Bobbo the wonder trickster
At the end of the week everyone had a copy of Bobbo to take home and I encouraged them to write their own version. I promised I'd write mine, and here it is:
Bobbo, The Wonder Trickster Gets a Wife
The Trickster Master's Version
In a far-off world where the land god ruled over yellow grasses and blue forests, the air god ruled over skies of green, and the sea god ruled over purple oceans and magenta seas, Bobbo, the wonder trickster, sat on a polka-dotted rock. Bobbo was alone.
“I need company,” Bobbo said. The wrinkle near his head that allowed him to hear itched. He stretched the fingertip of one florescent wing to scratch. Soon glowing orange powder rose on the breeze. “Fooling the gods is fun, but it would be even better if I could share my tales with someone. Not just anyone, though. I need a wife.”
Bobbo, who didn’t like to work any more than he had to, went first to the land god’s cave. In front of the screen of turquoise stalactites and citrine stalagmites he bowed his head, as one equal to another. “Zimlon, my uncle, I wonder if you could help me out,” he said. “I seem to be missing a wife.”
“Missing a wife?” the land god said. “Ha! You can’t fool me. You’ve never had a wife.”
“True enough,” Bobbo admitted. “All the same, would you not agree it is time I had one?”
“Only if she would knock some sense into you,” Zimlon said. “But it’s no good running to me with your stories and your needs. My brother Zotz, god of the seas and the oceans, holds all the women of your kind.”
“You know I cannot swim,” Bobbo said. “And Zotz is your brother. Could you not intercede for me?”
“I? Hardly!” the land god roared and the earth shook. Small stalactites showered down. “You’ve played your last trick on me. Begone!”
Bobbo hurried away. I cannot go to Zotz, he thought. I cannot swim. But Zolo, god of the air, will help me. After all, can I not fly? That makes us as good as brothers. Surely one brother will help another gain a wife.
Bobbo’s wings stretched and lifted and soon Bobbo was darting through the sky, a glowing tangerine streak against its emerald darkness. He flew and flew, all one day and all one night, until he came within sight of the cloud palace of Zolo.
“Ah!” Bobbo hovered, gazing with satisfaction upon his destination. “Soon a wife will be mine.”
Viridian talons wrapped his body.
“Soon a meal will be mine,” said a voice cold as the West Pole. “You look to be a tasty morsel,”
Bobbo stared up. A hooked beak the same shade as the talons. A glittering peridot eye. They could only belong to one creature-Aspergill, higgle of Zolo.
“Tasty? Me?” Bobbo laughed. “I can tell you’ve never eaten one of my kind before! But go ahead. Perhaps you will have better luck than Nereis.”
“Nereis!? The spy of the forest has not been seen this many a planet rise.”
“That is true,” agreed Bobbo. He trembled as he peered up at Aspergill. “Oh great one, I fear I may have caused his disappearance.”
“Indeed.” Aspergill’s beak moved farther from Bobbo’s head, but he did not relax his talons. “Explain.”
“You see-well, really, it’s a very long story.”
“I’m sure it is.” Aspergill’s grip tightened. “But stories can be long or short, depending upon need.”
“True enough,” agreed Bobbo. “And since I am an excellent judge of the need of the moment, I will tell you the short version.”
“A wise decision,” commented Aspergill.
“Thank you,” said Bobbo. “So, the short version is-one day I just happened to be hiding in a grove of unripe pakkenpeenits. Next thing I knew, Nereis had gobbled me up. Avoiding her grinding teeth, I tripped on her tongue and before I knew it was sliding down the hatch toward my doom. Almost the last thing I heard was a murmur. ‘One of those pakkenpeenits tasted salty as the air.’ I resigned myself to my fate, as we all must do.” With those words, Bobbo peeked at Aspergill.
The great higgle was staring into the varigated charcoal and silver of the sunrise. “Continue.”
“In truth, o servant of Zolo, that is all I remember,” Bobbo said. “Darkness came over me and when next I saw the green of day, I was lying in an indescribable puddle, surrounded by fragments of pakkenpeenits.”
“And Nereis,” prompted Aspergill.
Bobbo shrugged as well as he could in the eagle’s grasp. “I know not. From that day to this I have seen no sign of him. But you are right, the same fate cannot befall you. You are far greater than Nereis.”
