Zorgamazoo (7 page)

Yet this was a sign that was meant to be read,
and these are the words that it messily said:

The alley, however, was terribly dim;
the rain was so thick you could go for a swim;
the wind was a billowy, blustery gust,
and the placard was grubby and covered with rust.

 

So Katrina, of course, didn't notice the sign.
She assumed that the doorway was perfectly fine.

She splashed to the handle and waggled the latch,
and to her surprise…that opened the hatch.
Inside was a ladder, with rungs in a row,
a stairway of steps to a chamber below.

 

But the stairway was crooked, the ladder was cracked
(on the verge of collapse, as a matter of fact).
Descending the stairway, its pilasters shook,
they wobbled and quaked like a fish on a hook.

 

At the bottom, the walls were discolored and bare,
and shadows, like spirits, were haunting the air.

 

Looking around, Katrina could see:
a booth, where you once put a ticketing fee,
some rusty old tracks for an underground train,
and maps from the past to explain the terrain.
Seeing it all, she could fairly deduce:
This was a station…no longer in use.

 

At this point, Katrina was terribly bushed;
she couldn't go on, even if she were pushed.
She needed a dwelling for resting her head,
a comfortable place she could set for a bed.

After some searching, she spotted a room,
that wasn't too buried in rubbish and gloom.
She lay on the floor, on a pillow of stone,
feeling wretched, dejected, completely alone.

 

But just as she readied herself for a doze,
just as her eyes were beginning to close,
just as she started to slumber and snooze,
she was jolted awake by the
thrumping
of shoes!

 

“Well, well!” came a voice like the squeal of a saw.
“It looks like some joker has broken the law!
Perhaps not a
certified
law of the land,
but for sure—it's the only law
we
understand.

 

“Now what sorta law am I talking about?
The law that says:

The girl was in gumboots as tall as a chair.
She had daggers and knives pinned up in her hair.
Her name on the street was
“Selena the Slash,”
and she'd cut off your pants to pilfer your cash!
To her left was an impish and rascally scamp,
dressed in the rags of a traveling tramp.
His nickname was “Sickly” or
“SICKLY VAN PUKE”
and his nose always trickled with gobbledygook.

 

The last was a ruffian lofty and tall,
as strong as an ox and as wide as a wall,
with a look on his face, so purple and mean—
like a face you might make in a stinky latrine.

Katrina concluded with only a look this last was none other than BUGSY McCROOK! (Now the Gang of McCrook was a miserable mob, for whom robbing you blind was an everyday job.

 

They were known for their violence and criminal feats,
for a seedy selection of sinful deceits—
from robbery, arson, and pyramid schemes,
to snatching the mascots from basketball teams.

 

They had once robbed a pet shop of all of its cash,
and they never—
not ever
—recycled their trash!)

 

“I know who you are,” Katrina exclaimed.
“You're BUGSY McCROOK, and you should be ashamed!”

“At your service,” said BUGSY. He bent in a bow.
“I wonder, my dear, what
shall
we do now?”

 

 

“I know!” said the girl in the cumbersome boots,
“Let's force-feed her full of some festering fruits!

We can sting her with bees as much as we please!
We can scrape up her knees with a grater of cheese!
We can jab her with sticks, and if she survives,
That's fine! Then we'll
stick
her with one of my knives!”

 

“Wait!” said Katrina. “Hold on for a sec.
Before you go crazy, start wringing my neck,
before you begin to dissever and maim,
hold on—at least let me tell you my name.”

 

“Alright,” BUGSY sneered, “but get on with it, see.
Then you'll get your shellacking,
and you'll get it from me!”
Katrina raised up her adorable head.
She smiled like an angel, and here's what she said:

“They call me Katrina,
and I hope you all fall down a bottomless well.”

 

Then, like a cat, she sprung to her feet.
She spun on her heels, to beat a retreat.

 

As she scuttled away, she was granted a chance
to give Sickly a kick in the seat of his pants.

 

Selena she tripped with a flick of her foot
which made her go sprawling in rubble and soot.

 

But then, at the steps, before her escape,
she was captured by someone as strong as an ape!

 

It was
BUGSY McCROOK!
He was already there!
He hoisted her up by a handful of hair!

Katrina looked back at her turbulent wake:
Selena lay sprawled like a slumbering snake.
Her boots were askew and her hair was a mess.
There were tatters and tears in her leathery dress.

