? Oh, alright. Just trust me on this one. It was really a pretty simple way it all started. There were four of us, actually. People always called us "Them Four Kids," which was kinda embarassing, because we really *were* kids, but we didn't like grown-ups pointing that out to anyone who might have heard of our little gang but thought that the notorious deeds we pulled off, like spilling jars of pickles around people's houses and playing music from the '50s and '60s in *all* hours in the night, would have to have been done by a criminal mastermind gang called "The Puttees" or "The Guys Who Have The Pirate Symbol Plastered Everywhere Gang" or something. No such luck. The head of our group was a kid named Mycroft Bunny. He was the koolest kid in our group as well, not counting me, of course. He always wore these big baggy pants, just like the ones Yakko Warner wore in those real early cartoons. Mycroft had just gotten a job selling WB merchandise outside the WB lot (BatDuck For-Never T-Shirts selling at just $39.95), but the only ones that seemed to sell were the Pig Decoy ones. Then there was me. Hudson Duck. I was gonna mention that my middle initial was "Q", but I thought that it was too much like that Urkel kid. In reality I don't actually have a middle initial. Why, then, do I have one? Because I don't deal with reality. Ask anyone who knows me! ...No, on second thought, don't ask anyone who knows me on the grounds that it might be incriminating. But anyway, I have used my being so out-of-touch with the real world in my present career. I am a writer for a major city newspaper. The third kid in our group was this really weird kid. He was some kind of Tasmanian Devil, unless of course I'm mistaken here. Dizzy Devil, we called him, mostly because, well, you know... Dizzy... he's so Dizzy his head is spinning... And it's you who's making it spin... Rats. Now I've got that annoying song from the '60s playing in my head and I won't get it out until long after I've finished typing this story on my Hack'n'toss Computer (a division of Boisenberry Computers). The final kid in our group was this quiet, unassuming little guy. Ate a lot. A *whole* lot, actually. But we never said anything. I mean, if we *did*, we probably wouldn't have a way of disposing of all those pickles we hadda clean up after spilling them around someone's garden. Hamton J. Pig. Yep, he never said anything, unless it somehow advanced the plot in my story here. Really quiet pig. I've said that before, haven't I? Oh well, three extra words for my editor. He ought to be pleased to get *this* baby into his "Features" section. It was all on one sunny day in 1990. It was summer, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. Mycroft, Dizzy, and I were in our treehouse, playing Three-player Solataire. We had to, since three really isn't enough for poker, and besides, Mycroft was the only one who knew the rules of Solataire anyway. So we were just playing along there, when Hamton came running up the ladder into the treehouse. "Hey (puff puff) Guys!! Igottakindasoforthandsoonandtohearwhatifound outandyourgonnaloveitand..." "HUH?!?" said Mycroft. "Hamton! Stop for AIR sometime, will ya?" I helpfully suggected to the meek little piggy. "I...(pant)...sorry, but it's just that I found out someinformationth atsgonnaknockyersocksoffifyouworesocksbutnoneofyoudobecause..." "You're *still* going too fast for me, Hamton," Mycroft informed him. "I can't understand what you are tryna SAY!!!" I repeated. "Narglebauglezoussgranfnarftrozzortpoit!" added Dizzy. "Yeah! That's exactly right!! Now, can you spit it out nice and clearly like the REST of us, Hamton?" asked Mycroft. "I'm trying...(gasp) to... but it's just too exciting!!! I''ll (pant) try and slow down a bit (wheeze)... Sorry. I. Was. Un. Der. The. Front. Porch. To. Day. When....." You get the idea by now, I'm sure. Hamton hardly ever spoke to anyone. Therefore, whenever something was exciting enough to make him say something, he was always too excited to make it comprehendable. This was annoying to us, so we had agreed silently to rid him of this problem. Well, I agreed silently to rid him of this problem. Don't know what the other two were thinking. Probably about something completely different, unless of course I'm mistaken here. Hamton's story turned out kinda like this. Hamton took a bunch of his mom's cookies right off the cooling rack on the window ledge, and he put 'em in a brown paper bag, and he buried them somewhere in the yard so that he didn't get caught. Believe me, Hamton was no angel. He also was no genius. He forgot about them for three months, buried somewhere out there in the garden, and he decided on that day that he was hungry for some raisin cookies. Anyway, he was under the front porch, and he was searching for those cookies, digging holes everywhere, when he heard three people passing by. They were, in random order, Plucky Duck, Shirley the Loon, and Buster Bunny. Hamton decided that perhaps it was in his best interests to stop digging and listen in to their conversation. Mostly because he dug so many holes, the house was getting ready to tip over and lose its supports again. "Come ON, you know we're all prime candidates for this show!" Buster was telling Plucky and Shirley. "Tiny