“A fact you will not forget,” Aspergill admonished him. “And since you recognize the power I hold, I grant you a reprieve. You shall not be a snack for me-”
So saying, Aspergill dropped Bobbo on an anvil of emerald green. “-but a sacrifice to my master.”
“What is this?” boomed a voice.
Aspergill’s head dropped in a regal bow. “My lord, a small, very small token of my service.”
“Aspergill, you have no need.” A hand of green fog swept the higgle from the anvil. A misty forefinger stroked the higgle’s head and raised him to its shoulder. “But let us see what you have brought us.”
The hand reached for Bobbo, who cowered away. “O great one,” he cried, “have mercy. Already I am becoming but a limp shell of myself in your presence.”
“What is this strange token?” Zolo thundered. One emerald eye flashed above Bobbo. “You! You’re that troublemaker, that chiesepough! That, that-”
“Bobbo,” suggested the wonder trickster.
“Indeed.”
“The master of the air recognizes a humble chiesepough such as I.” Bobbo fluttered his wings. “I am not worthy to provide even the most miniscule of snacks for your graciousness.”
“And I,” Zolo’s voice shook mountains, “would not deign to be treated as you did the valiant Nereis. Begone!”
Zolo’s hand swept Bobbo from the cloud anvil and sent him tumbling through the verdure of the sky.
Bobbo landed with a puff in patch of ripe pakkenpeenits. Their pearly styroseeds burst over him. As soon as he had recovered his breath, Bobbo sat up and pushed the seeds back from his face. They stuck in a halo around his face.
“Zimlon refused me. Zolo would not even hear my request. There is nothing for it but to address the great and powerful Zotz myself. I must have a wife.”
As soon as he had recovered his breath, he flexed his wings to clear them. The fine seeds moved to his wingtips. Bobbo shook his wings, but the seeds clung fast. With one hand, Bobbo scraped the seeds from the opposite wing. Now every seed clung to the first wing. Bobbo tried to redistribute them, to no avail.
“Sram!” said Bobbo. “Of all the luck! Now I shall have to slink. But if that’s what it takes, I will, for I must have a wife.”
Night after night, day after day, Bobbo slunk past polka-dot rocks and through fields of amber grass and forests of sapphire trees. He skirted every patch of pakkenpeenits. “One more styroseed and I’ll overbalance,” Bobbo said.
Finally, off in the distance, Bobbo saw a flash of fuschia. “The sea!”
Hurrying as fast as he could, Bobbo kept his eyes on the water where his destiny awaited. Next thing he knew he had slunk smack into a whole field of pakkenpeenits. In less than the blink of an eye he was covered head to toe with styroseeds. Only his fingertips remained free. These he used to pull himself along.
Night followed night, day followed day until Bobbo emerged on the sand of a beach.
“Oh great Zotz,” Bobbo called, “hear my request.”
But the only sound was fuschia water stroking the turquoise sand.
“Perhaps the great sea god will hear me if I come nearer,” Bobbo said to himself. Bobbo slunk and wiggled and as he crossed the brilliant sands, one by one the pakkenpeenits rubbed from his wings to stick to his body until Bobbo the wonder trickster looked like nothing more than a giant, winged pakkenpeenit.
Bobbo flexed his wings. “Ah,that’s better. Now I can fly over the water to make my request to Zotz.” Bobbo’s wings began to beat in a figure eight. “Here we go,” he said. His wings beat faster and faster until they were nothing but a blurr. “Three, two, one, blast off!”
Bobbo’s wings may have been free of styroseeds, but his body was not and, light as the seeds were, their combined weight was too much. Try as he might, Bobbo could not raise his body off the ground.
“Oh well. If I can’t fly, at least my wings can pull me along faster than my hands,” Bobbo said and set off for the shore.
At the water’s edge, Bobbo stopped. “This is close enough,” he muttered. “for one who cannot swim.”
“Oh great Zotz,” Bobbo called, “hear my request.”
Again, the only sound was water on sand.
“Double Sram! I will have to be in his element for him to hear me.”
Bobbo thought quickly. With his hands he smoothed the pakkenpeenits into a layer that covered every inch of his skin, leaving only two small holes for his eyes and his nose. For once, Bobbo moved cautiously, holding his head high and easing his body onto the rosy waves.
