Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Chapter 9: They Execute (almost) Perfectly the Mitten Plan

Soon the croco-diamond (Yarn Impresario) and kangawrong (First Chair Knitter) had completed four sets of mittens. Each mitten had an intricate pattern as orchestrated by the croco-diamond and knitted by the kangawrong. The croco-diamond bragged about his hard work designing the mittens, but also surprisingly praised the kangawrong for its knitting prowess.
“It’s quite good with its hands,” he told the giant man, “once it can reach things.”
“I think tomorrow we should deliver the mittens,” said the giant man, because it was the day of the week when they normally rested.
“That would be grand! Shall I send them my calling card?” The croco-diamond looked around his hammock for the calling cards he had drawn for himself one night in the library.
 “I haven’t thought out how we are going to deliver the mittens to them,” said the giant man. “I don’t believe you can send a calling card to the whitey biteys since they live in the ocean.”
The croco-diamond imagined his royal calling card floating inelegantly in the water and it made him sad.
“Surely, I wish I had brought my Bereford moo horn with me from the swamps. I had it for such a long time but never could find a use for it. Well, not to worry, I am going to devise a mission for the delivery.”
And so, excited, the croco-diamond stayed up until late in the night planning the mission to deliver the mittens. The kangawrong stayed up to help. The giant man sat with them in the library for a while, reading a book on termater companion planting that the croco-diamond had been looking at. But, feeling sleepy, he finally went to bed.
Reviewing the third book of the Poggly Woggly adventure series for inspiration, the croco-diamond initially determined that they should build a mitten cannon. But the croco-diamond was not well versed in gun powder and felt that it might be dangerous, especially given the kangawrong’s enormous feet and its habit of hopping on the wrong things.
So the croco-diamond sat at the library table, scratching his snout with a pencil…thinking…thinkingthinking
“I’ve got it! We shall build a kangapult!”
The croco-diamond made a quick sketch and the kangawrong gathered up the needed materials. It seemed to know exactly where was kept the twine, wood, and scissors. And it was very adept at putting things together. So much so that the croco-diamond was genuinely surprised.
#
The next day they all climbed into the giant man’s ticky-tap-tap. On the front seat, between the giant man and the kangawrong, sat the pile of mittens. In the back next to the croco-diamond, in his hammock, were the kangapult, a spoon, and one of the giant man’s flip flops with the straps removed. Oh, and a large ball of twine.
Though the croco-diamond had hoped to build a siege craft of intricate design, given the time and materials, he had to settle for something less elaborate. He and the kangawrong had taken the zippy shoe skate apart and had fashioned it into what looked like, and this is not said in an unkind way, a seesaw with two wheels in the middle that were tied on with twine.
Once the kangapult was in place they would tie the flip flop to one end and the spoon to the other. According to the design, the mitten was placed in the bowl of the spoon, which rested on the ground. At the other end, the kangawrong would high jump onto the flip flop which would be suspended pretty high in the air. As the flip flop hit the ground the mitten would be thrown into the air and, one hoped anyway, into the water near where the whitey biteys might be.
They drove down a dirt road, bordered on either side with fields of crops, until suddenly they came to a hill. Over the hill was a vast beach of red sand. A light-green surf gently spread itself out on the beach before returning back into the waves. A crooked and dilapidated wooden wharf extended out from the beach into the water.
OH NO!” Shouted the croco-diamond when he saw the water. “This is a DISASTER!”
“What’s wrong?” Asked the giant man.
“We didn’t test the mittens in green water. We tested them in clear water. The colors are going to be off. They will look horrible!”
In previous times, at this discovery, the croco-diamond would have started crying, and would have cried for days. Weeks. He would have cried for so long it would be the longest time in all the worlds.
But now that he was leading a mission, and had a kangawrong that looked up to him, at least according to the giant man, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow himself to cry. Instead, he requested the kangawrong follow him to the water’s edge with a mitten. There he was relieved to see that the water softened and even enhanced the colors. The mittens still looked nice.
“Well, that problem was easy for me to fix! Shall we move on and continue to execute the mission?”
They embarked out onto the wharf. First the croco-diamond, in charge of the mission, went out thump thump skrrrr skrrr, swinging his tail from side to side to clear any possible splinters to protect the kangawrong’s feet. Next the kangawrong went hop hip hop hop bump. Finally the giant man, carrying all of the parts for the kangapult, thum shudder thum shudder.
boom! (from when he set the parts of the kangapult down on the wharf)
The giant man helped the kangawrong set up the kangapult while the croco-diamond read off his instructions, occasionally checking the position of the sun to make sure things were happening on time. He paced back and forth in front of the kangapult frantically consulting his papers as the giant man and the kangawrong wound twine, placed parts, and adjusted angles, until finally -
“If I could have your attention PLEASE!” commanded the croco-diamond.
“Is the spoon situated?”
Though he could see it was, as it was right in front of him, he insisted the kangawrong give a little HOP! that it was situated.
“And the flip flop fastened?”
HOP!
“The twine - er - twound?”
HOP!
“The mitten positioned?”
HOP!
He had made that up, actually there’s no such thing as a croco-talion. But he thought it sounded official.
“…on this day, at this particular time…”
He checked the position of the sun, then referred to his piece of paper to make sure they were right on time.
“…for the mission on which we’ve embarked, for the good people of the oceans, here after referred to by their formal name, of which the name is and shall be the whitey biteys, of the genus charcharodon whitemous…”
He noticed that perhaps the giant man and kangawrong were becoming a bit bored, so he decided to skip the part of his speech about the dorsality and jawsissimmi of the whitey biteys to get on with the mission.
“I hereby command, ye there the approaching forward kangawrong, the preparing for, and, ye, the commencement of…”
And with that the kangawrong high hopped up onto the flip flop (a bit early but the croco-diamond excused the poor thing for being nervous and resolved to finish his speech later, at dinner, there were still 10 pages left). The flip flop side of the zippy shoe skate, correction, the kangapult, hit the wharf, which shuddered with a wooden creak brrrm. The spoon shot into the air and the mitten in its bowl arced gracefully up, up in the air, flying flying flying!
And then it landed, rather anticlimactically, on the croco-diamond’s snout.
The kangawrong’s ears fell flat. Its eyes went PLOCK PLOCK.
“One moment, I’m checking the plan…” The croco-diamond shuffled through his papers, muttering, “But, but I’m GOOD at physics.
Suddenly an ocean wind blew across the croco-diamond’s snout, carrying the mitten off the wharf! And into the water!
“Quick! Quick!” shouted the croco-diamond. “We must…”
Just then a triangular fin broke the surface. And a rotund head with two black eyes popped up, bearing a mouth full of boy that’s a lot of teeth. It looked at all who stood on the wharf. The creature slipped a fin into the mitten and disappeared beneath the water.
“As I was, ahem, saying, we must have included some extra steps in the plan which, in the interest of efficiency, I now think we can eliminate.”
He gestured to the kangawrong.

 “Carry on with the mission.”

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