TOONS? TOONS?!? You see? We're all tiny, and we're toony." Shirley declared "Yeah? Well, I kind of like think YOU'RE a little looney," admiring the irony of her remark some microseconds after she said it. "Well, okay, Buster. I'll try out for it. But there's no guarantee that I'll get in. I have absolutely no talent whatsoever, and it's obvious that YOU are the kind of star that they're looking for. So, where's this try-out taking place?" "Somewhere over the railroad," Buster informed the muddled duck. "Just at the other end of the railroad going through town here, that's where it's going to be." "Sommmme-wheeeeere... o-ver the raiiiilroooooad, I will sail... even though I am famous, this cameo's still 'scale'," sang Judy Garlic, Blowin' In The Wind which suddenly blasted past. (Perhaps she ought to have tried Runnin' Against The Wind.) You see? Our little gang truly loved early music. No wonder we played it at all hours in the night. It just seemed to follow us wherever we went, almost at random at times, it seemed. "Well, I don't know about this. I really am a no-show, and haven't got a chance anyway!" said Plucky. "Besides, just this morning I promptly fell down and bonked myself on the head, and I haven't quite been myself all day." Shirley was about to say something, thought better of it, and didn't. She just laughed. Shirley, being psychic amongst numerous other really kool things, saw the humorus potential in a new TV show where people catch such funny things on home video as Plucky promptly falling down and bonking himself on the head. "You really should get someone to check that out for you, Plucky!" Buster warned him. "You've been acting odd all day. Not ham-type acting, either... This stuff is really good! Something has to be wrong, then. I'll tell you what. I'll bring you to the doctor to get this thing looked into, then tomorrow afternoon, we'll all go to the tryouts at 2." Hamton didn't hear the rest, apparently, as the growling from his stomach was too loud. He did see Plucky, Buster and Shirley looking towards the sky. Thunder, perhaps, they thought? Anyway, Hamton rushed to the treehouse immediately, right after the three toons left his yard and he scrambled out from under the front porch, baking a cake to eat along the way. Well, he was HUNGRY!!! Hamton told the story to us, and we decided that this was indeed the big break we were looking for our whole lives. Well, the whole afternoon, anyway. I mean, we were playing Solataire, for Pete's sake. It felt like that one day was long enough to be our whole lives. At about 2 o'clock that day, we started off towards the end of the railroad. We all were walking along the tracks, headed towards a place we knew we weren't going to make it to by today's audition. We figured, heck, it didn't even open until 2 o'clock every day, so why rush? Yeah, we knew it'd take almost 24 hours to get from here to there, but we didn't want to feel like starting out too early. Besides, we knew that Buster, Plucky and Shirley wouldn't be there until tomorrow's audition anyway. We had a bunch of backpacks and knapsacks and various other types of sacks traditionally associated with camping out. We had told our parents that we were going to camp out in Hamton's back yard. That explained why we were leaving with all that camping equipment, as well as the extra pairs of hiking shoes (You see, Hamton had this Uncle Stinky who... um, well, he was a pig, literally and in every other way. You'd kinda NEED extra shoes after he's been around, since wiping them off would be more trouble than to just throw those shoes away and to wear another pair). We had been walking for about an hour, when I suddenly realized that there was no contact lens in one of my eyes. "STOP!!! STOP!!!!! We GOTTA STOP!!!!" I suggested. "Why? Is there something wrong?" Mycroft asked. "Yeah!! I think I lost a contact lens around here somewhere!!!" I told him. So, of course, we spent quite some time crawling around in the grass, trying to locate the dumb thing. We didn't find it, and I was getting more and more anxious by the minute. It became more and more obvious that I was not going to find what I had been looking for. Mycroft finally got up and said "Hudson? We are not gonna find that thing anywhere around here. If we wanna get to the try-outs in time, we'd better forget about that stupid contact lens! I didn't even know you wore contacts!!" I was confused. "Contacts? I don't wear contacts," I informed him. "Then, WHAT exactly were we doing all this time if we weren't looking for a contact lens?" "Um... I thought we were looking for a doughnut," I replied. That was true. Please remember that we had been searching there for an awful long time, it was only natural that one of us forgot what we were doing there. I was confused. Mycroft cleared that confusion up. *WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM* went the sledgehammer. I immediately became clearer in thought and in action. For a while. We had gone for about an hour again, when we saw a train coming in the distance. The four of us stepped away from the tracks. Except for Dizzy. Dizzy remained there on the tracks, jaws gaping open. What was he thinking?!? Was he contemplating how he had used all the Charmin' Brand Toilet Paper earlier that day? Was he