Serialization of "Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe" — Chapter 20 of 25
From Book 3 of the “Taterskin & The Eco Defenders” Trilogy
“Kenworth, you’re going to go out and clear the floor—”
“What?!? I don’t even know where the mops and dustpans and suchlike things are—” Bumney interjected.
“I didn’t say clean, I said clear,” Albert explained. “And no funny business. If you raise the alarm or try to escape, Falcona and Stripes will be on you in no time flat, and while Falcona snatches you bald-headed, Stripes will join in by roughing you up royally, and quite possibly scratch you a little.”
Stripes obligingly lifted his front left paw, extended his large, sharp, menacing claws, and casually licked his fingers while emitting a disquieting sound somewhere between a purr and a low grumble, all the while glaring intently at Bumney.
The addled bodyguard tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t prevent his eyes from widening or stop himself from audibly gulping.
“You got that, Bumney?” Albert asked with exaggerated politeness.
“Got it,” Bumney said. We believed the cowed (or “tigered”) bodyguard, but would warily verify his strict obedience by keeping an eye on him the whole time.
“But what will I tell the people out there? They’ll know something is apaw—I mean afoot—if I tell them to clear out; and where should I tell them to go?” Bumney asked.
“Tell them it’s a test of the emergency protocols, a drill to see how fast the floors can be cleared in the event of a disaster,” Albert said. “Assure them that it’s just a test, but that they should treat it as if it were real; and be sure to emphasize that their next performance review will take their snappiness during this drill into consideration,” Albert said.
“Their Snappiness?” Bumney asked.
“Yes, their quickness, alacrity, speediness, prompt response, you know...Anyway, have them go to the 17th floor; I noticed that was a storage area, and they will create the least alarm and confusion among their coworkers in that location.”
“Oh, right; okay,” Bumney said, and headed for the door.
“Wait! There’s one more thing,” Albert said, holding out his right arm horizontally, palm forward. “After everyone has left the floor, stop the elevator on this floor and prop it open so that we won’t have to wait for it when we’re ready to leave.”
Bumney was then instructed to leave and stay within sight of us, lest Falcona and Stripes be set after him, and if that happened, the Peregrine Falcon and Bengal Tiger would scratch and maul first and ask questions later—or nevermore, perhaps.
Chastened and more nervous than a short nun at a penguin shoot, the bodyguard left to do as he was told.
“Okay, then,” Albert said. “Once he returns with his tasks accomplished, I will punify (or “pygmatize,” as Marmalade puts it) the rest of you, starting with Dake and his two bodyguards. Alexis and I will remain our normal size. All of you will be fingernail-sized after being compressed,” he explained, looking at Dake and the still-miserable Reid (the rest of us already “knew the [compressing] drill” and didn’t need to be told).
“Pygmatize?!? Punify?!? Compress?!? What are you talking about?!?” Dake demanded.
“Don’t worry; I will decompress your two bodyguards just before we leave,” Albert said.
“What, are you crazy? Are you some kind of magician or something? How can you compress and then decompress us? No such technology is available here in 2029,” Dake objected.
“How do you think we all got in here, Dake?” Albert answered. “All of us but myself and Alexis had been compressed, or shrunken. And why are the Elephants only half their normal size? I’ll answer that: It’s because their decompression was halted before it had grown them back to their natural size—this had to be done because of the diminutive dimensions of your office.”
“Now hold on a minute!” Dake objected. “My office is the biggest one in this building, and this building—”
“But still not big enough for us,” Chumbawumba said, gesturing to his sister Tubthumper with a sideways tilt of his enormous head.
Falcona and Stripes had been carefully watching Bumney; he had quickly cleared the floor, and then walked down the corridor to the left of the office, where the bank of elevators were located, and propped open one of the doors after summoning the elevator to their floor.
Bumney had glanced over a few times to see if maybe he could slip out before being noticed, but each time he did that he saw both Falcona and Stripes staring intently at him, with a stony stare on Falcona’s face and an anticipatory gleam in Stripe’s eye and his body in a ready-to-pounce attitude. Bumney, preferring not to be ripped to shreds by wild beasts, fulfilled his commission and returned to Dake’s office, with his hat in his hand (figuratively only, as he wasn’t wearing a literal head covering) and a lump in his throat.
“Hold on a second,” Dake said. “You mentioned that these two useless phonies would be decompressed, but what about me?”
“I don’t know yet whether you’ll be kept small, returned to your natural size, or even made larger,” Albert answered. “We’ll have to talk about it.”
“Who’s ‘we’—who is going to talk about it?” Dake pressed.
“Us. All of us. The Eco Defenders. The group that you stole the Arodnap from,” Albert replied. “We will collectively decide what to do with you, size-wise.”
Dake looked daggers at Albert, and then all of us. We didn’t care, though. His opinion—of us or anything else, really—didn’t matter much anymore.
“Stand over there, you three,” Albert commanded Dake and his two bodyguards. They complied, although not with the greatest enthusiasm. Albert then turned the Compressor/Decompressor to Compressor mode and, one by one, “pygmatized” the three men by passing the device over them, whose objections and complaints about the process and the turn of events became ever lower in volume and higher-pitched.
Next up were the largest of the animals (those who couldn’t fit in the elevator), namely the Elephants Tubthumper and Chumbawumba, the Rhinoceros Ocero Puddleby, and the Hippopotamus Jowls Behemoth. The rest of us (even Yukyuk the Hyena as well as Stripes and Rory, the big cats) would remain our normal size and squeeze into the elevator.
After they were pygmatized, Alexis held “The Four Bigs,” (or “The Fearsome Foursome,” as Albert called them), namely the two Elephants, the Rhino, and the Hippo under her right wing, and our three captives under her left wing. It was deemed wise to keep the two groups separated rather than have them share such close quarters.
Albert, with Alexis on his right shoulder, led the way out of the office. The rest of us followed.
The previous chapter can be found here.
The next chapter can be found here.
Book 1 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Wonders Never Cease,” can be found here.
Book 2 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Tell It To Future Generations,” can be found here.
Book 3 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe,” can be found here.