 

Sickly, meanwhile, was especially glum.
He was sulking and sourly rubbing his bum.

 

“Okay,” BUGSY puffed, “we're skipping the bees.
You can nix all the sticks and the grater of cheese.
Instead, I've decided to skip to the punch.
Let's finish her off, get down to the crunch.

 

“Ms. Katrina Katrell, say goodbye to your life,
because now, as we say, is
the time of the knife!”

 

 

Selena
provided her terrible blade.
It flashed like the games in a penny arcade.
She gave it to BUGSY, who grinned like a shark,
whose teeth were agleam in the shadowy dark.
But before he could act on his odious goals,
before he could riddle Katrina with holes,

he was stopped by a voice that rose from the gloom,
and suddenly rippled all over the room.

 

The voice started whistling a musical tune,
like a wolf, as it croons at the sight of a moon.
While yowling a jingle and clapping a beat,
the whistler was happily tapping his feet.

 

The tapping grew louder, just off to the right,
and then Mortimer Yorgle…

 

 

 

tripped into the light.

 

 

 

“Excuse me,” he coughed. “I got carried away.
It happens sometimes. Hey, what can I say?”

 

BUGSY looked frightened. Or startled, at least,
as he gaped at this creature, this blundering beast.

“Hello,” Morty waved. “I don't mean to intrude.
I hope you'll excuse me for being so rude.
But I got myself lost,” he said with remorse.
“I don't know where I am. I'm a little off course.”

 

BUGSY said nothing, he just ogled and stared.
The pigheaded bully was actually scared!

 

His lips began trembling, he started to pout.
He tried saying
something
, but nothing came out,
nothing except for a meaningless peep,
the teeniest, tiniest, whiniest…

 

 

 

 

 

The knife in his hand, it fell to the floor,
and
BUGSY MCCROOK
ran off for the door.

 

His minions,
Selena
and SICKLY VAN PUKE
(whose nose was now
gushing
with gobbledygook),
they were equally scared. They ran away, too.
Up the stairwell they scampered—they practically flew!

So Katrina was left, alone with this
thing
,
not knowing what dangers their meeting would bring.
But running away—well, it didn't seem right,
after Morty had proved himself rather polite.

 

So she put out her hand. It hung there a while.
On her face was a grateful but timorous smile.

 

“My name's Katrina, and I'd just like to say:
Thank you
—for going so out of your way.
Those ruffians sure had me under the knife,
so I owe it to you…for saving my life.”

 

Morty reached out, with the palm of his paw.
They shook, and Katrina was stricken with awe.

 

“Who me?” Morty asked. “You got me all wrong.
I was just passing through, just humming a song.”

 

His hand and his fingers were far from the norm.
They were furry
and roughened
and toughened
and warm.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I'm Morty, or ‘Mort.'
To be honest, I'm not the adventuring sort.
But they sent me, it seems, on a sort of a quest,
and I've got myself lost…and I'm sort of depressed.
And there's no one to help me!” he said with a sigh,
as he awkwardly straightened the knot of his tie.

 

The tie!
thought Katrina. It was perfectly plain!
It was
him
—the same face she had seen on the train!

 

“You're the thing that I saw!” She let out a squeal.
“I can hardly believe that you're actually real!”
Morty looked at Katrina. He furrowed his brow.
“Oh yeah, on the train. I remember you now.”

 

That's how it began, as simple as that!
Soon they were chatting and chewing the fat.
And Katrina could see, in Mortimer's eye,
that here was a decent and likable guy.

 

They spoke of their lives, above and below,
recounting their personal stories of woe.
Katrina endeavoured to try and explain
the insidious perils besetting her brain.

How Mrs. Krabone had commissioned a quack,
to pry at her skull with a
crick
and a
crack!

 

Morty meanwhile—he spoke of his quest,
his lottery ticket, and all of the rest.
He mentioned his Pop, who was sick as a dog,
who sagged in his bed like a moldering log.

 

But mostly he griped about being picked,
how to him it appeared as if he'd been tricked.
“What a joke!” he lamented. “I haven't a
clue
how to find any zorgles in Zorgamazoo!”

 

As she listened, Katrina was greatly engrossed.
This tale had the stuff she admired the most:
a potential adventure, with thrill after thrill!
She soaked it all up. She was utterly still.