dwelling on the possibility that while the sky was not clear that night in 1986, Halley's Comet forgot to appear? Or was he thinking, however oddly, that the train would go right into his mouth and directly into his stomach? If the latter was the case, it would have, of course. But it would've been too much trouble for us to carry him the rest of the way back home if he overate and felt queasy. Especially since he would have overindulged in a freight train, which tend to be heavier than the average duck, rabbit and pig put together. Frieght trains have a tendancy to do that, if you've noticed. Mycroft began pulling Dizzy off the tracks, but he was not very successful. Hamton and I began doing the same, but there was obviously no way we were going to budge that little devil. The train was bearing down on us, and we hadda do something, and do it fast!!! If that freight train, which was belching burned diesel fuel into the air around us, smacked into the four of us wth a dull, sickening crunch, we may have been somewhat delayed in our arrival. You know kids, everything has to be done immediately and as soon as possible. Therefore, being slowed down after getting hit by a train was not something we would have preferred. Anyway, there we were, pushing and shoving Dizzy, but he was not moving!! As we did so, Hamton's backpack (I think he had a backpack rather than a knapsack, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here) came open, and out fell the paper bag full of three month old raisin cookies. That did it!! Dizzy went spinning down the hill away from the tracks and towards the bag of cookies. Why did he prefer the moldy cookies over a great big freight train? I just told you, because kids want everything immediately and as soon as possible, and in order to eat the train we would have needed to wait another 0.7 seconds for it to be where we were standing, whereas the cookies were available immediately. Dizzy overindulged on the moldy raisin cookies, and we had to carry him. But since he didn't eat the train, we thought it wouldn't be much harder to carry him onwards with us. We carried Dizzy for quite a while. It had to be at least 8 minutes before we couldn't carry him any further, and we had to put him down for a bit. This was a slowing in the action, one of which we had been trying to avoid. Hamton, Mycroft and I discussed the possibility of what was going to happen next. I mean, this wasn't just boring, this was massively super dull. "Perhaps Dizzy'll puke somethin' awful," said Mycroft encouragingly. "Or maybe he'll just end up all gassy and stuff," I said, recalling the Great Baked Beans episode we had some time before. In the treehouse earlier that day, after Dizzy ate an odd breakfast food. Normally, for breakfast, Dizzy would NOT eat beans. They are considered to be "edible," a food group Dizzy tended to avoid altogether. Hamton didn't add to the discussion, however he was most certainly an active part of it, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. As it turned out, we got bored, bored, bored. We began to have irrational fears of termites. We began to say things that were obviously intended to be funny, and they were at the time, but when you try and add the comments to the story later on, they just fell flat. That's when I had one of my brain-busting ideas. I have always been known for brain-busting ideas. In fact, I had one super-brain-busting idea some time before, which explains the rest of my apparent lack of thought processes since that time. "Hey! Just a little ways from here, there is an old junk yard!!! Why don't we drop by and say hello to the mad dog that lives there?" Mycroft, after some thought, decided that was where we had to go. Not because he liked dogs, of course. Just because there may have been people there, and who knows what kinds of t-shirts he may be able to sell to them. They were hanging around a junk yard, after all. So three of us went to the junk yard while Dizzy chewed on a few rocks to settle his queasy stomach. Over the chain-link fence we went, Hamton last, of course, since he had a tendancy to always be left behind during such times. Not much inside there, really. No mad dog. No customers for Mycroft, either. Just a bunch of junk. We all looked around for a short while, still having nothing to do. "Hey look, Myke!" I shouted. "An old toilet! Isn't that incredibly funny?!?" "What, do y'all not have toilets where you come from or somethin'?" he responded. "Yeah, we do, but they are just so incredibly incredibly fun-NY!!! You look tired, Mycroft. Why don't you have a seat on it? heeheeheeheehee !!!" " I think I'll pass on that, if you don't mind," he said. Fortunately for us, we soon heard a low growling coming from somewhere very close to us. It was obviously coming from a dog, quite mad, I might add, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. Finally, things were starting to get exciting again. I was so happy, I ran towards the chain link fence and stepped on whoever got in the way to get back over the thing. Mycroft soon followed. Hamton (remember him?) had some problems, however. He just was not able to get himself over the fence. The growling was much closer, in fact. Things were quite tense for Hamton. He knew what was coming, and he had