“Not a drop, not a drip,” Bobbo said. “I am indeed the wonder trickster.”
As soon as the front half of his body was in the water, Bobbo stopped. No point in taking it too far.
Bobbo inhaled deeply and stuck his head into the water.
“Sea god, will you give me a wife?” he called.
At that moment a wave crashed over Bobbo, who was swept off his feet, tumbling and twisting in the torrent.
“Help! Help!” Bobbo cried, as he floated away from shore.
“Have no fear,” the sound was all around Bobbo. Before he could cry out again, a black and white striped pougherfish, one of the most colorful creatures in this world, lifted Bobbo on its back, raising him until he floated on the border between water and air.
“Thank you for sending rescuing me, o great Zotz!” Bobbo said. “Could you get me a wife?”
“I know who you are, bobbo the trickster and I won’t do anything for you!” roared the sea god. “Unless you bring me a green ping pong ball.”
“That’s too easy,” Bobbo said. “But if you insist on giving me an easy task, I’m not complaining.”
“You must do as I say,” Zotz spoke with the voice of a hurricane. “Or you will be thrown into the middle of the ocean!”
Bobbo burped. “Oh please, master of all that is acqueous, excuse my insignificance. I was nervous.”
“And I was not finished,” Zotz continued. “There is more. You must bring me-
a blue Lotormola laser
a cold pocket
and
a rock.”
Bobbo managed not to burp again. “If you don’t mind me pointing out-and if you do then please, forget I said anything-but that’s hardly conventional. One easy task and three hard ones.”
“Fine,” said the sea god. “I will drop the green ping pong ball.”
An instant later a green ping pong ball fell from the sky and bobbed on the surface of the ocean.
“Very well, your acquatic greatness,” Bobbo bowed from his perch. “I accept your challenge. I go now in quest of the famed Lotormola laser.”
A moment later, Bobbo cleared his throat. “I wonder, your wetness, if it would be permitted that your devoted pougherfish deliver me to that part of the world where I may roam at will in search of the task you have sent me?”
“Pardon?”
“Erm. I need to get to land.”
“Ah. Yes. And your kind cannot swim.”
If Bobbo hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the sea was rippling with laughter.
“Which is why your females are content to remain on the isle of Hoobatt.”
The ripples stilled.
“However, I do need of a blue Lotormola laser.”
Not a ripple, nor a wavelet stirred the magenta waters.
“Very well.”
The pougherfish swelled beneath Bobbo, turning the same green as the ping pong ball, growing paler and paler as its skin expanded until
Pop.
Bobbo spurted over the water, the pougherfish shrinking beneath him, making a noise like a deflating balloon.
Flapt. The pougherfish hit a checkerboard reef.
Bobbo flew through the air and landed, not in another pakkenpeenit patch, but in the top of a periwinkle palm tree.
“Woo, what a trip!” Bobbo shouted. “Thank you, o great Zotz.” He bowed in the general direction of the ocean.
That was when he discovered the styroseeds had all vanished. “Another thing I owe Zotz. He must have the bluest of blue Lotormolas.”
Bobbo stretched his wings and launched himself from the top of the palm. Sure enough, he had regained full use of his wings. Swooping this way, darting in to hover over a likely location, he searched and searched for a blue Lotormola. Night after night, day after day, he searched. No Lotormola’s. Not anywhere.
One evening, just as the black sun rose, it began to rain. “No searching for me tonight,” Bobbo said. All that day, all the following night, and the next night and the next day and the next night, Bobbo sheltered in the gold grass at the foot of a periwinkle tree. At the beginning of the third day, the rain stopped just as the sun came up, casting its inky shadows across the rosy sea, and there, in the charcoal sky, Bobbo saw a rainbow.
Immediately he took flight, following the rainbow to its very end and there he found a pot. It held gold, as well as something even more valuable-Lotormola lasers of every hue and shade.
“Royal blue, that is the color for his hydrous graciousness, complementing his natural mauve.” So saying, Bobbo grabbed the royal blue Lotormola laser and flew straight to where he had had his encounter with the sea god.
Hovering above the water, Bobbo dropped the Lotormola laser and watched it spiral down. As it dropped the waters turned a brilliant amethyst.
