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leftovers with a number of sawbugs. When all was ready, they set out, the
twins emitting highpitched _cheep-cheeps_ in the not altogether vain hope of
passing themselves off in the dark as migrating cockroaches. Due west they
tramped, doggedly locating every possible opportunity for falling flat on
their muzzles, pressing on so that they might reach the safety of the wood
before the next sunrise. Frito had calculated that they traveled over two
leagues in as many days, not bad for a boggie but still not fast enough. They
had to take the wood in stride to be at Whee by the next day.
Silently they walked, save for a slight whimpering from Pepsi. _The silly
nit's bloodied his pug again_, thought Frito, _and Moxie's getting cranky_.
But as the long night passed and the east brightened, the flat ground gave way
to hummocks, hillocks, and buttocks of spongy, soft earth the color of calves'
brains. As the company stumbled on, the underbrush changed to saplings and
then to huge, irritable-looking trees, blasted and scored by wind, weather,
and arthritis. Soon they were swallowed up from the dawn light, and the new
night covered them like a rank locker-room towel.
Many years before it had been a happy, pleasant forest of well-pruned
puswillows, spruce spruces, and natty pines, the frolicking place of drone-
moles and slightly rabid chipmunks. But now the trees had grown old, clotted
with sneezemoss and toemold, and the Nattily Wood had become the crotchety old
Evilyn.
"We should be in Whee by morning," said Frito as they paused for a light snack
of potato salad. But the malevolent susurrus in the trees over the small
company bade them not tarry there long. They quickly moved on, careful to
avoid the occasional barrages of droppings that fell from unseen, yet annoyed
tenants in the branches above.
After several hours of mucking about, the boggies fell exhausted to the
ground. The ground was unfamiliar to Frito, and he had long since muddled his
sense of direction. "We should have been out of these woods by now," he said
wornedly. "I think we're lost."
Spam looked at his rapier-sharp toenails in dejection, but then brightened.
"That may be true, Master Frito," he said. "But don't be a-
worryin' about it. Somebody else was here only a few hours ago, by the looks
o' the camp. An' they was gobblin' tater salad just like us!"
Frito studied these telltale clues with care. It was true, someone had been
here only a few hours before, lunching on boggie grub. "Perhaps we can follow
their trail and find the way out of here." And tired as they were, they pushed
on again.
On and on they trod, vainly calling after the folk whose evidence of passage
lay after them: a scrap of breaded veal cutlet, a sleazy boggie novel, one of
Dildo's tablespoons (_What a coincidence_, Frito thought). But no boggies.
They did come across a large rabbit with a cheap pocket watch who was pursued
by some nut of a girl, another kid being viciously mugged by three furious
grizzlies ("We'd better not get involved," said Frito wisely), and a deserted
and flyspecked gingerbread bungalow with a "To Let" sign on the marzipan door.
But no clue to a way out.
Limp with fatigue, the four finally dropped in their tracks. It was already
late afternoon in the gloomy woods, and they could go no farther without a
snooze. As if lulled by a potion, the hairy little beggars curled up in furry
balls and, one by one, conked off under the protective boughs of a huge,
quivering tree.
Spam did not at first realize he was awake. He had felt something soft and
rubbery pull at his clothes, but he thought it a longing dream of those
reptilian pleasures he had so recently enjoyed back in the Sty. But now he was
certain he had heard a distinct _sucking_ sound and a tearing of cloth. His
eyes popped open to see himself stark naked and bound head and paw by the
fleshy roots of the tree. Screaming his fool head off, he woke his fellows,
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likewise hogtied and stripped clean by the writhing plant, which was giving
off a distinct _cooing_ noise. The strange tree hummed to itself, ever
tightening its hold. As the boggies watched with revulsion, the crooning
tossed salad dipped down the orangy, liplike flowers at its tips. The bulbous
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