to act fast! So, using his newly aquired digging skills, he tunnelled his way out of the junk yard and onto the other side of the fence. Then, in a moment of recognition, he wondered what would keep the mad dog from following him? Nothing, he realized. So he rented a cement truck, blocked the fence all around, started some slight bricklaying until he made a fence about, say, maybe sixty-three times his own height, and he lay back in the shade, exhausted. The rest of us didn't really notice. After all, I mean, it was HAMTON. You mean, if you were there with him, you'd pay him any attention? Oh, get real. No dog came, either. Turns out it was just Dizzy, turning out. Yuck. In fact, that was when we discovered who that smell had been coming from earlier that day in the treehouse, but I'm not sure I want to go into any more detail about that. But, there was some really weird guy who ran the junk yard, and he was not too pleased with any of us. Especially Hamton, who cemented over the place where the guy used to plant his flowers. Yeah, FLOWERS. That guy had an image to keep up, you know. Dizzy was feeling much better by the time we walked for another few minutes. All he needed for the green color to leave his face was some time away from the sight of everyone. Kinda like toon bandages? They disappear whenever the camera is not on them. Same with us, actually. Weird, but it's quite a neat novelty to pull at human parties and at Inquisitions. "We're gonna have to make up for lost time if we want to get to the tryouts before Buster, Plucky and the rest of their gang!" I warned. "It was sure a lucky thing for us that Plucky has to go see a doctor due to a head injury! What excellent luck!" "Um, Hudson?" interjected Mycroft. "What exactly is the reason that we must get there before them? Why is that such an important thing?" I was stumped. I actually had no reason not to like any of them, really. But the thing was, a duck just cannot exist without some kind of rivalry between himself and someone else who is popular. I mean, rivalry between me and, say, Monty would be completely normal, but I needed to have someone that people actually LIKED to label a rival. I chose Buster and his gang. Not quite at random or anything, I had my reasons. You see, it all started because of an incident which happened quite a while back... The week before, the four of us friends were just mulling about town. No, not really, we were discussing just exactly how one would go about mulling something or someone. That's when Buster came up to us, holding hands with his girlfriend, Babs. "Hiya, kids! What's happening?" he asked, obviously trying to get in on our secret conversation. "Nothing, and it's going to stay that way, Buster!" I responded. I realized that I had immediately made a mistake. I had not intended to tell him what we really were doing, and I had just done so by telling him nothing. Now, because I was thinking through the illogic seqence I had just gotten my brain into, I missed most of what happened immediately after that, but I came to my senses after Buster threatened to cause our band to mutiny. "You guys hungry? I was just about to buy Babsy here a soda, and if you want I can get you guys some ice cream!" he threatened to us menacingly. Hamton rubbed his stomach. Mycroft licked his lips. Dizzy ate forty-two pounds of aluminum siding he found in a side alley. It looked like it would be the end of our group as we knew it. It looked like it was going to be a merger between the two, and that was something I knew that we could not have, not no way, not possible, absolutely impossible. It would have meant the end of everything as we knew it, but I seemed to be the only one who noticed that. Unless, of course, I was completely mistaken there. "NO!!!" Everything stopped. ...well, there were some flies hanging around a great big clump of something on the ground, and some cars still zoomed past, and everyone kept on doing what it was they were doing, but I know that I sure stopped, and to me, that is relatively everything. "I mean, we do not want any ice cream, thanks. I'd rather eat dirt!!" I informed Buster, as politely as possible. "Fine, suit yourself," he said. "It's too bad, though. I hear they've got a new flavor of chocolate available just today too! Oh well!" And he walked off, hand in hand with Babs. We went back to the treehouse. After the other three made me eat dirt first, of course. That was the day I had finalized my rivalry with Buster and all of his friends. For a while. I had no idea as to what my present day editor was going to be like!! But that is another story, for another day. We walked on and on and on and on and on and on and on (* NOTE TO MYSELF: IF EXTRA WORDS REQUIRED FOR PROPER FEATURE LENGTH ARTICLE, HERE'S THE PLACE TO INSERT 'EM) along those railroad tracks for all of what felt like seven to ten minutes, but in reality was somewhere between eight and nine minutes, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. Yeah, it started getting pretty boring all over again. I don't want to get into detail, mostly because there are no details. So instead, let me just skip over the extremely boring parts and get into the moderately dull ones. Sometime later that evening, night fell. We pitched our tents, and since