“You have done well, Bobbo,” the sea god said. “But this was only your first task.”
“Have no fear, your moistness. Your cold pockets are on the way. In the meantime, I hope you are choosing a suitable chiesepough to be my wife. Eyes golden as the grass, hair orange as the leaves of the tourmaline tree.”
“Insolent.” A wave rose from the flat sea.
As fast as the water was, Bobbo was even quicker. “One packet of cold pockets coming up,” he said as he darted above the wave and spun toward the shore.
Bobbo flew and flew. Night after night, day after day, for 47,627,692 miles he flew, until he reached the nearest grocery store. The storage microwave was stacked with packet after packet of pockets. Lukewarm pockets, tepid pockets, scorched pockets, Kelvin pockets. Bobbo looked at and discarded enough packets to stretch from Mazelwurz to Ilamagoo before he found, at the very back of the very bottom microwave shelf, a packet of cold pockets, extra bland.
The price? $10,000,000.99.
Hmm, Bobbo thought. I might just be able to cover it with what’s on my ATM card. He carried the packet of cold pockets over to the ATM machine, pulled out his ATM card, typed in his password (Lokermes77, for those who are interested), pressed the key for account balance, and read the result: $9,999,995.83.
Hmm.
Dire times call for extreme actions. Bobbo extended his antenna into the ATM machine sockets, wiggling and twisting. Almost there, almost there, almost-There! Mercurial Financial Systems, Ltd. Bobbo scrolled through the list of accounts until one name caught his eye. Lucky, the Leprechaun.
“Your luck is mine,” Bobbo whispered to himself. “As soon as I figure out the password. Let me see. Let’s start with “pot of gold.”
‘Access denied,’ flashed in Bobbo’s brain.
“Sram! I was so sure,” Bobbo muttered. “Of course a Leprechaun named Lucky would use pot of gold…. No, I see where my mistake was.”
This time Bobbo keyed in, “Pot o’ gold.”
Bingo!
Bobbo transferred all Lucky’s money, all $5 trillion of it, into his own account. He carried the cold pockets to the check-out and paid for them. “I don’t need a bag,” he told the green-skinned young Spuddlygumm who was staffing the register. “It’s already in a box.”
Bobbo left the store, passing a short humanoid clad all in green with a gold buckle on his hat standing at the ATM.
“The flight here was so long,” Bobbo said to himself, “I think I’ll walk the first part of the trip back to the great Zotz.
Bobbo set off down the road. Several miles later, the green-clad humanoid caught up with him. “You sramming idiot! You stole my Lotormola laser. I’m going to nuke you!”
“Ok, ok,” Bobbo said. “Take it easy. Nuke me, boil me in lava, just don’t throw a rock at me. I hate rocks!”
Lucky the Leprechaun, for the green humanoid was none other, glared at Bobbo, pulled a rock from his pocket, and launched it at the chiesepough.
Bobbo dodged and snatched the rock from the air.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s just what I needed.” Energized by his victory over the leprechaun, Bobbo whirled into the air and flew back to the sea god.
“O great inundating hygromic one, see what I have achieved.”
Plop. The cold pockets fell into the water.
Plunk. The rock dropped.
“I accept your tribute,” Zotz said. “Now you may have your wife.”
Plip. A long-lashed chiesepough with deep orange skin floated on a periwinkle leaf beneath Bobbo. “I am Bilba,” she said and stretched her wings to join Bobbo in the sky.
As Bobbo and Bilba flew off into the green of mid-afternoon, Bobbo looked back. Zotz had opened the cold pockets. As Bobbo watched, the sea god took one bite. Immediately the water around him began to freeze. In no time at all, the oceans and seas were solid. The surface began to split, magenta fracturing into crevasses and chasms.
“Look, husband,” said Bilba.
Bobbo looked. Something orange emerged from an ice tunnel.
“It’s Cresta,” Bilba said, “and there’s Holdi, and Nitra, and….”
One after another the female chiesepoughs emerged from the belly button of Zotz.
“Whee! We are free, we are free,” they chirped as they slid on the ice, waiting for their wings to dry. And today, as annoyed as they may be with Bobbo for the tricks he plays, chiesepoughs everywhere recognize the trickster for releasing all the female chiesepoughs.