none of us felt particularly sleepy after walking for such a long time without any food and dragging all that luggage along with us on one of the hottest days of the year, we began discussing those things that concern young toons before they discover how utterly disgusting green jellybeans taste. Sitting around the blazing campfire, which is a wonderful feeling on a hot and dank summer evening, we talked. "What the heck is that trademarked Disney character with the big nose supposed to be, anyway?" asked Mycroft, sitting on his paws. "I don't know, but then again, I'm still confused by thermo dynamics," replied the extremely confused Duck, sitting on his own paws. (?) "It's simple, really. Just don't look down," interjected Hamton, which made as much sense as anything else at the time. "No, Hamton. Thermo Dynamics is a heat thing. You're thinking about Rules of Aviation," added Mycroft. "Narglezousfnuffstufflegrunturpwizhelgarf," agreed/disagreed/shrugged Dizzy, swallowing pieces of a recently downed 747 contemplatitively. "Yeah. Even Dizzy knows THAT, Hamton," I added, hoping to cast the shadow of ignorance on someone else for a change. It didn't work. Valient effort, though, if I do say so myself. Precious seconds of our youth drifted away. It was then that we realized ... well, that I realized ... that we needed something more to further advance us in our philosophical meditations. "Wanna hear a really totally neato-gross story I am gonna make up as I go along?" I asked. Groans of agreement came from everyone. No, not everyone... Dizzy was groaning because of disagreement between his stomach and the steel-and-styrofoam airplane wing he had just wolfed down. But the rest were groaning in agreement, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. "Well, we all know what a wonderful sense of the disgusting I posess, if nothing else, so I know the perfect story. It's called, 'The Brilliant I'll-Get-You-Back Action'." Again, no not really, but since the original name was already taken as of the date I am writing this, I changed it so that no one could accuse me of plagiarism. Nope, not in this 100%-Never-Done- Before-Totally-Original-Plot-Line, anyway. And having complete silence from my audience, I began my story.... There was once this kid who was gross. I mean, REALLY gross. He was the kind of kid who watched surgical operations on tv. And then tried them out on himself. So obviously, he was never well liked, not even as a novelty act at parties, because one can only deposit one's spleen in the punchbowl once. Once he ran out of disposable internal organs, his friends just ignored him and went on to do bigger and better things. Nobody really knew this kid's name. Everyone called him, simply, "Lardless." Yeah, he saw that episode of 20/200 on liposuction, and he really dug it. One day, there was a huge pie-eating contest in the county. Everybody who was anybody entered into it. Well, there was Lardless, but that didn't really matter to anyone, but it does matter to my story so remember that part. Before he went onto the stage in front of the whole county, though, lardless got prepared. He broke an egg (no, I mean that LITERALLY, he wasn't that gross) and swallowed it raw, then he drank a bunch of Gasso Pop. Mycroft, stop laughing. They called it "pop" instead of Coke, alright? ...Oh, come on, it is not all that funny. ...Well, yeah, it does sound kinda funny to hear someone call it "pop," really. Can I start that part over, except I call it something else? I'm trying to get a mood here, people. Nah, just forget it, he drank a carbonated beverage, you satisfied? Alright then, now back to the story... So, Lardless went out onto the stage and took his place. The announcer announced, as was his wont. He introduced everyone out there. There was the Mayor of the town, there was a local radio personality who would later go on to star in a really bad movie based on his life but it'll make big bucks anyway because that's the kind of decade the nineties is gonna be, there was a guy who painted chairs for a living, eh? Plus there was Lardless. The crowd had a field day with Lardless up on stage. Each move he made, the crown made "Squish-squish" noises, just as his gall bladder made that time he yanked it out on the schoolbus to fix the flat tire they got on the way to school. Yes, Lardless was a nerd too. Loved Biology class, couldn't get enough of it, in fact. No really, I mean it. He could not get enough of it, because the teacher kept catching him with his hand in the specimen jars, trying to get that new liver he had been looking for. OK, so they all started eating up those pies, with Lardless right up in front. It was expected that he would win, hands down, but Lardless was not really interested in winning. He was interested in getting his Brilliant I'll-Get-You-Back Action. Down the hatch went the pies. More and more and more and more and more (* NOTE TO MYSELF: YEAH, HERE IS ANOTHER GOOD SPOT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF) until something happened. Something big. Lardless began to shake. Something was going to happen, and the crowd saw it. They almost seemed to stop snoring for just a brief moment in time, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. Then it happened. Lardless opened up his mouth, REALLY wide, and out it came. It was the most disgusting, most repulsive, most awful belch you had ever heard in your life. Or seen, for that matter. That raw egg kinda gave it a greenish mist. "BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The mayor caught it first, and he passed out from the odor. Then the radio personality, which surprised most people, since they thought he would catch the smell first on seeing his physical appearance, but that was not the case, since this guy's radio show smelled so bad in the first place, he felt at home with it for just a second longer than the mayor. The guy who always wanted to paint your chair, eh? He was the next one to get it, and clunk he went into unconsciousness. The belch wafted into the crowd, but no one really noticed if it affected anyone or not. Either way, they were still just as enthralled by the whole contest. Lardless was happy. The end. "What kind of story was that?" asked Mycroft, after I had finished putting away my tent the next day. "That's for you to decide for yourself, to judge using your own thoughts and interpretations of its surprise ending," I explained. "No really, what kind of story was it? I fell asleep after the 'pop' part. heheheheh... 'pop' ....heheheheheheh!!!!!!!" "I thought it was good," said Hamton. "I didn't understand the significance of it, but it's so darn true to life!" "Grawknorkeeniemeenieminymoeschnozzola!!" dictated Dizzy, although I am not ure if he intended the remark towards my literary contribution, or to the fact that I had forgotten to wake him before I put away my tent, which it turns out we had been sharing. But now it was morning, and we had but a short distance left to go. That is, if we wanted to take a shortcut across a bridge, which connected the train tracks to the other side of the river, and between which lay a whole bunch of metres (or feet, whatever...) of nothing except falling space. Otherwise, we'd have to spend another eight days travelling. Well, at the rate we were travelling, anyway. Now, there is something inherently dangerous about crossing such a chasm on a traintrack bridge. First of all, there are the gaping spaces between the wooden planks of the bridge, whch had been keeping the rails distanced, and which looked to fit one medium-sized toon perfectly if he should happen to step into one of them. Secondly, there was the ever-present possibility of a train happening to choose that time to come charging at us. Thirdly, since I even bothered to mention this complex bridge thing in the first place, something bad is destined to happen, obviously. So across the bridge we went. I went up ahead with Dizzy, as I had been trying to revove my tent pegs from his insides, and ended up getting swallowed in the process, therefore having very little choice as to whom I paired up with. Mycroft and Hamton were lagging behind, as Mycroft had been helping Hamton crawl across the spaces. "You see? THIS is the time when you're not supposed to look down, not when figuring out thermo dymanics," Mycroft pointed out helpfully to the panic-stricken pig. Hamton still crawled along at a crawl rate, which is pretty reasonable considering the fact that he was crawling, after all. That was problem number one. Remember I mentioned that one first? Problem number two was that we didn't know when that train might come across those tracks, and we were really risking it here. Problem number three? You guessed it. ...I assume you've guessed it, unless of course I'm completely mistaken here. I'll tell you just in case you are a little slow-witted. IT'S THE TRAIN, STUPID. Yes, there was a clattering coming from somewhere just behind the mountain, and we felt it vibrating in the tracks. Even me. Dizzy had eaten a bunch of them along the way, and they were vibrating inside his stomach along with the rest of him. Yuck. No problem for Dizzy and I. We went Right On Through To The Other Side. No, I'm talking about us both in general, not just me, as a result as being high in fiber and a nasty after-effect of being swallowed whole. I came out the exact same way I went in: whining. "A TRAIN! RUN!!!" Mycroft helpfully advised Hamton, who was too afraid to move. Closer and closer, closer and closer, closer and (* NOTE TO MYSELF: YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO HERE) came the chugging behind them, the tracks vibrating madly by this time. Mycroft ran, hoping that would give Hamton the right idea. It did, but Hamton didn't feel like running, that's all. The chugging noise got louder, and I could almost see the thing racing towards my two friends. The atmosphere was so tense, I swear I didn't blink. Not before Dizzy coughed up my last tent spike and it bonked me in the back of the head, anyway. It knocked my hat off my head, and since the only clothing I ever wear is my purple hat, I was technically naked. So obviously I went underneith the track to find my hat, and I missed whatever was going on above my head. Sorry. I hear it got pretty darn good up there, too. I did hear Dizzy shouting something, but because of the din of the mechanism coming towards Mycroft and Hamton, it sounded mostly like jibberish to me. He apparently had been trying to tell them to look behind them, for right behind them was a speeding........ Coyote operating one of those things where you push the bar up and down to get the thing moving (you saw them things in every episode of Looney Tunes, remember?) chasing a red and orange roadrunner. But the warning came too late. It crashed into Hamton and Mycroft, knocking them forward and finally off the bridge for the last time.... Because they landed on the solid ground where Dizzy had been standing. Ouch. "Thanks a lot for your help, Duck!" said Mycroft, raising his favorite sledgehammer high above his bruised and bandaged head. I had been adjusting my cap back onto my head, when I had been preparing to make my hero speech. I remember having a difficult time pulling it down over the massive lump which had suddenly found its way onto the top of my head, but I don't recall that part so clearly. Tweety made a cameo, though, for those of you who are fans of Tweety. That's about all I remember of that, though. "Hey, Myke! Neato!! That sledgehammer is the most amazing thing in self-protection/revenge-taking!! I had forgotten you brought that thing along! Can I see it?" I begged, drooling in admiration. Or maybe it was because I had just been knocked senseless for the millionth time by the thing. Who knows for sure? "NO! MINE!! Sit, Duck, sit!! Good Ducky!!" Mycroft patted me on the head. "Now listen, obviously we must be very close to the tryouts. I mean, those two looked like toon try-outers to me. We got to get going!!" We got going. After a while. It was too early in the afternoon for this kind of waking up, really. Now, it was just about 12:39.14 p.m. by this time, so we figured that we had about one hour and twenty point eight six minutes to get there. Alright, alright, we didn't figure that, Mycroft did. He has this totally nifty watch that doubles as a calculator and VCR remote control, and seeing as to how much it cost him, he likes showing it off. I would have done the calculating, but my watch fell in the toilet. Besides, everyone agreed that I would have been completely mistaken there. "Over There! Over there! Just a tromp/through the swamp, and we're there!" said Mycroft. "Over There! Over There! Just a slog/through the bog, and we're there!" I said. "Argylegrowlwoofsnortbarflezoussfnarf!!!" added Dizzy, almost, but not quite, musically. And it was indeed just across that hideous-looking cesspool, infested with leeches and other ugly things that crawl up your shorts and try and live there until they realize that life in someone's shorts is drab and meaningless, but they stay there regardless because of the cheap accomodations. We trudged through that hideous-looking cesspool, infested with leeches and other ugly things that crawl up your shorts and... (* NOTE TO MYSELF: I HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO INSERT THIS LINE A COUPLE MORE TIMES IN HERE). But of course, I won't bore you with those gruesome details. (Instead, I'll invent another detail involving a gratituitous cameo.) Instead of that hideous-looking cesspool, infested with leeches and... etc., ...a flying frizbee came from nowhere and landed atop my head. Barkie Markie came running, Barking. Of course, trying to show off my bilingual skills, I interpretted exactly what he had been trying to say. "So, Elmyra's trapped in a cave somewhere, you say? Hey Guys!!! We gotta go help Elmyra! Barkie markie says she's in trouble! ...Unless of course, I'm completely mistaken here." Instinctively, Mycroft slaped me upside the head, sending the frizbee flying, and B.M. following close behind (where "B.M." stands for "Barkie Markie" from here on. But I'm sure you knew that already). Mycroft was left standing there, wondering what that pointless cameo was all about. Me as well, in fact. I suppose you want to know where that came from also... all right, I was just listening to some popular Latin tunes in my Hack 'N' Toss Computer's CD-ROM drive as I type this tale. Who knew this darn thing would be so useful? It was sure worth the two thousand bucks I paid for it, even though it just does the job of a typewriter and CD player. At 1:57, we came close to where it was we were supposed to be. We had made the treacherous journey, faced the numerous perils of oncoming traffic - twice - and also dealt with the makings of ourselves. We had learned much from each other on that certain day. Mycroft learned the fine skill of belching, Lardless-style. Hamton learned the value of knowledge, so that next time he wouldn't be as dumb as to look down a chasm, hoping that it would in some way create a variety of geothermal activity that would cause the water below to become forceful steam and raise him from the path of danger. Or at any rate, to keep his bottom from being thrashed about by quiet yet insanely brilliant coyotes. Dizzy learned ...well, Dizzy learned, and that's all we can ask for. I didn't really learn anything, but no one was surprised to hear that. But then we were in for a nasty shock. Buster had just arrived in his new car, along with Babs, Plucky, and Shirley. They were going to make it there before us after all!!! This was an event I had not anticipated, even though we spent most of our travelling time messing around instead of actually walking. I watched Mycroft reach for his sledgehammer once again... Buster approached us menacingly, sneering at us in the parody of a smile. "Hey, guys! How'd you get here? Did someone give you a lift? Y'know, if you needed a ride, I could have helped out there. We got lots more room in this baby!!" he mocked us cruelly. I didn't say anything, waiting for Mycroft's actions to say it for me. "Well, I wouldn't have given up MY luxurious leg room back here!" Plucky informed him. "The little rugrats would have to pile up over on Shirl's side of the car, not mine!!" I felt a strange kind of inner happiness, as Plucky once again seemed his old self. He was an arch enemy, but he sure knew how to keep up the good ol' Duck reputation! Besides, I didn't see anything wrong with sharing Shirley's side of the car with her (nudge-nudge-wink-wink). Buster would have been pretty cool to offer us a ride in that car, I started thinking. That's when I realized what was happening. I had finally let myself succumb to Buster and his gang. I looked at Mycroft, and he looked back at me with an evil grin on his face, and I could tell what he was planning to do. Or I thought I did. "Hurry up and do it, Myke!!! I can't stand much more of this!! I have to have this tension broken, and NOW!!!" Myke raised the sledgehammer way up above his head. He charged. Now, this would have been a good thing, if he hadn't charged towards me. It appeared to me what was going on here. He had no intention of slamming it on Buster or his friends after all. He seemed to have a more ... "closer" target, closer to home base. "YOU STUPID DUCK!!! WHAT ARE YOU TRYNA DO TO US?!? MAKING US TRY AND GET HERE BEFORE BUSTER AND HIS FRIENDS... WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?" he inquired, all the while chasing me back the way we had come. It must have been a good three or four seconds past as I raced back to my house on the Pond, and hid underneath my bed. I opened my eyes. I saw another pair looking straight at me. **BONK** "OW!! Hey, what was THAT for?" I asked the pair of eyes. "Just 'cause I felt like it," Mycroft's voice informed me. *WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM* WHAM*WHAM*.....(* NOTE TO YOU-KNOW-WHO: YOU KNOW THE DRILL) "And THAT was because I felt like it too!!" he said. Two o'clock. Tryouts started. Buster was already there with his car, and there ws no way back to that spot before two o'clock the next day, when the tryouts would be finished with. Too late after all. The next week, I stayed indoors and didn't see Mycroft at all. I watched a TV show where I found that I could have won ten thousand dollars if I had gotten those lumps on my head from falling off a riding lawnmower with a relative catching it all on home video, instead of from being bonked repeatedly with a sledgehammer. You already know the story of what happened at the Tiny Toons Adventures tryouts. You may not know what happened to Mycroft and I after missing our big debut. Well, Mycroft got his own burrow, tried (unsuccessfully) to sell cod-on-a-rope, and finally solved that Rubik's cube he's had since he was 8. (even though I found out later he had just rearranged the stickers). And me? Well, since Myke and I have remained good friends throughout the whole ordeal, there is not really much to say. Except, perhaps, that I think I may finally have a passport away from this low-paying job as a newspaper writer. Yes! In fact, I could become a screenwriter!! I have the perfect material right here in front of me, typed out in brilliant grey-and-black on the screen of my Hack'n'Toss Computer (a division of Boisenberry Computers)! I can see it selling out in millions, or even BILLIONS of movie theaters across the world!!! Yeah!! Call it a film of self discovery! Put in a catchy soundtrack!! Get Mycroft's role to be played by none other than Daffy Duck, the MASTER of whatever it is he's good at! This is the best idea I have ever had in my whole life!!! Finally, after struggling these seven years to make it big as a star, my chance has finally arri.*^(P*(&%&(^$(&{)(&+)(YU)Y{)&+I(YU)*( [FILE DELETED: OOPS. DID YOU FORGET TO SAVE AGAIN? TSK, TSK, NAUGHTY USER. FEEL THE BRILLIANT I'LL-GET-BACK-AT-YOU ACTION OF THE EVER-POWERFUL HACK'N'TOSS COMPUTER. SAY "HACK RULES" ONE MILLION TIMES AND SYSTEM MAY SERIOUSLY RECONSIDER ITS OPINION OF YOU AS A LIFELESS DWEEB] ---------------- The end. And thus ends yet another twisted and convoluted tale from the even more convoluted mind of HUDSON DUCK :) ...oh yeah, as well as Mycroft Bunny, editor extraordinaire, who kept on keeping this stuff linked and junk, cause otherwise it'd be all everythwere and junk. i mean, he caught like a BILLIAN spelling errors, capilatization prbmlems, logic flaws, ect. So, without good ol mycroft, this thing would just fall aprt!!! :) (Explanations to the symbols which appeared in this fanfic will not be provided by any of the following sources: The authors, psychologists, psychiatrists, English teachers, the president of Boisenberry Computers Ick., any of the fictional and/or non-fictional characters included in this story, copyright Warner Bros. characters and names used solely for the enjoyment of the characters' personalities and used only in an effort to keep their names alive and not for monetary purposes whatsoever, or Babel Fish.) ;) Thanks!! (Editors note: You're welcome!)